Black Mirror Magick: The Facial Reflection-

Distortion Technique
Introduction
The black mirror facial reflection-distortion technique (FRDT) as presented here was developed
specifically for use during evocation. It has many applications, however, and may be
incorporated into other developmental exercises and magical workings. It is not the only way to
scry, but it does appear to be more readily accessible to more practitioners than many other
methods. Students are encouraged to seek out and try other methods for the sake of comparison
and in service of a well-rounded education. To that end, we suggest Benjamin Rowes Short
Course in Scrying.
The technique described in this document was originally published by Anne and Nelson White
(Secret Magic Revealed, The Technology Group, 1979), which was later described in Donald
Michael Kraig's Modern Magick, but the development of the technique for evocative magick,
and the infusion of the technique into the modern occult corpus is rightly attributed to Carroll
"Poke" Runyon. As a historical curio, Runyon set the record straight on White and Kraig's
involvement in publishing the technique a few years back during a public discussion on a Usenet
forum, which has been archived here.
The Initiative fully acknowledges the technique as an innovation of Runyon. Students are
encouraged to seek out, obtain, and study Runyon's published work on the topic. While not a
"traditionalist" per s, he is without a doubt a true giant in the field of modern ceremonial magick
and especially evocation, and for obvious reasons is the foremost expert on this particular
technique. We encourage students to visit the website associated with the order he founded, the
Order of the Temple of Astarte to learn more about his work. He also has a few nice pictures of
their temple, including a very nice shot of their Black Mirror in the Triangle d Art as used
during an evocation.
The Initiative further acknowledges that some teachers and practitioners do not agree with
presenting the full FRDT as a developmental exercise, but would rather reserve it for actual
magical workings only. One reason for the objection may be because some practitioners are of
the opinion that the magick that takes place during the use of this technique is confounded with
the remarkable visual effects. Others may contend that the shock of the initial visual effect is in
part what triggers the magician to enter the necessary magical state.
It is true that the visual effect can be quite startling at first. However, we contend that the visual
effect is neither the source nor the effect of the magick itself, but is more akin to a tool that
serves to facilitate the experience of two-way communication during evocative magick, and
magical change in general. In keeping with the Neuromagick perspective, the effects of magick
are always defined by a change in the target circumstances, and the cause of the circunstantial
change is an initial change in the thinking and behavior of the practitioner. In fact, the startling
nature of the visual effect when the technique is being learned may be unnecessarily distracting.
We therefore promote gaining experience with the visual effect as a developmental exercise,
independent of magical efforts to initiate targeted changes.
An urban legend that is associated with the type of visual effects this technique produces is
generally known as the Bloody Mary ritual (or game), where kids, often at a slumber party or
sleep-away summer camp, take a lit candle into the bathroom with the lights out, look into the
mirror, and chant Bloody Mary some number of times, at which point a ghost of a young girl is
supposed to pop out of the mirror and attack, or try to drag participants back into the mirror with
her. Countless children have played this little game, which often ends with someone running out
of the bathroom screaming with stories of a monstrous figure appearing in the mirror. The
Bloody Mary effect is driven by the power of emotionally charged suggestion (highly charged
expectation) combined with some basic eye physiology having to do with low-light level
perception (see the Mechanics section below).
The Bloody Mary experience, an the initial appearance of a foreign face in the black mirror
during an evocative magick session, feels in every way real when it happens, and is therefore
quite convincing in the moment. The differences between the magical application of this
naturally occuring effect and the child's game are primarily in the preparation, focus, and intent,
which drive the experience in both cases. Unfocused and overexcited children tend to have a
good scare and usually a good laugh with their friends afterward, while the effects the well-
trained magician can generate through the use of this tool, in both the short and long term, are
indeed magical in every sense of the word.
As a side note, urban legend-driven superstitions combined with common elements of magical
traditions, such as circle casting and ritual banishings, suggest inherent dangers in magical
practice that requires special precautions to early-stage practitioners. That basic idea has been
promoted by many modern authors as well, who often include various protective measures as
part of their instructions. As a result, an unfortunate and unhealthy fear of performing magick
without "proper protection" is fairly common in the modern occult studies community. This
unfortunate dynamic is somewhat self-perpetuating, because the early stage practitioner is likely
to feel somewhat insecure about their ritual performance in any event. If that natural sense of
insecurity becomes associated with a lack of an anticipated need for protection, the aspirant may
subsequently experience a host of unnecessary fears associated with their magical work. Of
course, while we recognize that fear is an exceptionally powerful and perfectly useful
emotion,we feel that unwarranted fear tends to interfere with good magick, and should therefore
be avoided.
