What is Numerology?
For the inquisitive, the wanderers, or anyone simply looking for an additional perspective
This should have been the first video I made. Better late than never?
At least I have the opportunity to introduce this tool of divination to Substack. If you think numerology is stupid, there’s no judgment on my end. I did too when I first stumbled upon it. In a strange way, numerology chose me (perhaps we’ll get into that later on).
Every month I spend some time contemplating the global cycle we’re in and its implications, and I share it on YouTube. I would like to extend this effort here, as I’m already actively engaged with the practice, and have actually used numerology to help write Metanoia. However, I think it necessary to first orient my audience in what this topic is all about.
To start off, let’s go over what Numerology is NOT. This will likely ruffle many feathers in the New Age community.
Numerology is not a way to get stuff.
Like everything in this world, most knowledge has been watered down and commodified. It’s all about “manifesting” and getting what you want, whether that be a hefty check or for your ex to come back. Historically, the realm of psychics and tools of divination has been a scam designed to get as much money as possible from people who are desperate. Everything money touches turns to shite, I’m afraid, and matters of the spiritual world are not only not immune to that, but are especially susceptible to predators and magical thinking. Many people come to me asking “what number will help me get this” or “how do I change my name to get that”. The occult doesn’t exist to get your ex back, Susan. Go higher.
Angel numbers.
Honestly, I don’t know what is meant by this. Seeing, and quite literally being haunted by repeating numbers is a common phenomenon amongst most people I’ve spoken with. The New Age community started to call this occurrence angel numbers at some point. I’m all for angels, but I don’t know why they rule over the domain of numbers now. I suppose this is a great way to send a message, but is every synchronicity angelic? I suppose it doesn’t matter so much, if it’s this way or that. For now, let’s keep the angelic realm and numerology separate, where numerology is a tool for anything and everyone.
Numbers aren’t a way to determine what is good and what is bad.
The most common misconception I encounter is that of duality consciousness, where if a thing posses one quality, it must not possess the other. It is a very archaic, divided way of thinking that is the result of us needing to simplify things in order to understand them. Many of my clients and followers are worried that they have a “bad” number. There aren’t good or bad numbers. There are, instead, what you would consider good and bad qualities to each number. I will have you know that many bad people do good things, and many good people do bad things. It’s very confusing. Such is the human experience, which is what we’re exploring here 🔎.
Now that that’s out of the way, let’s begin with defining the term:
Numerology is the investigation of numbers and how they effect the physical universe in a qualitative way.
Well, that’s my definition anyway. Everyone’s will be slightly different, but more or less the same.
When I’m being curt, I tell people it’s like astrology, just with numbers.
Numerology is a tool of divination. Much like how you have a toolbox with many different instruments, when you pick it up, it is meant to help you with a specific set of tasks. It will get you very far, farther than you may have anticipated. It is not, however, an overarching doctrine, like religion, which states that only one lens of perception is the correct one. In spirituality, there are many ways to get to the same place, and there are many instruments that offer something distinctly beneficial. It is in this way that numerology, or any tool of divination for that matter, is not a belief system, as some people would have it.
It’s a bit mystifying as to how this works. Somehow, there are a lot of congruencies between the life path number and the lives people tend to lead. I’ve become very good at guessing someone’s life path number after meeting them and spending some time with them. It’s spooky. The best way I can conceptualize it is with the example of the effect tonal frequencies have on a medium like sand. Notice how each frequency creates a different pattern.
There were many mathematicians of the past who believed it possible for numbers to effect our physical reality in a qualitative way, not just in a quantitative way. One of these individuals was Pythagoras (yes, the triangle guy). It’s possible that Pythagoras was merely a pupil standing on the shoulders of giants, whose knowledge has been lost or long forgotten. There is a lot that I wish we could uncover, as I think the past would surprise us, but nonetheless we move forward the best we can with the knowledge at hand.
Unlike the “thinkers” of today, who mostly follow the doctrine of materialism, those of the past were philosophers, mystics, and sometimes politicians. Oh how I wish a single politician of today could carry any conversation of the examined life. Securing legislature for lobbyists takes a lot of time and energy I guess, but I digress.
Many numerologists follow the Pythagorean system, which holds the principle that numbers derived from your birthday and your name (where a=1, b=2, and so on) can effect someone’s personality, and what they face in this life.
In my practice, everyone has a chart of six numbers. Three of these numbers come from your name, and three come from your birthday. The most significant numbers in your chart are that which come from your birthday, which is set in stone and can never change.
However, our lives are also measured in time. We are moving through a nine-year cycle, both as a collective and us as individuals. This is what I center my monthly forecasts around, which I will now be sharing here on Substack, as well as through my personal monthly readings, which I offer through Patreon.
If you would like to learn how to calculate your Life Path number, visit my character chart that maps the nine lives of Metanoia.
It’s very hard to summarize what numerology means to me, and how it has helped me these past sixteen years in a paragraph or two. I will leave you with this imagery for now.
Imagine you are on a path that is spiraling upward. When you look down, you see how far you’ve come, the distance you’ve traveled goes on forever. You see how similar and how different it is compared to the present. When you look up, you see how far you have left to go, it goes on forever. You see all the ways in which you will have to progress through the landscape of Metanoia, and all that will repeat until you are refined into a diamond. You come to understand that there is no end to this, and that you are on a limitless journey of becoming.
Happy Reading. Happy Writing. Happy Journeying.
Thank you to those who have taken the time to answer this short, 3 question survey. The feedback is instrumental to my work here, and there are still many of you whom I haven’t hear from yet.
Forgot to say - I know what you mean about getting to the stage where you can guess people's numbers - I was like that with astrology for a while. Likewise with the tarot, where I would just ask people for three numbers between 1 and 78 and do a past-present-future reading.
I think what happens is that the brain gets so used to it, by constantly reinforcing all those neural connections, and builds up the database of examples (memory), so to speak, such that your mind instantly absorbs a whole load of non-verbal data from a person (microexpressions etc.), then checks the database for matches. Then again, there is something magical about it too, because the more we do these sorts of activities the more in harmony with reality we become.
Anyway - a few more thoughts there that just popped into my head and wouldn't go away. I really must get myself back into the habit of divination.
I've encountered a fair amount of numerology in my time, partly because I used it a fair amount when I've done tarot. There are 78 cards in the tarot and each one can be related to a specific number (between 1 and 78 - obviously each one can also be reduced to single digit). Likewise there is a clear numerical/meaning sequence (or progression/development) in each suit from 1 to 10, with, naturally, the 10 (1+0) also being the first step in the next cycle (so it's 9, as you say). I have a book somewhere specifically relating numbers to cards, and astrology for that matter - they're all related somehow. To relate name and birthdate numbers to the tarot simply means not reducing them to a single digit (unless greater than 78 of course).
So I'm right with you on this one. Likewise with the Pythagorean aspect. When I was studying philosophy I wrote my dissertation on Pythagoreanism, as I loved all that mysticism. The Tetractys obviously springs to mind here, although it was also the reincarnation that I had an affinity with. I think there's a fair amount of that with the Egyptians too.
One thing I had not heard of was having six numbers - what I learned was three from the name (vowels (=soul)-consonants (=outer personality/how you manifest in life) and then add the two (=path of destiny)), with just one from the birthday (life lesson number). So with three numbers from the birthday that's day-month-year? Well, that makes things even more interesting and I'm going to have to go away and think about that...