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 “I looked in the mirror and what did I see…”

(The Kinks: Superman )

 In the Bible, the Book of Genesis says that God made man in his own image. Therefore when we look into a mirror do we merely see our own reflection, our doppelganger, or are we looking into the face of God? This may have been the starting point where religious teachers found the answer to be: that of course, one could not see the face of god, which relied on faith, but if “man” was made in his image, therefore one must surely be looking at the nearest thing possible: one’s own soul.

 There are areas of the world, including parts of the USA, Greece and Southern Ireland, where it was, and in some cases still is, the tradition that when there is a death in the house, all the mirrors in the household are covered until the body has been removed, so that the soul of the dead person will not be forever trapped there. There is also a belief that if a person was to look at the reflected image of the dead person in a mirror then they would see the face of the devil.

 The thought of the soul being seen in a mirror, would also explain why, in stories of vampires, the vampire does not have a reflection in a mirror. As the vampire is already dead it has no soul and therefore cannot have a reflection.

 

 “But strong of limb and swift of foot Misfortune is, and, far outstripping all, comes to every land, and there wreaks evil on mankind…..”

(Homer: The Iliad)

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 To break a mirror is to have seven years of misfortune and bad luck, is a widely held superstition.

There are a couple of reasons as to how this may have come about and became widely believed.

One offering is that in the 16th century when the art of making mirrors from glass was developed, the mirrors commanded such a high price that indeed breaking a mirror would probably take seven years of work to be able to afford to pay for another one.

The other reason goes back to the soul being held in the mirror. To break a mirror was to break or distort the soul. From this there are several interpretations as to how the bad luck came about. In some cultures the soul was trapped in the distorted world of the broken mirror. In others the soul was damaged by the mirror breaking. Some believed the soul renewed every seven years, others believed the body renewed every seven years. Thus which ever way you looked at it, it would take seven years of having a tormented soul or ill health until renewal.

But even broken mirrors have a silver lining, and for the unfortunate who suffered the mishap of a broken mirror there were remedies that could be resorted to that would remove the bad luck.

One such remedy would be to grind the pieces of the mirror down to a fine dust in order that, if there were no more reflecting pieces, the soul could not be trapped there.

Another remedy, offered to the poor soul that broke the mirror, would be to bury the pieces in the ground beneath a tree under the light of a full moon. Alternatively, tapping the broken mirror on a gravestone seven times would allow the soul to heal.

Apparently these could not be mixed. If the mirror was tapped on the gravestone and then buried, the luck would not decrease and therefore it would be necessary to dig up the mirror, grind it down and sprinkle it around the grave that was originally tapped upon.

A further remedy is one that has been attributed to the African slaves forced into working the American plantations. The belief was that the bad luck could be washed away and the soul cleansed by placing the pieces in the bed of a river or stream that flowed South.

 

 That which you behold is but the shadow of a reflected form and has no substance of its own. With you it comes, with you it gostays, and it will go with you …” (Ovid: Metamorphoses)

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 “Look into a mirror often enough and you will see the devil”

 No, this is not advice on where to go and find the devil. It was however probably religiously or morally based on warning young folk away from the “sin” of Vanity. The advice was meant to warn them away from self obsession; from constantly looking into the mirror for grooming or self admiration.

 In Greek mythology one person who should have heeded this advice was Narcissus, the son of the river god Cephisus and the nymph Liriope. Narcissus was a handsome young man who was loved by many of the nymphs but whose affections he spurned. One of them prayed “So may he himself love, and not gain the thing he loves!” This prayer was heard by Nemesis.

One day when he wanted to quench his thirst, Narcissus went to a pool to get a drink.

There in the clear still waters of the pool he saw his own reflection, which he stared deeply at and fell in love with. Since he could not gain the love that he felt, he pined away staring into the pool and died there.

When the nymphs heard of this and went to the pool there was no body to be found at the spot, just the flower that now bears his name.

 

“Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary.”
(Trad)

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 To some the mirror is seen as a portal through which good or evil may pass.

 An example of good that immediately springs to mind is Lewis Carroll’s Alice through the Looking Glass

 However there is another side. Through the cinema or DVDs most people will have heard of The Candyman,a film about a group of young people calling up the murderous Candyman by repeating his name in a mirror only to be horribly struck down by his hooked hand.

This is based on the earlier legend of Bloody Mary.

In Spooky Pennsylvaniaby S.E. Schlosser, he tells the story of a witch who lived in a wood in rural America. The witch, who became known by the villagers as Bloody Mary, was found to be killing the young girls of the village and taking their blood to rejuvenate herself.

She was caught and burned at the stake. In her death throes she uttered a curse – that anyone who looked into a darkened mirror and called out her name would die in torment.

“From that day to this, anyone foolish enough to chant Bloody Mary’s name three times before a darkened mirror will summon the vengeful spirit of the witch. It is said that she will tear their bodies to pieces and rip their souls from their mutilated bodies. The souls of these unfortunate ones will burn in torment as Bloody Mary once was burned, and they will be trapped forever in the mirror.”

 

 “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?”
(Attributed to the Brothers Grimm)

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 I am sure we know of the wicked stepmother in “Snow White” calling up the spirit in the mirror to reassure herself of her own fair looks. But there is a term that is used to describe the use of the mirror in this way. It is “scrying”.

In its basic form is the superstition that a young woman will see her future husband if she concentrates and asks the question whilst combing her hair in the mirror by candlelight at midnight.

 In its more advanced form the favoured tool of the user, usually a “witch”, is the black mirror.

In her article Seeing Into DarknessScrying Using the Black Mirrorby Katlyn Breene, she states:

 “The following excerpt comes from a book-length work on scrying and magick mirrors.

The black scrying mirror, or magick mirror, is a powerful psychic tool. It can bring the user hidden knowledge and clairvoyant ability and can act as a portal to other planes of existence. History shows its use in many of the traditional mystery schools and oracular temples. Today the serious student of magickal arts can rediscover the ancient rites of the magick mirror, for these techniques are again coming to light.”

 Further she states its uses:

“To contact spirit guides

To access knowledge

For healing and self improvement

As a magickal transmitter and receiver

For divining the past, present and future

As a portal to the astral plane

For shamanic journeying

For ritual invocation and evocation

To improve visualization skills “ 

 

 “…imagination is stronger than knowledge – myth is more potent than history…”
(Robert Fulghum)

For a better understanding of the points made here, perhaps we need to go back beyond the invention of the glass mirror. Perhaps as far back as the Iron Age and beyond.

The dark waters of peat bogs have a very high reflective quality.  The blackness of the peat gives the surface of the water mirror like qualities and looking into it must have made the reflected sky look like a view of another world. It is here, that across North Western Europe, discoveries are being made of extremely well preserved bodies and artefacts that are almost universally being accepted as forming parts of offerings and ritualistic sacrifice. Pottery, tools, axes, jewellery, coins, and human bodies were sacrificed in the bogs to honour pagan gods.

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These waters were perhaps seen as being an “entrance” to the underworld; a doorway to the gods. Perhaps this is where the beliefs of the reflected image containing the soul originated: the black waters of the bog lying beneath containing the unknown and perhaps something to fear and be wary of.

 

 

Also by C. Jordan:

The Mystery of The Doll That Grew Old in The Attic

The Mystery of the Screaming Man

In the Shadow of Jack the Ripper: The Lambeth Poisoner