Why hello there, letter loving listeners! And thank you for joining me on today’s portion of An Assemblage of Grandiose and Bombastic Grandiloquents. Today I’m asking you to shut the bathroom door, put away your compacts and avoid shiny surfaces, because today’s word is: sepctrophobia.

Spectrophobia is the abnormal and persistent fear of mirrors, sometimes related to the fear of ghosts or the undead. Generally, an individual that has been diagnosed with spectrophobia has been previously traumatised in an event where they believe they have seen or heard apparitions or ghosts, either in reality or by horror films, TV shows or nightmares. It could also result from a trauma involving mirrors, or a superstitious fear of being watched through a mirror. Sufferers of spectrophobia can fear the breaking of a mirror bringing extreme bad luck, which is a common superstition. They can also fear the thought of something frightening jumping out of the mirror, or seeing something disturbing inside of the mirror next to their own reflection when looking directly at it.

The word spectrophobia is derived from the Latin ‘spectrum’ meaning an appearance, form, image of a thing; an apparition or spectre. There is also ‘catoptrophobia’, which again refers to the fear of mirrors, ‘eisoptrophobia’, the fear of one’s own reflection, and ‘phasmophobia’, the fear of ghosts. The latter two are distinct from spectrophobia, and represent slightly different fears in terms of a diagnosis. Eisoptrophobia comes from the Greek ‘eis’ which means ‘into’ and ‘optikos’ meaning ’vision, image or sight’. Phasmophobia comes from the Greek word ‘phasmo’ meaning ‘apparition or phantom’. All scary stuff, if you ask me.

Isn’t language wonderful?

Written by Taylor Davidson, Read by Zane C Weber

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