A New Year and a new subject

[brenainn]

The New Year is here. You don’t need me to tell you that, of course. But yet another year is here. Doesn’t mean much to me. The last time I got excited over a new year was December 31, 1999. When nothing interesting happened at the stroke of midnight, I forever lost interest in any new year’s hype. But thanks to John Michael Greer's recent post ("A New Year's Divination"), I’ve discovered a form of divination that seems especially interesting to me: numerology.

In the Bible, numbers have a significance that is beyond the literal. Certain numbers, and multiples thereof, recur throughout the Scriptures: 7, 12, 40, etc. There is, of course, the infamous number of the Beast, six hundred and sixty – six. It seems clear enough to me that numbers reveal far more than what we’re taught in a public school curriculum. And since God created the universe, one that can be described using mathematics in the hard sciences, I cannot see how numerology, and any other occult aspect of numbers, isn’t of divine origin.

So part of this post is simply to announce that I’ve decided to take up the serious study of numerology. If anyone reading this has any suggestions on good books or other resources, I’d welcome them. If not, I’m sure I’ll fumble my way through to something. At the basic level, it doesn’t appear too difficult. At least, the post by JMG has given me an adequate start. But again, any suggestions are welcome.

There’s another part to this post, though. Mostly, I’m amused with how much I’ve changed. Take the person I was on December 31, 1999. During that time, I was a militant atheist. I was very much into scientism, and I thought that becoming a scientist was the noblest thing a person could do. A couple of decades later, and I’m embarking on a study of numerology. I’m sure that past-me would laugh at present-me, even as I now laugh at the little tool that I used to be. Life is funny, and the gods certainly have a sense of humor.

I’ll end this with a satirical creed that I composed a little while ago, in honor of the scientism that I used to profess:

I believe in Science,
the greatest of all Deity substitutes,
The source of iPads and other cool gadgets,
and in Scientists, the only trustworthy purveyors of knowledge, our overseers,
who were educated in universities of Higher Education,
born to tell the rest of us what to do,
suffered under high school jocks,
suffered swirlies, wedgies, and going stag at prom,
They descended into LARPing,
the third month after high school graduation,
They ascended into Higher Education,
and took their seats at the front of the classrooms of Science, the Always Infallible,
from there they graduated and went about pontificating about life and public policy.
I believe in Higher Education,
the venerable process of peer review,
the unity of the scientific community,
the purging of non-materialists from the ranks,
the total materiality of the human being,
and our final fate as worm food.

Comments

[prayergardens]

Until a few days ago I thought numerology was fairly BS (in a newspaper astrology sort of way). But I thought that about the SOP too when JMG wrote about it many years ago and was really wrong. TS can W. I'm excited to see where you go with this. I remember the Bible Code (maybe that was letters not numbers?) many years back and also gave that a BS label. I would be amused and enlightened to be wrong about it all. Looking forward to see where you take this.

[brenainn]

Thanks for mentioning the Bible code. I had forgotten about that, even as I've been working on a system of Biblical stichomancy. I'll have to read some on it, and see if it might be a workable divination system.

[boccaderlupo]

Best of luck. Numerology is fascinating. Papus's "Tarot of the Bohemians" randomly landed in my possession last year, and it has some very interesting numerological aspects that correspond with the Tarot. You can read that online here.

Axé

[brenainn]

Thanks for the suggestion. The Tarot is on my list of divination systems to explore, so this will be helpful in more than one way.