#morrors

Mirrors

In some cultures mirrors are thought to have the power to capture and trap souls. In Serbo-Croatian cultures mirrors were often buried with the dead to trap the deceased soul to prevent it from wandering the Earth. Similar customs were also practiced in Bulgaria. Some cultures reportedly even cover mirrors during sleep or illness to prevent souls from becoming trapped in them if it would leave the body and roam.

Not surprisingly with the mirror’s reputation as being a soul stealer, the soulless vampire is often reported to not have a reflection in one.

When mirrors with trapped souls move to new homes, they are often blamed as the origin of hauntings. For example, this story about a couple of Londoners who picked a mirror out of the trash and moved it into their flat. They both then began to experience odd pains, depression, and one even reported awakening with deep scratches on his body. Rather than throw the mirror out, the pair opted to list the haunted mirror on eBay. You can still read the description for the auction online. Was this story a sales tactic? Maybe, but it is similar to hundreds of other haunted mirror stories.

It is also impossible to write a story about ghosts and mirrors without bringing up Bloody Mary, so consider this sentence to be the obligatory mention. Now, moving on…

Among the frequent ghostly mirror encounters are shadow people. Shadow people are those dark masses, often humanoid shaped, seemingly made up of a dense static material. Unlike traditional ghosts, light doesn’t even pass through their dense makeup. For that reason, some don’t even classify them as true ghosts because of these unique characteristics. Many stories involving shadow people also begin with a sighting in a mirror.

Mirrors are even used in divination. Catoptromancy and enoptromancy are practices in which mirrors are used to capture the reflection of the moon for the purposes of seeing the future. In cataptromancy, writing would appear in blood on the reflection of the moon. Ancient Greek texts even refer to practices similar this, in which a mirror tied to a string would be hung adjacent to a basin of water while the practitioner prayed to a particular god before gazing into the rig for answers.