Gematria sounds and looks a bit confusing but actually, it's not difficult to use it with tarot cards - or without.
What is Gematria? It's an old Jewish esoteric technique that uses the double character of Hebrew letters. These letters are not only letters but also numbers. A bit like Roman numbers? I, V, X, L and M are Roman letters, but for Romans, each also had a numerical value. The Romans arranged the letters in order to depict numbers (III, IX, VI etc). In Hebrew, it works a bit differently.
In my opinion, if you want to do gematria, do it proper, i.e., use Hebrew letters. If you shy back from the Hebrew, you can do it in English or any other language (many different languages use the Roman alphabet but with variations, so choose the one you feel closest to).
Obviously, it's possible to use English letters and count their positions in the ABC as number.
NEMIA
N=14
E=5
M=13
I=9
A=1
42 is the sum
So Nemia=42, and now I can look for words whose sum is 42 and see whether there's a connection.
You can use a Gematria Calculator like this one. What I did just now is called simple Gematria.
If I scroll down, the page gives me a list of words with the same value, 42. Which of them is meaningful for me? It's a bit like anagrams, only in numbers. Rain, dawn, fish, Odin, sin, gift... Hecate!
I can make a painting from these words, I can write a poet or haiku, I can design a tarot spread, I can look in a beloved tarot decks for cards where these symbols or words appear. But since there is no direct correlation between Roman/English letters and the tarot, this won't bring me much further.
Nemia 42 haiku
I call Hecate
Rain at dawn, a magic light
my sins become gifts
I did this spontaneously but actually like it!
So that's Simple Gematria, no Hebrew involved.
It's nevertheless a painless introduction to Gematria and how it works.
This forum is officially closed. It will however remain online and active in a limited form for the time being.
Gematria and tarot for beginners
Re: Gematria and tarot for beginners
Now for the Horrible Hebrew.
I'll simply use what I wrote some days ago in this thread (with a bad conscience but some tarotists do want to learn Hebrew letters, don't you? don't you???)
Hebrew is written from right to left which is still confusing for me.
So here are the Hebrew letters, and if anyone wishes to use them, they can simply copy them from this post instead of hunting for them on the Internet.
aleph א
bet ב
gimel ג
dalet ד
he ה
vav ו
zayin ז
chet ח
tet ט
yod י
kaf כ
lamed ל
mem מ
mem final ם
nun נ
nun final ן
samech ס
ayin ע
peh פ
peh final ף
tzadi צ
tzadi final ץ
kaph ק
resh ר
shin ש
tav ת
There are some letters written differently at the end of a word. I call the final letters.
An example for tzadi
tzadi is צ
the word eretz, land, is spelled aleph, resh, final tzadi
ארץ
You can see that צ turned into ץ. It has a little tail now.
There are a number of letters that have double pronouncations (to remember these six letters, b g d k f t, remember the word begedkefet). Some of these don't sound different in Wester pronounciation but if you ever heard Jemenite Jew saying them, you'd hear the different between the hard and the soft sound.
They can either be pronounced
"soft" - vet, gimel nearly like rimel, dalet, chaf, feh, tav nearly like English th, or
"hard" - bet, gimel, dalet, kaf, peh, tav
The soft letters become hard when they're doubled - Cabala is impossible in Hebrew, as is Gebura. If there's a vowel before the soft letter, it's automatically doubled and turned into a hard letter, or the letter remains soft: Kabbalah, Gvurah. ´
In texts where vowels are indicated (Bible, children's books or lyrics), this doubling of the letter is indicated by a little dot inside the letter, a so-called dagesh (emphasis).
The Begedkefet rule is one of the basic rules for Hebrew learners. For a more thorough explanation, look here.
Think about the begedkefet letters as double use letters. It's not so different from English - you can pronounce th or gh in different ways, after all. But while in English, it's pretty haphazard, in Hebrew, it's well-organized.
I'll simply use what I wrote some days ago in this thread (with a bad conscience but some tarotists do want to learn Hebrew letters, don't you? don't you???)
Hebrew is written from right to left which is still confusing for me.
So here are the Hebrew letters, and if anyone wishes to use them, they can simply copy them from this post instead of hunting for them on the Internet.
aleph א
bet ב
gimel ג
dalet ד
he ה
vav ו
zayin ז
chet ח
tet ט
yod י
kaf כ
lamed ל
mem מ
mem final ם
nun נ
nun final ן
samech ס
ayin ע
peh פ
peh final ף
tzadi צ
tzadi final ץ
kaph ק
resh ר
shin ש
tav ת
There are some letters written differently at the end of a word. I call the final letters.
