Ghost Writers in the Sky

 

Or: They May Have Gone to That Big Typewriter in Sky, Yet They Still Keep Producing Books. 

  

But who the heck doesn’t know Scarlett O’Hara? People want characters — they don’t care who the author is……………. Andrew Neiderman

 

When a writer dies it usually means that their characters are gone too.  But not anymore. For many popular deceased writers, it is the characters that have resulted in new books to be churned out for their audiences using their name. In fact, some authors have “written” more books after they died than when they were alive. Robert Ludlum and Tom Clancy come to mind but there are quite few. Of course, money had nothing to do with it.  “Nudge nudge, wink wink” as Monty Python would say. This leads us to The Trunk Full of Notes in the Attic concept. Evidently, many defunct authors left their notes for future books somewhere to be discovered and the trunk in the attic is as good as any. Fortunately, these trunks would be discovered by agents, relatives and/or their estate thus unleashing a fortuitous torrent of posthumous publishing. 

 

You're on your own now. You are not helpless. You will find your way…….

Robert Ludlum is gone but Bourne lives on. Ludlum was a prolific writer in life and even more prolific when not alive. He wrote three Jason Bourne books before he went to that big Three-Word Title (check the bibliography, every book has a 3-word title), library in sky in 2001.  There have been 14 Bourne books, and counting since then, with, sadly, none of them titled “Bourne Again”.  Initially Erik Van Lustbader whipped out 11 Bournes, evidently wearied of them and the next three were written by Brian Freeman.  In fact, since Ludlum bit the dust he’s "written" 33 novels by 11 authors all with the “Robert Ludlum’s” above the title. Van Lustbader and Freeman, like many of the authors of resurrected series are authors in their own right.  Van Lustbader with a series of Ninja books and Freeman with a particularly violent detective series. Ludlum also wrote a Paul Jansen book which was published posthumously, and then three more Paul Jansen books, two by Paul Garrison and one by Douglas Corleone even more posthumously. Ludlum is by far the most productive of the defunct authors with 31 at last count. Even Treadstone, the dark governmental entity from the Bourne series gets four featured books. Surely Ludlum must be suffering from post life fatigue wherever he is. 

 

If you don't write the book, the book ain't gonna get written……….Tom Clancy fans were devastated when Clancy went to that big Conspiracy Plot in the sky but fear not, Jack Ryan would continue to save the country.  Clancy wrote 19 books with the last five written as “Tom Clancy with” ……Mark Greaney (3), Grant Blackwood and Peter Telep.  Allegedly, when Clancy was asked about his co-author books, he said “Write it? I didn’t even read it.” The spigot really opened after Clancy’s death in 2013 with 19 and counting so far. Clancy fans call it the “Ryanverse”.  Most feature Jack Ryan and Jack Ryan Jr., but John Clark , who first appeared in the Cardinal of the Kremlin, makes a substantial comeback in Code of Honor. Are more John Clarks on the way? Clancy wrote nine novels with Ryan as protagonist. Miraculously, Clancy even continued to write book blurbs for other authors after he was dead.  Five years after his death, the deceased ex- thriller author had a blurb on the back cover of  Stephen Coonts', The Russia Account: “Extraordinary! Once you start reading, you won’t stop!” —Tom Clancy

 

I write five pages a day. If you would read five pages a day, we'd stay right even.

……………..Robert B. Parker was 77 in 2010 when he went to that big Boylston Street in the sky. He was discovered at his writing desk by his wife.  If you have read the Spenser series, the character of Susan Silverman is based on his wife, Joan. Parker’s passing would also mean the end of favorite Spenser characters, Hawk, Vinnie Morris, Rita Fiore, Martin Quirk and others. He had been working on a novel, Silent Night, which was completed by his literary agent Helen Bran.  There were two immediate posthumous novels, Sixkill and Painted Ladies. Fear not, Parker has produced 10 more Spenser books written by Ace Atkins since his demise. Welcome back Hawk et al. Spenser was, of course, Parker’s principal focus. 41 times in fact. He also wrote the Jesse Stone and Sunny Randall series. Parker joined in the post-mortem fun twice by completing the deceased Raymond Chandler’s Poodle Springs and then writing at sequel to Chandler’s The Big Sleep titled, Perchance to Dream. Eleven Jesse Stone novels have been published since Parker's demise. The first three were by Parker's collaborator, Michael Brandman, and the next six by Reed Farrel Coleman. Sportswriter and novelist, Mike Lupica wrote the 10th and eleventh. The sun shone on Sunny Randall series with two more written by Lupica.  The Parker assembly line of popular characters, like those of Clancy and Ludlum will continue to churn them out as long as the money comes rolling in. 

