Numerous mystical beliefs are associated with mirrors in almost all the peoples of our planet: they supposedly reflect the past and the future, with their help they cause damage … It is believed that through mirrors the entrance to the other world is carried out. After all, it is not for nothing that there is a custom to close them when someone dies in the house. And the stories about how ghosts appear in the mirrors seem to be not at all fictional.
Oracle in the cave
Even the ancient Greeks believed that through reflection in something you can communicate with the souls of those who left our world. For example, the hero of Homer, the brave Odysseus, in order to talk to his deceased mother, filled a shallow pit with the blood of a sacrificial lamb, and otherworldly visions appeared on the surface of the liquid.
In the writings of Herodotus, there is a mention of the oracle of the dead (the Greek name is psychomanteum), located in the west of Greece and serving to communicate with the souls of the dead. The oracular servants lived in underground clay houses, connected by tunnels, and could leave them only at night. Those who wanted to communicate with the spirits were specially prepared for this: they were led for a long time to the main room of the underground temple through the labyrinth of cave passages, thereby affecting the psyche. It was believed that only after this test was the person ready to visit the chamber of visions, where there was a polished cauldron filled with water. With a faint flickering light, visitors peered into it - and on the surface of the water they saw images of people who had passed away, with whom they wanted to communicate.
Interest in ghosts in mirrors became widespread in the second half of the 19th century, during the Victorian era (during the reign of the British Queen Victoria), when the occult became a mass hobby.
The story of the home of the French aristocrat Alexander Saint-Yves d'Alveidre is widely known. After the death of his wife, with the permission of Pope Pius X, he arranged a chapel in her room. During the consecration of a small altar, those present saw a dead woman in the mirror above the fireplace. Later, she repeatedly appeared in various mirrors at home, many people saw her, and Saint-Yves d'Alveidre himself seriously took up the occult and wrote several books, including about contacts with the dead.
For many years, the Society for Psychical Research, founded in England, has been collecting such stories. Typical events looked something like this: while looking in the mirror for a long time, a person suddenly saw someone's image instead of his own reflection or next to him. Sometimes these were people who had already passed away, in other cases their death occurred exactly at the moment when they appeared beyond the edge of the mirror glass.
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Meeting room with perfume
Nowadays, the American researcher, Doctor of Psychology and Medicine Raymond Moody, author of the famous book "Life After Life" is actively involved in the problems of communication with the dead. In 1990, he decided to build his own psychomanteum. Having studied numerous stories about the reflection of spirits in mirrors, Moody came to the conclusion that most often this happens in a certain environment, which is characterized by two main signs: first, the person taking part in the experiment must be so comfortable that he can experience the state spiritual uplift, and secondly, people should feel the unusualness of the surrounding space, which will contribute to a change in their consciousness.
Did you know that … In the 15th century, the best mirrors were made in Venice. The price of one Venetian mirror was equal to the cost of a ship or a small estate. On pain of death, the craftsmen were forbidden even to leave the city for a while.
The explorer bought an old mill located on the site of an ancient Indian sanctuary. That is, this place originally had a special energy. On the top floor of the mill, Dr. Moody equipped a special chamber for communication with the other world - a small room, the windows of which were tightly shuttered and the walls were upholstered in black velvet. In the center of the room there was a comfortable soft armchair, and opposite it, about a meter high, was a mirror. It was adjusted so that the person sitting in front of him did not see his reflection.
There was only one light source in the room - a small 15-watt bulb behind the visitor's back.
Moody's experiments involved people of various, but mostly intellectual, professions - lawyers, psychologists, doctors … Each volunteer was pre-tuned for future contact with the spirit. The doctor asked to bring the deceased's belongings with him, after which he conducted a leisurely conversation, during which he and the participant in the experiment discussed the person together, looked at his photographs, and touched his clothes or household items. Before going to the mirror room, the subject must take off his watch. Then he sat in a chair and gazed intently at the surface of the mirror.
