Somebody has told you something and you do not believe it. You do not own a scrying ball, or you do and it is under linen halfway through its eleven days. This is the instrument for that evening, and you already have most of it in the kitchen.
The water vase is used when a crystal ball is not present and the Wizard needs to find information quickly, and it can be prepared with almost everything found in a general household.1 Then, immediately, a warning against underrating it: even though this device is simple, it is far from being meek. It is claimed to have been used since almost the beginning of time by early magic-using tribesmen, medicine men and wizards of ancient times.
Like the censer, this instrument has a stated subject range rather than a general one, and the range is unusually pointed. A wizard uses a water vase to obtain information relevant to the elemental planes, uncover truths, and to discover lies and treachery.
Three jobs, and two of them are about other people. The crystal ball reads distance, past and future; the censer reads spiritual states, emotions and the mind. This one is the truth instrument — the thing you go to when the question is whether you are being lied to.
The vessel comes with a stated preference and a reason for it, which is rare enough to be worth reading closely. Use a flat base vessel of any material, however wood is preferable because of its affinity to water — and the affinity is explained physically. Wood carries water in its interior when it is part of a tree, and that history is said to allow a certain connection that other materials will never achieve with water.
So the argument is about what the material used to do rather than what it now is. A wooden bowl once moved water up a trunk, and that is treated as leaving something behind in it. Whatever else that is, it is a mechanism rather than a symbol — the same kind of reasoning that gives the chalice its curve and the wand its single unbroken piece of wood.
The dimensions are given: at least six inches across and a minimum of two inches tall, filled with water to a height of at least an inch.
The oil arrives in two doses at opposite ends of the procedure, and the count is the same both times. Early on, eight drops of Rose essential oil are poured into the centre of the water. Then, at the very end, after every formula has been spoken, the wizard drops eight more and tries to observe what information comes up.
The second dose is the one that starts the reading. Everything between the two is preparation — blessings, a candle, two spoken formulas — and the images are looked for only once the oil goes in the second time. Which makes the physical event obvious in a way most of this material is not: eight drops of rose oil hitting still water spread, break and re-form, and that moving film is the surface being read.
Eight is not a neutral number here either. It belongs to Mercury and to Magic itself in this system's own scheme, and it turns up twice in a procedure with no other counts in it at all.
A lighted taper candle stands in front of the water vase, and the colour is argued rather than assumed. The candle should be white, in relation to the color of the Moon and its properties for clairvoyance — and having lit it, the wizard must ask to receive this precognitive power in a short prayer. Then the candle itself is blessed with the sign of the cross and two names: JEHOVA PROPHETIKOS, ADONAI MIRABILIFER REX VIDENTER.
That is the candle-colour table being used rather than merely stated. White and silver belong to the Moon, the Moon's business includes divination and precognition, and so the candle at a divination is white. The two names attached carry the same job in their own words — prophetikos for prophecy, videnter for seeing.
The heart of the procedure is a pair of spoken formulas, and they do different things in a definite order. The first is said with a hand extended over the whole device, and its purpose is stated: to establish a channel between the wizard and the Luminous Angels of Foresight and Guidance. While saying it, the wizard must feel this power and connection suffuse and bathe the body. The words are APOKALIPTHES STOSUDOR ATZABAS AR-SENU CHAMENIM MESKITH.2
The second is said with a hand over the water itself, while visualising the energy of the Lord Almighty imbuing the water with precognitive qualities. Its purpose is different, and this is the part to slow down for. These are the words which call upon the wisdom and understanding to comprehend the messages that will undoubtedly appear in the vase: PAROYSIASTES EMPROSTES YNOSENOU EPIDIOKOS STO ONOMATHEOS RAHARTEF RESBAH BABOS. So one formula opens the line and the other asks for the ability to read what comes down it. That is a distinction almost nothing else in this curriculum makes. A conjuration calls a being; a blessing sends something out; a scrying device relays. Here the procedure treats receiving the message and understanding the message as two separate problems, each needing its own words.
And the word the second formula opens with is PAROYSIASTES — the same word that unveils the crystal ball, where it is said to refer to the magical spirits and celestial ministers that help a wizard see what is not normally apparent. Two instruments built from different materials for different subjects share the term that switches them on. The confidence in that phrasing is worth catching too. The messages will undoubtedly appear. The uncertainty being provided for is not whether anything shows up. It is whether you will know what you are looking at.
The closing rules are short, and one of them is expensive. The water goes down the sink. The vase is cleansed thoroughly, dried, and put away in a secure place with the other magical devices. And then: the candle should be discarded with every use, using a new one every single time.
