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Do you remember playing “Bloody Mary” when you were a child? You know, the game where you stared into a mirror and chanted the name of the blood-witch mentioned above three times, with the eminent risk that a devilish ghost would emerge from the reflective surface and rip your face off?
In all likelihood, you did play this game, but failed to see a bloody witch glaring back at you. Still, many have professed an interest in the legend of Bloody Mary over the years, variously referred to as Mary Worth, Hell Mary, Mary Jones, and a host of other names. According to Snopes.com, Bloody Mary research began around 1978 in an essay published by folklorist Janet Langlois, at which time belief in summoning the mirror-witch was still widespread. “Mary is summoned whenever squealing girls get together for a sleepover,” Snopes says. “We typically performed the ‘ritual’ in bathrooms, because the bathrooms of our suburban homes had large mirrors and were easily darkened even during the day since they had no windows.” Typically, when the Bloody Mary ritual is performed correctly, a murderous ghost is said to emerge from the mirror, often attacking the individual who summoned her.
There is indeed a bit of history associated with the notion that ghostly images appear in mirrored surfaces. One early 20th century rhyme featured on Halloween post cards read, “On Halloween look in the glass, your future husband’s face will pass” (see image at right). Although this reference certainly pre-dates Langlois’ 1978 research into the phenomenon, even earlier references to magical arts like mirror-gazing and the use of “shew stones” dates back to ancient Egypt, where black obsidian mirrors were sometimes used in the process of divination known as “scrying.”
According to Raymond Moody M.D., the ancient Greeks used a similar process with the specific intention of contacting the dead, which they called the psychomanteum. In modern times, this environment (sometimes called a “spirit booth”) is used in a fashion similar to that of the Ganzfeld Technique, in that it is a form of sensory deprivation (staring into the optical depth of a mirror in a darkened room). Moody says the effect that produces “apparitions” is purely psychological—but it also causes one to consider whether, if the appearance of the dead in psychological studies can be achieved, the same might have occurred in other, less formal situations.
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