meet me at midnight: bloody mary (part 2) - who's the woman in the mirror?

May 15, 2025

Maybe you remember Part 1 (or maybe you don’t), but so far we’ve excluded both Queen Mary I and Elizabeth Báthory, also known as Bloody Mary and the Blood Countess, respectively.

We have one last stop on our journey to uncover the woman in the mirror, and for that, we’ll have to visit a place a few of you might have heard of, during a rather bloody time.

So, strap yourselves in and prepare for the thrilling conclusion of our bloody little legend.

Our final potential Mary hails from a little place called Salem, Massachusetts.

It’s a picturesque little town off the coast that’s unfortunately most famous for its violent past. You’ve probably heard about the Salem Witch Trials, but you might not have heard the full story or the story of our final Mary, Mary Worth.

Between February 1692 and May 1693, the town of Salem, Massachusetts was swept up by a religious hysteria resulting in one of the largest witch hunts in American History.

Over two hundred people within the greater community were accused of witchcraft. Thirty of those two hundred were ultimately convicted of witchcraft, nineteen were publicly executed by hanging, one was crushed to death for refusing to enter a plea, and those remaining died from a combination of disease and the horrific conditions prisoners were kept during the trials.

Now, according to lore, Mary Worth was perhaps the only real witch in Salem. Similar to some of the other accused, Mary was an older woman who lived on the outskirts of town. She kept mostly to herself and was considered a bit of an odd bird.

But, unlike the others who were merely accused by their neighbors for various reasons and petty revenge, Mary Worth was actually caught luring young girls away from the town. No one knows exactly what Mary needed those young children for, but it is assumed she was using them to stave off true old age.

Mary was one of the nineteen hung in Salem for witchcraft, and if you’re wondering why you haven’t heard of her, there’s likely good reason for that.

Because, well…according to historical records Mary Worth never existed.

I know what you’re thinking, how can someone who didn’t exist be Bloody Mary?

Well, the thing is, Mary Worth might not have existed during the Salem Witch Trials, but she has somehow permeated folklore across America.

If you’re local to Chicago like me, you might have heard about a different Mary Worth, who lived in Lake County, supposedly just south of Old St. Patrick’s Cemetery in Wadsworth.

Now, the greater Chicago area was a big part of the Underground Railroad, and Lake County, in particular, was a major stronghold for the abolitionist movement and many in the area helped bring bondspeople to freedom.

But, Mary wasn’t like her abolitionist neighbors. She wasn’t a fan of the whole freedom thing, and operated her own “Reverse Underground Railroad”, pretending to offer safe passage to runaway slaves, so she could trap them and hand them back over to slave catchers for a pretty penny.

Well, she would eventually hand them over to the authorities; that is after she doled out her own form of punishment, which consisted of brutal lashings, beatings, and the occasional blinding. Some say she even used the blood of those she tortured in dark rituals.

Strangely, Mary’s neighbors were aware of her Reverse Railroad scheme (and the torture) and turned a blind eye to it for a time. But, eventually, they decided enough was enough and it was time for street justice.

Neighbors descended on Mary’s house and dragged her screaming from her home. A noose was strung up and Mary was hung in her own yard and her corpse was buried on the property.

Legend says that though the home and the barn are no longer there, people still find bits of bone and chain around the property. But, you don’t have to travel to Gurnee to meet Chicago’s Mary Worth, all you have to do is go into a darkened room, stand in front of a mirror, and yell “Mary Worth! Mary Worth come scratch my eyes out” ten times.

And while there are no historical records of anyone named Mary Worth being publicly executed in Lake County, back in the 1960s, a Lake County resident in her nineties claimed she and several others watched Mary Worth burn at the stake. She didn’t really offer up any evidence of this very public, Freddy Kruger-esque roasting, but she was definitely sure it happened.

(You can read all about this thrilling and impossible firsthand account in Chicago Haunts: Ghostlore of the Windy City by Ursula Bielski.)

There is, of course, another Mary of local Chicago fame that everyone might be more familiar with, but Resurrection Mary prefers late-night hitchhiking to mirrors. And while we don’t have time to cover this famous Woman in White today, she will be featured in an upcoming edition of bite-size hauntings.

