-super: above, and stare: to stand.
In ancient times those who survived in battle were called superstites because they outlived their fellows. Our modern superstitions fall into this class for they so often represent apparently bizarre modes of thought that have survived the ages which created them, to linger on in our midst like ghosts from an unknown past.
Or, as Knowlson puts it, "the misfortune of early man was to have experiences more numerous and subtle than he could understand . . . and yet his unrestrained imagination demanded a working theory of some kind, and he got one, grounded in ignorance and fear."
It is perhaps this ignorance and fear which allowed the leaders in the early Christian church to use the term superstition in order to condemn the religious practices and dogmas of their pagan counterparts. Later, the Protestant Reformers termed Roman Catholic practices "popish superstitions" in order to inspire others to adopt a new set of religious dogma. And today, so-called "humanists" see all religious beliefs as superstitions.
Lucky charms, amulets, mascots, and similar devices or objects have been conjured up, carried, and revered for centuries. Pig mascots in medieval times protected households from "the malice of witches and the evil eye, despite the fact that such pagan observances must have been highly objectionable to the medieval church." The ubiquitous rabbit's foot charm can be traced back at least to Julius Caesar, in whose time the rabbit was a sacred animal. With the advent of Christianity, pagan practices were forbidden, although superstitions "in the form of minor observances to which the Church was unlikely to take strong exception," such as carrying a rabbit's foot, were probably adopted as "an additional insurance against evil in case the new god should fail to live up to its expectations."
According to Ray, superstitions "appear to play a somewhat haphazard, at lea...