This technique is about religion and superstition. Those are two troublesome words. What’s religion to me may be superstition to you, and vice versa. Many wars have been fought over differences of opinion concerning the two words. And huge quantities of nonsense have been generated in debates about them.
In our studies of luck, happily, we will be able to avoid those debates. We can lump religion and superstition together and refer to them by one neutral word: supernaturalism.
Supernaturalism is defined as any belief in an unseen spirit, force, or agency whose existence hasn’t been proved to everybody’s satisfaction.
It may be an absolutely serious belief such as orthodox Christianity or Judaism. It may be something less serious, such as fear of walking under ladders. It may be something quite trivial, such as half-humorous fondness for a certain good-luck charm or a habit of knocking on wood to ward off bad luck.
All these are manifestations of supernaturalism. Whether serious or humorous, important to the believer or barely more than a kind of game or tic, they all fit the definition. All deal with unseen powers, and all can get you an argument at any cocktail party. All have adherents, and all have scoffers.
And all play a role in men’s and women’s varied approaches to the platform of getting lucky.
You will remember our definition of luck: events that influence your life but aren’t of your making. Of whose making, then, are they? Ah, that is the question that causes all the trouble. It is the question that pits atheists against the pious, Moslems against Christians, astrologers against jeering multitudes, charm carriers and ladder dodgers against people who like the number 13.
You win a prize in a lottery. Why? Where did the good luck come from? What is its purpose? Why were you singled out to receive it? You have almost certainly asked yourself such questions at various times in your life. Everybody has. And there are dozens of possible answers.
God sent me the good luck for unknowable reasons.
God sent it because I prayed for it.
God sent it because I’ve been leading a blameless life.
It happened because it was ordained in my horoscope.
It happened because that was my lucky day.
It happened because the lottery ticket bore my lucky number.
I made it happen by wearing my good-luck bracelet.
And so on. That is not by any means a complete list of supernatural explanations of luck. Some people favor one explanation to the exclusion of others. Some favor several. Some drift up and down the list, choosing the explanation to fit the given circumstances.
Finally, there are a large number of people who reject all supernatural explanations. These men and women might be called pragmatists. Their motto: “I believe what I can see and touch.” On winning a lottery prize they would be as happy as any of the supernaturalists, but their comments on the event would be cooler:
This good luck was not sent to me by any unseen spirit, force, or agency. It was simply a random event. Somebody had to win the prize, and the winner chanced to be me. My good fortune has no purpose; nor does it prove anything. It just happened.
We now come to the core question. Are lucky people supernaturalists or pragmatists?
They are both – but in a special way. And that will take some explaining.
Lucky theory, the body of advice that is the basis of this book, is entirely pragmatic in its essential nature. It reckons without supernatural forces of any kind. Even this Seventh Technique, as you will see, takes an agnostic attitude toward supernatural beliefs. The other 12 techniques ignore those beliefs entirely. In basic luck theory, you can apply the techniques without prayer, lucky numbers, four-leaf clovers, or any other reliance on the supernatural.
You can. But that doesn’t mean you must.
The techniques work with or without the supernatural. If you harbor a strong belief of some sort, there is probably no reason why you can’t remain true to that belief while applying the techniques. (Clearly its your minister, and not me, you need to run that past, though!) The same goes for supernatural tics and quirks: a fear of black cats, an aversion to the number 13, a half-humorous belief in the luck-bringing powers of an unwashed college sweater you wore to a trophy-winning game. The 13 techniques of luck theory are compatible with all supernatural beliefs and schema.
To put it another way, it shouldn’t matter much in luck theory whether you believe in God or a committee of gods, or lucky numbers – or nothing. But here is a peculiar fact .As a breed, lucky people tend to be supernaturalists. Some are devoutly religious, while others harbor the most peculiar superstitions.
This baffled me when I first began to notice it. Why should the lucky be associated with supernaturalism?
What baffled me all the more at first was that it didn’t seem to matter, at least not especially, which brand of supernaturalism a lucky man or woman espoused. Some of the lucky are devout Catholics or Jews while others shun organised religion. What seems to be important isn’t the kind of supernaturalism, but the fact that it is there at all. Nearly all lucky people, it turns out, associate themselves in some way with some kind of religious/supernatural idea.
What is the connection? The connection in my opinion is that a supernatural belief, even a trivial and humorous one, helps people get lucky by helping them make otherwise impossible choices.
