Stay a little stitious with the origins of these superstitions (11 GIFs)

Stay a little stitious with the origins of these superstitions (11 GIFs)

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Do I believe in superstitions? No, of course not. Do I still hold my breath while I drive by cemeteries? Yes, because I’d rather look dumb holding my breath than to wake the fury of the undead or invite some ghost to invade my soul.

Here’s a list of common superstitions (that I may or may not follow) and their origins.

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If you need any more reason to hate the 14th century, during the Black Death they blamed black cats because they were associated with the devil. So they tried to kill all the black cats. Not cool.

Then the 16th century rolls around and “witches” are apparently the biggest threat. So they decided not just to kill women, but also all the cats as well.

This is why I never liked history, everything was awful.

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Ancient Romans and Greeks believed that while you dream, your soul escapes you and wanders around. But if you sneeze it won’t come back, possibly because it’s afraid of germs?

We say “bless you” as a divine safeguard to let the soul know it’s totally cool to hop back in it’s body.

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When Eve was expelled from the Garden of Eden, she grabbed a four-leaf clover as to not forget the paradise she would never return to.

I stole a bunch of cups when I quit Buffalo Wild Wings for the same reason, and 100% not because my roommate took all the cups when he moved out.

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In ancient Rome, it was believed that mirrors would contain parts of our souls. It also took us 7 years to regrow our souls, so we would experience bad luck until we were complete again.

This is also the same logic that Legends of the Hidden Temple follows with the Shrine of the Silver Monkey.

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13 is unlucky because Judas was the 13th person to arrive to Jesus’ Last Supper (spoiler, he wasn’t just late, he also betrayed Jesus).

Loki was also the 13th guest at a dinner party for the Norse Gods, and tricked someone into shooting the god of joy with an arrow.

Maybe all these deities should be more careful with who they invite to dinner.

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Follow up to Judas ruining everything, in DaVinci’s The Last Supper, Judas knocked over salt, which now and forever will be associated with the betrayal of Jesus Christ.

On the other hand, to counteract this you can throw salt behind your left shoulder to blind the devil.

Which is also how the gang deals with Gail the Snail in Always Sunny.

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In ancient Egypt, umbrellas were royal and shade was sacred. My guess was because they lived in the desert and not everyone could afford papyrus and peacock feathers.

Opening an umbrella indoors was considered an insult to the Sun God, Ra, as it goes against its natural purpose.

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The Lucky Penny comes from the idea that certain metals, like copper, were sent from the gods to protect humanity.

So pre-1982, pennies were 95% lucky. Now? Well they’re mostly zinc, but it does still have a thin copper coating. So it’s a little bit lucky.

But there’s more! The same people who said that copper was from the gods, also believe heavily that existence was a constant battle between good and evil. So they decided that pennies would only be lucky if they were facing upwards.

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In what I believe to be the biggest stretch of all of these, walking under a ladder is seen as an attempt to defile God.

Ladders against a wall makes a triangle. Triangles have 3 sides. The Holy Trinity is 3 beings. Walking through triangle is the same as walking through the Holy Trinity, you are now the anti-christ.

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According to Ptolemy, the gods had to open up the space that divides the earth sky from the divine sphere in order to watch over humanity. Shooting stars were wont to slip through the great divider, so if you saw one blazing through the night sky, you knew the gods were watching and listening to you.

I ended up down a rabbit hole looking up who Ptolemy was what the divine sphere is and my brain hurts.

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H/T Insider

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