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From Scene 22: An Omen

“But why is the number 9 so important Arthur, can you explain this to me?” Anna Liya was now very curious, and not unaware that 9 was also his rank, and something of his trademark in the force. They were reading tarot cards on the kitchen table now after their talk on the beach, and Ravin had just turned Key IX, The Hermit card, in the “Past Position.” They were weeks between assignments, getting itchy for a new deployment, and Ravin had suggested a reading now might help orient them during the liminal lull.

“Well, it is more a qualitative number symbol than a quantitative value, my dear” he said.  “9 is associated with wisdom, tenacity, and responsibility, and the ultimate goal to serve humanity. It is highly self-directed, and needs no outside approval. It’s called a magical number because it has special properties found in no other number.” 

“Such as?” asked Anna Karenikov, quite intrigued now. 

“Numbers are one of several keystones to the metastructure of the tarot grid, my dear, going back thousands of years before its deck of cards was invented.  Pythagoras, for one, taught that numbers have a divine essence or vibration, for instance, “two-ness” or “six-ness” and were the most basic structures of the universe. Today this is confirmed by physicists in String Theory. The smallest particles of an atom—quarks– are actually made up of tiny vibrations or strands of energy called Strings.  Tarot catches the string rhythms, you could say, and symbolizes them in a small set of archetypal dream-like images bearing their particular energetic signature as expressed in the pattern movements of all people, life forms, things, and events.” 

“Really, that’s interesting,” said Anna.

“According to Pythagorus,” continued the metaphysical professor, “numbers have both quantitative and qualitive values. Pythagorus believed everything in the universe unfolds in relation to these fundamental vibrations, patterns and cycles.”

“What does it mean by a number’s qualitative value?” asked the cadet.

“It means numbers carry innate archetypal tendencies in the deep structures of the human mind, not simply abstract mathematical properties,” said Arthur. “Even Jung suggested that numbers were more likely discovered, not invented by man. Our personal lives follow a numeric Epicycle, and according to Pythagorus, curiously enough, each Epicycle lasts 9 years. This, in a nutshell, is the basis of Numerology as a whole, and why I am particularly partial to 9s.”

“Then isn’t every number magical in some way, Arthur?” Anna asked.

“Yes, but there are root numbers (1-9) upon which every larger number is based and can be reduced. Root numbers like 9 or say 4 have a discrete meaning signature. And if we think of symbols in the purest sense as universal, archetypal “affect-images” or feeling pictures you could say, then each tarot card has a unique feeling quality and felt-sense. The unique thing about 9 is that it always returns to itself; it may take many forms, but it always retains its essential identity, qualitatively and quantitively.  That, my dear, makes it uniquely magical and you can feel it when you are in its presence.” 

“Always returns to itself? I don’t quite understand how you come up with that?” said a puzzled Anna.

“For example,” Ravin continued, “Quantitatively, if you multiply 9 by any whole number of any size, say the number of genes in the human genome (which is estimated to be 62, 598), and then reduce the product by adding across (a method called “numeric reduction” or “mystic addition”), and continue reducing by adding the string of numbers across until you arrive at a single digit, you will always return to 9 again.” This is the only number that does this. 

Ravin paused after giving her the short answer, and wrote down a simple example: “12 X 9= 108. 108 =1+0+8 = 9. See? Or take a more random example, say the number of children under age 15 reported killed in the Viet Nam War, I believe it was calculated to be 67,859. 

“That’s tragic!” exclaimed Anna. 

“Next, multiply that number by 9 and you get…” [he did the simple calculation on his phone]: “610, 731. Now if you continue adding this product across until you reduce it to a single digit, you will invariably get the number 9 as its sum everytime. 610,731 = 6+1+0+7+3+1 = 18. 18= 1+8=9. It will be the same with every whole number in the universe no matter its size. Or more recently, another random example: take the number 30,573, the official number of fact-checked lies Donald Trump told in his first four years in office. Multiply that by 9 and you get (he entered it on the calculator) 275, 157. Now add this across: 2+7+5+1+5+7=27. 27 = 2+7=9. (This wasn’t the time to go any further into his thesis regarding the espionage implications of this mysterious natural law, nor commentary on the past horrors of American foreign policy or current gross absurdities of presidential politics, thought Ravin).  