An example for tzadi
tzadi is צ
the word eretz, land, is spelled aleph, resh, final tzadi
ארץ
You can see that צ turned into ץ. It has a little tail now.
There are a number of letters that have double pronouncations (to remember these six letters, b g d k f t, remember the word begedkefet). Some of these don't sound different in Wester pronounciation but if you ever heard Jemenite Jew saying them, you'd hear the different between the hard and the soft sound.
They can either be pronounced
"soft" - vet, gimel nearly like rimel, dalet, chaf, feh, tav nearly like English th, or
"hard" - bet, gimel, dalet, kaf, peh, tav
The soft letters become hard when they're doubled - Cabala is impossible in Hebrew, as is Gebura. If there's a vowel before the soft letter, it's automatically doubled and turned into a hard letter, or the letter remains soft: Kabbalah, Gvurah. ´
In texts where vowels are indicated (Bible, children's books or lyrics), this doubling of the letter is indicated by a little dot inside the letter, a so-called dagesh (emphasis).
The Begedkefet rule is one of the basic rules for Hebrew learners. For a more thorough explanation, look here.
Think about the begedkefet letters as double use letters. It's not so different from English - you can pronounce th or gh in different ways, after all. But while in English, it's pretty haphazard, in Hebrew, it's well-organized.
Re: Gematria and tarot for beginners
I break this up into lessons, you can take one at a time if you want to. If you want to study the Hebrew letters, you can use one of these tables of the Hebrew alphabet, in different scripts/fonts, and write them until you know them. Most of them fit nicely into a square, that's why Hebrew script is also called square script.
Here are two examples:
this is very square-shaped,
this one a bit more flowing and elegant. You can see it's the same letters. (the lamed is wrong here - too low. In the other two tables, you can see how it's done properly)
And if you were curious as to how the niqud (vowel punctuation) looks, there you go:
(You can see that in some tables, the begedkefet letters get a little dot indicating its not vet but bet, not chaf but kaf - hard pronounciation is used. You don't need these dots to recognize the letters, it's just a perfectionist way of telling learners how to pronounce them).
Write them down, make some flash cards, it's not difficult to get to know them. Of course, some of the little beasts are quite similar, dalet ד and resh ר, chet ח and heh ה are famous for confusing new learners. But you can see that dalet has a little roof and resh doesn't. Chet is closed and heh has a little opening.
You will have noticed that all these letters are consonants. There is no A, E, I, O or U, not to mention Ä, Ö or Ü!
Imagine the Hebrew letters as bricks in a wall, the vowels as mortar. A word is made of bricks, the mortar is added, in different places in in different places. There are vowels in Hebrew, they're not written in normal texts, but as mentioned above, in lyric, Biblical texts and children's books, the vowels are added as little dots. The technique of dotting properly is called niqud, punctuation, and it's something people learn at school but never use again.
"Transparent" letters aleph and ayin
There are two consonants that are different from Roman letters and how they behave. They are consonants but have no sound of their own. Think of the way the German language uses the letter H in the middle of a word.
Ahr, Uhr, Ohr - all the H does here is take up the sound of the vowel and lengthen it. It's "transparent" in itself.
And in English, the GH is not pronounced:
Might, ought, weigh
You understand the principle. There are consonants that prop up the vowels, but have no sound of their all.
The two Hebrew letters who have the same quality are aleph א and ayin ע.
Aleph is simply mute in itself, and it can be coloured with every vowel the Hebrew language has.
You can meet an Israeli family who will tell you proudly that all their children's names start with the same letter. Indeed? Yes. Amir, Ela, Itamar, Orli and Uri. And you say, excuse me??? these are all different letters in my language! But they're right - all these names start with an aleph.
אמיר Amir
אלה Ela
איתמר Itamar
אורלי Orli
אורי Uri
You can do the same with ayin, but the ayin sounds a bit differently, with a glottal stop to it ("the water in Majorca..."). In some speakers, this is very obvious, in others, you really don't hear the difference between an aleph or an ayin.
"Helper letters" vav, he and yod
So we have the transparent letters which make life a bit harder for the reader, but we also have "helper letters" which make life a bit easier.
Have a look again at Orli and Uri.
Orli: aleph, vav, resh, lamed, yod
Uri: aleph, vav, resh, yod
Where does the vav come from? Lile in Latin, the V/vav can either appear as consonant (V) or a indicator there's an O or U around.
And now let's look again at Ela:
Ela: aleph, lamed, he
The he at the end indicates there's a vowel -a at the end of the word. It's a little helper. When we see a he at the end of a word, we know it ends on a vowel, usually -a, sometimes -e.
