Friday, August 4, 2023

History of Ciphers (part 7) - Satanic Gematria

    Dear Reader,


    In this new text I will be talking about Satanic Gematria and other less-known ciphers. Even though I don't usually work with Satanic Gematria, nor have I explored it as deeply as I have explored Alphanumeric Qabbala, for example, I think that this cipher deserves at least a short reference in this blog of mine. After all, have you ever wondered where did this cipher come from, or who created it, or even where it was mentioned for the very first time? Those are the questions I will be answering in this text.

    Unfortunately, like I said above, I never duly explored this cipher (personal choice really), except some minor personal synchronicities, so there won't be much space in this post dedicated to talk about the numerical matches we can find with Satanic Gematria. Instead, I will be referencing the work of the person who was responsible for the discovery of this cipher, and there you will be able to find many curious — and sometimes, not so curious — coincidences with Satanic Gematria.


History of Ciphers
by Luís Gonçalves

Part 7: Satanic Gematria
... and other related ciphers


    Satanic Gematria is one of those few ciphers, like Alphanumeric Qabbala, which were perfectly named. I don't quite remember where I first read about this cipher, even though I remembered that it had something to do with Barack Hussein Obama. I would retain these curious synchronicities about this cipher in my mind for many years to come, and eventually I would have almost forgotten about Satanic Gematria if I hadn't seen it again, some 2 or 3 years ago, in the Gematrinator calculator.

    I must admit that I never really cared about searching for the origins of this cipher, for the reason that I always considered it a very fittingly named system of Gematria and nothing more than that. I mean, I never actually used it. However, as I've been writing about the history of the ciphers that I find more relevant, I would discover that some people also wanted to know where this specific cipher came from, so this post would be the inevitable next step.

    Ironically, it was through a simple and very brief Google search that I managed to find the source material where I had first read about this cipher for the very first time, and it was a book called A Step into the Numeric Enigma of God, written approximately 8 years ago by Alexander Marcussen (owner of the website 777codes.com). The part of that book dealing specifically with Satanic Gematria goes from page 46 to page 56.

    Coincidentally, it was last year, on June 24ᵗʰ, 2022 that I found (actually recollected) this information, and shared it in two or three Discord servers dedicated to Gematria. If you reduce the day, month and year in that date to single digits, you'll have 6-6-6. I hadn't noticed that detail at that time, but it is indeed a curious synchronicity, for some reasons that will soon become apparent.

    This is the chart for Satanic Gematria:


    According to Alexander Marcussen, the name of this cipher and its numerical value basically pay a tribute to the number 666, the "Number of the Beast" in Christian apocalypticism. Its basic premises are the following:

    — The first and last letters of the alphabet are assigned the values 36 (=A) and 61 (=Z). Note that the 36ᵗʰ triangular number is 666, while 61 is the 18ᵗʰ prime number (and 18 equals 6+6+6), so these are quite curious details about this cipher;

    — And secondly, the name "Satanic Gematria" sums 666 in the same cipher (!!!), which greatly reinforces the same symbolism:


    I must admit that I really like the way how this cipher was named. It is indeed a very well crafted cipher, with a very fitting name — but I was never able to see it as more than just that. And that's precisely the reason why I never duly explored this cipher, except on very rare occasions or fitting circumstances. And, to be honest, that's also the reason why I haven't written this text earlier.

* * *

    In A Step Into the Numeric Enigma of God, Alexander Marcussen focused much of his work on the Bible codes, and the discovery of numerical and geometrical patterns in the Holy Bible. It is actually a very interesting reading, and I would recommend it, though not entirely without reservations, to all my Readers. I say "not without reservations" not as a criticism to Alexander Marcussen's work, which I think is fascinating, but simply because I don't work like him, nor do I accept all the 'evidences' that he gives as being... well, evident. But that's simply my personal opinion. I invite my Readers to read this work and study it thoroughly, if it ignites their interest.

    In the section about Satanic Gematria, however, Marcussen seems to have been more focused on an analysis of the name Barack Hussein Obama and the strange numerical alignments that it originates. In fact, Marcussen found that, using Satanic Gematria, the value of that name matches its value in the Standard/"Extended" English cipher, which follows the same pattern of numerical correspondences for the letters as the traditional Hebrew and Greek systems.



    When analyzing this specific number, Marcussen goes to great details to find hidden synchronicities involving this value. Namely, he notes that 793 equals 13×61, with the number 13 being biblically related to ideas of "rebellion" (based on Genesis 14:4) and the number 61 being the 18th prime number — with 18 corresponding to 6+6+6.

    Marcussen also notes that Barack Hussein Obama was born on August 4, the 216ᵗʰ day of the year (216 = 6×6×6), in the year 1961. By a curious coincidence, 1961 was exactly 1891 years after the Siege of Jerusalem in 70 AD, when the Second Temple was destroyed, and 1891 is precisely the 61ˢᵗ triangular number.

    Thus, both the "good" cipher (English Standard) and the "evil" cipher (Satanic Gematria) would show that Barack Hussein Obama is connected to the "antichrist number" 793 — especially considering that the name "Yehoshua" (Jesus/Joshua), written as יהושוע, sums 397, the reverse of 793, in Hebrew Gematria.

    Even if I don't agree that these or other similar considerations are sufficient proof to claim that Barack Hussein Obama is the "Antichrist", I do consider these findings to be very, very curious, to say the least. Anyway, as at this moment it isn't my purpose to further explore this thesis, I will move on to other less-known — and in my view, equally interesting — ciphers.

* * *

Other experimental ciphers
based on Satanic Gematria


    In this section I will be talking about a less-known cipher that I discovered/devised just 1 week before I found Alexander Marcussen's original materials on Satanic Gematria.

    The idea of this new cipher came to me when I was comparing Alphanumeric Qabbala (tightly associated with Base-36 notation) with Satanic Gematria (starting at A=36). My first thought when comparing them was that Alphanumeric Qabbala goes from 0 to Z=35, while Satanic Gematria continues the same numerical sequence, going from A=36 to Z=61.



    So, what would happen if I joined these two in a single cipher? And then a thought suddenly came to me: "Wait a minute! Isn't there a Case Sensitive cipher? What if I use it as a model to build this new cipher?"

Click to enlarge.

    And so, the cipher that I first called "Satanic Qabbala" (later to be renamed as "Alphanumeric Satanic") was born:

Click to enlarge.

    However, I must tell you my true opinion about this cipher. When I devised/found it, I was merely playing with the ciphers and not exactly looking for any "supreme satanic cipher". In fact, I never took this cipher seriously, and I always saw it as a kind of "joke cipher". Firstly, because I don't like case sensitive ciphers and I definitely don't use them. And secondly, because I simply don't feel compelled to use it — except, perhaps, as a means to play with Gematria and Base-62 notation simultaneously. Anyway, even in that case it is important to note that the order of lower- and uppercase letters is usually reversed in Base-62 notation.


Numerical connections between AQ,
Alphanumeric Satanic, and Satanic Gematria


    In this section we will learn how these 3 ciphers are numerically related.

    If we look closely at Alphanumeric Satanic, we will understand that:

    — the sequence of Arabic numerals (0-9) and lowercase letters (a-z) corresponds to the sequence and values in Alphanumeric Qabbala;

    — the sequence of uppercase letters (A-Z) corresponds to the values of the letters in Satanic Gematria.

    Given this connection between these ciphers, it will thus become clear that if a word or phrase contains only lowercase letters, the value of that word/phrase in Alphanumeric Satanic will match its value in Alphanumeric Qabbala. And if a word or phrase contains only uppercase letters, then its value in Alphanumeric Satanic will match its value in Satanic Gematria.

    Besides this, there's also the following consideration: if a word or phrase contains both lower- and uppercase letters, then the difference between its value in Alphanumeric Satanic and its value in both AQ and Satanic Gematria will always be 26 or one of its multiples.

    Take this example, in order to better understand my explanation:


    While I don't use these systems very frequently (except AQ, which is my favorite system of English Gematria), I will conclude this section by saying that many curious synchronicities can be found when we use these three systems at the same time. However, I would warn my Readers that being carried away by some natural synchronicities (and by this, I mean synchronicities that can be mathematically predictable) as if they were supernaturally relevant, may not always be the best decision to make. In fact, that's one of the greatest dangers in Gematria.

    Use Gematria; but please don't be its slave.

* * *

    As a bonus, in the next part I will briefly talk about "Custom Ordinal" ciphers, or what Alexander Marcussen calls the "English Starter" systems.


"Custom Ordinal" / "English Starter"
Gematria systems


     Just like Alphanumeric Qabbala could be considered to be the same as "Ordinal starting at 10" and Satanic Gematria could be called "Ordinal starting at 36", there are other experimental systems of Gematria that could be included in this category. In fact, there's an infinite amount of Custom Ordinal systems of Gematria, depending only on which number is chosen as the value of "A", and then following the natural sequence of numbers all the way through "Z".

