Mirror, Mirror, On The
Wall
Hi Everyone!
I hope all my readers had a safe and happy
Hallowe'en, and that all the spirits you encountered were good ones! It was a
quieter evening than usual in terms of trick or treating in our neighbourhood,
but that gave me time to light candles in honour of my ancestors and to remember
those who have crossed to the other side of the veil.
I was watching a local news station's call-in
show on Hallowe'en day, interested to hear some of the ghost stories that
viewers were calling in with, and sure enough, I heard some pretty spooky tales.
A woman named Lynne phoned in to tell about the ghost in her bathroom mirror.
She was living with a roommate some years ago when her mother passed away. A few
days later, she received a frantic call at work from her roommate, who explained
she had just had a shower, and when she got out and glanced in the mirror, she
had seen a face there. When Lynne got home that evening, she went straight into
the bathroom, and sure enough, when she looked into the mirror, to her utter
amazement there was the face of her mother, floating eerily in the mirror. She
described it as a black and white image, that looked like a hologram hovering
within the glass. The image stayed in the mirror for many days, or perhaps even
weeks, and over time, Lynne began to find it comforting, knowing that it was her
mother's way of letting her know that everything was okay.
Mirrors are famous for their magickal uses, and
are also considered portals to the other side. Numerous fairy tales center
on the magickal properties of mirrors, including, of course, Snow White and
Alice in Wonderland. Mirrors have been used in scrying throughout the ages.
Scrying, which is simply the art of looking into a reflective surface to divine
psychic information, was originally accomplished by gazing into water,
either in a dish or even in a pond or pool, by using polished stones or metals,
or other shiny objects (including crystal balls). Polished glass and later
mirrors, however, have become an equally popular tool for this art since
their invention. For enhanced success in scrying, the back sides of mirrors
are often painted black, and the surfaces are anointed with herbs and oils that
aid clairvoyance. Nostradamus used both flame gazing and water gazing to gain
his famous prophecies. The accomplished seer would sit before a brass bowl
filled with steaming water and pungent oils, to view images in the dancing
flames or reflections in the water's depths.
Mirrors are said to be able to trap spirits
'between the worlds'. It is still common practice in many cultures and religions
to cover the mirrors in the house after a death in the family, at least until
the body is taken for burial. Until fairly recent times, the bodies of the
deceased were laid out in their own homes, and it was believed that if the dead
person's spirit caught a glimpse of itself in the mirror, it would remain in the
house, trapped in the glass. Many people caution, therefore, against buying
antique mirrors and keeping them in the house, because over the years, no doubt
they had seen a death or two.
We can also look to the concept, popular in
horror movie fare, of mirrors being used as 'message boards' by ghosts.
Spirit entities are said to be able to use mirrors to communicate with
those they are haunting, most often by writing a message or drawing an image in
a steamed up mirror. Often these images or words reveal themselves all at once,
instead of being written or drawn out one letter or piece at a
time.
Then there is the psychomanteum, developed by
noted parapsychologist and NDE expert Raymond J. Moody - as a way to induce
altered states and to communicate with the dead. A psychomanteum is a totally
enclosed room, completely dark, in which a person sits in a chair and gazes into
a large mirror. As the person relaxes and enters a somewhat hypnagogic state,
images begin to reveal themselves in the mirror, either of future events, or of
communiqués from deceased spirits.
Mirrors are also important in Feng Shui. Aside
from the most common uses of mirrors as remedies for stale or negative energies,
and the enhancement of positive energies in the home or area, Feng Shui
guidelines caution against the improper placement of mirrors within the
home, particularly in the bedroom. A mirror placed incorrectly or prominently in
a bedroom not only invites 'outside' energy into the room (and therefore a
couple's relationship if it is a marital bed), but can also have other
deleterious effects. It is thought by some that if a mirror is placed where it
can be seen from the bed, the spirit of a sleeping person, when it wanders out
of the body at night, may catch a glimpse of itself and give the person a rude
shock at the sight.
Mirrors can also be used in meditation, aura
reading, and in past life exploration. Staring into a mirror in a darkened room,
by the light of one or more candles, one can not only learn to see their
own aura, but can also experiment with images of transfiguration and access
past life information through the varying faces and characters that appear while
gazing into their own reflection.
And one of the scariest practices using a
mirror? That is the supernatural game Bloody Mary, an apparently popular 'dare'
game usually practised by teenagers. The idea is to summon the spirit of a
malevolent witch named Mary, who was burned at the stake in centuries past. The
usual format, although there are many variations on it, is for a group of young
people, usually girls, to go into a darkened bathroom, stare into the mirror,
and begin to chant, "Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary..." The chanting
begins in a whisper and gets louder with each repetition. Sometimes the
participants will spin around with each chant. Supposedly, the 13th repetition
of the phrase "Bloody Mary", a gory, blood-covered image of an old hag will
appear in the mirror.
This Bloody Mary mirror ritual may also relate
back to various forms of divination involving mirrors and darkness
that were traditionally performed as Hallowe'en or Friday the 13th
rituals. Such "mirror witch" games may have their roots in divining
rituals from hundreds of years ago, where young girls would scry or perform
magick, sometimes in darkened rooms and using a mirror, where they would hope to
catch a glimpse of their future husbands. If a skull appeared however, that
presaged a death before the wedding day.
Folklore says that in days of old, young
women wishing to know their future would walk up a flight of stairs backwards,
in a darkened house, holding a candle and a hand mirror. Gazing into the mirror
as they went, they were supposed to be able to catch a glimpse of their
husband-to-be's face.
The Bloody Mary game is obviously not recommended
by experts, especially for impressionable and suggestible teenagers. There are
plentiful stories of deaths and even insanity resulting from this practice, and
even if they are only urban legends, why invite hysteria and potential harm?
Personally, I feel if you really want to scare yourself silly with a mirror
game, wait until middle age and just count the wrinkles you see when you gaze at
your reflection ... believe me, shivers and chills are just about
guaranteed:>)
Zsuzsana Summer
www.arcanamatrix.com
(c)
2006
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