Chronos Apollonios' "Home On Olympus"

For those returning, I've divided this page into three parts (approximately 20k) because of the number of images and the need to accomodate challenged browsers. Links to the next parts are at the bottom of this page. I'm finally copying here the bit of information on Catoptromancy that was previously only on the Palingenics page of this site. This classic account from the historian Pausanius is still probably the most stirring account of magic mirrors and their potential applications.

Please bear in mind that time and time again, what is true of magick mirrors is quite likely to prove true of many crystal balls.

Besides the fortune telling of "matters of the heart" kind of catoptromancy, of soulmates and future loves, often involving looking over one's shoulder in a mirror (and "oddly", apples), there is the kind that foretells a person's medical future in a mirror... maybe very graphicially, and this may very well be 4-d holography and/or a fractal effect, as well as surprisingly dependable if explored and mastered.

Pausanias recounds how this was practiced at Patrae, and Spence quotes him: "Before the temple of Ceres at Patras, there was a fountain, separated from the temple by a wall, and there was an oracle, very truthful, not for all events, but for the sick. The sick person let down a mirror, suspended by a thread, till its base touched the surface of the water, having first prayed to the Goddess and offered incense. The looking in the mirror he saw the presage of death or recovery, according as the face appeared fresh and healthy, or of a ghastly aspect"

The legend of Romulus and Remus of the founding of Rome may serve as a carrier of information on this topic, through clues, allusions, and symbols. Medusa's tale is another, for she is petrified by seeing her reflection (here thus a pun on Patrae or Petra?) and it might indeed be, and has been, supposed that minerals in the water may play a role in both Catoptromantic and healing effects, even if a similar feat practiced in other medical divination by Native American may try to rest on the movement of waters for it's explanation. More information about stunning medical divinations can be found on the page at this site entitled "Medicine Without Mistakes".

The myth of Echo and Narcissus, with it's themes of reflections and the waterside, is very likely yet another ancient encoding of clues to this magick.

This odd device, called a clacker, can be found in the Fantasmagoric Museum pages. Their caption reads, "The resultant image in the looking-glass appears to perform a series of convincing movements. A dancer pirouettes, a frog leaps over a rat, a devil turns somersaults. This apparatus could therefore be observed by many people at the same time if the looking glass was rotated at high speed. The lens is attached to a spindle and if rapidly revolved in front of a mirror, one can veiw thier past selves to childhood."

Let's hope that's true, especially the last part, because if it is, we're probably looking at a relatively recent rediscovery of the phenomena, applications, and physics of catoptromancy that may be of great value.

The Rex Research Infolio on Time and Time Cameras contain some technical information about "Time Cameras" that can obtain images anywhere in space/time, rather like a crystal ball, although anyone including skeptics should be able to see the images. One Time Camera is by Padre Pellegrino Ernetti, a Catholic priest said to be affiliated with the Vatican, who denies there's any magick in it (all in how you look at it I suppose, but I agree...I think...).

In "The Mysterious Past" by Robert Charroux, pp 253-etc., Padre Ernetti's invention is discussed:

"Recovering the waves of the past and converting them into pictures and sound, has, until recently, smacked of science fiction. But an Italian scientist, the Benedictine Monk Father Pellegrino Ernetti, has achieved this scientific miracle.

Father Ernetti is no visionary or medieval sorcerer, working with magic spells and materializations: He is regarded as a genuine scientist. About fifty, he is an established authority on prepolyphonic music dating from the remotest antiquity to about the beginning of the second millenium A.D. He is professor at the Venetian Benedetto Conservatory and the Fondation Cini, and director of the Italian Secretariat of Religious Instruction for Men.

He carried out his research in collaboration with twelve scientists whom he declined to... It is known, however, that he began as early as 1956 to investigate the possibility of resusitating the past and viewing it on some kind of television machine. In 1957 he made contact with the Portugese Professor de Matos, who, through his own experiments, was to give the pattern of research a new direction.

Professor de Matos was also interested in reproducing the past by some process analogous to television, and based his theories on certain Aristotlian writings concerning the disintegration of sound, writings which probably owed much to the still older theories propounded by Pythagoras.

Father Ernetti's theory was, according to his own statements, based on accepting one of the principles of classical science, which predicated that light and sound waves are not lost after emission but transformed and remain definitely present.

From this it follows that it should theoretically be possible to reconstitute them by restoring to them their original energy pattern. It must be stated that this theory is not accepted by conventional physicists, because Father Ernetti claims that these waves are "inscribed on the astral sphere", a concept which is unacceptable in their eyes.

