In supernatural workings, salt is also relied upon. It is often placed in the corners of a room before a spell is cast, and people often take ritual salt baths to break harmful spells put upon them. It is also understood that when we spill salt, friendly spirits to our right are warning us that evil approaches on the left; tossing a pinch of salt over the left shoulder staves off danger.
GUESTS
Hundreds of years ago, people traveled very little. Communities were fearful of the world that existed beyond the boundaries of their villages. Witches and ominous gods were thought to live among the surrounding mountains, valleys, and seas. People believed that the stranger knocking on their door could be a spirit in disguise. If not treated hospitably, the spirit could cast an evil spell on a home. So families welcomed strangers and treated them well, providing them with food and comfort, so that the spirit-stranger would leave their homes in peace when he or she moved on.
LADDERS
Historical explanations seem to justify the superstition that walking under a ladder brings bad luck. To the ancient Egyptians, the triangular shape of pyramids was sacred, and to walk under a ladder would be to break the triangle it formed with the wall. This act, they believed, would have deadly consequences.
The Christians believed that the triangle formed by a ladder leaning against a wall represented the Holy Trinity (the Father, Son [Jesus Christ], and Holy Ghost). If you were to walk under the ladder, you would be violating the Holy Trinity. It was also feared that when you walked through the ladder-based triangle, you walked with the devil.
In more recent times, tall ladders were used to take down the corpse from the noose after someone had been hanged. It was believed that if you walked under that ladder, the dead person, swinging from the gallows above, would watch you pass, and then you, too, would meet your death. It was also feared that the body would fall onto those who crossed below the ladder.
HUNGARIAN VIEWS
Traditional Hungarian culture is rich with superstitions. Here are a few of the most prominent, recorded by famed Hungarian witch Zsuzsanna Budapest in her book The Holy Book of Women's Mysteries:
If your left palm itches, money is coming to you; if the right itches, you will soon spend the money.
If salt is spilled from its container, let the one who upset the container clean it up. Otherwise poverty will strike the house, bringing great fights over money issues.
If you place a loaf of bread upside down on a table, there will be fights in the home.
If your nose itches, you have adversities.
If you are traveling to visit someone without an appointment and a bird flies across your path, forget the visit; the person will not be home.
BROOMS
There are many superstitions surrounding brooms. You should avoid placing a broom against your bed because the broom's evil spirit will cast a spell on the bed. Don't let a broom sweep over your feet if you ever wish to be married, and never step over the handle of a broom lying on the floor because doing so is believed to bring death. If you drop a broom, company will arrive. If you sweep trash out your door at night, it summons the visit of a stranger. And if you forget to sweep out the room where an unwelcome guest has stayed, that guest may return. To prevent additional bad luck, never take an old broom with you when you move.
THE BLACK CAT
The black cat is the most common enchanted animal of the mystical world. Often the companions of witches, black cats are believed to have the power to reason, perform sorcery, and understand human languages.
Just about everyone knows the superstition that says when a black cat crosses your path, bad luck will follow. But there are ways to counteract this omen. As soon as you spot the black cat, spit on the ground, turn yourself around three times, or walk backwards retracing your steps. As you pass the cat, reach down and stroke its back as a gesture of kindness.
VAMPIRES
Vampires first appeared in Slavic folktales about one thousand years ago. Villagers blamed disease and death—which were completely mysterious in those days—on corpses that only came out at night and sucked people's blood. Eager to rid the village of this malevolence, people often dug up graves and dispatched those corpses that bore signs of being a vampire; by impaling the body's heart with a stake or beheading the body, the vampire could be permanently put to rest. To keep the undead out of the house, garlic and religious symbols were thought to work. The undead could also be destroyed by exposure to daylight.
Over the years, the vampires of legend have acquired various characteristics, such as superhuman strength and speed, hypnotic mind-control abilities, and inhuman stealth. But you'll notice that many details of the old superstition remain to this day.
“EVIL IS JUST A POINT OF VIEW.” —ANNE RICE
AFTERBIRTH: BURNING PLACENTAS
In the seventeenth century, midwives had a custom of saving a woman's afterbirth, or placenta, and then burning it. The superstition was that the number of times the burning placenta popped indicated the number of children the mother could expect to have in the future.
APPLE BLOSSOMS
An apple blossom is said to be a sure sign of sickness in a house. If you are superstitious, never bring a branch of an apple blossom into your home.
ASH TREES AND CALAMITIES
In the nineteenth century, every summer some people would examine ash trees to see whether or not they produced any seed. The barrenness of an ash tree was said to be a sure sign of public calamity. Aged and wise men maintained that the ash trees of England produced no seeds in 1649, the year in which King Charles I was beheaded.
IF THIRTEEN PEOPLE SIT DOWN TO EAT AT A TABLE TOGETHER, ONE OF THEM WILL DIE WITHIN THE YEAR.
BABY MAGIC
It has been said that if a baby looks at you from between its legs, you will get pregnant.
BATS: FRIEND OR FOE?
