{"id":267,"date":"2012-04-13T04:49:17","date_gmt":"2012-04-13T09:49:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.magickalwinds.com\/info\/?p=267"},"modified":"2012-04-13T04:49:17","modified_gmt":"2012-04-13T09:49:17","slug":"friday-the-13th","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.magickalwinds.com\/info\/2012\/04\/13\/friday-the-13th\/","title":{"rendered":"Friday the 13th"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

[THESE ARE NOT MAGICKAL WINDS’ VIEWS! …As a matter of fact, I happen to love the number thirteen and have found the number 13 to be exceptionally Magickal and the date (Friday the 13th) to be especially lucky for me! As mentioned before, we like to share research with the public; this does not mean we agree with everything we research and post!]<\/p>\n

Why Friday the 13th Is Unlucky <\/p>\n

by David Emery<\/p>\n

Posted and edited to fit MySpace’s format by: Magickal Winds<\/p>\n

Well, Friday the 13th is upon us! We all know that Hollywood uses this day to release new horror movies, but we wanted to share some of the Friday the 13th lore with you! <\/p>\n

Why Friday the 13th Is Unlucky <\/p>\n

From David Emery, <\/p>\n

Paraskevidekatriaphobia: Fear of Friday the 13th <\/p>\n

I just finished reading the abstract of a study published in the British <\/p>\n

Medical Journal in 1993 entitled “Is Friday the 13th Bad for Your <\/p>\n

Health?” With the aim of mapping “the relation between health, <\/p>\n

behaviour, and superstition surrounding Friday 13th in the United <\/p>\n

Kingdom,” its authors compared the ratio of traffic volume to the number of automobile accidents on two different days, Friday the 6th and Friday the 13th, over a period of years. <\/p>\n

Incredibly, they found that in the region sampled, while consistently <\/p>\n

fewer people chose to drive their cars on Friday the 13th, the number of <\/p>\n

hospital admissions due to vehicular accidents was significantly higher <\/p>\n

than on “normal” Fridays. <\/p>\n

Their conclusion: “Friday 13th is unlucky for some. The risk of hospital <\/p>\n

admission as a result of a transport accident may be increased by as <\/p>\n

much as 52 percent. Staying at home is <\/p>\n

recommended.”Paraskevidekatriaphobics \u2014 people afflicted with a morbid, <\/p>\n

irrational fear of Friday the 13th \u2014 must be pricking up their ears just <\/p>\n

now, buoyed by seeming evidence that their terror may not be so <\/p>\n

irrational after all. But it’s unwise to take solace in a single <\/p>\n

scientific study \u2014 the only one of its kind, so far as I know \u2014 <\/p>\n

especially one so peculiar. I suspect these statistics have more to <\/p>\n

teach us about human psychology than the ill-fatedness of any particular <\/p>\n

date on the calendar.<\/p>\n

Friday the 13th – The Most Widespread Superstition? <\/p>\n

The sixth day of the week and the number 13 both have foreboding <\/p>\n

reputations said to date from ancient times, and their inevitable <\/p>\n

conjunction from one to three times a year portends more misfortune than <\/p>\n

some credulous minds can bear. Some sources say it may be the most <\/p>\n

widespread superstition in the United States. Some people won’t go to <\/p>\n

work on Friday the 13th; some won’t eat in restaurants; many wouldn’t <\/p>\n

think of setting a wedding on the date. <\/p>\n

Just how many Americans in 2007 still suffer from this condition? <\/p>\n

According to Dr. Donald Dossey, a psychotherapist specializing in the <\/p>\n

treatment of phobias (and coiner of the term “paraskevidekatriaphobia”), <\/p>\n

the figure may be as high as 21 million. If he’s right, eight percent of <\/p>\n

Americans are still in the grips of a very old superstition. <\/p>\n

Exactly how old is difficult to say, because determining the origins of <\/p>\n

superstitions is an imprecise science, at best. In fact, it’s mostly <\/p>\n

guesswork. <\/p>\n

13: The Devil’s Dozen <\/p>\n

It is said: If 13 people sit down to dinner together, all will die <\/p>\n

within the year. The Turks so disliked the number 13 that it was <\/p>\n

practically expunged from their vocabulary (Brewer, 1894). Many cities <\/p>\n

do not have a 13th Street or a 13th Avenue. Many buildings don’t have a <\/p>\n

13th floor. If you have 13 letters in your name, you will have the <\/p>\n

devil’s luck (Jack the Ripper, Charles Manson, Jeffrey Dahmer, Theodore <\/p>\n

Bundy and Albert De Salvo all have 13 letters in their names). There are <\/p>\n

13 witches in a coven. <\/p>\n

Though no one can say for sure when and why human beings first <\/p>\n

associated the number 13 with misfortune, the belief is assumed to be <\/p>\n

quite old, and there exist any number of theories \u2014 all of which have <\/p>\n

