I wasn't aware of any association with the number 36 at the age of 31, living in a house with the number 36.
The bell rang.
There was a guy I didn't know. I opened the door and straight away he said I shouldn't live in this house for more than 3 years. The number 36 is bad influence, according to the I Ching.
From that day on I saw the number 36 every single day many times.
It was 2006 and the guy became my I Ching teacher. In return I would make a film bout I Ching. I started the film but never ended.
In 2009 the number had driven me crazy by times, and I was eager to here more about that number when my I Ching teacher and me attended an I Ching symposium in a hippy free-haven village near Amsterdam.
Darkening Of the light
It was at the end of the day, when everybody had gathered in the church, when I directed my question to Han Boering, who is in my opinion the brightest I Ching author of our time.
I told him that 36 had been haunting me for 3 years...
I learned to appreciate the number as the messenger who comes to tell you you forgot to close the car, or you forgot your phone or documents. The messenger of disturbance, the inflictor of self hate.
Han Boering told the story of writer-king Wen of China.
He was to be the next king, but Jou the terrible locked him in a deep vault with 4 blind walls. Once a day he got something to eat and drink.
For 7 years.
Seven years of darkness. A man who survives this ordeal has 2 options. Madness is the first. An unstoppable being of light is the latter.
That was the case with king Wen, who left the darkness after 7 years and took right rightful position in no time.
So there is light
That day I learned about the light within the darkness. It felt good and it felt right. For the first time I somehow identyfied myself with the number 36. The journey may be hard, the promise is high and light. I've always wanted to shine.
It may have been in the year 2002. I had dreamt about the end of the world. It was the second time that I had such an epic dream in which I had supernatural powers like flying and breathing underwater. It was mostly dramatic, but it ended full of hope and inner peace. Light after a period of darkness. A dream from which I awoke totally impressed. There was a melody in my head that I couldn't find the song for.
In the shower I realised it was "Zilveren Maan" ("silver moon") by Urbanus. Only a little piece of the song kept on repeating in my head. It was ages ago that I had heard that childhood (12 years) song.
Hours later I was about to leave my house and before getting to the door I stood still because of what I heard in my inner radio in my head...
After endlessly repeating "Zilveren maan, zilveren maan" for hours, now the text continued and baffled me!! "Ik ben bang Ik ben bang, dat de wereld deze nacht zal vergaan." ("I'm afraid that the world will end tonight.")
How?...
Egypt
In the spring of 2011, just after/in the Arab Spring I was in Egypt for 2 weeks in an international group of free-thinkers, for a tour hosted by Robert Bauval and cohosted by Graham Hancock, both bestselling authors about the origins of humanity.
During that tour I sort of bonded with 2 Guys.
Ed. He was the Englishman I found at the airport, just after arriving in Cairo. We were both glad to have found each other and the instant bond we shared stayed firm for the whole trip and beyond.
Obeid. A Swedish freeminded dude.
Ed told us his mad story, his relationship with the number 23. It had driven him litterally mad. Drugs and psychiatry included. All these coincidences. These small coincidences drive you mad, because you realise you are getting fixed on somethingway too trivial to be important. And then these huge coincidences take you by the throat.
I told him about my relationship with the number 36. Less dramatic, but with a same sense of profoundness.
At the end of the trip, Ed had been sifting through his pictures. One of his pics showed the horse carriage in which we sat. Its number was 236.
Numeric Alphabet
In 2012 Ed sent me an email in which he was excited about a discovery he made...
He had stumbled a system to give numeric value to our alphabet. So he tried his name... His name, Edward, equals 23!
This is how it works. Write 2 rows of 13 letters above each other. A to M an d N to Z. Now above these write down these 13 values: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 6 5 4 3 2 1. This is how you control if the values are right: A, M, N and Z have the value of 1 and G and T have the value of 7.
I couldn't wait to count the value of my own name. And sure, when counting the pace dropped at the end because, ... My name "Pieter-Jan" equals 36!
wow.
And then a series of stones began to fall. You wouldn't believe it if I told you, but I really didn't start counting the value of words, but sometimes I just do that. Almost never without result. What sort of resulst?
Well, these
How about Lotte? My partner.
... 23. what?
But that's unfair, because her real name is LieseLotte!! So I counted Liese... 23
Our dog! He has been living with us since the very beginning. His name is Clovis
...
23
really.
My initials PJA count 8. The hidden number of 8 = ?...
1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8=36
My kids? Wieze-Marie = 37 Pallieter = 35
My family name = 26.
I happen to remember the number plate of my grandad: EEY 842 = 26
I counted the number plate of my dad's car... 26
Astrology
In the year 2000 I got introduced to the fundamental science of Astrology.
The astrology teacher became a best friend and we spend hundreds of hours talking. He introduced me to George Bode, a Dutch mathematician with a profound understanding of astrology.
Ever heard of the black moon? It is an astrological point that marks the empty focus of the ellipse, drawn by the moon around the earth, which is located on the other focus. An ellipse is a circle with 2 midpoints instead of 1, they are the focus.
I found so much wisdom in that concept. On the one hand you have a focal point being planet earth. It represents an infinity of human experiences. On the other hand an infinitely small, non existing yet, exactly defined point. A symbol of oneness, of pureness, of simplicity, of truth.
That pure-ness is what the black moon stands for. BUT it is black! It is obscured! It is hidden and needs to be mint. Darkening of the light...
The black moon is a point in the birth chart of everybody. In some people's lives the black moon plays a minor role, in others it can get major.
In my birth chart the sun is at exactly the same position as the black moon. George Bode links ASD to this position...
The sun, the ultimate symbol of light, the source of all our daily light is on the same position as the principle of the darkening, the black moon.
Darkening of the light. The number 36.
Eric Vent
My career ended in the spring of 2019.
Sometimes a little sentence comes to stay with me.
In the autumn of 2019 it was "my inner riches is inversely proportional to my financial riches". And in the spring of 2021 while I was thinking about how to break out, a booktitle came to me "the autist eventually opened the gate." For some reason it appealed to me as a perfect sentence with several layers.
Then it occured to me that "eventually could be a name". I counted. It equals 36. No kidding. "event" = 23.
I saw "Apollo 13", the film with Tom Hanks a lot more than 10 times! There is a scene in which Tom Hanks gets prepared for space travel. A guy enters the room in the background. Sais Tom Hanks with a German accent:
- Aahhh!! Gunther Vent! I vander vhere Gunther Vent.
That was the year 1969, 6 years before my birth, so Gunther Vent could be my father. Without any doubt I chose the name Eric for my alter-ego.
Then I had to count. Everything so far fitted so perfectly in numbers, that I almost didn't dare to count. What if the final result of this process doesn't equal an important number. But soon enough I found out that Eric Vent equals 36.
So therefore there was no way back. This story it too tight not to write it, not to use it.
That's how Eric Vent was born. Eric is the vehicle of expression. The expression of the inner universe in the autist mind PJ Ardies.
Eric Vent is a cry for attention.
Nobody knows about the things in the universe that Eric Vent comes from. Why? Because PJ doesn't talk about it. Not with his best friends, not with his wife. It is locked.
Eric Vent is the bridge between PJ and you, the reader. It firmly feels like I need you to survive. Like I need your attention to justify my life. My life on the inside, which I consider much bigger (80%) than my life on the outside (20%).
Thank you.
Very much