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The state’s first wharves were built in the 1800s, and tended to be modest, private endeavors meant to facilitate shipping minerals and metals such as silver and asphaltum up and down the coast.

Probably L.A.’s earliest wharf, Santa Monica’s Shoo-Fly Landing, was built in 1871 so that Henry Hancock could send ox-drawn wagons of asphaltum, “brea,” from his tar-rich inland rancho out to the coast, to load aboard northbound ships to pave San Francisco’s streets.

A great deal of preparation goes into its assembly: the would-be Mystic must have “pure and lofty aspirations and desires,” plus a 6.5” x 8.5” concave glass, a brush, a pint of turpentine, and a tube of asphaltum.

After cleaning the glass with turpentine and applying a coat of asphaltum to one side, the mirror is magnetized by moving one’s palms in circular motions above it for several minutes.

Three coats of asphaltum later, the mirror is ready to receive messages from the Astral Brotherhood of Magic, an association of mystics spanning the seen and unseen world alike.