Stuff You Should Know - How Numerology Works

Episode Date: September 28, 2021

The premise of numerology - that numbers are responsible for our destinies and personalities - is plainly nuts, but the history and thinking behind it is too interesting to skip.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. And a different hot sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life. Tell everybody, yeah, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm Munga Chauticular and it turns out astrology is way more widespread than any of us want to

believe. You can find in Major League Baseball, International Banks, K-pop groups, even the White House. But just when I thought I had a handle on this subject, something completely unbelievable happened to me and my whole view on astrology changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, give me a few minutes because I think your ideas are about to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeart Radio. Hey and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh and there's Chuck and Chuck's a seven and I'm a nine and this is Stuff You Should Know. Yeah. Did you figure yours out? Are you a nine?

It depends. I'm a nine for my birth. I'm a nine for my birth as well. My life path number. We're both nines but you're a seven for your destiny number. I figured yours out. Hey, that means this all makes sense now. Yeah, that's why we were meant to be together on the show. It was preordained by the spirit herself. So we're talking about numerology, which I guess an overarching definition would be it's a pseudoscientific practice in which people base things on numbers like your destiny and who your romantic partner should be and maybe what job you should have and stuff like this. And I just want to say at the beginning of this that there are many different kinds of numerology and depending on where you're from and there are many different methods and

many different charts and we're not going to get too far into the weeds on those because it's all fake because it would just be a super long like four hour episode on numerology. So this is kind of just an overarching how it's what we do. It's basically what numerology is and how it works and not all the specificities of each system because your brain starts to melt a little bit when you start getting into all that and they're all kind of the same. It's just different variations of sort of the same thing. Absolutely. And I think the fact that there's so many variations that are supposed to arrive at a precise figure kind of also warns the person to take the whole thing with a grain of salt. But it's apparently way more popular in 21st century America than I

realized. Oh is it? Oh yeah man. Go on to bustle in the cut and there's numerology.com and there's a lot a lot of sites that have if they're not like overtly dedicated to numerology they have like whole sections dedicated to numerology and all that stuff. Are the cool kids doing it? I think so. I can't tell if it's the millennials or Gen Z or I don't know but you know. Got on their supreme sweatshirt talking about numbers. That's right. I just met someone who works for them. Who works for bustle? For works for supreme and we should shout out too. It's a master guitar player and is a stuff you should know fan Matt Sweeney who in the mid 90s had the indie rock sort of math rock band Chavez. Oh yeah. And now has played with everyone from Johnny Cash

to Adele. I know him from his work with Bonnie Prince Billy and I just saw them live and I just got to hang out with Sweeney. Had a great four hour dinner with Matt and his girlfriend JR and JR works for supreme and was telling me all about it. Well that is fantastic. I have someone I'd like to shout out. Let's do it. I'd like to shout out listener Jimmy McCloud who turns out took guitar lessons from the same Toledo metal band guitarist as me. That's right. I saw that. At Peeler Music in Toledo. I was like oh my god this is all absolutely correct. Yeah. And he said yes indeed. Like this guy was in a tent of at best. He would just go out and talk to people in the store in the middle of the lessons. I was like yep that's right. So thank you Jimmy

for that. That was putting all those pieces together for me. My brain don't work so good. Yeah multiple shout outs. Is there anything else we can talk about that's not numerology? I've got one other one. This is a long time overdue but our friends at Flathead Lake Cheese sent us an entire wheel of their Hoppin' Mad Gouda which is maybe the best cheese anyone's ever made. It's good stuff. And I believe they give discounts to Stuff You Should Know listeners or every once in a while they have a Stuff You Should Know sale or themed sale. So check out Flathead Lake Cheese because they're great and thanks to the Loses for introducing us to them. That's right. Hilary and Mike. Okay that's it for shout outs buddy. All right that's it. So how

do we even get... Oh Supreme. Right. Yeah. All right let's talk about numerology. Yeah. So there is a thought among some people that numbers have these mystical properties. That's the basis of the whole thing. The basis of the whole thing and that some people even think that these numbers like all things on the planet have an inherent vibration and a unique vibration. And that if you guide your life by numbers that have vibrations that are in sync with one another then you can lead a more complete life and lead your best life. Yeah and the way that it ties in in numbers is the idea that numbers basically run everything. That the properties that an individual number has can be attributed to things that are associated with that number. And you