been called into question at one time or another, I should point out \u2014 <\/p>\n

purporting to trace its origins to antiquity and beyond. It has been <\/p>\n

proposed, for example, that fears surrounding the number 13 are as <\/p>\n

ancient as the act of counting. Primitive man had only his 10 fingers <\/p>\n

and two feet to represent units, this explanation goes, so he could <\/p>\n

count no higher than 12. What lay beyond that \u2014 13 \u2014 was an impenetrable <\/p>\n

mystery to our prehistoric forebears, hence an object of superstition. <\/p>\n

Which has an edifying ring to it, but one is left wondering \u2014 did <\/p>\n

primitive man not have toes? <\/p>\n

Despite whatever terrors the numerical unknown held for their <\/p>\n

hunter-gatherer ancestors, ancient civilizations weren’t unanimous in <\/p>\n

their dread of 13. The Chinese regarded the number as lucky, some <\/p>\n

commentators note, as did the Egyptians in the time of the pharaohs. <\/p>\n

To the ancient Egyptians, these sources tell us, life was a quest for <\/p>\n

spiritual ascension which unfolded in stages \u2014 12 in this life and a <\/p>\n

13th beyond, thought to be the eternal afterlife. The number 13 <\/p>\n

therefore symbolized death \u2014 not in terms of dust and decay, but as a <\/p>\n

glorious and desirable transformation. Though Egyptian civilization <\/p>\n

perished, the symbolism conferred on the number 13 by its priesthood <\/p>\n

survived, only to be corrupted by subsequent cultures who came to <\/p>\n

associate 13 with a fear of death instead of a reverence for the <\/p>\n

afterlife. <\/p>\n

Anathema <\/p>\n

Other sources speculate that the number 13 may have been purposely <\/p>\n

vilified by the founders of patriarchal religions in the early days of <\/p>\n

western civilization because it represented femininity. Thirteen had <\/p>\n

been revered in prehistoric goddess-worshiping cultures, we are told, <\/p>\n

because it corresponded to the number of lunar (menstrual) cycles in a <\/p>\n

year (13 x 28 = 364 days). The “Earth Mother of Laussel,” for example \u2014 <\/p>\n

a 27,000-year-old carving found near the Lascaux caves in France often <\/p>\n

cited as an icon of matriarchal spirituality \u2014 depicts a female figure <\/p>\n

holding a cresent-shaped horn bearing 13 notches. As the solar calendar <\/p>\n

triumphed over the lunar with the rise of male-dominated civilization, <\/p>\n

it is surmised, so did the number 12 over the number 13, thereafter <\/p>\n

considered anathema.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, one of the earliest concrete taboos associated with <\/p>\n

the number 13 \u2014 a taboo still observed by some superstitious folks <\/p>\n

today, evidently \u2014 is said to have originated in the East with the <\/p>\n

Hindus, who believed, for reasons I haven’t been able to ascertain, that <\/p>\n

it is always unlucky for 13 people to gather in one place \u2014 say, at <\/p>\n

dinner. Interestingly enough, precisely the same superstition has been <\/p>\n

attributed to the ancient Vikings (though I have also been told, for <\/p>\n

what it’s worth, that this and the accompanying mythographical <\/p>\n

explanation are apocryphal). The story has been laid down as follows: <\/p>\n

Loki, the Evil One <\/p>\n

Twelve gods were invited to a banquet at Valhalla. Loki, the Evil One, <\/p>\n

god of mischief, had been left off the guest list but crashed the party, <\/p>\n

bringing the total number of attendees to 13. True to character, Loki <\/p>\n

raised hell by inciting Hod, the blind god of winter, to attack Balder <\/p>\n

the Good, who was a favorite of the gods. Hod took a spear of mistletoe <\/p>\n

offered by Loki and obediently hurled it at Balder, killing him <\/p>\n

instantly. All Valhalla grieved. And although one might take the moral <\/p>\n

of this story to be “Beware of uninvited guests bearing mistletoe,” the <\/p>\n

Norse themselves apparently concluded that 13 people at a dinner party <\/p>\n

is just plain bad luck. <\/p>\n

As if to prove the point, the Bible tells us there were exactly 13 <\/p>\n

present at the Last Supper. One of the dinner guests \u2014 er, disciples \u2014 <\/p>\n

