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Happy Friday the 13th! No, I'm not kidding - after all superstitions are only as powerful as the belief we have them in them. So, in honour of this unlucky day, I have prepared a long post full of interesting facts about the origins that have typecast this date into our black books.Not a day to talk about love either you think? Well think again! I also touch upon the subject of superstitions in general, and love superstitions (of course), and how big a role they should play in influencing the direction of our lives. You'll discover that superstitions are not all bad, neither are they all completely mythical. Plus, as someone who believes in the spiritual linking of twin flames in true love relationships, I ask the question how far we should go in using what some may regard as baseless superstitions to seek love.
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Why do we fear Friday the 13th?
“The fact that logic cannot satisfy us awakens an almost insatiable hunger for the irrational.”
— A.N. Wilson
Today is Friday the 13th, also known as Friday 13 or Friday the thirteenth, a date considered to be bad luck in western superstition across various countries for many years.
My mum has her own little superstitions she keeps on this day she believes to be unlucky; she will refuse to go anywhere without her good luck charm, if she leaves the house at all.
Like many human beliefs, the fear of Friday the 13th (known as paraskevidekatriaphobia) isn't exactly grounded in scientific logic. But the really strange thing is that most of the people who believe the day is one of the unluckiest days on the calendar offer no explanation at all, logical or illogical.
Click here for 13th facts on Friday the 13th.
Anthropologists - who study superstitious belief as a form of folklore, which is a collection of traditions within a culture, usually passed along orally - say every culture has its own superstitions, and the one thing they have in common is that they're all a little cuckoo.
For instance, some individuals go through life adorned with lucky charms, holding on to trinkets they had when something great happened to them on a particular occasion as if the object had special powers, or carry items which have traditionally evolved into amulets of luck. One example is the rabbit's foot, as though a severed foot of a lagomorphic mammal could protect us from random harm. Or we'll refuse to talk about certain subjects for fear of "jinxing" them, as a way to ward off bad luck.
And although a chain letter is just a random piece of mail that warns the recipient if they throw it away they will bring bad luck on themselves, we still think "what if?" and get a sense of impending doom, when there is no factual basis for the fear. In reality, there is a billion to one chance that two such events could ever be related.
Experts believe we make up all these situations to control the random events in our lives, but before we know it, the superstitions are controlling us. It can affect our thinking patterns so much that there is evidence bad luck really can be reversed by rituals such as touching wood and throwing salt. Researchers have discovered that people's elevated concerns after tempting fate can be eliminated if they engage in a ritual that involves exerting force away from themselves. In the study, people who believed that negative outcomes were especially likely after a jinx found that engaging in a physical action helped eradicate a vivid mental image of the negative event, by literally pushing it away, making it less likely to happen.
As with most superstitions, people fear Friday the 13th for its own sake, without any need for background information. I've asked my mother what makes her so superstitious of the day many have branded unlucky, and she just tells me her own mother wouldn't even have the number 13 in the house. It seems like grandma may have suffered from triskaidekaphobia, the fear of the number 13 itself. Napoleon and President Herbert Hoover were said to be sufferers. Similarly, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt would not travel on Friday the 13th and feared dining in a group of 13, while auto mogul Henry Ford refused to conduct business on Friday the 13th.
While many fear the dreaded day, others believe it to be bunkum, and before we laugh, it's best to note that more than 60 million people worldwide claim to be affected by a fear of Friday the 13th. Today the age old fear of Friday the 13th costs American businesses millions of dollars each in year in cancellations and no-shows. Some of them won't go to work, drive cars or get out of bed on this day. Many hospitals have no room 13, while airports don't have a Gate 13 (except in China where the number 13 is considered lucky). A phobia exploited by horror films and literature, the notoriety of Friday the 13th has even made it into a movie franchise.
