Tag Archives: devil

Tarot Card Superstitions

Nationality: Columbian, American
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: April 10, 2015
Primary Language: English

Informant S is 21 years old from Boise Idaho. He is a Philosophy major who also plans on attending Medical School. He is half Columbian and half American. His grandmother is an older Colombian woman lives in Bogotá. She has a strong religious background as a Jehovah Witness.

 

S: My mom had certain superstitions like if you clear your mind the Devil will get into your head and um when I was really young my mom wouldn’t let me collect anything “demonic” or um anything with horns like Pokémon cards, Digimon. Anything that indicated a tie to Satan. Her mother, or you know my grandma, was a hard-core Jehovah Witness so she sorta reinforced that in my mom. I found it incredibly annoying but it sorta scared me when I was a kid too.

Me: Do you have an example of something you tried to collect but your mom said no?

S: No but my sister did. My sister got this dollar store um crystal ball and it came with a set of really shitty cheap um foreign made tarot cards, yeah they’re like these um cards tied to paganism, they represent like if I remember correctly sort of essentialistic aspects of human culture, no its not Paganism its Hermeticism. Honestly I’m not 100% sure. But they’re the pack of cards you see in like movies where a fortuneteller flips them around and they say things like death, Prince, God, and the fortuneteller ties them together and tells you your fortune. Jehovah Witnesses are hard-core into researching Christianity’s origins and when the Roman Empire split there was supposed to be a fusion between a lot of Christian and Pagan themes in the eastern Roman Empire. So they tried to avoid those sorts of things in their religious practice, the Pagan ones. So when my grandmother saw that she bought that set she freaked out and gave my sister like a 30-minute tongue lashing about how she brought the Devil into our home. It was kind of terrifying to see how livid it made her.

 

Analysis: Here S talks about how his religious grandmother has superstitions especially about the Devil and how that came into conflict with something his younger sister had bought. For his grandmother these beliefs are very important, but they are less important for S and his sister. For him, the most terrifying was his grandmothers reaction to the cards rather than the superstitions themselves, mostly because S is not religious with a strong belief in the Devil, but it shows how important it is to keep the Devil and anything associated with him out of the home for his grandmother.  He says although he finds this grandmothers religion annoying, it also made an impression on him and scared him too.

The New Jersey Devil

Nationality: American/Jewish
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: New Jersey/Los Angeles/Australia
Performance Date: 4/14/14
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

When I asked my roommate if she had any folklore from New Jersey she replied “Yes, New Jersey has a devil.”  This is an urban legend that tells of a woman who gave birth to a devil like creature that disappeared into the swamps immediately after being born.  The creature has the head of a goat, the body of a kangaroo like creature and bat-like wings.

My roommate did not have any personal stories about the New Jersey devil but noted that it was where the state basketball team gets its name.  She also compared the creature to other mythical animal creatures like the Sasquatch.

This story is interesting because it is very similar to myths like the Chupacabra and Big Foot, but unlike those myths it is specific to New Jersey, which builds a sense of pride in the people who are active and passive bearers of this piece of folklore since they are bonded together by identity.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jersey_Devil

The Jersey Devil

Nationality: Italian-American
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles/New Jersey
Performance Date: April 25, 2014
Primary Language: English

This piece was collected from my friend who grew up in New Jersey. To her, it wasn’t a very important part of her life, but it was well-known where she was from because it’s one of the most popular pieces of folklore from New Jersey.

This is how she explained it to me:

“I’m from New Jersey, and there’s a southern part of the state called the Pine Barrens, it’s filled with trees, it’s a very forest-y area. And for years and years it’s been said that there’s the Jersey Devil that lives in the pine barrens, hence the name the New Jersey Devils, the hockey team… there’s ben songs written about it…stories written about it. There are lot of versions of what it actually is. Some say it’s an actual devil or it’s more like a beast, like an animal. It’s kind of like a yeti or something, to this day people still say they see when they go to the pine barrens. I think I learned about it honestly in school when we learned about New Jersey myths, I’m pretty sure it was mentioned, and the only way is just through word of mouth”

Even though the Jersey Devil is very popular, there’s still not a consensus on what it looks like (or even what it is exactly) So, the legend can be interpreted differently by each person. However, it has been incorporated into things like sports teams, where it might become less folkloric because it would be portrayed in a certain way and would probably be trademarked. Also, the informant described it as a New Jersey myth, however, it would more accurately be categorized as a local legend or folk belief.

