Many in the
world still do believe that you should cover a mirror if someone
dies in a room and their image is reflected in a mirror. As
they believe that the mirror will capture the dead person’s
soul, thus preventing its entry into heaven. Some old passed
down oral traditions state that the Devil invented mirrors for
this specific purpose.
THE GHOST IN
THE MIRROR
Look into any mirror ... Do
you see a ghost? Or does a real ghost see you? Invisible and
watching you from the other side in it's backwards world.
Many old mirrors thick and old and silver back stained are
said to be haunted by the ghosts of those that died. their
image forever frozen or trapped in the glass. Some recent
stories on eBay tell of people selling their antique mirrors
that were either bought or passed down the generations in
their familes and said to be very haunted . It is said by
some that if a ghost or lost soul wanders your home during
the night, a mirror can capture it. An old New Orleans Voodoo
way to capture a ghost was to put a large standing mirror
in your bedroom door way. When the ghost thinking it is a
door enters the mirror it is forever trapped in the rooms
that were reflected in it when caught not the real rooms.
Bloody Mary The Face In The Mirror
A urban legend of sorts states: If you go into the bathroom
and look into the mirror with the lights off and the room
completely black, and then say 'Bloody Mary' thirteen times,
a woman will appear and scratch your face off. The research
into Bloody Mary goes back to 1978, when folklorist Janet
Langlois published her essay on the legend. Belief in summoning
the mirror-witch was even at that time widespread throughout
the U.S.
Mary is summoned whenever young teen aged girls get together
for a sleepover, but boys have been known to call on her too.
The 'Bloody Mary' legend was common in the early 1970s. Typically
performed the "ritual" in bathrooms, because the
bathrooms of suburban homes had large mirrors and were easily
darkened even during the day since they had no windows. In
latter years after the release of the movie Clive Barker's
Candyman (1992) calling upon him became more popular. Many
do believe the Candyman's Movies premise is based on fact
and try summoning him even today.
Helen Lyle is a student who decides to write a thesis about
local legends and myths. She visits a part of the town, where
she learns about the legend of Cabrini Green and the Candyman,
a one-armed man with a hook who appears to you in your bathroom
when you say his name five times, in front of a mirror. Of
course, Helen doesn't believe all this stuff, but the people
of the area are really afraid. When she ignores their warnings
and begins her investigation in the places that he is rumored
to appear, a series of horrible murders begins.
In the 1998 movie Urban Legend, two co-eds try to summon
an evil spirit by chanting 'Bloody Mary.' In an episode of
television's The X Files ("Syzygy," original air
date 26 January 1996), two teenage girls lure a rival for
a boy's affections into the bathroom — and a "Bloody
Mary" ritual — during a birthday party. They prevent
her from leaving the bathroom, and the camera cuts to the
rest of the partygoers downstairs, who hear a crash of breaking
glass and a scream.
Mirror ... Mirror on the wall
you make my skin creep and crawl. Whose the ghost that resides
within... The spirts of the dead the lost or my next of kin!
Fear of mirrors probably arose
from the time when the first humans saw their reflections in
a pool of water and once they had got over their initial shock
of seeing someone or something, believed that the image was
their soul or spirit and to endanger it would mean risking injury
to the other self. Also since ancient times, mirrors were said
to have magical powers, including the power to foretell the
future and were considered to be devices of the gods. Thus breaking
a mirror would end its powers and bring untold miseries and
misfortunes upon the one whose reflection it last held. Or even
damning a trapped spirit to a hell that only the Devil himself
knew exisited.
All is Vanity Charles Allan
Gilbert, American Illustrator, 1873 - 1929.
The Vanity is considered by many to be one of the finest
optical illusions ever conceived. Reproductions of this illusion
continue to be popular more than 100 years after the drawing
first appeared in print.
