@sethur said
"Grant doesn't do his own gematria - he gives tasks to students - and forgets to check. I sub-edited Hecate's Fountain for Chris Johnson and found so many mistakes Chris only dared point out a few, scared he would insult Grant and lose the contract.
The most obvious was IXAXAAR, which Grant had based a lot of his stuff around on the basis that it adds up to 333. Unfortunately it doesn't. Someone, one of his students, obviously got as far as IXAXAA=131 and went "Yes! 333!" forgetting that while Resh = 200 in Hebrew gematria, Rho = 100 in Greek gematria. I suggested, almost tongue-in-cheek, that it be spelled IShAShAAR in Hebrew to get the 333 and Grant went for it - but gave the credit to Chris. IShAShAAR makes no sense as a Hebrew spelling, you wouldn't get 2 alephs in a row like that.
Lots of Gematria errors went through, but not as many, I hope, as in Outside the Circles of Time, where one guy I knew counted up to 100 gematria errors before giving up.
Having said that, Grant insists that gematria is a creative, not analytic, art."
Very interesting. Thank you for that. The fact that Grant's gematria is to be taken as a creative art seems to be the ultimate cop-out to me, as the books in the trilogies seem to treat everything very seriously and as a matter of fact. I think it is unfortunate and I'm glad that I took the time to verify all of this without taking it at face value. I think I'll still work my way through the books, but with with far less enthusiasm and care. Having said this, I would imagine there will be a full set of the trilogies for sale on ebay sometime very soon.