{"product_id":"seeking-glass","title":"The Seeking Glass","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003e\u003c!-- obsidian --\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch2 data-heading=\"A Receipt, and a Question\"\u003eA Receipt, and a Question\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn October 1897, Cecil Hawthorne ordered something privately from R.S. Napier of Edinburgh. The receipt survives. The reason does not.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe clerk's hand was deliberate copperplate. The article was set down not in Napier's usual catalogue language but simply as \"\u003cem\u003egazing glass and case, as specified\"\u003c\/em\u003e. Two guineas, which is well above the catalogue rate. The correspondence in which the particulars were agreed does not survive on either side, and, for reasons never given, the sale was not entered in the shop ledger that quarter.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTwo years and two months later, following Hawthorne's death, his lifelong companion Jonathan Blackwood came upon the case in the north wall cabinet. The leaflet of instructions sat folded inside the lid, apparently unread. He entered the article in his inventory as Item 37 and, having no other words for it, wrote the line \"Purpose uncertain.\" For the rest of his life he called it, for want of a better name, the Seeking Glass.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eCecil could speak to the dead, read the histories of objects, channel automatic writing, and capture spirits on photographic plates. He could not, so far as Blackwood ever discovered, do this one thing. Whether Hawthorne ever uncovered the glass in the two years and two months between its arrival at Russell Square and his death is not on record. If he did, he did so privately and told no one.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe glass is offered now, in faithful reproduction, with the papers of its first sale folded once more inside the lid.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch2 data-heading=\"A Strictly Limited Edition\"\u003eA Strictly Limited Edition\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSeeking Glass is a strictly limited edition of forty-eight pieces. No more will exist.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis is the first release of sixteen.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch2 data-heading=\"Included within this edition\"\u003eIncluded within this edition\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eThe Gazing Glass.\u003c\/strong\u003e A clear sphere of glass, three inches in diameter, free of obvious bubbles or seeds and polished to an even figure. Selected, in Napier's own words, \"for clarity of material and soundness of figure.\" Supplied resting in its case.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eThe Fitted Case.\u003c\/strong\u003e A cube of pine, four and three-quarter inches on every side, covered in embossed pebble-grain paper in the Victorian bookbinder's manner. The interior is a black velvet recess shaped to the sphere; the lid bears the R.S. Napier seal struck into the paper. Offered in two finishes, tan-brown or dark bottle-green; and carefully hand-aged.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eThe Instruction Leaflet.\u003c\/strong\u003e A reproduction and subtly aged folded leaflet titled \"THE ART OF SCRYING,\" issued under the guidance of the Society for Spectral Enquiry. Sober directions, five numbered rules, and a Notice to Purchasers in Napier's commercial voice. The leaflet has its own quiet trick: not every word it carries is intended for the living eye.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eThe Receipt.\u003c\/strong\u003e Napier's pre-printed billhead, made out by hand to the buyer of the glass, with a Penny Lilac revenue stamp cancelled across its face under the Stamp Act 1891. Hand-aged and hand written in period dip-pen and ink.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eA Page from \u003cem\u003eThe Medium and Daybreak\u003c\/em\u003e.\u003c\/strong\u003e A reproduction leaf torn from the spiritualist weekly of 5 June 1885, carrying a letter on the art of scrying signed \"J.A.M., Glasgow,\" and, in the adjacent column, an R.S. Napier classified advertisement.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eThe R.S. Napier House History (Digital Download).\u003c\/strong\u003e A full history of the firm and its Edinburgh shop, from its opening in 1884 to its closing in 1916.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eCecil Hawthorne, an Illustrated Biography (Digital Download).\u003c\/strong\u003e The updated edition of Cecil's biography, revised to take account of the glass and the question it raises.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eThe Performance Guide (Digital Download).\u003c\/strong\u003e A guide for the custodian: the 1897 transaction, the unresolved mystery, and the presentation of the artefact and its ephemera by candle-light before a small circle.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eCertificate of Authenticity.\u003c\/strong\u003e Verifying your piece as part of the Cecil Hawthorne Collection.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eNote that all items are carefully hand-aged, and so will vary subtly from the product photographs.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch2 data-heading=\"The Article in Performance\"\u003eIn Performance\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eThe glass does not answer. It asks.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSeeking Glass is not a performance piece of shock and flourish. It is an artefact of unresolved enquiry, intended for the table at candle-light, in the company of a small circle who would prefer the question to the answer.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe glass is the centre of the room and the source of whatever is shown. The custodian is not the seer; the glass is. Whatever happens in the evening appears to be its doing, surfacing slowly through the glass while the room watches and waits. The custodian is merely the voice through which what it shows is described.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eUsed thoughtfully, the artefact becomes a witness to the evening. Pass it from hand to hand and the room reports temperatures and weights it cannot quite name. Hold it before a candle and the leaflet reveals a hand that did not write the rest of it. Set it before a sitter and the sphere returns their face, inverted, surrounded by the bent room. None of this needs explaining. The glass invites; the sitter fills the silence.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eCecil left a gap. Blackwood could not close it. The custodian inherits the question, not the answer.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch2 data-heading=\"Companion Articles\"\u003eCompanion Artefacts\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFor those building a fuller continuity within the Cecil Hawthorne Collection, the \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/laudanumhouse.com\/products\/emerald-oracle\"\u003e\u003cem\u003eEmerald Oracle\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e (Cecil's pendulum, returned from a Buddhist temple in 1864) and the \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/laudanumhouse.com\/products\/whispering-token\"\u003e\u003cem\u003eWhispering Token\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/a\u003e (his karmic psychometry pieces) sit within the same shared world. The same rooms recur. The same names. A keeper who holds several will, in time, find them speaking to one another.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eCecil Hawthorne, his stories, and his artefacts are a work of fiction under copyright by Laudanum House Limited. \u003c\/em\u003e\u003cem\u003eAny resemblance to actual events or persons living, dead, or undead are entirely coincidental. \u003c\/em\u003e\u003cem\u003eNote that all reproduction artefacts are a mixture of genuine Victoriana and highly crafted props. \u003c\/em\u003e\u003cem\u003eCecil Hawthorne is fictitious and so are his magical artefacts and the history behind them.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Laudanum House","offers":[{"title":"Tan Brown","offer_id":57912292835592,"sku":"LHBZ-00032","price":390.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"Bottle Green","offer_id":57912292868360,"sku":"LHBZ-00031","price":390.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0903\/6457\/6008\/files\/seeking-glass-scrying-679.jpg?v=1780071794","url":"https:\/\/laudanumhouse.com\/products\/seeking-glass","provider":"Laudanum House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}