Gemmatria
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@Ave de Prata said
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The final purpose of Gematria is to reduce the Universe to numbers, thus allowing its deep and precise understanding. Or better saying, to understand the numerical structure that underlines the Universe, thus allowing its deep and precise understanding.
"this is my point, there are other means of doing this more accurate than Gematria, mathematical models can be created for any complex dynamical system, including language. Mathematics has taken a quantum leap above these rudimentary associations, or otherwise a new more technically precise Gematria can be created. The Hebrew language is merely a distortion/abbreviation of Egyptian Hieroglyphics, not given by any angel. if one is to be thorough historically, then that culture is the place to start not Hebrew.
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@Scapegoa said
"The Hebrew language is merely a distortion/abbreviation of Egyptian Hieroglyphics, not given by any angel. if one is to be thorough historically, then that culture is the place to start not Hebrew."
What is your source for the claim Hebrew is a distortion/abbreviation of Egyptian hieroglyphics?
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@Scapegoa said
"The Mathematician in me is repulsed by the "clumsy device" of Gematria, yet ironically and precisely for that fact it might be just what the doctor ordered! but somehow I don't think so!? I feel in a High -Speed Computer Age we have the resources to achieve almost perfect precision, and this becomes more true with every passing day!"
I guess I'd continue gmugmble's train of thought to say that the human mind (especially the unconscious parts?) can also be rather messy and jumbled. Maybe the right tool for diving into the shady, shifty world of Yetzirah is something that's not so precise and unambiguous.
And you've got to go through Yetzirah to get to Briah and Atziluth.
I'm with you, though, that I often get frustrated with the sometimes desperate attempts of people to shoehorn any given concept with their favorite Qabalistic number or word. (Particularly, my eyes glaze over at the "add up the digits of a long number" trick, especially if it has to be repeated several times until something interesting comes about!)
But which process is more like the human mind? Taking desperate shots in the dark? Or deriving computer-checked proofs?
Steve
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@he atlas itch said
"What is your source for the claim Hebrew is a distortion/abbreviation of Egyptian hieroglyphics?"
allow me quote a friend of mine.
"The Hebrew alphabet evolved very recently in the scheme of history, and so de facto cannot possibly have been divinely dispensed by the god of Israel out of thin air, as Eliphas Levi and apologists for the Qabbalistic theory of tarot meanings would have us all believe.
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/521235.stm
The world's original alphabet came from Egypt - long before Israel existed.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_alphabe
Instead of having to learn the hundreds of pictures used in Egyptian hieroglyphics, writers could learn to communicate much more quickly with 30 or less symbols to represent sounds.
The letters are in a Semitic language, but Dr Darnell says they show a strong Egyptian influence.
He believes the letters may have been invented as a simplified version of an existing form of "cursive" or joined-up Egyptian pictographs, commonly used in ancient Egypt in graffiti.
A number of experts agree that these inscriptions are the earliest alphabetic writing yet discovered and their location has forced a rethink on the origins of writing.
Up to now it has been believed that alphabetic writing was developed around 1600 BC - up to 300 years later than the Wadi el-Hol inscriptions - by Semitic people living in the Sinai Peninsula and further north in Syria and Palestine.
Scholars had thought that these languages - known as Proto-Sinaitic and Proto-Canaanite - had been developed from Egyptian hieroglyphs.
But this new evidence has prompted the theory that the development took place in Egypt itself, during the period of the Middle Kingdom.
Dr Darnell believes that scribes among foreign mercenaries serving with the Egyptian army developed the simplified writing - initially through the work of hieroglyphic scribes who simplified the pictograms into a rudimentary alphabet for use by Semitic speakers.
This is well before the probable time of the Biblical story of Joseph being delivered into slavery in Egypt, so predating the traditional seeds of a Semitic presence in Egypt.
The hieroglyphs ("sacred signs") are authored by the divine Thoth (Djwty) himself, so are the actual words of God. The Hebrew alphabet is derivative and at three or four times removed, and the QBL appears in the records 1,000's of years later still in Mediaeval Europe." http://www.probertencyclopaedia.com/j/Alphabet.jpg
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@Steven Cranmer said
"But which process is more like the human mind? Taking desperate shots in the dark? Or deriving computer-checked proofs?
Steve"
I think the computer should not be viewed as separate from the human mind, but rather an extension of it, I think this is the paradigmatic shift that would enable us to best embrace this new exponential potential.
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@Scapegoa said
"I think the computer should not be viewed as separate from the human mind, but rather an extension of it, I think this is the paradigmatic shift that would enable us to best embrace this new exponential potential."
Oh, I certainly agree that technological transhumanism is something that can be valuable in the New Aeon! Many occultists ignore it at their own peril, I worry. (See this old thread.) I was just using the term "computer" as a lazy synonym for "non-messy." Maybe a reference to dessicated alien cultures like the Vulcans would be more on target. (They supposedly wiped clean the messy bits....)
My point was just that the natural language of the human mind is an ambiguous and fuzzy one. The fact that advanced mathematics is so difficult for most of us is a sign that it may not be the optimal tool for plumbing the depths of the soul. Maybe, though, we'd be more compatible with computers that run on "fuzzy logic?"
