Great Construction

Superstition and Science

     Asked where superstitious beliefs come from, I am sure most people would be surprised to hear me say that superstitions actually come from science. This is why.
     The general belief nowadays is that science can solve any problem or issue. The higher the level of institution of education where one has studied, the more firm is this conviction. When students go out into the real world, however, they realize the situation is very different and that their learning does not at all help them. They begin to seek further, for something outside science. The problems they encounter are not just of a social nature. Unimaginable calamities visit, and even situations that had been thought to be under control, turn out to be completely unmanageable. Indeed our world is chock-full of the unknown, the irreconcilable. There is probably no one who has not been struck by disappointment or unease about the future. Thus, an unexpectedly high number of the educated and elite seek in private, so that others will not learn of their search, for answers to these questions in divination of all sorts, physiognomy, palm reading, spiritual possession and so forth.
     These searches occur because, as I said in the beginning, there are just too many problems and issues that science cannot resolve, thus leading to the result that many turn to superstition. Indeed science does create superstition.

Hikari, Issue 28, September 24, 1949
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