Science does not believe that some numbers are "bad" and others are "good", but such an opinion exists in religious and mystical thinking. Let's try to figure it out. Let's take for examples the most famous figures that figure in religious and mystical thinking.
Why is "13" considered an unlucky number? Why do people call him the damn dozen? This sign was also born in ancient times. In ancient Babylon, a state on the shores of the Persian Gulf, the most remarkable number was "12" – "a dozen", from the Old Russian word "to squeeze" – that is, "be able", hence the ace of cards – from the French douze, the number 12 is divided into many numbers, and the next number 13 is not divisible by anything – it turns out "damn dozen". The Babylonians divided the year into 12 months. Their days were divided into 24 hours, or 12 double hours, every hour – 60 minutes, or 5 times 12. In addition, this number was very convenient for counting. After all, it can be divided into 2, 3, 4, and 6 without remainder. Therefore, it was taken as a unit of measurement. Quite unlike the "12" was the "13" that followed it. He could not be divided by any number except himself. That's why they began to consider him unlucky, a damn dozen. In 1307, on Friday, October 13, arrests of Templars (French – templars), members of the Catholic spiritual and knightly order, began en masse in France by order of King Philip the Beautiful. The king was afraid of a strong order, the Templars were engaged in usury, trade, were the largest bankers in Western Europe. This event became known in Europe, and therefore the consciousness that this day is unlucky was fixed in public opinion. Numerology believes that it is impossible to celebrate one's 40th birthday (the release of all waters from the body, the growth of hair, nails of the deceased does not occur immediately, biochemical processes are still taking place in the body – metabolism is going on, heat is released, hence the "marking" of commemorations for the deceased for 3, 9, 12 days), and each digit also it is sacred.
Apocalypse, 13:18 Wisdom is here. Whoever has a mind, count the number of the beast, for this is a human number; his number is six hundred and sixty-six. (Allegories, reasons, comparisons. In many ancient peoples, including the Jews, numbers were denoted by different letters of the alphabet, in Hebrew words are read from right to left: nun (50); vav (6); nes (200); nun (50); nes (200); sameh (60); kuf (100) in the sum of the numerical values is given the number 666, that is, it turns out "Caesar Nero", Caesar – Caesar, emperor, the book of Podolsky B. "Practical grammar of the Hebrew language", edited by prof. Dolgopolsky, Tarbut Association, Tel Aviv, 1985. Geche G. in the book "Biblical Stories" writes (p. 300): "An example of how easy it is to go the wrong way in the process of "interpretation" is the number 666, symbolizing the beast that came out of the earth. "Whoever has a mind, count the number of the beast, for this is the number of a man; his number is six hundred and sixty-six" (13:18). This appeal has been taken very seriously for centuries. Considering that the letters of the Hebrew, as well as the Greek and Latin alphabets, have a numerical value, we tried to find out whose name is hidden behind the mysterious number. If the Greek version of the name of Emperor Nero is written in Hebrew letters, the sum of the numerical values of the letters will give exactly the number 666. Medieval heretics saw the embodiment of the "animal number" in the pope, considering him the Antichrist. The pope himself called himself "vicar of the son of God" (Vicarius Filii Dei). If this Latin expression is translated into the language of numbers, the result will be the same: 666. V=5 I=1 C=100 And R I=1 U=5 S F I=1 L=50 I=1 I=1 D=500 E I=1 112+554=666 Of course these calculations can be continued and, with the help of some tricks, prove that many names denote the Antichrist. It is quite obvious that the Revelation reflected the Judaic mysticism of numbers, because, according to the Judaists, the numbers 3 and 7 were saints. Hence comes the triple seven 777 as an expression of the holy of holies. If you take one from each seven, then you get 666 – the embodiment of evil. That is, 666 is a symbol of evil, godlessness, the Antichrist himself, who cannot be identified with any of the people").
