Superstition

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For other senses, see Superstition (disambiguation).

A superstition is the irrational belief that future events are influenced by specific behaviors, without having a causal relationship.

Contents 1 Examples 1.1 Hunting 1.2 Warfare 1.3 Others 2 Academic and cultural viewpoints 2.1 Superstition and the study of folklore 2.2 Superstition and religion 2.2.1 Religious etymology 2.2.2 Religious competition 2.3 Superstition and magic 3 See also 4 Notes 5 References

[edit] Examples

[edit] Hunting

• When a Dyak village has turned out to hunt wild pigs in the jungle, the people who stay at home may not touch oil or water with their hands during the absence of their friend; for if they did so, the hunters would all be "butter-fingered" and the prey would slip through their hands.^[1]

• While a Gilyak hunter is pursuing game in the forest, his children at home are forbidden to make drawings on wood or on sand; for they fear that if the children did so, the paths in the forest would become as perplexed as the lines in the drawings, so that the hunter might lose his way and never return.^[2]

[edit] Warfare

• The belief that there is a magical bond between a wound and the weapon which caused it may be traced unaltered for thousands of year. If a Melanesian can obtain possession of the bow which caused his wound, he will keep it carefully in a cool place so as to reduce the inflammation of the wound. But if the bow was left in the enemy's possession, it will undoubtedly be hung up close to the fire so that the wound may become thoroughly hot and inflamed.^[3]

• Roman officer and encyclopedist (in his Natural History, Book xxviii, Chapter 7) tells us that "if you have wounded a man and are sorry for it, you have only to spit on the hand that gave the wound, and the pain of the sufferer will be instantly alleviated."^[4]

[edit] Others

• A gambler may credit a winning streak in poker to a lucky rabbit's foot or to sitting in a certain chair, rather than to skill or to the law of averages.^{[citation needed]}
• Many believe that if you can blow out all of the candles on your birthday cake with one breath while making a silent wish, your wish will come true.^{[citation needed]}
• Tetraphobia is widespread in China, Japan, Korea, and Hawaii; the number's use is minimized or avoided where possible. This is because the word for 4, sǐ, is homophonous with the word for death （死）. Mobile numbers with 4 in them sell for less and some buildings even skip the level four, labeling it the 5th floor instead. However, there is another word for four in Japan that does not also mean death: yon. In Korea, number '4' is pronounced as 'sa(사 四)' and is homonymous with 'death (사 死)'. Some, but not all, Korean buildings have the fourth floor written as 'F' floor.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Academic and cultural viewpoints

[edit] Superstition and the study of folklore

In the academic discipline of folkloristics the term "superstition" is used to denote any folk belief expressed in if/then (with an optional "unless" clause) format. If you break a mirror, then you will have seven years of bad luck unless you throw all of the pieces into a body of running water. In this usage, the term is not pejorative.

Superstitions are based on general, culturally variable beliefs in a supernatural "reality". Depending on a given culture's belief set, its superstitions may relate to things that are not fully understood or known, such as cemeteries, animals, demons, a devil, deceased ancestors, the weather, gambling, sports, food, holidays, occupations, excessive scrupulosity, death, luck, and/or Spirits. Urban legends are also sometimes classed as superstition, especially if the moral of the legend is to justify fears about socially alien people or conditions. Common bad superstitons- Friday the 13th, Breaking mirror, walking under ladder, and black cats

[edit] Superstition and religion

[edit] Religious etymology

Superstition, as of today's understanding, is thought to derive from the both meanings of Latin 'superstes' composed on super (over, beyond), -sto (to stand):

• one who attends, can witness
• one who survives

The 'superstitio' was the gift of narrating events as if one had attended and survived them. As the Hadith in islam. This capability of the 'superstitious' was associated with divination, which when not performed by a regular augur, was held in contempt as charlatanism. As a result, the superstitio became synonymous with "despisable religious beliefs", as antithetic with 'religio', the accepted official or traditional religion.

Thus, the English word "superstition," as understood from its original Latin meaning, implies a religion-like belief that stands outside the bounds of clerical religion.

In modern English, the term "superstition" is also used to refer to folkloric belief systems, often with the intention of casting negative, derogatory, or belittling scorn upon another culture's concept of the spiritual world.

Many Superstitions rose up before and during the time of the Black Plague that swept over Europe. During the time of the Black Plague, the pope passed a law that you must say "God Bless You" when somebody sneezes, this was said to prevent the spread of the disease and to cure whoever already had it. Of course, this was only superstition.

[edit] Religious competition

In keeping with the Latin etymology of the word, religious believers have often seen other religions as superstition. Likewise, atheists, agnostics, deists, and skeptics regard religious belief as superstition. (Edmund Burke, the Irish orator, once said, "Superstition is the religion of weak minds".) From the broadest perspective, all religion is a form of superstition.

Religious practices are most likely to be labelled "superstitious" by outsiders when they include belief in extraordinary events, supernatural interventions, apparitions or the efficacy of charms, incantations, the meaningfulness of omens, and prognostications.

Greek and Roman pagans, who modeled their relations with the gods on political and social terms scorned the man who constantly trembled with fear at the thought of the gods, as a slave feared a cruel and capricious master. "Such fear of the gods (deisidaimonia) was what the Romans meant by 'superstition' (Veyne 1987, p 211). For Christians just such fears might be worn proudly as a name: Desdemona.

The Roman Catholic Church considers superstition to be sinful in the sense that it denotes a lack of trust in the divine providence of God and, as such, is a violation of the first of the Ten Commandments. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states superstition "in some sense represents a perverse excess of religion" (para. #2110).

The Catechism clearly dispels commonly held preconceptions or misunderstandings about Catholic doctrine relating to superstitious practices:

Superstition is a deviation of religious feeling and of the practices this feeling imposes. It can even affect the worship we offer the true God, e.g., when one attributes an importance in some way magical to certain practices otherwise lawful or necessary. To attribute the efficacy of prayers or of sacramental signs to their mere external performance, apart from the interior dispositions that they demand is to fall into superstition. Cf. Matthew 23:16-22 (para. #2111)

[edit] Superstition and magic

Superstitions differ from magic spells in that the former are generally passive if/then constructs while the latter contain formulae, recipes, petitions, prayers, and love songs for effecting future outcomes by means of symbolic, and perhaps non-causal activities.

People who otherwise accept scientific de-mystification of the supernal world and do not consider themselves to be occultists or practitioners of magic, still may consider that it is "better to be safe than be sorry" and observe or transmit some or many of the superstitions endemic to their cultures.

[edit] See also

• Magic
• Taboo

[edit] Notes

[edit] References

• Codrington, R. H. (1891). The Melanesians. Oxford.

• Frazer, J. G. (1911). The Magic Art (2 vols.) (The Golden Bough, 3rd ed., Part II). London.

• Freud, Sigmund (1950). Totem and Taboo:Some Points of Agreement between the Mental Lives of Savages and Neurotics, trans. Strachey, New York: W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 0-393-00143-1.