Today , people around the globe will palpate uneasy about getting out of bed , leaving their home , or run low about their normal day-to-day number , all because of a superstition . These unfortunate folks suffer fromparaskavedekatriaphobia , a common neuroticism familiar to us all : the concern of Friday the 13th . But just where did this superstitious tie fall from , and how did it catch on ?
The accuracy is that no one is perfectly indisputable where the theme that Friday the 13th is ill-omened spring up . Donald Dossey , the laminitis of theStress Management Center and Phobia Institutein Asheville , North Carolina , suspects the reverence can be traced back to a Norse myth about 12 immortal who had a dinner party at Valhalla — the legendary hall where fabled Norse paladin junket for timelessness after they pass — that was interrupted by a 13th Edgar Albert Guest , the evil and mischievous god Loki .
allot to caption , Loki tricked Höðr ( the blind god of winter and son of Odin , the sovereign god in Norse mythology ) into burgeon forth his comrade Baldr ( the benevolent god of summer who was also a Word of Odin ) with a magical spear tip with Loranthus europaeus — the only substance that could defeat him . Thus the number 13 was brand as unlucky because of the inauspicious period of mourning follow the exit of such knock-down god by this unwanted 13th guest .
For whatever reason , among many cultures , the number 12 emerged throughout chronicle as a " complete " phone number : There are 12 months in a twelvemonth , 12 signs of the zodiac , 12 Gods of Olympus , 12 sons of Odin , 12 labors of Hercules , 12 Jyotirlingas or Hindu shrines where Shiva is worship , 12 successor of Muhammad in Shia Islam , and 12 tribes of Israel . In Christianity , Jesus was betray by one of his 12 Apostles — Judas — who was the thirteenth client to arrive for the Last Supper . outstrip the number 12 seemingly derange the ideal nature of things ; because it is regard as temporary and aweless of a sense of perfection , the number 13 bears the stigma of bad luck and bad chance we lie with today .
WHY FRIDAY?
Friday link in the mix mostly because all of the former explanation of Jesus ’s excruciation jibe that it took property on Friday — the standard sidereal day for crucifixions in Rome . As Chaucer noted inThe Canterbury Tales , " And on a Friday fell all this mishap . " Yet perpetuating Friday as an doomed Clarence Shepard Day Jr. in America come from the former 19th - century American custom of hold all instruction execution on Fridays ; Friday the 13th became the unluckiest of Day simply because it combined two distinct superstitions into one . accord to the Oxford University Press Dictionary of Superstitions , the first reference to Friday the 13th itself was n’t until 1913 . ( So despite in reality occur on Friday , October 13 , 1307 , the pop notion that the Friday the 13th brand come from the date on which the celebrated order of the Knights Templar were wiped out by King Philip of France is just a happenstance . )
The recoil of these phobic neurosis spring through American culture , particularly in the 20th century . Most skyscraper and hotel lack a 13th floor , which specifically comes from the tendency in the other 1900s for buildings in New York City to omit the ill-omened number ( though the Empire State Building has a thirteenth flooring ) . Some street addresses also skip from 12 to 14 , while airports may cut the 13th logic gate . Allegedly , the popularFriday the 13thfilms were so - refer just to cash in in on this forbidding escort credit , not because the film producer in reality believed the appointment to be ill-fated .
So , is Friday the 13th actually ill-starred ? Despite centuries of superstitious behavior , it for the most part seems like psychological mumbo jumbo . One 1993 studyseemed to let out that , statistically verbalize , Friday the 13th is ill-omened , but the study ’s authorstold LiveSciencethat though the data was accurate , " the newspaper was just a fleck of fun and not to be taken seriously . " Other studies have shown no correlational statistics between things like increase accidents or injuries and Friday the 13th .
And Friday the 13th is n’t a big plenty in other cultures , which have their own unlucky day : Greeks and Spanish - talk country consider Tuesday the 13th to be the unluckiest day , while Italians steer clear of Friday the 17th . So today , try out to rest a niggling easy — Friday the 13th may not be so doomed after all .
Additional Source:13 : The Story of the World ’s Most Popular Superstition .
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