The Sepher Yetzirah - Setting Number to Letter

As discussed in the article "The Sepher Yetzirah - A Pseudo-linguistic Treatise", the Sepher Yetzirah clearly lays out that early Occultists were engaged in a study of the linguistic properties of language and how sounds and their accompanying letter representations  demonstrate models of hardness and softness (voiced and unvoiced), contain in many cases multiple sounds, or are paired to form hard and soft variations of the same sound.

In this article, we will discuss the fusion of letter to number and how this was done within the English Alphabet.

Modern usage of Letters as Numbers often to do not incorporate the idea of sound, or phonetics,  as being an integral component of the Alphabet.  However, the Devanagari script of the Hindi indeed includes such a construction.  When applied to Gematria, the Devanagari script assigns number to each syllable.  Thus a consonant and its accompanying vowel receives a specific digit.

It is interesting to observe that ancient Indian Mathematicians preferred Devanagari alphabet to numerals in representing large numbers. They used a code language to represent the digits of the numbers. This, they did, not for secrecy but to facilitate memorizing. They encoded numbers in the form of sutras or verses which made them easy to be memorized even for small children. - source

This cipher is known as the "Aryabhata Code" 

When applying this code to the A Hymn to Agni

As the Indian author Jain as revealed, Sanskrit is a multi-layered mathematical coding system.
As he explains it,

Similar to numerology, by ascribing the values of numbers to consonant letters as in A = 1, B = 2, C = 3, D = 4, but in Sanskrit, the Vedic Numerical Code was so sophisticated that it possessed 3 layers and therefore triple meanings.

It turns out that decimal form of the transcendental number:

Pi = 3.1415926535897932384626433832792 etc was hidden or codified in these following syllables, by chanting: "Gopi Bhagyamaduv rata Shringishodadi Sandiga Kala Jeevitarava Tava Galaddhalara Sangara" (Observing the top line, "go" = 3, "pi" = 1, "bha = 4, "ya" = 1, "ma" = 5, "dhu" = 9, "ra" =2, "ta" = 6 etc giving the first 8 figures of Pi, the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter). Not only did it give Pi to 32 decimal places, but there was a secret Master Key within the patterning of the 32 that could unlock the next 32 decimals of Pi, and so on, a ticket to infinity. Not only did it praise Krishna, it operated on another level as a dedication to Shankara: (800A.D, the celebrated Acharya or Teacher, and founder of 4 monastic orders. - source

So, although within our Western traditions, we generally credit Pythagoras and the Greeks for the establishing a philosophical foundation where numbers were fused to sound, it is generally understood by Eastern scholars that Sanskrit was well versed in this practice and hence predates the use of Letter/Number/Sound as was done in the West.

The Greek Letter Number System 

 Precisely how Pythagoras, one of the most influential mathematician-philosophers of Western civilization, was inspired to put forward his treatise on Number is not precisely known, but rumors and stories about about Pythagoras being born through divine intervention.  Pythagoras was said to have imparted knowledge through formulae contained in his name, and used the letters as esoteric tools to teach about philosophical wisdom.

The Letter Y, for instance, held the following significance, 

The famous Pythagorean Υ signified the power of choice and was used in the Mysteries as emblematic of the Forking of the Ways. The central stem separated into two parts, one branching to the right and the other to the left. The branch to the right was called Divine Wisdom and the one to the left Earthly Wisdom. Youth, personified by the candidate, walking the Path of Life, symbolized by the central stem of the Υ, reaches the point where the Path divides. The neophyte must then choose whether he will take the left-hand path and, following the dictates of his lower nature, enter upon a span of folly and thoughtlessness which will inevitably result in his undoing, or whether he will take the right-hand road and through integrity, industry, and sincerity ultimately regain union with the immortals in the superior spheres. 

It is probable that Pythagoras obtained his concept of the Υ from the Egyptians, who included in certain of their initiatory rituals a scene in which the candidate was confronted by two female figures. One of them, veiled with the white robes of the temple, urged the neophyte to enter into the halls of learning; the other, bedecked with jewels, symbolizing earthly treasures, and bearing in her hands a tray loaded with grapes (emblematic of false light), sought to lure him into the chambers of dissipation. This symbol is still preserved among the Tarot cards, where it is called The Forking of the Ways. The forked stick has been the symbol of life among many nations, and it was placed in the desert to indicate the presence of water. - source

Greek letters, additionally, were used as numbers, and so we see that from at least the time of Pythagoras, the Greeks were immersed into a study of a Letters as being comprised of Letters/Numbers/Sounds with philosophical archetypes already being affixed to the Letters

Plutarch, in his treatise, "On the Letter E at Delphi", for instance, would go on to add that the Letter E was/is the conjuction IF, and that the Letter E is the FIFth letter of the Alphabet, signifies a fusing of words to number and sound.

