What is numerology and why is it a shame to believe in it?

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Stop being afraid of "unlucky" numbers and thinking that your date of birth determines your personality.

Many people think that the number 13 is unlucky. Some numbers, on the contrary, are considered successful, for example 3 and 7. If you think about it, we meet numbers everywhere: three heroes and three pigs, four seasons and four cardinal points, seven days of the week and seven deadly sins, ten commandments and ten fingers on hands. But do numbers really define our lives? Numerologists think so. The life hacker decided to investigate this issue.

What is numerology

Numerology is an esoteric concept according to which numbers define our life and the existence of everything that surrounds us. Numerologists interpret Numerology. Britannica numbers hidden in a person's date of birth and name to determine his character and predict the future. Numerology is often mentioned along with astrology, extrasensory perception, palmistry and other predictive concepts.

Proving the existence of mystical connections between human life and numbers, numerologists cite coincidences that are difficult to explain. A famous example of this mystical similarity of numbers is given in his book Gardner M. Magic Numbers of Dr. Matrix. Prometheus Books. 1985 mathematician Martin Gardner. He compares the biographies of American presidents Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy and finds many similarities in them:

• Lincoln was elected in 1860, Kennedy in 1960.
• Both were killed on Friday. Lincoln - at the Ford Theater, Kennedy - in a Ford car.
• Both were replaced by Democratic Party members named Johnson. Andrew Johnson was born in 1808, Lyndon Johnson in 1908.
• Lincoln's and Kennedy's secretaries were named John and Lincoln, respectively.
• The assassins of presidents were born in 1839 and 1939. John Wilkes Booth shot Lincoln in the theater and escaped to the warehouse, while Lee Harvey Oswald, who killed Kennedy, fired from the warehouse and hid in the theater. True, there are doubts about this information.
• The names of both killers in English have 15 letters.

People who believe in numerology use special techniques to translate words and letters into numbers and numbers. So, in the interpretations of numerologists, the number of letters in the name of the Old Testament in English (Old Testament) is translated by Stewart I. Number symbolism. Britannica in number 39 (3 and 9 → 39), and New Testament in number 27 (3 × 9 = 27). That is how many books are included in these parts of the Bible.

How and when was numerology born

People from time immemorial have been interested in numbers and perceive them as something mystical. Stewart I. Number symbolism is found on bones that have lain in the ground for about 30 thousand years. Britannica scratches possibly depicting the phases of the moon - that is, the lunar calendar. Numerical symbolism is typical for many ancient cultures: Babylon, Ancient Egypt, China.

Numerology is of particular importance to Stewart I. Number symbolism. Britannica in Jewish and, accordingly, Christian and Arab traditions. In general, the Bible is an inexhaustible source of numerological coincidences: the seven days of creation are like seven days of the week, the 12 apostles of Christ are like 12 months. But there are more complex similarities. For example, Methuselah's age is Genesis. 5:27 (969 years) is the 17th tetrahedral number. If you add 2, 3 to 1, and so on up to 17, you can get 153. That is how many fish the Gospel of John pulled out. 21:11 netted by the apostle Peter, when Christ's disciples were suffering from hunger.

The huge number of numbers in the sacred book is conducive to the search for their sacred meaning. Therefore, such significant Christian thinkers as Irenaeus of Lyons, Ambrose of Mediolansky, Augustine the Blessed and the Venerable Bede were interested in numerology. Largely thanks to them, the number of the beast (666) and the number of Christ (888) are widely known.

Other famous numbers that have been around for a long time are Stewart I. Number symbolism. Britannica golden ratio (1, 618034) and Fibonacci numbers (1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, and so on; each of them, except the first two, is the sum of the previous two). The golden ratio allows you to form a logarithmic (conformal) spiral, and the Fibonacci sequence can often be observed in the plant world. For example, this principle can describe the arrangement of seeds in the heads of sunflowers and daisies.

The very same word "numerology" appeared relatively recently. According to Oxford Numerology. Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary dictionary, in English it began to be used from the beginning of the XX century.

What are the principles of numerology based on?

Modern numerologists analyze Numerology. Britannica a person's name and date of birth to understand their true nature. To interpret words, they assign a number to each letter of the alphabet. To do this, use the following concepts and techniques.

Pythagoreanism

Borrowing elements of mystical teachings about numbers from different cultures, numerology is largely based on Numerology. Britannica on the ideas of the followers of the ancient Greek philosopher and mathematician Pythagoras. The Pythagoreans believed that the whole world can be represented in the form of numbers and that with the help of calculations all natural phenomena can be explained.

The number 1 for the Pythagoreans symbolized Stewart I. Number symbolism. Britannica is the unity and origin of everything, since one can get any number from one by repeating it a sufficient number of times. 2 and all even numbers were taken as feminine, 3 and all odd ones as masculine. 5 (2 + 3) meant marriage, continuation of life; 4 - justice, and 10 (1 + 2 + 3 + 4) - perfection, unity from multiplicity.

Also numbers were linked by Stewart I. Number symbolism. Britannica with space: 1 is a point, 2 is a straight line, 3 is a triangle. The Pythagoreans recognized the existence of nine celestial bodies: the Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and some kind of Central Fire. The number 10 was so sacred for them that they believed in the existence of "anti-earth" - the planet, all the time hidden from the Earth by the Sun.