 

If you are a writer, Saturday and Sunday don’t mean anything…………Clive Cussler certainly never got writer’s cramp.   There were 16 Numa Files, 14 Oregon Files, 11 Isaac Bell Adventures and 11 Fargo Adventures. He also “wrote” 25 Dirk Pitt novels.  A 26^th, Clive Cussler’s The Devil’s Sea was written by his son, Dirk, who had joined the Franchise Train a year after Clive went to Davy Jones’ Locker in the sky although he had also co-authored Clive’s last eight Dirk Pitt books. The latest two of Cussler’s Numa Files appeared after his demise. Clive Cussler’s Hellburner was cooked up in 2022. Clive Cussler’s the Sea Wolves, an Isaac Bell adventure also rang in during 2022. Clive Cussler’s The Fargo Adventure (not a review of the TV series) popped up in 2023. Since Clive went kaput in 2020, his post life production is impressive and we write this at the end of 2022, early 2023, so who knows how many more will bubble up from under the sea.

 

The creative genius begins in the idle moment, dreaming up the impossible, and later making it come true…………Victoria Andrews, aka, V.C Andrews wrote her most famous book, Flowers in the Attic in 1979. She went to that big attic in the sky in 1986.  Since then she has “written” 93 books.  After her death, her family hired a ghostwriter, which seems appropriate for gothic novels, Andrew Neiderman, to finish the manuscripts she had started. He completed the next two novels, Garden of Shadows and Fallen Hearts. These two novels were considered the last to bear the "V. C. Andrews" name and to be almost completely written by Andrews herself, so we’ll award the other 91 to Neiderman who also supplied our opening quote.  We note that unlike the works of most deceased authors, the Andrews franchise is not character based but relies on families – Hudson, Landry, Logan, DeBeers, and on and on, involved with gothic themes mixed into the horror stew. 

 

It’s this upside-down world that we live in where we afford political correctness to the most intolerant group of individuals on the planet………………Vince Flynn, author of the Mitch Rapp series went to that big Langley, Virginia headquarters in the sky in 2012 after a productive 13 years of having Mitch thwart terrorists and other threats to the country. In the Flynn cosmos, the CIA are the good guys for a change, and Mitch Rapp is a CIA agent. Usually, in thrillers, the CIA gets a “bum rap”.  In 2015 Mitch Rapp reappeared. On the book cover we have Vince Flynn in giant letters as the top lines of the cover. Then the title, Lethal Agent, slightly smaller font in the middle and A Mitch Rapp Novel by Kyle Mills in itty bitty letters at the bottom. There have been 7 more giant Vince Flynns and itty bitty by Kyle Mills since then.

 

There is no real ending. It’s just the place where you stop the story…………..Frank Herbert’s post life work can get confusing.  He is most famous for his Dune novels of which we have six: Dune, Dune Messiah, Children of Dune, God Emperor of Dune, Heretics of Dune, and Chapterhouse: Dune before he went to the planet Arrikis (Dune) forever. Yes, he was “dune and dusted”.  Herbert was another prolific author and remained so after his death as his estate managed to release four previously unpublished novels.  Then, a decade after his denouement, his son, Brian and author Kevin J. Anderson quite possibly went up to the attic.  Note, this was not V.C Andrews “attic” so there were no flowers, and looked around, and blew off the dust of an old trunk and ……..found notes left behind by Herbert.  From those notes they have squeezed out at least three more prequel Dune trilogies exploring the history of the Dune universe before the events of the original novel.  These novels take place between novels of the original Dune sequels (with plans for more), as well as two post-Chapterhouse Dune novels that complete the original series based on Frank Herbert's own Dune 7 outline. Whew!  This must have been an enormous crate of paper containing Dune notes. That attic must have had a very sturdy floor indeed. 

