Do you remember playing “Bloody Mary” when you were a child? You know, the game where you stared into a mirror and chanted the name of the blood-witch mentioned above three times, with the eminent risk that a devilish ghost would emerge from the reflective surface and rip your face off?
In all likelihood, you did play this game, but failed to see a bloody witch glaring back at you. Still, many have professed an interest in the legend of Bloody Mary over the years, variously referred to as Mary Worth, Hell Mary, Mary Jones, and a host of other names. According to Snopes.com, Bloody Mary research began around 1978 in an essay published by folklorist Janet Langlois, at which time belief in summoning the mirror-witch was still widespread. “Mary is summoned whenever squealing girls get together for a sleepover,” Snopes says. “We typically performed the ‘ritual’ in bathrooms, because the bathrooms of our suburban homes had large mirrors and were easily darkened even during the day since they had no windows.” Typically, when the Bloody Mary ritual is performed correctly, a murderous ghost is said to emerge from the mirror, often attacking the individual who summoned her.
Arguably, this year has been significant so far as developments in the ever-growing Mothman mythos. Of course, it was earlier this year that marked the passage of John Keel, author of The Mothman Prophecies, from this dimensional plane. Also (on a slightly more personal note), just prior to completing the manuscript for my upcoming book, I received a unique report from a friend in Atlanta detailing a strange sighting of what she called “Mothman.” Although I tend to view all this so-called Mothman-related activity as being more anecdotal than anything, today I was nonetheless interested to note some parallels in an article posted at Jon Downes’ website Still on the Track to popular descriptions of the winged-one. The following story, as related by one of his readers, details a variety of interesting Mothman-like points of interest:
Tonnies (left, photo courtesy of Greg Bishop) was an American ufologist and futurist, whose books After the Martian Apocalypse and his much anticipated masterwork dealing with “Cryptoterrestrials” helped broaden the views regarding UFOs, strange creatures, and how they relate to time, space, and mankind.
Halloween is just around the corner, and perhaps the only thing more frightening to me than the fact that I have YET to figure out what my costume will be this year is the sobering realization that vampires–real life blood suckers and night stalkers–do exist among us.
Ever wish you could read somebody’s mind? Better yet, ever think it would be nifty (or terrifying, on the other hand) to be able to both read and receive telepathic communication, directly via “brain to brain” interface? Now, science has helped bring us one step closer to doing so in a practical way that incorporates binary coding and existing EEG technology.
I have to start by saying how immensely I enjoyed this book. Having skipped out of town for a “last ditch” retreat to the Isle of Palms off the coast of sunny South Carolina, I enjoyed this book in between jogs on the beach and the occasional swim. Cuba Libre’ and cigar in hand, I lounged by the pool under a palm tree as I enjoyed this page-turner; and let me be frank, there’s no better way to describe this book.