Most people will not admit to being superstitious. Maybe that’s because the definition of a “superstition” is an unreasonable belief based on ignorance or fear, or both. Nobody wants to appear ignorant or fearful.

Yet you will find very well-educated, very successful people who:

  • will not walk under a ladder
  • will bury the pieces of a broken mirror
  • throw salt over their shoulders if salt is spilled
  • turn around and go home or take another route to their destination, if a black cat crosses their path.

Some superstitions are easier to explain to rational people than others. Some could never be rationalized even by the most superstitious among us. In our modern-day, well-informed world, people are more than reluctant to admit to being superstitious about anything, but they still don’t walk under ladders, allow a black cat to cross their path, or break a mirror without burying the pieces.

There are all kinds of “lucky” charms; horseshoes, rabbit’s feet, and of course, the four-leaf clover. Some people call beliefs in luck and the measures one should take to prevent bad luck and encourage good luck nothing more that superstition. Others say that these beliefs are based upon experience of our ancestors and are, in fact, much more than just superstition. The same people say that these myths and beliefs are actually the wisdom of the ages, and that the warnings should be heeded.

Which school of thought is right?
I don’t know, and the fact is that nobody else knows either.

How can it be positively stated that going out a different door than the one you entered by did NOT cause the bad luck that followed or that using the same door to enter and leave did not PREVENT bad luck from happening?

How can the “experts” claim to know that these beliefs are nothing more than ignorant superstitions if they can’t PROVE that they are?

They’re experts; maybe proof isn’t required when you are an “expert,” but I don’t think so.

Halloween is full of wild, fund, and scary superstitions.

I will be exploring a few of these in the coming posts and providing my own spin and humor on them.

A little fact with the fun of elaboration.  Yep, that’s what I’ll do.