    There are 4 other such ciphers that I will be talking about in this section, as they are the only ones relevant enough that I've seen before in a Gematria calculator.

    The Gematria calculator I'm talking about is not available online; it's rather an executable software that a friend sent me on Discord, and when I saw the amount of ciphers it included, I was... speechless. 👀

Click to enlarge.

    Well, I must say that I was speechless, but not because I liked it a lot. In fact, with all due respect for the creator of this software (which I don't know who it is), this software is filled with what I call "junk ciphers", i.e., many of the ciphers it contains simply don't make any sense to even be considered as valid. And that's possibly due to the fact that the author of this software didn't have enough knowledge on the history of ciphers in order to understand why some ciphers are the way they are (like the "ALW" cipher or "Chaldean" Numerology, for example), so the author took the liberty to create "reverse" and "reduced" versions of many ciphers that simply don't make sense to have those counterparts. I won't even talk about some ciphers like "The 911 Cipher" or "Vortex Unreduced", which I think are ridiculous.

    Again, please be aware that I'm talking about the ciphers contained in this software and not about its author. The author's work was impeccable: however, I'm afraid that their knowledge on the history of Gematria is unfortunately very limited, so they simply did what they thought was correct — and I respect that. However, I do not support the idea that "anything goes", since that's not how Gematria should work, in principle.

    Anyway... amongst this deranged chaos of experimental Gematria ciphers, there were exactly four ciphers that caught my attention, and those ciphers are called (in this software) "Master", "Master Builder", "Masonic" and "Foundation". They look like this:





    A quick gaze at these ciphers will lead us to conclude that these are precisely "Custom Ordinal" ciphers: which means that the "Master" cipher is nothing more than Ordinal starting at 11, the "Master Builder" cipher is the same as Ordinal starting at 22, "Masonic" is equal to Ordinal starting at 33, and "Foundation" is precisely the same as Ordinal starting at 44.

    Why these names, though? And why starting the numerical sequence at 11, 22, 33 and 44?

    In fact, I have a strong suspicion that these ciphers were inspired directly on Satanic Gematria, which starts at A=36 (remember that the 36ᵗʰ triangular number is 666, and "Satanic Gematria" adds to 666 in the same cipher), while adding to the equation some considerations that are specific to Numerology. And it's precisely through Numerology that we can understand why the numbers 11, 22, 33 and 44 were chosen: and why the ciphers were named the way they were.

    In Numerology (see this example), the number 11 is called a "Master number", similarly to its multiples (22, 33, 44, 55). And each "Master number" has its own characteristics and 'temperament', as it were. So for example, number 22 is associated with the symbolic imagery of the "Master Builder", and number 33 is traditionally tied to Masonry (supposedly due to the fact that the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Masonry has 33 degrees), while the description of the Master number 44 includes references to "building a strong foundation to achieve success".

    So this is the actual origin of these ciphers. By starting the numerical sequence with specific "Master numbers", the ciphers were named according to the numerological, occult or symbolical meanings of those same numbers.

    In any case, these ciphers are not as intelligently named as Satanic Gematria since their names don't translate to any relevant values when analyzed through their own systems.


    At this point I should argue that, for example, the "Masonic" cipher was never used in Freemasonry and its relevance in a Masonic context is disputable at best, or absolutely irrelevant at worst. So, even though I enjoy the imaginative process involved in the creation of these ciphers, I'm not entirely convinced that they would be "useful" somehow... except if we want to explore some mathematical laws behind what we call "numerical matches" in Gematria.

    And that's precisely what I'm talking about now.


How "numerical matches" work
regarding Custom Ordinal ciphers


    In this final part I will compare the most basic English cipher ("English Ordinal": A=1, B=2, etc) with several Custom Ordinal ciphers, in order to show my Readers how numerical matches work when we're dealing with this type of ciphers.

    In my previous text How I use Gematria, in the section called "What is a numerical match?", I gave a practical example of how we can weave a story based on numerical equivalences between words:

Click to enlarge.

    This is indeed a remarkable set of matches between words, all weaved into the life story of Jesus Christ, and one that has been repeated over and over by many people who see in Gematria a method to "decode Reality". And while this is indeed a very interesting exercise that will always give many fruits — irrespective of which cipher you're using — the question is different when we start talking about cross-cipher matches. In fact, even though these correspondences shown above can only be obtained using the simplest cipher for the English alphabet (A=1, B=2, etc), the same matches won't work with other different ciphers; or, in fact, using other ciphers we will see other matches that are equally relevant but aren't included in this specific set of matches. So considering this, wouldn't it be tempting to see if all these matches also worked in Custom Ordinal ciphers? That's the thing I will be explaining in this section: how cross-cipher matches work.

    The basic premise is this:

    If two words or phrases match in English Ordinal and they have the same number of letters, they will also match in any Custom Ordinal cipher.

    If we look closely, this will make perfect sense. In fact, in any Custom Ordinal cipher, the value of a letter of the alphabet always corresponds to its value in English Ordinal added to a natural number (equal to 1 or larger). We will call this value the Custom Constant. For example, the so-called "Master" cipher is the same as English Ordinal + 10, while Satanic Gematria corresponds to English Ordinal + 35. So in order to have two words matching in both English Ordinal and a Custom Ordinal cipher, it will be imperative that both words share exactly the same number of letters, since the Custom Constant is accumulated across the same number of letters.

    We could also think about the following:

    The value of a phrase in any Custom Ordinal cipher will always correspond to its value in English Ordinal, added to the Custom Constant multiplied by the number of letters in the phrase.

    Using the table above as an example, the value of the word "Cross" (5 letters) in English Ordinal is 74. Knowing that the Custom Constant of Satanic Gematria is 35, it is thus expected that the value of "Cross" in Satanic Gematria will be 74 + 35×5 = 249.

    And the following will also be true, obviously:

    If two words or phrases match in English Ordinal but they don't have the same number of letters, the difference between their values in English Ordinal and any Custom Ordinal cipher will always correspond to the cipher's Custom Constant multiplied by the difference of letters between both phrases.

    Here's a practical example:

    In English Ordinal, the words "Jesus" (5 letters) and "Messiah" (7 letters) share the same value (74). In Satanic Gematria, the value of the word "Jesus" will be 249, while the value of "Messiah" will be 319. The difference between 249 and 319 will then be 70, which corresponds to the Custom Constant of Satanic Gematria (35) multiplied by 2 (the difference between the number of letters of the two words).

    Here's a table that shows, in practice, how these rules work:

Click to enlarge.


* * *

    Hopefully, this short section will have helped some of my Readers understanding why some numerical matches are not "extraordinary" (i.e. fruit of some random or mysterious condition) but instead quite the opposite: they're actually based on very strict mathematical laws, and can thus be easily predicted. Or in other words, it is the words themselves that matter when we talk about numerical matches in Gematria, and not what they mean. So it's actually us who give meaning to the numerical connection between words, phrases or names, and build narratives based on numerical correspondences. This can be quite a fun hobby, but it can also be dangerously misleading sometimes. There's a fine line bet   


Some final words on Satanic Gematria
(and Custom Ordinal ciphers)


    My main intention in writing this text, as all texts in this blog that verse about the History of Ciphers, was above all to let my Readers know where the ciphers came fromthe names of their discovererswhat's the logic behind the ciphers (if there is any, of course), and also if there is any specific context where the ciphers fit well.

     Regarding Satanic Gematria, the main subject of this specific text, what I find most interesting is that it was devised so that it encodes the number 666 in at least three different ways:

    — the first letter of the alphabet, "A", corresponds to 36, and 666 is the 36ᵗʰ triangular number;

    — the last letter of the alphabet, "Z", corresponds to 61, the 18ᵗʰ prime number (and 18 = 6+6+6);

    — and finally, the value of the cipher's name in the same cipher is, quite surprisingly, 666.

    This is basically what I find most interesting in Satanic Gematria. Beyond that, I really can't say that I "like a lot" this cipher because, honestly, I don't. I only use it very rarely, because besides these intriguing patterns, there's nothing drawing me to use it. This, of course, is just my personal opinion, but I think that the best advice that I could give to my Readers at this moment is this: if you like it, use it. If you don't like it, don't use it. 😜

* * *

    Then, we talked about my own experimental case sensitive cipher, which I first called Satanic Qabbala and was later rebaptized as Alphanumeric Satanic. This cipher is merely a combination of Alphanumeric Qabbala and Satanic Gematria (hence the name!) and when I devised it, I did it simply because it was a fun idea. So originally, I made this cipher as a "joke cipher", even though some people liked it and use it sometimes. Personally, I don't use it — and I don't like case sensitive ciphers either, so the best thing I can tell my Readers about this cipher is this: use it at your own risk. 😅


* * *

    Now, regarding Custom Ordinal ciphers, or "English Starter" systems as Alexander Marcussen calls them, I thought this was a nice opportunity not only to talk about those ciphers, but also to talk about the mathematical patterns behind numerical matches involving these ciphers and English Ordinal. And this is a very important aspect of Gematria — particularly English Gematria — because sometimes people tend to be overwhelmed when they see a "match" across many different ciphers, while that match may in fact be mathematically justifiable through a simple demonstration, just like I've done in this text.

