Numerology

{{New age}}
{{cquote|Three… is a magic number.|||''Schoolhouse Rock'' (and later ''De La Soul'' and also ''Blind Melon'')}}
{{magic}}
'''Numerology''' is the study of, or belief in, the meaning of various numbers associated with people or events. There are many specific forms that numerology can take. Some try to convert letters to numbers and add them up, others try to assign properties and descriptions to each "number". Regardless of the method used, numerology is [[pseudoscience]].

==Importance of numbers==
{{cquote|The numbers, Mason… What do they mean?!|||''Call of Duty: Black Ops''<ref>{{wpa|Call of Duty: Black Ops#Plot}}</ref>}}
It is important to think a little bit about numbers and the meaning of cardinality (although a thorough treatment of this is not needed). Numbers in western languages are written in base ten &mdash; that is, when we run out of fingers to represent a number, we reuse them, wrapping around, as it were, adding another digit place to represent the next jump.

It is apparent that the whole "theory" hinges on this relatively arbitrary choice of base, which probably stems from humans having five digits on each of two hands. Insect numerology, for instance, could yield very different answers &mdash; we can conjecture that intelligent insects may evolve a system of numbers in base 6. Computers use base 2, being only able to process states as either "on" (1) or "off" ([[0]]). The [[universe]], however, doesn't deal with numbers like this &mdash; if it even deals with numbers at all &mdash; just like it doesn't deal with a discrete concept of "[[species]]". As a result, numbers, when considered like this, are quite arbitrary and easily manipulated to indicate anything you like. A famous example is the absurd conclusion to the quest for the ultimate question in ''[[Fun:The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy|Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy]]'' where the answer was [[Fun:Forty-two|42]] and the question was hypothesized by one of the characters to be "What do you get if you multiply six by nine?" &mdash; it was pointed out that 6 times 9 does in fact equal 42… in base [[13]].

Another functional absurdity of trying to assign meaning to numbers comes from playing with the numbers or digits in dates. Dates are also utterly arbitrary human constructions. The year "0" as defined in the [[CE]]/[[BCE]] system is technically just an arbitrary point, although it just so happens to coincide with a more traditional system (AD/BC). The arbitrary factors of dates also include when we choose to make up for the discrepancies in the length of the year relative to exact numbers of days in a year ([[Leap year|leap days]], minutes, seconds, etc.). The change from the old Julian to the current Gregorian calendar was to make the calculation of leap years more accurate, but it took nearly 300 years to get to near-universality and resulted in varying numbers of day changes depending upon when it was adopted.<ref>[https://www.timeanddate.com/calendar/julian-gregorian-switch.html Change From Julian to Gregorian Calendar] timeanddate.com</ref>

Basically, numerology's "value" consists of the incredible [[woo]] experienced by people when shown that the number of letters in their names, when manipulated, show how important they are in the universal scheme of things.

[[Richard C. Hoagland#Numerology|Richard C. Hoagland]] often uses numerology in his attempts to prove that the [[Face on Mars]] is not natural. To him, the magic numbers are 19.5 and the sin(19.5°) ≈ 0.333 (although by conventional rounding, sin(19.5°) is actually 0.334. Hoagland is not known for accuracy.)

Some well-known [[mathematicians]] have been interested in numerology, [[Plato]] called the study of number [[Symbolism|symbolism]], "the highest level of knowledge", while Pythagoras believed numbers had [[soul]]s as well as magical powers.<ref>http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/history/42-the-answer-to-life-the-universe-and-everything-2205734.html</ref>

[[File:Jenna-numerology.gif|frame|center|No, not a real advert. Well, it was a ''real'' advert, but clicking on it doesn't give the [[RationalWiki:RationalMedia Foundation|RationalMedia Foundation]] an extra $0.000002 to run the server.|link=RationalWiki:Site_support]]

==Numerology in Hebrew culture==
A quick glance at the [[Bible]] shows that numbers mattered to the [[Hebrews]]. It is not [[coincidence]] that there were '''7''' days of creation, as 7 is the [[holy]] 3 and the holy 4 combined.{{efn|It's been sometimes said by religious people that 12 is sacred for the same reason, 3 times 4.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20180402071305/http://ascensionglossary.com/index.php/Sacred_Geometry Sacred Geometry] ''Ascension Glossary'' (archived from April 2, 2018).</ref> There is nothing to back that up but the [[urban legend]]s of many professors who all take it as sacred truth.}}

"40" is a number that means "a really long time", and a "whole lot of something", in the way that someone might generically say "hundreds" today. 40 days and 40 nights tells a reader, "Man, that rain just went on and on." Killing the 40 children who teased [[Elisha]] is again a repetition of this holy number ''40''. Though it does not occur as often, 120 has the same (though bigger, as it's three 40s) sense of "uncountable big".