In the nineteenth century, it was said that if a live bat were carried three times around the house and then nailed outside of the window with its head downwards, it would have the effects of a countercharm. Nowadays, it is considered lucky if you see a bat flying around on its own in the daytime, but if you disturb a bat and make it fly, you will have bad luck. Even more disturbing is the belief that a bat coming into the house is a sure sign of an impending death in the family.
BEANS, BEANS, BAD FOR THE MIND
Sleep in a bean field all night if you want to have awful dreams, or even worse, go crazy.
A common superstition among miners says that accidents in the mining pit occur more frequently when bean fields are in bloom.
BED LORE
It is said one should never sleep with his or her feet toward the door, because only corpses lie like that.
Some believe that it is unlucky to get out of bed backwards.
In Scotland, there is the belief that it is unlucky to leave a bed while making it. If the bed-making is interrupted, the occupant of the bed will pass a sleepless night, or some much worse evil will befall him or her.
Some believe that if three people take part in making a bed, there is sure to be a death in the house within the year.
IF SOMEBODY IS ILL AND SUDDENLY ASKS FOR A MUG OF HARD CIDER, HE OR SHE WILL SOON DIE.
SUPERSTITIONS OF THE RICH AND FAMOUS
JOHN MADDEN
When John Madden was coach of the Oakland Raiders football team, he wouldn't let the team leave the locker room until running back Mark van Eeghen had belched.
STONEWALL JACKSON
Confederate general Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson always charged into battle with his left hand held over his head, allegedly for psychic balance.
ALFRED HITCHCOCK
The cameo appearance Alfred Hitchcock made in each film he directed was for good luck.
MICHAEL JORDAN
Former Chicago Bulls star Michael Jordan always wore the shorts from his college basketball uniform under his professional uniform. “As long as I have these shorts on . . . I feel confident,” he said.
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IT IS BELIEVED THAT IF YOU CRY ON YOUR BIRTHDAY, YOU WILL CONTINUE TO CRY YEAR ROUND.
THE BARRYMORES
Lionel, Ethel, and John Barrymore always gave each other an apple on the night of a show's premiere.
JIMMY CONNORS
Jimmy Connors wouldn't compete in a tennis match without a little note from his grandma tucked into his sock.
JACK LEMMON
The late actor Jack Lemmon always whispered “magic time” as filming started on a new movie.
THOMAS EDISON
American inventor Thomas Edison carried a staurolite, a stone that forms naturally in the shape of a cross. Legend has it that when fairies heard of Christ's crucifixion, their tears fell as these “fairy cross” stones. Staurolite was also a lucky stone for U.S. presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson.
GRETA GARBO
Actress Greta Garbo always wore a lucky string of pearls.
MARIO ANDRETTI
Race-car driver Mario Andretti won't use a green pen to sign autographs.
KICHIRO TOYODA
A fortune-teller told businessman Kichiro Toyoda that it would be good luck to change his company's name to Toyota and give the company's cars names beginning with the letter C (such as Celica and Camry).
JOHN WAYNE
Actor John Wayne considered it lucky to be in a movie with fellow actor Ward Bond.
“SUPERSTITION IS THE POETRY OF LIFE, SO THAT IT DOES NOT INJURE THE POET TO BE SUPERSTITIOUS.” —JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
JOHN MCENROE
Tennis player John McEnroe thinks it is bad luck to play a match on a Thursday the twelfth. He also carefully avoids stepping on a white line of the tennis court.
RANDY JOHNSON
Baseball pitcher Randy Johnson always eats pancakes before a game.
“Some of mankind's most terrible misdeeds have been committed under the spell of certain magic words or phrases.” —JAMES BRYANT CONANT
GYPSY CURSE
On October 6, 1997, the London Daily Mirror reported the football club in Middleborough had requested the services of psychic Uri Geller to reverse a Gypsy curse. The football club's grounds had been built on a traditional Gypsy camp, and the retaliation was simple: a ritual curse. The club reportedly suffered from continuous bad luck. It is unknown if the reversal worked.
THE CURSE OF JAMES DEAN'S PORSCHE
Disaster may be ahead for anyone connected with James Dean's “death car.” In 1955, Dean smashed his red Porsche into another car and was killed. The wreckage was bought by George Barris, a friend of Dean's (and the man who customized cars like the Munster's coffinmobile for Hollywood). Barris immediately noticed weird things happening with the car.
First, while being unloaded from the truck that delivered it to Barris, the car slipped and broke a mechanic's legs. Barris then put the car's engine into a race car. The race car crashed in a race, killing the driver. A second car from the same race was equipped with the Porsche's drive shaft; it overturned and injured its driver.
Meanwhile, the shell of the Porsche was being used in a highway-safety display in San Francisco. It fell off its pedestal and broke a teenager's hip. Later, a truck carrying the display to another demonstration was involved in an accident. “The truck driver,” says one account, “was thrown out of the cab of the truck and killed when the Porsche shell rolled off the back of the truck and crushed him.”
In 1960, the Porsche finally vanished—while on a train en route to Los Angeles.
THE PRESIDENTIAL DEATH CYCLE
Between 1840 and 1960, every U.S. president elected in a year ending in zero either died in office of natural causes or was assassinated. By contrast, since 1840, of the twenty-nine presidents who were not elected in years ending with a zero, only one has died in office and not one has been assassinated.
