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YALE’S MOST DARING PUBLICATION SINCE 1986 | VOL LXXXV ISSUE 10 | 11 Nov. 2019
FROM THE EDITORS Dear reader, Welcome to the Superstition Issue! This is the Superstition Issue. Superstition. Issue. If you say it three times, it has to appear, right? That’s the rule. It’s 11/11, so this is the Superstition Issue. That’s the rule. What are superstitions? Good question. Superstitions are the things we hold to be true, the things that help us make sense of the world around us, even if we don’t know why. The self-evident evidence of an idiom; the invisible codes of conduct; the faith in the unsubstantiated. Don’t step on the crack lest you break your mother’s back; don’t cross a black cat; don’t break a mirror. The hyper rationalist in me wants to reject them as silly. But why? So what if there is no actual connection between stepping on a black mirror and breaking your mother’s back? Why do we feel the need to “know,” to “prove,” to “substantiate evidence in pursuit of journalistic integrity?” Just make shit up!
The Yale Herald is a not-for-profit, non-partisan, incorporated student publication registered with the Yale College Dean’s Office. If you wish to subscribe to the Herald, please contact the Editors-in-Chief at laurie.roark@yale.edu and marina.albanese@yale.edu. Receive the Herald for one semester for 40 dollars, or for the 2020 academic year for 65 dollars. The Yale Herald is published by Yale College students, and Yale University is not responsible for its contents. All opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not reflect the views of The Yale Herald, Inc. or Yale University. Copyright 2019 The Yale Herald.
VISIT US ONLINE AT YALEHERALD.COM
Only kidding, of course. But, in this issue of the Herald, our writers aren’t kidding around! On the cover, Elliot Lewis, BR ’22, investigates the state of superstition, John Besche, MC ’22, reports on the intersection of Christianity and queerness in the campus group Icthys, and Caramia Putman, BF ’22, and Griffin Berlin, JE ’21, spend a day breaking every superstition they can. What a journey! Sincerely, Eric Krebs Managing Editor
EDITORIAL STAFF EDITORS-IN-CHIEF MANAGING EDITORS
Marina Albanese, Laurie Roark Kat Corfman, Eric Krebs
EXECUTIVE EDITORS
Chalay Chalermkraivuth, Nurit Chinn, Fiona Drenttel, Jack Kyono Rachel Calcott, Elliot Lewis Ryan Benson, Bri Wu Hamzah Jhaveri, Silver Liftin Spencer Hagaman Marc Boudreaux Matt Reiner, Harrison Smith Sarah Force, Will Wegner
FEATURES EDITORS CULTURE EDITORS VOICES EDITORS OPINION EDITOR REVIEWS EDITORS ARTS EDITORS INSERTS EDITORS
DESIGN STAFF CREATIVE DIRECTORS ILLUSTRATOR
Paige Davis, Rebecca Goldberg Annie Yan
BUSINESS STAFF BUSINESS MANAGERS
George Hua, Michelle Tong
IN THIS ISSUE
6 Voices
In her quietly unsettling piece, Rebecca Goldberg, MC ’21, describes an unfamiliar and quasi-cultish tradition of harvest.
8 Features Queer and Christ-like? John Besche, MC ’22, explores Ichthys, the covert campus club asking whether Christian communities can be inclusive.
10
Front
Elliot Lewis, BR ’22, sinks into the semantics of superstition and searches for its significance around us.
INCOMING
14 Reviews
In “Superstition Mission,” Caramia Putman, BF ’22, and Griffin Berlin, BR ’21, rack up years of bad luck for your reading pleasure.
16 Culture After making her first purchase from Spiritual Gangster, Ainsley Weber, SM ’22, examines the intersection of our attractions to the material and the spiritual.
Throwing salt over your shoulder.
OUTGOING The vision of the person behind you.
Week Ahead PUBLIC VIEWING OF THE TRANSIT OF MERCURY MONDAY, NOV. 11, 10 AM LEITNER OBSERVATORY “NATIONAL QUALITY WORK IN YALE PUBLICATIONS” THURSDAY, NOV. 14, 6 PM WHITNEY HUMANITIES CENTER NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM THURSDAY, NOV. 14, 7 PM YALE CENTER FOR BRITISH ART
INSERTS Your Weekly Horoscope We’re starting with this month, because that’s what Cosmopolitan does. So first: Scorpio: You’re like a scorpion. Kids are really scared of you. In fact, you give them nightmares. Don’t worry though— this month, we think you are really cool (but mostly because we are not children). To be honest, though, this month isn’t looking too good for you sexually. It’s probably due to the fact that, when people get up close and personal with you, you keep reminding them of their childhood fears. But what can you do? Sagitarius: Jupiter is on the horizon. You should look to yours. Because, my dear, love is in your future. I know no one can spell your sign. Gee, I can’t even pronounce it. But luckily love knows no boundaries, not even language. Capricorn: Peppercorns are in season; take your spice to the bedroom and sprinkle that shit. Add some paprika for a well-rounded smoky flavor. Mercury is still in retrograde BTW, which means it’s wearing all those cool retro ’80s clothes. This might make you uncomfortable because, as a Capricorn, you’re still wearing a really spicy leopard print jumpsuit with spiked heels, which might not be as cool, but don’t worry! You still look HOT! Aquarius: Aquarius sounds like aqua. Aqua reminds us of Aquamarine. Therefore,
this month, just like in that classic movie, love will come to you at the sea. So get those cruise tickets or mooch your way into someone’s beach house. Also, Mercury is totally crashing down and you better get out of the way. Luckily, if you are under water, there is absolutely no way a small planet will hurt you. And then, you can still be in love! Everyone wins!! Pisces: More fish, more sea. You should probably pair up with Aquarius and try to get those cruise ship tickets. Perhaps you and Aquarius could even get a deal together. Maybe even a couple’s deal. You catchin’ what I’m throwin’? Yep, you should date Aquarius. Problem solved: Pisces, but no longer lonely. Aries: So you’re a fire sign. But I could have sworn that you had something to do with air. Shows how much I know! Anyway, spread your wings because you’re about to get lucky. Jupiter is on the horizon, meaning you are going to meet some crazy alien soon and have crazy alien sex. What could be better, or more Aries?! Taurus: Sounds a bit like the last part of Sagittarius. Probably means that y’all are meant to be. See, match made in heaven! Gemini: You’re a gem-and-I love you! One good month, coming up!
