forty hard years of lobotomizing, dumbdowning, infantilizing, and deploying this multilayered PSYOPS of direct and covert operations have been brought to us, partially, by the Edward Bernays of the World … now we are here: Fear and Loathing in Our Delusional and Self-Incriminating Selves! (Haeder, May 28, 2023)

Versus:

Before the Russian invasion, CIA reports linked him to an oligarch so dirty and so mired in “significant corruption” that the State Department banned him from entering the U.S.

But now CIA propaganda portrays Zelensky as nobler than Winston Churchill and saintlier than Mother Theresa.

Will the Real Volodymyr Zelensky Please Stand Up (source)

Now now, I know we can’t in PC/PAEC (Politically Approved by Elites Correct) society point out a spade from a diamond. Ahh, even after Nakba 75? Who stopped it, a celebration-remembrance-sadness of that genocide?

Sorry, but it does matter who controls the levers of power, the narrative, the engines of Press-Propaganda-Entertainment. As well as, politics, marketing, education? Nakba is a lie. You don’t see a pattern here?

In a statement Monday, Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen said, “We will fight the ‘Nakba’ lie with full strength and we won’t allow the Palestinians to continue to spread lies and distort history.”

Ahh, this commemoration, by the UN, of all organizations, is despicable, according to another Jew, and that is a-okay language, no?

In a recorded statement, Israel’s ambassador to the U.N., Gilad Erdan, said that the organization’s decision was “shameful” and would harm any efforts to find a peaceful solution to the generations-old conflict between the state of Israel and the Palestinian people.

Asking other U.N. representatives to boycott the commemoration, he said, “[A]ttending this despicable event means destroying any chance of peace by adopting the Palestinian narrative calling the establishment of the state of Israel a disaster while ignoring Palestinian hate, incitement, terror and refusal to accept the legitimacy of a Jewish state.”

“UN Recognition of Palestinian Displacement Angers Israel” — One headline, and just replace, “…angers Israel” with, “…. angers Christians, Zionists, Israel-Firsters, Members of Congress, Members of the MSM, politicians, AIPAC, etc., et. …”

Shit, recognition of that Liberty, that United States SHIP, and more poison arrows launched by the Isra-Hellions:

Shit, that crime memorial is coming up, June 8 = The USS Liberty incident was an attack on a United States Navy technical research ship, USS Liberty, by Israeli Air Force jet fighter aircraft and Israeli Navy motor torpedo boats, on 8 June 1967, during the Six-Day War.

Ahh, can we protest that other anniversary? By virtue of General Assembly Resolution 273, Israel was admitted to membership in the United Nations on 11 May 1949.  In the three years following the 1948 Palestine war , about 700,000 Jews immigrated to Israel, residing mainly along the borders and in former Arab lands.

Can we remember June 8 without being smeared?

For more information on Israel’s crimes, and the USS Liberty, go here: IAK.

Now transitioning to more racism and bigotry and Big Brother-ism by Jewish leaders, ZioCryptos, and the like, let’s scour the WWW for those attacks on Pink Floyd’s front man: Jews will attack Roger Waters, of Pink Floyd, and they will get countless thousands of lies published in countless broken media outfits immediately. Just Google-Gulag search: “Roger Waters and Berlin Fascism.” Hate, pure lies, and the hasbara and powerful Jewish hatred of thinking Rogers is an antisemite!

Again, a concert, and Israel speaks up.

Israel’s foreign ministry later criticized Waters on social media, tweeting on May 24: “Good morning to everyone but Roger Waters who spent the evening in Berlin (Yes Berlin) desecrating the memory of Anne Frank and the 6 million Jews murdered in the Holocaust.”

 

I am sorry to say that the Jewish folk I have been reading about, listening to, and researching throughout my decades, even from day one of college onward, many (not all)  are indeed a clear and present danger to straight-up research and critical thinking. Then, just move over to the fact in my humble opinion, many powerful Jews hate Russia, Russians, and anyone who might dare question the UkroNazi Proxy War with Russia, started, oh, hell, way before 2014.

Self-proclaimed Jewish criminal, Kolomoyskyi is the dirty banker and the dirty funder of Zelensky:

 

[Photo: On the left, Zelensky in circle behind Kholomoisky. On the right, Zelensky on the campaign trail is followed by one of Kholomoisky’s bodyguards.]

But, read this Jewish rag in Isra-Hell, Haaretz | World News/

“Ukraine Enlists Jewish Leaders to Lobby Israel for Arms”

Ukraine recently requested air defense systems and training from Israel, saying that Iran would use the deployment of its weapons systems in Europe to refine their capabilities. Still, Israel maintains that it would not send military assistance to Ukraine

A senior Ukrainian official close to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called on world Jewry to push Jerusalem to arm his country with defensive weapons on Wednesday, only two days after Moscow warned Israel that supplying military equipment to Ukraine would “destroy the political relations between the two countries.”

Of course, I am disgusted by any racist group calling on “all Jews worldwide to continue the murder of Russians and Ukrainians in Donbass, and now, throughout Ukraine and into Russia.

This is merchant of death war mongering, and it has to stop, stop first by beginning to call a Jewish Fascist a Jewish Fascist when you come in contact with him or her or them: Here, more lies, blatant valorizing of a corrupt and criminal man, Zelensky!