And, like all human endeavours, the movies have their own superstitions as well. They say nobody believes in curses until they wind up living under one, and there are Hollywood film industry curses galore - the Superman projects and the Poltergeist trilogy to name but two. But no film in history has had worse luck than The Omen, struck with plane mishaps and hotel bombings, and for the purposes of our post, a fatal car accident. On Friday the 13th of August 1976, special effects consultant John Richardson crashed his car in Holland. His assistant was sliced through by the car's front wheel. Scrambling out of the wreckage, Richardson looked up and saw a road sign: Ommen, 66.6km. That Friday the 13th was certainly unlucky for someone.
The superstition does have deeper, more compelling roots than urban movie legends, however, and taking a look at its origins may help explain why the belief is so widespread today. Because although many cultures do not share our fear of Friday the 13th, it has been described as the most widespread superstition. So what happened to mark Friday the 13th as the unluckiest day of all? Was it some major catastrophic incident centuries ago, or just a separately stigmatised day and number being combined together to double their negativity?
Click here for the origins of Friday the 13th.
We have yet to happen upon a clear explanation of how, why, or when separate strands of folklore converged - if that is indeed what happened - and there's a very simple reason for that: nobody really knows, and few concrete explanations have been proposed. Like the origins of superstition itself, it is guesswork.
But what can be said is that the general consensus is the fear of Friday the 13th stems from two separate fears, which seem to pre-date any single catastrophic event that may have happened on the day itself - the fear of the number 13 and the fear of Fridays. Both fears have deep roots in Western thinking and culture, most notably in Christian theology.
Christian distrust of Friday the 13th
Thirteen is significant to Christians because it is the number of people who were present at the Last Supper (Jesus and his 12 apostles). Judas, the apostle who betrayed Jesus, was the 13th member of the party to arrive.
Christians have traditionally been wary of Fridays because it's believed Jesus was crucified on a Friday. Additionally, some theologians hold that Adam and Eve ate from the forbidden fruit on a Friday, and that the Great Flood began on a Friday. In the past, many Christians would never begin any new project or trip on a Friday, fearing they would be doomed from the start.
Click here for more about this Christian distrust.
Sailors were particularly superstitious in this regard, often refusing to ship out on a Friday. There's a maritime legend (unverified and probably untrue) that the British Navy commissioned a ship in the 1800s called HMS Friday, in order to quell the superstition. The navy selected the crew on a Friday, launched the ship on a Friday and even selected a man named James Friday as the ship's captain. Then, one Friday morning, the ship set off on its maiden voyage - and disappeared forever. A similar, entirely factual story in the unlucky name stakes is the harrowing flight of Apollo 13.
Some historians suggest the Christian distrust of Fridays is actually linked to the early Catholic Church's overall suppression of pagan religions and women. For many pagans, 13 is a lucky number, because it corresponds with the number of full moons each year, and in the Roman calendar, Friday was devoted to Venus, the goddess of love. When Norsemen adapted the calendar, they named the day after Frigg (sometimes anglicised as Frigga), or Freya, Norse goddesses connected to love and sex. This has lent to an alternative name for the fear of Friday the 13th as friggatriskaidekaphobics (after the Norse goddess and the fear of the number thirteen). Both of these strong female figures from Norse paganism (a subset of Germanic paganism) once posed a threat to male-dominated Christianity, the theory goes, so the Christian church vilified the day named after them.
Read more about goddesses and the number 13.
This characterisation may also have played a part in the fear of the number 13. It was said that Frigg would often join a coven of witches, normally a group of 12, bringing the total to 13. This idea may have originated with the Christian Church itself; it's impossible to verify the exact origins of most folklore. A similar Christian legend holds that 13 is unholy because it signifies the gathering of 12 witches and the devil.
The number 13 could also have been considered pagan because there are 13 months in the pagan lunar calendar. The lunar calendar also corresponds to the human menstrual cycle, connecting the number to femininity.
Friday the 13th and other mythologies
There are plenty of historical references to both 13 and Friday being considered unlucky, and although the Christian perspective on Friday and 13 is the most relevant today, it's only one part of the Friday the 13th tradition. The fact is that even though Friday the 13th is believed to come from ancient forms of mysticism, it's really a comparatively recent invention. Nobody thought of marrying these two these two superstitions until the early 20th Century, when a best-selling novel by the name of Friday the Thirteenth was released in 1907 - about a crook planning to crash the stock market.
