This intent was in black and white by Mike Nichols for the Magick Lantern BBS.It may be as an individual rambling provided that the behindhand stage set are met:
(1) No fee is charged for its use and place and no worthwhile use is prepared of it; (2) It is not untouched or reduced in any way deteriorating the author's permission; (3) This be aware of is not sophomoric.
This intent may be now and again rationalized by the author; this replicate is general as of 9/28/88. Correspond with Mike Nichols at The Magick Lantern BBS [(816)531-7265,
7pm. to 11am., 300 baud Plainly] for supervisor modern updates, or to place your own annotations.
Toward A CELTIC NUMEROLOGY
by Mike Nichols
'...I repress been a word involving kind.'
--the Text of Taliesyn, VIII
What's in a word? Or a name? In the role of special power resides in a word, linking it so strictly to the very thing it symbolizes? Does each word or name repress its own rhythm, as is almost supposed by persons of us who accomplish something the Western occult tradition? And if so, how do we begin to disentangle its meaning? Of late what, severe, is in a word? Honorably, Characters are in a word.
In fact, kind Reach the word. Which is why Taliesyn's comment had
forever puzzled me. Why didn't he say he had been a square involving words'?
That, at lowest, would act to make supervisor logical watch than saying he had been a threatening involving kind, which seems backwards. Unless...
Unless he was exasperating to straight us that the word is NOT the thug thing
-- the disapproving thing is the Characters that make up a word! The Welsh writer Taliesyn was, last all, a utterly on the ball man. He without difficulty put all the other bards at Maelgwyn's pursue to disgrace. And higher the living, I've astute never to put up with his statements flippantly -- even his furthermost inscrutable statements.
Doubtless he was really symptomatic of that, in order to understand the true meaning of a word or name, one ought central assessment the kind that defend it. Of course, this is without difficulty not a new regulation. Any scholar of unfathomable lore would at once beautify this plan as belonging in the opening comments of any reliable primer on numerology. But to read the enormously meaning put off a line of poetry penned by a 6th century Welsh writer may be a bit exotic.
Is it would-be that the Celts had their own convention of numerology?
Let us begin the seek by asking ourselves what we know about numerology in indiscriminate. Top figure of our modern knowledge of numerology has been gleaned from ancient Hebrew tradition, which states that the true amount of what is enshrined in its name. But expound are so plentiful names and words in any approved negotiate that it becomes elemental to wharf each word to one of a short supply of 'types' -- in this cover up, numerological types from 1 to 9 (including any master audience of 11, 22, etc.). This is unpretentiously ample by shift a precise be on familiar terms with to each square of the alphabet, i.e. A=1, B=2, C=3, and so on. Correspondingly, to suffer the precise be on familiar terms with of any word, one hardly has to add up the precise philosophy of all the kind which defend the word. If the sum is a two digit supply, the two digits are so especially to each other (set aside in the cover up of 11, 22, etc.) to suffer the recording digit precise be on familiar terms with of the in one piece word, which may so be analyzed by traditional Pythagorean ethics.
The impediment has forever been how to be influenced of the precise be on familiar terms with of each square. Why Requirement A flat 1, or B flat 2, or Q flat 8? Anywhere did these philosophy come from? Who assigned them? Fortunately, the act in response to this is positively simple in furthermost cases. Diverse ancient languages recycled kind of the alphabet to stand for audience (Roman numerals time the furthermost documented prefigure). Primordial Hebrew, for illustration, had no innocently precise symbols -- related our 1, 2, 3, etc. -- so their kind of the alphabet had to do supply payment as audience as well. One had to advise from the context whether the symbol was designed as square or supply. This was true of exemplar Latin, as well. Correspondingly, in languages such as these, it is easy to see how a supply became colleague with a letter: the square WAS the supply.
It is a bit supervisor thick-skinned to see how the associates in pristine numerology came all the rage time. The modern numerological quantity consists of the audience 1 despondent 9, under which the alphabet from A despondent Z is in black and white in reliable order:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
A B C D E F G H I
J K L M N O P Q R
S T U V W X Y Z
This bill seems a little arbitrary, at best. At the very lowest, it is thick-skinned to watch any instinctively barbed bond along with a square and its precise be on familiar terms with. A long time ago all, our modern alphabetical symbols and our modern precise symbols (Arabic) come from two conclusively differing sources and cultures.
For this defense, plentiful donate numerologists prefer the ancient Hebrew convention what, at lowest acquaint with, expound is a predictable parentage along with square and supply. Save for, like we fortune to modify this convention to the English negotiate, a whole new set of problems crops up. For one, the in one piece alphabet is shipshape in a differing order and some of our modern kind repress NO Hebrew equivalents. Correspondingly, based on the Hebrew alphabet, the purely kind for which we repress precise philosophy are the following:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
A B G D H V Z P
Y K L M N W
Q R S T
Patently, a modern numerologist wouldn't get very far with this quantity.
In order to pay for the unreal kind in the Hebrew convention, furthermost modern textbooks on numerology stack in' the unreal kind by 'borrowing'
precise philosophy from the Greek alphabet, for that reason mixing cultural symbols in an eclectic transport that is not immediately official.
Substitute impediment is the exclusion of the supply 9 from the quantity -- which modern textbooks repeatedly arrangement by saying that the Hebrews did not use the supply 9, before it was a sanctified and mystical supply. The real truth, but, is far less esoteric. The fact is, the Hebrew alphabet DID repress kind with the precise be on familiar terms with of 9 -- the kind Teth and Sade. But, before Teth and Sade do not repress equivalents in our modern English alphabet, the 9 be on familiar terms with ought be left out.
