This reflective superstition manifested in specific practices across many cultures. In Jewish mourning customs (shiva), mirrors are traditionally covered in the house of the deceased to prevent distraction and spiritual entrapment. In other Christian and Muslim households, covering mirrors is a common death ritual as well. Some cultures warned against letting babies see their own reflection before their first birthday, believing that mirrors could disturb or confuse the soul before it was fully formed or protected. The superstition also shaped beliefs about vampires, who were thought to cast no reflection because they had no soul—proof of their undead status.

Breaking a mirror was not only considered a sign of bad luck but also a spiritual calamity. The number “seven years” of bad luck is thought to come from ancient Roman beliefs that life renewed every seven years, and so a broken mirror—symbolically breaking the soul—would take that long to heal.

Many of these beliefs may have originated from early humans’ first encounters with their own reflections in still water or polished surfaces, which seemed magical or eerie. Reflections were seen not as visual phenomena but as glimpses into the essence of a person.