History of Ciphers (part 6) - Chaldean Numerology

    Dear Reader,

 

    In this text I will explain to you some lesser known facts about the so-called "Chaldean Numerology". This is basically a rewriting and expansion of an older text that I wrote years ago, and my intention in re-publishing it (or at least the ideas contained in it) is tied to the following purposes:

 

    — To clear some confusions and myths surrounding this cipher;

 

    — To explain why "Chaldean" Numerology is not Chaldean, was never used by the Chaldeans, and is in fact a modern creation;

 

    — To explain the actual roots of this cipher within Hebrew Qabalah, particularly Hebrew Gematria;

 

    — To show the reasons why the number 9 isn't used in Chaldean Numerology, and why it wasn't a "sacred number for the Chaldeans" as it is so often repeated;

 

    — And finally, to tell my Readers that there isn't just one "Chaldean" Numerology, but in fact (at least) two different systems, coming from two different authors.

 

     Hopefully, all of these subjects will be further studied in this...

 

 

History of Ciphers

by Luís Gonçalves

 

Part 6: Chaldean Numerology

 

 

    Let's first talk about...

 

 

What is "Chaldean Numerology"?

 

 

    I first read about Chaldean Numerology many years ago in Lloyd Strayhorn's book "Numbers and You" (check the author's website here). I still have a physical copy of that book, and even though it already has some loose pages due to some careless use, I still like this book a LOT and I've kept it safe on my bookshelf. It's a monster book on Numerology, and the work of its author was impeccable. I highly recommend it to my Readers who wish to study Numerology more deeply.

 

    According to Strayhorn (pages 23-24):

 

    "The Chaldean approach is very ancient and accurate. This system was developed by the Chaldeans of long ago, who once occupied the southern part of Babylonia. Because of their long and diligent study of the occult, the people of Chaldea became well known for their contributions to astronomy, mathematics and other sciences, particularly Astrology and Numerology. So adept were these Chaldean people in the metaphysical arts, that their name became synonymous with such studies. 

    The Chaldean system takes both your name and birthdate into consideration. The analysis of your name under this system uses only the name you are most known by, instead of your original name given at birth (a requirement of the Pythagorean system). 

    In the Chaldean system the numbers only go from 1 to 8, and not 1 to 9 — this means the transposition of the numbers assigned to the alphabet is different than in the Pythagorean counterpart. Below is the Chaldean chart:

    As you may already have noticed, no alphabet letter was assigned to the number 9. The reason why the number 9 was omitted under this system was because the Chaldean felt the 9 was holy, sacred, and thus to be held apart from the rest. However, should your name or that of someone you know total 9, then the 9 remains. (...)"

 

    I don't remember the specific year when I bought this book and saw this table for the first time, but I would presume it was sometime around the year 2000 or 2001, when I went to the University. And by that time I already had a deep knowledge of Jewish Qabalah and Gematria, and something... Well, something just didn't feel right in this explanation.

 

 

Where did this system come from?

 

 

    As far as I was able to search, I believe that the first western numerologist talking about this specific system of Numerology was Count Louis Hamon, popularly known as Cheiro.

    In his "Book of Numbers", Cheiro writes the following about this so-called "Chaldean" system:

    "This ancient Chaldean and Hebrew alphabet sets out the number or value of each letter. It is the best system I know for this purpose; its origin is lost in antiquity, but it is believed that it was originated by the Chaldeans, who were masters in all magical arts, and by them passed to the Hebrews.

    It will be seen that there is no number 9 given in the above alphabet, for the simple reason that those ancient masters of Occultism knew that in the "Highest Sphere" the number 9 represents the 9-lettered name of God, and for this reason no single letter was ascribed to it."

    These two very paragraphs are very important, and we will be talking about what Cheiro wrote here, particularly the following points:

    1. Was it really "Chaldean"?

    2. (The real reason) Why the number 9 isn't used in Chaldean Numerology.

    3. And finally: Why there isn't only one system of Chaldean Numerology.

1. Was it really "Chaldean"?

    When I first saw this table of "Chaldean Numerology" it looked surprisingly familiar to me, even though I had never seen it before. And the reason why it looked familiar to me is because I had already seen it before — even though it wasn't used with the Modern English alphabet, but with the Hebrew alphabet instead.

    In fact, in Hebrew Qabalah there is a table (related to another cryptographic technique) called Aiq Bekar, or Qabbala of the Nine Chambers, and it shows the letters of the Hebrew alphabet joined in 9 groups, in which each group corresponds to the reduced value of the letters according to Hebrew Gematria:

Click to enlarge. Note that the letters between parentheses represent possible pronunciations (or transliterations) of Hebrew letters.

