Oh hello, I didn't see you there. Welcome to Blurry Photos. I'm
David Florida and I am David Stecco, and welcome back. For those of
you who are coming back from all the amazing podcasts that we have put out
there so far, You're so glad there's another one for you to listen to.
I am excited as I always am, because the music that we have
for this podcast makes it sound like you and I dive through windows and kick
indoors insert like literally chasing ghosts that I'm trying to go through, like warp
zones and things sliding across seventy eight buicks, driving through alleys where a guy's
moving a sheet of glass. So so yeah, And if you haven't,
if this is the first time for you joining us, then go back and
listen to some of brother other stuff. Oh yeah, it'll be fall.
It's gonna be great. Anything exciting having to you this week? Stark?
Uh, you know what I have been. I've been working, as I
mentioned last week, tirelessly on my Halloween costume right right, which I am
very excited about. And I am I'm just enjoying the fall. Yeah,
it's it's so nice out I hate summer. I hate it. I hate
Earth's yellow sun. It weakens me. And the fall is when are you
narrow, Superman? Yeah, when I think with just just just bizarrow,
Yeah, I'm I'm of the same. I cannot stand summer whatsoever. I
hate the heat. I love fall, and I love winter. So I'm
getting very excited with October and everything. It's it's just an amazing time of
the year. October is a great month. It's full of all kinds of
the best holiday of the year. Yeah, exactly, I mean. And
in addition to my birthday, there's also a holiday called Halloween. Did you
know that is there? Were you waiting? Were you just referring to my
birthday is the best holiday of the year? Or no, that that I
would refer to a stecko miss oh nice? Yes, where I ride from
rooftop to rooftop visiting children in their dreams. But yes, longer recognized as
a holiday. Not not in the forty eight states. It's Alaska for hanging
time. So yeah, October. October is a great month. And we
are continuing on our theme month, which which is everything that has to do
with with Halloween and things of that that you think of when when you when
you think of that. Yeah, and we still was still looking for a
name for what to call October because blank October it's really gets it's winning because
it's getting used. It's winning because that's all there is. We've tried some
others and they they've filled miserably. So again, if if you've got to
if you've got a good fill in the blank for our blank Tober, send
it in. Listen. I'm not going to ask you to do a lot
of work on our behalf. I mean, the pendulum for entertainment swings solely
from us to you, right, But if maybe maybe you've enjoyed listening,
maybe this is that little thing I'm not We're not going to ask you for
money unless you want to give it to us, in which case you can.
But we've got a form you can, we can get hiped up that
way. Just do it. But but if you don't want to give us
money, which I don't blame you. Yeah, I'm sitting here and I
don't want to give us money, you could give us a name for for
October, not Noctober. Yeah, unless you really just want to start a
campaign to add Blanktober to the list of shirts that we make. Don't don't
do that. So today our topic for Blanktober is going to be superstition.
That's right, magnificent superstitions. We are going to go over some of the
history, some some of the popular superstitions where they came from a little bit
of the science. There's science or superstition. There's definitely science in there.
There's a little bit of disease and superstitions. There's there's a little bit of
foreboding and Zubert, there's If we keep going, we're gonna sound like Dolleks,
pretty exdaminate. That's our Halloween podcast. That's all. We're doing the
whole Halloween podcast as Dolleks. You'll turn it off in ten second. Originally
we were gonna be all scary Victor Price voices, but nope, Dolle's no
sorry, Vincent Price, I Mary Naha. Okay, that's enough of that,
all right, Okay, so superstitions. Let's let's get into this a
little bit. By the end of this podcast, hopefully you're well versed on
on superstitions and we can add to your psychological burden. And then and then
at the end um you can send us some of your favorite superstitions that that
we don't cover, which we probably won't because there is a ton of superstitions
out there. I'm holding in my hand an entire dictionary of them. So
know that know that there's there's some literature here. There's there's plenty of literature.
And they repeat often, but just as often as they repeat, I
feel like they jump from one thing to another. Would you say that that's
true? You don't know what I want to know, because I don't either.
Okay, I'm glad I called it. I consequently refuted my own all
right, Well, okay, so let's let's go on and jump in superstitions.
Now, there's a couple of definitions I'm going to throw at you here,
because just like superstitions, no two definitions for it are like again,
I just refuted what I just said to two minutes ago. But here's the
first one for you. A superstition is a belief or practice resulting from ignorance,
fear of the unknown, trust in magic or chance, or a false
conception of causation. It's an avely negative definition, although I will say that
after ignorance, everything else is just redundant. It's true, bad, bad,
bad resulting from ignorance. The second, the second definition I've got is
a belief that one event leads to the cause of another without any physical process
linking the two events, such as astrology or omens, witchcraft, et cetera.
That they contradict natural science. Now, is there is there sort of
an inherent caveat to that where like how I said, that's there an inherent
caveat to that wherein a person it feels like they control things. Is it
more active like or is it was? It was it kind of like like
a vote of sorts, like, well, it still may not go in
my way, but I'm doing my little part to to change this event or
get this outcome that I want. Yeah, that's a that's a good point.
Both of those I think are viable for this because when you get down
to its superstition is is nothing more than than just some some junk that somebody
believes that has no basis for money or some basis for belief, but the
basis is kind of supernatural. Yeah, yeah, or or just I mean,
or it's it's a way of explaining some particularly bad behavior, like I
keep them. When I think superstitions, I think of like like dude superstitions
like dude, I'm not gonna shave for the playoffs. Yeah, I'm not
gonna change myself. Yeah I'm not. Yeah. And those are things that
dudes don't want to do anyway, and then they just find a reason they
say, no, no, this is about winning. I didn't want to
I'm not gonna do laundry till we win. I have to inform you though,
that you just got dude yellow carded. Oh dude card m just it's
it's unprobable. I don't want to get kicked out of the dude again.
