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| OUR GRANNIES' SUPERSTITIONS The Oldest Beliefs in the World: but
Why? What are superstitions? Should they be ignored? Why are they worthy of study? The popular, almost universal, superstitious beliefs are well-known: black cats, lucky horseshoes, spilt salt, Friday 13th., not walking under a ladder, broken mirrors, etc. The origins of these and other auspicious events are briefly examined here. Tracking their source is fun - and partly guesswork. Superstitions are many things to different people. To me, they reflect the spectrum of being human: life-death, happy-sad, luck-fate, sanity-madness, good-bad, and female-male. Superstitions touch not only wood, but every part of life. Superstition is home-spun religion. Practically every object in the household has a taboo-like dimension: the doorstep, fireplace, mirror, food, cutlery, staircase, bed and chimney-stack. Sociologists call the stages of life 'rites of passage' - but the vernacular 'Hatched, Matched and Dispatched' is used here. Even Buckingham Palace features in this section. People project personality onto pets. Not surprisingly, animals are also the centre of many popular beliefs. Gender is next on the agenda - or, to be more precise, women. They are powerful figures in the world of superstition. Moon and other goddesses are the hidden bedrock of many omens. Annual events trigger mysterious rituals too: New Year, Easter, Hallowe'en, Yuletide and, of course, Friday 13th.. Down the centuries, superstition has been bashed by The Bible and scorned by Science. Yet primitive omens still survive and thrive. But why? To address this question, I replace my folk historian hat with a psychology one. Superstition is not 'out there' - it is within. It is a mental process, a way of looking at the world through superstitious spectacles. All belief systems shape what we see - perceptions are deceptions. Once we enter the realm of superstition we step back into our pre-historic past - a time before civilization and the written word. Perhaps this is part of the strength and durability of superstitions - they are perpetuated by the oral tradition. They passed from generation to generation by word of mouth. Unlike the alphabet or times-tables, taught by rote, no school lessons were set aside for taboo training. In stark contrast, the powerful modern religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam each depend upon (and are reinforced by) the written word with the Torah, Bible and Koran: "In the beginning was The Word". Within each of these three textual-based cultures, the unwritten superstitions are reviled. Yet all their attacks fail to erase superstition from the hearts of ordinary folk. (Superstitions are also passed on informally through family and friends - fuelled by an element of fear.) |
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