Tag Archives: Protection

Sage Burning

Nationality: American
Age: 48
Occupation: Student
Residence: Glendale, AZ
Language: English

“I believe in like burning sage to purify your home. I use sage and herbs. When I’m feeling like negative energy or negative stuff starts happening. I believe that it’s something someone else is doing to me or spiritually happening to me, so I burn sage and bless my house.”

Where did you learn about this?

“I learned about this kind of stuff until I lived on the Hoopa reservation. I never learned about this stuff before moving. I started opening up spiritually when living up there. I was aware of this stuff because my mom was clairvoyant.”

Can you please tell me about how you burn the sage? 

“Protection of house. You burn sage and pray and intent. Clearing things. Things happening in your home, you burn sage. Thanking your home when you live in your house because your house is a living energy. It protects your family. It is a safe haven. I also use it for my crystals. I ground myself and I saw a prayer. I usually say Our Father. I mix my Christianity beliefs within my medicine because that’s the one true god i believe in. I walk through the house and open doors and windows and say the Our Father on each part of the house. And I blow it on myself and the house before I blow it out. I also do crosses on door entrances.”

Context: The informant identifies herself both as a Spiritualist and a Christion. She spent a portion of her 20s in Hoopa, California where she learned a lot of spiritualism from the people she met and connected with on the reservation. She has a mixed background of European and Native American ancestry.

Analysis: Burning sage to purify your home is a commonly recognized Native American ritual that has been adopted by many Spiritualists in the US. Through this practice, the informant is connecting to her roots, which have been lost within her own family. Often, Native American ancestry can be eradicated in European family lines, so many people try to reestablish those connections with that part of their identity. Through this reconnection, the informant also blends her Christian beliefs that have been dominant throughout her entire life. Her approach to sage burning shows the complex ways we blend folk beliefs with religion and spiritualism.

Looking specifically at the act of burning sage, the informant identifies the symbolism in the home, how the home is meant to protect us. Sometimes homes can be believed to be haunted or negative energies might enter the home. Sage acts as a way to contract these spooky unknowns in our homes. As ghost stories tend to be centered around property, sage smudging also focuses on property, cleansing the home to be a safe and welcoming space rather than an ominous one. 

Clairvoyance & Dream Interpretation

Nationality: American
Age: 48
Occupation: Student
Residence: Glendale, AZ
Language: English

“Clairvoyance runs in our family. I was taught about it at a very young age. My mom educated me about it at a very young age. Dream interpretation and stuff like that and astral projection and meditation. I’ve gone into trances with binaural beats and left my body.”

What does clairvoyance mean to you?

“Clairvoyance means to be empathic, feeling other people’s emotions, feeling certain types of energies in a room, sleep paralysis. My sleep paralysis is when my body is splitting when I leave my body at night, so you get stuck in between. I’ve had to learn that when in a sleep paralysis, I pray in my mind. I explained this bruja around the corner who explained that my spirit is splitting from my body. My dreams are not normal dreams. I can tell the difference. I can feel all my senses. I can smell, I can touch. Most people are unable to do that. I can feel pain. I have every emotion, fear and everything. That’s not normal.”

Has this always happened for you?

“That’s happened to me all my life. My mom had premonitions. I believe dreams are not necessarily dreams.”

Are there any rituals you do to enhance your dreams?

The informant described using tourmaline or “any stone that gives properties or elements to psychic clairvoyance or astral projection” She puts the stone under the bed, pillow or on her bedside. She described that she grounds herself before going to sleep by “creating a bubble like white light for purification and protection,” as in meditation. She says that she “imagines a safe place in the bubble like a garden or river of amethyst.” She emphasizes the importance of protecting yourself and setting intentions because people that don’t might bring something back with them from the other realm.

Analysis: While dreams themselves are not traditionally considered folklore, I would argue that the informant’s described beliefs about her dreams can be interpreted as a folk belief. Coming from her mother, the informant has been passed down this belief and continues in the practice of dream interpretation in the present day. She also described her mother’s dreams to be premonitions, or seeing the future, while her own was described to be more along the lines of astral projection. This shows some variation within her own family’s interpretation of their dreams. She also describes some ritualistic precautions before attempting to go into this dream state. Meditations, usually guided meditations, are often used to go into trance-like states, which she does herself while also dabbling in binaural beats. Using binaural beats shows the constant evolution of folkloric rituals and practices as she is incorporating modern day technologies into her practice. 

Knock on Wood

Nationality: American
Age: 55
Occupation: World Oil Leader
Residence: United States
Language: English

Text:

“Knocking on wood, this is believed to ward off bad luck or ensure good fortune. You knock on wood when you’re talking about something good but don’t want to jinx it so you knock on wood but if no wood is around you knock on your head. I usually use my head and knock 3 times.”

Context:

The Informant says they learned this from their grandma, but also recounts that people at work say it all the time during their meetings. They’ve had experience with this before of having bad luck if they don’t ‘knock on wood’ and really has a connection to the idea of three. They believe in this idea of bad luck in threes because it continues to happen in their life with accidents, sickness, and deaths.