Not trimmed, not saved for the next session. A used taper is finished, which quietly makes this the one instrument in the practice that consumes a component. The crystal ball is washed and returned to its linen; the censer's ashes go to the countryside but the pot stays; the wooden vase is dried and shelved. The candle is thrown away.
The other standing rule is the familiar one, and it lands harder here than elsewhere. As with all magical devices, be patient and careful, and do not employ them in the presence of other people.
Everything in order, with each number the source gives. Find a flat-based vessel at least six inches across and two inches tall — wood if you have it, for its affinity to water. Fill it with at least an inch of water, and perform the In Nomine Deux Benedicto and Magicartifex Ubertas incantations over both the vessel and the water.
Pour eight drops of rose essential oil into the centre, then bless the vase with a simple prayer asking for guidance and illumination. Set a lit white taper in front of it, ask in a short prayer to receive the Moon's power of precognition, and bless the candle with the sign of the cross and the names JEHOVA PROPHETIKOS, ADONAI MIRABILIFER REX VIDENTER. Extend your hand over the whole arrangement and say APOKALIPTHES STOSUDOR ATZABAS AR-SENU CHAMENIM MESKITH, feeling the connection bathe you as you do. Then put a hand over the water, picture the energy of the Almighty filling it with precognitive quality, and say PAROYSIASTES EMPROSTES YNOSENOU EPIDIOKOS STO ONOMATHEOS RAHARTEF RESBAH BABOS.
Then add the second eight drops, and watch. Be patient, be careful, and do it with nobody else in the room. Afterwards pour the water away, wash and dry the vase and put it with your other instruments — and throw the candle out. A new one every single time.
The procedure, the formulas and the wood argument are asserted with no tradition named and nothing quoted. This is the Eldest Tradition warrant on the source stub. 🚩 SINGLE SOURCE.
🚩 The claim that the water vase has been used since almost the beginning of time by early magic using tribesmen, medicine men and wizards of ancient times names no people, place or period and is reported as stated. Water-gazing is genuinely widespread across traditions, which makes the general claim plausible and this specific procedure unattested. The formula components are partly checkable. Apokaliptes is Greek for one who reveals, prophetikos is Greek for prophetic, and videnter is built on Latin seeing; Jehova and Adonai are standard divine names. 🚩 ATZABAS, AR-SENU, CHAMENIM, MESKITH, RAHARTEF, RESBAH and BABOS have no traceable source.
⚠ PAROYSIASTES opens the second formula here and also unveils the crystal ball. The two uses are consistent with each other, but nothing in the range read says the word is shared, and no explanation of it is given in either place. Unresolved: nothing states how long a session lasts. The censer stops at two minutes and the crystal ball takes several; this one says only to be patient.
Follow the household framing and this is the quick instrument. No consecration schedule, no eleven days, no high place at noon — a bowl, some water, oil and a candle, assembled the same evening the question arises. Follow the procedure and it is the most crowded rite in the scrying group. Two incantations over the vessel, a prayer over the oil, a prayer for the Moon's power, a blessing of the candle with the sign of the cross and two divine names, then two further formulas with two different hand positions and two visualisations. Nothing about that is quick.
Both are on the same page, and they disagree about what simple means. What is simple is the equipment. What is long is everything you have to say over it, and a practitioner who reaches for this because there is no time will find the shopping easy and the ceremony not.
Deception Detection and Stress Indicators — Both traditions treat lie-catching as a trained procedure with a defined instrument rather than as a knack, and both are explicit that the operator's own state can wreck the reading.
Where they part is the position of the person being judged. The behavioural method needs them in front of you and talking: the indicators are things a body and a voice do in real time, scored within a single question-and-answer period, and the operator's own liking for the speaker is the named threat because it deletes indicators from awareness.
Here the subject must not be in the room at all, and neither corpus notices what that trades away. The standing rule is that these devices must not be employed in the presence of other people — so an instrument whose stated job is to discover lies and treachery is used with the suspected party absent. That removes the influence problem completely: nobody can manage their behaviour in front of an oracle they are not attending, and there is no charm to be taken in by. It also removes every piece of evidence the other tradition runs on, which is why this one has to end by asking, in its own separate formula, for the wisdom to understand what it is shown.
Sharpest implication. Two formulas, two jobs — one opens the channel, and the second asks for the wisdom and understanding to comprehend the messages that will undoubtedly appear. The doubt this procedure is built to handle is not whether an answer arrives. It is whether the person looking can read it.
Generative questions.