Let's go back to Amir and Uri:
Amir: aleph, mem, yod, resh
Uri: aleph, vav, resh, yod
The yod can be used like consonant Y, but also indicates there's an I. Two yods inidiacate an ei or ey .
Let's sum it up.
The Hebrew alphabet is built from consonants.
Some consonants are written differently at the end of a word (kaf, mem, nun, peh, tzadi).
Some consonants can be pronounced in a soft or hard manner (begedkefet).
Some consonants are "transparent" and sound differently, depending on the vowels that go with them (aleph and ayin).
Some consonants are "helpers" that indicate which vowels are present in a word (vav, he, yod).
This is enough to be able to know the Hebrew alphabet better than many people who use it for their esoteric writing.
If you want to, make your own poster with Hebrew letters and look at them often. It's a nice and magical moment when you look at a lamed and it looks back for the first time and says: lamed, that's me!
In the next lesson, we'll try some Hebrew Gematria.
Here are two examples:
this is very square-shaped,
this one a bit more flowing and elegant. You can see it's the same letters. (the lamed is wrong here - too low. In the other two tables, you can see how it's done properly)
And if you were curious as to how the niqud (vowel punctuation) looks, there you go:
(You can see that in some tables, the begedkefet letters get a little dot indicating its not vet but bet, not chaf but kaf - hard pronounciation is used. You don't need these dots to recognize the letters, it's just a perfectionist way of telling learners how to pronounce them).
Write them down, make some flash cards, it's not difficult to get to know them. Of course, some of the little beasts are quite similar, dalet ד and resh ר, chet ח and heh ה are famous for confusing new learners. But you can see that dalet has a little roof and resh doesn't. Chet is closed and heh has a little opening.
You will have noticed that all these letters are consonants. There is no A, E, I, O or U, not to mention Ä, Ö or Ü!
Imagine the Hebrew letters as bricks in a wall, the vowels as mortar. A word is made of bricks, the mortar is added, in different places in in different places. There are vowels in Hebrew, they're not written in normal texts, but as mentioned above, in lyric, Biblical texts and children's books, the vowels are added as little dots. The technique of dotting properly is called niqud, punctuation, and it's something people learn at school but never use again.
"Transparent" letters aleph and ayin
There are two consonants that are different from Roman letters and how they behave. They are consonants but have no sound of their own. Think of the way the German language uses the letter H in the middle of a word.
Ahr, Uhr, Ohr - all the H does here is take up the sound of the vowel and lengthen it. It's "transparent" in itself.
And in English, the GH is not pronounced:
Might, ought, weigh
You understand the principle. There are consonants that prop up the vowels, but have no sound of their all.
The two Hebrew letters who have the same quality are aleph א and ayin ע.
Aleph is simply mute in itself, and it can be coloured with every vowel the Hebrew language has.
You can meet an Israeli family who will tell you proudly that all their children's names start with the same letter. Indeed? Yes. Amir, Ela, Itamar, Orli and Uri. And you say, excuse me??? these are all different letters in my language! But they're right - all these names start with an aleph.
אמיר Amir
אלה Ela
איתמר Itamar
אורלי Orli
אורי Uri
You can do the same with ayin, but the ayin sounds a bit differently, with a glottal stop to it ("the water in Majorca..."). In some speakers, this is very obvious, in others, you really don't hear the difference between an aleph or an ayin.
"Helper letters" vav, he and yod
So we have the transparent letters which make life a bit harder for the reader, but we also have "helper letters" which make life a bit easier.
Have a look again at Orli and Uri.
Orli: aleph, vav, resh, lamed, yod
Uri: aleph, vav, resh, yod
Where does the vav come from? Lile in Latin, the V/vav can either appear as consonant (V) or a indicator there's an O or U around.
And now let's look again at Ela:
Ela: aleph, lamed, he
The he at the end indicates there's a vowel -a at the end of the word. It's a little helper. When we see a he at the end of a word, we know it ends on a vowel, usually -a, sometimes -e.
Let's go back to Amir and Uri:
Amir: aleph, mem, yod, resh
Uri: aleph, vav, resh, yod
The yod can be used like consonant Y, but also indicates there's an I. Two yods inidiacate an ei or ey .
Let's sum it up.
The Hebrew alphabet is built from consonants.
Some consonants are written differently at the end of a word (kaf, mem, nun, peh, tzadi).
Some consonants can be pronounced in a soft or hard manner (begedkefet).
Some consonants are "transparent" and sound differently, depending on the vowels that go with them (aleph and ayin).