can break everything down into a number. And if you can break something down, if you can divine something's number, you can figure out what lies ahead for them. What their personality types going to be. What their challenges are. And depending on some numerology systems you could figure out what your lucky day is. What numbers you should play in the lotto. Like all sorts of different stuff. But the idea goes well beyond like picking something at roulette. It's like the idea of numerology is very much akin to astrology where based on your name, your date of birth and a few other factors that are inherent to you. If you combine those into a number you can figure out what number you're associated with and hence what your destiny will

be. That's basically the general basis of all numerological systems. Right and the father of western numerology is Pythagoras. The Greek philosopher born in 569 BC who studied numbers and studied music and art and all kinds of things. But I think one of the things Pythagoras like to do is say like, hey, you can actually take the pluck of a lear string and you can break that down into a number. Like that unique vibration of that note has its own number that we can assign to it. That was huge. Yeah. I mean he was coming at it through some interesting angles at first I think. And this was in 569. This wasn't 21st century. Right. This is when this probably sounded about as good as anything. Yeah. Pythagoras and his followers known as the Pythagoreans.

That school and I think southern Italy, they were some of the first people to really apply a study of mathematics in geometry in particular. I think beforehand geometry was, I saw it described as basically a loose set of principles that you could use to build a house with or something like that. It wasn't like math in and of itself until Pythagoras came along and they started realizing like, oh wait, math exists on its own. Like it's its own thing and started studying it like that and started finding it everywhere and started like you said that I saw a description that Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans figured out that music, like resonant music that's not discordant but the good stuff is like it follows whole integers and that he figured it out by

hearing how different hammers in a blacksmith's shop harmonized and he went and looked and he saw that they were those hammers were related mathematically. One was say a one pound hammer and the other one was part of a whole integer like a half pound hammer and he realized there's such a thing as octaves and that this like these were the discoveries they were making and so as that's some really cool stuff. It is and like just stuff we take for granted is like just matter of fact today like they were figuring out. They also seem to have taken a lot of maybe mushrooms at the time. Yeah and then it got weird. They were drinking reindeer pee. I'm not sure but they really went down the rabbit hole with numbers and started finding these things everywhere

and came to the conclusion that numbers were the basis of the fabric of existence in life and the universe and everything and that the answer to the purpose of life, the perfect purpose of existence was 42. All right. I think that's a good setup. Thank you. All right. Let's take a break now and we'll talk more. We'll maybe shout out some more personal friends and friends of the show and then we'll also talk about numerology. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new I Heart podcast Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough or you're at the end of the road. Ah, okay. I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself

what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. This I promise you. Oh god. Seriously, I swear and you won't have to send an SOS because I'll be there for you. Oh man. And so my husband, Michael. Um, hey, that's me. Yep, we know that Michael and a different hot sexy teen crush boy band are each week to guide you through life step by step. Not another one kids relationships life in general can get messy. You may be thinking this is the story of my life. Just stop now. If so, tell everybody, yeah, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen. So we'll never ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the I Heart

radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm Mangesh Atikar and to be honest, I don't believe in astrology. But from the moment I was born, it's been a part of my life in India. It's like smoking. You might not smoke, but you're going to get secondhand astrology. And lately, I've been wondering if the universe has been trying to tell me to stop running and pay attention because maybe there is magic in the stars. If you're willing to look for it. So I rounded up some friends and we dove in and let me tell you, it got weird fast. Tantric curses, major league baseball teams, canceled marriages, K-pop. But just when I thought I had to handle on this sweet and curious show about astrology, my whole world can crash down. Situation doesn't look good.

