“When Belief Stops Growing: Understanding the Mind Behind Superstitions”

Mahakumbh has its own madness. Lakhs of people, colours everywhere, chants floating in the air, and one video that stayed in my head long after the festival ended.

A friend sent it to me. A normal morning. A newly built bridge over the river. People walking across it. Nothing special.

And suddenly one man—an ordinary, middle-aged man —paused at the bridge, touches the bridge with both his hands and offered his prayer. It wasn’t a grand ritual. No flowers, no lamps, no godman around. He did it casually. Like the way we touch a book before writing an exam. A small gesture, almost unconscious.

Then the funniest thing happened.

The person behind him copied it. Then the next person. Then the next. Within a minute, the entire line turned the bridge into a living deity. A simple steel structure became “something holy”. No instruction, no announcement, no logic. Just one tiny action leading a thousand people into automatic devotion.

I watched it again and again. I smiled first. Then I felt something deeper. This is how superstition is born. It never arrives with a big drum roll. It slips into life quietly through imitation. One person does something. The next person copies. The meaning evaporates, the habit remains.

That’s when my own line came to me:

“When your beliefs stop growing with you, they start turning into superstitions.”

This isn’t just about a bridge. This is about the way our mind behaves when it’s tired, scared, confused, or simply lazy. A click. A gesture. A habit. Then it becomes a rule. After a while, nobody knows why the rule exists.

Even in my Mind Flow work, I keep coming back to this. We think we are rational beings, but the mind is a strange space. A thought walks in without knocking, stays for years, and suddenly we realize our life is shaped by something we never questioned. And I’ve lived like that too. I’ve picked up strange routines, funny habits, and emotional shortcuts. I’ve created my own rituals in my creative life. A particular notebook. A specific pen. A certain way of starting a chapter. Human minds love patterns—even unnecessary ones.

I’ve always lived between two worlds. One where I observe life like a writer. And another where I try to improve it like a mind trainer. Sometimes I catch myself doing things I can’t explain. A small ritual before writing. A particular thought before a talk. Nothing harmful. Just the little games the mind plays when it wants a sense of control.

Maybe that’s why the bridge video hit me so strongly. I saw a part of myself in it. I saw a part of all of us.

This blog grew from that moment. A simple man touching a bridge. A crowd following him without a second thought. And a reminder that if we don’t keep our beliefs alive, honest, and flexible—they turn into invisible cages.

Mind Flow exists to keep the mind free. To help us watch what happens inside. To help us grow beyond these silent routines that take away our clarity.

This is where our journey begins.

2. What Are Superstitions and Why Do They Exist?

Superstitions feel silly when we look at them from the outside, but inside the human mind they have a very logical place. The mind is always trying to make sense of the world. It wants clarity. It wants a predictable pattern. And whenever life becomes confusing, frightening, or uncertain, the brain quickly builds a shortcut.

That shortcut becomes a superstition.

Daniel Kahneman explains this beautifully in Thinking, Fast and Slow.He says the mind has two systems—one quick, emotional, automatic; the other slow, deliberate, and logical.Superstitions come from the quick system. The one that jumps to conclusions. The one that wants an immediate explanation even if the explanation is wrong.

Evolution shaped this behaviour. Early humans heard rustling in the bushes. It could be the wind. It could be a tiger. The ones who assumed danger survived. Their brains learned to connect unrelated events. This tendency stayed in our wiring.

Yuval Noah Harari, in Sapiens, writes about how humans relied on shared myths to create order. When the world made no sense, our ancestors invented meanings. They created gods for rain, gods for fire, gods for illness. These stories gave comfort, and slowly turned into rituals.

Superstitions are the leftovers of that ancient survival mechanism.

When a farmer’s crops failed, he looked for a reason he could control. An eclipse. An owl. A neighbour’s curse. Anything felt easier than accepting randomness.

When a child fell sick two hundred years ago, parents blamed planets. There was no germ theory. No medical science. Only fear trying to organise life.