Where did this "sacred" number 40 come from? It is possible, of course, that the Jews "wandered through the desert", all there and extinct, a different number of years, this is a kind of fitting of the numbers to the "sacred" figure. Maybe 2 times less. The chronology of the Jews from ancient times was conducted according to the time of the reign of the kings, important political events. The calendar was introduced from the "creation of the world", the annual count of months and days was twofold: the spring month of Nisan (modern March – April) was considered the beginning of the "sacred" year, the beginning of the civil year was the autumn month of tishri (September – October), dating back to the worship of the days of the spring and autumn equinoxes. But nevertheless. One of the versions: the ancient tribes of the future Indo–Europeans lived for a long time – millennia in the north of the Earth in the Arctic Circle, where the climate at that time was much warmer, until the last Wurm glaciation (from 70 to 11 thousand years ago), where the polar day at 68 ° north latitude lasts 40 days, and in the area of the North Pole – six months. Hence the wake in 40 days, six months, a year. The Danish linguist Holger Pedersen (1867-1953) hypothesized the genetic connection of the languages of several major families that were considered unrelated. He called these languages "nostratic" (from Lat. noster is ours). The research of the Soviet linguist Vladimir Markovich Illich-Svitych (1934-1966) showed the scientific validity of combining Indo-European, Semitic-Hamitic (which includes Jews), Uralic, Altaic and some languages into a large nostratic macrofamily of languages. This macrofamily was formed in the Upper Paleolithic on the territory of Southwest Asia and adjacent areas. At first glance, it seems: what does the polar day have to do with it? But on the second, everything becomes clear if we proceed from the fact that humanity at that time, being in a mental infancy, connected everything with the "deified" sky, where the "celestials" live, who direct all processes on Earth. And the main deified "celestials" are the Sun and the Moon, they exert their influence on the Earth, and if you do as they do, then luck always awaits in everything. Example: archaeologists find in one of the oldest cities in the world Jericho (from Hebrew "moon city") decapitated corpses of people aged 8-10 thousand years. Scientists have asked the question: why did the heads of the corpses separate and were buried separately? By the way, cult beheadings and bounty hunting are known in many parts of the world and are found up to the present day. The answer is that they imitated what was happening in heaven. The moon gradually wanes from day to day, until its entire "head", the entire "face" completely disappears. The phenomena of a headless and flawed moon are observed so often that it is difficult to deny the appearance of such thoughts in naive ancient humanity. What was the purpose of this imitation? Why did it become necessary to cut off the heads of the dead, as they cut off the "head" of the moon in heaven? The thing is that the severed "head" of the moon is reborn again, and from month to month the moon begins its new life. So why shouldn't a person's life repeat itself forever! So the priests killed Moses, believing that he would rise again. There were other modifications of such views, everything that resembled a crescent moon, a solar disk, and these are bull horns, a ship, barges-boats – everything became deified. The idea of the "divine trinity" (3 * 3 = 9, commemoration of the dead in 3 and 9 days) was formed in ancient times. The Trinity existed in the religions of Ancient Egypt (Osiris, Isis, Horus), Ancient India (Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva), Babylonia (Anu, Ea, Bel), etc., reflecting the fact of the existence of a monogamous family (dad, mom and child, the role of mom is downplayed due to the rule of patriarchy). According to a number of researchers, the trinity of gods arose as a link between polytheism and monotheism during the transition from polytheism to monotheism, the heavenly trinity in ancient times consisted of the Sun, Moon and Venus (it is also possible that instead of Venus it was Sirius, Jupiter or other planets). In addition, the "sacred" 3 and 9 are also associated with heaven. The moon, as you know, is visible in the sky for 27 days, and during this time it changes its state three times: a new moon, a full moon and a waning month. Three states are three "weeks" of nine days each. Then the moon disappears for three nights (the fourth "week") and lights up again, rejuvenated. The time when the moon ruled over the world was reflected in various kinds of "far away kingdoms" (for far away lands – in the ancient count of nines: far away – twenty-seven, far away – thirty lands, kingdoms. Horned gods – that is, priests with animal horns (totems), if the horns resemble a crescent moon, then this is moon worship). These fairy—tale plots are among the most ancient. So there were four main sacred numbers: 3, 4, 9, 27. Another was the eight. One can, of course, consider it as a double four, but the hypothesis of the German professor-historian R. von Lichtenberg deserves more attention that "there was once a time when the Aryans could count only up to eight and began a new category of numbers with nine. This follows from philological observations …". The Japanese eight means "very much". The "eight virtues" of Buddhists are "very many" virtues. It is likely that such an account was associated with the octahedral cycle of Venus – the sacred "star" of the Egyptians and Babylonians, revered by other peoples, for example, the Greeks. For 8 earth years, Venus makes 5 periods of rotation, evenly, like the Moon, changing its state three times. For 8 months and 5 days she is an evening star, the same amount is a morning star, and in the intervals she disappears from the sky altogether. The Phrygian "great mother of the gods" Cybele and the Phoenician Ashtoreth – symbols of this planet – were depicted with eight rays. Shintoists and Buddhists know the "eight corners of the world". Hindus in the teaching of yoga have developed eight steps leading to spiritual perfection. Something similar occurs in Homer. True, he counts the day not with eights, but with nines ("Suddenly on the tenth day the coast of the motherland appeared to us"), but the