I have an interest in old fairy tales and folklore from around the world about supernatural creatures. Japanese folklore such as that gathered by Yanagita Kuino is especially rich and imaginative. And I don’t believe that anything supernatural or paranormal is real, not even a little bit.
But I think that there is something romantic (in the non-boinky sense) about thinking that the night contains things that go “bump”, and thus time of year especially am just a little jealous of those who go looking for ghosts, goblins, and such and actually believe they might find something instead of playing seasonal make-believe.
Occasionally, I briefly envy religious folks, because the notions that there’s a magic dude in the sky taking care of everything and that we’ll all go to a super great place forever after we die seem to give people comfort.
But believing in monsters and demons and such? Seems more crippling than anything.
It seems to me that being superstitious and believing in the supernatural are two different things. One could perfectly well believe that ghosts, fairies, etc. exist, while simultaneously believing that they don’t meddle in human “luck”, nor that “good luck” or “bad luck” tokens/omens/practices actually work. One can even be superstitious without believing in the supernatural, illogical though that may be: I doubt that any gamer actually believes in the existence of the Random Number Gods, but we sure do behave like we do.
My sense of joy and wonder on looking into the sky on a clear winter night and witnessing the panoply of stars spread above me is in no wise diminished by knowing that they are really enormous fusion furnaces scattered across almost inconceivable distances. It might even be heightened.
Likewise, I can enjoy fantasy and horror, and be intrigued by folklore, without believing that they are about real things.
When I was a little girl, I loved to read books about magic. I always knew it wasn’t real, but I liked to pretend that it was, and you could always imagine that there was the tiniest possibility that it could be…
I’ve told the story before on the Dope - One of the things I would wish for was a magic book. You would hold it in your hands and make a wish, and it would be any book you wanted.
So now I’m all grown up, and I have my magic book.
Thinking about that helps me to believe in magic, at least a little bit.
I like superstition, or more specifically myths and legends and fantasy, either in a fictional world or our own, but I do not romanticise believing in superstitious things. Science has plenty of wondrous spectacle to satisfy that in me.
No, because I *am *superstitious. I think it’s fun to keep items for rote divination, for example–runes and tarot cards–because they can be fun party games, but I won’t have a ouija board in the house. Or play Bloody Mary. That’s calling on *specific *spirits, and that’s a bad idea.
