Omne in Parvo

A primer on the magical use of Gematria

“All things that are, and are made, subsist by, and receive their virtue from numbers. For time consists of number, and all motion, and action, and all things which are subject to time, and motion." -Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa

Get ready to go the rabbit holes folks, because today we are going to talk about gematria! Gematria, at its essence, is the attribution of numerical value to a letter of a syllabary, usually (but not always) the Hebrew Aleph Bet. By adding up the number values for all the letters in a words or phrase, one can learn something about the essence of that idea. Gematria is something I really love, it was one of the first things I really clicked with on my magical path. I’ve been using it liberally ever since then. Why? Because it’s really useful on a practical level! Useful, but not easy to jump right into, so I’m excited to share some tips to get started so you too can start analyzing the numbers in license plates and signs as messages from the divine. Before we get to the practical part, let’s get a little history out of the way.

A Very Abridged History of Gematria

The first use of what we now call gematria dates back to the 8th century BCE in Assyria, where an inscription tells us that the walls of King Sargon II’s palace in Khorsabad were built to measure 16,283 cubits, the numerical value of his name. The Greeks seemed to be using their version of gematria, called isopsephia, around the 5th century BCE by building their temples in accordance with isopsephic values. It seems they incorporated the numerical attributions into their written language via the Phoenicians, from whom they adopted the 27 letter alphabet they used at that time, which was required to create three enneads of number associations, 1-9, 10-90 and 100-900.

Because of the peculiarities of the 22 letter Hebrew syllabary, it seems they adopted their version of the practice, which they called gematria, from the Greeks, and began using it in earnest by the 1st century BCE. The Hebrew syllabary did not have enough letters to create the full three sequence ennead of the Greeks, instead using the values 1-9, 10-90 and 100-400. Though it may have arrived late to the Hebrew language, it proliferated into many different forms and usages, and was closely associated with the mystical practice of Kabbalah. Hermetic occultists and Christian mystics brought gematria and Kabbalah into various intellectual circles during the Renaissance, where it departed drastically from Judaic practice and mutated to become one of the mainstays of the western esoteric tradition. It cannot be stressed enough that the Jewish practice of Kabbalah, and the western esoteric use, are totally different and should not be conflated with each other, though there is obviously some overlap. Just be aware that the difference exists, and please be respectful of the religious practices of the 15.7 million followers of the Jewish faith. I think it’s worth noting here that as magicians and human beings, we need to be extremely sensitive to the ideas of cultural appropriation and acknowledge the roots and culture of the system that we have inherited.

The Hebrew syllabary is made up of 22 letters, from א, aleph to ת, tau. It would benefit the student of gematria to learn by heart the sequence of letters and their numerical value, simply for ease of processing various words into numbers without having to constantly reference a guide. I would suggest installing a Hebrew font on your computer as well, if you don’t already have one.

Unity through Number

Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa, in book 2 of his Three Books of Occult Philosophy, says the following on the subject of number:

Now let us treat particularly of numbers themselves: and because number is nothing else but a repetition of Unity, let us first consider Unity itself. For Unity doth most simply go through every number, and is the common measure, fountain, and original of all numbers, contains every number joined together in it self entirely, the beginner of every multitude, always the same, and unchangeable

Writing some 370 years later, Crowley received this passage in Liber AL vel Legis on April 8, 1904 in Cairo, Egypt:

Had! The manifestation of Nuit.
The unveiling of the company of heaven.
Every man and every woman is a star.
Every number is infinite; there is no difference.

The idea that numbers are reflective of the unity of the cosmos is inherent in the practice of gematria. Without that premise, we cannot build a coherent framework upon which the rest of the practice may follow. Numbers are themselves an expression of the divine, and therefore must embody divinity themselves. Just as the expression of divinity is One, each number is also a type of wholeness in itself, as well as being a part of the macrocosmic whole.

In nature we see the individual as the basic unit, but each unit can combine to form a pair and have offspring, creating multitudes that make up a species. Even the individual is made up of multitudes of cells, just as a galaxy is made up of multitudes of stars. When viewed that way, we can begin to grasp the idea of number as representative of unity. The Platonists believed that numbers exist in the realm of forms, invisible eternal objects that the everyday material world can only imperfectly represent. Looked at this way, number becomes a directly accessible tool through which the magician can “look under the hood” of the universe and see the divine workings.

Throughout the Greek and Roman periods down through the Renaissance and into the modern era, esoteric doctrine has tried to define the characteristics of whole numbers as they pertain to magical practice. I will list a very brief description of the most well known correspondences for a few numbers.

