Gematria

Ancient Hebrew system for deriving word/number correspondences based on the values of the letters in a word. The Hebrew alphabet predates the invention of numerals, so numbers were written using the letters of the alphabet. For example:

Hence, a word such as אהיה (eheieh, or “I am”, as in “I am that I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: I AM has sent me to you.”, from Exodus 3:14) can be summed up as having the value 20. Other words that also sum to 20 are considered, in gematria, to be somehow related to eheieh, or to the concept of God’s AM-ness.

A similar system was used with Greek letters, allowing Aleister Crowley to determine by a simple computation that the value of θελημα (“thelema”) is 93:

θ = 9
ε = 5
λ = 30
η = 8
μ = 40
α = 1;     40 + 30 + 9 + 1 + 5 + 8 = 93.

Gematria is primarily used by hermetic and ceremonial magicians to provide numerical correspondences for nearly any concept they may be working with. These numbers can then be used to relate to other elements that can be added to ritual, such as colors, incenses, deities, etc.

The word gematria should be pronounced with a hard G at the beginning; it’s derived from Hebrew, which doesn’t have a soft G/J sound. Tables are available giving the standard numeric values for gematria for the Hebrew, Greek, and Roman alphabets.