#magic numbers

Hi there!

I did have this same struggle once with superstitions in general. Like you, I had the thought of "Should start believing in all these things now that I'm a spiritual person?"

Superstitions are held by laypeople who have an indirect and watered-down understanding of the world of spirit. There is undoubtedly some truth in them, yes, but it is often over-simplified, incomplete or misinterpreted. Think of Plato's allegory of the cave, where the prisoners see only the shadows on the wall and not the objects that cast those shadows.

What we do as spiritual practitioners is to ponder and investigate why and how, and base our craft and cultivation on that.

Just as a layperson can tell you that aspirin reduces the sensation of pain, but a scientist can explain the chemistry of why and how it happens.

You've probably heard of iron being used as a protective metal to repel Faery Folk, right? It's a natural assumption to make that iron is somehow fundamentally harmful to fae. This fascinating post by Lailoken proposes instead that iron is in fact sacred to the Folk, and the perversion of this metal through smithing is what repels them.

Remember, that spiritual practitioners, occultists, witches, magicians, sorcerer/esses (etc) are beings that laypeople have superstitions about.

I suspect you have visited my blog because you consider yourself to fall into this general category 🙂 So ask yourself, on what basis do you believe in the superstitions of your ancestors?

Onto the topic of numerology...

If I may: what you are really asking me is, where do things get their power from?

Laypeople believe that 4 (四) is unlucky simply because it is a homophone for death (死), or that 6 (六) and 8 (八) are lucky because they are homophones for the flow of fortune (溜, and 发 as in 发财).

Is there power in this? Perhaps, from the collective psyche of innumerable people making this connection. Whether it is powerful depends on how well you can tap into that current of psychological power. I personally find the idea of homophones creating in/auspicious numbers to be shaky, so I struggle to invest much belief in it.

I do believe that there is power and meaning in numerology, though. In magic, numbers are symbols, in the same way that colours, shapes, plants, animals, and celestial bodies are.

These things have power from how they naturally express themselves in reality. Allow me to expand on this:

1 is the number of beginnings, individuality, single-pointed focus. It can be used to express both the entirety of existence or the tiniest piece of it.

2 is duality, polarity, cycles and opposite or/yet complementary forces. Day and night, yin and yang, heat and cold, mother and father. It is attraction, passion and pursuit, such as that between predator and prey, or between lovers. Hence it begins to generate movement and force.

Where 1 lacks motion because it has nothing to be moved by, 2 creates a dynamism as it strives to find balance and union.

3 is the number of innovation and creativity, born of the attraction and movement of 2. Between fire-hot and ice-cold, between Heaven and Earth, 3 is the sweet spot in between that creates life, drawing on powers from contrasting forces.

3 is the first number where stability and balance can be found (a chair cannot stand on 2 legs, but it can on 3; pyramid structures are highly stable). 3 is the number that brings a sense of space and time: length/width/height, past/present/future. Triangles are used in magic for conjuration as well as for trapping spirits.

4 creates foundations upon which all else is built. The four elements, cardinal directions, seasons, DNA nucleotides. Therefore it is a number of solidity, consistency and endurance, yet it can also mean stagnancy and obstinance. You could argue that 4 is unlucky because it can be used as a symbol of imprisonment; after all, death is a fate none of us can escape.

5 is often the number of transformation, as our five-fingered hands create and destroy. 5 brings conflict because it is attempting to break out of the solid confines of 4 (incidentally, 5 is also associated with Mars, the planet of aggression).

In East Asia, we have 5 elements instead of 4. Hence our elements work differently; they are not building blocks or foundations, instead they represent the ever-changing and dynamic forces of reality that are constantly overpowering or being subdued by each other.

Conclusion

I'm vaguely aware that numerology features heavily in Daoist magic, but I have no idea how much of what I said above overlaps with Daoist numerology and how it is used in ritual. Even so, like any esoteric tradition, it is a study of the nature of reality, and anyone can attempt to reach these revelations through their own studies and meditations.

I hope I have demonstrated that it is not so simple as 'lucky' and 'unlucky', 'good' or 'bad'. Just as it is with all things. The water that nourishes and brings life, can also destroy everything in a mighty flood.