Cancer: You’re still crying in your bed. But it’s okay. Love is out there. We’re huge fans of Cancers at the Herald. Cancers are like empty bottles of hot sauce. Because they’re sticky and you wish you could get in there for the good stuff. But you can’t because that bottle has been sitting in your fridge for seven months while your mom was making chicken parmesan. Leo: People may confuse you for the frat BUT DON’T WORRY! You’re way more sexy! I personally have never been to LEO so I can’t get into details, but let me just say, you do not look like a house full of drunk men. You look like LEOnardo DiCaprio Saving The World From Global Warming or Jesus at LEOnardo Da Vinci’s Last Supper. MEOW! Virgo: You’re dizzy. You shouldn’t have sex this month. It would be unhealthy. Libra: Libra—more like zebra! Get that funky, zebra-print dress out and start exploring. This month, don’t be tied down. Dump your partner. Divorce your spouse. It’s time to be free. Beware though, Mercury is in your seventh house, so you should probably spend more time in your Manhattan apartment and less time in your West Coast Villa. This may limit the amount of potential partners, but don’t worry, I hear your Manhattan apartment is still pretty swanky.
(YOUR HOROSCOPE GURU) PAIGE DAVIS, MC ’21 YH STAFF 4
THE YALE HERALD
5 1) Do you open umbrellas inside? A. YES! B. NO! C. Sometimes!
You are not superstitious, and that’s okay! You probably live on the 13th floor with a black cat and loving it! Slay!
2) How many rabbits feet do you own? A. Zero.
Mostly As
B. Three. C. None of the above.
3) In what scenario would you break a mirror? A. If my friends were doing it... B. NEVER! C. Only in anger or in lust.
4) Fill in the blank: Find a penny, pick it up, all day long you’ll have _____
Mostly Bs You are so superstitious! You call your mom to pick you up when your friends are breaking mirrors, and you throw a hefty pile of salt over your shoulder daily. Pop off, superstitious girlboss!
A. A pocket full of penny! B. Good luck! C. A hearty appetite!
5) Which type of door would you rather knock on for good luck? A. A metal door. B. A wood door. C. Heaven’s door.
6) Uh oh! There’s a ladder in your path! What do you do? A. Scale it!
We don’t really know about you! Sometimes you’re superstitious and sometimes you’re not and that’s very cool and mysterious. Keep living your truth, queen!
Mostly Cs
B. Take it home so no one can walk under it! C. Make ladder soup! Just like Mom used to make.
Quiz: How Superstitious Are You? SARAH FORCE, SY ’21 YH STAFF
6 THE YALE HERALD
REBECCA GOLDBERG, MC ’21 YH STAFF
Their Gardens Are Full and Prosperous
VOICES
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he monarchs arrive late this year to lay their young upon the milkweed. If you had been sitting out on the porch that day at noontime, you would have been able to hear the village’s collective sigh of relief as its residents left their homes to gather outside the cemetery beneath the sweltering August sun. The palms of the children are pinched and wrinkled from pool water. Already their skin has begun to freckle, soon to spot like the skin of their parents, who come bearing brimmed hats and woven baskets. There is a rush of excited chatter when a councilwoman unlocks the rain-beaten gate. Families are permitted to gaze upon the fruits of their labor for the first time since the spring planting. Mothers lead their toddlers into the walled plot of land and the eldest members follow closely behind the rest. The last woman closes the gate tight behind her to keep the barn cats from trailing inside. Every bed in the dark orchard spills over with ripened squash. The turned soil cradles green tatumes and tromboncinos, swollen magdas and bush marrows, glows alight with the yellow of scallops and crooknecks that peer through the length of dappled vines. A short speech has been prepared by the mayor, but the youngest members of the audience attempt to dart forward into the florae while he is still unfolding the page tucked into his trousers. They are caught only by a pair of pockmarked adolescents who guide them back into the crowd with apologetic faces. Unfazed, the mayor begins to speak praise upon the bounty of the crop. Partway through he says something that cannot be heard from the back row but which makes the men laugh, elbowing each other as they had done when they were boys. The organizer of that year’s solstice festival steps forward upon the speech’s conclusion. She wipes sweat from her brow as she kneels before the unmarked stretch of earth that stood as her grandfather’s grave, having prepared for this moment since the folding of the first seeds into the soil months before. Her hand finds a crookneck and cradles its weight in her palm, careful not to pull it from its stem too early. She drags her thumb down the length to judge the firmness of its taut custard skin. Parents hold their young ones close against their chests and elders clutch at the shoulders of their children who had long since grown more vital than themselves. All eyes watch as the woman’s thumbnail stabs forward and punctures through the peel. The ripe flesh begins to ooze. A smattering of eager applause rises up behind her.
