gematria
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Hi Jim, glad this caught your eye!
What do you make of this quote?:
"It would be fanciful to suggest that the Bible contains an inner code of numerology...The Old Testament cannot do so, because its Hebrew writings predate use of alphabetical numerals. "
That was the most surprising statement I read in the whole book. It is just put so matter-of-factly.
I've been learning the hidden meanings of the Hebew alphabet thanks to the direction and inspiration of a Thelemite named Lon Milo DuQuette. In one of his books, he advises the student join B.O.T.A., which I did, with the hint of a promise that one day the student will be able to turn to Christians who condemn your occult practices as devil-worship with the sublime retort, "I can actually read the Bible in its original languages. Can YOU do that?" I read this and thought, "Wow, no wonder DuQuette is so sure of himself! He knows what the Bible REALLY says!"
Since Christianity has made such a huge impact on society, I really wanted to be able to pick it apart with what I thought was the "secret meaning" method of understanding the Bible— the Qabalah, which I was only vaguely familiar with at the time. Once DuQuette implied the Bible was written by Qabalists which can be deciphered throughout, I thought, "Wowee! It's more than just some piece-meal 18th century invention!"
Now, Barry's comments casually and matter-of-factly contradict that whole premise.
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I avoided responding to that because it's new information. Kieran tends to research well, though, without checking this entirely new (to me) factoid, I have no basis for an opinion without research.
Since it doesn't actually affect a single thing in my life, and my available time is at negative zero, I'll probably get around to researching it in five to ten years.
Also, I'm not worried much about intentionally encoded "secret meanings" except in a few specialized places. I'm much more interested in the inherent meaning - the idea that the words have esoteric (translate: real) meaning in most cases independent of whether it was intended by the writer or not. That's way more interesting to me.
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@Jim Eshelman said
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Since it doesn't actually affect a single thing in my life, and my available time is at negative zero, I'll probably get around to researching it in five to ten years."Haha, fair enough!
@Jim Eshelman said
"Also, I'm not worried much about intentionally encoded "secret meanings" except in a few specialized places. I'm much more interested in the inherent meaning - the idea that the words have esoteric (translate: real) meaning in most cases independent of whether it was intended by the writer or not. That's way more interesting to me."
Is this kind of like what I was trying to describe as the "Universal calculator" which spits out numerically significant words into our brains? That idea certainly fits with PFC's POT statement #2:
"Through me its unfailing Wisdom takes form in thought and word."
which quite possibly relates to statement #3:
"Filled with Understanding of its perfect law, I am guided, moment by moment, along the path of liberation."
"Perfect law" here being interpreted by me in this instance as the Universal computer which automatically orders everything, one function of which would be providing proper names and words for things spontaneously into our brains when we "think" up what we feel is a proper name for something. But, gah, it's too bizarre if I think about it long enough. I wonder what the Qabalistic significance of "geegaw" and "widget" would be.
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>I'm much more interested in the inherent meaning - the idea that the words have esoteric (translate: real) meaning in most cases independent of whether it was intended by the writer or not. That's way more interesting to me.
Yes, I agree. That's actually what got my interest in magick to begin with when I read philosophy and got to the nominalists.
I thought for a long time (and still haven't gotten it straight, I think) that magick was the idea that there is an inherent meaning in every concept we can conjure up in our minds and that the universe therefore is finite and every motion reiterates the static Logos, which of course can be traced to the source no matter where one's at in the sphere of consciousness since it by definintion must be stringent. The stability is in the core since motion is the fluctuation between polarities. I see life as a homing signal with specific qualities, nowadays according to the Qabalah. This is why I like fractals and the fractal disposition of the Tree of Life.The way the universe is eternal this way is that the possible extractions from the static core can be seen as filling up a complete sphere (contrary to finite, where the sphere would have gaps here and there) and that's also why I think gematria can be taken as meaningless, since all existing interpretations of course must be possible, but the point of it seems to me to be the pattern of expansion it follows rather than any specific word itself.
So if a word e.g. is near the Logos gematrially speaking shouldn't the proof of that be that it would be hard to split up to give any new meaning? As with prime numbers in mathematics e.g. -
@Jim Eshelman said
"Also, I'm not worried much about intentionally encoded "secret meanings" except in a few specialized places. I'm much more interested in the inherent meaning - the idea that the words have esoteric (translate: real) meaning in most cases independent of whether it was intended by the writer or not. That's way more interesting to me."
