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 resides in a word, connecting  it so intimately to the very thing it symbolizes? Does each word or name have  its own  'vibration', as is generally 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,  letters COMPRISE the word.  Which is why Taliesyn's remark had always puzzled  me.  Why didn't he say he had been a 'letter among words'?  That, 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 important 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 lightly -- even his most enigmatic statements. Perhaps he was really  suggesting that, in order to understand the true meaning of a word or name, one  must first analyze the letters that comprise it. Of course, this 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  system of numerology?  Let us begin the quest by asking ourselves what we know about numerology in  general.  Most of our modern knowledge of numerology has been gleaned from  ancient Hebrew tradition, which states that the true essence of anything is  enshrined in its name. But there are so many names and words in any given  language that it becomes necessary 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 11, 22, etc.).  This is easily accomplished by assigning a numerical  value to each letter of the alphabet, i.e. A=1, B=2, C=3, and so on.  Thus, 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 analyzed by traditional Pythagorean standards.  The problemhas always been howto be sure ofthe numerical value of each letter.  Why SHOULD A equal 1, or B equal 2, or Q equal 8? Where did these values come  from?   Who assigned them? Fortunately, the answer to this is quite simple in  most cases. Many ancient languages used letters of the alphabet to stand for  numbers (Roman numerals being the most familiar example).  Ancient Hebrew, for  instance, had no purely numerical symbols -- like our 1, 2, 3, etc. -- so their  letters of the alphabet had to do double duty as numbers as well.  One had to  discern from the context whether the symbol 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 'modern' numerology  came into being. The modern numerological  table consists of the numbers 1  through 9, under which the alphabet from A through 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 all, our modern alphabetical symbols and our  modern numerical symbols (Arabic) come from two completely different sources and  cultures.  For this reason, many contemporary numerologists prefer the ancient Hebrew  system because, at least here, there is a known connection between letter and  number.   However, when we attempt to adapt this system to the English language,  a whole new set of problems crops up. For one, the entire alphabet is arranged  in a different order and some of our modern letters have NO Hebrew equivalents.  Thus, based on the Hebrew alphabet, the only letters for which we 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 with this table. In order  to compensate for the missing letters in the Hebrew system, most modern  textbooks on numerology  'fill in' the missing letters by 'borrowing' numerical  values from the Greek alphabet, thus mixing cultural symbols in an eclectic  approach that is not entirely convincing.  Another problem is the exclusion of the number 9 from the table -- which modern  textbooks often 'explain' by saying that the Hebrews did not use the number 9,  since it was a 'sacred' and 'mystical' number. The real truth, however, is far  less esoteric. The fact is, 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 represents. Why should one symbol  stand for 1, or another for 2, or yet another for 3, and so on?  The whole  superstructure seems somewhat shaky.  But let us now turn our attention to a Celtic alphabetic system called the  'Ogham'. This alphabet is written by making a number 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 becomes associated with  a number, since the numerical value of each letter is implicit. Thus, A=1, O=2,  U=3, E=4, and I=5. (It is true there is much disagreement and confusion among  modern scholars as to how the Ogham alphabet should be rendered. Further, a  number of different Oghams seem to have been employed at various times by  different Celtic cultures. But this confusion usually centers on whether the  strokes should be above, below, or through the base line -- NOT on the number of  strokes used. On that point, there is general agreement. And though orientation  to the base line is important, it is not essential to our discussion of  numerology, since we need only concern ourselves with the NUMBER of strokes  used.)  Thus, based on the work of such scholars as P.C. Power, 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 Using this table, the student of Celtic numerology would then proceed to analyze  any word in the generally accepted manner. One should not be concerned that the  numbers 6, 7, 8, and 9 do not appear in this system, as the Ogham alphabet had  NO letters with these values (as opposed to the Hebrew alphabet which DID have  letters with the missing 9 value, as mentioned earlier). Another consideration  is that the Ogham alphabet is just that -- an alphabet. It never represented any  particular language, and historically it has been employed by many different  languages. Again by contrast, the Hebrew alphabet was structured for a  particular language  -- Hebrew -- and many problems arise when we attempt to  adapt it to a language for which it is not suited.  Although the Ogham alphabet only has letter values from 1 through 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 Hebrew system).  To understand how this  works, let us try an example.  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 not further reduced by adding the two digits (although, if one  does this, 1 + 1 = 2, and 2 is considered the first even and feminine number in  the numerical sequence, certainly appropriate for a Welsh Mother Goddess).  Viewed as an 11, the analysis is usually that of someone who is on a 'higher  plane of existence' (certainly appropriate for a goddess), someone who brings  'mystical revelation'.  Often this is someone who feels slightly distant from  the people surrounding him 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 land of  mortals).  Also, this is sometimes the number of the martyr, or of someone  unjustly accused (which is certainly true of Rhiannon's story as told in the  'Mabinogi', in which she is falsely accused of destroying her own son).  By way of contrast, the 'modern' system would haveRhiannon be a 3, a somewhat  inappropriate masculine number (not that all feminine 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 being the number of the material world and all things  physical (and since Rhiannon hails from faery, she is definitely not of this  material plane.)  By now, some of my more thoughtful readers may think they see some inconsistency  in my approach. Why have I gone to so much trouble to point up the flaws in  traditional systems of numerology (even going so far as to suggest an entirely  new system), only to  fall back on interpretations of the numbers that are  strictly traditional? The reason is this: all of my objections thus far have  been limited to METHODOLOGY.  When it comes to interpreting the meaning of the  numbers, I have no quarrel with the traditional approach, since here we enter  the field of universal symbolism.  All systems of numerology be they Hebrew,  modern, Oriental, or whatever, tend to attach the same interpretive meaning to  the numbers.   When Three Dog Night sings, 'One is the loneliest number that  you'll ever know...', it is a statement which is immediately understood and  agreed upon by people from widely diverse cultures. And the same holds true for  all other numbers, for we are here dealing with archetypal symbols.  It is worth repeating that, although I believe this system to have a firm  theoretical basis, it is still in an embryonic state - highly tentative, highly  speculative.  To the best of my knowledge, it is also an original contribution  to the field of numerology.  While some writers (notably Robert Graves in 'The  White Goddess') have dealt with the numerical values of Ogham letters, I believe  this article is the first instance of employing it specifically as a system of  numerology. I have spent many long hours working with Celtic numerology -  putting abstract theory to use in practical application  -- but much work  remains to be done.  For this reason, I would be happy to hear from readers who  are interested in the subject and who would like to share their own experiences  and thoughts.