Robert Sapolsky’s research on stress explains this clearly. When the mind faces uncertainty, cortisol shoots up. The brain hates that tension, so it creates a belief that reduces the feeling of helplessness. Even if that belief has no base in reality, the mind holds onto it because it gives emotional relief.

This is why superstitions feel comforting. They reduce the anxiety that comes from the unknown.

I once read a line by Lucretius that stayed with me:

“Fear creates gods.”

It also creates all the smaller gods—omens, rituals, lucky charms, strange rules, and the entire universe of superstitions we carry quietly inside us.

When we step back and look at it with clarity, we understand one simple truth:Superstitions come from a mind trying to protect itself.They’re old psychological tools designed for survival in a world that didn’t have science, data, or understanding.

We inherited them. And now the task is to observe them, question them, and grow beyond them.

3. Famous Superstitions and Their Strange Origins

Superstitions often look funny in isolation, yet each one carries centuries of fear, confusion, survival instincts, and creative imagination. When we study their origins, we see entire periods of human history reflected inside them—plague years, wars, droughts, epidemics, and the anxiety of people who were trying to make sense of a world without science.

Here are some of the most popular ones and the strange stories behind them.

1. The Black Cat Crossing Your Path

In medieval Europe, black cats lived a very unlucky life. During the plague years, cats became associated with witches. People believed witches shapeshifted into black cats at night. As the plague kept spreading, the simplest explanation people found was to blame the cats around them.

Ironically, historians now say that killing cats worsened the plague because the rat population exploded. Human fear amplified the disaster.

In behavioural science, this is called “illusive correlation”—a false link the mind forms due to panic. Kahneman and Tversky describe this bias clearly: when the mind feels threatened, it connects events even when the connection is fully imaginary.

2. Friday the 13th

This superstition is a cocktail of several stories mixed over centuries.

There’s a Christian story of the Last Supper being attended by 13 people. There’s also the political incident of 13th October 1307 when the French king ordered the arrest of the Knights Templar—one of the strongest military and financial forces of that era. Many considered that day cursed because powerful men were captured in a single sweep.

Together these threads created an aura around the number.Hollywood later added its own flavour and pushed the fear deeper into culture.

Natural psychologists like Stuart Vyse, who studied superstition in modern societies, call this the “availability effect”. If a dramatic story is easy to remember, the brain exaggerates its importance. Friday the 13th became famous through a mix of historical fear and modern storytelling.

3. Opening an Umbrella Indoors

Long before scientific weather forecasts, ancient Egyptians worshipped the sun as a divine force. Umbrellas were originally designed to protect royalty from the sun’s glare. Opening an umbrella indoors—where the sun was absent—was seen as an insult to the deity of light.

This belief slowly travelled to Europe during the colonial exchanges, picked up local modifications, and turned into a superstition about “inviting bad luck”.

Anthropologists call this “ritual displacement”—a practice created in one context moves into another, losing its original meaning yet keeping its emotional impact.

4. The Evil Eye / Drishti

Few superstitions have travelled across continents as widely as this one. From Greece and Turkey to India and the Middle East, cultures believed that intense jealousy or admiration could “harm” someone.

Before psychology existed, people used the evil-eye idea to explain personal setbacks:A failed exam.A poor harvest.A sudden illness.A baby crying without reason.

Even Freud wrote about childhood envy and attention as a powerful emotional force. The evil eye became an ancient psychological explanation placed on the outside world.

Sociologists say it served a practical purpose—keeping community harmony by discouraging open jealousy.

Today it appears in many forms: Turkish nazar beads, Indian drishti lemon chillies, Mediterranean blue-eye charms.

5. Touching Wood

This one goes deep into pagan Europe. Trees were believed to house powerful spirits. Touched wood meant receiving protection from nature.

When Christianity expanded across Europe, many pagan practices were erased. Some survived quietly in daily behaviour. Touching wood stayed alive as a gesture of seeking protection without formal rituals.

