E.clips.us

This one wasn't printed in The Spirit because they had so many articles for that issue that I guess they forgot about this. Nevertheless, I am putting it up here.
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As the old wives tale has it, pregnant women shouldn't go out during an elcipse (no specifications on partial or total). Also they shouldn't touch their belly during the eclipse else their child would be born with cuts on its body, or without a cleft lip, or the child would be blinded. Well what about the children who are born with cleft lips and their mothers did not go out during eclipses? There are many who do not really believe in these stories, but "just in case" follow them. All I can say is that these pregnant women have missed out on some good solar eclipses.

In India, they say eclipse is a time to ward off the evil (Rahu and Ketu swallow the sun). So people pray for release of the sun and then, for some reason, have to take a bath, a dip in holy waters if possible. No eating food till the eclipse lasts, no getting out of the house, no lookig up in the sky. Okay, they justify not eating food by saying that the atmosphere gets polluted because of no electromagnetic radiation for those 2 minutes. But whatever happened to the 12 hours of night which have none of the electromagnetic radiation either? And why starve when it possibly can do you no more harm than Mumbai's air?

Many believe that an eclipse is an omen of some natural disaster or the death or downfall of a ruler. Another pervasive myth involves an invisible dragon or other demon that devours the Sun during an eclipse. Many cultures have also developed superstitions about how to counteract the effects of an eclipse. The Chinese would produce great noise and commotion (drumming, banging on pans, shooting arrows into the sky, and the like) to frighten away the dragon and restore daylight. In India people may immerse themselves in water (cases have been seen with sand too) up to their necks, believing this act of worship will help the Sun and Moon defend themselves against the dragon. In Japan, the custom is to cover wells during an eclipse to prevent poison from dropping into them from the darkened sky. And as recently as the last century, the Chinese Imperial Navy fired its ceremonial guns during an eclipse to scare off the invisible dragon.

Incidentally, temples have been found closed during the eclipses as sadhus chanted mantras to ward off the evil energies of the eclipsed sun or to avoid catastrophes. Clearly the Gods being out of bounds, business deals have been seen to be put off, and people staying back at home to avoid “going into negativity”. A couple of years back, even a State Assembly closed its business well before 4:45 pm, the time when the eclipse started.

How can people be so ignorant in this age… What are schools doing?

A lot of superstitions come from the difficulty of telling the difference between something happening at the same time or one after the other, and there been a true correlation. That is why we have scientists after all. But science is expensive; both in time and materials, a hunter gatherer would be unlikely to have the free time to test repeatedly if say scaring a pregnant woman would harm the baby. That and the power of gossip and language and you have the makings of a myth.