August 10, 2026 • 42 mins
Angel numbers have a way of showing up just when we need them. 111 symbolises new beginnings. 444 means divine protection. Why does our mind pay such close attention to these numbers, what is the history, and what is their impact from a psychological standpoint? In today's episode, we break down:
- The ancient origins of angel numbers
- Why the founder of angel numbers now regrets them
- The meaning behind some of the most significant angel numbers
- Why our brain pays close attention to symbolism
- The emotional comfort of angel numbers
- Why people feel threatened by angel numbers
- When angel numbers can become harmful
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hello everybody. I'm Jemma Spake and welcome back to the
Psychology of Your Twenties, the podcast where we talk through
the biggest changes, moments, and transitions of our twenties and
what they mean for our psychology. Hello everybody, Welcome back
(00:26):
to the show. Welcome back to the podcast, new listeners,
old listeners, wherever you are in the world before we
get into it. Two things for you today. Number One,
this episode and many others are now on Netflix, so
if you want a video version of this very episode,
you can go and watch it over there. It really
helps us out. And Secondly, we have launched a really
(00:49):
exciting new project on substack that I don't think many
of you know about. It's called the Study of the
Week group. Basically, every week I send you an academic
study broken down into simple English and simple findings. It
goes straight to your inbox. We are doing fifty two
studies in fifty two weeks to help make you smarter,
(01:09):
to help give you interesting knowledge about human psychology, to
use it work in your relationships with other people. And
it's really easy to sign up. Just go to substack,
type in your email and subscribe and you get access
every single week. It is also a great way to
support me and my work independently if you feel called
to do so. Okay, enough self promotion for one episode.
(01:34):
I always hate doing. That is literally my least favorite
part of making the podcast. But this is my favorite part,
which is talking about the psychology of common phenomena that
applied to our twenties and beyond. And this episode is
these are just my favorite kinids. It's going to be
so good because we are talking about the psychology of
(01:55):
angel numbers. Angel numbers are these numerical symbols that guide us,
direct us, comfort us during times of transition and sometimes
pain and growth and uncertainty, but also just in everyday life.
It is the four four four you see you on
the microwave in the morning, and then the two dollars
twenty two cents your soda costs you at lunch, the
(02:16):
eleven eleven on your uber's license plate. These numbers mean
something to us, and we know that because our brains
can't help but notice them and feel drawn to them.
Why is that? What is it about those numbers that
presents us with so much psychological clarity and direction and
(02:37):
what does the science support about the mystical spiritual side
of this. That is what we're going to discuss, as
well as some insane plot twists to do with spiritual
gurus and the women and the woman I should say,
who popularized angel numbers. This episode takes many, many strange directions,
(02:58):
but the psychology and the science is a fascinating so
without further ado, let's get into it. So, first and foremost,
before the psychology of angel numbers, what is the history
of angel numbers? Where do they originally come from? So,
angel numbers in the way we talk about them now
(03:21):
are actually a very modern spiritual concept. They are as
modern as the invention and widespread use of numbers, which
has actually only been quite a recent thing in human history.
But they draw from too much much older traditions, which
is the belief that small things can act as messages
(03:43):
from a higher power, and also the belief that groupings
of certain things carry hidden symbolic meaning, like seeing three
crows or five coins or six donkeys whatever. It is.
An interesting part of this is the history of nonumbers themselves,
because it has evolved in stages from basic counting and tallying,
(04:05):
where people would carve strikes into walls or wood to
keep track of things, into the invention you know of
the apicus, and now the numerical system that we know
of today, which was created by Indian and Arabic mathematicians.
This led to the I wouldn't say creation, but the
development of what we now have, which is numerology, the
(04:28):
broader belief that numbers have divine, mystical or symbolic significance
and they shape the structure of our reality. Now, numerology
dates back centuries, and one of the earliest figures connected
to this movement is Pythagoras. He's a very ancient Greek philosopher.
(04:50):
You have definitely heard his name before, probably in a
high school math class. He's also the man who created
Pythagorean theorem, his equation for triangles. I don't know if
you remember it, like A plus B equal c A
square b s C squad. I don't know, I haven't
done math in a while. But he was also the
(05:11):
founder of a broader movement, a broader movement that basically
believed that the universe is governed by mathematical harmony. Obviously,
Pythagoras wasn't talking about angel numbers at the time. I'm
not going to reach that far. That wasn't his theory,
but he was talking about this broader to tradition that
(05:33):
numbers reflect the hidden order of things. They have this deeper,
more interconnected, overarching meaning that we can access through their presence,
and they reveal something like basically beneath the surface of
ordinary life. Now, the other strand of this, beyond Pythagoras
and his idea of mathematical I don't know alignment, is
(05:56):
the idea of angels, which show up a lot more
in Western cultures, with Christianity, maybe Judaism as well Islam.
This idea of spiritual beings that actors, intermediaries, or messengers
from a higher power. In Christianity specifically, angels are often
understand understood as these creatures that serve God. They offer protection,
(06:17):
they appear at important moments in biblical stories. The word
angel itself comes from the Greek word angelos, meaning messenger,
and this again ties into this belief that guidance can
be communicated through science. Those two things combined create angel numbers.
So this concept of angelic protection and guidance through numbers
(06:41):
through anything that is a very ancient concept. It borrows
from some very very old principles and religions, but angel
numbers are just I guess, not even the newest, but
a more recent kind of development. The idea of repeating
angel numbers. Angel numbers is a very modern phenomena, primarily
(07:05):
caused by the rise of New Age spirituality, specifically the
work of an American author called Doreen Virtue. She popularized
this idea that repeated number sequences could be interpreted as
messengers from angels or spiritual guides. She wrote this huge
series of books about it. It made her a multi millionaire.
(07:28):
She was on Oprah. It just blew up. It was
like the big thing of the early two thousands. Something
really interesting though. An interesting twist is that Doreen actually
underwent a whole religious conversion in like twenty seventeen, like ten,
maybe like twenty years after she I don't even know
(07:50):
what the right word is popularize the idea, she like
completely renounced it. She became a complete born again fundamentalist Christian,
and she's publicly stated that she no longer believes in
angel numbers. She doesn't think they're spiritually valid. She has
this whole YouTube show where she talks about it. So
if you want to go look that up. It's very interesting.
She literally did an interview with I don't know if
(08:12):
you know the magazine The Cut where, which, by the way,
one of my favorites. But she basically says, I regret this.
I regret popularizing angel numbers. I've gone broke stepping away
from these teachings. I don't want anything to do with it.
I don't think many people know about that. It's so
fascinating how these kinds of ideas can take on a
(08:33):
whole life of their own, even though the person associated
with them most in the modern day, the person who
popularized them has since completely distanced herself from the concept.
And I don't think that means that you have to
I don't think that you should no longer believe in
it yourself. I don't think that we should discard it.
She obviously wasn't the sole inventor. This is a very
(08:55):
old tradition. I just think it's an interesting part of this. Nonetheless,
may it be a bit of a lesson about not
leaning too heavily on spiritual gurus today. Angel numbers exist
beyond her right. They are their own thing. They are
their own source of inspiration, growth, and comfort. To people,
especially as they have emerged online and on TikTok, on
(09:20):
Instagram and in articles as these incredible things, the meaning
around them circulates regardless of whether Dooring approves of them
or doesn't, which she obviously doesn't. So what do certain
angel numbers represent? If you don't want to go back
and read her book? There are so many different patterns.
I'm just going to talk about a few of the
(09:40):
main ones today, the biggest one being eleven eleven or
one one one now. This is often associated with manifestation,
with new beginnings, with intention, and alignment. People often interpret
it as basically a prompt to notice, what are you
thinking about? Make a wish, focus on that, call this
(10:04):
thing into your life. Eleven eleven means like it's coming
for you, manifest channel that energy two to two two.
The next one is commonly linked to trust, balance, relationships,
divine timing. It tends to be interpreted as a reassurance
number or a symbolic reminder that things may be unfolding
(10:24):
even if you cannot yet kind of see the outcome.