Cognitive scientist Pascal Boyer explains this in his work on religion and anthropology—ideas that offer emotional safety stay in the mind even after the original culture disappears.

6. Spilling Salt

Salt was a treasure in ancient Rome. It was expensive, used as currency, and crucial for food preservation. Spilling it meant financial loss and waste. To undo the “bad luck”, people threw a pinch of salt over their shoulder.

Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper painting even shows Judas knocking over a salt holder—an artistic reference to betrayal and misfortune.

Economists studying ancient trade say cultures turn valuable items into superstitions because the mind amplifies the emotional weight of scarcity.

What These Stories Reveal

Every superstition carries two invisible layers:

1. A moment in history where people faced uncertainty.

2. A creative explanation built to control that uncertainty.

3. 
   

Fear shaped the rituals. Ignorance supplied the stories. Culture preserved them for generations.

As I researched these origins, I realised something deeply human in all of this. People weren’t trying to create superstitions. They were trying to make life feel manageable.

Superstitions are emotional artefacts, born from survival instincts and passed down like old family recipes. They remind us that the mind always searches for meaning—even when reality offers none.

4. Are Superstitions Good? The Science of Placebo and Nocebo

Superstitions may look irrational, yet they open a doorway to one of the most fascinating realities of the human mind: belief changes biology. Modern neuroscience has proven this again and again. When the mind expects a result, the body often follows.

This is the world of the placebo and nocebo effects.

The Placebo Effect: When Belief Heals

The placebo effect isn’t imagination. It’s chemistry.

When a person believes something will help them—a pill, a ritual, a symbol—their brain releases natural opioids, dopamine, and endorphins. These chemicals reduce pain, improve mood, and support recovery.

One of the most famous proofs came from Harvard’s placebo surgery study. Patients with knee pain were taken in for surgery. Half received the real operation. Half received a fake one—the doctors just made small cuts, washed the area, and stitched it back.

Months later, both groups improved equally. The belief in surgery triggered the brain’s healing pathways.

Ted Kaptchuk, a Harvard researcher, later pushed it further. His experiments used open-label placebos—patients were told clearly: “This is a placebo. It has no active medicine. ”Even then, a large number of patients improved. Their expectations alone changed their body’s responses.

Robert Sapolsky, in his work on stress and emotions, explains this beautifully. He says the brain doesn’t wait for logic. It reacts to anticipation. When the mind expects relief, the body prepares for it.

This is why people feel genuine ease from harmless rituals. It’s the belief that creates the biochemical shift.

I love one simple line from Naomi Judd: “The body hears everything the mind says.”

There is real science hidden inside that sentence.

The Nocebo Effect: When Belief Makes Us Sick

The same brain that heals can also harm.

When someone strongly believes something will go wrong, the mind releases adrenaline, cortisol, and inflammatory chemicals. This creates headaches, stomach issues, fatigue, and even panic.

There is a story from a hospital where a man drank “contaminated water”. He collapsed, struggled to breathe, and showed full signs of poisoning. Later they found the water was completely safe. His symptoms were real, created by his belief.

These effects are so powerful that medical journals document entire cases where negative expectations caused genuine physical damage. No virus. No toxin. Just expectation turning into biology.

Superstitions often operate through this pathway too. A person believes Tuesday is unlucky, and the entire day becomes stressful. A person believes a specific number brings harm, and their decisions shift unconsciously. The expectation alone creates emotional turbulence.

When Athletes Use Superstitions as Performance Tools

Sports psychology is filled with these examples.

Researchers studied athletes who performed small rituals before their games—tying their shoelaces in a certain way, stepping onto the field with a particular foot, wearing a “lucky” item. Their performance improved. Their anxiety dropped. Their focus increased.

The ritual itself had no power. Their belief did.

