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[from http://www.oakgrove.org/GreenPages/bos/0453.txt ] 453 Subject: TOWARD A CELTIC NUMEROLOGY ========================== by Mike Nichols '...I have been a word among letters.' --the Book of Taliesyn, VIII What's in a word? Or a name? What special power reside s in a word, connecting it so intimately to the very thing it symbo lizes? Does each word or name have its own 'vibration', as is gen erally believed by those of us who follow the Western occult tradition ? And if so, how do we begin to unravel its meaning? Just what, exactly, is in a word? Well, LETTERS are in a word. In fact, l etters COMPRISE the word. Which is why Taliesyn's remark had always pu zzled me. Why didn't he say he had been a 'letter among words'? Tha t, at least, would seem to make more logical sense than saying he had been a 'word among letters', which seems backwards. Unless... Unless he was trying to tell us that the word is NOT the imp ortant thing -- the critical thing is the LETTERS that make up a word! The Welsh bard Taliesyn was, after all, a pretty gifted fellow . He certainly put all the other bards at Maelgwyn's court to shame . And over the years, I've learned never to take his statements ligh tly -- even his most enigmatic statements. Perhaps he was really sugg esting that, in order to understand the true meaning of a word or nam e, one must first analyze the letters that comprise it. Of course, t his is certainly not a new theory. Any student of arcane lore would at once recognize this concept as belonging in the opening remarks of any standard text on numerology. But to read the same meaning behind a line of poetry penned by a 6th century Welsh bard may be a bit surprising. Is it possible that the Celts had their own syst em of numerology? Let us begin the quest by asking ourselves what we know abou t numerology in general. Most of our modern knowledge of numerolo gy has been gleaned from ancient Hebrew tradition, which states that th e true essence of anything is enshrined in its name. But there are s o many names and words in any given language that it becomes necess ary to reduce each word to one of a small number of 'types' -- in this case, numerological types from 1 to 9 (plus any master numbers of 1 1, 22, etc.). This is easily accomplished by assigning a numerical va lue to each letter of the alphabet, i.e. A=1, B=2, C=3, and so on. Th us, to obtain the numerical value of any word, one simply has to add up the numerical values of all the letters which comprise the word. If the sum is a two digit number, the two digits are then added to each other (except in the case of 11, 22, etc.) to obtain the single digit numerical value of the entire word, which may then be analyz ed by traditional Pythagorean standards. 454 The problemhas always been howto be sure ofthe numerical value of each letter. Why SHOULD A equal 1, or B equal 2, or Q eq ual 8? Where did these values come from? Who assigned them? Fortun ately, the answer to this is quite simple in most cases. Many a ncient languages used letters of the alphabet to stand for numbers (Rom an numerals being the most familiar example). Ancient Hebrew, for instance, had no purely numerical symbols -- like our 1, 2, 3, e tc. -- so their letters of the alphabet had to do double duty as numbe rs as well. One had to discern from the context whether the symb ol was meant as letter or number. This was true of classical Latin, as well. Thus, in languages such as these, it is easy to see how a number became associated with a letter: the letter WAS the number. It is a bit more difficult to see how the associations in 'm odern' numerology came into being. The modern numerological table co nsists of the numbers 1 through 9, under which the alphabet from A thr ough Z is written in standard 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 arrangement seems somewhat arbitrary, at best. At the very least, it is difficult to sense any 'intrinsically meaningful' relationship between a letter and its numerical value. After al l, our modern alphabetical symbols and our modern numerical symbols (A rabic) come from two completely different sources and cultures. For this reason, many contemporary numerologists pref er the ancient Hebrew system because, at least here, there is a known connection between letter and number. However, when we attem pt to adapt this system to the English language, a whole new set of pr oblems crops up. For one, the entire alphabet is arranged in a dif ferent order and some of our modern letters have NO Hebrew equivalents. Thus, based on the Hebrew alphabet, the only letters for which w e have numerical values 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 Obviously, a modernnumerologist wouldn't get veryfar wit h this table. In order to compensate for the missing letters in the Hebrew system, most modern textbooks on numerology 'fill in' the m issing letters by 'borrowing' numerical values from the Greek alphabet , thus mixing cultural symbols in an eclectic approach that is not en tirely convincing. 