Is there a name for this error?

Here's the relevant quote:

"It's a common belief amongst "spiritual" people that you see white feathers as a message from angels when somebody dies. I wasn't always a super strong believer in all this, but one of my good friends was shot & killed in the Florida school shooting. That morning, around the same time the shooting happened but before I knew about it, I saw a whole bunch of white feathers right on my driveway lying in blood from probably another bird that was attacked. It was the weirdest thing and so out of place, but I got the strangest feeling that something wasn't right, before I even knew of what white feathers symbolized to some people."

This is more of a cognitive bias or example of Hyper Active Agency Detection. As Dr. Daniel Dennett explains: ( As does Matt McCormack, Peter Boghossian, Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Richard Carrier, Jordan Peterson, Michael Shermer and many other neuroscientists, evolutionary psychologists, and philosophers -'it is a by-product of more primitive cognitive mechanisms adapted for other purposes."

Lots going on here. Poor statistical thinking (terrible things happen daily in the world, birds die all the time, etc.), confirmation bias (ignored all the time he saw feathers and bad things didn't happen), post-hoc rationalization (connecting the feathers to deal people after the fact), and common superstition, just to name a few.

yes, there's a name for this error. It's Magical Thinking.<>

"It's a common belief amongst "spiritual" people that you see white feathers as a message from angels when somebody dies".

As you rightly point out this is a belief system or cultural myth particular to certain ethnic and indigenous peoples who imagined a connection with winged creatures as agents or beings from another world. Primitive humans often imagined a hybrid mixture of humans with horns and hooves or angelic wings. Certainly these practices and symbols were further developed by the Sumerians, Babylonians, Egyptians, Zoroastrians, Vedic and early Jewish angelology and demonology. So, yes, it is a universal myth and therefore by definition, common. Whether it is "spiritual" or not, is a slippery slope argument. What does spiritual mean exactly? In fact, the very idea could be construed as a false premise. False, because neuroscience shows that humans instinctually see patterns where none exist. It is called Hyper Active Agency Detection. So it's not spiritual at all, in fact, it is quite genetically innate to human evolution.

The practice of anthropomorphizing animals or inanimate objects (constellations) is not magical thinking in itself. It is a natural cognitive mechanism adapted for other purposes. Believing them to have special powers or meaning is a by-product of those cognitive mechanisms. (see The Evolution of Misbelief).

As for the Florida shooting and the white feathers, as Dr. Bo points out, this is a common error of Post Hoc association. The next time you misplace your car keys try and track your thinking as you process how and where you lost them. Inevitably, you will consider blaming someone for else taking them even if they were nowhere around. Associating white feathers as some sort of omen, harbinger or sign is more of a function of your psychology than an error in logical reasoning. However, by applying logic you should be able to work through this kind of instinctual/religious/spiritual association.