another boring numerological reference (86)

[robinlandseadel at comcast.net]

           David Morris mused: 
           So, um, 37 is the new 23?

           So many hidden secrets, so little interest...
 
http://www.biblewheel.com/GR/GR_86.asp

           mikebailey:
           wigged-out qabbalists down the ages have
           grooved to the notion of numbers having meanings 
           of great social and political import;

           Crowley was nuts about 93, for instance...and it all 
           links in with astrology and Tarot.

           CS Peirce has some appreciably fun ideas about 
           "oneness, twoness, threeness" as well.


=======================================================

T.W.I.T.s are the ultimate "wigged-out qabbalists". Truth to tell, 
Pynchon---world-class philatalist and part-time qabbalist---might 
be the ultimate wigged out numerologist.

Being "86'd"---my previous spelling of the term was incorrect, making it hard 
to find references---ain't exactly what I'd call a numerological reference. To 
be 86'd is to experience expulsion, a situation many characters in Pynchon's 
novels go through numerous times, througout all of his works. It's what you'd
call a central leitmotiv.

                Atlantics aplenty there've been these three years, 
           often rougher than the one William, the first transatlantic 
           Slothrop, crossed many ancestors ago. Barbarities of 
           dress and speech, lapses in behavior---one horrible 
           evening drunken Slothrop, Tantivy's guest at the Junior 
           Athanaeum, got them both 86'd feinting with the beak of 
           a stuffed owl after the jugular of DeCoverley Pox whilst Pox, 
           at bay on a billard table, attempted to ram a cue ball down 
           Slothrop's throat. This sort of thing goes on dismayingly 
           often: yet kindness is a sturdy enough ship for these 
           oceans, Tantivy always there blushing or smiling and 
           Slothrop suprised at how, when it's really counted, 
           Tantivy hasn't ever let him down. GR 22

           "I now pretend to have reached a level of clarity 
           about the younger writer I was back then. I mean 
           I can't very well just 86 this guy from my life. On 
           the other hand, if through some as yet undeveloped 
           technology I were to run into him today, how 
           comfortable would I feel about lending him money, 
           or for that matter even stepping down to the street 
           to have a beer and talk over old times?" 
           Back cover and Introduction, "Slow Learner"

           This was all recreational bickering. By this time they'd 
           been in business for a couple of years and already 
           learned the roads of Vineland well enough to use in 
           the dark, which now and then they'd been obliged 
           to---the maps were usually just there for props as 
           Vato and Blood went prowling everywhere the suburban 
           lanes, the sand and grass tracks, the gullied-out mud 
           nightmares. They had scrambled over slides, rigged 
           tackle in the trees, winched out lots' worth of vehicles, 
           from early-model toughmonkey Porsches out for a little 
           all-terrain exercise to dapper fishing vans sporting 
           four-color trout murals and CB call letters in glittery 
           stick-on alphanumerics. They had seen things in the 
           forest, and particularly up along Seventh River, 
           whose naming aloud, in certain area taverns, was 
           cause for summary octogenarihexation from the 
           establishment, as well as for less formal sanctions 
           in the parking lot. Vineland, 185/186.

           . . . .Ernie and Sid found themselves allowed back 
           into places like the Polo Lounge, where right after 
           Sid's bust he'd been if not 86'd, then at least, say 
           43'd. Vineland 342

86'd = expulsion. To be "86'd" means going through the process whereby those 
who once were members of the elect find themselves suddenly on the outside, 
becoming preterite. A very important theme in Against the Day, as Lew's about 
to be 86'd from the Pinkertons, not to mention what happens to Kit and 
Yashmeen and Cyprian and Reef. . . .

With #37 I was grasping at straws, but please note that the original 
question asked was "Is there any significance to the #37 as it would 
relate to Fu Manchu?" I didn't know of any, but knowing that the 
author is constantly working numerological references into his novels, 
thought it was worth persuing. Someone noted a reference to a 
biblical text that had some glancing relation to #37. I asked myself, 
what sacred texts or other types of signifying tools has the author 
already used in his books, systems where the number might have 
greater significance then merely as a number citing chapter or line 
number in the Bible? If we are looking at some symbol that points 
to China we might ask what Chinese Sacred texts might apply. The 
#37 in the Tao te Ching really only serves as a section heading, 
there would be little likelyhood of association. The I Ching, a work 
cited by the author quite a few times,involves numerological systems 
to a great degree. Looking up plain old fashioned numerology on the 
wiki yielded up the #37 as the largest prime number in 666, which 
made me laugh. 666 is a number that has all sorts of pejorative 
references. Alistair Crowley was quite attached to that number 
(as you probably know already), liking to refer to himself as the 
"Great Beast". Truth to tell, it pretty much struck me as a little
joke, but then again there are quite a few cul-de-sacs where 
you'll find yourself as you read Pynchon and we know that the 
author knows and by now knows that we know that he knows:

