Curses: Coincidence or Truth?

To my elder and younger,

I have been watching a lot of Castle lately, and I mean A LOT! I have sat down and watched season 1 & 2 within 1 1/2 weeks and am working my way through season 3 now. I am not one to believe in pre-determined events. Moreover I think coincidences are everywhere.

A week or so ago I was thinking about how I seem to have bad luck with jobs, “the 3 month curse”, as it were. As coincidences go I then watched another episode of Castle, season 2 episode 19 titled “Wrapped up in Death” [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJuOCrlhc1Q]. The episode centered around the mummy of a Mayan King on which there was a curse. Anyone that set eyes on the King would be subject to his curse and would die.

“There is a broad popular belief in curses being associated with the violation of the tombs of mummified corpses, or of the mummies themselves. The idea became so widespread as to become a pop-culture mainstay”. However the pop-culture curse of the mummy typically involved the walking dead. Whereas “originally the [curses were] invisible, a series of mysterious deaths” such as portrayed in the episode of Castle.

This got me to thinking about what causes people, rational people no less, to think bad things are caused by curses. This is a rather large question, since it can also be posed to topics such as good luck, ghosts/spirits, evil eye and of course religion.

Regardless as to the reasons why someone believes in things as curses, they are interesting things to examine. As such the episode concluded in the curse seemingly to be a farce. Yes the curse came true, all that gazed on the King’s face died. However human action brought about the deaths, the deaths were murder and not some mysterious death. The bizarre thing about the episode is that even though they found out the curse did not come true Castle still found someone to “remove the curse”.

I need someone to tell me how to remove the curse I have on me, “the 3 month curse”. Running around in a circle counter-clockwise 3 times and throwing salt over my shoulder have done nothing. Any thoughts? LOL

-A