Ghosts and Legends

[Susan]

I was thinking back to childhood from the previous thread about the first movie and remembered during that time frame a few "ghost stories" that circulated and were scaring the hell out of us. I don't know if anybody else grew up with this "story" or a different version of it. But it was believed (this was probably late 70's..way before any candyman movie) that if you stand in a dark room facing a mirror and say "Bloody Mary" 10 times she'll appear. It may have originally been 3 but upped to 10 to build suspense and fear among the person saying it. Of course then your older brother is waiting outside the bathroom door waiting to scare the crap out of you. I didn't find out until years later who the real "Bloody mary" was. Not sure how that thing got started amongst kids.

Naturally after seeing the "candyman" movie which didn't get rave reviews many years later I had flashbacks. My god we were playing with fire! lol

[Chadzilla]

I am aware of two variants of that folk legend...

Stand in front of the mirror with a lighted candle and recite the name of some individual (Bloody Mary in this instance as example) X amount of times and behind your reflection will appear...

1.) The face of the person you will marry...

or

2.) A spectre announcing the time and manner of your death...

or

3.) A bloody visage!

As a child that grew up in the bubbling apocalyptic stew that was the seventies (hey you had the true life haunting mega-seller The Amityville Horror doing battle with Hal Lindsey's mega-selling 'The Late, Great Planet Earth' along with 'The Population Bomb' and other Future Shock schlock) everywhere I turned there was junk science and urban/folk myth getting stuck in my face as absolute truth that the end was nigh and fork tongued demons would slither out of the shadows while nuclear missles and UFOs would rain down from the skies .  Taken as a study of humankind's need for such mystical things to give life meaning, it's a fascinating area of study though.  If anyone out there is interested in this kind of stuff I strongly recommend touring the Occult/Unexplained area of your used bookstore/public library.  The shelves are jammed with this stuff and it makes for some fun reading!

During the early eighties (at the height of the post Amityville paranormal frenzy) a childhood friend of mine became convinced that his house was haunted.  Being paranormal nerds (of which I still am, more or less) we decided to hold a seance.  A candle was lit and we called upon the spirit(s) that inhabited the house or any others that just happened to be hanging around.  The candle began to flicker wildly and, after throughly creeping ourselves out with that flickering ("The spirts here!?!), said friend and I bolted from the house.  AFTERblowing out the candle.

There was a cold spot in one of the closets though.  Icy cold and clammy.  Weird.

Cool post.

[ErikJ]

On the subject of ghosts and such. A friend of mine was sitting in his living room on the floor waiting to leave to pick up his wife from work(She worked the second shift)
He was sitting playing a video game when he heard footsteps come up the hall in behind him and them someone cough like a foot in behind. He said he felt the breath. He bolted from the house, picked up his wife, told her someone was in the house, then got a police officer to come and have a look. What a surprise when all the windows were closed and locked(it was winter) and no sign of forced entry.
Then a month later they were getting...well, a bit frisky in the living room. When over his wifes shoulder he watched a glass move across a table, about 2 feet when I went to look, then on to the floor.  His floor is level, as was the table, so there should have been no reason why it happened.

[Susan]

>>2.) A spectre announcing the time and manner of your death...<<

That sounds more likely consdering who bloody mary was. It was never explained exactly what would happen when bloody mary appeared but the older kids who told the story made reference to a kid they heard about who was killed. There was a kid who was accidentally asfixiated himself with a belt in his closet and it was rumored the last thing he did was the bloody mary chant. of coures after stuff like this kids like to talk and make up stories. We even passed around the fact that santa clause used to be a real person but then he lowered himself into a firey chimney and met his demise

Yeah the 70's really was a time when things went bump in the night> Lots of movies out about monsters and giant ants and demons, we still read comic books and sci-fi stories.  I remember being at my grandma's reading that book "Pyramid of the Gods wondering if we really were ancestors of aliens...and nostradamus books.  Pretending an old house had secret rooms or a ghost in the basement. I wonder if kids think that way anymore, I don't think they do because they're so involved with their computer games they don't play outside much anymore and have alot of "imagination" free time.

Erik - weird. There were a few times in my life when I could have sworn someone put their hand on my shoulder or said my name and nobody was there. Or that feeling (and it hardly ever has happened) that is so real that someone else is in the room with you. No real experience with ghosts.

But I got a real neat story about seeing a UFO (i have a theory tho that it was a government experiment....hey..even the stealth was a rumored UFO before they finally came out with the facts!)

[Susan]

Btw..think that book was Chariots of the Gods? My memory fails

[Mofo Rising]

Susan wrote:
>
> I wonder if kids
> think that way anymore, I don't think they do because they're
> so involved with their computer games they don't play outside
> much anymore and have alot of "imagination" free time.
>

I would say they still do.  You're just never going to hear about it again, because it's lore that the kids keep amongst themselves.  Strictly a "no adults" policy.  Because, you know, adults are just going to ruin all the fun.

I wonder what new "cyber" legends are being passed around nowadays.  The new twist on the old bogeyman stories, as the internet becomes a larger part of children's (and everyone else's) lives.  There's a website where everybody who visits it dies a week later.  They're making a movie about that one.

[John]

>stand in a dark room facing a mirror and say "Bloody Mary" 10 times

 I never heard about this until years after the fact. A local paper used to carry a syndicated column on urban legends and that was where I first heard about it.

>No real experience with ghosts.

Me neither, although I do have a couple of second-hand tales to share.

First is something a friend of mine told me. I only hung around with him for a couple of years, so I can't say for sure that he wasn't just putting me on, but he didn't seem like the kind of person who liked to make stuff up. Anyway, he told me that he'd been involved in a lot of occult stuff. He said that he and some friends once made a trip to a place here in CT called Dudley Town, the remains of a colonial village, which is reported to be haunted. Do a Google search on the name and I'm sure it will turn up plenty of info. Supposedly they went there planning to spend the night, but when it got dark things started moving on their own and when he tried to get up something pushed him back down. He also said that they took some pictures of the cellar holes (all that's left of the buildings) and when the film was developed it showed things like skulls and bones. Of course when I asked about the pictures, he said his friend had taken them when he moved away. He also told me that they used to fool around with a Ouji board in his friend's basement and saw all sorts of things like headless bodies, piles of bones etc. Not sure I believe him.

The other person who had experiences with ghosts was my mother's friend, the one with the spoiled brat I mentioned in another post. Shortly after she got married and had her son, they moved into a house where the previous owner had died. A few times she says she heard footsteps upstairs when she was the only one home. One time, she heard her son talking to someone and when she asked who, he said he was talking to the man upstairs. I've asked him about this, but he was too young to remember it. When she got divorced and moved out, she had a friend help her move. They were the only ones there and while he was alone in the house, he says something shoved him so hard he fell over. After that, he wouldn't go in the house at all. This was a guy who wasn't afraid of much and didn't have much of an imagination. The house was torn down a few years later, so now nobody can investigate it. I tend to believe this story because it comes from a woman we've known for years.