You might never have heard of the small town in Wisconsin that calls itself the “Second Salem”. However, according to local legend, it’s a town brimming with supernatural activity, untold horrors, and yet another Mary Worth.

The town is notable for being the former home of the Pratt Institute for Spiritualist Study (also known by locals as Spook Temple), founded by Morris Pratt in 1889. But, locals will say the old institute is probably the least interesting part of Whitewater lore.

Supposedly, Whitewater was (and perhaps still is) a haven for witches, so much so, that three cemeteries were constructed in a perfect triangle to create a spiritual nexus for dark ritual work. There are plenty of stories of human sacrifices and dark magic being carried out in underground tunnels beneath the town, as well as a cursed book that has driven all who have read it to madness and approximately four people to suicide. Though, despite the book being cursed, it is apparently available to view upon request at the local library.

But, where does our good friend Mary Worth fit into this?

Well, Mary Worth was one of the famed Whitewater witches who was very fond of murdering people with her axe. She was eventually caught by local townspeople, but before they could execute her for her crimes, Mary placed a curse upon the town.

She is supposedly buried in the old Oak Grove Cemetery, and if you are particularly brave, you can catch a glimpse of her walking among the tombstones with her axe every Halloween night.

So, we now have three very different stories about Mary Worth. In one version, she’s a very real witch who was executed during the Salem Witch Trials; in another, she’s a sadistic slave catcher with a penchant for the dark arts; and in another, she’s an axe-wielding witch with a grudge.

But, there are still even more versions. In some versions, she’s a young woman who dies a tragic or violent death that leaves her mangled and mutilated—sometimes in a car accident on prom night and other times at the hands of a killer. In other versions, she’s a mother who took her own life after her child was stolen from her or a serial killer who was caught and killed by local townspeople.

And to impress upon you just how many different versions of the Mary Worth story there are, the Indiana State University Folklore Archives contains dozens of different versions of the Mary Worth story from just the state of Indiana.

Now, it could just be the spread of local lore from one town to another with certain people embellishing the story here and there to make it a bit more frightening or locally applicable, but the question remains: where did Mary Worth come from?

Some anthropologists have argued that Mary Worth / Bloody Mary is merely a metaphor for young girls grappling with changes to their bodies and the fear around menstruation and that Mary Worth comes from a mashup of the Virgin Mary and a woman’s “worth” around virginity, but this feels like a bit of grasping at straws to make sense of things.

But, there is one explanation I can offer that, while a bit far-fetched, might explain exactly who Mary Worth is and why she might be our Bloody Mary.

So, we’ve determined that it’s very unlikely our first two candidates (Mary and Elizabeth) are Bloody Mary. While Queen Mary was a terror in life, she also lived a life full of profound loneliness and sadness, and it’s unlikely she would linger on, terrorizing people through a mirror. Elizabeth Báthory might have initially seemed like a better candidate for Bloody Mary, given the lore around her, but the truth behind the legend is that, like many powerful women of the day, she was cruelly maligned in order for men to strip her of her power and property.

That leaves us with one last Mary—Mary Worth.

Except, we don’t actually know who she is.

And perhaps that’s because Mary Worth never existed at all.

Perhaps, she was something we invented in our heads.

I have a theory, and while it’s a little out there, it might explain why stories of Mary Worth seem to permeate local lore across America.

Some of you may have heard of a type of supernatural creature known as a tulpa. These creatures are thought forms, literal manifestations of the mind turned into a living entity.

It’s easy to scoff at the idea of an imaginary creature coming to life, but the concept of the tulpa actually derives from ancient Buddhist teachings.

In Mantranāya Buddhism, the concept of Buddha and how a Buddha can exist within multiple realms and forms is explained by the Trikāya, or the three distinct aspects that makeup ways of being. There is the Dharmakāya or the physical reality we live in, the Sambhogakāya or “enjoyment body” that divine entities can use to share wisdom through visions, and Nirmāṇakāya or the thought form that can be manifested into reality.

In the 20th century, American theosophists became increasingly interested in Tibetan practices and lore (possibly guided by one of our favorite alleged vampires, Count St. Germain, but more on that later). They began to research the concept of Nirmāṇakāya closely. According to notable theosophist, Annie Besant, the first female president of the Indian National Congress and former President of the Theosophical Society, there were three different classes of thought forms:

Forms in the shape of the individual that manifests them
Forms that may resemble objects or people
Forms that represent intangible things like emotions

Besant believed that if it was possible to manifest deities to attain higher knowledge, there was likely no limit to what the mind could produce, which is where the occult art of tulpamancy began.

