The number 9

[Romolo]

Odin hung from Yggdrasil for nine days, Demeter looked for her daughter Persephone for nine days, Medea takes nine days (and nine nights) to find the ingredients for her mighty spell. Three times three occurs often in rituals, as here in Ovid’s Metamorphoses Book VII: “Extending her arms to the spheres, Medea turned full about three times; three times she sprinkled her head with water drawn from the stream; three times she opened her lips to utter a piercing cry; then, kneeling down on the hard earth, prayed.”

Nine as the “pregnancy” before something can be born—be it initiation, insights, the gathering of ingredients, but also (here I am drifting off a bit) nine to tie something so strongly together that it cannot be mere coincidence, that it must hold. Jack Grayle’s Hekataeon‘s book 1, the call, spans over a period of nine days leading up to a new moon, like steps down a dark trail or a birth in reverse.

I am interested here in things you have come across in your works and practices. Memories or experiences, or just some random knowledge you want to share. Like that we can form a “hive mind” of what nine represents.

 

[Pyrokar]

Nikola Tesla i believe said his favorite number was 9 as well, for different reasons - probably
The Egyptians sure liked it as well as they formed their enneads by nine gods. multiple sets of them.
aaaand... that might be all i got for now
what's this fancy you taken to the number?
and just why do you expect to hoard any amount of information on a single number, it's no holy trinity that's for sure
like, what would you do with that knowledge what do you expect to find?

 

[Xenophon]

Odin hung from Yggdrasil for nine days, Demeter looked for her daughter Persephone for nine days, Medea takes nine days (and nine nights) to find the ingredients for her mighty spell. Three times three occurs often in rituals, as here in Ovid’s Metamorphoses Book VII: “Extending her arms to the spheres, Medea turned full about three times; three times she sprinkled her head with water drawn from the stream; three times she opened her lips to utter a piercing cry; then, kneeling down on the hard earth, prayed.”

Nine as the “pregnancy” before something can be born—be it initiation, insights, the gathering of ingredients, but also (here I am drifting off a bit) nine to tie something so strongly together that it cannot be mere coincidence, that it must hold. Jack Grayle’s Hekataeon‘s book 1, the call, spans over a period of nine days leading up to a new moon, like steps down a dark trail or a birth in reverse.

I am interested here in things you have come across in your works and practices. Memories or experiences, or just some random knowledge you want to share. Like that we can form a “hive mind” of what nine represents.

In China here, 9 symbolizes completeness, passion and strength and is linked to Mars, the "fire planet"火星。In Chinese the word for 9 sounds a good bit like the word for old, so the number has overtones of long-lasting

.At Sanxingdui in Sichuan in the country's southwest, a bronze tree of life was found with 9 main branches and 9 birds. (Local scholars insist, though, that the tree's trunk means 10 was the sacred number, which reasoning I simply cannot follow. It sounds like someone is trying hard to AVOID any 9 symbolism. Odd.) It dates to around 2000 BC. The tree is about three meters tall and was found in one of the site's pits of sacrificial objects indicating some great importance was attached to it. Birds in China (like most everywhere) are seen as emissaries to the divine, so the fact we find 9 here indicates the number had considerable import even in those far off times.

Post automatically merged: Jun 12, 2024

Nikola Tesla i believe said his favorite number was 9 as well, for different reasons - probably
The Egyptians sure liked it as well as they formed their enneads by nine gods. multiple sets of them.
aaaand... that might be all i got for now
what's this fancy you taken to the number?
and just why do you expect to hoard any amount of information on a single number, it's no holy trinity that's for sure
like, what would you do with that knowledge what do you expect to find?

One could say 9 is three trinities, which is the symbolism suggested in the old Nordic Valknut, 3 interlinked triangles.

Historically, folks tend to horde up knowledge then find a use for it. (Or, yeah, sometimes not---there are a lot of professional grad students out there with graying hair.) Madame Curie could never have envisioned the Manhattan Project.