The painting is an ambiguous illusion with an
allegorical theme, as the title suggests. The two aspects become
clear as you study the figure. It can be seen as either, a beautiful
girl gazing at her reflection in a large mirror; or the scene
can be realized as a grinning human skull. The girl's two heads
make up the eye sockets of the skull, her vanity items, and
an embroidered table cloth form the teeth and jaws.
The reason for the popularity of the artwork
is clear; stunning realism, style, and exquisite detail performed
flawlessly by a master illustrator. Charles Gilbert learned
his amazing style in New York, and Paris.
Mirrors are the perfect example of an everyday household
furnishing attached with countless superstitions. Probably
the most common belief concerning mirrors is that their breakage
causes seven years of bad luck. But does Breaking a mirror
with a real ghost locked in it set it free to haunt you? Consider
this: Was the ghost trapped their on his own or placed their
by some force to trap it to save others from the haunting
the ghost could cause? In New Orleans Voodoosit are said to
use a grand spell to capture household haunting ghosts in
Zombie bottles or large mirrors. The mirrors which render
the ghost harmless only to haunt the world that is reflected
in the mirror. Not the Real world we live in. One custom unique
to New Orleams voodoo is to watch ( particualrly if it is
a bad or evil spirit or ghost) wander into a room or door
way reflected in the mirror then to smash it trapping the
ghost forever to roam into a different eternity and not haunt
your house any longer. And to tell if a old mirror given to
you or purchased is haunted place to tall white candles no
further then 12 inches apart . Do this at midnight. Focus
your eyes at the space between the two candles if it is haunted
you will see the ghost!
STROZZI, Bernardo
(b. 1581, Genova, d. 1644, Venezia) Old Woman at the Mirror
c. 1615
Oil on canvas, 132 x 108 cm
Pushkin Museum, Moscow
The theme of this painting
has a long tradition: the old woman who has not learned to give
her life any other meaning but that of ornament and vanity,
and who is unable to see the truth or recognize her true self
in the mirror. Strozzi's formulation, however, is both individual
and new. It makes the most of the surface values, deliberately
contrasting the wrinkled skin of the old woman with the fresh
complexion of her servant and juxtaposing the firm and rounded
forms of youth with the withered slackness of old age. He reveals
in the mirror that the old woman's red cheeks are painted with
rouge, and he places a blossoming, scented rose in her wrinkled
hand. He also shows us the uncriticizing complacency on her
face, leaving it up to the spectator to deduce a sense of embarrassment,
emptiness, transparent illusion and moral warning.
What
to do when you break a Ghost Haunted mirror!?!
Go
to the nearest Haunted Cemetery place a piece
of the mirror on a grave or on top of a tomb
or headstone and the hex will be lifted right
away.
Directly
after breaking the mirror, turn around three
times counterclockwise. Then three time clockwise.
Go to a church and get holy water and bless
the spot where it broke. And say aloud 9 times:
"Spirit
,specter, ghoul, or ghost, Fear now the power
of God and his blessed Host! Flee this spot
where you were fallen and set free, and in your
eternal rest you shall ever be!"
On the first night after breaking the mirror,
light a blessed white candle on the spot where
it fell.
Although
viewed with suspicion by some, it is generally
said that having a large number of Haunted mirrors
around you is lucky. This is probably because
it reflects your home and puts many ghosts walking
through the reflected rooms
The
Haunted mirror is symbolic among other things,
when hung in a litchen or dining room. Hang
one beside the table in the dining room or kitchen
to attract wealth and food to the home.
No
new mirror should be hung in the room a person
has died in for 16 months after. And it should
be a new mirror not one from another room that
once caught their reflection.
Dining
room and kitchen mirrors feed hungry ghosts
or Voodoo Spirits. The reason is the beilef
that the ghost eat the reflected food set out
before them. Some cultures say this form of
dumb supper taken from the southern style Marie
Laveau Hoodoo Voodoo traditions. This works
better in communicating with a ghosts and Spirits
or Loa's that expect to be fed. And often the
Ghosts will not be apeased until a banquet is
set out before them.
