Religious fervor is being distorted a little by numerology, which is a pagan science if ever there was one. Let me be bold by saying that I think we actually missed the millennium. Of course the Chinese, several thousands of years ahead of us in the counting, won't sweat out next New Year's Eve. They'll just enjoy their Year of the Hare. The faithful can't lose.
Human beings are a superstitious lot.
Two-dollar bills never could get into legitimate circulation. The number 13 has it's own mystique. Society is not unlike a watch mainspring, being wound tighter and tighter with competition for knowledge, productivity, and lower bottom lines. Perhaps a source of our social ills is that there's more subliminal stress in our lives from listening to Beethoven or Cowboy Mouth with digital information going into our analog brains instead of the friendly waves our species grew up with. Those record-buying purists claim to hear a difference.