She stands with her round face glowing, clutching with both hands the plucked squash tight about the neck like a scythe. Its shape casts a long shadow across the earth as she raises it high above her head and cracks it in the same breath over one raised knee. The hollow gourd bursts cleanly, spilling dozens of uncut gems across the feet of those standing closest, rough and red and wet in the sun like chicken hearts. The crowd’s applause rises into a cheer that sets the dogs barking beyond the graveyard walls. Children rush forward to stuff their pockets to bursting. Their wrinkled fingers are stained like cranberries, pink with wealth. Council members shake hands in congratulations before beckoning for their citizens to join them amongst the flowerbeds. They will harvest the lot by sunfall and prepare to sell at market.
“Partway through he says something that cannot be heard from the back row but which makes the men laugh, elbowing each other as they had done when they were boys.”
FEATURES F
From the Caves to the Common Room: Ichthys JOHN BESCHE, MC ’22
or the first few hundred years of the common era, Christianity existed as a network of underground communities evading persecution from the Roman Empire. Houses and religious spaces that were marked as “safe” characterized the early Church and hardly resemble the faith that has become nearly synonymous with Western identity. One proxy for Christianity that early believers used to safely navigate the classical world was the fish symbol, stemming from the Greek acronym for Jesus Christ, Son of God, Our Savior—the Greek word for fish, Ichthys. Two thousand years later, a group of LGBTQ+ Christian Yale students, Ichthys, has borrowed the icon for their own secret gathering space, substituting the ancient tavern for a dorm room. As Christianity evolved into the various denominations that comprise it today, not every branch of the Church grew to affirm the identities of its congregants. Some Christian spaces have replaced the mark of safety with ostracism for the LGBTQ+ community. Queer teenagers who grow up feeling unwelcome in the church often feel pressure to abandon their faith background to secure acceptance in the lives they craft for themselves. A lot of queer students look to college as a space where they can sever oppressive ties and feel safe. Timothy White, SM ’20, a “Gay, Progressive, Christian”—as he describes himself in his Twitter bio— characterized his first year as “a whirlwind-like explosion of new experiences” in a blog post on the website Church Clarity. The site crowd sources data about congregations across the U.S. and screens them for how clearly they communicate their doctrine on equality. White wrote about his experiences with a now-defunct campus Christian organization in his post. The group did not issue a clear policy on LGBTQ+ inclusion. When White sought a leadership role in the group, he was told that if he were to pursue a relationship with a boy, he would have to give up his position. White comes from a strong religious background, like many Yalies, and says he did not want to choose between his faith and his queer identity upon coming to college. This led him to Ichthys, a more-or-less underground community of queer Christians who gather once a week to discuss the balance of queer identity and church membership in their lives. The experience of setting foot on a college campus for the first time lends itself to all the clichés associ-
8 THE YALE HERALD
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ated with reinventing oneself at the age of eighteen. First-years are encouraged to join an improv group, dabble in rock climbing, or seek out forms of expression unavailable to them wherever they came from. Amid these new opportunities, first-years—and all college students—have to negotiate the weight of previous experiences with the necessity to cope with the pressure of campus life. For some, coping entails joining groups that remind them of home, whether that means interests from high school or their cultural background. For students who come from what is perceived as a conflicting set of identities, those spaces can be harder to come by.
in Christian Science. Whether or not she finds herself representing queer voices in Christian Science, as fate would have it, she has been thrust into the role of a religious leader in her own right.
we are to love our neighbor no matter what.” Despite some of the language in the Old Testament, which has harsher words for queer folks, Evans still finds inspiriation in its passages.
Evans discovered Ichthys as a first-year through her peer liaison from the office of LGBTQ resources. “A lot of people kind of cycled in and out since then,” she said. As she was the only junior, the group asked her whether she wanted to run the organization. Much like anyone nominated to become the head of a congregation, Evans had some questions for herself: “Am I qualified to be a religious leader?”
“In the Old Testament, the prophets could see a world that did not yet exist and that’s a good justification for Christian based activism,” she told me. To Evans, it’s about manifesting a new, better world.
Founded in 2016, Ichthys takes its name from the fish icon that early Christians used to designate safe gathering spaces. Their weekly meetings are covertly advertised to protect attendees who are still closeted. In a structured community of safety and support, queer Christians of all denominations are able to share and bond over the experience of naviating their identities.
Evans told me that she expected to stop attending church upon coming to Yale. Though she anticipated a culture of resistance toward people’s religious pasts borne of Yale’s liberal leanings, she was surprised to meet a number of people who were still interested in exploring their faith in college. Of course, she encountered both of those realties. The Christian communities that she found, however, were most appealing to her because they used their newfound freedom to explore faith on their own terms. “I thought I could give that a try,” she concluded. After a search for fulfilling religious spaces, she found a group she describes as “looking for the intersection of queerness and Christianity and going beyond accepting that the two can coexist.” She and the group introduce theological discussions that approach depth and rigor of belief.
