When I was young, we held seances whenever we had the chance. It didn’t have to be on or near Halloween. We usually went to Lori’s house, our friend who lived right across the street. She had a small fruit cellar in her basement that was jus the perfect place to light a candle, shut the door, and burn to death. But, we never dropped the candle and we never stopped chanting.
We really had no idea who the hell Mary Worth was, but we believed in her.
Tweens have no brains, they really don’t. There were usually four of us who held these seances. We would stand in a circle, shut the fruit cellar door, and slowly begin to chant into a mirror, I can’t remember for sure, but I think Lori put a mirror on one of the shelves, leaning it against the wall. You had to have a mirror, because Mary Worth was supposed to appear in it.
We would start the chant, always serious, because we knew this would work.
We would start with a whisper. “I believe in Mary Worth……I believe in Mary Worth….” I think that’s all we said. But, we said it over and over and over again, because that’s what you had to do if you wanted to bring her back. Those were the rules. I think that anywhere between the third and thirteenth chant, Mary Worth was supposed to appear in the mirror, looking all vengeful and malicious.
So, who was Mary Worth, you ask? Well, hell, I don’t know. So, I looked her up for your reading enjoyment. There are many different stories about Mary Worth. Some call her Bloody Mary. One account is that Mary was wrongly accused of killing her children. She went mad and commited suicide.
I honestly can not remember if we even knew the circumstances of “our” Mary. We just enjoyed scaring each other and occasionally getting locked in the fruit cellar. Lori’s mom would also at times don a mask and slowly open the door to scare us.
So, this Halloween, whatever you do, don’t repeat that phrase while standing in front of a mirror.
Unless of course, you want Mary Worth to appear, wondering who the hell you are.
Jumping in Mud Puddles 
Posted by Lilly Howland on August 12, 2011 at 11:25 am
Hi I heard of Bloody Mary Worth and I never seen her in real life. So please tell me about Bloody Mary Worth as soon as possible.
Posted by bearyweather on October 30, 2010 at 11:48 am
I never heard of bloody until there was a story on MPR’s This American Life not long ago. It was an interesting story, but something even my logical chid mind would not have considered as real … the things that scared me the most as a kid were things that were logically possible. My brain did not always allow me to feel comfortable falling for silliness and impossible scary things … don’t get me wrong .. I could be silly … but, I could not pretend to be silly or scared … it had to be “real”.
Thanks … I find it interesting to learn where old traditions and stories originally come from … they are usually really twisted and turned over time. Those that don’t change much .. those must be “real”, right?
;0)
Posted by Jumping in Mud Puddles on October 30, 2010 at 12:32 pm
Twisted, yep, that was the story of Mary Worth..lol
Posted by TheIdiotSpeaketh on October 29, 2010 at 12:32 am
I’m gonna read this to my 20yr old daughter using my Vincent Price voice…it will scare the crap out of her! 🙂
Posted by Jumping in Mud Puddles on October 29, 2010 at 10:56 pm
LOL
Posted by Lilly Howland on August 12, 2011 at 11:27 am
Do you know the Bloody Mary story. Please tell me. Write me back please.
Posted by Jumping in Mud Puddles on August 12, 2011 at 6:37 pm
You would probably have better success doing a google search on the subject. I really don’t know too much about it.
Posted by fnkybee on October 28, 2010 at 4:33 pm
LOL! We used to do this to except we would go in the bathroom..shut the door and you would have to say Bloody Mary 3 times and she was supposed to appear! We all swore we saw her once! There was another that you did in front of the tv..you found a static channel chanted something and then you were supposed to see it in the static..I wish I could remember what it was!
Posted by Jumping in Mud Puddles on October 28, 2010 at 7:16 pm
I know. I can’t remember if we ever saw her. We probably lied and said we did..lol