by Mary Hammond
I used to be incredibly superstitious. I never walked under a ladder, seeing a solitary magpie would ruin my day, and I certainly avoided making any plans to travel on Friday the 13th.
I blame it on my family. I grew up with a strong sense of superstitions and traditional rituals being passed on from mother to daughter down through several generations. We never passed on the stairs or crossed knives on a plate; we threw salt over our shoulder if some was accidentally spilled, and on no account were we allowed to put up an umbrella in the house. But why in this age of science and reason do we persist in following these ancient rituals?
My computer encyclopaedia2 defines superstition as: ‘a belief or practice generally regarded as irrational and as resulting from ignorance or from fear of the unknown. It implies a belief in unseen and unknown forces that can be influenced by objects and rituals’ and they ‘are most common in situations involving a high degree of risk, chance, and uncertainty, and during times of personal or social stress or crisis, when events seem to be beyond human control.’ This definition sums up perfectly why we continue with our sometimes bizarre practices. We have an inherent desire to feel we are in control of what happens to us, so it kind of makes sense to develop strategies to give us confidence in certain situations.
Sportspeople, for example, are very superstitious. In modern day professional sporting competitions there is a lot at stake, so it’s no wonder that footballers wear lucky pants for every match as a way of ensuring victory (I just hope they wash them after each match). Of course it’s an irrational practice – they should have confidence in their own ability, not in a pair of pants – but the power of suggestion is very strong and if they believe something will bring them luck, it probably will.
So what changed my own attitude towards slavishly following all the superstitions I had grown up with? In short, my growing faith in God. I was a late developer in terms of becoming a Christian. Although I was confirmed in the Church of England as a teenager, I made very little effort to develop a personal relationship with God until the time came to have my son christened and I became a regular member of my local church. After that, it gradually dawned on me that the path of my life was in God’s hands now, not in the hands of the black cat that just crossed my path, or the group of magpies I passed on my way to work every day.
Liberated at last
Of course, I realized that God was not to be regarded as my new good luck charm. Being a Christian does not give you immunity from life’s ups and downs and any bad luck that might befall me was largely a result of my own – or other’s – actions and not down to the fact that I set foot outside the house on Friday 13th. It was very liberating to throw off the chains of the superstitions that had bound me for so long, although old habits die hard. I still find myself saying things like ‘fingers crossed’ or worse, desperately searching around for a piece of wood to touch (my head usually suffices) so as not to invite bad luck. But what does one say instead – ‘God willing’?? (Answers on a postcard please!)
But what does the Bible and Church teaching have to say about superstition? Not knowing quite where to find the answer to this question, I consulted the index of my NIV Study Bible. There was no specific reference to superstition, but there were numerous references to the Bible’s teaching with regard to occult practices. In Deuteronomy 18:10-12, for example, it states: ‘Let no-one be found among you who…practises divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft, or casts spells, or who is a medium or spiritist or who consults the dead. Anyone who does these things is detestable to the Lord.’ Ok, so throwing salt over your shoulder might not be in the same league as practising witchcraft, but the message is probably still relevant today – God would prefer it if we put our trust in him rather than in our rituals and superstitions. (I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling slightly uncomfortable now as I realize that indulging in what I took to be harmless superstitions might have more serious repercussions.)
So far, so good. But there are further minefields which the Christian disciple can unwittingly wander into. The line between superstition and religious belief is itself a grey area. Paragraph 2111 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church states that:
‘Superstition is the deviation of religious feeling and of the practices this feeling imposes. It can even affect the worship we offer the true God, e.g., when one attributes an importance in some way magical to certain practices otherwise lawful or necessary. To attribute the efficacy of prayers or of sacramental signs to their mere external performance, apart from the interior dispositions that they demand, is to fall into superstition.’
It took me several goes of reading this through to understand the meaning, but what I think it’s trying to say is that if your outward religious rituals and actions are not matched by true inner faith and trust in God, then you are in danger of falling into superstition.
Going back to my original definition of superstition as ‘being an irrational belief in unseen and unknown forces’, it has to be acknowledged that to an unbeliever, all religious beliefs and practices may be considered as superstitious. As a Christian, however, I feel that the capacity to believe in things outside of our own understanding is an extremely useful attribute. Without it, we would not be able to put our trust in God. But having completed my research for this article, I am much more aware now of the importance of not allowing myself to be drawn into tempting secular customs such as reading the daily horoscope or tuning in to Psychics Live on the TV.
So come Friday 13th you’ll find me out and about, walking under any ladder I can find and with no regrets about the mirror I broke earlier as a result of putting up my umbrella indoors!
1. Referring to the superstition of the number of magpies seen by an individual – one being bad luck. See www.timelessmyths.co.uk/saulting-magpies.html
2. Microsoft Encarta 97 Encyclopedia
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