So what do you think about 27? If you keep your eyes peeled, you will notice the pattern

I found a web site that might help.:
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/twenty-seven

I think 29 is 40 shy of being a really fine number.

Friday the 13th comes from the killing of the Nights of Templar. They were gathered and burned at the stake--Hence Black Friday.

yuk :dead: :thumbsdow

Oh for fuck's sake. Welcome back Tomas, we really missed you.

Very true. It was on Friday the 13th (October 13, 1307) that the Knights Templar were arrested and charged with heresy, witchcraft, and other assorted things by Philip IV of France and his personal puppet, Pope Clement V. Legend says that when Jauques de Molay was burned at the stake, he cursed both Pope Clement V and Philip IV (AKA Philip The Fair) and invited the both of them to meet him in heaven to face God for their accusations. Within a year of Jaques de Molay being executed, both men died.

We witches *like* the number 13. Here's a fairly informative little piece that circulated around our community today here in KC.




Why Friday the 13th is a Very Lucky Day, Indeed

By Donna Henes, Urban Shaman*


When the 13th day on the month lands on a Friday, the culturally unfavorable
attributes of each are multiplied by infinity. Friday, the day of original
sin, the day Jesus died, the day of public hangings, in combination with 13,
the number of steps on a gallows, the number of coils of rope in a hangman’s
noose, the number of the Death card in the tarot deck, is indubitably
designated as a day of portent and doom. The pitiful suicide note of a
window washer that was found with his body in a gas-filled room at his home
and quoted in a 1960 issue of the Yorkshire Post, underscores it’s powerful,
popular reputation, "It just needed to rain today — Friday the 13th — for me
to make up my mind."
Poor sod.

Ironically, and in definite defiance of the laws of probability, the 13th
day of the month, is more likely to fall on a Friday than on any other day
of the week. The precisely aligned pattern of our calendar — days, weeks and
months — repeats itself exactly every 400 years. In that 400 year period
there are 688 Friday the 13ths. "Just our luck!," some might say.

And, though they would mean it facetiously, they would, indeed, be right.
For until the patriarchal revolution, both Fridays and 13’s were held in the
very highest esteem. Both the day and the number were associated with the
Great Goddesses, and therefore, regarded as the sacred essence of luck and
good fortune. Thirteen is certainly the most essentially female number — the
average number of menstrual cycles in a year. The approximate number, too of annual cycles of the moon. When Chinese women make offerings of moon cakes, there are sure to be 13 on the platter. Thirteen is the number of blood,
fertility and lunar potency.




Return!

May there come with you

Thirteen deer

Thirteen eagles

Thirteen white horses

Thirteen rainbows

Your steps move thirteen mountains.

-Mazatec Shaman Song


Representing as it does, the number of revolutions the moon makes around the earth in a year, 13 was the number of regeneration for pre-Columbian
Mexicans. In ancient Israel, where 13 was a sanctified number, 13 items were decreed necessary for the tabernacle. At 13 years of age, a boy was (and still is) initiated into the adult Jewish community. In Wicca, the pagan Goddess tradition of Old Europe, communicants convene in covens of 13 participants. Thirteen was also auspicious for the Egyptians, who believed that life has 13 stages, the last of which is death — the transition to eternal life. Death in ancient Egypt represented transformation rather than termination. The beginning as well as the end.

Post-patriarchal mythology is also rich with symbolic references to the
mystical power of 13. Besides Christ and his 12 disciples, there are Jacob
and his 12 sons, Odysseus and his 12 companions, Medea and her 12 princesses, Romulous and his 12 shepherds, Roland and his 12 peers, Arthur and his 12 knights, and the head of Osiris and his 12 dismembered body parts. Not to mention Scarlet O’Hara and her 13-inch waist. The United States has a full complement of significant 13’s, beginning with the original 13 colonies. The Great Seal pictures 13 stars, 13 bars, and a bald eagle sporting 13 tail feathers, holding 13 arrows and 13 olive branches. The official motto, "E Pluribus Unum" contains 13 letters.

Friday, too, was associated with the early Mother Creation Goddesses for
whom that day was named. In Anglo-Saxon, Scandinavian, Icelandic and
Teutonic cultures she was called variously, Freya, Freia, Freyja, Fir, Frea
and Frig. Friday is Frig’s Day, Frigedaeg, in Old English, Fredag in Danish, Freitag in Dutch. In Mediterranean lands, She reigned as Venus. In Latin, Friday is the Day of Venus, Dies Veneris; Vendredi in French,Venerdi in Italian and Viernes in Spanish.

Held holy in Her honor, Friday was observed as the day of Her special
celebrations. Jews around the world still begin the observance of the
Sabbath at sunset on Friday evenings. All work is put away, a feast
prepared, the table set, everything and everyone spanking clean. The family
gathers to usher in the day of prayer and rest. The mother and her daughters
kindle two white candles to light the welcome way for the entrance of the
Sabbath, personified as the Sabbath Bride. Friday is the Sabbath in the
Islamic world. Friday is also sacred to Oshun, the Yoruban orisha of opulent
sensuality and overwhelming femininity.

Like Venus, Frig was the Goddess of love and sex, of fertility and
creativity. Her name became the Anglo-Saxon noun for love, and in the
sixteenth century, frig came to mean "to copulate." Friday, Her hallowed
day, was considered to be lucky for woman. The church deemed marriage
inappropriate for Friday, and, therefore, unlucky. This was a complete
perversion of the prior popular opinion that Friday, the blessed day of the
Love Goddess, was the best day to marry.

But old passions die hard. And pregnant remnants of the past survive in
contemporary custom. For instance, the celebration of Friday the 13th as
Sadie Hawkins Day, the one day when it is acceptable for a woman to propose marriage to a man.

Far be it from me (the pagan) to point this out ... but wasn't the betrayal during the Prayers at Gethsemane, which was following the Last Supper, which was on Holy Thursday?

Look you two--and you know who you are--I am a former Catholic in schooling only. I didn't really pay any attention to all that stuff when I was being taught because I was reading "Wicca for the Solitary Practioner" at the time. And, Elspode, what you said. Totally. I stand in the presence of Greatness! :) That's, like, practically a Thesis paper!

people, people, please, calm down! (stands in soap box and opens up a parchment) I, Lt Natheniell Ingersull, in accordance to our supreme law of Salem, do hereby declare Sarah Good, guilty of witchcraft and other slanderous crimes far hideous to mention. In respect to our law and jurisdiction, you are now sentenced to burn at the stake until . (taking off his hat) Let the games begin.

(Crowd cheers)

Not only are you 45, you are a history professor to boot.

good show! (clap, clap, clap!)

Sarah Good would be the exception. Usually they were whipped or whipped and then burned. They didn't like to skip the whipping because the accused was stripped to the waist and tied to a buggy/wagon wheel, for that. ;)

I thought they were whipped and then hanged. And one guy was crushed to death with stones. I'll have to find it at home, but I have a book debunking common historical fallacies that says no witches were ever burned in Salem.

i like the one where they hold them under the water because witches don't drown.

of course, i also like when they pushed marge simpson off the cliff and it turns out she really was a witch.

What? No witches burned at Salem!!! Damn! And no Jew's were killed in Nazi Germany!

HA!

History show's again and again how nature point's up the folly of man.

Godzilla!