Some consonants are "helpers" that indicate which vowels are present in a word (vav, he, yod).
This is enough to be able to know the Hebrew alphabet better than many people who use it for their esoteric writing.
If you want to, make your own poster with Hebrew letters and look at them often. It's a nice and magical moment when you look at a lamed and it looks back for the first time and says: lamed, that's me!
In the next lesson, we'll try some Hebrew Gematria.
Re: Gematria and tarot for beginners
I have no idea whether anyone will come that far... but here we go! The information is out there, and you're free to use it.
Now let's take my name, Nemia.
נמיה
Nun, mem, yod, he
Nun is obvious, I don't need the E because we don't write vowels, the yod indicates that there's an I, and the he indicates that the word ends in an -a.
Btw, nemia is the Hebrew name for mungo, an animal I like and when I see one, I'm happy.
As you know already, each Hebrew letter has a numerical value.
The standard list of letters and numbers is this one:
We can now either do our own maths, or simply head over to the Hebrew Gematria Calculator, , or in Hebrew: מחשבון גימטריה, mechavshvon gimatria.
Use the letters in my first posting, or simply ask me to write the word you want to use in Hebrew, and I'll write it down for you.
You can either disregard all the Hebrew written on the page, and simply look at the number. Of you can use a translator like Google translate which I have as Chrome extension, always a nice thing to have if you jump between languages.
Nun 50
mem 40
yod 10
he 5
105
Now I can go to look for Hebrew words or phrases with the numerical value of 105.
And wow, a lot of words come up. You'll have to take your pick according to feeling and associations. If one word or phrase jumps out at you, you know that you found something important.
This is how gematria works.
beloved tree אילן אהוב
G-d love אלוהים אהבה
in Haifa בחיפה
in gardens בגנים
And again, I can try to make a magic spell, a picture, haiku or song from the words and inner images that emerge.
But if you don't know enough Hebrew to make use of any words that come up? You can use this calculator that works in English. Put the number you're looking for into the search window, and you get a lot of links to Biblical passages with the same Gematria value.
You can clickk on the Hebrew word and will get a good translation and pronounciation guide. I like the word עלה which means leaf. Now if I meditate on the word leaf and what it means to me - I will find a lot of memories and associations.
And there's the beloved tree, which has also 105, and in the gardens, and whole stories start in my head. It's useful to write them down, to take them with me to sleep, and to look for tarot cards where these images are expressed.
I'm not a magician but there are people who write magic spells with gematria.
The list for Nemia is long and full of words that resonate with me. It may happen that yours won't resonate for you, I don't know.
I'll give you now the gematric value of each sephira on the Tree of Life.
Tree of Life - Etz Chaim עץ חיםם ayin final-tzadi chet yod yod final-mem 228
Keter כתר kaf tav resh 620
Chochma חוכמה chet vav kaf mem heh 79
Bina בינה bet yod nun heh 67
Chessed חסד chet samech dalet 72
Gvura גבורה gimel bet vav resh heh 216
Tif'eret תפארת tav peh aleph resh tav 1081
Netzach נצח nun tzadi chet 148
Hod הוד heh vav dalet 15
Yesod יסוד yod samech vav dalet 80
Malkuth מלכות mem lamed kaf vav tav 496
If the gematric value of your name corresponds with one of the sephiroth, you can contemplate on the special bond you may have to this sephirah.
I will add also the Hebrew names of the star signs (mazalot - mazal means luck), planets and of the tarot trumps, and their gematric value. That's for the next lesson. You'll have then enough material to find correspondences between your name and star signs, celestial bodies, and tarot trumps.
Now let's take my name, Nemia.
נמיה
Nun, mem, yod, he
Nun is obvious, I don't need the E because we don't write vowels, the yod indicates that there's an I, and the he indicates that the word ends in an -a.
Btw, nemia is the Hebrew name for mungo, an animal I like and when I see one, I'm happy.
As you know already, each Hebrew letter has a numerical value.
The standard list of letters and numbers is this one:
- standard-gematria.gif (2.82 KiB) Viewed 2334 times
We can now either do our own maths, or simply head over to the Hebrew Gematria Calculator, , or in Hebrew: מחשבון גימטריה, mechavshvon gimatria.
Use the letters in my first posting, or simply ask me to write the word you want to use in Hebrew, and I'll write it down for you.
You can either disregard all the Hebrew written on the page, and simply look at the number. Of you can use a translator like Google translate which I have as Chrome extension, always a nice thing to have if you jump between languages.
Nun 50
mem 40
yod 10
he 5
105
Now I can go to look for Hebrew words or phrases with the numerical value of 105.
