Superstitious Minds: All part of the ritual
Montrealers’ documentary illustrates the extent to which superstitions permeate our lives
October 29, 2013
Bill Brownstein
MONTREAL – They are referred to as illogical links. Superstitions, that is. They may not be rooted in science, but over the centuries they have obsessed learned people in science, as well as just about everyone else.
It’s no accident that Superstitious Minds airs Thursday — Halloween — at 9 p.m. on CBC’s Doc Zone. Wee ones and their elders might not be aware as they attempt to scare folks witless with their Darth Vader or Mike Duffy get-ups that, in some parts of the world, there is a superstition that the dead walk among the living on Halloween.
Montreal director Adrian Wills goes to great lengths in this intriguing doc to illustrate just how much superstitions have permeated our daily lives.
How else can anyone explain why 10 million rabbit feet, evidently a good-luck charm to some, are sold annually on this continent? Or why architects in the Western world construct buildings without a 13th floor? Or why Chinese architects consult feng shui experts and avoid a fourth floor when drafting their blueprints?
But while four may be an unlucky digit in China, the number eight apparently can bring great fortune. So much so that at an auction in Hong Kong, a licence plate bearing the number 1888 sold for more than $300,000 in an intense bidding session. And no accident, it seems, that the Beijing Olympic Games began on the eighth hour of the eighth day of the eighth month of the millennium’s eighth year: Aug. 8, 2008.
Read the full article: http://www.montrealgazette.com/technology/Superstitious+Minds+part+ritual/9097092/story.html