 

[Yazata]

Nine as the “pregnancy”

Before the 1 connects with the 0 again.
In Dutch 9 is the palindrome "negen" (like how 01 - 10 is a palindrome, and is similar to "neigen" (= to feel compelled to) and is how it is found in its noun "genegenheid". This can then be taken to mean that 9 is a connector, just like how a child (the result of the pregnancy) is both the result of a link and strengthens a link.

 

[Robert Ramsay]

There's a great bit in Umberto Eco's 'Foucault's Pendulum' where he discusses sacred numbers. The protagonist and his girlfriend are arguing about this:

“We move on to the magic numbers your authors are so fond of. You are one and not two, your cock is one and my cunt is one, and we have one nose and one heart; so you see how many important things come in ones. But we have two eyes, two ears, two nostrils, my breasts, your balls, legs, arms, buttocks. Three is the most magical of all, because our body doesn’t know that number; we don’t have three of anything, and it should be a very mysterious number that we attribute to God, wherever we live. But if you think about it, I have one cunt and you have one cock—shut up and don’t joke—and if we put these two together, a new thing is made, and we become three. So you don’t have to be a university professor or use a computer to discover that all cultures on earth have ternary structures, trinities.
“But two arms and two legs make four, and four is a beautiful number when you consider that animals have four legs and little children go on all fours, as the Sphinx knew. We hardly have to discuss five, the fingers of the hand, and then with both hands you get that other sacred number, ten. There have to be ten commandments because, if there were twelve, when the priest counts one, two, three, holding up his fingers, and comes to the last two, he’d have to borrow a hand from the sacristan.
“Now, if you take the body and count all the things that grow from the trunk, arms, legs, head, and cock, you get six; but for women it’s seven. For this reason, it seems to me that among your authors six is never taken seriously, except as the double of three, because it’s familiar to the males, who don’t have any seven. So when the males rule, they prefer to see seven as the mysterious sacred number, forgetting about women’s tits, but what the hell. Eight … eight … give me a minute…. If arms and legs don’t count as one apiece but two, because of elbows and knees, you have eight parts that move; add the torso and you have nine, add the head and you have ten. Just sticking with the body, you can get all the numbers you want. The orifices, for example.”
“The orifices?”
“Yes. How many holes does the body have?”
I counted. “Eyes, nostrils, ears, mouth, ass: eight.”
“You see? Another reason eight is a beautiful number. But I have nine! And with that ninth I bring you into the world, therefore nine is holier than eight!

Eco, Umberto. Foucault's Pendulum (pp. 359-360). Random House. Kindle Edition.

 

[Romolo]

Before the 1 connects with the 0 again.
In Dutch 9 is the palindrome "negen" (like how 01 - 10 is a palindrome, and is similar to "neigen" (= to feel compelled to) and is how it is found in its noun "genegenheid". This can then be taken to mean that 9 is a connector, just like how a child (the result of the pregnancy) is both the result of a link and strengthens a link.

Super interesting! My mother tongue is Dutch and I never made this connection before. Genegenheid as inclination... I like the idea of 9 as breaking point, a final yearning for the ten (separation of mother and child?), already charged with the inevitable desire to break apart into 1 and 0, almost the point where it cannot be held together anymore, but still does. You can maybe also see it in the 9, as if the infinity loop / ourobouros of the 8 stops biting its own tail and instead bites itself.

like, what would you do with that knowledge what do you expect to find?

As Xenophon said, that is hard to tell. The knowledge goes into a spiral, and then it can be added/sprinkled to rituals or divination. I also have a more specific reason: I am planning a ritual that will have 9 sessions leading up to the next Full Moon. The series will start tomorrow evening, June 14th, and will be dedicated to the Hanged Man and the figure of Odin.

 

[Pyrokar]

I am planning a ritual that will have 9 sessions leading up to the next Full Moon. The series will start tomorrow evening, June 14th, and will be dedicated to the Hanged Man and the figure of Odin.

impressive. that's gonna take dedication hope you write about it.