Three through three, but just going to go down the
list here often associated with creativity, encouragement, expression, support. Some
people interpret it as a reminder that they are being
guided or that they should express themselves that the idea
they have is the one that is was they are
(10:47):
directed to pursue. Four tour fur another very common one,
or the one that I think a lot of people
lean towards, is about protection, grounding, stability. Very comforting during
times of transition, very comforting during times of evolution and
personal evolution, because it says you are protected, You're going
(11:08):
to get through this, You're not alone. Five five five
is usually associated again with change, with disruption, with transformation coming.
I'm trying to think about a great example, but essentially,
if you see it all the time, it's a sign
that something is about to shift for you, you're about
to enter a new phase. Seven seven seven is spiritual insight, luck, intuition,
(11:32):
a deeper sense of knowing. Eight eight is often associated
with abundance, wealth, money, prosperity, success, maybe even energetic return.
And nine to ninet nine is usually interpreted as completion.
It's the end, it's the last one kind of in
(11:53):
that sequence. It's closure, it's released, it's its endings. My
favorite one though, and my personal angel number, if one
can call it, that is one two, three, four, twelve
thirty four. I am not kidding when I say I
see this in some form every single day without fail like,
literally every single day. I will wake up in the
(12:13):
middle of the night. It will be twelve thirty four am.
I will order my breakfast. It will be twelve dollars
and thirty four cents. I will read the word count
for a script. It will be twelve hundred and thirty
four words. Grab and uber twelve thirty four in the
license plate. It literally cannot express you how many ways
I have seen this. I don't know what it fully believes.
I think it means that you're building a good life.
(12:33):
I think it means that you should stick to your goal.
I think it represents progress and growth. That is definitely
my favorite. The thing is, though with all those the
meanings can be interpreted as one and the same, they
also aren't necessarily universal. That is so important to know.
The woman who wrote this book obviously like had an idea,
(12:56):
But it doesn't really matter. It matters what it means
to you. It matters in many ways what it psychologically
represents and what it needs to mean to you in
this moment. And I think that's why They're so meaningful
not because they have a universal meaning, but because they
allow for a level of flexibility in their interpretation, just
(13:18):
like a poem can mean different things at different stages
of your life, or a song lyric feels like it
was written just for you, even though thousands of people
listen to it, even though you know. Like a religious
passage can comfort different people from completely different life circumstances,
angel numbers work in a similar way. Their meaning is
(13:39):
not fixed. They act as an emotional container, and they
give shape and they take shape, and they are symbolic,
and they are important, often based on things that we
are already feeling, and they just become a way of
externalizing something that we already know as a deep truth.
So why do they feel so significant to us? Why
(14:03):
is one one one a good sign? Why is three
three three a positive thing? What does the psychology say
about our attraction to these numbers? We are going to
dive into that after this short break. Angel numbers feel
significant firstly because they often appear or we are more
(14:27):
likely to notice them at emotionally significant points in our life.
And this is not a coincidence, it's not an accident.
It occurs because a core principle in psychology is that
we interpret the world primarily through our emotional state. Our
reality shapes our emotions, but it also happens the other
(14:47):
way around as well. Meaning how we feel influences what
we notice, what feels important, and the life that we
have perception is everything. Way of understanding this is through
what we call the meaning maintenance model. So in a
two thousand and six paper published in the Journal of
(15:10):
Personality and Social Psychology, the authors kind of made this
suggestion that people have an inherent need for meaning. This
is an old idea, they really were able to articulate
it in this study. We need to perceive events through
the frame of mental representations to organize our perception of
the world. We have this deep need basically to experience
(15:32):
the world as this coherent, meaningful, logical, organized thing that
is important to us as humans. When that sense of
meaning is threatened, for example, when life feels confusing, when
you've gone through a terrible breakup and you don't believe
in love anymore, when you have no idea what you
are doing with your life, when a sickness occurs, when
(15:54):
something unfair happens, people often try to restore meaning in
another way, such as through the guidance and presence of
angel numbers. This helps explain why angel numbers become compelling
during periods of transition like our twenties, like after a divorce,
like when you've just lost a job, like when you
(16:14):
are moving through grief. These are all moments where life
feels temporarily very unstructured and your brain does not like that.
We are looking for anything that can provide emotional scaffolding
and emotional meaning to life. This raises another question, why
(16:34):
those numbers though? Why are our minds so ready to
see meaning in repeated numbers in the first place, rather
than just something else, like why are those things assigned?
That brings us to the psychology of pattern recognition one
of my favorite I love this. I could talk about
this all day. Our brains are constantly scanning the environment
(16:55):
for things that are the same, for repetition, for connection,
for rhythm, for signs. Basically, our brains want to make
sense of our surroundings to keep us safe. If they
can predict what's going to happen next, that gives them
a better chance. It's one of the most important things
that our brains do. The sheer fact that our brains
are wired to recognize patterns are what helps us to
(17:18):
do things like learn languages, or recognize faces, or understand
social cues, or predict when we might be in danger.
It is ecre if not most critical part of our
brains and our lives as humans. It helps us learn
that if we do certain behaviors, certain outcomes are going
to happen. Dark clouds mean rain. If somebody treats you
(17:40):
like this, then it's probably going to end this way. Now,
inability to interpret those patterns is often what gets us
into trouble, not just in terms of survival, but in
terms of emotional patterns as well. Pattern detection is life saving.
Not listening to it can also be life changing. The
tricky thing is that a brain that is built to
(18:01):
detect meaningful patterns will sometimes find meaning in places where
the pattern is a little bit random. Psychologists sometimes refer
to this as apophenia, which means perceiving meaningful connections between
unrelated or random things. In simple terms, it's when the
mind sees a pattern and gives it significance, even when
(18:24):
the pattern doesn't have an external cause. Now, that goes
against some of our beliefs about angel numbers, but it
is a really important explanation for why our brains like
angel numbers. There was a two thousand and eight study
published in Science, the journal Science by Jennifer Whitson. She's
a psychologist whose work has explored control and uncertainty and
patent perception, and it gives us a really useful way
(18:47):
to understand this. Across a series of several experiments, Jennifer
found that when people felt a lack of control, they
were more likely to perceive illusory or I don't want
to say delusional, but just patterns. In general. They were
more likely to see, for example, images in visual noise.
They were more likely to identify connections that we're just
(19:10):
objectively not there. When we feel in control, the world
already feels organized enough, we don't really need to look
for extra science. When we feel out of control, the
mind becomes more motivated to restore order. It searches for meaning.
Now this is a critical thing, because does that mean
the meaning isn't there. No, those numbers are still there.
(19:34):
The guidance they provide is still real. It's just that
you start looking for them more. Now, why are the
numbers there? That's another question? Right, there is this deep
intersection between spirituality and psychology when it comes to these
things that you can't disentangle, and you can't completely ignore
the fact that numbers do control the world, and that
math is this wonderful thing, and that numerology is a
(19:56):
very valid way of interpreting life. This is where the
idea of confirmation bias comes in. Confirmation bias is the
tendency to notice, remember, and give more weight to information
that supports what we already believe or suspect. Confirmation bias
is something that we are all subject to. Again, it's
(20:17):
part of our brains, hardwiring. There's no escaping it. It
is an essential feature of human thinking. You may feel
like seeing tou tou tou means you're on the right path.
Then whenever you see the number two two two after
making a certain decision, that just confirms it for you.
That is enough to feel like you must have been correct.
But the thing is is that you may not remember
(20:38):
all the times you made a decision and you didn't
see the number two two two. You may not notice
all the times you saw tou tou tou and nothing
obvious happened afterwards. Now, again, does this mean that angel
numbers should be completely discounted just because the science has
another explanation for them. I personally don't think so. Like
(21:02):
I don't think so, I still think they're meaningful. But
it's just important to understand these illusions and these biases
that also contribute to them being upheld. Another one is
the frequency illusion. You may this is the best way
to describe this is like you learn a new term,
or you learn a new word, and suddenly like everybody
(21:22):
is talking about it, or you're thinking about buying a
certain car, and then suddenly every single car you see
is that car. It can feel like it's completely by chance,
but it's just that your brain has started to filter
for important information. It's just starting to filter for things
(21:43):
that you have decided is critical, oh remains critical for you.
The world has not necessarily changed, but your attention has.
