Slumming in the City of Hermes

[ecosophia]

In the wake of the passing of John Gilbert, one of my teachers in occultism, I've been tasked with helping to see to it that his work doesn't get lost. That's involved making sure I have a good set of his papers and passing them onto the Ancient Order of Druids in America (AODA), the one organization he was active in that's thriving these days; it's also involved going back over the work in those of his other involvements I shared; and since in occultism, any study program worth doing is worth doing more than once, it's got me doing a second pass through the training program and degree system of what he called the Magickal Golden Dawn. 

It's not the name I would have given that system, for what it's worth, and that's not just because I dislike the Crowleyite habit of flinging a half-random "k" into a perfectly fine English word. According to the story I was told, Juliet Ashley -- third Grand Archdruid of AODA, friend of Manly P. Hall and Edgar Cayce, and all-around early 20th century American occultist -- stopped in Britain in 1939 on her way back from Zurich, where she'd been studying Jungian psychology. She somehow talked Arthur Edward Waite into giving her some kind of authorization to found an American branch of the Fellowship of the Rose Cross, Waite's offshoot of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, and duly founded the Holy Order of the Golden Dawn using Waite's rituals in Philadelphia in 1941. The order evolved, as orders do, and had modified its rituals considerably by the time John Gilbert was initiated into it. After Ashley's death, Gilbert then launched his own organization, working his own version of the rituals. Magic per se had no role in Waite's order, and not much more in Ashley's and Gilbert's order; the Sphere of Protection ritual, the rituals of consecrating the elemental working tools, and the rituals of initiation were the only ceremonial workings in the system when I learned it. 

Instead, the student was expected to learn and practice meditation, to do an extensive series of elemental scryings and pathworkings, and to learn and practice three systems of divination. According to the rules when I joined, there were seven options -- astrology, tarot, geomancy, runes, numerology, palmistry, and "oracles" (this last was a catchall for the whole range of divination systems not covered by the first six categories). You could learn three from scratch, or work on developing more skill in three of them, or do some combination of those. My first time through, I took up astrology and worked on developing my skill with geomancy and the ogham, but I decided this time to do three systems I haven't studied before -- and one of those is numerology. 

Numerology has a bad rap in serious occult circles. Everyone's cool about magical number theory -- you can't get far in traditional Western occultism without getting into numbers -- but the kind of numerology that involves adding up your birth date, the letters of your name, and so on? Most serious occultists roll their eyes at that. Since I've been writing at length about American popular occultism, however, I decided to give it a try. 

Ahem. 

Just as a helpful example, let's consider the year 2020. If you add up the digits -- that's standard practice -- you get a year number of 4. A 4 year is supposed to be a difficult year in which nothing goes right and steady plodding is about the best you can do. Sound familiar? 

So I'm having a lot of fun just now learning my way around numerology, and am considering other branches of folk occultism that haven't had the good press that astrology, tarot, and other recherché systems have had. It promises to be entertaining, if nothing else. The moral to this story, if there is one, is that class prejudice may be just as useless in occultism as it is elsewhere...

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Juliet Ashley seems like she was a very interesting person! Do you know much about her life and work?

[ecosophia]

Several people in AODA are researching her life. She was born Juliet Booth in 1887 at Northville, Michigan, and died in 1985 in San Diego. She was a short woman, very well dressed and fond of bright colors, and after her divorce in the late 1930s she studied psychology along with her occult connections.

[d_mekel]

I'm not familiar with workings of numerology but my wife has used it some. She did our life path and interesting enough, we are both on 9.

[ecosophia]

Interesting. The system I use doesn't have a "life path" indication -- I'll have to look that up.

[brendhelm]

Let's see... In that case, 2011 and 2002 would also be 4 years. Not sure if I should go back to 1993 = 22 = 4, mostly because (a.) I'm not sure if that's how it actually works, and (b.) I was too young then to really remember anything, but I did feel as though 2011 and 2002 were kind of "just go through the motions" years for me.

I suspect numerology gets a bad rap in part because of the insistence certain groups of people have on trying to slap a 666 on the Antichrist-du-jour through whatever circuitous means are needed to do so.

