11. The general number of magick, or energy tending to change.
Crowley, 777
I recently read the first Harry Potter novel, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s (in the UK edition, Philosopher’s) Stone, which I scoffed at when it dropped and have avoided until now, certain it must compare poorly with the Prydain, Narnia and, particularly, Earthsea books which blew my mind as a tyke. Though decidedly lighter and fluffier than these classics, I found Rowling’s prose and magic school milieu tasty, moist and surprisingly nourishing.
On pg. 11 of the 2001 Scholastic edition of HP and the SS (for H.P. Blavatsky and the Nazi SS, try Peter Levenda’s Unholy Alliance and/or conduct your own investigation), Rowling writes,
He found what he was looking for in his inside pocket. It seemed to be a silver cigarette lighter. He flicked it open, held it up in the air, and clicked it. The nearest street lamp went out with a little pop. He clicked it again – the next lamp flickered into darkness. Twelve times he clicked the Put-Outer, until the only lights left on the whole street were two tiny pinpricks in the distance, which were the eyes of the cat watching him.
Familiar territory for those who experience SLI or know about this photo sensor hack.
Dumbledore comments on pg. 12,
“We’ve had precious little to celebrate for eleven years.”
and again on pg. 13,
“All this ‘You-Know-Who’ nonsense – for eleven years I have been trying to persuade people to call him by his proper name: Voldemort.”
From the Nearly Headless Nick chronology, we can infer that Voldemort started to rain on the magic love parade around the summer (if not on July 31st) of 1969. Chapter Three puts us almost eleven years after the events of Chapter One, leading up to Harry’s birthday and official induction into the magic world, forming a chronological 11-11 with Chapter One as the dash.
If it was Monday – and you could usually count on Dudley to know the days of the week, because of television – then tomorrow, Tuesday, was Harry’s eleventh birthday.
Of course, his birthdays were never exactly fun – last year, the Dursleys had given him a coat hanger and a pair of Uncle Vernon’s old socks. Still, you weren’t eleven every day.
pg. 53
The lighted dial of Dudley’s watch, which was dangling over the edge of the sofa on his fat wrist, told Harry he’d be eleven in ten minutes’ time.
pg. 55
One minute to go and he’d be eleven. Thirty seconds . . . twenty . . . ten . . . nine – maybe he’d wake Dudley up, just to annoy him – three . . . two . . . one . . .
BOOM.
pg. 56 (5 + 6)
The number of the vault at Gringotts also encodes an eleven, as on pg. 92 (9 + 2) we read,
“An’ I’ve got a letter here from Professor Dumbledore,” said Hagrid importantly, throwing out his chest. “It’s about the You-Know-What in vault seven hundred and thirteen.”
and
“What’s the You-Know-What in vault Seven Hundred and Thirteen?” Harry asked.
On pg. 94, we learn about the magic world’s currency (CNN’s currency converter currently features an Allstate ad with “DRIVERS WHO SWITCHED SAVED $353 ON AVERAGE” with the words (white) maybe 3.8 times smaller than the number in navy blue, though by the time you view it the eleven may be encoded differently),
“The gold ones are Galleons,” he explained. “Seventeen silver Sickles to a Galleon and twenty-nine Knuts to a Sickle, it’s easy enough.”
and that
Vault seven hundred and thirteen had no keyhole.
The key to the 11-encoded vault is evidently no key. Too, in this case at any rate, wand length is significant.
“Your father, on the other hand, favored a mahogany wand. Eleven inches. Pliable. A little more power and excellent for transfiguration. Well, I say your father favored it – it’s really the wand that chooses the wizard, of course.”
pg. 103
“Tricky customer, eh? Not to worry, we’ll find the perfect match here somewhere – I wonder, now – yes, why not – unusual combination – holly and phoenix feather, eleven inches, nice and supple.”
