Gematria

[alethian]

Does anyone use Gematria with Tarot reading?  I found Gematria in the first half of the book 777 by Crowley, and I found more books explaining how to use Gematria.

It sounds like it is related to Kabbala, but I am not sure if it is for Tarot reading, or if it would be useful topic to learn for more depth readings with Tarot.

[JoyousGirl]

I don't use it with Tarot.

 

I looked into Gematria many years ago when I was studying anything and everything. It is related with Kabbala/Qabalah in terms of its earlier usage. But it doesn't have to be.

 

I'm not sure Tarot would be the best and most meaningful way to go about it, it would be too laboursome. Then there's the numeric values you'd apply - would you use modern or Babylonian (or some other system?)

 

I think it would be more for a sort of meditational process and going into psyche. I think that's what I used it for, but I never got deeply into it. 

[alethian]

1 hour ago, JoyousGirl said:

would you use modern or Babylonian (or some other system?)

 

How are  they different?  Which one would suit better for Tarot readings and divination purposes?

At the back of 777, there is a chapter which gives out the meanings for all the different numbers, and I have this Encyclopaedia Quabala by David Allen, which gives out wide variety of the correspondences of the numbers and Hebrew words, Tree of Life, sephirots and Goetia names.  He certainly seems to suggest to use Gematria with Tarot and Divination purposes as well as meditation tools too.

 

I was curious how popular Gematria would be in Tarot readings in real life.  But seems it might not be that popular.

I don't recall seeing any mention on Gematria with Tarot readings in any of my Tarot books.  Even in the Tarosophy by Katz, I don't recall seeing Gematria.

 

Edited January 3 by alethian

[Nemia]

I use gematria regularly, with or without tarot. If anyone is interested, I could explain in detail how I do it and which websites I use. But only after the weekend 😉 

 

I used to do gematria analyses of names, combined with tarot, and I use my own system of combining them. 

 

Now I remember that I explained it some years ago on another forum: https://www.cultoftarotforum.com/viewtopic.php?p=24400#p24400 I'm sorry if this explanation is too detailed but I don't believe in a half-baked understanding of esoteric tools. 

Edited January 3 by Nemia

[alethian]

1 hour ago, Nemia said:

If anyone is interested, I could explain in detail how I do it and which websites I use. But only after the weekend

 

Yes, please.   I would be much interested in the detail how you use it.  Many thanks.

 

 

1 hour ago, Nemia said:

I'm sorry if this explanation is too detailed but I don't believe in a half-baked understanding of esoteric tools. 

 

No need for being sorry at all.   I too prefer more detailed info than too little especially in studying and understanding esoteric tools.

[JoyousGirl]

10 hours ago, alethian said:

I was curious how popular Gematria would be in Tarot readings in real life.  But seems it might not be that popular.

Popularity shouldn't be a guide. The search will help you find other things you're meant to find, perhaps.   

 

Why are you studying and what will you use what you learn for?  Are your activities self-focused or are they outward focused? If inward, will the practice tool enhance your self-reflections and move from seeing the glass darkly to seeing face-to-face?  Or if outward, make your readings for others better and more life-enhancing for them? There are so many methods out there, it makes sense to explore which one is the most useful for your purposes and worth investing time in. 

 

Crowley did some great work, but he also had a massive ego that muddied the waters. He did lead the way and developed his own system, though.  Krishnamurti, too, left the Theosophical Society and its expectations of him to go out on his own. We can have a grounding in a practice and then go out on our own. Be wary of following someone else's rules because then you'll just be a follower duplicating what's already been done. Sort of like, don't read the Bible literally, but metaphorically - and what is the specific message in that book that has meaning for you?

 

Mastering someone else's system through books or whatever other information is available, means you won't be tapping into the wisdom of the ethers and your spirit guides (or whatever you want to call that sort of facility), instead you'd be doing things by rote. I'm interested in developing my intuition, and while some reading and ideas from others is essential, beyond a point it means you're not tapping into your own wisdom and guidance facilities. 

 

11 hours ago, alethian said:

How are  they different?  Which one would suit better for Tarot readings and divination purposes?

 

This would be a matter of your practice.  Use both systems to analyse your name with numerology. Which seems more accurate? Which do you just prefer for no reason? Then again, use the ones provided by your book.

 

10 hours ago, Nemia said:

I explained it some years ago on another forum: https://www.cultoftarotforum.com/viewtopic.php?p=24400#p24400 I'm sorry if this explanation is too detailed but I don't believe in a half-baked understanding of esoteric tools. 

 

This is very handy information for people who are interested, Nemia.  Do you use it mostly for personal purposes or to help others? How does it help others best?

 

I remember that Hebrew letters are also numbers, and they also represent words. For example, Dalet meant door (I could be wrong with this attribution. It's a long time since I studied it).  

[Nemia]

I use it for myself but also for others. "Writing" your name in tarot majors according to the gematric value can be quite insightful. And yes, dalet is D and door and also the number 4. Children in fourth grade are in kita dalet, and the fourth day of the week is called yom dalet, which is Wednesday. Everything is connected with letters, words and numbers. Speaking, writing and thinking in words is magical and powerful. 

[JoyousGirl]

8 hours ago, Nemia said:

Speaking, writing and thinking in words is magical and powerful. 

Yes, indeed - this is the mode that we all (with some exceptions) have access to, use and live by for understanding each other.  Before words there was some indescribable force - a malleable energy which we take and shape - words are the process of creation, good or ill. Words are double-edged swords, they build on centuries - millenniums of thinking. In myths and folklore they point at the essential components of human nature, and warn us of mistakes others have made that we don't heed. Then archaic rules and superstitions created words to tell us how things should be how we should be - words can hurt us or heal us.  

