Superstitious?

Some of all the superstition comes from pratical reasons and got an explanation.
Do not go under a ladder,It means bad luck.
Of course it does, if the ladder slips and falls on top of you
or the paint falls down
or a tile or what ever.
Open windows and clean out after a person passed away propably was a good idea as the weeks before there was no real time for cleaning - just time to take of the dying person.
Do not stire a drink with a knife - then you get a stomach ache. A good answer to a kid´s never ending questions WHY. After all the kid has to learn to use a spoon.

My father told me when I was a kid that if you swallow grape pips you have a bigger chance of getting appendicitis. I think he believed it.

Some people believe that chopped tiger whiskers can kill a person or animal if swallowed.

I have heard that too.

I say "Gesundheit" if someone sneezes, but only because so many expect it. Don't want to offend them. I don't see that I am superstitious in any sense. My wife on the other hand will not pick up a tails up penny, but grabs a heads up for good luck. If her left palm itches she expects money and she rubs the palm with the other hand to rub in the good luck. To scratch would expel it. She actually changes her route if she spots a black cat.

When a piece of silverware is dropped on the floor, it means company is coming.

We always banged kitchen pots on New Years Eve at 12 midnight.

I don't know if these are superstitions or customs.

My Greek girlfriend always had to dress her newborns in clothes turned inside out. Something about the Devil not seeing the child if this is done. Creepy.

In Scandinavia we have the same thing about the silverware.
Guess banging kitchen pots on New Year´s Eve is the same tradition as fireworks.
Any noice to keep the evil spirits away from the new year.
A superstition which has become a tradition.

I read some place that according to modern "how to behave" in Germany noone is supposed to say "Gesundheit" but the person sneezing should say "Excuse me"
I so much more prefer a nice "Gesundheit", "God bless you", "Prosit" or what ever.

No matter how much I laugh at myself I have a similar reaction to those putting red ribbons on stuff and saying kunnawhatsit.

I don't believe in people cursing stuff, but I have a belief, which seems to be deeply rooted in many cultures, that you don't "tempt providence" by saying things are going well, I'm happy etc.

If you do, disaster will strike.

I think this "belief" is apparently borne out in reality from time to time....enough times for it to basically form an intermittent schedule of reinforcement. This happens to be the strongest reinforcement pattern known to us.

Watching baseball, you absolutely never never say that a no-hitter is in progress.
Ya just don't.
Ever.

Very akin to superstition is fear of Ouija Boards. Somebody brought one into the office at work one day. The manager was terrified and destroyed it.

My grandmother was very superstitious and she always told us to never lay a knife with the blade up - that meant that our dead relatives have to walk on the blade. So stupid, but I will put every knife down that has its blade up.

A broken mirror brings 7 years of bad luck, but a broken dish brings luck.

A large part of my memory of my mother was her interest in Novinas. Which I was involved in too, as she took me there. Nine days of praying, if you can't find it online.

I see that is a wrongly understood word online, at least at first glance.

My mother was desperate for help, over a long time, with good reason.

A broken mirror brings 7 years of bad luck, is supposed to come from the early time of mirrors made around Venice, Italy.
A merchant had to leave home - imagen in northern Europe to travel by horse and carriage to Italy to get the mirror, hopefully bringing it back unbroken or return if it broke. If your mirror broke the same procedure, which could take a few months and of course cost a fortune.
The mirors from Venice were of very high quality mad of glass covered with metal often silver.
No suprise it felt like 7 years of bad luck to break one. If you happened to be the maid in the house who did it......
The merchant´s wife took care of business in the meantime.

Absolutely true. I admit that when it comes to sports and gambling, I'm very superstitious. Why? Not sure. Luck is certainly a part of sports and gambling. So why not get a little help?

we never let the drillers predict ""show depths" (whever we find first traces of what we are looking for).
It put a curse on the whole program.

However, they are always making bets among themselves,

One that I stick with is to never watch the first pitch of a baseball game for my teams (Yankees in the AL, Pirates in the NL). It seems to guarantee a loss if I see it, even if it happens to be shown as a replay.

I have had other superstitious beliefs and actions over the years... like the years I did not wear striped shirts because it could cause harm to a loved one, but I forget at some point and after that the superstition is gone.