Attention really sits at the core of this, and angel
numbers again work in the same way to a certain
number becomes meaningful to you the way twelve thirty four
(22:03):
is meaningful to me. Your brain starts treating that number
is important. You filter literally millions of pieces of information
every single day. But once something has been encoded as significant.
It's just going to pop out from the background. Right.
It's like recognizing the face of somebody that you know
in love in a crowd. You notice it, you notice it,
(22:24):
you clock it. It's something that's important to you. It's
relevant to you. Each time you notice it, it feels
even more significant because the fact that you're noticing it
that obviously means something. And so that is the circular
process of how an angel number becomes important to us
and then continues to be something that we see that
can be It's so insanely comforting, this is what I'm saying.
(22:46):
It's so comforting. It is a good feeling. It is beautiful.
The idea that things are connected, that life has pattern
and meaning is a great way to live. And that
it brings me to another idea that's connected to angel numbers,
which is pronoa. Pronoia is described as the opposite of paranoia.
(23:08):
Paranoia is the fear of belief that people's systems or
forces are kind of conspiring against you. Prona, by contrast,
is the sense that the world is conspiring in your favor. Now,
this term was introduced into psychological literature by this guy
called Fred Goldner. He was a sociologist at Queen's College
(23:29):
in New York, and he talked about it in this
article he published in nineteen eighty two. He described pronoia
as a positive counterpart to paranoia. A belief that others
think well of you, a belief that events are favorable
towards you rather than unfavorable. A belief that the social
world is organized more benevolently around you than negatively around you.
(23:55):
This is psychologically remarkable, It is psychologically powerful, and it's
basically a more scientific version of what you focus on
expands if you focus on the good, that expands if
you focus on the bad. If you let paranoia take over,
the bad becomes your life. Pronoia means that there is
benevolence in the timings of things, that things might be aligning,
(24:16):
even if you do not fully understand how they are
right now. It means that you are protected. Angel numbers
create this gentle form of pronoia and this greatest sense
of responsiveness to life because we feel more confident that
things are going to go our way. And this is
(24:36):
the part of angel numbers that can't be dismissed, whether
you think they're pseudoscience or not. They genuinely help people.
They genuinely shape behavior in ways that do heal and
do change lives and do spare growth. Uncertainty is emotionally
and cognitively demanding, and it makes us hesitate, It makes
(24:57):
us stay still, It makes us remain motionless. When we
do not know what is going to happen, our minds
are going to try and fill that gap. Often it
will fill that gap with anxiety and the worst case scenario.
Angel numbers fill that gap with hope and fill that
gap with promise instead of thinking like, what if everything
(25:17):
goes wrong? Here is this thing that says, but what
if I'm being guided? What if I need to trust
and wait and see how this unwinds. What if I
need to what if I need to just give it
a go. That is psychologically powerful. That is psychologically powerful
because deep down, you know the reality that you want.
The Angel number is just the boost, it's just the catalyst.
(25:38):
It doesn't change the external outcome. Seeing a certain number
doesn't guarantee that you're going to get the job. It
doesn't guarantee that your relationship is going to work out,
but it does guarantee that your internal state is probably
going to be a lot more regulated. It does kind
of ensure that you're going to feel more self assured
(25:58):
and calm. And what is definitely a fact is that
that emotional state does have an impact on an outcome
and does have an impact on how you choose to behave.
There was a really interesting twenty ten paper published in
Psychological Science by the researchers Lizen Damish and Barbara Stoberock.
Their work basically examines superstition. It examines confidence and performance
(26:19):
and what their experiments found, and this is so critical,
is that activating good luck superstitions like using a lucky
object or hearing a phrase associated with luck, could improve
performance not by changing an outcome, but by changing confidence
and changing participants levels of persistence because they felt like
(26:40):
there was somebody on their side. Another study found something similar.
When you show people certain symbols or make certain coincidences
occur before they walk into an experimental condition, and you say, hey,
did you see that thing? Did you know that's lucky?
It could literally be the most arbitrary thing. It literally
could be nothing, and they perform better because they feel
(27:02):
safer and they feel like something is on their side.
There is obviously a term for this in psychology. There's
a term for everything in psychology. It's a self fulfilling prophecy.
You've probably heard this before, self fulfilling prophecy. Of course,
that was going to happen. I talked about it, I
think in our superstition episode. I'm gonna say for a
little refresher, a self fulfilling prophecy occurs when a belief
(27:23):
influences behavior in a way that makes the belief more
likely to come true. Is that a bad thing? No,
If the belief is positive. If you believe something is
a sign of your success, you are more likely to
act in ways that bring about success. You are more
likely to be audacious, you're more likely to be risky,
You're more likely to put yourself out there. That is
(27:46):
a good thing. That is what changes the outcome with
angel numbers. The self fulfilling prophecy is so apparent and
so powerful, probably more powerful than many other things. If
you keep seeing one one one, and you interpret it
as a sign of a new beginning, guess what you're
gonna do. You're going to finally start that project, You're
going to finally apply for that course, You're going to
(28:06):
send that email you're going to move cities. Then the
number did not magically create the new beginning. It just
helped you act in alignment with the one you already
knew you wanted. You are the magic. That's what I'm
trying to say. You. You are the magic pushing your
destiny forward. The Angel number is just the security blanket.
(28:28):
They're just letting you lean into what you already know
you were capable of. Whether that is growth, whether that
is healing, whether that is peace, love, success, you name it.
But you are the magic. They cannot change your reality
for you. You change your reality through their psychological impact.
I really want to emphasize this point. Often we already
(28:49):
know things before we are willing to admit them. You
already know you're unhappy. You already know you are outgrowing something,
You know that that relationship isn't right. You know that
you want something more from life. But that sensation is
really frightening, it's really scary, and it's uncertain when you
know that you're going to have to change something and
that things aren't going to be the same, or that
(29:10):
there is an outcome that you can't one predict. So
we need a psychological boost. We need a psychological push.
So we look for a sign. We look for a sign,
and if it's there, amazing because we act. The same
can be said for tarot cards, for reading horoscopes. We
just want a reason. But the fact that we're looking
(29:30):
for a guide doesn't mean that the motivation to change
isn't already there, and doesn't mean that we wouldn't have
done it. Anyways, when somebody is looking for a sign,
they're going to find a sign. When you know you
need to do something, you're going to find something that's
going to confirm that. Let's talk about why angel numbers
get a bad rap? Should we including a little bit
more about there maybe more dangerous, the more dangerous mixings
(29:57):
with psychology stay with us. So you know what I hate.
I hate when people yuck other people's yum when it
literally does no harm to them, not even harm like
it doesn't even influence them in the slightest. It really
(30:18):
annoys me. It really annoys me. And I think people
who believe in angel numbers often get a lot of
yuck from other people, and I just don't think that's fair,
And let's talk about it. I think people often make
fun of angel numbers and people who believe in angel numbers,
because there's this idea that they are rational and they're sentimental,
and it's really associated with this like Delulu, like online
(30:39):
spiritual culture of like luck and fate and destiny, and
like how unscientific is that. I think sometimes this criticism
comes from a genuine concern that maybe angel numbers are
encouraging magical thinking or poor decision making, or again a
confirmation bias that allows people to do things that maybe
aren't why, Like, if angel numbers can be a guide
(31:04):
for positive things, they can also be a guide for
things that maybe aren't what's best for you, like getting
back with people you probably shouldn't, quitting jobs without a plan,
that sort of thing. I think the concern can be fair,
especially if somebody is making major life choices based on
only the presence of numbers without a plan. But a
lot of the time that's not why people are worried
(31:27):
about it. A lot of the time, I think people
just want to criticize it. People just want to make
you feel infuri I think the mockery around angel numbers,
specifically from a certain group of people, comes from a
bit of a superiority complex. It becomes this way of
like performing intelligence and performing detachment. There's often this tone
(31:49):
when people criticize angel numbers of like, I'm more intelligent
than you. I would never believe in that. I understand
the science. You're dumb. I'm not well, I don't know.
I understand the science. You understand the science. You just
listen to thirty minutes of it. And I think that
that science and that research makes angel numbers even more
compelling in terms of the way that they psychologically guide
(32:11):
people and the way that they emotionally provide courage that
is needed for a human to act. Actually, in terms
of the way that they enable agency and self belief.
