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Acolyte, vol 1, issue 3, whole 3, Spring 1943
Page 13
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SUPERSTITIOUS? by H. Ken Bulmer -oOo- The fact that Religion - in the finest sense of that much ill-used word - has supposedly banished all superstitious fears does not mean that superstition is no longer in existence. Most people in the world today are superstition-ridden. And here is not meant those who are zealously spiritual in temperament, for true Religion is not superstition. Superstition is handed down the ages from parents to children, and with each succeeding generation becomes more firmly entrenched in the mind and the unconscious, and more widely ramified in detail. Also it loses its true meaning. It is no unusual thing to see a group of children; in the care of one a few years their senior; energetically and with full confidence endeavouring, by every means in their power, to do think and say things which will propitate the fates on their behalf. This is arrant and inculcated superstition. No one is completely free from the instinctive fears of this blight. A ladder leaning against a wall is a sure sign that ninety-nine people out of a hundred passing-by will painstakingly walk around it in preference to walking under it. The old joke about being run over by a passing car is all too serious to be lightly laughed at. The origin of this superstition seems easy to perceive. So also with the bad luck attached to knocking over salt, and the seven years which follow the breaking of a mirror. In the days when salt represented the host's protection over his guests and the "taking of salt" was a solemn rite - often the hair's breadth margin between life and death - it is easy to see how the spilling of salt could readily have acquired the reputation of bringing bad luck. The counter-agent of throwing some of the spilled over the left shoulder with the right hand is not so obvious. It may have been the result of attempting to dispose of the evidence by hurriedly throwing it, unseen behind the back, to be lost among the rushes strewing the floor. Mirrors were of extreme value at one time; and if some unlucky drudge should have broken one, the seven years of bad luck would have been but one of the more publicised methods of atonement that would have fallen upon her unprotected head. Salt too was precious; and here, when it lost is fuller meaning, the bad luck would fall upon the head of anyone clumsy enough to spill it. There are many such superstitions which can have nicely tailored explanations fitted to them. there are those which are the result of some overt action, distorted by the passage of time and inaccuracy of hand to hand repetition. Why do newly-weds have various old and mouldy shoes fixed to the back of their car by well-wishing friends? The general explanation for this is that King Canute, when blessing a newly wedded couple, would remove his sandals, and for every grain of sand shaken therefrom the blushing bride would have a child. (It is not recorded exactly whether this took place after Canute's unsuccessful attempt to Boulder Dam the sea; but should it have done so, one wonders at the faces of the bridal pair as canute empteid out half of Goodwin Sands!) Now so far supersition has been treated as a gradual building up of simple, natural facts with a commonplace meaning into a rather shadowy, vague edifice of musts and must nots--through the loss of the original, matter-of-fact conceptions. There are, however, supersititions which do not fall under this nice, watertight theorising. These are supersititons for which there seems to be no logical supposi- -- 13 --
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SUPERSTITIOUS? by H. Ken Bulmer -oOo- The fact that Religion - in the finest sense of that much ill-used word - has supposedly banished all superstitious fears does not mean that superstition is no longer in existence. Most people in the world today are superstition-ridden. And here is not meant those who are zealously spiritual in temperament, for true Religion is not superstition. Superstition is handed down the ages from parents to children, and with each succeeding generation becomes more firmly entrenched in the mind and the unconscious, and more widely ramified in detail. Also it loses its true meaning. It is no unusual thing to see a group of children; in the care of one a few years their senior; energetically and with full confidence endeavouring, by every means in their power, to do think and say things which will propitate the fates on their behalf. This is arrant and inculcated superstition. No one is completely free from the instinctive fears of this blight. A ladder leaning against a wall is a sure sign that ninety-nine people out of a hundred passing-by will painstakingly walk around it in preference to walking under it. The old joke about being run over by a passing car is all too serious to be lightly laughed at. The origin of this superstition seems easy to perceive. So also with the bad luck attached to knocking over salt, and the seven years which follow the breaking of a mirror. In the days when salt represented the host's protection over his guests and the "taking of salt" was a solemn rite - often the hair's breadth margin between life and death - it is easy to see how the spilling of salt could readily have acquired the reputation of bringing bad luck. The counter-agent of throwing some of the spilled over the left shoulder with the right hand is not so obvious. It may have been the result of attempting to dispose of the evidence by hurriedly throwing it, unseen behind the back, to be lost among the rushes strewing the floor. Mirrors were of extreme value at one time; and if some unlucky drudge should have broken one, the seven years of bad luck would have been but one of the more publicised methods of atonement that would have fallen upon her unprotected head. Salt too was precious; and here, when it lost is fuller meaning, the bad luck would fall upon the head of anyone clumsy enough to spill it. There are many such superstitions which can have nicely tailored explanations fitted to them. there are those which are the result of some overt action, distorted by the passage of time and inaccuracy of hand to hand repetition. Why do newly-weds have various old and mouldy shoes fixed to the back of their car by well-wishing friends? The general explanation for this is that King Canute, when blessing a newly wedded couple, would remove his sandals, and for every grain of sand shaken therefrom the blushing bride would have a child. (It is not recorded exactly whether this took place after Canute's unsuccessful attempt to Boulder Dam the sea; but should it have done so, one wonders at the faces of the bridal pair as canute empteid out half of Goodwin Sands!) Now so far supersition has been treated as a gradual building up of simple, natural facts with a commonplace meaning into a rather shadowy, vague edifice of musts and must nots--through the loss of the original, matter-of-fact conceptions. There are, however, supersititions which do not fall under this nice, watertight theorising. These are supersititons for which there seems to be no logical supposi- -- 13 --
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