Your Superstitions and Strange Beliefs - or how to ward off bad luck, wicked juju, and the evil eye

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My father has "powers." I don't know what to call them. He's allways spot on when predicting the gender of unborns, faints when he masages you in a specific spot, healed my grandmother from her illness, prophesised the death of Putin (I've written down the date somewhere), and he taught me dowsing.

He's also the spitting image of Rasputin...
 
Bookwork dijo:
If you take your mother's voice calls she will die.

Text-only is the greatest humanitarian kindness possible.
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I can remember a pretty funny text conversation with my Mum. She send me a text about the family dog, and his last ever trip to the vets, to be put down, and typed "just had to take the pooch to the vets for the final time. LOL, Mum".

She thought LOL was "Lots of Love". God bless her.

My superstitions are limited, but I can't stand seeing childrens beds, especially bunk beds, or raised beds like cabon beds, positioned in a room near a window. I genuflect on seeing it, but I think that's more a practical issue, as the scope for the wee blighter doing a backflip out the window is vast, and the stupidity of children knows no bounds.

I also always throw salt over my shoulder if I inadvertantly spill any (and it annoys me a load, but I cannot seem to break the habit)and if I see a funeral cortege approaching while I'm out walking I'll always stop, face it, and genuflect as it passes.

I'm also wary of lightning as well, my maternal grandmother was a babe in arms when the house she grew up in was struck by it. Apparently (according to my Gramma who was told this at length by her Mum) the lightning hit the chimney stack and "flew out" the front door. This led to a deeply held family mistrust of lightning, which includes, don't use a landline in a thunder storm, don't shower or bathe, don't go out, and don't wash the dishes until it passes. I'm genuinely unsure as to if there's any solid basis for any of this, but I'm now an old fag, and can't drop these habits, try as I might.
 
BongoMongo dijo:
I'm also wary of lightning as well
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My grandfather was struck by lightning. He was sitting on his enclosed porch. It was a clear day, a blue sky, no storm clouds.
The lightning entered through a window and struck the metal chair he was sitting in. It hit his arm that had been on the chair's arm rest. It entered his elbow exited through his thumb. He had a burn at each place. The chair's upholstery was burned. The metal leg of the chair burned through the plastic end cap and made a burn where it rested on indoor/outdoor carpeting. The window screen was scorched, plastic parts melted. There had been a loud exploding sound that

He lived. He was in the hospital overnight so they could monitor brain and heart function, but then he was home, amazed, feeling kind of lucky and kind of cursed at the same time. He wanted a lot of attention, but he always did. The chair was hauled off by the next trash collection. The burn on the porch rug remained. The window got fixed. His burns healed.

Years later, I mentioned it in conversation with coworkers, who included a traditionally raised Navajo. He seemed to get especially distant and I wondered if someone close to him had been struck by lightning and my jokey comment had been offensive.

Turned out Navajos believe people get struck by lightning if they're evil enough to rate being thought of as a witch, that is, they're people who try to use pain and fear to hurt others. They can be stopped only by turning that back on them.

He had paused to think of other things I'd said about my grandfather being a mean man. Had he been meaner than I'd said? Had he been meaner than I realized?

Set me back.

Sets me back even today.

Yes. Yes, I think he was.

Do I think that's why he was struck by lightning? It's hard for me to believe. And why would a little kid get struck? Hasn't lived long enough to be that mean.

But anyway, talking about it with my friend was unexpectedly freeing. My observations of my grandfather's behavior, the damage he'd done me and others, it all gelled. It became external to me. I got a little distant from it. I could see it instead of be it.
It was a gift.
 
Ghosts are real and come in different varieties.
Back in the late 90s, for a week I would come home and the house would reek of roses. It was late August so the windows were closed because no one was home and to preserve precious AC. It was so bad, I would turn off the AC and open all the windows to air the place out. This went on for several days. I don't have any rose bushes and neither do any of my nearby neighbors.
During the same time, knocks kept being heard at my door around 4 pm, but no one was ever there. I ignored it and didn't tell anyone. I chalked it up to kids pranks. That is until my now ex-husband heard it too.
One day I'm sitting outside airing the house out because it reeks of roses and my neighbor comes home. He asks me why I'm sitting outside with all the windows open. I tell him about the rose scent and the knocks. Ed asks me: Isn't this the same time last year our friend Lila Rae died?
Yes it was! Lila had numerous plants inside and outside her home which was much further down the street. She loved roses and while alive would ask us for rides to the grocery store, doctors, etc. If we could, we always obliged her. She gave me cuttings of her favorite plants, which I have to this day. (None are roses.)
After that 1st year after of her death, the knocks and rose scent never happened again. I don't know if she was saying goodbye or trying to tell us something. [/SPOILER
 
