Numerology

Numerology is the pseudoscientific belief in a divine or mystical relationship between a number and one or more coinciding events. It is also the study of the numerical value of the letters in words, names, and ideas. It is often associated with the paranormal, alongside astrology and similar to divinatory arts.

Not to be confused with Number theory, a branch of Pure mathematics.

Numerorum mysteria (1591), a treatise on numerology by Pietro Bongo and his most influential work in Europe.[1]

Despite the long history of numerological ideas, the word "numerology" is not recorded in English before c. 1907.[2]

The term numerologist can be used for those who place faith in numerical patterns and draw pseudoscientific inferences from them, even if those people do not practice traditional numerology. For example, in his 1997 book Numerology: Or What Pythagoras Wrought, mathematician Underwood Dudley uses the term to discuss practitioners of the Elliott wave principle of stock market analysis.

History

The practice of gematria, assigning numerical values to words and names and imputing those values with religious meaning, dates back to antiquity. An Assyrian inscription from the 8th century BC, commissioned by Sargon II. declares "the king built the wall of Khorsabad 16,283 cubits long to correspond with the numerical value of his name."[3] Rabbinic literature used gematria to interpret passages in the Hebrew Bible.

In 325 AD, following the First Council of Nicaea, departures from the beliefs of the state church were classified as civil violations within the Roman Empire. Numerology, referred to as isopsephy, remained in use in conservative Greek Orthodox circles. Despite the church's resistance to numerology, there have been arguments made for the presence of numerology in the Bible and religious architecture.

Some alchemical theories were closely related to numerology. For example, Persian-Arab alchemist Jabir ibn Hayyan framed his experiments in an elaborate numerology based on the names of substances in the Arabic language.[4]

Numerology is prominent in Sir Thomas Browne's 1658 literary Discourse The Garden of Cyrus. Throughout its pages, the author attempts to demonstrate that the number five and the related Quincunx pattern can be found throughout the arts, in design, and in nature – particularly botany.

Methods

Alphabetic systems

There are various numerology systems which assign numerical value to the letters of an alphabet. Examples include the Abjad numerals in Arabic, Hebrew numerals, Armenian numerals, and Greek numerals. The practice within Jewish tradition of assigning mystical meaning to words based on their numerical values, and on connections between words of equal value, is known as gematria.

Latin alphabet systems

There are various systems of numerology that use the Latin alphabet. Different methods of interpretation exist, including Chaldean, Pythagorean, Hebraic, Helyn Hitchcock's method, Phonetic, Japanese, Arabic and Indian.

English Qaballa
Main article: English Qaballa

English Qaballa (EQ) refers to a system of Hermetic Qabalah that interprets the letters of the English alphabet via an assigned set of values developed by James Lees in 1976. Like most of the systems developed since the death of Aleister Crowley (1875-1947), it was created with the intent of gaining a better understanding of the mysteries elaborated in his inspired works, especially those in Liber AL vel Legis, the Book of the Law. According to Jake Stratton-Kent, "the English Qaballa is a qabalah and not a system of numerology. A qabalah is specifically related to three factors: one, a language; two, a 'holy' text or texts; three, mathematical laws at work in these two."[5][6]

Arab numerology

Abjad system

The Arabic system of numerology is known as Abjad notation or Abjad numerals. In this system each letter of Arabic alphabet has a numerical value. This system is the foundation of ilm-ul-cipher, the Science of Cipher, and ilm-ul-huroof, the Science of Alphabet:

ط=9 ح=8 ز=7 و=6 ه=5 د=4 ج=3 ب=2 أ=1

ص=90 ف=80 ع=70 س=60 ن=50 م=40 ل=30 ك=20 ي=10

ظ=900 ض=800 ذ=700 خ=600 ث=500 ت=400 ش=300 ر=200 ق=100

غ=1000

Chinese numerology
Main article: Numbers in Chinese culture

Some Chinese assign a different set of meanings to the numbers and certain number combinations are considered luckier than others. In general, even numbers are considered lucky, since it is believed that good luck comes in pairs.

Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), and its associated fields such as acupuncture, base their system on mystical numerical associations, such as the "12 vessels circulating blood and air corresponding to the 12 rivers flowing toward the Central Kingdom; and 365 parts of the body, one for each day of the year" being the basis of locating acupuncture points.[7]

Chinese number definitions

Cantonese frequently associate numbers with the following connotations (based on its sound), which may differ in other varieties of Chinese:

  1. 一 [jɐ́t]  – sure
  2. 二 [ji̭ː]  – easy 易 [ji̭ː]
  3. 三 [sáːm]  – live 生 [sáːŋ] but it can also be seen as a halved eight when using Arabic numerals (3) (8) and so considered unlucky.
  4. 四 [sēi]  – considered unlucky since 4 is a homophone with the word for death or suffering 死 [sěi] (see tetraphobia), yet only in the Shanghainese, it is a homophone of water (水) and is considered lucky because water is associated with money.
  5. 五 [ŋ̬]  – the self, me, myself 吾 [ŋ̭], nothing, never 唔 [ŋ, m] in the Shanghainese, it is a homophone of fish (鱼)
  6. 六 [lùːk]  – easy and smooth, all the way
  7. 七 [tsʰɐ́t]  – a slang/vulgar word in Cantonese.
  8. 八 [pāːt]  – sudden fortune, prosperity 發 [fāːt]
  9. 九 [kɐ̌u]  – long in time 久 [kɐ̌u], enough 夠 [kɐ̄u] or a slang/vulgar word derived from dog 狗 [kɐ̌u] in Cantonese

