Goddamn it. I got an 8 again. I went back to the abacus to have another go at Numerology today, and it seems that my second favourite number is once again telling me what a foul human being I have the potential to be. Last time I tried this, I calculated my Destiny Number off the back of my birth date. This time I was using the Pythagorean system, yes him of the right angled triangle, also known as the Father of Numerology (who also nicked the concept from other more ancient civilisations). His system is all about using the letters of your name to calculate your number and in doing so gaining all sorts of mystical understanding about your personality, soul and future. And yet again, I don’t come out of it well.
So there’s this grid:
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 |
| A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I |
| J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R |
| S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z |
And you match the letters of your name with the numbers below, add them all together until you get a single digit. It’s been a long day, it took me 8 goes to confirm the right tally. First was mental arithmetic (43), the second was the calculator on my computer (42, very exciting), best out of three (43 again), swapped to the calculator on my phone (44), best out of five (44), tried again (44), added it up on paper (44), final check on the computer 44. Then 4+4=8. Goddamn it. 8 is such an unpleasant personality profile. My favourite line from the description The Book of English Magic gives is
‘The prospect of catastrophic failure may always haunt them’
Well, that’s my tombstone sorted.
So, as suggested, I went deeper and calculated the qualities of my inner soul by adding up the vowels = 2 (my favourite number). Now this was much more me, in a damning with faint praise kind of way. But this was nothing compared to my outer self, got to by adding up the consonants = 6 (meh number) which basically said I am the type of person who enjoys hoovering and being smug (it was actually a lot nicer than that, just a bit dull and unadventurous, and smug).
Discontented, I added more letters to see if I preferred the outcomes for these names instead. And I did. Much more.
But then, that’s such an 8 thing to do.
Resources
Carr-Gomm, P. and Heygate, R. (2014) The Book of English Magic, London, Hodder
Go on, subscribe to my blog. My 8 is telling you you should….