 

Trunks filled with notes seem to be very important in keeping no longer alive authors producing books. Thus inspired, we here at the Gnus Almanac have recently serendipitously, indeed miraculously, discovered in a dusty corner of a creaky attic, naturally, of a small 2^nd hand bookstore in Dorchester, England a single page note buried under a pile of old issues of Beano comic books that we were perusing.  There were also some musty issues of Punch. Sacre bleu!  The note was an exceedingly rare memo from Thomas Hardy to himself regarding a planned novel.  This would be a sequel to Tess of the D’Urbervilles.   Inspired by those people in this essay who found previously undiscovered notes from famous authors, we plan to continue Hardy’s legacy  by expanding that note into the novel we know he and his fans would have wanted. We present the note in its entirety:  One morning in early June a middle-aged man was walking homeward from Shaston to the village of Marlott, in the adjoining Vale of Blakemore or Blackmoor.…………..  Clearly, this captures the the very essense of Hardy’s work which is famed for delineating characters, such as Tess of the D’Urbervilles, struggling against their passions and circumstances. We will engage in this noble effort  not for the money but merely to honor what we are sure were the author’s wishes, as well as fans of Tess,  for the anticipated Tess 2, Escape From Wessex.  

 

Books aren't written — they're rewritten. Including your own. It is one of the hardest things to accept, especially after the seventh rewrite hasn't quite done it………….. Michael Crichton, who went to Andromeda looking for the strain in 2008 has published three books since he died. This brings up an ethical question.  When Dragon Teeth was published, critics asked, should a deceased author’s unfinished stories be published?  Crichton, author of Jurassic Park among others, left behind a huge collection of papers (trunk? attic?) when he died at the age of 56.  Dragon Teeth was the third posthumous novel released since 2008. Follow the money as Crichton was and is a reliable success in bookstores. Reviewers have noted that Dragon Teeth and the other posthumous books feel like a rushed attempt to capitalize on the Crichton Brand. No, would they really do that? Crichton fans lapped them up. The books were not character based but the Crichton name sells.   

 

Author Schmauther, give us characters. We turn to two dead authors who continue to write books except they are not dead.  In fact, they never existed.  Oh, why can’t all people be nice like this scenery and not make trouble?.......Caroline Keene “wrote” the Nancy Drew mysteries. There was no Caroline Keene.  Caroline Keene was the name given to a series of writers. The first author to use the pseudonym was Mildred Wirt Benson, who wrote 23 of the original 30 books. Other writers who have adapted the “Carolyn Keene” cognomen include Leslie McFarlane, James Duncan Lawrence, Walter Karig, and Nancy Axelrod. The writers were paid $125 for each book by publisher Edward Stratemeyer (who was also responsible for Tom Swift and The Bobbsey Twins) and were required by their contract to give up all rights to the work and to maintain confidentiality. Benson is credited as the primary writer of Nancy Drew books.  Nancy initially appeared in 1930 in The Secret of the Old Clock. There have been 175 novels since then.  Frank, your father would be very disappointed in you for jumping to a conclusion like that." "Actually, Sir, I’m Joe, he is Frank…….On the boys’ side, we have Franklin W. Dixon.  Franklin W. Dixon is the pen name used by a variety of authors writing for the classic series, The Hardy Boys.  The first and most well-known “Franklin W. Dixon” was Canadian author, Leslie McFarlane who wrote 19 of the first 25 books in the series. Other writers who have been Dixonized include Christopher Lampton, John Button, Amy McFarlane, and Harriet Stratemeyer (see Edward Stratemeyer above) Adams. The Bookroo website notes that there are currently 178 Hardy Boys books in the oeuvre. As with Nancy Drew, these ghostwriters were paid as little as $125 for each book and were legally required to give up all rights and maintain confidentiality.

 The Hardy Boys, Secret of Wildcat Swamp written by William Dougherty as Dixon, was the first actual book, (to differentiate from children’s books) to be read by this author circa 1957. That started the reading bug for me, and it was the first of thousands of books read since then.  Thank you, Franklin W. Dixon, whoever you may be. 

 

Fantasy is an area where it is possible to talk about right and wrong, good and evil, with a straight face……………..Robert Jordan’s wheel of time stopped turning in 2007. He had written 11 in the Wheel of Time series.  When Jordan’s health was failing, he wanted the series to continue and so he shared all of the significant plot details with his family.  His wife then hired Brandon Sanderson to complete the series. No notes in a trunk in the attic for this one. However, Sanderson veered from the straight and narrow posthumous sequel genre.  As he told Alison Flood in a 2009 issue of The Guardian; “Instead of imitating Robert Jordan, my job has been to write what's appropriate for the Wheel of Time. It's the same actors, the same script, but a different director." Wheel of Time stopped turning, presumably when Jordan’s notes ended, in 2013 six years after his demise.  Jordan also wrote the Conan the Barbarian series but, mercifully, none of them posthumously. 