My teacher told me a strange story once. She came back from vacation and found her bedroom full of flies. My teacher believes that there are strange powers in this world most people don't know about. So what she did was that she loudly said "I'm back, this is my house again!" And the flies vanished in like two days. She doesn't know where they went but there were gone and haven't appeared since.

That's the weirdest story someone ever told me. My teacher said that she needed to make clear that she was the owner of the house again and in control. I regret not asking any questions about what she thought was going on.

She also believes in the power of names and had an interesting book about it written by a man who is researching names and their meanings. Supposedly the letters that make up your name are reflecting your personality (the good and the bad).
 
Sinner's Sandwich dijo:
Supposedly the letters that make up your name are reflecting your personality (the good and the bad).
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There's a practice called Gematria which is a big deal in jewish mysticism and people who are into kabbalah . Since all letters are given numeric equivalents then you can make some math and come up with an interpretation of each word given by numerology

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Sinner's Sandwich dijo:
My teacher told me a strange story once. She came back from vacation and found her bedroom full of flies. My teacher believes that there are strange powers in this world most people don't know about. So what she did was that she loudly said "I'm back, this is my house again!" And the flies vanished in like two days. She doesn't know where they went but there were gone and haven't appeared since.
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I've noticed this works sometimes for other shit too. Like if you see a weird shadow at night and you say "Hey! Get out of here! Scat!" you don't see it again.
At least for a little while.

Sinner's Sandwich dijo:
She also believes in the power of names and had an interesting book about it written by a man who is researching names and their meanings. Supposedly the letters that make up your name are reflecting your personality (the good and the bad).
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Like @LinkinParkxNaruto[AMV] said, there's Gematria, but there's also name meanings. I believe in noministic determinism in two layers.
The first, and non-magical one, is the phenomenon where people like you more when you act the way they expect you to act. It's a real psychological effect (kind of similar to the Halo Effect, but not exactly) and names absolutely factor into how people expect you to act. (e.g. "You don't look like a Bob.")
The second is that I think the meaning behind the name affects who you are. I know in Chinese this is just an accepted fact, which is why naming is taken so seriously there, but I think it holds true with other names as well.
Let's look at some cows as an example:
  • Nicholas Robert Rekieta
    • Victory of the people
    • Bright Fame
    • ???
  • Polissa Danielle Campbell
    • Original unknown, likely from "Polly" which means it's from "Mary" ("wished for" or "love") or "Melissa" (bee)
    • "God is my judge"
    • "Wry or crooked mouth"
  • Tess Holliday ("Summer Holiday") = Ryann Maegen Hoven
    • "Little king/ruler"
    • "Pearl"
    • "Settlement"
And for Chris-chan, the change from "Christopher" to "Christian" was a change from "Bearing Christ" (an action) to "A Christian" (an identity). Going a step further, "Christos" itself is "Anointed".
 
PandaChai dijo:
Should the thread be expanded to include signs & omens? Because I sinned last night and awoke to this, this morning:
Ver archivo adjunto 5267244
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I was looking at the old posts and remembered something after I saw this. There was a portrait of Pope John Paul II in the doorway at the bottom of the stairwell leading to the front door. A neighbor, who happens to be from Rome, accidentally knocked it down. It was my grandmother's portrait and she is Polish. Just like Pope John Paul II. I put it back up but it fell again. Bad hang job. It needs more secure hardware. I just found it odd that it was accidentally knocked down by a man from Rome and it was owned by a Polish woman. It probably doesn't mean anything. Just an odd turn of events. Although my uncle did end up hospitalized for several days with various health problems and it was a wake up call for him. He quit beer and cigarettes cold turkey.

I know that a cross falling is supposed to be an omen of death, illness or other bad things. So I imagion any religious iconography counts.
 