And wow, a lot of words come up. You'll have to take your pick according to feeling and associations. If one word or phrase jumps out at you, you know that you found something important.
This is how gematria works.
beloved tree אילן אהוב
G-d love אלוהים אהבה
in Haifa בחיפה
in gardens בגנים
And again, I can try to make a magic spell, a picture, haiku or song from the words and inner images that emerge.
But if you don't know enough Hebrew to make use of any words that come up? You can use this calculator that works in English. Put the number you're looking for into the search window, and you get a lot of links to Biblical passages with the same Gematria value.
You can clickk on the Hebrew word and will get a good translation and pronounciation guide. I like the word עלה which means leaf. Now if I meditate on the word leaf and what it means to me - I will find a lot of memories and associations.
And there's the beloved tree, which has also 105, and in the gardens, and whole stories start in my head. It's useful to write them down, to take them with me to sleep, and to look for tarot cards where these images are expressed.
I'm not a magician but there are people who write magic spells with gematria.
The list for Nemia is long and full of words that resonate with me. It may happen that yours won't resonate for you, I don't know.
I'll give you now the gematric value of each sephira on the Tree of Life.
Tree of Life - Etz Chaim עץ חיםם ayin final-tzadi chet yod yod final-mem 228
Keter כתר kaf tav resh 620
Chochma חוכמה chet vav kaf mem heh 79
Bina בינה bet yod nun heh 67
Chessed חסד chet samech dalet 72
Gvura גבורה gimel bet vav resh heh 216
Tif'eret תפארת tav peh aleph resh tav 1081
Netzach נצח nun tzadi chet 148
Hod הוד heh vav dalet 15
Yesod יסוד yod samech vav dalet 80
Malkuth מלכות mem lamed kaf vav tav 496
If the gematric value of your name corresponds with one of the sephiroth, you can contemplate on the special bond you may have to this sephirah.
I will add also the Hebrew names of the star signs (mazalot - mazal means luck), planets and of the tarot trumps, and their gematric value. That's for the next lesson. You'll have then enough material to find correspondences between your name and star signs, celestial bodies, and tarot trumps.
Re: Gematria and tarot for beginners
I will add now the Hebrew names of the star signs (mazalot - mazal means luck), planets and of the tarot trumps, and their gematric value.
Star signs
The Hebrew calendar is a moon-based calendar and as such closely related to the Babylonian zodiac, the cirle of animals, that we use until today. It was used in Jewish synagogues in the early centuries after the destruction of the temple, like here in Bet Alfa (5th century):
You can see the Hebrew letters didn't change in the 1500 centuries, you can read them as easily as Roman letters from the time. The Sun god Helios in the middle was just a metaphor for the sun's movement and thus for time, just like you can find it in Christian prayer books (Tres Belles Heures of the Brothers Limbourg is a famous example - these images are deeply embedded in many cultures).
The zodiac is in Hebrew galgal ha-mazalot, גלגל המזלות , galgal meaning wheel and mazal luck - it's the wheel of fortune, the wheel of luck for the old Hebrews and also today.
And these are the mazalot.
You can see that in this graphic, Ophiuchus, the Snake Bearer is included - just ignore him, poor guy, as we always do in astrology - although he really is there in one like with the rest of the zodiac.
Aries טלה taleh: tet lamed heh 44
Taurus שור shor: shin vav resh 506
Gemini תאומים te'umim: tav aleph vav mem yod final-mem 497
Cancer סרטן sartan: samech resh tet final-nun 319
Leo אריה arieh: aleph resh yod heh 216
Virgo בתולה betulah: bet tav vav lamed heh 443
Libra מאוזניים me'usnayim: mem aleph vav zayin nun yod yod final-mem 164
Scorpio עקרב akrab: ayin kof resh bet 372
Sagittarius קשת kashat (or keshet): kof shin tav 800
Capricorn גדי gdi: gimel dalet yod 17
Aquarius דלי dli: dalet lamed yod 44
Pisces דגים dagim: dalet gimel yod final-mem 57
Aries is a lamb, Sagittarius a bow/arch or bowman/archer, Capricorn a kid (young goat), dli a bucket - all relating to the constellations and how you can see them. You can see that the animals tend to be younger than in the English or German words for the mazalot.
Oh, and mazal, luck, is 77, if you ever need luck, the 77 has it.
More names and numbers. Let's move to the planets.
