Superstizione. Tra malasorte, ragione, sorte e paura

\’Being superstitious is ignorant, but not being bad is bad.\’ (Eduardo De Filippo). Starting from this concept, the author tries to explore the causes for which, since the birth of man, some colors, stones, plants, words, actions are the subject of popular beliefs that charge them with negative or positive power. Beliefs that change from people to people and from century to century, because superstition is not a stable and concrete element, but a \’variable\’, we would say in algebraic terms, which adapts to the needs and mentalities of an era. So to understand the origins of certain acts that we still repeat today without having more historical memory, such as throwing a coin into a fountain or not going under a staircase or, for the Jews, putting a pebble on the grave of loved ones, the author it is dedicated to the search for the actions that generated them from the beginning of human history. The work arouses the interest of the curious, but involves and fascinates the reader by offering a complete panorama of superstition in the West, not disdaining, on occasion, to present itself as a true practical manual and as such also available in individual chapters.