View from the Cheap Seats is kind of an extension of the newsroom. Whenever our three regular reporters, Calvin Daniels, Thom Barker and Randy Brenzen are in the building together, it is frequently a site of heated debate. This week: Is Friday the 13th unlucky?
Try Monday
Many people feel that Friday the 13th is a sinister, evil, despicable day filled with nothing but bad luck, accidents and all things negative (like severing your Achilles tendon on a broken mirror while dashing underneath ladders and around black cats while running away from a machete wielding murderer).
Some people actually refuse to leave their homes on Friday the 13th for fear that, should they do so, something unknown but oh so terrible will befall them.
Yet some people, we’ll call these people the sane ones, choose to treat Friday the 13th as just another day.
Because the reality is, it really is just another day. Nothing exceptionally evil will happen on Friday the 13th. Just like nothing exceptionally evil (or good) with occur on Wednesday the 25th.
In fact it’s the act of worrying about the bad luck and evil that end up causing all of the perceived ‘bad luck’.
People develop ulcers from worrying about it. People cause themselves to see everything in a negative light because of the date. Heck, people even cause others to have a bad day because of their belief that Friday the 13th is evil.
You want to know what day is bad luck, if any? Monday the ___ (fill in the blank) because it’s the start of the work week.
That’s it.
-Randy Brenzen
Ludicrous
Is Friday the 13th unlucky? The short answer is: Of course not.
Many scientists now believe humans (and maybe other animals) are hard-wired for superstition. It makes sense from an evolutionary standpoint. If, for example, I was a primitive human and saw my friend get killed by a saber tooth cat right after he ate berries from a particular bush, I might be inclined to view that bush as unlucky and avoid eating from it.
It is completely irrational, but better safe than sorry.
As a rational, modern human, however, I know better. There is no evidence whatsoever that the number 13 is unlucky. In fact, in a case like this, evidence isn’t really even necessary because it is simply ludicrous that a number could have some kind of magical significance.
Still, enough people are uncomfortable with 13 that builders still often skip it when they number the floors of their buildings. A coincidental 13 per cent of people would worry about staying on the 13th floor (even if numbered 14). Nine per cent would ask for a room change.
And most people don’t even know where this superstition comes from. I wonder if they knew it was originally the product of Norse mythology if they would get over the irrationality.
Probably not; for all of our knowledge and scientific progress, we are still a credulous, primitive species.
-Thom Barker
Triskadeka-what?
Friday the 13th, that random date which pops up on a calendar on occasion conjures so much ‘old world’ superstition with its mentioning.
And now there is the overlay of fear which has grown up around the movie franchise of the same name.
The fear of the number 13 has been given a scientific name: triskadekaphobia; and an analogy to this the fear of Friday the 13th is called paraskevidekatriaphobia, from the Greek words Paraskeví, meaning ‘Friday’, and dekatreís , meaning ‘thirteen’.
So for some the fear is tangible.
But is Friday the 13th even a fear based in a grain of truth. One can fear snakes because some are deadly, but is a Friday which happens to fall on the 13th of a month?
In this case there appears little in terms of history to base a fear on.
“The superstition surrounding this day may have arisen in the Middle Ages, ‘originating from the story of Jesus’ last supper and crucifixion” in which there were 13 individuals present in the Upper Room on Maundy Thursday, the night before His death on Good Friday,” details Wikipedia.
“Other scholars claim that there is no written evidence for a ‘Friday the 13th’ superstition before the 19th century, and the superstition only gained widespread distribution in the 20th century.”
There are a few tenuous ties to ill times associated with the day.
“In numerology, the number twelve is considered the number of completeness, as reflected in the twelve months of the year, twelve hours of the clock day, the twelve deities of Olympus, twelve tribes of Israel, twelve Apostles of Jesus, the 12 successors of Muhammad in Shia Islam, twelve signs of the Zodiac, the 12 years of the Chinese Buddhist cycle, etc. In contrast the number thirteen is considered irregular, transgressing this completeness,” detailed Wikipedia.
And “on Friday, 13 October 1307, hundreds of the Knights Templar were arrested in France by King Philip IV, possibly giving rise to the fear of a curse on that day. This connection between the Friday the 13th superstition and the Knights Templar was popularized in Dan Brown’s 2003 novel The Da Vinci Code and in John J. Robinson’s 1989 work Born in Blood: The Lost Secrets of Freemasonry, and also in the Maurice Druon historical novel series: The Accursed Kings.
But the bad luck is far more made up modern myth than anything based in widespread truth.
So while I’ll note the date in passing with a warning the day is one of bad luck, much as I do when a black cat crosses my path, or a fork is dropped at dinner, it is not a time to change my actions in fear the day is out to get me.
-Calvin Daniels