Oh but yeah, the well we'll get into this and just a little bit
about that. But what you just said is something that scientifically they they have
observed and uh, and we'll talk about that soon. But this is Superstitions
generally are stem from a reverence for things like omens and charms, symbols,
rituals, things like that, and the word superstition is often used negatively.
It's it's a majority of type word if it's not connected, especially to the
society's prevailing really or if it's not connected to Stevie Wonder, because that is
a jam. It is a jam. It's it's it's pretty superstition. It's
a great song, and if you try to look anything up online you are
going to get slammed with Stevie Wonder. See, we've done all the work
for you. We've waited hip deep through an ocean of Stevie Wonder of Billy,
ocean of Steve. You are on point and not well. Um,
yeah, and that's I think that that's sort of common sense. Like,
if your people don't do it, then it's it's probably something that you're gonna
call right stupid or or silly, you know. But if it's something that
that you've grown up on and practice doing ritualistically, yeah, it's it's something
that means a lot to you. You know. Yeah. People will make
fun of people who face Mecca to pray, but will also send okay,
now let's pray before we eat, right right, something like that. Yeah.
I do consider religion and superstition to be the same thing. There,
it's out there. You are an eighteenth century enlightened whoa I'm gonna die of
diphtheria. Show us that enlightenist because that's a word. Let's talk about the
roots of superstition. The word superstition has its roots in the Latin superstitezeo,
which is and comes from the first century BC. As a it's an excessive
fear of the gods or unreasonable religious belief as opposed to religio the proper.
I couldn't get through that without sounding like frigd Mario. Well here, I
wish, I wish we we recorded this on video. I don't really wish
that. But because the hand emotions that go with your Latin I could almost
see that spicy meat, the ball in your hands. So religio religious in
the proper reasonable awe of the gods. Uh so, so yeah, it's
it goes as far back, you know, recorded history and to the to
the first century will BC, and it was it was used to describe the
outlaw religions of the Roman Empire, like the druids, and cults that they
had, like the orphic mysteries, the cult of ices, and and there's
a they had a cult on every corner back. But but isn't that I
mean, like, this is one of those interesting things that you're The place
that you find it in history is entirely dependent on your definition of it.
You know, you can you know, obviously the romans determine what is superstition,
Like you said, like it's a it's a religious centric view, you
know, like, well there's there's what we do, and then there's all
the weirdos. Yeah, but I mean you you imagine um even you know,
going far back to like like loose tribal associations. You know, if
if you don't have reverence for the for their religious beliefs, then they're all
superstitions. Yeah, you know, and you wonder how many of those things
started out as an actual historical process. The thing that I'm thinking of any
for example, is hanta virus, weirdly in the Four Corners disease that came
up in the nineties. Um, hantavirus is a pulmonary syndrome and you get
it through inhaling dried rodent urine. The crystallized you're in. The virus is
in there, it gets into your lungs and it infects you. And they
when this thing cropped up in the mid nineties, everyone flipped down, Oh
there's some so, some new virus that's killing people in the Four Corners.
But this thing had been around forever. It was just a statistical anomaly that
a few people had died within a week all of the same thing. And
when they when they did for the research, you know, months and months
down the line, they realized that most Native American populations in the area had
some larger explanation of this. Oh, when there's a wet spring, people
will die in the in the fall, and it was because a wet spring
led to more pinion nuts, which would feed more rodents, which would lead
to a larger incidence of dried rodent urine being in the air, and more
people would die. And you could call that a superstition, but it's it's
it's actually just sort of a masked scientific observation without understanding the mechanisms they're in.
So that's that's kind of an interesting thing. Like wives tales have figure
heavily into superstition and myths, yeah, to you know, all myths are
are ways of explaining things that aren't that that that people just haven't figured out
scientifically, you know, how to how to explain what was it called again,
the haunt of virus liminary syndrome, the official virus of Halloween. It's
not that fun. A lot of people are dying right now from it.
Haunt of virus man. I hadn't heard of that, and then and still
going on, Oh yeah, it's still it still kills people all crazy.
