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2002-06-06 - 11:09 a.m.

I’ve never considered myself superstitious.

I have walked under ladders. I have stepped on a crack. I have broken mirrors. I don’t carry a rabbit’s foot. I don’t knock three times on wood, and I don’t wear a dried frog in a bag around my neck.

As far as I’m concerned superstitions are old wives' tales, generated hundreds of years ago and carried on into our cultural folklore. They’re irrational beliefs, akin to voodoo, I chose not to buy into. Just as I’ve chosen not to buy into reading tea leaves, fortune telling, astrology, Tarot or the Ouija Board. Nor do I buy into the paranormal. I no more think people can read my mind, self-combust, predict the future or move objects with thoughts than I think pigs can fly.

Maybe my disbelief is based in my Missouri Mule upbringing. We’re not called The Show Me State for nothing. I typically believe only about half of what I hear; to be a true believer I have to be shown. If you tell me you can bend forks and spoons and knives with your thoughts, I’ll gladly hand you my mismatched silverware drawer and let you have at it. And anyone wanting me to believe they have the power of human self-combustion had damn well better ignite and burn. Of course, I also have my opinion of anyone crazy enough to ignite and burn themselves!

I do think life gives us what we expect, so expecting to have good luck by carrying an acorn in a pocket or meeting a chimney sweep by chance can always be rationalized. The same can be said of bad luck. In any day of our lives it’s not hard to find some little piece of hard luck, so it’s easy to make the culprit the black cat we encountered or the broom we laid against the bed.

Maybe my skepticism is born out of my background in psychology, supposedly a scientific, research-based discipline. Although, after working in the field for a good many years, I’m not all that convinced it’s not a damn load of hocus-pocus, too. Still, psychology is based on scientific method, bringing evidence and alternative explanations for behaviors and phenomena. I have yet to see evidence of telekinesis, reincarnation or extra sensory perception. Nor have I seen evidence of lettuce bringing magic, a house covered in ivy protecting the inhabitants from witchcraft or milk boiled over bringing bad luck. Except the bad luck of having to clean up the mess.

Sometimes we let our desire to believe overwhelm any evidence for believing. I can shut my eyes to proof and believe all I want to, but this isn’t going to make things different. Wanting something to be true doesn’t make it true.

Despite my skepticism, a brief discussion on a Web Message Board I play around on made me wonder about all the things in our world we can’t explain, and also wonder if I hadn’t lost the ability for critical thinking and was closed-minded. Critical thinking doesn’t mean closing the mind, but just the opposite, opening it up, albeit in conjunction with reason.

I know there’s a good deal of research today on things going on outside the normal range of what is scientifically known or recognizable, so maybe one day all we now consider paranormal will be within the range of normal. Still, I don’t think I can open my mind to superstition.

After all, I’ve thrown salt over my left shoulder and never seen the devil’s face waiting there; I have accidentally sneezed without a hand over my mouth and my soul didn’t escape. And I’ve kissed a lot of fools, but I’ve never kissed a frog.

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