Nevertheless, people have gone back to earlier historical dates to see if bad things had happened on this date. Thus other significant pieces of the legend is a particularly bad Friday the 13th that occurred in the middle ages. On a Friday the 13th in 1307 (although some cite the year as 1306), King Philip of France arrested the revered Knights Templar and began torturing them, marking the occasion as a day of evil.
But most people tend to focus on the number 13 in the main. Some trace the infamy of the number 13 back to ancient Norse culture (also thought to be a comparatively modern invention). In Norse mythology, the beloved hero Balder was killed at a banquet by the mischievous god Loki who crashed the party of twelve, bringing the group to 13. This story, as well as the story of the Last Supper, led to one of the most entrenched 13-related beliefs: You should never sit down to a meal in a group of 13. Queen of crime fiction, Agatha Christie worked this superstition into her 1933 novel Lord Edgware Dies, which was published in the United States later in the same year as Thirteen for Dinner.
Both Friday and the number 13 were once closely associated with capital punishment. In British tradition, Friday was the conventional day for public hangings, and there were supposedly 13 steps leading up to the noose. It is also said that 13 turns make a traditional hangman's noose - anything less would fail to snap a neck.
Ultimately, the complex folklore of Friday the 13th doesn't have much to do with people's fears today. The fear has much more to do with personal experience. Many of us fear driving on this day; according to the British Medical Journal there is a significant increase in traffic-related accidents when the date is Friday 13th.
People learn at a young age that Friday the 13th is supposed to be unlucky, for whatever reason, and then they look for evidence that the legend is true. The evidence isn't hard to come by, of course, on a balance of probabilities - because the longest period that can occur without a Friday the 13th is only fourteen months. Every year has at least one and at most three Friday the 13ths.
If you get in a car wreck on one Friday the 13th, lose your wallet, or even spill your coffee, that day will probably stay with you. But if you think about it, bad things, big and small, happen all the time. If you're looking for bad luck on Friday the 13th, you'll probably find it. The Uruguayan rugby team's plane crashed in the Andes mountain range on Friday, 13 October, 1972. American rapper Tupac Shakur died on Friday, September 13, 1996 after being mortally shot a week before.
You may not take drastic safety precautions every Friday the 13th, but are you totally immune to the superstition? If you happen to have your birthday on Friday the 13th like Samuel Beckett (13 April 1906), Margaret Thatcher (13 October 1923), Fidel Castro (13 August 1926), Robert Leroy Parker a.k.a Butch Cassidy (13 April 1866) and Steve Buscemi (13 December 1957) - would you celebrate it? My birthday is only 5 days away from the number 13, and my mum has told me often how she was fretting that I might be a week late and arrive on the 13th.
Given the choice, would you get married, start a new job or close on a house on Friday the 13th? Greeks didn't put much weight into the superstition; the Athens Olympic Games opened on Friday 13th of August in 2004. But for most in the West simply opening their front door on that day gets them spooked, even if they don't put much stock in the idea. Many may fall prey to the human mind's desire to associate thoughts and symbols with events. Psychologist Thomas Gilovich, of Cornell University, says:
If anything bad happens to you on Friday the 13th, the two will be forever associated in your mind. All those uneventful days in which the 13th fell on a Friday will be ignored.
Research has revealed that if we think we're unlucky then we're more likely to believe in superstitions linked to bad luck which could, in turn, actually lead to bad luck - rather like a "self-fulfilling prophecy". Indeed, superstition has a way of creeping up on people when they're in a particularly vulnerable state and most suggestive, and sometimes superstitions clash to make the superstitious even more jittery.
Case in point, the Daily Mail ran an article about Friday the 13th noting that 2012 is "an especially unlucky year" because it has three of these particularly inauspicious days instead of the usual two (although 2015 will have three Friday the 13ths, too). But that's not all. For the first time since 1984, those three Friday the 13ths - Jan. 13, April 13 and July 13 - are exactly 13 weeks apart in 2012 - a phenomenon which will not strike again until 2026.
