Mirrors have long been associated with mysticism and magic, particularly in the realm of witchcraft. To many, mirrors hold a special power to capture and reflect not only one's physical appearance but also their spiritual essence. Throughout history, mirrors have been used in various rituals and practices, believed to possess the ability to reveal hidden truths, communicate with the spirit world, and even offer glimpses into the future. In witchcraft, mirrors are often seen as portals or gateways to different dimensions or realms. Some practitioners use a technique known as scrying, where they gaze into the mirror to gain insights, visions, or answers to their questions. It is believed that the mirror can act as a conduit between the witch and other realms, allowing them to connect with spirits, deities, or even their own subconscious.
5 Superstitions and Myths About Mirrors
Mirror, mirror on the wall, what’s the craziest mirror superstition of them all?
There’s a reason that mirrors have played a unique role in pop culture and folklore over the years — after all, seeing our reflection is a fascinating thing! That’s why, just for fun, we’ve rounded up a few popular mirror myths and superstitions.
Seven Years Bad Luck
Perhaps the most well-known mirror myth, the belief that breaking a mirror would bring you seven years bad luck dates back to the ancient Romans. They believed life was renewed every seven years, which explains the length of the curse. (Luckily, this is just an old superstition; however, there are certain steps you should follow if you break a mirror to dispose of it safely.)
No Reflection = No Soul
It’s said that fantastical beings like vampires and witches don’t have a reflection when they look in the mirror because they don’t have a soul, and mirrors are meant to reflect our souls back to us.
Bloody Mary
A favorite “dare” in every adolescent slumber party’s nightly game of “Truth or Dare,” this folklore ritual claimed anyone who spoke Bloody Mary’s name 13 times in front of a dimly lit mirror would summon her bloody ghost.
See Your Future Husband
Apparently, at midnight on Halloween night, if you peel an apple in one long continuous strip in front of a mirror, then toss the peel over your left shoulder with your right hand, your future husband will be revealed to you in the mirror. Other versions of this myth say you actually eat the apple, so make sure you do your research before you give this one a shot.
Bad Feng Shui
In order to have a bedroom that follows the principles of feng shui, you better not have a mirror that faces your bed. This is because of the belief that your body and spirit go through a repairing process while sleeping, and it would be damaging to your rest to have the negative energy your body releases during sleep reflected back at you.
While we don’t know what to believe about some of these superstitions and myths, we know one unequivocal truth about mirrors: they look better with a frame. Luckily, we can help with that.
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Witches, Mirrors, and What They do.
So, the Mirror Witch.
You trade your familiar for a nice shiny mirror, that lets you eventually spy on people, act like an utter narcissist, and that's kind of it.
I want to make one, for PFS.
But I don't know what to do exactly.
How should I build a Mirror Witch?
I initially tried to make an Illusion build, but it turns out that the feat I wanted to use specifically uses Figment spells, and the Witch only has about thirteen of those in their books.
I poked around at maybe a Shadow build, make the character a complete weirdo who takes the sunlight like an Irishman, but I'm. not really sure how Shadow Gambit works.
I'm just completely lost here.
Can someone give me any advice on what to do here?
Feats or Hexes or whatever, doesn't matter.
Patrons, whatever.
I just need a push in the right direction.
A mirror witch gets bonuses to certain skills (diplomacy, per day bluff or extra diplomacy or sense motive or a save, later to knowledge skills whenever they have 10 minutes free), & later on a few SLAs (augury, clairvoyance, scrying). Besides that they're effectively a normal witch whose familiar stays out of sight. Just about anything you can do as a witch you can do as a mirror witch.
You're going to want some social skills to take advantage of the above, so you'll be taking a trait or two which makes social skills run off Int.
Beyond that - a witch who throws around cold spells, possibly with rime spell to make them better debuffs is doable. Winter witch isn't compatible but invoker is. A witch who uses mindwarping spells is dead easy to make. Specialising in crowd control spells and other area effects is doable. There are witches who specialise in the ickiest spells they can find, vomit swarm or spit venom or whatever, or you could take the trickery patron to get mirror image so you can indulge in touch attack spells/spells like whip of spiders or Gozreh's trident.