To prevent possible consequences, a doctor's assistant was on duty in the next room. After the end of the experiment, each participant was interviewed for a long time.
What the looking glass looks like
Before the start of the experiments, Raymond Moody believed that only one in 10 subjects would see a ghost from the other world in the mirror. But the reality surpassed the wildest expectations. Not one, but five out of 10 volunteers used a mirror to meet their deceased relatives!
Communication took place in different ways: without words and during a conversation, the ghost could remain in the mirror or leave it. And some participants in the experiment even claimed that they themselves stepped over the invisible line and found themselves in the Looking Glass.
Raymond Moody also took part in the experiments as a test subject - he communicated with his deceased grandmother several times. The doctor argued that his "mirror room" serves not only for scientific purposes, but also helps people cope with the loss of loved ones - after all, understanding that they have not left forever, that you can meet and talk with them, alleviates pain. In addition, people who communicated with their deceased loved ones ceased to be afraid of death - they understood that it was just life in another dimension.
Dr. Moody's experiments have attracted many imitations. His followers acted according to an already proven scheme: they equipped a dark room with an armchair, a mirror and dim light, and also specially tuned in to meet a ghost. Moody himself gave a number of recommendations on this matter: in particular, not to conduct sessions alone and, if possible, involve experienced psychologists in their service.
Interestingly, some participants in such experiments saw in the mirror those who were not expected at all. For example, one of the women hoped to meet her deceased aunt, but instead of her, a stranger appeared on the reflective surface, who turned out to be the great-grandmother of the experiment participant. From the point of view of Dr. Moody, such facts confirm the reality of the existence of the other world: it lives by its own laws and does not always depend on our desires.
10 minutes alone with a ghost
Similar experiments were carried out in Russia. Psychotherapist Viktor Vetvin from St. Petersburg became one of the experimenters. According to him, the effectiveness of the "mirror room" increases if calm stereo music sounds during the session.
The fact is that the left and right hemispheres of the human brain, as you know, perform different functions and are responsible for a different type of thinking: the first - for logic and analysis, the second - for intuition. Logical thinking dominates, while the intuitive workings of the right hemisphere seem sketchy and inconsistent.
At the beginning of the 21st century, at the Institute of Applied Sciences in Virginia (USA), a technique was developed for synchronizing both hemispheres of the brain, based on the impact on it of sound impulses, in particular, music. Dr. Vetvin, having familiarized himself with these results, suggested that musical influence will also help in communicating with the spirits of the dead through the "mirror room".
The effect really intensified: the subjects, under the influence of specially selected sound rhythms, easily communicated with representatives of the other world. Moreover, some patients managed to completely recover from depression associated with the death of a loved one.
On forums on the Internet you can read about the experiences of many other researchers of parapsychic phenomena. They are not much different from Dr. Moody's experiments. With a person who wanted to see the ghost of the deceased, a memory session was conducted, then he was left in a relaxed state in a dimly lit room in front of a mirror. The spirit of the deceased appeared after a period of time from 15 minutes to an hour, contact lasted about 10 minutes on average.
A manifestation of the universal mind?
Why is this happening? How to explain communication with the spirits of the dead in the "mirror room"? Perhaps the properties of the mirrors themselves? After all, physicists have found that they are able to reflect not only light or sound waves, but also energy emanating from a person or from space. Moreover, they can change the gravity index - that is, space and time are curved next to them!
Or, after the death of the physical body, the person does not disappear, but passes into some other dimension? Or is communication with spirits a manifestation of the universal mind that many researchers talk about? It unites the consciousness of all people - both living and those who have passed away. And the mirror serves as a guide so that a person, looking into it, through immersion in the universal mind, can receive information about people who have gone to another world.
Raymond Moody himself states: “What we call death is not the end of life. If I consider my meeting with the spirit of the deceased as a hallucination, then I must consider my whole life as a hallucination."
Magazine: Secrets of the 20th century №37. Author: Victor Svetlanin