Kelsey Evans, BK ’21, this year’s President, said the group affirms that queerness and Christianity are compatible—their goal is to figure out how to talk about it. The meetings begin with Bible passages or discussions derived from texts relating to queerness and faith. Recently, the group discussed Margaret Farley’s Just Love: A Framework for Christian Sexual Ethics. For the members of Ichthys, finding a framework for understanding queerness and Christian sexual ethics is a highly individual journey. Evans grew up in the Christian Science tradition. Since moving to New Haven, she has attended Christian Science services in addition to Methodist church services from time to time. Methodism, according to Evans, is a fairly “apolitical” doctrine, and she often debates whether she should attend an affirming congregation or be the voice of queer youth
“I don’t like arguing about the verse in Leviticus,” she said, referring to a line in the Bible—Leviticus 18:22—that is said to villify homosexual relationships. “I think the Bible was a historical document that was written at a time where some laws continue to apply and some don’t.” As for theological justifications for queerness, she finds that, in the New Testament, “it is very clear that
Discussions of same-sex weddings or name changing ceremonies for transgender parishoners who are undergoing transition come as new possibilities to some members of the group. White recalls group members saying, “I didn’t even realize that this was a possibility.” Names change constantly in the Bible—Saul to Paul, Jacob to Israel, to name a few. Christian figures’ transitions from one persona to another, punctuated by one’s rebirth in God, construct critical elements of the theological tradition. Queerness in Christianity presents the challenge of seeking representation in the text. Perhaps queer Christians can identify with Abraham, whose transition from Abram to Abraham represents conversion to a new life in God for many in the faith. Hot tea, cozy chairs, a list of discussion topics, and Bible verses await the Ichthytes in Evans’ dorm room in Berkeley. White told me that the meetings often stretch beyond the allotted 90 minutes. He recalls people sharing stories “positive and negative in the church, which music they found most powerful in their life to connect with God, forgetting about work they had to do and just talking for hours, finally feeling like they’d found a community that understood an identity that is so rarely encountered.” These dorm room conversations echo what early Christian meetings may have felt like, people unraveling what the broader community of believers might look like while finding refuge in community.
FRONT Post-Religious, PostScientific, Post-Ironic ELLIOT LEWIS, BR ’22, YH STAFF
W
hen I arrived at Branford College as a plucky first-year student, I was told by upperclassmen never to step on the seal in the Branford courtyard. If I did, I would fail my exams, or have my internship applications denied, or not graduate—the story always changed. But to this day, I’ve never stepped on the seal. Recently, I revealed this to a friend––“just in case,” I said. He, a skeptical Philosophy major, explained to me that I’m simply restating Pascal’s wager. Pascal, a 17th-century French mathematician, argued that human beings might as well gamble that God exists: believing in God either results in infinite gain or finite loss, while not believing offers only finite gain or infinite loss. In terms of the Branford seal, why not believe stepping on it is bad luck? There is no harm in at least pretending it is. But this idea has the same issues as Pascal’s wager: theoretically, any other stone has an equal chance of being cursed. Perhaps by avoiding the original stone I have actually stepped on another that will result in me not graduating. This is no less likely. *** The word “superstition” comes from the Latin superstitio, which first appeared in the 5th century BCE as a loose translation of the Greek word deisidaimonia—“fear of the gods.” By late antiquity, superstitio was used by the Greeks and Romans as a derogatory term for Christians. Since Greek and Roman philosophers thought it was irrational to believe that gods could be more evil than human beings, Christians, who feared their god, were deemed “superstitious.” As a result, “superstition” began to refer to those who fell outside of the principal religion. Later on, when Christianity began to dominate Western societies, those who were not Christian could be classified as superstitious. But the development of modern science in the 17th
and 18th centuries changed the meaning of superstition. According to Dale Martin, Woolsey Professor Emeritus of Religious Studies, “Anybody who believed…supernatural [things were] occurring in the natural realm was superstitious.” While superstition used to be the other to religion, it is now the other to science. To Martin, science is, like many religions, a belief system. He explained, “When we say science, we don’t mean truth, we just mean whatever counts as truth by professional scientists now. And by professional scientists we mean people who hold chairs in good universities in departments that we call ‘sciences.’” Martin concluded, “Superstition is simply somebody else’s religion.” *** The American Federation of Astrology—if we choose to trust their statistics—estimates that as many as 70 million Americans read their horoscopes every day. If astrology were a religion— which, in practice, it very well may be—it would be the second most practiced religion in the United States. In 2012, the National Science Foundation estimated that only 55 percent of Americans rejected astrology as “unscientific,” which means that 45 percent believe it to be scientific. Michelle Lim, GH ’20 (Libra), describes her relationship with astrology as “post-ironic.” Growing up in Singapore, Lim’s family practiced astrology, palm-reading, and feng shui. “It wasn’t even religious,” she told me. “It was just a ritual that you do back home.” What we may call superstition was Lim’s childhood; for her, it was all real until she turned 18. She read her horoscope religiously before exams to get an idea of how nervous she should be. “It was printed in the cheap newspapers back home in Singapore; they would give it out everyday for free.”The rooms of Lim’s house were painted to match the colors of her family’s Zodiac signs. They stuck up coins along their walls to improve the feng shui. “There’s this page-by-page calendar that my grandma uses, where everyday it would tell you,
based on your Zodiac, how your day is going to be. She would tear it off on my birthday and give it to me as my birthday present.” Since coming to Yale, Lim’s relationship with superstition has changed. “Now I believe it post-ironically… I’m not being ironic about it… I’m past irony. I can see that there is an irony there.” Lim still reads her horoscope daily. “Last week, I had a lot of choices for my full-time job after graduation, and I was really stressed. And then my horoscope said, ‘Having too many choices is a good thing, even if you don’t like them all.’ And that just made me feel less stressed.” Lim is comforted by these horoscopes— they often improve her days. “I don’t believe it, but it’s a useful framework.” Lim chose her room in her residential college by sending pictures to her parents, who used feng shui to make sure the orientations were correct for her. “Science can’t explain everything. Especially living in a post-truth world, where everything that was certain is now wrong, everything that was wrong could be right. I’m open to believing something even if it’s not right—if it’s not factually right.” Lim, a Computer Science major, first interned in Silicon Valley the summer before her sophomore year. She is an avid user of Co-Star, which she calls a “meme” among the Silicon Valley community. CoStar is an astrology app, known for its remarkably specific horoscopes. “Most horoscopes ask what month you were born. Co–Star asks what minute,” the website advertises. “Powered by AI that merges NASA data with the insight of human astrologers,” Co-Star is a great union between science and superstition—infallible, some might say. The app currently has over three million registered users. And it is not the only astrology app on the market. There’s Pattern, the Daily Horoscope, TimePassages, Astro Guide, and Astrology Zone, to name a few. Susan Miller, the founder of Astrology Zone, was referred to by the New Yorker as “the doyenne of popular astrology” and by the New York Times as the “queen of astrologers.” She writes over 40,000 words per
11 month for her horoscopes, and each of the 12 star signs gets a hyper-specific reading. Lim believes this hyperspecificity lends to an easier suspension of disbelief. It’s like watching Harry Potter, she said. The magic isn’t really there, but it is quite fun to pretend it is.
