Friday the 13th: The history and astrology behind the unluckiest day of the year
Insert horror movie doom music — Friday the 13th is nigh, bringing with it a sense of general unease and some trying astrological transits.Come Friday, we’ll be fresh off of a tense opposition between our planets of love and war, a high stakes, instigator energy amplified by the final days of Mercury retrograde in Sagittarius and the moon on the brink of fullness in the chaos as cardio sign of Gemini.Gentle, it ain’t.
Read on to learn more.First, let us address the ominous reputation.The unlucky association of this day of days stretches back centuries to Nordic folklore.
According to myth, the twelve primary deities of the Nordic pantheon threw a dinner party in Valhalla (fun).The trickster god Loki showed up uninvited as the thirteenth guest and orchestrated the ‘murder by mistletoe’ death of Balder the Beautiful, god of light and gladness.Balder’s death brought grief to the world and solidified the bad vibes of the number thirteen.Fateful feasts continue in the Christian tradition.Thirteen people were present at the Last Supper and Judas, a probable Aries and the redheaded betrayer of JC, was the last to arrive, furthering the association between the number and imminent death or ruin.And the hits keep on coming, folks.Friday comes into biblical play in several ways; Jesus was crucified on the Friday after the Last Supper and according to lore, Friday marks the day that a) Cain killed Abel and b) Eve offered Adam the downfall apple of knowledge.Yikes.Through the bible and beyond, Friday the 13th has played host to evil events that have further stoked its reputation as a big baddy.
Notable among these are the arrest and subsequent massacre of the Knights Templar in 1307, the bombing of Buckingham Palace in 1940, the murder of New Yorker Kitty Genovese in 1964 and the death of rapper Tupac Shakur in 1996.Fear of this date is as deep as its history; there are even two terms to describe the phobia, each sounding remarkably like Ikea furniture — par...