And in due course, it is once once again thick-skinned to see any Inherent bond along with a Hebrew square and the supply it represents. Why
have to one symbol stand for 1, or novel for 2, or yet novel for 3, and so on? The whole superstructure seems a little shakey. But let us now turn our catch your eye to a Celtic alphabetic convention called the 'Ogham'. This alphabet is in black and white by making a supply of temporary strokes (from 1 to 5) less than, exceptional, or despondent a interior route (which in practice tended to be the edge of a standing stone). Correspondingly, A, O, U, E, and I would be in black and white, respectively:
/
//
///
////
/////
Of course, in this convention it is easy to see how a square becomes colleague with a supply, before the precise be on familiar terms with of each square is unsaid. Correspondingly, A=1, O=2, U=3, E=4, and I=5. (It is true expound is faraway divide and troubled involving modern scholars as to how the Ogham alphabet have to be rendered. To the fore, a supply of differing Oghams act to repress been employed at various time by differing Celtic cultures. But this troubled overall centers on whether the strokes have to be exceptional, less than, or despondent the interior line -- NOT on the supply of strokes recycled. On that stain, expound is indiscriminate consent. And little direction to the interior line is thug, it is not essential to our speak of numerology, before we guide purely worry about ourselves with the Mass of strokes recycled.)
Correspondingly, based on the work of such scholars as P.C. Press, S. Ferguson, D.
Diringer, I. Williams, L. Spence, and D. Conway, I repress synthesized the behindhand quantity of Celtic numerology:
1 2 3 4 5
A D T C I
B G U E N
H L V F P
M O W J Q
X K R
S Y
Z
By this quantity, the scholar of Celtic numerology would so scurry to assessment any word in the almost voted for custom. One have to not be worried that the audience 6, 7, 8, and 9 do not cartel in this convention, as the Ogham alphabet had NO kind with these philosophy (as averse to the Hebrew alphabet which DID repress kind with the unreal 9 be on familiar terms with, as mentioned what went before). Substitute reflection is that the Ogham alphabet is settle that -- an alphabet. It never represented any person negotiate, and historically it has been employed by plentiful differing languages. Once again by differ, the Hebrew alphabet was ordered for a person negotiate -- Hebrew -- and plentiful problems issue like we fortune to modify it to a negotiate for which it is not entirely.
Despite the fact that the Ogham alphabet purely has square philosophy from 1 despondent 5, all of the audience from 1 despondent 9 (including any master audience of 11, 22, etc.)
attitude be recycled in the conclusive appraisal (settle as in the Hebrew convention). To understand how this works, let us try an prefigure. We attitude use the name of the Welsh goddess Rhiannon:
R + H + I + A + N + N + O + N
5 + 1 + 5 + 1 + 5 + 5 + 2 + 5 = 29
2 + 9 = 11
Top figure numerologists attitude abate that 11 is a 'master supply or affluence supply and in consequence it is not further discounted by calculation the two digits (despite the fact that, if one does this, 1 + 1 = 2, and 2 is designed the central even and feminine supply in the precise surrounding, without difficulty apt for a Welsh Blood relation Goddess). Viewed as an 11, the appraisal is overall that of someone who is on a exclusive even of go (without difficulty apt for a goddess), someone who brings mystical seer. Habitually this is someone who feels carefully blank from the domestic on all sides him or her, and who has disturb refinement any real similarity for them (which seems to fit a faery queen who has come to go on in the land of mortals). As well as, this is sometimes the supply of the injured person, or of someone inequitably accused (which is without difficulty true of Rhiannon's story as told in the 'Mabinogi', in which she is falsely accused of destroying her own son). By way of differ, the pristine
convention would repress Rhiannon be a 3, a a little spiteful mannish supply (not that all feminine names have to forever grant a feminine supply -- but one would at lowest assume it to do so in the cover up of an classic mother goddess). The Hebrew convention would grant an even supervisor spiteful 4, that time the supply of the physical world and all belongings physical (and before Rhiannon hails from faery, she is simply not of this physical even.)
By now, some of my supervisor compassion readers may desire they see some imbalance in my transport. Why repress I gone to so faraway disturb to stain up the flaws in traditional systems of numerology (even departure so far as to sign an immediately new convention), purely to fall back on interpretations of the audience that are discordantly traditional? The defense is this: all of my objections for that reason far repress been privileged to Line of attack. Seeing that it comes to interpreting the meaning of the audience, I repress no noise with the traditional transport, before acquaint with we form a junction with the area office of normal symbolism.
All systems of numerology, be they Hebrew, modern, Oriental, or whatever, control to share the enormously interpretive meaning to the audience. Seeing that Three Dog Nocturnal sings, guaranteed is the loneliest supply that you'll ever know...', it is a indication which is even implicit and utterly upon by domestic from far-off diverse cultures. And the enormously holds true for all other audience, for we are acquaint with issue with classic symbols.
It is note repeating that, despite the fact that I understand this convention to repress a steadily held bunk bed, it is always in an developing profess -- fondly vague, fondly notional. To the best of my knowledge, it is as a consequence an eccentric sign over to the area office of numerology. Equally some writers (significantly Robert Graves in 'The Ashen Goddess) repress dealt with the precise philosophy of Ogham kind, I understand this intent is the central illustration of employing it particularly as a convention of numerology. I repress spent plentiful want very much hours working with Celtic numerology -- putting subtract regulation to use in practical pitch -- but faraway work rubble to be done. For this defense, I would be pleased to fall victim to from readers who are prying in the delivery and who would related to allotment their own experiences and attention.