Life is full of situations in which you must choose among themselves but lack any rational basis of choosing. The simplest illustration is that of number picking at Las Vegas or in your state lottery. You want to bet on a roulette wheel or in the state’s three-digit game. To bet, you must choose a number to put your money on, but how? One number is just as good as another. No amount of cogitation is going to help you. No amount of figuring out will give the slightest edge over other players. So what do you do?
Many people – the unlucky – would just stand there paralyzed, unable to make the impossible choice. But we saw in our studies of the Third Technique, risk spooning, that getting lucky requires taking risks. We also saw that we rarely have all the facts we could wish for when embarking on a risky course, and sometimes we have no facts at all. This is where the lucky can make a supernatural belief pay off.
The lucky man or woman would place that lottery bet despite the total lack of relevant data. How to pick the number? By relying on the supernatural.
The reliance might be perfectly serious: “God will guide me.” Or it might be altogether humorous: “I’ll kiss my lucky charm and pick the first three numbers that pop into my head.”
Thus does the lucky individual get into the game. Whether the outcome is affected by God, the ‘stars’, or a lucky charm is irrelevant. What counts is that the supernatural belief has enabled the player to get into a potentially winning position.
Entering a lottery is a trivial adventure of course. Life presents us with many more important fork-in-the-road situations. Some are just as frustrating as the lottery, in that no rational choice is possible. Yet the worst reaction of all is to do nothing.
A classic illustration of this common human dilemma is Franck Stockton’s irritating story about the lady and the tiger. Maybe you remember it. The hero having incurred the anger of a king, is led into a stadium that has two exit doors. Behind one door is a lady; behind the other, a tiger that has not enjoyed a good meal in a long time. The king tells the hero he must walk through one door or the other. If he does not, he will be executed on the spot.
While the hero is pondering this interesting dilemma, the problem is compounded by his lover, the king’s daughter. The princess surreptitiously points to one of the two doors. Unfortunately, he cannot figure out what her motivation might be. If she is motivated by selfless love for him then she must be indicating the door with the lady behind it. But if she is motivated by jealousy, then she is steering him to the tiger.
A classic case of inadequate data. No amount of figuring is going to lead the baffled hero to a solution. No rational choice is possible. Yet the worst reaction is to stand there and do nothing, for that will bring certain execution. It is clearly to the hero’s advantage to pick a door. In that way he gains a fifty-fifty chance of survival.
Stockton does not tell us he outcome. But we can hope, for the hero’s sake, that he harbored a supernatural belief. Pretty well any old superstition would do (barring the sinister or depraved) – just as long as he had something to guide him in the choice he had to make. Anything – even the ancient ritual of tossing a coin – would have been better than failing to make the choice.
Real life abounds with examples of similar dilemmas: frustrating situations in which we must make choices and take risks without nearly enough data. A Union Carbide executive tells the sad story of a young man who was unable to choose between two jobs.
He was an unusually bring young man with an excellent educational record. In his senior year at the college he talked to recruiters sent to the campus to represent several large companies, among them Union Carbide and IBM. The recruiters found him somewhat lacking personal grace and other attributes but were impressed by his intellect. Union Carbide and IBM ended up offering him virtually identical jobs.
He studied the offers and he studied the companies, and he thought and thought, but he couldn’t decide. He was in a pickle very much like the man in Frank Stockton’s tale. No amount of cerebration could help him arrive at a choice. Union Carbide and IBM are both very large companies with well-earned reputations for generosity to employees. A bright young man or woman can have a wide-open future in either organization. But of course one’s future in such an organization, like all futures everywhere, depends largely on luck. It is impossible to stand at the beginning of such a future and determine exactly what its shape is going to be. There are not enough data.
The young recruit couldn’t make up his mind. Union Carbide personnel people wrote to him and then phoned him to say they had to have his decision soon. If he didn’t want the offered job, they would like to offer it to somebody else. It was a good job. There was no shortage of qualified applicants. So what was it to be – yes or no?
IBM was undoubtedly prodding him for a decision in the same way as Stockton’s hero. He was in a situation in which the worst choice would be to make no choice.
Finally, goaded to reluctant action by insistent letters and calls from the two huge companies, he told a Union Carbide woman on the phone that he had decided to go with IBM. The Union Carbide executive who tells this story isn’t sure about just what happened at IBM, but apparently there was a misunderstanding. When the young man went to notify IBM of his decision, the IBM people said they were sorry but he had delayed too long. They had offered the job to another applicant, who had accepted it immediately. The young man called Union Carbide, but now that job was gone, too.
