Numerology

Numerology reads numbers as bearers of meaning — the number of a date of birth, the number of a name. It is often offered alongside astrology, but it is a system of its own, with an origin of its own.

Where the methods come from

Two roots can be identified.

The Pythagorean one. In the Greek tradition, number is the principle from which the order of things arises. Ratios — the octave as 2:1, the fifth as 3:2 — describe harmony in measurable terms. Out of this grew the idea that numbers themselves carry properties.

The alphabetic one. Greek and Hebrew wrote their numbers with letters. Every word therefore inevitably had a numerical value as well. Out of this peculiarity of the script came methods such as gematria — and out of them the modern name numbers.

The usual methods

• The life path number — the digit sum of the date of birth, reduced again and again until a single-digit number is left (master numbers such as 11 and 22 are usually left out).
• The name number — the letters of the name are turned into numbers according to a table and reduced in the same way.
• The interpretation — each of the nine numbers has a character portrait attached to it.

Two assumptions worth knowing

The name number depends on the spelling. A different alphabet, a different transliteration, a birth name instead of an adopted name — each time a different number comes out. Anyone working with name numbers has to settle beforehand which name counts, and be able to give reasons for it.

The life path number depends on the calendar. The digit sum of a date assumes that the way that date is written is itself significant. The same event has one digit sum in the Julian calendar and another in the Gregorian — and another again in a non-Western calendar.

That is not an objection to the matter itself, but it is a difference from astrology: there an astronomical position is calculated, and that position does not depend on how the date is written. In numerology the notation itself is the subject matter.

Why nine numbers

Because the decimal system has ten digits and zero is not interpreted in these methods. The number nine is therefore not a property of the world but a property of the way numbers are written — in a base-twelve system the same method would give eleven basic numbers.

Anyone who knows this can work with the methods without ascribing more to them than they can bear.

See also: occultism and the astrological symbols.