Bloody Mary is a legend of a ghost, phantom, witch, or spirit conjured to reveal the future. She is said to appear in a mirror when her name is chanted repeatedly. The Bloody Mary apparition may be benevolent or malevolent, depending on historical variations of the legend. Bloody Mary appearances are mostly witnessed in group participation play.
Ritual
Historically, the divination ritual encouraged young women to walk up a flight of stairs backward, 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 a skull (or the face of the Grim Reaper) instead, indicating that they were going to die before they would have the chance to marry.
In the ritual of today, Bloody Mary allegedly appears to individuals or groups who ritualistically invoke her name in an act of catoptromancy. This is done by repeatedly chanting her name into a mirror placed in a dimly lit or candle-lit room. The name must be uttered 3 times (or some other specified number of times). Some stories even say you must chant her name into the bathroom mirror 47 times before she will come out of the mirror. The Bloody Mary apparition allegedly appears as a corpse, witch, or ghost that can either be friendly, evil, or a demonic spirit, and is sometimes seen covered in blood (hence the name). The lore surrounding the ritual states that participants may endure the apparition screaming at them, cursing them, strangling them, stealing their souls, drinking their blood, or scratching their eyes out. Some variations of the ritual call Bloody Mary by a different name—"Hell Mary" and "Mary Worth" are popular examples. The modern legend of Hanako-san in Japan strongly parallels the Bloody Mary mythology. Additionally, in the 1990s, the Bloody Mary ritual was represented in pop culture and used as a tool to discuss racial and sexual violence and gender oppression.
Identification
There is some debate on the identification of Bloody Mary and whether she is based on a real woman. Several historical figures have been put forward as candidates for "Mary" including Mary I of England (daughter of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon), who had around 300 religious Protestant dissenters burned at the stake during her reign, earning her the nickname "Bloody Mary"; and Mary Worth, who has been identified as either a woman who killed slaves escaping the American South via the Underground Railroad or a woman who was burned at the stake during the Witch trials in the early modern period.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloody_Mary_(folklore)
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