1. The most important Jewish leader in the world (source)

The past week has turned us all into experts on Ukraine, now at the center of every conversation. Did you know how big it is? (When you lay it over the U.S. map, it stretches from New York to Chicago.) Who knew that we were actually using the Russian city names and not the Ukrainian ones (it’s Kyiv, not Kiev; Lviv, not Lvov; and Kharkiv, not Kharkov). And their president—did you know that he is Jewish?

Volodymyr Zelensky is probably the most admired Jewish leader the world has to offer right now. Before entering politics in 2018, Zelensky was a popular comedian (and you can’t get any more Jewish than that); he does not often speak about his Jewish identity, but he has never tried to hide it. In a country like Ukraine, which is still struggling with a painful legacy of antisemitism, Zelensky’s Jewishness has always been present.

For Jews across the world, Zelensky is now a source of pride: a young, inexperienced leader who is putting his life at risk for his people by leading a nation of 40 million people in opposing a ruthless Russian aggressor.

In his inauguration speech, Zelensky famously told lawmakers not to hang his portrait on their walls. “I do not want my picture in your offices: The president is not an icon, an idol or a portrait. Hang your kids’ photos instead, and look at them each time you are making a decision.”

True to form, Zelensky maintained his unassuming, direct style when crisis hit. His video messages, posted several times a day, have been helping reassure the Ukrainian people. He spoke from his office and from the streets of Kyiv, even as Russian troops closed in on the capital, and when the fighting intensified, Zelensky candidly shared with all Ukrainians the fact that he has been marked by the Russians as “target number one” and that his family is “target number two.” But when the U.S. offered to evacuate him from Kyiv to somewhere safer, he responded: “The fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride.”

I’m writing this column on Sunday, as Russian forces, bogged down and weakened by courageous Ukrainians armed with AK-47s, Molotov cocktails, or sometimes just a large pole they picked up on the side of the street, still threaten the capital. Zelensky is leading the effort to save his nation, though most foreign intelligence services still think he’s fighting a losing battle.

So, this POS war crimes leader, Zelensky, *elensky because the letter “Z” has been outlawed, and Ukraine and Zelensky with the one-two-three punch of US and UK, with their Kill List, you have to imagine that in the USA and Canada and UK and EU and Europe, all brains have been thrown out the window, or the voice of reason has gone where?

Read Caitlin: “Most Propaganda Looks Nothing Like This”

Propaganda is administered in western nations, by western nations, across the political spectrum — and the really blatant and well-known examples of its existence make up only a small sliver of the propaganda that our civilization is continuously marinating in.

The most common articles of propaganda — and by far the most consequential — are not the glaring, memorable instances that live in infamy among the critically minded. They’re the mundane messages, distortions and lies-by-omission that people are fed day in and day out to normalize the status quo and lay the foundation for more propaganda to be administered in the future.

[…]

One of the forms this takes is the way the western political/media class manipulates the Overton window of acceptable political opinion.

It’s propaganda in multiple ways: it excludes voices that are critical of the established status quo from being heard and influencing people, it amplifies voices (many of whom have packing foam for brains) which support the status quo, and, most importantly, it creates the illusion that the range of political opinions presented are the only reasonable political opinions to have.

Then there’s the ideological herding funnel we discussed recently, which herds the population into two mainstream factions of equal size which both prevent all meaningful change and serve the interests of the powerful.

Maybe the most consequential of all the mundane, routine ways we’re propagandized is the way the mass media manufacture the illusion of normality in a dystopia so disturbing that we would all scream our lungs out if we could see it with fresh eyes.

Another of the mundane, almost-invisible ways the public is propagandized from day to day is described in a recent video by Second Thought titled “You’re Not Immune To Propaganda“. We’re continually fed messages by the capitalist machine that we must work hard for employers and accept whatever standards and compensation they see fit to offer, and if we have difficulty thriving in this unjust system the fault lies with us and not with the system. Poor? That’s your fault. Miserable? Your fault. Unemployed? Your fault. Overworked? Your fault.

Another related method of manipulation is agenda-setting — the way the press shapes public thinking by emphasising some subjects and not others. In placing importance on some matters over others simply by giving disproportionate coverage to them, the mass media (who are propagandists first and news reporters second) give the false impression that those topics are more important and the de-emphasised subjects are less so.

But then, this is another form — of propaganda . . . denial, and denigration and plain ignoring alternative views, even those that are consistent and repeated:

But it’s the 74th Anniversary of an illegitimate state, apartheid and ethnic cleansing one albet>  This is how ZioAzovLensky rolls, and even the corrupt CIA-controlled Wikipedia has some facts here on the murderous Jews, Zelenksy’s mother ship, historical grounding, who called themselves Zionists, but I know very few Jews who are not ZIONISTS, overtly or covertly:

A successful paramilitary campaign was carried out by Zionist underground groups against British rule in Mandatory Palestine from 1944 to 1948. The tensions between the Zionist underground and the British mandatory authorities rose from 1938 and intensified with the publication of the White Paper of 1939. The Paper outlined new government policies to place further restrictions on Jewish immigration and land purchases, and declared the intention of giving independence to Palestine, with an Arab majority, within ten years. Though World War II brought relative calm, tensions again escalated into an armed struggle towards the end of the war, when it became clear that the Axis powers were close to defeat.