Harry took the wand. He felt a sudden warmth in his fingers. He raised the wand above his head, brought it swishing down through the dusty air and a stream of red and gold sparks shot from the end like a firework, throwing dancing spots of light onto the walls. Hagrid whooped and clapped and Mr. Ollivander cried, “Oh, bravo! Yes, indeed, oh, very good. Well, well, well . . . how curious . . . how very curious . . .”
pg. 106
On 9/1/1991 (inferred), Harry catches the magic train to Hogwarts at King’s Cross,
“I just take the train from platform nine and three-quarters at eleven o’ clock,” he read.
pg. 112
Getting desperate, Harry asked for the train that left at eleven o’clock, but the guard said there wasn’t one.
pg. 114
A sign overhead said Hogwarts Express, eleven o’clock. Harry looked behind him and saw a wrought-iron archway where the barrier had been, with the words Platform Nine and Three-Quarters on it. He had done it.
pg. 117
and buys candy with supersingular primes.
Not wanting to miss anything, he got some of everything and paid the woman eleven silver Sickles and seven bronze Knuts.
pg. 126
On pg. 175-176 we learn that vault seven hundred and thirteen was broken into on Harry’s birthday, 7/31.
GRINGOTTS BREAK-IN LATEST
Investigations continue into the break-in at Gringotts on 31 July, widely believed to be the work of Dark wizards or witches unknown.
Gringotts goblins today insisted that nothing had been taken. The vault that was searched had in fact been emptied the same day.
“But we’re not telling you what was in there, so keep your noses out if you know what’s good for you,” said a Gringotts spokesgoblin this afternoon.
Harry remembered Ron telling him on the train that someone had tried to rob Gringotts, but Ron hadn’t mentioned the date.
“Hagrid!” said Harry, “that Gringotts break-in happened on my birthday! It might’ve been happening while we were there!”
There was no doubt about it, Hagrid definitely didn’t meet Harry’s eyes this time. He grunted and offered him another rock cake. Harry read the story again. The vault that was searched had in fact been emptied earlier that day. Hagrid had emptied vault seven hundred and thirteen, if you could call it emptying, taking out that grubby little package. Had that been what the thieves were looking for?
Eleven is mentioned again prior to the midnight duel with Malfoy.
“Half-past eleven,” Ron muttered at last, “we’d better go.”
pg. 192
The opening sentence of Chapter Eleven, “Quidditch” (9 letters), mentions the eleventh month,
As they entered November, the weather turned very cold.
pg. 223
and the first Quidditch match scene starts,
By eleven o’clock, the whole school seemed to be out in the stands around the Quidditch field.
pg. 228
The last two elevens are on pg. 308 (3 + 8):
The following morning, notes were delivered to Harry, Hermione, and Neville at the breakfast table.
Your detention will take place at eleven o’clock tonight. Meet Mr. Filch in the entrance hall.
Professor M. McGonagall
Harry had forgotten they still had detentions to do in the furor over the points they’d lost. He half expected Hermione to complain that this was a whole night of studying lost, but she didn’t say a word. Like Harry, she felt they deserved what they’d got.
At eleven o’clock that night, they said good-bye to Ron in the common room and went down to the entrance hall with Neville.
My cursory elevenalysis concludes with fifteen (Hebrew terms with this Gematria value include those for “steam, vapour”, “Splendour, the eigth Sephira”, “overflowing, abounding”, “He who impels; to force”, and “to hide”) instances of the word “eleven”, not counting “eleventh” or the chapter number (which would make seventeen, another supersingular prime [of which there are fifteen], the “least random number“, the number of steps in the Discordian pyramid, the number of chapters in Rowling’s novel, and of “the masculine unity” according to Crowley; Hebrew terms with this Gematria value include those for “narrative, subtle discourse”, “to dream, rave”, “sacrificed”, “to seethe, boil”, “to brighten, make joyful”, and “a circle, orbit”), which you can confirm by braving Scholastic’s wrath and torrenting the text.
Was I dismayed to find, not eleven elevens, but fifteen/seventeen? Nah.
There are fifteen tractates to the Corpus Hermeticum, Marsilio Ficino’s Latin translation of which dropped in 1463 (fifteenth century, 14 + 63 = 77), though John Everard’s 1650 (seventeenth century, 16 + 50 = 66) English translation tacked on two more texts, for a total of seventeen.