If
you see people you know who have died in your
mirror but they have never been reflected in
it until then. They are trying to warn you of
something. Be carefull and ask for a message
aloud at midnight. They will answer!
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As for the seven-year period, the ancient Romans believed
that life renewed itself every seven years. If the person
looking into the mirror were of ill health, their image would
break the mirror and the run of bad luck would continue for
seven years, at the end of which their life would be renewed,
ending the curse.
But if you do not wish seven years of ill-luck, a variety
of remedies are available to counter the curse of the mirror,
including some crazy ones like taking all the pieces and throwing
them into running water or pounding the broken mirror into
tiny fragments so that no piece can reflect anything ever
again or taking the pieces outside & burying them in moonlight.
There is also help for those who are too lazy or too busy,
just leave the breakage the way it was for seven hours and
then clean it up immediately after the hours are up.
In Greek mythology, the hero Perseus killed
Medusa by using a mirrored shield so as not to gaze upon her
monstrous appearance (she turned anyone who looked at her to
stone.)
In English literature, a famous example is Lewis Carroll's
Through the Looking Glass, in which protagonist Alice uses
a mirror as a portal to a strange alternate world.
A common use is that of scrying with a mirror. In Canterbury
Tales, "The Squire's Tale" describes a magical mirror
that can look over a king's realm; similarly, in The Faerie
Queene, Merlin enchants a mirror to have this power. Another
example, from the German tales of the brothers Grimm, is Snow
White, in which the Wicked Queen consults a magic mirror to
determine the identity of the most beautiful woman in the
world; this mirror is capable of scrying the forest and finding
Snow White. In modern fantasy, the mirror of Galadriel, in
J.R.R. Tolkien's fictional universe of Middle-earth, shows
things that were, and things that are, and things that yet
may be.
Mirrors, along with labyrinths, figure prominently in the
work of Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges, who often used
them as symbols of infinity, impersonation, and illusion.
In Dreamtigers, he writes of fearing that his reflection would
move independently or change shape before his eyes. In Tlön,
Uqbar, Orbis Tertius, a fictional heresiarch declares that
"mirrors and copulation are abominable, since they both
multiply the numbers of men."
Similarly, Edgar Allan Poe expresses an aversion to mirrors
in The Philosophy of Furniture:
Regarded apart from its reflection, the mirror presents a
continuous, flat, colourless, unrelieved surface, –
a thing always and obviously unpleasant. Considered as a reflector,
it is potent in producing a monstrous and odious uniformity:
and the evil is here aggravated, not in merely direct proportion
with the augmentation of its sources, but in a ratio constantly
increasing. In fact, a room with four or five mirrors arranged
at random, is, for all purposes of artistic show, a room of
no shape at all. If we add to this evil, the attendant glitter
upon glitter, we have a perfect farrago of discordant and
displeasing effects.
In the Harry Potter series of novels, the Mirror of Erised
is a magic mirror that reflects its viewer, not physically,
but representing the viewer's deepest desires. Also featured
in the series is a type of device (a dark detector) that functions
as a mirror, depicting not only the gazer but also a number
of shadowy figures in the background; they are enemies and
their proximity to the viewer represents their imminent threat.
In Bram Stoker's Dracula the count (Dracula) has no reflection
in a mirror (and no shadow).
In Kurt Vonnegut's Breakfast of Champions, Kilgore Trout
calls mirrors "leaks," and tells people he believes
they lead to other worlds. He often tells people that where
he is from "taking a leak" means stealing a mirror.
Venus Effect
The Venus effect is a phenomenon in the psychology
of perception, named after Diego Velázquez's painting
The Rokeby Venus. Viewers of the painting assume that Venus
is admiring her own reflection in the mirror. However, since
the viewer sees her face in the mirror, Venus would actually
be looking at the viewer, not at herself.
La Venus
del espejo, also known as The Rokeby Venus, is a painting
by Diego Velázquez in the National Gallery, London.
It dates from 1644 to 1648.
