The culturologist called the fear of the question of time superstition

Asking a stranger about time is not capable of "taking energy" or shortening a person's life, and such ideas belong to superstitions that have nothing to do with Christian teaching. Cultural expert Evgenia Groshkova told Izvestia about this on July 10.

"Older people cannot take away energy through the question of time. This is superstition, the substitution of faith in God for fear of magic and the desire to explain anxiety with simple reasons," Groshkova emphasized.

According to the expert, such ideas are rooted in paganism and contradict the Christian tradition. The expert explained that the fear of such signs is primarily related to psychological mechanisms. According to her, it is easier for a person to believe that trouble can be prevented by a simple action than to accept the impossibility of fully controlling life. In addition, older people are often associated with old age and the finiteness of life, which is why such concerns are projected onto them.

Groshkova added that the concept of "energy vampirism" originated not in the church tradition, but in the occult teachings of the 19th century. Later, this term became popular due to popular culture and psychological literature, although initially it was used only as a metaphor to describe emotionally difficult communication.

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According to the culturologist, in Christianity there is no idea that through everyday actions — for example, asking to name the time — it is possible to transmit diseases, age or negative energy. The Church views such beliefs as a manifestation of lack of faith and a relic of pagan beliefs.

The expert noted that even if people believe that such signs "work", this is most often due to coincidences or the desire to find a simple explanation for what is happening. She stressed that many people continue to believe in such superstitions only because they have internalized them since childhood and have never been subjected to critical reflection.

Groshkova added that the Christian tradition urges not to look for mystical causes of life's difficulties in the random words or actions of others, but to trust God and not to replace faith with fear of superstition.

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Natalia Fominykh, a religious scholar, Doctor of Pedagogical Sciences, Professor at Plekhanov Russian University of Economics, said on July 10 that kutya has remained one of the main ceremonial dishes of the Slavic tradition for centuries. It is prepared both on memorial days and during the Christmas and Epiphany holidays. The main point of kutia, according to the expert, is to combine several important ideas: the memory of ancestors, faith in the immortality of the soul and hope for rebirth. Each component of the dish has its own symbolic meaning.