Post by 1dell on Oct 24, 2004 0:28:43 GMT -5
Gematria
--------
One problem that faces occultists is the verification of information that has been communicated by 'spirits' or similar sources. Naturally I will have questioned the spirit as to its personal details, eg its name and rank. How do I know whether its answers are correct ? Should I assume it is telling the truth when it says it is Gabriel ? How can I be sure it is not, in fact, the evil Glasyalabolas ?
Gematria is one method that can help in these matters. Gematria is a part of the Jewish occult system known as Qabbalah ("tradition") and is widely used by modern occultists - jewish or otherwise (e.g. it is central to many rites of freemasonry).
Probably the best way to explain the word gematria is to say that it means "Hebrew numerology".
The Jews don't have special characters to represent digits or numbers. In Hebrew every alphabetic letter has a number associated with it :
Letter Value Sound
Aleph 1 A
Beth 2 B,V
Gimel 3 G,J
Daleth 4 D
Heh 5 E,H
Vau 6 U,V
Zayin 7 Z
Cheth 8 Ch (as in loch)
Teth 9 T
Yodh 10 I,J,Y
Kaph 20 or 500 (final) K
Lamed 30 L
Mem 40 or 600 (final) M
Nun 50 or 700 (final) N
Samekh 60 S
Ayin 70 O
Peh 80 or 800 (final) P,F
Tzaddi 90 or 900 (final) Tz
Qoph 100 Q
Resh 200 R
Shin 300 S,Sh
Tau 400 T,Th
( final = value of letter when it occurs at the end of a word )
Gematria simply consists of adding up the values of the letters in a word. Words with the same totals are connected in some way.
eg The Hebrew word for 'corpse' has the same number as the word for 'to extinguish'. Therfore there is some sort of link between the ideas 'corpse' and 'to extinguish'. In practice the connections between the words will not be as obvious as this.
Getting back to the subject of verification of spirit communications let's imagine that I heard all sorts of wonderful things from a spirit who said his name was 'Abs'.
Using gematria I would create a word with the sound 'abs'. Possible words would therfore be
Aleph + Beth + Samekh = 1 + 2 + 60 = 63
Aleph + Beth + Shin = 1 + 2 + 300 = 303
Looking up words with the value 63, I immediately find the Hebrew for 'Dung'. Similarly for 303 I find 'Putrefaction'. My conclusion from this is that the demon 'Abs' should not be trusted and his words should be taken with a bucket of salt.
Please note that there are no vowels in Hebrew, letters such as aleph and ayin do not correspond exactly to a and o. Vowels are written by placing marks underneath the letters. Thus we may leave out all vowel sounds from out gematria if we so wish.
e.g. If I receive a communication from someone called 'Saddam Hussein' saying that he is the antichrist, then I would have to believe what he says because :
'Saddam' = Samekh + Aleph + Daleth + Aleph + Mem
= 60 + 1 + 4 + 1 + 600 = 666
( I could spell this with a double daleth, the sound would be the same)
also
'Hussein' = Heh + Vau + Shin + Shin + Heh + Nun
= 5 + 6 + 300 + 300 + 5 + 50 = 666
( No need to add a Yod to make an 'i' sound for the reasons mentioned above. Also Nun is not given its final value, a common qabbalistic cheat ! )
There are lots of other qabbalistic methods that allow us to gain insight into the hidden meanings of words. (Eg a method called Thashraq consists of writing a word backwards, therefore 'doli' (basket) becomes 'yalad' (to create). I will look at just two other methods, namely Temurah and Aiq Bekar.
Temurah
-------
Temurah has several meanings : permutation, wages and compensation. Qabbalists are mainly interested in the first of these (unfortunately).
Temurah is a method whereby we replace letters in a word, or phrase, with other letters according to a precise rule. Actually there are many methods of temurah, though once you know one method, you know them all.
