Where do superstitions come from?
 

There are dozens, maybe hundreds of superstitions out there. Not walking under ladders makes sense but whats so special about the colour green or the number 13 or black cats?

The stork brings them. ;)

John

It's said that the thing about 13 comes from the Last Supper (12 Disciples plus Jesus).

The Celts had a deity that took the form of a black cat. The aversion to them may stem from Rome's suppression of the Celtic religion and culture in Western Europe and Britain.

Green? I don't really know. Might be Celtic again, with"the little people". That might be why some consider it good luck and others bad luck.

I think all superstitions come from folklore (duh) and, since folklore is so rich and diverse, there's no one source for superstitious beliefs and some superstitions go back so far, way back into pre-literate cultures, that finding the root is impossible in some cases.

John

Some superstitions come from vivid imagination, coincidence and ingnorance. Others are taught in the Madrassas, Temples and Sunday school.

Regards,
Dave

Friday the 13th came from the raids on the Knights Templar.

Pete

So, every Friday the 13th, millions of nippleheads are frightened 'cuz the Knights Templar are coming to get them? Must be NRA members.

Regards,
Dave

Yes, all those mystic loving far left hippies are lifetime NRA members :p

Hope we're all good, knock on wood :)

Pete

Stop that, you'll give yourself a headache! :D

Spilling salt is considered unlucky because Judas spilled the salt at the Last Supper. Throwing some of the spilled salt over your left shoulder is thought to be throwing it in the Devil's face, thereby warding the evil. You wouldn't throw it over your right shoulder because that's where your Guardian Angel stands.

But the idea of spilled salt being unlucky is even older. Salt was a valuable commodity because it kept food from spoiling. As such, in Roman times, it was often given to dinner guests as a gift symbolizing friendship. Spilling the salt was thought to put those friendships at risk.

As you can see, this earlier Roman belief is probably behind the Christian belief concerning the Last Supper. So often, the deeper you dig into a superstition, the more you have to dig. Who knows what earlier superstition (or event) lies behind the Roman one?

John

Illiteracy was a big part of it. Roman Catholic churches that were built in the 1500s had facades full of sculptures. They were put there to communicate with the illiterate. At least that's what my tour guide told me in Regensburg.

When people are left to their own devices they can come up with all kinds of models to represent the "truth". A friend and I were talking about relationships once and she came up with a spring model to describe ebbs and flows of struggles in life. If she lived a few thousand years ago and a rock carver wanted to get into her pants bad enough, she might have been the author of the Ten Commandments of the Church of Springs. :D