In the painting the goddess Venus is depicted lying on
a bed, looking into a mirror held up by Cupid. The face
reflected in the dimmed mirror appears to be that of an
older woman, which has long intrigued experts. Some think
it is a commentary on the vanity of beauty which is transitory
due to aging. Some think the face in the mirror was over-painted
by another artist at a later time. Another explanation
is that the face is not aged, merely out of focus, a sharper
face would distract our immediate attention from the form
of Venus. By seeing the nude first, and the face afterwards,
we are "caught" in voyeurism. The face in the
mirror is also substantially larger than it should be,
and the mirror is angled such that, in reality, it would
reflect a different part of the goddess's body.
The painting is unique for being the only surviving female
nude by Velázquez, and one of only two such paintings
in all of 17th-century Spanish art, which was often censored
by the Spanish Inquisition. It was revolutionary for its
depiction of the nude female form with its back facing
the viewer. The composition has only three main colours:
red, white and grey, which include the pigment of Venus's
skin. |
This psychological "trick" is often used in the
cinema, where an actor will be shown apparently looking at
himself in the mirror, with the camera just out of shot. In
fact, the actor will be looking at the camera and just be
pretending to see himself in the mirror.
The difference in relative sizes of the real face and the
reflected face makes it possible to estimate the distance
the viewer was from the object when they formed the image.
In Gaston Leroux's novel The Phantom of the Opera Erik (the
Phantom) uses a revolving room of mirrors to torment his captives.
Erik also hides behind a one way mirror when teaching Christine
how to sing. In Erik's lair all of the mirrors are hidden
behind curtains as Erik is afraid of his own face. At the
end of the film of The Phantom of the Opera the Phantom breaks
out of his solitude by smashing a mirror and entering an underground
tunnel.
Mirrors appear in the Bhagavad Gita (3.38): As fire is covered
by smoke, as a mirror is covered by dust, or as the embryo
is covered by the womb, similarly, the living entity is covered
by different degrees of this lust.
In Chinese Literature, the novel Dream of the Red Chamber,
a Taoist monk has a two sided mirror that is capable of reflecting
truth from the main screen, while the back screen shows the
distorted truth.
In most fantasy stories and games, mirrors are often items
that have great magical power, such as being able to oversee
the activities of others in locations far away, being gateways
to other realms or its most common application of being used
to redirect an opponent's attack back at them.
Mirrors, typically large and unframed, are frequently used
in interior decoration to create an illusion of space, and
amplify the apparent size of a room.
The softness of old mirrors is sometimes replicated by contemporary
artisans for use in interior design. These reproduction antiqued
mirrors are works of art and can bring color and texture to
an otherwise hard, cold reflective surface. It is an artistic
process that has been attempted by many and perfected by few.
Ghost And Mirror Superstitions
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Never look into a mirror by candlelight, it may show
you a very haunted version of your home.
If you stare into a mirror between two tall white candles
you might see the spirit of a loved one who has passed
away. And their soul is stuck in your mirror.
Always cover a haunted mirror during a thunderstorm lightning
will release the ghosts.
It is considered a bad omen to receive a mirror from a
deceased persons home as a present.
If a mirror in the house falls and breaks on its own,
A evil ghost is trying to escape it's mirror prision.
A baby should never be shown its own reflection before
it is a year old, else it will stutter or grow no bigger
than it is or die before it turns one.
Many families cover a mirror if someone dies, as they
believe that the mirror will capture the dead person’s
soul, thus preventing its entry into heaven. When a person
is bad in life many say let them be trapped in mirror
it is better then going to Hell!
And if someone sees their reflection in a mirror from
a room where someone has recently died, they will die
soon too.
It is said that if ghost wanders your home during the
night, a mirror can capture it.
