Superstitions have become a way of our life. It is in our blood. Through centuries of existence, it has been incorporated into our genes. It has become as much a part of our living as is air, water or our limbs. It is so much in our conscious that all times we unvoluntrilly surrender us to perform such rituals, in total suspension of disbelief.
Suppose you are fortunate enough to have a successful day. You have sailed through the day smoothly. Even the riskiest venture has come out exactly right. And with a sigh of relief you exclaim, “This is my lucky day and immediately, unvoluntrilly you will utter, “Knock on wood!” Of course you don’t believe that knocking on a wood will ward of danger. Still the utterance of such words believes you form the uneasiness caused by boasting about your own good luck. It is just a protective ritual. If someone will challenge you about if you will frankly admit that it is nothing but an old superstition.
What is superstition? We treat old folk believes as superstitions. Such beliefs as there are lucky and unlucky days, numbers, and future events can be read from omens, that there are protective charms or that what happens can be influenced by casting spells are called superstitions. We have discarded magic from the current world view as we know that natural events have natural causes.
Religion and superstition come close to each other as both are matters of faith. So far as religion is concerned, truth cannot be demonstrated. We accept religion as a matter of faith.
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Superstitions, however belong to the category of beliefs, parasitizes and ways of thinking that have been discarded because they are inconsistent with scientific knowledge. We tell those people superstitions, who believe what we believe to be untrue. Superstitions, used in this scene are a derogatory term for the beliefs of other people that we do not share. Superstition is a type of twilight world where we like to lounge by partly suspending our disbelief and act as if we are under the spell of magic.
Superstition is nothing but long standing rituals. Even in the most sophisticated home, something happens that evokes the memory of some old folk belief. If someone spills salt, he never forgets to toss a pinch over his left shoulder. If a knife falls on the floor someone cotises, “Knife fans, gentleman calls.” If your nose tickles, you think that you are going receive a letter. Many people always go around a ladder than under it. One always hostile closes the umbrella that is open inside the house. And while doing these we explain that are told about it by our great aunts or we know that Germans do like that.
All of us can remember the observance of childhood. Wishing on the first star; “looking at the new moon over the right shoulder, avoiding the cracks in the sidewalk. On the way to school while chanting, “Step on a crack, break your mother’s back.” Wishing on white horses, on loads of hay, on covered bridges, on red cars; saying quickly, ‘Bread-and Butter when a post or a tree separated you form the friend you were walking with. The adult may not actually recite the formula, ‘star light, star bright. . . .’ and may not quite turn to look at the new moon, but his mood is tempered by a little of the old thrill that came when the observance was still freighted with magic.”
Often about the religious belief of the primitive people we ask, if they really have a religion, or is it all superstition. The point of contrast here is not between a scientific and a magical view of the world. The point of contrast is between the clear, theologically defensible religious beliefs of members of civilized societies and what we regard as the false and childish views of the heathen who bow down to wood and stone. Religion and superstitions both are ancient beliefs. Superstitions, which are mostly ancient beliefs are handed on from one religion to another and carried from country to country around the world.