According to Father Ernetti, however, sound waves, for instance, subdivide into harmonics, ultrasonics, hypersonics, etc., and follow the usual laws of disintegration of matter down to the atomic level and beyond, through to the farthest reaches of the infra-atomic.

With the aid of the "appropriate apparatus", which includes a cathode oscillograph using the deviations of a stream of electrons, it is possible to reverse the process of disintegration and reconstitute the sound wave.

The transformation is possible, it appears, because each constituent of the wave has its own characteristics, a kind of psychic identity, which makes possible the accurate tracing of its source."

For slightly more orthodox persons, would this be, rather than "psychic identity", perhaps "quantum attribute" or "phase entanglement"?-- Especially since the text continues,

"'My Invention', says Father Ernetti, 'has nothing to do with parapsychology or metaphysics. It is pure science!'

The same procedure is used for the reconstitution of light waves: this in fact being the basic procedure since the basis of everything created is light, just as in the Bible!"

(Perhaps, but I even more strongly sense that the philosopher Lucretius and his views may yet have their day here...)

"'Every human being', declares Father Ernetti, 'traces from birth to death a double furrow fo light and sound. This constitutes his individual identity mark. The same applies to an even, to music, to movement. The antennae used on our laboratory enables us to 'tune in' on these furrows: picture and sound'

Physicists will perhaps be unconvinced by such theories, but it is an undeniable fact that Father Ernetii can show 'photographs' of the distant past, and play back voices that have been silent for millennia...

...He has succeeded, for example, in reconstituting in an archaic Latin, the Thyestes, Quintus Ennius' tragedy, which was presented in Rome in 169 B.C. ..."

Leonardo da Vinci's drawing of witches using a magic mirror. Do the symbols incorporated both illuminate the workings for us, and advise us that da Vinci is showing the insider knowledge of initiates of mystical traditions? How conveniently the serpentine and bird or bird-like symbols appear here, they have proven through countless instances to be ancient symbols for electricity and magnetism, respectively. Theory here makes accurate prediction again, but there may also be a wealth of other clues here, and perhaps original ones.

Charroux's coverage of Ernetti's accomplishment continues:

"The key to the mystery

In 1950 the English engineer George Delawar (sic?) was experimenting along lines parallel to those of Father Ernetti, with the collaboration of a group of Oxford physicists. He claimed to have photographed the past and supported this claim with a somewhat unconvincing photograph of his marriage, which had taken plane in Nottingham some twenty-three years earlier. Then his invention seem to have been forgotten.

We ourselves in collaboration with the astronomer-engineer Emile Drouet, examined the perilous subject of time travel and our integration with waves of the past, not by delving into the cosmos, but by following a theory concerning th ewavelength at source. It seems that Father Ernetti was partially inspired by this theory, which at least as far as we were concerned was offered as a form of mental recreation."

Charroux then repeats for the second time the near lamentation that Ernetti will only reveal the secret of his technology when mankind has learned to act for the good of mankind. The reality is that he has in all likelihood already told us plenty, more than enough, about its workings to begin to fashion such a device, although we can certainly understand his ethical concerns. If we truly desire unobstructed communion with our loved ones, and with knowledge, there are certain responsibilities.

Fortunately, the undertaking of magick mirrors can be a slow and deliberate undertaking, as opposed to the sometimes unpredictable degrees of progression, or even the irreversibility of, clairvoyance and clairaudience, that grant the seeker plenty of time to sort of such moral issues. Would I use such a device to invade other’s privacy? There are tempting scenarios, largely because of the novelty of the question, and yet in the end I’m simply not the kind to point a telescope at my neighbor’s window. I’m at peace with the issue personally. But what can you do with one that you cannot do with surveillance equipment, or for that matter, a crystal ball, or in many instances, a psychic for hire? The vast majority of us have, in fact, already had to face and accept the role of ethics in these situations.

It should also be borne in mind that Ernetti may be the single advocate of magick mirror or time camera technology who seems to deny that these systems are susceptible to preconceived notions. We are advised they have a bad habit of showing a person only what they want to see, or already believe.

Certainly, Ernetti’s numerous pictures of Christ on the cross are a serious point of contention to atheists or anyone for whom such a person or such an event fall outside of their personal beliefs. They in all honesty deserve careful scrutiny. We have already seen that the preconceived notions of faithful Christians are responsible for the "miraculous" appearance of stigmata, duplications of the wounds of Christ, not where anatomy would decree where they must have been in reality, but where the particular believer believes they were. Appropriately, it seems well defined as a consequence of holographic consciousness in, as author Michael Talbot has titled the book where this is to be found, "The Holographic Universe".

