Arithmancy
Mar. 15th, 2004 10:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
in_the_blueOn my role-play board, one of the characters asked Sirius what Arithmancy was.
Talk about flying by the seat of your pants!![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sff_corgi beseeched me to share it with everyone (and really, I would never not do something she asked me to do so nicely), so all interested parties are invited to step behind the veil and find out what I came up with.
Sirius looked startled--he couldn't imagine someone not knowing what Arithmancy was. 'Arithmancy is... well, it's based on standard mathematics; it combines that and numerology and archaeological and geographical distance mapping, and stellar cartography and algebraic calculations. It's complex but it's fascinating. I liked it. In fact, when I was in prison I used to do Arithmancy calculations to try to maintain my sanity. Since it wasn't a particularly emotional thing, I could do it all I wanted. It's very logical and very precise. One of its main tenets is that numbers give off vibrations; Arithmancy is largely the study of those vibrations and how they affect the world around us over great distances. And of course, it's all interrelated, because all the sciences are interrelated.'
He took in the entirely baffled look on Sunny's face and smiled. Perhaps it was a case of giving far too much information, or perhaps it was just a disconnect between something as supposedly intuitive as Divination with something as logical as mathematics. But really, all magic could be described mathematically at its base, if one were really to go that far.
Of course, most of the time it was just easier to say 'it's magic!' and explain things that way.
Hmm. I wonder how I can be a word-whore and reuse this explanation in my latest Draco fic?
Talk about flying by the seat of your pants!
sff_corgi beseeched me to share it with everyone (and really, I would never not do something she asked me to do so nicely), so all interested parties are invited to step behind the veil and find out what I came up with. Sirius looked startled--he couldn't imagine someone not knowing what Arithmancy was. 'Arithmancy is... well, it's based on standard mathematics; it combines that and numerology and archaeological and geographical distance mapping, and stellar cartography and algebraic calculations. It's complex but it's fascinating. I liked it. In fact, when I was in prison I used to do Arithmancy calculations to try to maintain my sanity. Since it wasn't a particularly emotional thing, I could do it all I wanted. It's very logical and very precise. One of its main tenets is that numbers give off vibrations; Arithmancy is largely the study of those vibrations and how they affect the world around us over great distances. And of course, it's all interrelated, because all the sciences are interrelated.'
He took in the entirely baffled look on Sunny's face and smiled. Perhaps it was a case of giving far too much information, or perhaps it was just a disconnect between something as supposedly intuitive as Divination with something as logical as mathematics. But really, all magic could be described mathematically at its base, if one were really to go that far.
Of course, most of the time it was just easier to say 'it's magic!' and explain things that way.
Hmm. I wonder how I can be a word-whore and reuse this explanation in my latest Draco fic?
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no subject
Date: 2004-03-17 03:51 am (UTC)The reason we use the star Sirius for navigation is because of its relative proximity to Earth. Depending on your source and where our planet is and the time of year, Sirius is between eight and nine light-years away. This is why it appears as the brightest star in the night sky (and third brightest object beyond the moon and Jupiter); it's closest to us. So yes, we use Sirius because we can measure its light and its vibration. Its numerological value, by the way, is five, which vibrates the following qualities: expansiveness, vision, adventure, and the constructive use of freedom.
I liked that last bit when I was in prison.
Now... damn. This is why I don't teach this subject: my name resonates to seven (analysis, understanding, knowledge, awareness, studiousness, meditation), unless I use my middle name in the calculation in which case I resonate to two (cooperation, adaptability, consideration of others, partnering, mediating). Add that to my current location and the absolute and light-year distances from my stellar counterpart, and it's...
far too confusing.
I'll stick to teaching my students to become Animagi. That's simple in comparison.