Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio. Hi, my name is Robert Lamb and
Speaker 1: this is the Artifact. A short form series from Stuff
Speaker 1: to Blow Your Mind, focusing in on particular objects, ideas,
Speaker 1: and moments in time. Elizabethan scholar, doctor John d was
Speaker 1: one of the most learned men of the sixteenth century,
Speaker 1: applying his intense mathematical intellect to matters scientific, political, alchemical,
Speaker 1: and occult. He advised Queen Elizabeth, sought communion with angelic beings,
Speaker 1: advocated British expansion, and plunged the depths of human knowledge
Speaker 1: in an age of great change. While D's most famed
Speaker 1: possession was his expensive library of books, he was also
Speaker 1: known to possess various mirrors and glasses of peculiar power.
Speaker 1: One of these was the magical speculum, or the devil's
Speaker 1: looking glass. If you're envisioning an ominous, framed mirror of darkness,
Speaker 1: you may be disappointed to see what looks more like
Speaker 1: a slate painting palette, or perhaps part of an ikea
Speaker 1: end table. The mirror itself has a diameter of eighteen
Speaker 1: point four centimeters and a width of three centimeters. It
Speaker 1: is circular with a perforated notch for hanging, handling, or mounting.
Speaker 1: The mirror substance is that of polished obsidian, volcanic in
Speaker 1: origin and believed to have been crafted by the Aztecs
Speaker 1: between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries. If you've visited the
Speaker 1: British Museum you may have seen it. The mirrors a
Speaker 1: leather case features an inscription informing us that it is
Speaker 1: quote the black stone into which Dr d used to
Speaker 1: call his spirits unquote. These words are attributed to the
Speaker 1: eighteenth century art historian Horace Walpole, along with a pair
Speaker 1: of crystal spheres. D used this object in his pursuit
Speaker 1: of angelology and sorcery, possibly brought back from the voyages
Speaker 1: of Sir Francis Drake. The obsidian mirror was likely used
Speaker 1: in scrying rituals by Aztec priests in the worship of
Speaker 1: tez Catlepoca, the god also known as the Lord of
Speaker 1: the Smoking Mirror, due to the black mirrors used by
Speaker 1: his priests and his overall connection to the dark volcanic
Speaker 1: glass of obsidian. But D also possessed another amazing mirror,
Speaker 1: an artifact bequeathed to him by Sir William Pickering in
Speaker 1: sixteen seventy five. It was a noted curio of the time.
Speaker 1: D even demonstrated the properties of this mirror to Queen
Speaker 1: Elizabeth herself. As Benjamin Woollowee points out in his book
Speaker 1: The Queen's Conjuror, it is unlikely that D ever used
Speaker 1: this mirror in his occult practices. No, the Great Perspective
Speaker 1: Glass had a place in John D's purely logical interests.
Speaker 1: Wooly writes that D kept the mirror proudly displayed in
Speaker 1: a corner of his study. Anyone who lunged at the
Speaker 1: mirror with a dagger or sword found their reflection lunging
Speaker 1: back at them with like hand and weapon. This, of course,
Speaker 1: is not the typical way of mirrors, and the effect
Speaker 1: was said to be quite unsettling, But D explained the
Speaker 1: effect to his guests via the mathematics of perspective, rather
Speaker 1: than the supernatural. A typical mirror doesn't so much as
Speaker 1: flip your image, but turn it inside out. The text
Speaker 1: on your shirt appears backwards in the mirror, just as
Speaker 1: the text also appears backwards if you were to withdraw
Speaker 1: your head into the shirt and read the text from
Speaker 1: within the garment, So the great perspective glass was likely
Speaker 1: a nonreversing mirror, which can be accomplished by connecting two
Speaker 1: regular mirrors at their edges at a ninety degree angle,
Speaker 1: among other strategies. Of course, even a typical mirrors reflection
Speaker 1: can feel unsettling, is Argentinean writer Jorge Lewis Borges wrote, quote,
Speaker 1: the crystal spies on us. If with in the four
Speaker 1: walls of a bedroom a mirror stairs, I am no
Speaker 1: longer alone. There is someone there in the dawn reflections
Speaker 1: mutely stage a show unquote. As we grow accustomed to
Speaker 1: the inside out stranger, how stranger still is the rarely
Speaker 1: seen non reversed stranger, or the smoky shade of tes
Speaker 1: Catli Poca's dark Realm. Tune in for additional editions of
Speaker 1: the Artifact each week, hosted by either Joe or myself.
Speaker 1: As always, you can email us at contact at stuff
Speaker 1: to Blow your Mind dot com. And Stuff to Blow
Speaker 1: Your Mind is a production of I Heart Radio. For
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Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
Speaker 1: favorite shows.