Rest assured that the fears typically associated with "improper protective" rituals or devices
while practicing magick are indeed unwarranted. Many traditional magical practices employ no
such "protections" before and after workings. Circle casting and banishing rituals do have their
place in both history and practice, but their actual functions have more to do with focusing the
practitioners' mind and setting the emotional tone in preparation for magick, rather than keeping
nasty spirits away, etc. Public Internet discussion groups on occult topics are rife with early stage
magicians who have convinced themselves that they've opened a portal to a demonic dimension
or some such thing, and that they are plagued by a host of malignant non-corporeal beasties,
which essentially equates to a kid at summer camp running screaming from the bathroom after a
glimpse of Bloody Mary. What the reader should be aware of here is that neither the kid at
summer camp, nor the demon-plagued chat room participant, the vast majority of the time,
suffers any real harm from their experiences, as frightening as they may be.
While most serious students of magick eventually learn their way around these superstitions, the
urban myths are prominent enough in the culture to have substantial covert psychological
influence over developmental work and magical practice, especially in the early going and
especially with a technique as effective and as initially provocative as the FRDT. To be clear, the
supposed dangers of magick is not the concern here. Rather, it's the developmental delays some
early stage practitioners experience if they get caught up in the psychological dynamics of an
unnecessary focus on the need to "protect" oneself before, during, and after a magical effort. We
feel that one of the best ways to overcome potential psychological hindrances related to these
myths is to practice the facial reflection-distortion technique as an exercise, independent of
actual magical work. This allows the student to understand the, often startling, visual effect to be
the tool that it is, so that when magick right and proper is performed using this particularly
effective tool, the magical effects are more clearly recognized and understood for what they
really are.
The Exercise (for developmental purposes)
The technique requires a black mirror or comparable obscure reflective device. If you don't
already have one, read these instructions on making a black mirror. If you prefer, you may use an
alternative, more extemporaneous reflective surface, such as a bowl of darkly colored liquid (or a
black bowl filled with water or ink). The primary difference would be in the physical posture that
you would be required to maintain during the operation.
The technique also requires hand-held candles, and while it is unlikely, it's possible that one
might naturally slip into a deep enough trance state to drop a candle. Therefore, we recommend
having an observer present, especially the first few times.
Equipment List:
stiff-backed chair
table or comparable surface
black mirror or comparable device
hand-held candlesticks (with drip guards to protect your hands)
1. Set up in a room with all sources of natural light blocked off. The black mirror should be set
on the table so that it's roughly at eye level or slightly below (prop it up as as necessary; a few
books usually does the trick) and about arm's length from the face when seated. Be sure that you
situate yourself and the mirror so that you can see your face reflected in the surface. If using a
bowl of dark liquid, you'll need to situate yourself so that you can gaze down into the bowl and
see your face reflected back.
2. Light the candles and hold them so that the flames are not reflected in the mirror and are not in
your direct line of sight. When you look at your facial reflection in the mirror, your face should
be illuminated from either side by the candlelight. Some get best results from leaning forward
and resting the elbows on the table surface, while others do better leaning slightly back and
holding the candles somewhat away from the body. You'll have to experiment to find what
works best for you.
3. Perform a basic relaxation sequence, then follow up with a deep relaxation or simple self-
hypnosis induction. Most do well with a single technique like this one, but do some research and
experiment to find what works best for you. You don't need to achieve a deep hypnotic state for
this work. Strive for a nicely relaxed state. A mild trance will naturally develop as you go, and is
really all you need.
4. Look at your facial reflection. At first, make an effort to avoid blinking, but don't worry too
much if you realize that you've blinked. Maintain your relaxed state and simply gaze at the
reflection.
5. At some point your face will morph, usually within a few minutes. If this doesn't happen, don't
worry about it. If your relaxed state feels stable, just keep gazing. If your state is interrupted, you
may reset, go through your relaxation sequence again, then continue gazing. If you still get no
results, try again another day.
6. When your face does morph, it's likely to be a startling effect. You may be shocked out of
your state the first time, or even the first few times. If so, be content with your progress and work
at it again another day.
7. When you can observe the morphing image and continue to maintain your state, allow the face
to morph without exerting any mental effort to control it. Do this for as long as you desire.
8. When finished, return to your natural state with a little gentle stretching, and then a little
something to eat.

