The power of superstition

Superstitions are a broad category of beliefs that link different things with qualities, often luck or protection.  In a way, believing in a superstition is like believing in a correspondence.  Four leaf clovers and horseshoes are lucky, black cats and broken mirrors are not.  Some superstitions are based on actions, such as tossing salt over your shoulder when it spills (to avoid bad luck).

I feel like most superstitions have their roots in history, and often we don't know why things are lucky/unlucky.  Some do make sense, in a way, like walking under a ladder being unlucky (it was definitely dangerous, and so people who were likely to walk under ladders often were probably going to have other bad things befall them because they weren't cautious).  Others are based on outdated thinking (like black cat's being unlucky).

Now many people write off superstitions as nothing but old folk tales, and they may be right.  However, if you think about them as a power you can tap into, something along the lines of the law of attraction, then things seem a bit more logical.  If I hang a horseshoe over my door for luck, and every time I see it I think of what has been lucky in my life lately, I am creating a mindset of luck.  On the other side of the spectrum, if I believe that Friday the 13'th is unlucky, then my mind will be looking for examples of bad luck all day, and I will fixate on things that I wouldn't even notice on other days!

This also reminds me a bit of the power of cursing, and the belief that you have to believe in the curse for it to effect you.  While I don't personally think that way about curses, I do think superstitions might fall into this category.  If you believe in them, they will work for you (or against you...), but if you don't, then you probably won't notice any significant changes.

Personally, I'm a fan of superstitions, or at least the good ones.  I don't tend to put much stock in the negative ones, but I love me some good luck charms!  The way I look at it, if I make the choice to acknowledge a superstition, that is one more tool I can use to help me avoid mental traps (like feeling like you are unusually unlucky).

Now, if you were raised believing in superstitions that you no longer feel serve you, it can be hard to break away from that.  I feel like the best way to approach this kind of work is to replace the belief you want to be rid of with a new one.  

 

Let's think about the superstition about black cats being unlucky.  Their dark color associates them with 'evil', but today we know that it is just a fur color, no different from orange or white.  So instead of feeling like seeing a black cat, or having one pass in front of you, imbues you with bad luck, you could twist it and work on creating a new superstition for yourself.  Perhaps something along the lines of, 'offering my hand to pet any black cat I see turns the luck around and makes them lucky!'

Superstitions and omens are quite similar, and that is another shift you can make to take a superstition and treat it like an omen instead.  Omens are more warnings of potential bad stuff on the horizon.  It's like doing divination and seeing trouble ahead.  It isn't saying that those things are absolutely going to happen, but it's giving you a heads up about the issue, so that you can prepare and take appropriate precautions.

 

One of the things I like about many (good) superstitions is that they are easy to do.  They might be something fairly common to find (like wishing stones) or a simple action (like crossing your fingers for luck).  This makes them a very accessible form of folk magic!  And that is how I like to think of them, as a type of magic that we can choose to harness, not like some kind of universal trickery that we need to defend against.

But whether or not superstitions are a part of your belief system, I think they are a nice handy little tool that we can call upon, when we need a little something.  I definitely use superstitions like a little magical security blanket...they are something that I can do when I'm feeling a bit off, just to kind of tip my mind back into a better space.  And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that!