I'd love to join in on this endeavor as well, if it's OK with everyone and not too late! I've just read through both the first thread and this one and I didn't see any cutoff date posted yet.
So . . . assuming I can join in . . .
I have been giving a lot of thought lately as to what I will try to use for scrying. I really like the idea of an obsidian mirror, and it's neat that John Dee and Nostrodamus used them, but it could turn out that I am totally inept and unable to ever become proficient at scrying. So before I buy an expensive crystal ball or obsidian mirror, I think I will try the cheap tools first. I think I will start with inky water in my Tibetan brass prayer bowl, which is about 9 inches in diamter. And if that doesn't work, I will try making a black mirror from a piece of glass and some paint.
From what I have read so far in books, the tool is unimportant so long as you are comfortable with it and can attain the right unfocused/undifferentiated type of field of view.
One neat scrying tool I read about in W.E. Butler's book was a sandy disc: you take a round piece of cardboard, cover it with glue, then sprinkle sand on it and let it dry and shake off any loose sand. This tool has the advantage of not catching any reflections! He also mentioned a black circle on a white paper (if I remember correctly), which didn't appeal to me so I didn't read about the specifics.
The other thing he said that I would love to hear opinions on from those here who have experience scrying is this: that the very first thing you must do to learn scrying is to become very good at VISUALIZING. Butler suggested getting a mandala or other geometric/colorful piece or picture that you find interesting, and getting to the point where you can still see it clearly in your minds eye when you close your eyelids. According to him, you just keep practicing at this until you can do this with ease. He also said that it was not necessary to start with triangles or pentagrams or similar "simple" objects. In fact, according to him, something more complicated was actually better because your mind wouldn't get bored and lose focus simply because of that.
This made sense to me, actually, as I started visualization exercises myself with a pentagram, and I found it strangely difficult at times--and I think this is why.
Anyway, is this necessary to learn scrying? Anyone know for sure?
I intend to sit straight up in a chair with both feet flat on the ground, and look gently down at the surface of the dark water, with a single candle behind me and slight to the side, and let my eyes unfocus, and just try to be that state.
From what I have read, if you keep this up long enough, the first thing that will happen is that your scrying surface will become misty. Apparently, this is due to a phenomenon which science has investigated, and which occurs whenever your field of vision is unchanging for a long time and also rather undifferentiated (i.e. not a bowl of fruit on a table in a brightly lit room, but rather the surface of water, or a crystal ball, etc.)
So next, the mist will start to swirl and there will maybe be lightning flashes in it or lights of other kinds or . . . I can't remember what else. From what Butler was saying, getting to this point could take quite a number of hours.
He explained that what you were trying to do was to get the sub-conscious mind to build up a communication channel to the conscious mind via the visual pathways. He also mentioned so-called "waking dreams" as a related phenomenon--where you open your eyes from sleep in a dark room and you see something. This happens to me all the time now. I am positively SURE that I see something, but when I grab a light and illuminate the field of view, there is nothing.
Anyway . . . usually what happens when you first see lights (according to Butler) is that you will get so excited about your first indication of progress that you will unbalance your calmness of mind and promptly stop seeing anything! LOL! I am all too familiar with this state of affairs from zazen. But he says that if you persevere these lights will start to differentiate into faces or scenes or symbols. In fact, he says they will fall into two categories: symbolic and not, where the symbols you will have to learn to interpret according to your own trial and error, but where the non-symbolic will be straight-forward visual information.
Well. I have no idea if this Butler guy knows what he is talking about or not, but I thought I would post it here for perusal by those with actual scrying experience.
In any case, I definitely intend to continue with visualization exercises, as they are essential for trance-work/pathworking and for activate imagination/creative visualization, both of which I want to develope and learn.
I can not take any credit really, sadly. Becaus I haven't really done anything to have this possibility. It has just allways been there. Which means that I do not really know how it is done. And since I just as an adult started to explore what things are and called. I explain things with my own words and mostley in examples. How ever I do know that it is all about a state of mind. For me to be able to see the things I want to se, I have to put my mind and thought in a sort of distant state. 