Most of us have probably heard about the children’s game “Bloody Mary“, and who can forget the recent surge in incidences related to “The Slender Man“?

These, called “The Midnight Game” and “The Three Kings”, are ones I hadn’t heard of before,though.

The Midnight Game

PREREQUISITES:
It must be exactly 12:00AM when you begin performing the ritual, otherwise it will not work. The materials required include a candle, a wooden door, at least one drop of your own blood, a piece of paper, matches or a lighter, and salt.

Write your full name (first, middle, and last) on a piece of paper and put at least one drop of blood on the same paper. Allow it to soak in.

Turn off all the lights in the house. Go to your door and place the paper with your name in front of it. Take the candle and light it. Afterward, place the candle on top of the paper with your name.

Knock on your own door 22 times (the hour MUST be 12:00AM upon the final knock), then open the door, blow out the candle, and close the door. You have just allowed the “Midnight Man” into your home.

Immediately relight your candle.

You must now lurk around your completely dark house with the lit candle in hand. Your goal is to avoid the Midnight Man at all costs until exactly 3:33AM.

Should your candle ever go out, it is because the Midnight Man is near you. You must relight your candle within the next ten seconds. If you are unsuccessful in relighting the candle, you must immediately surround yourself with a circle of salt.

If you are unsuccessful in both of these, the Midnight Man will induce a hallucination of your greatest fear until 3:33AM. If you are successful in relighting the candle, you may proceed. If you are successful in creating the circle of salt, you must remain within the circle until 3:33AM.

You must continue until 3:33AM without being attacked by the Midnight Man or being trapped within the circle of salt to win the Midnight Game. The Midnight Man will leave at 3:33AM and you will be safe to proceed with your morning.

Staying in one spot the entire game will only result in the Midnight Man finding you. It is highly advised you continue moving throughout the game.

DO NOT turn on any lights during the Midnight Game.
DO NOT use a flashlight during the Midnight Game.
DO NOT go to sleep during the Midnight Game.
DO NOT use another person’s blood on your name.
DO NOT use a lighter to substitute for a candle. It will not work.
DEFINITELY DO NOT attempt to provoke the Midnight Man in ANY WAY.

The Three Kings

What I’m about to share with you today is one of the many relatively safe ways in which you can access (not quite enter) a place I call the “Shadowside”, and its effectiveness depends on how seriously you take me.

Ingredients:

• A very large empty and quiet room, preferably without windows. If windows exist, you need to be able to cover them and ensure total darkness. Basements usually work well, if they’re roomy enough.
• A pack of candles (you’ll only use 1, if all goes well), and a lighter.
• A bucket of water and a mug.
• A fan.
• Two large mirrors (like the one on your dresser. Don’t worry, they won’t be harmed. Or if they are, it’d be the least of your concerns).
• Three chairs.
• An alarm clock.
• An active cell phone (don’t forget to charge the goddamn battery!)
• A loved one willing to follow rules and go along with all this madness.
• A small toy or dear object from your childhood.

Setup:

• Start setup at around 11 PM. Place one chair in the center of the room, facing north (this is important).
• Place the other two chairs exactly to the left and right, facing your throne. The distance between your throne and that of your queen and fool should be about the length of your arm to each side, more or less.
• Place the two large mirrors on the queen and fool chairs left and right of you, facing you (and each other). Try your best to have them stand at a 90 degree angle (or else you may get more or less than three kings). If you sit on your throne facing straight ahead (north), you should be able to perceive your own reflection in each of the two mirrors without actually having to turn your head nor your eyes to do so. If you see your own reflection in the corner of your eye, just barely there, then you’ve done it right.
• Place the bucket of water and the mug in front of you, just barely out of reach.
• Place the fan behind you, turn it on. Don’t set it to maximum power -medium or low is usually enough. Leave it on.
• Turn off the lights, leave the door open and go to your bedroom.
• Set the candles by the side of the bed, next to a lighter, your alarm clock and your cellphone (leave it charging).
• Set your alarm clock for 3:30 AM.
• Turn off the lights and sleep while holding your power object, get some rest.

Showtime:

• Wake up at 3:30 AM with your alarm clock.
• Turn it off, but don’t turn on the light. You have exactly three minutes to light your candle, grab your cellphone, and make your way to the dark room to sit in your throne.
• You should be seated by 3:33 AM. Don’t forget your power object! Check for potential red flags: if your cellphone didn’t charge for whatever reason, abort the mission.
• If the alarm didn’t go off exactly at 3:30 AM, abort the mission. If you find the dark room door closed (remember you left it open) abort the mission. If the fan is turned off (you left it on) abort the mission.

(Side note: if you have to abort the mission due to any of the above, leave the house with your loved one. Go to a hotel or something. There’s no need to run; you have time to grab a jacket and your keys and what not, but leave. After 6 AM the coast should be clear.)

If all is going as planned, you can proceed and take your throne. DO NOT look directly at either of the two mirrors besides you. DO NOT let the candle go out. The fan is behind you. You must protect the candle with your body, which is standing in between (there’s a reason for this; as you’ll soon see).

Look straight ahead, at the darkness. Not at the candle, not at the mirrors, just straight ahead. Eagle-eyed readers surely noticed I didn’t say during setup which chair was queen and which chair was fool. That’s because it’s your job to find out. And from their point of view, you are either their queen or their fool, too. Hence three kings.

Just stay put and try not to move. Again, DO NOT look directly at the mirrors, nor the candle. Just straight ahead, trust me. Don’t chicken out either; you need to wait until 4:34.

I cannot mention enough how happy it makes the distant anthropology student buried deep within me to see this kind of thing being generated in the modern age. This is cultural gold.

Top image via the upcoming movie based on this modern folklore, “The Midnight Game“.
Bottom image via .

Via The Ghost in My Machine, Reddit, and Creepy + Pasta, all of which have way more info, as well as extensive comment sections from purveyors of this modern exercise of the occult.

In “Peter and Jane, the Lost Episodes”, [Jon Bentley] succeeds in recontextualising commonplace scenes with unexpected and absurdly humorous interventions.

Jon recalls his first encounter with the iconic Peter and Jane books: “Like many people of my generation, I learned to read with Peter, Jane, Mummy, Daddy and Pat the dog. As I struggled with the unfamiliar letters, my eyes where invariably drawn to the picture on the opposite page, full of strange details that drew me in and seemed to suggest a richer more mysterious narrative than the prosaic stories and dialogue on the written page”.

Years later, Jon revisited those images and began to construct a series of alternative and surreal narratives.

Artist Jon Bentley, inspired by Peter and Jane from the Key Words Reading Scheme early readers children’s books. And presumably Nietzsche. Or Cthulhu. Either way, it’s worth checking out the many other examples of Jon Bentley’s fine work.