7 Years Bad Luck

We’ve all heard that if you break a mirror you get 7 years bad luck…here’s why:

Myths regarding mirrors have been around since the ancient times of civilizations. Mirrors were once believed to show a soul’s reflection. A baby seeing its own reflection would mean that it would see its own death. This is because a baby’s soul was not fully developed. In popular legend, a vampire would not be able to see its own reflection. That was because vampires were already dead and so a soul would never show itself.

The beginning origins of the "broken mirror" superstition can be traced during the time of the ancient Roman and Greek societies when the art of catoptromancy (reading the future using mirrors) was quite popular. The skill behind catoptromancy was the taking of human perception as seen in a mirror and predicting a person's future. It was related to another future - seeing pseudo-science known as palmistry, which is the reading of the human hand in order to predict that person’s future.

Additionally, at one point in the glorious history of the ancient city - state of Rome, making mirrors was a work of art like that of the buildings and statutes that represented the gods and goddesses. So breaking mirrors would be a huge offense.

Ancient European attitudes were passed on to other cultures and countless generations. For example, during the 17th century in European Society, it was said that if a person drops and breaks a mirror, that is a representation of seven years bad luck onto that person. The ancient Greeks believed something which can be added to the mystic surrounding the broken mirror superstition. And that was whenever a person’s future was being gazed upon, if it was bad, a shattered mirror would represent the gods or goddesses way of not allowing a person to see into a terrible fate which waits.

What's more, seven years bad luck is attributed to the ancient Roman religious belief in the changes of the human health cycles via seven years. Thus, when a person breaks a mirror, one of the health cycles is left undone. The consequence is bad health for at least seven years. In addition to that, the health cycles all combine to form the human soul. So it can be stated that this person has a damaged soul.

But have no fear there is a cure! There is a way to break the bad luck spell. To break it, you must wait several hours before picking up the broken pieces. Each of these pieces of broken glass represents one bad luck year. Next, bury the pieces outside in the moonlight to finish the bad luck-riding task.

I believe that this is another myth…Busted!