The Haganah, the largest of the Jewish underground militias, which was under the control of the officially recognised Jewish leadership of Palestine, remained cooperative with the British. But in 1944 the Irgun, an offshoot of the Haganah, launched a rebellion against British rule, thus joining Lehi, which had been active against the authorities throughout the war. Both were small, dissident militias of the right-wing Revisionist movement. They attacked police and government targets in response to British immigration restrictions. They intentionally avoided military targets, to ensure that they would not hamper the British war effort against their common enemy, Nazi Germany.

The armed conflict escalated during the final phase of World War II, when the Irgun declared a revolt in February 1944, ending the hiatus in operations it had begun in 1940. Starting from the assassination of Baron Moyne by Lehi in 1944, the Haganah actively opposed the Irgun and Lehi, in a period of inter-Jewish fighting known as the Hunting Season, effectively halting the insurrection. However, in autumn 1945, following the end of World War II in both Europe (April–May 1945) and Asia (September, 1945), when it became clear that the British would not permit significant Jewish immigration and had no intention of immediately establishing a Jewish state, the Haganah began a period of co-operation with the other two underground organisations. They jointly formed the Jewish Resistance Movement.

The Haganah refrained from direct confrontation with British forces, and concentrated its efforts on attacking British immigration control, while Irgun and Lehi attacked military and police targets.^[6] The Resistance Movement dissolved amidst recriminations in July 1946, following the King David Hotel bombing. The Irgun and Lehi started acting independently, while the main underground militia, Haganah, continued acting mainly in supporting Jewish immigration. The Haganah again briefly worked to suppress Irgun and Lehi operations, due to the presence of a United Nations investigative committee in Palestine. After the UN Partition Plan resolution was passed on 29 November 1947, the civil war between Palestinian Jews and Arabs eclipsed the previous tensions of both with the British. However, British and Zionist forces continued to clash throughout the period of the civil war up to the termination of the British Mandate for Palestine and the Israeli Declaration of Independence on 14 May 1948.

Within the United Kingdom there were deep divisions over Palestine policy. Dozens of British soldiers, Jewish militants, and civilians died during the campaigns of insurgency. The conflict led to heightened antisemitism in the United Kingdom. In August 1947, after the hanging of two abducted British sergeants, there was widespread anti-Jewish rioting across the United Kingdom. The conflict caused tensions in the United Kingdom–United States relations.

Putin and Russians and those of us who actually want Russia to have a safe border, peace, and zero NATO interference, see Zelensky and his Jewish Lords — Kagan Familias, Nuland, Blinken, Yellen, Sherman, Garland, and hundreds of others in the Biden White House and thousands of others in the Military Industrial Expanded (finance, computing, surveillence) Complex and millions more in the world of turning a dollar on death — as the ENEMY. Murderous, conniving, hateful, slick enemies numero uno, those espousing war with China and war with Russia.

I know Dissident Voice is reluctant to publish voices that might lean toward a Pepe Escobar critique of the Israel Hell unleashed on the world. I get it. But, the fact is violence and terror, those are right up Zelensky’s alley, and this war that UK and USA and Five Eyes and EU have unleashed will not end soon, because Ukraine in the minds of many is Israel 2.0. An added “benefit” for these monsters: Expect those weapons that USA taxpayer footed the bill for to bring down some commercial airlines in a neighborhood near-by soon.

 

We are a soiled Western Culture, and we have seeded the rest of the world with our feces — high tech, low tech, money, land theft, pollution, exploitation, consumerism, throw-away mentality, sanctions, blood lust, coups, supporting despots, money laundering and gold theft and assets removal. Loans from Hell, and alas, here we are, in a putrid world, a day before the big Monday Holiday, Memorial Day, and we are straddled by syphilitic monsters running the world and our own populous generally marked for death, marked as marks, these, the billionaires, the fleecers and many left and right, Jewish or not, they are Zionists and Israel-Firsters who have sold us down the Ukrainian toilet.

Israeli newspapers point out the victories?

 

 

These are THEIR graphics, and by me point these out, I am deplatformed, stopped from teaching, pushed to the excrement posts of publishing my books anywhere

But leave it to the Paranoid Former Nazis and the disgusting ADL and AIPAC and Mossad loving Israelis to attack us all attacking them:

Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters says Berlin gig controversy a ‘smear’

“The depiction of an unhinged fascist demagogue has been a feature of my shows since Pink Floyd’s ‘The Wall’ in 1980,” Roger Waters said.

“I have spent my entire life speaking out against authoritarianism and oppression where I set it… My parents fought the Nazis in World War II, with my father paying the ultimate price,” he said.

“Regardless of the consequences of the attacks against me, I will continue to condemn injustice and all those who perpetrate it.”

Waters is a well-known pro-Palestinian activist who has been accused of holding anti-Jewish views. He has floated an inflatable pig emblazoned with the Star of David at his concerts. The singer denies the anti-Semitism accusations, saying he was protesting against Israeli policies, not Jewish people.

