Superstition Obstacle Course Continues Through September 1, 2008
Are You Scared?

Spilled Salt

under it? Have you ever opened an umbrella in the house, or paused before a black cat? Maybe those superstitions aren’t yours, but would you deliberately break a mirror and risk seven years of bad luck? Now through September 1, 2008, the Exploratorium invites you to explore your own lurking superstitions through the Superstition Obstacle Course, where a series of interactive exhibits reveal your instinctive reactions to a sampling of bad luck tempters. The Superstition Obstacle Course is presented in conjunction with Mind, the major new Exploratorium collection, four years in the making, made possible by the National Science Foundation. It’s a place where visitors experience their own thoughts, feelings and actions in provocative and unexpected ways.

The first test comes when you walk under a ladder to enter the obstacle course. Once (safely?) in the exhibit, you can risk seven years of bad luck by breaking a mirror, or place your mom’s fate in jeopardy by stepping on a crack. Spinning a horseshoe might replace your bad luck with good — but what if it stops while pointing downward and even more of your luck runs out? You might want to sit down and rest a bit, but the chair is number 13. Keep walking and a (simulated) black cat might just cross your path.
Most of us were exposed to a variety of superstitions as youngsters and, even though we’ve outgrown those kinds of magical beliefs, many of us still occasionally hear a little warning voice that has us tossing spilled salt over our left shoulder or knocking wood.

The Mind collection offers windows into the subtle but powerful processes and mechanisms at work inside our heads. At A Sip of Conflict, for example, drink from a water fountain fashioned from a very real but unused toilet. How does that make you feel? At Limelight, stand before a simulated lively audience and examine your own emotional and cognitive reactions to being the center of attention.