Firstly split the Hebrew alphabet in two, and place one half under the other, thus :
K I T Ch Z V H D G B A
L M N S O P Tz Q R Sh Th
This particular method is called Athbash, its name comes from the four letters on the far right of the table ( A, Th, B, Sh ). Using athbash we would replace a 'T' with an 'N', an 'M' with an 'I', a 'G' with an 'R' etc.
The other variations of temurah and constructed by sliding the bottom row of letters along. Sliding one place to the right will give us Ashbar, sliding again with give Arbaq.
Temurah was used by medieval qabbalists to construct god-names for their rituals. It also crops up in the bible. Consider verse 26 of Jeremiah XXV which reveals the rather obscure name 'Sheshakh'. Submitting the letters ShShK to the method of Athbash gives us BBL, or Babel ! Thus the passage becomes crystal clear to the crafy qabbalist.
Aiq Bekar
---------
Aiq Bekar, or the 'qabbalah of the nine chambers', divides the alphabet into 9 groups according to letter value :
Sh L G R K B Q Y A
300 30 3 200 20 2 100 10 1
M S V K N H Th M D
600 60 6 500 50 5 400 40 4
Tz Tz T P P Ch N O Z
900 90 9 800 80 8 700 70 7
One of the more prominent uses of aiq bekar is for reducing the values of certain letters in a name, to enable us to construct the sigil (signature) of a spirit or angel.
As an example of the use of aiq bekar, let us construct the sigil of Zazel, the spirit of Saturn :
Firstly we take the magic square (kamea) of Saturn
4 9 2
3 5 7
8 1 6
The idea is to convert each letter in the name Zazel (in Hebrew this is spelt ZAZL) into a number, then mark each number in the kamea. Finally we construct the sigil by drawing lines between these numbers.
Z A Z L = 7 1 7 30
The first three letters of the name will fit in the kamea. Lamed won't - there is no number 30 ! By aiq bekar we can reduce this to 3, enabling us to fit the sigil within the magic square.
4 9 2
* 5 *
8 * 6
Joining these 3 (4) numbers gives us the sigil :
|-------------- O
| /
|/
--------
One problem that faces occultists is the verification of information that has been communicated by 'spirits' or similar sources. Naturally I will have questioned the spirit as to its personal details, eg its name and rank. How do I know whether its answers are correct ? Should I assume it is telling the truth when it says it is Gabriel ? How can I be sure it is not, in fact, the evil Glasyalabolas ?
Gematria is one method that can help in these matters. Gematria is a part of the Jewish occult system known as Qabbalah ("tradition") and is widely used by modern occultists - jewish or otherwise (e.g. it is central to many rites of freemasonry).
Probably the best way to explain the word gematria is to say that it means "Hebrew numerology".
The Jews don't have special characters to represent digits or numbers. In Hebrew every alphabetic letter has a number associated with it :
Letter Value Sound
Aleph 1 A
Beth 2 B,V
Gimel 3 G,J
Daleth 4 D
Heh 5 E,H
Vau 6 U,V
Zayin 7 Z
Cheth 8 Ch (as in loch)
Teth 9 T
Yodh 10 I,J,Y
Kaph 20 or 500 (final) K
Lamed 30 L
Mem 40 or 600 (final) M
Nun 50 or 700 (final) N
Samekh 60 S
Ayin 70 O
Peh 80 or 800 (final) P,F
Tzaddi 90 or 900 (final) Tz
Qoph 100 Q
Resh 200 R
Shin 300 S,Sh
Tau 400 T,Th
( final = value of letter when it occurs at the end of a word )
Gematria simply consists of adding up the values of the letters in a word. Words with the same totals are connected in some way.
eg The Hebrew word for 'corpse' has the same number as the word for 'to extinguish'. Therfore there is some sort of link between the ideas 'corpse' and 'to extinguish'. In practice the connections between the words will not be as obvious as this.
Getting back to the subject of verification of spirit communications let's imagine that I heard all sorts of wonderful things from a spirit who said his name was 'Abs'.