science correctly, but that probably means that thing is wrong. It very infrequently means the science was wrong. And if it does mean the science is wrong, that is usually good for the overall sciCAMDEN SMITH, ES ’21 entific world because then you learn more about YH STAFF the universe.”
Since coming to the United States, Lim has been exposed to many folk superstitions that are popular here. “There’s the common knock on wood thing, that I really care about... If everybody seems to believe it or think you should do it, I figure there is no harm [in] doing it. And for the very non-zero chance that it is an issue, the amount of effort I put into just knocking, it’s so little. So it’s more of a ‘Why not?’” With her other superstitions, like astrology, Lim is more careful about the social implications. “Everyone here [at Yale] is very… truth-oriented. Something is true or something is wrong. If you say [you believe in astrology] here, it’s like you’re crazy.”
Minsky-Fenick is not against all things non-science—he describes himself as religious. But that does not mean he accepts all other beliefs. “If someone believes some weird shit that really doesn’t follow the notions of science that I know, something that I know isn’t true based on the collective wisdom of hundreds of years of scientists, then, yeah, I think less of them. I think, this person doesn’t know what they’re talking about. Maybe I shouldn’t think that. Maybe it’s wrong of me to think that. But I do think that.”
*** “Astrology is a good thing to talk about because it embodies everything bad about superstition,” began Eitan Minsky-Fenick, BR ’22 (Capricorn). “It lets people make excuses for their behavior and what happens to them… It’s bad because it does all that and it doesn’t even give people community. Religions do well because they give people community.” It would be a mistake to call Minsky-Fenick, an intensive Physics major, a superstitious man. Instead, he looks to science. “If I were superstitious I would say, ‘The fourth washing machine doesn’t work until you kick it,’ because I kicked it once and it worked. If I were mathematically correct and doing science correctly, then I would make sure. I would try that washing machine a few times, some of those times I would kick and others of those times I would not.” He then went on to describe in more detail the distinct elements of this washing machine experiment. But science and superstition are “a similar beast,” he admits. “They come from our innate desire to pattern match—to figure out what things are working for us in a quick and easy way. Science is being super careful about what superstitions you make. Science is pattern matching, but it’s really careful pattern matching. It’s mathematically correct pattern matching.” In conversation with Minsky-Fenick, I mentioned Lim’s comment that science cannot explain everything. “I don’t really like this concept of ‘There are things science can’t explain,’” he responded. “Yeah, there are things which apparently don’t coexist with
*** I kept thinking about Minsky-Fenick’s claim that superstitions can’t build community the way religion can. It reminded me of a story my aunt had told me about the solidarity she found through the psychic medium Thomas John. About three years ago, her husband passed away. He died of a heart attack on the couch in his home in Illinois. He was not old or in bad health, so the news was shocking. It hurt the whole family, especially my aunt. She began to spend large portions of her paychecks on psychics, both private viewings and large shows. She wanted to communicate with him, to keep their relationship from truly ending. In June 2019, she attended a Thomas John show. John told the audience he was seeing the letter S. He asked anybody with a connection to this letter to raise their hand. My uncle’s name started with an S; she raised her hand. Another woman raised her hand at the same time. Her loved one’s name also started with S. John then gave a month: April. Both of their loved ones had died in April. John gave a year: 2017. Again, the same. The other woman was sitting right behind my aunt. It seemed like fate. My aunt took the woman out for drinks afterward, and they talked for hours about their shared experience. They found out more commonalities between them—they didn’t live too far apart, for example—and they felt comforted by this coincidence. John had united them, and they were now able to console one another in their grief. Unbeknownst to her, the New York Times had revealed a few months prior that Thomas John,
along with several other big-name psychic mediums, was using Facebook to find information about his audience members so that he could spout facts about their dead loved ones at his shows. It took quite a long time for anyone to catch his ruse— most of his audience was in mourning, after all. But at least those in grief found solace for a while. *** “For me, it’s mostly about bad luck,” Ugonna Nwakudu, PC ’23 (Aquarius), told me. “Personally, I’m always worried about whether I have good luck or bad luck. If I’m really hoping to get something, I don’t want a streak of bad luck to suddenly come and mess it up for me.” Nwakudu self-identifies as “extremely” superstitious. She throws salt over her shoulder when she spills it, she throws coins into fountains, she avoids stepping on cracks, and, like Lim, knocks on wood. “Just in case,” she says. “I don’t want to see what would happen if they actually come true.” Superstitions about luck seem to be ingrained in Yale tradition. As a first-year living on Old Campus, I walked past many tours for prospective students as they were just beginning in front of the Theodore Dwight Woolsey statue. I could hear the tour guide reciting a rehearsed line that rubbing Woolsey’s toes brings good luck and can get you accepted to Yale. Tour guides then include a quippy line of their own: “I don’t know if it’s true, but I rubbed it last week before my chemistry midterm, and I got an A,” or, more captivating: “I rubbed it on my Yale tour, and here I am.” Suddenly, a crowd of eager high school juniors and seniors vigorously rub the foot. Their parents often take photos of them, foot in hand. I have been told never to touch the foot—“people get drunk and pee on it.” I have no way to prove the
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THE YALE HERALD
validity of this statement, although for one reason or another the shoe has taken on a vibrant yellow sheen to separate it from the bronze exterior of the rest of the statue. An effect of constant rubbing or the acidity of urine? The world may never know.
