Superstitions and their societal effects

Superstitions:

• Superstition (Latin superstitio, literally "standing over"; derived perhaps

from standing in awe, used in Latin as an unreasonable or excessive
belief in fear or magic) is a belief or notion, not based on reason or
knowledge.
• The word is often used pejoratively to refer to supposedly irrational
beliefs that an object, action, or circumstance not logically related to a
course of events influences its outcome and ignorance of law of nature or
by faith in magic.
• It is commonly applied to beliefs and practices surrounding luck, and
spiritual beings, particularly the irrational belief that future events can be
influenced or foretold by specific, unrelated behaviors or occurrences.
• Superstitions are magical and paranormal beliefs, as well as religious
beliefs, were predicted to fade away with the rise of rationality, science,
and technology.

Superstition involves the belief in some supernatural

process, such that walking under a ladder or breaking a mirror or spilling salt
will have a bad effect, or that throwing salt over your shoulder after spilling
it will negate that effect. In China, an essential part of wedding planning is
consulting an astrologer about what day and time the wedding should be
held to ensure good fortune. While many people do believe that some
supernatural phenomena are real, almost all of us recognize that at least
much of the time these superstitions aren't really valid.

Superstition and religion

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.

Religious practices are most likely to be labeled "superstitious" by outsiders

when they include belief in extraordinary events like miracles, an afterlife,
or the efficacy of prayer, charms, the meaningfulness of omens.
Greek and Roman pagans, who modeled their relations with the gods on
political and social terms, scorned the man who constantly trembled with
fear at the thought of the gods, as a slave feared a cruel and capricious
master. "Such fear of the gods was what the Romans meant by 'superstition`.

The Catechism clearly dispels commonly held preconceptions or

misunderstandings about Catholic doctrine relating to superstitious
practices:

Superstition is a deviation of religious feeling and of the practices

this feeling imposes. It can even affect the worship we offer the
true God, e.g., when one attributes an importance in some way
magical to certain practices otherwise lawful or necessary. To
attribute the efficacy of prayers or of sacramental signs to their
mere external performance, apart from the interior dispositions
that they demand is to fall into superstition. Cf. Matthew 23:16-22
(para. #2111)

Some common superstitions

Superstitions are normally classified as negative superstition and positive
superstitions.

Negative Superstitions and bad omens:

• Magpie:

A single magpie is considered a sign of bad luck. An old

proverb concerning the incidence of bad weather when magpies
forage alone and a possible scientific explanation for this.

• Tetra phobia :

Tetra phobia is widespread in China, Japan, Korea, and

Hawaii; the use of number 4 is minimized or avoided wherever
possible because the Chinese word for 4, sì, sounds nearly the same as
the word for death, sǐ. Mobile telephone numbers with 4 in them sell
for less and some buildings even skip level four, labeling it the 5th
floor instead. One of the Japanese words for 4, shi, is also
 homonymous with the kanji in the word for death, shi or shin. In
Korea, number '4' is pronounced as sa and is homonymous with 'death
'. Some, but not all, Korean buildings have the fourth floor written as
'F' floor.

• The number 13 :

In Western culture, the number 13 is perceived as unlucky;

12a sometimes used as a substitute and some buildings skip floor 13
completely.

• Spilling salt:

Spilling salt is said to cause a fight or argument during the day.

There are several options to "undo" this which seem to relate to
various ways of acknowledging the fact that salt was spilled with
others present at the scene. One way to revert this is tossing some salt
over one's left shoulder with ones right hand.

• Walking underneath an open ladder:

If one walks underneath an open ladder it is said to bring

bad luck. In the back days, criminals were hung from the top rung of a
ladder and their spirits were believed to linger underneath. Common
folklore has it to be bad luck to walk beneath an open ladder and pass
through the triangle of evil ghosts and spirits.

Sometimes it is said that this can be undone by immediately

walking backwards back underneath the ladder.

• Broken mirrors:

Breaking a mirror is said to bring bad luck for 7 years. To

"undo" this, take the shards of glass and bury them underneath the
moonlight. In ancient times, the mirror was said to be a window to
the viewer's soul. If that mirror were to break, it would take time (or
7 years) for that 'cracked' soul to heal as 'time heals all wounds'.
 • Black Cats

The superstitious symbolism of a black cat crossing one's path

is dependent upon culture: some cultures consider this a sign of
impending bad luck, while some cultures consider this a sign of
impending good luck.

• Wedding ring:

Once a wedding ring has been placed on the finger, it is

considered bad luck to remove it.

• Owls

If an owl looks in your window or if you seeing one in the

daylight bad luck and death will bestow you.

Positive superstitions (Positive Illusions):

• Many believe that if all of the candles on a birthday cake are blown
out with one breath, while making a silent wish, the wish will come
true.
• If your palm itches, you will soon receive money. If you itch it, your
money will never come.

