Concept
Superstition
Overview
A superstition is any belief or practice considered by non-practitioners to be irrational or supernatural. It is commonly applied to beliefs and practices surrounding luck, fate, magic, amulets, astrology, fortune telling, spirits, and certain paranormal entities, particularly the belief that future events can be foretold by specific unrelated prior events.
The word superstition is also used to refer to a religion not practiced by the majority of a given society regardless of whether the prevailing religion contains alleged superstitions or to all religions by the antireligious.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
In the original texts
Passages from public-domain books where Superstition is discussed.
Superstition is to religion what astrology is to astronomy, the foolish daughter of a wise mother. These two daughters, however, have for a long time governed this world with uncontrollable sway.
Voltaire, The Works of Voltaire, Vol. IV of XLIII. Romances, Vol. III of III, and A Treatise on Toleration.
a chapter is titled for it; states what it is; names the idea; author linked in the graph; opens on it
It was your business to correct and mitigate everything which was noxious in this passion, as in all the passions. But is superstition the greatest of all possible vices? In its possible excess I think it becomes a very great evil. It is, however, a moral subject; and of course admits of all degrees and all modifications.
Edmund Burke, Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke
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The causes of superstition are: pleasing and sensual rites and ceremonies; excess of outward and pharisaical holiness; overgreat reverence of traditions, which cannot but load the church; the stratagems of prelates, for their own ambition and lucre; the favoring too much of good intentions, which openeth the gate to conceits and novelties; the taking an aim at divine matters, by human, which cannot but breed mixture…
Francis Bacon, The Essays or Counsels, Civil and Moral
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Superstition, then, is engendered, preserved, and fostered by fear. If any one desire an example, let him take Alexander, who only began superstitiously to seek guidance from seers, when he first learned to fear fortune in the passes of Sysis (Curtius v. 4); whereas after he had conquered Darius he consulted prophets no more, till a second time frightened by reverses. When the Scythians were provoking a battle, the…
Benedictus de Spinoza, The Philosophy of Spinoza
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My _third_ observation on this head is, _that superstition is an enemy to civil liberty, and enthusiasm a friend to it._ As superstition groans under the dominion of priests, and enthusiasm is destructive of all ecclesiastical power, this sufficiently accounts for the present observation. Not to mention that enthusiasm, being the infirmity of bold and ambitious tempers, is naturally accompanied with a spirit of…
David Hume, Essays
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Philosophers who discussed Superstition
- Friedrich Nietzsche
- Mircea Eliade
- Lucian
- Voltaire
- Bertrand Russell
- R. G. Collingwood
- The Library of Babel
- Maarten Boudry
- Jason Josephson Storm
- Pierre Charron
- Inoue Enryō
- Al-Ma'arri
- Constantin François Chassebœuf, comte de Volney
Related ideas
- Encyclopédie
- Belief
- Spirit (animating force)
- Doctrine
- Polytheism
- Mandarin Chinese
- Catechism of the Catholic Church
- Geomancy
- Natural selection
- Astrology
- Actor
- Old Testament
- Oxford English Dictionary
- Performing arts
- Paganism
- Paul the Apostle
- Classical antiquity
- Merriam-Webster
- Ten Commandments
- Religion
- Roman Empire
- De rerum natura
- Sin
- Antireligion
Opposing perspectives
Place in the tradition
Part of Antireligion.