My first instinct is to be skeptical of "inherent" meanings; beyond the realm of etymology. Too much like "Platonic forms" in that they can be whatever you want them to be. But I've no direct praeterhuman guidance...
It is fun to go through dictionaries of Indo-European roots to see "deep connections" between words that seemed completely unconnected. Some may say that there's just as much fuzzy speculation in that kind of "reconstructive linguistics" as in some gematria, though!
I didn't mean to be overly dismissive of gematria. The well-established core metaphors of Thelema do mean a lot to me; 93=THELEMA=AGAPE, of course; also Achad's 31=AL=LA, and the crossovers with the Rosicrucian tradition (RC=220 and others that Case wrote about in T&IRO). And I think there's far more evidence that the Bible does indeed contain intentional gematria-coding (especially Revelations!) than there's evidence against.
Steve
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@Steven Cranmer said
"And I think there's far more evidence that the Bible does indeed contain intentional gematria-coding (especially Revelations!) than there's evidence against.
Steve"
Is that just an "off the top of your head" kind of statement, or have you verified this for yourself? Kieren Barry does mention Revelations as the only book specifically to have gematria-coding, but according to Barry it is far less than one might imagine (as I had imagined). There's plenty of symbolism related to magical correspondence, but it's not gematria. Interesting to note, when Barry discusses 666 in Revelations, he makes no mention of the sun whatsoever.
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I think I would answer some of the points raised here like this:
The core idea of Gematria is that words of the same numeration are understood to disclose something about each other.
Sometimes, gematria only discloses instruction intentionally encoded by teachers of the past. At a deeper level, though, it provides an inner language by which its devotees sustain a silent conversation with the Divine. In this sense, it is a specific branch of the deeper levels of Gnana Yoga.
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@Redd Fezz said
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@Steven Cranmer said
"And I think there's far more evidence that the Bible does indeed contain intentional gematria-coding (especially Revelations!) than there's evidence against."Is that just an "off the top of your head" kind of statement, or have you verified this for yourself?"
Sorry; yes, just off the top of my head. I'm no biblical scholar; just a collector of trivia that seems to point in this direction. Jim earlier talked about the 32 paths (10+(3+7+12) ) encoded in Genesis. There's also "encoded" letter symbolism in Psalm 119 and "hidden" acrostic messages in other psalms (my list gives 34, 111, 112, and 145, but I haven't looked at them in ages). The Aryeh Kaplan books on Kabbalah are filled with pointers to more.
One can go too far in looking for this stuff, of course; the "Bible Code" books seem to be the far-fetched extreme of looking for connections in randomness.
But again let me take off my science hat and say that looking for connections in randomness can be an extremely useful and valid thing to do, even for non-mystical purposes of jump-starting ones' creativity. The tension between the usefulness and the futility of this kind of search was summed up perfectly by Hermann Hesse's novel The Glass Bead Game.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass_Bead_Game
Let me just give one quote from the book that shows how the act of searching for connections can be thought of as a sacrament in the truest sense of the word...
"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."
Steve
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I don't have the time to research the thing, but I'm 99% certain that there are Hebrew words in the Torah which are constructed with final-letter forms in the middle of those words. If that's not intentionally coded gematria in the Torah, what the devil is it?
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I have a further question on this topic. In Genesis of the Bible there are the lifetrees of the first ten generations springing from Adam and Eve. Is there a gematric correlation? Any definition of the numbers at all will satisfy my curiosity, though.
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@Malaclypse said
"I have a further question on this topic. In Genesis of the Bible there are the lifetrees of the first ten generations springing from Adam and Eve. Is there a gematric correlation? Any definition of the numbers at all will satisfy my curiosity, though.
"What interests me most are the sets of ten generations and the apparent correspondence to the Four Worlds. Thus, the first 10 generations are of Atziluth - the next 10 (beginning with Noah) in Briah - the next 10 (beginning with Abraham) in Yetzirah. (Have to retrace and review - may have facts wrong - but didn't that third one clmax with Moses? Gotta go back and look when I have time.)
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Ah, thanks for the info, Jim!
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Every ounce of effort I have made in the path of Gematria has brought me to one conclusion: That there is no difference. This is not as trite as it may sound. Once we can see that there is a numeric relationship between "licking", "Jehovah's Witnesses" and "Bes Na Maut"; then we are better able to eliminate paradox as a barrier to actual understanding through unity.
Practically it is very effective for building ritual along a particular line.
That's my two cents.
Life Love Liberty Light
