Having Faith in the Supplement to Reason

"Come on, Debbie, don’t fail me now! The Cowboys are almost in the lead. Five yards to a touch down, don’t’ fail me now, babe!"

Debbie was my brother’s "lucky" hat that he wore during every Dallas Cowboys football game. As a loyal fan, he did everything he could to help "America’s team". That year, the Cowboys won the Super Bowl. My brother likes to think that he and Debbie had something to do with that.

My brother was somewhat uncertain whether the Cowboys could catch, throw, and tackle, their way to the Super Bowl. So, every Sunday, before the game started, he would prepare Debbie, talking to "her" while lovingly caressing the rim of the hat. People all around the world perform such actions.

In his book, Believing in Magic, Stuart A. Vyse reveals, "people… respond to uncertainty with superstitious beliefs or actions" (5). Vyse discusses superstition, or "magic", and analyzes its social implications within contemporary society. By explaining the origins and applications of superstition, he offers cogent explanations as to why "people should be nudged to a truer course." In order to prove the irrationality of "magic", he cites many examples concerning the "ideal superstitious person". The third chapter of his book exhibits many examples that suggest superstitions are merely patterns that occur by coincidence (i.e. the Bjorn Borg example) and thus, are irrational. What Vyse fails to identify is that, though coincidence is a cause of superstition, it is not the core reason that superstition should be considered completely irrational. The brain uses relationships and connections in order to form a train of thought. Because mankind thinks in associations, people use logic to connect and make sense of their experiences. The human mind finds it imperative to create a rational explanation of an occurrence by utilizing this logic and reasoning. Events surpassing present knowledge and understanding are simply dismissed as "magic". Superstition is irrational because it is a supplement to reason. One may ask, "If using reason is the innate nature of the human mind, why is it that our minds would allow us to deviate from logic and believe in a supplement to reason? After all, now that we know superstitions are irrational, why do we continue to use them?" The answer to this question lies in a tradition that has occurred for millennia. The idea of faith allows mankind to trust in superstition.

Before there was any type of organized religion, there were tribal groups that had to make up stories in order to make sense of what they experienced. So, let us say for example that a child asks his mother why rain falls from up above. The mother may respond with a myth about a man in the sky who cries, and the raindrops are his tears. To prove that faith is the reason mankind is able to continue with superstitions, we will examine what many see as the most widely accepted of these ancient superstitions, God. In ancient times, one may have asked, "Why does the world exist?" An explanation supplied could have been "God". According to Vyse’s definition, God applies as a superstition. He is "a belief or practice groundless in itself and inconsistent with the degree of enlightenment reached by the community to which one belongs" (19). Though God may be a mere superstition, people all over the world have faith in His existence. Because of His will, He makes unexplainable things happen, and that is the explanation of why they occur. This exemplifies mankind’s irrational belief in "magic". Superstitions are nothing but supernatural occurrences and coincidences that cannot be explained. Like God, people’s superstitions have power over them. My brother’s obsessions with "Debbie", for example, and Wade Bogg’s rituals before a game, present the immense power of "magic". People submit to superstitions as they submit to God for the sole reason of faith.

Faith causes mankind to believe in what is not there and trust in their illogical, personal theories. Though superstitions are completely irrational, it is still vitally important to explore their effects on mankind. It may even lead to discoveries concerning the psychology of humans in certain types of social situations, or it could offer a further insight on disorders of habitual nature. For example, obsessive-compulsive disorder causes people to become addicted to performing certain actions like locking the door a certain number of times or washing hands repeatedly out of some type of unexplainable fear or paranoia. The only difficult aspect of trying to enlighten the public and show that superstition is irrational is that superstition cannot be proven as incorrect. Stuart A. Vyse’s explanations account for the origin and social implications of superstitions, but further research is essential.