Many of our superstitions relate to daily routines – what food we eat, what clothes we wear, and what actions or activities do we partake in (e.g. stepping out the door with your right foot on the day of an exam). This is likely due to the fact that our everyday routines are subject to change and are within our control, unlike the result of our actions (exam performance). Also, as expected, many of our superstitions exhibited elements of both homeopathic and contagious magic. Both terms were defined by Sir James George Frazer when he coined the term “sympathetic magic.” Homeopathic magic draws on the “Law of Similarity” of “like produces like” while contagious magic draws on the “Law of Contact” which states that there is a connection between a severed part and the original body that it was a part of. A superstition that we collected that draws on contagious magic is the Turkish tradition of swallowing a grain of rice draws on notions of contagious magic; the grain of rice makes “contact” with the prayer spoken by the parent, and this prayer is carried into the student when it is consumed. An instance of homeopathic magic would be avoiding wearing the color yellow in Spain because it is associated with the devil. The color yellow might not have directly come into contact with the devil himself, it is still associated with dark forces and would hence bring bad luck. While these two examples illustrate separate instances in which homeopathic and contagious magic are manifested in superstitions, many other items that were collected showed a combination of the two types of magic. 

In addition, we observed a few repeated pieces of collected folklore. One example of this was the superstition of eating kitkats before exams to channel good luck. This led us to conclude and see with our own eyes that many cultures and communities have similar superstitions, and that some of our superstitions are used by many different folk groups all over the world. Perhaps its possible that many of our collected superstitions originate from similar ancestral folk groups, or that the internet and other forms of communication have led to increased cultural diffusion of folklore around the world. 

Thank you for taking the time to review our collected folklore!