There is risk to father. And my whole view on astrology, it changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, I think your ideas are going to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive and the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right. So you mentioned the Pythagoreans, the people who listened to and followed Pythagoras there in southern Italy and studied with him. They also came up with some legit bedrock math that we still think up today and use today. Like if you've ever heard of the Pythagorean theorem, it's still very popular in math class, in maths. Yeah, everybody's got that t-shirt when they're in sixth grade. And that's the old, in a right triangle, the square of the length of the hypotenuse

is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides, a squared plus b squared equals c squared. There it is. And it's interesting that they were coming up with all this bedrock stuff and this really cool stuff about figuring out mathematical proportions of musical harmonies like you were talking about. And like, I'm so down with all that. And then someone goes, hey, you know, if you add up a series of odd numbers beginning with one, the result is always going to be a square number. And everyone went, oh man. That's right. And then Pythagoras said, yeah, all is number. And then they all together said, all is number. That's exactly how it works. And from there, things got a little weird. And some people

hear all is number. And they say, well, that means that you can just measure everything in the entire world. And you can describe it in terms of math and numbers and proportions. Fair enough. That's basically the basis of our understanding of like geometry and physics. Yes. And then other people said, no, no, no, all is number man means like everything in the world is made of numbers. That tree is a number. You are a number. Right. Because they're looking those toads. Yes. And in the background of reindeer, peas quietly into a bucket. Right. So bucket is then distributed into small mugs. That's that second part of all is number is that's, that's the basis of numerology. And that's where it kind of veers away from science. And I was reading this veers or takes a really hard

turn. Yeah, veer steps on the gas. Okay. Isn't that what veers means? I think veer is a very gentle turn. Oh, I thought I think, okay, careens away from science. Yeah, there you go. Okay. All right. So I saw a really interesting article on BVDM, BBVD, BBVD open mind. I can't remember. But they were, they were talking about Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans and how it, they're like this fulcrum where numbers went from mystical things, having a mystical quality to bringing them into science and then taking it right back into mysticism again. Yeah. Which is really odd, but that's, that's really what happened. And it was part partially because they got so wrapped up in the idea that all is number. And they were a really weird group of

people. They met their end really violently in Southern Italy where their, their school was sacked and burned. At least 50 of them were killed. But like you said, they had created like a real foundation for our understanding of math and the idea that math was this thing that exists out there waiting for us to discover and that it has a lot to do with our life, but that the mystical qualities associated kind of died with Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans. That's right. I guess, I mean, should we get into a little bit of kind of what they were laying down there? Yeah. Yeah. All right. So they were studying these mathematical concepts and they said, all right, here's what we're going to do. We're going to sort numbers into buckets,

into categories, not the reindeer pee bucket, but into mathematical categories. So, how much levers we can pull? Yeah. Let's just say, let's say one, four and nine are square. Okay. Because if you take pebbles, the corresponding number of little pebbles or rocks or whatever, you can arrange them into a square. Pretty smart. Again, geometry coming into play. One, three, six and 10 are triangular because one, three, six or 10 little pebbles can be arranged into regular triangles. I dispute the use of one as both the square and the triangle. It's like, okay. I dispute that too. You're going to have to pick one or the other Pythagoreans. All right. So it would be falling apart for you already if you were back there.

Just there though. Just there. Everything else. I was like, yeah, yeah, all is number. Give me some more, baby. Two, six and 12 are oblong. So the corresponding number is rectangle. And so they're doing this kind of thing and then they start getting into non-numerical stuff and saying, all right, odd numbers are masculine. Even numbers are feminine. The number one is creative because if you add multiple ones, you can create any other number, bro. What else is there? Well, two, so odd is masculine, even are feminine, like you said. So two is the first feminine number. It represents duality. There's two. Three is the first masculine number because like you said, one is its own thing. It's a creator

number. And so five, yeah, five represents marriage because it's where the first masculine number and the first feminine number add up to. Just stuff like that. These people clearly had way too much time on their hands to think of something like that. And so like each number, one through nine, this is very important because we didn't say it earlier when we introduced numerology, but in numerological systems, one through nine are the prime, and I don't mean that mathematically, the most important, the most used, the most useful numbers. Yeah, tell you the word prime. Right. So one through nine are the ones to focus on. And that also came directly from the Pythagoreans. They focused mostly on the numbers one through nine

as well. Right. And I think a goal for a lot of these charts is to get your number down to one of those single digits eventually. Right. Yeah, that was for most systems and with most numbers, we'll talk about it. But yes, you ultimately want to get it down to one of those single digit numbers. Yeah, because you can't be 10 because 10 is a sacred number because someone said, you know, if you add up the first four digits, it equals 10, bro. And they did stuff like that. They did stuff like that. But also I just want to point out one of the other things they did that I'm like, I didn't even know these existed. So I'm still impressed. They were the first ones to detect perfect numbers. And a perfect number is a number where the divisors add up to form