[ecosophia]

Yes, that's how it works; you add the digits together until you get a single digit. As for 666, well, yes -- the Antichrist Of The Month Club used to be very active. ;-)

[fringewood]

I learned numerology in the early 70's from a dear older friend who passed away in the late 80's. She was a gem and taught me things I never found in books like a personal year should start on a person's birthday and go 'til their next. Or how missing numbers in my birthday or birth name were weaknesses I needed to work on. I still find myself using it at odd times and find it to be remarkably accurate. May you have lots of fun with it :-)

[(Anonymous)]

Hi JMG,

When you get that far, please explain the ideas behind the numerology where you assign a number to each letter of your name. That one never made much sense to me as it sounded like, in most countries, a woman would undergo a personality change every time she married.

Lady Cutekitten

[ecosophia]

I have no idea why it works, just that it seems to do so. Numerology as I understand it doesn't affect your personality, but it does seem to influence what kinds of experiences you have...

[(Anonymous)]

"She used to be so sweet before we got married, but now all she does is nag me. So that's why, its numerology's fault!"

Oops! *ducks*

[(Anonymous)]

A pity my ex is in memory care - I'd have inflicted her on him and vice versa. But he's a changed man.

[(Anonymous)]

JMG, you might remember Stargazers in Bellevue. That's where I met the numerologist Valerie Mamchez. She told me that I should be a science fiction writer. She also said I was interested in alien worlds. I had written SF for a number of years earlier and I find the idea of alien worlds fascinating. I recently found her notes but I can't for the life of me figure out how she came to that conclusion. Maybe because my name adds up to 9?

My birthday adds up to 22, which is supposed to be a Master Builder. At my age, the only thing I've really built is a boring, slightly above lower, middle-class life.

Numerology seems a lot like astrology when all you take into account is the sun sign. It's too general. Are there ways to make it more specific, just as astrology uses houses, triplicities and aspects?

Jon
Tangerine Tangential Cactus

[ecosophia]

I'm in the process of figuring out how to make it more specific.

[(Anonymous)]

I look forward to your thoughts. The Half Price Books in Lynnwood has the book, Numerorum Mysteria. My Latin is still too basic to read it. Have you checked it out to see if it's helpful?

[ecosophia]

I'm not familiar with that book.

[(Anonymous)]

Maybe it's more gematria than numerology. Here's a summary of it.

https://wiki.uibk.ac.at/noscemus/Numerorum_Mysteria

I found it on google books, too. Maybe it's not what you need.

https://books.google.at/books?id=j7F7ZPyZRswC&printsec=frontcover&dq=intitle:numerorum+intitle:mysteria&hl=de&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjO7-zmzPDYAhXSbVAKHYmbC9oQ6AEISjAF#v=onepage&q&f=false

[(Anonymous)]

Interesting. I just got a book on numerology for the library I work at. And actually, now that I think about it, it's about a month overdue. (We don't charge late fees - we just want people to read books.) If it ever comes back, I'll have to take a closer look at it.
-Cliff

Reference?

[lunarapprentice]

JMG,
1) wrt to your 2020 example, what numerology reference were you using?

2) what's you'r opinion about 'The Theology of Arithmatic' (Iamblichus), trans. by Waterfield?

Re: Reference?

[ecosophia]

1) The book I'm using is Walter and Litzka Gibson's The Complete Illustrated Book of the Psychic Sciences.

2) A very good reference for the basics of Pythagorean number symbolism, but you'll need to supplement it with some other source if you want to do practical numerology.

[cs2]

Fascinating! I look forward to your findings.

I use a similar method to get to know my Ogham. Any chance I get to spell something out, a name, virtue or vice, I copy down what that would mean spelled out in Ogham, and try to understand it.

[ecosophia]

Nice! That ought to work well.

[(Anonymous)]

Is there a chance this system will see publication at some point? I'd be curious to check it out if it was.

[ecosophia]

I'm currently assessing it with that in mind.

[(Anonymous)]

Oh, no, JMG has gone from the heady heights of astrology to “pedestrian” numerology – the tragedy of it! What will the occult “neighbours” think??? 😊 More seriously, I wish you all success in your new venture. While I believe that numerology works, it does not appeal to me at all. You see, I have been put off by numerology for the simple reason that I am absolutely surrounded by Sri Lankans who are, to a person, obsessed with numerology. In order to bring better fortune for their children, parents deliberately add various vowels to the name, in apparently random order, so as to come up with a better “number”… the only result that I have seen is that a nearly unpronounceable 18-letter name has been turned into a truly unpronounceable 21-letter name (well, that, and the infinite amount of laughs that my family gets trying to figure out the Sanskrit roots of these names). I trust that you will be able to avoid such silliness, JMG.

[ecosophia]

People get silly that way about every form of divination there is. Back in the late 1970s there were people in the counterculture in Seattle who literally wouldn't set foot outside without casting the I Ching.