However, while Friday the 13th can feel special, some say it isn't. In a 400-year period, the 13th falls on a Friday more than any other day: 688 times, but regardless of the maths, a superstition doubled, doubles its superstitiousness. It also seems to be the case that a scary superstition is the most potent in our minds in certain circumstances - for example on Halloween, or in the dark.
In the West, some believe the dark is probably associated with death because death is unknown - and thus in the dark. Likewise the colour black is most commonly used as a colour for mourning, signifying death. When we die, does darkness consume us? Lost in a land where we can see nothing but black? It's when we ask questions we can most likely never answer that some believe we awaken our greatest fears over the uncertainty of life itself.
Why do we enjoy being frightened?
Giving rise to more superstitions, nature has often provided us with symbols and totems on which to attach such fears, too. There are also examples where, when combined with Friday the 13th (which is arguably a superstition combo itself), it has given the natural symbol more potency. On this subject, full moons are as much of horror as they are of romance, and when coupled with Friday or the number 13 it has added more connotations to the traditional ones we may already know.
For instance, the 13th full moon in a year was traditionally called a blue moon. According to its more recent definition, a blue moon is the second full moon in a calendar month (which if on Halloween is known as a Halloween blue moon), but in traditional terms this 13th moon skewed the Christian calendar and so was identified in this way.
Another definition of a full moon that has a couple of meanings - with one connected to Friday the 13th directly - is the blood moon. This name for a full moon is in usage throughout the lunar calendar, but has different connotations. More recently, biblical doomsday prophecies have given it a new dimension by using the description for total lunar eclipses. Such a blood moon doesn't happen every day - not only does the moon have to be full, but the Earth, sun and moon have to be in perfect alignment, with the Earth in the middle. Astronomy writers often describe total lunar eclipses as appearing blood red. They appear reddish because sunlight from all of Earth's sunrises and sunsets is scattered by the Earth's atmosphere and falls on the surface of the eclipsed moon.
It's astonishing how we can take a simple satellite in the sky, see it in a different colour as a result of the sun's light reflecting off the Earth's atmosphere, and turn it into something altogether frightening under the influence of superstition. Merging doomsday prophecy and astronomy in context of a blood moon, for example, Christian pastors John Hagee and Mark Biltz claimed that the first in a series of four such lunar eclipses in 2014 - four blood moons within 18 months that astronomers call a tetrad - would herald the beginning of some major Earth-shattering event, popularising the idea of a "Blood Moon Prophecy".
Doomsday superstitions aside, scientific observation is of interest because it is a rare event; the lunar tetrad occurs throughout 2014 and 2015 in six-month intervals, between the 15th of April to the 8th of October in 2014, with two other lunar eclipses on the 4th of April and the 27th of September in 2015, completing the lunar tetrad. Due to their irregular nature, centuries can pass without a tetrad, and - so it's been said - has only occurred three times in the last 500 years. But there are 8 tetrads occurring all in all during the 21st Century, the following one appears between the years 2032-33, while the previous one was in 2003-04.
Traditionally, however, the term "blood moon" has been used to describe a full moon in autumn, known as the Hunter's moon amongst tribes native to North America - the first full moon in October after the Harvest Moon (in September). The reason for the Hunter's Moon being attributed the term blood moon in skylore is probably because it's a characteristic of these autumn full moons that they appear nearly full - and rise soon after sunset - for several evenings in a row. Many people see them when they are low in the sky, shortly after they've risen, at which time there's more atmosphere between you and the moon than when the moon is overhead. When you see the moon low in the sky, the extra air between you and the moon makes the moon look reddish.
Click here to read information on full moon names, blood moon dates and more in the image above.This reddish nature takes on a more ominous meaning for the superstitious when Friday the 13th happens to fall on a full moon in October. This rare blood moon occurrence is viewed by some has having paranormal powers. In fact Friday the 13th in October 1307, the most evil day of the Templar Knights - said to be linked with the origin of the Friday the 13th superstition (and something author Dan Brown has used in his works) - was on a blood moon.