the number. So six is a perfect number because if you add its divisors, divisors being one, two, and three, they add up to six. So I mean, there is some neat stuff that is actually, I think, useful that came out of it. But yes, other stuff is like, yes, 10 is sacred because if you add up one, two, three, and four, it comes up to 10. Well, it's like, what about five, six, seven, eight, and nine, Jack? You're just going to ignore those? Yes. Yes, we are. Yes. The number 10 also led to the list of 10 fundamental opposites, a few of which are one in many, rest in motion, good and evil, stuff like that. Yeah. Straight and crooked. Sure. Light and dark. The classic straight and crooked. Yin and yang. That's not in there, is it? No. You had to look. All right.

It did look. Here's the thing. Because there was a really ironic end to the Pythagoreans, because they look too hard into numbers and how numbers related to the universe, that they actually found that everything doesn't fit into some neat and tidy box like they thought. And supposedly, one of the Pythagoreans was kind of hanging around doing some equations, some formulae at some point and tried to come up with the square root of two and discovered the existence of irrational numbers. And an irrational number is a number that has a non-repeating, non-terminating decimal. It just goes on infinitely, like pi is an irrational number. The square root of two, like the Pythagoreans figured out as an irrational number. And it can't be represented in a simple fraction, like every

other number. Right. Rational numbers is what they're called. And apparently, when they found this out, it kind of like their worldview crumbled. This all is numbered thing crumbled because they couldn't figure out how this would apply to like an orderly, beautiful universe. And apparently, they even before they were sacked and burned and killed, the school kind of like fell onto dark times once they figured out there were such things as irrational numbers. Yeah, that's what happens when you're in a cult. Yeah, kind of. Your face with reality and it usually doesn't go very well. So after the death of Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans,

the mysticism, all this stuff kind of faded away a little bit and was resurrected in the 1800s, kind of notably with the writings of a book from Mrs. L. Dow, Ballyette. AKA Josie. I don't get it. Well, that was her name. Oh, okay. Yeah. How did they get Josie? Her husband's name was L. Dow. Her name was Josephine Josie Ballyette. I'm sorry, I was looking up anything on this person and like she is just nowhere. But she wrote a bunch of books, but very little is known about her except she died at age 84 in Atlantic City, I read. Very interesting. But she was the first one to kind of come along and say vibrations, right? Yeah. And you know, there were other people that were writing books

and stuff. It didn't like completely, completely go away. But I think these books that talked about vibrations and that talked about music and numbers and colors being, you know, because there's a little bit of synesthesia sort of thrown in here as well. If some of this kind of sounds familiar with colors and numbers representing like the same thing. And so she was talking about everything and all these numbers having vibrations, people, food, a tree, a bicycle, anything has a vibration. And if you, and this idea that I spoke about earlier, if you want to live in harmony in the world, then your environment should, and the numbers of your environment that have been assigned need to match your own vibration and your own number. And you know, this is where it

definitely, this is kind of what we think of as modern numerology at this point. Yeah. And one thing, one interesting thing about vibrations, especially about like an old-timey 19th century writer, new age writer basically talking about vibrations is that that's actually the basis of some of the theories of how subatomic particles behave through vibrations. Like string theory is based on the idea that subatomic particles are actually vibrating strings of energy that vibrate at different frequencies and that those differing frequencies produce their shape or their form. Which is, I just find that endlessly fascinating that it's almost in some weird way predicted string theory. Yeah. But is it just one of those things where it's like, yeah, I mean vibrations,

especially if you're into things like music, it's not like that far of a stretch or was it like, yeah, they were tapped into some sort of weird preternatural understanding of subatomic physics. Yeah, super interesting. Pythagoras also believed that this vibration could have had something to do with what was called the music of the spheres, which is what he believed, what he believed like the planets were embedded in these transparent physical spheres and the distance between them corresponded to these musical ratios. And these are the sounds that the planets, these vibrations that the planets in the sun make while orbiting the earth. When they're a little off on that one, wasn't that on the golden records? Didn't Carl Sagan

create like an homage to that on the golden records? I think so. I knew it sounded familiar. Yeah, we've definitely talked about it before. I do also want to shout out a company. If you're looking to get a kind of the best wind chime that you can buy, there's a company out of Austin called Music of the Spheres. Oh, cool. And they're amazing. I've got several sets in different places and I've wanted to shout them out for a while because when someone just makes something great, this ain't no big box wind chime. It's no wind chimes are us. These beautiful sounds. No, it's Music of the Spheres. So wait a minute. You're poking fun at people who are talking about how 10 is a holy number because one through four add up to 10.

