Superstition

My highlights

From almost the very beginning, it was not a compliment to call someone superstitious. Throughout its long history, superstition has been a transactional concept with no fixed meaning of its own except in contrast to some other, more accepted world-view.

The origin of the concept is found in ancient Greece, at least as far back as the 4th century bce, and for the next 2,000 years superstition stood in contrast to the religious practices recommended by the elites.

As the term beggar-priests suggests, sorcerers and shamans were often associated with the lower classes, and Plutarch, among others, ridiculed these shamans, pointing to the obvious contradiction of their circumstances. If they were able to bring good fortune, why were they so poor?

The concept of superstition began as the Greek word deisidaimonia (δεισιδαιμνοία), which in the 4th century bce had the positive meaning ‘scrupulous in religious matters’; but a century later it had acquired a more negative meaning, inching it closer to our modern understanding of superstition.

It is not so much that the rituals and beliefs of the [superstitious stereotype] were considered false or inappropriate or foreign but that they were excessive and lacking moderation. Furthermore, the rituals of the superstitious person were assumed to stem from a misplaced fear of the gods.

[B]y the 1st century CE, a change in the meaning of superstitio started to take hold. The practice of superstition acquired an additional sense of being anti-Roman. The label superstitio was often applied to the religions of the peoples the Romans had conquered—particularly when the continued practice of these non-Roman religions was judged to be a threat.

Pliny believed that the Christians’ refusal to make sacrifices to the gods or the emperor when asked to do so was sufficient reason to punish them with death.

The once proud tradition of Roman ancestors and cultic worship of the gods was labelled a pagan religion. Similarly, the word superstitio reversed course and was now used against those who once used it against Christians.

Around 820, Archbishop Agobard of Lyon described popular panics caused by the belief that crops had been destroyed by the magical production of hailstorms and other weather phenomena. These fears led to frequent lynchings of suspected weather magicians (tempestarii).

[On The Black Death] The faculty of the medical school in Paris offered an astrological explanation, claiming the disease was produced by the conjunction of three planets in the constellation Aquarius, which produced a ‘deadly corruption of the air’.

German king and emperor Frederick II (reigned 1215–50) would not conduct any major action without first consulting his astrologers. Interestingly, the same was said about Ronald Reagan, President of the United States over 700 years later, whose wife, Nancy Reagan, reportedly consulted a San Francisco astrologer before the president took any important action.

Because de Molay and a large number of knights were arrested on Friday, 13 October 1307, the Knights Templar are cited as one of the many theories about the origin of the unlucky Friday the 13th superstition. The source of the modern Friday the 13th superstition has been hotly debated, and as we will see, the Knights Templar theory is probably not the strongest explanation.

A local sorcerer or magician was charged with practising unsavoury arts and was excommunicated or killed. But in the 14th and 15th centuries a much more ominous threat emerged that would be a considerable worry for the next four centuries: conspiratorial groups of demon-worshipping black magicians. In particular, the 15th century saw a rising fear of alleged secret societies of witches.

Malleus Maleficarum (The Hammer of Witches) published in 1486 by Heinrich Kramer, a Dominican monk, and Jacob Sprenger, a scholar, both of whom were German inquisitors.

Kramer and Sprenger proposed a theory of witches that came to be regarded as accepted Christian doctrine on the subject. They asserted that witchcraft was heretical and that witches must be killed. Furthermore, merely doubting the existence of witches was also heretical.

Kramer and Sprenger claimed that witches were more often women because their deficient intellect made them more vulnerable, and—in contrast to the relative moderation of men—women were prone to the extremes of good and evil.

Although Christianity distinguished itself from pagan religions by a rejection of polytheism, it provided a serviceable substitute: saints.

In the Middle Ages, there was a lively trade in saints’ relics, which were purported to have miraculous powers derived from their association with a saint. Skulls, bones, and pieces of clothing attributed to saints were—and in many cases still are—said to possess special powers.

Many churches in the Middle Ages had depictions of St Christopher on their walls, and those who gazed upon his image were said to be protected against illness and death that day. Because St Christopher is the patron saint of travellers, there continues to be a market for St Christopher medals to be worn around the neck or clipped to automobile sun visors.

It is believed that burying a St Joseph statuette—often upside down in the front lawn—will hasten the sale of the family home. On the internet one can find a variety of St Joseph home-selling kits.

Church officials typically rejected the idea that drinking holy water could cure disease and privately believed it was not as useful as was commonly thought, but they generally did nothing to discourage these beliefs as long as they were based in Christian faith.

The rituals, prayers, and, above all, the priestly act of transubstantiation—the magical transformation of simple bread and wine into the actual body and blood of Jesus—promoted the idea that there was magic in the church and that mere presence at mass might bring luck and prosperity to the attendants.

