By Matthew Ikonen
The mirror is often regarded with much superstition, and for good reason, the mirror
reveals the reflection of the soul. One very common superstition claims that if you
were to break your reflection in the mirror you will have seven years bad luck, this
actually goes a bit further because causing any disturbance in your reflection is
said to cause disturbance in your spirit. Indeed, Vampires traditionally do not cast
reflections, because they have no soul.
Another interesting bit of mirror weirdness has to do with Gypsies. My Aunt Pamela
has a nice home that was disrupted by the Gypsies who moved in next door. Never
you mind that the Gypsies had no reason whatsoever to lay a curse on Auntie Pam,
but she flipped out anyway. So she put mirrors up in all of the windows facing the
Gypsy house, hoping to reflect the curse back to the sender. I'm not sure if it
worked, but the house did feel very peaceful after that! I'm not sure where this
practice came from, but she also placed a small pile of salt and a black quartz
crystal in the windows too. God only knows how the Roma family felt about that.
A good magical exercise is called soul gazing. To do this simply shut out all light
except perhaps a candle positioned behind you, so that you see your reflection in
the mirror but not the light source. Gaze softly into your eyes. Soon you will see
fuzziness around your reflected skin. Just observe and watch what happens, you
should see changes starting with your eyes and then it's almost like an overlap of
images. Two faces occupying the same space.
When I do this, I often see myself as another person entirely, maybe a past life, or
even an ancestor, but I almost always end up disappearing entirely if I gaze long
enough, seeing the wall behind me. Maybe I'm a Vampire (!), or just a victim of
optical illusion. Either way the mirror can act as a doorway to the subconscious, so
those images that you might see are the language of the deepest part of you.
Give it a try; you can learn a lot about yourself and your subjective reality this way.
As I understand it, the difference between Soul Gazing and Scrying is that by Soul
Gazing you are actively gazing into your reflection, gazing into your soul, while by
scrying you are staring into the abyss of a mirror that is casting NO reflections at all.
In my own practice scrying has been totally replaced by soul gazing sessions due
to the great success that I've had with it. The only trick is to learn what the meaning
is behind the different faces and symbols that you might see. These symbols can
only be interpreted by you, because it is your subconscious that is speaking, your
ancient reptile brain.
Happy gazing!
Matt Looks in a Mirror
Matthew Ikonen has studied
"witchcraft" as practiced in many
different cultures, including Haiti and
Peru, for well over 15 years. Matt has
received great honors and even a few
"secret" initiations for exceeding in
study with Mambos, Curanderismos,
and other Priests and Priestesses of
indigenous faiths - who often
question his status as a white
American male. Matt releases
inexpensive booklets from time to
time via Lulu Press at
http://www.lulu.com/mikonen and
tends to hold occasional seminars
and workshops, please email
ikonen.matthew@gmail.com for
more information.