Rafael Nadal arranging his bottles. Serena Williams wearing the same socks. Michael Jordan wearing his old college shorts under his NBA uniform. These patterns gave their mind stability and confidence.

In scientific terms, a ritual reduces cognitive load. The mind stops worrying and enters a calm, narrow focus.

Creative People and Their Entry Rituals

Actors often enter the stage from a specific doorway. It’s part of their emotional warm-up. It signals the brain to switch from everyday identity to performance identity.

Film crews avoid saying certain words on set, especially before a major shot. It’s a way of holding collective focus. Cinema may look glamorous, but the emotional pressure behind the screen is enormous. Rituals help teams align mentally before important takes.

Even in writing, artists follow certain habits. A favourite corner. A particular pen. A fixed playlist. These patterns help the mind slide into a creative state with less friction.

Why These Rituals Work

The mind works well when it feels safe. A ritual provides that safety. A small, predictable action stabilises the inner landscape and frees up mental energy for the task ahead.

The University of Cologne experiment demonstrated that even simple rituals—like tapping fingers in a sequence or arranging objects—reduced heart rate and stress markers in participants. Their performance in tasks improved because their anxiety dropped.

This shows one clear insight: Rituals help the mind enter its best state by creating a sense of control, even if the control is symbolic.

Many of us do this without realizing it.A small routine before an important day like a tilak on the forehead.A favourite meal before a difficult meeting.A short prayer before a risky moment.These are personal anchors.

Superstitions built from fear can trap the mind.Rituals built from intention can support it.

The difference lies in awareness.

When you choose a ritual consciously, it becomes a tool. When it takes over your decisions silently, it becomes a cage.

Personal rituals belong to the first category. They help the mind settle, breathe, and perform.

The Bigger Truth

Superstitions work for the same reason placebos work: the mind needs a sense of control. When belief creates calm, the body follows. When belief creates fear, the body follows too.

One more line captures this beautifully: “Expectation is a powerful medicine.”

And it is medicine we carry inside us every day.

Superstitions tap into an ancient biological loop—belief → expectation → chemistry → experience. Understanding this loop gives us more clarity about why so many people hold on to rituals that look strange from the outside.

The mind hasn’t changed as much as we think. It still responds to symbols. It still listens to meaning. And it still shapes the body through belief.

6. When Superstitions Turn Dangerous

Superstitions look harmless when they involve exam shirts or lucky pens.The real trouble begins when fear becomes the driving force, and when people stop thinking for themselves. History is filled with extreme examples that show how dangerous beliefs can become when they cross the line.

Human Sacrifices Across Civilisations

The Aztecs believed the sun would stop rising if hearts were not offered to the gods. The Mayans sacrificed children during droughts to “appease” rain deities like Chaac. Some tribal communities in Africa once believed that sacrificing a healthy child would cure epidemics. Several South Asian traditions had similar stories buried in their folklore.

These weren’t random acts of cruelty. They were attempts to control something terrifying—weather, disease, famine, or unexplained death. Anthropologists studying these cultures say the same thing: communities turned to extreme rituals when they had no scientific understanding and no sense of safety.

Witch Burnings in Medieval Europe

Between the 15th and 18th centuries, tens of thousands of women were tortured and burned alive because communities blamed them for crop failures, sickness, infertility, or even strange dreams. The fear of witches became stronger than reason.

The historian Brian Levack explains this as “collective panic fuelled by religious authority.” A rumour became truth. An accusation became evidence. And entire villages turned violent.

Thuggee Rituals in India

The Thuggee cult in India followed a ritual of strangling travellers as an offering to Goddess Kali. For centuries, this belief system created a chain of murders until the British administration dismantled the cult. Their killings were justified internally as “divine duty”.

This shows how far humans go when a belief is controlled by secrecy, fear, and obedience.

Child Sacrifices for Rain Gods

Archaeologists have found remains of children in sacrificial pits in pre-historic societies where droughts were common.These communities genuinely believed that offering the most innocent life would bring rain.It was desperation disguised as ritual.