The client often arrived with a plan in mind, and the magician’s job was to detect the client’s initial inclination and gently guide them to it. As much as any actual divination that might be involved, the magician’s service was to shift some of the burden of responsibility for a difficult dilemma off the client and onto the mage.

Martin Luther started the movement with his critique of indulgences, but he and other Protestant writers soon took up a variety of issues, including what they considered the superstitious practices of the church of Rome. One area of attack was the consecrated objects used by the Catholics.

Torture had been sanctioned by Pope Innocent IV in 1251, and Dominican monks became quite skilled at its use.

Inquisitors also targeted Christian heretics, including a variety of Protestant groups, and those who violated moral laws, such as bigamy and sodomy. The Spanish Inquisition had an estimated death toll of 350,000.

The most deadly of the Religious Wars was the Thirty Years War in Germany between the Catholic Habsburg states of the revived Holy Roman Empire and the Protestant anti-Habsburg countries. The war eventually involved much of Europe, from England and Scotland to Denmark and Norway, and left an estimated 5.75 million people dead, a total which, as a proportion of the world’s population, is double the death rate of the First World War.

The Peace of Westphalia, signed in 1648, ended the Thirty Years War and established some general principles of autonomy among nations and a framework for religious coexistence.

Both the supernatural powers of consecrated objects and the spells of the local magician were superstitious, not because they were dangerous or unauthorized forms of religion but because they did not make sense according to the new logic of science.

Anna Göldi of the Swiss canton of Glarus is thought to be the last witch killed in Europe by a sanctioned trial. She admitted to the crime of witchcraft after being hung by her thumbs with stones tied to her feet and was subsequently beheaded with a sword on 13 June 1782.

At a time when many people had begun to harbour religious doubts, spiritualism seemed to offer objective proof of an afterlife and the possibility of communication with departed loved ones. Particularly after the United States Civil War, and again after the First World War, the urge to make contact with lost relatives fuelled demand for the services of spiritualist mediums.

A common feature of both spiritualism and the social reform movements was the prominence of women in leadership roles. In the Victorian era, the home was considered the centrepiece of religious and moral life, and women were at the centre of the home.

It is noteworthy that less than 100 years after the execution of Anna Göldi for the crime of witchcraft many women emerged as highly paid conjurors of spirits from another world. Indeed, the similarity to the ancient art of necromancy was not lost on spiritualism’s critics.

[S]uperstitions tend to be much more narrowly pragmatic than religious practice. The religious person pursues their observance for a variety of reasons. Praying, attending services, and celebrating holidays are rarely motivated by a single desired outcome. Superstitions, on the other hand, are typically aimed at a current need.

Superstitions typically lack evidence to support their effectiveness, and, in addition, their presumed mechanism of action is inconsistent with our understanding of the physical world.

Superstitions are the subset of paranormal beliefs that are purported to have practical uses. […] Going to a seance or psychic for fun, much as one might attend a magic show, does not fit our definition of superstition. Going to a seance or psychic as a means of learning about future events or communicating with a dead loved one does.

Just as, in hindsight, it was illogical for the adherents of one religion to label similar beliefs in another religion superstitious, it is unfair to classify the beliefs of a pre-scientific culture as superstitious. Similarly, children often subscribe to a variety of magical beliefs, but until they are educated in the standards of evidence, we should avoid giving them pejorative labels.

[T]he psychologist Gustav Jahoda established four types of superstitions […] Superstitions forming part of a cosmology or world-view. […] Other socially shared superstitions. […] Occult experiences of individuals. […] Personal superstitions.

[I]n 1984 Anthon Cannon and colleagues published a collection of 13,207 superstitions and folk beliefs indigenous to the US state of Utah alone.

Fear of the number 13, sometimes rather pretentiously called triskaidekaphobia, is arguably the most famous of all superstitions but also the most hotly debated.

According to legend a group of twelve Norse gods were relaxing in Valhalla when they were joined by the evil god Loki who fashioned a plan that resulted in the death of the beloved god Baldur. Thus, according to this theory, a group of thirteen people is unlucky.

[T]he number seventeen is unlucky in Italy because the Roman numeral XVII can be rearranged to spell VIXI, which in Latin translates to ‘I have lived’, or alternatively, ‘My life is over’ or ‘I have died’.

Numerous research studies using validated measures of personality have failed to find any connection between personality traits and birthdates. In addition, when presented with personality descriptions based on their own and another person’s astrological chart, people cannot identify their own chart at better than chance levels.

Like astrology, homeopathy is a form of pseudoscience. It has some of the trappings of a science and is based on a crazy kind of logic, but it is inconsistent with known principles of pharmacology. More importantly, research has failed to find any effect of these therapies beyond what would be expected from a placebo.

