Why so Suspicious?!

This whole blog I have been explaining the reasons behind some superstitions, and in some cases disproving them. However, what I have not looked at was why people believe the myths that they do, where do they come from and why are they so widely accepted?  While many people do believe that some supernatural phenomena are real, almost all of us recognize that at least much of the time these superstitions aren't really valid.
But if they aren't valid, why do people believe them? Part of the reason seems to be just because other people tell them these things are true. Most superstitions have been around for many generations. Sometimes practically everybody with the same cultural background believes them. If the claims aren't true, why don't people recognize that they are false and stop passing them on?
One reason seems to be that superstitions are generally vague enough that no particular case will ever be clearly false. Many superstitions involve getting good or bad luck. Since we don't know what form that luck will take, or what would have happened if we didn't have the luck, there is no way to be sure the prediction was false.
Superstitious people also are very good at finding excuses for why things didn't work out as expected. They can easily imagine other magical effects that might cancel or modify the superstition. If the evil eye didn't seem to bother them, maybe it was because somebody said the right prayer or some charm warded off the effect.
Since there usually isn't a time limit on when the effects of a superstition will take place, we can often assume that the effect just hasn't happened yet. Eventually we will forget that anything was supposed to happen.
Occasionally, however, there will be cases where the expected effect of the superstition does come true. Somebody will be carrying that rabbit's foot when they win at the casino, or some child will contract a serious disease after some strangely behaving woman might have cast a witch's spell on him. Not only will this reinforce the superstition for the people involved, the story is likely to be passed around, reinforcing it for many others.

The bottom line is that superstitions are so accepted because they are either vague and can happen anywhere, or they can be easily explained and are widely accepted. My question for you is….do you continue to be one of the blind masses, or will you use your inherent lizard brain and explain the phenomenon?!

Watch out for that Ladder

Many people hold the belief that it is bad luck to walk under a ladder, without knowing exactly why they believe it is bad. Some people believe that its bad because the ladder will fall on you. The origin of this superstition lies in religion. This superstition arises from early Christian teachings that an object with three points represents the Holy Trinity: God the Father, God the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Though not all Christians are Trinitarians many of them follow this superstition.

The early superstitious people thought that to walk under a ladder, which is to say through the Holy Trinity, expresses disbelief in the trinity and that one is in league with Satan. Performing such an act, especially in early Christian times, could have gotten one labeled as a witch. Thus it could be extremely dangerous to walk under a ladder.
A straight ladder, when leaning against a building does form a triangle. The top point connects with the building, the building intersecting with the road forms one corner and the bottom of the ladder makes the third corner. Throughout history, the number three has held extreme symbolic power, representing the masculine or as Carl Jung called it, the animus.

Even though the number three and the trinity are closely combined, use of three to represent symbolic importance dates far prior to Christianity. Though today to walk under a ladder is tied to Christian beliefs, it is quite possible that earlier beliefs may have held sway prior to the advent of Christianity. Early ladders predate Christianity.

Oh No Mommy!

I have always wondered where the rhyme: Step on a crack, break your mother back, came from.  I wasn’t prepared for what I found out. When I looked it up, this is what one web site told me:

Ill-fortune is said to be the result from stepping on a crack in the pavement. Present day society usually associates the superstition behind treading on cracks to the rhyme: "Step on a crack, break your mother's back" but the superstition actually goes back to the late 19th - early 20th Century and the racism that was prevalent in this period.

The original rhyming verse is thought to be "Step on a crack and your mother will turn black." It was also common to think that walking on the lines in pavement would mean you would marry a black and have a black baby. (Apparently this superstition only applied to Caucasians and because of the rampant prejudice against black people, was considered an activity to avoid.) 

Stepping on cracks also had significance for children. In the mid-20th Century it was popular to tell children that if they stepped on the cracks in the street, they would be eaten by the bears that congregate on street corners waiting for their lunch to walk by.

Also, the number of lines a person would walk on corresponded with the number of china dishes that the person would break, later in the day. 

Only in the last few decades has the rhyming superstition resurfaced to be the recognized "step on a crack, break your mother's back" and in some areas, two superstitions above are melded together to include the number of lines one steps on will correspond with the number of your mother's bones that are broken.

So now I see that a rhyme that many have playfully chanted during childhood has such a racial beginning. All of our children chant this not knowing that they are chanting something with such bad origins. 

When I chanted this I only worried about what would happen to my mom, not the implications it would have on my baby’s race. 

http://www.csicop.org/superstition/library/cracks.html