from day to day/have strange stories to share from direct experiences/hold a somewhat coherent, cohesive, systematic spiritual worldview that does not fall under well-recognized religions?” Although I am not a spiritual medium, I responded.
On the subject of this fetishized foot of T.D. Woolsey, Nwakudu said, “I don’t want to say it’s weird because then I sound like a hypocrite. I don’t know. I think it’s all about seeing someone else do it versus seeing myself do it. When I see all the tourists crowding around like, ‘Oh, I hope my child gets into Yale,’ it just seems weird. But probably some other time I would definitely walk up to the statue and be like, ‘Give me some good luck on this exam.’”
Hong, a graduate student pursuing a PhD in Mechanical Engineering, is a leader of the on-campus organization (W)holy Queer, along with Chihiro Tsukamoto, a third-year graduate student pursuing a PhD in Medieval Studies. (W)holy Queer is an LGBTQIA+ interfaith group that offers monthly dinner conversations about religion, spirituality, and queerness.
Nwakudu, a prospective Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology major, has had trouble resolving the cognitive dissonance between science and superstition. Superstition, to her, is a vestigial remnant of a more religious period in her life. Nwakudu, who has come to identify as a deist, finds comfort in superstition. “I think I like having the power, the control, over my life. So [with] anything I can do, even if it seems ridiculous, it’s comforting that I can have the chance to control my fate.” Nwakudu considers herself a paranoid person. But, through her superstitions, she has found a way to ease her anxieties: “Even if I throw a penny into a fountain and wish for good luck and something bad still happens, I’m still at least comforted by the fact that the initial action of throwing a penny will lead to something good further down, even if it isn’t as immediate as I wanted it to be.” *** On Nov. 3, Jimin Uliniaq Hong posted the following request on the “Yale Free & For Sale” Facebook group: “looking for spiritual mediums: Far shot, but is anyone on campus from a shamanistic tradition/ possess some ‘6th sense’/incorporate such practices
As an ex-evangelical Christian, Hong has recently discovered a fascination for Korean Shamanism, as a result of conversations with friends as well as random videos popping up on her recommendations on YouTube. “I know so many queer Korean-Americans who are trying to go back to their roots by means of connecting with Korean Shamanism, in particular,” Hong said. “I think queer subpopulations, because they’ve already broken one form of norm and barrier, are more prone to exploring things outside the normative boundaries in other aspects as well.” Tsukamoto qualified Hong’s statements: in the ’60s and ’70s, as Wicca and Paganism became more popular in the U.K. and the U.S., they attracted many queer people who had been excluded from their “home religions.” “Just because they were pushed out of church doesn’t mean they were going to completely disavow any kind of spirituality, so I think they were attracted to more nature-based religions, to older forms of religions that weren’t as homophobic.” Yet these religions are commonly referred to as superstition in the U.S. today. It’s as though queer communities are being attacked from all sides—pushed away from one religion and mocked for the new religion they choose.
Tsukamoto and Hong talked about several possible explanations for the origins of religions: mental illness, collective consciousness, demons, near-death experiences, and psychedelic drugs. Hong specifically requested that I mention the last one. But Tsukamoto made it clear that many religious practitioners, even those that would be deemed as superstitious by many Americans, can determine what is real spirituality and what is not. She told me the story of a woman in rural Taiwan who claimed to hear voices of spirits. Her family, both nervous for her health and excited by her possible prophetism, took her to nearby Taiwanese shamans. The shamans, listening to the woman, came to the conclusion that she was simply mentally ill, not a medium between the spirit world and our world. Shamans, Tsukamoto concluded, know the difference. To many, science can’t explain everything. Hong recently watched a YouTube video of a deliveryman who inquired to a shaman about his career. “After getting only his name and birthday, the shaman said, ‘Have you been to a jail for murder?’ and he said, ‘No.’ He constantly denied it, but it turns out he did go to jail for murder. And the shaman was saying, ‘It says in your birth chart that you must have gone to jail.’” The internet makes stories of the improbable more accessible to mass audiences. It is becoming easier for the general public to search for non-scientific explanations. “I don’t like the word superstition,” Hong commented, “Because it almost feels a little derogatory
coming from people who are not superstitious. It’s dismissive to consider things as substandard to better knowledge, more scientific and Western.” “Let’s get the terms defined here,” said Tsukamoto. “Superstition is a belief in something that’s irrational. Whether you are of this particular religion or not, you cannot call somebody’s religious tradition irrational because there is a logic and tradition behind it, and a reason for people doing the things that they do.” In 2017, the U.S. Department of Defense officially recognized several Heathen, Pagan, Wiccan, and Druid faith groups. “[These] are huge victories for these minority religions,” Tsukamoto commented. This action is indicative of a growing recognition for these nature-based religions in the United States. It is no longer acceptable to refer to them as superstition—such a statement is religious persecution. The designation of Shamanism, Vodou, Wicca, Paganism and other religions as “superstition” otherizes these faiths that have already been otherized by racism, ethnocentrism, and homophobia. Would it be fair to group astrology and other superstitions together with these religions? Probably not. But astrology has been a place of refuge for many people, much like other systems of belief. Most things we call superstition are simply sources of comfort for people like Lim, Nwakudu, my aunt, and even me. Even if science is not on my side, I will never step on the Branford seal. But maybe it’s just because I’m a Sagittarius.
