where does fear of friday the 13th come from?

5 Facts About Friday the 13th

from live science

If Friday the 13th is unlucky, then 2009 is an unusually unlucky year. This week's Friday the 13th is one of three to endure this year.

The first came last month. The next is in November. Such a rare triple-threat occurs only once every 11 years.

The origin of the link between bad luck and Friday the 13th is murky. The whole thing might date to Biblical times (the 13th guest at the Last Supper betrayed Jesus). By the Middle Ages, both Friday and 13 were considered bearers of bad fortune. In modern times, the superstition permeates society.

Here are five of our favorite Friday-the-13th facts:

1. Fear of Friday the 13th — one of the most popular myths in science — is called paraskavedekatriaphobia as well as friggatriskaidekaphobia. Triskaidekaphobia is fear of the number 13.

2. Many hospitals have no room 13, while some tall buildings skip the 13th floor and some airline terminals omit Gate 13.

3. President Franklin D. Roosevelt would not travel on the 13th day of any month and would never host 13 guests at a meal. Napoleon and President Herbert Hoover were also triskaidekaphobic, with an abnormal fear of the number 13.

4. Mark Twain once was the 13th guest at a dinner party. A friend warned him not to go. "It was bad luck," Twain later told the friend. "They only had food for 12." Superstitious diners in Paris can hire a quatorzieme, or professional 14th guest.

5. The number 13 suffers from its position after 12, according to numerologists who consider the latter to be a complete number — 12 months in a year, 12 signs of the zodiac, 12 gods of Olympus, 12 labors of Hercules, 12 tribes of Israel, 12 apostles of Jesus, 12 days of Christmas and 12 eggs in a dozen.

Pythagorean legacy

Meanwhile the belief that numbers are connected to life and physical things — called numerology — has a long history.

"You can trace it all the way from the followers of Pythagoras, whose maxim to describe the universe was 'all is number,'" says Mario Livio, an astrophysicist and author of "The Equation That Couldn't Be Solved" (Simon & Schuster, 2005). Thinkers who studied under the famous Greek mathematician combined numbers in different ways to explain everything around them, Livio said.

In modern times, numerology has become a type of para-science, much like the meaningless predictions of astrology, scientists say.

"People are subconsciously drawn towards specific numbers because they know that they need the experiences, attributes or lessons associated with them, that are contained within their potential," says professional numerologist Sonia Ducie. "Numerology can 'make sense' of an individual's life (health, career, relationships, situations and issues) by recognizing which number cycle they are in, and by giving them clarity."

However, mathematicians dismiss numerology, saying it lacks any scientific merit.

"I don't endorse this at all," Livio said, when asked to comment on the popularity of commercial numerology. Seemingly coincidental connections between numbers will always appear if you look hard enough, he said.

* Top 10 Conspiracy Theories
* News and Information about Superstitions
* Urban Legends Debunked

13 is a magical number of some sort. Not unlucky in any way. More like forbidden. There might be the whole connection between the whole Friday the 13th thing. Number made intentionally unlucky so it would not be used. There is something about it and about it symbol. We see it and we wear it every day without even knowing it. It's symbol is 12 dots around center dot. 13 dots. Like on a clock.

hmmm....i say friday 13 is stupid. BS for morons. but hey, mebbe if we killed a hockey goalie at camp by drowning him, hed rise up and kill us with a machette...haha

Congratulations, you just won the prize of dumbest joke of the day.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by karyn

where does fear of friday the 13th come from?

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Um, Fucking JASON. Duhhhh

Quote:

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Originally Posted by PrettyTeddyBear

hmmm....i say friday 13 is stupid. BS for morons. but hey, mebbe if we killed a hockey goalie at camp by drowning him, hed rise up and kill us with a machette...haha

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actually, jason wasnt a hockey goalie, jason was a retarded boy who drowned because the camp counselors were too busy doing other things to notice him and when they did notice him they just laughed at him and elt him drown thinking it was funny.

he didnt don the hockey mask until he killed a group of teens playing hockey in the campgrounds. originally he wore a burlap sack.

but i guess in the world of michael bay things like that get lost in translation.
nice try at a joke thuogh.

i dont get why people are spooked about friday the thirteenth personally, i've always found the number 13 to be a sort of 'lucky" number with two sides to it and it's been reoccurring in my life recently alot, even at the hospital when my mom was getting surgery, her patient number counted down to thirteen.

No religion denies magic, they only forbid it. And 13 is magical number used in rituals.

Ohh me too i like 13, Chinese also share a love of lucky number 13

The digit 1 when positioned in tens sounds like the word ''definite'' (shi) in Mandarin and dialects such as Cantonese; while the digit 3 sounds like life, living or birth.

As a result, the number 13, which is pronounced as shisan in Mandarin, can mean ''definitely vibrant'' or ''assured growth''.

So how can 13 be an unlucky number?

I know in Italy it's good luck - or at least the # 13 is. I was raised by a pack of feral Italians so this info must have seeped in through them, or perhaps I learned it when I was in Italy.

yaknow what's funny is everyone seems so freaked about friday the thirteenth but noone seemed very freaked out about today-march 15th.......
a.k.a the ides of march.

Hehehe, couldn't resist...

"If 13 is unlucky then so should the letter B be. What's your name. Bob. Get the fuck away! If 13 is unlucky then 12 and 14 should be unlucky by association. Where were you 12. Don't look at me, I was with 11, ask 14 about that shit. What do you have to say 14. Me... divided by 2... is 7 alright I was with 13."

reminds me of the old joke why was 6 afraid of 7?

because 7-"8"-9!

ohhohohoho! ~_~ is funny cus 8 sounds like ate....no? 0_0 nothing?

I was quoting Mitch Hedberg (RIP)

And come to think of it, I fucked it up. It should have been "If 13 is unlucky then so should the letter B be because it looks like a scrunched together 13." How the fuck did I miss that?

groovy. i was just being silly