superstition

n.

1. An irrational belief that an object, action, or circumstance not logically related to a course of events influences its outcome.
2. 1. A belief, practice, or rite irrationally maintained by ignorance of the laws of nature or by faith in magic or chance.
   2. A fearful or abject state of mind resulting from such ignorance or irrationality.
   3. Idolatry.

[Middle English supersticion, from Old French superstition, from Latin superstitiō, superstitiōn-, from superstes, superstit-, standing over.]

Superstition (1824), a tragedy by James Nelson Barker. [ Chestnut Street Theatre (Philadelphia), in repertory.] In a duel to protect the honor of Mary Ravensworth (Mrs. John Duff) from the unwanted attentions of George Egerton (Francis C. Wemyss), Charles Fitzroy (William Wood) wounds Egerton but walks away unscathed. Rather than pleasing Mary's father, the Reverend Ravensworth (Mr. Darley), the news angers him, since Charles and his mother, Isabella (Mrs. Wood), have not shown the proper respect for his clerical office. Matters are made worse when the village is attacked by Indians. Charles and a man called the Unknown (John Duff) lead the attack against them, defeat them, and again walk away unharmed. Charles and his mother are then perceived as devils, and at their trial Ravensworth testifies against them. Charles is executed and his mother dies of grief. The Unknown turns out to be William Goffe—one of the men who had sentenced King Charles I to death—and also Isabella's father and Charles's grandfather. Mary is left to denounce her father for his cruelty. One of the first important American plays based on domestic history, the blank‐verse drama skillfully wove together the various events, all conspiring inexorably against the hero. One student of American drama, W. J. Meserve, has called the work “the single outstanding American play written during the first quarter of the nineteenth century.” It sometimes was given the subtitle The Fanatic Father.

n

Definition: belief in sign of things to come
Antonyms: fact, reality, science, truth

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The Bible (Deut. 18:9-11) forbade Israelites to engage in "the abominations of the nations" whose land they were to inherit, specifically singling out "any one that makes his son or his daughter to pass through the fire, or that uses divination, or is an observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch, or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer." Various prophets also denounced superstition. Thus Jeremiah stated, "Do not hearken to your prophets, nor to your diviners, nor to your dreamers, nor to your enchanters, nor to your sorcerers" (Jer. 27:9). Nevertheless, various superstitions have prevailed at different times. The Talmud, for example, discusses Astrology, with R. Joshua ben Levi implying that persons born on a specific day of the week all share certain character traits, though R. Johanan rejects the idea that there are various times which are more propitious than others. The idea of auspicious or inauspicious times is found in the Shulḥan Arukh (OH 551:1), which states that "from the beginning of the month of Av, a Jew who is involved in a legal case with a non-Jew should attempt to postpone it, because the time is not auspicious."

The Talmud (Sanh. 65 a-b), when discussing the verses in Deuteronomy 18, explains some of the superstitions which are involved. Thus "an observer of times" (me'onen), according to R. Akiva, is one who reveals propitious times for leaving on a journey, or for purchasing objects, or for harvesting one's crops. "An enchanter" (menaḥesh) is one who sees omens in various everyday events, such as dropping bread or a staff, or having a deer cross one's path, all of these being considered bad omens.

The Talmud mentions various other superstitious practices, to some of which it gives credence, while others it finds senseless. In certain instances, the practices are condemned as being against Jewish law. R. Akiva, enumerating those who have no share in the World to Come, mentions a person "who whispers [verses of the Bible as charms] over a wound" in order to heal it (Sanh. 10:1). Maimonides nevertheless writes in the Mishneh Torah ("Laws of Idolatry" 11:11) that "if a person was bitten by a scorpion or by a snake, one is permitted to whisper on the wound ... in order to calm him and strengthen his heart, even though it is utterly valueless, for given the fact that his life is in danger, [the sages] permitted it, so that he should not go out of his mind."

The Talmud speaks of certain actions which to the modern mind would seem to be needless superstition, such as forbidding a woman to walk between two men. Great attention is also paid to the implications of Dreams, with an entire literature developing on how to "rectify" bad dreams.

Other areas of superstition revolve around the Evil Eye. The Talmud and especially the Kabbalah have many references to evil spirits and Demons, and their effects. Maimonides dismisses all of these, stating that demons do not disturb anyone who ignores them. In order to ward off evil events, the Talmud discusses the comparative efficacy of various Amulets.