This blood moon belief was used to great effect in the TV show Fear (promoted as MTV's Fear), an American paranormal reality television series that originally aired from 2000 to 2002 on MTV. The reality TV programme followed a group of 5 or more contestants after being left at an allegedly haunted location. They were challenged with a series of dares over two nights to explore and confirm whether or not the place was haunted.
In episode 3 of season 1 set at the Duggan Brothers Cement Factory (Real Location: Ideal Cement Company, 6411 Ideal Cement Rd., Castle Hayne, North Carolina) the first night took place on Friday the 13th, where the participants documented the rising of the "blood moon" on the footage. Arguably such fears play into our superstitions, and adds a supernatural element.
The supernatural power of superstition
Experts tell us that superstition is a belief in supernatural causality: that one event leads to the cause of another without any process in the physical world linking the two events (like a sudden Armageddon or doomsday scenario).
To medieval scholars the word was applied to and beliefs outside of or in opposition to Christianity. In keeping with the Latin etymology of the word, religious believers have often seen other religions as superstition. Likewise, atheists and agnostics may regard religious belief as superstition. Today it is applied to conceptions without foundation in, or in contravention of, scientific and logical knowledge. In the academic discipline of folkloristics the term "superstitions" is used to denote any general, culturally variable beliefs in a supernatural "reality".
Depending on a given culture's belief set, its superstitions may relate to things that are not fully understood or understood at all, such as cemeteries, animals, demons, a devil, deceased ancestors, the weather, ripping one's sock, gambling, sports, food, holidays, occupations, excessive scrupulosity, death, luck, and spirits. Some of us fear a black cat crossing our path, but we don't know why, or some will carry a rabbit's foot believing it will bring luck (this good luck charm came to the United States by way of African slaves). We knock on wood, make a wish on a wishbone, are careful not to break mirrors, cross our fingers for luck, are wary of events coming in threes and refuse to open umbrellas indoors.
Urban legends are also sometimes classed as superstition, especially if the moral of the legend is to justify fears about socially alien people or conditions. In Western folklore, superstitions associated with bad luck include walking under a ladder and - of course - Friday the 13th. Although Friday has long been considered an unlucky day (according to Christian tradition), and 13 has a long history as an unlucky number, for a superstition, the fear of Friday the 13th seems fairly new, dating back to the late 1800s.
In India, there is a superstition that a pregnant woman should avoid going outside during an eclipse in order to prevent her baby being born with a facial birthmark. In Korea, there is a superstition that leaving a fan on in a closed room will suffocate the occupants. In Australia there is a seemingly bizarre form of folk magic where people believed that you could defeat witches and evil by placing artefacts like shoes in those parts of buildings where harmful spirits might lurk.
Allowing superstitions to influence your life
In so far as a superstition is the belief that an object or an action will have influence on one's life, not all superstitions are "false" or useless. Superstitions also have the traditional element of knowledge passed down through the generations, and when some superstitions are proven by science, we exclaim that our forefathers knew best. Often it can also be an interesting historical anecdote on how they did not best.
Shoes have always held particular significance when it comes to superstition, so it's not surprising that shoes have been incorporated into a wedding superstition, too. During a wedding ceremony in Anglo-Saxon times, a husband took his shoe off and used it to strike his new wife. This was intended to establish that he now had authority over her. In Turkish tradition, whoever is the first to step on the other's shoe is believed to hold authority in the household. In years past in the West, brides used to throw one of their shoes at the bridesmaids. The girl who was hit by the shoe would be the next person to marry. In modern times, this has been replaced with the tossing of the bride's bouquet.
At one point in English history, when the new couple was ready to take off on their honeymoon, their guests pulled their shoes off and began throwing them at the couple. If any of the shoes hit them or their carriage, the bride and groom could expect plenty of good luck during their marriage. Today, some American superstitions claim old shoes should be tied to the back of the car to symbolise the couples' new journey together.
