Superstition is a belief which is based upon the fear of the unknown and faith in magic or luck. This belief implies certain actions will lead to either good luck or bad luck. This superstitious belief is orientated around the ignorance and the belief in the power of magic and witchcraft within invisible forces such as spirits and demons (Douglas: 1966).Superstitions are beliefs that are conflicting to regular norms within a specific society. This implies that superstitious behaviours cannot be interpreted according to religious beliefs which are usually not considered as absurd by members of society (Campbell, 1996). Magic is based upon the belief that the universe is populated by unseen forces or spirits that infuse all things. These supernatural …show more content…
Douglas within her work disputes the older evolutionary model where irrational magic belongs to the primitive stages of humanity, compared with the sacramental theology of modern western religion, which is from the more progressive stage of reason and morality, this can somewhat be seen as an essential modernist move (Douglas: 1966 pg. 62). Within Douglas’s famous detail in the dietary law (the pig taboo) she begins to show how a number of primitive and contemporary understandings of this ritual which are false, this is due to them being separated from the larger realities of the cultural system. From this Douglas argues this is neither an irrational superstition, nor is it a moral symbol (the pig as dirty or wicked or a symbol of slothfulness) neither instance of primitive medicine (Hendel: 2008) For instance people within contemporary society people recognise their own notions of dirt. “It implies two conditions: a set of ordered relations and a contravention of that order. Dirt then, is never a unique, isolated