idea is the same – a "lunar" week. He was undoubtedly familiar with the "mythological time", where the year was eight. Returning to Lichtenberg's observations, one more thing can be noted: in Sanskrit, Latin, Greek, German, Gothic, Lithuanian, the word "nine" sounds almost the same as "new", that is, the nine opened a new group of numbers. Astronomical observations of the Indians convinced them that the lunar cycle fits into the solar year exactly 12 times. So twelve months appeared, and this number also became sacred. It is not difficult to guess that the number 108 is the product of a dozen and a nine, a combination of elements of the lunar and solar cycles. (By the way, the Pahlavi – Parthian – texts of ancient Iran mention two varieties of the "big year" – 9,000 and 12,000 years) But that wasn't the only thing that drew attention to him. The number 108 is convenient for its extraordinary flexibility, adaptability to any occasions of life – the fact that it is divided without remainder into ten numbers, not counting one and itself, and the sum of its digits gives the sacred nine. Undoubtedly, it was born in India and spread from there to the west and east. According to Indian concepts, for example, the life of the supreme creator god Brahma is 311,040,000,000,000 years (and this number is a multiple of 108). In ancient India, there was also a period of time called muhurta – the thirtieth part of the day, that is, 48 minutes. Why such a strange dimension? Because 48 is, firstly, the quotient of dividing 10,800 by 225, and secondly, it is itself divisible by 12. The Indians developed the category of time closely linked to the creation of the world in detail and turned it into a harmonious scale, combining decimal and duodecimal systems in it: the second of Brahma (10,000 years), the minute of Brahma (600,000 years), the hour of Brahma (36,000,000 years) and, finally, the day of Brahma – kalpa (8 640,000,000 years). Kalpa – the time of existence of this world – consists of two thousand mahayugas (great centuries) of 4320,000 years each. The mahayugas, in turn, break up into four hinayugas (small ages), symbolizing epochs: sathyuga, or kritayuga (golden age) – 1,728,000 years, tretayuga (silver age) – 1,296,000 years, dvaparayuga (copper age) – 864,000 years and kaliyuga (iron Age) – 432 000 years. Such is the cyclical nature of the world. It is not difficult to see that all hinayugs are the number 10,800 with uniformly increasing multipliers and that the sum of the digits of all these numbers is either a "pure" or a doubled nine. From the book by A. Snisarenko "The Third belt of Wisdom". In French: 70 – soixante-dix, 80 – quatre-vingts, 90 – quatre-vingt-dix. Magic numbers, expressed in a different number of ornaments found by archaeologists in Palestine, are also found in the oldest epic songs of the Edda (a monument of ancient Scandinavian culture): "Then Giaflag, sister of Giuki, said: 8 for me is the most unlucky number on earth. I have lost at least 5 husbands, 2 daughters, 3 sisters and 8 brothers; I live alone now." After all, "jubilee" – (from the Hebrew, "long, trumpet sound") – according to the Law of Moses, every 50th year. Every 7th year was called Saturday (non-working), after 7 Sabbath years (7*7 = 49), the next, 50th year was called jubilee. Thus, the "magic of numbers" goes back to the associative celestial "office", that is, on earth they imitated what was happening in heaven. Santa Claus is also from the north. "Santa Claus" can be translated from Latin as "sacred, closed place" from "sanctus" – "sacred, inviolable, indestructible", "clausum" – "closed locked place, lock, bolt". And Santa Claus (Santa Claus) rides a sleigh and lives at the North Pole. A sleigh is older than a wheeled cart; they were known to the peoples of not only northern, but also southern countries. Most likely, the sleigh was born in the Arctic regions and served as the main means of transportation in winter. In off-road areas in the Far North, and in places in Siberia, sledges often replaced a wheeled cart in the summer. In rural areas of those countries where the winter is snowy, sledges retain their importance; among the peoples of the Far North, they still serve as the main means of transportation. Santa Claus with a Snow Maiden in a sleigh drawn by four reindeer, who brings gifts to children, was obviously the prototype of the northern peoples, where frost, taiga and deer, and who came in a sleigh to Europe with their goods. Then this image was transformed into the image of St. Nicholas. According to the decree of Pope Paul VI (1963-1978), St. Nicholas ceased to be considered a "saint". The starry sky is a collection of luminaries visible at night in the firmament. During the day, almost all the heavenly bodies, except the Sun, disappear against the light blue background of the sunlit air, which creates the impression of a flattened vault spread over the horizon plane, which is why ancient people believed that there was a certain vault above them, where the "celestials" live. Only such bright luminaries as the Moon and the planet Venus are visible to the naked eye in a clear sky during the day. The sun and stars are simultaneously visible in the sky at sunrise and sunset. According to them, the ecliptic is determined, that is, in fact, by the annual movement of the Earth in orbit around the Sun, in which constellation the Sun is located, and hence the signs of the zodiac. Such studies must be carried out for a very long time, since there are no stars in the sky during the day, and the Sun at night. In addition, clouds, fog, wind, temperature fluctuations, etc. constantly interfere with astronomical observations. It is believed that the ancient astronomer-priests could also know the precession, predict eclipses and thereby frighten the population with "higher powers". Precession (precession of the equinoxes) is the slow movement of the points of the spring and autumn equinoxes due to the movement of the planes of the Earth's equator and the ecliptic, passing from east to west, that is, towards the apparent annual movement of the Sun. The period of complete rotation of the axis of rotation is about 26 thousand years. As the Sun moves along the ecliptic, the stars change – the stars that were above the horizon at dawn in the morning and remained invisible appear from behind the Sun, while other stars that were visible disappear at dawn in the evening.