Thousands around the world will mark next Friday, 11 November, 2011 – believed by some to be one of the most important dates in the modern calendar because it reads 11/11/11 – with a range of special events. They include a live webcast at Bolivia’s Lake Titicaca, a standing stones ceremony in Avebury, Wiltshire, and a recreation of an Indiana Jones plot.
The date is believed to be significant because it has three number 11s, believed by influential psychics such as Uri Geller to be an auspicious number that can bring good luck or even open up links to another world.
Those who believe it will bring good luck include the 52 couples who have booked weddings or civil partnerships at Gretna Green – around five times the normal number.
According to numerologists, anyone getting married on 11 November this year has picked a good date as the number represents equality and is positive for long-term love.
“It’s highly unusual to have so many people getting married on a Friday in November at Gretna Green,” said a spokesman for the town’s Registration Office. “Any other Friday in November we would be lucky to see much more than half a dozen.”
A film, named 11-11-11 and directed by Darren Lynn Bousman, who made several of the films in the Saw franchise, will be released on the date, speculating that at 11.11am on that date a portal to “the 11th gate of heaven” will open and an “otherworldy entity” will enter the earthly realm for 49 minutes.
Leslie Francis, professor of religion and education at Warwick University and a member of the British Psychological Society, said: “There are a huge proportion of people who are intrigued by patterns such as this. Even though we’re living in a supposedly post-religious age, many people attach huge significance to dates like this and believe certain things may happen because of the coincidence of the numbers.”
Some point to the past for evidence that something of import may happen on the date: on 11 November, 1911, the United States experienced “the Great Blue Norther of 11/11/11”, a cold snap that affected much of the country in which temperatures plunged by as much as 20C within two or three hours because of a strong storm system separating warm air from Arctic air.
Geller has devoted years to the research of what he calls the “11/11” enigma.
“The 11/11 enigma has been here for a while now and has affected the lives of countless thousands of people,” Geller said. “Is it really a phenomenon, or is it our internal body clocks playing tricks on us? For many people, seeing the 11s in such abundance makes them certain that this goes far beyond the realms of coincidence.”
Prof Francis said the “phenomenon” could be explained by psychology.
“Certain people can convince themselves to believe there is a power in a certain set of numbers and that this could lead to unthinkable things. People think they can get away with things because the cosmos is with them on that particular moment. On one level we trivialise it, as we do with horoscopes, but on another level it’s actually something much more serious in that these ideas can affect who people are and what they do with their lives.”
Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, in a recreation of the movie Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull, 13 crystal skulls – believed by some to have been made thousands of years ago by South American civilisations such as the Aztecs or Mayans – will be brought together for the first time by a group of Mayan priests. In the film, the skulls are united to activate their power, opening a portal to another dimension.
New age followers, however, believe that the date can bring only good luck and a positive relationship with the “higher realm”, and a webcast broadcast from Lake Titicaca and from Sedona, Arizona, will relay a ceremony of “the Goddess of Light”. Celebrations will also take place at supposedly sacred spots throughout the world, including a standing stones ceremony in the English village of Avebury and a ceremony at Glastonbury.
However, Prof Francis added: “I think the only thing that is going to happen on 11 November is that there are going to be a lot of disappointed people.”
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