Copyright © 1994 Douglas E. Winter. This article comes from ThothWeb - Your Portal to the Unknown http://www.thothweb.com
Is the superstition and fear associated with Friday the thirteenth based on fact or fiction we wonder? This article by Douglas E. Winter takes a look at the history that surrounds the date.Paraskevidekatriaphobics — people afflicted with a morbid, irrational fear of Friday the 13th — are no doubt pricking up their ears just now, buoyed by evidence that their terror may not be so irrational after all. But it's unwise to take solace in a single scientific study (the only one of its kind, so far as I know), especially one so peculiar. I suspect it has more to teach us about human psychology than it does about any particular date on the calendar.
The Most Widespread SuperstitionThe sixth day of the week and the number 13 both have foreboding reputations said to date from ancient times.
Their inevitable conjunction from one to three times a year portends more misfortune than some credulous minds can bear. Folklorists say it's probably the most widespread superstition in the United States: some people won't go to work on Friday the 13th; some won't eat in restaurants; many wouldn't think of setting a wedding on the date.How many Americans at the turn of the millennium still suffer from this condition? According to Dr. Donald Dossey, a psychotherapist specializing in the treatment of phobias and coiner of the term "paraskevidekatriaphobia," the figure may be as high as 21 million. If he's right, eight percent of Americans are still in the grips of a very old superstition.Exactly how old is difficult to say, because determining theorigins of superstitions is an imprecise science, at best. In fact, it's mostly guesswork. It is said: If 13 people sit down to dinner together, all will die within the year. The Turks so disliked the number 13 that it was practically expunged from their vocabulary (Brewer, 1894). Many cities do not have a 13th Street or a 13th Avenue. Many buildings don't have a 13th floor. If you have 13 letters in your name, you will have the devil's luck (Jack the Ripper, Charles Manson, Jeffrey Dahmer, Theodore Bundy and Albert De Salvo all have 13 letters in their names). There are 13 witches in a coven.Though no one can say for sure when and why human beings first associated the number 13 with misfortune, the belief is assumed to be quite old and there exist any number of theories purporting to trace its origins to antiquity and beyond.It has been proposed, for example, that fears surrounding the number 13 are as ancient as the acto......
The Most Widespread SuperstitionThe sixth day of the week and the number 13 both have foreboding reputations said to date from ancient times.
Their inevitable conjunction from one to three times a year portends more misfortune than some credulous minds can bear. Folklorists say it's probably the most widespread superstition in the United States: some people won't go to work on Friday the 13th; some won't eat in restaurants; many wouldn't think of setting a wedding on the date.How many Americans at the turn of the millennium still suffer from this condition? According to Dr. Donald Dossey, a psychotherapist specializing in the treatment of phobias and coiner of the term "paraskevidekatriaphobia," the figure may be as high as 21 million. If he's right, eight percent of Americans are still in the grips of a very old superstition.Exactly how old is difficult to say, because determining theorigins of superstitions is an imprecise science, at best. In fact, it's mostly guesswork. It is said: If 13 people sit down to dinner together, all will die within the year. The Turks so disliked the number 13 that it was practically expunged from their vocabulary (Brewer, 1894). Many cities do not have a 13th Street or a 13th Avenue. Many buildings don't have a 13th floor. If you have 13 letters in your name, you will have the devil's luck (Jack the Ripper, Charles Manson, Jeffrey Dahmer, Theodore Bundy and Albert De Salvo all have 13 letters in their names). There are 13 witches in a coven.Though no one can say for sure when and why human beings first associated the number 13 with misfortune, the belief is assumed to be quite old and there exist any number of theories purporting to trace its origins to antiquity and beyond.It has been proposed, for example, that fears surrounding the number 13 are as ancient as the acto......
No comments:
Post a Comment