Friday the 13th brings out the suspicious and superstition in everyone
Have you ever noticed when you walk into an elevator of a high-rise the number 13 is missing from the buttons? Or that often times hotels don’t have a room number 13?
Paraskevidekatriaphobics – the fear, however irrational or morbid it may be, plagues many people every time Friday the 13th roles around. So what is the story about Friday the 13th’s epic origins? What makes it the day in which normal human beings become the most cautious creatures
of superstition?
According to Donald Dossey, the founder of the Stress Management Center and Phobia Institute in Asheville, N.C., the fear of this fateful day dates far, far back into ancient history. Some say that the fear of the day stems back to a series of “Black Fridays”
in which many “unlucky” events happened, such as the famous stock market crash in 1929 that landed America in what history now calls The Great Depression. But Dossey argues that this fear of Friday the 13th dates back to a Norse myth where an uninvited 13th guest appeared at a banquet in heaven and arranged for the blind god of darkness to shoot and kill Balder the Beautiful, the god of joy and gladness. Balder died and the whole Earth became dark and mourned. “It was a bad, unlucky day,” said Dossey. From then on the number 13 was cursed, especially in tie with these “Black Fridays.”
Unlucky Superstitions
? Seeing an ambulance is very unlucky unless you pinch your nose or hold your breath until you see a black or a brown dog.
? Don’t knit a pair of socks for your boyfriend or he’ll walk away from you.
?Bad luck will follow the spilling of salt unless a pinch is thrown over the left shoulder into the face of the devil waiting
there.
?If three people are photographed together, the one in the middle will die first.
Facts About the Number 13
More than 80 percent of high-rises lack a 13th floor.
Many airports skip the 13th gate.
Airplanes have no 13th aisle.
Hospitals and hotels regularly have no room number.
Italians omit the number 13 from their national lottery.
Many triskaidekaphobes, as those who fear the unlucky integer are known, point to the ill-fated mission to the moon, Apollo 13.
If you have 13 letters in your name, you will have the devil’s luck . Jack the Ripper, Charles Manson, Jeffrey Dahmer, Theodore Bundy and Albert De Salvo all have 13 letters in their names.