Hi everyone,
I've personally been very interested in all that esoteric subjects recently, I've read and researched quite a lot about this stuff. These studies that can last a whole life, so I won't say I know much, but I managed to get quite an "opinion" about some things discussed here, so I'll just give my personnal point of view about some things, if I can.
First, everything I've read util now has lead me to the conclusion that the many cosmologies, symbols, religious rituals and ceremonies (dances and music, trance), and every occult, esoteric, hermetic, gnostic, or magic conceptions and practices should be ALL related the most ancient african cosmologies and the most ancient african religious/shamanistic cult teachings. My undesrtanding is that the "african" man, or simply the "ancient man" (who just happens to be black when he live in very sunny area) has developed, between let's say -150 000 and -50000 all kind od religious ceremonies and practices of many kinds, that they next spread all over the world, and which constituted the basis for every great first ancient "civilisation" in the world (basically every civilization). This would explain why all the languages in the world, even sanskrit, seems to find their roots in a first and unique "language", whose first systematized root should be the ancient african/ethiopian language and writings. Note the egyptians claimed (themselves) to have received their own knowledge and cult as an heritage and a gift from the Nubians/ethiopians : egyptians priests claimed positively that nubians-ethiopians (kushites in the bible) learned them the most important basis of their own civilisation and were their first teachers and "masters". (just as some greeks admitted it for egypt towards greece).
Egyptians claim to have been taught by ethiopians :
1) their many religious pratices and main cult practices (skin painting, "horns", scarifications, elongated head or ears (see buddha ears)
2 the names of their own gods, and the way to worship them (just as for "kings" pharaoh as well)
3) language, writing, arithmetics (how many different writings and languages are there in africa ??)
3) all their cosmological doctrines (spirit of nature as a universal mind, god as Word incarnated, origin in "water", feline goddess, and so on)
4) cult of their king as a solar god (killing of the king is a pratice found in south africa, as well as middle-east or indus valley)
5) art of crafting, building of boats, and so on ... (see earliest dynasties royal abydos necropolis ; see abydos http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abydos,_Egypt)
So my personal opinion is that all the ancient civilizations, cults, religious practices and cosmological conceptions of the world are all related to ancient african religious conceptions (in particular west african, center african, and especially sudanese/ethiopian origin) and are only deliberate and/or involontary transformations, deformations and adaptations throughout time. But I think that, judging by the evidences, there only can be one common source to all these so similar conceptions and practices. (kings, pyramids, 3 class societies, solear and stars worship, serpent worship, cow worship). All etymologies seem to confirm this too (to my mind).
So I'm just telling this because I do think, therefore, that anything about all occult, religious or esoteric matters can only be explained by and from egyptian or predynastic african religious practices, and be well understood from that point.
Now, as far as "numbers" are concerned, I'd distinguished number symbolism from "kabbalistic numerology".
Number symbolism refer, in my mind, to the numerical explanation of life, in african religion/philosophy : for example and really in short : 1 = means totality in unity, god in latency 2 = life, existence as duality, tension between opposites 3 = first geometrical figure, harmony, balance, wholeness of nature or god 4. physical and material word 5) reality nature + man (the fifth element, man) ... 6 = "hell" "saturn" "winter" (evil, death or devolution) 7 = perfection, final completion (11= passage , probably towards me to a next astrological era, now aquarius, like every 2100 years (not exactly but...)
However numerology seems to me quite an "invention" of hebrew priesthood, through kabbalah, Sefer Ha Zohar...., which might be esoteric ciphered stuff, aimed at "concealing" the egyptian/sumerian knowledge (african basically) and the true origin of their cosmology and "religion" (abraham = ab, father Ra, sun, ham : "Ham, son of Noah, The Bible refers to Egypt as "the land of Ham" in Psalms 78:51; 1". So kabbalah was "magic" and esoteric teachings reserved for the few highly initiated people (just as today), while exoteric religious teachings were for the profanes (just as today).