 

I'm a fast writer, and crime novels are easy to do. It's much harder to write a 1,000-word article, where everything has to be 100 per cent correct…………………Stieg Larsson, author of the Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, the first of his Millennium series was not even published until after his death.  So, he was posthumous before he was posthumous.  Larsson went to that big tattoo parlor in the sky in 2004. He reputedly had a further seven books planned in the series about Lisbeth Salander and Mikael Blomqvist with about 75% of a fourth book already completed. In a trunk in the attic? Lisbeth was a very popular character so, voila, author David Lagercrantz was engaged by Larsson’s father and brother to finish the series using notes Larsson left for future books. Lagercrantz is now writing the books under his own name using Larsson’s characters which means that the characters have become James Bond/Sherlock Holmes type subjects, famous characters other authors.  See Sherlock and James later in this essay. Using Lagercrantz to write the posthumous novels caused a bit of a kerfuffle since Larsson’s significant other held the rights to that ¾ completed book and she would not release them as of this writing.  Stay tuned but here’s a clue, money.  

 

Writing, like gambling, was always a big part of my life. Both gave me sanctuary from the world. And you never really had to kill someone to get what you wanted. You just had to beat fate…………..Holy Luca Brasi !……. Even Mario Puzo could not escape posthumous publishing mania. Puzo wrote only two Godfather books, The Godfather and The Sicilian. Puzo went to that big Corleone Wedding in the Sky in 1999. Since then there have been 3 (and counting) Godfather novels subtly titled, surprise,……The Godfather’s Returns, The Godfather’s Revenge, and The Family Corleone.  The family (Puzo’s, not the Corleones) and Paramount Pictures have been fussing over movie rights for the novels that Puzo did not write.  Anyone who saw Godfather 3 knows they should have stopped after Godfather 2.

 

We thought that Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot was gone after 39 books and so did Christie.  By 1960 she called her creation a “detestable, bombastic, tiresome, ego-centric little creep”. So, basically, she didn’t like the character anymore.  However, Agatha went to that big St. Mary Mead in the sky in 1976. Decades later, the Christie estate authorized author Sophie Hannah to write more Hercule Poirots and voila, since 2014 we have 4 more “Little Gray Cells” novels.  Christie gets top billing on the covers.  Then it gets worse.  Much worse. Twelve writers, who include Val McDermid, Naomi Alderman, Dreda Say Mitchel, Kate Mosse, Elly Griffiths and Ruth Ware will, gasp, “reimagine Miss Marple through their own unique perspective while staying true to the hallmarks of a traditional mystery”.” As the kid allegedly said to Shoeless Joe Jackson during the baseball “Black Sox” scandal in 1920, “say it ain’t so Joe”. 

 

For most writers, when they're gone, they're gone and I recall the sadness on hearing of the death of George Simenon or Elmore Leonard or Ngaio Marsh, or Ed McBain. Sadness not only because of their deaths but selfishly, many of my favorite characters went with them. Maigret was gone, as was Roderick Allyn, as was Raylan Givens, and Steve Carella, Fat Ollie, and the 87^th Precinct. Also, goodbye to Salvo Montalbano, Bernie Rhodenbarr, Kinsey Millhone, Andy Dalziel, Sam Spade, and Travis McGee and Ignatius J. Reilly. 

John Kennedy Toole committed suicide at the age of 31.  Not in an attic, but in a chest of drawers, his mother found a carbon copy of a manuscript for a novel.  After years of being rejected as she tried to find publishers, she went to the office of writer, Walker Percy. If you read the book, you’ll understand about his mother. She was, shall we say, a tad pushy.  A polite man, Percy read the manuscript. He thought it was great and rightfully so as A Confederacy of Dunces giving us the unforgettable Ignatius J. Reilly was published eleven years after Toole’s suicide and won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1981. It remains one of our favorite books.

We were going to include Bilbo Baggins, Frodo, Samwise, Boromir, Aragorn, Sauron, and Gollum and others from J.R.R Tolkein’s world after J.R.R bit the dust but son Christopher, completed The Silmarillion (which was started before The Hobbit), and then edited 17 books ranging from History of the Middle Earth to the Shaping of Middle Earth to The Peoples of Middle Earth to Morgoth’s Ring to……… thus emptying the trunk of notes until he himself went to that Big Middle Earth in the Sky in 2020.  That’s probably it for Tolkein characters but one never knows do one? After all, The Hobbit, a single 310 page book, was turned into 9.7 hours in a three movie trilogy. 

