Subversive Superstition

Concern over magical thinking was mostly because it was considered a threat to the authority of the Church, and because magical belief offered a life outside its carefully-cultivated hierarchies:

Little had changed; people still felt powerless in the face of nature, but now instead of turning to magicians, they blamed them. The Church, after all, rarely attacked sympathetic magic on the grounds that it was empirically fallacious or ineffective—rather, it was a rival source of power. Among the many scandalous aspects of witches’ sabbaths as they were popularly depicted was the commingling of social classes: women—and increasingly men—of all walks of life, from peasants to the aristocracy, all were equal at the Midnight Mass. This vision of a dark Utopia was as threatening—if not more so—than any of the black rites practiced therein.

The passage is from Colin Dickey's piece on superstition in Lapham's. In the final few paragraphs, he essays an explanation for why we still in various forms cling to irrational thinking, even in this age of "hyperrationalism." Furthermore, he quotes Joan Didion, whose book The Year of Magical Thinking examined her irrational response to the death of her husband John Dunne. Both are worth reading.

(Image: "Black Cat Auditions In Hollywood, 1961." Ralph Crane, via LIFE)