Twofers: 1. Bet on the other team after you watch the start 2. Don't throw away losing bets on other teams if you plan to watch the replay.

Mmm, black cats:

My dad always said I'd blind myself if I rubbed my eyes after eating a fresh fig; that swallowing watermelon seeds causes appendicitis, and that hearing an owl hoot is bad luck or a bad omen.

also, apparently wearing the color blue, particularly turquoise, protects a person from evil. i remember as a little girl wearing bright orange pants, and my dad telling me to change to blue pants because I needed to be protected.

there's also this really unhygienic superstition in Lebanon that covering a newborn in bat blood will prevent them from growing a lot of body hair.

I would have to say I am and I can't take refuge in blaming my sub-conscious.

Not in the sense that I actually believe that harm, necessarily, follows a black cat crossing one's path, a broken mirror, walking under a ladder or any of the hundreds of other supposedly sinister events we are faced with everyday, but more as an expression of OCD tendencies.

I have a certain routine that I go through in the morning that involves precise numbers of strokes from my deoderant, rinses while brushing my teeth and similar inviolate rules of the toilet. What will happen if I violate the rules? Nothing of course other than my having a sense that I've put myself in some sort of metaphysical peril. The sense lasts about as long as it takes me to leave the bathroom and begin dressing. Yet, I am religious about following the routine and the anxiety caused by breaking it, while not lasting or remotely debilitating, is momentarily unpleasant enough to enforce my efforts to follow the routine going forward.

I tend to think this is very mild OCD but I can imagine it exploding well enough to have great sympathy for those who are afflicted with a severe case of the disorder.

I'm sure all superstition can't be explained by obsessive compulsions, but a lot can.

I also think there is an underlining sense of "Why take a chance?" Life is tough enough to get through without inviting disaster by deliberately violating one of the laws of metaphysics. A great many people follow the required response to an unfortunate event (like spilling salt) just because at some level they don't feel comfortable blatantly defying the Goddess of Luck. Along with "Why take a chance?" comes "You never know."

The vast majority of us don't really believe bad things will necessarily happen if we don't ward them off with a spell. Should they fail to comply with the ritual, I suspect that most people who do throw the salt over their shoulder or knock wood, would not trace back a misfortune that befell them, later in the day, to their earlier violation. It's not a belief in magic per se, but perhaps a cultural residue from a time when magic was real to people...and a way to hedge one's bet.

I also knock wood frequently and firmly. The notion of tempting fate has been around for a long time and ancient peoples around the globe shared a sense that it wasn't smart to draw the attention of the gods, especially through prideful boasts. I suppose it's possible that in so doing they were actually drawing the attention of criminals and that the bad result from this happened enough times that people came to think of it as an expression of the gods' displeasure with hubris, but I think not. Ancient people didn't need metaphysical forces like luck and gods to explain the results of clearly foolish behavior. I don't think there is any superstition that involves a metaphysical connection between ensuing misfortune and sticking one's hand in fire or jumping off a cliff. Similarly, shoot your mouth off about how much treasure you have in front of rogues and you're going to get robbed; not because you're unlucky or you pissed of the gods, but because you're a fool.

There is so much that has been and continues to be outside the control of individual humans and bad things come in big and small packages. It's comforting in a silly, very human way, to think that knocking wood or crossing yourself can somehow provide you with protection against things for which there really is no protection.

Why take a chance? You never know...

PS: There is nothing superstitious about the connection between your favorite sports team's success and the position in which you are sitting while you watch the game. I myself have proven this to be a scientific fact over and over again.

I was raised super catholic, so I can relate a lot of my behavior as part of that ethos (I now have to look up the word ethos); I put the initials JMJ (Jesus Mary Joseph) on top of my school papers for years and years, in a grasp for a mix of self esteem as a moderately good kid trying to be religious, mixed with hope for not messing up my school work. In part because of some catholic magazines accumulated at our house, at least one of them aimed at me, re such things as impure thoughts, I became what I would now call scrupulous, in a negative way. Took me some years to burst out of all that. I remember being nervous looking at ordinary magazines lest I accept an impure thought for a few seconds.

This isn't an anti religion diatribe, as by now I think some of religion is a help and not a hindrance to mankind... just that its effect on me was deleterious in kind of spooky ways.

I wouldn't call myself superstitious now. I've enough damned worries without all that.