In all fairness to the time camera and magic mirror technology, it is at the bottom line no more or no less dependable than our own faculties. Some of us, of course, may feel more comfortable to have objects which possess the capacity of prophecy, rather than the risk of being personally threatened or harmed because we possess it within ourselves. Such may be unlikely, but a great many witches and pagans, for example, remain acutely aware of a time when they were supposedly persecuted often on the basis of the powers they possessed or were thought to possess.

While such details can be overcome, it may an incredibly long time, if ever, until such technology can be trusted to give such consistently factual results as to be, for example, admissible as evidence in court.

It may be more realistic, for example, without certain precautionary additions to such a system, than to expect to be able to actually recreate a lost historical work, to create something different, but brilliant an rewarding nonetheless. It may be more realistic than gazing at Einstein's life and gaining accurate details, to be able to conjure illusions that allow one to attend class under his tutelage, with realistic and genuinely enlightening results. Perhaps that may be even more valuable.

And of course, many ancient peoples may indeed have taken this shortcoming of the technology and simply turned it to their own advantage. Such susceptibility to though makes the technology eligible to participate in transforming will into reality; it may be, if not capable of remediality, to be elegantly purposeful in assisting the handicapped, for example, not to mention striking roles in technological magick. Lastly, we should never overlook that the technology could help reverse all sorts of decay and destruction, whether to people’s bodies or to valuable objects, but also the decay of energy patterns that causes us to remain a wasteful world even in the face of possible global catastrophe.

This technology could be adapted to be the "missing peice"of Tom Bearden’s theories of free energy by "regauging" systems to prevent the customary dissipation and loss of power, if it is not such a thing on it’s own.

Emile Grillot de Givry, in the "Anthology of Sorcery, Magic and Alchemy" relates the following regarding magick mirrors (pg. 304-):

"A special place must be given to the divination known as catopromancy, or crystallomancy, which was performed with a magic mirror or lens. It is one of the most ancient forms of divination. Varro states that it came from Persia. Pausanias (Achaia, VII, 22) asserts that in a temple of Ceres he saw a spring which was consulted by means of a mirror with a thread fastened to it; the thread was immersed in the water, and the diviner saw in the mirror whether sick persons were to be cured. Pythagoras too had a magic mirror, which he held up to the moon before reading the future in it; in this was he was imitating the Thessalian sorcerers, who had employed the method from the remotest antiquity. Magic mirrors are mentioned by Spartianus, Apuleius, Pausanias and Saint Augustine. In the twelfth century John of Salisbury calls the practitioners of this method speculatorii...

During the war with the Milanese under Francis I a magician, so de l’Ancre states, caused the Parisians to see everything that took place in Milan by means of a magic mirror; he followed the procedure of Pythagoras in first exposing the face of his mirror to the moon...

The use of the magic mirror is properly the reverse operation to necromancy. Instead of evoking the dead, mortals who are not yet in being are made to appear in the mirror, or if they do exist they will be seen performing some action which will not in reality take place until later. In the sixteenth century the method was widely diffused in France; in his Recherches de al France, Pasquier relates that Catherine de Medicis had a magic mirror in which she saw everything that happened in France and what the future held in store for her... The mirror was still to be seen in the Louvre in 1688. It is also said that Pere Cotton, the confessor of Henri IV, shoued him in a magic mirror all the plots that were hatched in the study of every prince in Europe.

The manner of using the magic mirror is very simple, but iconographic doccuments dealing with it are excessively rare. We saw this instrument figuring in Rembrandt’s picture of Doctor Faustus. Leonardo da Vinci, who has left us various scenes of sorcery, included a strange drawing no at Christ Church, Oxford. It shows a witch holding up a mirror to another witch. The face of an old man appears in the mirror. The scene is difficult to explain unless it is symbolic; for it is possible to find an alchemic meaning in it rather than the traditional use of the mirror for divination. Formerly the eyes of the person to whom the mirror was presented were blindfolded. When the detection of a thief was sought a blessed candle had to be lighted and brought near the mirror, or, failing that, near a pot filled with holy water...

The Revue Archaeologique (1846, pg. 156) gives an illustration... and description of a magic mirror which had belonged to a Spanish family at Sargossa since the seventeenth century. This was a convex metal mirror, ornamented with a diabolic figure and the words Muerte, Etam, Teteceme, and Zaps. Figures would appear on the surface of any liquid if the mirror were directed toward it."

Many magick mirrors from antiquity call for such inscriptions, and an impressive number of them occur in strong accord with the idea of mixing odd and even numbers of characters, after the fashion of Howard Wachpress' technology mixing magnetic poles so that there are those that remain unpaired. Any lack of absolute consistency to the pattern may be due to certain variations in technique and structure.