Episode Eight: Superstitions and Evil
Welcome to Edition Eight
of
This is Life and Events
Sanely Insane
Welcome Back Dear Reader,
We, as human beings, have this longing desire to discover things that are inhuman or extremely hard to believe. That is why we stare at car crashes as we slowly roll by, hoping to see a severed arm, a pool of blood, or even a dead body. Curiosity of what is to come, death and despair, is a sick fascination for each and every human on this planet. Search yourself, deep inside, and discover what it is that you fear, what it is that you desire to see, what it is that lives in the back of your brain yearning to fill your eyes. This is how websites like rotten.com came to popularity back when I was a kid, or now theync.com. You can see anything you ever wanted to see and wish you had not.
The purpose of this entry is not to dive deep into the human psyche, trying to justify our fascination with the morbid and macabre, no, today we are going to discuss superstitions. Through history there have been many superstitions that have come and gone, I can remember a couple from my childhood that I truly believed in, superstitions that I still think about to this day, chuckling on the inside at how silly they were. I would love to hear some of your favorite superstitions, comment below and let’s have a dialogue and laugh at (and with) each other.
Watching Ozark yesterday on Netflix, I noticed one of the actors destroy two or three mirrors in a fit of rage. That reminded me of the superstition about breaking mirrors and earning seven years of bad luck. Does this rule apply to actors that are portraying a role, actors that in all their pretend fury must destroy mirrors? Is this the reason why so many actors have died young and out of the blue? Brittney Murphy? Brandon Lee? Murphy died at her home at a terribly young age, drugs and disease were the culprit, but it may have been the delay in seeking help for her that really did her in. Brandon was killed during the filming of ‘The Crow’. A dead dummy round was stuck in the barrel of a prop gun filled with blank rounds. When the blank round was fired for the scene, Brandon was struck in the stomach after the firing of the gun propelled the lodged round from the barrel.
Did any of them break a mirror in their lifetime? If so, did they get what was coming to them or is bad luck not death? Bad luck is just a series of events that don’t go your way, right? I need more answers.
There is another interesting theory about mirrors that comes mostly from Mexico. They have a firm belief that mirrors facing one another open a doorway for the devil. Now, the first thing that caught me off guard with that belief was, why a doorway? Why not a window for the devil? It’s a mirror, which is made of glass and windows are also made of glass. That makes much more sense to me. Is the devil too good to be climbing through windows? Is he going to see an opening to come and infest the earth with demons and pestilence and turn it down because it is a window that he would have to crawl through instead of a doorway that is more suited for a man of his stature? I have no idea but turn your mirrors away from one another, no need to go looking for trouble.
I distinctly remember when I was a child, we were taught by a neighbor friend that when you pass by a graveyard, you had to hold your breath so that no loose souls would be inhaled into your body as you slowly took in the air surrounding you in a filth riddled minivan. Every single day of my life, I pass by graveyards, and I still get that nostalgic feeling. The need to hold my breath is unwarranted as inhaling a loose soul would only spice things up in this rat race of a life. Good or bad, what could possibly go wrong with the potential possession?
Doing a touch of research on this specific superstition, I found that there is a Filipino tradition called “pagpag”. They believe that once you have attended a funeral, you are to go somewhere other than home directly after the ceremony. You can go to the movies, out to eat, or the corner store, but do not go home directly after. By doing so, you are decreasing your chances that a bad spirit will tag along and take up residence inside your home. I have an issue with this one. Is there a designated time limit stating how long a bad spirit is allowed to tag along with you after attending a funeral? How do these folks know the bad spirit isn’t just going to hang around with them, clinging to their soul, until they breach the threshold of a sacred home? Seems a touch silly to me.
Those were the two that I really wanted to address, graveyards and mirrors. I can remember both of those from my childhood very distinctly. Now I am just going to bullet you a bunch of other ones for your enjoyment:
- ·
Whistling indoors
invites evil
- ·
You are never permitted
to ‘Cheers’ with water
- ·
You may never sleep with
your head to the North
- ·
Oddly, you may never
sleep with your head to the West
- ·
Don’t place new shoes on
the table
- ·
Itchy hands have financial
repercussions (An itchy right hand means you’ll come into money soon)
- ·
Don’t play with scissors
(DUH!)
- ·
Stepping in dog feces is
actually good luck
- ·
Bird poop brings good
luck
- ·
Owls are bad omens
- ·
An owl in your house
brings death
- ·
Knitting outside can
prolong winter
- ·
Don’t play with Yo-Yos
(The toy, not people)
- ·
Don’t get a haircut on
Tuesdays
- ·
Giving yellow flowers is
not a nice gesture
- ·
Spilling water behind
someone is a nice gesture
- ·
Wedding bells ward off
evil
- ·
Eating goat meat will
cause women to grow facial hair
- ·
If pregnant and craving
fish, eat it. If not, your baby will
come out with a fish-head.
- · Don’t walk backwards
Okay, enough of this malarkey. I can’t take it. Whistling, sleeping, animals, flowers, everything has some sort of bad omen to it. Everything we do, at some point in time, has been designated with some sort of evil or terror. I will advise you now, as we just learned some things together, to never do anything. Do nothing. Wake up, sit still, and stay awake and still for the rest of your life, I am almost certain there is no evil associated with that. Good luck keeping a social life and managing the bills.
Give me some more topics. I appreciate the comments and messages, I am working on the few suggestions I have been given, but until I educate myself deeper on said topics, they will have to wait. Thank you for coming by, I hope you enjoyed, watch out for black cats! (You thought I forgot that one).
What are some of the weirdest or craziest superstitions that you believe in? Let’s discuss, it’ll be so much fun, probably.
-JAB / This has been Life and Events - Sanely Insane and I
will be your host and narrator for as long as you continue to come through.
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