    Regarding the "validity" of Custom Ordinal ciphers, I believe that's a question of personal choice, so it is up to my Readers to find out if they see much sense in these ciphers and if they should use them or not. On a personal level, I'm not very fond of Custom Ordinal ciphers — except Alphanumeric Qabbala, which is not the same as "Ordinal starting at 10" (even though the values they give to the letters are exactly the same), and it is in fact a whole different thing altogether.

* * *

    Hoping that this text has been an enriching piece of information to my Readers, I bid my Readers farewell... well, at least until I think about a new cipher to write about. I don't have any idea at this moment, but as Gematria is a neverending universe, maybe something will occur to me in the mean time. Maybe in a somewhat different format, haha. 😉


    Luís Gonçalves

Wednesday, May 10, 2023

On ciphers, probabilities, and the search for "meaningful matches"

    Dear Reader,


    In this new text I will invite my Readers to discuss about ciphers, probabilities, the search for "meaningful matches", and their meaning in our work with Gematria. Even though this subject was already addressed (very lightly) in my previous text "How I work with Gematria", in my opinion this matter should be further discussed, not only because it is a fundamental aspect of Gematria, but also because people still tend to get confused about what a numerical match "means" — if it means anything at all.

* * *

    It is my firm belief that, whether it be UFOnauts, Thelemic texts or sacred scriptures, all ciphers will always deliver certain "meaningful" matches when we want to "decode" those things.

    One of the clearest examples of this can be found in Allen H. Greenfield's "Secret Cipher of the UFOnauts", in which he proposes that EQ / ALW / NAEQ is the "secret cipher" of the UFOnauts — for the simple fact that he was able to find "meaningful matches" when applying it to the cases he was researching.

    But then a question arises:

    What if we used a completely different cipher — would we still be able to find "meaningful matches"?

    And the answer to this is an absolute YES.

    Whether it be Simple/Ordinal, or John Farthing's Toavotea Key, or R. Leo Gillis' Trigrammaton Qabalah, or even Frater RIKB's Mars Kamea Gematria — or any other cipher you could think of — we will always find "meaningful" matches when we use this kind of ciphers to decode anything we want.

    I did it before with the cipher of the Bavarian Illuminati, applying it to the names and specific phrases in Greenfield's book. I did it with Simple/Ordinal English. And I did it with Alphanumeric Qabbala, Edgar Joel Love's Cipher X, and even my own experimental cipher called "Elevenfold Qabalah" — only to find that all of them, in a way or another, delivered some outstanding results when applied to this specific subject.

    So what would make a cipher "relevant"?

    Would it be the matches we can get when we apply it in a certain context?

    Or is it the context we're working on that dictates which ciphers make sense to be used?

    Also — how can we be sure that something was previously encoded with Gematria? Is it the "meaningful matches" we can get that "confirm" that? Or do we have to be extremely cautious in these things, for the simple fact that a "match" doesn't mean anything per se, except the meaning that we willingfully give to it?

    Just some food for thought...


    NOTE:

    I originally published this short text on Reddit, and I must say that I was very satisfied with most replies — namely that of u/diviludicrum, which I will reproduce here in its entirety, due to its relevance in this discussion:

    "I don’t know anything about the specific text you’re referencing or what material it was purporting to decode, but I can speak to the question from the standpoint of general principles regarding coded texts.

    Simply put, you’re right, the mere existence of “meaningful matches” is insufficient grounds to conclude that the text was coded with a particular cipher, since it’s self-evident that meaningful matches could be found with many other conceivable ciphers too.

    So the primary concern should not be with the number or frequency of seemingly meaningful matches, but rather the opposite - ie how often does the decoded text lack meaning, and what is the proportion of those instances versus those that are meaningful?

    Because if a text can be consistently and perfectly decoded with a particular cipher, producing a 100% meaningful and coherent decoded text, that is highly unlikely to occur by chance. Whereas if the decoded text is only meaningful 1% of the time, with no consistent pattern that signals that 1% as somehow “special” within the context of the text as a whole, that would seem extremely weak evidence of a deliberate coding process."

* * *

Monday, February 6, 2023

My solution to AL II:76

    Dear Reader,


    In the previous text, published yesterday and named The wonders & magic of Alphanumeric Qabbala, I shared my solution to one of the most controversial verses in Aleister Crowley's Liber AL vel Legis. As the search for a "promised" English Qabalah has been the source of much dispute and confusion, and as I believe that this is still an extremely important subject to be studied in the context of Thelema, I'm sharing my solution as a separate post.

    Most of this material is already in the previous post, so if you want to know more about Alphanumeric Qabbala and its wonders I recommend you read it in its entirety. There's much food for thought hidden in that post...
 
    First, let's take a look at the verse(s) in question:

    AL II:75. "Aye! listen to the numbers & the words:

    AL II:76. "4 6 3 8 A B K 2 4 A L G M O R 3 Y X 24 89 R P S T O V A L. What meaneth this, o prophet? Thou knowest not; nor shalt thou know ever. There cometh one to follow thee: he shall expound it. But remember, o chosen one, to be me; to follow the love of Nu in the star-lit heaven; to look forth upon men, to tell them this glad word."

    Liber AL, particularly the passages in AL II:76 and III:47, has been the sole reason for the creation of at least a dozen different ciphers, and an equally numerous amount of solutions that have been proposed to try to solve this riddle.

    In my series of posts about the Thelemic ciphers (parts 123 and 4), my Readers will remember that some ciphers delivered some quite good results when applied to this riddle, particularly English Qaballa and Trigrammaton Qabalah, as well as English Ordinal — just to number a few examples.

    For example, using the Ordinal cipher (A=1, B=2, ..., Z=26) the total of the verse in AL II:75 added to the string of numbers and letters in AL II:76 will be 777, a result that will also match the one obtained when using Joel Love's Cipher X. If you do the same with Alphanumeric Qabbala, the total sum will be 1209, which is 13×93, two very important numbers in a Thelemic context. If you calculate the value of the numbers & the words in AL II:76 using English Qaballa or Trigrammaton Qabalah the sum will be 351, the 26ᵗʰ triangular number (meaning that 351 = 1 + 2 + 3 + ... + 26, encompassing the whole alphabet, as it were). And if you use John Farthing II's Toavotea Key, the string of numbers & words will add up to 418 — a highly significant number in Thelema.

    Some of these systems have been called "The Key of It All" by their proponents, and all of them certainly have their merits, in a way or another.

    However, saying and demonstrating that a cipher is the "Key of It All" are two very different things, and in most cases what we end up with is a demonstration that any "pattern" can be found when we apply many different ciphers to the same riddle. So is the search for a "promised" English Qabalah a useless pursuit? Well... maybe it is. Maybe it has been in front of our eyes this whole time.

* * *    

My solution to AL II:76

Alphanumeric Qabbalism


    My solution to this riddle is in fact quite humorous... and simple... and with it we would certainly understand why the numbers & the words are in their respective "position to one another" — even though I can't really explain all of it. And I still have many doubts that this would be a definitive answer to AL II:76.

    This "solution", as it were, doesn't "mean" anything to me, except that the "riddle" was never intended to be taken seriously. There is no meaning as to which numbers or letters are used in it — but in fact how they are used.

    Four times the same message is repeated:

    "4 6 3 8 A B K" 

    "2 4 A L G M O R"

    "3 Y X"

    "24 89 R P S T O V A L"

    And the message would be: Letters always come after numbers — which is precisely the most fundamental characteristic of Alphanumeric Qabbala. And so the answer could be obtained, assuming that AQ was the intended "key" to decode AL.

    AQ = 0123456789 abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
    (Letters come after "numbers" — i.e. the numerals.)

    And this becomes extremely relevant in a Thelemic context, with AQ being a offshoot of Base-36 notation (a continuous, non-redundant sequence from 0 to 9, and then A=10 through Z=35) and 666 being the 36ᵗʰ triangular number.


    I can't explain why the same "message" would be repeated four times. However, what I do know is that the riddle contains exactly 28 numbers & letters, with 28 being a triangular number, just like 36. And if we organize the 0-Z alphanumeric sequence in the shape of a triangle, there will be exactly 4 rows for the numbers, and 4 rows for the letters.
    

    Assuming that this would be the answer to AL II:76, we could further elaborate upon a possible connection between the rows of the "AQ triangle" and the rows of the (decoded) riddle in AL II:76, putting them side by side and watching for similarities.


    Starting with the numbers, we will see that there does seem to exist some kind of connection:


    However, doing the same with the "words" (i.e. the letters) won't retrieve any noteworthy connection — besides the fact that the 2nd and 4th rows share exactly the same number of letters:


    Even not trying to "justify" this finding with Gematria, let my Readers consider the following:

    — The Law of Thelema, "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law" sums 777 in Alphanumeric Qabbala.

