BS: Are you superstitious?

Subject: RE: BS: Are you superstitious?
From: alison
Date: 26 Feb 01 - 10:11 PM

Black cats, mirrors,13, cracks in the pavement etc...... nope

BUT

faeries, blackthorn trees and faery rings.... YES......... could be the Irish background *grin*

slainte

alison

Subject: RE: BS: Are you superstitious?
From: Katcina
Date: 26 Feb 01 - 10:28 PM

Welcome back Alison. Glad you're home and hope you had a great time.

Subject: RE: BS: Are you superstitious?
From: alison
Date: 26 Feb 01 - 10:31 PM

hahahaha... was I away?????

thanks katcina.. festival was good.....

slainte

alison

Subject: RE: BS: Are you superstitious?
From: mousethief
Date: 27 Feb 01 - 12:16 AM

I had this book when I was in elementary school "explaining" the origins of various superstitions. Thus I was debunked at a young age and never really bought into superstitions, bent spoons, UFOs or any of that stuff.

But if I give a knife as a gift, I'll enclose a penny so the recipient can give it back to me -- because you should never GIVE a knife, but it's okay to SELL one.

Alex

Subject: RE: BS: Are you superstitious?
From: Amergin
Date: 27 Feb 01 - 02:40 AM

Boy, Jiggles, I didn't notice you were gone....but then it was alot quieter around here....

Subject: RE: BS: Are you superstitious?
From: Wolfgang
Date: 27 Feb 01 - 06:08 AM

I'm not superstitious.

If you want to read a good book on why people develop and/or keep convictions not based on knowledge or reason, read:

S.A.Vyse, Believing in Magic. The Psychology of Superstition, Oxford University Press 1997.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Are you superstitious?
From: KingBrilliant
Date: 27 Feb 01 - 07:56 AM

I really did used to run from the loo & get back downstairs to the frontroom / into bed before the flush finished. No idea why. Probably my big sister told me to. Probably originated in that Pete'n'Dud sketch then. I think the devil was supposed to catch you if the flush finished before you got back
Mind you they do make some scarey noises after the flush finishes - so perhaps its a fear that lots of kids develop & that the sketch was picking up on - actually that seems more likely for their humour.
Nowadays my superstitions seem to be more along the lines of the feeling that if I do something bad then something bad will happen to me in return. And serve me right too!

Kris

Subject: RE: BS: Are you superstitious?
From: LR Mole
Date: 27 Feb 01 - 09:27 AM

I don't think I'm superstitious but I am very ritualistic: same things in the same pockets ALWAYS (car keys amd flatpicks in the left, house keys in the right, etc.) The superstition I could never get was that my mother, when a glass would break in the water as she was washing it, wouldn't throw it away without breaking a match and putting both ends into it.

Subject: RE: BS: Are you superstitious?
From: GUEST,petr
Date: 27 Feb 01 - 02:30 PM

I worked with autistic kids for a few years and many of them are very ritualistic and superstitious (at least the higher functioning ones) and often the superstitions are their own invention ie,. only exit and enter a house through the same door (otherwise its bad luck) etc. And I think we all share the same ritualistic traits and find a certain security in a pattern and (find that we get thrown off a little when the pattern is broken) Eg. getting up in the morning and doing the same routine or driving to work the same way.

Subject: RE: BS: Are you superstitious?
From: Steve Latimer
Date: 27 Feb 01 - 02:40 PM

I spent most of my life as a hockey goaltender. Goalies have always been considered flaky in the hockey community, and I guess that I am no exception. I had so many superstitions that I couldn't keep track of them. A few of them were dress from the left side first, don't wash your longjohns when you're on a winning streak, always be first on the ice and last off, always have a coffee and a Coffee Crisp bar before games (this was a problem in some away games, not all arena snack bars carrried them so sometimes I'd have to run out of the arena to a convenience store), always stop the last shot in warm-up, never start putting your skates on until the Zamboni goes on the rink, get a new stick if you let in two goals in the first period (I had to abandon this one when I started playing adult Recreational hockey and had to buy my own sticks), where home socks with away sweaters and vice versa. There were many more. The terrible thing was that a lot of other people were involved with enabling me to do these things. Once the equipment manager made the "mistake" of bringing my away socks to an away game. I put them on and was horrible in warm up, spent the whole flood before the game taking my pads, skates and socks off and replacing them with a ratty old pair of home socks that someone had in their bag. I made the change just in time to start the game and played very well.

Yes, I'm still very superstitious. Most of my superstitions are of my own making though.

Subject: RE: BS: Are you superstitious?
From: Jim Krause
Date: 27 Feb 01 - 04:59 PM

I don't walk under ladders because some bozo is bound to spill the paint on ME. That isn't superstitious, it's practical.
Jim

Subject: RE: BS: Are you superstitious?
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 27 Feb 01 - 05:07 PM

Jeez Steve, you're awful normal for a "Goalie"! My sportswriter friend tells me that they are EXTREMELY strange.