                "Of course not, it's in code, isn't it, said Bevis. 
           "Fiendish code, I might add. Right off I noticed 
           it uses both Old and New Style alphabets---quite 
           pleased with myself until twigging that each letter 
           in this alphabet also has it's own numerical value, 
           what was known among ancient Jewish students 
           of the Torah as 'gematria.' So, as if there wasn't 
           quite enough threat to the old mental balance 
           already, the message must now be taken also as 
           a series of digits, wherewith readers may discover 
           in the text at hand certain hidden messages by 
           adding together the number-values of the letters 
           in a group, substituting other groups of the same 
           value, so generatting another, covert message. 
           Furthermore this particular gematria doesn't stop 
           at simple addition."

                "Oh, dear. What else?"

                 "Raising to powers, calculating logarithms, 
            converting strings of characters to terms of a 
           series and finding the limits they converge to, 
           and---I say Latewood, if you could see the look 
           on your face. . .  ."
            
                "Feel free, please. As there's little enough 
           hysterical giggling out here, why we must 
           snatch it wheree'er find it, mustn't we."

                "Not to mention field-coefficients, eigen 
           values, metric tensors----"
           AtD 799/800

and so on down a hall of mirrors, in a grand mal of metagnosis. . . .

. . . .all the eyerolling in the world will not stop Our Beloved Author, 
so you might as well get used to it. . . .

I really don't know if this is intentional or not, but when I read page 666 
in Against the Day, I found it perfectly Beastly. I suspect that the edition 
we are reading---the U.S. Penguin Press edition---is what the author 
intended. Yes, Mr. Monroe, I do suspect that the placement of 
"octogenarihexation" on page 186 is intentional, note what follows:
The central joke on page 666 points to Alstaire Crowley, who was 
unusually interested in sex magick. A topic that Our Beloved Author 
has touched on in significant ways in a number of his books. This sort 
of thing goes on all the time in Pynchon, previously to its greatest degree 
in Gravity's Rainbow but to a still greater degree in Against the Day. 

What Larry Daw has to say concerning the organizational principles of 
Gravity's Rainbow casts some light on the importance of numbers 
and numerology in all of Pynchon's works:

           Organizational Themes
           Close study will reveal that certain organizational themes 
           are at work to bring a sense of cohesion to the book. 
           These tend towards the religious, the mythopoetic and 
           the occult, and are reinforced by recurring textual 
           correspondences to the Christian calendar, the Qabalah, 
           the Tarot, astrology and numerology, and various 
           mythological systems including the Teutonic, the Herero 
           (African), and the Celtic. The most important organizing 
           principle seems to be the Christian calendar as mapped 
           onto the seasonal wheel of pagan festival dates, and 
           each of the four parts begins and ends on key points 
           across a nine month period, from Advent season to the 
           Feast of the Exaltation. Interestingly enough, the climax 
           of the book centers on Easter Sunday -- the focal point 
           of a nine-month parabola -- although these events are 
           not actually revealed until the end. While these temporal 
           nodes provide a grounding of sorts, three other important 
           organizing principles may be found in the various systems 
           of the Jewish Qabalah, the Tarot and its imagery and 
           symbolism, and in the idea of the hero monomyth. 
           These three deserve some further elaboration.

http://www.themodernword.com/pynchon/pynchon_granalysis.html

Numerology and the Tarot are central to the Kabbalah and 
the Qabballah is central to Pynchon.

http://tinyurl.com/265bbh

And if that didn't Illuminate the importance of numbers and numerology
in Pynchon's ovure, hopefully this will:

           . . . .Like other sorts of paranoia, it is nothing less than 
           the onset, the leading edge, of the discovery that 
           everything is connected, everything in the Creation, 

           a secondary illumination---not yet blindlingly One, 

           but at least connected, and perhaps a route In for 
           those like Tchitcherine who are held at the edge. . . .
           GR 716 (new edition)