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To: alt.magick,alt.magick.serious,alt.magick.tyagi,alt.pagan.magick
From: nagasiva@luckymojo.com (nagasiva)
Subject: Gematria and Numerology (was The Four Fold Puzzle Of ....)
Date: 30 Aug 1999 11:24:05 -0700

49990830 IVom 

Tom Schuler asks 'Proxie':
#># Please explain the difference between gematria and numerology.

nguyen  offers one possibility:
#>  How about gematria is a specific symbolic system derived 
#> from certain mystical and religious studies popularly 
#> known as qaballa and is sometimes used in numerology which 
#> could be defined simplistically as the general body of
#> methodologies which seeks to find religious, spiritual, 
#> or prophetic value in various systems such as gematria?

false. gematria precedes kabbalah and its counterfeits by
decades and centuries.

"Tom Schuler" :
# The specific symbols involved are numbers and letters.

true, but in kabbalah my understanding is that 'gematria'
is differentiated from other systems of numerolinguistic
(for example, notariqon and kemura).

# Specifically it is the attribution of numerical values 
# to letters of an alphabet and the apparent derivation 
# of some subtle truths therefrom.  That's what numerology
# is and that is what gematria is.  

so you equate numerology (which I would say include the study 
and use of systems of numerolinguistics) with gematria (which 
appears to have originated with the Greeks if not the 
Sumerians with the specification of a particular alphabet
and its numeric value system)? 

if so, how do your understandings of these terms differ
from those I have offered above? thanks.
 
# The only differences between the different forms of 
# numerology are the alphabets used, the numbers associated 
# with them, and the particular meanings of those numbers.

with this of course I somewhat agree. there are also subtle
differences in the MANNER of valuative attribution and there
is not always an alphabet used in regards numerology (where
the formula derives a number from a date, for example).

the most straight-forward numerolinguishic is a direct 
association between letters and numbers (in English,
a=1, b=2... z=26) and the presumption of identity or resonance
between words of similar cumulative value with one another 
(Hermetic gematria appears to have adopted a specific 
value-system and used this method).

an example of a very particular system of numerology is that
which is known by this name in European history (one may
find it in grimoires and occult books through the centuries)
which associates particular significances to numbers in
general and the use of numerolinguistics or quasi-mathematics
to derive a number from the definition-set (in the European
this often turns out to be 1-9, sometimes including 10, 11,
12, even 22 where it becomes Hermetic). where this extends
outside gematria (and indeed outside all numerolinguistic
systems) is the reduction of significant numbers such as 
one's birthdate to a single number).

there are of course other systems in other cultures, though
they are not always called "numerology" per se. if the name
makes the animal, then there may be very few of these. if we
include all identifications of number as symbol then we can
probably include the Pythagoreans and all cultures before
and after who may have worked in any depth with numbers.

nagasiva 
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From: Lucky Mojo Curio Company 
Newsgroups: alt.magick,alt.magick.serious,alt.magick.tyagi,alt.pagan.magick
Subject: Re: Gematria and Numerology (was The Four Fold Puzzle Of ....)
Date: Mon, 30 Aug 1999 22:33:39 -0700
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Tom Schuler wrote:
> 
> nagasiva  wrote 
> >
> > so you equate numerology (which I would say include the study
> > and use of systems of numerolinguistics) with gematria (which
> > appears to have originated with the Greeks if not the
> > Sumerians with the specification of a particular alphabet
> > and its numeric value system)?
> 
> No.  Gematria is a form of numerology.  There are other forms.  The 
> terms are not identical.  One subsumes the other.
> 
> > there are also subtle
> > differences in the MANNER of valuative attribution and there
> > is not always an alphabet used in regards numerology (where
> > the formula derives a number from a date, for example).
> 
> Yes, that's so. Gematria is numero-linguistic numerology, as you say.  
> The Millenium hysteria is due to a purely numerical form.

Tom, i see how you can consider gematria to be a form of numerology, but
i think of it differently:

Numerology is any system in which numbers are given symbolic, emotional,
or spiritual values. The overwhelmingly most common application of
numerology is to reduce words or dates (comples numbers) to a single
digit (or occasionally, as tyagi nagasiva noted, to the numerals 1 - 9
plus 10, 11, and 22). This is done by a process called "involution." 

