In celebration of quirky occult holidays (like today), we thought it would be interesting to get down to the bottom of what makes Friday the 13th significant. To be honest, we always thought it was just a great movie premise.
Friday the 13th is a day of superstition in countries worldwide, and the actual Greek terminology for a fear of the day is paraskavedekatriaphobia. It’s a bit of a mouthful, but it breaks down to Paraskeví (Παρασκευή) (meaning Friday), anddekatreís (δεκατρείς) (meaning thirteen), attached to phobía (φοβία) (meaning fear). Strange…we always expected there to be a bigger reason for people being afraid of this particular day, like a pagan sacrificial ritual or a Babylonian massacre or something cool like that. But unfortunately, it turns out there’s really not much to it as far as history is concerned. There are some notable births (Margaret Thatcher) and some notable deaths (Tupac Shakur), but that’s really about it.
What we have found fascinating is the fear that people have of this particular day. Sources suggest that millions of people worldwide suffer from a debilitating fear of Friday the 13th—so much so that they are unable to carry out normal daily tasks and even go so far as to shut themselves in their homes in order to avoid any catastrophic bad luck that might be bestowed upon them.
Personally, we love everything about Friday the 13th, from the hilarity of these fears to the myriad pop-culture connections that have been made between superstition and the film and television industry. There’s an entire franchise of movies sharing the name and based loosely on the fabled satanic essence of the holiday, for goodness sake.
But since there seems to be very little information on how Friday the 13th came to be such a hallowed date, we can’t go on like this forever. So, in lieu of shining light on its meaning, we ask you, fair readers: what does Friday the 13th mean to you? Do you practice any occult rituals, watch scary movies or wreak havoc on your neighbors’ houses with eggs and toilet paper? Will you hold a séance in hopes of summoning the spirits of the celebripocalypse?