    — Then, consider that in Crowley's book of numbers and letters, Liber 777Crowley listed the ten sephiroth numbering them from 1 to 10, and then the twenty-two Hebrew letters (the "paths"), numbering them from 11 (Aleph) to 32 (Tav).

    — If we were to adapt that system to the English Alphabet, listing first the ten Arabic numerals from 0 to 9, and then the twenty-six English letters from A to Z, we would end up precisely with Alphanumeric Qabbala: a continuous, logical and non-redundant alphanumeric sequence from 0 to Z=35.

* * *

    This, of course, is still a work in progress, and I intend to keep studying the Book of the Law for more clues about this. Obviously, I will keep my Readers informed as my research continues.

    Also, I invite you, dear Reader, to read my previous post on Alphanumeric Qabbala. Scroll down almost to the end of the page and look for the section titled "The revelation of AQ in the context of Thelema". That part of my article will provide some of the reasons why I think that Alphanumeric Qabbala may be an important key to unravel some of the mysteries of Liber AL.

* * *

    DISCLAIMER:

    I make no claims whatsoever about "my role" in this solution — my intention is not to claim that I've found the "Key of It All" or that I am the "magical child of the Beast". In my opinion, that's simply naïve and irrelevant, and won't lead anyone anywhere.

    I do believe, however, that AQ may be an important key in Thelema, and what I'm doing here is simply to play a bit with it, and trying to make it become more widely known in a Thelemic context.

    Let my Readers be the judges of this...

Sunday, February 5, 2023

The wonders & magic of Alphanumeric Qabbala

    Dear Reader,


    In this new text I will talk about Alphanumeric Qabbala, a cipher that I already explored (somewhat incompletely) in my 3rd part of the History of the Thelemic ciphers, even though this time my approach will be very different from my previous articles. The reason for this is that in my first text about that cipher I had to focus a bit on where it came from — after all, am I not writing about the History of ciphers? — and as I did that, there was a lot of other interesting stuff that was left unmentioned. So in this new text, as I don't have to explain its history again, I will instead focus on what we can do with this cipher, as well as how we can explore some of its highly curious properties.

    As a new introduction to this cipher, I'll begin by explaining what exactly is Alphanumeric Qabbala and how it is connected to Base-36 notation.

    Next, I'll briefly talk about some of the very strange synchronicities that happened in my life when I found & then was told about this cipher, as I believe that they are very worthy of note and should be mentioned in this text. After all, it was through a very strange synchronicity that I found this cipher... so why not talk about it?

    After that, I'm going to talk about this cipher's name(s), their Gematria values and mathematical properties. In this section, my main intention will be showing my Readers how some names can be devised in order to return a very specific and intended numerical value, when "decoded" through Gematria. In this case, Alphanumeric Qabbala is a cipher whose names have been heavily encoded in the past so that they could be specifically connected to the number 36.

    Then, I will be talking about how Alphanumeric Qabbala is related to Base-36 notation, some interesting properties of that number base, and why I think that the alphanumeric sequence from 0 to Z is extremely versatile and should be further explored, even for creative or recreational purposes. In this part I will also explain how the alphanumeric sequence 0-Z can be used for sigilization, cryptography, or even applied to Astrology, following some of my experiments with it.

    In the following part I will show you some of my findings with AQ in the context of Thelema, and the reasons why I think that this cipher may be extremely relevant in that specific context. Some of this material was already presented in my previous text about this cipher, while some other material will be fresh new — and extremely intriguing.

    In the second-to-last chapter I will briefly talk about the "dos" and "don'ts" with Alphanumeric Qabbala, which in turn reflect the way how I work with AQ — and also some other ways how I think we shouldn't work with AQ.

    And finally, as I like to leave the best for last, the last part of this text will present a riddle to my Readers — or better yet, a series of riddles
      
* * *

    So here's an approximate "table of contents" for this text:


    — Alphanumeric Qabbala as an offshoot of Base-36 notation;

    — Strange synchronicities involving Time, this cipher, and the number 36;
 
    — The names of this cipher ("AQ", etc) and how they were heavily encoded;
 
    — The mathematical structure and properties of AQ;

    — Finger-counting with AQ;
 
    — Using AQ for cryptography and sigilization;

    — Applying AQ to Astrology (new techniques);

    — The (frequently underestimated) role of AQ in a Thelemic context;

    — Some ways how I tend to use this cipher.
 
 
    For a start, let me first talk about how AQ is related to Base-36 notation.

    Preliminary Notes: 
    It has been recently brought to my attention the fact that Mike, a.k.a. "Sean Virroco", deleted all of his repositories from Github.com, including his GEMATRO and ravic-norsou calculators. I'm not quite sure if this was a wise move on his part, but I won't be questioning his motives. Fortunately I still have my own forks and copies of "Gematro" and "ravic-norsou", so those are the calculators that I'll be using in this presentation — particularly my GemCon calculator, based on Sean Virroco's "ravic-norsou" calculator, as well as my copy of GEMATRO (to a lesser extent).

     My calculators are just simple modifications of Virroco's previous work, to the extent that my (very) limited knowledge of programming allows me to do. So thank him, not me,  for these wonderful tools.


* * *


Alphanumeric Qabbala and Base-36 numeration


    Alphanumeric Qabbala, or AQ for friends (haha!), is basically an offshoot of Base-36 notation, a type of numerical notation that uses exactly 36 alphanumeric characters (from 0 to 9, and from A to Z) as numerical digits.


    But what exactly is Base-36 notation, then? Actually, it's just like decimal notation, the one that we use everyday, but instead of using only the ten Arabic numerals from 0 to 9, it also includes the twenty-six letters of the modern English Alphabet as numerical digits. You can learn more about Base-36 notation here and here — and also read the history of a tech company that was named after Base-36 notation.

    So how does it work, actually? In decimal (Base-10) notation, every number is written considering 10 possible values (from 0 to 9) for the units, tens and hundreds — so in Base-36 notation there are 36 possible values (from 0 to Z=35) for the units (1), "tens" (36) and "hundreds" (36×36). In other words, the number that is written as 360 in Base-10, meaning "3×100 + 6×10 + 0×1", would be written as A0 in Base-36, meaning "10×36 + 0×1".

    Doing these calculations by hand can be troublesome for anyone who isn't used to count in groups of 36's instead of 10's, so I would recommend using some quite handy online calculators in order to convert numbers between Base-10 and Base-36:

    — UnitConverters.net



    ... or you can simply use Gematro. If you right-click a number in the table containing the active ciphers, you'll see how that number is written in different number bases, including Binary (base-2), Octal (base-8), Hexadecimal (base-16), Base-36, among others.

    In the meantime, let me tell you about...


My first synchronicities with AQ


    In this section I'll tell you how I came to know this cipher: or in fact, how I only found that it already existed after I had devised it by myself.

    My work with AQ began in the last days of April 2021, when I was first told about this cipher. There were a lot of synchronicities involved in this discovery, and I think that it is due time to talk about them. Please note that I was granted authorization to post screenshots of parts of my conversations. This is important in order to give this presentation some graphical context, and to note some important details.

    On April 29, 2021, Sean Virroco sent me a message saying that someone had forked GEMATRO, making a pull request that included a cipher known as "Anglossic Qabbala":

Click to enlarge.

    I was extremely intrigued by this (note my "eyes" reaction to Sean's message), because just some days before this happened I had already added the exact same cipher to GEMATRO — even though with a different name, of course.

Click to enlarge.

    In fact, the first name I gave to that cipher, in mid April 2021, was Hexadecimal Qabalah — which was wrong, since "hexadecimal" refers to Base-16 notation, not Base-36. A proper name for Base-36 notation would be Hexatridecimal, which comes from the Greek words hexa~ ("six") + trideka ("thirty"), even though Sexatrigesimal, of Latin origin, is sometimes used as well. So in fact, my first "correct" name for this cipher was Hexatridecimal Qabalah, which I later noticed that matches the value of Numbers and Letters — which is precisely what AQ is.


    Some time after this, on June 3ʳᵈ, I was in a Discord server where I found more people who were using this cipher, and there was a guy with the nickname "NN_Solex" who was sharing some of his findings with this cipher in a Thelemic context. As at that time I was doing exactly the same, I decided to start a private chat with that guy. To my absolute surprise, NN_Solex was precisely the person who had made a fork of Gematro and added AQ, just some weeks before:

Click to enlarge.

    There would be nothing interesting about this, weren't it the fact that I was talking with the same guy that had forked Gematro and added AQ to it, without knowing who he was before talking with him — on the 3ʳᵈ day of the 6ᵗʰ month, which was precisely the 36ᵗʰ day since Sean Virroco had told me about AQ (i.e. counting April 29 as day 1):


    Curiously enough, while talking with NN_Solex, we discovered that one of the subjects we share the same (almost obsessive) interest in is the ancient Egyptian stellar gods called Decans, a set of 36 deities where each one is traditionally allotted 10 degrees of the ecliptic — that is, one of three parts into which each sign of the zodiac can be subdivided.