So this was going going on back back in the Roman Empire, and apparently
Pagans around Greece and Rome would mock anyone who acted with the fear of the
gods and trembled all the time, you know, don't don't want to displease
Jupiter. And they they in a sense were they were using superstition as as
a negative that that was the that was superstition to them. This this illogical
fear was was what they considered superstitious. And then the Rome, the you
know, the Romans or whatever they believe that the Pagans thought thought that Pagans
were superstitious for what they were doing, dancing in the wooden stuff. So
so you got two groups of people going, you're superstitious, No, you
are superstitious pretty much. So then we fast forward a little bit to our
friend Martin Luther. And then he has come up before, and he in
the early sixteenth century, he went so far as to accuse the popes of
superstitious practices, among other things. Yeah, but he was saying, being
the Antichrist. He was saying the popes who were using superstition in a way,
and you know, fleecing people of their money and stuff through that and
using ritual and things like that, So should mention. Currently, the Catholic
Church considers superstition to be sinful because it shows a lack of trust in the
divine providence of God. So you can be superstitious if you are not superstitious
enough right in the right direction, if you're practicing your own religions rituals,
it's not superstition. It's rituals and tradition and beliefs. But the guy across
the streets that you know burns sage in front of the door is a superstitious
nut and also probably a hippie, which is worse. You tell us,
So let's get into talking about this, the scientific stuff with it and the
psychology. Yeah, which I like the scientific definition a lot more because like
most sting scientific it makes sense. It makes sense. It's it's not it's
not recursive, it doesn't. The definition doesn't change based on who's saying it,
and that's important, Tony, I agree. So why don't you hit
us, hit us with the science? Well, in this. This is
even in the twentieth century, the psychologists be of Skinner had a theory regarding
superstition because of the observations that he had of pigeons behavior when they were being
fed. And and this, this is this is pretty interesting. I don't
know how closely we can draw a link between humans and pigeons, right,
But he's just saying that the observe, the observations that he made with these
pigeons could correlate a little bit with some observations that that have been made about
humans, and the same things that the pigeons did could mirror the same thing
that that humans did in a way. So here's here's what happened when they
were being fed, or when they thought the fed. The pigeons, some
of them would turn around in their cage. Some of them would swing their
head back and forth, and they a bunch of they just did a bunch
of of just weird movements and videosyncratic things. Yeah, And he theorized that
this they might be doing this to influence their feeding schedule as because when it
was time for them to be fed and he withheld the food, they continued
to do their their movements and things, and they did it incessantly until they
got fed. So he basically theorized that they were doing this because maybe they
believed they just did a little harder, their actions were causing them to be
fed. Yeah, and if and if they weren't getting it, they weren't
doing it the actions correctly. So so yeah, if they if they did
a little harder, faster, better, stronger than than, they would have
a remergence in the two thousands. Now. Now, the interesting thing is
that subsequently, you know, years later, scientists have obviously called into question
mister skinners observation and where he went with it, even going so far in
some cases as too to maybe the point the superstition stick at him. Oh
no, you know, And I guess that's what happens when you tackle a
subject like this. It's too easy to get tired with it. But what
I what I like about the central crux of the scientific definition being just that,
you know, one event leads the cause of another without any physical process
linking the two events, just that that A can be affected by B even
though they don't touch, they don't do any have anything to do with each
other. And then A does something to see you know, and there's a
pumpkin in there, right, Uh, if you imagine pumpkin and gord of
some sort um and it and it does, it does kind of clear things
up a lot. And you wonder in Skinner's experiment if he did control well
enough for what would just be a behavior for an animal, you know.
And but it's it's an interesting point that that you have that he brings up
with this this intermittent conditioning, this idea that every time you hit the feeder
bar, you don't always get the pellet, But will you always hit the
feeder bar in the same way at the same time if I you know,
if it's if it's not a guarantee, how far can I push you as
a person or a lab animal in your behavior to get that pellet? Like
just what you said? Do you do it bigger, better, faster,
more like? And I believe that there's a real psychological trigger there that that
underlies a lot of superstitions. Yeah, it rears its ugly head in sports
today especially you know, baseball players. They'll, like we mentioned earlier,
some of them if if they have a huge game, maybe they don't watch
their socks and they wear them again, you know, so in the hopes
that they will have another huge game and it they'll continue that because of maybe
some some good luck that that's coming from these socks for some reason or another.
Yeah, and it's amazing and without and I think people who are superstitious
do the least amount of looking into it, which I think is a part
of it. You know. It's it's the way. It's the way successful
religion incorporates um spreading the word and an idea like superstition. It is bad
luck to look into it too much. I mean, it's it's a it's
a great it's a great mechanism for an idea to take hold of. Ye.
And so these people, they're not terribly self examining about it. But
this this belief that, oh well, I was just going along my merry
way and I had somehow arranged everything in my life, the socks that I'm
wearing, the degree of facial hair that I have, the color of my
shirt, and everything turned out perfect. If I can just keep all the
switches in the same position, all the knobs and levers in my life,
I will continue to enjoy this. Yeah. Yeah, And then it's funny
and it's like you said, they're they're blaming C on A or they're blaming
C on like infinity symbol. Smiley has nothing to do with winky face,
the crab that marches side to side. So I briefly mentioned this earlier.
But the eighteenth century we had the Age of Enlightenment, right um, And
that's that's basically when when science started to really take a foothold and start examining
the cause of you know, a lot of the phenomenon that we see and
the way we think and all that good stuff. It was. It was
glorious, but they also that made people kind of the thinkers of the day
that it made them ridicule the belief in miracles and revelation, magic, supernatural,
that sort of stuff that when the Age of Enlightenment had its heyday,
the supernatural was kind of pushed to the side and made fun of. And
and this included superstitions and stuff. Now, superstitions were still considered it it
was still considered a derogatory term for a belief. But once people started looking
into customs and and things that that certain civilizations and people had in terms of
tradition, then they started saying, well, let's let's not call these superstitions
because this is uh, it's it's rude, you know, to say this
about people when this is how they've acted all along, right, So let's
let's call them folk beliefs. So that's that's where the term folk belief comes
from. Just it's the it's the regional religious customs of an organized religion that's
outside of the doctrine of that that religion. But still are are things that
that people do and actions that they perform in stuff they could be considered superstitions.
But again, since it was since they were practices that that people have
always done and really revered, they hit him with that term the folk beliefs,
which which is awfully you know, like I guess you know for the
time, that's that's is accepting. I mean it is the term folk belief
is kind of a belittling a little bit. But on the other hand,
if the if it's that or or repent your pagan ways, I guess fopefully
is pretty good. Yeah, yeah, you're you're dancing around the bonfires,
idiotic idiotic idiots to look at them dance around the fire like their traditions,
say, with their folk beliefs, so much better and they always said it
that way, Yeah, the flat folk. So that's I mean up until
now today, I feel like superstition is still it has some of that derogatory
meaning, but it's it's a little bit more widely accepted and kind of brush
to the side or like, oh yeah, that's just a superstition. Yeah,
it's I think I think for the most part, I think it's very
it's very tongue in cheek, you know, like actors break a leg,
Yeah, that kind of thing, Like I break a leg, you know.
But on the other hand, how often in your regular life do you
say, well, I don't want to jinx it. Yeah, you know,
like people they're like these things still doesn't matter. I'm like, I
consider myself ought to be a pretty rational guy, which is probably a mistake.
