Some people think the Bible was written by God, not man. Of these bold eccentrics, some would go so far as to say it was written by Him using numbers, that the words we see are only a translation of them. If there is a mathematical order to the Torah, it's unlikely that anyone knows what it is. The Hebrews have tried to decipher it through gematria, while conspiracy theorists have deemed it the Bible Code.
The way gematria works is each letter of the Hebrew alphabet is assigned a number. Each of the letters in every word add up to a greater number- the word formed being a sum of its letters. Continuing, sentences and whole books of the Old Testament are made up of long strings of numbers. Some words that are associated with each other have mathematical relationships in gematria, such as the relationship between a child and its parents (The Hebrew words for mother and father add up to the one for child). It's believed by many secular Jews that this alphanumeric “code” reveals patterns in the Bible that have predicted real events in history. They believe the Old Testament is God’s word, written by Him in numbers. When we read it, we are only reading an intuitive perspective on words, when in fact the words disguise a hidden order in the passage of time. Just as physicists can describe the world using a few equations, the inner workings of cosmological geometry may be hidden between the numbers of the Torah.
Sacred geometry is an ancient science, dating all the way back to times before the Old Testament was written. It wasn’t just the Hebrews who studied it; cultures all around the world knew about the special properties of numbers long before the development of science, and even before Ancient Greece. They used their fingers as a basis for the ten digits and developed universal archetypes for the numbers, based on their visual representations. The idea that even numbers are female and male numbers odd predates the Greek geometry school by about six hundred years. The names for parts of the body that occur in pairs, like eyes, breasts, and hands, had feminine associations. Words for parts of the body that occur singularly, like the nose and the penis, had masculine ones. Due to this dichotomy, the ten digits took on personalities of their own- also, in part, because of the shapes they represented. Every number in the decad has a corresponding geometrical configuration: a circle for one, a line for two, and a triangle for three, leading up to the larger polygons. The following essay will describe how the primary numbers illustrate much of the natural phenomena we see in our world.
1
One is the womb from which all geometric patterns develop. It circulates all subsequent numbers, as can be seen in the following equation:
111111111*111111111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321
Nine ones multiplied by nine ones equals a numerical palindrome of all digits in the decad. This means that all creation springs from unity, the fullness of the first digit. In many myths around the world, the creation of the universe began with an expansion from a divine center. For example, the Hindu God Shiva is often depicted as "dancing" creation into being from the center of a circle. In physics, one is the embodiment of the rotation principle: revolutions, oscillations, and all natural cycles, including planetary orbits, the rock cycle, the water cycle, the human circulatory system, and the changing seasons. Cycles and circles have no beginnings or endings, they simply go on and on until an external force breaks them. It is also through the revolutions of time that cycles take place. Some think that time may as well not exist since everything ultimately ends where it begins. But I think time itself is what defines cycles, and therefore defines everything. Time is God’s most important tool: the circle, the Monad.
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"Everything moves in circles, yeah!" ~Incubus |
2
Two is polarity. It appears to be separate from unity, but its opposite ends remember their source, attracting to one another in their attempt to retain unity. It’s the balance linking one with many, as the following equations show:
1 + 1 > 1 * 1
2 + 2 = 2 * 2
3 + 3 < 3 * 3
The greatest cultural symbol of the dyad is the yin-yang of Taoism. Any polarity you can think of can be represented by yin and yang. Yin is female, dark, cold, wet, and receptive; male is bright, hot, dry, and possessive. Since two is the division of one, it is often considered the "birth portal". For example, cellular mitosis breaks apart a single cell to form two new ones, thus instigating the birth process. Most polarities have a middle, or gray area, but some of them don't. These polarities try to reach their origin. Some of them come close but they cannot remain there for long. In a way, man and woman try to reach it through coitus, remaining there for a brief period during orgasm. Electrons and protons try to collide, but they rarely succeed. There are certain polarities that have a middle, as I'll discuss with the number three. The dyad is always trying to bring things closer to God, a reconciliation with opposite forms they can never quite reach.
3
Three announces wholeness and completion through an embracing synthesis. It balances the polarity of two; it recognizes the synthesis of one with two. It is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit of numbers. If you're trying something for the first time, then the third time is a charm because it's likely that you've undershot and overshot your target. The triangle is the most structurally sound polygon because it has the largest base in proportion to its angles. The two angles at its bottom represent the dyad while the angle at the top represents the monad. Most polarities can either ascend or descend the triangle, seeking middle ground, or balance. This is why three is often referred to as one; it expresses the yearning to return to the state of the monad, as exemplified by Borromean Rings:
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4
Next is where we really delve into the geometry of nature. Four is volume and structure. The tetrad produces the framework of anything we can point to and the tetrahedron frames the architecture of many molecules. An interesting relationship occurs when you overlap an "x" with a cross; it becomes a skeleton for a perfect square. Also, either the cross or the “x” provide the four cardinal directions. This is why four has been associated with the stable, solid Earth, and why the Earth is often associated with a goddess figure. The preeminent symbol for representing the Earth in many ancient philosophies is a goddess and not a god. Not only was this because the Earth represented fertility and growth, but because of any solid’s association with the number four. In addition, there is a hierarchy to the tetrad. The four elements were thought to be the four states of matter. Air represented the head spiritually and the state of gaseous matter physically. Fire represented the heart and the state of plasma; water represented sexuality and the liquid state; Earth represented the feet and the state of being solid. Nothing says more about this than the concept of the Tetragrammaton. The four elements were represented in the
Torah as four different letters for the name of Adonai- YHWH- who made man in His image. When depicted vertically it draws out a human form, and the human form is made of each of the four elements.
