The fear of Friday is skeviphobia, the fear of the number 13 is triskaidekaphobia, and the fear of Friday the 13th is paraskevidekatriaphobia (aka friggatriskaidekaphobia).
While both Friday(because Judas was thought to have been the 13th guest at the Last Supper) and 13(because it is an uneven number following the even number 12 widely considered beneficial) had independently been considered unlucky for centuries, the dark nature of Friday The 13th appears to have only originated in the West in the 19th century, possibly with Henry Sutherland Edwards’ 1869 biography of Gioachino Rossini wherein the date is termed unlucky.
Did you know?
More than 60 million people worldwide claim to be affected by a fear of Friday 13th. Some of them won’t go to work, drive cars or get out of bed on this day.
Sometimes it happens more than once a year. While the 2014 calendar had only one Friday the 13th, 2015 will not be as lucky. Not only will the date occur in February, it will also come back to haunt us just four weeks from now, in March, and once more in October. Thankfully 2016 contains only one Friday the 13th date, in May. While some years are more lucky than others in terms of the number of Friday the 13th dates, it’s impossible for any year to go by without at least one.
The date isn’t inherently unlucky. Despite superstitions surrounding Friday the 13th, there is no hard evidence that the date is actually unlucky. “No data exists and will never exist to confirm that the number 13 is an unlucky number,” Igor Radun, of Finland’s Human Factors and Safety Behavior Group, told LiveScience in 2012. “There is no reason to believe that any number would be lucky or unlucky.”
It may have religious roots. — You might be surprised to learn that the superstitions surrounding Friday the 13th are said to stem from religion. National Geographic reports that the fear was fueled by Judas, the 13th apostle at the Last Supper, who betrayed Jesus, and Jesus’ crucifixion, which occurred on a Friday. Thomas Gilovich, a psychology professor at Cornell University, told the publication that the number and day of the week merged to create a “double whammy” of fears.
According to the British Medical Journal there is a significant increase in traffic-related accidents when the date is Friday 13th.
The independent horror flick Friday the 13th was released in May 1980 and despite only having a budget of $550,000 it grossed $39.7million at the box office in the United States – pretty lucky, really.
