Every time a Friday the 13th arrives, people mention how bad luck or how terrible this day is. This year 2021 we only have one Friday the 13th (usually two occur each year) and it is celebrated precisely today, but why do some people even have a phobia that a Friday coincides with being the 13th of the month? What makes Friday the 13th so scary?
What makes Friday the 13th so scary?
Do you find yourself avoiding any association with the number 13, because you associate it with bad luck or impending death? If you do, you are not alone. You actually have something in common with countless people around the world, including famous horror and suspense author Stephen King , who has triscaidecaphobia , which is the fear of the number 13. And if you fear the day, Friday the 13th, then you can have something even scarier: parascevedecatriaphobia , the technical term for the fear of Friday the 13th.
While a severe form of this phobia is rare, there is such widespread concern about the number that many hotels and buildings avoid the number 13 and some airlines, including Lufthansa, jump from 12 to 14 when numbering rows on their planes.
What about the number 13?
Apparently all this widespread fear and fear has more to do with folklore and the cultural omnipresence of superstition than with a specific fact, or a real and proven fact to say that the number 13 is really bad luck.
To find out more about it we have to look back to Norse mythology in which Loki, the god of deception, was the thirteenth guest to arrive at dinner, and another god was killed that day . In the Bible, Jesus Christ was betrayed by Judas, his thirteenth disciple .
And of course there are the television series, video games, books and movies, and the most notorious of all: the Friday the 13th horror movie franchise, which perpetuates triscaidecaphobia and accentuates parascevedecatriaphobia.
In fact, this saga of film s starring the terrifying character of Jason Voorhess is for many the great responsible for the fear of Friday the 13th was on the rise , but this is a day and a number that are also said to have more accidents .
In fact, many people truly fear Friday the 13th as in recent years there have been some rather tragic events that have coincided with this day. For example, the accident of the Costa Concordia, the cruise ship that sank in 2012 off the coast of Giglio Island that killed 32 people and more than 4,000 evacuees occurred on Friday the 13th (January) and a study by the British Medical Journal, which analyzed traffic accidents in a British region between 1989 and 1992, concluded that when there was a Friday the 13th, accidents increased by 52% .
In 1984, King wrote an article for the New York Times in which he shared his fear of 13, which he admitted was “irrational,” while describing the tragedies in history that happened on Friday the 13th. He noted that he is especially cautious. with the years in which there are three Fridays the 13th, something that King defines “triple reverse years.” (Next year with three Fridays the 13th is 2026).
In this way and since today is precisely Friday the 13th, some people may feel anxious. If so, it can help to try to dissociate the number and the day from the negativity and consider the positive things that you remember that happened to you on a day that was the 13th and on the other hand, the same thing is always alluded to: it is Friday. so instead of being afraid because it is also the 13th, let’s celebrate that the weekend has finally arrived.
