The crystal sphere, orbuculum, scrying ball, shew/show(ing) stone- different names of the classic tool used by magic practitioners for aeons. Here, then, is the crystal ball reconsidered - not as a novelty of occult fashion, but as a surviving relic of an exacting and deeply inconvenient art. I once had the good fortune - or perhaps the professional hazard - of standing before John Dee’s crystal at the Wellcome Collection in London. To many an abecedarian, it is a disappointingly modest object.

Black Obsidian Mirror: Genuine Restock of Witchy Crystals