How come the number 13 is so unlucky here
in America and other countries are seeing it as any other number?
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mikNY: How come the number 13 is so unlucky here in America and other countries are seeing it as any other number?
Cecil’s above column pretty much describes it.
Funny thing this weekend: I took a trip to Dallas. On one leg, I sat in 14-C, behind 12-C. I comforts me not that the airline is superstitious. (Never mind that rows 5-9 [between business and coach sections] were also “missing”. Row 18 was really the 13th row.)
Also, my hotel room, 1436, was on the floor above the twelfth; i.e., the thirteenth.
The airline isn’t superstitious; just pragmatic. They know that there are passengers who are superstitious and who would be upset if they had a seat assignment of 13-D or whatever. (They would probably be the passenger who was deathly afraid of flying too.) So, the airline simply skips the row to avoid that possible problem.
Your hotel had no thirteenth floor for the same reason; too many potential guests would refuse to stay there.
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Quote from the book The Hiram Key, by Christopher Knight and Robert Lomas, which describes the downfall of the order of The Knights Templar, charged for heresey:
“Eventually the Templars’ luck was run out.The Pope and Philip, king of France moved in on the errant Order, bringing it to its knees in just one terrible day…Friday 13 October 1307. Ever since that day the number thirteen has been considdered unlucky and Friday the 13th of any month has become a date to keep any overly superstitious person indoors clinging to their lucky rabbit’s foot.”
As to the reason of Americans are more superstitious than others: The Knight Templar fleet got away. Fleeing under their battleflag - A SKULL WITH TWO BONES SET ACROSS UNDERNEATH IT ON A BLACK FLAG - (sounds familiar eh?) Thats not all, the plot thickens. They sailed to Scotland and founded a new Order, Freemasons. (these are facts)
They suposedly knew of a land across the Atlantic ocean, call it Wineland or America, and sailed there and returned with exotic herbs and other things. (mind the templar ship were of far greater quality than any other seafaring vessels at that time which would have alowed them to cross the ocean) If those are the facts I can only guess that there were many Freemasons, who regarded that land as a sort of “holy land”, amongst the immigrants that later populated the continent. Hence, the populace grew to know Friday the thirteenth and so forth. (these are speculations)
I suggest you read the book, it’s a very interresting reading.
“On one leg, I sat in 14-C, behind 12-C.”
Funny, I was under the impression that if a plane crashed, the whole THING crashed.
Hoe, that sounds like an interesting book. Unfortunately, it also sound like another compilation of conspiracy silliness.
The flag of the knights templar was the classic Greek cross with flaired ends known as the Maltese Cross. I have never encountered any reference to the skull and crossbones related to the Knights Templar. Since the Knights Templar were outlawed in 1307 (at a time when Scotland was very much a Catholic location, but was not a seafaring nation), how would that skull and crossbones magically go underground for three hundred fifty or four hundred years suddenly to reappear among English and French pirates.
As to Freemasons beginning their society as fourteenth century French Knights Templar in Scotland: this would contradict the general assertion that they were founded as an offshoot of the masons guilds when cathdral-building fell on hard times some 300 years later.
While there are legends linking the origins of Freemasonry to the Knights Templar as well as to the Knights of St. John, the Rosicrucians, the Cabbalists, the followers of Pythagoras, the druids, and to Zorastrianism and various Persiain and Arabic secret societies, the generally accepted origin of the group is assigned to a social club founded in England in 1717 that later developed into the secret society that it is today.
I do not claim that the book you cited is wrong, and I am interested in reading it. However, at first glance it does not seem plausible.
Tom~
You had to sit on one leg? Jeez, how much tighter can coach passengers be packed in?
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