HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: If I had a dollar for every time I see 9:11 on the clock, or 12:34, or 11:11, I’d be so rich! I see my birthday, too, 10:17. SO often!
Is it that I just don’t remark on the other numbers, and only remember the special ones?
My parents had a tradition that when either saw 11:11, no matter where they were,they'd think of each other. Jonathan and I do that, too.
Do you see certain numbers?
Do you think it’s random or coincidence or selective notice?
Angel Numbers
Has it ever happened to you? Everywhere you look, you seem to see the same sequence of repeated numbers. Wake up in the middle of the night, it’s 4:44. Glance at your cellphone: 4:44. Walk the dog and notice a car drive by with a license that begins or ends with 444. At first, you dismiss it as coincidence, but then it keeps on happening. There’s a brochure for the new pizza takeout in your mailbox and their address is 444 Pine Street. And you begin to wonder, could it mean anything?
That depends. To believers of numerology, every number, from our date of birth to our house number, has a unique meaning and holds significance in our everyday lives. And because we are surrounded by numbers, those who believe in spirit guides also believe numbers allow them to communicate with us, which is why they are referred to as “angel numbers.”
Of course, not everyone believes in spirit guides, and skeptics have been known to call numerology a pseudoscience—a practice or belief that claims to be factual but is incompatible with scientific method.
They will tell you that angel numbers are nonsense, or that your repeated sightings of 4-4-4 are nothing more than coincidence created by confirmation bias. In other words, you are looking for, and therefore noticing, incidents of 4-4-4 in the same way you might be noticing white Honda Civics after buying one. That there were always plenty of white Honda Civics, but you just didn’t pay attention because there had been no reason to do so before you owned one.
In my latest Marketville mystery, Before There Were Skeletons, my protagonist, cold case private investigator Calamity (Callie) Barnstable finds herself seeing a whole lot of 5-5-5s. Could it be some sort of sign?
She’s not superstitious by nature, but business has been slow and she’s willing to grasp at any straw.
And so, she emails Misty Rivers, a self-proclaimed psychic and Tarot card reader who has helped her with cases in the past, but has since married and moved to British Columbia, two thousand-plus miles away.
Misty answers promptly, providing an explanation of both numerology and angel numbers, and, to her credit, the admission that some folks view the latter as confirmation bias, but concludes with the following message: “Just as in Tarot, there can be many interpretations for the same sequence of numbers. In the case of 5-5-5, however, the most likely message is that significant changes are coming your way.”
Misty goes on to remind Callie that change is inevitable and that without it our lives would be stagnant, and concludes with, “Facing change and new opportunities with an open mind will allow you to view things from a different perspective.”
Callie’s not sure whether she sides with the skeptics or the spirit guides, but she’s about to find out one thing: plenty of changes are coming her way, and they all start with a single cold case.
Do you believe in angel numbers?
HANK: You must notice, at least, right? Tell us what you see!
About Before There Were Skeletons
The last time anyone saw Veronica Goodman was the night of February 14, 1995, the only clue to her disappearance a silver heart-shaped pendant, found in the parking lot behind the bar where she worked. Twenty-seven years later, Veronica’s daughter, Kate, just a year old when her mother vanished, hires Past & Present Investigations to find out what happened that fateful night.
Calamity (Callie) Barnstable is drawn to the case, the similarities to her own mother’s disappearance on Valentine’s Day 1986 hauntingly familiar. A disappearance she thought she’d come to terms with. Until Veronica’s case, and five high school yearbooks, take her back in time…a time before there were skeletons.
Universal Book Link: https://books2read.com/u/mqXVze
About the Author
A former journalist and magazine editor, Judy Penz Sheluk is the bestselling author of two mystery series: The Glass Dolphin Mysteries and the Marketville Mysteries. Her short crime fiction appears in several collections, including the Superior Shores Anthologies, which she also edited.
Judy is a member of Sisters in Crime, International Thriller Writers, the Short Mystery Fiction Society, and Crime Writers of Canada, where she served as Chair on the Board of Directors. She lives in Northern Ontario on the shores of Lake Superior. Find her at judypenzsheluk.com.
