Numerology is a system that assigns meaning to numbers and patterns found in groups of numbers, with origins attributed to Pythagoras. Numerologists interpret a person’s name to reveal their character, talents, aptitudes, and future. The practice is still of great interest today and is linked to astrology, tarot, I-Ching, Feng Shui, and Kabbalah. The Hebrew practice of numerology is called gematria or gimatria.
Numerology is any system that believes in or assigns a meaning to a meaning beyond mathematical meaning and/or connects numbers and patterns found in groups of numbers to events, objects or people in the real world. There are several numerological systems, and a numerologist is someone who practices numerology or provides occult interpretations of numbers using one of these systems.
The origins of numerology are attributed to the pre-Socratic Greek philosopher Pythagoras, who said that all things can be expressed in terms of numbers, and to his followers, the Pythagoreans. In his opinion, each number had a mystical meaning. We can see reverberations of this kind of thinking even in those who don’t believe in numerology but – for example – have a lucky number.
In its infancy, the approach to numbers as sources of revelation was called arithmancy or arithmancy. These approaches to numbers—used in early times by Chaldeans, Greeks, and Hebrews—align the letters of the alphabet used by the culture with the set of numbers according to some standardized rule. Thus, any word can be rendered numerically by a numerologist, who aggregates the individual values and interprets the meaning of the results. Today, a numerologist, using a similar system, can interpret a person’s name to reveal their character, talents, aptitudes, and future. Some say that from a person’s name a numerologist can guess a person’s inner life, outer life and path.
Arithmancy and numerology, although they have ancient origins, are still of great interest to many people today. You might be familiar with the second word, because that was the name of a course Hermione took in the Harry Potter book, The Prisoner of Azkaban. There are many websites dedicated to arithmancy or numerology and Harry Potter. Today’s numerologists may have close ties to astrology or the tarot. The practice is also linked in current times to the I-Ching and Feng Shui, as well as Kabbalah or Kabbalah.
The Hebrew practice of numerology associated with Kabbalah is called gematria or gimatria. It is a form of alphabetic substitution used by a numerologist to unlock hidden meanings of scriptural and other texts. In this system, the numbers one through ten are aligned with the first ten letters of the Hebrew alphabet; multiples of ten from 20 to 90 line up with the next eight; and the first four hundreds – 100, 200, 300 and 400 – are aligned with the final four letters. English has four more letters in the alphabet than Hebrew, and the numerical associations are different for today’s numerologists. But the underlying search for meaning and understanding in both activities still has much in common.
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