Numeration is the concept that arose out of the need to determine scope and scale. Without the ability to number things, descriptions of quantity and size are entirely subjective. “Big,” “small,” “bigger,” “many,” and “few” mean entirely different things to different people. The need to be particular is very important if one is to learn to understand and control the physical world. The concept of numeration has, however, a completely different meaning in the realm of spirit.

Numbers themselves are actually creative powers. They were not invented by humans, but pre-existed humans. Each number has intrinsic meaning that goes far beyond the physical. For example, 1 says everything about unity, but nothing about relationships. 2 speaks about relationships, but says nothing about unity. Let us give you a story to illustrate why this is important:

Five hundred years ago, fever raged in a small city near some marshes. Many people and even animals sickened and died – so many that there were not enough strong survivors to bury the dead. The smell in the streets was overwhelming, and so were the grief and fear and confusion.

A man knocked on a door. A child opened the door. The man asked who was home, but the child said nothing. The man walked through the house and found everyone had died except for the child, who apparently had been stricken mute by the tragedy.

The man picked up the child and put her in his wagon. He drove a very long way, for one night and two days, until he came to his own home in the forest. Several years passed. The man, who made his living by making and selling simple furniture, had looked after the child as though she was his own daughter, but she had never spoken a word. He had taught her to read and write, and to do simple addition and subtraction, but, as he was not a highly educated man, that was all he could give her.

One day they sat on a bench in the sun, and the man had a sudden thought. His attempts to talk to the child about her inability or refusal to speak had been unsuccessful, but perhaps if he wrote to her about it, she might answer. He picked up her slate and a stub of chalk, and he wrote, “Why do you not speak?” She looked at the question for a while, and then she wrote, “not supposed to”. He wrote, “Do you know why?” She wrote, “people die”.

“If you speak, people die?” he chalked. She wrote, “yes”. “Can you explain?”

The child wrote slowly: “Grandma said Be quiet Mommy’s sick. But I wasn’t quiet. I said MOMMY MOMMY. And she died. And grandma died. And everybody died”

“If you speak to me, will I die?” “YES”, she wrote firmly.

The man spent a couple of days pondering the problem, but couldn’t decide what to do. One day he gathered up some sticks, and went to find the girl. “How many?” he asked as he placed the sticks on the old table. She held up six fingers. He nodded. Then he picked up the sticks and a piece of string and tied them tightly together. He laid the bundle back on the table, and asked again, “How many?” The girl was unsure. Did he mean sticks separately, or together? Was the answer one or six?

The man picked up his flint and struck a spark against a few leaves in a stone bowl. He laid the bundle of sticks in the bowl and burned them up completely. When there was nothing but ash left in the bowl, he looked at the girl, and asked, “How many?”

The girl sat still for a minute, and then wrote on her slate, “Get more sticks,” so the man went out and returned in a minute with six more little pieces of wood. The girl took them, and turning away, fumbled in her apron pocket for something. Soon she laid the sticks back on the table, but now they were tied together with a pretty piece of ribbon. She pointed at the ribbon, and wrote, “What is this?” He said, “ribbon,” but she shook her head. She untied the sticks and laid the ribbon to one side. She laid the sticks side by side, pointed at them one at a time, and wrote “mommy daddy baby grandpa grandma me”. Then she pointed at the ribbon and wrote again, “What is this?” “Ah!” he thought, and then said, “family?” She nodded.

Then she picked up five of the sticks and put them in the bowl, pointing at the flint to indicate that he should burn them up, which he did. Once they were ash, she pointed at the one remaining stick and held up one finger. Then she pointed at the ashes in the bowl and held up one finger.

At last she erased her slate with her apron and wrote “Get more sticks.” The man brought six more sticks, which she tied up again with her ribbon. On her slate she wrote “How many?” but without waiting for an answer, she looked at the man who had taken care of her for so long and held up two fingers. He nodded slowly. She untied the ribbon and reached for his hand. She put her small hand beside his, and clumsily tied one of his fingers to one of hers, then sat quietly looking at their joined hands. After a while, she lifted up her free hand and held up one finger.

Spirit sees the unity in diversity. It does not separate and count the way that people do. It groups, gathers, uses conceptual thinking to divine the true number that underlies a certain situation. The child in the story was not educated to think conceptually, but, more importantly, she had not been educated away from conceptual thinking. And she most certainly grasped the import of this interaction with her new father.

Did she ever speak again? Who knows? Perhaps her father found some way to overturn her irrational fear. But maybe not. Like irrational numbers, irrational fears have a powerful reality of their own.