 

There was also a feeling loss of when Ian Fleming went to that MI6 at 85 Albert Embankment in Vauxhall in the sky in 1966. No more James Bond. Wait! What’s that you say? James Bond continues?  I haven’t seen any giant Vince Flynn type covers for 007 that’s because Fleming (mostly) disappeared from the covers.  Kingsley Amis picked up the shaken not stirred martini glass in 1968. John Pearson wrote a fictional biography of Bond in 1968.  Then Jonathan Cape wrote Bond novels based on the movies which were of course, based on Fleming’s Bond novels, James Bond, The Spy Who Loved Me and James Bond and Moonraker. By 1981 Bond was back in full Aston Martin mode. John Gardner wrote 16 Bond novels including two novels based on movies based on novels that Fleming didn’t write, License to Kill novelization and Goldeneye novelization.  Are you following this? Gardner turned over his tuxedo to Raymond Benson in 1996 for 9 more novels and 3 short stories including, you guessed it, 3 novelizations based on movies that Fleming never wrote, Tomorrow Never Dies, The World is Not Enough, and Die Another Day. Since 2008 we have 7 more Bond adventures with various authors including 3 by Anthony Horowitz who also wrote a very inventive novel about Moriarty, see Sherlock Holmes below. 

 

Inevitably, we move to Sherlock Holmes. Arthur Conan Doyle went to that big 221B Baker Street in the sky in 1930 after four novels and 56 short stories about Sherlock.  Naming three of the four novels is fairly easy; Study in Scarlet, Sign of the Four, Hound of the Baskervilles and the fourth? ……bet you couldn’t think of it…..The Valley of Fear. 

 

“They’ve killed Kenny.  You bastards” ……. SouthPark

 

Conan Doyle tried to get rid of Holmes in 1893’s The Adventure of the Final Problem with Holmes and Moriarty struggling and falling over Reichenbach Falls in Switzerland. It was published in December of 1893 in The Strand magazine.  Oy vey! People were so upset that thousands canceled their subscription to the magazine. In 1901 Sherlock Holmes reappeared in the novel, The Hound of the Baskervilles.   However, Conan Doyle made it clear that Holmes was not alive.  This story took place before the swan dive at Reichenbach Falls. Later, Holmes was truly resurrected in The Adventure of the Empty House in which we learn that Holmes wasn’t really dead after all (a sort of precursor Bobby wasn’t dead, it was all a dream, in the soap opera, Dallas).  Holmes fall over the falls was all a deception to hide from Moriarty’s evil associates. Conan Doyle’s demise in 1930 wasn’t the end of Holmes, nor was it the end of his brother, Mycroft Holmes. Far from it ………………….That pause was because it took us quite a while to add up the pastiche of Sherlock Holmes.  Pastiche being an artistic work in a style that imitates that of another work, artist, or period according to the Oxford English Dictionary. Fortunately, The Original Core List Source has them all starting with Adams, Guy: The Breath Of God and ending with Yelesiyevich, Milo: Wilde About Holmes (Yes you’re correct, “Wilde” is Oscar Wilde who has teamed up with Holmes to work for Grover Cleveland (really). There are  333 of them and counting!  They range in quality from The 7 Percent Solution by Nicholas Meyer to The Holmes-Dracula File (Holmes is Dracula’s cousin) by Fred Saberhagan and not forgetting Sherlock Holmes Meets Annie Oakley by Stanley Shaw.  And, we’re not including books about Mycroft Holmes, Lady Sherlock, John H. Watson, Charlotte Holmes, Enola Holmes ……ad infinitum. None of these instances has there been an attempt to pass a book off as the product of the original creator. As Dorothy almost said in the Wizard of Oz, there is no place like Holmes. 

 

Dracula may have surpassed Holmes in posthumous reproduction if one includes all vampires. If you thought Sherlock Holmes inspired a plethora of books, how about Dracula and vampires.  Even Renfield gets books. Hoo boy!  Draculaly speaking, Bram Stoker’s great grandnephew, Dacre even joined the posthumous undead parade with a Dracula novel. He was co-author of Dracula the Un-Dead, the official Stoker family endorsed sequel to Dracula published in 2009.  We’d love to see the great grandnephew’s family tree on Ancestry.com. 

 

How did it get so late so soon? Its night before its afternoon. December is here before its June. My goodness how the time has flown. How did it get so late so soon? ………..Speaking of children’s books, Theodor Geisel, Dr. Seuss, went to Oh the Places You’ll Go in the sky in 1991. In 2013, his widow presumably went up to the attic and found an original manuscript, What Pet Should I Get, probably written in the late 50’s – early 60’s. The resulting best seller would make Geisel the departed author who has sold the most books written and published posthumously.

