Let's Talk - "Superstition"

  

Superstition

 

 One cannot eat meal by putting his one foot over another, it means disrespect to the table and it is considered as the sign of famine.   

A mirror which is broken may bring bad luck; it is said,  house where mirror was broken cannot get well for a period of seven years.

Thirteenth day of a Month is considered as ill-omen; nothing is done on this day.
One cannot pass in front of a car.
It is considered as ill-omen that a rabbit may pass in front of a car.
To put on trousers by standing up is the sign for poverty.
Milk cannot be given to nobody in the darkness of night, it is said that if it is given then cow does not produce milk any more.
Whenever quince is  abundant it is said that winter will pass heavy.
Any child who plays with fire makes wet his/her bed.
It is considered as the sign of dead when owl sings at heaves of a house.
It is said that if you say something in forty times it is achieved.
It is improper to call someone as pig; whoever says such word, it is believed, has no appetite for forty days.
When giving a milk to somebody, a small piece of coal or a green leaf is put into milk; otherwise it is believed that animal will no more produce milk.

 

 

 Do you believe in such thoughts?   

There are certain amount of unreasoning beliefs  among people living in a community, arising sometimes from fear, sometimes from helplessness, and sometimes from coincidences. They are called as “superstitions”. These beliefs have been existing since the creation of first human being. Great number of them are not related with any scientific basis, reason, contemporariness and religious faith. Although they have noting to do with wisdom and reason, unfortunately they could not be removed and eliminated from heart, brain, conscience of human being. In emerging of such kind of beliefs both natural structure of persons and illiterate  words of elderly persons, as well as of some religious officials have been effective. Even if beliefs have shown variation from person to person they have also some common aspects.

 what role superstitions play, have found that they derive from the assumption that a connection exists between co-occurring, non-related events. For instance, the notion that charms promote good luck, or protect you from bad luck. 

 

Most superstitions arose over the course of centuries and are rooted in regional and historical circumstances, such as religious beliefs or the natural environment. For instance, geckos are believed to be of medicinal value in many Asian countries.

In China, Feng shui is a belief system that is said to have a negative effect on different places, e.g. that a room in the northwest corner of a house is "very bad". Similarly, the number 8 is a "lucky number" in China, so that it is more common than any other number in the Chinese housing market.

 

Mechanisms

People seem to believe that superstitions influence events by changing the likelihood of currently possible outcomes rather than by creating new possible outcomes. In sporting events, for example, a lucky ritual or object is thought to increase the chance that an athlete will perform at the peak of their ability, rather than increasing their overall ability at that sport.

Psychologist Stuart Vyse has pointed out that until about 2010, "[m]ost researchers assumed superstitions were irrational and focused their attentions on discovering why people were superstitious." Vyse went on to describe studies that looked at the relationship between performance and superstitious rituals. Preliminary work has indicated that such rituals can reduce stress and thereby improve performance, but, Vyse has said, "...not because they are superstitious but because they are rituals.... So there is no real magic, but there is a bit of calming magic in performing a ritualistic sequence before attempting a high-pressure activity.... Any old ritual will do." 

 

 

 NEVER ENDING 

Science in itself is a sweet beginning and sometimes a bitter ending whereas superstitions have neither beginning nor end; it is complete in itself.

But still, these two unrealistic and realistic, unimaginable and imaginable, never-ending and ever ending concepts are interconnected somewhere beyond the universe by some unpredictable threads of God.  Science completes superstitions in the same way as reasons complete assumptions. Reasons sometimes fail to explain rendering the assumptions to be almost dark and blank. And sometimes baseless reasons succeed in explaining a taboo.