A superstition is any belief or practice considered by non-practitioners to be irrational or supernatural. It is commonly applied to beliefs and practices surrounding luck, fate, magic, amulets, astrology, fortune telling, spirits, and certain paranormal entities, particularly the belief that future events can be foretold by specific unrelated prior events.
The word superstition is also used to refer to a religion not practiced by the majority of a given society regardless of whether the prevailing religion contains alleged superstitions or to all religions by the antireligious.
Contemporary use Definitions of the term vary, but superstitions are commonly described as irrational beliefs at odds with scientific knowledge of the world. Stuart Vyse proposes that a superstition's "presumed mechanism of action is inconsistent with our understanding of the physical world", with Jane Risen adding that these beliefs are not merely scientifically wrong but impossible. Similarly, Lysann Damisch defines superstition as "irrational beliefs that an object, action, or circumstance that is not logically related to a course of events influences its outcome." Dale Martin says that superstitions "presuppose an erroneous understanding about cause and effect, that have been rejected by modern science." The Oxford English Dictionary describes them as "irrational, unfounded", Merriam-Webster as "a false conception about causation or belief or practice", and the Cambridge Dictionary as "sans grounding in human reason or scientific knowledge". This notion of superstitious practices is not causally related to the outcomes.
Both Vyse and Martin argue that what is considered superstitious varies across cultures and time. For Vyse, "if a culture has not yet adopted science as its standard, then what we consider magic or superstition is more accurately the local science or religion." Dale points out that superstitions are often considered out of place in modern times and are influenced by modern science and its notions of what is rational or irrational, surviving as remnants of older popular beliefs and practices.
Vyse proposes that in addition to being irrational and culturally dependent, superstitions have to be instrumental; an actual effect is expected by the person holding a belief, such as increased odds of winning a prize. This distinction excludes practices where participants merely expect to be entertained.
Alternative religious beliefs as superstition
Religious practices that differ from commonly accepted religions in a given culture are sometimes called superstitious; similarly, new practices brought into an established religious community can also be labeled as superstitious in an attempt to exclude them. Also, an excessive display of devoutness has often been labelled as superstitious behavior.
In antiquity, the Latin term , like its equivalent Greek deisidaimonia, became associated with exaggerated ritual and a credulous attitude towards prophecies. Greek and Roman polytheists, who modeled their relations with the gods on political and social terms, scorned the man who constantly trembled with fear at the thought of the gods, as a slave feared a cruel and capricious master. Such fear of the gods was what the Romans meant by "superstition" (Veyne 1987, p. 211). Cicero (106–43 BCE) contrasted with the mainstream religion of his day, stating: – "One does not destroy religion by destroying superstition".De Divinatione, Book 2, chapter 72, section 148. Diderot's 18th-century Encyclopédie defines superstition as "any excess of religion in general", and links it specifically with paganism.
In his 1520 Prelude on the Babylonian Captivity of the Church, Martin Luther, who called the papacy "that fountain and source of all superstitions", accuses the popes of superstition: For there was scarce another of the celebrated bishoprics that had so few learned pontiffs; only in violence, intrigue, and superstition has it hitherto surpassed the rest. For the men who occupied the Roman See a thousand years ago differ so vastly from those who have since come into power, that one is compelled to refuse the name of Roman pontiff either to the former or to the latter.
The current Catechism of the Catholic Church considers superstition sinful in the sense that it denotes "a perverse excess of religion", as a demonstrated lack of trust in divine providence (¶ 2110), and a violation of the first of the Ten Commandments. The Catechism represents a defense against the accusation that Catholic doctrine is superstitious: Superstition is a deviation of religious feeling and of the practices this feeling imposes. It can even affect the worship we offer the true God, e.g., when one attributes an importance in some way magical to certain practices otherwise lawful or necessary. To attribute the efficacy of prayers or of sacramental signs to their mere external performance, apart from the interior dispositions that they demand is to fall into superstition. Cf. (¶ 2111)
Classifications Dieter Harmening's 1979 book Superstitio categorizes superstitions in three categories: magic, divination and observances. The observances category subdivides into "signs" and "time". The time sub-category constitutes temporal prognostics like observances of various days related like dog days, Egyptian days, year prognosis and lunaries, whereas the signs category constitutes signs such as particular animal behaviors (like the call of birds or the neighing of horses) or the sighting of comets, or dreams. According to László Sándor Chardonnens, the signs subcategory usually needs an observer who might help in interpreting the signs and such observer does not need necessarily to be an active participant in the observation.Compare: According to Chardonnens, a participant in the category of divination may need to go beyond mere observation and need to be active participant in a given action. Examples of divination superstitions include judicial astrology, necromancy, haruspex, lot-casting, geomancy, aeromancy and prophecy. Chardonnens says superstitions belonging to the magic category are exceedingly hermetical and ritualistic: examples include witchcraft, potions, incantations, amulets etc. Chardonnens says that the observation category needs an observer, divination category needs a participant to tell what is to be observed, whereas magic requires a participant who must follow a protocol to influence the future, and that these three types of superstition need increasing stages of participation and knowledge.