REVIEWS Superstition Mission This week, the Herald asked writers to embark on a day of purposefully breaking superstitions and recording what transpired. Though no one convinced a bird to poop on them or rubbed their face against a rabbit’s foot, things still got a little freaky.
GRIFFIN BERLIN, BF ’21 On Nov. 1, Spooky Season officially ended. But try as I might, I wasn’t ready to give it up. With all of America ready to summon Mariah Carey for the approaching Christmas holidays, it was up to me to find the creepy crawly kick I was still craving. And so, in an effort to relive the Halloween high, I decided to face some superstitions head on, hoping for the best. Or maybe the worst? If the worst meant spooky, then that’s what I was after. 1) Walking Under a Ladder As I passed under the ladder, I stopped. I was struck, suddenly, by the beauty of the form that I found myself in. It’s not often enough that we think about an isosceles triangle. Like, two sides of equal length and the third of a different length? Literally stunning. And to disrespect that? To disrespect that ladder, which was putting in serious work standing there to form such an exquisite triangular form, but merely walking under it—I couldn’t do it. Spooky? I am. Sacrilegious? I am not. 2) Spilling Salt I was minding my own business, eating my Yale Dining chana masala, when disaster struck—salt spilled, and right into my plate! Excited at the prospect of impending spookiness, I hurried to finish my meal. But my next bite stopped me in my tracks. It was really good. Like really frickin’ good.
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3) Breaking a Mirror Anyone who knows me knows that I love to craft. Breaking the mirror didn’t bring anything scary into my life, but it did provide the ultimate crafting opportunity. Mirror mosaic’s looking good! 4) Opening an Umbrella Inside Opening an umbrella felt like a fool-proof way to find the superstitious blowback I was looking for. At the very worst, I figured that I would at least look weird to the passersby. And things were going well. Nothing spooky happened, and I definitely looked crazy. But then, the fire alarm went off, and the sprinklers rained water down, soaking the hallway. Everyone and everything got wet, except me. 5) Seeing a Black Cat The night after I saw the black cat on the street, I had a dream that I was in Cats. I was looking for spooky, not terrifying. My hunt for a little October fun in November was, resoundingly, a failure. No matter how much I tried, everything even remotely scary—but like, in a fun way—just wasn’t having it. Perhaps Mariah is already too powerful, and I should be spending my time listening to “All I Want for Christmas is You” instead.
15 CARAMIA PUTMAN, BF ’23 YH STAFF
I
believe in superstitions when it’s convenient. Part of me thinks they’re silly. Part of me thinks Co-Star is omniscient. Does that make me superstitious or a little stitious? Does it make for good journalism? Let’s find out. This Wednesday (Nov. 6), I broke as many superstitions as I could in one day to see what would happen. Pre-Day Luck: It was a casual Tuesday, with luck levels starting at a solid ★★★★. I did some reading in Book Trader—a classic move. Everything was cool until mid-study I reached for a sip of water, and noticed something fluttering. It was a wasp! A fully grown wasp. Inside. I got up in shock and looked around. The whole time I was doing this, nobody looked over. Still unclear whether I imagined this. My luck dropped by, like, three stars. Eventually the wasp disappeared. But then another girl with a shaved head (I have a shaved head) sat next to me. It was upsetting. I’m gonna say I ended the day with ★★★ luck. Day-of Luck: Starting the day still at a solid ★★★. I made a list of everything Wikipedia could tell me about superstitions in the morning before going out, and wrote down what happened every time I found/did something unlucky. I tried to go for a-religious signs of bad luck I already knew about. Here’s what transpired, aided by the Notes app: 1. Stepping on cracks: I stepped on so many cracks. My mother’s back is no worse than it was yesterday. Though I did trip a couple times. 2. Walking under ladders: Couldn’t find any ladders. I walked under one of those construction scaffolds. I survived. 3. Black cats: Saw no black cats. I did sneak a black coffee into Haas. It was a poor choice. Nobody said anything, but I know I’m a dirty, dirty person for doing it. My luck probably dropped to ★★, because that’s what I deserve. 4. Breaking mirrors: I have pieces of broken mirror all over my wall already. I broke another piece. There’s now glass dust all over my room. Pretty glass dust. Luck’s back up, baby: ★★★. 5. Shoes on tables: I did it, but this one is just plain rude. 6. Spilling salt/pepper:This one is also rude. I don’t deserve my luck stars.