In the OnePoll.com survey, UK women were more concerned about the coming Friday the 13th than men, 26 per cent to 17 per cent. If placed on the thirteenth floor of a hotel, 14 per cent of US women in the Gallup study said they would ask for a different room, compared to only 5 per cent of men. Finally, in the Harris poll, 37 per cent of US women agreed that finding a penny was good luck, compared to 29 per cent of men.

Wiseman and Watt found evidence that people endorse positive superstitions more than negative ones, but they also found that the typical gender difference—women being more superstitious than men—was especially true for positive superstitions and almost disappeared for negative ones.

One might imagine these figures represent a generational effect and there is something about the experiences of today’s millennials that makes them more superstitious than their elders, but this finding has been so consistent over so many studies that it is more likely we become sceptical as we age.

Research shows that, for people who believe in it, luck is an idea that is different from a general optimism or a sense of satisfaction with life circumstances. In addition to luck as a stable trait, some people’s theory of luck includes the idea that they can do things to improve or diminish their luck.

Malinowski concluded that magic was found whenever there was fear and uncertainty.

Malinowski and Keinan showed that superstition is more prevalent in situations where there are external uncertainties and dangers.

Trait anxiety has also been studied in relation to superstitious belief with the predictable finding that people who are more anxious are more likely to be superstitious.

In almost every instance, superstition fills a gap. Often what is lacking is control. A football goalie, a person being interviewed for a job, and a stage actor all face circumstances that are both important and uncertain. If these people could be sure of always being successful, there would be no need for superstition, but goalies sometimes let the ball go through; job applicants often are not hired; and actors sometimes flub their lines in front of hundreds of people.

Several studies have found that, on average, people with external locus of control are more likely to be superstitious than internals. External locus of control makes superstition an attractive way to gain control. In contrast, people with internal locus of control have less need for superstition.

Keinan’s knocking on wood questions worked, and he had two main findings: (1) as we would expect based on the Gulf War study, people under stress knocked more than those who were not and (2) people who were both stressed and high on desire for control knocked on wood the most.

An athlete establishes a pre-game ritual that appears to be lucky, and so they keep using it on every game day. Before the ritual can be imbued with magical powers, the athlete may have to believe in luck as a force that can be summoned, but it is the coincidence of events that locks in the particular ritual.

Using an automatic food hopper on one side of the chamber, Skinner allowed the bird a couple of seconds’ access to grain every fifteen seconds, regardless of what it was doing. Initially the bird was fairly passive, but it soon developed a stereotyped movement that it repeated over and over again. Different birds trained under these conditions developed different movements: one repeatedly pecked at a point on the floor, and another bobbed its head up and down.

Humans are a remarkably intelligent species, and our ability to solve problems based on trial-and-error learning has been central to our success. But sometimes we arrive at a mistaken solution. We make connections between things that are unconnected. Because there is often little harm in these errors, they tend to persist,

The person who is superstitious tends to focus on the times the superstition is followed by success. They tend not to think about the times they were successful without the superstition or when the superstition failed.

[R]esearchers have found that among school athletes, the better players employ the most superstitions. There are probably two reasons for this. Assuming that the better players are the stars of their teams, they have more to lose from a slump in performance, and, as we have seen, fear is a great motivation for superstition. […] Second, if you are a better player, your superstitions appear to work.

One of the strongest predictors of problem gambling is impulsivity, but belief in good luck is also higher among problem gamblers than among non-problem gamblers. In addition, problem gamblers have a stronger illusion of control. In comparison to non-problem gamblers, they believe they have a greater power over the outcome of their bets.

I see no value in the fear-based superstitions. They may have once satisfied the need to explain why bad things happen, but I am of the opinion that today we would be much better off if no one had bothered to teach us about black cats, the number thirteen, or the evil eye. Once you learn about these foreboding signs, you are faced with an unwanted dilemma whenever they appear. Speaking only for myself, this is not something I would choose.

The Enlightenment may be over 200 years behind us, but demonology is alive and well. For the first time, in May 2019, the Vatican opened its course on how to perform exorcisms to members of other faiths. People still believe in the devil, and exorcists still use consecrated objects and prayer in their battles with demons.

When there is money to be made, it is unlikely that those who stand to gain will be inhibited by the prospect of promoting irrational behaviour, and, with few exceptions, governments have been reluctant to regulate these markets. Reason falls away when unreason pays.

Some may suggest that science is just another system of belief that is not fundamentally different from the religious systems that banished superstition and magic into the past. This argument misses the point. Science is most properly understood as a collection of methods for finding the truth.

We may cling to many of the technological fruits of science, but if we abandon reason and evidence in our effort to solve social problems, we risk falling back into the brutal worlds of the past.