Many people believe that old traditions and superstitions are harmless. This is not always the case. In this article, I wish to explore one particular well-known superstition-the Friday 13th myth.

One may wonder how Friday 13th got to be associated with bad luck. There are many different explanations, but the one I consider most likely is devoid of drama or theology. Many people learn about counting through counting fingers. This was commonplace among our ancestors, who had to use physical objects to count in place of a number system, which did not exist at the time. They took it one step further, however-or, rather, two. By counting palms, they were able to count any number up to 12. The number 13 could not be counted in this system and was therefore alien to people who counted using fingers. Exhibiting a form of xenophobia not unlike that which is common today, our ancestors treated 13 with fear and suspicion. This fear passed through the centuries, and even today, 13 is considered an unlucky number. A bit of trivia: the most feared number in the Western world is not 13-it's 666. Many women were afraid of bearing children on June 6, 2006, and this irrational fear even spawned a movie all its own. In Oriental culture, the number 4 is generally the one that is feared.

The origin of Friday's association with misfortune is a much different one. Early Christian leaders were very patriarchal in nature, and when missionaries attempted to spread Christianity to early Germanic countries, they found that the people who lived there worshiped gods and goddesses alike. When they discovered that one of the days of the week was named after the Norse goddess Frigga, they were quick to demonize it. Ever since, many legends came up about the supposed unluckiness of the day. Naturally, these associations were made stronger when the number 13 was involved. Interestingly enough, in Brazil, Friday 13th is considered even more unlucky when it falls in August. Anti-woman sentiment is even evident in the association of black cats with bad luck, as they were once a symbol of femininity (in spite of the fact that many black cats are male).

Although Friday 13th has an interesting history, the history alone does not tell the whole story. There is also a degree of science going on in the background. Many people are aware of the placebo effect from medicine. Its evil twin brother, the nocebo effect, is not so often recognized publicly. Whenever someone believes that something bad is going to happen to them, that person subconsciously acts in such a way as to make those bad things more likely to occur. Therefore, very often, Friday 13th believers create their own bad luck. When the unfortunate events they predict do happen, they naturally treat them as evidence that the myth is true. Believers are quick to pull up laundry lists of events to confirm their beliefs, but such lists can be generated for any combination of month day and weekday. It is, however, true that collision rates increase and business dollars are lost on Friday 13th. These phenomena can be attributed to the nocebo effect, though. One of the most contemptible elements of the belief is the amount of time and energy which people waste trying to escape from the supposed bad luck of the day. Many believers find themselves unable to even get out of bed on Friday 13th. On top of that, blaming the day for bad events makes people less likely to look for genuine cause and effect explanations-and asking about how they could have prevented those bad things from happening. For example, if someone got in a collision, they may think "It's the day" instead of "I should have stopped sooner."

For the reasons outlined above, I believe that society would benefit if people forewent the beliefs of their ancestors and stopped fearing Friday 13th. As the years passed, the day has developed a culture of its own, and I certainly do not advocate the abandonment of this culture. The belief associated with it, however, should be put to rest.