7. Opening umbrellas inside: I lost my umbrella soon after this. If you find her… Luck was deffo at a ★. 8. Ladybugs: Ladybugs are a sign of good luck. I saw one hanging on the frame of a photo. I went to pick her up. She was dead. 9. Seeing fish: Tonight I discovered [REDACTED] has pet shrimp in the [REDACTED] basement. They are terrifyingly large. 10. Losing a wishbone break: I hate losing. It was a bummer. 11. Cutting fingernails after dark: I forgot to cut my pinky nail. Embarrassing or fashionable? I’m going to say I gained a luck ★ here. Rewarding myself for being bold. Luck level: ★★ 12. Picking up pennies: Saw one outside of Book Trader (I need to stop going there. Too much baggage). I didn’t pick it up. I really wanted to, but I didn’t. 13. The number thirteen: I wrote it on my hand. All day people kept asking why. Good or bad source of attention? Giving myself another star for brave stylistic choices. My day ended with, like, ★★ luck. Post-Day Luck: I did some more research on omens, and apparently, seeing your doppelgänger is considered to be bad luck. It did make me feel less secure. Don’t know if insecurity has to do with luck, though. I have yet to feel any remarkable effects from yesterday, though a couple spooky things happened: 1. I tried to get the Popeye’s Chicken Sandwich. The line was too long. I left and ate Dunkin instead. My plebeian stomach can never handle Dunkin. 2. My photography professor showed us her work. In one of the photos, a man had a shirt with “666” on it. It was terrifying. Otherwise, everything was supernatural as always. I don’t like going around tempting fate. Although, I wonder if I would’ve thought twice about today’s indigestion had I not been looking out for bad signs. I think what the universe tells me is more or less up to me. If I hate my shaved head, the universe is gonna encourage me to hate my shaved head. Final luck level: ??? I have no idea how many stars I get for that realization.
**Disclaimer: events recorded might have happened…or maybe they didn’t…or maybe they did…things really are freaky at the Herald this week.
CULTURE Spiritual (Gangster), but Not Religious AINSLEY WEBER, SM ’22
L
ast month, I finally gave in to a bombardment of Facebook ads and ordered my first top from the brand Spiritual Gangster: a black, oversized long-sleeve with the words “we are all connected” in minimalist white letters on the front, a compass-rose-meets-illuminati-triangle design on the back. Honestly, I congratulated myself on holding out for so long—the alluring ads were undoubtedly generated from Google searches like “yoga in New Haven” and my inability to resist clicking on hyperlinks like “how to incorporate mindfulness into your life.” Yes, I occasionally meditate in the evenings, keep both a yoga mat and a foam roller in my dorm room, and frequent the Good Life Center. You might say I aspire to be a “Spiritual Gangster.” A luxury brand associated with the upsurge in mindfulness, yoga studios, and self-love through self-care, Spiritual Gangster puts a price tag on identifying as “spiritual but not religious.” Their online storefront offers a selection of tie-dyed cotton tops, chic fleece sweatpants, and numerous athleisure staples. Phrases like “We are all spiritual beings,” “LOVE,” and “Meditate meditate meditate” splay across breast pockets, pant legs, and behinds. Oh, and did I mention most pieces cost upward of $100? Spiritual Gangster situates itself among a broader consumer trend that blurs the line between the commercial and the spiritual. Anyone who has encountered Gwyneth Paltrow and her lifestyle brand Goop is familiar with the business of juxtaposing self-avowed spirituality and self-care expertise, as well as exorbitantly priced products to help you best take advantage of such expertise (think $80 “rose quartz bottle” that “invigorates your chakra”). It’s impossible to peruse Paltrow’s website in search of healthy snack recipes or bougie horoscopes without an ad for a product like “Morning Skin Superpowder” lurking at the edges of my window. Websites like Goop promise anything from self-reinvention to divine inspiration but inevitably leave me wondering if I need the $27 “Psychic
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Vampire Repellent” to “conjure up positivity” in my life. Maybe I can’t do it on my own? Perhaps this trend of investing in your spirituality is not as novel as we think. After all, Catholic disciples saved up to purchase indulgences from the Church as a get-out-of-Purgatory-free card long before I ever clicked on that picture of a smiling model posing in a shirt reading “Peace, love, and all the things.” Even so, at least the Vatican patrons of the Middle Ages consciously tied their discretionary expenditures to hopes of eternal salvation. My motives for buying a top that says “We are all connected” are entirely cosmetic, separate from my motives for practicing yoga, meditating, and entertaining the thought that we are, indeed, all connected. If brands like Spiritual Gangster and Goop merely package spirituality as a luxury good to consume, only the well-off can afford true enlightenment. Even if I can separate buying the shirt and buying into the lifestyle the shirt claims to embody, my desire for both originate in the same attraction to a novel, almost transcendental ethos espoused by such metaphysical slogans. The notion that there is positivity to conjure up or higher spiritual awareness to attain is not routine in many people’s daily lives—but neither is a graphic t-shirt we don’t yet own, nor psychic vampire repellent, nor any luxury material good. Our attraction to the material and our attraction to the spiritual resemble each other in this respect. They’re special occasions, a break from routine and a departure from the ordinary. Whether a transcendental proposition, an imaginative horoscope, or a new tie-dyed sweatshirt, we gravitate towards that which contradicts the familiar. Maybe that is what spirituality is all about—anything so at odds with everyday life that it gives meaning to what occasionally seems a meaningless existence. We don’t even have to believe in anything religious—we just need to feel something spiritual.
The Black List things we hate this week
things we hate this week Wisdom teeth. Get those out of here.
Husbands. Get those OUTTA here.
Science. Maybe we shouldn’t think this. Maybe it’s wrong of us to think this. But we do think this.
Leviticus 18:22. Worst season. Worst episode.
Being burned at the stake. “You insult me here, of all places, at the stake.”
Editors who rush you. Bro, hop off my doc.
Ok boomer. No substitute for class consciousness.
Ladders. I prefer bootstraps.
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