Now this is fascinating for history freaks like me because the Hebrew names of the planets sound very different from the Roman names we use. They're much closer to the Babylonian/Chaldean original names. We dig deeper into the past and land in some astronomial tower thousands of years ago. If you're interested in that kind of stuff, here is a nice [urlhttps://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cam ... 1311002432]article [/url]to get you started.´And even [urlhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebrew_astronomy]Wikipedia [/url]has a nice article with basic information. ´
I wrote some time ago about the strong connection between the seven visible planets (without optical instruments) and the days of the week. It is still and has since my childhood been a source of deep fascination that so many people on earth assigned the same planets to the same days, some ancient magic, something that resonates within me until today.
For the Jewish people, there must have been suspect about the deep connection between Pagan gods, planets, and days of the week. Instead of these planetary names, they simply count the days, like in the Book of Genesis (Bereshit), where we can see how the Creator creates day after day.
So in Hebrew,
Sunday is yom rishon (first day) or yom aleph (day 1), [not day of the Sun]
Monday is yom sheni (second day) or yom bet (day 2),[not day of the Moon]
Tuesday is yom shlishi (third day) or yom gimel (day 3), [not day of Mars or Tiju]
Wednesday is yom rivii (fourth day) or yom dalet (day 4), [not day of Mercury of Wodan]
Thursday is yom chamishi (fifth day) or yom heh (day 5), [not day of Jupiter or Donar or Thor]
Friday is yom shishi (sixth day) or yom vav (day 6). [not day of Freya or Venus]
Only Saturday remained with the planet Saturn, in Hebrew Shabtai - Saturday.
And now for the Chaldean order that starts with Saturn or Shabtai:
Saturn, Shabtai שבתאי shin bet tav aleph yod 713
Jupiter, Tzedek צדק tzadi dalet kof 194
Mars, Maadim מאדים mem alepn dalet yod final-mem 95
Sun, Shemesh (or Chama, the Hot One) שמש shin mem shin 640
Venus, Noga נוגה nun vav gimel heh 64
Mercury, Kochav כוכב kaf vav kaf bet 48
Moon, Yareach (or Levana, the White One) ירח yod resh chet 218
Tzedek means justice, kochav means star - kochavim are the stars.
Now we have quite a number of esoteric terms in Hebrew Gematria.
Of course, Nemia 105 didn't come up.
I also gave you very nice words for your writing exercises in Hebrew! Instead of writing the mundane words normal Hebrew students work with, you'll be steeped in esoteric words from the start. That must be a good sign!
After all this Horrible-Horrible-Hebrew, for the (maybe) last lesson, we'll do something so easy, anyone can do it without knowing any Hebrew at all. Promised.
Star signs
The Hebrew calendar is a moon-based calendar and as such closely related to the Babylonian zodiac, the cirle of animals, that we use until today. It was used in Jewish synagogues in the early centuries after the destruction of the temple, like here in Bet Alfa (5th century):
You can see the Hebrew letters didn't change in the 1500 centuries, you can read them as easily as Roman letters from the time. The Sun god Helios in the middle was just a metaphor for the sun's movement and thus for time, just like you can find it in Christian prayer books (Tres Belles Heures of the Brothers Limbourg is a famous example - these images are deeply embedded in many cultures).
The zodiac is in Hebrew galgal ha-mazalot, גלגל המזלות , galgal meaning wheel and mazal luck - it's the wheel of fortune, the wheel of luck for the old Hebrews and also today.
And these are the mazalot.
You can see that in this graphic, Ophiuchus, the Snake Bearer is included - just ignore him, poor guy, as we always do in astrology - although he really is there in one like with the rest of the zodiac.
Aries טלה taleh: tet lamed heh 44
Taurus שור shor: shin vav resh 506
Gemini תאומים te'umim: tav aleph vav mem yod final-mem 497
Cancer סרטן sartan: samech resh tet final-nun 319
Leo אריה arieh: aleph resh yod heh 216
Virgo בתולה betulah: bet tav vav lamed heh 443
Libra מאוזניים me'usnayim: mem aleph vav zayin nun yod yod final-mem 164
Scorpio עקרב akrab: ayin kof resh bet 372
Sagittarius קשת kashat (or keshet): kof shin tav 800
Capricorn גדי gdi: gimel dalet yod 17
Aquarius דלי dli: dalet lamed yod 44
Pisces דגים dagim: dalet gimel yod final-mem 57
Aries is a lamb, Sagittarius a bow/arch or bowman/archer, Capricorn a kid (young goat), dli a bucket - all relating to the constellations and how you can see them. You can see that the animals tend to be younger than in the English or German words for the mazalot.
Oh, and mazal, luck, is 77, if you ever need luck, the 77 has it.
