Path: ultra.sonic.net!jupiter.dnai.com!uunet!in5.uu.net!newsfeed.cwix.com!206.172.150.11!news1.bellglobal.com!news20.bellglobal.com.POSTED!not-for-mail Message-ID: <3692DCC6.302E@sympatico.ca> From: richard sprigg Reply-To: kteis@sympatico.ca X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01C-SYMPA (Win95; U) MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: alt.magick,alt.magick.tyagi,alt.pagan.magick Subject: Re: (O) Gematria and Other Systems of Numerology References: <199812311126.DAA26899@f274.hotmail.com> <368b93f9.3255213@news.well.com> <76ot5v$r34$1@quince.news.easynet.net> <36905635.2D4A@sympatico.ca> <76trnf$b0e$1@quince.news.easynet.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 58 Date: Tue, 05 Jan 1999 22:47:18 -0500 NNTP-Posting-Host: 206.172.251.104 X-Trace: news20.bellglobal.com 915593898 206.172.251.104 (Tue, 05 Jan 1999 22:38:18 EDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 05 Jan 1999 22:38:18 EDT Organization: Bell Solutions Xref: ultra.sonic.net alt.magick:130819 alt.magick.tyagi:15116 alt.pagan.magick:13215 benedicthassell wrote: > > richard sprigg wrote: > > >> I still don't understand what Gematria (etc) is for. > > > >Gematria of a word will have a value, which implies that other words of > >the same value are related. This may involve meditation on the (often > >disparate) meanings. It may also lead to a chain of concepts. > >Thus Thelema (by greek Gematria) is 93. Agape is also 93. This > >establishes a possible connection between love and will. > > Aha! > > Thanks for this Richard. > > Gematria depends, then, on assigning a numerical value to phonetic symbols > (i.e. letters). > Consistent spelling must play an important role then. (No pun intended). Sometimes. Variations may also be important, if they are deliberate, or appear to be so. > Do letters in greek (or hebrew, or whatever is used for Gematria usually) > only have one sound associated with them? Um. Both are used. Greek has had a few alphabets with differing amounts of letters. I recall it started with 27 and fell to 24 by the time the gospels were collected. Greek has two "E" letters, two "O" letters as well as equivalents of the english: seven vowels. There are also letters that are only expressed in english by combinations "Th", Ph", "Ps" and more. Finally, the initial "H" in Greek is denoted by an apostraphe. thus Hermes is 'ermes. Other than this there are enough grammatical odds and ends to drive a man to drink. Hebrew has no vowels, they are imputed by the way the letters are aranged, which can lead to some interesting discussions on pronunciation. Further to this, two letters may have the same sound in certain situations, and can legitimately be exchanged for gematria purposes, if the writer wants to insert a specific value. > Personally I don't know how significant I would consider correspondences > between words to be. > An interesting meditation method though. I frankly find it too seductive: I find it too easy to lose a week or two in meditation without any real purpose but for the fun of the chase. > > I was experimenting recently by picking words at random out of a book and meditating on the correspondences between them. > Also I was having a go at the Tarot major arcana. Have you looked into Alt.Tarot? the FAQ is excellent, and JK has a depth of knowledge and experience you will not commonly encounter. > It seems that words or images from anywhere will do. Yup.