“So why is that supposed to be magical and not just some number quirk?” asked the cadet, mildly impressed.

“Well, it’s a place where number quanta and qualia intersect,” said Ravin, “that is, essentially, the place where mind and matter become one.” 

“Does Agent Double 09 always return to himself?” Anna smiled, as did Ravin, lifting his eyes in concurrence and not a little embarrassment, and then he suggested they moved onto the second card of the short reading, which was Key XII, The Hanged Man, reversed. 

“So does number 12 have any magical properties also?” asked Anna, coyly.

“Not really dear, why do you ask?” replied Agent 9, deadpan, and not falling for her little jab, while gazing like a scribe deeply into the symbolic image of Key XII itself, a man hanging from a Tau cross of living trees. The man appears not to be suffering, but rather is having some sort of beatific vision, that is, when the card is upright.  He didn’t think explaining to her now that Key 12 itself actually reduced numerically to the root number 3 (1+2 added across, i.e. Key 3 The Empress) would be especially useful at the moment, but he found it interesting all the same.  

“You seem troubled by this card, Arthur. Why?” inquired the cadet as she took a sip from her coffee cup that sat next to the black velvet cloth on the kitchen table used for cartomancy and tarot contemplation. Arthur Ravin indeed was deep in thought now, and she was curious about what he would say.

“Well…I’ll tell you. This I think is the most paradoxical card in the entire deck– The Hanged Man, that is, when it is reversed– and I’m not exactly sure how to interpret it in this position.”

“What position is it?” Anna asked.

“The Present,” Arthur said glumly, and added, “but because it’s reversed, you see, and The Hanged Man normally stands on his head to begin with, and therefore, is reversed in his natural state, it’s extremely paradoxical.  He’s normally reversed as such, with an orb of light around his crown (not his neck), indicating illuminated awareness, but now he’s uncharacteristically standing right side up, which is intriguing, though a bit mystifying as well. It’s like a reversal of a reversal.”

“What do you think it’s saying about the present then?” Anna asked.

“Well, regularly it would mean standing back, turning things upside down, and bearing witness from that detached perspective, much like mindfulness meditation, actually. But reversed, it suggests standing back and looking inside yourself, but doing it upside down paradocially. It’s like shaking yourself up while standing on your head, and watching what happens to your soul. It’s curious, given our question.”

“The original question was…” repeated Anna, “What should we expect next?” Things feel topsy-turvy now, it’s kind of true, right? Why don’t we move on to the third card, for “The Future’ position?” she suggested. “Maybe that will shine more light on it.”

Arthur turned the final card which was the 7 of Cups. “It means stalled before many pulls in different directions,” he said.  “Immobilized by too many possibilities or choices. I sometimes call it the ‘Hamlet in purgatory’ card, you know “To choose or not to choose, that is the question.”

“Why?” Anna was fascinated by the card.

 “See all those different cups suspended in the air, with different symbols inside of them, which the cloaked figure in the foreground must now choose from?” In the image, seven chalises are suspended in space before a silhouetted figure with his back turned away. In one cup is an angel, in another, a serpeant. The others contained, respectively, jewels, a castle, a monster, a shrouded figure with a halo, and a wreath. The man is contemplating which cup to pick?”

“The point in this position,” Arthur continued, “I think is that we should expect in the future various road blocks of sorts, and we will need to choose one “cup” from the many, and lock onto it wholeheartedly, even with some degree of skepticism, less we get bottlenecked by too many other possible choices or directions. I guess we could call it a need for single-minded deliberation. We must choose one cup, even if uncertain of its merit.”