But, here’s the thing about tulpas—once they are drawn into the physical realm, they can no longer be controlled by the person who created them, and more importantly, they still need the energy of belief to sustain physical form.

Let’s consider a popular example of an alleged tulpa in modern pop culture, Slender Man.

Slender Man first appeared on Something Awful in the Create Paranormal Images forum in 2009. The forum, started by user Gerogerigegege, proposed an idea—what if a bunch of users made as many photoshopped paranormal photos as possible? Could they potentially end up in a documentary or fueling a bogus story?

Well, he would soon get his answer, Eric Knudsen (aka - Victor Surge) posted two digitally altered photos that depicted an abnormally tall, slender man with no face and tentacles for hands, silently watching as children played.

Slender Man #1 by Eric Knudsen (aka - Victor Surge), 2009

Slender Man #2 by Eric Knudsen (aka - Victor Surge), 2009

These two images were quickly adopted by another online forum, creepypasta, where users created online horror fiction through posts and comments. But, creepypasta was different than other forums. Instead of simply sharing fictional stories, users were encouraged to write and interact with stories as though they were real, first-hand accounts.

Posts detailing sightings and encounters with Slender Man began spreading like wildfire, more pictures began to appear, and images of documents tracing the origins of Slender Man littered forums. There was no cohesive story behind Slender Man or his true nature, but people seemed to believe that there was something to these tales.

Eventually, Slender Man lost popularity (partially due to an attempted murder in 2014, where two girls claimed they attempted to sacrifice their friend to prove their worth as Slender Man’s proxies), and faded from our collective consciousness. It became another weird part of the 2010s (like that time the clowns invaded).

But, what can we take from the Slender Man story?

While Slender Man might not have been an actual tulpa, it does go to show how easily these stories latch onto us and spread.

Now, let’s get back to Mary Worth.

Here is a first hand account from 1970 of how Deborah Laverty from Marshalltown, Iowa first heard of Mary Worth:

Deborah Laverty's transcribed variant of the Bloody Mary urban legend as collected by herself. (Indiana State University Folklore Archives, Special Collections: Bloody Mary, 1970).

What I find curious about Laverty’s account is how similar it is to other reports from individuals across the country, particularly around that time period. The story is never typically a firsthand account, which is not surprising given this is folklore, but it always comes second or third-hand from some random girl at a party who no one seems to be able to pin down.

And while I’m sure many of us have used a mysterious third party to add an air of mystery to a story, consider this…

Tulpas once birthed into this world, are no longer bound to the individual that made them, which means they are no longer limited to one form. It also means they no longer have an endless source of nourishment, which means they are in desperate need to find a new supply of belief.

If a tulpa can conceivably change shape, could it not also spread its own story or perhaps even local versions of the same story to ensure there would always be believers somewhere? Could the friend of Deborah Laverty’s friend that first heard the story have met the real Mary Worth, eager to make sure her story lived on?

Consider that in Deborah’s version of the ritual, like many of these more local variations, it’s not Bloody Mary that’s whispered into a darkened mirror; it’s:

I believe in Mary Worth.

I can’t say for sure if Mary Worth is the real Bloody Mary or a tulpa, but I can say that belief is a powerful thing, and if there were such a creature that sustained itself on belief, rituals like the ones Deborah’s friends spread and performed would be powerful nourishment indeed.

And that’s all she wrote folks.

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Stay cursed, friends.

Resources:

Bloody Mary and Mary Worth by Adam Selzer

Chicago Haunts: Ghostlore of the Windy City by Ursula Bielski

Folklore, Horror Stories, and the Slender Man: The Development of an Internet Mythology by Shira Chess and Eric Newsom

Indiana State University Folklore Archives by ISU Students and Faculty

Legends Abound Regarding Bloody Mary Worth by Jesse Carpender

Mary Worth, Morris Pratt and the Legends of Whitewater by Charlie Hintz

Massachusetts Witches by Kathy Alexander

Miracles and Superhuman Powers in South Asian Buddhist Literature by David V. Fiordalis