    This table can be more easily understood once we consider the values of the letters. For example, in group 1, Aleph has the value 1, Yod has the value 10, and Qoph has the value 100. All these values are reduced to 1 (by adding all the digits of the numbers), so all of them belong to the same group represented by the number 1. It's from the letters in the two first groups that the name "Aiq Bekar" (A-Y-Q, B-K-R) is derived.

    Comparing this table with the "Chaldean" table, it thus becomes apparent that this numerological system does not come from the Chaldeans, but it is in fact an adaptation of the Hebrew Qabalistic system known as Aiq Bekar to the Modern English alphabet. This can be further confirmed if we look closely into which English letters correspond to which numbers, and then compare them with the corresponding Hebrew letters — for example, number 4 corresponds to the English letters D, M and T, and to the Hebrew letters Daleth, Mem and Tav.

    How, therefore, was the equivalence made between English letters and numbers, if the Hebrew alphabet (and Aiq Bekar) was used as a model? From the explanations of several authors who use this numerological system (examples here, here and here), in Chaldean Numerology the values are given to the letters based on vibrational patterns — that is, the sound of letters. So, in other words, it's how the English letters are pronounced that dictates how their correspondence with Hebrew letters is made, and thus can their value be found.

    Most of the numerical equivalents as found in this system can be confirmed through this rule. However, there seem to be some exceptions, since the criterion by which the correspondence between English and Hebrew letters was made is not always clear. This is particularly true in the case of the letters C, F, H, X and Y. For example:

 

 

    — Both "E" and "H" were given the value 5, even though "E" derived from the Hebrew letter Heh (=5) and "H" derived from the Hebrew letter Cheth (=8). However, as the rule to Chaldean Numerology is to attribute values to the letters based on how they sound, the Chaldean attribution could thus be confirmed, since the letter "E" derived from the Hebrew letter "He", which has the /h/ sound. If instead we followed the genetic derivation of English letters from the Hebrew alphabet, "E" would be more reasonably given the value 5, and "H" would be given the value 8.

 

    — Both "F" and "P" were given the value 8. In this case we can see how the rule of "pronunciation of letters = their value" works. As "P" derives from the Hebrew letter Peh (=80) which can also be pronounced as "F", it makes sense to give the same value to both English letters.

 

    — "Y" was given the value 1. This again confirms the Chaldean pattern of giving values to the letters based on their sounds, since the letter "Y" can be a perfect transliteration of the Hebrew letter Yod (=10). Historically, however, the English letter "Y" is more tightly connected to the Hebrew letter Vav (=6), so in a Genetic (not sound-based) system of Numerology, "Y" would perhaps more correctly be given the value 6.

 

    — Both "C" and "G" were given the value 3. This happens because the letter "G" derived from "C", and "C" itself derived from the Hebrew letter Gimel (=3), so it makes sense to give the same value to both letters. However, if the rule in Chaldean Numerology was really the vibration (i.e. sound) of the English letters, it would make more sense to compare "C" (and its hard "K" sound) with the Hebrew letter Kaph (=20), so it would be more reasonably given the value 2 instead of 3.

    — And how about the letter X=5? This is the only English letter whose numerical attribution in Chaldean Numerology doesn't make any sense at all. In Hebrew Gematria, the only letters whose value can be reduced to 5 are Heh (=5), Nun (=50) and the final form of Kaph (=500) — and none of those letters are remotely connected to "X". So how was this numerical equivalence devised, exactly? I can't really answer that question because, honestly, I don't know. And it doesn't make sense to me. Anyway, we'll talk further about this when we talk about other systems of Chaldean (i.e. Kabbalistic) Numerology.

    From these observations, it becomes clear that the method by which the numbers were assigned to the letters based on their sound wasn't always clear, and some numerical attributions are debatable at best — so they're thus open to discussion.

2. Why isn't the number 9

included in Chaldean Numerology?

    From the observations presented above, it also becomes clear why the number 9 isn't used in Chaldean Numerology. In fact, number 9 isn't used in Chaldean Numerology because the Hebrew letters whose values are reduced to 9 (in this case, Teth & Tzaddi) didn't survive into our alphabet.

 

     In fact, the Hebrew letter Teth (between CHETH / Greek Eta / Latin H, and YOD / Greek Iota / Latin I & J) doesn't exist in our alphabet. Likewise, the letter Tzaddi (between PEH / Greek Pi / Latin P, and QOPH / obsolete Greek Qoppa / Latin Q) didn't survive into our alphabet. So this is the reason why 9 isn't used in the modern "Chaldean" Numerology. It has nothing to do with special "powers" of the number 9, or with any supposed "fear" of it from the "Chaldeans".