Ah, those old days, which now would be both considered hate speech and also ground down by the ugly media and the uglier mainstream fools in college, in towns, every where.

Yep, it is a piece of shit piece of cloth for many, representing so so much death, murder, hate, and racism. Cloth, man, and alas, a symbol, for those who cry crocodile tears when they hear the National Anthem, and then for others, it is the greed and murder and Empire of Chaos-Lies-Terror in every red and white strip, every star and bar:

 

This stuff is not allowed on campuses, and not just Guantanamo Desantis’s Florida.

 

This is not anti-DIsney, but it is the Dsneyification of the world, and this is the outcome: bones, immolation, worldwide.

Old school, but you can’t get college students to analyze this without being charged with a Virginia Tech Situation — call SWAT.

I doubt you can loosely call for the execution of Corporations, CEOs, what have you. Again, Virginia Tech Situation — call SWAT on Haeder.

Ahh, if we are the biggest war profiteers, then we’ll be letting China take first place. Yep, that’s the modern college student’s response.

Ahh, I have been warned that telling my students that I was rapped on the head by cops, in Portland, El Paso, Seattle, and elsewhere, and that protest is dangerous but necessary, and that I would dare use the ACAB as an opening to discuss that Defund the Police Movement — who, what, where, when and WHY — as well as my own work as a police reporter and what I think of cops/pigs, all verbotten! Call SWAT on Haeder.

Hell, you can look this one up in Wikipedia. And babies? 

Read the transcript: with the reason the poster was made, the soldier who was in the massacre!

Oh, no, trigger warnings, vicarious PTSD, verboten.

Partial transcriptof the Mike Wallace interview with Paul Meadlo in which Meadlo describes his participation in the My Lai massacre:

Q. So you fired something like sixty-seven shots?

A. Right.

Q. And you killed how many? At that time?

A. Well, I fired them automatic, so you can’t – You just spray the area on them and so you can’t know how many you killed ‘cause they were going fast. So I might have killed ten or fifteen of them.

Q. Men, women, and children?

A. Men, women, and children.

Q. And babies?

A. And babies.

Ahh, loyalty oaths in how many state legislatures on never saying a bad word about Israel, and no push for boycotting Israeli goods, that’s the power of Jewish Extremism in the USA: But not enough, not enough BDS around the world.  17 BDS resolutions considered and 11 passed at US colleges last year, per ADL report

It is a well-oiled, well-placed, complex, 3-D kind of chess machine, and it is pure killer, pure killer, and most campuses utilized Army, Air Force, Navy, Coast Guard, Marines, DoD, BOrder Patrol, CIA, FBI, ATF, MONEY. Some of the nation’s most elite universities are deep into defense lobbying, often hiring Washington-based firms to press Congress and the Pentagon to fund their science projects.

Asked whether students or professors ever have ethical objections to working on projects funded by the Defense Department, Zuber said that “no professor has to take money from DoD.”

“We’re a bottom-up organization,” she said. “Professors make those choices.”

She also said that “if there are students who have a feeling that they don’t want to work on defense-related issues, they certainly don’t have to.” But, she added, “a whole lot seem to want to.”

Like MIT, the Association of American Universities, an alliance of 62 of the leading research institutions in the United States and Canada, advocates defense research funding.

 

[Photo: Universities chase defense dollars]

 

The end result is that BABIES, kids, NEWBORNES, women, SENIOR citizens, disabled, PATIENTS in hospitals, youth on PLAYGROUNDS, are mudered, and killed, and imploded, so, then, BABY Killers is just a limited sigh — wedding parties, goat herders, and entire families at gravesites, murdered by universities, colleges, think tanks, corporations, marketing firms, law firms, retail services in the EMPLOY of the USA.

This sign? These youth? Their message? Their no war and stop the escalation and disarmament now, ahh, then, of couse, it’s triple bad, since they are free thinkers and align with New York Young Communist League.

Hood Communist?

 

 

So many more organizations working on it, working on it — no more NATO, no more Arms.

Back to the Jewish thing in Ukraine: And, well, and, who writes the narrative of Ukraine, of Zelensky, of the Jewish Apartheid State supporting the Nazis under Zelensky?

There is no way in hell you will read this story, objectively, anywhere:

The Jews are the ones behind the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and their goal is to create a new Jewish state to replace the failing Zionist project of Israel, Palestinian Islamic scholar Mraweh Nassar has claimed, as reported by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).

Nassar, whom MEMRI identified as the secretary-general of the Jerusalem Committee of the International Union of Muslims Scholars, made his claims on March 22 while speaking with Channel 9, an Arabic-language TV station in Turkey that the media watchdog says is affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood.

 

Now now, Dan Shapiro (New Atlanticist, err, Atlantic Council) wrote this one, and again, it’s the NARRATIVE and the MEDIUM is the MESSAGE driver, and then who gets to tell the stories and how the algorithms benefit the propagandists, shit dog, need we look further?.

Speaking to reporters this week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy described the future he sees for his country in unusual terms: as “a big Israel.”

Gone, he said, are hopes for “an absolutely liberal” state—replaced by the likely reality of armed defense forces patrolling movie theaters and supermarkets. “I’m confident that our security will be the number-one issue over the next ten years,” Zelenskyy added.