Then I think all sorts of numerical cipher techniques were often used, from that time until today, to conceal esoteric, subversive or political works, such as the "apocalyptical works" of st John, ezekiel, and so on... The bible in itself must have been entirely ciphered so that there could be several levels of understanding and teachings, just as in most of the medieval period (cathedrals), renaissance or modern era works of art : only esoteric, gnostic, alchemical or cabalistical stuff. To my mind, "art" and esoterism are almost two words for one thing. Just that only very few are taught the meaning (and especially the true and deep meanings) of symbols, as well as their relation to african/egyptian philosophical, scientific and religious system, which might be the real and only "holy book", africa or egypt being the "holy land", mind, body and spirit being the "holy temple", "man, earth and the universe together" the "holy trinity", and so the Pyramid as an allegory for everything, and especially for the "MAN" ("manpower" !) "re-creating" or protecting himself in another "perfect temple", proving that way that he managed, in a sense, to "equal" god (which was not a sin for them, but, in fact, the true "goal" for a man to pursue : "becoming again the god that he was". see "gnosticism").
Now, as far as "occultism" is concerned, I do believe that the word first referred, from an african shamanistic point of view, to all the "invisible" things, such as wind, sounds, and music, electricity, magnetism for example, and basically to "all the "real" world we just can't see", the "other" world that we only can "join" during dreams, trance-like-state, or "death", which didn't meant "ending" but "passage, crossing" to this "other" world. Now it pretty much means "esoteric", with a quite dark reputation of sorcery, and black magic.
In this regard "Magic" was probably, to my mind, considered, first, simply as the "different kind of interactions man may have with "Nature", ie the "spiritual world", ie "god". Basically, everything, in the universe, was related to everything. Everything was "magic",because nothing can be such thing as "not magic". To them everything was magic, and their were no such distinctions as "natural" or "supranatural", "normal" or supranormal" : everything was just natural and supernatural at the same time and could be interacted with through "magic" : just "naming" something was a deep magical activity (god "ptah" made the world "by his words" according to egyptian cosmology).
Now to jump to more recent times, I just think all the "kabbalistical", "gnostical", "alchemical", "hermetical", or "religious" corpus are merely deliberate falsification, as well as pure misunderstanding of the oldest "african" scientifical, philosophical, religious teachings or "holy doctrine", just stolen, copied, altered, re-ciphered, and used by the so called "hebrews"/ babylonians/ persians/ greek and roman as the most efficient tool to enslave the whole world and humanity under the form of a unique book, and under the control and jurisdiction of one world empire monopoly (greeks, babylonians, late egyptians, persians, and romans joining together for the project.)
So to me this is basically concealment of the true teachings, and spreading of bullshit, in the aim to tease people, use them, confuse them, drive them nuts or making them obedient, but never find out any truth out of that. Misleading everybody to control everybody.
This, besides, reminds me of what I learnt about the society of the so-called "hashishins" (ismaelians), which is certainly the real root of all the european secret societies (templars, jesuits, freemasonery) : I read that every initiate was taught a "new version" of the "truth" at each stage of his evolution inside the society. Don't remember exactly what were the first ones, but basically, the last one was that, pretty much "there were no real doctrine at all, no real secret, and that NOTHING was true, nothing real, except the GAME of everything, created and engineered by the many lies and manipulations... by tricks... So was GOD : the great master of treachery and trickery, the great illusionist, and all of us merely Fools. So said the so-called "Shakespeare" : all the world a "stage", and us merely "players".
So to try to answer the question more directly : why numbers and semiotics in the news ? I'd see several main reasons :
1) this is just what "masters" and great artists do, in order to "express" themselves. They have to express themselves in highly symbolic and esoteric works because this the only way the to "condense" and express many things in a relatively "small" work of art.