But but yeah, like the phrase I don't want to jinx it,
Like I say that, I mean it, like, oh I want to
say that out loud. It's gonna jinx the whole thing, you know,
right, I mean, everybody, at some point or another, I'm sure,
has has performed some kind of little superstitious act or gotten all crazy excited
when they find a four leaf clover or something. Yeah. I think there's
just that that piece of people that know they're not in control but desperately want
to at least create this illusion of some modicum of control. I like that.
I like that you keep coming back to that because that's something that I
don't see often in in the research that that I was doing on it and
have seen, is that people. I think, I agree that that people
want some control in their life, and that's why some of these are are
performed, some of these actions and gestures that the charms that people wear,
things like that. It's a little bit of having control role in a chaotic
system. And I think that makes a little more sense to me than just
a conditioned response to something. Yeah. Yeah, And I think that that's
the the evolution of it. I mean, there's so many things that we
that we kind of have quaintly, like the groom carries the bride over the
threshold, Yeah, you know, black cats, walking under ladders. I
walk under ladders all the time, and I do it because because it's well,
I mean, I bet to that superstitions because people used to get their
heads cracked by things falling from people on ladders. But you know, it's
it bothers me that it bothers me because you know, like for for work,
sometimes I have to walk under a ladder and the whole time I'm doing
it, there's a part in my brain that's screaming. You know, those
those things once you it's like when you're a kid, and like that's superstitions
to a child are kind of like the first science we learn rabbit's feet and
you know, touch blue, make it true, and and things like that.
That's like the first set of scientific tools. These are the tools with
which we understand our world and interact with And there's that. I think that
your brain retains some of that. But no matter how much you know that,
you're not doing anything. I guarantee once a week a person will be
walking down the sidewalk and be like, oh, they'll just do that little
extra step to get over the crack. And part of it, I think
also comes from the fact that they can't be necessarily disproven either, you know,
yeah, yeah, that's and that's the beauty of it. You can't
because there's another superstition that clearly had sway over that situation, a stronger superstition,
yeah, a megastition. You also get the whole thing. Where as
as technology evolves, and as as the world you know, hopefully if evolves
or things change from one thing to another, you get a transformation of superstition
as well. And I'm thinking of the just the ritual of blowing into the
Nintendo cartridge before you put it in. Yeah, Nintendo, you know,
even though I just I'm sure that that did nothing, but you do it.
But then if and if it didn't work, if if it you kept
getting that blue or green screen flashing on there, you took it out and
you blew harder. Yes, you're like, because that's all you can do.
You don't have that weird screwdriver that you used to put those things together,
so there's nothing you can do. And people, you know, and
it's even the way people deal with say their computers or their cars. People
have no idea what's going on inside their cars or their computers. They just
know like, oh, when it does this, I do this, and
then it doesn't do that for a while, Right, I mean that that
that's that's superstition, but it is reproducible. Yeah, there's something in what
they're doing that is affecting that thing, and they are fine with never knowing
how those two things are linked, which I guess technically given the scientific definition,
because the two things are in fact linked, then it's not a superstition.
But it's also easier for them. Yeah, why you don't have to
know everything if you just know the weird things. But then people have all
kinds of superstitions about technology that don't mean anything. I mean, one could
one could argue that, you know, cell phones giving you brain cancer maybe
superstition, maybe maybe maybe fact. I mean there's stuff like that. It's
like, well, you get plenty of articles that say it does, plenty
of articles that say it doesn't. So then you're left basically with is it
a superstition? You know? Is it? Oh? I've got a great
one. I've got a great example of a scientific superstition. Vaccines cause autism
that has been disproven every eight hundred ways from Sunday from Hell to breakfast.
Vaccines cause autism. There was a scientist who back in the late nineties claimed
that he that vaccines were responsible for the rise in autism and children and unborn
children like if the mother got vaccinated or if the child got vaccinated after they
were born, Okay, and then he was at the University of Utah.
But they this guy did this research, said, oh, they causes,
there's a link here. No scientist was ever, he had a press conference
before his work was peer reviewed. The peer review was like, wait a
minute, none of this works right. You doctored these these results, You
had selected your your test subjects. Oh, you messed with your You made
this up. He completely made it up because he had a large amount of
money in the vaccine industry. Of all things, in specific in specific areas,
the vaccine industry that would have done well with this. Shocking And to
this day there is a huge right now, there's a huge rise in things
like measles, mumps. Uh, these are things that you and I were
vaccinated against. But there's a huge There was almost a generation of moms who
were afraid to vaccinate their kids. And it's and it persists based on this
one guy and his terrible scientific hopes. Wow. And and to this day
there are still people like no, no, no, I heard that that
does give gives you autism. We're not going to do that. That that's
a great example of a superstition. Hmm. Yeah. It's it's scary now
that that people are and who Who's to say that some of these superstitions of
old weren't born out of you know, someone's greed of the day, you
know, something that would benefit them or something absolutely, you know, if
you don't have cracker Jack's at the ball game, a team's gonna lose.
I don't know if that ever they ever used that, but they should have.
But I guess, I guess The point is that we're not above it.
We don't live in we're not back star trek where we look back on
the problems of history and just tut tut tut you poor Bastard's like, we
are still neck deep in it. We are just as inclined to believe and
generate news superstitions. True, true, And like I said way back at
the beginning, the things that make up superstitions are things like omens, charms,
rituals, things like that. I'll briefly go through a few of these.
And omen is a phenomenon that's believed to foretell the future. And it
can be good or bad. For example, um, seeing a comment can
can be good for somebody bad for somebody else. In particular, Haley's comment
they believed was bad for King Harold the second in England, but seeing Haley's
comment later was a good sign for William the Conqueror apparently so Omens. It's
all in how you who you are, how you view it's a great superstition.
