A Book of Superstitions

Introduction

Mankind, a small word describing the great history of the human race, the mammoth achievements of us in different fields, the deadliest conflicts which killed tens of millions and still continue to kill hundreds and thousands each day. The beautiful art, poetry and architecture challenged by slavery, colonisation and oppressions, the marvellous culture and tradition shadowed by greed and treachery, there is no such word in any known language as this one which has affected this planet, this tiny rock in this enormous universe so much, no other species on this planet possesses the power to destroy it as we do, we are like the problem child for this planet earth which cannot be controlled, disciplined or stopped from doing whatever we want.

We as humans have seen so much in such a little time of our footprint on this planet because of our ambitious nature. Everything around us, all this history, all those discoveries and each and every tiny bit of technological achievements are the result of someone's ambition. In this glitter of our successes and under the smoke of our failures and behind all those rational thoughts and logical work a very dark habit dwells, this dark nature of our race is as old as the time immemorial, it's has always been with us and continues to thrive by one way or another way and it will remain with us for a very long time to come. This habit of the human race is known as 'Superstition'.

Superstitions have dominated the human race from a very long time indeed, the belief in something which can make or break the course or result of our actions predates even the concept of God in human history. The superstitious beliefs have been passed from generation to generation keeping them fresh and alive. From Friday to 13th to No.666 to black cats crossing the road, sneezing, passing chilly to one another, the list is almost endless and few of these beliefs have been fatal to humans, animals and plants alike in the past and still continue to do so.

This book is an effort to compile the most famous, bizarre, silly and dangerous superstitious beliefs from around the world which are still relevant. It's not my aim to make you superstitions with this book however it's an aim to educate you about how superstitious we are even when we think we are not. As many of these beliefs have become part of our life or unwritten law which we follow from day to day without actually knowing. We have tried to divide and classify the superstitions based on the countries in alphabetical order, as it was not possible to compile each and every belief in one book, we tried to pick the most common or bizarre out of them.