Stillness · “Stillness Reveals”
Volantia & Magic-Mirror Scrying
Cultivate ‘Volantia’ — a calm, steady, non-straining exercise of will — and use it to gaze into a magic mirror until the surface ‘clouds’ and inner imagery arises, training sustained receptive attention and a controlled light-trance (‘blending’).
Volantia + mirror-scrying: Dim, quiet room; clean dark mirror, yours alone.
(1) Cultivate Volantia — calm, steady will without strain.
(2) Gaze softly into (not at) the mirror, relaxed and patient.
(3) Wait for the clouding — mist, then imagery — and receive it passively (Posism). Build with short, frequent sessions; never force. Sober only; ground afterward.
What it is
Paschal Beverly Randolph — 19th-century African-American physician, Spiritualist and Rosicrucian, and one of the most influential occultists of his era — built his practical system around the magic mirror as its primary instrument.
Two of his core “powers” make the foundational, transmissible exercise: Volantia, which he defined as the calm, steady exercise of the will — willing without strain, tension, or exhaustion — and mirror-scrying, in which the practitioner gazes with Volantia into a dark reflective surface until it “clouds over” and inner imagery appears.
He framed the whole as a graded ascent: from ordinary scrying up through “zorvoyance” and “aethavoyance” (astral and spiritual vision) to “blending,” his term for a controlled trance in which the seer’s awareness fuses with a higher consciousness.
The practical heart for a beginner is the disciplined pairing of calm will with patient gazing.
The Method
Randolph’s practice, drawn from Seership! The Magnetic Mirror:
- Acquire and prepare the mirror. Use a true magic mirror — classically a concave dark/black glass or a bowl of dark ink/water — kept clean, covered when not in use, and used by you alone. Set it in a dim, quiet room.
- Cultivate Volantia first. Before gazing, settle into Randolph’s calm-will state: sit relaxed, breathe quietly, and bring the will to bear gently and steadily on your intention to see — never with strain or muscular effort. Volantia is the knack of willing strongly without tension; Randolph treats it as a skill built by repetition, the precondition of all his work. (He pairs it with two further attitudes — Decretism, calmly decreeing the result, and Posism, sinking into a receptive posture/state to receive it.)
- Gaze, soft and steady. Look into (not at) the mirror with a soft, unwavering, unhurried gaze. Do not stare hard; let the eyes rest. Hold the calm will and quiet expectancy.
- Wait for the clouding. Randolph’s signal of success: the surface seems to mist, cloud, or grow milky, then clear — and imagery, scenes, or symbols arise within or beyond it. Receive these passively (Posism) without grabbing at them.
- Build by short, frequent sessions. He insists results come gradually; begin with short sittings and lengthen as the faculty develops. Patience and regularity, not force, produce the clouding.
- Toward “blending” (advanced). With practice the light reverie can deepen into Randolph’s “blending” — a controlled trance of fused awareness. He treats this as an advanced stage to be approached only after the basics are stable, and always retaining the calm, willed control of Volantia. (Sourcing note: Randolph also advocated breathing exercises and, controversially, hashish to assist vision; this entry deliberately confines itself to the sober Volantia-and-gazing core and does not endorse the drug methods.)
Source & Lineage
The method is set out in Paschal Beverly Randolph’s Seership! The Magnetic Mirror (composed in the 1860s, widely circulated in later editions revised by R.
Swinburne Clymer). Randolph (1825-1875) made the magic mirror central to Western practical occultism and coined the Volantia / Decretism / Posism triad of calm will, decree, receptive state. His mirror-scrying directly seeded later traditions — Theosophical and Golden Dawn scrying, and the broader 19th-20th century revival of the “black mirror.” → (Paschal Beverly Randolph node); related.
Common refinements
Straining the will or the eyes. The whole point of Volantia is unstrained will; hard staring causes watering and tension and blocks the clouding. Gaze softly.
- Impatience. Expecting visions on the first sitting; Randolph is emphatic that the faculty builds gradually over many short sessions.
- Grabbing at imagery. Pouncing analytically on the first impressions collapses the receptive state (Posism). Let images come and pass.
- Bright, noisy, shared conditions. Dim, quiet, private, and a mirror used by you alone.
- Using drugs to force it. Randolph’s hashish methods are not endorsed here and carry real risks; do the practice sober.
- No grounding afterward. Come fully back — light, movement, food — before resuming ordinary activity.