Yeah, charms are are a popular thing even today. I would say
a charm is something that's worn or carried on one's person for its supposed magical
effect. And this includes things like amulets, talisman and they're they're usually one
for for protection of something or another there. Yeah, usually they confer some
positive benefit. Yeah, in some cases they don't. Some cases they are
a cursed themselves. I mean I know exactly. For there's one specifical apricon
who is being hounded by children to the ends of the earth, and he
has several lucky charms. But you just please give them back together, just
give them back to the pork kids are not gonna give up them. Give
this guy his lucky charms back for the love pick. Yeah, and he's
getting so much bad luck and evil coming into his life, right, just
let the kids have those damn charms. Want a bunch of dicks, man,
But yeah, they they include things like gems and coins, pendants,
rings, statues. For example, one charm that that's probably pretty well known.
How about a crucifix. That's it's something that that wards off evil.
It stands for you know, uh, stands for what it stands for,
but it is what it is. But yeah, yeah, that that's to
ward off evil, especially vampires, if you if you go down that path.
For four leaf clover is a popular charm. The hams at hand is
a popular popular charm. Um pretty much anything a ring of protection plus one.
That's that's okay to get if you're if you're a low level that's all
right. Well I'll get you on the road. I mean whatever starts and
then and then you've got your your rituals and traditions that you following, which
is ritual is a set of actions performed to satisfy an obligation or need.
Uh. And I'm thinking of tossing a pinch of salt over your left shoulder.
We'll get into this in a little bit, uh, specifically salt.
But can you think of any other rituals that people might do? Oh um,
see now this is like rituals is a particularly to me interesting part of
the of the umbrella of superstitions because rituals, especially just like your definition.
Just know, a spot on is almost interchangeable for like to my mind,
like a OCD. Oh sure, yeah, physical actions that you have to
perform to satisfy a need right right, you know, if you touch something
left hand, touch at right hand, if you turn right, turn left,
you know, if you to establish balance or to scratch that itch.
Yeah. Yeah, And it's and it's interesting because it turns out science,
I mean, like psychologists have looked into this and they don't consider they think
that a lot of symptoms of OCD mimic superstitions, and there might even be
some attempt on the part of perhaps a patient. Patient doesn't want to say
I have OCD, but they will say they're superstitious, and then further investigation
and therapy brings out no, or you know, like, oh, they
actually do have these compulsive disorders. This isn't something they're doing because they want
to have a better day. Yeah, they're doing it because they can't not
do it right, And so they're actually very specific to say no, they're
they're they're there. They do have some some similar appearances, but they are
very very different things. And you and you know, just as OCD is
an obsessional, compulsive, that kind of thing that you have to do,
whereas I almost view rituals and superstitions superstitions they're kind of like a cosmic have
a penny, leave a penny jar, Like, oh, if you know,
if you've got the opportunity to knock on wood when all the numbers and
the clock are the same. Have you ever heard of that before? Because
there was a kid when I was growing up who said, oh, it's
lucky if you knock on wood when it's eleven eleven or three thirty three.
To this day, I'll do it. That little jackass made that up.
I can tell you that right now. I'm coming after you. But I
think that's that isn't important to point out a superstition. I feel like it's
something that you consciously do in order to effect an outcome, whereas OCD is
something that that you you do with no control. Right, and the two
harness and musually exclusive. It's not like you can't be both, but the
specific um activities usually boil down to different camps, even in your own mind
if you don't see it that way, the pressure, the desire to perform
those two different kinds of actions a small like you said, pinch over your
shoulder versus having to wash your hands five times a day. You know.
Well, so yeah, cool, that's a that's a great point. Let's
uh, let's jump into the top ten superstitions. I found a site nice
that that had that listed the top ten is it was like top ten of
twenty twelve. It was a time, not of twenty twelve. It was
the website was um top ten worldwide or something like that. I think dot
com, we'll trust them. It's I mean, until we're given reason not
to. Who knows. There's a lot of sites that do list superstitions.
Few of them put them in an order, but you have the courage to
rank them and hit them against each other. So coming in at number ten,
according to this side, coming in at number ten was spilling salt.
So I'll quickly go through this um. Spilling salt is said to arouse evil,
evil spirits, arouse them, arouse them. Salt was obviously a value,
valuable commodity back in the day, and it was also used in exorcism
and for protection from evil. That's some thought that where where that comes from
the idea that that's spilling it you know is I can't use it anymore.
But one explanation is that Judas overturned the salt seller at the last supper.
Oh so it's it's bad form, Peter Pan to spill any salt as an
antidote. Tossing a pinch over your left shoulder will drive away the devil who
is lurking there basically with the sinister shoulder right right, the angels on the
right shoulder. Devil's on the left shoulder and not according to the evan to
the advice I've been getting lately, Gosh, we'll see the devil soon,
I'm sure. Yeah, but yeah, throwing salt. Here's one for you.
Throwing salt after someone leaves your house who's just visited, said to ensure
that they do not return for a long time. I will see if that
works on who I'm not saying. There's also a German belief that a girl
who neglects to put the salt on the table in the first place is revealing
the fact that she is no longer a chairmans, we're hot. That is
like a to a hand printed three year old turkey picture, like that a
to a hand printed tree, not a to b but a to something so
far I see beyond. So if you forget the salt, you've been doing
things. You've been down in the TNT area of point pleasant. Nice.
That's really good. That was great, that was completely yeah yeah, so
yeah, so that's salt. That's salt. Number nine. Wishbones. Oh
yeah. The wishbone is a bone that lies between the foul's neck and breast,
and when it's dried and pulled between two people so that it breaks,
the person holding the larger piece is granted a wish. But you can't laugh,
talk, or reveal the secret while you're pulling or after or you can't
reveal it afterwards. But while you're pull pulling, you can't laugh or talk
or else it's nullified. WHOA, I've never heard the laughing or talking thing,
which explains why so many of mine wishes were unfulfilled growing up, because
it was like a throwdown, Like we had sides of the family shouting encouragement.
