13: A Secret Number of Sacred
Power
We are told that 13 is an unlucky
number. The date Friday the 13th
is taboo because the Knights
Templar were arrested and
condemned by the seneschals of
Philippe IV, King of France, in a
"pre-dawn raid" on Friday, October
13th, 1307. The number 13 has
been shunned for centuries. Some
architects omit the 13th floor from
office buildings to this very day. Is
it possible that the folklore
associated with the number 13 is
absolutely apocryphal? Or that it
has become a demonized numeral
precisely because it was sacred 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 such significant
contexts to be purely arbitrary. And
of course, its not.
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. For
instance, 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
model of geometric efficiency and
perfection in the second
dimension that has been known to
mathematicians for ages. But this
same configuration in three
dimensions consists of 12 spheres
arranged around one central
sphere, making 13 in all - the most
compact three-dimensional
arrangement recurrent in nature. A
commentator writing about the
Aztec calendar once said that,
"Thirteen is a basic structural unit
in nature. It means the attracting
center around which elements
focus and collect." Is this, then, the
reason for Christs 12 disciples,
King Arthurs 12 knights, or the 12
major constellations in relation to
our sun? The likelihood seems
great indeed.
Assuming
that the
number 13
played a
prominent
role in the
sacred
traditions
being
preserved
by the
Knights
Templar,
and that the
Vatican wished to keep this from
coming to light, does it not follow
that they purposely chose Friday
the 13th as the date upon which
to arrest the Templars? In many
traditions, Friday is a holy day. If
our assumptions are correct,
Friday the 13th would be doubly
sacred to the Templars. This may
well have constituted the Churchs
final "screw you" to the Order
whose power they so feared and
envied.
13 is of particular interest to us
because of Tracy Twymans work
on the "Golden Calendar", which is
based on multiples of 13, such as
26 and 52. Interestingly, our
modern calendar still bears
vestiges of this, and retains the
concept of 52 weeks in a calendar
year. According to the website
dayofdestiny.com, the Aztec
century was based on a unit of 52
years, and native people in South
America, who believed in an
impending apocalypse that would
occur on a certain date, would,
"ritually demolish and destroy their
civilization every 52 years", as a
sort of "dress rehearsal." The glyph
which represents both the start
and end of the Aztec calendar is
known as "13 Cane", and
symbolizes the death of one cycles,
followed by the birth of another -
the Alpha and Omega. Strangely,
this is very much what the 13th
rune - called "Eiwaz" - means in the
Northern European mythos. It
represents the balance point
between light and dark, the
creative force and the destructive
force, or the heavens and the
Underworld. It too is the Alpha and
Omega at the same time. It
signifies death, but it also signifies
eternal life. In the traditional tarot
deck, the 13th card is the Death
card. It also represents not merely
death, but rebirth and renewal.
These were obviously pivotal
concepts to ancient cultures, the
understanding of which has faded
down the centuries. But isnt it
remarkable that this specific
notion always seems to be
associated with the number 13,
even in cultures as seemingly
dissimilar as those of Northern
Europe and South America?
It is
interesting to
note that
although 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. What this seems
to indicate is that even in very
ancient times, this symbol so
representative of the world-view
central to Northern European
thought had vanished due to the
fact that the idea it represented
had also been lost. This idea seems
to constitute some ancient
understanding of Hermetic
thought. Of course, the idea didnt
simply disappear, it was kept alive
by certain initiates who preserved
and passed down the secrets of an
esoteric tradition. Perhaps this is
why the number 13 has always
been 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 which does indeed
confer power upon those
conversant with it. It is a
knowledge that religious
orthodoxies have long feared and
tried to suppress. 13 may be
perceived as unlucky to those who
fear the secret gnosis it represents,
but for adherents of that gnosis it
is (as it always was), a sacred
number.