 

Speaking of nonsense, our research into Ghost Writers in the Sky discovered the non literary “career” of American presidential spawn and "author", Elliott Roosevelt, son of Franklin who didn’t write any books.  Young Roosevelt managed to  “ (not) write” several mysteries starring his famous mother, Eleanor, as an intrepid sleuth. In the spirit of our essay, miraculously, he kept “writing” novels for years after his death. Evidently, his publishers had found the same trunk that contained V.C Andrews work and he left behind a vast pile of manuscripts that he didn’t write just waiting to be published and have good sales. Author, William Harrington had written them all. So, Elliot Roosevelt didn’t write any books when he was alive and then didn’t write many more after he was deceased which is pretty good for an author. 

Unfortunately, this started us thinking of books about actual departed historical figures who come back as detectives and so we went to our favorite mystery website: Stop, You’re Killing Me and wow! We found 53 famous dead people (and counting) who came back as literary crime solvers. The list ranges from Groucho Marx (really) to Niccolò Machiavelli, to Charles Dickens to Beatrix Potter (really) to Earnest Hemingway to Oscar Wilde to Benjamin Franklin, to Edna Ferber, to Geoffrey Chaucer to Aristotle (both ethics and metaphysics we presume) to Mark Twain, Louisa May Alcott, to Amadeus Mozart, to Immanuel Kant (probably using pure reason), Abigail Adams to Ulysses S. Grant, to Lewis Carrol (who teams up with Arthur Conan Doyle ….really), to Claude Monet, to Leonardo DaVinci, to Edgar Allen Poe (twice – two different authors), to Josephine Tey, to Elizabeth Tudor (pre-Queenship) to……..and why not………….Elvis Presley and so much more. 

 

This is an age when millions of people buy their books based on a brand name. Doesn’t matter if the creator of the character is dead. If you have an intriguing, popular character, chances (money helps) are they will keep going.  Many people do not want to let go of a favorite character and so characters will keep going as long as the public keeps buying long after the creator went kaput. 

 

 

Ghost Writers in the Sky 

Yippie-yi-o
Yippie-yi-yay
Ghost writers in the sky …………  apologies to  composer, Stan Jones

Additional Sources:

https://offtheshelf.com/2016/05/11-authors-whose-legacies-live-on/

Fingers photo via Shutterbug

 

 

 

Very Superstitious

 

 

……..When you believe in things

That you don't understand,

Then you suffer,

Superstition ain’t the way……..Stevie Wonder

 A superstition is defined as the irrational belief that future events can be influenced or foretold by specific, unrelated behaviors or occurrences. The earliest superstitions were created as a way to deal with ignorance and fear of the unknown. Superstitions are thus a way of attempting to regain control over events in one's life. 

The term superstition probably derives from the Latin superstitio, meaning "to stand over in awe”.  Superstitions are often considered relics of outmoded ways of thinking except when someone says, “we have the beach to ourselves”, and you know that there will be thousands of people there within an hour. Many will arrive via parachute. 

Personal superstitions usually involve good luck charms, lucky charms if you will, but not the cereal. I was surprised to learn that around a quarter of Americans are superstitious. The surprise being “only a quarter?” “There is no real tangible thing we can call luck,” according to Joseph Mazur, mathematician, and author of What’s Luck Got to Do with It? “But we create that tangible thing by transferring it to an object.” Hopefully it is not an anvil. 

Speaking of personal superstitions, I know someone.  I’m not mentioning names you understand but………..well……..there are “lucky clothes” (sports related), that can help a favorite team win.  Really.  Gifted, skilled athletes competing but victory depends on which shirt I’m he’s wearing on that day.  Rarely works. Totally irrational but that’s superstition.  There are also lucky places to sit on the couch, a particular order for checking scores, muting the TV sound at particular moments,………..and that’s just for sports. 5% success rate but hey, you never know.  He, and we’re not necessarily saying he is a him but he frowns on people saying “it’s going to be a beautiful day because he knows that guarantees that the weather will turn bad. After retirement, when someone we know was a science education consultant/teacher trainer and was traveling to make a presentation before a large group, the same routine had to be followed including the same breakfast of a bagel and orange juice, giving change to street musicians prior to the presentation day, trying not to look at the audience while setting up, “lucky” ties, and so on to ensure a successful speech or presentation.  This was not a ritual.  Rituals are repeated behaviors based on defined patterns.  Superstitions are repeated behaviors based on a belief.  There is no logic or reason.   Of course, preparation didn’t hurt. This (whoever he may be) is a very superstitious human who is getting more superstitious with each passing year. Lucky golf ball indeed! 

