Читать книгу Mysteries and Secrets of Numerology - Patricia Fanthorpe - Страница 7

Numbers play an essential, integral part in all of our lives. The time and space in which we live and move are measured in hours, minutes, and seconds, kilometres and metres. How long until the next appointment? The next meal? The next day off? How far to New York, Toronto, London? We calculate with numbers, we work out the cost of everything using numbers, and we weigh and measure using numbers.

But there are other less obvious aspects of numbers. What do we mean when we think of “lucky” or “unlucky” numbers? Can numbers influence the environment? Can certain numbers make things happen? Can numbers warn us against dangers or lead us towards positive events?

These are the mysteries and secrets of numerology. This is the quest to discover what numbers really are and what they can really do. From a history of mathematics and numerology we explore the mysterious Fibonacci series, which has an enigmatic tendency to turn up in nature where it is least expected.

The more we investigate chemistry and physics at the macrocosmic and microcosmic levels, the more intriguing the numbers become.

Numerology goes back millennia. There were numerologists in ancient Egypt, and the great Greek Pythagoras was a numerologist as well as a brilliant, pioneering mathematician. The early Babylonians were numerologists, as were the philosophical Indians and fearless Norsemen. The wise men responsible for the Kabbalah and the writers and redactors who compiled the Bible were also deeply into the mysteries and secrets of numerology.

The Gnostics, in their relentless pursuit of wisdom, explored their own numerological mysteries and made exciting discoveries there.

Numerologists look for specific links with the numbers associated with names, places, and dates. When all 3 — such as a person’s name, the town where he was born, and the time of his birth — point in the same direction, the insight that these particular numbers reveals is hard to ignore.

Numerology also explores a person’s character type and looks for compatibility — or otherwise — between people. Would numerological analysis have warned Desdemona away from Othello, the husband who killed her? Cleopatra might have avoided Antony, and Belle Elmore might not have married Hawley Crippen.

The mysteries and secrets of numerology are closely linked with the mysteries and secrets of the Zodiac and astrology. There are also strange secret connections between tarot cards and numerology. The numbers of the major arcana can reveal a great deal to the skilled numerologist.

There are also persistent numerical features in folklore, legend, and mythology. These, too, would seem to have numerological significance.

Music, and especially folksongs, also have numerological associations.

So the persistent numerological questions remain mysterious and unanswered: do numbers influence people, places, times, and events?

— Lionel and Patricia Fanthorpe, 2012