    This was my first great synchronicity with AQ, even though it was just the beginning. From that time on, I was going to see the number 36 everywhere and constantly, every single day — like the case when I was having my dinner while a soccer match was being transmitted on the TV. The second I looked at the TV, exactly 36 minutes and 36 seconds had elapsed since the beginning of the match. All of it was pretty wild, to be honest.

    My final (as of this moment) great synchronicity with this cipher happened months later, during late November 2021.

    On November 25ᵗʰ, I was searching the server where I had talked with NN_Solex for the first time, looking for messages from him to see if I could find the exact date when he had forked Gematro. I knew that it would be near April 29, the day when Sean Virroco told me about AQ, but even then I was wondering... "what if?". And I found the message that I was looking for:

Click to enlarge.

    So Sean told me about AQ, even though the fork had been created the previous day. So I ran to the date calculator and saw how many days there were between April 28 (AQ added to Gematro; fork created) and June 3 (my first chat with NN_Solex):


    Who would guess?! 36 days exactly. 😅

    However, some other "strange" things happened during this day. You see, I found the exact date when AQ was added to a NN_Solex's fork of Gematro on November 25ᵗʰ. Add the day and the month and you get 11+25 = 36. On this day there were also 36 days left until the end of the year:


    On that day I also received by mail my favorite card deck, a Lenormand deck which has (guess what?) 36 cards:


    And in case the "message" hadn't been understood... on the same day, when I arrived at my work, and after noticing all these patterns involving the number 36, I was curious to know what was the worker's ID number of a colleague of mine — a beautiful woman I was "sort of in love" with. Well... you wouldn't imagine how I felt when I saw her card with the number... 36. I was speechless, for obvious reasons.

    Of course, one could argue that the more you look for something, the more you'll see it — so if I was focusing my attention on AQ and Base-36 notation, it would be inevitable to "see" the number 36 more frequently than others. Could be. And yet...

    Now, a word or two about:


Alphanumeric Qabbala:
its name & properties


    At this point I should state that this is my absolute favorite cipher so far, and I've played a lot with it. It is also one of the most intelligently named ciphers that I've ever known, and the reason why I say this has to do with... well, its name, of course!

    In this section we will learn how some names can be encoded with Gematria, so that they match pre-determined values. Alphanumeric Qabbala is the perfect example of a cipher whose names were willingfully encoded, so that they would be related specifically to the number 36 — for obvious reasons.

    Let's start by its short name, "AQ". If you look closely, this cipher contains 10 Arabic numerals (from 0 to 9) and 26 English letters (from A to Z), and those are precisely the values of A and Q — the initials of the name of the cipher itself!


    So basically the name of the cipher explains what it is:

AQ = 0123456789 + abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
(10 Arabic numerals + 26 English letters)

Click to enlarge.

    The name "Alphanumeric Qabbala" sums 328 in the same cipher. Now, note how the sum of all divisors of 328 (including itself) is 630 — precisely the sum of all numbers from 0 to 35 (i.e. all digits of AQ):


    And yet... even though "Alphanumeric Qabbala" is a really cool name for the above reason, there is yet another name that is perfect for this cipher, and that name is Alphanumeric Qabbalism:


    Why is this relevant, then? It becomes VERY relevant once we notice that the decimal number 386 is written as "AQ" in Base-36:

From UnitConverters.net - Convert Decimal to Base-36.

    From my previous text on this cipher, my Readers will remember that another name for this cipher is Anglossic Qabbala. The meaning of the term "Anglossic" may not be clear for my Readers, but I'll just say that it seems to be a neologism derived from Anglo~ (i.e. related to English) plus the Greek particle gloss~ which is related to "tongue" or "language"... so it would be just a fancy way of saying that this is a Qabbala for the English Language.

    However, even in this case there is more than meets the eye. If you happen to use my GemCon calculator, you'll see that three of the ciphers that are enabled by default are: English Standard (also called "Extended"), Ordinal (the simplest modern English cipher, from A=1 to Z=26) and Reduction (also called "Pythagorean Numerology"). I like using those three ciphers together because they work as a kind of "octaves", with Standard being a higher octave of Ordinal, and Reduction being its lower octave. To these I added Alphanumeric Qabbala, because... well, you already know why, or else you wouldn't be reading this. 😅

    When used together, those four ciphers yield some interesting results when applied to the names of the AQ cipher — which as we have seen, is related to Base-36 notation. "Anglossic" sums 360 in the Standard cipher and 36 in the Reduction cipher, while "Qabbala" sums 36 in English Ordinal, which is the value of "AQ" in Alphanumeric Qabbala.


    Even by a mere coincidence, "Thirty-Sixth" sums 279 in AQ — the value of "Anglossic Qabbala" in the same cipher.


    Other results not directly related to the number 36 but still worthy of note, are: "Alphanumeric Qabbala" which sums 157 in English Ordinal, matching the value of "Qabbalism" in AQ. And in English Ordinal, "Anglossic" sums 99 — the value of "Qabbala" in AQ.


    At this point some of my Readers may be asking themselves: "What does this actually mean?". Well, besides the fact that this cipher seems to be prone to attract coincidences, the fact is that these names that were given to AQ were all heavily encoded so that they would all revolve around the number 36 — precisely the value of the number base from which AQ was derived. So in fact, what this means is precisely this: one can use Gematria creatively, in order to encode secret references in a word, phrase or text, so that what one intends to convey can only be "unlocked" (deciphered) with the correct "key" (cipher).

    Take this example of such a ciphered riddle:


    The name "Alphanumeric Gematria" is almost perfect;
    In order to be perfect, you'd only need to add 1 to it.


    Why?

    I invite you to try to solve this. Read very carefully what I wrote up until this point, and the answer will be there. This can actually help you in spotting willingfully encoded things, provided that the clues are given and you can understand them.


* * *

    Now, leaving aside the question of the cipher's name(s), let us turn our attention to the number 36 and its properties, and see what we can "do" with it.


Properties of Number Thirty-Six


    Mathematically speaking, 36 is the first number (besides 1, by definition) that is both a triangular number and a square number. Let "N" be any natural number, and every number that can be written as "1+2+3+...+N" will be a triangular number, and every number that can be written as N×N will be a square number. So 36 is the 8ᵗʰ triangular number because it corresponds to 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 6 + 7 + 8, and it is the 6ᵗʰ square number because it corresponds to 6 × 6.

    When I started experimenting with these properties of the AQ cipher, it was my intention to try to find some clue for a "pattern" in the English alphabet. After all, there are some different theories about how English is a "magical language" with a magically structured alphabet:

    — In my first text about the Elizabethan/Baconian ciphers I wrote (regarding the "Kaye" ciphers) about how the modern English alphabet seems to be a "perfected" form of the old Elizabethan English alphabet. And Alphanumeric Qabbala becomes relevant in this context as well, since if you look closely, in both Kaye ciphers the letters of the alphabet are numbered from 10 to 35 — exactly like in AQ, leaving the impression that even the Kaye ciphers were connected to Base-36 notation — which seems to be hinted at in an excellent article by Peter Dawson (as are all articles written by him) in which he talks about Rosicrucian Mathematics (PDF — 681 KB, pp. 14 & 17).


    My experiments with Alphanumeric Qabbala eventually led me to yet another conclusion. What if Arabic numerals were the "missing piece" that would allow us to find an actual "structure", as it were, in the English alphabet? After all, I couldn't help noticing that when we write all 36 alphanumeric characters (from 0 to Z) in the shape of a triangle, there are exactly 4 rows for the Arabic numerals, and 4 rows for the English letters, as if they were complementary series:


    But there's another very intriguing detail about this. In The Secret Teachings of All Ages, in the chapter about Pythagorean Mathematics, Manly P. Hall quotes Plutarch (from "De Iside et Osiride"here's the online text, including the original Greek):

    "The Pythagoreans indeed go farther than this, and honour even numbers and geometrical diagrams with the names and titles of the gods. Thus they call the equilateral triangle head-born Minerva and Tritogenia, because it may be equally divided by three perpendiculars drawn from each of the angles. So the unit they term Apollo, as to the number two they have affixed the name of strife and audaciousness, and to that of three, justice. For, as doing an injury is an extreme on the one side, and suffering one is an extreme on the on the one side, and suffering in the middle between them. In like manner the number thirty-six, their Tetractys, or sacred Quaternion, being composed of the first four odd numbers added to the first four even ones, as is commonly reported, is looked upon by them as the most solemn oath they can take, and called Kosmos."

    This paragraph and the following explain some of the "divine" correspondences for the numbers according to the Pythagoreans. It also mentions that the Tetraktys, or Sacred Quaternion, represented by the number 36, was their most important symbol and was called Cosmos. And even though the most widely known form of the Tetractys corresponds to the number 10 (or 1+2+3+4), in this case, intringuingly, Plutarch says that 36 was also considered to be a Pythagorean Tetractys. I didn't know this before I read Hall's book.