Superstitious beliefs originated during the earliest days of humanity. They explained natural phenomena like thunderstorms and earthquakes, as well as the unpredictability of illness and food supply.  Humans attempted to create an understandable world of powers that could be influenced by action.  We still do and that includes talking to inanimate objects as if they were human. 

Some groups are more prone to superstitious beliefs than others. Actors, miners, athletes, fishermen, gamblers and authors of essays about superstition all tend to be more superstitious than average; the success of all these occupations tends to be more out of the control of the individual.

Let’s examine some popular superstitions. 

Walking under a ladder.  Well, first of all, things could fall on your head.

This superstition originated 5,000 years ago in ancient Egypt. A ladder leaning against a wall forms a triangle, and Egyptians regarded this shape as sacred (note the pyramids). To them, triangles represented a trinity of the gods, and to pass through a triangle was to desecrate them.

 

This one has faded in popularity these days - Rabbit’s foot – possibly because of all those rabbits forced to use walkers.  Using a rabbit’s foot as a good luck charm dates back to the Celtics in 600 B.C. However, the Celtics were very specific with this superstition. It had to be the left hind foot of the rabbit in order to be considered lucky.

 

The number seven. This number plays a role throughout nature and our daily lives, leading many to believe in its good fortune. We have the seven days in the week, seven colors of the rainbow, seven notes on the musical scale, the seven continents …..  Some researchers have found that human memory works best when remembering up to — but not more than — seven items. Seven is also a prime number, which means it can only be divided by itself and one. In the creation account, God made the world in six days and rested on the seventh day. 

 

You just broke a mirror – Uff Da! (Norwegian for Oy Vey). Seven years of bad luck.  The Romans, who learned to manufacture mirrors from polished metal surfaces and later glass, believed their gods observed souls through these devices.  They believed that mirrors contained fragments of our souls.  Ergo, breaking a mirror signified a break in someone's health and well-being.  However, Romans did not believe that the ensuing bad luck would last forever. Whew!  They believed that the body renewed itself every seven years.  The belief that good luck would eventually return was comforting and probably prevented many suicides.  People have always tended to believe things that make them feel good, like that lucky t-shirt........even when untrue.

I busted a mirror and got seven years bad luck, but my lawyer thinks can get me five..........Steven Wright.

When you spill salt, toss some over your left shoulder to avoid bad luck  Throwing salt over one's shoulder is likely to give the impression that the wearer has dandruff.....Jack Oakie ....It could also be bad luck for the person behind you if they get hit in the eye with the salt. Salt has been a very valuable commodity in many civilizations hence spilling it was bad luck. Around 3,500 B.C., the Sumerians first took to nullifying the bad luck by throwing a pinch of it over their left shoulders. This ritual spread to the Egyptians, the Assyrians and later, the Greeks. It appears everyone was heaving salt all over the place in those days. Spilling salt as bad luck is also linked to Leonardo Davinci’s “The Last Supper,” Judas Iscariot has his elbow on an upset container of salt. 

 

Knocking on wood

I'm not superstitious, about ya

………..

Oh you better knock, knock, knock

On wood, baby

Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh baby……..Eddie Floyd. This originated with ancient pagan cultures that believed spirits and gods resided in trees; knocking on a tree could summon protection. Today, many of us, in the absence of wood, will knock on our heads. British folklorist Steve Roud noted that the origin is more recent: Knocking on wood for good luck traces back to a 19th-century children’s game called “Tiggy Touchwood,” where children were only “safe” in the game when they were touching wood.

 

Always 'God bless' a sneeze.

This began in the sixth century A.D. by order of Pope Gregory the Great. Yet another pestilence was spreading through Europe. The first symptom was severe, chronic sneezing, and this was often quickly followed by death. Pope Gregory urged the healthy to pray for the sick and ordered those responses to sneezes be "God bless you!" 

 

Hang a horseshoe on your door open-end-up for good luck. 

There is no business like shoe business ……..apologies to Irving Berlin……

Belief in its magical powers traces back to the Greeks, who thought the element iron had the ability ward off evil. Not only were horseshoes wrought of iron, they also took the shape of the crescent moon which was in fourth century Greece a symbol of fertility and good fortune.  The belief in the talismanic powers of horseshoes passed from the Greeks and then to the Romans. In Britain, during the Middle Ages, when fear of witchcraft was rampant, people attached horseshoes open-end-up to the sides of their houses and doors. People thought witches feared horses and would shy away from any reminders of them although this belief had some neigh sayers. 