The first president to die in office was William Henry Harrison, elected in 1840. Other victims were Abraham Lincoln, elected in 1860 and fatally shot in 1865; James Garfield, elected in 1880 and assassinated in 1881; William McKinley, reelected in 1900 and fatally shot in 1901; Franklin D. Roosevelt, elected for the third time in 1940 and died in 1945; and John F. Kennedy, elected in 1960 and assassinated in 1963.
Ronald Reagan, elected in 1980, was nearly the eighth victim; he was shot and badly wounded by John Hinckley in 1983. Astrologers insist that Reagan was exempted from the “curse” because 1980 included an astrological aberration: Jupiter and Saturn met in an air sign, Libra. They say whether or not the curse is actually over remains to be seen. The next potential victim will be the president elected in 2020.
THE CURSE OF THE INCAN MUMMY
Three Andean mummies were discovered by an archaeologist/mountaineer in October 1995. They had been undisturbed in snow at the top of 20,000-foot Mount Ampato, in southern Peru, for at least 500 years. Then an earthquake exposed them. One of the mummies was the remains of a young woman, referred to by local shamans as Juanita. She had apparently been sacrificed to Incan gods.
By disturbing the remains, the authorities are said to have brought bad luck to the Peruvian region. Within a year of the discovery, a Peruvian commercial jet crashed and killed 123 people near the discovery site. Then thirtyfive people were electrocuted when a high-tension cable fell on a crowd celebrating the founding of the city of Arequipa (which also is near the discovery site).
Local shamans said these deadly disasters were the acts of the angered ice princess. To break the curse, the shamans gathered in the city of Arequipa in August 1996 and chanted: “Juanita, calm your ire. Do not continue to damn innocent people who have done nothing to you.” Apparently, it worked—no deadly accidents have been reported in the region since 1996.
THE CURSE OF TOSCA
Productions of Giacomo Puccini's opera Tosca have been plagued with problems at least as far back as the 1920s, when, during a production at the Metropolitan Opera, the prop knife with which the heroine Tosca murders the villain Scarpia at the end of act II failed to retract. Singer Antonio Scotti was stabbed. In 1965, at Covent Gardens, Maria Callas's hair caught fire while she was singing the title role. The flames had to be put out by a quick-thinking Tito Gobbi, who was playing Scarpia. Then, in a production in Rome that same year, Gianni Raimondi's face was scorched during the firingsquad scene in act III. In 1993, Elisabeth Knighton Printy, in the scene in which Tosca commits suicide by leaping from a building, jumped off the wrong side of the stage in St. Paul, Minnesota, and plunged more than thirty feet to the ground, breaking both her legs.
The last reported incident was in 1995, when Fabio Armitliatu, starring in a Roman production, was hit in the leg by debris from blanks fired in the act III execution scene. He was taken off the stage on a stretcher. Two weeks later, he returned to the stage and fell and broke his other leg in two places while standing in the wings at the end of the first act.
THE SPORTS ILLUSTRATED JINX
For decades, sports stars have claimed that appearing on the cover of Sports Illustrated magazine was the fastest way to a slump or defeat.
Studying the records of fifty-eight baseball players going back to 1955, researchers found that there was a tendency for players' batting performances to decline, by about fifty points, from the time immediately before they get on the magazine cover until three weeks after the appearance.
Scientists say that if there is anything to this jinx, it's only because it spooks players and thus is selffulfilling. Because being on the cover of a magazine draws attention to the player, he begins to feel selfconscious at the plate and focus more effort on his performance. That self-consciousness and extra effort might, in turn, cause more injuries, fatigue, or other interruptions in the hitter's natural performance. As a result, his performance suffers.
THE OSCAR CURSE
Winning the much-coveted gold statuette can ruin, rather than help, an actor's career. It started when Luise Rainer won back-to-back Oscars for The Great Ziegfield (1936) and The Good Earth (1937). Two years and five terrible movie
s later, she was considered a has-been. Hollywood columnist Louella Parsons wrote that Rainer was suffering from the “Oscar curse.”
Rita Moreno and George Chakiris (1961's best supporting actress and actor, for West Side Story) disappeared from films after winning. Richard Dreyfuss, who won best actor in 1978 for The Goodbye Girl, raised his weight to 180 pounds, stopped bathing, and started binging on booze and drugs after he won. Michael Cimino, the winner for best director in 1978 for The Deer Hunter, followed his Oscar with three unsuccessful films: Heaven's Gate, Year of the Dragon, and The Sicilian Linda Hunt won best supporting actress in 1983 for The Year of Living Dangerously and was last seen in the shortlived sci-fi TV series, Space Rangers.
This curse is considered quite credible in Hollywood. Oscars are accompanied by high expectations that can't always be fulfilled. The curse can also be attributed to winners' increased salary demands, typecasting, greedy agents or studio bosses, and stars who believe their own press and become hard to work with.
The Book of the Bizarre: Freaky Facts and Strange Stories Page 15