• Collect seven or nine different flowers on midsummer eve and

place them under your pillow and it is said that you will dream of your
future spouse. (Sweden)

• Horseshoes
 To bring good luck, the horseshoe must lost by a horse and be
found by you, with the open end facing your way. You must hang it
over the door with the open end up, so the good fortune doesn't spill
out. Another origin of the 'lucky horseshoe' is the belief that they ward
off witches. Witches, it was once believed, were opposed to horses,
which is why they rode brooms and pitchforks instead. By placing a
horseshoe over a door, the witch would be reluctant to enter.

• Some people prefer to practice more subtle forms of superstitious

behaviors. Similarly, average people use articles of clothing like a
"lucky tie" or "lucky shirt" they wear whenever going out for a job
interview or participating in some other events.

• Other people rely on astrology or other forms of irrational mental

exercises to test for the right time to make a particular decision or
perform certain actions.

Some, such as carrying a charm to bring good luck, touching wood, and
crossing fingers, reflect a desire to bring about beneficial consequences by
actively courting good
luck or at least avoiding bad luck. Such positive superstitions may serve
different psychological functions to negative superstitions. Indeed, as is the
case with other forms of so-called ’positive illusions’, beliefs in these types
of superstitions may actually be psychologically adaptive rather than
maladaptive.

Effects
No matter how sophisticated our society becomes, superstitions persist in
having an impact on success or failure. There seems to be part of the human
mind that thrives on creating little anchors of "magic" that lift us up or bring
us down independent of rationality. Though the clearly logical part of our
thinking can easily dismiss the practice or belief in superstitious activity as
silly quirks, our less rational creative mind goes to work incorporating
whatever we feed it to gain or lose an edge in using faculties consistently
engaged in solving problems.
Uncontrolled belief in superstitions can have a negative impact on how
people conduct their lives. When applied in extremes, such thoughts can
become destructive to the point of debilitation.

Passing of superstitions in society over generations:

Superstition can be passed down

through generations or created on a purely individual level but if it pass on
from generation to generation then there is a process of evolution which can
change their validity. So question is if they aren't valid, why do people
believe them? Part of the reason seems to be just because other people tell
them these things are true. Most superstitions have been around for many
generations. Sometimes practically everybody with the same cultural
background believes them. If the claims aren't true, why don't people
recognize that they are false and stop passing them on? Some of the older
forms of superstition are examples of misguided beliefs that have long been
a part of lore. There are also a host of traditional counter measures and lucky
charms reported to counteract bad luck and turn it into good.

Rationality: A strong basis of society:

Superstitious beliefs are tied to the supernatural

or unpredictable side of events that are in the scope of things otherwise
beyond our societal control. A society should work on rational basis but in
the case of superstitions believes it do not. There is a lot of difference
between rational behavior and superstitious practices. The difference
between rational observation and superstitious practices is substantial.

• With rational observation, we can assess behaviors and methods that

either work consistently or not. When the results are inconsistent, we
can eliminate those influences that had no impact on outcome.

• On the other hand, superstition works completely on irrational belief

systems where one successful mental correlation counteracts many
unsuccessful results. If our mental "magic" seems to work once, we
focus on attempting to recreate the success by trying to reproduce the
same magic repeatedly. Superstitious people also are very good at
 finding excuses for why things didn't work out as expected. They can
easily imagine other magical effects that might cancel or modify the
superstition. If the evil eye didn't seem to bother them, maybe it was
because somebody said the right prayer or some charm warded off the
effect.

What constitutes a superstition in different society?

A sociologist Regis suggests that "superstition" is highly relative:

"Superstition is a label that people usually put on someone else's
religion. So if you don't understand someone else's beliefs, then that's
superstition."

Pakistani society
Normally in rural areas of Pakistan people used to end their lives in order to
get rid off sins and evil spirits. In many of rural areas if any of person is
suffering from any of mental disorder like dissociative identity disorder and
schizophrenia people do not take as a psychological disorder instead of that
they think that victim is a prisoner of an evil spirit and they go to the people
who cure this putting their lives at stake.

Here I am mentioning one case of a father who went to a

Maulvi and said to him that I did a lot of sins tell me what its remedy. The
Maulvi said to him that he has to slaughter his three daughters in order to get
rid off all of his sins. And mercilessly he did this. If I relate this type of
happenings with a culture universal like religion, then in our religion Islam it
is not allowed to kill anyone and on other hand he ruthlessly killed his
daughters which are a deviant human behavior from standards of society and
even deviation from our religion Islam due to irrational concept of
superstition.

Conclusion:
 As sociology is a study of human behavior and society as a whole, so
many of factors impart stability of society. And many of factors may lead
towards instability and superstition is one of them. As norms and beliefs are
basis of any society which strongly stabilize a society and false beliefs like
superstitions leads to debilitation of society due to irrationality of human
behavior. And lastly sociology is a science which requires strong reasoning
for every existing thing while superstitions are vague idea with no specific
reasoning behind it. So superstitious beliefs should be omitted from society
through proper rational human thinking, education and social control in
order to avoid deviant human behavior.

Reference:
1: http://ezinearticles.com/?Examining-The-Effect-Of-Superstition-In-
Life&id=973299
2:http://www.truthpizza.org/logic/stition.htm
3: http://www.lpb.org/programs/traiteurs/sg_five.html
4: http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-
5: http://www.halloween-website.com/superstitions.htm