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Show I CTHE WHY of I SUPERSTITIONS By H. IRVINQ KINQ SHUDDERING SOMETIMES, without any apparent cause, when engaged in work or conversation which occupies the mind entirely, one will suddenly shudder. And then, if he Is a superstitious person, per-son, he will at once recall the old superstition su-perstition that such a shudder means that "Some one is walking across his grave." This superstition is an an cient one, having its basis in suggestion, sugges-tion, and is common today In som-e districts. Of course, the person seized with the sudden shudder, being still alive has no grave. But there is, somewhere some-where a spot where his grave will be. The shudder is caused by a flight temporary physical disturbance due possibly to "an undigested piece of cheese." But to the man supersti-tiously supersti-tiously inclined, the shudder seems uncalled for and out of place; and what is uncalled for and out of place must be accounted for. Allied to ignorance ig-norance is fear. The imagination demands de-mands a working hypothesis of some kind and grasps at suggestion. The shudder suggests something gruesome and what could be more gruesome than one's own grave? But the place of one's own grave is always there why should a connection between it and its future occupant be set up at that particular moment? Ignorance, fear, man's primitive instinct to try and explain what he cannot understand under-stand the ingredients of superstition offer the solution. The "grave" is being disturbed "some one is walking walk-ing across it." Primitive psychology can be very minute and very logical in such cases. And there you have your superstition, which appeals much more to the imagination than any explanation ex-planation the doctor may give you of your sudden shudder. Besides, the superstition su-perstition is so much simpler and more easily understood than the doctor's doc-tor's explanation ! ((c) by McClure Newspaper Syndicate. o |