There can be hidden meanings, hidden secrets in superstition, and there can be wisdom. There can also be the greatest amount of ignorance. For example, rare Chinese libation cups were made out of rhino horn because it was believed it would protect the drinker of these communal drinking vessels, used on important ceremonial occasions, from poison, as well as being beneficial for medicinal purposes.
Although the latter is a dubious medicine myth, and science has shown rhino horn has no curative properties, it sadly helped the Chinese to hunt the rhinoceros to extinction in its provinces. But the belief that rhino horn might detect poison has found some basis in science. Most poisons are alkaline-based, and some have suggested that alkaline liquids give off a warning "fizz" when they come into contact with rhino horn.
The extinction of the rhino in China is a stark warning, if one was needed, to be careful in not only what we label and dismiss as superstition, but how much we let beliefs, which are seemingly based on not much evidence apart from faith, influence our lives.
Separating the good from the bad
Some superstitions are harmless old wives' tales with limited influence. Some have been debunked - masturbation doesn't cause blindness, toads don't give us warts. Some have been proven true - drink cranberry juice for a bladder infection, eat an apple a day for optimum health.
Some superstitions are just a silly bit of fun. Most of us go cute over superstitions or urban legends about wishes, for instance. Even if they don't work, it's fun to pretend, and we don't mind so much if the wishes don't come true. Here's a list of some I know, see how many you've heard of before:
- If your nose itches someone is thinking of you.
- If you dream about someone it's because they went to bed thinking of you.
- You can make a wish at 11:11. (Read more on the number 11.)
- If you say "touch something blue my wish comes true" and touch something blue after making a wish it's more likely to become true.
- If you and your friend say each other's name at the same time, you can make a wish. Alternatively (some of my friends think this) it means someone is thinking of you.
- When an eyelash falls out you can make a wish on it and blow it away.
Folklore abounds with superstitions related to love and marriage and love superstitions are among the few that even educated people cling to. The list of love superstitions is endless: Sure-fire "signs" to look for to indicate whether you'll fall in love soon, or what to do to dream of what your next lover will look like. Sleeping with a mirror under your pillow is one superstition. Standing in front of a mirror and brushing your hair three times (sometimes while eating an apple) is another.
And once you have that certain loved one, you have to avoid having your picture taken together before the wedding (apparently a reckless act that can bring about estrangement), or kissing when one partner is seated, or exchanging gifts of shoes (this encourages one of you to walk out of the relationship). So shoes might be lucky at a wedding, but here they are unlucky in love.
For a girl to meet her sweetheart or to kiss him for the first time under the light of a new moon is considered to be exceptionally lucky, for it means that she will soon become his bride, that their marriage will be blessed with undying love, and that neither of them will know the pinch of poverty.
The best time for an offer of marriage to be made is on a Friday evening (in this superstition Friday is lucky), and the engagement should be announced on the Saturday. Blue is notably the best colour for lovers, and the turquoise is their lucky stone. At one time a broken sixpence, of which the man and the girl each kept a piece, was said to ensure that they would never part; and the possession of a lock of the other's hair, tied to form a lovers' knot, was also an assurance of lasting affection.
Should kisses, in the form of crosses, be made at the end of the letter, their number should not be four, seven, or thirteen (here the number 13 is still considered unlucky); three is the luckiest number, and this modest amount is just as sure a sign of love and affection as the swarm of crosses that some people seem to find necessary.
It is believed unlucky for love letters to be posted (emailed or texted) either on Christmas Day or on February 29, a leap day which occurs once in four years. It is also considered unlucky to receive a pair of gloves as a gift from your lover, for it means a parting; the same applies to a brooch or a knife, but it is said that the ill luck may be warded off if a small coin is given in exchange.
It is deemed very unlucky for a girl to try on her wedding-ring before the ceremony, for it often results in a sudden termination of the engagement or in an unhappy marriage. To lose an engagement ring or wedding-ring is seen just as ominous, foretelling a break.
The ultimate intent of love superstitions is to keep lovers close or to avoid problems for the new couple. For example, many superstitions involve cooking. One such superstition goes something like this: If the biscuits burn, your lover will be unhappy. As simplistic as this superstition sounds, it can in fact push someone to become a better cook. This superstition fulfils another superstition that notes the proper way to a husband's love is through his stomach.
