Did you wake up today? Are you feeling exhausted? Were you in a beastly mood? Well, don’t call the doctor yet. This bug will be fixed by midnight. They suffer from the Friday the 13th calendar error. Fear of the number 13. Believe it or not, it costs this country about $1 billion every year due to canceled travel plans or missed work. Even in Boston, some of the better hotels exceed the 13th floor or do not have 13-story rooms. Why is everyone so afraid of bad luck? Boston College history professor and Dracula author Raymond McNally says the number 13 has a long, dark past. Most people immediately think of the Last Supper. And Judas Iscariot, the 13th apostle at that dinner and the traitor and the evil person. So that’s bad news. Therefore, there is never a *** dinner party for 13 people at the *** dining table. It’s just not finished yet. It’s taboo and Friday is just as cursed. It was then that the suffering of Jesus Christ and his crucifixion occurred. So it’s a damn bad day. Supposedly Friday was the day Eve gave Adam the apple to eat. That’s where all the trouble started. So Friday the 13th isn’t a damn good combo, says McNally, it’s a double jeopardy, so to speak. It’s a damn bad day to start. You shouldn’t start anything, you should delay everything, all the projects you have. I’m all for it. No surprise. Mcnally says that superstition thrives in this country, after all we live in a damned society, enchanted by horror films, music and crime novels. They all aim to scare and shock, to captivate and rattle. Most people like to be afraid under controlled conditions. You see in the movie: When it gets too much, you can close your eyes or turn away, when you’re reading a book and it gets too much for you, you can put it down and be in control. But as Boston Globe film critic Jay Carr adds, it’s because our culture is brimming with blood and guts. Creating fear is not an easy task. Frankenstein and Dracula have turned into Saturday morning cartoon characters. We see them on cereal boxes, so you have to keep increasing the stuff. Maintain pressure so blood rises. Says actor Kane Hotter, who plays Jason in the Friday the 13th film series. As expected, his film motto is: no guts, no blood. I mean fame. You know, everyone likes the tension building and then the terror and the way the tension is released. And I just think it’s a lot of fun. For Hotter, it might just be fun. But parapsychologist Rafael Bibo takes ghosts seriously. I firmly believe that there are ghosts and spirits, Bibo’s business-destroying spirits. Although his day job is now civil engineering, he snoops around the John Stone Inn in Ashland, supposedly a long-standing meeting place for the ghost of John Stone, who is said to have committed murder. One of his guests also said he saw a picture of a little girl killed by a passing train on the train tracks next door. I usually like to just casually walk around the place and allow myself to be receptive to any feelings I might have. And nine times out of ten, I’ll definitely refer to them as hotspots. Some may call them “cold spots.” When I walk through one of these places you feel a fucking tingle that goes up your spine and you feel like goosebumps on your hands and you know you’re hitting something they want to communicate. They want a uh uh notification. Hey, look, we’re here. The frightening thing about mortals, says Bibo, is that we don’t know how to react to anything. We can’t explain it. It is the unknown factor that you cannot see. If fear of the unknown. There are many things out there in the universe that we don’t understand, and anyone who says they understand everything is probably an idiot. We don’t know many of the answers to the basic questions. Science cannot tell us the meaning of life. So there is an area for which science has no answers, and into this area comes superstition, which still commonly says that science and history offer reasonable explanations for many mysteries and superstitions. But if all this talk still scares you, there isn’t always tomorrow the 14th, is there?

What’s Friday the 13th all about?

