Author: briery

26/f

Victorian Death Superstitions

  • If the deceased has lived a good life, flowers would bloom on his grave; but if he has been evil, only weeds would grow.
  • If several deaths occur in the same family, tie a black ribbon to
    everything left alive that enters the house, even dogs and chickens.
    This will protect against deaths spreading further.
  • Never wear anything new to a funeral, especially shoes.
  • You should always cover your mouth while yawning so your spirit doesn’t leave you and the devil never enters your body.
  • It is bad luck to meet a funeral procession head on. If you see one
    approaching, turn around.  If this is unavoidable, hold on to a button
    until the funeral cortege passes.
  • Large drops of rain warn that there has just been a death.
  • Stop the clock in a death room or you will have bad luck.
  • To lock the door of your home after a funeral procession has left the house is bad luck.
  • If rain falls on a funeral procession, the deceased will go to heaven.
  • If you hear a clap of thunder following a burial it indicates that the soul of the departed has reached heaven.
  • If you hear 3 knocks and no one is there, it usually means someone
    close to you has died. The superstitious call this the 3 knocks of
    death.
  • If you leave something that belongs to you to the deceased, that means the person will come back to get you.
  • If a firefly/lightning bug gets into your house someone will soon die.
  • If you smell roses when none are around someone is going to die.
  • If you don’t hold your breath while going by a graveyard you will not be buried.
  • If you see yourself in a dream, your death will follow.
  • If you see an owl in the daytime, there will be a death.
  • If you dream about a birth, someone you know will die.
  • If it rains in an open grave then someone in the family will die within the year.
  • If a bird pecks on your window or crashes into one that there has been a death.
  • If a sparrow lands on a piano, someone in the home will die.
  • If a picture falls off the wall, there will be a death of someone you know.
  • If you spill salt, throw a pinch of the split salt over your shoulder to prevent death.
  • Never speak ill of the dead because they will come back to haunt you or you will suffer misfortune.
  • Two deaths in the family means that a third is sure to follow.
  • The cry of a curlew or the hoot of an owl foretells a death.
  • A single snowdrop growing in the garden foretells a death.
  • Having only red and white flowers together in a vase (especially in hospital) means a death will soon follow.
  • Dropping an umbrella on the floor or opening one in the house means that there will be a murder in the house.
  • A diamond-shaped fold in clean linen portends death.
  • A dog howling at night when someone in the house is sick is a bad
    omen. It can be reversed by reaching under the bed and turning over a
    shoe.

Kindness Is A Conscious Choice, Not A Trait

In 1973, a group of social psychologists conducted an experiment: a
group of students who were about to become priests had to listen a story
about the Good Samaritans in which a busy man stopped to help an
injured stranger. Then, participants were divided in two groups.

The first group had to write an essay about this story. The second
group had to read an essay about pros of having a job. Next, both groups
were asked to go to another building where they had to read their
essays. They were asked to hurry up. On their way to the building,
students met a stranger who needed help.

The results showed that only 10% of students in each group stopped to
help. Others walked away because they were late to the meeting. Later
the study was repeated and identical results were obtained.
Psychologists concluded that the person can set even religious beliefs
aside when he faces a choice. Therefore, kindness is a conscious choice,
not a trait.

“Ironically, a person in a hurry is less likely to help people,
even if he is going to speak on the parable of the Good Samaritan. (Some
literally stepped over the victim on their way to the next building!).
The results seem to show that thinking about norms does not imply that
one will act on them. Maybe that “ethics become a luxury as the speed of
our daily lives increases”. Or maybe peoples cognition was narrowed by
the hurriedness and they failed to make the immediate connection of an
emergency.” –

Darley, J. M., and Batson

Writers with your Venus Sign.

 
• Aries Venus: “There is no greater glory than to die for love.” – Gabriel García Márquez , Love in the Time of Cholera.

• Taurus Venus: “To be together again, after so long,
who love the sunny wind, the windy sun, in the sun, in the wind, that is
perhaps something, perhaps something.”- Samuel Beckett, Watt.

• Gemini Venus: “In black ink my love may still shine bright.”- William Shakespeare, Shakespeare’s Sonnets.

• Cancer Venus: “The most painful thing is losing yourself in the process of loving someone too much, and forgetting that you are special too.”- Ernest Hemingway, Men Without Women.

• Leo Venus: “Seize the moments of happiness, love and be loved! That is the only reality in the world, all else is folly.”- Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace.

• Virgo Venus: “My heart is wax molded as she pleases, but enduring as marble to retain.”- Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, La Gitanilla El Amante Liberal (Novelas Ejemplares, Obra Completa 6).

• Libra Venus: “The very essence of romance is uncertainty.”- Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest and Other Plays.

• Scorpio Venus: “The more I know of the world, the more I am convinced that I shall never see a man whom I can really love. I require so much!”- Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility.

• Sagittarius Venus: “I am the Cat who walks by himself, and all places are alike to me.”- Rudyard Kipling, The Cat That Walked by Himself: And Other Stories.

• Capricorn Venus: “What is hell? I maintain that it is the suffering of being unable to love.”- Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov.

• Aquarius Venus: “To be left alone is the most precious thing one can ask of the modern world.”- Anthony Burgess, Homage To Qwert Yuiop: Essays.

• Pisces Venus: “Years of love have been forgot, In the hatred of a minute.”-Edgar Allan Poe, The Complete Stories and Poems.