9

9, le nombre neuf.

Especially significant when regarded as a triad of triads, it is the number which reproduces itself in multiplication. "It is the sign of every circumference, since its value in degrees is equal to 9, i.e., to 3+6+0. It is a bad number under certain conditions, and very unlucky. If number 6 was the symbol of our globe ready to be animated by a divine spirit, 9 symbolized our earth informed by a bad or evil spirit" (SD 2:581).

As nine is one less than ten, in a denary hierarchy it is all the units except the first, the first being regarded as the origin or synthesis of the emanated nine. Thus one and nine may represent spirit and matter, or unmanifest and manifest, a logos and its rays. In the Stanzas of Dzyan svabhavat is the numbers one and nine, which make the perfect ten; and the same is seen in the ten Sephiroth of the Qabbalah, where Kether the Crown is often considered apart from the other nine. It was an especially favorite number in Norse mythology, appearing continuously throughout the Eddas.

In a denary system of hierarchies, in which the ending of one is the beginning of the subsequent hierarchy, we have actually a series or scale of nines. Many properties assigned to nine pertain to its position in the decimal scale. In many languages the word for nine is similar to that for new -- Sanskrit navan, nava; Greek ennea, neos; Latin novem, novus; German neun, neu -- which apprises us that nine has been considered from immemorial time the number of change or renovation, for it is followed by the complete number making 10, or springs from the monadic unit also making 10 -- in either case the reckoning enters upon a new decimal series.

(source : "Encyclopedic Theosophical Glossary", traduction d'Esopedia)