Shadow gambit BTW works badly.
avr wrote:A mirror witch gets bonuses to certain skills (diplomacy, per day bluff or extra diplomacy or sense motive or a save, later to knowledge skills whenever they have 10 minutes free), & later on a few SLAs (augury, clairvoyance, scrying). Besides that they're effectively a normal witch whose familiar stays out of sight. Just about anything you can do as a witch you can do as a mirror witch.
You're going to want some social skills to take advantage of the above, so you'll be taking a trait or two which makes social skills run off Int.
Beyond that - a witch who throws around cold spells, possibly with rime spell to make them better debuffs is doable. Winter witch isn't compatible but invoker is. A witch who uses mindwarping spells is dead easy to make. Specialising in crowd control spells and other area effects is doable. There are witches who specialise in the ickiest spells they can find, vomit swarm or spit venom or whatever, or you could take the trickery patron to get mirror image so you can indulge in touch attack spells/spells like whip of spiders or Gozreh's trident.
Shadow gambit BTW works badly.
REALLY sorry for the late reply.
Things went pretty crazy for a bit.
>Shadow gambit BTW works badly.
And there goes the whole lynchpin to my build
I was unaware of the Invoker archetype, and I have to say it's absolutely crazy, and I might take that just to make things difficult for my DM.
So you think a Coldwitch, Brainwitch, or Grosswitch are my best options; I'll have to look those up later, when I'm free for time again.
Trickery is what I'm going with right now, so that's good on my part.
This hopefully pushes me in a right direction, but we'll see if I don't come crying for more help.
Thank you, AVR.
3 Unique Ways To Use Mirrors In Your Magic
When I was young, my cousins liked to scare me whenever we’d come to visit. They’d spent all weekend convincing me there was a monster swimming around in the lake, ridicule me for not wanting to go boating, then push me into the water and cackle like demons while I dog-paddled for my life back to shore, my Snoopy life jacket only a yellow streak through the water.
They’d tell me our grandmother’s attic was haunted, then lock me up there. They’d chase me with worms dangling from hooks and slip things into my food.
The most terrifying thing my backwoods cousins ever did was tell me about the evil of mirrors. Oh, did you know that if you stare into a mirror too long the DEVIL will appear behind you? Yeah, me neither! Crazy how he’s got all this extra time to hang around in mirrors, but there you go. For most of my teenage years, it was just a given that you never turn the lights out in the bathroom then look in the mirror and you certainly did not linger whenever you looked at it. I know it sounds ridiculous, but I’m not the only one with distrustful feelings when it comes to the ‘ol looking glass. Everyone’s heard the one about breaking a mirror and bringing bad luck for seven years, but some cultures take it a step further and believe that breaking a mirror doesn’t just mean bad luck, but is an omen for death in the household! It’s said that souls can become trapped in mirrors and that you can even summon demons and vengeful spirits by calling them forth in mirrors… and then, I guess, be trapped in a bathroom with them.
Witches, however, are a little more practical. They use mirrors for scrying, harnessing the power of the sun and moon, divination, banishing, binding, sending baneful magic back to the sender, and protection. In this post, I want to explore some new ways to incorporate mirrors into your magical practice.
Defensive Mirrors
Did you know mirrors were once made from silver? That is supposedly why vampires couldn’t see their reflections. But this is only one reason mirrors are associated with the detection of dangerous beings. Fogging up a mirror and reciting an incantation is said to reveal to you those who seek to harm you. In the right conditions, mirrors are able to show a person’s true soul and whether or not they are good or bad.
I don’t find these types of magic particularly useful, however, that doesn’t mean I don’t use mirrors for defensive situations. One of my favorite methods of using mirrors is for binding. I’ve written before about placing a target’s name between two mirrors and taping those mirrors together. Recently, I’ve updated this method because it bothered me only one side of the paper was facing one mirror. The other mirror was reflecting a blank piece of paper. Since intention is where true magic comes from it wasn’t that big of a deal, but I don’t like doubt. So, how to remedy this tiny flaw? Simply write the name on the mirror with a permanent marker instead of using paper. The name touches both mirrors and is reflected forever. A much stronger binding, in my opinion. You can also add a line about what you wish the target would stop doing, binding that particular action.