You must have a more complex form of numerology in Sri Lanka than we have in America! Our version has only 9 numbers -- every higher number contracts down to one of those by adding the digits -- and so it's very easy to work out a fortunate name without having to turn, say, "John" into "Jaouihn"... ;-)

[kylec]

Mary K. Greer's Who Are You in the Tarot? uses a numerology system to assign tarot cards to your birthday like a natal chart, to determine soul, personality, and hidden factor cards, as well as many other things, especially which card is assigned to a given year in your life, and the interpretation.

I found the book stunningly accurate as a description of myself: a hermit, hermit, moon. Even the year descriptions seem to be very spot-on, though the same year gets a different card, person to person. I read a number of the interpretations for other cards and none of them were even close to as accurate as a description of me as mine, so I don't think it was confirmation bias.

A note for those trying to add their birthday up: it works a little differently, as the numbers can be as high as 23, and there are particular rules for how to handle some of the odd cases, so you really to need the book to find the correct cards.

[ecosophia]

Doesn't surprise me at all. Mary's very capable.

Resources for numerology

[(Anonymous)]

Hi!

What resources are using to teach yourself numerology?

Are they public documents?

Many thanks

Re: Resources for numerology

[ecosophia]

The book I'm using to begin with is Walter and Litzka Gibson's The Complete Illustrated Book of the Psychic Sciences, which is still in copyright but readily available via used book sites. I'll be adding more books, probably older ones, as I proceed.

[fringewood]

I would recommend Numerology and the divine triangle by Faith Javane from 1979. It is very thorough. From the blurb:
"Part I is a complete introduction to esoteric numerology.
Part II includes extensive delineations of each of the numbers 1 to 78 and, for the first time in book form, a synthesis of numerology, astrology and the Tarot. Each number is explained as personal number vibrations, as a temporary number vibration, in terms of its astrological correspondence and in terms of its Tarot symbolism."
You can borrow it online here https://archive.org/details/numerologydivine00fait

[ecosophia]

Interesting. Thanks for this! I'll consider it.

[(Anonymous)]

2021 is, of course, the very Martian 5, Enter The Urban Wars, stage left, with trumpets blaring and drums pounding, and perhaps a large Scottish bagpipe scaring the bejezuz out of non-Celts. Stay tuned.

The number of my name

[(Anonymous)]

My birthdate numbers added up to 26 which = 8. That's Mercury's number, and my strongest drive has always been to know. Just don't ever try to keep me in the dark about something!

For my name, I started with my first and middle name, my maiden name, and my married name to see what I might go by, and played the same game with my nickname. (3 letters instead of 8.)

In several novels I have read, including Star's Reach, scholars are clad in gray. That plus the wild animal which is my nonrational self according to Amber K (a workshop at the Albuquerque Women's Solstice, followed by a spirit quest. Drums and Amber's voice and a darkened living room and imagination. And faith, because she and her partner are both very like the animals they found.)

Add "The" and run the numbers, and I had my magical use name, which everybody who knows me tells me is an excellent fit. So, I'll say, TSW.

The Grey Badger.

[thuley]

One problem I've noticed with Numerology is that numbers seem to have dramatically different meanings, varying on the set of numbers you are talking about.

Take 4, for example. In a set of 4, it can evoke the 4 elements, in which 4 corresponds to earth, manifestation, and the containment of all elements in a concrete form. In a set of ten, it can evoke the Cabala, and represent Chesed, Jupiter, the spiral, and those associations. In a set of twelve, it evokes the sign of Cancer, the moon, water, cardinality, angularity, and those associations.

Some systems of divination seem to be organized as sets of sets. The three Aetts (8's) of Elder Futhark show this complexity in a way that's still comprehensible. Each rune in an Aett has correspondences in the other Aetts, while each Aett in total represents another version of an 8-fold cycle (Freyr/Freya's Aett, Hagal's Aett, and Tyr's Aett).

But when I've researched Numerology, most authors seem to treat 4 as a monolith, where I encounter 4 of 4, 4 of 10, and 4 of 12 to have all have related but incredibly distinct meanings. Since we take base-10 math for granted in the Western World, treating the set of ten as a default seems to be a good idea, but the assumption that this can apply to the English alphabet (a set of 26) is suspect, and there are many instances in which an ominous number appears and noting what numbers are possible in that instance becomes relevant.

In any case, I'll be very excited to hear what you find, you always seem to bring clarity to whatever subject you study.