The fear of black cats is rooted in centuries of European superstition that linked them to devil worship, witchcraft, and death. What started as medieval religious paranoia became embedded in Western folklore, literature, and even modern shelter policies. The surprising part: this fear is mostly a Western phenomenon, and in many cultures, black cats are symbols of good luck.
A 13th-Century Pope Set the Stage
The association between black cats and evil traces back to at least 1233, when Pope Gregory IX issued a decree called “Vox in Rama.” The document was a response to allegations of a satanic cult operating in Germany, and it described elaborate initiation rituals involving a black cat. The decree claimed that cult members would kiss a statue of a black cat that supposedly came to life during their ceremonies. The cat walked backwards with its tail erect, and initiates kissed it on the buttocks as part of their devotion to the devil.
These allegations came from a German inquisitor named Konrad of Marburg, who reportedly extracted confessions through torture. Whether the cult actually existed is highly doubtful, but the papal decree gave the black cat its first official stamp as a creature of Satan. The document authorized a crusade against the supposed heretics, and the association between black cats and demonic activity spread throughout Europe.
Witch Trials Made It Worse
If the papal decree planted the seed, the witch trials of the 1500s through 1700s turned it into a full-blown cultural belief. During the English witch trials of the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, cats were the animal most often cast as a witch’s “familiar,” a kind of demonic companion that supposedly helped witches perform magic. The concept of familiars was central to English witch trials in particular, and from the earliest cases, cats held that role more than any other animal.
These animal trials ran parallel to human witch trials across Europe from the 1200s through the 1700s, peaking between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries. Animals could be directly implicated in British trials as evidence of a person’s involvement in witchcraft. Owning a black cat, feeding a stray, or simply being seen near one could be used against an accused woman in court. The logic was circular but effective: witches kept cats, so women with cats might be witches.
This period cemented the Halloween imagery that persists today: the witch with her broomstick and a black cat at her side.
The Psychology of the Color Black
The superstition also taps into something more basic about how humans respond to color. Black is strongly associated with mystery, the unknown, evil, and death across many Western cultures. It is the color of mourning, of darkness, of things hidden. These associations aren’t random. Darkness triggers a primal alertness in humans because reduced visibility historically meant greater vulnerability to predators and threats.
A black cat moving silently through the dark, with glowing eyes, hits multiple psychological triggers at once. It is an animal you might not see until it’s right next to you. It appears and disappears. In a culture already primed to associate black with danger and cats with witchcraft, this combination was potent enough to survive centuries of rationalism.
Literature Locked In the Image
Edgar Allan Poe’s 1843 short story “The Black Cat” may have done more to solidify the animal’s ominous reputation than any single piece of folklore. In the story, the black cat begins as a beloved pet but transforms into a symbol of guilt, madness, and inescapable doom. The cat’s glowing eyes reflect the narrator’s growing paranoia and moral corruption. A second black cat appears later in the story, representing the persistence of guilt and the inability to outrun one’s past.
Poe was already famous for macabre tales, and his choice of a black cat as the central symbol wasn’t accidental. He was drawing on existing superstitions and amplifying them into something literary and lasting. The story has been adapted, referenced, and taught in schools for nearly two centuries, reinforcing the idea that black cats are harbingers of something dark.
Not Every Culture Agrees
The fear of black cats is largely a Western European and American phenomenon. In Britain, Japan, and Scotland, black cats are considered symbols of good luck, prosperity, love, and safe journeys. A black cat crossing your path in much of Britain is a positive omen, the exact opposite of the American interpretation. In Japan, black cats are associated with romance and good fortune, and figurines of black cats appear in shops as lucky charms.
Even within the Western tradition, attitudes have never been completely uniform. Sailors historically considered black cats good luck aboard ships, and in some parts of England, a black cat arriving at your home was a sign of coming wealth. The superstition that black cats bring bad luck is culturally specific, not universal, which is one of the clearest signs that it’s learned rather than instinctive.
Real Consequences for Real Cats
These old superstitions have measurable effects on black cats today. A study published in the journal Animals examined cat outcomes in an urban U.S. shelter and found that black cats had the highest euthanasia rate of any coat color at 74.6%, along with the lowest adoption rate. White cats, by comparison, had the lowest euthanasia rate at 63.0% and the highest adoption rate at 18.8%. Gray and orange cats fell somewhere in the middle.
Researchers have called this pattern “black cat bias.” It’s worth noting that the effect isn’t universal. A larger Australian study covering nearly 34,000 cats across 39 shelters found no significant difference in outcomes based on coat color. But in the U.S., where Halloween-driven superstitions are more culturally prominent, the bias appears to be real and consequential.
Some shelters and municipalities have taken direct action. In 2024, the Spanish town of Terrassa in Catalonia temporarily banned the adoption of black cats from October 6 through November 10 to prevent them from being used as Halloween props or harmed in rituals. Deputy Mayor Noel Duque noted that adoption requests for black cats typically spike around Halloween, and while the town itself had no record of cruelty toward black cats, the ban was a precaution based on warnings from animal welfare groups. The town didn’t rule out repeating the ban in future years.
Other shelters have taken the opposite approach, using October as an opportunity to promote black cat adoptions with reduced fees and special campaigns, trying to counter the stigma rather than work around it.
Why the Superstition Persists
Most people who feel uneasy around black cats couldn’t explain why if pressed. The fear persists not because anyone genuinely believes in witchcraft or papal decrees, but because superstitions are self-reinforcing. Parents pass them to children casually. Halloween decorations repeat the imagery every year. Movies and TV shows use black cats as visual shorthand for something spooky. Each repetition strengthens the association without anyone stopping to question its origins.
There’s also a cognitive bias at work: if you believe black cats are unlucky and something bad happens after you see one, you remember it. If nothing bad happens, you forget. Over time, this selective memory makes the superstition feel validated by personal experience, even though the cat had nothing to do with whatever went wrong. The combination of medieval religious fear, literary reinforcement, color psychology, and everyday cognitive bias has given this particular superstition a remarkably long shelf life.