 

    In order to aid my Readers in better understanding this question, I will add a quick table for reference, where I show (1) the Hebrew letters, (2) their values in Hebrew Gematria, (3) the Greek letters derived from the Hebrew alphabet, and (4) the Latin letters derived (through Etruscan) from the Greek alphabet.

- Aleph (1) = Alpha = A

- Beth (2) = Beta = B

- Gimel (3) = Gamma = C, G

- Daleth (4) = Delta = D

- Heh (5) = Epsilon = E

- Vav (6) = [Digamma] = F (indirectly, also U, V, W and Y)

- Zayin (7) = Zeta = Z

- Cheth (8) = Eta = H

- Teth (9) = Theta = didn't survive into our alphabet

- Yod (10) = Iota = I, J

- Kaph (20) = Kappa = K

- Lamed (30) = Lambda = L

- Mem (40) = Mu = M

- Nun (50) = Nu = N

- Samech (60) = Xi = didn't survive into our alphabet

- Ayin (70) = Omikron = O

- Peh (80) = Pi = P

- Tzaddi (90) = [San] = didn't survive into our alphabet

- Qoph (100) = [Qoppa] = Q

- Resh (200) = Rho = R

- Shin (300) = Sigma = S

- Tav (400) = Tau = T

 

    The remaining Latin letters, U, V, W, X and Y have to be treated apart from the others, since they don't have a direct connection with any Hebrew letter. However, it is widely accepted that the Greek letter Ypsilon (from which came the Latin U, V, W and Y) was derived from the Hebrew letter Vav, and that the Latin X came from the Greek letter Chi (pronounced as /ks/ in the ancient Euboean Greek alphabet).

    There is more to this and we'll get to it in time, but for now I would like to direct my Readers' attention to the fact that there isn't only one system of "Chaldean" (i.e. Kabbalistic) Numerology but in fact — at least — two different systems. I only found the second one when I bought Harish Johari's book "Numerology with Tantra, Ayurveda, and Astrology".

 

 

3. Is there only one system of Chaldean Numerology?

    Nope! In fact, in the book by Harish Johari I found yet another system of Numerology that is remarkably similar to Chaldean Numerology, even though it gives different values to three letters: C, H and X. This is the system as it appears in Johari's book, where he calls it the Unit System:

 

    Later, I came to understand that this is the system more commonly used in Vedic Numerology, while for the western world the Kabbalistic system we know better is known as Chaldean Numerology. In fact, both Chaldean Numerology and Harish Johari's Unit System can be called Kabbalistic systems of Numerology, since both are ultimately derived from the Hebrew Kabbalistic technique known as Aiq Bekar. However, the differences between this specific system and Chaldean Numerology are very worthy of note, so I will elaborate a bit upon them:

 

    — The letter "C" was given the value 2. This is one such example in which sound (i.e. pronunciation) prevails over genetic derivation, as in the explanations previously given about Chaldean Numerology. As the letter "C" can have a hard /k/ sound, it was in this case compared to the Hebrew letter Kaph (=20), instead of the letter Gimel (=3) from which both "C" and "G" were genetically derived.

 

    — The letter "H" was given the value 8. This equivalence has an advantage over the Chaldean equivalence with the number 5. While in Chaldean Numerology the letter "H" was compared to the Hebrew letter Heh (=5) which sounds like "H", in this case both sound and genetic derivation are respected. And this happens because the English letter "H" was genetically derived from the Hebrew letter Cheth (=8), which can also be transcribed as a hard /h/ sound.

 

    — The letter "X" was given the value 6. This equivalence makes much more sense than the Chaldean equivalence with the number 5. The Chaldean correspondence makes no sense at all, either by the sound of the letter or by its genetic derivation. In this specific system, however, the correspondence with the number 6 is much more reasonable, since the letter "X" came from the Greek letter Chi (=600), which in the ancient Euboean Greek alphabet was pronounced like the modern Greek letter Xi (=60). So an equivalence with number 6 is much more reasonable than the equivalence that is used in Chaldean Numerology.

 

    The discovery of this system later led me into finding its source, which from my investigations seems to be a book written in 1920 by Sepharial (Walter Gorn Old), "The Kabala of Numbers". In the third chapter of this book, dedicated to Numerology, Sepharial shows the following table of numbers & letters:

    This table is extremely pertinent in this investigation because:

    — It shows how the correspondences were made between English and Hebrew letters, based on the sound of the letters;

    — It clearly demonstrates the reason why the number 9 isn't included in Chaldean Numerology, since "Th" and "Tz" are possible transliterations of the Hebrew letters Teth (=9) and Tzaddi (=90) respectively, which didn't survive into our alphabet.

Some notes towards a "pure"

Genetic system of Numerology

    In this section I will show my suggestion of a purely Genetic system of English Numerology — that is, a system that isn't based on how the English letters sound (and the connection between sounds and Hebrew letters), but instead on how the English letters derived genetically from the Hebrew alphabet.