Ultimately, the Greek Letter/Number system would become the inspiration to the much later Jewish "letter/number" system.  Thus the Sepher Yetzirah is, in all probability, a leaked and Judaized document from the Pythagorean Mystery Schools.

The Roman Numbering System

Whereas Jewish mystics "forked"and adopted the Greek letter/number system, the Romans developed their own that would be intrinsically linked to the West, and especially to what would become the modern English language. Using but 7 letters, C-D-I-L-M-V-X to represent 100, 500, 1, 50, 1000, 5, and 10 respective. the Romans encoded a system whose constituent digits totaled 1,666, a number with enormous esoteric significance for it symbolized itself as a represented of the Sun.

Displayed in an array of 1-5-1-5-1-5-1, its reverse could be represented by a pairing formula, as C and D are congruent letters as are L and M.   Thus the digits (1+5)(1+5)(1+5)1 would reveal a 6661, the opposite representation of 1666.  And with the Sun being represented as a magical 6X6 grid where each horizontal row, vertical column, and diagonal row added to 111  Whereas the sum of 1:36 adds to 666, the Romans appeared eager to promote their understanding of Gematria numbers relative to the sun in a manner no civilization had yet so eloquently achieved.

The stage was set for a dynamic Gematria free from dogma and able to encode basic astronomical and philosophical concepts directly into language.

Gematria - Codes and Ciphers in the English and the Middle Ages

For those who doubt that English would have a Gematria foundation, one has to ask you: "Why would you think that?"

The idea of a Christian Cabala was extant and widely known the 1500's.  The recognized father of Western magic, Cornelius Agrippa, commented reasonably extensively on the subject.  Further, the Enlightenment saw the rise of "steganography", cryptology,  and with it, the willful and deliberate coding of information into documents austere and otherwise. To this day exist manuscripts whose secrets have yet to be revealed.

Truth is, very little academic attention has been given to the use of codes and ciphers in Medieval history, let alone any single language as English.  Yet clearly we know well that codes and ciphers in the language, "gematria", was well entrenched into the philosophical elite of the Middle Ages.

The codes and ciphers of the Middle Ages have received little or no modern scholarly attention. David Khan’s 1181-page volume _The Code-Breakers: The Comprehensive History of Secret Communication from Ancient Times to the Internet_, for example, devotes a mere thirty-four pages to the ancient and classical world, and little more than one sentence to the Middle Ages, claiming that “ciphers, of course, had been used by monks throughout the Middle Ages for scribal amusement” (106). But the construction and use of codes, ciphers, secret languages and mathematical secrets in the Middle Ages were much more than amusement: they were central to intellectual culture as modes of concealing dangerous, magical or secret information, and as a means of connecting oneself to the divine. - source 

To presume that English, the most prolific language for unique title/subject book releases from the middle 1600's to 1800, did not have within it, too, its own variant of encoding knowledge and secrets would more of a stretch than an implausible conspiracy.  Indeed, many have surmised, including Manley P. Hall and others, that the Shakespearean Plays held within them ciphers and hidden messages.

Not that such conjecture is a wild stretch.  After all, Sir Francis Bacon, the presumed ghost writer of the Shakespearean plays, created the "bi-lateral cipher", and acrostic ciphers, although somewhat subjective, appear to link Bacon directly to Shakespeare within the text of the plays themselves.


The Sepher Yetzira - Setting Number to Letters

What remains is precisely how we set number to letter within the English Alphabet.  The idea of an order and placement of the English Alphabet was lionized by Aleister Crowley, when he admonished his followers to find the order and value of the English of the English Alphabet in "The Book of the Law"

Thou shalt obtain the order & value of the English Alphabet; thou shalt find new symbols to attribute them unto.

Yet while Crowley's adherents chased and sought after "an order and value of the English Alphabet", what was equally implied, and in that time not yet fully comprehended or understood, was the implication that the English Alphabet already comprised a specific order and value as well as specific attributions.

Further, if Crowley and his followers were told to attribute "new symbols" to attribute to the English Alphabet, what precisely were these symbols and attributions extant within the English Alphabet?

