I am having a debate on another forum regarding the power of superstition, especially in its relationship to child rearing. It elicited a few queries which I am including here.
You are missing the esoteric nature of superstitious discipline entirely
A parent can TELL a child that destructive behavior is bad and warn them of some degree of punishment if they disobey and perhaps gradually get the child to grasp that concept intellectually by administering the punishment themselves
But that approach to child rearing brings the huge existential problem of crime and punishment into play with both punisher and punished ending up as victims - thus adding to all the endless arguments we are engaged in about that behavioral problem today
But if the parent warns a disobedient child that MOTHER NATURE is conscious and will not tolerate trespass - in THOUGHT, WORD or DEED - and the child comes crying a moment or an hour later with a cut, bruise, scratch, prick or whatever, the parent is then free to say “I told you so - there is a little imp out there helping Mother Nature keep the peace.”
This “synchronicity” of Cause and Effect only has to happen a few times and it is remarkable how quickly the child’s natural intuitive sense of the mysterious kicks into play.
By evoking this vast invisible force that rewards good behavior and punishes bad, which no child can argue with, the parent remains blameless, the concept of victimization disappears, and the child no longer comes crying out of self-pity and is forced by its own innate sense of dignity into self-policing its own behavior.
Any parent who disbelieves what I have just stated, yet wishes to try this out, will be astonished at the “synchronizations” between Cause and Effect, and be eventually drawn themselves into the realization that some correctional force larger than themselves is at their disposal.
The enormous importance of initiating parental guidance in superstitious self-policing during infancy and childhood, is that it remains in consciousness for the rest of one’s life. It produces a self-aware adult, well prepared to take full responsibility for all its own actions.
j
Animism (mankind’s intuitive sense that Nature is conscious) has been with us since the first hominid became self-reflecting. All subsequent Iron Age Religions of Belief are simply out-comes of that basic attribute of human consciousness.
Disbelief in the underlying conscious influences of the Cosmos is the result of our modern educational system of scientific left brain indoctrination. This superficial overly of analytically indoctrinated thought can be easily penetrated by a few months of right brain drills and exercises. All you have to do is give skepticism a rest and put some heart into really trying evoke the full potential of BOTH sides of the brain.
Try some right brain drills and you will be astonished, not only at how creative your potential REALLY is, but how reverential you will become to life itself. 