Rick

Subject: RE: BS: Are you superstitious?
From: John Hardly
Date: 07 Oct 03 - 10:29 AM

I heard a delightful interview with a Cubs fan this morning. Ths subject of the day was superstitions that fans have used to get the Cubs this far.

This young woman "Jennifer" said that her husband's grandad was a huge Cubs fan, so they take a framed photo of the grandad and set it in a bedroom in front of a TV with the game on. They then close the door and go watch the game in another room.

When asked "Why don't you just put the framed grandad in front of the TV you are watching?" she answered...

"Because that doesn't work".

Obvious I suppose.

Subject: RE: BS: Are you superstitious?
From: Mickey191
Date: 07 Oct 03 - 11:09 AM

I have only one-never kill a spider. From my dear Irish Mom. Don't know what the penalty is. Last night I found one and put it outside where it will probably freeze to death. So I gave it a slow death (one imagines) instead of a quickee.

Subject: RE: BS: Are you superstitious?
From: Ebbie
Date: 07 Oct 03 - 12:00 PM

I live in a house museum where I give tours during the summer. This summer I invited a couple to leave by the back door rather than travel back through the house to leave by the one through which they had entered. The young woman was discomfitted, saying, Oh, no. I'll go the other way. Her husband said, She is superstitious. She can't go straight through a house.

Mind you, this was a young woman.

Subject: RE: BS: Are you superstitious?
From: LadyJean
Date: 08 Oct 03 - 12:39 AM

I've had a few memorable years.
There was the year I dislocated my kneecap. My grandmother, whom I loved very much, died of cancer. I was told that my cat, whom I loved almost as much as Grandma, had a tumor on his liver and would live 6 months. (The vet was wrong on that one.)

There was the year I learned that my boyfriend of several years had a growth on his hip, which might be malignant. I found out it wasn't on Saturday. My father died the following Monday. My boyfriend dumped me three months later.

My mother died of cancer. My sister was a bitch about it. I was out of work. I sllipped on a cement floor and smashed my elbow. I had no health insurance at the time.

Experiences like this have lead me to believe that there is such a thing as luck, and I will do a great deal to avoid the bad sort.

Now, my mother believed that you made your own luck. But she wouldn't have a peacock feather in the house. She swore they were unlucky. I, of course, won't have one around either.

Subject: RE: BS: Are you superstitious?
From: the lemonade lady
Date: 08 Oct 03 - 11:42 AM

Have I already mentioned that I wore my knickers inside out on my wedding day? By accident, but once you have put something on inside out you mustn't change or it'll be bad luck! I'm nearly divorced now, what does this mean? S'pose it doesn't work!

Sal

Subject: RE: BS: Are you superstitious?
From: Don Firth
Date: 08 Oct 03 - 12:16 PM

I've heard that the origin of the superstition about walking under a ladder got its start in siege situations. When the scaling ladders were put against the castle wall, some of the more cautious (not wanting to climb all the way just to the top to get pushed off backwards or get a crossbow bolt between the eyes or get their hair parted with a battle-ax) would duck around under the ladder rather than climbing it. They failed to realize that they were putting themselves into the perfect position to get the full effect of the boiling oil about to be poured.

I don't believe in walking under a ladder when a painter is falling. Be careful if a black cat crosses your path, especially if it's a hungry panther.

Don (LOOK OUT!!) Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Are you superstitious?
From: Ebbie
Date: 08 Oct 03 - 01:05 PM

Say, "if I hop three times stepping out of the shower, my success will be assured for a week!" Amos, my guess is that you have just defined how a superstition begins. Hopping three times on a wet floor eventually will bring about a fall. Ah ha! Bad luck!

Subject: RE: BS: Are you superstitious?
From: C-flat
Date: 08 Oct 03 - 01:32 PM

Some more strange superstitions here.

Although I regard myself as not being superstitious, I must confess to having some difficulty in shaking off the habits taught to me as a child; not putting new shoes on a table, placing a coin in a purse before making a gift of it, so I suppose I am helping to perpetuate these silly superstitions.
With issues like walking under ladders, an element of common sense is evident and likewise, the habit of refusing the third light from a lit match has it's roots in the trenches of WW1. If a German sniper was alerted by the flare of a struck match, by the time the lit match was offered to the second smoker the sniper would have taken aim, and on the third light, he would pull the trigger.
These days the danger wouldn't come from snipers but more likely from the anti-smoking crusaders. That's why I still wouldn't take the third light!

Subject: RE: BS: Are you superstitious?
From: Bill D
Date: 08 Oct 03 - 03:02 PM

superstitions evolve from people trying to generalize so as to predict things in the world.....you know how it works: "All Indians walk in single file....at least the Indian I saw was walking in single file"