 

[KjEno186]

9 is "ט" which is the Hebrew letter Tet.
9 is "I" in the Roman alphabet, and according to Eliphas Levi's Doctrine and Ritual of High Magic, "The number nine is that of the divine reflections: it expresses the divine idea in all its abstract power, but it also expresses the extravagance in belief and, in consequence, superstition and idolatry.
That is why Hermes made it the number of initiation, because the initiate reigns over superstition and through superstition." (Translation by Mikituk and Greer)
9 is the number of The Hermit (tarot).
2 x 9=18; 1+8=9. 3 x 9=27; 2+7=9. 4 x 9=36; 3+6=9...9 x 9=81; 8+1=9...

 

[stalkinghyena]

9 is "ט" which is the Hebrew letter Tet.

My brain is toast so I probably shouldn't be writing this. But interestingly, in the Bahir one of the Rabbi's is in a discussion over the letter Mem, which in its initial form is "male and female", the final being the "belly" - (that is, pregnancy, ref. to original sin, etc). However, a debate is injected where another Rabbi associates Tet wit the belly, perhaps due to its meaning as a "serpent" (again, this reflects). The first Rabbi dismisses this ("I say Mem is the belly!"), yet I myself think that this is subtly included because the final Mem equates to 600 and an association can easily be made because this reduces to 6 (3+3), which becomes 9 (3x3) by multiplication.
Therefore, Mem = Tet due to disobedience.

Also, 9 is Yesod, which is the "membrum" which mates with the Shekinah in Malkuth, which is 10, which is 9+1, but can also be framed as the phallic 1 added to the yonic 0.

In the Occult Battle of Britain by Peter Weston, he describes how by Trithemian calculation 1879 begins the rulership of the Archangel Michael. Now Michael is assocated in the planetary sense with the Sun, which rules Leo, which in Yetziratic terms is associated with the letter Tet.

But the real hubbub (according to Weston) is the year 1881, which he equates in psychological excitement with the phenomenon of 2012 as an apocalyptic year. A lot of significant dates for modern occultism orbit this year, aside from 1879, but I played with numbers a little bit and found some patterns.
From 1881 to 1914, which is the offical start of WW1 is 33 years. 3x3=9.
From 1918 to 1945 (the end of WW1 and WW2) is 27 years. 2+7= 9, 3x9=27.

This is as far as I got in that book. And there goes another neuron

 

[pixel_fortune]

what would you do with that knowledge what do you expect to find?

Speaking only for myself, i don't think this is why OP asked:

I'm mostly existentialist, here defined as "there is no inherent meaning in life, but we can make meaning for ourselves - and have a responsibility to do so (or least, we must take responsibility for the fact that, if we find life meaningless, it's because we ourselves dropped the ball)"

So, how do you make meaning? One (among many) ways is to deepen your knowledge and build a semantic web out from the every day things you interact with

So learning and the number 9 has value just for making life richer and deeper and more interconnected

 

[Pyrokar]

chill its not that deep xD
i was just wondering why he cares.

 

[pixel_fortune]

chill its not that deep xD
i was just wondering why he cares.

Rude! I'm just engaging with your question. You gotta give a headsup if you don't want people to think about what you say

 

[Ziran]

Three times three occurs often in rituals,

This one, I think, is an outlier. It's sets of 3. But it would depend on the ritual, of course.

Post automatically merged: Jun 26, 2024

2 x 9=18; 1+8=9. 3 x 9=27; 2+7=9. 4 x 9=36; 3+6=9...9 x 9=81; 8+1=9...

There it is ^^

Bravo.

 

[Pyrokar]

Rude! I'm just engaging with your question. You gotta give a headsup if you don't want people to think about what you say

my bad. <3

 

[pixel_fortune]

my bad. <3

<3

 

[Jackson]

i know everyone's heard it, it's just mandatory

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