I don't think that's something to be scoffed at. I
actually think that is a remarkably powerful thing to have
at your disposal. There's also a very gendered element here.
(32:34):
Many forms of spiritual meaning making, like taro, like angel numbers,
like birth charts, which are also typically associated with young women,
often receive an additional unfair amount of criticism as being
cringe or silly, or embarrassing or stupid. It is almost
a trend to mock them, to think of them as
(32:54):
like silly women's things, and emotional and not rational and ridiculous,
and you know, the man's view of life is about
hard work and rationality, and you believing in this shows
that you don't believe in that. That's kind of an idea.
Humans engage in symbolic and irrational rituals all the time.
(33:15):
Athletes wear lucky clothing, Students use lucky pens. Football fans
believe they can jinx a gain by not doing a
certain routine beforehand, or doing a certain routine beforehand. People
knock on wood, people say everything happens for a reason.
All of these things involve emotion, They involve symbolism, uncertainty,
and perceived meaning, and those things are the exact same
(33:37):
psychological route as indeor numbers. It's just packaged differently. The
branding is literally just different. It's like the difference between
diet coke and coke zero. It's just the gender that
they're marketed towards. So we're not really talking about a
difference in rationality at all. The difference is actually more
so in which rituals are socially legitimized, socially supported, and
(34:00):
which aren't. I also think this mockery can come from
and maybe this is a stretch, but I think it
is a discomfort with hope. Feeling hopeful can be really vulnerable.
To believe that something might be working out for you
is to risk disappointment, and cynicism protects you against that disappointment.
(34:22):
If you never believe in science, you never have to
feel foolish for hoping. You can give distance, You can
remain detached from longing and from wanting, And I think
that's a really critical part that people don't talk about.
It's easy to not believe in angel numbers because believing
in them would mean that, like the possibility of something
(34:43):
good is possible, and you could have some hope around that,
and then what if you're disappointed. There's some fear in
that as well. So is it actually all that bad
to believe in angel numbers? In most cases, No, it's not.
In fact, it's made be even a good thing. I
would make the argument that it is with anything, though,
(35:04):
there are a few things to look out for, and
I would be remiss if I didn't mention them. So
I'm going to hear. I think the main things to
be cautious of with anything in this kind of new
age spiritual realm is exploitation. Any belief system that offers
people comfort during periods of uncertainty and transition and confusion
can also become something that is sold back to them
(35:27):
and used to manipulate them, and that's just an annoying
part of human existence. This is especially the case, in
my opinion, in online spiritual spaces, where we're sold more
and more and more reassurance and more and more comfort
packaged as personalized readings or intuitive messages from the universe,
when it may just be a way for somebody to
(35:50):
make money off of you, and you have to kind
of be aware of people's human urges to exploit. A
lot of people earn money through spiritual work in its
fair work, and it's work. The issue is when certain
people pry on people's vulnerabilities, pry on their anxiety in
order to sell them a product, and their own belief
(36:10):
in the product is not there and their own good
intentions are not there. Someone may start with a harmless
interest in angel numbers and slowly get pulled into this
loop of needing more reassurance, one more reading, one more
spiritual download, one more video telling them what this number
means for this specific situation, and often the language used
(36:33):
is really persuasive and really general because it wants to
speak to anybody who is in a place of emotional uncertainty.
That's often all of us, you know. It wants to
relate to everybody so that they can make more money
and so that they can kind of manipulate a system.
And it is important to be aware of that and
to be aware of the psychological power of angel numbers
(36:55):
and what they can do in the company they can
offer people. And just because we know that, it also
means that people who have bad intentions know that as well.
And we have to be aware as well of a
dependency on external confirmation that some of these processes can create.
Instead of learning to sit with ambiguity, to tolerate uncertainty,
to just like trust your judgment, sometimes we can get
(37:16):
desperate in our search for angel numbers or a sign,
and when it doesn't come, it can be awful. It
can be awful. And I want to say again, a
lot of people engage with spiritual practices in a very sincere, honest,
helpful way and an ethical way and with an intention
of really guiding people. But it's just worth being cautious
(37:38):
and it's just worth knowing your source a little bit more,
and also being okay with a little bit of uncertainty,
like it's okay, it's okay to not know you know. Also,
look at the example of Doreen Virtue, who we spoke
about earlier. Here is a woman who made millions and
(37:58):
millions and millions of people and then basically reneged and said, oh,
I actually I don't believe in that. And this article
I was speaking about talks about these individuals who were
just left like heartbroken, and they'd made major life decisions
on this woman's teachings. They felt very scammed, they felt
very misled, they felt even more confused because she's just
a human. Humans are fallible, like it's difficult to put
(38:20):
our hopes and fears at their feet. One more thing
that I think we should be aware of is the
fixation and anxiety that can come with our belief in
angel numbers. Not for everybody, but as much as there
are positive, encouraging messages that come from angel numbers and
seeing two to two or twelve thirty four or four
four four everywhere, the opposite can also be true. If
(38:41):
we start to fixate on good numbers, we can also
start to fixate on bad numbers, maybe interpreting certain numbers
as omens or warnings or signs that something is going wrong.
We can also if we don't see our angel number
every day or regularly, we can start to feel exceedingly
unsure of a decision, like I'm not getting confirmation of this.
(39:02):
Is this the right decision? Maybe it is, even if
there's not a number to support that. We can get
into this trap of black and white thinking where we're
trying to predict the future based on these neutral numbers
that we notice. At that point, the practice can shift
from being a source of courage and meaning making and
(39:23):
motivation and magic to being a big component of disorders
like anxiety and OCD. If you're waiting around to see
if there is a numerical sign to make a decision
about your life, or if you are being put off
doing something you know you need to do because of
a so called bad number or because you haven't seen
a good number, then I think that is the point
(39:44):
where not everybody gets here, but it is the point
where you might need to take a step back and
just be like, is this belief making my life bigger
or smaller? Belief? It's in the world needs to make
your life bigger. I think I would take it back
to that core message. At the end of the day,
you are the magic and you are the decision maker.
(40:06):
You are the one who has to say you are conscious.
You make things happen, You do the healing, You push
your own evolution forward. If you need a sign, if
you need encouragement, that is not a bad thing. Every
human needs motivation in some form. Angel numbers don't do
the work for you, though, and they aren't the final
be or say or end all of this situation. Again,
(40:30):
I want to say I love the concept of angel numbers.
They have provided so much comfort for me during really
difficult times. I went through a really terrible breakup. Angel
numbers played a great role when I moved cities and
I felt really, really lonely. They were a guiding light
for me when I wanted to quit my job. I'm
not gonna lie and say I didn't you know see
A two two too. I think that was a good choice.
(40:51):
They made the ordinary feel less hard, and they made
they made my life feel more meaningful and significant. And
I think the science and why they made me feel
that way makes them even more important. To me because
it confirms that what I'm searching for. If I'm searching
for something, I obviously already secretly unconsciously want it. And
(41:12):
so if I am looking for a sign, the fact
I am looking for a sign is the sign. Does
that make sense? Yeah? Again, I think it does. If
you are looking for a sign, that is your sign.
So there you go. That is the psychology of angel numbers,
a little bit of the history as well. That is
why they are so compelling to us psychologically. I don't
think that science undermines them. I think it actually contributes
(41:33):
to them. So I hope that you've learned something. I
hope it's made you feel more informed about this practice.
If you've made it this far and you're listening on Spotify,
what's your favorite angel number? Leave a comment down below.
If you also see twelve thirty four everywhere, let me
know what does it mean for you. I want to see.
I know I'm not the only one, so who else
(41:54):
is out there? I want to I want to hear
from you. Thank you, as always to our researcher Libby
Cobbett for her incredible help with this episode and her
amazing research. We also have some fun additional pieces of
research and further reading on the topic of angel numbers.
In the description. You can also find out more on substack.
You can join our Study of the Week group. You
(42:14):
can watch an episode on Netflix. Everywhere you can find us.
You can find us in the description. Just go down there,
and there's actually so much interesting stuff that you can
go down a whole rabbit hole with this even further
if you want to. But again, yes, thank you for listening.