Chardonnens defines "prognostication" as that component of superstition which expects knowledge of the future on systematic application of given ritual and order, and moves to classify it, writing: "Prognostication seems to occupy a place somewhere between observation and divination, of which the observation of times is represented most frequently due to the primacy of temporal prognostics.
Chardonnens classifies prophecy under the topic of divination; examples including the prophets of the Old Testament, biblical typological allegory, the fifteen signs before Judgement Day, and the many prophecies expressed by saints; Chardonnens further points out that since many aspects of religious experience are tied up with prophecy, the medieval church condones the same. Chardonnens says, one could differentiate between those kinds of prophecy which are (1) inspired by God or Satan and their minions; (2) "gecyndelic"; and (3) "wiglung" examples —lacking divine or infernal inspiration and not "gecyndelic" either. But practically, however, most, if not all, words relating to prophecy ought to be interpreted as inspired.
Criticism of definitions Identifying something as superstition generally expresses a pejorative view. Items referred to as such in common parlance are commonly referred to as folk belief in folkloristics.For discussion, see for example Georges, Robert A. & Jones, Michael Owen. 1995. Folkloristics: An Introduction, p. 122. Indiana University Press. .
According to László Sándor Chardonnens, Oxford English Dictionary (OED) definitions pass value-judgement and attribution to "fear and ignorance" without doing enough justice to elaborate systems of superstitions. Chardonnens says the religious element in OED denotations is not understood as a system of observance and testifies to a belief in higher power on part of the compiler of the dictionary.
Subjective perceptions Richard Webster's The Encyclopedia of Superstitions points out that many superstitions have connections with religion, that people may hold individual subjective perceptions vis à vis superstitions against one another (people of one belief are likely to call people of another belief superstitious); Constantine regarded paganism as a superstition; Tacitus on other hand regarded Christianity as a pernicious superstition; Saul of Tarsus and Martin Luther perceived any thing that was not centered on Christ to be superstitious. According to Dale Martin, difference of opinion on what constitutes "superstition" may become apparent when one moves from one culture to another culture.
Academic S.A. Smith writes that "superstition" has long been used as a pejorative characterization by people or groups seeking to malign their opponents.
Etymology While the formation of the Latin word is clear, from the verb super-stare, "to stand over, stand upon; survive", its original intended sense is less clear. It can be interpreted as "'standing over a thing in amazement or awe","orig. a standing still over or by a thing; hence, amazement, wonder, dread, esp. of the divine or supernatural." Charlton T. Lewis, Charles Short, A Latin Dictionary . but other possibilities have been suggested, e.g. the sense of excess, i.e. over-scrupulousness or over-ceremoniousness in the performing of religious rites, or else the survival of old, irrational religious habits..
The earliest known use as a noun is found in Plautus, Ennius and later in Pliny the Elder, with the meaning of art of divination. From its use in the Classical Latin of Livy and Ovid, it is used in the pejorative sense that it holds today: of an excessive fear of the gods or unreasonable religious belief; as opposed to religio, the proper, reasonable awe of the gods. Cicero derived the term from superstitiosi, lit. those who are "left over", i.e. "survivors", "descendants", connecting it with excessive anxiety of parents in hoping that their children would survive them to perform their necessary funerary rites.Cicero, De Natura Deorum II, 28 (32), quoted in
According to Michael David Bailey, it was with Pliny's usage that magic came close to superstition; and charges of being superstitious were first leveled by Roman authorities on their Christian subjects. In turn, early Christian writers saw all Roman and Pagan cults as superstitious, worshipping false Gods, fallen angels and demons. With Christian usage almost all forms of magic started being described as forms of superstition.
Academic Dale B. Martin wrote that the term superstitio proliferated in the Roman empire as a term for religious heretics who spread "contagious" and "depraved" beliefs.
Superstition and psychology
Origins Behaviorism perspective