The leadership clearly believed in what many at the time would have derided as popular superstition.
The popular superstition that it was the god Torak himself is, of course, nonsense.
Demons are still feared as a popular superstition, largely due to their alleged power to possess living creatures.
As for the caldeship, it's become nothing more than a popular superstition, a purely historical curiosity.
Because I've had the courage to think about it for myself, and not let myself be blinded by popular superstition.
This may have been a popular superstition, but it was by no means confined to uneducated people.
There is some kind of popular superstition that crystalline materials are weak.
And personally it sounds to me like cashing in on popular superstition.
It was one of these cases of popular superstition based on nothing solid whatever, which proved to be so surprisingly justified.
How far this is an expression of widespread popular superstition is not easy to judge.