—would they were mine!—if kept free from promiscuous handling, treated judiciously, and rightly used, are capable of more psychic marvels than all the mesmerists on the globe! Very few of any grade are imported, save when expressly ordered; the risk of breakage in crossing the seas and by inland carriage being too great to admit of larger consignments, even were it possible to have such, which it is not.
Full directions for their general use and care are given in the book called "Seership," a work devoted exclusively to the subject. But those of the superior grades require suplementary advisements concerning their treatment, 1st. They should—when not in use,—be kept either with face to the wall in a dark place, else be covered with a board or plate (usually furnished with them) so as to exclude every ray of light. But about once a month they should be exposed to the full blaze of the sun for at least an hour; while a similar exposure, but of longer duration, to moon or starlight, invariably increases their power, and quite often adds new ones. The larger ones may be used by a room full of persons at the same time; being fixed immovably, and the people arranging themselves so that each can see the broad white-black river flowing continually across the surface; but no one, save the owner, should either touch, or sit, or stand closer than from four to seven feet or more; and when the seance begins, no word should be spoken, no movement made; and it ought to open with a prayer to the Most High, while special invocations, for any given purpose or purposes, may be made to lesser potential intelligences. Those which are now in this country are of an extraordinary character and degree of power; their illuminant surface has never been equalled; while their true cuspic-ovoid,
the mirrors, and demanded to know the sex of her unborn child. The reply came instantly—"A Boy! and a great one! a vast soul!—the king-seer of five thousand years!" The result, so far as sex was concerned, was absolutely true; and there is but little doubt that the rest will prove equally so. This same lady was the only true mystic of her sex I ever saw in America. She was the best mirror-manipulator on the earth, and owned—still owns all the genuine ones on the continent. Through her I have obtained specimens of such rare value, that to part therewith was like the loss of the right eye.