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"God is a four-letter word" -Hebrew proverb |
5
Five is the essence of fractals and chaos in mathematics. Pentagons perpetuate their own image in endless detail, spiraling into infinity whenever they have the chance. The Fibonacci Sequence (Golden Ratio) is a series of the form: 1+1 = 2, 2+3 = 5, 5+3 = 8, 8+5 = 13, etc. When graphed, these proportions mimic those of a spiral. 1.618 is phi, the limit of adding Fibonacci fractions in a series: 1/1+2/1+3/2+5/3+8/5, etc. Structurally, phi and the spiral are found everywhere in nature, particularly in natural growth. Seed arrangements, leaves, flowers, fruit, human bodies, galaxies, nautilus shells, weather cyclones, and D.N.A. all have spiral structures, with some of them even branching off in fives. The spiral is so essential to growth that even the human heart muscle spirals in on itself. The Solar System is a special case of the Fibonacci Sequence at work in nature. The distance from Mercury to the Sun added with Venus' distance approximately equals Earth's distance to the sun; and so forth, through every other planet in the sequence. Even the Periodic Table of the Elements shows a spiraling pattern. The Noble Gases are like the eye of it; the atomic number of each element in this column increases in the same proportion as the Golden Ratio. In this way, five is the ruling body of proportions in the universe. Without it, everything would collapse.
6
Six is the intercourse of the sexes. The Star of David is a six-cornered figure; it symbolizes rising aspiration from below and descending grace from above. There is an obvious interplay of two and three with six. Six is the first number that can be multiplied and divided by two different numbers. It is both the sum and product of one, two, and three: 1+2+3 = 1*2*3 = 6. The hexagon is one of the most fundamental structures in nature. Bug eyes, snakeskin, and snowflakes are all hexagonal. Six water molecules form the core of each snowflake. Vitamin C, aspirin, and benzene (a fundamental molecule in organic chemistry) all have hexagonal structures. Hexagons also minimize labor using the maximum amount of space; that’s why the hives of honeybees are designed using them. Six is also the root of 12, 24, 30, 60, 360, and 26,000. These were the numbers our ancestors used to record time in ancient history. No multiple of six had more importance than the number twelve. China, Babylon, Egypt, Greece, and India all referred the day/night cycle as twelve-hour periods. It wasn’t simply limited by time either; many societies were ruled by twelve states, or districts. The Olympic Pantheon had twelve gods and goddesses. King Arthur was like the sun and in his Round Table were like the twelve zodiacs. Native American teepees rested on twelve poles that pointed to regions of the sky that resembled each month. The Precession of the Equinoxes rounds out this wheel. It takes about 26,000 years for the Earth to wobble on its axis, and it is no coincidence that 6*12*360 = 26,000. Therefore, six is the base from which all cycles on Earth may be measured.
“Six days shall thou labor and do all thy work.” ~Exodus 20:9
7
Seven is associated with luck because of its special numerical properties. It’s the only number in the decad that isn’t a factor and doesn’t have any. As far as polygons go, the heptagon’s angles are irrational, meaning they aren’t solid degree angles. All other polygons divide evenly into 360. What’s even more fascinating about seven is that any number divided by it leaves an endlessly looping trail of repeating decimals that mysteriously omit the numbers 3, 6, and 9:
1/7 = .142857
2/7 = .285714
3/7 = .428571
4/7 = .571428
5/7 = .714285
6/7 = .857142
Also, 1*2*3*4*5*6*7 = 7*8*9*10. It is therefore the balancing number of the decad.
In music, the seven-note scale is meant to model the hidden side of the macrocosmic design- the universe ruled by the mathematical properties of music. When vibrating, musical strings are thought to resonate with the archetypal tones: DO-RE-MI-FA-SO-LA-TI. In nature there are seven dominant crystalline systems in gemology. The electromagnetic spectrum divides itself into seven spectrums of visible light. The Greeks thought there were seven planets (including the sun and the moon), and they used seven vowels. There are seven chakras in eastern philosophy. In Medieval times there were seven deadly sins, virtues, justices, and liberal arts. The seven liberal arts- grammar, rhetoric, logic, arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy- were intended to liberate us from mundane life and into a more heavenly one. There are seven wonders of the world. Babylonian ziggurats, Chinese pagodas, and the Potala Palace in Lhasa are colored to represent the seven celestial bodies that were visible to the ancients. Many cultures knew about seven’s special numerical properties, earning it a mystical status among the pantheon of numbers.
