posted
Today I caught a falling leaf on the way to work. A year of good luck in my hands!
Do you salute magpies? Avoid walking under ladders? Which superstitions do you pander to? And why?
Good Luck
If I see leaves falling in my path I try and snatch them. I wish for things if I get the long end of a wishbone, or if I catch a wish and set it free.
Bad Luck
I make a conscious effort not to walk over three drains or under ladders. I mutter ‘hello mr magpie how’s your wife and family’ in my head if I see a single magpie (again, two magpies are good luck and provoke the same reaction to ‘fix’ it).
Miscellaneous
If I sneeze and I thank someone for saying ‘bless you’, I clap my hands (something to do with killing fairies, I think).
Most of these superstitions stem from religion or folklore, throwing salt over your shoulder to blind the devil, walking under a ladder is breaking the trinity etcetc. They permeate everything: I was on an aeroplane the other day and noticed they didn’t have a 13th row: it jumped from 12 to 14, presumably to cater to people’s unease at the number. I don’t rationally believe that they have any true value, but I continue, out of habit, to comply. It’s an irrational compunction, like checking the front door every time I get up in the night in case a strange man gets in to RAPE and KILL me in my bed. But superstitions have trundled neatly along for centuries, gaining some level of power, if not credence. Do they feed some deep rooted need for ritual? Does anyone actually believe in what they’re doing? They certainly form a common bond between young children but does this also work as an initiation into borderline obsessive behaviour?
SO, harmless fluff or something more sinister? I’m not suggesting, of course, that superstitions have been imposed by various sectors to instill a sense of need/security in learned response in the masses, rather that human consciousness seeks out these struts (maybe through some overreaching want of ritual). Imagine what longterm havoc a carefully implanted new superstition (or series of) could wreak! It could destroy the social consciousness of a nation! Or at least turn them into quivering wrecks, jumping and stuttering response every time a trigger occurred.
-------------------- the more brilliant her smile, the closer she always seemed to disaster Posts: 1057
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posted
I suppose it all comes down to people's fear of chaos, and desire to impose order on a universe that's hopelessly beyond control. No-one likes to feel they're suffering at the whim of an indifferent fate, so we come up with these ways of deluding ourselves into thinking we can somehow control it.
There's an interesting story in the first Astro City collection that draws parallels between old superstitions and new (technology etc), and basically puts forward the idea that however much we mock old or foreign superstition even modern society has its own series of talismans and rituals to provide their peace of mind.
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posted
In general, completely non-superstitious, but for many years I've believed strongly in Lucky Days and Unlucky Days to the extent that even the slightest misfortune early in the day (like dropping a piece of toast or something) will have me expecting Friday The 13th style disasters for the whole day. On the other hand, if I come down and find a lovely tax refund letter on the doormat (hah, yeah) then I'm surely in for a day of endless happy surprises.
Having established this format I've become quite relaxed about it all as Unlucky Days simply end at midnight. Although it is possible to have another unlucky day the next day, but most days tend to be Neutral Days statistically. That's when nothing at all happens.
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posted
I'm not really superstitious because I really don't have any fear of anything except dying from drowning/suffocation (how much would that suck?)...
I think that superstitions live on, not because of some deep rooted fear of the 'unknown', but because they were started for whatever reason and if/when a person believes in something, they make it happen.
Kinda like religion. You believe that prayer will help you in someway, so you've already put yourself in a position that, even subconsciously, when something happens you 'allow' it to happen. I suppose Wicca is the best example. There is no such thing as magic, but you cast a love spell, you believe the love spell will work, you have 'opened' yourself for the opportunity for it to happen. The object of your 'spell' looks at you a fraction of a second longer than he/she did yesterday, you think your spell worked so you approach them and open the dialog because you aren't taking a chance of being rejected because the spell is working.
I suppose I'm not explaining myself right (what else is new?), I guess what I'm saying is if you expect something to happen for whatever reason, you make that thing happen whether you know it or not. You step under a ladder, you expect something bad to happen. So, when that pigeon shits on your head, it's because of the ladder incident not because you were just shat on by a passing pigeon.
-------------------- Evil isn't what you've done, it's feeling bad about it afterwards... Yield to temptation. It may not pass your way again. Posts: 3793
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posted
Huh. Someone recently tried to convince me of the mystical power of the number 3, claiming that significant events in her life always happened in 3's. On closer questioning it turned out that there was no set criteria for what a significant event might be, or indeed how close together they had to be to be deemed in the same 'set'. Cuh!
My current superstition is that you should never squirt water into TV monitors, and that if you do you can ward of further bad luck by switching it off at the wall promptly rather than dancing around going ohfuckohfuckohfuckohfuck.
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