1: Unity, the Monad
2: Duality, separation, generation
3: Manifestation, trinity, balance
4: Solidity, balance, law, the Tetractis
5: Force, motion, strife, the will
6: Beauty, perfection, the Sun
7: Desire, lust, sexuality, victory
8: Intellect, splendor, the mind
9: Foundation, illusion, the Moon
10: Kingdom, the Earth, sphere of the elements, totality

These attributions are just a very simple summary of numbers 1-10. For more on numbers and their meaning read Agrippa’s treatment in book 2, here.

Now that we see why numbers matter to the magician, let’s take a look at how they can be used. We won’t focus on the myriad different forms gematria can take, but just the straight forward one that is most readily useful. In this version, we assign a number to each letter of the Hebrew Aleph Bet.

A list of Hebrew letters, values and meaning of the letter name.

Let us say we want to examine the idea of nothingness. First we would begin by finding the Hebrew word for the primal nothing, אינ, ain. This word is made up of א, aleph which equals 1, י yod which equals 10 and נ, nun which equals 50. Added up, this word equals 61. Now that we have that number in hand, we can begin to do several things to it. First, we see that it is a prime number, giving us the hint that there is something inherently indivisible about the primal nothingness. Next, we can examine the numbers 6 and 1 and see if their combined meanings lend any clues about the nature of nothingness. The number 6 represents perfection and beauty, and the number 1 represents unity, so we can now see that nothingness is in itself a type of perfected unity. Now, we examine the number 61 itself and see that the word for womb or belly, בטן beten, and I am, אני ani, also share the numerical value of 61. Now we can look at the overall picture of nothingness, and see that something about the nothingness is indivisible, and is a type of perfected unity that acts as the womb for creation. In contrast to this, something about it is also fundamental to identity of the self as shown in the word ani.

Looking at another example, say I want to find something out about the inherent qualities of various numbers used for astrological calculations. The first number I examine is the number 12, because there are twelve zodiacal signs the sun visits during the solar year. The number 12 is made up of two vavs וו, each equalling 6 on their own. Vav means nail, hook or pin, something that supports something else. Something about the 12 signs is the perfection (6) of duality (2) which supports the universe, perhaps the dual form of the luminaries, the Sun and Moon. 12 can also be made up of a י yod and a ב beth, 10 and 2 respectively, so the zodiac also has to do with the totality (10) of generation or creation (2). Now I look at the number 30 because there are 30° in each zodiac sign. The letter ל lamed has the value of 30. The number 30 is 10 x 3, so we can see that each sign of the zodiac is a totality represented as manifestation. Next, we examine the number 360, because there are 360° degrees in the circular natal chart. The Hebrew word השנה, ha’shanaw means year. The sun takes an entire year to make a full revolution around the 360° circle of the chart.

If you add these numbers together: 12+30+360, you get 402. The word בת, bath which means daughter, has the numerical value of 402. The daughter is the final ה he of the Tetragrammaton, and represents the kingdom of Malkuth, the Earth. If we examine the letters individually and attribute them to their respective tarot cards, we get ב, beth as the Magician and ת, tau as the Universe card. Both cards include representation of the elemental and cardinal directions as maps of the universe, just like the natal chart. The Magician utilizes the elements in the form of his Weapons - The Wand, Dagger, Cup and Disk. The Universe represents them in the form of the four beasts or cherubs. The Magician is Mercury and the Universe is Saturn. You can now start to form a story with these numbers, where the basic units of astrology make a magical map of creation in which the energies of Mercury and Saturn are intimately involved in constructing. The clever magician can find a multitude of uses for such information.

As you can see I’ve played pretty loose with my formulations; adding, subtracting, pulling in the tarot are all acceptable when examining through the lens of gematria. Let your intuition lead you, see what pops out and follow the trail. You may also read tarot and let the Hebrew letters provide the basis for your gematria. There is no right or wrong answer as long as your math is correct.

Praxis

This week for the praxis section I just want to list a variety of resources to get started on gematria. The topic is so broad, it takes quite a lot of study to begin to become fluent in the art.

• Learning the Hebrew Aleph Bet

• Hebrew writing practice (pdf)

• Gematria value calculator

• Information and history of gematria

• Sepher Sapphire by Wade Coleman: the absolute best resource for comparing number values. Get it on Scribd or Amazon.

• The Book of Thoth by Aleister Crowley: Great for familiarizing yourself with number meaning through the Thoth tarot.

There are also various other Thelemic texts that deal with number and correspondences, namely Liber 500 and Liber 777. You may find them easily on the internet. Please be aware that Crowley had a very unpleasant view on the Jewish people which he expounds upon in the beginning of Liber 500. The book Sepher Sapphires is a much better resource for comparing and looking up number values of Hebrew words anyway, I urge the student of gematria to use that book instead.

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-Ashley