These preliminaries having been accomplished, the following prayer, or rather invocation, is repeated: O thou holy Archangel N. N., I pray to thee most fervently through the great and unsearchable name of the Lord of all Lords and King of all Kings, Jod, He, Vau, He, Tetragrammaton, Adonay, Schaday, receive my greeting and give ear to the humble petition which I offer in the name of the great and highest God, Elohim, Zebaoth, that thou shalt appear to me in the world-mirror, and give me knowledge and instruction in answer to my questions. The strong religious tone of these directions for the use of the mirror and the fact that it is a priest who gives them, shows that there was a disposition to tolerate the employment of such “white magic.” In medieval times it was believed that the vision in the crystal was produced through the agency of an indwelling spirit, and, therefore, it was necessary to use some very potent spell to force this spirit to enter the stone. Many of these ancient spells have been preserved, and they contain a strange and incongruous mixture of religious and magical formulas. In one of these, dating from the end of the fifteenth century, after a recitation of a long and rambling conjuration, we read: “And y^{en} ask y^e chylde yf h^e seethe any thyng, and yf no, let the m^r begin his conjuratyō agayn.” As usual the scrying was done by a child, the conjuration being spoken by the minister. An important part of the conjuration consisted in the repetition of a number of divine names, most of them originally Hebrew, but so much corrupted by reciters who did not know their meaning that it is now exceedingly difficult to interpret them correctly. A proof that this form of magic was often regarded as quite compatible with religion is offered us in a passage from a sixteenth century manuscript,[283] where we read that the crystal should be laid on the altar “on the Side that the gospell is read on. And let the priest say a mass on the same Side.” If the conjuration is successful, the same manuscript tells us that “these angells being once appeared will not depart the glasse or stone untill the Sonne be sett except you licence them.” It also seems that “scrying” was looked upon as a special gift, only granted to a favored few as a peculiar privilege, and we read that “Prayer and a good beleefe prevailed much. For faith is the cay to this and all other works, and without it nothing can be effected.” The child scryer, either maid or boy, should not be more than twelve years old.