Some "lucky number" combinations include:

  • 99 – doubly long in time, hence eternal; used in the name of a popular Chinese American supermarket chain, 99 Ranch Market.
  • 168 – many premium-pay telephone numbers in China begin with this number, which is considered lucky. It is also the name of a motel chain in China (Motel 168).
  • 888 – Three times the prosperity, means "wealthy wealthy wealthy".
  • 6 = U, V, 9
  • 369 - 369=love

There is no assignment for the number 9. Numerologists analyze double-digit numbers from 10 to 99.

Indian numerology

In southern India, mostly Tamil Nadu, the numbers assigned to English alphabets are the same as in the Chaldean system. The list is shown below:

  • 1 = A, I, J, Q, Y
  • 2 = B, K, R
  • 3 = C, G, L, S
  • 4 = D, M, T
  • 5 = E, H, N, X
  • 6 = U, V, W
  • 7 = O, Z
  • 8 = F, P

There is no assignment for the number 9. Numerologists analyze double-digit numbers from 10 to 99. [14] Ex: Number 29 is supposed to be the worst numbered-name a person can have.

Other uses of the term

In science

Scientific theories are sometimes labeled "numerology" if their primary inspiration appears to be a set of patterns rather than scientific observations. This colloquial use of the term is quite common within the scientific community and it is mostly used to dismiss a theory as questionable science.

The best known example of "numerology" in science involves the coincidental resemblance of certain large numbers that intrigued such eminent men as mathematical physicist Paul Dirac, mathematician Hermann Weyl and astronomer Arthur Stanley Eddington.[8] These numerical coincidences refer to such quantities as the ratio of the age of the universe to the atomic unit of time, the number of electrons in the universe, and the difference in strengths between gravity and the electric force for the electron and proton. ("Is the Universe Fine Tuned for Us?", Stenger, V.J., page 3[9]).

The discovery of atomic triads, an early attempt to sort the elements into some logical order by their physical properties, was once considered a form of numerology, and yet ultimately led to the construction of the periodic table. Here the atomic weight of the lightest element and the heaviest are summed, and averaged, and the average is found to be very close to that of the intermediate weight element. This did not work with every triplet in the same group, but worked often enough to allow later workers to create generalizations.

Large number co-incidences continue to fascinate many mathematical physicists.

Wolfgang Pauli was also fascinated by the appearance of certain numbers, including 137, in physics.[10]

British mathematician I. J. Good wrote:

There have been a few examples of numerology that have led to theories that transformed society: see the mention of Kirchhoff and Balmer in Good (1962, p. 316) ... and one can well include Kepler on account of his third law. It would be fair enough to say that numerology was the origin of the theories of electromagnetism, quantum mechanics, gravitation.... So I intend no disparagement when I describe a formula as numerological.

When a numerological formula is proposed, then we may ask whether it is correct. ... I think an appropriate definition of correctness is that the formula has a good explanation, in a Platonic sense, that is, the explanation could be based on a good theory that is not yet known but 'exists' in the universe of possible reasonable ideas.

— I. J. Good[11]

See also

References
  1. Valeri, Valerio (1971). "BONGO, Pietro in "Dizionario Biografico"". www.treccani.it (in Italian). Retrieved 13 January 2017.
  2. "Home : Oxford English Dictionary". oed.com.
  3. Daniel Luckenbill, Ancient Records of Assyria and Babylonia, vol. 2, University of Chicago Press, 1927, pp. 43, 65.
  4. "Abū Mūsā Jābir ibn Ḥayyān | Muslim alchemist". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 17 January 2018.
  5. Stratton-Kent (1988), p. 17.
  6. Stratton-Kent (1988b).
  7. "Seeing the Body: The Divergence of Ancient Chinese and Western Medical Illustration", Camillia Matuk, Northwestern University,
  8. Gamow, George (1 February 1968). "Numerology of the Constants of Nature". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 59 (2): 313–318. Bibcode:1968PNAS...59..313G. doi:10.1073/pnas.59.2.313. ISSN 0027-8424. PMC 224670. PMID 16591598.
  9. "Colorado University" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 16 July 2012. Retrieved 31 August 2012.
  10. "Cosmic numbers: Pauli and Jung's love of numerology", by Dan Falk, Issue 2705, 24 April 2009, New Scientist
  11. I. J. Good (1990). "A Quantal Hypothesis for Hadrons and the Judging of Physical Numerology". In G.R. Grimmett; D.J.A. Welsh (eds.). Disorder in Physical Systems. Oxford University Press. p. 141. ISBN 978-0198532156.

Sources


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