 

Some things we experience are beyond explanation - they cannot be conveyed in words. 

 

I looked up "let there be light" in a gematria calculator and much of what came up was rubbish, though. Although I thought I saw "self-realisation" in one calculation - the same calculation came up with "a-hole" so I suppose there's a message in there for my self-awareness 😂🙃- and definitely an art to refining Gematria.

[alethian]

On 1/3/2025 at 10:41 PM, JoyousGirl said:

Popularity shouldn't be a guide. The search will help you find other things you're meant to find, perhaps.   

 

Why are you studying and what will you use what you learn for?  Are your activities self-focused or are they outward focused? If inward, will the practice tool enhance your self-reflections and move from seeing the glass darkly to seeing face-to-face?  Or if outward, make your readings for others better and more life-enhancing for them? There are so many methods out there, it makes sense to explore which one is the most useful for your purposes and worth investing time in. 

 

Crowley did some great work, but he also had a massive ego that muddied the waters. He did lead the way and developed his own system, though.  Krishnamurti, too, left the Theosophical Society and its expectations of him to go out on his own. We can have a grounding in a practice and then go out on our own. Be wary of following someone else's rules because then you'll just be a follower duplicating what's already been done. Sort of like, don't read the Bible literally, but metaphorically - and what is the specific message in that book that has meaning for you?

 

Mastering someone else's system through books or whatever other information is available, means you won't be tapping into the wisdom of the ethers and your spirit guides (or whatever you want to call that sort of facility), instead you'd be doing things by rote. I'm interested in developing my intuition, and while some reading and ideas from others is essential, beyond a point it means you're not tapping into your own wisdom and guidance facilities. 

 

 

This would be a matter of your practice.  Use both systems to analyse your name with numerology. Which seems more accurate? Which do you just prefer for no reason? Then again, use the ones provided by your book.

 

 

This is very handy information for people who are interested, Nemia.  Do you use it mostly for personal purposes or to help others? How does it help others best?

 

I remember that Hebrew letters are also numbers, and they also represent words. For example, Dalet meant door (I could be wrong with this attribution. It's a long time since I studied it).  

 

This is true.  Popularity means nothing, if it doesn't work in the actual practical application of the methods.   Finding out about the popular methods of the methodology would be for trying to get some idea on what is popular, and get some ideas as reference, rather than trying to accept the popular methodology blindly without reflecting it.

 

Yes, that is true as well.  Your point on Crowley I mean.  I was reading my newly arrived copy of Magic without Tears by Crowley, and in the Preface, Regardie was saying about Corwley's over inflated ego, but he said Crowley didn't care, and he wanted to be the master of the esoteric field second to none in the world.

 

I think it would be great if you could develop your own system which works for you, and that is the best way doing it.  In my case, finding and developing my own method which actually works well in the practical application seems to be quite daunting.  Even if I would keep trying, in the middle of the process, I would still try to find out how other people worked and which methods and principles have been used.  Perhaps all the ideas and information could give me coming to know which method works best for me.

 

There seem to be many ways of reading Tarot i.e. by purely intuitions and pictorial images on the cards, or by the correspondences.  The correspondences has many different connections i.e. astrological, tree of life sephiroths, numerological, and the Hebrew letter meanings and path workings in ToL.  And Gematria is another one I found recently, as another way of correspondence between Tarot and the numbers.

 

For textbooks, I started with Book of Thoth and 777, but they were difficult texts to get along and understand.  I put them down, and got the other commentary type books for years, but now I am back to BoT and 777, because they seem to make sense better than before.  

 

[alethian]

On 1/4/2025 at 2:11 PM, Nemia said:

I use it for myself but also for others. "Writing" your name in tarot majors according to the gematric value can be quite insightful. And yes, dalet is D and door and also the number 4. Children in fourth grade are in kita dalet, and the fourth day of the week is called yom dalet, which is Wednesday. Everything is connected with letters, words and numbers. Speaking, writing and thinking in words is magical and powerful. 

 

Yes, it seems a great way to learn and use the Tarot, which expands the meanings and insights.   These days I am using the Kabbalistic Tarot deck.  This is a very good deck for studying the correspondence, because it has all the correspondence details with Tarot such as Astrological signs, Key words, also ToL paths and the location of the planets in the Astrological house for the card, the Hebrew Letters with the numeric values too.  The deck doesn't have any pictorial images though, but it is perfectly ok.

 

The question is, in some Major Tarot cards, the matching Hebrew Letter has 2 different writings for the letter, and also 2 different number values. Why is this the case?  Which letter and number should be taken as the match for the card in this case?  Thanks in advance.

Edited January 5 by alethian

[Deian]

I was very curious about that some time ago, but decided its difficult to go into it without knowing the language.

I think there was some idea of "bible code" that people used it with somewhat recently(20-25 years ago)?they rearranged the values of all letters in the Torah based on words I think then looked for new words?I think these is kinda similar, as we look for word values and stuff comes up that is connected.

But really don't know the language, so difficult to know for sure.

[alethian]

A great video on Gematria was posted by L M DuQuette last night, and I was watching it.

I have the book "Chiken Kabbalah", and read it few years ago.  Still it is the best book on Kabbalah and Tarot in my opinion.

I keep it always on the desk for referencing the Hebrew letters, its numeric meanings.

 

 

[Barleywine]

I use David Godwin's Cabalistic Encyclopedia for my work with Gematria but have only applied it to tarot in one way: I used one of the spare cards in one of my Thoth decks to create a personal Significator by transmuting my name into Hebrew letters and selecting clip-art that expressed it visually, making a collage card that I colored with markers, colored pencils and chalk pastels. I would post it but I don't have it on this laptop (I'm on vacation).