What is numerology? The art of reading the numbers of a life

A simple definition

Numerology starts from a very old idea: every number has a quality of its own, and whatever carries a number takes on its colour. The 1 opens, the 2 connects, the 3 expresses. These are no longer quantities but forces, found in a date, in a name, in a year.

Applied to a person, it turns two facts everyone knows, the date of birth and the name given at birth, into a set of linked numbers: the numerology chart. Each number holds a position, life path, expression, soul urge, and its value tells how that part of you shows itself.

Pythagoras and gematria, two ancient roots

Numerology is traced back to Pythagoras, the Greek philosopher of the sixth century BCE. His school, settled in Croton in southern Italy, held number to be the principle of all things: the 1, the monad, was the unity from which everything flows, and musical harmony rested on simple ratios, the octave of 2 to 1, the fifth of 3 to 2. To understand numbers was to understand the harmony of the world.

The other root is Hebrew gematria. In Hebrew, every letter is also a number: aleph is worth 1, beth 2, and so on up to tav, worth 400. Two words of equal value echo each other: echad, “one”, and ahavah, “love”, both add up to 13, and the Kabbalah meditates on that bond. The Greeks practised the same art under the name of isopsephy.

Chaldea, Cheiro and modern numerology

Chaldea, in the south of ancient Mesopotamia, lent its name to the scholars of the sky: in Rome, a “Chaldean” was an astrologer. So-called Chaldean numerology also ties numbers to planets. It gives letters values from 1 to 8 according to their sound, sets the 9 apart as sacred, and reads the name you are known by.

Its present form owes much to Cheiro, an Irish palmist famous in the early twentieth century, whose correspondences between numbers and planets are still the most widely followed. Over the same century, mainly in the United States, the Pythagorean method took the shape it has today: letters worth 1 to 9 in alphabetical order, a life path drawn from the date, an expression drawn from the full birth name.

Nine qualities and three master numbers

Everything rests on nine numbers. Beyond 9, the digits are added until one of them comes back, except for the master numbers 11, 22 and 33, kept as they are because they carry an intensity of their own. Each of the nine is an archetype, a way of being in the world, with its light and its shadow:

• The 1: beginnings, will, the drive of the one who leads the way.
• The 2: the other, listening, the art of attunement.
• The 3: speech, creation, joy that is shared.
• The 4: building, steadiness, a taste for the concrete.
• The 5: movement, curiosity, the call of freedom.
• The 6: care, love, responsibility towards one’s own.
• The 7: the search for meaning, reflection, the inner life.
• The 8: the power to act, success, a sense of fairness.
• The 9: ideals, generosity, the art of closing a cycle.

Your date and your name, the two raw materials

The date of birth gives what is set in advance: the road and its calendar. The life path, drawn from all its digits, is its central number; the day, month and year also give the great cycles, the pinnacles, the challenges, and each year the climate of your personal year.

The name gives the person who travels that road. All its letters tell your talents, its vowels your inner motivations, its consonants the way you come across. The birth name is the one used, every first name on the certificate and the family name received: it is the starting vibration, the one you were given before you could choose it.

An image to remember it by: the date tells the road, the name tells the traveller. A numerology chart is always read with both.

Three schools, one principle

All of them share the idea that a number is a quality; they differ in their rules. Here are the three you will meet most often:

• Pythagorean numerology, the most practised in France and the one the site uses: letters are worth 1 to 9 in alphabetical order, the full birth name is read, and master numbers are kept.
• Chaldean numerology: values from 1 to 8 given by the sound of the letters, the name in use rather than the one on the certificate, and close attention to compound numbers, read before their reduction.
• Indian numerology: it starts mainly from the date, separates the number of the birth day from that of the whole date, and links each digit to a planet of Jyotish, with Rahu for the 4 and Ketu for the 7.

The site follows the Pythagorean method, set out rule by rule in the calculation method, and uses Cheiro’s correspondences for the sky.

What it brings alongside astrology

A birth chart needs the time and place of birth; numerology makes do with the date and the name. It stays open to anyone who does not know their birth time, and it reads a material astrology leaves aside: the name, what your parents chose for you, and what it reveals about your talents.

The two answer each other. Each number has its planet, the 1 the Sun, the 2 the Moon, the 9 Mars, and your life path can echo the ruler of your sign or complete it. The personal year, for its part, reads well next to transits: a simple calendar that the sky comes to sharpen. The details are on the numerology and astrology page, and your birth chart can be calculated on the site.

Where to start

No need to learn everything at once. This order takes you into your chart without losing your way:

1. Calculate your chart: four fields, and the full table appears.
2. Read your life path, the number that weighs the most.
3. Compare your expression and your soul urge: what you show, what drives you.
4. Look at your personal year to feel the climate of the moment.
5. Finally, cross your numbers with your birth chart.