Everyone's screaming as he pulled the wishbone. That's it, man. No.
Traditionally it may have roots in the resemblance of a horseshoe, which is
also a lucky charm. So that's that's the wishbone. Number eight. The
rabbit's foot, pretty common one. Yeah, I think everyone's uh, if
they haven't owned one, they've seen one on a key chain. I think
we're a little too animal friendly these days to have those. But I remember
growing up. Those things were everywhere. I used to get them out of
the little quarter machines, like you know, outside of a Walmart. And
I'm sure they weren't real. I hope they were. They were real.
They had fingernails and everything. AU guess you had these had fingernails too,
but they were they were dyed. These upid colors, bright blue, bright
red. But anyway, rabbit's foot's supposed to bring exceptional good luck if if
it's worn around the neck on a chain, or if fits carried in your
left pocket. They're ideally I like this, hang onto this one. They're
ideally made from the left hind leg of a rabbit killed by a cross eyed
man in the light of a full moon. Why you ask that one?
I love all of that, Maybe both. I'm going out to make lucky
rabbits. Oh, the door artist, you can't shoot that crossbow. He
has a crossbow because he's cross eyed. That what this joke. That's gotta
be extra I mean, how else is he killing them? If you got
a cross eyed man? Yes, he shoots a crossbow. That's why they're
called crossbow. Has all kinds of crosses hanging in his house. That's right
by a rail road crossing during the days at crossing guard. And he loves
Crosby stillson, We're we're the worst kind of people. Oh, we look
forward to your hate mail mail. Are you going to extror? Oh man?
If terror wasn't the right word, and you're a terror. So witches
are said to favor rabbits as disguises or familiars, which is which leads to
the belief of their supernatural qualities for having the foot. So that's uh,
that's number eight. Number seven. You care to guess what number seven might
come in? I didn't. I wanted to. I was gonna cheat.
Let's see, Um, I just I don't. I don't even begin to
know. Carrying the bride across the threshold. No ladders, oh man,
yep, walking under a ladder's bad luck? Right now? This, um,
this has a couple of different origins that it could be from. I'm
sure all of these have a thousand places they probably are derived from. But
um, for ladders, it could be that ladders that were leaned against a
wall formed a triangle, which is the sign of the Holy Trinity. And
you don't want to walk through the middle of the Holy Trinity because it's disrespectful
to Jesus and all the babies. I would have thought that it would be
like you just get covered in trinity, Like that's a good thing, like
from the matrix. That's the best thing. Oh man, So don't don't
can diffuse me, like all right, all right, but yeah, that
is the best thing, if you can get covered by the Trinity, whether
holy or leather class the other the other origin for it, and this is
the one I like. Criminals used to be hanged from the top rung of
a ladder that was leaned up against the crux of a tree when there wasn't
a suitable gallows or maybe a limb that they could hang from, and so
their spirit then lingered underneath the ladder. And that's why you didn't want to
You don't want to stir them up when you walked underneath a ladder. That's
pretty cool, huh, Yeah, I like that. I mean I can
understand that there's a lurking spirit. Yeah, yeah, of a criminal.
No less you think they don't get better once you kill them. They don't
learn. So number six, what do you think Number six is? I'm
gonna go with rally caps broken mirrors. Breaking a mirror calls a seven years
of bad luck. Now, mirrors were thought to be the images of the
soul, a reflection of your soul. It was obviously bad form to break
your soul up, and don't do it. But to keep your luck,
here's what you could do. Wait for seven hours before you're picking up the
pieces, one hour for every year of bad luck, and then you can
bury them on sacred ground in the moon or throw them in a swift moving
river. I'm gonna go with the river because that's just easier. You have
to do that at in the moon light. Or yeah, just throw them
in a swift flowing reverse stream. But yeah, I mean that that's nearest.
I've always been kind of a mystifying thing for people and cultures, people
who are are new to hallucinogenic drugs. I Alaska. Soon we should start
to get us to South America. Fund Oh god, we'll never that's it
for us. Man. You don't you don't come back from South America.
I guess not. Number five? What do you think? Thirteen? Number
thirteen? Close? The four leaf clover. Oh, I'm the worst at
this. I've only I've been wearing my other socks. Four leaf clover considered
a good luck charm. The four leaves represent fame, wealth, faithful lover,
and good health, so all the things you need in life. Yeah,
it protects it also against witchcraft. There's a bonus for you and I
get a faithful lover and no witchcraft. That's right. But that's not all.
If you wear it, it grants you the ability to see fairies.
I know you went down on Halstead here, that's what you did. I
know it. The origin maybe from a biblical legend that said Eve stole some
clover as she was exiled from Paradise. So is clover actually from the hollow
earth? Oh? Darby O Gillen, the little people? Number four?
What do you think? Nope, horseshoes. Honestly, horseshoes. There is
nothing superstitious about a horse shoe. I refute this, all right, all
right, But it said that it's good luck if you found it, if
it was legitimately lost by a horse, found by you, open end facing
you, and then hung above your door. Okay, well let me ask
you this. Then this is a good example of like Hayley's commet, not
lucky for the horse, not lucky for the horse. Right, that is
a lot that is such a highly specific thing, and the cross eyed guy
wasn't. But the cross eyed guy could like he's cross eyed and he's gonna
go choose to cut a specifically golf of a rabbit at midnight. All right,
you're right, you're right. I hate myself for trying to defend that.