Using gematria I would create a word with the sound 'abs'. Possible words would therfore be
Aleph + Beth + Samekh = 1 + 2 + 60 = 63
Aleph + Beth + Shin = 1 + 2 + 300 = 303
Looking up words with the value 63, I immediately find the Hebrew for 'Dung'. Similarly for 303 I find 'Putrefaction'. My conclusion from this is that the demon 'Abs' should not be trusted and his words should be taken with a bucket of salt.
Please note that there are no vowels in Hebrew, letters such as aleph and ayin do not correspond exactly to a and o. Vowels are written by placing marks underneath the letters. Thus we may leave out all vowel sounds from out gematria if we so wish.
e.g. If I receive a communication from someone called 'Saddam Hussein' saying that he is the antichrist, then I would have to believe what he says because :
'Saddam' = Samekh + Aleph + Daleth + Aleph + Mem
= 60 + 1 + 4 + 1 + 600 = 666
( I could spell this with a double daleth, the sound would be the same)
also
'Hussein' = Heh + Vau + Shin + Shin + Heh + Nun
= 5 + 6 + 300 + 300 + 5 + 50 = 666
( No need to add a Yod to make an 'i' sound for the reasons mentioned above. Also Nun is not given its final value, a common qabbalistic cheat ! )
There are lots of other qabbalistic methods that allow us to gain insight into the hidden meanings of words. (Eg a method called Thashraq consists of writing a word backwards, therefore 'doli' (basket) becomes 'yalad' (to create). I will look at just two other methods, namely Temurah and Aiq Bekar.
Temurah
-------
Temurah has several meanings : permutation, wages and compensation. Qabbalists are mainly interested in the first of these (unfortunately).
Temurah is a method whereby we replace letters in a word, or phrase, with other letters according to a precise rule. Actually there are many methods of temurah, though once you know one method, you know them all.
Firstly split the Hebrew alphabet in two, and place one half under the other, thus :
K I T Ch Z V H D G B A
L M N S O P Tz Q R Sh Th
This particular method is called Athbash, its name comes from the four letters on the far right of the table ( A, Th, B, Sh ). Using athbash we would replace a 'T' with an 'N', an 'M' with an 'I', a 'G' with an 'R' etc.
The other variations of temurah and constructed by sliding the bottom row of letters along. Sliding one place to the right will give us Ashbar, sliding again with give Arbaq.
Temurah was used by medieval qabbalists to construct god-names for their rituals. It also crops up in the bible. Consider verse 26 of Jeremiah XXV which reveals the rather obscure name 'Sheshakh'. Submitting the letters ShShK to the method of Athbash gives us BBL, or Babel ! Thus the passage becomes crystal clear to the crafy qabbalist.
Aiq Bekar
---------
Aiq Bekar, or the 'qabbalah of the nine chambers', divides the alphabet into 9 groups according to letter value :
Sh L G R K B Q Y A
300 30 3 200 20 2 100 10 1
M S V K N H Th M D
600 60 6 500 50 5 400 40 4
Tz Tz T P P Ch N O Z
900 90 9 800 80 8 700 70 7
One of the more prominent uses of aiq bekar is for reducing the values of certain letters in a name, to enable us to construct the sigil (signature) of a spirit or angel.
As an example of the use of aiq bekar, let us construct the sigil of Zazel, the spirit of Saturn :
Firstly we take the magic square (kamea) of Saturn
4 9 2
3 5 7
8 1 6
The idea is to convert each letter in the name Zazel (in Hebrew this is spelt ZAZL) into a number, then mark each number in the kamea. Finally we construct the sigil by drawing lines between these numbers.
Z A Z L = 7 1 7 30
The first three letters of the name will fit in the kamea. Lamed won't - there is no number 30 ! By aiq bekar we can reduce this to 3, enabling us to fit the sigil within the magic square.
4 9 2
* 5 *
8 * 6
Joining these 3 (4) numbers gives us the sigil :
|-------------- O
| /
|/