Here's a sample using the most common English alpha-numeric equivalence
table (a = 1; z = 26):

cat

3 + 1 + 20 = 24 

24 = 2 + 4 = 6

cat = 6 (cat is exemplified by whatever "6" is said to mean)

In this sytem, each word, sentence, name, or date can be summed up as
representative of one of 9 "spiritual flavours." This has both symbolic
import and use in divination. For instance, "5 is the number of mankind"
is a truism of straight hermetic numerology, but speaking divinitorily,
if a person's name "reduces" to 5, one tells them "you will travel a
lot." 

Gematria, on the other hand, seeks to find links between otherwise
unrelated WORDS and uses numbers merely as a decoding key. The numbers
themselves have no inherent value except insofar as certain Very
Important Words (e.g. deity names) bear those numbers. Typically, also,
gemnatria does not seek to "reduce" long numbers to a single digit, but
will work with numbers up to at leasdt 4 digits, creating thereby an
expanded symbolic set of at least 9,999 "flavours" of meaning. 

Here's a sample using the same common English numbering system:

cat
3 + 1 + 20 = 24

bang
2 1 14 7 = 24

cat = bang

See how different the two techniques are? Numerology seeks to interpret
the meaning of words through the meaning of the numbers assigned to the
letters that comprise them; gematria seeks to equate pairs of words by
means of a numerical code. 

Just my 2 cents 
(or "just my 11 cents," as we say over in alt.tv.homicide).
 
cat yronwode 

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From: "Tom Schuler" 
Newsgroups: alt.magick,alt.magick.serious,alt.magick.tyagi,alt.pagan.magick
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Subject: Re: Gematria and Numerology (was The Four Fold Puzzle Of ....)
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Lucky Mojo Curio Company  wrote in message
news:37CB6933.35E8@luckymojo.com...
> Tom Schuler wrote:
> >
> > No.  Gematria is a form of numerology.  There are other forms.  The
> > terms are not identical.  One subsumes the other.
>
> Tom, i see how you can consider gematria to be a form of numerology, but
> i think of it differently:
>
> Numerology is any system in which numbers are given symbolic, emotional,
> or spiritual values. The overwhelmingly most common application of
> numerology is to reduce words or dates (comples numbers) to a single
> digit (or occasionally, as tyagi nagasiva noted, to the numerals 1 - 9
> plus 10, 11, and 22). This is done by a process called "involution."

This is the most common sort of numerology, to be sure.  You may note that
this reduction process, along with other number-cooking methods, are used
arbitrarily in many gematria calculations, whenever you need to make the
numbers fit a pattern you have in mind.  A quick look at Crowley's essay on
gematria in the Equinox, reprinted in The Qabalah of Aleister Crowley, shows
his use of a liberal dose of both additive and multiplicative factoring,
applied pretty much at whim, to get the numbers to say what he wants them
to.

> Gematria, on the other hand, seeks to find links between otherwise
> unrelated WORDS and uses numbers merely as a decoding key. The numbers
> themselves have no inherent value except insofar as certain Very
> Important Words (e.g. deity names) bear those numbers. Typically, also,
> gemnatria does not seek to "reduce" long numbers to a single digit, but
> will work with numbers up to at leasdt 4 digits, creating thereby an
> expanded symbolic set of at least 9,999 "flavours" of meaning.

The assumption of gematria is that all words which share a given number also
share an inner meaning.  In fact, any two words, if persistently
contemplated with an intent to find it, will yield that commonality.  The
number itself is of no importance at all.  It's a brain trick, a
rationalization for creating patterns of association that didn't exist
before.

This is a magical application of numerology.   It has validity as a
meditative device, but it reveals no more inner reality than any other
rationalization.

The attempt to "prove" the validity of some belief based upon the gematria
of a bunch of words and letters that Crowley spewed onto a page is similar
to insisting that a Rorschach inkblot is really a picture of your mother
because that's what you choose to see when you look at it.