Analysis:

This is represented as superstition, but more specifically, magical superstition. Magical superstition focuses on the idea of influencing an outcome with an action rather than predicting it. The idea is that if you knock on wood or your head it might influence or ward off misfortune or a ‘jinx,’ but doesn’t exactly predict it. In Frazer’s belief, this can be seen as sympathetic magic, where an action is taken to influence an outcome. Knocking on wood is apotropaic magic, a type of sympathetic magic, where the action of knocking on wood or your head will ward off evil influences or ‘bad luck.’ It’s a protective ritual with the hope of protecting one’s self from negative outcomes by knocking on wood. It’s also a very social aspect, where even the informant states that they use it with their coworkers during meetings, connecting them together with a familiar action which even becomes automatic. People might partake in this action in order to relieve anxiety and stress over possible negative future outcomes and prevent the opposite of whatever they said from coming true. The idea of knocking three times also is significant as its seen in many other cultures as well as this idea of bad luck comes in three, where knocking on wood prevents this three times.

Knock on Wood

Nationality: American
Age: 22
Occupation: College Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Language: English

Text:

“Anytime someone in my family is talking about something that has the potential to go wrong, we will knock on wood immediately as a way to protect ourselves or sort of prevent it from happening. If we were in the car or there was no wood nearby, my parents would remember to knock on wood when they got home.”

Context:

My informant’s parents have done this for as long as she could remember. While her parents are immigrants from Asia, they likely picked it up from popular culture. 

Analysis:

The exact origin of this superstition is not known for sure, but some believe it is based on ancient pagan traditions. They believed that spirits and gods lived inside the trees, therefore knocking on tree trunks was a way of asking for protection. When individuals knock on wood, they are engaging in a form of apotropaic magic. Even though they know that knocking on wood isn’t actually going to do anything, many do it as a way of easing their worries. It may be a way for people to feel as if they are in control of their own fate. 

The Lucky Jersey Number

Folk Belief / Superstition
Occupational Folklore – Sports / Number Lore

1. Text

SI, a college athlete and lifelong soccer player, described a common superstition in sports: the belief that a specific jersey number brings good luck. For SI, the number is 12, a number he has worn on nearly every team since middle school. “It’s more than just a number,” he said. “It feels like part of me. When I wear it, I play better. When I don’t, I feel like something’s missing.”

He explained that the belief isn’t about the number being universally magical, but about it becoming his number through performance and association. “I had my best game ever in seventh grade wearing number 12,” he recalled. “After that, it just stuck. Every time I had a good game in that jersey, it reinforced the feeling.” SI went so far as to describe himself as being “protective” of the number even feeling annoyed if another player tries to claim it first.

The superstition extends beyond performance to preparation. “One time I couldn’t wear 12, and I just dropped the league. I was already in a tournament league.” he said.

While SI recognizes that there’s no scientific logic to it, he believes the number has become a symbol of confidence and consistency. “I know it sounds silly,” he said, “but it’s mental. I just feel better when I have it.”

2. Context

SI first developed a relationship with the number 12 in middle school, during a formative moment in his soccer career. After an unexpected breakout performance in a local tournament while wearing that number, the connection became ritualized. From that point on, he began requesting the jersey number for every team he played on, even switching teams in some cases to ensure he could keep it. Over time, the number took on an almost talismanic quality, a symbol of personal power and performance.

This superstition is typical within sports folklore, where personal and communal rituals help athletes cope with the intense pressure and unpredictability of competition. SI’s belief in the power of his number was not taught formally but developed through associative experience: repeated moments of success while wearing the number reinforced its symbolic power. His emotional attachment to it grew not from tradition passed down, but from personal repetition and ritual — a hallmark of vernacular belief in individual athletic settings.

SI’s relationship to the number is deeply embodied. He noted that wearing it helps him feel physically and mentally aligned. If he’s forced to play without it, he often adapts by symbolically carrying the number elsewhere — on his warm-up gear, wristbands, or even drawn in marker on his sock. These substitutions act as symbolic proxies, maintaining the ritual even when the official uniform can’t.

The importance of the jersey number is also entangled with group identity. Numbers can signify status, position, or legacy — especially in team sports whime numbers are often retired or passed down. SI mentioned that when someone else wore him number, he felt “weirdly territorial, like they were taking something that belonged to me.” This shows how the number not only signifies self, but also occupies cultural space within the team structure.

3. Interpretation

The belief in a “lucky jersey number” is a classic example of sports superstition, rooted in what folklorist Linda Dégh would identify as personal experience narratives that become ritualized through repetition and reinforced belief. The number, in this case, functions as a symbolic charm, an object that carries emotional and psychological weight far beyond its practical use.

This superstition operates at the intersection of magical thinking and performance psychology. The number itself has no inherent power, but the belief in it helps the athlete enter a desired mental state. In this way, the superstition becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy: the confidence it instills improves focus, motivation, and execution. The lucky number acts as a trigger for performance identity, allowing the athlete to “step into” their best version of themselves.

SI’s attachment to the number, even when it’s not available, reflects a broader human impulse to anchor meaning in material objects. In moments of unpredictability (a game, a tournament, a close match), the number becomes a stabilizing symbol. It offers comfort, consistency, and an illusion of control — all of which are critical under competitive pressure.

On a larger scale, this belief mirrors number lore found across cultures, where certain numbers (e.g., 7, 13, 3) are invested with spiritual or superstitious meanings. In SI’s case, the number is not culturally universal but individually sacred, rooted in him specific history of success and reinforced by the ritual of wearing it. This personalizes the belief while still aligning with broader folkloric patterns — specifically the idea that symbols gain power through use, memory, and embodied repetition.

Ultimately, SI’s lucky jersey number is more than a superstition, rather a living symbol of personal history, identity, and agency. Like many forms of folklore, its truth lies not in evidence, but in function: it works because it feels true.