    In the Golden Verses of Pythagoras, verse 47, the same reverence is due to the Tetractys:

    "I swear it by him who has transmitted into our souls the Sacred Quaternion, the source of nature, whose cause it is."
 
A simple form of the Pythagorean Tetractys.

A modern-day Tetractys, perfectly adapted to the English Alphabet.

    The number 36 also seems to play a major role when it comes to sacred numbers in mythologies all around the world, which in many cases are multiples of 36. Take for example:

    — 108 is a very relevant number in Hinduism, with specific mantras being repeated exactly 108 times. It equals 3×36, which means that it is written as 30 in Base-36 notation (meaning 3×36 + 0);

    — In Jewish Qabalah, 72 is the value of the unspeakable Name of God when it is written in the shape of the Pythagorean Tetractys. 72 equals 36 and so is written as 20 in Base-36;


    — In Jewish mysticism there's also the tradition of the Lamed Vav Tzaddikim, or 36 Hidden Righteous Men, according to which "there are no fewer than 36 righteous people in the world who greet the Shekhinah in each generation". According to this tradition, the world would come to an end if even one of them was missing.

    — In Christian Eschatology, the number 144 (particularly as 144,000) has a fundamental role, representing the Servants of God, the number of souls to be saved on the day of Final Judgment. 144 equals 36 and it is written as 40 in Base-36;

    — Many more examples of this exist, like the number of seconds in a day, 86,400 (864 = 24×36), a period of 1260 days that is referred to more than once in the Book of Revelation (1260 = 35×36), or the number of degrees in a circle (360 = 10×36).
    
    Base-36 becomes even more interesting when we see how some numbers are written in it — particularly (in)famous triple-digit numbers like 666, 777, 888 and the like:

Click to enlarge.

    Finally, as the number 36 is also a square number, I also thought about writing all 36 alphanumeric characters in the shape of a square:


    And eventually... this actually gave me a different idea — and that's what I'm going to talk about now.


English Alphabet
and the Magic Square of the Sun


    Many people know it as the Magic Square of Tiphareth, and it's basically a 6×6 square where all numbers from 1 to 36 have been inscribed, and structured in a way that the rows, columns and main diagonals all add up to 111. The total sum of all numbers is 666, the 36ᵗʰ triangular number.

Magic Square of the Sun.
    
    I was always intrigued with this Magic Square since I first read about it, for a simple reason. You see, in terms of the sequence of numbers, all Magic Squares follow a symmetrical pattern, starting with the 3×3 Magic Square (the smallest possible Magic Square containing only natural numbers) and onwards — while the 6x6 square is the only square for which it is impossible to create a pure symmetrical pattern. In fact, it's quite ironic that while 6 is considered a perfect number, the magic square of 6×6 is always unperfectedIt's almost like finding order out of chaos... if you know what I mean...

From Wolfram MathWorld (blue arrow added by me). Click to enlarge.

    After a moment of contemplating how to adapt Alphanumeric Qabbala to this Magic Square, I had a thought: so this table contains all numbers from 1 to 36, right? What if I subtract "1" from each of those values, obtaining a series of values from 0 to 35, and then convert the numbers back to Base-36 (i.e. AQ)? So I did that, and this is what I got:

Magic Square for AQ.

    Now, how exactly can we use this? One among many possible uses of this square is to use it as a sigilization technique.

    In Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa's "Three Books on Occult Philosophy", Book 2, chapter 12 (link), the author presented the sigils of the planetary intelligences & spirits, which were based on an ingenious sigilization technique. Using the example for the Sun and its 6×6 magic square, and applying this technique to the names of the solar intelligence (Nakiel נכיאל) and solar spirit (Sorath סורת), we start by finding first the corresponding values for the letters. Let's analyze "Nakiel" first:

    "Nakiel" is written with the letters Nun-Kaph-Yod-Aleph-Lamed:

    — The reduced value of Nun is 5;
    — The standard value of Kaph is 20;
    — The standard/ordinal value of Yod is 10;
    — The value of Aleph is 1;
    — And the reduced value of Lamed is 3.

    In the case of "Sorath", written with the letters Samech-Vav-Resh-Tav, we have:

    — Both Samech and Vav have a reduced value of 6;
    — The reduced value of Resh is 2;
    — And finally, the reduced value of Tav is 4.

    Next, what we have to do is to locate those numbers in the magic square and draw lines joining those values, like this:

Colored sigils drawn by me. Click to enlarge.

    Adapting this system to the English Alphabet, or more exactly the alphanumeric sequence 0-Z, we could create specific sigils for any word, name or phrase that we want. I must be honest with my Readers, though, and confess that I haven't explored this sigilization technique very deeply yet, even though I noticed a very intriguing pattern for the word "FEMININE" — because, you see, its sigil would be a simple straight line:


    Besides this, which I believe is no more than a coincidence, in my early experiments with this technique there was only one other case that caught my attention. The cover of Simon's edition of the fabled (and often misunderstood fictional book called) Necronomicon contains a sigil that, somehow, is strangely similar to the alphanumeric sigil for "Necronomicon":


    Apart from this, there isn't really much more to say about this sigilization technique, except that you can use it in every way you want. To find patterns, to design patterns, as a personal signature, as a magical symbol — the limit is literally your own imagination. 

    In the next part, but still keeping this alphanumeric magic square in our minds, let's talk about:


    Cryptography & Alphanumeric Qabbalism


    As we have seen, the sequence from 0 to Z can be inscribed in a 6×6 square, and what this actually means is that we can use this sequence as the basis for a cryptographic technique. Techniques like that already exist, however — and the first system that comes first to my mind is the ADFGVX cipher, which is based on a modern modification of the Polybius square.

    In the modern ADFGVX cipher, a 6×6 square is used in which are inscribed all 36 alphanumeric digits from 0 to Z, while the lines and columns are encoded by the characters A, D, F, G, V and X, like this:

Please note that in this case, the letters have been ordered according to the "AZERTY" keyboard layout. Picture from DCode.fr.

    However, as in the last section we've been working with a alphanumeric square derived from the Magic Square of Tiphareth, that's the layout I'll be using. Also, instead of using the letters ADFGVX for the lines & columns, I'll use instead the numbers from 0 to 5:


    While the ADFGVX cipher is used according to a certain pattern of encryption (using a keyword, reordering columns, etc), the way how I use it is a bit different and much easier — which implies that it's also easier to decode. Anyway, here's how I use it:

    I'm only using one word as an example because I want to make it simple for my Readers. So let's say we wanted to encode the word "QABBALA" using my method.

    First, write the corresponding pairs of digits that correspond to its letters: first the number of the line, then the number of the column:

    Q  A  B  B  A  L  A
    12 11 45 45 11 32 11

    Then, group those digits in a continuous sequence:

    12114545113211

    After that, break that sequence in half, dividing it into two strings:

    1211454
    5113211

    And finally, decode the result, considering that the string above corresponds to the line of the (encoded) character, and the string below to its column:

    1 2 1 1 4 5 4 (line)
    5 1 1 3 2 1 1 (column)
    ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓ ↓
    T D A R 9 4 S
 
    And so, the word "QABBALA" can be encoded as the alphanumeric string "TDAR94S" using my method as an example. But this is just one example among many possible others. As in Gematria, the limit of Cryptography is our own imagination. For example, instead of using the alphanumeric square as derived from the Magic Square of the Sun, we could instead use a keyword to reorder the characters inside the square (like the example above, following the "AZERTY" keyboard layout). So my suggestion is always to create your own method and to use whatever makes sense to you.

    Another way of using the 0-Z sequence would be to apply it to what I call "Alphanumeric Athbash". For this method we would make the first alphanumeric character (0) correspond to the last (Z), then the second (1) to the second-to-last (Y), and so on and so forth — and basically replace every alphanumeric digit with its opposite.


    If, for example, we wanted to encode the word "LANGUAGE" using this technique, it would correspond to "EPCJ5PJL". Please note, however, that substitution ciphers like this are very easy to crack using frequency analysis, so please be sure that your encoded messages cannot be broken by the wrong people. In most cases, a second layer of encryption will ensure that the message will most certainly be more difficult to decrypt.

    And now let's talk about...


Finger counting and Alphanumeric Qabbalism


    Another possible way of encoding the alphanumeric sequence (0-Z) is to use finger counting and Base-6 notation. As it is explained in the Wikipedia article on Senary (base-6) notation, particularly the section about finger counting:

    "Each regular human hand may be said to have six unambiguous positions; a fist, one finger (or thumb) extended, two, three, four, and then all five extended.

    If the right hand is used to represent a unit, and the left to represent the "sixes", it becomes possible for one person to represent the values from zero to 55senary (35decimal) with their fingers, rather than the usual ten obtained in standard finger counting. e.g. if three fingers are extended on the left hand and four on the right, 34senary is represented. This is equivalent to 3 × 6 + 4, which is 22decimal."