More names and numbers. Let's move to the planets.
Now this is fascinating for history freaks like me because the Hebrew names of the planets sound very different from the Roman names we use. They're much closer to the Babylonian/Chaldean original names. We dig deeper into the past and land in some astronomial tower thousands of years ago. If you're interested in that kind of stuff, here is a nice [urlhttps://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cam ... 1311002432]article [/url]to get you started.´And even [urlhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebrew_astronomy]Wikipedia [/url]has a nice article with basic information. ´
I wrote some time ago about the strong connection between the seven visible planets (without optical instruments) and the days of the week. It is still and has since my childhood been a source of deep fascination that so many people on earth assigned the same planets to the same days, some ancient magic, something that resonates within me until today.
For the Jewish people, there must have been suspect about the deep connection between Pagan gods, planets, and days of the week. Instead of these planetary names, they simply count the days, like in the Book of Genesis (Bereshit), where we can see how the Creator creates day after day.
So in Hebrew,
Sunday is yom rishon (first day) or yom aleph (day 1), [not day of the Sun]
Monday is yom sheni (second day) or yom bet (day 2),[not day of the Moon]
Tuesday is yom shlishi (third day) or yom gimel (day 3), [not day of Mars or Tiju]
Wednesday is yom rivii (fourth day) or yom dalet (day 4), [not day of Mercury of Wodan]
Thursday is yom chamishi (fifth day) or yom heh (day 5), [not day of Jupiter or Donar or Thor]
Friday is yom shishi (sixth day) or yom vav (day 6). [not day of Freya or Venus]
Only Saturday remained with the planet Saturn, in Hebrew Shabtai - Saturday.
And now for the Chaldean order that starts with Saturn or Shabtai:
Saturn, Shabtai שבתאי shin bet tav aleph yod 713
Jupiter, Tzedek צדק tzadi dalet kof 194
Mars, Maadim מאדים mem alepn dalet yod final-mem 95
Sun, Shemesh (or Chama, the Hot One) שמש shin mem shin 640
Venus, Noga נוגה nun vav gimel heh 64
Mercury, Kochav כוכב kaf vav kaf bet 48
Moon, Yareach (or Levana, the White One) ירח yod resh chet 218
Tzedek means justice, kochav means star - kochavim are the stars.
Now we have quite a number of esoteric terms in Hebrew Gematria.
Of course, Nemia 105 didn't come up.
I also gave you very nice words for your writing exercises in Hebrew! Instead of writing the mundane words normal Hebrew students work with, you'll be steeped in esoteric words from the start. That must be a good sign!
After all this Horrible-Horrible-Hebrew, for the (maybe) last lesson, we'll do something so easy, anyone can do it without knowing any Hebrew at all. Promised.
Re: Gematria and tarot for beginners
By now, if you have followed me so far, you will understand why the GD correspondences make a Hebrew speaker unhappy, and why I torpedoed a perfectly nice thread with my whining about it! Sorry about that!
My most important sentence there was: Hebrew letters don't HAVE numbers, they ARE numbers. As we have seen above.
But the GD guys didn't really KNOW Hebrew, they USED Hebrew, and they didn't see a problem shoehorning numbers and Hebrew letters that don't actually fit. (The continental system on the other hand keeps the Hebrew numbers intact).
But since after yod, 10, the numbers won't add up anyway, let's just accept it. This is not Gematria, it's just letters. I tend to disregard the card numbers anyway.
So let the craziness begin.
Numbers, trumps, and Hebrew letters - and I add also the Hebrew names of the cards, just for fun, in a second list.
0 Fool aleph א
1 Magician bet ב
2 High Priestess gimel ג
3 Empress dalet ד
4 Emperor he Thoth: tzadi צ ה
5 Hierophant vav ו
6 Lovers zayin ז
7 Chariot chet ח
8 TdM, Thoth: Justice RWS: Strength tet ט
9 Hermit kaf כ
10 Wheel of Fortune yod י
11 TdM, Thoth: Strength RWS: Justice lamed ל
12 Hanged Man mem מ
13 Death nun נ
14 Temperance samech ס
15 Devil ayin ע
16 Tower peh פ
17 Star zadi - Thoth: heh ה צ
18 Moon kuf ק
19 Sun resh ר
20 Judgement shin ש
21 World tav ת
Interesting enough, you can see on the Thoth cards symbols derived from the Hebrew aleph-bet.
You will often find in online lists "meanings" of each letter but some of them are very little-used and known, others are very obvious. Gimel sounds like gamal, camel, and there's a camel on the High Priestess card. Vav is a hook in everyday language, and zayin is a slang word for the male sexual organ - it also means weapon but maybe Crowley knew this? when I see extremely passionate Lovers cards, I think about that, can't help it.
