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Introduction
THE MEANING OF NUMBERS

Numbers are one of the basic archetypes that give meaning to our experience. It has been suggested that they are the most essential element of order in the human mind, if not the archetype of order. More than that, numbers and their corresponding geometrical forms (e.g., circle, triangle) have represented to humanity such principles as wholeness, polarity, balance, and cyclicity. They investigate what, consciously or unconsciously, many of us are struggling to achieve: the experience of wholeness. In a sense, each number represents a different strategy by which to address the chaos of the universe and find a window to wholeness.

The modern scientific view often seems to focus on the quantitative aspect of numbers, viewing them as mere identifiers of quantity. The ancients, closer to the origin of numbers than modern humans, had more of a sense of their numinosity, a feeling for what we now call the qualitative aspect of numbers. Even though mathematicians count and manipulate them in many ways, numbers are essentially spiritual and mystical. For example, the names of Mayan myths' main figures are all numbers. Humans did not invent numbers, but discovered them as an integral part of reality. If we go to the etymological root of the word "number" in various languages, we get folkloric confirmation that in fact relates to something much deeper than counting. The Greek word for number is arithmos. This gives us the idea that number was originally a rhythm. The verb "to tell" in German is erzahlen, which is derived from the word Zahl, number. In French, as well, "to tell" is raconter, which is akin to "computing" or "counting." In Chinese the word for enumerate means Suan, to count the origin of what is going to happen. In these etymological structures one sees that man must originally have known that when he tells a myth or archetypal tale, it is like counting. It follows a certain ordered rhythm of events.¹ No wonder then, that Jung hypothesized that numbers are the archetypes that unite the world of the psyche and the world of matter.

Though seemingly forgotten and neglected, the motivating factor of mathematics was the belief that numbers are the ultimate answer to all the riddles of the physical universe. Marie-Louise von Franz, suggests that we look at this archetype as if the Self was like a number clock that pulses rhythmically.²

According to the ancient mathematical philosophers, numbers and the geometrical shapes that represent them are a consistent, comprehensible language, a complete archetypal source book. Thus, symbolic mathematics provides a map of our inner sacred structure, both psychological and spiritual. We find numbers in nature, physics, music, religion, fairy tales, mythology, astrology, trade, agriculture, architecture, and of course, psychology. There is almost no area of life where numbers fail to appear. Marie-Louise von Franz writes, "Since our most basic psychological structure is formed by the archetypes, which means generally collective patterns of behavior, we all then too react in the same way in certain situations [Thus,] if there is an archetype constellated in a patient's unconscious, one can to a great extent predict his reactions and problems, becauseª if one knows howª it is possible to read such a pattern and at the same time reconstruct the conscious situation and problems If we know the deepest underlying archetypal constellation of our present situation then we can, to a certain extent, know how things will go."³ It is my desire in this book to connect visible daily psychological behaviors to the archetypes of order, the nine number archetypes.

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