Superstition And Control

Humans are superstitious animals by virtue of the nature of learning. There are some unknowns that are quite unverifiable, yet the unknowns serve as a fertile seedbed for fears. After all, people do not enjoy the prospect of nasty things happening to them, and it is a small price to pay to adopt rituals that avert such nastiness. Depending on one's culture, that nastiness will vary. Older cultures may have spiritual fears, the contemporary capitalist culture will have materialistic fears.

Given that superstition involves fears of the unverifiable, it is a simple enough matter to exert control on others through manipulation of those fears. It stands to reason that one would wish to minimize those fears, and such a solution comes from the injection of unverifiable snippets disguised as "facts". After all, since both problem and solution are unverifiable, it is easy to assert that the resurgence of unpleasantness is attributable to a lack of adherence to (or belief in) the unverifiable solution. Such is the power of the unverifiable, when humans allow those fears to force them to cling to a superstition.

Once this control has been established, one needs to have either an ongoing unknown that continually threatens to shatter that illusory peace that salves the psyche, or to continually establish new unknowns to keep the fear fresh. If one can keep that momentum going, the constant presence of problems and introduction of solutions can keep the superstitious loyal for extended periods of time, perhaps sufficient to establish one's dominion over a large group of people for enough time to do extensive damage to whatever one detests.