Posted by Helen on: 06.15.2006 /
I’m reading Not in Kansas Anymore: A Curious Tale of How Magic Is Transforming America by Christine Wicker.
Here’s a quote from the book about sports players and magic:
Baseball players spit into their hands before picking up a bat. Bowlers wear the same clothes for as long as a winning streak lasts. Rodeo riders put the right foot in thr stirrup first. Tennis players avoid holding two balls when serving. Michael Jordan wore shorts from his alma mater, the University of North Carolina, under his uniform. Halll of Famer Wade Boggs would eat only chicken the day of a game. If these things seem silly, forbid the players their magic and see how seriously they take it. Little leaguers learn such thinking from coaches and parents, who might be expected to oppose such gross superstition but in fact go right along with it.
One more quote from the book:
The salesperson who believes that making all five lights on the way to work bodes well for the day may not think he believes in magic, but he does.
I think we do things sometimes which we know are irrational but we do them anyway. “Just in case” they bring us good luck, perhaps.
(I suppose some readers may consider all beliefs about God to be magical thinking but let’s not go there.)
Comment by: NCxian
1Anybody with small children knows how important routine is. My daughter occasionally says, “if you let me watch the end of the movie, we can skip the bedtime story”. We have learned to say no, because she cannot settle down to sleep without the bedtime story. I am thinking that a lot of “superstition” has to do with comfort–sort of an extension of that bedtime routine thing.
The best example from the quote in the your post, Helen, is the “tennis players avoid holding two balls while serving”. You can hold two balls while serving, or you can hold one ball while serving. But whichever you decide, you need to do it the same way every time, because your toss will be a little different with each method, which will affect where the ball is when you strike it, which will affect the trajectory of the ball, and so on. And now that I think about it, you would never hold two balls on your second serve, so holding two on the first serve would already disrupt things. (As an aside, another critical reason that tennis players don’t hold two balls is that most folks use a two-handed grip either regularly or on occasion, so what do you do with that other ball if you get your first serve in?)
Have you ever watched golf on tv? (It is great on a rainy Sunday afternoon when you want to snooze!) A golfer will do exactly the same motions before putting every time. Sometimes, if she is nervous, she will stop just before striking the ball and start the entire routine from the beginning. Why? Because it is important that the putting muscles (and brain) perform the same motions every time to get a consistent result. Otherwise the golfer gets the “yips”–the putter moves strangely (leprauchans?) and the putt goes awry. Same with a basketball player shooting foul shots, a batter at the plate, and so on.
Wearing the same clothes during a winning streak has a more remote connection to performance than, for example, a golfer’s routine before addressing the ball on a putt, but it may still be a matter of being comfortable. The bowler is repeating everything that worked before, from the sublime to (what we may think is) the ridiculous.
Michael Jordan and his Carolina blue shorts? Maybe he can’t afford other underwear?
Occasionally, if I go through the lights on the way to work so perfectly that it catches my attention, I will think, “wow this is starting out to be a great day”. I don’t think that the way the lights worked is giving me luck. But my outlook has been brightened some. Maybe other folks have had that experience; it has improved how they evaluated their day, so they think the lights made their day better? Does the book suggest how superstitions get started?
Comment by: Helen M.
2NCxian, I think your comments about how routine comforts us are very insightful.
I also wondered about the tennis balls example. I agree with you that that could be rational because it affects the serve.
Ummm…well, it says they go way back. The author explores the possible reasons for magical thinking and is quite self-reflective about her own ‘magical thinking’ and how she finds it tends inexorably to focus more on ‘bad’ than ‘good’ magic. In other words, she tends towards thinking, if something can go wrong it will.
The book is mostly about specific people who practice actual magic (magic spells for example) . The author writes about what she learned from talking to them about why they believe and practise what they believe and practise. She learned things like, people who at first seemed opposed to everything she thought was good, turned out to have some values that made a lot of sense to her. Even if she wouldn’t apply them the same way those people do.
I haven’t finished the book yet. I keep getting distracted by things like writing blog entries and comments ;).
Comment by: NCxian
3I’ve been wondering how you find the time to keep this ball rolling. But thanks for it! (And thank your family!)
Comment by: Julie Marie
4I have a generally optomistic attitude that everything will work out if I do my best that some people who love me would consider magical thinking, I suspect. There would be danger in that if I didn’t evaluate advice and cautions regarding my plans. I think the same danger would present if people relied on their lucky shorts rather than putting in the hours to make their plans work. Or if their lucky shorts became so important to their success that they couldn’t function well without them.
I do have a bit of a reverse “magical thinking” in that I am very careful not to use illness or pain as an excuse. Its almost like if I admit something is wrong, I fear I’ll activate some nasty karma out there and make it even worse. I’ve been working on that - it is not really helpful to pretend everthing is okay when I am having trouble walking across a room; its better and less confusing to admit my back hurts than snap at loved ones who want me to come look at something. Furthermore….if no one knows I hurt, I don’t get the chance to receive tender loving care. So yeah, I’d say there’s harm in my brand of magical thinking!
Comment by: Helen M.
5Yes, that’s a good point.
You think so, huh? ;)
Yes indeed!
