| 07 August 2010
We are told that 13 is an unlucky number. It is written that the date Friday the 13th has been taboo since the Knights Templar were arrested and condemned on Friday, October 13th, 1307 and the number 13 has been shunned for centuries.
Some still omit the 13th floor from office buildings. Is it possible that the folklore associated with the number 13 is why it became a demonised numeral precisely because it was sacred and powerful in pre-Christian times?
Think about it. It is an oddly recurring sum. 12 apostles and a messiah. 12 Knights of the Round Table and King Arthur. The number 13 recurs too consistently in significant contexts to be purely arbitrary.
13 was a number central to certain traditions of sacred geometry, because it reflected a pattern which could be seen to exist in man, nature, and the heavens.
There are 13 major joints in your body. There are 13 lunar cycles in a solar year, and the moon travels 13 degrees across the sky every day. Six circles placed around a seventh central circle is a mathematical model of geometric efficiency and perfection.
The 13th rune called Eiwaz represents the balance point between light and dark, the creative force and the destructive force. The 13th rune was the central rune in the oldest runic alphabet, and the symbol around which all the others were ordered. By the time the second runic alphabet emerged, the Eiwaz rune was absent.
In the traditional tarot deck, the 13th card is the Death card and it also represents rebirth and renewal.
Perhaps there is reason for the number 13 to be associated with magic and the occult, and why it is a number perceived to possess some mysterious yet tangible power. It is an emblem of a secret knowledge, a knowledge that religious orthodoxies have long feared and tried to suppress. 13 may be perceived as unlucky to some, but to other it is a sacred number.
