NUMEROLOGY

by Prudence Jones

The practice of assigning numbers to things or to their names, and interpreting them according to a fixed meaning belonging to the numbers assigned, is found in many cultures. St. Augustine, in The City of God, mentions “the numbers written on all things” as proof of the existence of God, and as has already been demonstrated, the geometry underlying King’s College Chapel reduces to the number of the name “The Virgin Mary” (in Greek). I will discuss one particular method of assigning numbers to letters in our modern alphabet, and one particular interpretation of the numbers, so that an idea will be given of the process involved in all the systems, whatever method or interpretation they use. The interpretation is that of an ordinality, starting from unity, HERE, the SELF, which is the number one, and progressing thus: 2 = OTHER, ALIENATION, BALANCE; 3 = COMPLETION, DIVINE PERFECTION; 4 = FOUNDATION, MATERIAL PERFECTION; 5 = ADVENTURE, CHANGEABILITY; 6 = DOMESTICITY, BEAUTY; 7 = CONTEMPLATION, WISDOM; 8 = EXPANSION, GLORY; 9 = HUMANITY. Other numbers, 11, 22 …,13, 16 etc., leftovers from earlier systems, are recognised as in themselves significant, but the interpretation of 1–9 is that used by occultists in the Western mainstream since the Golden Dawn. Numbers with more than one digit are reduced to one digit by adding, e.g. 45 = 4+ 5 = 9, unless they are themselves significant e.g. 11. Numbers are assigned to letters of the alphabet in order from 1 to 9, the tenth letter, J, beginning at 1 again, and so on. Words then can be reduced to their characteristic single digit by numerological addition, either crudely, all the letters in series, or by adding vowels and consonants separately, or by some other method according to the end required. The mechanics of assigning an interpretation and alloting numbers to letters, as of numerological reduction to single digits, are standard whatever interpretation and mapping are used, and once the method is grasped the researcher can deal with any numerology that may be presupposed in the subject of research. A system of assigning numbers to planets was considered (as most of the other papers were on zodiacs) but found not to be worth pursuing further.