50: Why Superstitions Are Good For You
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Hey, it's your buddy AJ from the Y-Files. And Hecklefish. Right, and Hecklefish. We just wanted to tell you that if you want to start a podcast, Spotify makes it easy. It'd have to be easy for humans to understand it. Will you stop that? I'm just saying. Spotify for Podcasters lets you record and edit podcasts from your computer. I don't have a computer. Do you have a phone? Of course I have a phone. I'm not a savage. Well, with Spotify, you can record podcasts from your phone, too.

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What do Ponce de Leon, Alexander the Great, and Jason Giammi all have in common? Superstitions. What are superstitions? Why do we even believe them? Although there are a lot of weird superstitions out there, there may be psychological benefits to believing them. Let's find out why. About 25% of people consider themselves superstitious, but it's probably more than that. Do you say bless you after someone sneezes? Why? Well, it's polite. But how did this become a thing?

Some say this tradition dates back to the ancient Romans who thought that when you sneezed, your soul was ejected from the body and a blessing was the only way to protect it from being stolen by the devil. Another theory is that Pope Gregory, who became pope after his predecessor died from the plague, would say God bless you whenever someone sneezed as a way of wishing them good health. Another theory is that some believed your heart would stop beating for a brief moment during a sneeze and a blessing encouraged the heart to start beating again. Ehh. Ehh. Ehh.

You good? I didn't get it. Don't you hate that? Yeah! Gesundheit. Thank you. Superstitions are all around us. Next time you're in a tall building, check out the elevator. 80% of high-rise buildings in the U.S. don't have a 13th floor. Lufthansa and Air France don't have a 13th row. Fear of the number 13 is called Triskaidekaphobia, but that's mostly in the West. In much of East and Southeast Asia, you'll find Tetraphobia, fear of the number 4.

In the Chinese language and its subgroups, the word "for" and the word "die" are pronounced almost the same. See ya. Thank you. So, superstitions are universal. We've all had those days where from the moment we wake up, we're grumpy, annoyed at the whole world, and everything seems against us. We call this waking up on the wrong side of the bed. This is another one that comes from ancient Rome. Romans like to wake up on the right side of the bed.

Literally. They believed that all things on the left side were evil or sinister. In fact, the word sinister comes from the Latin word sinistra. So waking up on the left side of the bed was literally a sign of sinister things to come. And if you're having a bad day, you can always say, tomorrow will be better. Then you say, knock on wood. The superstition to knock on wood appears to date back to the 19th century.

Some believe it has beginnings in religion, with the crucifix. Others say that trees were seen as harbingers of good luck and knocking on them chased demons away. Yet another claim is that the expression comes from an old children's game from the UK called Tiki Touchwood, which is essentially a game of tag. Now what? Touchwood! Don't be an infant. Yeah!

Millions of people practice superstitions every day and probably don't know why or where the need to do so comes from. So why do some of us believe in seemingly irrational superstitions? Turns out there's actually psychology at work here. The short answer is it's a coping mechanism for anxiety. The world is a crazy, unpredictable place. So it's only natural that we want to have as much control of the unpredictable as possible.

And for some people, these beliefs could be effective. A study reported by the Association for Psychological Science showed that people who crossed their fingers for luck had an increase in manual dexterity and even an improvement in memory function. The study concluded that crossing one's fingers increased self-confidence, enough so that some people's golf scores improved. Hey, maybe crossing your fingers will help us with the YouTube algorithm.

what we could try? What? Throw a coin in a fountain. Right. Throwing coins in fountains also goes back to ancient times. When community wells were built in villages, coins were often thrown in as offerings to the gods. There's a well in Northumberland, England where people would pray to the goddess of wells and springs, Coventina. 16,000 coins from different eras of the Roman Empire were found there. But we don't have a fountain. Hello, I live in one. Okay, let's try it.

Anything? I don't think so. Try again. Nothing. Again. Wait a minute. Sucker! As you can see, people will easily part with their hard-earned money if they think a superstition can benefit them somehow. Some televangelist organizations will send you spiritually charged holy water which promises to solve your financial woes for a small donation. Irony. Yep.

Tales about water and its ability to magically heal have been around for thousands of years. Alexander the Great believed in a river that cured old age. He was only 32 when he was poisoned to death, so who knows if he was right. Legend says Ponce de Leon accidentally discovered Florida when he was searching for the Fountain of Youth. Now, most historians think that's an exaggeration, but 500 years later, the legend endures. These supernatural myths provide a sense of hope.

In the cases of Alexander and Ponce de Leon, they cooled the anxiety of aging. Psychologically, belief in superstition is like watching stage magic and illusionists. Willingly, we set aside rational thought and engage with the impossible and spectacular. We will believe a person has been cut in half and put back together, or that an illusionist was able to teleport from one place to another. Now, we know Penn and Teller's bullet catching the teeth is staged, but wow, is it a great trick.

Although they never give the secret to the trick away, they stress there's nothing supernatural in their stunts, it's just entertainment. Pendulet summed it up by saying, we are professional liars. Just...

Honest liars. But what happens when less ethical illusionists use similar stage magic to cash in on the grieving through spiritualism, such as seances? These mediums use all sorts of tricks to make objects appear to hover in the dark and other phony illusions in an attempt to give themselves credibility. Even famous magician and escape artist Houdini himself made it a mission to expose these frauds,

Houdini took it so seriously that he campaigned against this fake spiritualism in front of Congress. This thing they call spiritualism, wherein a medium intercommunicates with the dead, is a fraud from start to finish.

Superstition is found everywhere in society, and there's no place that's more prevalent than in professional sports. Baseball is known for cheering crowds, hot dogs, and steroids. Well, yes, that too. Players and managers are notoriously superstitious. If players are on a streak, they don't wash their caps. Some wear mismatched socks. In order to break a slump, Jason Giambi would wear a gold bong. I don't know if he always got a hit, but he always felt sexy.

And nobody had more extreme superstitions than relief pitcher Turk Wendell. He made sure to never touch the foul lines. He would actually jump over them. And each time he took the mound, he had to have four pieces of black licorice in his mouth. And after each inning, he brushed his teeth. Sounds like OCD. It does, but psychologists don't see them as connected. And people with OCD can't not do the rituals they do or it causes them great pain and anxiety. That's why it's called a compulsion.

Superstition, on the other hand, as long as it's not taken to the extreme, is not considered a problem. Your mind is a powerful tool, and if crossing your fingers improves your memory, do it. If writing a symbol in the dirt improves your golf game, do it. You're probably not channeling a supernatural force, but you are actively and mindfully forcing yourself to focus, to be present, to quell your anxiety. And controlling anxiety is healthy.

So by all means, throw salt over your shoulder, knock on wood and say bless you when somebody sneezes. You may not be saving their soul, but psychologically speaking, you might be in some small part saving your own.

Thank you so much for hanging out with us today. My name is AJ. That's Hecklefish. This has been the Y-Files. If you had fun or learned anything, do me a favor. Subscribe, comment, like, share. All that stuff really helps the channel. And cross your fingers that we can defeat the algorithm. Hey, every little bit helps. It really does.

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