    The reason why I'm proposing a "pure" Genetic system of English Numerology is because the choice of the how the letters sound as a criterion for assigning them certain values can be dubious sometimes. See for example the letter "H". In Chaldean Numerology it has the value 5, since in this case the sound /h/ can be represented in Hebrew by the letter Heh (=5), while in Sepharial's Kabbalistic/Hebraic system it is assigned the value 8, since the Hebrew letter Cheth (=8) corresponds to a hard /h/ sound.

    If, instead, we follow a method in which the English letters are assigned the values of the Hebrew letters from which they were derived, then each and every English letter will only have one possible value — that is, there won't be any margin for error or dubious correspondences.

    Based on one of the tables shown above, in which I showed why the number 9 isn't used in Chaldean Numerology, we can thus create the following table of correspondences:

    When comparing this system with Chaldean Numerology, some differences can easily be noted, namely regarding the letters F, H, X and Y. This happens because:

    — Both letters "F" and "Y" are connected to the Hebrew letter Vav (=6). "F" is a direct derivation from the Greek Vau/Digamma (=6) while "Y" came from the Greek letter Ypsilon, which in turn was also derived from the Hebrew letter Vav. So it makes sense to assign both letters the value 6.

    — "H" is assigned the value 8, because it derived directly from the Greek Eta (=8), which in turn came from the Hebrew letter Cheth (=8).

    — And finally, letter "X" was assigned the value 6. In this case, however, there isn't a direct connection with any specific Hebrew letter; "X" derived directly from the ancient Greek Euboean letter "X" (=600) which sounded like /ks/, and was pronounced like the modern Greek letter "Xi" (=60). So it also makes sense to give "X" the value 6.

    It's also possible to build a Genetic Greek system for the English alphabet, in which we consider how the modern English letters derived directly from the Greek alphabet. If my dear Reader has read my post on the Latin ciphers, this is basically a reduction table for the Æquicalculus cipher, which was also mentioned by John Opsopaus in this Biblioteca Arcana website (here, with further explanations here and here).

    In this case I will suggest my Readers to visit John Opsopaus' webpage mentioned above, since it contains some valuable informations that will shed some light on the reasons for these numerical correspondences. I should mention, however, that in this case there is a number 9 in this table, for the simple reason that the letter "Q" is the only English letter that was derived from a Greek letter whose value is reduced to 9 — in this case, the Greek letter Qoppa, which has the value 90 (=9).

Suggested Bibliography

    In this presentation I mentioned several sources which may be very useful for my Readers if they want to follow these studies. In order to make it easier for everyone, I'm leaving here a list of some of the books I learned from, as well as some useful links:

— STRAYHORN, Lloyd, "Numbers and You", Ballantine Books (1980):

[https://archive.org/details/numbersyounumero0000stra/mode/2up]

— HAMON, Count Louis ("Cheiro"), "Cheiro's Book of Numbers", Herbert Jenkins Ltd. (1926):

[https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.70770/page/n3/mode/2up]

— JOHARI, Harish, "Numerology with Tantra, Ayurveda, and Astrology", Destiny Books (1990):

[https://archive.org/details/numerologywithta0000joha/mode/2up]

— OLD, Walter Gorn ("Sepharial"), "The Kabala of Numbers", William Rider and Son, Ltd. (1911 - first edition):

[https://archive.org/details/SepharialTheKabalaOfNumbers1920/mode/2up]

— Links from John Opsopaus' Biblioteca Arcana:

    - Isopsephia Calculator:

    http://wisdomofhypatia.com/OM/BA/Isopsephia.html

    - Isopsephia Alphabet Charts:

    http://wisdomofhypatia.com/OM/BA/Iso-values.html

    - Some Notes on the History of Isopsephia (Gematria):

    http://wisdomofhypatia.com/OM/BA/SNHIG.html

    - Genetic Correspondences between Hebrew, Greek and Roman alphabets:

    http://wisdomofhypatia.com/OM/BA/JO-Alpha.html

 

 

Some Final Words...

    It is my hope that this article has helped my Readers in understanding how "Chaldean Numerology" was created, and what were the bases behind its creation. This may have been perhaps the most technical article that I've written about the ciphers of Gematria to this day, and in fact it had to be that way. There is no way to understand a cipher if we are unable to explain it in all details and actually understand how it really works — and so, would there be a better way to explain it if not by deconstructing it and completely understanding its logic? Of course not. So that was precisely my plan from the first minute I wrote about this cipher.