Modern Forms of Dangerous Superstition

The ancient world isn’t the only one guilty of this. Superstitions still turn deadly in modern India and across the world.

Refusing Medical Treatment Due to Astrological Fear

Doctors have recorded cases where patients avoided life-saving surgery because a pundit suggested the “time was bad”. Several cancers reached late stages because families waited for a planetary alignment instead of treatment.

Murders Linked to Black Magic (NCRB Data)

The National Crime Records Bureau reports dozens of murders every year in India linked to black magic, occult rituals, and “ghost cleansing”. These are not isolated incidents. They show how fear can overpower education even today.

Animal Killings in the Name of Luck

Owls, goats, and specific birds are killed during certain festivals because of superstition-driven beliefs about wealth, fertility, or bad luck. Wildlife organisations have repeatedly raised concerns about this pattern.

Education Delayed Due to Horoscope Fear

Families postpone children’s education because an astrologer says the child’s “moon is weak”. Many girls are taken out of school for marriage due to horoscope pressure. The cost is lifelong.

Panic Marriages Due to Rahu–Ketu Belief

Every year, countless emergency weddings happen because a relative claims a planet is “turning hostile”. Panic marriages create broken relationships and lifelong regret.

The Psychology Behind Dangerous Superstitions

1. Fear becomes the decision-maker

When a person is scared, the logical part of the brain (prefrontal cortex) shuts down, and the ancient fear system takes over. This is where superstitions take root.

2. Someone else controls the belief

Superstition becomes dangerous when a guru, astrologer, or elder claims authority over someone’s life. Obedience replaces thinking.

3. The belief demands sacrifice

When a belief asks for pain, loss, blood, money, or unquestioned loyalty, it slowly becomes a weapon.

Robert Sapolsky explains this as “fear hijacking cognition.”When the mind loses clarity, anything can enter it—rituals, rules, and commands that do real damage.

This is where superstition crosses into danger.

7. The Business of Blind Faith

Superstition becomes something else entirely when it turns into a business model. Fear becomes a currency. Blindness becomes an opportunity. And many people are ready to profit from it.

Absurd Rituals Sold by Self-Proclaimed Gurus

We’ve all seen these:

“Tie a lemon to the scooter to remove bad luck.”“Throw this ash on your exam paper.”“Feed a crow before sunrise to reduce Saturn’s impact.”

These suggestions are packaged with a serious face, confident tone, and a threat of consequences.It’s psychological marketing.First create fear. Then offer a “solution”.

Astrologers Predicting Life Without Context

Some astrologers make decisions about marriages, jobs, money, and health just by looking at charts. No understanding of psychology. No background of the person. Just broad predictions tailored to trigger emotion.

Stuart Vyse, in his work on superstition, calls this “exploiting uncertainty.”

Luxury Godmen and the Money Pipeline

Many godmen run massive empires—private jets, foreign cars, lavish campuses—built entirely on people’s fear and guilt. Their sermons promise protection from invisible threats. Their rituals promise shortcuts to success.

NDTV, India Today, and BBC have all done undercover investigations exposing fake miracles, staged healings, and highly organised fundraising systems disguised as spirituality.

Religious Middlemen Who Invent Rules

Every community has middlemen who create new rituals to stay relevant. They ask for specific offerings, insist on fixed timings, or add extra steps to old traditions. These additions keep the cycle alive and the dependency intact.

Books & References

• Godmen of India — Koenraad Elst

• Breaking India — Rajiv Malhotra

• Investigative reports by NDTV, India Today, BBC, and Tehelka on fake gurus and staged miracles

• Stuart Vyse’s research on superstition psychology

• Amish Tripathi’s line from Scion of Ikshvaku:

  “Faith is strength. Blindness is death.”

  
  

Truly I say “Faith is a gift. Blindness is a choice.”