Throughout the Middle Ages superstitions either persisted or were added, to the extent that R. Judah He-ḥasid, in his Sefer Ḥasidim (Sect. 59), mentioned various practices that were unavailing and even in violation of Torah law. These superstitions included not eating eggs on the night after the Sabbath and not taking fire twice from the same source if there was a sick person or a woman who had given birth in the house. Yet Sefer Ḥasidim also enumerates many practices and omens which it claims are valid; for example, if a new house is built on the same site where another had stood earlier, care must be taken to ensure that the doors and windows in the new house be in exactly the same place as the old one, for otherwise "one's life is in danger from the demons or the angels."

Certain customs which are practiced to this day have also come under attack as being superstitions, although many classic sages have believed in them. These include the Tashlikh ceremony on Rosh Ha-Shanah, where all one's sins are figuratively thrown into the water, and Kapparot before the Day of Atonement, in which sins are figuratively transferred to the hen or rooster which is used in the ceremony.

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Some recent folklorists shun the term ‘superstition’ as being too pejorative, preferring the less value-laden ‘belief. This, however, is too broad a term and, for convenience, we have kept the older word, emboldened by the fact that it is universally understood, and that few ‘believers’ find its normal use offensive. It only becomes so when used by adherents of one religion, or by atheists, to vilify the religious beliefs and practices of others—issues far outside the scope of this work.

Dictionary definitions of the word regularly invoke the ideas of fear, irrationality, ignorance, groundless belief; folklorists can broadly accept this, while giving added emphasis to the communal and traditional nature of the genre. Its Latin etymology is somewhat obscure: numerous writers interpret its root (‘standing over’) as implying survival from ancient times, but the OED declares this unlikely. Victorian evolutionary survivalists considered them the tattered remnants of archaic religious and scientific beliefs, made obsolete by intellectual progress, though there is little real evidence for this. Nevertheless it is commonly asserted by popular authors and the general public that superstitions date back for thousands of years, and are direct survivals of attempts by primitive humans to explain and control their environment. The fallacy, as so often, arises from a failure to distinguish form from content. Even if it be agreed that the early human world-view was ‘superstitious’ in modern terms (a point still debatable), it does not follow that particular items of the modern repertoire date from that time. By analogy: we can be pretty sure early humans liked singing, but we know the song ‘White Christmas’ is not prehistoric. Yet ‘explanations’ based on this assumption are now so firmly fixed in the public mind as to become traditional themselves (e.g. that touching wood dates from when people believed in tree spirits).

Even without adequate definition, one can identify some of the patterns, formulas, and basic principles controlling modern superstitions. (a) They aim to ‘accentuate the positive/eliminate the negative’: do this for good luck, avoid that to prevent bad luck. (b) Luck can be influenced, but not completely controlled. (c) Do not transgress category boundaries, for example wild flowers or open umbrellas (outdoor items) should not be indoors. (d) To seem too confident about the future is ‘tempting fate’ and attracts retribution—‘Don't count your chickens before they hatch’. (e) Some days or times are lucky or (more usually) unlucky; they vary in frequency (midnight, Friday, Friday the thirteenth, Holy Innocents Day), and can be individual—‘Tuesday is always my lucky day’. (f) Something that begins well (or badly) will probably continue that way. (g) As in magic, things once physically linked retain a link even when separated (birds using your hair in their nests will give you a headache). (h) Evil forces exist and are actively working to harm you; these may be impersonal, or concentrated in humans (witches, ill-wishers) or other beings (devils, fairies). (i) Certain things, words, or actions have powerfully negative effects, and must be avoided or counteracted (taboo). (j) Anything sudden, unexpected, or unusual can be seen as an omen, usually of misfortune. However, many superstitions do not fit these categories, and individuals can invent their own (e.g. ‘Must get back to bed before the toilet stops flushing’).

Many have wondered why superstition persists despite improvements in religion, logic, and science. For Gilbert White in 1776, it is because of habits formed when young and imbibed with our mother's milk (White, 1789: letter xxviii). For Melton (1620) and Igglesden (c.1932), it is because astrologers, fortunetellers, and local cunning men/women deliberately foster credulity for profit; for Puritans of the 16th century onwards, it was due to Roman Catholic priests. Some maintain that rationalism must not be allowed to remove all the romance and mystery of life, and enjoy the idea of ‘more things in heaven and earth …’. Others point to the distress superstition brings, for example the lifelong guilt felt by a woman who believed she had caused her brother's death at sea by washing clothes on New Year's Day (Gill, 1993: 105-6; cf. Balleine, 1939). At a general level, it is clear that the hold of superstition on people's minds has weakened over the centuries, and that it is increasingly consigned to trivial areas of everyday life.

