Are common numbers a part of our hidden history? Of course they are, and people have been saying so for hundreds, if not thousands, of years.
The short article below was originally published in a newspaper back in 1922. It is not in-depth, but it is a quick look at one woman’s thoughts on sacred numbers.
A Woman Scientist’s Startling New Theory About Numbers
By Bozena Mary Brydlova
The true origin of number-forms is a subject which, up to the present time, has baffled research and investigation. The record leads so far into the remote past that it has discouraged hope of ever obtaining complete and satisfactory knowledge.
My own investigations, however, I believe, will throw a new and remarkable light on the subject. I realize that they are revolutionary, but I am confident that they will eventually be accepted as convincing. In so brief an article I can only present the simple outline of my theory.
It is known that geometrical figures and symbols have been used to represent the mysteries of nature from earliest times. It is also certain that whatever shapes constituted the original number-forms, a strict law of geometrical proportions underlays their structure.
These shapes must have been based upon the integral parts of some geometrical parent form – probably either the square or the circle, since these are the two principal standard shapes in geometry.
My theory present the circle, the circle with its eight 45-degree angles (as in an eight spoked wheel) as the parent of the original number forms.
And this circle, I believe, is nothing less than the eight spoked solar wheel itself, the “Sun Circle,” which has existed throughout all antiquity as a central and all embracing nature symbol.
To our skeptical minds, the mysteries of life and of the universe have assumed gigantic and unsolvable proportions, while all along dear Mother Nature has been patiently and sweetly holding out her open book to us.
This book is not a heavy, ponderous one that only the few can understand. It is also a child’s primer, a First Reader, and its ABC consists of the simple figures that comprise of our ten numerals.
These figures form, represent and include all that there is in nature. From them, Nature herself has constructed every form, every color, every sound, every bird, flower, even man himself – and the dear old queen has placed in our hands the key which unlocks her treasure box.
The original number forms tell a story that was written before man “beautified” them by curving the forty-five degree angles into their present day shapes. When we brush the dust of ages from these mysterious number forms, which lie half buried like the Sphinx in the sands of time, we shall find that these little figures have stood for ages, mutely beseeching us to notice them and read their story.
In their symbolic meaning, they embody all science and all religion, embracing the truth contained in every known creed, antagonistic to none – for these numbers are the symbols of life itself.
ZERO, the perfect circle, along with the numeral ONE, in the form of a perfect straight line, represent the sun, the sun god, the divine male principle.
These same figures, reversed and combined to form the number 10, represent the moon, the moon goddess, the divine female principle.
These two symbols, which begin and end the number series, hold all the others in their embrace, and all the other figures are made by combinations of the straight line angles taken from these circles.
The worship of the sun and moon were inherent in all ancient religions. Ra, the most powerful of all Egyptian gods, was a sun god, and Isis, the chief Egyptian female deity, was a moon goddess. The Persian fire worshippers, followers of Zoroaster, were in reality sun worshippers. Their fires were only symbols of the great globe of fire that lighted the heavens and warmed and fructified the earth with its rays. The worship of the sun meant symbolically the worship of life and the life principle itself.
Sir Gilbert Frazer, author of “The Golden Bough,” the most exhaustive history of natural religions ever written, even dares go so far as to say that all religions which contain a “dying god” ritual – not even excepting Christianity – are partially based on the symbolism of the worship of the sun, which sinks lower and lower in the heavens with the dying year and triumphantly rises again and renews its glowing heat at the end of Winter. Among all the races of antiquity these two numeral figures have represented the sun and moon, which they worshipped as gods.
NUMBER 2, in its simpler primitive form as illustrated at the top of this page, represents the pathway of the sun across the face of the zodiac. Antique symbology is replete with carvings and drawing of the sun go bearing the figure “Z” or “2” upon his person. This figure has never before been adequately explained, and has always been a puzzle to symbolists and archaeologists alike.
NUMBER 3, as originally written, represents the influence of the moon upon the tides. In the picture writing of the Egyptians the word for water was represented by the original number 3. An interesting scientific sidelight is that snow crystals, which are crystalized water, always assemble into shapes composed of the original form of the 3 or its multiples, 6 and 12.
NUMBER 4 is the star symbol. Old cosmologies regard the sun and moon as the parents of the earth, and describe the earth as having been formed by a great wave of salt water drawn out of space by the moon and crystalized by the heat of the sun. Such legends, of course, are to be taken symbolically rather than literally.
NUMBER 5 is the symbol of plant life upon the earth. Hindu theology speaks of a “five fold immovably creation,” referring to vegetation. A fact well known, but unexplained by botanists, is the predominance of five petalled flowers. The great majority of plants in their simple stages turn to us a radiant face of five petals.
Among the most familiar flowers we find many of the five petalled variety, such as the petunia, phlox, morning glory, jasmine, trumpet vine, begonia, pansy, cherry blossom, wild rose, marsh marigold, buttercup, forget-me-not, and nasturtium.
NUMBER 6 represents the beginning of animal creation. The flattened body of the animal shows six points, a head, four legs and a tail. The numerological sequence of the appearance of animals on earth, is parallel both with the Biblical story of creation and with modern scientific knowledge, placing the creation of animal life after the creation of vegetation.
NUMBER 7 has always stood for the soul in ancient symbology. And the Number 7, in its original shape, is the “soul” of all the numeral forms, for, as you will see by looking at the top of the page, it is the perfect forty-five degree angle which appears in variations in the other numbers.
NUMBER 8 represents woman, or the feminine sex principle in nature. Microscopic biological female organisms are like it in shape.
NUMBER 9 is man, or the male sex principle in nature. The male life cell, as seen in a biological laboratory, is almost identical in shape with the number which symbolizes it.
NUMBER 10, I have already explained as the symbol of the moon and the moon goddess.
It is my belief, after years of careful study, that these symbolical interpretations of the hidden meanings of numbers are not accidental. I believe that the symbolical meanings were consciously and intentionally used in antique times, and that the analogies are based on profound scientific truth, which if properly applied, will solve many of the great hidden mysteries of nature.
Source: The Ogden standard-examiner. (Ogden, Utah), 19 March 1922.