I love this episode. I love doing like these scientific
episodes into like real common concepts, especially ones that are
(42:37):
a little bit mystical. So I hope you enjoyed it
as well. And until next time, be safe, be kind,
be gentle to yourself. We will talk very very soon.
Hello everybody. I'm Jemma Spake and welcome back to the
Psychology of Your Twenties, the podcast where we talk through
the biggest changes, moments, and transitions of our twenties and
what they mean for our psychology. Hello everybody, Welcome back
(00:26):
to the show. Welcome back to the podcast, new listeners,
old listeners, wherever you are in the world before we
get into it. Two things for you today. Number One,
this episode and many others are now on Netflix, so
if you want a video version of this very episode,
you can go and watch it over there. It really
helps us out. And Secondly, we have launched a really
(00:49):
exciting new project on substack that I don't think many
of you know about. It's called the Study of the
Week group. Basically, every week I send you an academic
study broken down into simple English and simple findings. It
goes straight to your inbox. We are doing fifty two
studies in fifty two weeks to help make you smarter,
(01:09):
to help give you interesting knowledge about human psychology, to
use it work in your relationships with other people. And
it's really easy to sign up. Just go to substack,
type in your email and subscribe and you get access
every single week. It is also a great way to
support me and my work independently if you feel called
to do so. Okay, enough self promotion for one episode.
(01:34):
I always hate doing. That is literally my least favorite
part of making the podcast. But this is my favorite part,
which is talking about the psychology of common phenomena that
applied to our twenties and beyond. And this episode is
these are just my favorite kinids. It's going to be
so good because we are talking about the psychology of
(01:55):
angel numbers. Angel numbers are these numerical symbols that guide us,
direct us, comfort us during times of transition and sometimes
pain and growth and uncertainty, but also just in everyday life.
It is the four four four you see you on
the microwave in the morning, and then the two dollars
twenty two cents your soda costs you at lunch, the
(02:16):
eleven eleven on your uber's license plate. These numbers mean
something to us, and we know that because our brains
can't help but notice them and feel drawn to them.
Why is that? What is it about those numbers that
presents us with so much psychological clarity and direction and
(02:37):
what does the science support about the mystical spiritual side
of this. That is what we're going to discuss, as
well as some insane plot twists to do with spiritual
gurus and the women and the woman I should say,
who popularized angel numbers. This episode takes many, many strange directions,
(02:58):
but the psychology and the science is a fascinating so
without further ado, let's get into it. So, first and foremost,
before the psychology of angel numbers, what is the history
of angel numbers? Where do they originally come from? So,
angel numbers in the way we talk about them now
(03:21):
are actually a very modern spiritual concept. They are as
modern as the invention and widespread use of numbers, which
has actually only been quite a recent thing in human history.
But they draw from too much much older traditions, which
is the belief that small things can act as messages
(03:43):
from a higher power, and also the belief that groupings
of certain things carry hidden symbolic meaning, like seeing three
crows or five coins or six donkeys whatever. It is.
An interesting part of this is the history of nonumbers themselves,
because it has evolved in stages from basic counting and tallying,
(04:05):
where people would carve strikes into walls or wood to
keep track of things, into the invention you know of
the apicus, and now the numerical system that we know
of today, which was created by Indian and Arabic mathematicians.
This led to the I wouldn't say creation, but the
development of what we now have, which is numerology, the
(04:28):
broader belief that numbers have divine, mystical or symbolic significance
and they shape the structure of our reality. Now, numerology
dates back centuries, and one of the earliest figures connected
to this movement is Pythagoras. He's a very ancient Greek philosopher.
(04:50):
You have definitely heard his name before, probably in a
high school math class. He's also the man who created
Pythagorean theorem, his equation for triangles. I don't know if
you remember it, like A plus B equal c A
square b s C squad. I don't know, I haven't
done math in a while. But he was also the
(05:11):
founder of a broader movement, a broader movement that basically
believed that the universe is governed by mathematical harmony. Obviously,
Pythagoras wasn't talking about angel numbers at the time. I'm
not going to reach that far. That wasn't his theory,
but he was talking about this broader to tradition that
(05:33):
numbers reflect the hidden order of things. They have this deeper,
more interconnected, overarching meaning that we can access through their presence,
and they reveal something like basically beneath the surface of
ordinary life. Now, the other strand of this, beyond Pythagoras
and his idea of mathematical I don't know alignment, is
(05:56):
the idea of angels, which show up a lot more
in Western cultures, with Christianity, maybe Judaism as well Islam.
This idea of spiritual beings that actors, intermediaries, or messengers
from a higher power. In Christianity specifically, angels are often
understand understood as these creatures that serve God. They offer protection,
(06:17):
they appear at important moments in biblical stories. The word
angel itself comes from the Greek word angelos, meaning messenger,
and this again ties into this belief that guidance can
be communicated through science. Those two things combined create angel numbers.
So this concept of angelic protection and guidance through numbers
(06:41):
through anything that is a very ancient concept. It borrows
from some very very old principles and religions, but angel
numbers are just I guess, not even the newest, but
a more recent kind of development. The idea of repeating
angel numbers. Angel numbers is a very modern phenomena, primarily
(07:05):
caused by the rise of New Age spirituality, specifically the
work of an American author called Doreen Virtue. She popularized
this idea that repeated number sequences could be interpreted as
messengers from angels or spiritual guides. She wrote this huge
series of books about it. It made her a multi millionaire.
(07:28):
She was on Oprah. It just blew up. It was
like the big thing of the early two thousands. Something
really interesting though. An interesting twist is that Doreen actually
underwent a whole religious conversion in like twenty seventeen, like ten,
maybe like twenty years after she I don't even know
(07:50):
what the right word is popularize the idea, she like
completely renounced it. She became a complete born again fundamentalist Christian,
and she's publicly stated that she no longer believes in
angel numbers. She doesn't think they're spiritually valid. She has
this whole YouTube show where she talks about it. So
if you want to go look that up. It's very interesting.
She literally did an interview with I don't know if
(08:12):
you know the magazine The Cut where, which, by the way,
one of my favorites. But she basically says, I regret this.
I regret popularizing angel numbers. I've gone broke stepping away
from these teachings. I don't want anything to do with it.
I don't think many people know about that. It's so
fascinating how these kinds of ideas can take on a
(08:33):
whole life of their own, even though the person associated
with them most in the modern day, the person who
popularized them has since completely distanced herself from the concept.
And I don't think that means that you have to
I don't think that you should no longer believe in
it yourself. I don't think that we should discard it.
She obviously wasn't the sole inventor. This is a very
(08:55):
old tradition. I just think it's an interesting part of this. Nonetheless,
may it be a bit of a lesson about not
leaning too heavily on spiritual gurus today. Angel numbers exist
beyond her right. They are their own thing. They are
their own source of inspiration, growth, and comfort. To people,
especially as they have emerged online and on TikTok, on
(09:20):
Instagram and in articles as these incredible things, the meaning
around them circulates regardless of whether Dooring approves of them
or doesn't, which she obviously doesn't. So what do certain
angel numbers represent? If you don't want to go back
and read her book? There are so many different patterns.
I'm just going to talk about a few of the
(09:40):
main ones today, the biggest one being eleven eleven or
one one one now. This is often associated with manifestation,
with new beginnings, with intention, and alignment. People often interpret
it as basically a prompt to notice, what are you
thinking about? Make a wish, focus on that, call this
(10:04):
thing into your life. Eleven eleven means like it's coming
for you, manifest channel that energy two to two two.
The next one is commonly linked to trust, balance, relationships,
divine timing. It tends to be interpreted as a reassurance
number or a symbolic reminder that things may be unfolding
(10:24):
even if you cannot yet kind of see the outcome.
Three through three, but just going to go down the
list here often associated with creativity, encouragement, expression, support. Some
people interpret it as a reminder that they are being
guided or that they should express themselves that the idea
they have is the one that is was they are
(10:47):
directed to pursue. Four tour fur another very common one,
or the one that I think a lot of people
lean towards, is about protection, grounding, stability. Very comforting during
times of transition, very comforting during times of evolution and
personal evolution, because it says you are protected, You're going
(11:08):
to get through this, You're not alone. Five five five
is usually associated again with change, with disruption, with transformation coming.