Comment by: Eliza
6For good luck, I used the same box of #2 pencils for all of my medical Board exams, going back to 1987. (5 day-long exams from 1987 through my most recent set in 2003 - the one in 1993 was 2 full days - that’s alot of multiple choice fill-in-the-circle-with-pencil answers!) I show up to these exams with the box of 10 pencils all sharpened, and use one after the other, changing when they get dull. I carefully moved these pencils with my stuff from an apartment in Boston to an apartment in Seattle to a house north of Seattle, over the years, keeping them separate from other writing implements, & keeping them safe.
I realized long ago that it was silly to be saving the same box of pencils for these exams, but also that it made me smile to do so, and that there is some small group of neurons that seems to feel it was necessary - or at least the safest thing to do.
So, when my kid got into the box (tucked away in a cupboard in our guest bedroom) 2 years ago & started taking them out to use, I had to decide whether or not to make a big deal about it & take them away from him. It was harder than I’d expected not to say anything, just to let him take them out and end up losing them, breaking them, etc. Those pencils don’t exist anymore, *sniff*. When I take my next Board exam, I’ll have to figure out whether some other set of pencils can provide as much good luck as the original set…it’ll be hard. ;) (When will that be, you ask? Oh, 2013…but I had been counting on those same pencils!!)
It certainly seems like there’s some hard wiring leading us to come up with superstitions like this - why else would it be so common, and so hard to break the habit?
Comment by: Lisa W.
7I love Eliza’a story of the sacred pencils. I think for me this type of thing would be a way to honor the process of the exams. Like the President uses a certain pen to sign bills of legislation. It wouldn’t be a magic pen just one that is used to honor the importance of the act. This is not magical to me but I can see how a person could give it magical/superstitious power. We give things meaning. To what degree is something else. I can see how it would be hard to give up the pencils to a child.
Comment by: Julie Marie
8I’m sorry to hear about the demise of your pencils, Eliza. I was empathizing right along with you…it would have been hard to let my son play with them!
I had a winter scarf that had been my mom’s that I wore when my husband and I went to England. We rented a small car (I think something called a Ford Fiesta - so small it isn’t even marketed here) and one night, rushing into the car because of a rainstorm, I shut the door on this prized scarf. Got it caught in the latch, so I couldn’t open the door. I was in the process of having an hysterical meltdown about my mom’s scarf, my poor husband was out in the pouring rain trying to get the door open without ripping the scarf…when I had a moment of clarity…that scarf is not my mother, it won’t bring me closer to my mother, and yes, it will be ruined as we drive along this muddy road out of the train station…and so what. I told my drenched hubby to stop his efforts, and we disengaged and threw out the scarf the next morning, when it was drier weather. But it sure took a bit of rational self talk to over-ride the emotion!
Comment by: NCxian
9Hmmm, thinking about the pencils . . .
I like the idea that Eliza is “honoring” the process, like the President. I think there is something there.
My mom gave me the portfolio sort of thing that she had carried through college (it was leather, had loose-leaf rings and zipped all around the sides). I used it in high school and wore it to shreds. She probably never gave it much more thought, but I always felt guilty because she had saved it for twenty years and then I trashed it. And when she was in college, she was self-sufficient, newly married–in a word, broke–so I imagined it was precious to her. And I didn’t honor it. I need to ask her about it now.
Back to the pencils–I wonder if this kind of superstition is a way to try to exert some control over a situation that is outside our control? Eliza doesn’t know what is going to be on that test, can’t cram any more into her head to be prepared but, by golly, she knows she will have her pencils! Michael Jordan doesn’t know whether he is bringing his A game on any given night, but he knows what shorts he’ll have on. If you live in a world where you don’t control very much at all, like our ancestors who did subsistence farming and hunted game and such, maybe throwing salt over your shoulder was a way to control things. My grandmother, who grew up in the appalachian mountains and lived that way, had a ton of superstitions. For instance, she always left through the same door she came in through, certain animals indicated good or bad luck, she planted her vegetables and treated her cattle by the signs of the moon. Oh, if somebody swept under your feet you would never get married (I think this one was to get the sitter to get up and do the sweeping herself!).
Eliza, maybe your willingness to give up the pencils means you are feeling a little more confident that you have some control over the outcome of the test (other than just bringing the right pencils)?
Comment by: Eliza
10I like the idea of honoring the process, and superstitious idiosyncrasies being a way to have some control over an otherwise uncertain situation. I did give up the pencils, but I wouldn’t say I was willing to do so - just that (like Julie Marie said about her mother’s scarf) I realized it wasn’t truly important to preserve them - it just felt like it was.
Isn’t it interesting how some of these are very personal for us, & maybe develop without our planning it, while others are cultural & would have to be learned - like salt over the shoulder, black cat crossing in front is bad luck, same with broken mirror or walking under a ladder.
Comment by: Pam Hogeweide
11i’m a bit late jumping in on this one, but helen i have to tell you that i just ordered this book less than a week ago. I’d never heard of the author until recently. I have a special interest in the pagan/magickal world view so this particular book intrigued me. So delighted to see it quoted and discussed here. Thanks!
Comment by: Peter Walker
12My agnostic sports fan friends (particularly soccer fans) are the most “magical” (superstitious) of anyone I know. Even moreso when they go to the Indian Casino. God forbid anyone has any “bad mojo” when they shoot craps with them!
It’s kind of funny, but can become tedious as well. I guess I hadn’t thought of it in terms of a “paradigm” or a worldview until now.
Comment by: Helen M.
13Pam I’ll be interested to hear what you think of the book! I love how the author analyses things. She asks great questions, is very self-aware and is open to changing her own viewpoint depending on what she learns.