Some versions say that if you chant her name thirteen times at midnight into a mirror she will appear and you can talk to a
deceased person until 12:01, when Bloody Mary and the dead person you asked to speak to will vanish. Other variations say that the querent must not look directly at her, but at her image in the mirror; she will then reveal the querent's future, particularly concerning marriage and children.
[2]
Divination rituals such as the one depicted on this early 20th century
Halloween greeting card, where a woman stares into a mirror in a darkened room to catch a glimpse of the face of her future husband, while a witch lurks in the shadows, may be one origin of the Bloody Mary legend.
Bloody Mary Worth is typically described as a child-murderer who lived in the local city where the legend has taken root years ago. There is often a specific local graveyard or tombstone that becomes attached to the legend.
On the other hand, various people have surmised that the lore about taunting Bloody Mary about her baby may relate her tenuously to folklore about Queen Mary I, known in history by the sobriquet "Bloody Mary".[3][1] The queen's life was marked by a number of miscarriages or false pregnancies. Had Mary I successfully borne a child, this would have established a Roman Catholic succession in the English monarchy and episcopacy and threatened the continuance of her religious persecutions after her death. Speculation exists that the miscarriages were deliberately induced. As a result, some retellings of the tale make Bloody Mary the queen driven to madness by the loss of her children.[4] It is likely, however, that Queen Mary I provided only her nickname to the Bloody Mary of folklore. She is also confused in some tellings of the story with Mary Queen of Scots.
The mirror ritual by which Bloody Mary is summoned may also relate to a form of divination involving mirrors and darkness that was once performed on Halloween. While as with any sort of folklore the details may vary, this particular tale encouraged young women to walk up a flight of stairs backwards, holding a candle and a hand mirror, in a darkened house. As they gazed into the mirror, they were supposed to be able to catch a view of their future husband's face. There was, however, a chance that they would see the skull-face of the Grim Reaper instead; this meant, of course, that they were destined to die before they married.[5]
The Venus effect is a phenomenon in the psychology of perception, named after Diego Velázquez's painting 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. [1]
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.[2]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anamorphosis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_mirror
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_mirror
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beamsplitters
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silvering
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_writing
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_armour
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-way_mirror
http://www.ghosts.org/faq/bloodymary2.html
http://www.ghosts.org/faq/bloodymary3.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pepper%27s_ghost
http://www.widdershins.org/vol7iss5/02.htm
http://www.castleofspirits.com/stories05/inthemirror.html
http://www.castleofspirits.com/shadowmirror.html
http://www.yourghoststories.com/real-ghost-story.php?story=2014
http://www.yourghoststories.com/real-ghost-story.php?story=2150
http://paganwiccan.about.com/od/samhainoctober31/p/Dumb_Supper.htm
http://www.sunfell.com/silent.htm
http://jonathanturley.org/2009/01/08/the-dumb-supper-abridged-eighth-circuit-upholds-restriction-of-prison-wiccan-ceremonies-to-three-hours/
http://www.thelemapedia.org/index.php/Personalities_in_Thelema
http://sm-feminist.blogspot.com/2008/01/scarloet-women-feminism-and-aleister.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babalon
http://www.thelemapedia.org/index.php/Helena_Blavatsky
http://www.thelemapedia.org/index.php/The_Gnostic_Saints