TODAY, millions of people around the world are staying in. They won't be going to the office. They might not be getting out of bed. And they certainly won't be going anywhere near a car or a plane. The reason - in case you haven't noticed - is that it's Friday the 13th.
The fact that so many people take this day so seriously may seem ridiculous to less superstitious souls, but there's no doubting that the fear is real. Boffins in The Stress Management Center and Phobia Institute in Asheville, North Carolina have est
imated that in the US alone between $800 and $900 million is lost every Friday the 13th, because "people will not fly or do business they would normally do".
Meanwhile, therapist Donald Dossey has even coined a term to describe the morbid, irrational fear of Friday the 13th. It is (deep breath) paraskevidekatriaphobia - and Dossey claims that when you can pronounce the word, you are cured.
As well as being something of a comedian, it's also worth noting that Dossey's main specialisation is in the treatment of people with irrational fears and phobias. That's to say he believes that people have a genuine psychological problem with the day, but that the day itself is harmless. Not all his colleagues in the medical profession are in complete agreement with him, however. In 1993 the British Medical Association (BMA) carried out a survey to discover: "Is Friday the 13th bad for your health?" They surveyed a region in the south-west of England and discovered that even though there were fewer vehicles on the roads, hospital admissions as a result of traffic accidents significantly increased on Friday the 13th.
Their conclusion? "Friday 13th is unlucky for some. The risk of hospital admission as a result of a transport accident may be increased by as much as 52 per cent. Staying at home is recommended." It was a small-scale survey and they could just be freak results. There certainly don't seem to be many other studies that support the idea that Friday the 13th is particularly unlucky. Indeed, the most recent comparable study by a group of UK insurers discovered that (for some unknown reason) 27 November is the real danger day.
Kevin Sinclair of AA Insurance says: "Friday 13th is associated with bad luck, but you're more likely to have an accident on 27 November." His claim is backed up by a litany of tales of woe, including a cat who last year set a house on fire by knocking over a candle, the declaration of the disastrous First Crusade in 1095, "the great storm" of 1703, the fatal shooting of Al Capone's cohort Baby Face Nelson in 1934, and the 2002 car crash that hospitalised Zsa Zsa Gabor.
Besides the fact that it's always a good idea to take the surveys and statistics with a pinch of salt, there are further reasons to be sceptical of those BMA findings. The increased danger on the roads could easily have been caused by the fact that they were so empty. Drivers go faster on quieter roads - and driving conditions outside the general routine are the ones most likely to cause trouble. There's also the interesting possibility that people crashed their cars because they were already worrying about it being Friday the 13th. The undeniable nervous paranoia that the day creates in so many people has to manifest itself somehow. As Psychologist Dr Richard Wiseman, who carried out a study on bad luck in 2003, told the BBC: "Unlucky people tend to buy into negative superstitions, like having seven years bad luck after smashing a mirror. If you're one of these people, the fact that it's Friday the 13th could make you anxious and that will make you more likely to have accidents, drive less well, and perhaps find it harder to relate to other people. So your bad luck could be your own doing."
It shouldn't be surprising that the supposed ill luck of Friday the 13th is, in a sense, a self-fulfilling prophecy. Few days are more deeply engraved in our collective psyche, after all. Why that should be is something of a mystery, however. The first documented mention of there being something special about Friday the 13th itself seems to have been made as recently as the early 1900s, but both Friday and 13 have been regarded with superstitious fear since ancient times.
The reasons people didn't like Fridays are pretty obvious. A shadow has hung over the day ever since the Romans started to use it as the one on which they carried out their crucifixions, a tradition that was continued in Britain when Friday became Hangman's Day. Some Christians also say that Friday was the day that Eve tempted Adam with the apple and so the First Couple were kicked out of paradise; that it was the day that the Bible's Great Flood began; the day the Temple of Solomon was supposed to have been destroyed; and (of course) the day that Jesus was nailed to a cross... None of which are regarded as wholly positive events in their religion.
The fear of the number 13 is harder to explain. There's no doubt that for a very long time it's been regarded as an inauspicious number in Western culture. This belief still has a tangible practical effect on the way we live and plan our lives. Many hotels don't label any room as number 13, because so many people would refuse to stay in it. Many buildings have no 13th floor. Airlines often miss out row 13. Hundreds of American cities don't have a 13th Street or 13th Avenue. The Italians even omit the number 13 from their lottery.
All the same, the exact origins of the phobia are lost in the mists of time and the vagueness of mythology. Some anthropologists maintain that triskaidekaphobia (to give it its Greek name) is even older than the fear of Fridays. The theory goes that the dislike of 13 all stems from the problems primitive man had counting above 12. Our hairy forebears could count on their ten fingers and then add their two feet to make 12, but after that they got stuck. However, that's pretty speculative - and depends on the belief our ancestors could not count their toes.
