Why are we suspicious of Friday 13th?
Whatever the reason, since time immemorial many have feared Fridays and thirteens. But why did the two fears come together to create a superstition with a life of its own, marked throughout the English-speaking world? Not for any mystical reasons, it seems. "From the astrological point of view there is no need to be concerned about Friday 13th," says Robert Currey of Equinox Astrology, BBC News reports. Dates and days of the week used to be closely related to planetary movements and phases of the moon in a system dating back to the Babylonians, he says, but that's not the case anymore. Sonia Ducie is a numerology consultant who believes strongly in the innate energy of numbers - 13 is "all to do with transformation and change" she says, and she counts Friday as the fifth day, associated with movement. "You can see how with those two numbers together, it could be very restless," she says, but adds: "It's down to us; the energy's neutral." Why did the combined superstition arise, then? In 1907 a book called Friday, the Thirteenth was published, by a stock promoter called Thomas Lawson. It was the inspiration for the Friday 13th mythology which culminated in the lurid film and TV franchises starting in the 1980s. Lawson's book is a dark fable of Wall Street whose central character ruthlessly engineers booms and busts in the market to work revenge on his enemies, leaving misery and ruin in his wake. In it he takes advantage of the jitters which the date Friday 13th could be relied on to produce in the market traders. Read more
