Do you believe you can put a hex on yourself? How about someone responding when you say " I feel so lucky" to stop saying it before you jinx it. Do you believe in jinxes/hexes? Why?

Like the placebo effect , they can be self-fulfilling if you believe in them.

Double blind tests have shown that on average the placebo effect is 30% effective both in medicine and psychology.

Well here's the backstory to my question. I had cancer in 2008 and have  had yearly followup appointments.  This one was with the gynecologis/. I am  8 years cancer-free and the chemo though grueling was a piece of cake for me as was the radiation. I had a 14% chance of surviving 5 years. 8 years later  here I am. So when I saw my doc a couple of weeks ago I asked him "why am I so lucky"? He chastised me and said I should never say something like that out loud. I told him I think it. He said that's OK. I asked what's the difference between thinking it and saying it  out loud and he could not answer me. I was shocked. What do you think? Can we jinx ourselves by simply acknowledging out loud what we think? Why would a medical professional be so superstitious as that? It threw me. Thank you for your reply hartfire! :)

 This is what I believe from reading the Bible. Yes we can put curses on ourselves. God does judge our thinking and what comes out of our mouths. (we can't always stop our thinking but we can control what comes out of our mouths.) If we talk about luck, then we are not giving credit to God who healed us, so I don't believe in "luck". I believe God blesses and he curses. If we love him above all else and love others than he will bless us, and answer our prayers. Doctors believe in God too. Congratulations on your recovery!

Perhaps saying something out loud could reinforce a belief - but i can't see how it could jinx it. In Greece, there's a commonly held superstition that if one says something good about oneself or a loved one, it will invite the envy and retribution of Satan.

With a medico, I wouldn't expect superstition. Maybe he grew up with superstitious parents, never questioned where his turns of phrase came from or what they meant. Maybe he was used to making silly remarks as part of his bedside manner but had never been challenged on that point by an intelligent client.

My mother and I used to play these hypothetical guessing games about people we saw in public places.