So the properties of a horseshoe maybe derived from the crescent shape that it
resembles the moon, because you know there's a lot of moon moon mystery that
that goes on has gone on, or that it was made of iron,
which is the most magical of all the metals. Wouldn't when you wouldn't be
able to helpier, I just might just ensure that people walk with traffic,
because then wouldn't all the horseshoes on the ground be facing you that you find.
Oh that's a good point, but how do you know which way the
traffic is going? If you're new to an area, and well, I
mean you just stay stayed to the right. What if you're in England stayed
the left? Good answer, Okay, movie, actually still stay to the
right, don't you. That's just you're on the left. Yeah, yeah,
I don't see. I just killed us in England. We have to
go to South America because I'll kill us if we go to England. Also,
seven seven nail holes are the luckiest because seven seven h popular lucky number.
Oh, here's a bonus for you. Also, deters witches and fairies,
which is a huge problem at some point, you know it was that's
true, man, because they're people are really I mean, like, that's
why witches are extinct. Now, we found so many ways to limit their
power that they just gave up. I could, well, they're they're not
extinct. There's plenty of witches out there, and they're not the witches that
that they've been stereotyped into being witches today. That today's witches is too proper
witches as LARPers are to the legions of Rome, I can see your point.
I do think that that a lot of witches today, though, are
a lot hotter than than LARPers would be to the legions. Well you know
what you only you know that is you're just like dodging sideways now yeah,
yeah, yeah, which is today are hotter than which is used to be.
I just used to have to be ugly. But it also depends on
which way you larbers are better educated than the legions of Rome's that there?
No, okay, I don't know. Let's just throw out some more facts.
Yeah, foam swords, metal, I just don't respect modern witches.
You don't know. Okay, that's fair, But time getting all you are.
I just wrote a check off of your ass too. We're gonna get
hext and cursed. And maybe the whiches are hot these days. There they
are. They are hot, They are better, well, some of them
are. Number three. What do you think it is? Thank you for
ending that thirteen? Number thirteen. I'm it's going to be my answer from
here on out, because if it doesn't show up, I'm going to destroy
this place with my theory. You're doing this incessantly. I think it's becoming
a superstition. Yeah, and number three is number thirteen. Yeah, I
do it. All I had to do was keep saying thirteen, and someday
it would work what's it called when you're afraid of it? Stuck out Chris
good decaphobia. People also will not build. They don't number their floors and
buildings with the number thirteen. It goes straight from twelve to fourteen, especially
like older buildings actually will have this on the website. I've got a number
of photos. My job allows me to go into some of the finer older
high rises here in Chicago and I take pictures of the elevator panels. Nice.
So I've got we've got some pictures of some thirteen less some some buildings
just with a sweet twelve to fourteen. Yeah, other buildings just pay lip
service with a floor twelve and a half, which I think would be the
best floor to live on. Yeah, if you're a John Macovic, yeah
exactly. I guess John John Cusack at that point. Yeah. So yeah,
we've got we've got some pictures of that on the website for you.
Cool. And the Witches covens had thirteen members, which were twelve witches and
the drivel as did Jesus and the Apostles. That that was that was it.
There were thirteen at the last supper and the last one to sit down
our friend Judas. What didn't he up at that meal? The fish?
It was delicious. He nailed it. The tarot. In the tarot,
the thirteenth card is death Friday. The thirteenth obviously a popular day to be
scared of. Yeah, that comes from many different sources. One of the
more popular ones coming out these days is that it was the day that the
knights templar were hunted and killed in your up back in the Middle Ages,
back in like six hundred years ago, right, six hundred years ago,
when everything happened, Yeah everything. Have you heard that? Have you?
Have you not heard that? The thirteenth plus a day that No, Actually
I don't know anything about that as like the the root of it. So
that's interesting now is that when I mean, obviously they didn't kill all the
templars in one day when like the order went out exactly. That's that's like,
oh, six hundred hours, you are on your horse with a sword,
go into these dudes homes. Wow. That's interesting. Yeah, So
so ever since then, it was I mean, this is this is one
of the theories that have cropped up. But there's evidence that the number thirteen,
in particular the fear of it, existed in Roman culture, even before
Jesus, even back as far as ancient Egypt and Hindu culture and stuff like
that. So you can't you can't blame it all on Judas. You can't
blame it all on the slaughtering of the nights. That's interesting. Now you're
like businesses even fall off. They'll actually see a decrease in business on Friday
the thirteenth. And I mean do people. I mean, I don't know
anyone whos ever said I'm staying home that day. But you always there's always
some jagbag in the office who's like thirty look out the dag bag. There's
there's always that guy. And you know what, listen to podcast. Maybe
you can be that guy for your office. Okay, so number two,
what do you think number two is? Well, I knew what my answer
was gonna be, but I don't think thirteen's gonna pay out anymore. Um.
Blue moon maybe blue moon, Yeah, when there's five moons, I
mean two full moons in a month. No black cats, black cats,
I said that earlier. Classic The US believes, along with a couple of
their countries like Belgium, that a black cat crossing your path bestows bad luck,
but it's the opposite. In the British aild they are harbingers of good
luck. See that's awesome. I'm still gonna kill us when we go there,
but we should go there. I should go there and hug a bunch
of black cats. Yeah. Then they were often depicted as which is familiars
or maybe which is or sorcerers themselves, so that that has some connotation with
um, you know why why it might be considered bad luck over here anyway.
So black cats. Uh, yeah, that's that's something that's that's pretty
big, I think, I think today over in the States anyway. Yeah,
so black cats go to England if you like them, as long as
you stay in America, you will stay clear of them. So number one,
what do you think number one is? Man, I've spent the last
two minutes trying to think of one, Like the whole time you were talking,
all I was thinking of is another superstition. And so since I couldn't
think of one, I am opening my dictionary area of superstitions. I believe
the number one superstition. So we get some good paper page turning sounds that
sounds great right next to the MICROPHO. Well, you have to hear it.