Practice this technique until you can get a morphing image in the mirror consistently.
The Mechanics
The visual effects caused by the technique really are visual; they're not "astral" per se, they don't
take place in the "mind's eye," and they're not hallucinations. There's a relatively simple
physiological mechanism that, along with the basic mechanisms of perception, create the effects.
I think that anyone who uses the technique should have at least a basic concept of what's going
on, so here it is in brief:
By gazing without blinking for a little while, the ciliary muscles that are responsible for lens
accommodation fatigue, which prevents sharp focus, which subsequently degrades the visual
signal. Even before the ciliary muscles fatigue, the visual signal is already somewhat ambiguous
because of the obscured reflective devise and the variable and low light conditions created by the
hand-held candles. So the perceptual system is receiving a degraded, ambiguous image that is
roughly in the shape of a face.
Now, generally speaking, when visual input is ambiguous, due to occlusions, poor light
conditions, or any number of other reasons, the brain automatically fills in the gaps to create a
percept of what's most likely to be there. As a simple example, have a look at this image:

Most everyone perceives a triangle there, even though the lines of the triangle that connect the
points are not actually there. That is, the three points certainly suggest a triangle, but we tend to
perceive edges that would differentiate what should be the inside and outside of the triangle
where the lines that connect those points should be.There are in fact no edges there at all, but
when you look at it you'll perceive that the outside of the triangle that seems to be there is a
shade darker than the inside (or visa versa).
And notice that knowing there are no lines there doesn't diminish the effect. That's because it's
not caused by what you think or believe. It's caused by your previous experience and the
statistical probabilities that have been encoded in your perceptual system by your past
experience. So given your experience with triangles, with those points in that specific relation to
one another, it's almost certain that there are lines connecting them, so your mind shades your
perception so that you perceive a fully formed triangle. The perception of those edges may be a
little ambiguous, perhaps not supper-stark the way drawn lines would appear, but the edges are
definitely perceived and they're stable. It's not an hallucination either, though one might rightly
call it an optical illusion. Even so, this is your perceptual system behaving normally given this
input. The gestalt of the perception is in no practical way different than if you were looking at a
fully formed triangle, because a triangle is the most likely thing to be there.
So that same filling in perceptual process is responsible for the appearance of a foreign face in
FRDT. If you're getting ambiguous input that looks kind of like a face, you'll see a face of some
sort, and whatever was ambiguous will be filled in with something from your bank of
experience. From what we know about perception, you should see what's most likely to be there.
Interestingly, what most people experience with this technique, at first at least, is a fairly
monstrous-looking face. We can theorize about why that should be, but in truth the reasons for it
remain unclear, at least in terms of what the physiological/perceptual mechanisms tell us about
what's going on.
What is clear from experience and a lot usage of the technique by many people is that with
practice one can develop some control over the appearance of the image, so that what may
appear monstrous at first can be morphed into something more pleasant to look at. Given the
perceptual realities, however, that control is probably not directly a function of what one thinks
or wants, but is more likely to be an effect of subtly shifting ones posture and the position of the
hand-held candles. Interestingly, consciously shifting ones position and the candles in an effort
to adjust the image doesn't tend to work well. Rather, if one merely continues to gaze, it seems
that one will automatically make the necessary postural adjustments and the image will,
seemingly naturally, become both more stable and less "monstrous."
Now, the technique is usually taught in conjunction with a mild hypnotic (trance) state. The
visual effect, however, as should be readily understood now, doesn't depend on hypnosis or
trance at all. Whether or not the rest of the evocative magick experience depends on
trance/hypnosis is an open question. My experience suggests that the answer is maybe a little bit
yes and a little bit no. It's "yes" in as much as a well-designed ritual that is performed well tends
to transform the magician's state of awareness from "normal" to something rather different. If we
assume that such a shift is akin to getting to a hypnotic state, then maybe the answer is "yes" in
that specific sense. If we assume that hypnosis is a function of a typical relaxation/induction
method that "hypnotists" employ or that is typically presented in self-hypnosis methods, then I
think the answer is no, those techniques are not necessary, not to produce the visual effects or the
rest of what goes with it during evocative magick.
As a final point on the FRDT, as I'm fond of pointing out, the visual effect itself is not the
magick. It's a tool that helps facilitate a two-way communication experience. The hard part, as
with any other evocative magick technique, is getting something useful to communicate with on
the line, so to speak (refer to A Sampling of Practical Techniques).