Wednesday was not a good day for superstitious Neapolitans. The blood of San Gennaro, the patron of Naples, failed to liquefy despite two rounds of praying by the faithful, which some in the southern Italian city see as an omen of bad things to come.

Virtually all the Nigerian women forced into prostitution in Germany were bound to their madams through a bizarre voodoo curse. One year ago, the spiritual leader Oba Ewuare II issued a countercurse in the hope of putting a stop to human-trafficking in the region. Has it helped? A visual story by Alexander Epp and Olaf Heuser.

Sneezing may also have a hidden meaning that has been discussed for thousands of years. If you sneeze three times in a row, you'll..sneezing superstitions..

A new buzzkilling study suggests that the Ouija board is probably not summoning dead people. Slumber parties are ruined. Your gateway to the spiritual realm has closed. Your powers of divination are pure delusion. You are a muggle. By Whitney Kimball.

Behavioral Psychology: When logic fails, stories and superstition prevail. By Jim Davies.

These deeply entertaining lists of superstitions, gathered by Fletcher Bascom Dressler in 1907, are a good sample of the kinds of sayings American college students from across the country heard in their homes in the late-19th and early-20th centuries... By Rebecca Onion.

The intuitive reasoning behind “magical thinking” may carry an evolutionary advantage. By David Noonan.