Numerology
A method of finding meanings in numbers or words by numerical equivalence. It works by reducing a whole number or set of letters to a number between one and nine, inclusive (or possibly eleven and twenty-two as well). The methodology is usually something called Theosophical Arithmetic: Take the number, add all the digits together. Continue with the resulting sum until the it is in the range of one to nine (or, if you're doing the thing with master numbers like eleven and twenty-two, one of those). This will produce your value, which is then consulted against a set of properties that number. It is believed that one's name and birthdate in particular can be analyzed to produce information on one's path in life, but also illumination may be received by analyzing other things.
Where the disagreement often comes in is how should one turn a set of letters into a number? The most common method I've seen uses the below table:
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Other methods use other tables. In one form of Kabbalistic analysis, the Hebrew spelling of a word is used by adding all the letters based upon their traditional Hebraic value, Hebrew being a language where each letter was also a number. In a different form of Kabbalistic analysis, values are assigned to some of the Latin alphabet by equivalence to the Hebrew alphabet.
Warning, Personal Opinion follows: I wrote a Perl script to let me play with it, and in my opinion, the alphabet conversion presented above is utterly useless. I computed life path numbers, soul path numbers, etc., and received results that were utterly unlike me. I'd sooner go with TheSpark than this for analyzing myself. Simultaneously, though, there are other alphabets to try. Also, perhaps the meanings I have aren't as correct as I believe them to be.
Resources
- I have a nifty (well, at least from my perspective) Javascript Numerology Tool.
- I also have a Perl script, available under the Artistic License, that performs many of the same functions, but uses a different algorithm (largely due to the different facilities available in Perl). In fact, if you want to do analysis that is either letter-based or phonetic (and don't mind spelling entries phonetically), Perl is the way to go.
- Towards a Celtic Numerology — Mike Nichols' essay on using Ogham to provide letter-number equivalences.
- The Pythagorean system of Numerology at Daven's Journal — This is the same alphabet translation as the one I have above, though I think the meanings assigned to numbers are different (of course).
- Astrology-Numerology's Numerology Page — I disagree with this site after doing their analysis on myself — in fact, it's the source of the comments above. Why? Type in Numerology to Google and see what comes up first.