Why Breaking a Mirror Means 7 Years Bad Luck

You've probably heard it your whole life: break a mirror, and you're in for seven years of misfortune. But have you ever wondered why it's specifically seven years? Not five, not ten—seven. The answer takes us back over two thousand years to ancient Rome.

The Soul in the Glass

Ancient Romans believed that mirrors did more than show your reflection—they captured a piece of your soul. Every time you gazed into a mirror, you were literally looking at your own spirit staring back at you.

So when a mirror shattered? You weren't just breaking glass. You were fragmenting your soul.

Why Seven Years?

The Romans had a fascinating belief about human biology. They thought that the body completely renewed itself every seven years—every cell replaced, every part refreshed. This cycle of renewal was fundamental to their understanding of health and spirituality.

The math becomes grimly logical: if your soul gets damaged when a mirror breaks, you'd have to wait for your entire body (and soul) to regenerate before the bad luck could lift. That's your seven-year sentence, determined by ancient Roman medicine.

Breaking the Curse

Of course, people weren't content to just accept seven years of misfortune. Various remedies emerged over the centuries:

• Bury the shards under moonlight — The most common cure, believed to let the earth absorb the negative energy
• Grind the pieces to dust — If there's no reflection left, the soul-damage supposedly can't persist
• Touch a tombstone with the broken pieces — A darker remedy from European folklore
• Spin around three times counterclockwise — To confuse any evil spirits attracted by the break

The moonlight burial remains the most popular solution. The idea is that moonlight has purifying properties, and the earth will neutralize the bad luck trapped in the glass.

Before Glass Mirrors

Here's something fascinating: this superstition predates glass mirrors entirely. Ancient peoples used polished metal, obsidian, and still water as reflective surfaces. The belief that reflections held spiritual significance goes back to the very first time humans saw themselves in a pond.

Greeks believed that disturbing your reflection in water could damage your soul. The mirror superstition is essentially the same fear, upgraded for newer technology.

The Psychology of Seven

Seven shows up constantly in superstitions and folklore: seven deadly sins, seven days of creation, seven years of plenty and famine. Psychologists suggest humans are naturally drawn to the number seven—it appears in our cognitive limits, our stories, and our fears.

Whether the Romans chose seven because of genuine belief in bodily renewal or because seven just felt right, the number stuck. Two millennia later, we're still nervously sweeping up broken mirrors and wondering if we should dig a hole in the backyard.

The next time you accidentally knock a mirror off the wall, you have a choice: dismiss it as ancient nonsense, or grab a shovel and wait for moonrise. Either way, you're participating in a tradition that's survived longer than most empires.