Superstition is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as ‘an irrational belief in supernatural events’.  Since ‘supernatural’ refers to events that cannot be explained by science, the term ‘irrational’ may not add much.

And the comparison with religion comes to mind – ‘the belief in and worship of a God or gods’ or ‘a particular system of faith and worship’. 

Very few people now believe that the existence of God, or other subjects of religious belief, can be demonstrated logically by science – it must rest ultimately on faith, outside of or beyond logic.  The relation between religion and superstition is therefore apparent – although the latter is not generally so well regarded as the former.

Most philosophers now accept that faith is beyond logic, and that the two are distinct.  Spinoza was very firm on this.  He said that the chief aim of his Tractatus, which was only published after his death, was to ‘separate faith from philosophy’. 

Philosophy has nothing in view save truth: faith…. looks for nothing but obedience and piety.

He began his Preface as follows:

Men would never be superstitious, if they could govern all their circumstances by set rules, or if they were always favoured by fortune; but being frequently driven into straits where rules are useless, and being often kept afloat pitiably between hope and fear by the uncertainty of fortune’s greedily coveted favours, they are consequently, for the most part, very prone to credulity.

He went on –

…. most people when in prosperity are so over-brimming with wisdom (however inexperienced they may be), that they take every offer of advice as a personal insult, whereas in adversity, they do not know where to turn, but beg and pray for counsel from every passerby.  No plan is then too futile, too absurd, or too fatuous for their adoption; the most frivolous causes will raise them to hope, or plunge them to despair….

We see all that in every revolution.  He went on –

…. superstition’s chief victims are those persons who greedily covet temporal advantages…

Superstition then is engendered preserved and fostered by fear…  ‘The mob has no ruler more potent than superstition….’

Just reflect back on Covid and vaccination, and the climate and the Stock Exchange.

Immense pains have therefore been taken to counteract this evil by investing religion…with much pomp and ceremony, that it may rise superior to every shock, and be always observed with studious reverence by the whole people…

…To the rest of mankind, I care not to commend my treatise, for I cannot expect that it contains anything to please them: I know how deeply rooted are the prejudices embraced under the name of religion.

What gets to me as I relay the thoughts of as capacious a mind as I have known, is not just their relevance to the mythology surrounding the Greek and Roman gods, but to the alarmingly crass mythology now being generated under that ghastly term populism. 

And that observation may be a grave disservice to religious faith and the death of the Greek and Roman gods.  In saying that, I do not reflect on the far more tolerant attitude of the ancients to that of the followers of one God.

(And for the removal of doubt, I do not here comment on getting a workable legal definition of ‘religion’.  That is very tricky – our High Court shocked a lot of people here when it admitted Scientology to the Club.)

Well, as Spinoza saw, when we are confronted with a question which we don’t like the answer to, we answer a different question.  We make it up.  Politicians and people in business are trained in this evasion.  Their servants are ingrained to follow their lead.  And this is in a world shattered by the internet and exposed to artificial (made up) intelligence.  Truth then goes clean out the window.

We like to think of humanity as moving forward – the word ‘progress’ is fraught.  We lost our fear of animals and, at least in the West, famine.  We have got rid of kings and aristocrats (as rulers), slavery, and other forms of caste.  We have moved from status to contract. 

But the allure of the bogus priest, the soothsayer, and the mountebank, and their myths lingers on.  These snake oil dealers live with a largely imaginary past and a wholly imaginary future and appear to have something in common with Homer – they do not see themselves as accountable.  The trouble is that the celebration of fantasy can lead to the death of truth, which in turn is practised adversely on the rest of us.

The truth is that we believe what we want to believe.  That is what David Hume meant when he said reason is the ‘slave of the passions’.  He also echoed Spinoza:

The greater part of mankind are naturally apt to be affirmative and dogmatical in their opinions….  To hesitate or balance perplexes their understanding and suspends their action.  They are therefore impatient till they escape from a state which to them is so uneasy: and they think they could never remove themselves far enough from it by the violence of their affirmations and the obstinacy of their belief.

Doubt unsettles most of us and makes most of us nervous.  We want assurance – even from a suspect source, and humanity is now engulfed by false priests in ways that Homer could never have dreamed of.

To put it at its lowest, we mere humans are at risk of going backwards – to the tune of ‘Quick, send in the Clowns – Don’t bother, they’re here.’