455 Another problem is the exclusion of the number 9 from the ta ble -- which modern textbooks often 'explain' by saying that the Hebre ws did not use the number 9, since it was a 'sacred' and 'mystical' n umber. The real truth, however, is far less esoteric. The fact i s, the Hebrew alphabet DID have letters with the numerical value of 9 -- the letters Teth and Sade. But, since Teth and Sade do not have equivalents in our modern English alphabet, the 9 value must be left out. And finally, it is once again difficult to see any INTRINSIC relationship between a Hebrew letter and the number it repre sents. Why should one symbol stand for 1, or another for 2, or yet a nother for 3, and so on? The whole superstructure seems somewhat shaky . But letus now turn our attention to a Celtic alphabetic system called the 'Ogham'. This alphabet is written by making a num ber of short strokes (from 1 to 5) below, above, or through a 'base line' (which in practice tended to be the edge of a standing stone). Thus, A, O, U, E, and I would be written, respectively: ---/----//----///----////----/////--- Of course, in this system it is easy to see how a letter b ecomes associated with a number, since the numerical value of each let ter is implicit. Thus, A=1, O=2, U=3, E=4, and I=5. (It is true th ere is much disagreement and confusion among modern scholars as to h ow the Ogham alphabet should be rendered. Further, a number of dif ferent Oghams seem to have been employed at various times by different Celtic cultures. But this confusion usually centers on wheth er the strokes should be above, below, or through the base line -- NOT on the number of strokes used. On that point, there is general agre ement. And though orientation to the base line is important, it is not essential to our discussion of numerology, since we need only c oncern ourselves with the NUMBER of strokes used.) Thus, based on the work of such scholars as P.C. Powe r, S. Ferguson, D. Diringer, I. Williams, L. Spence, and D. Conway, I have synthesized the following table 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 456 Using this table, the student of Celtic numerology would then pr oceed to analyze any word in the generally accepted manner. One shou ld not be concerned that the numbers 6, 7, 8, and 9 do not appear i n this system, as the Ogham alphabet had NO letters with these valu es (as opposed to the Hebrew alphabet which DID have letters with the m issing 9 value, as mentioned earlier). Another consideration is tha t the Ogham alphabet is just that -- an alphabet. It never represente d any particular language, and historically it has been employed b y many different languages. Again by contrast, the Hebrew alphabe t was structured for a particular language -- Hebrew -- and many pr oblems arise when we attempt to adapt it to a language for which it is not suited. Althoughthe Ogham alphabet onlyhas letter valuesfrom 1 t hrough 5, all of the numbers from 1 through 9 (plus any master numbers of 11, 22, etc.) will be used in the final analysis (just as in the Heb rew system). To understand how this works, let us try an exampl e. We will 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 Most numerologists will agree that 11 is a 'master number' or 'power number' and therefore it is no t further reduced by adding the two digits (although, if one does this, 1 + 1 = 2, and 2 is considered the first even and feminine numb er in the numerical sequence, certainly appropriate for a Welsh Mother Goddess). Viewed as an 11, the analysis is usually that of some one who is on a 'higher plane of existence' (certainly appropriate f or a goddess), someone who brings 'mystical revelation'. Often thi s is someone who feels slightly distant from the people surrounding h im or her, and who has trouble feeling any real empathy for them (which seems to fit a faery queen who has come to live in the l and of mortals). Also, this is sometimes the number of the martyr, or of someone unjustly accused (which is certainly true of Rhia nnon's story as told in the 'Mabinogi', in which she is falsely accu sed of destroying her own son). By way of contrast,the 'modern' system would haveRhianno n be a 3, a somewhat inappropriate masculine number (not that all fe minine names should always yield a feminine number -- but one would at least expect it to do so in the case of an archetypal mother goddess). The Hebrew system would yield an even more inappropriate 4, that bei ng the number of the material world and all things physical (and since Rhiannon hails from faery, she is definitely not of this materia l plane.) 457 By now, some of my more thoughtful readers may think they se e some inconsistency in my approach. Why have I gone to so much troubl e to point up the flaws in traditional systems of numerology (even go ing so far as to suggest an entirely new system), only to fall ba ck on interpretations of the numbers that are strictly traditional? The reason is this: all of my objections thus far have been limi ted to METHODOLOGY. When it comes to interpreting the meaning o f the numbers, I have no quarrel with the traditional approach, sinc e here we enter the field of universal symbolism. All systems of numerology, be they Hebrew, modern, Oriental, or whatever, t end to attach the same interpretive meaning to the numbers. When Thr ee Dog Night sings, 'One is the loneliest number that you'll ever kno w...', it is a statement which is immediately understood and agreed u pon by people from widely diverse cultures. And the same holds true f or all other numbers, for we are here dealing with archetypal symbols. It is worth repeating that, although I believe this system t o have a firm theoretical basis, it is still in an embryonic state -- h ighly tentative, highly speculative. To the best of my knowledge, it is also an original contribution to the field of numerology. Whil e some writers (notably Robert Graves in 'The White Goddess') have deal t with the numerical values of Ogham letters, I believe this article is the first instance of employing it specifically as a system of numer ology. I have spent many long hours working with Celtic numerology -- p utting abstract theory to use in practical application -- but muc h work remains to be done. For this reason, I would be happy to hea r from readers who are interested in the subject and who would like to share their own experiences and thoughts.
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