I'm (a Little Bit) Superstitious
... and now I know why
So much is out of control in this world, that an average person like me has to have a few routines to create a sense of order. I keep them small and unnoticed because they’re silly. Things like putting on my right sock before the left one.
Who wouldn’t feel insecure right now when everything in America is changing so fast? And the mood at the top doesn’t seem to favor the common good. This week Heather Cox Richardson looked behind the scenes of our general instability. She wrote,
Yesterday, Trump gave his first press conference since the election. It was exactly what Trump’s public performances always are: attention-grabbing threats alongside lies and very little apparent understanding of actual issues. …
The uncertainty he creates is key to his power. It keeps everyone off balance and focused on him in anticipation of trouble to come.
Remember the Wizard of Oz? In the end the big voice is just a little man “using elaborate magic tricks and props to make himself seem ‘great and powerful’.”
Even though I’m wise to the psychology of many of our elected leaders’ deceptions, I still seem to need what Medical News Today calls a “sense of having control over outer conditions”. The article goes on to say,
This is why superstitions are prevalent in conditions of absence of confidence, insecurity, fear, and threat.
But I’ve always been comfortable with superstitions. My mother was a professional actress in the 1930’s, so I know, for example, that inside the theater building you can say “the Scottish Play”, but never “Macbeth”. I’ve read online that
saying 'Macbeth' in a theater brings bad luck. According to folklore, this began at its first performance (circa 1606) when the actor playing Lady Macbeth suddenly died and Shakespeare was forced to replace him.
It’s also bad luck to speak the last line of a play onstage unless there’s an audience present. So the director might invite a few friends or family members to the dress rehearsal.
Also, burning candles onstage isn’t a great idea, but if you must, be sure you don’t have three of them. Bad luck!
Speaking of candles leads me to what Carl Sagan wrote about superstition in The Demon-Haunted World: Science As a Candle in the Dark.
In the book’s index, “superstition” is found under “pseudoscience”. Sagan says,
Pseudoscience is easier to present to the public than science, because it easily avoids reality. The standards of argument and evidence are more relaxed.
But this doesn’t explain its popularity —
People naturally try out various belief systems, and if we’re desperate, we are all too willing to abandon the heavy burden of skepticism.
When our ethnic or national prejudices are aroused — in times of scarcity, during challenges to national self-esteem or nerve, when we agonize about our diminished cosmic place and purpose, or when fanaticism bubbles up around us — then, habits of [superstitious] thought from ages past reach for the controls.
Pseudoscience speaks to powerful emotional needs that science and reality often leave unfulfilled. It caters to fantasies about personal powers we long for, like the ones superheroes have.
I remember from childhood comics a top-hatted magician who brandished an ebony walking stick. Zatara could make anything happen! How did he do it? He spoke his commands backwards! That’s all there was to it.
So today Sagan’s candle flame of truth and reality may be flickering. But all of us are actors in this theater, and the last line of this play has not yet been spoken!
Ah Deda, You have a fantastic way of alleviating my anxieties! Today, I will not whistle in the house, but I will throw some salt over my shoulder during the dinner preparation.
We are all just doing the best we can. Allen and I send you & Sam many wishes for a Happy Christmas. You both deserve the very best.
You have a wonderful way of giving me a new perspective. I am always touched by how you tell about yourself in your write. Thank your again!