I'm trying to think about a great example, but essentially,
if you see it all the time, it's a sign
that something is about to shift for you, you're about
to enter a new phase. Seven seven seven is spiritual insight, luck, intuition,
(11:32):
a deeper sense of knowing. Eight eight is often associated
with abundance, wealth, money, prosperity, success, maybe even energetic return.
And nine to ninet nine is usually interpreted as completion.
It's the end, it's the last one kind of in
(11:53):
that sequence. It's closure, it's released, it's its endings. My
favorite one though, and my personal angel number, if one
can call it, that is one two, three, four, twelve
thirty four. I am not kidding when I say I
see this in some form every single day without fail like,
literally every single day. I will wake up in the
(12:13):
middle of the night. It will be twelve thirty four am.
I will order my breakfast. It will be twelve dollars
and thirty four cents. I will read the word count
for a script. It will be twelve hundred and thirty
four words. Grab and uber twelve thirty four in the
license plate. It literally cannot express you how many ways
I have seen this. I don't know what it fully believes.
I think it means that you're building a good life.
(12:33):
I think it means that you should stick to your goal.
I think it represents progress and growth. That is definitely
my favorite. The thing is, though with all those the
meanings can be interpreted as one and the same, they
also aren't necessarily universal. That is so important to know.
The woman who wrote this book obviously like had an idea,
(12:56):
But it doesn't really matter. It matters what it means
to you. It matters in many ways what it psychologically
represents and what it needs to mean to you in
this moment. And I think that's why They're so meaningful
not because they have a universal meaning, but because they
allow for a level of flexibility in their interpretation, just
(13:18):
like a poem can mean different things at different stages
of your life, or a song lyric feels like it
was written just for you, even though thousands of people
listen to it, even though you know. Like a religious
passage can comfort different people from completely different life circumstances,
angel numbers work in a similar way. Their meaning is
(13:39):
not fixed. They act as an emotional container, and they
give shape and they take shape, and they are symbolic,
and they are important, often based on things that we
are already feeling, and they just become a way of
externalizing something that we already know as a deep truth.
So why do they feel so significant to us? Why
(14:03):
is one one one a good sign? Why is three
three three a positive thing? What does the psychology say
about our attraction to these numbers? We are going to
dive into that after this short break. Angel numbers feel
significant firstly because they often appear or we are more
(14:27):
likely to notice them at emotionally significant points in our life.
And this is not a coincidence, it's not an accident.
It occurs because a core principle in psychology is that
we interpret the world primarily through our emotional state. Our
reality shapes our emotions, but it also happens the other
(14:47):
way around as well. Meaning how we feel influences what
we notice, what feels important, and the life that we
have perception is everything. Way of understanding this is through
what we call the meaning maintenance model. So in a
two thousand and six paper published in the Journal of
(15:10):
Personality and Social Psychology, the authors kind of made this
suggestion that people have an inherent need for meaning. This
is an old idea, they really were able to articulate
it in this study. We need to perceive events through
the frame of mental representations to organize our perception of
the world. We have this deep need basically to experience
(15:32):
the world as this coherent, meaningful, logical, organized thing that
is important to us as humans. When that sense of
meaning is threatened, for example, when life feels confusing, when
you've gone through a terrible breakup and you don't believe
in love anymore, when you have no idea what you
are doing with your life, when a sickness occurs, when
(15:54):
something unfair happens, people often try to restore meaning in
another way, such as through the guidance and presence of
angel numbers. This helps explain why angel numbers become compelling
during periods of transition like our twenties, like after a divorce,
like when you've just lost a job, like when you
(16:14):
are moving through grief. These are all moments where life
feels temporarily very unstructured and your brain does not like that.
We are looking for anything that can provide emotional scaffolding
and emotional meaning to life. This raises another question, why
(16:34):
those numbers though? Why are our minds so ready to
see meaning in repeated numbers in the first place, rather
than just something else, like why are those things assigned?
That brings us to the psychology of pattern recognition one
of my favorite I love this. I could talk about
this all day. Our brains are constantly scanning the environment
(16:55):
for things that are the same, for repetition, for connection,
for rhythm, for signs. Basically, our brains want to make
sense of our surroundings to keep us safe. If they
can predict what's going to happen next, that gives them
a better chance. It's one of the most important things
that our brains do. The sheer fact that our brains
are wired to recognize patterns are what helps us to
(17:18):
do things like learn languages, or recognize faces, or understand
social cues, or predict when we might be in danger.
It is ecre if not most critical part of our
brains and our lives as humans. It helps us learn
that if we do certain behaviors, certain outcomes are going
to happen. Dark clouds mean rain. If somebody treats you
(17:40):
like this, then it's probably going to end this way. Now,
inability to interpret those patterns is often what gets us
into trouble, not just in terms of survival, but in
terms of emotional patterns as well. Pattern detection is life saving.
Not listening to it can also be life changing. The
tricky thing is that a brain that is built to
(18:01):
detect meaningful patterns will sometimes find meaning in places where
the pattern is a little bit random. Psychologists sometimes refer
to this as apophenia, which means perceiving meaningful connections between
unrelated or random things. In simple terms, it's when the
mind sees a pattern and gives it significance, even when
(18:24):
the pattern doesn't have an external cause. Now, that goes
against some of our beliefs about angel numbers, but it
is a really important explanation for why our brains like
angel numbers. There was a two thousand and eight study
published in Science, the journal Science by Jennifer Whitson. She's
a psychologist whose work has explored control and uncertainty and
patent perception, and it gives us a really useful way
(18:47):
to understand this. Across a series of several experiments, Jennifer
found that when people felt a lack of control, they
were more likely to perceive illusory or I don't want
to say delusional, but just patterns. In general. They were
more likely to see, for example, images in visual noise.
They were more likely to identify connections that we're just
(19:10):
objectively not there. When we feel in control, the world
already feels organized enough, we don't really need to look
for extra science. When we feel out of control, the
mind becomes more motivated to restore order. It searches for meaning.
Now this is a critical thing, because does that mean
the meaning isn't there. No, those numbers are still there.
(19:34):
The guidance they provide is still real. It's just that
you start looking for them more. Now, why are the
numbers there? That's another question? Right, there is this deep
intersection between spirituality and psychology when it comes to these
things that you can't disentangle, and you can't completely ignore
the fact that numbers do control the world, and that
math is this wonderful thing, and that numerology is a
(19:56):
very valid way of interpreting life. This is where the
idea of confirmation bias comes in. Confirmation bias is the
tendency to notice, remember, and give more weight to information
that supports what we already believe or suspect. Confirmation bias
is something that we are all subject to. Again, it's
(20:17):
part of our brains, hardwiring. There's no escaping it. It
is an essential feature of human thinking. You may feel
like seeing tou tou tou means you're on the right path.
Then whenever you see the number two two two after
making a certain decision, that just confirms it for you.
That is enough to feel like you must have been correct.
But the thing is is that you may not remember
(20:38):
all the times you made a decision and you didn't
see the number two two two. You may not notice
all the times you saw tou tou tou and nothing
obvious happened afterwards. Now, again, does this mean that angel
numbers should be completely discounted just because the science has
another explanation for them. I personally don't think so. Like
(21:02):
I don't think so, I still think they're meaningful. But
it's just important to understand these illusions and these biases
that also contribute to them being upheld. Another one is
the frequency illusion. You may this is the best way
to describe this is like you learn a new term,
or you learn a new word, and suddenly like everybody
(21:22):
is talking about it, or you're thinking about buying a
certain car, and then suddenly every single car you see
is that car. It can feel like it's completely by chance,
but it's just that your brain has started to filter
for important information. It's just starting to filter for things
(21:43):
that you have decided is critical, oh remains critical for you.
The world has not necessarily changed, but your attention has.
Attention really sits at the core of this, and angel
numbers again work in the same way to a certain
number becomes meaningful to you the way twelve thirty four
(22:03):
is meaningful to me. Your brain starts treating that number
is important. You filter literally millions of pieces of information
every single day. But once something has been encoded as significant.
It's just going to pop out from the background. Right.