I believe that is the uh the pask flower, the purple flowered anemone
that is widely grown for its attractive bloom. I think it's probably because of
the Southern English tradition of considerable antiquity claiming that the pass flowers only grow where
saxon blood has been spilt. So I'm going to say that's the number one.
I think that's the most common one, that they only grow where there's
been saxon blood spilt. So you just guess that one top of my head.
The top of my head. Number one is knocking on wood. Yeah,
knocking on wood, which is a gesture that's used to counter the threat
one may incur when boasting or willing something to happen. Oh my god.
It is directly linked to the Jinks. Yeah exactly, that's that. It
is the Jinks. It's it's like it's anti jinks. So knocking on wood
is associated with seeking protection of could be the wood of THESS. Again,
you get a religious theme here, or it could be invoking the benevolent wood
gods or spirits that are brought out with a knock or a touch of wood.
I did not think I could bring out wood spirits by punching them.
You know they don't you don't punch them, just maybe they're home. It's
like knocking on a door. I guess there's a different between knocking on wood
and whaling on wood, right, which is always bad luck to your knuckles
in hand. So that's it. Knock on wood. Yeah, number one
most popular there. I hope, I hope that we did not burden you
with these that you may feel compelled to engage in them for the rest of
your days. Yeah, I know that in my life, maybe sometimes I
believe in things that don't exist, perhaps the efficacy of the Chicago Bears passing
game, and maybe that I've learned my lesson. There is a superstition,
because I keep going back being being from the theater, being from a theater
background, I do know some superstitions associated with that. Oh yeah, wearing
green is bad luck, and that that comes from being in the limelight,
which is thinking like the late eighteen hundreds, even they lit stages with sodium
lights. Yeah, like the footlights had had a green tint to them,
and you didn't want to appear like you're just a big pile of pug,
right, stage whistling in a theater is bad luck. And this comes from
when they would hire sailors to run the flies to that that lifted the scrims
and the screens and the background and the curtains. And if you're just whistling
willy nilly, then you could get a really heavy curtain or screen come down
on your head, one of those those bags that are just full of sand
or right exactly, yeah, because sailors whistled to to communicate you know,
which lines to raise and lower. And then there's the old classic, don't
say McBeth in a theater. Yeah, that you have to say the Scottish
play. I don't get that. That's just irritating to me. And I
mean I perform, I've done stage things. I have never had any respect
for that one, which is probably why to this day I have still not
been in McBeth. No one has asked that's right, you say mcbeth's theater,
you'll never yeah blah. So yeah, those are some of the ones
for for acting and stuff. Do you have any any in particular you want
to throw out there that we haven't covered? Boy, No, I think
I went through like the ones that that that bedeviled me. Then knocking on
the the clock saw the same number. I still do that. Yeah,
and uh, and I do avoid occasionally stepping on cracks, although my mom's
back has nothing to do with it. I just would prefer not to step
on them. Yeah, yeah, I don't. I you know you everyone
would say that they're not a superstitious person, but everyone has these little tiny
things rattling around and do something to do. Yeah, everyone's everyone's got lucky
underwear. Everyone like when you just do laundry, you still will reach into
the underwear stack of neatly folded underwears to pull out your favorite one. Is
that? Is that just because you like it the most, or do you
think it's lucky? I mean, I've got lucky underwear. I feel like
every time I wear a pair of underwear that I think it's lucky. I
it just all everything falls apart for me. Oh, we'll see. That's
that's I think the antithesis is just as good as the the intention. So
so that's superstitions. Yeah for you. There you go. That's that's how
that's what fragile, broken people we are. Let's let's jump into some superstitious
Okay, Okay, I've got I've got a really great one. Okay,
but I'd like it. I'd like you to start this one off already.
I've got a prank shop called No Charm, No Foul. Oh that's a
good one. I mean, you know of all the prank shops that are
for all the prank for all the people who like to prank. All right,
all right, I've got one because I like I do like Stevie Unders
so much. It's called Very Superb Dishes. It's uh, it's just dishware,
but it s. I was really proud of that when I said it,
and it didn't age. Well. I think I think all puns are
yeah not fine one right, yeah, true. My second one a locksmith
called Emmy let me In. Oh man, that's everything about that hurt me.
Um. I really only had very Superb Dishes. I thought that it
was. I even said it when I wrote it down. This is so
good. It counts just oh. Usually I can try to whip one up
on the fly, and man, I gotta tell you that Emmy Let me
In just just punched me right in my imagination's throat. Well, this is
where you guys can come in and send us send us a fill the pund
and uh. Also, I would like to know some of your you're all
favorite superstitions or if there's something that that you do that you find brings you
good luck. Oh yeah, squirrely family superstitions. Yep, yep. I
get pop tarts on my birthday to this day. Oh really yeah. I
used to get him as a kid, and to this day in the morning
and my birthday, I go either go the night before and get them,
or I'll get them the morning of my birthday and have a pop tart.
I'm a birthday or name. Huh, that's funny. I'm sure I have
one. I'm bad at thinking of stuff in general, but but yeah,
tell us like I would be particularly interested to hear, Like what you know
are hyper specific things that you and your siblings cooked up that you're still compelled
to do. Yeah? And um yeah, and a pun and go ahead.
Go to blurry photos dot org. Uh, submit the form there on
the contact page. Go to Facebook lie us, go to the twitters and
follow us on there. Get an RSS feed. We got all kinds of
stell you. We can hook you up to go to the side. There's
no limit to the amount of us you can get in your life right until
until you're done listening to this and have to wait a week. So besides
that, I think that's all I got. You gotta do anything else.
I think I think we put a pretty nice little ribbon on this awesome um
well, until next time, I am David Flora, and I am willing
like David st And we'll talk at you later