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Superstition, Superstition

The word is often used pejoratively to refer to beliefs deemed irrational. This leads to some superstitions being called Old Wive's Tales. It is also commonly applied to beliefs and practices surrounding luck, prophecy and spiritual beings, particularly the irrational belief that future events can be influenced or foretold by specific unrelated prior events.

In Iran, birthmarks are called 'maah-gereftegi' () which means eclipse. In Korea, there is a superstition that leaving a fan on in a closed room will suffocate the occupants.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church states superstition "in some sense represents a perverse excess of religion" (para. #2110).

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.

Freud (1950, 82), citing Frazer (1911, 203) This superstition was still in practice in eastern England in the 20th century: At Norwich in June 1902 a woman named Matilda Henry accidentally ran a nail into her foot. Without examining the wound, or even removing her stocking, she asked her daughter to grease the nail, thinking that if this were done no harm would come of the injury. Within a few days she died of lockjaw. "Death from Lockjaw at Norwich" (July 19, 1902).

Source: Wikipedia > Superstition