8. Why Superstitions Slow Down a Liberal, Modern Society

A society grows only when its people learn to think. Superstitions quietly slow that growth. They make the mind passive, obedient, and dependent on someone else for decisions. A liberal society needs curiosity. Superstitions replace that curiosity with fear.

Critical Thinking Takes a Backseat

When a belief takes over the mind without being questioned, thinking becomes automatic. People stop asking “Why?” and start accepting whatever they hear. This removes the very foundation of a liberal system—independent thought.

Fear Replaces Curiosity

Science moves forward when people explore the unknown.Superstition survives by making the unknown look dangerous.The moment fear enters the mind, exploration ends.

Sapolsky writes that fear shuts down the prefrontal cortex, the part responsible for reasoning. Once that happens, everything becomes a threat, and rituals become a substitute for clarity.

Decisions Get Outsourced

Families often allow rituals, astrology, or omens to dictate major decisions—education, marriage, health, finances. This turns adults into followers instead of thinkers. And once this pattern begins, personal responsibility disappears.

People Become Easy to Manipulate

Any group that controls fear controls society. This is why superstitions attract godmen, astrologers, and self-proclaimed experts. They gain authority over people’s minds by offering certainty in uncertain times.

The Financial Cost

Families have lost land, savings, and entire inheritances due to superstition-driven decisions. A ritual here, a donation there, an “urgent astrological remedy” demanded by an elder. Over years, these costs drain resources that could have gone into education or growth.

Science Takes a Backseat

India has some of the best scientific minds in the world. Yet many people still ignore medical treatment, weather forecasts, or factual data because “a ritual said otherwise.”

Every time society follows belief over evidence, education becomes weaker.

The Constitutional Angle

The Indian Constitution itself promotes scientific thinking. Article 51A specifically mentions developing a “scientific temper, humanism, and spirit of inquiry. ”It’s written into our duty as citizens because the founders understood the danger of blind belief.

Education Breaks the Cycle

In rural India, literacy programs have shown clear results—harmful practices reduce as education rises. Awareness campaigns in Odisha, Assam, and Rajasthan have brought down witch-hunting cases. Knowledge protects people in a way rituals never can.

A New Generation That Questions Everything

Gen Z takes time to trust. They verify, read, cross-check, and challenge old systems. This is a positive sign. A society grows stronger when its young population refuses to accept explanations without understanding them.

This shift gives me hope. The future is moving toward clarity.

9. Growing Beyond Hand-Me-Down Superstitions

Every person carries a bundle of inherited beliefs. Some are beautiful. Some are harmless. Some quietly limit the mind without our awareness.

Growth happens when we begin examining these beliefs one by one.We don’t need to become rebels.We only need to become honest observers of our own thoughts.

A person becomes real when their beliefs evolve with truth, science, evidence, and lived experience. The mind expands when fear is replaced with understanding. Life becomes peaceful when decisions come from clarity rather than imaginary punishments.

“Don’t worship the cage just because your ancestors lived inside it.”“Truth needs no rituals to stand.” “Every belief must earn its place in your mind.” — Santhosh Sivaraj

When you start living with awareness, something beautiful happens inside you. You begin to see which beliefs genuinely help you and which ones quietly hold you back. Knowledge strengthens your faith because you finally understand what you are believing in. Fear starts losing its grip because the moment you look at it closely, it becomes smaller. Life feels lighter when you stop carrying beliefs that don’t belong to you.

You don’t have to reject your culture or your roots. You only need to let go of the beliefs that keep you afraid or dependent on someone else’s authority. The moment you do that, a new journey begins.

Your mind becomes clear. Your choices become your own. And your life starts moving in a direction that feels true to who you are.

When the mind opens, the world expands with it. New ideas enter. New possibilities appear. New confidence grows.

This is the heart of Mind Flow—Living in a way where understanding guides you, Where truth becomes your strength, And where you rise above all unnecessary noise.

A free mind is a powerful mind. And when your mind becomes truly yours, everything in life starts moving with purpose.