By Xavier Coles, Staff Writer

Friday the 13th has been a day of extreme superstitious beliefs for generations. People have many beliefs about this day: for some, it is a dangerous day, but for most now it is just another day they can joke about.

This year includes back-to-back months of Friday the 13th this month and next. The last Friday the 13th of the year is in November.

“It’s been estimated that $800 or $900 million is lost in business on this day because people will not fly or do business they would normally do,” Donald Dossey, founder of the Stress Management Center and Phobia Institute in Asheville, wrote in an article about Friday the 13th phobias that appeared in National Geographic.

Symptoms range from mild anxiety to full-blown panic attacks. The latter may cause people to reshuffle schedules or miss an entire day’s work.

Friday the 13th has inspired a lot of fear over the years, including the series of movies starring the serial killer Jason.
Some people fear or dislike the No. 13 so much that hotels don’t have a 13th floor, skipping from 12 to 14, and there are also airport gates and some hospital rooms that avoid using the number.

Dossey’s organization counsels clients on how to overcome fear of Friday the 13th, a phobia that he estimates afflicts 17 to 21 million people in the United States.

Dossey, also a folklore historian and author of “Holiday Folklore, Phobias and Fun,” wrote that fear of Friday the 13th is rooted in ancient, separate bad-luck associations with the number and the day Friday. The two unlucky entities ultimately combined to make one super unlucky day.

Dossey traces the fear of 13 to a Norse myth about 12 gods having a dinner party at Valhalla, their heaven. In walked the uninvited 13th guest, the mischievous Loki. Once there, Loki arranged for Hoder, the blind god of darkness, to shoot Balder the Beautiful, the god of joy and gladness, with a mistletoe-tipped arrow.

“Balder died and the whole Earth got dark,” Dossey explained. “The whole Earth mourned. It was a bad, unlucky day.”

There is also a biblical reference to the unlucky No. 13. Judas, the apostle who betrayed Jesus, was the 13th guest to the Last Supper.
In ancient Rome, witches reportedly gathered in groups of 12. The 13th was believed to be the devil.

Thomas Fernsler, an associate policy scientist in the Mathematics and Science Education Resource Center at the University of Delaware, said the No. 13 also suffers because of its position after 12.

According to Fernsler, numerologists consider 12 a “complete” number. There are 12 months in a year, 12 signs of the zodiac, 12 gods of Olympus, 12 labors of Hercules, 12 tribes of Israel and 12 apostles of Jesus.

In exceeding 12 by one, Fernsler wrote that 13’s association with bad luck “has to do with just being a little beyond completeness. The number becomes restless or squirmy.”

Many triskaidekaphobes, as those who fear the unlucky integer are known, point to the ill-fated mission to the moon, Apollo 13.
While some people spend this day locked up in their house to avoid any kind of bad luck, studies have shown that Friday the 13th statistically has fewer accidents than any other Friday. It is thought that, subconsciously, people are more careful on this date if they think it is bad luck or not.

And to most people, it is just another regular day.

“No, I don’t get any more superstitious on this day. I don’t really care about it,” sophomore Erin Wheeler said. “The worst thing to probably happen to me is I fell down the stairs.”