And you have multiple wind chimes at your house? I love wind chimes. I got one of those big dongers at my camp like way up in the tree. And these things, I mean, it took a lot to get them up there. They're heavy, but they're like five feet long. Yeah, I've seen that. I'm sure the local squirrels are really happy you've moved in. Hey, we've still bears despite the chime. Oh, is the bear back? Has it been back? No, but I put the chime up and the bear came afterward. So I think they're attracted to it. I got you. It says bears, come get a picnic basket. So where are we here? Well, we're talking about modern numerology, right? Yeah, I guess we should talk a little bit about, I mean, should we take a break and then talk about that? I think you're

right, Chuck. I think we'll take a break and we'll talk about sort of modern numerology and how we come up with our own numbers and what that even means right after this. the road. Okay, I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help this. I promise you. Oh, God, seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS because I'll be there for you. Oh, man. And so my husband, Michael, um, hey, that's me. Yep, we know that Michael and a different hot sexy teen crush boy band are each week to guide you through life step by step. Oh, not another one. Kids relationships life in general can get messy.

You may be thinking this is the story of my life. Just stop now. If so, tell everybody everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never ever have to say bye bye bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the I heart radio app Apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm Mangesh Atikular. And to be honest, I don't believe in astrology. But from the moment I was born, it's been a part of my life in India. It's like smoking. You might not smoke, but you're going to get secondhand astrology. And lately, I've been wondering if the universe has been trying to tell me to stop running and pay attention. Because maybe there is magic in the stars, if you're willing to look for it. So I rounded up some friends and we dove in and let me tell you,

it got weird fast. Tantric curses, major league baseball teams, canceled marriages, K-pop. But just when I thought I had a handle on the sweet and curious show about astrology, my whole world came crashing down. Situation doesn't look good. There is risk to father. And my whole view on astrology, it changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, I think your ideas are going to change, too. Listen to Skyline Drive and the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right. So we talked about how one through nine are inherently important to modern numerologists and the Pythagoreans too, right? Correct. And that each of those numbers,

one through nine, has its own vibration. And those vibrations give that number a certain property. And I'm talking properties like leadership, harmony, karma, wisdom, curiosity, like intangible, but important properties that humans could conceivably possess. These numbers, different numbers inherently have. That's right. And depending on what system you're using, there is going to be a chart where a letter corresponds with a number. It is usually, and can be as easy as A is one, B is two, and so on. And like we said, there are a lot of different kinds of charts. So depending on which system you're using, you're going to use that chart. And what you're going to do is

eventually end up with that single digit number. Unless there are a couple of exceptions to that, right? Well, yeah, we'll get to those. But there are a couple of different numbers that you can get. You can use your name, like your first, middle, and last name by birth. I saw here in this article where it said you have to use your birth name, nicknames, and change names don't count. That's what I saw. But I also saw other places where when you change your name, that changes your destiny. Oh, really? And so you're supposed to refigure that. I saw one place that allowed for nicknames in addition to given names, but almost everywhere else said, no, your birth name is the one that's important. And the reason they gave is the same reason

that's in this article that before you're born, you basically communicate to your parents what your name should be. So that your given name is going to suit your your numerological number. That you're destined to have. Yeah, that's where you get it from. That's where your parents get your name from is actually from you little psychic baby in the womb. Yeah. And I think the idea is if you use your name to come up with a number, like there's a couple of different numbers, there's your name number, and then your birth date number. And your name number is kind of your personality and the inner you where your birth number is your what can has been referred to as like your life path number or your destiny number. And using these two numbers, you can kind