Most scholars do not think the use of these numbers in any [[Biblical]] text was ever meant to be a counted amount of days. ''12'' is another sacred number, though it shows up in the [[Greek]]-influenced writings of 200 BCE to 1 BCE and into the early [[Christian]] writings far more often. Scholars do not think that "12 disciples" means there were actually 12 human dudes with names and birthdays running around with [[Jesus]], but there were "a few", and saying 12 adds mojo.

Ironically, despite there being 10 fingers, and [[13]] moons, the [[Jewish]] calendar has 12 months. Something recreated when the Greek calendars, and the later Julian calendar was tossed in favor of the Gregorian one.

===Numerology in Christianity===
{{cquote|For St. Augustine, numbers had to have come from [[God]], for they obey no laws humans could devise.<ref>Mathematician, du Sautoy, ''The Code''. The quote shows that the [[God of the Gaps]] lives in math as well as science.</ref>}} 
St. Augustine wrote pages on the Godliness of numbers. Seven, he believed, was so sacred it "represented the entire universe" and "embraced all created things." Ten, to Augustine, was 7 plus the "three aspects of the [[Holy Trinity]]."

===Gematria===
{{main|Gematria}}
Gematria is the [[Kabbalah|Kabbalistic]] study of [[Hebrew]] words by assigning every letter in the [[alphabet]] a numerical value (increasing by 1 until 10, increasing by 10 until 100, and increasing by 100 until 900). For example, ''chai'', the Hebrew word for life, is spelled ''chet-yod'' (חי), giving it a gematria value of 18. However, the gematria of words is often purely coincidental, and can be used to prove nearly any point (including how the [[Scientific errors in the Bible#Pi|"pi mistake"]] isn't ''really'' a mistake). And of course, proving ''nearly'' any point isn't good enough for [[conspiracy theorist]]s, so [[New gematria|gematria]] can now be used to prove virtually every point.

==Numerology in other ancient cultures==
===The Egyptians===
[[File:Oudjat.SVG|thumb|right|The Magic of maths]]
{{main|Ancient Egypt}}
The Eye of Horus is not only a depiction of the god Horus (''oudjat''), but it was also a precise layout of the ratio of rational numbers, as 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + 1/16 + 1/32 + 1/64.

===The Chinese===
[[File:Sixcoins.jpg|thumb|left]]
The [[Chinese]] have an entire system of [[fortune-telling]] based on numbers, the ''[[I Ching]]''. Not only did each number have a specific meaning, (for example, the number 1 was symbolic of beginnings), the experts used "complex"{{efn|That is complex, meaning several steps, not the extremely complex formulas of today's maths.}} formulae to make triads of numbers that calculated actions that an emperor should take, partnerships he should make, etc.

==Modern numerology==

Recently, political [[conspiracy theorists]] and the [[tabloid]] media have used numerology to speculate on terrorist attacks (such as the [[September 11 attacks|attacks of 11 September 2001]]). In the aftermath of the Manchester concert attacks on 22 May 2017, speculation rose about the significance of the number 22 in terrorism, for which [[Snopes]] cited the University of Maryland’s Global Terrorism Database as one of the reasons for terrorists not attacking more or less often on the 22<sup>nd</sup> day.<ref>{{cite web|last=MacGuill|first=Dan|title=Is There a Link Between Terrorist Attacks and the 22nd Day of the Month?|publisher=Snopes.com|date=25 May 2017|url=http://www.snopes.com/terrorist-attacks-22/|accessdate=26 May 2017}}</ref>

==See also==
*[[The Bible Code]]
*[[Harold Camping]]
*[[Enneagram]]
*[[New gematria]]
*[[Pseudoscience]]
*[[Mistaking the map for the territory]] — what a lot of this falls into, as it places a lot of stock in the ultimately arbitrary choices of a base and a date counting system

{{otherlang
|fr=Numérologie}}

==This page was brought to you by the numbers…==
*[[0]]
*[[13]]
*[[23]]
*[[42]]
*[[wp:The Shining (film)|237]]
*[[666]]

==Bibliography==
*''The Incredible Dr. Matrix: The World's Greatest Numerologist'' by [[Martin Gardner]]. A mathematician looks at numerology.

==Notes==
{{reflist|group=note}}

==References==
{{reflist|2|80%}}

[[Category:Esotericism]]
[[Category:New Age]]
[[Category:Numbers]]
[[Category:Pseudomathematics]]

Categories: Esotericism, New Age, Numbers, Pseudomathematics