Other superstitions can be irrational and nonsensical. Among these are ones that involve various animal body parts. The Japanese believe if you carry a piece of snake skin in your wallet you will become rich or find money. A rabbits foot is carried for luck and finding a horseshoe is lucky. The snake, rabbit and horse couldn't really be termed lucky though.
Whistling is much maligned in different superstitions. Once associated with a happy person, it is also a tendency of the nervous. An English superstition is where women are discouraged from whistling 'a whistling woman never marries'. At sea it was considered bad luck because you in effect 'whistled up the wind' and the advent of a storm. In Japan it is believed whistling summons the spirits of the dead. In Russia and Kazakhstan bad luck surrounds whistling but just in the home. In Russia they believe it frightens away the guardian angels who protect your home whilst in Kazakhstan they never whistle inside a house for fear of bringing poverty to the owner.
Another one that particularly irks me is triskaidekaphobia or more precisely paraskevidekatriaphobia (fear of Friday 13th) . Having been borne on Friday the 13th I can't see the problem - it never did me any harm. Actually it is quite strange in my case because I have always been lucky in an unlucky way. I do seem to get into bizarre situations which normal people don't, but in the main I come out of them relatively unscathed.
The origins of this superstition are hazy.
On Friday 13 October 1307, the Knights Templar were ordered to be arrested by Philip IV of France. The theory has been suggested, in the book Born in Blood: The Lost Secrets of Freemasonry by John J. Robinson, that the Templars went underground among masons in England and later developed into Freemasons. Because most of the founding fathers of the United States of America were Freemasons, it is possible the memory of the terror of that day is preserved in the Friday the 13th.
Then of course there are the usual references to the Last Supper with there being 13 in attendance on a Friday but it isn't just a Christian thing.
Ancient Persians believed the twelve constellations in the Zodiac controlled the months of the year, and each ruled the earth for a thousand years at the end of which the sky and earth collapsed in chaos. Therefore, the number is identified with chaos and the reason Persians leave their houses to avoid bad luck on the thirteenth day of the Persian Calendar, a tradition called Sizdah Bedar.
Triskaidekaphobia may have also affected the Vikings—it is believed that Loki in the Norse pantheon was the 13th god -- more specifically, Loki was believed to have engineered the murder of Balder, and was the 13th guest to arrive at the funeral. This is perhaps related to the superstition that if 13 people gather, one of them will die in the following year.
According to the dictionary, Superstition is an irrational belief arising from ignorance or fear.
I can agree with that but I also believe that superstitions (good or bad) can work in much the same way as a placebo. If you find a four leaf clover and think you are going to be lucky, chances are you will be. Not because of the four leaf clover but because of the positive energy you project.
Conversely if you think you will be unlucky when say a black cat crosses your path, then that will likely be the case as well. This is simply because of the negativity you project.
However, the system is fallible because no matter how positive / negative you may be, the reverse can happen. However, in the majority of cases projecting positive or negative energy will produce positive or negative results. Time to think positive and get lucky!
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