of, if you're into this kind of thing, you can make decisions on how to move forward in your life and align these numbers with the rest of your life. Yeah, I saw the destiny number and we'll explain how you get that that's derived from your name, that that's how you'll reach the goals that are part of your life path number. Right. Right. So it's actually really interesting stuff. To start with the destiny number, also called the expression number, you take that full name from what I saw from birth. I hadn't seen that you're choosing a different name altered your path. That's pretty interesting. But if you stick with just your your chosen name, it has to be your full given name at birth first middle and last name. And if you

don't have a middle name, that's okay. You can just see your first and last name. And that when you add up the numbers from the corresponding letters from, from each of your names, you come up with three numbers. You add those together. So for example, Chuck, your first name, Charles is 30. Wayne comes up to 23. Brian. Pythagoras is my other middle name. Brian adds up to 26. If you add those together, you get 79. Well, 79 is virtually meaningless as far as numerology is concerned. So you want to add seven and nine. You get 16. Getting closer, but still not, not really useful. So you had one and six. And now we finally come to your true destiny number, Chuck, which is seven. Right. So seven is my destiny number. And if you look up, you can

look up like attributes for each of these numbers. And this is where it's basically, I mean, if you're thinking this sounds like astrology and horoscopes or the zodological birth calendars, like you're right, all of this stuff is kind of that. Yeah. So seven means is magic, wisdom, intelligence, mystery, solitude. That's you all over. What's your number? I'm a nine. And interestingly, there's different... Well, I'm a nine from my life path number. I'm not sure for my name number. All right. So we're both nines on the life path number, which I looked up a thing that said your life path number is the number of completion resolution. Those with number nine, and this for both of us, tend to have a humanitarian and almost a utopian quality to their being.

Because we're compassionate and philanthropical, we are likely to be drawn toward global issues that deal with the helping of the whole humankind in the world. But Josh, we need to be wary of overextending ourselves and sacrificing too much of ourselves and losing the greater perspective in the pursuit of our goals. We have to learn to say no sometimes, in other words. Yeah, we've gotten better about that over the years. And that is definitely, and that, well, that's because we're following our destiny numbers toward our life path number. So you just said something I think is really important to point out about numerology, that you're going to encounter if you get a numerological reading, is the number has the best of you and the stuff you need to

avoid. It's all encompassed in that one number. And you have multiple numbers, so each of those have things to avoid, things to focus on, things to improve on, things that are going to challenge you in your life, which I find pretty interesting. Yeah, and it gets more complicated than that too, if you want to drill down. There are numerologists who use these big charts and diagrams that end up kind of looking like astrological charts. And that's when they're sort of drilling down to how you relate to people in your family, maybe, or to the person you're married to, or if you want to find a romantic partner or avoid negative tendencies or just find out what your lucky number or lucky day is. Yeah, and also there's some systems that I've seen multiple places that

just rely almost like shorthand on the date of your birth, so the day of the month that you were born on. That's it, so I was born on July 15th, so that would make me a six. And that's it, that's what they use. They don't do the name thing, they don't do your whole birth date, they just do the day of the month that you were born on, almost like much more like a zodeological sign or astrological sign. And so as a six, I can do things like I need to look for foods that are pale purple and blue. Those are going to vibrate with me most harmoniously. I should live in a city, maybe Madras or Baton Rouge, which is surprising to me. And then I should associate mostly with number fives, it turns out, that I'm most harmonious with them. Is Yumi a five? I don't know. No,

she's a three, I think, because yeah, she's 30th, so she's a three. Come on, she's a 10. That's very nice. Emily and Yumi are tens, that's why we married them. That's right. Let's just go with 11. Mine goes to 11. I love that, and this is actually in the House of Works article, I can't believe you found one that we haven't mined yet, but this is from Tracy Wilson, our still colleague, I almost said former because we just don't see them anymore because of the virus. Are you about to out her? No, no, no. Over at Stuff You Miss in History class with Holly. Right, are you about to out her from... As what? As a numerologist? No, as a determined Harry Potter fan. Oh, I didn't even think about that. This all makes