betrayed Jesus Christ, setting the stage for the Crucifixion.<\/p>\n

Did I mention the Crucifixion took place on a Friday?<\/p>\n

Bad Friday <\/p>\n

It is said: Never change your bed on Friday; it will bring bad dreams. <\/p>\n

Don’t start a trip on Friday or you will have misfortune. If you cut <\/p>\n

your nails on Friday, you cut them for sorrow. Ships that set sail on a <\/p>\n

Friday will have bad luck \u2013 as in the tale of H.M.S. Friday … One <\/p>\n

hundred years ago, the British government sought to quell once and for <\/p>\n

all the widespread superstition among seamen that setting sail on <\/p>\n

Fridays was unlucky. A special ship was commissioned, named “H.M.S. <\/p>\n

Friday.” They laid her keel on a Friday, launched her on a Friday, <\/p>\n

selected her crew on a Friday and hired a man named Jim Friday to be her <\/p>\n

captain. To top it off, H.M.S. Friday embarked on her maiden voyage on a <\/p>\n

Friday, and was never seen or heard from again. <\/p>\n

Some say Friday’s bad reputation goes all the way back to the Garden of <\/p>\n

Eden. <\/p>\n

It was on a Friday, supposedly, that Eve tempted Adam with the forbidden <\/p>\n

fruit. Adam bit, as we all learned in Sunday School, and they were both <\/p>\n

ejected from Paradise. Tradition also holds that the Great Flood began <\/p>\n

on a Friday; God tongue-tied the builders of the Tower of Babel on a <\/p>\n

Friday; the Temple of Solomon was destroyed on a Friday; and, of course, <\/p>\n

Friday was the day of the week on which Christ was crucified. It is <\/p>\n

therefore a day of penance for Christians. <\/p>\n

In pagan Rome, Friday was execution day (later Hangman’s Day in <\/p>\n

Britain), but in other pre-Christian cultures it was the sabbath, a day <\/p>\n

of worship, so those who indulged in secular or self-interested <\/p>\n

activities on that day could not expect to receive blessings from the <\/p>\n

gods \u2014 which may explain the lingering taboo on embarking on journeys or <\/p>\n

starting important projects on Fridays. <\/p>\n

To complicate matters, these pagan associations were not lost on the <\/p>\n

early Church, which went to great lengths to suppress them. If Friday <\/p>\n

was a holy day for heathens, the Church fathers felt, it must not be so <\/p>\n

for Christians \u2014 thus it became known in the Middle Ages as the <\/p>\n

“Witches’ Sabbath,” and thereby hangs another tale.<\/p>\n

The Witch-Goddess <\/p>\n

The name “Friday” was derived from a Norse deity worshipped on the sixth <\/p>\n

day, known either as Frigg (goddess of marriage and fertility), or Freya <\/p>\n

(goddess of sex and fertility), or both, the two figures having become <\/p>\n

intertwined in the handing-down of myths over time (the etymology of <\/p>\n

“Friday” has been given both ways). Frigg\/Freya corresponded to Venus, <\/p>\n

the goddess of love of the Romans, who named the sixth day of the week <\/p>\n

in her honor “dies Veneris.” <\/p>\n

Friday was actually considered quite lucky by pre- Christian Teutonic <\/p>\n

peoples, we are told \u2014 especially as a day to get married \u2014 because of <\/p>\n

its traditional association with love and fertility. All that changed <\/p>\n

when Christianity came along. The goddess of the sixth day \u2014 most likely <\/p>\n

Freya in this context, given that the cat was her sacred animal \u2014 was <\/p>\n

recast in post- pagan folklore as a witch, and her day became associated <\/p>\n

with evil doings. <\/p>\n

Various legends developed in that vein, but one is of particular <\/p>\n

interest: As the story goes, the witches of the north used to observe <\/p>\n

their sabbath by gathering in a cemetery in the dark of the moon. On one <\/p>\n

such occasion the Friday goddess, Freya herself, came down from her <\/p>\n

sanctuary in the mountaintops and appeared before the group, who <\/p>\n

numbered only 12 at the time, and gave them one of her cats, after which <\/p>\n

the witches’ coven \u2014 and, by tradition, every properly- formed coven <\/p>\n

