Ghost of a flea: Flea & Speculum

June 14, 2005

Flea & Speculum

Flea&Speculum.jpg

I took time to visit an old friend I had met years ago when it had been on display at the Wellcome Institute for an exhibition on the magic of medicine. The magic-mirror, or Speculum, of Dr. John Dee is shown here with a carrying case made for it when it was in the possession of Horace Walpole and alongside Dee's more workaday shew-stone, a smaller crystal ball. This is a magickal artifact of the first water, so well known that it was credited as the device through which Dee divined the Gunpowder Plot of 1605.

These are the objects through which Dee and his associate Edward Kelly communicated with a variety of angels, most notably Uriel (a chilling prospect for those who have read Clive Barker's Weaveworld). Yet the mirror's occult fascination even pre-dates John Dee's Elizabethan sorcery. The "jet shew-stone" is reportedly an Aztec cult object, originally assiociated with the worship of Tezcatlipoca, or "smoking mirror", the god of the cold night sky.

Obsidian mirrors were adopted by Mesoamerican rulers as objects of power and divination, granting them a medium through which they could look into the future and connect with the realm of the gods. Both reflective and translucent, the obsidian mirror was seen as a threshold between two worlds, with the obsidian conceptualized as a membrane or tissue separating this earthly world from the beyond. Many ancient depictions survive showing mirrors being worn as part of ceremonial and military costumes, especially by the ruler.

If there was any one object in the British Museum I could take into my small collection at Flea Towers this would be it. The mirror is currently on display in the Enlightenment Gallery in a cabinet devoted to other similar curiosities.

Posted by Ghost of a flea at June 14, 2005 09:33 AM

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Comments

I quite enjoyed the Enlightenment Gallery during my visit; sorry I didn't know about the mirror!

Posted by: The_Campblog at June 14, 2005 10:01 AM

I am rather pleased to see someone who shares my interest in John Dee. Very interesting man and a rather lucky one as well.

Posted by: Andrew Ian Dodge at June 15, 2005 07:16 AM