sense now. There's a lot of Harry Potter in this article. There's a lot of Harry Potter in this article. This all makes sense now. Okay, I get it. In Tracy's defense, it was written in 2008 when like, you know, the kind of thing was super hip, but yeah, it was pretty funny how much Harry Potter pops up. Yeah, she used Harry Potter as the example of like forming the, or finding Harry Potter's number and all that. And in the intro too, she talks about Hermione practicing arithmetic. Yeah, which is a big deal in Harry Potter. Sure. But I brought it up because Tracy referred to, and she's probably not the first, but she referred to numerology as a version, a kind of applied mysticism. And I like that definition, basically, where you correlate a mystical symbol with somebody's

life. I think that kind of says it best. Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of things you could do that kind of fall under the New Age umbrella as far as like numerology, astrology, where you can look at it a couple of ways. Like you can give responsibility for your life over to your numerological number or your astrological sign, associate with some people and stay away from other people or certain foods or whatever and just kind of like not have to think about life quite as much or make your own decisions. That's like the bigger criticism of New Age stuff. But there's a much more generous way of interpreting it too and saying like, you know, if you're feeling a little lost or unmoored or unrooted and you're trying to like

figure out what direction to kind of set your compass in, you could do worse than, you know, doing your numerological sign and being like, oh, I should focus on being more creative and need to look out for being too dependent on others. Does that apply to me? Maybe it does. Let me just kind of go forth from there. And I wouldn't recommend doing a daily numerological thing or anything like that. But I'm saying like, in some ways, New Age stuff can be harmful because it kind of takes the purpose out of life for a lot of people. But in other ways, it can kind of be a guide and just the same way that like religion or friends or a television show that you think is speaking directly to you can, you know? I hear you. Do you? I do. I mean, we're kind

of at that point, I guess, about some criticisms and one thing Tracy does mention. And I think this is just more as an example, not as specifically as it applies to the practice of numerology, but just people believing like in a special number in their life and how they always see that number. You know, I know people that see numbers and think that they mean something like, there's a certain number and I always see it. And, you know, that's sort of that confirmation bias at work. Yes. Generally, where you notice that number more, you're really seeing all kinds of numbers, but you notice 1111 on the clock because you've told yourself that 1111 means something to you. Right. Or you've heard that it does. Yeah. Or you've heard that it does and you

don't think about all of the other times that you've seen on the clock all day or all the numbers you see all day long. And, you know, that's fair enough. I think another criticism of numerology is that the whole thing is based on an invented system of counting grouping by 10. And that's not even the first or, I mean, I was about to say the most legitimate. I guess it was, it's not the original system of counting. It was just made up by people to begin with. It's the basis of the metric system. I would say it's legit. Well, not illegitimate, but it was invented by humans. Right. Yes. And it's not the only way that we know how to count. Same as using the English alphabet to divine your future because you're applying a number,

an Arabic numeral to a letter from the English alphabet. Those aren't the only number systems or the only alphabet system. So like, yes, it's made up. And you could make a case like that a numerologist might make and say, well, you were born English speaking in an English speaking country that uses Arabic numerals. So of course, that's going to apply to you. I haven't heard what the response would be for like, if you were born in China where the average person needs to know about 2,000 different characters in their alphabet to make their way through life, like, how that would apply to numerology. But yes, the basis of this whole thing is like, there's just so many holes. You could drive a truck through every single one of them. But if it's providing

some sort of comfort or I even guidance to somebody who's and it's not hurting them, hurting other people, damaging their lives or shortening or narrowing their prospects, then I mean, is it harmful? I don't know. I could be missing something in that sense. I know what you mean. And even if you're, if someone would be like, yeah, but what about these people that pay money and flush their money down the toilet by speaking with a numerologist, another person might say, well, you know what, I think that it's a waste of money talking to a therapist who doesn't know you. Or they could say they're stimulating the economy. Well, the point is, it's, you know, if the person walks away from that experience, happy and satisfied,

then it's a, it's a victimless crime. It's not a crime at all. It's, it's someone paying money for something that they feel like they got something out of. If you walk out of there and you're like, what a ripoff. I can't believe it paid $10 to, for someone to look into a crystal ball or to read my numerological chart, like then it's a problem. But if you want to spend your money that way, we're not going to yuck your yum. If you feel good about it, good on you. Yes. I have one caveat to that though. Okay. It makes me anxious about, about this, just signing off on that. And that is that I feel like a, this resurgence of numerology we're seeing, like I'm sure most of the people who are like the younger people who are into it today don't

