Triskaidekaphobia is the name of the traditional fear of the number thirteen.

This is a fear that is found in persons world wide, from pre-Christian times to the present. In these times of advanced rational Science in high civilizations, it is still easy to find modern buildings that skip the number thirteen in the numbering of rooms, and entire floors of rooms.

Renowned scientist Albert Einstein said the superstition attached to the number thirteen is humanity’s longest tradition of all its traditions, and the most embarrassing to high intelligence in which, the embarrassment notwithstanding, it is secretly alive and thrivingly well, ubiquitously!

Albert Einstein’s strong resentment against the superstition was, most likely, because in his science profession the functionality of numbers is at its profoundest and, so far, unsurpassed.

The triskaidekaphobia superstition, and all others about other numbers, trivializes the profound meanings numbers have in scientific analyses.

Einstein’s venerable reputation and righteous umbrage nonetheless, superstition is a hard-wired brain function generated from and by flesh-and-blood cerebral tissue. By this function, the brain devises connections between objects we recognize even when no such connections exist in hard reality.

For example, every living person sometimes sees human forms in cloud formations hundreds of miles away high up in the sky.

For example, countless persons have at some time or another seen the face of Jesus in a potato chip!

For example, when military General Flavius Valerius Constantinus in the year 312 thought he saw high up in the heavens an image of a Christian Cross inscribed with the words “In hoc signio vinces” (“In this sign, conquer”), his victories eventually led him to become the first Christian Emperor of the Roman Empire, Emperor Constantine the Great.

Quite literally, in the brain alongside the brain’s predilection for superstition is the brain’s genetic-based romance with numbers.

At least three areas of the brain engage in numerical assessing: the cortex, the parietal lobe and the temporal lobe. Hence, out of the interrelation of the two regular functions of the brain, superstition and numeration, arises often and easily, triskaidekaphobia, among countless other prejudices: evil, righteous, comical, and other.

Superstition and numeration being thoroughly normal healthy brain functions, it is no wonder that both were practised over three thousand years ago by Babylonians, Chaldeans, Chinese, Greeks, Japanese, Medes, Persians. All those Ancient human societies have faded into nothingness a long time ago; but the superstition of triskaidekaphobia is alive and well and still thriving today because it is generated by natural healthy brain functions.

To date, among thousands and thousands, there has been only one scholar who has cared enough to offer a rational explanation of the beginnings of this virtually universal inexplicable fear.

That explanation was attempted by Thomas Simpson. Thomas Simpson was a highly educated scholar of Mathematics. He was a Christian who lived in England in the eighteenth century. He was a permanent member of The Royal Society in England and of The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

Quite normally, Simpson was thoroughly familiar with the prevalence of triskaidekaphobia in his Anglo-Saxon societal Culture; especially so because in their spellings his two names have a combined total of thirteen letters!

He said challenging comments from others about that fact never ceased throughout his life. In his youth the teasing sometimes became so prevalent an irritant that he had asked his father for permission to either add a letter or to drop one. His father’s saying it was easily permissible went a long way to giving him, the son, the inner strength to delay the alteration. He said he was glad he lived long enough to be proud of his genuine connection to triskaideka.

Perhaps his father’s permission had given him strength because his father’s name was Thomas Simpson, too. The father was a poor farmer who must have suffered a fair amount of triskaidekaphobic ribbing in his life, too.

The son, being Christian, was familiar with the murmurings of triskaidekaphobia within his religion. And so, that is where he began with his rational analysis.

Jesus and his twelve disciples totaled thirteen. An unlucky number, supposedly, by universal tradition.

However, the Messiah, Son of God, had been prophesied by ancient prophecy from almighty God Jehovah Himself centuries earlier. Hence, paradoxically, the ill luck incurred by association with triskaideka had to be accepted because it was the only way eventually to everlasting happiness in the company and worship of Father-Son-Holy Ghost.

In other words, triskaideka’s ill luck was only temporary, and merely incidental; ordained to become infinite blessed good fortune, in God’s time, by the most pointedly expressed will of God.

That is why after triskaideka was broken when disciple Judas Iscariot committed suicide, triskaideka had to be restored.

And so, disciple Matthias was democratically elected by the other eleven disciples to take the former place of Judas Iscariot.

Even in those years when the ill luck attached to triskaideka seemed obvious by general societal tradition, its blessing was hidden in plain sight for those ‘who had the eyes to see it.’

The paradox of joy out of pain is ubiquitous in Nature; it is essential in Christianity in that God’s everlasting Kingdom will be established only through the infinite pain of crucifixion ‘unto death’ of the Messiah, His only begotten Son.

Just as Judas Iscariot was accorded as his surname the name of the town in which he was born, so may we accord Jesus the surname of Nazareth. Both the names Judas Iscariot and Jesus Nazareth are everlastingly blessed for having thirteen letters in their spelling, in Thomas Simpson’s version of the tradition of triskaidekaphobia.

Thomas Simpson averred that within Christian belief there can be no more significant testimony to the intrinsic high worth of the number thirteen than that the total number of words uttered by Jesus on the Cross, is fifty-two; which itself is a multiple of thirteen:

“Father, forgive them for they know not what they do. Verily, I say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with me in paradise. Woman, behold they son. Behold thy mother. I thirst.

My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me! It is finished.

Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.”

Thomas Simpson’s revelation of the abiding Christian blessing contained in the number thirteen applies beyond Christianity into the triskaideka promise of good fortune in the secular human world.

Thomas Simpson’s specialty in Mathematics was the Proof by Exhaustion. Proof by Exhaustion in possible Mathematical calculation is one of at least twelve techniques of proof. According to Thomas Simpson, these at least twelve algorithms of proof are applicable also to all processes beyond Mathematics.

When the spelling of a person’s name has thirteen letters, that person’s destiny is favored by natural laws of the universe for joyous righteous success, for as long as the owner of the name does nothing to end (to exhaust) the triskaideka benevolent algorithm.
For these persons for all eternity there is triskaidekaphilia; good fortune by the number thirteen. Examples:

Yvonne De Carlo, Rene Descartes, George Foreman, Connie Francis, Audrey Hepburn, Burt Lancaster, Richard Loller, Albert Luthuli, Mary Magdalene, Nelson Mandela, Freddy Mercury, Robert Mitchum, Nana Mouskouri, Sidney Poitier, Suzanne Somers, Shirley Temple.

On the other hand, when person’s whose thirteen-lettered names have brought them success, but who exhaust their triskaideka advantage by deliberately committing unrighteous acts, that success will turn into catastrophic fate forever. Examples:

Michael Ansara, Yasmine Bleeth, Jeffrey Dahmer, John Dillinger, Lynette Fromme, Eugene Hackman, Charles Manson, Marilyn Monroe, Horatio Nelson, Pontius Pilate, Wallis Simpson, Robert Shulman, Jean Stapleton, Andrew Windsor, Edward Windsor, Aileen Wuornos.