Sleep Paralysis and Devils

Nationality: Chinese-Korean
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Diamond Bar, CA
Performance Date: 4/21/2014
Primary Language: English
Language: Chinese

Sleep Paralysis

The Informant:

My friend, was born in Diamond Bar, CA. He is the son of a pastor whose church is in Diamond Bar. He lives with his parents and three younger siblings, a sister and two brothers. His father is Chinese and his mother is Korean.

The Story:

The first time that this happened to me was when I was either a sophomore or a junior in high school. I was lying on my bed, obviously in the middle of my sleep, when all of a sudden I realized I couldn’t move. I couldn’t move my body, I couldn’t scream, there was no air in my lungs. I tried to scream but couldn’t and I started to freak out. All of a sudden… I felt super cold, from top, my head, down, to my feet. I don’t remember if I was outside the blankets or inside but regardless I felt the wind. Suddenly I felt a heavy weight on my chest, as if something was sitting on it, and a shadow on top of me. I don’t really remember what happened after that. All of these instances blur together after a while. This was the first time it happened. After that it happened on a weekly basis for at least a year. There are times when I know it’s coming. You just feel like you’re getting really tired, or sometimes you can just sense something is off, as if there’s something in your room with you. I’ve never seen anything in my room though, and it always happens at night. There’s nothing I could do except wait for it to pass… and I’m always alone when this happens.

The Analysis:

This is a different occurrence of the scissor lock that my other friend experienced. We talked about this in his room, and a couple other friends were present. As he continued to tell his story, our other friends slowly became quiet, and then silent. The way Trevor spoke was genuine and even though such an occurrence would be questionable, there was no doubt in his voice that this was true. In Trevor’s instance, this happens on a semi-regular basis, with the last one occurring a couple months ago. Before that, it happened once a week or once every other week. There is no basis for why he goes through the scissor lock so often, but his actions showed that he doesn’t get used to it, even though it’s happened numerous times. It is creepy that this has happened so many times that they all seem to blur into one for him. One aspect that was interesting is that he is a pastor’s kid. This was one difference I noticed between him and my other informant on this same topic – it is probable that his stronger faith or adherence to Christianity has an affect on these continual occurrences. Whether it is due to faith or not, I wondered if it was the devil’s doing, and led me to question the existence of the devil and it’s many forms.

 

Researchers have attempted to examine the causes of the scissor lock, dubbing it generally as sleep paralysis: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1023%2FB%3ADREM.0000005896.68083.ae

A different version of sleep paralysis from someone not religious can be found at: http://kerryonian.wordpress.com/2013/01/11/the-experience/

Lightning Is the Devil Getting Whipped

Nationality: Sudanese
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 4/16/2013
Primary Language: English
Language: Arabic

Informant Bio: Informant is a friend and fellow business major.  He is a junior at the University of Southern California Marshall School of Business.  His family is from Sudan and they are Muslim.  Both he and his twin brother were educated in international schools.  He speaks Arabic and English.

 

Context: I was talking with the informant about traditions and rituals his family has.

 

Item: “Any time there is thunder during a lightning storm, every time you see a lightning crack it is the Devil getting whipped.  I don’t know why that is or where it came from, it’s more a, ‘don’t get scared by lightning, it’s just the Devil getting whipped’ kind of thing’.  My mother is the one who always says it”.

 

Analysis: This is an instance of people assigning meaning to a physical phenomena that they cannot explain.  It makes sense that an older figure (the mother) is the one who says this, as it is meant to comfort the children by using familiar (and acceptable) imagery.  It also allows people to feel a sense of connection and intimacy with God, as, lightning is a common and natural phenomena and for God to appear that many times implies he is watching over everyone.