It's like recognizing the face of somebody that you know
in love in a crowd. You notice it, you notice it,
(22:24):
you clock it. It's something that's important to you. It's
relevant to you. Each time you notice it, it feels
even more significant because the fact that you're noticing it
that obviously means something. And so that is the circular
process of how an angel number becomes important to us
and then continues to be something that we see that
can be It's so insanely comforting, this is what I'm saying.
(22:46):
It's so comforting. It is a good feeling. It is beautiful.
The idea that things are connected, that life has pattern
and meaning is a great way to live. And that
it brings me to another idea that's connected to angel numbers,
which is pronoa. Pronoia is described as the opposite of paranoia.
(23:08):
Paranoia is the fear of belief that people's systems or
forces are kind of conspiring against you. Prona, by contrast,
is the sense that the world is conspiring in your favor. Now,
this term was introduced into psychological literature by this guy
called Fred Goldner. He was a sociologist at Queen's College
(23:29):
in New York, and he talked about it in this
article he published in nineteen eighty two. He described pronoia
as a positive counterpart to paranoia. A belief that others
think well of you, a belief that events are favorable
towards you rather than unfavorable. A belief that the social
world is organized more benevolently around you than negatively around you.
(23:55):
This is psychologically remarkable, It is psychologically powerful, and it's
basically a more scientific version of what you focus on
expands if you focus on the good, that expands if
you focus on the bad. If you let paranoia take over,
the bad becomes your life. Pronoia means that there is
benevolence in the timings of things, that things might be aligning,
(24:16):
even if you do not fully understand how they are
right now. It means that you are protected. Angel numbers
create this gentle form of pronoia and this greatest sense
of responsiveness to life because we feel more confident that
things are going to go our way. And this is
(24:36):
the part of angel numbers that can't be dismissed, whether
you think they're pseudoscience or not. They genuinely help people.
They genuinely shape behavior in ways that do heal and
do change lives and do spare growth. Uncertainty is emotionally
and cognitively demanding, and it makes us hesitate, It makes
(24:57):
us stay still, It makes us remain motionless. When we
do not know what is going to happen, our minds
are going to try and fill that gap. Often it
will fill that gap with anxiety and the worst case scenario.
Angel numbers fill that gap with hope and fill that
gap with promise instead of thinking like, what if everything
(25:17):
goes wrong? Here is this thing that says, but what
if I'm being guided? What if I need to trust
and wait and see how this unwinds. What if I
need to what if I need to just give it
a go. That is psychologically powerful. That is psychologically powerful
because deep down, you know the reality that you want.
The Angel number is just the boost, it's just the catalyst.
(25:38):
It doesn't change the external outcome. Seeing a certain number
doesn't guarantee that you're going to get the job. It
doesn't guarantee that your relationship is going to work out,
but it does guarantee that your internal state is probably
going to be a lot more regulated. It does kind
of ensure that you're going to feel more self assured
(25:58):
and calm. And what is definitely a fact is that
that emotional state does have an impact on an outcome
and does have an impact on how you choose to behave.
There was a really interesting twenty ten paper published in
Psychological Science by the researchers Lizen Damish and Barbara Stoberock.
Their work basically examines superstition. It examines confidence and performance
(26:19):
and what their experiments found, and this is so critical,
is that activating good luck superstitions like using a lucky
object or hearing a phrase associated with luck, could improve
performance not by changing an outcome, but by changing confidence
and changing participants levels of persistence because they felt like
(26:40):
there was somebody on their side. Another study found something similar.
When you show people certain symbols or make certain coincidences
occur before they walk into an experimental condition, and you say, hey,
did you see that thing? Did you know that's lucky?
It could literally be the most arbitrary thing. It literally
could be nothing, and they perform better because they feel
(27:02):
safer and they feel like something is on their side.
There is obviously a term for this in psychology. There's
a term for everything in psychology. It's a self fulfilling prophecy.
You've probably heard this before, self fulfilling prophecy. Of course,
that was going to happen. I talked about it, I
think in our superstition episode. I'm gonna say for a
little refresher, a self fulfilling prophecy occurs when a belief
(27:23):
influences behavior in a way that makes the belief more
likely to come true. Is that a bad thing? No,
If the belief is positive. If you believe something is
a sign of your success, you are more likely to
act in ways that bring about success. You are more
likely to be audacious, you're more likely to be risky,
You're more likely to put yourself out there. That is
(27:46):
a good thing. That is what changes the outcome with
angel numbers. The self fulfilling prophecy is so apparent and
so powerful, probably more powerful than many other things. If
you keep seeing one one one, and you interpret it
as a sign of a new beginning, guess what you're
gonna do. You're going to finally start that project, You're
going to finally apply for that course, You're going to
(28:06):
send that email you're going to move cities. Then the
number did not magically create the new beginning. It just
helped you act in alignment with the one you already
knew you wanted. You are the magic. That's what I'm
trying to say. You. You are the magic pushing your
destiny forward. The Angel number is just the security blanket.
(28:28):
They're just letting you lean into what you already know
you were capable of. Whether that is growth, whether that
is healing, whether that is peace, love, success, you name it.
But you are the magic. They cannot change your reality
for you. You change your reality through their psychological impact.
I really want to emphasize this point. Often we already
(28:49):
know things before we are willing to admit them. You
already know you're unhappy. You already know you are outgrowing something,
You know that that relationship isn't right. You know that
you want something more from life. But that sensation is
really frightening, it's really scary, and it's uncertain when you
know that you're going to have to change something and
that things aren't going to be the same, or that
(29:10):
there is an outcome that you can't one predict. So
we need a psychological boost. We need a psychological push.
So we look for a sign. We look for a sign,
and if it's there, amazing because we act. The same
can be said for tarot cards, for reading horoscopes. We
just want a reason. But the fact that we're looking
(29:30):
for a guide doesn't mean that the motivation to change
isn't already there, and doesn't mean that we wouldn't have
done it. Anyways, when somebody is looking for a sign,
they're going to find a sign. When you know you
need to do something, you're going to find something that's
going to confirm that. Let's talk about why angel numbers
get a bad rap? Should we including a little bit
more about there maybe more dangerous, the more dangerous mixings
(29:57):
with psychology stay with us. So you know what I hate.
I hate when people yuck other people's yum when it
literally does no harm to them, not even harm like
it doesn't even influence them in the slightest. It really
(30:18):
annoys me. It really annoys me. And I think people
who believe in angel numbers often get a lot of
yuck from other people, and I just don't think that's fair,
And let's talk about it. I think people often make
fun of angel numbers and people who believe in angel numbers,
because there's this idea that they are rational and they're sentimental,
and it's really associated with this like Delulu, like online
(30:39):
spiritual culture of like luck and fate and destiny, and
like how unscientific is that. I think sometimes this criticism
comes from a genuine concern that maybe angel numbers are
encouraging magical thinking or poor decision making, or again a
confirmation bias that allows people to do things that maybe
aren't why, Like, if angel numbers can be a guide
(31:04):
for positive things, they can also be a guide for
things that maybe aren't what's best for you, like getting
back with people you probably shouldn't, quitting jobs without a plan,
that sort of thing. I think the concern can be fair,
especially if somebody is making major life choices based on
only the presence of numbers without a plan. But a
lot of the time that's not why people are worried
(31:27):
about it. A lot of the time, I think people
just want to criticize it. People just want to make
you feel infuri I think the mockery around angel numbers,
specifically from a certain group of people, comes from a
bit of a superiority complex. It becomes this way of
like performing intelligence and performing detachment. There's often this tone
(31:49):
when people criticize angel numbers of like, I'm more intelligent
than you. I would never believe in that. I understand
the science. You're dumb. I'm not well, I don't know.
I understand the science. You understand the science. You just
listen to thirty minutes of it. And I think that
that science and that research makes angel numbers even more
compelling in terms of the way that they psychologically guide
(32:11):
people and the way that they emotionally provide courage that
is needed for a human to act. Actually, in terms
of the way that they enable agency and self belief.
I don't think that's something to be scoffed at. I
actually think that is a remarkably powerful thing to have
at your disposal. There's also a very gendered element here.
