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Superstition
When you believe in things that you dont understand…
Superstition is the leaky hole in the dam of the scientific worldview. We’re taught to think of it as irrational and dangerous - as “a belief or practice resulting from ignorance, fear of the unknown, trust in magic or chance, or a false conception of causation.”
But what kind of crap is that? I’ll tell you what superstition is: it’s the flicker of memory.
It is the intuitive knowledge that there is something you once knew but which you no longer can quite recall consciously. As a result of this failure, rules are groped at and invented which seem to have some kind of isomorphism to that magic which is lost.
Let me try to explain this another way: driving a car. When you first learn to drive a car, you usually kind of suck at it. You have your mom sitting there telling you what to do over your shoulder. You have some annoying instruction book they gave you in driver’s ed class. There are a million and one different rules you’re trying to keep in mind at all times. You’re trying to make sure that all kinds of different things are accounted for: gas, brakes, windshield wipers, radio, defroster, spedomete, gas guage, set adjustment, rear view mirror, etc. The point is, until you internalize the awareness of all those things, you aren’t going to be a very good driver. Your driving is going to be rocky and people that drive with you are going to be kind of nervous with you at the wheel.
And that I think is what superstition is all about - except replace “driving” with “magic” or true spirituality, or something like that… You get so concerned with the rules as presented by the instruction manual(s) that you are unable to develop that intuitive awareness and kinetic intelligence that makes for a good driver. Wikipedia explains that in folklore studies, a superstition is defined as something that uses an “if/then” proposition (sometimes modified with “unless”). I would guess then that superstition is only negative when it really does get in the way of “driving” because you’re so busy memorizing rules that you completely blow it when something unexpected happens that doesn’t give you time to consult the manual. But that at the same time, developing “superstitious” awareness and practices can - I think - be a really healthy and positive way of transforming your worldview, by internalizing a totally different set of rules and regulations that govern life than you might have originally been raised according to. The key thing seems to be knowing when to forego the rules and go with your gut, because your reactions have been so totally transformed that you can simply trust yourself to make the right decision without any outside consultation…
- Very Superstitious
- Step on a crack, you break your mother’s back
- Dangers (and Powers) of skepticism
- Curse of the Pharoahs
- More lynx shit
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- Next: Luminous Beings Are We
August 25th, 2006 at 2:34 pm
Very interesting (robot?) post! I particularly like the following:
In my own quest to create (and quantify) a “personal” mythology, one discovery I’ve made that’s held constant over time is how fluid and dynamic the process is. A metaphor or symbol or term that suits me today might be found unsuitable tomorrow.
This was tremendously frustrating for me at first, as I thought I was an instant failure in my endeavor. I was painfully reminded of the Gospel of Thomas logion (#2) about “he who finds will be troubled.” Given time and perserverance, though, this truth of transience has certainly emboldened me.
So, the rules of any mythology (perhaps) — themselves being “groped at and invented” at some point — seem to serve their purpose as long as they’re fitting and appropriate. But when the costume / disguise (denotation) of the myth/metaphor/rules lose their foundation — lookout, for “heresy” springs from these roots. “And heresy,” as Joseph Campbell said, “is the life of all religion, ultimately.”
August 26th, 2006 at 9:42 am
Rather than make reference to memory, with the implication that the wisdom we catch a glimpse of relates to past experience, I’d want to call it a wisdom lying below the intellect, in the now. I would not call it superstition, which calls to mind rules, as you say.
In my own practice I develop fetishes where for example I get a special experience from writing with a certain pen: or attach some healing energy to a certain place (from my own observation, not popular repute).
But my fetishes gain in power the more they are acknowledged. You’re right: there is a connection with memory here.
August 27th, 2006 at 3:31 am
It sounds like you’re equating superstition with intuition, which could be dangerous. At least, you seem to use both terms interchangeably in your post.
I’m no expert on intuition, but lately I’ve come to regard it as the faculty which allows us to arrive at a conclusion without following a formal process of deduction. In other words, you have a bunch of data in front of you and suddenly you have a theory about it. You were never consciously aware of any reasoning having taken place. Note that this doesn’t mean you are correct. Based on my understanding of science, it appears that most discoveries are made in this fashion. Of course, once you experience that blinding flash of insight you could still be wrong. Intuition starts to sound a lot like induction, if my understanding of the latter is accurate. But, my point is, once you’ve intuited your theory you still need to support it with evidence. If you fail at that step, you probably won’t be taken seriously, unless your theory makes people feel real good believing it. Then you could probably write a book about it, tour the talk-show circuit, lecture at Esalen, what-have-you. But I digress.
Superstition, on the other hand, is an entirely different matter. I’m no expert on superstition either, so be aware that I’m still talking out my ass.
Superstition is all those intuitions that people had but which fell by the wayside since the Enlightenment. Still, they persist in believing them despite lack of evidence, strong evidence to the contrary, and/or contradictory evidence. This isn’t the same as intuition. An intuition can eventually become a superstition if it’s crap, and yet people still believe it.
What causes superstition? Well, I think good ol’ M-W summarizes this admirably. Superstition (i.e. the belief in intuitions that are actually crap) is caused by several factors:
1. Ignorance - Nobody bothered to inform the person that they’re belief is crap, or else they’re too stupid to understand this, or don’t want to.
2. Fear of the unknown - Recall every horror movie where the protagonists had to face some manner of supernatural/extraterrestrial bad-ass foe. Remember how much time they spent trying to figure the damn thing out - its predatory strategies, physiology, mating habits, etc? And you thought they were just naturally inquisitive folks. When your life is on the line, it’s better to have a crap theory than no theory at all. You could probably demonstrate this with a few experiments. If no theory equates to no action = death, then probabilistically you’re better off acting on whatever clue you’ve got. I think this explains a lot. It’s a carry-over from our days hunting mammoths on the plains, where it served us well. No time to work on formal proofs when Grog next to you already has a tusk up his arse and you’re about to get trampled yourself. Having some notion of what is going on (regardless of its truth value) probably also gives one a distinct psychological survival advantage via confidence over someone who knows they’re completely clueless.
3. Trust in magic or chance - Well, here we’re assuming that magic is crap, which I hesitate to concede. I’m not sure what it means to trust in chance. That sounds… chancey… and dumb (so, just another manifestation of ignorance, I suppose).
4. False conception of causation - This sounds like the person actually attempted to justify their intuition but botched it up because they thought correlation proves causation or something. So, yeah, ignorance.
August 27th, 2006 at 11:54 pm
No, what I mean is that superstition fills in formulas and structures where genuine intuition fails or has been forgottoen.