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Midnight / Candle / Mirror Myth & Bloody Mary Game

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Anonymous

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Interestingly, mirrors have been used for a long time for magical ends. Most recently a magical group known as the Order of Astarte used a mixture of mirrors and hypnotism to 'evoke demons' (which they see as aspects of our unconscious minds). If I remember correctly there is a practice in India which involves using two candles on either side of a mirror and staring at your face to see your past incarnations. Then of course there's the "Bloody Mary" game.

Yrs.,
D.S.Sh.
 
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ahh yes, i have heard of the bloody mary game.
has anyone ever tried it?
 
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As for Mary Worth/Bloody Mary, she's clearly the origin of the Candyman; I know a guy who grew up in the same bit of Liverpool as Clive Barker and he clearly remembers this being popular.

Why is she 'Mary Worth' in America, though?
 
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What's the 'Bloody Mary Game' ?
 
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aah!! The ol 'Bloody Mary' game!! What a barrel of fun and laughs it is *note the sarcasm*
It's mostly a girl's game (which might be why you've never heard of it, Myke!). The story goes like this: Some teenage girls light some candles on some windswpt, dark, danky night and take turns in daring each other to go into the bathroom alone and call forth Bloody Mary from the mirror. Sometimes she appears as a disembodied head alone, and sometimes she appears to rip out our eyes and take them for her own. For a fully detailed description checkout this site
If anyone has the guts to try it out, let me know!!!
 
Thanks for explaining that...I doubt I'll be attempting it though!
 
Ok, I'll invite a few friends (female of course) and try this game out... I'm a bit skeptical of it as I know all about eye tricks and so on forth, and also, I have glasses..

BTW, very interesting webpage. Thinking very hard about doing it to my darling younger brother... watch him run from the bathroom screaming... :D (he spends more time in the bathroom showing off in front of the mirror so thus always makes me late for school or a party... sweet revenge sweet!)

Cheers!!!!!

P.s. of course I'll try it out before my brother (aged 14) and if its too scary for someone as arrogrant as my brother, then I won't tell him...
:eek:
 
i thought you had to spin 10 times each time saying bloody mary and then she would apear or something... all i know is that there are some things better to be left alone
 
Where is the Bloody Mary site? It's not on the post recommending it.

I would like to view the site. It's one of those things that I think is complete arse but would never do, just in case I'm wrong.
 
what's the bloody mary game/legend? haven't heard it, at least not by that name.
 
Bloody Mary Game

When I was a kid and a whole bunch of other kids I know played this, too. They stand in front of a mirror and turn the lights down or almost off altogether. You stand infront of the mirror and say, "bloody mary" three times. After the third "bloody mary" you're supposed to see bloody mary in the mirror. It's an urban legend -- very few kids ever get to the third "bloody mary" because they (and me, too, when I was a kid) got too terrified by the end of the third one. No one I know has ever said it the three times and stayed to look into the mirror. There are many possible outcomes, according to this legend. Some stories go that the person who said it carves up their own face with the broken mirror (and the bloody mary they see in the mirror is their own reflection). In some other parts of the US, people think you're supposed to see the virgin mary but bloody. Some other versions of the urban legend says that you'll see some girl who was murdered by a serial killer in the mirror. In Asia, there's a version that says that if you peel an apple in front of the mirror in a room lit by a candle, you'll see your future husband (and the story goes that some girl didn't like what she saw in the mirror and stabbed the guy in the mirror and she met him 20 years later and there was a stab wound on his leg). But it's believable when you're a kid because I think the ambiance (low lighting) and the mirror and your friends around you (who dared you to do it in the first place) are getting ready to dash out of the room. There are stories around about people that have seen it but I think it might be a story used by older kids to scare younger kids. Check it out sometime when you're bored and just feel like reading on some urban legend sites -- there's a lot about it and it's interesting as a childhood social phenomenon.
 
The version I heard, you had to hold a candle in each hand at midnight, look into the mirror and say "bloody mary" 3 times.
If you did a hand would come out and scratch your face.

Az
 
has anyone on here done the bloody mary thing? ive just done it and nothing happened, im quite let down now

cas
 
I was too chicken to look in the mirror after the last bloody mary. Me and everyone else just booked it out of the room after the last one. No one I've known has looked in the mirror after the last one -- at the time, it was just fun to get all scared with your friends.

I've never read the thing by Moody. I'll read up on it. I'm guessing that there were a number of ways Moody could've tested his hypothesis. Did the stuff you read entail why he specifically chose the mirror -- what (innate) significance does the mirror have on the psyche? (Why I ask is because I have this phobia of mirrors sometimes and at other times, I'm cool with them).
 
In my friends school they had a local bloody mary type legend. It was based on the fact the school was supposed to have been haunted by Lady Doughty who had fallen to her death from the playground on the school roof. If you said her name five times to the mirror in the school toilets she was supposed to appear.
 
About mirrors...At my grade school, rumor held that on a Friday the 13th, if you went into the ladies' room in the church basement, turned off the lights and counted to 13, you would see a glowing skull. No one ever made it past 12. Another pajama party activity was to stand on front of a miror in the dark and say, "Bloody Mary, I have your baby," three times. Ostensibly, Bloody Mary would appear, looking for her baby. Same theme in the Candyman movie.
 