Another way to bind using mirrors is to place a picture of your target between two separated mirrors, usually performed in a hallway, symbolically holding the target in suspended animation. I haven’t tried this, though I think you’d have to leave it set up indefinitely, which seems like an inconvenience. Instead, I suggest getting a tube (from a toilet paper roll, for example), securing a small poppet in the middle of this tube and then slot two mirrors on each end of the tube. Paint the tube black or wrap a black cord around it, then pop it in the freezer. If you wish, you could also place a clear quartz in with the poppet to amplify the binding. If you’re wondering, yes, I do have more banishing and binding spells in my freezer than actual food. No regrets.
You can also add a mirror to your altar in the same way you’d add one to your front door as a defense against spells cast at you. The only problem with this is that I like adding mirrors to my altar to boost the magic I perform there (instead of doing something once, I’m working with my reflections and performing it three times simultaneously), and I don’t like confusing energies by having identical mirrors that are supposed to work in different ways. The solution was to create a protective sigil and paint it on the mirror, giving that defensive mirror a distinct purpose. Protection runes can also be painted on the mirror.
Charging Mirrors & Using Mirrors To Trap Energy
When I learned about charging mirrors, I was so in love with the idea that I ran to my craft store, loaded up on little mirrors, and started manically charging them by leaving them all over the yard and carrying them to different locations to “trap” the energies I found so helpful and calming. How amazing is that?!
Do thunderstorms make you feel particularly powerful? Leave a mirror out and let the thunderstorm charge it, use the mirror on bright and sunny days, then recharge it when it rains again. Snowstorms, the beach, autumn weather… charge mirrors with this energy and keep it with you. Harness these energies for spells, meditation or even enhancing dreams. Add a sigil to the mirror to give these “trapped” energies specific purposes. For example, if you’re charging the mirror with moonlight and you want to use this for cleansing, make a cleansing sigil and draw it on the mirror. Then you can place what you want cleansed directly on the mirror and leave it — like stones and talismans.
If you’d like to use this moonlight for spells that are best performed under specific moon phases, draw the moon phase on the charged mirror and use it as a substitute. This is great when you don’t want to wait a month for a specific moon, or you need to do a spell fast, maybe when the sun is out.
Mirrors In Spells
Amplifying Magic
I’ve recently been reading up on clear quartz and like clear quartz, mirrors can act as an amplifier in spells because it multiplies your actions. I mentioned above about leaving mirrors on the altar for this purpose, but mirrors can be set up for any spell to significantly boost the power of individual elements! Strategically placing mirrors around whatever aspect you want amplified (candles, stones, yourself) will have the most impact and I recommend using multiples of three when deciding how many mirrors to use.
Breaking Mirrors
People have major reservations about breaking mirrors and this superstition goes back a long way. Symbolically, breaking a mirror can represent breaking some aspect of yourself or “breaking through” to an enlightenment. You’ll see this a lot in movies because it’s very dramatic and cinematically gets a point across quickly. For spells involving moving past old obstacles, breaking bad habits or cycles of behavior, you can look into the mirror and tell yourself what you want to change, what habits are coming to an end, then put the mirror into a cloth bag and break it (safely). These pieces can then be discarded or used in a larger self-altering ritual.
Bridging Worlds
Mirrors are sometimes seen as windows into other dimensions or a way to look in on others without their knowledge. This made mirrors tools of divination. It was believed that your reflection was your soul and therefore when used for scrying or divination, you could theoretically ask your soul-self questions or ask to see something happening elsewhere. Black scrying mirrors are actually less reflective so you don’t see yourself as clearly. The reason for this being that your own reflection was considered a distraction from whatever you’re actually hoping to find in the mirror’s surface. I see the point, to be honest. If I stared into a mirror, I would never be able to focus on anything but flaws and I’d end up getting the tweezers and eyeliner before I’d get any answers. So, to save money on expensive black mirrors while completely limiting distractions when using mirrors for astral travel, divination, scrying, you can close your eyes and simply touch the mirror or rub it with your thumb to conduct its power — particularly useful if the mirror is charged first!