    What this actually means is that we can represent all alphanumeric characters from 0 to Z=35 using the fingers of both hands. In order to make this clearer, let me show you yet another table:


    Using this table as reference, and considering that the lines correspond to the fingers on the left hand, and the columns to the fingers on the right hand, we could represent the letter "A" (line 1, column 4) by raising 1 finger of our left hand, and 4 fingers of our right hand. Likewise, the letter "Z" (line 5, column 5) would be represented by all the ten fingers raised. Zero, then, would be represented with closed fists (i.e. literally zero fingers raised). In practical terms, this would be similar to a cryptographic substitution cipher, in this case using Base-6 notation as reference.

    Next we'll be talking about...


Applying the alphanumeric sequence to Astrology


    In this part I will explain how we can adapt the alphanumeric sequence to Astrology — or more specifically, how we can use the sequence to encode all main planetary positions in an astrological chart as two distinct alphanumeric strings.

    The principle is simple: as there are 360 degrees in the circle of the zodiac, each degree can be made to correspond to an alphanumeric character from 0 to Z, as in the following image:

Click to enlarge.

    In Astrology there is another division of the zodiac that is quite ancient, coming from the times of Kemet (ancient Egypt), in which the zodiac is divided in 36 equal parts, called the Decans. As there are exactly 36 alphanumeric characters from 0 to Z, each Decan can thus be associated with a unique alphanumeric character, in the following way:

Click to enlarge.

    With these two tables we can encode any planetary position using only two characters, one for the corresponding degree, and another for the corresponding decan. For example, if a certain planetary position corresponds to the characters 9 (degree) and M (decan), then we know, by using the tables above, that that position corresponds to 15° Scorpio. But how would this work in practice?

    Let's say we wanted to encode the planetary positions in a real astrological chart — and let's take as an example the chart of Aleister Crowley, as it is shown in Astro-Databank:

Click to enlarge.

    Applying this technique to this chart, we would start by noting the planetary positions for the Sun, Moon, and the other planets of the Solar System (I'll include Pluto here as well). Then, we check in the two tables shown above to which alphanumeric characters those positions correspond, in terms of both degrees and decans:

Click to enlarge.

    So basically what we have here is two alphanumeric strings that ultimately encode the date of birth of Aleister Crowley, by associating each degree and decan with a specific alphanumeric digit. And this is so because each degree of the zodiac corresponds to a unique combination of characters for the decans and the degrees; there aren't any two degrees that share the same pair of alphanumeric characters, using this method.

    In the case of Crowley, those two strings are:

    — JZMKTLVD35 for the decans;
    — and JS7O41VVVH for the degrees;

    Using these two strings simultaneously, and knowing to which planet (or astrological point) each of the characters corresponds to, it is possible to economize a lot of characters in order to encode the informations contained in an astrological chart. And with that information and the correct astrology software, it is possible to find to which date those astrological informations correspond, with a small margin for error.

    The only negative aspect of this method is that it only accounts for the degrees, not taking into consideration the minutes and seconds of arc — so failing miserably when it comes to the details.

    A way to circumvent this problem would be to keep the division of the zodiac in 36 equal parts (the Decans) and then subdivide each Decan in 36 equal parts, with each smaller part corresponding to 16'40'' (16 minutes and 40 seconds of arc), thus technically subdividing the Zodiac into 1296 or 36×36 equal parts. That way we would only need two alphanumeric characters to identify each small fraction of 16'40'', starting at 00 (0°00'00'' to 0°16'39'' Aries) and ending at ZZ (29°13'20'' to 29°59'59'' Pisces). This method has the advantage of using the same amount of alphanumeric characters as the previous, while allowing for greater detail when it comes to planetary positions.

    And now, let us talk a bit about...


The revelation of AQ in the context of Thelema


    My Readers will remember the series of articles I wrote about the Thelemic ciphers (parts I, II, III and IV), and I must say that for a very long time I was thrilled with English Qaballa (the "ALW" cipher, explored in Part I) and how it delivered some outstanding results (when compared to other Thelemic ciphers) when it was applied to Liber AL vel Legis, the Book of the Law.

    However, after I knew about Alphanumeric Qabbala (in a text called Qabbala 101), I became very intrigued with it, because it showed that AQ also gave some quite curious results when applied to certain key terms and phrases used in Thelema. In fact, I became convinced that not only there was still much work to be done in order to show the validity of AQ in a Thelemic context, but I also thought — and I maintain the same opinion to this day — that Alphanumeric Qabbala may in fact be the ultimate Thelemic cipher, for a number of different reasons:

    — AQ is an offshoot of Base-36 notation, which means that it includes exactly 36 alphanumeric characters (10 Arabic numerals and 26 English letters) that can be used as digits in a Base-36 numeration system. The fact that Aleister Crowley called himself "The Great Beast 666" and that 666 is the 36ᵗʰ triangular number, only lends substance to this possible connection;

    — A number of key Thelemic elements deliver intriguing values when decoded through Alphanumeric Qabbala:

    - "AL" = 31
    ("AL" is a key formula in Thelema, being part of the name of the Book of the Law. Crowley wrote the following: ""AL" is the true name of the Book, for these letters, and their number 31, form the Master Key to its Mysteries." — source. Even considering that Crowley was referring to the value of "AL" in Hebrew Gematria and Greek Isopsephy, it's quite noteworthy that the formula adds to the same value in Alphanumeric Qabbala.)

    - "Thelema" = 127 (the 31ˢᵗ prime number) = "Number"

    - "The Book of the Law" = 301

    - "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law" = 777
    - The number 777 is written as LL in Base-36 notation (i.e. 21×36 + 21×1). "LL" can stand for "Liber Legis", "The Book of the Law" translated to Latin. Also, before Frater Achad found the key-word "AL" in his Liber Thirty-One, the Book of the Law was being called "Liber L". Only later did Crowley call it "Liber AL", as explained in the The New and Old Comments to Liber AL vel Legis. The letter "L" has the value 21, or 7+7+7 in Alphanumeric Qabbala.
From UnitConverters.net - Convert Decimal to Base-36.

 
    - "Do what thou wilt" = 325 = "Aleister Crowley"
    (325 is a numerical constant in the 5×5 magic square of Mars. Consider, in this case, how Horus is called "a god of War and of Vengeance" in AL III:3.)

    - The full birth name of Aleister Crowley was "Edward Alexander Crowley", which sums 438 in Alphanumeric Qabbala. Considering that 36 is the 8ᵗʰ triangular number and 666 is the 36ᵗʰ, it's quite curious to note that the (decimal) number 438 is written as 666 in Octal (base-8) notation. 
    - "Aiwass" = 126 = "Horus"
    (Aiwass is called "the minister of Hoor-paar-kraat" in the Book of the Law, which is but a title of the Egyptian god Horus as Harpocrates, the Child)
 
    - The first words of the 1ˢᵗ and 2nd chapters of the Book of the Law are "Had" and "Nu" respectively, representing Nuit and Hadit, the two opposite principles of infinite expansion (the "circle") and infinite contraction (the "point"). Adding the value of both words, the total sum will be 93, the number of both "Thelema" and "Agape" in Greek. 

    - The first word of the 3ʳᵈ and final chapter of the Book of the Law is "Abrahadabra", the Word of the Aeon. It sums 156 in Alphanumeric Qabbala, which according to Crowley is the number of the goddess Babalon — the complement of Therion, the Beast.

    There's a number of other interesting correspondences that one can find when using AQ in the context of Thelema, even though — and this is very important — many different ciphers may deliver equally curious results, so using numerical matches to prove our point may not always be the best of choices. Anyway... in my tests with this cipher while studying the Book of the Law, I looked for the values of specific words, names, phrases, and whole verses, and I noticed that there are only two complete verses that add up to 630 — the sum of all numbers from 0 to 35:

    AL I:24. "I am Nuit, and my word is six and fifty."

    AL I:66. "The manifestation of Nuit is at an end."


    The word "manifestation" only appears once more in the very first verse of Liber AL:

    AL I:1. "Had! The manifestation of Nuit"

    So the text seems to hint at a connection between Nuit, whose word is six and fifty, and manifestation. And indeed, the value of "manifestation" in AQ is 263, the 56ᵗʰ prime number:


    But there's yet another thing I wish to talk about at this time. All ciphers that have been adapted or developed to be used in the context of Thelema have been applied to some key riddles in The Book of the Law, namely AL II:76 and AL III:47, in order to have their "validity" verified. And as I'm proposing Alphanumeric Qabbala for decoding the Book of the Law, I will now show my own solution to perhaps the most widely known riddle in the Book of the Law.

    Note carefully:

    Every now and then (maybe more "then" than now), a new "Thelemic English Qabalah" pops out of nowhere, with someone claiming to have found the promised key that will solve all mysteries of the Book of the Law. While I enjoy certain ideas behind some of these systems — particularly the ones I've written the most about — I can't avoid feeling some discomfort when proposing this cipher as an important key to Thelema, simply because I'm not interested in repeating the same history that has already been written and rewritten by others.

