It’s a long time since I did my degree in psychology, but the name of B.F. Skinner sticks in my mind. He was a behaviourist psychologist, who took the view that behaviour can be conditioned by the environment.
B.F. Skinner did a lot of experiments with animals, and from the point of view of astrology and numerology, we should be most interested in his experiments with pigeons, in which he demonstrated that they can be conditioned to become superstitious.
He gave pigeons food pellets at random intervals, so that they had no way of knowing when the food was going to show up. The pigeons soon came to the conclusion that there must be something about their behaviour that was making the food pellets materialise. So if they were standing on one leg when the last food pellet appeared, they would repeat this action, hoping that they would be given another food pellet.
We can laugh at the pigeons, but actually, we’re pretty similar. We hate the randomness of life, and we are desperate to find a meaning for what’s going on around us. If I was wearing a pink shirt the last time I won some money, I’d be tempted to keep wearing this shirt, because of its association with previous good luck.
As far as numerology is concerned, it’s difficult to believe that the name we were given at birth was an accident. It wasn’t a crazed whim of our nutty parents, it was instead the hand of fate that decided that we had to have a particular name.
Indeed nothing about the letters of our name, and the way they interact with the numbers of our birthday, are random, are they?
However we have to understand that human beings love finding patterns. We look into the clouds and see a kangaroo chasing a butterfly, we look at a tangle of numbers and see spiritual meaning.
Now don’t me wrong. I am not saying that science can reduce everything to stimulus and response, that there’s no magic or mystery in the world. After all, I am an astrologer, and I absolutely believe that astrology works. But what I am saying is, that we have to be careful, and we have to always guard against deluding ourselves.
In the case of astrology, there is no ambiguity about the position of the planets at the time of birth. There is also no ambiguity about what the planets mean, both individually and in terms of their mutual interaction. At the same time these meanings can be validated with reference to at least two thousand years of uninterrupted history.
With numerology, by contrast, you’re walking on thin ice. There is a debate about which name to use – in other words whether one goes for the name on the birth certificate or the one that you call yourself by. Though the trend now is to use both.
There is also the problem that a full numerological analysis has little or no connection with ancient knowledge. You just have numbers that create other numbers, and these numbers can be converted into a stream of words, that with a bit of clever crafting can sound very convincing.
At this stage I should make it clear that I am not necessarily saying that astrology is ‘better’ than numerology. Many modern astrologers have fallen into the same trap as the numerologists, by creating their own system, without regard for tradition.
For example, it’s common practice in some circles to use dozens of asteroids in chart interpretation. In my considered opinion the vast majority of these asteroids are meaningless, and they create a psychological fog that allows the astrologer to find whatever they like in the horoscope.
This fog is a mathematical certainty. As the number of factors increases, the possible interpretations will also increase, exponentially.
When you’ve hit this level, you’re functioning at the level of a pigeon. In other words, you’re creating meaning for yourself out of things that are essentially meaningless.
Copyright © 2010 Archie Dunlop
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
When my son was born, 21 years ago, we didn’t name him right away. We consulted an astrologer, who gave us sounds to incorporate in his name…the thinking being, that these sounds would strengthen his particular chart. The sounds included “eh” and “r” This gave us a pretty wide range of choice! I don’t hear much about this service in the general public.
I only have one numerolgy book, by Harish Johari. I am looking forward to your discussion!
Jean,
I suspect that this kind of numerology is too complicated and too intuitive for most of us.
I know that in India, from a religious point of view, the sounds of the letters play an enormous role. Saying mantras in Sanskrit can be very important, and you’ve got to say it right. Under these circumstances, having the right name, that sounds right, could really matter.
Yet the system you’re talking about cannot be divorced from the culture in which it exists, and it would be difficult to transfer to a culture that doesn’t use the devanagari script. Unless, perhaps, you called your son by a Hindu name.
Actually, it’s not just Hindu astrology that links charts and names. For example, in the Seventeenth Century William Lilly mentioned that you could tell the name of a thief with reference to the horoscope of the time of a question.
Anyway, you’ve inspired me, and I now know what my next article is going to be about. Sacred alphabets.