As a kid, I read an Omni article about fifteen and the “magic” you can do with billiard balls (which I’ll transcribe here after I retrieve it from my mom’s). As such, I was not surprised when I cracked open Nigel Pennick’s Magical Alphabets today and found this:
The simplest magic square is the square of three by three, ascribed to Saturn, in which each line adds up to 15 and the total of all the numbers added together is 45. This is the square most commonly used by European magicians. Its traditionally associated colour is black, signifying the outermost planet and the bottom tier of the ziggurat.
4 9 2
3 5 7
8 1 6
Fifteen and the Luo Shu square are also used in feng shui.
Too, the Greek letter “Xi” (close enough to the roman numeral XI) means “fifteen stars” and has a numerical value of 60 (45 + 15 [4 + 5 + 1 + 5]).
Other stellar links from fifteen to eleven include this “Washington success token” (or Adam Weishaupt talisman)
Currently there is a controversy as to whether these coins are associate with Washington’s second inauguration and therefore date from the period ca. 1792-1795 or whether they are mid Nineteenth century gaming pieces. The obverse shows a bust right portrait of Washington in military dress, distinguished from the other large planchet Success token obverses by the long pointed nose. There is a long die crack, as found on most examples, running from the rim between the N and G of WASHINGTON up through the bridge of the nose; at the hairline the crack moves upward to the rim at about 11:00 o’clock. On the reverse is the Eye of Providence with fifteen stars and fifteen long rays. As the center is usually softly struck one can surmise the design was cut rather shallow in the die. Because of this weak eye it is difficult to determine how to align the reverse. Breen placed the rosette in the legend at 6:00 o’clock (as do Yeoman and Alexander), while Fuld placed in at 9:00 o’clock. Rulau showed the rosette at 11:00 o’clock.
and this commentary on our occult space program’s insignia.
On August 12, 1998, the Air Force launched another Titan IV (mission A-20) with similar characteristics to the June 1996 K-16 Mercury launch. Instead of a pretty girl, the payload patch for this mission featured a flying pig, dressed in white like the girl, and carrying an umbrella like the girl (Figure 11). But it also featured fifteen stars—i.e. one more than the last launch—plus a gold star. Notably, whereas the earlier patch had only one globe, this featured two, possibly indicating a change in operations such as expanding the ground coverage of the satellite constellation. Finally, the patch included the phrase “saving the best for last,” a clear hint that this was the last payload of that type.
Figure 11The Space Review, “Space Age heiroglyphs“
Not to “force” or “impel” any of these connections, but the two exclamation marks following this phrase are also “clear hints” if you ask me!!
And on that note, fifteen in binary is…
1111.
Here’s Rowling’s June 2008 Harvard Commencement Address, “The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination.”
¡Cuídate!
UPDATE, 3-18-09
Just read this in the CP.
The Vatican said in January that Pope Benedict XVI would soon issue guidelines to help Catholics understand which “sightings” of the Virgin Mary and Jesus are legitimate and which are phony (such as “apparitions” that seem to have been created for quick sale on eBay). When a claim occurs, the local bishop will be expected to convene a panel of theologians, mental-health people and priests who will investigate (and, if the sighting is demonic, summon an exorcist). (A 2003 Vatican paper noted that only 11 of the 295 reported apparitions during the 20th century were “genuine.”) [Daily Mail (London), 1-13-09]
News of the Weird 3-15-09
UPDATE, 4-18-09
Looked through all my Omnis for that “fifteen magic” article… no dice. However, I did discover that the Pittsburgh branch of the Federal Reserve is at 717 Grant St. (where James Grant’s Highlanders got severely owned by French and French-allied Native American badasses).
As I learned from a New York Times article in the Post-Gazette,
The French Navy captured 11 suspected pirates off the coast of Kenya Wednesday, the French Ministry of Defense announced.
Wednesday, April 15th.
¡Cuídate!