Alternative Mirror
Water was the first reflective surface we used to see ourselves and lots of superstitions and lore cropped up about what this reflection truly meant. If the water rippled while you were looking into it, well, that was bad news because whatever happened to your mirror self would obviously happen to you (not sure why ripples were bad for you… they sound kind of fun). You could become transfixed by your reflection like Narcissus, or unwillingly invite cruel spirits through. Water, though, is a very gentle mirror and conducts energy well. Remember what I said about trapping? You can use the water’s smooth surface in the same way, and then have a more tangible ingredient for spells. Witches have used water for divination just as they have used mirrors and if you’re more comfortable using water, then it’s a perfect alternative. It’s also easier to use for divination, in my opinion.
Today using mirrors isn’t as common as it used to be, so experiment to find the best way to incorporate mirrors into your craft and revive this ancient and effective practice!
It is believed that the mirror can act as a conduit between the witch and other realms, allowing them to connect with spirits, deities, or even their own subconscious. The symbolism of mirrors in witchcraft is also significant. It is said that mirrors can reflect not only what is visible to the eye but also one's inner self.
They offer a reflection of the soul, revealing hidden desires, fears, and aspects of one's personality. This self-reflection is often seen as a crucial step in personal growth and spiritual development. Moreover, mirrors are believed to possess protective qualities in witchcraft, capable of warding off negative energies and evil spirits. Placing mirrors strategically in the home or creating a mirror charm or amulet can serve as a form of spiritual protection. However, with the positive aspects of mirrors in witchcraft, there are also cautionary tales. It is believed that breaking a mirror can bring about bad luck or even serve as an omen of death. In some traditions, mirrors are covered or turned away during times of mourning to prevent the deceased from becoming trapped within its reflection. In conclusion, mirrors hold a deep and mystical significance in witchcraft. They are seen as powerful tools that can aid in divination, self-reflection, and spiritual connection. While they are revered for their ability to reveal and protect, mirrors also carry a cautionary aspect, reminding practitioners of the delicate balance between the seen and unseen worlds..
Reviews for "Reflective Affirmations: Boosting Self-Confidence with Mirror Magick"
1. Emily - 2 stars - I really wanted to love "Mirrors and Witchcraft" as the concept seemed intriguing. However, the execution fell short for me. The plot was confusing and disjointed, making it difficult to follow along. The characters were one-dimensional and lacked depth, making it hard to care about their fates. Ultimately, I found myself lost and unsatisfied with this book.
2. David - 1 star - "Mirrors and Witchcraft" was a complete disappointment. The writing was lackluster and the pacing was all over the place. I struggled to connect with any of the characters, as they felt cliched and unrealistic. The storyline was predictable and lacked any originality. Overall, I found this book to be a waste of time and would not recommend it to anyone looking for a captivating read.
3. Sarah - 2 stars - I had high hopes for "Mirrors and Witchcraft", but unfortunately, it didn't live up to my expectations. The plot felt convoluted and lacked coherence, making it hard to stay engaged. The characters lacked development and their actions often felt forced. The writing style was also underwhelming, lacking the imagery and depth that I had hoped for. Overall, I found this book to be a disappointment and would not recommend it.
4. Michael - 2 stars - "Mirrors and Witchcraft" had an interesting premise, but the execution fell flat. The writing was inconsistent and lacked polish, which made it hard to immerse myself in the story. The pacing was also an issue, with slow parts dragging on and important moments feeling rushed. The character development was minimal, leaving me feeling disconnected from the story. Overall, this book had potential, but it didn't quite deliver.
5. Jessica - 1 star - I was extremely disappointed with "Mirrors and Witchcraft". The plot was confusing and lacked cohesion, leaving me feeling frustrated and uninterested. The characters were unlikable and their motivations were unclear. The writing style was repetitive and lacked originality, making it difficult to stay engaged. Overall, I regret wasting my time on this book and would not recommend it to others.