The number 13 is generally avoided by people who consider it to be unlucky. Tall buildings in the United States are sometimes designed without a 13th floor in accordance with this superstition. Friday the 13th carries a doubly fearful resonance in American culture. The significance of this date may have spawned from the gossip of French Immigrants during the early 13th century. 1307 was the year that King Philip secretly ordered the mass arrest of all Knights Templar in France on Friday, October 13th.
The first time the number 13 appears up in the Bible is in Genesis 14:4, "Twelve years they had served Chedorlaomer, but in the thirteenth year they rebelled." Therefore, the number 13 is associated with revolution and rebellion; a fracture of society or of an order, such as when the Templar's power was subdued. The Japanese word for the number 4 (1+3) is Shi, a homophone of their name for death; thus the number 4 is considered a death omen by the Japanese and may be called by the word Yon instead. At the end of the 13th Simpsons Tree House of Horror episode, it is revealed that the alien language of Kang and Kodos coincidentally uses a skull shape for their number 4.
"Death" card is number 13 in a Tarot deck when The Fool is unnumbered. Regular playing cards feature 4 suits of 13 cards each.
Thirteen is an important number in the tradition of Speculative Freemasonry. This Masonic symbolism is prevalent in the Great Seal of the United States:
- 13 stars
- 13 stripes on the shield
- 13 arrows in the eagle’s talon
- 13 letters in the mottos "e pluribus unum" and "annuit cœptis" (There are 52 characters on the whole seal, which is itself evenly divisible by 13)
- 13 olive leaves
- 13 olives on the branch
- 13 brick levels of the pyramid
- 13 sides showing on the ribbon
- There were initially 13 colonies in the United States.
- The original flag had thirteen stars, one for each state.
- The flag features thirteen horizontal stripes: six white ones and seven red ones.
13 And Other Numbers[]
The day the Catholic Church acted against the Knights Templar was 13th of October. October is the 10th month, plus the 13th day equals 23. Following this pattern of adding 10: 13, 23, and the next number is 33. 33 represents a third, or 1/3, of a full 100. (1/3 looks like 13) Many Freemasons (a group associated with the number 33) were a driving force behind the French and American revolutions making 33 similar to the number of rebellion 13, and the number of separation 23. Following the same patter of counting by 10's, but taking 10 away from 13, leaves a remainder of 3. The number 3 represents the Trinity, where the single god has given birth to the duality; and so 3 also represents a splitting up of order.
13 is the 7th Fibonacci number.
Adding every number from 1 to 13 yields 91, which is 13x7.
13 is found in many places where one would expect only 12, this is the 12 around 1 theme which can be seen in: the twelve signs of the zodiac plus the sun, the 12 deciples plus Jesus, King Arthur and his 12 knights of the Round Table, and so on. The basics of Sacred Geometry include a 6-arm star made of 12 circles of equal radius (2 per arm), around a 13th circle. This shape forms what is known as Metatron's Cube and the Fruit of Life. From Metatron's Cube, one can outline all 3 dimensional Platonic Solids including a 4th dimensional tesseract.
The Number 13 in Movies[]
13th Floor (1999) The Thirteenth Floor, set in the 1990's Los Angeles, is about a virtual reality simulation located on the thirteenth floor of a building which simulates Los Angeles of the 1930's. It turns out that the world of the 1990's is also a simulation, created by people in the year 2024.
Friday the Thirteenth (Franchise)
Oceans 13 (2007)
1408 (2007) In 1408, paranormal author Mike Enslin visits the Dolphin Hotel to debunk the rumors of a haunted room, room 1408. 1408 is obviously on the thirteenth floor because the floor number 13 has been removed due to superstition. 1408 also reduces to 13 when the numbers 1+4+0+8 are added together. The room terrorizes it's victims into commiting suicide. The room also appears to be a portal into the Otherworld when Enslin's deceased daughter appears in what seems to be a hallucination but later is revealed to have really happened when he replays his tape recorder which captured her voice.