This scene could be read as either an arbitrary acknowledgment of Lincoln's documented interest in psychic phenomena or a brief opportunity for Spielberg and cinematographer Janusz Kamiński to reprise
their watery fishbowl motif from Minority Report, but it really serves the more interesting, ambitious purpose of establishing Lincoln as a comedy of the narcissism that binds prophecy with political policy.
Whereas the large pots feature wooded scenes and earthly animals, the Weird Sisters are aquatic creatures, which can be imagined in
watery terrain, represented here by cauldron shaped
fishbowls.