    I also didn't take my time in exploring any numerical correspondences with this cipher (or the others that were mentioned in this text) because I'm really not a fan of ciphers containing reduced values, so I never duly explored it. Instead, I preferred to leave that for other more pertinent occasions, and instead I've chosen to focus on explaining the bases behind this cipher and how it was created.

    Perhaps one day in the future I will return to this. But not now.

    For my next text(s), I will again focus on more than one cipher. One of them is Alphanumeric Qabbala, a cipher that I already talked about in a previous post. It's one of my favorite ciphers so far and, because of its nearly perfect mathematical  properties, it allows us to "play" with it in many different ways. As my previous text on this cipher was highly incomplete, I will be dedicating a whole new text to this very curious cipher.

    Another cipher that I will talk about is Satanic Gematria. Even though some people might think that this is a "bogus" cipher, it is actually quite interesting due to its very special properties and some eye-opening equivalences that we can find when using it. Also, as the origin of this cipher is virtually unknown, I think it is time to give this cipher the attention that it rightfully deserves.

    Some surprises will await my Readers when they read these future texts, though, so stay tuned if you're enjoying my work! 😋

 

 

    My best regards to all my Readers,

 

    Luís Gonçalves

How I use Gematria

    Dear Reader,

    In this new text I will explain to you how I use Gematria. I guess that this should have been one of the first texts being published in this blog, but as this kind of work will never be finished and always needs to be perfected, I've made the decision to talk a bit about my own studies & practice of Gematria.

    I'm dedicating a text to this specific question because I feel that writing only about the history of ciphers may not be enough, so I thought about sharing a bit of myself with this text, explaining to my Readers my own perspective about Gematria, and above all, to encourage my Readers to be inventive regarding their own practices of Gematria.

  

    Above all, Gematria is a cryptographic tool, and the reason why I'm calling it that way will become apparent to you, noble Reader, during this exploration of the true meaning of Gematria and some of its most interesting historical uses.

    So... let's start by talking a bit about this lovely topic.

What is Gematria?

    Gematria is one of three techniques of Hebrew Qabalah which are mostly applied to biblical texts, in order to extract secret meanings or occult correspondences from them. Each technique works in a different way:

    — Gematria: the practice of assigning values to the letters of the alphabet and thus to words and sentences, based on an alphanumeric cipher. From this technique alone many considerations can be taken, namely concerning the mathematical and geometric properties of the values of the words, as well as the connection between words or phrases which share the same value.

    — Temurah: a technique which rearranges the letters of a word or phrase, or exchanges letters for others using substitution ciphers. Some of these substitution ciphers are known as Atbash (exchanging the first letter of the alphabet for the last and vice-versa, like A⇄Z, B⇄Y, etc), Albam (exchanging the first letter of the first half of the alphabet by the first letter of the second half of the alphabet, like A⇄N, B⇄O, etc), Avgad (grouping the letters in interchangeable pairs, like A⇄B, C⇄D, etc), and others. However, there is a problem when adapting this technique to the English alphabet, which lies in the fact that the Hebrew script is an Abjad, i.e. an alphabet composed solely of consonants (or semi-vowels, in some restricted cases); so it is easier to make more sense from a string of random Hebrew letters than from a string of random English letters.

    — Notarikon: a technique which involves noting the first letter, middle letter(s) or final letter of each word in a sentence, thus extracting a new word or phrase from it.

    It becomes clear, then, that Gematria is a cryptographic technique designed either to decrypt or encrypt secret correspondences or references inside a text.

    But how do these techniques work in practice, you may ask?

 

    Let me show you some examples.

 

 

Gematria

 

 

     One of the examples of the use of Gematria in the biblical texts that I like to talk about is the curious connection between the name "Moses" (משה) and the Name of God according to Exodus 3:14, "I Am That I Am" (אהיה אשר אהיה). In Hebrew Gematria, the values of these two names are composed by the same numerical digits in reverse order:

    Likewise, the value of "Moses", 345, also matches that of "El Shaddai" (Almighty God):

    In Jewish Qabalistic mysticism, Moses and his Staff seem to be somehow related to Metatron מטטרון, the Highest Angel who is also called "The Lesser YHWH". In a grimoire known as the Greater Key of Solomon, the First Pentacle of the Sun contains an artistic representation of the Face of Metatron, who surprisingly seems to have horns:

 

 

    In a note to this Pentacle, Benjamin Rowe writes the following:

 

    This singular Pentacle contains the head of the great Angel Methraton or Metatron, the vice-regent and representative of Shaddai, who is called the Prince of Countenances, and the right-hand masculine Cherub of the Ark, as Sandalphon is the left and feminine. On either side is the Name "El Shaddai". Around is written in Latin:– "Behold His face and form by Whom all things were made, and Whom all creatures obey".

    Perhaps not by coincidence, there are many artistic representations of Moses which also depict him with horns — or "rays of light". Check this article for more information about this intriguing detail.