Food appears a lot in love superstitions. The Chinese practice of throwing rice at the new couple, which is often duplicated in American weddings, was done to encourage any jealous spirits that might be hovering nearby to eat, rather than bother the bride and groom. For early warning of a marriage, parents need only break an egg. If the egg has two yolks, a wedding ceremony is imminent. In Scotland years ago, breaking shortbread over a bride's head on her wedding day, meant she would have a happy marriage. In ancient Greece, tossing an apple to a young woman was a proposal of marriage, and catching it was acceptance.
And as though symbolic of the apple in the Biblical story of Adam and Eve, have you ever noticed how apples crop up a lot in love superstitions regarding future lovers? Have you thrown an apple peel over your shoulder to look at the letter that it forms when it lands on the floor? Or twisted the stem of an apple, reciting the names (or the letters of the alphabet) until the stem comes off. I knew a boy who did this constantly at school, and the letter he stopped at when the stem came off, he believed would be the initial of his future partner's name. And how many of us girls have cut an apple in half to count how many seeds are inside, and know how many children we would have with our future husband?
A common superstition boys try to follow is to never call a girl until three days have passed since their first date. The reason? If they do call, the relationship is doomed for failure. Has this been known to happen to someone somewhere along the line? Probably. Did the failed relationship have anything to do with the boy calling before three days had passed? Probably not, but in the world of love anything is possible. Practically, this superstition sounds a note of caution to young men, who may be rebuffed if they seem too eager. Therefore girls, don't be too disheartened if your new boyfriend doesn't call you back straight away.
So, some do have practical applications - and although they may not be based on scientific fact, they can provide you with the right mind set to attract a partner. Some are harmless superstitions, some are silly, some are fun, but we can't ignore love superstitions; they are a big part of our culture. From the youngest to the eldest, girls (and boys) tend to follow love superstitions with what can only be called zeal.
Seeking love with superstition
Countless superstitions, spells, and proverbs cater to the lovelorn. Surf online and you'll find love gurus trying to fill you with their hype that as a single person you must be lonely and looking for a man or woman. The bulk of them are designed either to help identify the one "true love" whom everyone is presumed to seek, or else to persuade a reluctant partner of someone's desirability. Do you remember those times you've believed in superstitions or urban legends about love or life in general?
I have said that superstitions work on vulnerable people, and similarly, with love superstitions for singles, we believe in their power the most when we're single, because we want to attract the love of our lives. But if these work to prey on our weaknesses, then they are dangerous.
Proper help gives you confidence in yourself, provides you with tips for the correct mindset. Baseless superstition tries to persuade you to believe in the sole act itself, as though love will fall into our laps as if by magic. It takes away the "you" factor, as though we were not the navigator of our lives. There is no spell you can cast, or love potion you can concoct, except by connecting with the power of your spirit and mind - and making the effort to love someone. This is the big difference between the spiritual and the "supernatural".
Click here to tap into the power of your mind!
Anyone who believes in the spiritual side of things will walk a fine line between superstitions, and I put my hand up that I am one of those people that believe there is more to life than our understanding, more than our eye can see. But I offer practical advice. Real help in the real world. I believe in the spirit, and the power of the mind, but I don't believe you can sit in front of a mirror and brush your hair to discover the person you will marry (it's just a bit of fun).
My experiences, my relationships, my own heart tells me with every fibre of my being that we are more than just muscle and bone, and there are some connections we make with others that go beyond any description science can currently give.
Critics say the foundation of superstition is ignorance, the superstructure is faith and the dome is a vain hope. But love is a notion not based on reason or knowledge, and yet it has an immense hold over and is a huge influence in our lives. And regular readers of this blog will know from my posts on the subject that I wholeheartedly believe love is no superstition.
We can't create love in a laboratory, we can't scientifically prove its existence, and yet it is there, as important to us as the air we breathe - and that's true not just on Friday the 13th, but any day of the week.
Yours in love,
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