COMMON SUPERSTITIONS AROUND THE WORLD
Left to Right: 1) The odds of finding a four-leaf clover are purportedly one in 10,000,making them exceedingly rare finds. As the legend goes, when Eve learned that she was expelled from paradise, she took a four-leaf clover with in order that she'd never forget the Garden of Eden. Now, four-leaf clovers are symbolic of luck and prosperity
2) Fear of the number 13, known as "triskaidekaphobia," has its origins in Norse mythology. In a well known tale, 12 gods were invited to dine at Valhalla, a magnificent banquet hall in Asgard, the city of the gods. Loki,the god of strife and evil,crashed the party,raising the number of attendees to 13.The other gods tried to kick Loki out, and in the struggle that ensued, Balder, the favourite among them, was killed. It was reinforced in the Christian era by the story of the Last Supper, at which Judas, the disciple who betrayed Jesus,was the thirteenth guest at the table.
3) In modern popular culture, 666 has become one of the most widely recognized symbols for the Antichrist the devil. The number 666 is purportedly used to invoke Satan. Earnest references to the number occur both among apocalyptic Christian groups and in explicitly anti-Christian subcultures. This text was originally written in ancient Greek, where numbers are written as letters, as they are in Hebrew-theo the main language of the original Biblical texts. For small numbers,the first letters of the Greek alphabet, alpha, beta, gamma, represent 1, 2, and 3. If one translates the Hebrew spelling of 666, you actually spell out Nero Caesar. Nero Caesar was considered to be a especially evil roman king
Left to Right: 1) It is considered bad luck to trim your finger or toenails after dark, in Turkey, India and South Korea. One Japanese superstition even claims you could have a premature death. Historically, knives or other sharp cutting tools would be used to trim long nails. Darkness plus sharp objects and a then lack of medical access could have equalled deadly infections.
2) The history of the black cat and its supernatural power dates back to 3000 BC,during the time of the Egyptians. Although it was more of a good omen than a bad one, the Egyptians held black cats to a high degree of respect and admiration. In fact, the injuring or killing of a cat in Egypt at the time was considered a capital crime. But it was really during the middle-ages in Europe that black cats starting gaining a bad reputation. Particularly with the Spanish community, they began the association of black cats with witchcraft and witches. The most popular and widely believed superstition was that of the morphing or shape-shifting of witches into the body of a black cat.
3) An umbrella is a controlled shield against the elements. Opening an umbrella indoors, where the elements are obviously not a factor, was seen as a defiance of the natural order. The origin of this superstition is can be traced back to the early Egyptian times when it protected people from the sun. Thus formed the belief that opening it inside would upset the God of the Sun.
Left to Right: 1) Skinner discovered that superstitious behavior can arise through conditioning. In one of his famous experiments on operand conditioning, skinner (1948) gave pigeons in the so-called ‘‘skinner box’’ food at irregular intervals. Hence, it was left to chance as to what kind of behavior was being reinforced. The results were astonishing. The pigeons kept doing what they did at the moment that the food was administered. Skinner (1948) labelled this curious behavior superstitious, arguing that ‘‘the bird behaves as if there were a causal relation between its behavior and the presentation of food’’. In a later article (skinner, 1953), he suggested that seeing a causal relationship between behavior and the ‘‘consequences’’ also could explain the occurrence and maintenance of superstition in humans.
2) Witch hunting is an old practice that still, unfortunately, exists in some Indian communities, particularly in areas with low literacy and poor education. Witch hunts are most frequent in Central and Eastern India, especially in the State of Jharkhand, where more than 50% of women in rural areas cannot read or write. A long sickness, dying cattle, or a string of unsuccessful crops can quickly spark rumors that a witch is present in a village. If a witch doctor,or Ojha, brands a woman a witch, she is subjected to violent treatment: brutal beatings, burns, she might be paraded naked through the village, forced to eat human excrement, raped, or even killed. In fact, nearly 2,300 people — mostly women — were killed in witch hunts between 2001 and 2014, according to government crime statistics.
3) The belief that you should never make a toast with water in your glass harks back to the time of the Ancient Greeks. According to Greek mythology, the dead would always drink from the River Lethe in the depths of the Underworld, in order to forget their past, corporeal lives. As a result of this story, the Greeks would always toast to the dead with glasses filled with water to symbolize their voyage, via the river, to the Underworld. As a consequence of this morbid story, it is considered that proposing a toast to somebody with water,is akin to wishing bad luck,and maybe even death,on him or her.
Left to Right: 1) The Japanese word for “thumb” is oyayubi which translates into “parent finger”. You might hear something along the lines of, “your parents will die young if you don’t hide your thumbs!” It’s believed that spirits of the dead,vengeful or not,hang around the funeral car with their casket. If you don’t hide your thumbs while a funeral car passes, then the spirit will enter your body from underneath your thumbnail! Thus people in Japan hide their fingers as they pass a graveyard or a funeral.
2) Rafael Nadal has an array of rituals that he performs each time he plays. These include the manner in which he places his water bottles and taking freezing cold showers. Nadal believes these rituals help him to find focus,flow and perform well.
3) Knocking on wood – in Britain, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Ireland the phrase is touch wood – is an tradition of literally touching, tapping, or knocking on wood, or merely stating that one is doing or intending to do so, in order to avoid “tempting fate" after making a favourable observation, a boast, or declaration concerning one's own death or other unfavorable situation beyond one's control. The origin of the custom may be in German Folklore where in supernatural beings are thought to live in trees,and can be invoked for protection.