 

    Some researchers have pointed out that 345+543 equals 888, which is the value of "Jesus" in Greek Isopsephy. And while there may be something to this, there's also another intriguing connection in the Old Testament, particularly in Genesis chapter 3, that I would like to briefly talk about. It has to do with the Hebrew word for the Serpent of Paradise, nachash נחש, which has the same value as moshiach משיח, "Messiah", in Hebrew Gematria:

    This connection was first noted by Jewish qabalists who searched the Torah for clues and hidden teachings by applying qabalistic techniques to the sacred texts. Eventually this match inspired some heretical unorthodox views, like the one shared by Gnostic sects during the first centuries of the Common Era, that the Serpent of Paradise was in fact a mask of the Redeemer, the One who descended from the Purity of Pleroma (the Spiritual Fullness) in order to bring the hidden/forbidden knowledge to Mankind.

    Other parallels exist in the biblical texts that equate the Serpent with the Messiah, like John 3:14-15, where it is written:

   "And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life." (KJV)

    This text refers to a passage in the book of Numbers 21:8-9 where God commands Moses to make an image of a brazen serpent and mount it on a pole; everyone who had been bitten by a snake and looked at that image, would be immediately healed. Eventually, that image gave origin to the symbol of Medicine, the Rod of Asclepius (not to be confused with the Hermetic Caduceus, which has an entirely different meaning):

 

    Next comes...

    Temurah

    In the Bible there are at least two clear examples of the use of Temurah (substitution ciphers), both of which can be found in 51ˢᵗ chapter of the book of Jeremiah.

 

     The first instance occurs in the verse Jeremiah 51:1:

 

    "Thus saith the Lord: Behold, I will raise up against Babylon, and against them that dwell in Leb-kamai, a destroying wind." (NIV)

 

    In the King James Bible, "Leb-kamai" (לב קמי) is translated as "the midst [=heart] of them who rise up against me", even though it is actually a cryptographic reference passing unnoticed to most eyes.

 

    Applying the Atbash cipher to the name "Leb-kamai", replacing the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet for the last, the second for the second-to-last, etc, לב קמי (Leb-kamai) becomes כשדים (Kasdim), which means "Chaldeans".

The Atbash cipher. Each letter is replaced by its opposite letter according to the order of the Hebrew alphabet. This would be the cryptographic equivalent of the "Reverse" cipher that many of us know.

    The second example of the use of Temurah in the Bible also occurs in the 51st chapter of Jeremiah, this time in verse 41:

    "How Sheshak will be captured, the boast of the whole earth seized!
How desolate Babylon will be among the nations!" (NIV)

    Applying the same Atbash cipher to the name "Sheshak" (which only shows up another time in Jeremiah 25:26) we see that Sheshak ששך becomes Babel בבל, precisely the Hebrew word for "Babylon".

Notarikon

    In order to keep it simple, and since the main focus in this text will be Gematria, I will provide only one example of the use of Notarikon in the Biblical texts.

 

    In the Hebrew text of Genesis 49:10, a certain "Shiloh" is mentioned. In fact, that verse contains three Hebrew words which, when their initial letters are noted, spell the name "Yeshu" ישו (Jesus).

 

    "The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and unto him shall the gathering of the people be." (KJV)

 

 לֹא-יָסוּר שֵׁבֶט מִיהוּדָה, וּמְחֹקֵק מִבֵּין רַגְלָיו, עַד כִּי-יָבֹא שִׁילֹה, וְלוֹ יִקְּהַת עַמִּים.

 

 

    Now let's talk about...

 

 

    Using Gematria to decode

secret references inside a text

 

 

     In my years of practicing Gematria, I always saw it as a powerful tool for decoding (or encoding) secret references inside a text. What this means is that, if I saw something "fishy" in a text (be it a misspelling, a weird name, or a phrase containing strangely capitalized words or differently formatted text) I would immediately apply some ciphers of Gematria to it and see if I could get some "interesting" results.

 

    Many years ago, when I was excited with my decodes of the 1 Dollar bill with the Illuminati cipher, the first cipher I would always look at would be the Illuminati cipher. Later, as my studies progressed, eventually I would also look at the Baconian/Elizabethan ciphers, and nowadays, as I've become much more disciplined in my uses of the ciphers of Gematria, I always pay attention to the context first, and then I decide which ciphers I should apply to the texts in question.

