Numerology: how a date of birth and a name become numbers
Numerology is the attempt to read numbers as a language. Not as a quantity, not as a measurement, but as bearers of meaning. The idea has been handed down since the school of Pythagoras, where numerical ratios counted as the ordering principle of the world, audible for instance in the intervals of music. Whether anything can be concluded from that about a single person is a question of conviction, not of proof. As a tool for self-reflection, numerology has its appeal all the same, and it is surprisingly easy to learn.
How a date of birth becomes a number
The basic principle is called the digit sum. You add up all the digits of your date of birth and shorten the result until a single digit is left. An example: for a birth on 14 March 1990 the digits add up to twenty-seven, and twenty-seven reduces to nine. This number is called the life number, or the destiny number. In this reading it does not describe what happens to you, but the kind of task that keeps coming your way.
Letters become digits
The same calculation can be done with a name. Each letter is assigned a digit from one to nine: A takes the one, B the two, and after the ninth letter the sequence begins again from the start. A name thus becomes a sum, and the sum becomes a single digit again. Three variants are usual: the full name given at birth, the vowels alone and the consonants alone. Tradition reads them as what you show outwardly, as what you want inwardly, and as the impression others form of you.
What the numbers from one to nine are supposed to mean
- One stands for beginning, self-will and the wish to decide something for oneself.
- Two stands for relatedness, sensitivity and weighing one side against the other.
- Three stands for expression, language and the pleasure of making something visible.
- Four stands for structure, patience and staying power in building something up.
- Five stands for movement, curiosity and a dislike of narrow limits.
- Six stands for responsibility, care for others and a sense of balance.
- Seven stands for withdrawal, testing and the tendency to get to the bottom of things.
- Eight stands for assertiveness, administration and the handling of means and influence.
- Nine stands for completion, breadth and letting go of what has been achieved.
Eleven and twenty-two stay as they are
Two results are not reduced any further in many schools: the eleven and the twenty-two. They are called master numbers. The eleven counts as a heightened two, as a strong perception that is easily overstretched, the twenty-two as a heightened four, as the ability to carry out something large in practice. Sobriety matters here. In this system a master number is not a title of nobility, it is the description of a pressure. Anyone who handles it should not take it as a distinction.
Numerology and astrology side by side
Both systems work with symbols, but they do so in completely different ways. Astrology computes from actual positions in the sky at a given moment, numerology from digits and letters. The two therefore cannot be converted into each other, and anyone who claims that the one confirms the other is taking the easy way out. Laid side by side they can still complement each other, because they put the same question from two sides. If you like, compare your life number once with what your birth chart says about your basic theme in the horoscopes.
How to handle the results
Take them as a prompt and not as a verdict. A number cannot tell you which profession to take up or whom you will marry. It can put a question to you that you would not have thought of on your own, and sometimes that is quite enough. So work your numbers out in peace, read the interpretations at some distance, and keep what actually explains something to you. Everything else you may safely leave where it lies.