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Very Superstitious
How strange beliefs support our personal sense of power
My best friend growing up had two cats, Sooty and Sweep. As their names suggest, they were black cats. And as one might expect for a town that I called the buckle on the Bible Belt, there was a lot of superstition about their ilk. I had another friend who shrieked when a black cat crossed her path. She was very superstitious, insisting that we mustn’t step on sidewalk cracks or walk under the ladders.
Thankfully, nowaday black cats have no problem finding homes as more people give up their superstition in the wake of black cat adorableness. Still, superstitions prevail and often take strange forms.
In Michael Shermer’s groundbreaking book Why People Believe Weird Things, he explores different realms of superstitious beliefs as they connect to religion or conspiracy. Shermer points out that these beliefs prevail because they support ideologies that in turn connect to power systems.
So, superstitious rituals usually hinge on concepts of self-identity and place in society. After all, many such rituals, such as knocking on wood, are far removed from their Celtic origins. Rather, they’re a mild form of performance art, a means of expressing one’s status and conscientiousness, as well as demonstrating social graces. After all, it’s rude to not say…
