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Message: <blockquote data-quote="fusangite" data-source="post: 1966855" data-attributes="member: 7240">It's important to note that catoptromancers were not necessarily just diviners. John Dee, one of the most prominent catoptromancers in history, theorized in his Propaedeumata Aphoristica (available in libraries with facing English translation) that crystals could be used to refract the celestial rays that were influencing the material world. He argued that astrology was a predictive science because if one could anticipate where heavenly bodies would be, one could anticipate what influence they would exert. The problem was the forces that could refract, block or reflect celestial rays once they passed into the sublunar sphere. In the Propaedeumata, his first book, Dee enumerates all the possible super- and sublunar influences that could complicate celestial influences.Because optical catoptromancy turned out to be so darned complicated, Dee turned to the kind he is more famous for: scrying for angels. However, such scrying was also problematic. Unlike the case with demons, it is unethical and probably impossible to compel angels to reveal certain things or indeed to communicate with you at all. Therefore he had to pray a lot to make them show up. Then there is the question of who is going to be able to use a seeing stone. While Dee's stone was of excellent pedigree (he believed it came from Mexico and may have believed it was somehow associated with the Mexica god Smoking Mirror), the excellence of the stone still didn't qualify him to see through it. Qualified scryers were hard to find and Dee appears to have fired at least two for incompetence. In early Protestant England, young children were especially favoured because their burden of sin was much less. Although this didn't work out for Dee -- he ended up, instead, working with the professional scryer Edward Kelley until Kelley abandoned him to accept a better job with the Holy Roman Emperor (but not before convincing Dee that the angels wanted him to let Kelley sleep with his wife). I wrote an essay about Dee's scrying and would be happy to e-mail along much more detailed information on his scientific theory of optical divination and/or his angel conversations or post it here if there is interest.</blockquote>

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