In autumn 1998, the present authors sent out a questionnaire asking respondents to write down any superstitions they knew, in order to assess the current repertoire; we made clear that we were not asking what they believed, only what they knew of. Ten spaces were provided, and respondents were told they could add more items if they wished. Our hypothesis was that most English people nowadays know only a relatively small number of superstitions, which will tend to be the same ones. The first 215 replies received showed this was indeed the case; few of the items reported were uncommon, and many appeared time and again. It seems unlikely that further results will change the basic pattern. The following summary gives the number of times the ‘Top Ten’ items were mentioned, the percentage (of 215) this represents, and the date of the first known reference to the belief in Britain, taken from Opie and Tatem.

1.	178	83%	Unlucky to walk under a ladder (1787)
2.	144	67%	Lucky/Unlucky to meet black cat (1620)
			(More respondents said ‘lucky’ than ‘unlucky’; several commented ‘don't know which’)
3.	117	54%	Unlucky to break a mirror (1777)
			(Most specified ‘seven years’ bad luck’)
4.	102	47%	Unlucky to see one magpie, lucky to see two, etc. (c.1780)
5.	94	44%	Unlucky to spill salt (1584?)
			(Most mentioned throwing a pinch over the shoulder to counteract bad luck)
6.	85	39%	Unlucky to open umbrella indoors (1883)
7.	78	36%	Thirteen unlucky/Friday the thirteenth unlucky (1711/1913)
			(These related items were given in about equal numbers; some gave both)
8.	76	35%	Unlucky to put shoes on table (1869)
			(Most specified new shoes)
9.	45	21%	Unlucky to pass someone on the stairs (1865)
10.	34	16%	Lucky to touch wood (1877)

These dates suggest a fairly rapid turnover in superstitions. Only one (spilling salt) can be dated to the 16th century, via a vague allusion to those ‘that make great divinations upon the spilling of salt’ (Scot, 1584: book 11, chapter 15). Another (black cat) can be traced to the 17th century, four to the 18th, four to the 19th; one (Friday the thirteenth) to the 20th only. It is also instructive to compare this list with that given by John Melton in Astrologaster (1620), reprinted in full in FLS News (2000). Many of his items are still known, but do not appear among our Top Ten (e.g. cat washing face, cheek/ear burning); conversely, only one of our Top Ten (black cat) was reported by him.

Bibliography
The full bibliography list is available here.

• Opie and Tatem, 1989
• Roud, 2003
• Igglesden, c.1932

Quotes:

"I have, thanks to my travels, added to my stock all the superstitions of other countries. I know them all now, and in any critical moment of my life, they all rise up in armed legions for or against me." - Sarah Bernhardt

"Superstition is only the fear of belief, while religion is the confidence." - Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington

"Superstition is the religion of feeble minds." - Edmund Burke

"Superstition is an unreasoning fear of God." - Marcus T. Cicero

"When superstition is allowed to perform the task of old age in dulling the human temperament, we can say goodbye to all excellence in poetry, in painting, and in music." - Denis Diderot

"Superstitions are habits rather than beliefs." - Marlene Dietrich

See more famous quotes about Superstition

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Superstition

Dansk (Danish)
n. - overtro

Nederlands (Dutch)
bijgeloof

Français (French)
n. - superstition

Deutsch (German)
n. - Aberglaube

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - δεισιδαιμονία, πρόληψη

Italiano (Italian)
superstizione

Português (Portuguese)
n. - superstição (f)

Русский (Russian)
суеверие, иррациональный предрассудок, фанатизм

Español (Spanish)
n. - superstición

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - vidskepelse, vidskeplighet, skrockfullhet, vantro

中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
迷信

中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 迷信

한국어 (Korean)
n. - 미신, 미신적 습관

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 迷信, 迷信に基づく習慣

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) خرافه , معتقد خرافي‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮אמונה טפלה, אמונה בעל-טבעי, פחד מהעל-טבעי, סגידה ופולחן ללא ביסוס, דת המבוססת על אמונה בעל-טבעי‬

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