The defiant one

Eric Carlson never put much stock in Friday the 13th. In fact, the Wake Forest University professor once led a group called the Carolina Skeptics, who would gather every Friday the 13th and encourage people to do “unlucky” things, just to prove that the world wouldn’t end as a result.

“We would deliberately challenge superstitions,” he said. “At 13:13, I would stand under a ladder. We’d have a fake black cat (I’m allergic to real ones), and break a mirror and spill salt while standing on a crack. ... It’s very discomforting that bad things happen that we can’t control, so we try to find ways to control these bad things.”