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About 1984 I can remember my friend telling me (we were only about 8 at the time) that if you sit infront of a mirror with no light except a candle and brush your hair, you can see what you will look like when you're older. I almost tried it but got scared and couldn't go through with it.
I just asked my husband if he ever heard of such a thing, and he told me that probably around the same time (and area - North London) he heard that if you looked in a mirror at midnight with a candle burning you would see your true love. And if you rang a bell under these circumstances you would see the devil!
He says he tried it and he just saw himself, so it worked for him:p
I've never heard anything of it since really.
But I'd be interested to find out more about where this came from, does anyone know? And has anyone tried any of them?
 
I tried this once, mirror candle, but it wasnt at midnight. I stared hard at my reflection for minutes on end, not looking away, just blinking now and then. In the end I thought I looked quite like a gorilla. (Some might say this isnt a great leap of the imagination)
 
I heard the myth that if you look into 2 mirrors faceing each other at midnight on friday the 13th that the devil is suposed to apear, it is not spesific on weather that is at the exact start of friday the 13th or the end.
 
Stuff like this regularly makes the rounds in school. When I was there you had to switch all the lights off in the house and close all the doors, stand between two mirrors and light a candle and some entity (devil/skeleton/candyman) would appear.
 
Is it a variation of the whole Bloody Mary UL, where you say her name in amirror three times and she appears?
 
In the version I heard at school, you were supposed to stand in front of the mirror and recite the lord's parayer backwards, then the devil would appear:eek:

The hair brushing aspect of zeke's version is interesting, in some banshee manifestations the banshee is seen brushing her hair, and this imagery comes up in Japanese version of Ring too (no idea if that's a native belief or something the director imported?)

I wonder if that's something that crept into the UL from folklore, or just a mundane activity that's been introduced to try and make the story spookier.
 
There are lots of variations, often involving reflective surfaces, on magic rituals that will let you see your future husband/wife. They're typically practiced on midsummer night or Halloween or some other festive occasion when you get to stay up late. Methods of seeing how you'll look when you're older are more unusual, but may reflect the concerns of 8-year-olds as opposed to the teen-agers who traditionally do the who-will-I-marry rituals.

Although, we were in upper elementary school when we routinely recited the alphabet while twisting an apple stem to find out the initial of the man we'd marry. Mine always came off on G, and the man I married has the last name of Griffin, so there you go.

Mirrors are universally regarded as spooky - see numerous other threads on this board, such as "What Was It?" - and they appear in all sorts of rituals. This is helped by the fact that you can get plenty of strange visual effects with a dim light and a mirror, even before you get into ritualistic elements like brushing your hair or rubbing your eyes (which was how we guaranteed we'd see Bloody Mary at Girl Scout camp). Mirrors are often used as wwindow areas in fiction - *Through the Looking Glass* being only one of many - so we're all primed and receptive when facing a mirror in the dark.

None of which means the rituals don't work!
 
I'm enjoying hearing all these variants. I'm surprised as before I mentioned it to hubby I guess I thought it had been something my friend "made up", as kids so often seem to do.
I can guess how these rituals may seem to work as the flickering candle and shadow probably can cause quite an illusion(?) I just wonder what group of people started practicing them?

And yes mirrors definately have their spooky element. I've always had a problem looking in them after dark, as I always expect to see something there other than me:eek: probably as a result of too many horror flicks. But after reading some of the stuff on the boards these last few weeks, it's gotten so much worse and is freaking me out nonstop! As are windows after dark. I also can't bare for anyone else to see me look in a mirror and avoid that at all costs..but maybe that's to do with not appearing to be vain or something.
 
I tried this once, mirror candle, but it wasnt at midnight. I stared hard at my reflection for minutes on end, not looking away, just blinking now and then. In the end I thought I looked quite like a gorilla. (Some might say this isnt a great leap of the imagination)
Click to expand...

I would definitely classify staring into a mirror for minutes at a time as one of the most rigorous and intense experiences in which a person can participate. There's this point right after your base narcissism ends and weirdness begins where your face breaks down into basic light and dark shapes, then it disappears, and it's just your eyes staring at you, floating in space. It's almost hypnotic, and definitely meditative. Freaky stuff.
 
Mary in the Mirror

I don't know if this is the right place for this....


did anyone in their childhood have an urban myth kind of story called "Mary in the Mirror"

It involved reciting "bloody Mary" 13 times into a bathroom mirror, with door locked, just you in room, lights off and lit by candles, apparently you turn around 13 times and look straight into the mirror and this old womans face, half burnt off stares back at you and does things....

Like summoning a spirirt I guess.

Did anyone do this or remember it. One of my friends swears she did this on her own and saw a face, she couldn't open the door in her panic, another girl in my school went all wierd and repressed after she tried it, saying the face came out of the mirror and screamed at her :shock:

It could be all in the mind, but what do you think. Btw I have never tried it, never will and I don't suggest anyone does it either just incase :?

AC x
 
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