With Russian forces having withdrawn from around Kyiv, suggesting that Ukraine successfully repulsed the first phase of the Kremlin’s invasion, the time is right for Zelenskyy to contemplate how to prepare for the next—and potentially much longer—phase of this conflict.

But what does he mean by “a big Israel”? With a population more than four times smaller, and vastly less territory, the Jewish state might not seem like the most fitting comparison. Yet consider the regional security threats it faces, as well as its highly mobilized population: The two embattled countries share more than you might think.

So if Zelenskyy really does have Israel in mind as a model for Ukraine, here are some of the key features he might consider for adoption (some of which are already applicable today):

• Security first: Every Israeli government promises, first and foremost, that it will deliver security—and knows it will be judged on this pledge. Ordinary citizens, not just politicians, pay close attention to security threats—both from across borders and from internal sources— and much of the public chooses who to elect by that metric alone.

• The whole population plays a role: The Israeli model goes further than Zelenskyy’s vision of security services deployed to civilian spaces: Most young Israeli adults serve in the military, and many are employed in security-related professions following their service. A common purpose unites the citizenry, making them ready to endure shared sacrific

I ask, “Will one vapid bought-and-brainwashed media person get on with some rejiggering their knowledge:

Here, over at Dissident Voice: “Journey to St. Petersburg, Moscow, and Crimea” by Dan Kovalik and Rick Sterling / May 25th, 2023

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Paul Haeder.

“Taliban officials must immediately reverse their decision to suspend the broadcast licenses of 14 active media outlets in Nangarhar province that collectively reach millions of people,” said Beh Lih Yi, CPJ Asia program coordinator. “The Taliban continues to exert pressure on media outlets to control their programming and broadcasting operations in Afghanistan. They must cease these tactics and allow the independent media to operate freely.”

The order also stipulated that the outlets must renew their licenses and pay any outstanding fees or risk having all the outlet’s licenses revoked, according to CPJ’s review of the order, the exiled Afghanistan Journalists Center watchdog group, and a journalist who spoke to CPJ on the condition of anonymity. 

ATRA is a regulatory body that operates as part of the Taliban’s Ministry of Communications and Information Technology.

Outlets with suspended radio and TV licenses: 

• Hamisha Bahar Radio and TV
• Sharq 
• Arzasht 

Radio networks affected: 

• The Nan
• Radio Safa
• Meena 
• Radio Dost
• Mazal
• Manar
• Muram
• Haqiqat 
• Hood 
• Spinghar
• Ulfat

CPJ’s text messages to Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid for comment did not receive a reply.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

Orientation

Examples of Superstitious Behavior

Stuart Vyse is a psychologist and the author of one of the books I’ll be referencing called Believing in Magic: The Psychology of Superstition. In that book he used his students as guinea pigs for his research on superstition. Before taking one of his exams Vyse found the following superstitions for good outcomes among his student. These included if they:

• Used a lucky pen, piece of jewelry or clothing – 62%
• Wore sloppy clothes – 28%
• Dressed up – 33%
• Touched a lucky object – 36%
• Sat in a particular seat – 54%
• Listened to special music or particular song – 38%
• Eaten a particular food – 26%
• Avoided particular person, place and action – 23%
• Performed a lucky action or sequence of actions – 31%
• Wore a particular kind of perfume – 13%

Given that Stuart teaches courses on statistics, these students need all the help they can muster!

The scope of superstition

Gustav Jahoda proposed four categories of superstition that provide a valuable framework in our search to understand superstition:.

1. as part of a cosmology or coherent world-view such as the magic of tribal societies;
2. as experiences with the paranormal such as ESP, communicating with the dead, ghosts and haunted houses;
3. as socially shared superstitions such as black cats that can bring bad luck. Not walking under a ladder or not doing anything significant on Friday the 13^th and;
4. as personal superstitions that include lucky shirts, hats, and numbers.

We will be mostly concerned with the third and fourth categories in this article.

What is superstition?

Superstitious behavior and thoughts are most likely to emerges under three conditions:

• when there is significant uncertainty which promotes fear;
• the reward in very important; and
• the cost of the superstition is minimal.

Yet not all superstition is based on fear. For example, gambling, driving fast, skydiving and taking drugs are all instances in which people choose uncertainty for the high that is brought.

Science divides the natural world into three dimensions: the physical world of material objects, the biological world of life and the psychological world of human intentions. These are all distinct from each other. What religion, the paranormal and the superstitious all have in common is the fusion of inanimate, animate and psychological. What this means is the belief that rocks can come alive or that caterpillars can have intentions. In addition, minds can communicate with minds, unmediated by brains and bodies. Superstitions are beliefs and behaviors which defy natural law (fusing ontological categories) while making a supposed invisible connection between natural events. Its purpose is to:

• either quell uncertainty;
• bring good luck; and
• create a temporary high (sensation-seeking).

Sir James Frazer’s principle of superstition as it relates to magic is more precise in what this hidden order is like. Frazer described two important principles of sympathetic magic:

• Homeopathy magic is based on the law of similarity, that like produces like. In voodoo, a burning an effigy will weaken the person burned in effigy.
• Law of contagion – where there is a lasting connection between things that were once in contact.