After all, such an idea was never really solved, and a generation plus of occult oriented souls chased after Crowley's admonition while steadfastly ignoring the reality of what was before them: that the English Alphabet indeed contains order and esoteric attribution within the symbols.

All of this idea ultimately links back to the Sepher Yetzirah, which speaks about esoteric attributions to various letters.

What has always been lacking in the public discourse is a structural analysis of the English Alphabet utilizing "Qaballistic principles.  So let us proceed to explore the Order and Value of the English Alphabet and the underlying esoteric attributions contained within some of the Letters.

In order to accomplish, we should consider ideas the idea of aspirated and non-voiced sounds, as well as letters maintaining "double sounds", for all of this should then be observably placed back into some elegant cipher pattern that conceals these "mysteries" such that we may use the language to further encode esoteric formulae.

The Voiced and Non-Voiced Sounds


We should not presume that "the Creator" errors in precision and as such, that the Alphabet, whether divinely inspired (unconsciously placed into its present order), or crafted through logic and reason (language crafter's inspired by divine order), is in error.  Unlike Crowley, we start by presuming that the 26 digit system in place in English is in perfect order.

Thus, when we study the first linguistic principle from the Sepher Yetzirah, the idea of "voiced" and "unvoiced" sounds, we should find a harmony and precision that is unmistakable.

Indeed, simple observation shows that such is true.

The "unvoiced" sounds of English are all located a sequence based on 3.  Beginning at each half of the Alphabet, the un-voiced sounds may be found counted 3 in from the left start of each half of the Alphabet, then an additional 3 in from the previous unvoiced sound, and then 3 in from the start of the right side of each half of the Alphabet.

Here we may note that both K and X are as mirrors, each essentially symmetrical along the horizontal axis.  In the case of the Letter X, we attribute to the lower portion of the X the male aspect, and to the upper half of the Letter X (the V), the female aspect.  Thus the Letter X is the UNION of male and female, an idea that was, too, postulated too Dan Brown's "The Davinci Code".

When we add to our analysis the idea of "acroamatic ciphers" as espoused by Manley P. Hall, we can then begin the idea of assigning further attributions to the Letters.

The acroamatic cipher is the most subtle of all, for the parable or allegory is susceptible of several interpretations. Bible students for centuries have been confronted by this difficultly. They are satisfied with the moral interpretation of the parable and forget that each parable and allegory is capable of seven interpretations, of which the seventh--the highest--is complete and all-inclusive, whereas the other six (and lesser) interpretations are fragmentary, revealing but part of the mystery. The creation myths of the world are acroamatic cryptograms, and the deities of the various pantheons are only cryptic characters which, if properly understood, become the constituents of a divine alphabet. The initiated few comprehend the true nature of this alphabet, but the uninitiated many worship the letters of it as gods. - source

We now may equate the Letter X to the Tale of "Geb and Nut", with Geb, the god of the Earth in union with Nut, the goddess of the Sky.

However, as a "Number", the Letter X is the number 10, which too reveals both male (1) and female (0), while its location is at 11 of the second half of the Alphabet reveals that both 1 and 0 as male and female are too "1" in and of themselves, and thus the "unity" of the two I's as (11), crossing over each other create the Letter X.

Thus we may view the "X" as 10 or 11, but each number represents the same esoteric dynamic (attribution) which soon dissipates when seen as the "24".

The Letter K shares some of these same properties as the Letter X, but contains only half of the totality of the X as the vertical line divides the totality of the union (in design).  The Letter K, thus, we may equate to "being cut off", uniquely separate even as it shares the properties of the X.

The Letter K, as an attribution, we equate to the Egyptian "Ka", which is the higher spiritual self of the incarnated soul.  The vertical is as a mirror so as the self peers up into the heavens in search of its higher self, it sees but a reflection of what that higher self is.  The clearer (cleaner) the mirror, the clearer the vision of the spiritual self.

Interestingly enough, the Letter X, pronounced as it is as "ECKS", contains the unvoiced sounds as show, leaving only the F and the P (and T) as unvoiced sounds not incorporated into naming of the Letter "X".  Regardless, we know that the "3" and "11" have perhaps as yet unascertained links to the unaspirated, for if we are to reverse the numbers/letters to read from right to left, we will find still that the Letter C is linked at 11, while the P, although linked and purely masculine in attribute, fails to hold any phonetic links to such numbering.

Bringing the S into harmonic order (number) must rest upon an additional matrix within the Alphabet.