Five

Five is the number of life and of human experience. In classical Greek and Hindu theory, it represents the four elements, which were seen as the building blocks of matter, fused with the animating force of spirit. For the Chinese, spiritual energy was inherent in each element, and didn’t need a separate designation – but they defined five elements, rather than four, having wood and metal in place of the more abstract classical element of air. Five is the most fundamental number of human existence – we have five fingers, five primary senses (sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch), five tastes (sweet, sour, salty, bitter and savoury), five sets of openings into the body (ears, nostrils, mouth, nipples and sexual/eliminatory organs), and, when we stretch out, five points of the body (the four limbs plus the head). The magical symbol of the pentagram, the five-pointed star, is thought to suggest a person with arms and legs spread wide, and such to represent individuality, spiritual aspiration, and protection.

Desert Five-Spot by Steve Berardi

With such an intimate personal connection to the number five, it is no surprise that it feels like an automatically natural value for a set of objects. Most mathematical systems derived around the world operate on groups (ie. ‘base’) of ten – the number we can get to counting on both hands. The few cultures that do not work in groups of ten, such as the Ikwaye of New Guinea, tend to work in groups of twenty instead – both hands and both feet. As befits such a visceral number, five crops up repeatedly in religious imagery across the world, particularly with reference to human experience – the five wounds of Christ (and the feeding of the five thousand), the five Dhyani Buddhas guarding the five directions (‘centre’ is also a direction), the five faces of Shiva in Hinduism, the sacred role of five in Discordianism, and the five Pillars of Islam (and their five fundamental dogmas).