 

* * *


My Solution to AL II:76


    Here's the verses in question:

    AL II:75. "Aye! listen to the numbers & the words:

    AL II:76. "4 6 3 8 A B K 2 4 A L G M O R 3 Y X 24 89 R P S T O V A L. What meaneth this, o prophet? Thou knowest not; nor shalt thou know ever. There cometh one to follow thee: he shall expound it. But remember, o chosen one, to be me; to follow the love of Nu in the star-lit heaven; to look forth upon men, to tell them this glad word."

    My solution to this riddle is in fact quite humorous... and simple... and with it we would certainly understand why the numbers & the words are in their respective "position to one another" — even though I can't really explain all of it. And I still have many doubts that this would be a definitive answer to AL II:76.

    This "solution", as it were, doesn't "mean" anything to me, except that the "riddle" was never intended to be taken seriously. There is no meaning as to which numbers or letters are used in it — but in fact how they are used.

    Four times the same message is repeated:

    "4 6 3 8 A B K" 

    "2 4 A L G M O R"

    "3 Y X"

    "24 89 R P S T O V A L"

    And the message would be: Letters always come after numbers — which is precisely the most fundamental characteristic of Alphanumeric Qabbala. And so the answer could be obtained, assuming that Alphanumeric Qabbala was the intended "key" to decode AL.

    AQ = 0123456789 abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
    (Letters come after the "numbers" — i.e. the numerals.)

    I can't explain, however, why the same "message" would be repeated four times. However, what I do know is that the riddle contains exactly 28 numbers & letters, with 28 being a triangular number, just like 36. And if we organize the 0-Z alphanumeric sequence in the shape of a triangle, as we have seen before, there will be exactly 4 rows for the numbers, and 4 rows for the letters.
    

    Assuming that this would be the answer to AL II:76, we could further elaborate upon a possible connection between the rows of the "AQ triangle" and the rows of the (decoded) riddle in AL II:76, putting them side by side and looking for similarities.


    Starting with the numbers, we will see that there does seem to exist some kind of connection:


    However, doing the same with the "words" (i.e. the letters) won't retrieve any noteworthy connection — besides the fact that the 2nd and 4th rows share exactly the same number of letters:


    Even not trying to "justify" this finding with Gematria, let my Readers consider the following:

    — The Law of Thelema, "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law" sums 777 in Alphanumeric Qabbala.

    — Then, consider that in Crowley's book of numbers and letters, Liber 777Crowley listed the ten sephiroth numbering them from 1 to 10, and then the twenty-two Hebrew letters (the "paths"), numbering them from 11 (Aleph) to 32 (Tav).

    — If we were to adapt that system to the English Alphabet, listing first the ten Arabic numerals from 0 to 9, and then the twenty-six English letters from A to Z, we would end up precisely with Alphanumeric Qabbala: a continuous, logical and non-redundant alphanumeric sequence from 0 to Z=35.


* * *

    I make no claims whatsoever about "my role" in this solution, as I think that's irrelevant — my intention is not to claim that I've found the "Key of It All" or that I am the "child of the Beast". In my opinion, that's simply stupid and immature, and won't lead you (or me, or anyone) anywhere. I do believe, however, that AQ may be an important key in Thelema, and what I'm doing here is simply to play along with it, and trying to make it become more widely known. 

* * *

    All of this, of course, can't be taken as "proof" that Alphanumeric Qabbala is an important key to Thelema — firstly, because many of these matches could be taken as being coincidental, and I think that most gematricists would agree with me on this conclusion. And secondly, because there's still much work to be done in this field, while at the same time the continuous proposal of too many ciphers to decipher the mysteries of Liber AL has made the topic a sort of "taboo" in the context of Thelema. So what I'm trying to achieve by writing this is, in fact, to show some ideas and then let my Readers work the rest by themselves. I am, of course, always interested in exchanging ideas about Gematria, and about this subject in particular — so if you, dear Reader, feel the need to get in touch and discuss some of these things, please do!

    Now let's talk about...


"Dos" and "don'ts" with AQ


    In this section I will try to explain how I personally use Alphanumeric Qabbala, which will be reflected by my suggestions for "dos" and "don'ts" regarding the work with AQ.

    First of all, let's start with my suggestions for the "dos":

    1) Use AQ whenever it makes sense to use an alphanumeric cipher, for example, in phrases or strings composed of digits (0-9) and letters (A-Z).

    2) Use AQ with the English language! Besides the Standard, Ordinal and Reduction ciphers — which I view as being the main English ciphers — it also makes a lot of sense to use AQ for English words, phrases or specific terms, since it is perfectly adapted to the alphanumeric sequence which includes 10 Arabic numerals (from 0 to 9) and 26 English letters (from A to Z).

    3) Use AQ in the context of Thelema (!!!). The work with AQ in this area has been extremely scarce, aside from some occasional discoveries that are shared here and there by some (very few) people, so I think it is about time that some serious work can be done with this cipher in the study of the Holy Books of Thelema — Liber AL vel Legis is just the beginning.

    4) Use AQ to encode hidden references in your texts! In fact, that's one of my favorite ways of using Gematria. You can do this too, and it can be easy or difficult depending on which tools you use. I recommend using Gematro, which includes an "Encoding" tool as well as a link to an ever-growing list of public databases (check the "About" menu) — it will make your work a lot easier, and will give you hours of guaranteed fun.

    Now let's talk about the "don'ts":


    1) Don't use AQ whenever it does NOT make sense to use it, which should be fairly obvious, even though a brief explanation is needed. For example, I would never use AQ to try to "decode" a text written in Latin or Elizabethan English, for the simple reason that the alphabets used for these languages were different from Modern English. AQ, and its intricate connections to the number 36, only makes sense to be used with (1) a decimal system of numeration (0 through 9) combined with (2) the modern English alphabet with 26 letters.

    2) Don't try to decode any random name or phrase with AQ — or with any other cipher, in fact! 😅 We always need to be very careful when "decoding" something, particularly if we're not sure that it was encoded in the first place. So things like looking for patterns in the English language while using AQ may or may not be fruitful, depending on what you want to do with it. If you're simply looking for patterns, I can guarantee that you'll find them — whether with Alphanumeric Qabbala, English Ordinal or Standard, English Qaballa or Agrippa's Latin cipher. The actual question is what does a numerical match actually "mean" — and it means only what you want it to mean. For example, some "alternative" interpretations of the Bible started by analyzing it with Hebrew Gematria (and Greek Isopsephy) and establishing connections between words and concepts based on numerical matches and/or geometrical patterns. So a numerical match is a means of encoding (not only decoding) something, and sometimes it can give you some great ideas. But don't search abusively for patterns and matches in search for a "proof" of something. Numerical matches don't prove anything per se — but they can be an intelligent way of saying more than what you're actually saying.


    And last but not the least (whew!)...


Riddles — and some notes on this text


    My intention in writing this text has been to show my Readers how we can use Alphanumeric Qabbala, and the 0-Z alphanumeric sequence in particular, in many different ways. The main method is, of course, Gematria: that is, adding the values of the letters composing a word, name or phrase, and analyzing the result through numerology, geometric or polygonal sequences, or even compare it with other words, names or phrases that share the same value. But there are other ways to use it, as we have seen, which include cryptographic & sigilization techniques, for example.

    One of my favorite uses of Gematria is to encode secret references in my texts. And so, as the main subject of my blog is Gematria, in this text I took the liberty to leave some "scraps" or hidden references throughout the article, so that my most perceptive Readers would understand, in practice, one of the ways how I work with Gematria.


    Every section of this text contains something that was purposefully encoded with Gematria. Starting with the title, "The wonders & magic of Alphanumeric Qabbala": is there anything "special" about it? How many words does it have? How many letters? What does it add to in Alphanumeric Qabbala? And why? You'll love it once you see it.

    If you want to give it a try, let me give you some clues:

    — all colored text is encoded;

    — sometimes, differently formatted phrases can hide some references too.

    In order to know if something was purposefully encoded or not, which is one of the key points when working with Gematria to "decode" something, is to remember the following: if it looks too good to be random, maybe it isn't random. However, in order to be sure about this, we always have to confirm our findings by noting (1) the context we're working on, and (2) if the ciphers we're using make sense to be used in that context.

    So, in this specific context, the main cipher you need to use is Alphanumeric Qabbala... and maybe 2 or 3 more ciphers in some cases. 😅 Anyway, in any case, if you don't know it, be sure to get acquainted with Gematro, one of the best Gematria calculators out there, in order to both decode and encode whatever you want in your texts. It will make your work a lot easier.

    In the meantime, as always, if any of my Readers wishes to get in touch and talk about anything related to Gematria or Cryptography (or any remotely connected subject), feel free to do so either by using the "Contact Form" on the right side of this blog, or by making a comment on any post you want.

    Thanks for following my work, and... keep on decoding!


    Luís Gonçalves

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