 

The number 13 is unlucky.

Fear of the number 13, known as triskaidekaphobia, is perhaps one of the most well-known superstitions. First the salt and now we’re back again to Leonardo da Vinci's painting of “The Last Supper”, as 13 rises again to the fore.  Judas is often thought of as the 13th guest.  One of the earliest myths surrounding unlucky 13 was due to a clerical error, where the 13th law was omitted from one of the world’s oldest legal documents—the Code of Hammurabi. Yet another myth involves the Norse as 12 gods were invited to dine at Valhalla, a Michelin starred banquet hall specializing in mutton and cabbage. Loki, usually described as a “cunning trickster, crashed the party, raising the number of attendees to 13. Loki then tricked the blind god, Höd, into killing the popular god, Baldur.

 

Black Cats      A black cat crossing your path signifies that the animal is going somewhere.......Groucho Marx .......Oy vey! What to think. A black cat crossing your path is actually considered to be good luck in parts of the world.   In Britain, Ireland, Japan and Germany, it is believed that encountering a black cat on your travels is lucky. However, in America, these cats are said to bring misfortune. Black cats appear in the folklore of many more cultures as both good and bad omens. In some European folklore, black cats are considered common companions of witches and bringers of misfortune if they happened to cross your path. In contrast, Welsh folklore depicts black cats as omens of good fortune who would bring luck to a home and could even be a reliable weather predictor or at least as good as those geniuses that forecast the weather on TV. 

Wishing on a star. The Egyptian astronomer Ptolemy theorized that the presence of shooting stars (meteors) meant the gods were peering down from the sky and open to granting our wishes. According to Ptolemy, the gods had to open up the space that divides the earth sky from the divine sphere in order to watch over humanity. Shooting stars would slip through the great divider, so if you saw one in the night sky, you knew the gods were watching and listening to you. Of course, Ptolemy also believed the Sun revolved around the Earth. 

 

According to Scientific American, the chances of finding a four-leaf clover are one in 10,000, making the find a lucky thing in and of itself. But the luck of the clover dates back to Adam and Eve.  As Adam and Eve were leaving the Garden of Eden, Eve plucked a four-leaf clover as a souvenir. Another theory dates back to the ancient Celtic world when it was believed that four-leaf clovers would help ward off evil spirits. 

 

Breaking wishbones Breaking the “wishbone”—the furcula of a turkey, duck, or chicken—comes up at Thanksgiving, but people, much to the distress of poultry have been making wishes on poultry bones since around 700 B.C.   The Etruscans believed that birds could tell the future and drying out and then stroking the bone could grant the power of foresight and make wishes come true. The Romans went one better, and they began cracking the bones in half to spread the luck. When two people pulled apart a wishbone, the person left with the larger piece got the good luck. Yes, it is poultry in motion.

The act of crossing the fingers is one of our most well-understood gestures, although we may often just say I'll cross my fingers for you”— rather than actually carry out the action. It’s thought that the act of crossing one’s fingers started with the early Christians.  At this time, Christianity was outlawed, and very unpleasant things befell people who showed support for it. Early followers were forced into secrecy, and they are known to have developed signs and symbols that allowed them to recognize each other including crossing the fingers. But now we also have crossing fingers behind your back when telling a lie. Apparently, you would be silently asking for luck in getting away with the lie. But I have my fingers crossed when reporting this theory. 

In the theater, don’t wish an actor “good luck,” but instead say “Break a leg!”.  Why?  The most common belief refers to an actor breaking the “leg line” of the stage. In the early days of theater, this is where ensemble actors were lined up to perform. If actors were not performing, they had to stay behind the “leg line,” which also meant they wouldn’t get paid. Also, never say Macbeth in a theatre. It is considered bad luck to say the name of Shakespeare’s “Scottish play” inside of a theatre. Legend has it that the actor playing Lady MacBeth died on opening night of the play’s first performance. 

“Find a penny.  Pick it up. All the day you’ll have good luck”. Folklore from ancient civilizations said metals—like copper—were gifts from gods intended to protect people from evil.  However, be careful because the luck could break either way, and that if you find a penny tails up, you should turn it over and leave it for the next person or you’ll actually have bad luck.

Lastly, we go to Rwanda for one of our favorites, Eating Goat Meat Causes Women to Grow Beards. That's what some in Rwanda believed. As some researchers point out that traditional society there imposed many dietary restrictions on women and "It was prohibited for women to eat goat meat under the pretext that it would make them grow a beard."

And remember.........There is superstition in avoiding superstition.......Francis Bacon