Steve
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@Steven Cranmer said
"My point was just that the natural language of the human mind is an ambiguous and fuzzy one. The fact that advanced mathematics is so difficult for most of us is a sign that it may not be the optimal tool for plumbing the depths of the soul. Maybe, though, we'd be more compatible with computers that run on "fuzzy logic?""
you definitely have a point Steve, and maybe this "fuzzy logic" will come with the advent of quantum computers; However some have characterized the "New Aeon" as a return to "Visual thought" as opposed to "Sound/Audio Thought" case in point, once again the computer revolution/literacy, 3D simulations and simulacra, as opposed to books. Where advanced mathematics meets most people is "geometry", this can be perceived directly, and understood subconsciously, like archetypal symbols. refer to my above post about AE hieroglyphs this "Visual" form of literacy was the original writing, which became simplified over time, and now we have come full circle; "Instead of having to learn the hundreds of pictures used in Egyptian hieroglyphics, writers could learn to communicate much more quickly with 30 or less symbols to represent sounds." 'The Initiator' or teacher may now become akin to the software program writer, such that those that benefit may not necessarily have to understand computer language on it's basic level, but by simply interacting with the software, begin the initiatory process, possibly oblivious to the fact. these initiatory programs then would superficially very much resemble "Video games" on the interactive level?
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@Scapegoa said
"these initiatory programs then would superficially very much resemble "Video games" on the interactive level?"
This all reminds me of another of my quasi-esoteric interests: finding real-life ways to play Hermann Hesse's sublime Glass Bead Game. This link is to Charles Cameron's old web site, which I highly recommend as an introduction to the GBG. Let me also give a short quote from the novel, which may serve to illustrate how this weird concept dovetails into both "video games of the spirit" and spiritual initiation...
@Hesse said
"I suddenly realized that in the language, or at any rate in the spirit of the Glass Bead Game, everything actually was all-meaningful, that every symbol and combination of symbols led not hither and yon, not to single examples, experiments, and proofs, but into the center, the mystery and innermost heart of the world, into primal knowledge. Every transition from major to minor in a sonata, every transformation of a myth or a religious cult, every classical or artistic formulation was, I realized in that flashing moment, if seen with a truly meditative mind, nothing but a direct route into the interior of the cosmic mystery, where in the alternation between inhaling and exhaling, between heaven and earth, between Yin and Yang, holiness is forever being created."
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Steven, 93,
I've always thought the Tree of Life in its post G.'.D.'., post-Crowley state, is the closest thing to a Game matrix that we actually possess at this time. The idea of being able to take core concepts and use them to relate different workings out of ideas and symbols is inherent in this form of the Tree.
The Tree is sometimes misunderstood by people who think it's about drawing exact equivalencies, and not 'correspondences' - underlying, inherent parallels that yet do not detract from the uniqueness of the ideas or symbols concerned.
Hesse said his Game was essentially preposterous and unattainable; the satire in the book is almost always overlooked because it's not that obvious at first reading. I think, though, Hesse understood the Game can exist in a pre-verbal or supra-verbal, non-left-brain kind of way.
But you probably can't write novels about supra-verbal worlds. Not that anyone would probably want to read, at any rate.
93 93/93,
EM
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@Steven Cranmer said
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@Scapegoa said
"these initiatory programs then would superficially very much resemble "Video games" on the interactive level?"This all reminds me of another of my quasi-esoteric interests: finding real-life ways to play Hermann Hesse's sublime Glass Bead Game. This link is to Charles Cameron's old web site, which I highly recommend as an introduction to the GBG. Let me also give a short quote from the novel, which may serve to illustrate how this weird concept dovetails into both "video games of the spirit" and spiritual initiation...
@Hesse said
"I suddenly realized that in the language, or at any rate in the spirit of the Glass Bead Game, everything actually was all-meaningful, that every symbol and combination of symbols led not hither and yon, not to single examples, experiments, and proofs, but into the center, the mystery and innermost heart of the world, into primal knowledge. Every transition from major to minor in a sonata, every transformation of a myth or a religious cult, every classical or artistic formulation was, I realized in that flashing moment, if seen with a truly meditative mind, nothing but a direct route into the interior of the cosmic mystery, where in the alternation between inhaling and exhaling, between heaven and earth, between Yin and Yang, holiness is forever being created."
"This concept seems very interesting, Steve, I am not familiar with the book/work; but it is definitely something i will look into; my friend Steve Nichols would probably argue that the AE game of "Zenet" performs a similar function ascribed to GBG.
orderphoenix.org
orderphoenix.org/page2.htmlrelated to this train, there is another book that has come to my attention after some recent internet searches. You may be the person to ask, i wonder if you are familiar with it. "Simulacra and Simulation" (The Body, In Theory: Histories of Cultural Materialism) (Paperback)
by Jean Baudrillard
Jean Baudrillard (Author)
translated by
(Author), Sheila Faria Glaser?? -
@Edward Mason said
"I've always thought the Tree of Life in its post G.'.D.'., post-Crowley state, is the closest thing to a Game matrix that we actually possess at this time. The idea of being able to take core concepts and use them to relate different workings out of ideas and symbols is inherent in this form of the Tree. "
what form is this? and how does it differ from it's pre-G.'.D.'., pre-Crowley state?
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@Edward Mason said
"I've always thought the Tree of Life in its post G.'.D.'., post-Crowley state, is the closest thing to a Game matrix that we actually possess at this time. The idea of being able to take core concepts and use them to relate different workings out of ideas and symbols is inherent in this form of the Tree."
Sure. Charles Cameron used the Tree of Life as one of the possible "game boards" in the Hipbone idea-association games I linked to above. (Another one was the Pythagorean tetraktys, but that one was more boring... just interlocking triangles...)
@Scapegoa said
"related to this train, there is another book that has come to my attention after some recent internet searches. You may be the person to ask, i wonder if you are familiar with it. "Simulacra and Simulation" (The Body, In Theory: Histories of Cultural Materialism) (Paperback) by Jean Baudrillard"
Sorry... the only thing I know about this is that it was the book used by Neo in The Matrix to hide his contraband computer disks inside.
Steve