The Maya used mirrors as channels for supernatural communication. In this image, a supernatural creature speaks into a cracked, black mirror.
K2929 from the Justin Kerr Maya archive, Dumbarton Oaks, Trustees for Harvard University, Washington, D.C.
Broken mirrors can be associated with bad luck, but for the ancient Maya, a cracked mirror was often desirable.
The detail of the demon in Sir Joshua Reynolds’ painting The Death of Cardinal Beaufort was revealed after extensive cleaning.
Petworth House / National Trust
The Enlightenment saw science and rational thought replace the religious superstitions of the previous century, and demons became metaphors for the human struggle between good and evil.
Remember the old saying: Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
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Ghosts can be spooky fun, but there’s no evidence they exist.
The Nightmare by John Henry Fuselli, 1781.
Wikepedia
A raft of horror films remind us of the grip troubled sleep once had on our imaginations.
Toronto Maple Leafs fans and players celebrate a goal during the second round playoff series against the Florida Panthers.
(Michael Laughlin/AP Photo)
Superstitions have a role in helping hockey fans and players feel more in control of the game.
Mystic Meg in a promotional image.
Victor Watts/Alamy Stock Photo
Critics of superstition have often painted openness to magical interpretations as weakness or moral failing.
Lucky charms help us feel safer in an uncertain world.
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An anthropologist explains why we all have some irrational beliefs and the reason they give us comfort.
Many elevators do not have a floor numbered 13 because of common superstitions about the number.
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A sociologist unpacks how common superstitions like fear of 13 can gain steam.
‘A Sorcerer Comes to a Peasant Wedding,’ a 19th-century painting by Russian artist Vassily Maximov.
Tretyakov Gallery/Wikimedia Commons
The idea of a ‘witch’ was usually female in Western Europe, but not so in Orthodox Russia – partly because of the period’s rigid social hierarchies.
The Vindolanda Trust
Phallic graffiti was more than just funny in Roman Britain.
A 19th-century engraving shows a cleric doing an exorcism against an evil spirit.
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In the 1960s, the Catholic Church sought to downplay demonic possession, but its views since then have changed.
Is “Twosday” as special as some corners of the internet seem to think?
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Numerology ties in with how our brains work, but that doesn’t mean its claims make sense.
Modern vampires like Dracula may be dashing, but they certainly weren’t in the original vampire myths.
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The past century’s vampires have often been a bit dashing, even romantic. That’s not how the myth started out.
Damaging a mirror was believed to invite the wrath of the gods in ancient cultures.
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In both ancient Greece and the Roman Empire, reflected images were thought to hold mysterious powers. Damaging a mirror was believed to invite the wrath of the gods.
The comet SWAN was spotted in January by an ESA/NASA satellite. It is currently passing overhead and is visible from the Southern Hemisphere.
Christian Gloor/Flickr
Are you hesitating to buy anti-Covid-19 toothpaste? 100 years ago, you might have found some miracle elixirs to protect you from Halley’s Comet.
Woodcut, circa 1400. A witch, a demon and a warlock fly toward a peasant woman.
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The idea of organized satanic witchcraft was invented in 15th-century Europe by church and state authorities, who at first had a hard time convincing regular folks it was real.
A crop circle in Switzerland.
Jabberocky/Wikimedia Commons
The internet has allowed pseudoscience to flourish. Artificial intelligence could help steer people away from the bad information.
Though illegal, fortune telling was only sporadically prosecuted. Here, two women set up tents at the 1913 Adelaide Children’s Hospital fete.
State Library of SA
In the early 1900s, fortune-telling provided entertainment, social connection and a job for some Australians. Its legal status made criminals of women, yet allowed others entry to the police force.
Knocking on wood may be a holdover from the pagan days of Europe, when tree spirits were believed to bring luck.
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The curious history of a ritual meant to ward off bad luck.
A rabid dog’s bite can make a person seem to have animal characteristics.
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Fear of a disease that seemed to turn people into beasts might have inspired belief in supernatural beings that live on in today’s creepy Halloween costumes.