Since childhood, every year people celebrate their birthday, receiving congratulations on the next date. This day is the happiest, brightest and most joyful of the year. However, with the number 40, and accordingly the celebration of 40 years, many different superstitions and signs are associated.
Since ancient times, this number has been referred to as those that carry negative emotions. For example, it is believed that after the death of a person, farewell to the soul occurs on the 40th day. In magical fortune-telling, TAROT cards, the dropped out number 40 means death. In addition, there are many negative references to this number in the Bible: the 40-day great flood, the 40-day stay of Jesus in the desert after Baptism, the 40-year wandering of the Jewish people in the desert under the leadership of Moses, etc.
Until now, in some tribes in Africa, the celebration of 40 years is prohibited. According to local beliefs, it is this, rather than diseases and an unsanitary mode of life, that explains the high mortality rate after reaching this age. And in European countries there is a theory that in the distant past, the onset of 40 years of age testified that the guardian angel that exists in every person on this day leaves him, a transition of the soul to another state occurs, due to the withering away of the old and the birth of the new. In this regard, celebrating 40 years, a person can draw the attention of death to himself, as if throwing a kind of challenge to it.
However, in superstitions and beliefs, there is a mention that the ban on celebrating on this date applies only to the male part of the population, correlating this statement with the fact that in the pagan and original scriptures of the Christian religion it was believed that a woman does not have a soul.
Despite the fact that at present psychologists regard all these statements as popular superstitions, they give the following advice: you should not congratulate the birthday person on his 40th birthday and say this magic figure during a feast, but simply note the passing of the past 39th year and etc.
And according to popular beliefs, in critical years for a person, and this is the 40-year date, you should not invite a large number of people (if you still decided to celebrate your holiday), so as not to jinx the host of the celebration. It is better to call a few of your closest friends who truly love the birthday boy.