    In order to better explain what I mean with all this, let's look at an example of a secret reference I found inside a text regarding the Masonic legend of Hiram Abiff. You can find this text on this online PDF (69,2 KB) which contains an interpretation of the Ritual of the Third Degree. On page 4, first paragraph, you'll be able to see that there is a phrase that is suspiciously italicized and capitalized, showing us that it must be important:

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    Now, knowing that this text is about Freemasonry, and that the Baconian/Elizabethan ciphers have been consistently used in a Masonic context throughout history, I wondered what would be the value of this sentence in the Elizabethan Simple cipher (A=1, B=2, etc, until Z=24, counting I/J as the same letter, as well as U/V). The result was more than satisfactory:

    Coincidentally or not, the value of "Search for That Which Was Lost" in the Simple cipher is 287, which not only is a Baconian/Rosicrucian Seal number (together with 157) but it was highly encoded in the works of Sir Francis Bacon, in the Rosicrucian manifesto "Fama Fraternitatis", and also, even in Shakespeare's works. Knowing that many of Francis Bacon's writings were a major influence in Freemasonic teachings, it isn't surprising to see that this specific phrase was chosen precisely because of its numerical value. It is an unmistakable Masonic/Rosicrucian/Baconian signature.

    One of the occurrences of 287 in Shakespeare is in the "monster word" Honorificabilitudinitatibus which only shows up once in all of Shakespeare's works. Its value in the Simple cipher is 287:

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    In the Rosicrucian manifesto "Fama Fraternitatis", the same number is encoded in the measures of Christian Rosencreutz's crypt:
 

    "In the morning following we opened the door, and there appeared to our sight a Vault of seven sides and corners, every side five foot broad, and the height of eight foot (...)"

    Please note:
    7 corners and 7 sides, each side being 5 x 8, which means:

    7 + 7×5×8 = 287

    287 is the value of "Fra. Rosie Cross" (Fraternity of the Rosy Cross) in the Rosicrucian Kaye cipher, and this also matches the value of "Fr. Christianus Rosencreutz" in the Elizabethan Reverse cipher:

    According to a Masonic legend, St. Alban introduced Masonry in Great Britain in the year 287 AD.
(Remember that one of Francis Bacon's titles was Viscount St Alban...)

    And last but not the least...

    Now let's talk about another very pertinent question.

What is a numerical match?

    In practical terms, a numerical match is when two words or phrases share the same value, when their total value is calculated according to one or more alphanumeric ciphers. There are two main types of numerical matches:

    1. Same-cipher matches:

    As the name indicates, this is the case where two phrases match their values in the same cipher. Usually this is the strongest kind of connection between two phrases, and it can be really useful in encoding secret references inside a text. In the examples given above, you could see how "Search for that which was lost" and "Honorificabilitudinitatibus" share the same value in the Elizabethan Simple cipher. That's a same-cipher match.

 

    2. Cross-cipher matches:

 

    This is a secondary, thus weaker connection between two phrases which share the same value in different ciphers. Usually this is only relevant if the ciphers are connected somehow (i.e. they belong to the same "family" of ciphers), or if there are strong reasons to note the direct equivalence. In the examples given above, my Reader will be able to see that "Francis Bacon" and "Fra. Rosi Crosse" share the same value (287) in two different but related ciphers — the Kaye and Modern Kaye ciphers. This is an example of a cross-cipher match.

 

    Now the question rises: why are numerical matches important?

    Numerical matches are important because they allow us to hide secret references inside a text by using certain names, phrases, etc, that actually mean something else. It's almost like a game of "hide & seek". You encode clues in a text, and only someone having the same key (=cipher) will be able to know what you really wanted to say.

    Take the following example from The Canon by William Stirling (a pseudonym):

    In this case, Stirling is talking about an intriguing symbolical connection between Orpheus and Jesus Christ, and he mentions the number 1275 (the value of "Orpheus" in Greek) as the reason why the two were connected.

 

    In the following paragraph he mentions that the Greek names Achilleus and Odysseus add to 1276 and 1479 respectively, and if you subtract 1 from the first name and add 1 to the second, you get 1275 and 1480 — the first being equivalent to Jesus Christ, and the second being the exact value of the word "Christos" in Greek. However, Stirling never actually explains why 1275 is the equivalent of "Jesus Christ". In fact, only if we use Agrippa's Latin cipher will we be able to understand what he wanted to say:

    And there are myriads of other possible uses of Gematria. You can look for patterns in our language while using Gematria, write poems where all lines add to the same value, hide geometrical riddles inside a text you write, etc, etc, etc. In fact...

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    Take a look at this sentence:

    Jesus, also called Joshua or Y'shua in Hebrew, the Messiah who was a preacher of the Gospel, rode a donkey into Jerusalem and taught in parables, died on a Cross for our sins.