This was clearly a case in which the supernatural could have led to good luck. If the young man had harbored a religious belief, for example, he might have prayed for guidance or a sign or omen. Or he might have talked with a minister, rabbi, priest, or other guru. Or he could have tossed a simple old coin. All he needed was something to lead him to a choice. No matter how silly or superstitious that something might appear to nonbelievers, it would have been of direct practical value if it had helped the young man direct practical value if it had helped the young man overcome his paralysis.
So, find yourself a supernatural guidance system. It can be serious or humorous, a profoundly held belief or a game. None of that matters. Nor does it matter whether the system, in terms of its pronouncements about itself, is “true” or is pure poppycock. As long as it isn’t malevolent or occultic, all that matters is that you hold it and can use it to help you make choices and take risks.
Obviously avoid the sinister ones, but don’t be afraid of seizing a system that others somewhat scoff at. All supernatural systems get scoffed at, including the major religions. Perhaps nobody knows whether the truth about God and the world is perceived by Christians, Jews, Moslems, or somebody else – or nobody. A lot of people say they know, but they don’t; they only hope. Not everybody is convinced, indeed, that there is such a being as God or that, if there is, he or she cares who wins lotteries or gets jobs.
But in luck theory it doesn’t matter.
Lucky numbers are a good one. They are funny and have the virtue of being simple. It can be complicated if you want it to be, but it can be reduced to the simple act of espousing one or a few lucky numbers. Largely for that reason, it is my personal choice as a supernatural aid to luck.
I am fond of the numbers 6 and 28. They are the numbers that represent my birthday, June 28. They are also the only two “perfect” whole numbers below 100. In number theory, a perfect number is one that is the sum of its own factors. Thus the factors of 6 are 1,2, and 3 which add up to 6.
So 6 and 28 are obviously rare and admirable numbers. Do I take them seriously? Of course not. But they do help me make choices in situations in which there is no rational basis for choice, and the worst course would be to stand there and do nothing.
For example, not long ago, while driving my car on my way to an unfamiliar destination, I came to a traffic circle with roads radiating out from it at crazy angles. I didn’t know where I was or which road I should take. But I knew I had to make a choice and do it fast If I were simply to stop dead in the midst of the traffic, paralyzed with indecision, I would not live long. I had to make my choice even though I had no data to base it on.
In this frustrating and potentially dangerous situation, my lucky number 6 came to my aid. On one of the roads I saw a service station with a tall sign advertising a brand of gasoline: Phillips 66. Without another moment’s thought I turned down that road.
I got to my destination. I learned later that I hadn’t chosen the shortest route, but I did get where I was going and I lived to tell the story.
In much the same way those lucky numbers have helped me pick lottery numbers, play roulette wheels, even make decision in data-lacking situations n the stock market. Sometimes I win and sometimes I lose. Except in playful moments, I doubt that the numbers have any effect on these outcomes. What the numbers do do for me is get me into the games – games I might otherwise shun because there is no way to figure out a rational winning strategy. The numbers help me put myself in position to win. And because I keep putting myself in position, I win often enough to make unlucky people jealous.
“A superstition won’t do you any harm as long as you don’t use it as a substitute for thinking,” said Charles Goren, the bridge master. He was talking to a group of reporters and was responding to a question about bridge superstitions, specifically the one about bathtubs. “In fact, a superstition can help you. If it makes you feel good to sit facing in a certain direction, then probably you’ll play better. You’ll get up from the table with the feeling that you improved your luck.”
The feeling would almost certainly be accurate. In bridge as in life, your fate is influenced by events beyond your control, particularly by the way the cards fall in the deal. You are stuck with the hand you pick up: 13 cards not of your choosing. But thee 13 strokes of luck, good or bad or no hum, are not the sole determinants of our fate. The game’s outcome will also be influenced by what you do with the luck you are handed. With a good superstition to help you take risks and make data-short decisions, you are likely to be luckier than if you simply sat there baffled and discouraged.
Asked whether he harbored a supernatural luck-changing belief of his own, Goren grinned and nodded. He would not say what his belief was, but it did not matter. What counted was that he had something supernatural to lean on when he needed it. Charles Goren was always a supremely lucky man.