QUOTE(Samas @ Sep 20 2007, 02:01 PM)
Do Catholics not accept the significance of magical numbers or do they think them evil like they do magic in general?
are these numbers of a holy nature or a magical nature? or both?
can someone please tell me why numbers became so embedded in magic and why the number 15 is assosciated with ishtar.
You should ask a priest, or request one to answer you from the Bishop, and write or visit at his convenience.
From my own knowledge of Catholic docrtine, I can say that they do not view "esoteric meanings of numbers" as an altogether evil concept. Whether they would approve of you using them to cast spells and invoke Ishtar is another matter.
Most numerology systems are derived from astronomical or linguistic observations. In the former case the number-meanings usually had a tie to some particular god or its legends and worship, in much the same way that the Bible employs numbers to underscore a thematic element. In the latter case, where words or letters have numeric values, each system ascribes different values and irrelevant meanings to words.
For both these reasons (that it relies upon idolatry and that it produces confusion even when dealing with sacred subjects), systematic numerology has been vigorously discouraged by the Church. This encouraged several hundred years of mathematical illiteracy in Europe, though numerology flourished (along with mathematics) in the eastern cultures.