realize that like it was huge in the seventies. And then apparently it was huge in the 19th century. It was like, like that it just keeps coming back at certain times and certain ways is that this time that it's come back around is, it's correlated with this, again, this, this death of trust and expertise and, and it's anti-science sentiment. And in that way, I don't like anything that promotes an anti-science sentiment or makes you believe that your opinion is just as good as somebody who's gone and studied whatever you're talking about for a dozen years. Super valid. Yes. So in that sense, I do not endorse it if it, if it does kind of promote that. But again, if we can just bring it back to, if it's just making them happy, then, you know,

and it's not harming them or society in general, then I'm good with that. All right, great. Like that matters, I guess. I took, my big takeaway from this article was at the very end, Tracy kind of snuck, snuck in a cool fact that I never knew was that the we, the reason that we here in the West count things in groups of 10 or it's sort of a 10 based system is probably because we have 10 fingers and that the old English language and the old English words for numbers reflect this groups of 10 and the 11, the word 11 means one left and 12 is an abbreviation of two left. Yeah. Like one left over 10, two left over 10 and then third. That's the fact of the show for me. Right here at the very end.

I think you're right, Chuck. I totally agree. That means that we should be seeing 12 in, 12 of in. 12 of in is how I'm going to say 12 from now on. I'll be like, look it up. And then think about 13 too. That's like three, 10, four, 10, five, 10. Yeah. Yeah. 12 and 12, 12, 11. If you want to know more about numerology, I guess go visit the bustle or numerology.com and see what you think, see if it's right for you. But God help you if you stop believing in expertise or become anti-science because that is not a good thing, anybody. No. But thinking for yourself is as well. So maybe we can figure out a way to balance all that together. Since I said, let's figure out a way to balance all that together,

it's time for listening mail. This is from Cassie. Sounds like Lassie in Statesboro, Georgia. Oh yeah. Shroom Country. That's right. So this was in reference to the Georgia Lizard that we had quite a few people write in. It is not a leopard gecko or whatever you said it was. That is, everyone's wrong, but me. Okay. Because they don't have those in this country. They're big in Pakistan, apparently. Well, that's what I was thinking. Yeah, that's probably it from my time living in Pakistan. I've never had a reason to send an email to now guys, but here it is in response to the short stuff on Chameleons. Chuck was going on about the skinks and Josh was saying that they're geckos. I'm pretty sure that he's wrong because way back

in 99, my family moved to Georgia for Minnesota and I was living in Minnesota. I worked at a pet store that sold lizards, among other animals. He had Chameleons, iguanas, geckos, and is it pronounced Anol? A-N-O-L-E? Anolis? Canolis? Or is it Anolis? Leave the gun, take the Anoli. Oh boy. Well, that's Anoli. The reason I'm saying this is because when we moved to Georgia, I started seeing these Anolis or anoles. Anoles? I can't be anoles. Let's go with Anolis. Everywhere, my 12-year-old brain was cooking up a scheme to catch them and sell them for the going rate back in Minnesota, which is $20 each. Wow. Wow. That is, those are 90s dollars. Yeah, so they'd be like a million today.

I don't know. Those were grunge dollars. I learned that it was against a lot of owned native species in Georgia, so I didn't go through with that plan. If you read this email and you get a chance, search Anoli and see if that's the lizard and that is indeed the lizard, Cassie. So thank you and others for figuring that out for us. Very nice. Thank you, Cassie. Rhymes with Lassie. Cassie said that, right? You didn't say that? Yeah, she said it. I was like, jeez, Chuck. Well, if you want to be like Cassie Rhymes with Lassie, you can write to us and tell us your name and what it rhymes with, and maybe we'll end up reading your email on Listener Mail. Wrap it up, spank it on the Anoli,

and send it off to StuffPodcast at iHeartRadio.com. Stuff you should know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts on my heart radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Everybody. Yeah, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm Munga Chauticular, and it turns out astrology is way more widespread than any of us want to believe. You can find it in Major League Baseball, international banks, K-pop groups, even the White House. But just when I thought I had a handle on

this subject, something completely unbelievable happened to me and my whole view on astrology changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, give me a few minutes because I think your ideas are about to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.