Superstitious judgmental biases

Control, or the illusion of it, is very important in superstition. For example, gambling participants think they have a better chance of winning if they roll the dice and if they choose the number. In superstitious thinking illusionary correlations play an important role in the maintenance of many superstitions. For example, too much attention is paid to times when:

• the superstition was tried and the outcome worked or;
• when the superstition was not tried and the outcome failed.

It is ignored in times when:

• the superstition was not tried and the outcome succeeded; or
• when the superstition was tried but the outcome failed.

Further, the number one reason people given to believe in the superstition is from personal experience. But these same people do not understand the inherent weaknesses in how people interpret events. For example, scientific research shows we underestimate the likelihood of how often weird stuff happens. They are more common than we think.  The second bias is to overestimate the likelihood of events that are rare, like being killed in a plane crash. If you go to a different party each week with at least 23 people each, on average two people will have the same birthday half the time. We are not equipped to think about likelihood very accurately because the science of probability is only about 300 years old. It’s too recent to be part of our evolutionary heritage. Instead, we interpret these coincidences as if something supernatural were involved.

Questions about the relationship between religion, superstition, the paranormal and psychopathology

Is it possible to be religious and not superstitious? Is it possible to be an atheist and still be superstitious? Can you believe in paranormal (ESP, telepathy) and not be superstitious? Can you be superstitious and not believe in the paranormal? Are all irrationalities superstitious? The answer is no. Some irrationalities are not always superstitious, such as murder or schizophrenia. Further, some superstitions, given the level of intensity, the dangers involved and the unpredictability of the outcome might make superstitions a rational strategy! Is there any relationship between the kind of work you do and superstition? How much of superstition is governed by age? Are there certain ages in children when they are more superstitious than others? Is there a superstitious personality?  Are superstitions people abnormal? Are superstitions indicative of a psychological disorder? Should we be concerned about our mental health if we are superstitious?

Where we are headed

This article is divided into two parts. In Part I, I start with a socio-culture of superstition. I identify the social demographics of groups most likely to be superstitious, including their occupations. Further, I identify how superstitious behaviors are learned, focusing on associative (Pavlov) and operant conditioning (Skinner). We discuss attachment to places and to objects and the reasons for these attachments. I close part I by showing why it is easier for people to believe in creationism rather than evolution.

After summarizing part one of this article, the heart of Part II is to discuss how the mind develops in children. We examine children’s superstitious thinking in the light of recent criticisms of Piaget.  We talk about how some of Piaget’s findings have been replaced by psychological essentialism.  Next, I show how our social theory of mind invites superstitious thinking. Our ability to form social relationships leads to speculation about meanings and intentions which leads to superstitious mind-reading. Towards the end of Part II of this 2-piece article, it may seem like a no-brainer to announce that superstitious behavior is irrational. However, there are some extreme conditions in which thinking superstitiously is rational. Further, I ask whether superstitious thinking is pathological.  Whether superstitious thinking is irrational or pathological, I’d like to know if it is dangerous. As I pointed out in an earlier article, superstition is the product of an ancient mind. Experiencing the world in a non-superstitious way is a product of the reflective mind and only gathers force in the scientific revolution of the 17th century.

My claim

My claim in this article is that superstitious thinking and behaving is built into the mind by our biological inheritance and we cannot get rid of it completely. While more modern societies can minimize its impact through science and its institutions, there are limits in how far it can go. For this article I will be referring to two books. The first in Believing in Magic by Stuart Vyse and the second is by Bruce Hood, The Science of Superstition.

Qualifications

This article is about the origins of supernatural beliefs, why they are so common and why they are be so hard to get rid of. This piece is not about ghosts and ghouls or anything paranormal. Rather it is about the supernatural thinking and behavior in everyday activity. Lastly, this article is about the science behind our superstitions not whether these beliefs and behaviors are or are not true.

The Sociology of Superstition

Culture is a necessary but not sufficient condition for superstition

Superstition depends partly on the proportion of social life that is secular and how much is sacred. Of course, in tribal societies where there is little secular culture developed, parents will pass on cultural superstitious traditions. However, in his book The Science of Superstition Bruce Hood points out that children, even when raised in a strong secular culture such as Russia (when it was the Soviet Union) or the Scandinavian countries, children are still superstitious. Even atheists are still vulnerable to good luck charms, knocking on wood and crossing fingers no matter how much of a rationalist they may be.

How are work and leisure related to superstition?

Which social groups are superstitious considering demographics of occupation, gender, age, and education? Traditionally superstitious occupational groups include sports figures, gamblers, sailors, soldiers, miners, financial investors and college students.

Professional athletes and actors are the most famous superstitious people and there is more to superstition in team sports than individual sports like track. In baseball, the most capricious parts of the game are batting and pitching and are the most suspectable to superstition. Female athletes think that dressing well is especially important to success.

Some gamblers certainly have rules like these: the number of rolls is connected with the velocity of the throw; a soft touch brings low numbers and; a hard throw brings a high one. If you want to talk to the dice, slow the pace down. Some superstitions are aimed at maintenance of successful hot streak; other superstitions are designed to break a batting slump with a hit.