Ghosts are real and come in different varieties.
Okay, so this story is from when I was a little kid. Little kids see the world differently than adults; there's the grain of salt.
I was about 7 at the time of this story and living in an old Victorian house that had been converted into 3 apartments. 2 apartments on the 1st floor and 1 large apartment on the 2nd floor. We each had our own separate entry ways into each of our apartments. To access the top apartment one had to go through an exterior door, up a flight of stairs, the bathroom was at the top of the stairs (weird), through another locked door into the apartment. Once through the 2nd door, the living room was entered and there were two bedrooms to the left that faced the main road. To the right of the living room entrance there was the kitchen on the backside of the house.
I was playing with blocks in the area between the kitchen and the living room. I distinctly saw my mother cross from one side of the kitchen to the other side and back. I called out to her. She answered from behind me; she was in her bedroom on the front of the flat. I ran into the kitchen and it was empty. There was no way she could have gone from the kitchen to her bedroom without directly passing by me.
Decades later my mother told me she always hated that flat and thought it was haunted. IDK if it was truly haunted, but I've lived a lot of different places (houses, a camper, attic flats, etc.) and of all the places I have lived that one seemed off. Fun fact: The door from the top of the stairs into the apartment used a skeleton key and was original to the house.
 
So, I been dating this woman who's originally from Honolulu so I thought it would be fun to take her camping over the 4th as we visited my family. The hike went well, we saw some beautiful fields of wildflowers, and did a little swimming to get the heat more manageable. Long story short we got set up with a tent under the stars and were gradually drifting off to sleep and a red fox screamed out somewhere near our campsite. I had thought nothing of it but she was not having it. She poked me awake and was adamant that we were leaving this campsite and making for the truck a couple of miles back. At the moment all I could get out of her was "It's bad news and I'm not fucking with it." Granted fox screams can be startling and jarring, but as far as I was concerned she was overreacting. Still, after some trudging, stumbling, fumbling with the flashlight, and no small amount of cussing on my part we got back to the truck and found a hotel a while down the road. She's from a nisei Japanese family so I looked it up and apparently some of them really do believe in fox demons and won't mess with foxes at night.

I am still a bit more of a mind she was fishing for getting a proper bathroom to clean up in.
 
Was recently told by a relation (I'm honestly not sure how we're related, I think she's my granddad's sister?) believes it's bad luck to bring peacock feathers into the house, and that (similar to the itchy ears thing I mentioned before) that if your left palm itches it means you're about to pay/lose some money and if your right palm itches it means you're about to receive some money.
 
As a little kid I used to get really horrible, vivid, nightmares. My mom (or grandma?) bought me a dreamcatcher to hang over my bed and explained that the good dreams slip through, but the bad ones get stuck. I've had it in my room for 25 years.

Last week I did a major room renovation and set it aside in a box when I cleaned out my room, and for several days I slept in the living room while the paint dried in my bedroom. Absolutly terrible night of sleep every night for four days. I had a dream I was at Jack Scalfani's house for dinner.
Bought a sage bundle today and I'm putting that fucking dreamcatcher back up tonight. No dreams about eating a lolcow's cooking for me, thanks.
 
TEA 3HF dijo:
She's from a nisei Japanese family so I looked it up and apparently some of them really do believe in fox demons and won't mess with foxes at night.
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Oh yeah. Check this dumb shit out we almost did during WW2

In Vietnam we actually did deploy something like this, leaving radios around that played tape cassettes from "ghosts" speaking in Vietnamese talking about how they were cursed to wander the jungles at night because they died and were never properly buried.
 
std::string dijo:
Oh yeah. Check this dumb shit out we almost did during WW2

In Vietnam we actually did deploy something like this, leaving radios around that played tape cassettes from "ghosts" speaking in Vietnamese talking about how they were cursed to wander the jungles at night because they died and were never properly buried.
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So mildly amusing update as we talked about it recently

Yes, she wanted to leave because of the fox, but it's more esoteric/complicated than believing the fox turns into a furry rapist that immediately attacks you. From what I gather it's more like the bean sídhe (banshee in English). A portent of something is wrong and you should GTFO if possible because the spirits are telling you that you are in the very wrong place at the very wrong time. All of this is to do with Shinto as a religion and thus a set of cultural superstitions.

The amusing bit is she wants to come visit my grandmother's house back in Ireland and I have some interesting news about the little fella in charge of pest control for my Gran's garden.
 
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