 

    My dear Readers obviously noticed that some of the words in this sentence were willingfully highlighted. That's an important clue which, however, would pass completely unnoticed for most people who were unaware of Gematria. What's so special about this sentence, then? Well... this is:

 

    This, of course, is but a small part of everything you could do with Gematria. Obviously, other patterns can be found with other ciphers, and that's precisely one of the most interesting aspects of Gematria. You could spend hours, days, even months or years, finding significant synchronicities when applying the ciphers of Gematria to the English language.

An Example of possible creative uses of Gematria

    At this point I'm going to show you one of many possible creative uses of Gematria as an encryption method.

 

    This is a poem that was created by "Sean Virroco" (not his real name), the person who's behind my favorite Gematria calculator of all time, GEMATRO. This poem contains a secret, and it is only by using Gematria that we'll be able to decode its hidden message:

    First of all, we will notice that the first letters in each line spell the word "GEMATRIA" when taken together. However, there is more to this than it seems, and the clue is given in the last two lines:

 

    "In every line there's code, a number

    And its signature — one hundred pi."

    The first time that Sean showed me this poem, my first thought was not to calculate the value of each line, but instead to count the number of letters in each line. And I was pretty intrigued when I noticed that the total number of letters in the poem is 227, which could be considered to be a cryptic reference to the value of Pi (22/7 = 3.14).

 

    However, this couldn't be the final answer, as the poem specifically states that the numerical signature contained in the poem is "one hundred pi". If the value of π (pi) is 3.14, then "one hundred pi" would correspond to the number 314, not 227. And if we look closely, what the poem is actually telling us is that every line adds up to a number, and that its value is "one hundred pi", that is, 314. And if we use the English Ordinal cipher, we will notice that that is precisely the case:

 

    This is quite an ingenious exercise, to encode secret references inside a text by using Gematria as a cryptographic tool. At this time I would like to bring the attention of my Readers to a book that contains a lot of other similar exercises — even full poems going through several pages in which each line always adds up to the same value (!!!). That book was written in 1903 by Rev. Walter Begley, and its title is Biblia Cabalistica, or The Cabalistic Bible. It can be read and downloaded for free at Archive.org.

 

Experimenting with Gematria

to decrypt/decode secret references

    Even though I already wrote about this in my first post about the History of Ciphers, I would like to recall some of the things I explained previously in that post. Since at this time I'm writing about "How I use Gematria", I honestly think that this will be a good idea.

    By 2008, when I was studying secret societies, I stumbled upon a numerical cipher that was used by the Bavarian Order of the Illuminati. This cipher was uncannily similar to other two ciphers that were used by the time of Sir Francis Bacon — in fact, it seemed to be a cross between the Elizabethan "Simple" and "Reverse" ciphers:

    By that time I was also reading about some "conspiracy theories" (?) that explained how the symbols in the 1 Dollar bill and the Great Seal of the United States contained Illuminati symbology. So... as I stumbled upon the actual numerical cipher of the Bavarian Illuminati, I thought: so, if that's the case, I'm sure that the Illuminati cipher will deliver good results when applied to the Great Seal of the United States. And in fact, I was more than surprised when I finally did it.

    To my absolute surprise, I found out that the mottos in the Great Seal that contain 13 letters also add up to 169 in the Illuminati cipher, and 169 is 13 × 13. And the motto at the center of the 1 Dollar bill, "In God We Trust", which contains 12 letters, adds up to 168. If we add the "ONE" (1) below the motto to those values, we will obtain the values of 13, and 169, which again is 13 × 13.

    Later I would also notice that "Novus Ordo Seclorum" adds up to 229 (the 50ᵗʰ prime number) in the Illuminati cipher, and that the value of "USA" is 50 — coincidentally, the number of states in the United States of America.

    After this many curious discoveries followed, but by now my Readers should be able to understand how I used Gematria in this case. In fact, this was an absolutely uncharted territory, and it was only through experimentation that I was able to find these very curious patterns in the Great Seal of the United States, when applying to it the numerical cipher of the Illuminati.

 

    Sometimes, it's experimentation itself which opens our "doors of perception" to other possibilities.

Some Final Words

    Even though this was not an exhaustive explanation of all the possible ways how Gematria can be used (of which the limit is our own imagination), I believe that by now my Readers will have a good idea of how I personally use Gematria. 

 

    Of course, my Readers should always have in mind that I don't consider my methods to be the "only valid" ways of using Gematria. It's just how I work — and even then, I still didn't show every single way how I use Gematria. So, in my view, each and every person can find their own methods, and will be able to get more or less insights from the way how they use Gematria.

    Gematria can be extremely fun to work with, while at the some time it can (in some restrict cases) be a powerful weapon. So, as in everything, Reason, together with Equilibrium and Respect for all, should always be our guiding principles when working with these tools.

    I bid my Readers farewell, until we meet again for a fresh new text about the Ciphers of Gematria.

    My best regards to All,

 

    Luís Gonçalves