In every culture superstitions are always present. As a citizen from a distorted community I never felt that I was enveloped with several superstitions. From my original hometown, superstitions were described as a blunt or shall we say normal stories that will never happen. In my current location right now almost everywhere superstitions are embedded in the person’s face. We may simply say that I am the kind of person who does not believe in certain foolishness. Thus, pseudoscience will never be realistic in my case.
As for these cultural superstitions there are things that I would never believe on; especially the Filipino adaptability of the Feng Shui, certain cultural beliefs about protection, healing and many more. These unusual things will never affect me; since most of them view certain things like bad luck or bad omen. Thus, certain views towards an object without conducting correct reasoning would rather be identified as nonsense. Owls were not able to escape this fate, well; it was depressing since it added to their negative profiles. I do believe that owls were associated with death itself, but it does not simply mean that every time when you see an owl there are ill things that would happen. Irrational to be exact; our reasoning should always be based on the major facts that are happening around us. Thus, we are required to be curious enough in our surroundings and find out what is the information that is reliable to be understood.
I found this article entitled “Owls and Superstitions” by Rose Smith from owls. From the article itself, it simply conveys that owls somehow are linked to superstitions. They may be nocturnal in behavior, but that does not simply man that they should also be associated with superstitious beliefs. It is too late to realize that these birds were also victims towards pseudoscience. The text said that these birds are commonly associated to witches. There is also a belief that the owl’s eyes can make a person’s vision to sharpen just by eating the eyeballs or simply cooking the bird’s eggs until it becomes into ashes then drink it with water. Well, it is superior to have improved eyesight. Greeks and Romans also have the same belief about the owl’s association of witches, but the weird thing is that these sorcerers will transform into an owl and fly around and search for babies for blood sucking.
The article mostly describes owls as death. One entry from it was about the death of a child’s happiness. It is ironic to say that after hearing the hoot of the bird while pregnant would result to an unhappy ending to a child. Others stated that these birds are indicators of ghosts around us. The oddest thing that I would believe is the entry about the owl’s observation when a person passes by its tree. This is commonly seen in movies; where the owl will look at you and it follows you by turning its head around until it snaps. Most of these superstitions are simply inclined to the negative side of the owl, but there are also good thing about it like these birds are believed to bring good fortune.
I was never inclined to pseudoscience in the first place, but there are things that are meant to be learned by people. Well, relating superstitions to owls are somehow irrelevant, since they are not superstitions in the first place. They are rather described as cultural beliefs and practices. Well, in the first place; the association with the witch is simply a belief.
I made further research about superstitions in terms of psychology, so I found one entitled “A Psychological Profile on Superstition: The Practice of Irrational Beliefs, Part 2” by R. R. Stark from ezinearticles. The article stated that superstitions already existed during the times of the medieval ages. Certain beliefs like the Earth as the center of the Universe; is somehow categorized as a heretic’s ideas, but somehow it turned out that it is true.
“…we seem to hang on to our old superstitions as if they were a set of religious dogmas all their own.”
I find the statement true, relatively; the superstitions that were encased to the owl were somehow ineffective today. Since science itself already existed in a vigorous manner. Thus, that simply entails that pseudoscience will now be exposed as a false claim by the different cultures. First of all why on earth a bird would have the rationality to associate with sorcerers; wherein sorcerers were simply defined as fictional. The fact of practicing the so called “black magic” is also a product of mental disorders of a person. Thus, the belief of having the owl as an associate of the witch is simply a blunt. Never the less, those cultural practices of believing should tolerate the truth by the terms of nature. At some point the author stated that superstitions are represented as an error to a person’s brain. TRUE! I do agree that having superstitions are errors to a rational life. Why errors? Well, having these kinds of beliefs relatively generated barriers to our freedom. Especially towards curiosity, if we are not curious enough it simply entails that we are suppressed by a certain belief. To be general, these beliefs are the superstitions of a particular culture.
At some point the article mentioned that superstitions are also stupid. Here we can insert the relevancy of my topic about owls. How irrelevant it is to identify them as witches, since they are just birds. See? Without researching a particular topic; that ends up with a major disappointment and results to depression or sometimes it drives a person to discover more things that he or she is ignorant of. The irrelevancy of cultural superstitions is far greater than, compared to the owl’s symbolic image as wisdom.
How on earth people were able to generate their own superstitious belief? The answer is simple; it just came from their irrational thinking about the bird’s facial and behavioral features. Since it is nocturnal by nature and simply describes their eyes as small light bulbs. I did mention that I do not believe in superstitions since it is irrelevant to the modern world. It is clearly identified from the article that the past will always remain as the past; while the future will continue to change.
To conclude, people are fun of making beliefs that would make their lives more meaningful and creative. The thing is that when we create or claim something that is unusual. We should be conscious about the things that we usually see around us, since pseudoscience will always be there. One tip of advice: research first before claiming your ideas.
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