2) this is a lot of fun and the most immense pride for such arrogant men (see the letter from alexander to aristotle about the fact that aristotle taught some "secrets" to "people")
3) symbolic teachings is understood very well by inconscious, so they can easily shape us, at a very deep and subconscious level. (Confucius : "Signs and Symbols Rule the world, not rules and law” – Confucius) In this regard, I think just that we "understand" unconsciously what seeing a tower falling means, what a plane crash "symbolizes", just as we know without being aware of it what each symbol or number means. Because symbols have a profound relation with their meaning first, and also because we are educated to their meanings quite unconsciously, but quite effectively, all along our lives, just by the highly symbolic day to day environment, in which we all have been raised, and now live.
4) to tease us : as they know what people are really deeply "craving" for (plenitude, achievement, completion, joy, intensity, happiness, life, nirvana, paradise, or whatever one calls it) and as they sell us "hell" ( the contrary of freedom and joy), I think medias in general are just many many ways to tease us with what we crave for, in symbolic way or in a more literal way. But they never explain to anyone how he can really reach it, so that he is forever a slave to the master, through his or her own (though "induced") desires, craving, expectations, feelings, emotions, and so on... Just a very efficient trap for all souls.
5) Just to mock us.... I guess they just think that only those who have worked so much as them (the fewest, not all of them) to acquire the immense knowledge and to pass the many levels of initiation are the only one who are able to rule the whole world, to create it, to shape it, to shape and guide humanity, that they have the right to do it since they have the capacity, and that they deserve it.
As a "conclusion" I'd say that the spirit of the initiation has been lost a very long time ago in the minds of political leaders of the ancient times and that from this time, the world was never ruled in a "wise" way, respecting the true traditional laws of nature and life, so that it could be ruled by those who had inherited this knowledge. But the spectacular thing is that this evolution really seem to have been anticipated by the true wise men of the ancient times : they knew "their" knowledge would soon fall in bad hands, and that humanity would have hard times. But they also predicted that those who would try to "challenge" the laws of wisdom and enslave the world, would become more and more ignorant and act more and more evil, until they just finally mess everything up and lose control, of themselves and of the world next. They also predicted that humanity, in spite of these efforts to deprive it from true knowledge, would in one way or in another, and with the help of true wise men all along the centuries, would find a way to preserve this knowledge, to make it grow, and managed to spread it, so that humanity, and even children, would one day (the "real" promised land ?) be able to learn and to understand all the great sciences of the ancient doctrine, i.e. to be able to write, to understand arithmetics, to read books and get scientific knowledge, to be able to understand beauty and arts, and be creative themselves thanks to these knowledge.
Sometimes I just think, although I consider all the horrible things that are just happening now everywhere in the world, that humanity in general, and many of "us" have made astonishing progress in the last 100 years, and that no one can guess, now that internet exists, what progress, and in spite of all their efforts to weaken us and to slow the process, what progress humanity can make in the next 20 or 50 years. I just don't know, but anyway, sometimes I think the world might not be on such a disastrous road than I thought until now.
And after all, who knows exactly, how many of "them" (but aren't we all masters and slaves in this system), how many of the "rulers" of this game are really deeply and entirely nasty, and sick enough to really want the destruction of the world and humanity ? I think most of them don't even really have the courage to genuinely wish that. Many of them might fell embedded in a "system" they just don't like, and who make them suffer just as us all. Who this system really benefits in the end ? No one. Not us, but surely not them too. I'd even say it's just way more harmful for them than for more "innocent" people. Who knows if many of them, just as many of us, are now feeling like living another way and trying to live freely for the first time ? I just hope that those who really feel like to free themselves and find true and complete "well-being" will realize that there may really be a "universal path" to reach it, grasp the true "knowledge" that lights the road, and find the way out, so that humanity can live again in a wiser and (definitely) more harmonious and inspired way. I do think sometimes this might be the "fate" of humanity, just remembering what Arthur Rimbaud wrote (who was not precisely a very "optimistic" man

That was (again) just my point, sorry if this was a bit off-topic.
Bye !