What Are Magical Thinking and Superstition?
Magical thinking is believing that your thoughts can cause changes or events in the real world when it is impossible for them to do so. It is magical thinking when you believe that it rained on your outdoor wedding because the week before the big day you thought, “It is going to rain on my wedding day.” It is magical thinking if you believe that by thinking, “I am going to have a recurrence,” you will cause a recurrence.
Superstition, in contrast to magical thinking, is a custom or act believed to cause a desired event or to prevent an undesired one. Children utilize superstition often—for example, when they close the curtains to keep out the witches. Since ancient times, cultures have passed on superstitions, such as that of Italian and Jewish families that tie a red ribbon on a new baby’s crib to ward off the evil spirits. You are repeating one when you cross two fingers of one hand to bring someone good luck (crossing two fingers of each hand supposedly brings bad luck). People engage in personalized superstitious customs, such as when a wife utters the same words before every single departure of her husband, “Drive carefully; I’ll see you later,” fearing that misfortune will result if she does not.
Superstition is also the irrational belief that something or some circumstance portends something bad. That superstition persists today is obvious when you see hospitals and hotels without a thirteenth floor (the twelfth floor is followed by the fourteenth), people throwing salt over their left shoulder, or going out of their way not to walk under a ladder or step on a crack.
You may have developed a repertoire of personal superstitions to help you cope with the uncertainties of life. You may take a special route or wear a designated outfit to every one of your checkups, if it was the route you took or outfit you wore the day your remission was announced.
Are Magical Thinking and Superstitious Thinking Normal?
Magical thinking is left over from childhood, when normal individuals believe that their thoughts can cause some of the changes in their world that they do not understand, or can protect them from the things they fear. Children believe that thinking that there will be a snowstorm can bring about the snow holiday, or that their mom got cancer because, in a moment of anger before she got sick, they thought, “I wish she would die.”
As we grow older, we use less and less magical thinking, but we all engage in magical thinking to some degree, believing that our thoughts can help bring about good things, ward off bad, and explain events. Adults allay their fear of flying by telling themselves that the mission is too important for the jet to crash. Frightened patients promise to quit smoking, hoping or believing that eleventh-hour promises will help the biopsy turn out benign. Survivors of car crashes tell themselves that they should not have gone out just because of a sale on their favorite shoes and that this is why they were in an accident.
As we gain understanding of or control over such phenomena as the weather, old superstitions often die. However, many superstitions persist, even in the face of scientific evidence to the contrary. People adopt cultural and family superstitions as part of their identity, to reinforce their sense of belonging, just as they follow current hairstyles or dress codes. In addition, superstitions afford them an accepted way to gain a sense of control over their world.
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