Demographics

Gender studies show that women are more superstitious and have a greater belief in the paranormal than do men. I think this has to do with women having less control over their lives and needing some method of making their world seem more predictable. Vyse tells us that in childhood and early adolescence boys and girls do not differ in their locus of control. In college however, women begin to show a greater external locus of control then men. People in the soft sciences are more likely to be superstitious than people in the hard sciences. The later probably use the scientific method as part of their work more frequently.

People with an external locus of control are more superstitious. If a person feels their life is unpredictable, they are going to be drawn to superstitious techniques for making them more predictable. This means working class people are more likely to be susceptible than upper middle-class people. Hypnotic suggestibility studies found that those who were higher in suggestibility were more likely to have psychic experience, such as seeing angels or extraterrestrials. In terms of the big five of personality theory, superstitious behavior is connected to higher levels of neuroticism, depression, anxiety, low self-esteem and low ego strength. They have difficulty responding constructively to stressful or challenging events. People with low ambiguity tolerance and living in high stress area are especially superstitious.

How is Superstition Acquired?

Association and conditioning

As Ford says, we are not born knocking on wood. Superstition is acquired. We become followers of astrology. How it is acquired depends on events coming together in time, place and with people, something psychologists call “contiguity”. Pavlov developed seven laws of association. Associations are events that happen right before the stimulus and the behavior and are for the most part unconscious. The first law of association is temporal continuity of association. In a weak association more time will pass between the association and the stimulus. A stronger linkage between association and stimulus occurs if association happens right before the behavior. The second law is the intensity of the association. A weak association goes with drab colors, monotone sounds or neutral smells. Strong intensity is associated more with vivid sights, sounds and smells. The third law is the frequency of the association. The more frequent and consistent the association the more likely the behavior will be repeated. The more infrequent or erratic the association the less chance the behavior will have of continuing. This is one reason why therapists like to insist that their meetings be on the same day of the week, hopefully at the same time and in the same place.

The fourth law of association is the resemblance between the association and the behavior. The closer the resemblance association is the greater the chance the association will be linked to the stimulus. So if you are trying to build a habit of going running it’s not a good idea to play Brahma Lullaby right before getting out of bed to run. Speedy music is best for speedy activities. The fifth law of association is the sequencing between association and stimulus. It is always best to create an association right before the behavior, not right after it. The sixth association has to do with duration. Associations which last a long time right before the behavior will create a deeper impression than if the duration is too fast. Lastly, we have the quality of the association itself. If the association is very enjoyable that will make it more likely to be repeated. If it is enjoyable in itself, it is more likely to make the connection with the behavior intrinsic.

What is the connection between these laws and superstition? After all, Pavlov was a scientist. The most significant thing is that these associations are made unconsciously by people who haven’t a clue about Pavlov’s laws. That means the associations are operating behind the person’s back. The success between the association and behavior is interpreted superstitiously, as some kind of occult connection when there is really a scientific explanation.

Consequential conditioning

The same process of unconscious assimilation happens right after the behavior with the consequences. BF Skinner argued that a consequence that follows the behavior can either strengthen the behavior or weaken it. A consequence that increases the behavior is a reinforcement. The consequence that weakens the behavior is called a punishment. Skinner further divided reinforcers into positive and negative. Conversely, he divided punishment into positive and negative. Again, people’s behavior is not consciously connected to consequences so successes and failures seem to happen in a haphazard way. The successes and failures seem to come out of nowhere and so there is a search for some hidden set of rules that explains them. Hence, we have superstitious beliefs and behaviors. The development of pathological obsessions, compulsions and phobias can all be explained by both associational and consequential conditions. Magical and religious rituals can be similarly explained.

When Does a Routine Become a Superstition?

People like to have routines to ground their lives in things they can control. So, if every morning I turn on the lights, start my computer, wash up, put my clothes on, go into the kitchen and start to have breakfast there is comfort in knowing I do everything in the same order. Then I might read my email, have breakfast and go for my walk. So practically, if I went for my walk before I looked at my email and then had my breakfast and then checked my email it really is not that important. This routine would become superstitious when the order became compulsive. I might feel that the rest of my day would be ruined if I did things out of order. I might feel instead of the routine being mindful, it became mindless, like muttering hymns in church as a little kid with no understanding of what the words meant. However, I did it because God would punish me if I didn’t.

Attachment to Places

In his book The Science of Superstition, Bruce Hood points out that houses associated with notorious murders are difficult to resell. Could you buy or even rent a house where a murder was once committed? Are you a person who would cross the street to avoid standing on the same spot where the evil took place?  Why would mature adults will pay good money for personal items that once belonged to famous people? Why do fans go crazy when they get to physically touch their sports heroes or rock stars?

There are principles of superstition that underlie these reservations. We intuitively feel that the integrity of something good can be more easily spoiled by contact with something bad rather than the reverse. Why do we treat evil as contagious more so than good? Why do we refuse to touch evil items? Bruce Hood quotes Rozin saying  that adults endorse each of these reasons to varying degrees because:

• we do not want to be seen undertaking an action that the majority of people would avoid;
• an item associated with a killer is negative and wearing it produces associations with the act of killing;
• it is imagined there is a physical contamination of the clothing; and
• we believe there is a spiritual contamination of the clothing.

