![]() The number was also central to the cult of Mithra, which believed the soul rose to paradise through seven planetary spheres. The number 7 was the fundamental number of the Rosicrucians, who used it as an organizational basis for their text Chymische Hochzeit Christiani Rosenkreutz (1459 Alchemical Wedding of Christian Rosycross). The seven deadly sins are well-known in Christian tradition. ![]() In ancient Egypt there were seven paths to heaven and seven heavenly cows Osiris led his father through seven halls of the underworld. Ptolemaic diagram of a geocentric system, from the star atlas Harmonia Macrocosmica by the cartographer Andreas Cellarius, 1660. The seven candles of the Jewish menorah that burned in the Tabernacle symbolized the Creation and, according to the English scholar Robert Graves, may be connected to the seven planets of antiquity. ![]() Many cultures recognized seven planets (Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn) in the sense of “wandering bodies,” unlike the “fixed stars,” which retain the same relative position in the night sky. The phases of the Moon last approximately seven days, with 4 × 7 = 28 days in a month and also in a female menstrual period. In China 7 determines the stages of female life: a girl gets her “milk teeth” at seven months, loses them at seven years, reaches puberty at 2 × 7 = 14 years, and reaches menopause at 7 × 7 = 49. Shakespeare wrote of the seven ages of man, an idea that goes back much earlier. Tiw was a Norse god of war, parallel to Mars in role but to Zeus in etymology, and Frigg was the Old English version of Frea (or Freya), wife of Woden (= Odin). There are seven days of the week, named after various ancient gods and planets (Sun-day, Moon-day, Tiw’s-day, Woden’s-day, Thor’s-day, Frigg’s-day, Saturn-day). The number 7 is often considered lucky, and it has a definite mystique, perhaps because it is a prime number-that is, it cannot be obtained by multiplying two smaller numbers together. Counting from 1, the eighth note up the scale is the exceedingly harmonious octave, which is how the name arose. Pythagorean interest in the mathematical patterns in music gives 7 a privileged role, for there are seven distinct notes in the musical scale-corresponding roughly to the white notes on a piano. In medieval education, students pursued the trivium (grammar, rhetoric, and logic) and the quadrivium (music, arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy), a total of seven subjects, collectively known as the liberal arts. The sum of the spiritual 3 and the material 4 is 7.
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