Updated: December 12, 2024, 5:39 p.m. CST

Friday the 13th brings with it a lot of myths and superstitions. Some people dodge ladders and avoid black cats. Others wonder what all the fuss is about. This year we have two Fridays, the 13th – September 13th and December 13th – and then we won’t see another until the summer of 2025. Where does the hysteria come from? Date originated in the Middle Ages. Other theories suggest that its foundations date back to biblical times and have their origins in the story of Jesus’ last supper, at which 13 people were present, with Judas being the 13th guest. Lyrically, one of the earliest mentions to date comes from Henry Sutherland Edwards’ 1869 biography Gioachino Rossini, who died on Friday the 13th, wrote: “…he considered Fridays an unlucky day and thirteen an unlucky number. It is remarkable.” “He died on Friday, November 13th.” In Thomas W. Lawson’s sensational 1907 novel “Friday the 13th.” Fears about the date are heightened when a broker exploits the superstition to cause panic on Wall Street. Then there’s Dan Brown’s legendary novel The Da Vinci Code, in which events of Friday, October 13, 1307 are considered the birth date of superstition. Thousands of Knights Templar were arrested on the orders of King Philip IV of France because they suspected that their secret initiation rituals made them “enemies of the faith.” Then there are the slasher films. Horror fans around the world love being frightened by hockey-masked, machete-wielding Jason Vorhees, the murderous protagonist of at least a dozen Friday the 13th films. There’s a word for that. The fear of Friday the 13th has frightened so many. There’s a word for it now – Friggatriskaidekaphobia. Etymologically, Frigg is the Norse goddess after whom Friday was named. Another name for it is paraskevidekatriaphobia, which is loosely based on the Greek word for Friday. But some are even afraid of the number itself, known as triskaidekaphobia. And no, we don’t just pound on our keyboards. Thirteen has been considered an unlucky number for many, many years and represents a complete downturn from the previous number – 12 is often seen as “completeness” and a state of “wholeness” (12 months of the year, 12 hours on the clock, etc.) The Myths There are so many myths and legends surrounding Friday the 13th. One of the most common myths is, for example, that if you walk under a ladder you are unlucky and pass a black cat or, to put it even further, if you break a mirror you will be unlucky for seven years. What’s worse is that if you pass a funeral procession, you’ll be the next to die (or so they say). However, Friday the 13th isn’t necessarily the unluckiest day of the year for everyone. In Italy, Friday the 17th is the day of fear because the number 13 is considered a lucky number. In Spain, the unluckiest day is not Friday, but Tuesday the 13th. Check the calendar for future Friday the 13th. Be warned: there is only one Friday the 13th in 2025, but three in 2026. Here is the full list from Friday the 13th to 2027: Friday , June 13, 2025Friday, February 13, 2026Friday, March 13, 2026Friday, November 13 2026Friday, August 13, 2027

DES MOINES, Iowa –

Friday the 13th brings with it a lot of myths and superstitions.

Some people dodge ladders and avoid black cats. Others wonder what all the fuss is about.

This year we have two Fridays, the 13th – September 13th and December 13th – and there won’t be another until the summer of 2025.

Where did the hysteria come from?

Some believe that the superstition surrounding the date originated in the Middle Ages. Other theories suggest that its foundations date back to biblical times and have their origins in the story of Jesus’ last supper, at which 13 people were present, with Judas being the 13th guest.

Lyrically, one of the earliest mentions to date comes from Henry Sutherland Edwards’ 1869 biography of Gioachino Rossini, who died on Friday the 13th. It says: “… he considered Fridays to be unlucky days and thirteen to be unlucky, it is noteworthy that on Friday, November 13th, he died.”

In Thomas W. Lawson’s sensational 1907 novel “Friday the 13th,” fear of the date is heightened when a broker exploits the superstition to cause panic on Wall Street.

Then there’s Dan Brown’s iconic novel The Da Vinci Code, which credits events on Friday, October 13, 1307 as the birthdate of superstition. Thousands of Knights Templar were arrested on the orders of King Philip IV of France because of suspicions that their secret initiation rituals made them “enemies of the faith.”

Then there are the slasher films. Horror fans around the world love being frightened by hockey-masked, machete-wielding Jason Vorhees, the murderous protagonist of at least a dozen Friday the 13th films.

There’s a word for that

The fear of Friday the 13th has frightened so many that there is now a word for it – Friggatriskaidekaphobia. Etymologically, Frigg is the Norse goddess after whom Friday was named. Another name for it is paraskevidekatriaphobia, which is loosely based on the Greek word for Friday. But some are even afraid of the number itself, known as triskaidekaphobia. And no, we don’t just pound on our keyboards.

Thirteen was considered bad luck for many, many Years, complete fall from previous number – 12 is often seen as “completeness” and a state of “wholeness” (12 months of the year, 12 hours on the clock, etc.)

The myths

There are so many myths and legends surrounding Friday the 13th. Some of the most common myths include going under a ladder, passing a black cat, or, to put it even further, being unlucky for seven years if you break a mirror. Even worse, if you pass a funeral procession, you’ll be the next to die (or so they say).

However, Friday the 13th isn’t necessarily the unluckiest day of the year for everyone. In Italy, Friday the 17th is the day of fear because the number 13 is considered a lucky number. In Spain, the unluckiest day is not Friday, but Tuesday the 13th.

Check the calendar for next Friday the 13th

Be warned: there will only be one Friday the 13th in 2025, but there will be three in 2026.

Here is the full list from Friday the 13th through 2027:

• Friday June 13, 2025
• Friday, February 13, 2026
• Friday March 13, 2026
• Friday, November 13, 2026
• Friday, August 13, 2027