Isopsephia

Isopsephia is a method of translating letters and words into numbers. The fact is that in the ancient Greek alphabet all letters were also numbers from 1 to 900. By the way, numbers are denoted in the same way in the Church Slavonic language.

Examples of writing numbers in Cyrillic. Image: Wikimedia Commons

Examples of writing numbers in Cyrillic. Image: Wikimedia Commons

A similar method used to translate Latin words into numbers was invented by the German alchemist, humanist, physician and astrologer Heinrich Cornelius and is called the Agrippa method.

In 1612, the Protestant scientist Andreas Helwig translated the Latin letters of the title mistakenly attributed to the Pope as Vicarius Filii Dei (Vicarius Filii Dei) and received 666 - "the number of the beast" in Christian dogma. So Helwig tried to prove that the Roman Catholic Church is Satan. At the same time, the official title of the Pope is Vicarius Iesu Christi.

The same number 666 forms Stewart I. Number symbolism. Britannica letters name Ellen Gould White, one of the founders of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Under certain interpretations, 666 form the names of Adolf Hitler and Martin Luther, as well as the phrase "Pope Leo X".

However, the so-called Pythagorean method is much better known, where each letter of the alphabet is assigned a number from 1 to 9. It is believed that with the help of this system one can find out the strengths and weaknesses of a person by the letters of his name, each of which corresponds to a certain number. For example, one is associated with selfishness and leadership, and three is associated with creativity, flexibility, and idealism.

Number translation

Numerology often translates numbers into numbers, that is, they replace a polysemantic expression with a single-valued one. Different methods are used for this. The simplest is the usual addition of all numbers:

12.04.1961 = 1 + 2 + 0 + 4 + 1 + 9 + 6 + 1 = 24 = 2 + 4 = 6

This practice can be applied to anything: date of birth, address, phone number. In some embodiments, numbers such as 11, 22, and 33 are not abbreviated by Heydon D. Numerology. Sterling Publishing Company. 2007.

Arithmancy

Translation of numbers is an important element of arithmomancy (arithmancy), or fortune telling by numbers. It was practiced by the ancient Greeks (Platonists and Pythagoreans), Chaldeans (Semitic tribes of Mesopotamia) and followers of the occult Judaic teachings of the Kabbalah. The latter called it gematria. Ian Stewart, a mathematician and professor at the University of Warwick, considers Stewart I. Number symbolism. Britannica, that it was from arithmomancy that modern numerology was born.

Arithmomancy, together with isopsephy, is a kind of onomancy Melton, J. G. Encyclopedia of Occultism & Parapsychology (4th ed.). Gale Research Incorporated. 1996 (onomancy) - a popular practice of divination by name in the Middle Ages.

Arithmomancy could be chosen as an optional course at Hogwarts by the heroes of J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter books.

Why numerology doesn't work

For all its rich history, numerology has nothing to do with scientific mathematical disciplines such as, for example, number theory.

There are practically no real studies confirming or refuting the effectiveness of numerology. One of these can be considered the experience of Gilad Diamant, a physicist and programmer from the University of Tel Aviv, the results of which are published on his website.

For his experiment, Diamant recruited professional numerologist Matti Strenberg and 200 volunteers. The study aimed to clarify whether numbers can predict learning disabilities: ADHD, dyslexia, dyscalculia, and autism. Two attempts gave a result bordering on a statistical error (less than 5%). Therefore, according to Diamant, there is no connection between numerological formulas and reality.

However, even without experiments, the validity of numerology as reliable knowledge raises questions.

Ian Stewart describes Stewart I. Number symbolism this way. Britannica applying numerology to yourself. The letters of his name, transposed into numbers, give the sum of 130. How can this be interpreted? 130 years before the birth of the mathematician, in 1815, the Battle of Waterloo took place. So, as an Englishman, he will have a great victory over the French? The researcher interprets the result obtained in a different way: 130 = 13 × 10. 13 is an “unlucky” number, and 10 is the number of perfection. You can interpret numerological calculations as you like.

There is Stewart I. Number symbolism. Britannica has a lot of numerical coincidences that are difficult to explain rationally. Therefore, it is not surprising that some consider them mysterious. Moreover, most often people pay attention only to what confirms the "mysticism" of coincidences, and a huge amount of contradicting information is ignored. For example, the same Abraham Lincoln was killed on April 14, 1865, and John F. Kennedy was killed on November 22, 1963. And Booth, most likely, was born in 1838, not in 1839, and was hiding in a barn, not in a warehouse.

It should be understood that numbers are not a product of supernatural forces, but an abstraction invented by a person for convenience. Perhaps, in other conditions, our frames of reference would be different - for example, vague, like the Maya.

Numerologists' appeals to the names of the sages of the past do not stand up to scrutiny. The methods of numerology (for example, the same isopsephy) were popular with the first mathematicians, when the scientific and mythical worldviews were very close to each other. Today it would never occur to anyone to compare alchemy with chemistry, and astrology with astronomy, but this is exactly what happens with numerology and mathematics.

Numerology is a superstition and pseudoscience that uses mathematics to create the illusion of a serious concept. This is an example of how even exact science can be perverted. Don't fall for this bait.