(32:34):
Many forms of spiritual meaning making, like taro, like angel numbers,
like birth charts, which are also typically associated with young women,
often receive an additional unfair amount of criticism as being
cringe or silly, or embarrassing or stupid. It is almost
a trend to mock them, to think of them as
(32:54):
like silly women's things, and emotional and not rational and ridiculous,
and you know, the man's view of life is about
hard work and rationality, and you believing in this shows
that you don't believe in that. That's kind of an idea.
Humans engage in symbolic and irrational rituals all the time.
(33:15):
Athletes wear lucky clothing, Students use lucky pens. Football fans
believe they can jinx a gain by not doing a
certain routine beforehand, or doing a certain routine beforehand. People
knock on wood, people say everything happens for a reason.
All of these things involve emotion, They involve symbolism, uncertainty,
and perceived meaning, and those things are the exact same
(33:37):
psychological route as indeor numbers. It's just packaged differently. The
branding is literally just different. It's like the difference between
diet coke and coke zero. It's just the gender that
they're marketed towards. So we're not really talking about a
difference in rationality at all. The difference is actually more
so in which rituals are socially legitimized, socially supported, and
(34:00):
which aren't. I also think this mockery can come from
and maybe this is a stretch, but I think it
is a discomfort with hope. Feeling hopeful can be really vulnerable.
To believe that something might be working out for you
is to risk disappointment, and cynicism protects you against that disappointment.
(34:22):
If you never believe in science, you never have to
feel foolish for hoping. You can give distance, You can
remain detached from longing and from wanting, And I think
that's a really critical part that people don't talk about.
It's easy to not believe in angel numbers because believing
in them would mean that, like the possibility of something
(34:43):
good is possible, and you could have some hope around that,
and then what if you're disappointed. There's some fear in
that as well. So is it actually all that bad
to believe in angel numbers? In most cases, No, it's not.
In fact, it's made be even a good thing. I
would make the argument that it is with anything, though,
(35:04):
there are a few things to look out for, and
I would be remiss if I didn't mention them. So
I'm going to hear. I think the main things to
be cautious of with anything in this kind of new
age spiritual realm is exploitation. Any belief system that offers
people comfort during periods of uncertainty and transition and confusion
can also become something that is sold back to them
(35:27):
and used to manipulate them, and that's just an annoying
part of human existence. This is especially the case, in
my opinion, in online spiritual spaces, where we're sold more
and more and more reassurance and more and more comfort
packaged as personalized readings or intuitive messages from the universe,
when it may just be a way for somebody to
(35:50):
make money off of you, and you have to kind
of be aware of people's human urges to exploit. A
lot of people earn money through spiritual work in its
fair work, and it's work. The issue is when certain
people pry on people's vulnerabilities, pry on their anxiety in
order to sell them a product, and their own belief
(36:10):
in the product is not there and their own good
intentions are not there. Someone may start with a harmless
interest in angel numbers and slowly get pulled into this
loop of needing more reassurance, one more reading, one more
spiritual download, one more video telling them what this number
means for this specific situation, and often the language used
(36:33):
is really persuasive and really general because it wants to
speak to anybody who is in a place of emotional uncertainty.
That's often all of us, you know. It wants to
relate to everybody so that they can make more money
and so that they can kind of manipulate a system.
And it is important to be aware of that and
to be aware of the psychological power of angel numbers
(36:55):
and what they can do in the company they can
offer people. And just because we know that, it also
means that people who have bad intentions know that as well.
And we have to be aware as well of a
dependency on external confirmation that some of these processes can create.
Instead of learning to sit with ambiguity, to tolerate uncertainty,
to just like trust your judgment, sometimes we can get
(37:16):
desperate in our search for angel numbers or a sign,
and when it doesn't come, it can be awful. It
can be awful. And I want to say again, a
lot of people engage with spiritual practices in a very sincere, honest,
helpful way and an ethical way and with an intention
of really guiding people. But it's just worth being cautious
(37:38):
and it's just worth knowing your source a little bit more,
and also being okay with a little bit of uncertainty,
like it's okay, it's okay to not know you know. Also,
look at the example of Doreen Virtue, who we spoke
about earlier. Here is a woman who made millions and
(37:58):
millions and millions of people and then basically reneged and said, oh,
I actually I don't believe in that. And this article
I was speaking about talks about these individuals who were
just left like heartbroken, and they'd made major life decisions
on this woman's teachings. They felt very scammed, they felt
very misled, they felt even more confused because she's just
a human. Humans are fallible, like it's difficult to put
(38:20):
our hopes and fears at their feet. One more thing
that I think we should be aware of is the
fixation and anxiety that can come with our belief in
angel numbers. Not for everybody, but as much as there
are positive, encouraging messages that come from angel numbers and
seeing two to two or twelve thirty four or four
four four everywhere, the opposite can also be true. If
(38:41):
we start to fixate on good numbers, we can also
start to fixate on bad numbers, maybe interpreting certain numbers
as omens or warnings or signs that something is going wrong.
We can also if we don't see our angel number
every day or regularly, we can start to feel exceedingly
unsure of a decision, like I'm not getting confirmation of this.
(39:02):
Is this the right decision? Maybe it is, even if
there's not a number to support that. We can get
into this trap of black and white thinking where we're
trying to predict the future based on these neutral numbers
that we notice. At that point, the practice can shift
from being a source of courage and meaning making and
(39:23):
motivation and magic to being a big component of disorders
like anxiety and OCD. If you're waiting around to see
if there is a numerical sign to make a decision
about your life, or if you are being put off
doing something you know you need to do because of
a so called bad number or because you haven't seen
a good number, then I think that is the point
(39:44):
where not everybody gets here, but it is the point
where you might need to take a step back and
just be like, is this belief making my life bigger
or smaller? Belief? It's in the world needs to make
your life bigger. I think I would take it back
to that core message. At the end of the day,
you are the magic and you are the decision maker.
(40:06):
You are the one who has to say you are conscious.
You make things happen, You do the healing, You push
your own evolution forward. If you need a sign, if
you need encouragement, that is not a bad thing. Every
human needs motivation in some form. Angel numbers don't do
the work for you, though, and they aren't the final
be or say or end all of this situation. Again,
(40:30):
I want to say I love the concept of angel numbers.
They have provided so much comfort for me during really
difficult times. I went through a really terrible breakup. Angel
numbers played a great role when I moved cities and
I felt really, really lonely. They were a guiding light
for me when I wanted to quit my job. I'm
not gonna lie and say I didn't you know see
A two two too. I think that was a good choice.
(40:51):
They made the ordinary feel less hard, and they made
they made my life feel more meaningful and significant. And
I think the science and why they made me feel
that way makes them even more important. To me because
it confirms that what I'm searching for. If I'm searching
for something, I obviously already secretly unconsciously want it. And
(41:12):
so if I am looking for a sign, the fact
I am looking for a sign is the sign. Does
that make sense? Yeah? Again, I think it does. If
you are looking for a sign, that is your sign.
So there you go. That is the psychology of angel numbers,
a little bit of the history as well. That is
why they are so compelling to us psychologically. I don't
think that science undermines them. I think it actually contributes
(41:33):
to them. So I hope that you've learned something. I
hope it's made you feel more informed about this practice.
If you've made it this far and you're listening on Spotify,
what's your favorite angel number? Leave a comment down below.
If you also see twelve thirty four everywhere, let me
know what does it mean for you. I want to see.
I know I'm not the only one, so who else
(41:54):
is out there? I want to I want to hear
from you. Thank you, as always to our researcher Libby
Cobbett for her incredible help with this episode and her
amazing research. We also have some fun additional pieces of
research and further reading on the topic of angel numbers.
In the description. You can also find out more on substack.
You can join our Study of the Week group. You
(42:14):
can watch an episode on Netflix. Everywhere you can find us.
You can find us in the description. Just go down there,
and there's actually so much interesting stuff that you can
go down a whole rabbit hole with this even further
if you want to. But again, yes, thank you for listening.
I love this episode. I love doing like these scientific
episodes into like real common concepts, especially ones that are
(42:37):
a little bit mystical. So I hope you enjoyed it
as well. And until next time, be safe, be kind,
be gentle to yourself. We will talk very very soon.
Host
Jemma Sbeghen
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