Attachment to Objects

In an old store author Bruce Hood visited, the objects were so evocative that if he closed his eyes he could smell decades pass him by. The shop had a wonderful aroma of the past, laced with tobacco. Objects are a tangible, physical link with the past that can instantly transport us back to earlier days. Objects define who we think we are. We treat objects as an extension of ourselves. We think some invisible property in them makes them what they are. Old chairs seem to know something about the past. How far can this be carried? When will it turn into a superstition?

What is a fetish? A fetish is a belief that an object has supernatural powers. They are attributing to physical objects invisible properties. Certainly, furniture has a history in its faded fabric and scratched legs. They remind us of events or people, but many people go further. They claim that the objects are haunted by dead relatives.

Evolutionary Mind Structure

What humans do most naturally and spontaneously at the most basic level is to look for patterns. We imagine hidden faces and causes as part of watching for patterns. Further we see things in wholes, not parts. Gestalt psychologists have shown that the mind fills in the missing edges of shapes that in real life are only partly formed. The completed shapes do not really exist. Our brains have created something out of nothing because the completed shapes are generalizations about shapes that help us to survive. In part we see faces in the clouds or on Mars because we are not used to working with coincidence and the possibility that things happen randomly and by chance. If you are like most people, if Vyse asked you to generate a random series of numbers, you might happily announce you could do it. In coin flips, you are much more likely to alternate fourteen flips with either heads or tails.  But chance is just as likely to generate streaksof heads or streaks of tales. Because our minds are designed to see the world as organized we often detect pattern that are not really present. Because what causes events in the world is something we cannot witness since they happen in scales of time and space that are too large for us, our minds have evolved to infer the existence cause of things we can’t see. This is because any cause, even sinister ones, is better than being ruled by chance.

Humans’ Lack of Imagination About Slow Creativity

Darwin’s theory of natural selection is hard to understand because it operates at time scales well beyond the lifetime of an individual. This makes it difficult for people to accept. When we see the diversity of life forms in our day it is hard to believe that such complexity could arrive spontaneously with no designer over long periods of time. As individuals with relatively short life-spans, we don’t have the experience of immense passages of time and so we cannot observe evolution at work. Furthermore, we are not naturally inclined to imagine a theory that is non-purposive and non -directive. This is because so many of our actions are driven by plans and purposes. We can’t imagine nature without it.

Why is it so hard for people to become scientific in their thinking? Science is full of ideas that seem bizarre simply because:

1. a) we are not used to them and
2. b) they are hard to wrap our heads around and require specialized knowledge like a class in scientific methodology and statistics. It is easier to imagine ghosts than a light wave made of up photons

On the other hand, monotheistic intuitions for creationism include:

• the world is governed by non-random events or patterns in the world;
• events are caused by intention;
• complexity cannot happen spontaneously but must be a product of someone’s plan to design things for a purpose; and
• All living things are fundamentally different because of some invisible property inside them (essences)

No wonder monotheistic religion continues to be  adhered to in spite of Darwinian evolution!

The Roots of Mind-Body Dualism

Epistemologically, the mind seems to have no real direct connection in the physical world. That is why some consider mind-body dualism irrefutable evidence for why there must be supernatural powers operating in the world. Hood cautions us that once we commit to the independent existence of mind and body, there is no limit to what the mind can do. If the mind is separate from the body it is not constrained by the same laws that govern the physical world.

Coming Attractions of Part II

As a result of his research among children and adolescents, Piaget developed a cogent and elaborate system for understanding child development. He certainly explained superstition well. But recently many of his findings have to be adjusted as a result of collaborations between psychologists and stage magicians. Current research in child development tells us that much of superstition results from the fusion of the physical, biological and psychological worlds. Piaget would haves certainly agreed with this, using  his own terminology. However, thanks to the work of Susan Gelman, we learn that children are psychological essentialists. In part II we will find out what that means, not only for children but also for adults.

The human mind is lost in the world of other people long before the mind becomes self-reflective.  A child learns very soon that other human beings have minds which have intentions and give meaning which is different from the child. The mind of the adult has intentions which are hidden from them. But in order to become mind-readers, children must face up to the fact that minds appear to be separate from bodies. How might this be related to the emergence of superstition? Ghosts are often associated with the superstitions but what evolutionary adaptative function might ghosts serve?

Which psychopathology is most consistently connected with superstition: paranoia, neurosis or schizophrenia? Is superstitious thinking and behavior the cause or the consequence of psychopathology?

What are the conditions under which superstitious thoughts or behavior are rational? What does how much uncertainty there is in a situation and what are the stakes have to do with rationality? How much does the amount of time and the cost in time and energy play a factor? How  does knowledge of science, problem-solving skills and decision-making capacities connect to being rational yet still being superstitious?

It is a common stereotype to say that tribal people are more superstitious than people who live in industrial capitalist or socialist societies. Putting aside the imperialistic and monotheistic use these claims can be put to, this claim is true for bioevolutionary reasons. Comparing the ancestral mind to the deliberative mind pulls together most, if not all the facets of superstitious thinking and behavior in this article.

This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Bruce Lerro.