Slightly more convincing is the claim that the Ancient Egyptians regarded 13 as the final stage of life - which is to say, death. "The Devil's Dozen" also features prominently in Norse mythology. The story goes that the Gods were having a dinner party in Valhalla, but pointedly failed to invite Loki, the God of mischief. Not one to stand on ceremony, Loki crashed the party anyway, bringing the total number of attendees up to 13 and causing chaos in the process. He managed to trick Hod the blind god of winter into killing Balder the Good, causing much grief in heaven and setting a long-standing precedent of not allowing there to be 13 people present at dinner. The notable exception to that rule is the Bible's Last Supper, and Christians bought into all the pre-medieval anti-13 propaganda by pointing out Judas Iscariot was the 13th guest.
Interestingly, there are even fewer historical explanations for the fear of the combination Friday the 13th. It's sometimes pointed out that the massacre of the Knights Templar occurred on Friday the 13th in 1307, but that event has only really seeped into the popular consciousness since Dan Brown made it figure so prominently in The Da Vinci Code. The most likely explanation appears to be people assume that: Fearsome Friday + Unlucky 13 So the reasoning is strange and obscure. Personally speaking, I even tend to regard such superstitions as pretty nonsensical. However, for the sake of honesty I should admit that during the course of writing this piece I've broken a chair and destroyed no fewer than three bike inner tubes on a quest for a lunchtime sandwich. Even so, I'd advise you not to be put out if the roads seem a little quiet today, half your office is "ill" and no-one wants to close a deal with you. And if you do drop something on your foot, break an antique or total your car, you'll know what to blame it on...
Sam Jordison is the author of The Joy Of Sects: An A-Z of Cults, Cranks and Religious EccentricsForeboding Events on Friday the 13th
• On Friday 13 May 1983, two peat cutters dug up a body in a Wilmslow bog. Peter Reyn-Bardt, whom police had suspected of killing his wife since the 1950s, almost immediately confessed to putting it there. The body was then sent to Oxford University where it was discovered to date from around AD250. Nevertheless Reyn-Bardt was convicted of murder and sent to jail. Meanwhile, police continued hunting for the body and soon discovered another corpse. This one dated from 300BC. Mrs Reyn-Bardt was never found.
• RACIST skinhead group Violent Storm tempted fate on Friday 13 March 1992 when they drove into a violent storm on the M4 near Bristol. A gust of wind lifted their vehicle six feet into the air and smashed it into a bridge.
• In 2004, astronomers claimed a 320m (1,320ft) asteroid had a 1-in-60 chance of hitting the Earth with devastating consequences on Friday the 13th 2029. However, NASA says it will probably make a close call, and miss us by nine million miles.
Our trip down the aisle defied the superstition
WHEN I told friends that Ruth and I were getting married on Friday the 13th, the cynics among them observed that it was only so that we could have the pick of wedding venues. They were probably right.
Certainly both the sublime King's College Chapel at Aberdeen University and The Marcliffe at Pitfodels Hotel just outside the city were conveniently available on that day.
If I hadn't been brought up as a rational sceptic, imbued as I sat at my teachers' feet with the philosophy of David Hume (or something like that), I might have felt a flutter of the kind of superstition which seemingly compels people to avoid going out, never mind doing anything as momentous as getting hitched, on Friday the 13th.
But I was, and as a result have never been able to comprehend the perceived association between time and luck. As Plato observed (and he's backed up by 2,000 years of literature), human history - life - is an affair of chance; if ill-fortune affects you, it has no free will to look at the clock and say: right... now.
Paraskevidekatriaphobics, as we must apparently call those fearful of what might befall them on Friday the 13th, are at least more evolved than pheasants, say, or rabbits, which, judging by the mess on the roads at this time of year, have no idea what is about to hit them. They just haven't evolved sufficiently well to understand what the concept of randomness really means.
I shouldn't be so critical. After all, if it wasn't for paraskevidekatriaphobics, we would probably have been married in a registrar's drab office with the reception at the local hall in Oldmeldrum.
Interestingly, only one or two guests failed to turn up to our wedding - and I doubt the date had anything to do with their non-appearance. They probably took fright at the prospect of seeing me in tartan trews. And who can blame them?
As for Ruth and me, we haven't suffered any ill-effects from our choice of date. We will have been happily married for eight years come August, by which time we shall have had our first baby.
Oh, and I don't have any trouble remembering my wedding anniversary!
PAUL RIDDELL