since \u2014 comprised exactly 13. <\/p>\n

There’s a very simple reason for that \u2014 nobody really knows, though <\/p>\n

various explanations have been proposed.<\/p>\n

The Knights Templar <\/p>\n

The Unluckiest Day of All <\/p>\n

The astute reader will have observed that while we have thus far <\/p>\n

insinuated any number of intriguing connections between events, <\/p>\n

practices and beliefs attributed to ancient cultures and the <\/p>\n

superstitious fear of Fridays and the number 13, we have yet to happen <\/p>\n

upon an explanation of how, why or when these separate strands of <\/p>\n

folklore converged \u2014 if that is indeed what happened \u2014 to mark Friday <\/p>\n

the 13th as the unluckiest day of all. <\/p>\n

One theory, recently offered up as historical fact in the novel The Da <\/p>\n

Vinci Code, holds that it came about not as the result of a convergence, <\/p>\n

but a catastrophe, a single historical event that happened nearly 700 <\/p>\n

years ago. <\/p>\n

The catastrophe was the decimation of the Knights Templar, the legendary <\/p>\n

order of “warrior monks” formed during the Christian Crusades to combat <\/p>\n

Islam. Renowned as a fighting force for 200 years, by the 1300s the <\/p>\n

order had grown so pervasive and powerful it was perceived as a <\/p>\n

political threat by kings and popes alike and brought down by a <\/p>\n

church-state conspiracy, as recounted by Katharine Kurtz in Tales of the <\/p>\n

Knights Templar (Warner Books: 1995): “On October 13, 1307, a day so <\/p>\n

infamous that Friday the 13th would become a synonym for ill fortune, <\/p>\n

officers of King Philip IV of France carried out mass arrests in a <\/p>\n

well-coordinated dawn raid that left several thousand Templars \u2014 <\/p>\n

knights, sergeants, priests, and serving brethren \u2014 in chains, charged <\/p>\n

with heresy, blasphemy, various obscenities, and homosexual practices. <\/p>\n

None of these charges was ever proven, even in France \u2014 and the Order <\/p>\n

was found innocent elsewhere \u2014 but in the seven years following the <\/p>\n

arrests, hundreds of Templars suffered excruciating tortures intended to <\/p>\n

force ‘confessions,’ and more than a hundred died under torture or were <\/p>\n

executed by burning at the stake.” <\/p>\n

A Thoroughly Modern Phenomenon <\/p>\n

There are drawbacks to the “day so infamous” thesis, not the least of <\/p>\n

which is that it attributes enormous cultural significance to a <\/p>\n

relatively obscure historical event. Even more problematic, for this or <\/p>\n

any other theory positing premodern origins for Friday the 13th <\/p>\n

superstitions, is the fact that no one has been able to document the <\/p>\n

existence of such beliefs prior to the 19th century. If people who lived <\/p>\n

before the late 1800s perceived Friday the 13th as a day of special <\/p>\n

misfortune, no evidence has been found to prove it. As a result, some <\/p>\n

scholars are now convinced the stigma is a thoroughly modern phenomenon <\/p>\n

exacerbated by 20th-century media hype. <\/p>\n

Going back a hundred years, Friday the 13th doesn’t even merit a mention <\/p>\n

in E. Cobham Brewer’s voluminous 1898 edition of the Dictionary of <\/p>\n

Phrase and Fable, though one does find entries for “Friday, an Unlucky <\/p>\n

Day” and “Thirteen Unlucky.” When the date of ill fate finally does make <\/p>\n

an appearance in later editions of the text, it is without extravagant <\/p>\n

claims as to the superstition’s historicity or longevity. The very <\/p>\n

brevity of the entry is instructive: “A particularly unlucky Friday. See <\/p>\n

Thirteen” \u2014 implying that the extra dollop of misfortune attributed to <\/p>\n

Friday the 13th can be accounted for in terms of an accrual, so to <\/p>\n

speak, of bad omens: <\/p>\n

Unlucky Friday + Unlucky 13 = Unluckier Friday. If that’s the case, we <\/p>\n

are guilty of perpetuating a misnomer by labeling Friday the 13th “the <\/p>\n

unluckiest day of all,” a designation perhaps better reserved for, say, <\/p>\n

a Friday the 13th on which one breaks a mirror, walks under a ladder, <\/p>\n

spills the salt, and spies a black cat crossing one’s path \u2014 a day, if <\/p>\n

there ever was one, best spent in the safety of one’s own home with <\/p>\n

doors locked, shutters closed and fingers crossed.<\/p>\n

Written by David Emery<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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