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Early mirrors were often little more than a
sheet of polished metal, often silver or copper, for example
the Aranmula kannadi. Most modern mirrors consist of a thin
layer of aluminium deposited on a sheet of glass. This layer
is called the Tain. They are back silvered, where the reflecting
surface is viewed through the glass sheet; this makes the mirror
durable, but lowers the image quality of the mirror due to extraneous
reflections from the front surface of the glass (ordinary glass
typically reflects around 4% of the light). This type of mirror
reflects about 80% of the incident light. The "back side"
of the mirror is often painted or coated in some way to completely
seal the metal from corrosion.
Mirrors for precision optical applications are more likely
to have the reflective coating on the front surface of the
mirror, to eliminate reflection from the glass. Metal films
on the front surface are generally covered with a thin, transparent
coating to protect them from corrosion. This is often made
of silica. In some cases this coating may also enhance reflectivity.
The Devil's
Looking Glass
A mirror is an object with a surface that has
good specular reflection; that is, it is smooth enough to form
an image. The most familiar type of mirror is the plane mirror,
which has a flat surface. Curved mirrors are also used, to produce
magnified or demagnified images or focus light.
Mirrors are most commonly used for personal grooming, decoration,
and architecture. Mirrors are also used in scientific apparatus
such as telescopes and lasers, cameras, and industrial machinery.
Most mirrors are designed for visible light, however, mirrors
designed for other wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation
are also used, especially in optical instruments.
Magic Mirrors They bring
bad luck The help tell the future. Before mirrors came along,
any reflective surface was considered to be magical and credited
with the ability to look into the future. In ancient mythology
we can often find the gods and goddesses, as well as mere mortals,
looking into the still water to catch a glimpse of their fate.
The power of reflective surfaces to captivate and deceive are
also featured strongly in such myths as Narcissusand Snow White.
Reflective surfaces like shiny metals and mirrors were also
used to receive messages from the gods.
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Hathor was
the Ancient Egyptian Sky Goddess of joy, love, music and
dance and protector of women. In the ancient world she promised
good husbands and wives to all who asked her. She appears
in statues and on tombs, wearing a sun disk held between
the horns of a cow as a crown. Hathor was allowed to see
through the sacred eye of her father/consort Ra. In this
way, she had knowledge of everything on the earth, in the
sea and in the heavens and the thoughts as well as the deeds
of humankind. Hathor also carried a shield that could reflect
back all things in their true light. |
Queen Elizabeth's court magician and
well-known alchemist, John Dee, used a mirror for scrying.
He has been credited with prophesying the plot to kill King
James in 1605.
Because mirrors were
thought to hold the key to the future, to break one was to shatter
your own future. One of the techniques devised to reverse the
bad luck was to bury all the pieces deep within the earth. Another
superstition for breaking a mirror was that shortly thereafter
a family member would die.
Main
Museum Entrance
Can inanimate objects
such as Mirrors, paintings, a doll or a pile of human bones
be really haunted? Strange images appear in haunted paintings,
Skulls are said to scream and strange looking items disturb
us. Some spend the day browsing through but would you spend
the Night at the Museum?
"Real
ghost photos - real ghost stories." you decide!
Come with us now and
take a haunted tour of this virtual online haunted collection
of the worlds most haunted collection of the strange and
unexplained. Free Admission too!
SOME
PEOPLE HAVE REPORTED DISTURBING REACTIONS UPON VIEWING THESE
PHOTOS SO BE FOREWARNED.
At times some of our galleries may be closed
for renovations or additions so check back often to see
what's new. The Online Haunted Museum also features some
exhibits that might just disappear at a moments notice.
Because it's haunted here as you well so soon will come
to know.
NOT ALL
OF OUR HAUNTED EXHIBIT PAGES ARE UP YET SO PARDON THE DUST.
The
Haunted Museum Store Is Also Now Open for Business New Items
Added Daily Please Visit it here.
BE SURE
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SOON!
MAIN HAUNTED EXHIBITS TOUR
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Editors. All effort has been taken to maintain correct information
at the time it was written. Some material may be dated and
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guidance is suggested since it will be quite dark with sights
and spooky sounds.
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