Tag Archives: friday 13th

Haunted and Unlucky Numbers

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Are there haunted numbers around the world that mean bad luck? Around the world there are different numbers that are connected to bad luck, hauntings and ghosts and death. These are some of haunted and unlucky numbers around the world. 

From high risers and Beijing to flight numbers to New York and car numbers in Italy, they are all influenced by people’s fear for particular numbers. Some bad numbers come from dates where something horrible happened, the sound of it being similar to something bad or it may be biblical. 

And even today, in what we think is a modern world, free from old superstitions, the fear of haunted and unlucky numbers affects both the economy and how many floors there are in an elevator. 

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Number 4

Many places in the west, the number 4 is seen as a lucky number. To find a four clover means good luck, and according to superstition many places, the number 4 is seen as lucky since it is connected with so many things in nature like cardinal directions, the four seasons and the four elements. 

However, in Eastern Asia countries the number is seen as an haunted and unlucky number in countries like China, Korea and Japan. Four, written 四 or 肆 said out loud sounds a lot like the word for ‘Death’ 死. Many things skip this number because of this superstition like buildings, floors, car parks and addresses.

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Number 13

The name for the fear of number 13 is called triskaidekaphobia. Every year when Friday the 13th comes around in the U.S, the economy loses almost a billion dollars in business. As buildings in China for instance don’t have a 4th floor, many places in the U.S as well as other places in the west don’t have a 13th floor and houses often skip over the haunted and unlucky number 13.

There are a lot of theories as to why the number 13 has such a bad connection to it. Many of them connected to how many people sat around a dinner table. Like in the norse myth where the 13th guest turned up to a party with 12 Gods. One of them died and more bad luck followed. It is also connected to Judas and how he was the 13th guest at the last supper, the start of his betrayal to Jesus. 

Other reasons for this number is that On Friday, 13 October 1307, King Philip IV of France ordered the arrest of the Knights Templar, and most of the knights were tortured and killed, the end of calendars and how there is more than 12 true months in a year. This created problems for those making the calendars. 

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Number 17

In Italian culture, the number 13 is actually considered as a lucky number. But the number 17 is considered unlucky and has been since Roman times. When 17 is viewed as the Roman numeral, XVII it is anagrammatically to VIXI, which in the Latin language translates to “I lived” or “My life is over.” 

Due to this negative connotation, Italians avoid the number 17 in number airline seats, flights or the floors in buildings. The French carmaker Renault sold its “R17” model in Italy as “R177.” It is also for the same reason that Friday the 17th is the most unlucky day in Italy.

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Number 666

We find this demonic number in the Bible and is associated with the Beast of Revelation in chapter 13, verse 18. The haunted and unlucky numbers are known as a symbol for Antichrist himself or the devil and bear satanic powers. 

The fear of the number is called hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia. There are therefore many hesitating before boarding a flight number with the mark of the beast or picking up a phone with these numbers. This is as every other number, based solely on culture though. In Chinese, the word for six sounds similar to the word for smooth or flowing and is therefore a lucky number, not a satanic one. 

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28th of December – The Original Friday 13th

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On the Christian Calendar, apparently the 28th of December is the most unluckiest day on the calendar. The day was remembered as a sort of Friday the 13th. after a massacre of innocent children happened. This is the story of Childermass.

Once upon the time, the 28th of December was a day known as Feast of the Holy Innocent or Childermass. Why was it called Childermass? A bit odd name for a church day, but certainly the most fitting because of its backstory. The reason behind the name tells a sad story on tops of the memory of dead children.

The Massacre of Innocent in Bethlehem

“Herod the King, in his raging,
Charged he hath this day;
His men of might, in his own sight,
All children young, to slay.”

– The Coventry Carol

28th of December, or Childermass remembers the day when King Herod commanded the slaughter of all the young male children under the age of two in Bethlehem. The sources of this happening is what we have been told in the Bible as told in Matthew 2:16. 

The Romans appointed him King of Judea in 37 B.C, and King Herod executed the children to prevent the new King of the Jews to rise that was foretold in the Old Testament.

Read Also: Check out more Haunted and Unlucky Numbers her in the Moonmausoleum.

Most of the biblical scholars tend to believe the story of the massacre of the children is a myth, but the Church thinks differently and remember the day as it was a real thing that happened. The christian scholars think that the slaughtered children are the first Christian martyrs and are celebrated like that.

Childermass and the slaughter of innocent: The Massacre of the Innocents painted between 1582 and 1587 by Jacopo Tintoretto. It depicts the massacre that was believed to have happened in Bethlehem on 28th of December and is remembered as Childermass or Feast of the Holy Innocents.

In the western church the date is marked to be on 28th of December. In the eastern church it is marked on the 29th of December. Why then do we keep remembering this day that maybe didn’t even happen, perhaps even today? According to a CBC article on the matter, a Dr. Gary Waite, teaching about European religion, witchcraft and the devil says:

“In the medieval era, every household would have experienced the death of a child, The feast of the Holy Innocents would have spoken to an experience that almost all families shared.”

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And even though the church never intended that the 28th of December was going to be remembered to be an an unlucky one, folk traditions, fears and believes were not easily persuaded.

The Childermass day was considered cursed by many. In Francis Kildale’s glossary from 1855, he called it: “that the day of the week on which it falls is marked as a black day for the whole year to come.”

Superstitions of the Childermass Day

No ships were supposed to take off from the ports on 28th of December and it was considered omen for weather. The Childermass day was also a day one didn’t get married and it was dangerous for children just in general. Up until the seventeenth century it was considered good luck to beat the child with a stick on childermass to remember the suffering of Jesus.

Read More: Check out more Sailors Superstitions

Childermass, or the Holy Innocents Day is not really celebrated much today though, and the feeling that the day is unlucky has also dwindled over the years. In some household it is a day were the youngest gets all the power for the day, and in Mexico it is a day for younger people to prank the older.

Today we don’t really head the old superstitions of the olden days. Although. The number 13 is actually neglected on buildings storey buildings and the likes. So… What made the 28th any different?

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