“But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God; in it thou shalt not do any work” ~Genesis 20:10-11
8
Eight visually represents a polar cycle that is perpetually swinging between extremes and crossing itself in the middle. When rotated 90 degrees, the number eight is the symbol for infinite in mathematics. Islamic design (in which the depiction of animals and humans is forbidden) symbolizes divine processes in an eightfold weave of the configured cosmos. Interestingly, modern chemists have discovered that molecular structures are strikingly similar to the geometric patterns of Islamic art and architecture. Also, the periodic table cycles through electron valences in patterns of eight. Eight is periodic renewal. The concept of octaves means that we arrive at a higher or lower rung of a spiral using eighths. It's the interplay of polarities that is the most fundamental property of this renewal process. In the I Ching, an ordered pattern of events is characterized by the succession of yin versus yang: one path or its opposite. The succession has eight possible paths. Once the first portion of the path is complete, there are eight other paths it can take, making a total of 64 possible paths. Note that there are 64 codons in a D.N.A. molecule and 64 squares on a traditional Persian chessboard. Eight and its square (64) present the complication that arises among the many conflicting choices that life gives us.
"You can't fold a piece of paper in half 8 times" ~Math lore.
9
Nine is the horizon, which gives birth to new beginnings. The tail of a sperm cell is made of nine twisted threads, and a woman normally goes through nine months of pregnancy. There are also nine openings in the female body. Nine is the principle of completion, achievement, and the ending of cycles. When all the digits are added in a number multiplied by nine, it either equals nine or a multiple of it. For example: 5*9 = 45 and 4+5 = 9, 633*9 = 5697 and 5+6+9+7 = 27 (27/3 = 9). This is known as "casting out nines". When mapped on a multiplication table, casting out nines creates patterns for each digit as they are connected in a table. And if you combine patterns of complementary pairs of numbers, they form a unique geometric arrangement of points. Thus, nine bounds and directs the choreography of the cosmic order revolving within it. Ancient multiplication squares (founded by the Indo-Aryans), magic squares, Latin squares, and Sudoku all offer the emergence of intricate symmetries that are observed by casting out nines. Finally, if you add all the angles in a polygon, the sum will equal nine digitally. For example, a triangle: 180 degrees is 1+8+0 = 9; a square: 360 degrees is 3+6+0 = 9; a pentagon: 540 degrees is 5+4+0 = 9. Thus, the border, or horizon, of any polygon is bounded by the power of nine.
10
Ten is an integration of the whole decad. It’s like the pantheon of numerical archetypes. The Hebrew mystics knew it as the Tree of Life. In Kabbalah, the study of Jewish mysticism, the use of gematria integrates the Hebrew alphabet with the numerical archetypes, using them as divine instruments for the universal creating process represented by it. It illustrates relationships to the human body, the four elements, and even the seven chakras. There are three separate trios on the Tree of Life, with a tenth at the top. The Tree of Life also has a connection with the I Ching because there are 32 possible paths on it. You can either ascend or descend any of these paths, which means that there are 64 possible paths you can take on the Tree of Life- the same as the number of hexagrams in the I Ching.
It’s worth noting that three trios surrounding a center one is comparable to the ten dimensions of string theory. String theory is a theory in physics that would unite the four fundamental forces: gravity, electromagnetism, and the strong and weak nuclear forces. It requires a mathematics that only makes sense in ten dimensions (some sources say 26). The three dimensions we all know about could represent the core of the three trios, and partial derivatives (the changes in each direction that something moving in one direction already has) could represent the three sub-dimensions in each trio. They are all dependent on the tenth and final dimension at the center, which is time. Everything that is moving can be quantified in calculus with all these dimensions added.
Fourier Transforms express this perfectly. The universe is like one great integral with an infinite sum of waves inside it, and this transform uses calculus to decompose a waveform into all its sinusoidal parts. Everything is connected by a single waveform that pulses with the beat of the universe and directs its infinite sum of invisible strings. At any given time, there are a multitude of electromagnetic signals zooming around us through space. The Fourier Transform allows receivers and antennae to isolate them so they're easier to identify. The calculus used here may have been God’s way of designing things, so the ten digits would have been like tools in a toolbox. That is why the builders of cathedrals and pyramids wanted them to be viewed as descending from heaven above. If you look at a gothic cathedral with the frame of mind their builders did, you can see the geometrical proportions of the entire decad at work.
