Sacred Word-Mangling: Gematria and its Associated Techniques

Gematria is the Cabalistic art of manipulating words to discover their esoteric meaning. It is one of the primary techniques of Jewish mysticism and has been adopted by modern magickians. This article will examine the main types of gematria and show you how to use it in your own mystical work.

Gematria

Properly speaking, gematria is numerology. In Hebrew, each letter also stands for a number, and this means that every Hebrew word has a numerical value. For example, Elohim, the name of God in Genesis ch1 v1, is spelt Aleph, Lamed, Heh, Yod, Mem. Substituting the numerical values of the letters, we get 1, 30, 5, 10 and 40. Adding these numbers together gives 86, the value of other words such as hallellujah. Cabalists believe that when words are grouped by numerical value hidden meanings can become apparent.

The numerical values of the Hebrew letters are as follows:

This is an especially good technique to use with god-names.

Notariqon

Notariqon involves using the letters of a word to form the initial letters of a phrase, like an acrostic. For example, the first word of Genesis, BRAShITh (berashith) can be used to form the phrase Berashith Rahi Alhim Sheyequebelo Israel Torah, which means, "In the beginning, Elohim saw that Israel would obey the law."

Many magickal formulae are derived in this way.

Temurah

Temurah is the art of changing one word into another by direct substitution.  In the simplest  version, the alphabet is bent in half and each half placed side by side thus:

By substitution, ALHIM (Elohim) becomes LAHShB. The properties of the derived word are thought to reveal hidden mysteries.

Application

All of this probably sounds very complex and extremely meaningless. That's the point! Gematria, notariqon and temurah are meditational practices akin to Zen Buddhism, where the idea is to transcend rationality and attain an intuitive understanding of reality. This is why these techniques are particularly suited to God-names; by trying to analyze a God-name you can begin to glimpse the transcendent splendour of God.

Try this exercise:

1. Choose the name of a goddess or god and write it down.
2. Work out the numerical equivalent of the name and see how many different numbers can be generated, by addition, subtraction , multiplication, division etc.
3. See if you can make a phrase out of the letters of the name.
4. See what happens when you substitute different letters for the letters in the name.
5. Meditate upon the results.

Eventually, you should catch a glimpse of the true nature of the deity you have chosen.