Kaf is the hand, mem sounds very like mayim, water, lamed like learning, ayin is the word for eye, and peh for mouth - all of them on the cards. Resh is close to rosh, head (it's not a perfect fit, there's a letter missing and believe me, Hebrew words don't simply lose letters without a reason), and shin is like shen, tooth.
Now let's write Nemia נמיה in tarot cards.
Death, Hanged Man, Wheel of Fortune, Star (following Crowley)
You can take any word, any name, and express it in tarot trumps. And then read it like a spread. If you give me in this thread the word you want to "write" in tarot cards, let me know, and I'll give you the letters, in Hebrew and Roman letters, so you can look up the cards and if you want to, do some magical gematria.
And now here are the Hebrew card titles. Just to give you some information others don't have
The ha- before the word means the.
0 Fool ha-soteh השוטה
1 Magician ha-kosem הקוסם
2 High Priestess ha-kohenet הכוהנת
3 Empress ha-kesarit הקיסרית
4 Emperor ha-keysar הקיסר
5 Hierophant ha-kohen הכהן
6 Lovers ha-ohavim האוהבים
7 Chariot ha-merkava המרכבה
8 TdM, Thoth: Justice tzedek צדק RWS: Strength koach כוח
9 Hermit ha-nazir הנזיר
10 Wheel of Fortune galgal ha-mazal גלגל המזל
11 TdM, Thoth: Strength koach כוח RWS: Justice tzedek צדק
12 Hanged Man ha-talui התלוי
13 Death mavet מוות
14 Temperance mezeg מזג
15 Devil ha-satan השטן
16 Tower ha-migdal המגדל
17 Star ha-kochav הכוכב
18 Moon ha-yareach הירח
19 Sun ha-shemesh השמש
20 Judgement yom ha-din יום הדין
21 World ha-olam העולם
While I'm writing this, I notice how clever this is - mezeg means indeed temperance, but it also means to pour. Mezeg avir, the mixture of air, means weather. Mazgan is air condition, and mezeg also means temperament - mezeg cham is a hot temperament. And there we have temper, temperature, pouring, tempering. I never noticed that before. What a pity it will be hidden in this thread. Maybe I'll put it out somewhere else, too.
My most important sentence there was: Hebrew letters don't HAVE numbers, they ARE numbers. As we have seen above.
But the GD guys didn't really KNOW Hebrew, they USED Hebrew, and they didn't see a problem shoehorning numbers and Hebrew letters that don't actually fit. (The continental system on the other hand keeps the Hebrew numbers intact).
But since after yod, 10, the numbers won't add up anyway, let's just accept it. This is not Gematria, it's just letters. I tend to disregard the card numbers anyway.
So let the craziness begin.
Numbers, trumps, and Hebrew letters - and I add also the Hebrew names of the cards, just for fun, in a second list.
0 Fool aleph א
1 Magician bet ב
2 High Priestess gimel ג
3 Empress dalet ד
4 Emperor he Thoth: tzadi צ ה
5 Hierophant vav ו
6 Lovers zayin ז
7 Chariot chet ח
8 TdM, Thoth: Justice RWS: Strength tet ט
9 Hermit kaf כ
10 Wheel of Fortune yod י
11 TdM, Thoth: Strength RWS: Justice lamed ל
12 Hanged Man mem מ
13 Death nun נ
14 Temperance samech ס
15 Devil ayin ע
16 Tower peh פ
17 Star zadi - Thoth: heh ה צ
18 Moon kuf ק
19 Sun resh ר
20 Judgement shin ש
21 World tav ת
Interesting enough, you can see on the Thoth cards symbols derived from the Hebrew aleph-bet.
You will often find in online lists "meanings" of each letter but some of them are very little-used and known, others are very obvious. Gimel sounds like gamal, camel, and there's a camel on the High Priestess card. Vav is a hook in everyday language, and zayin is a slang word for the male sexual organ - it also means weapon but maybe Crowley knew this? when I see extremely passionate Lovers cards, I think about that, can't help it.
Kaf is the hand, mem sounds very like mayim, water, lamed like learning, ayin is the word for eye, and peh for mouth - all of them on the cards. Resh is close to rosh, head (it's not a perfect fit, there's a letter missing and believe me, Hebrew words don't simply lose letters without a reason), and shin is like shen, tooth.
Now let's write Nemia נמיה in tarot cards.
Death, Hanged Man, Wheel of Fortune, Star (following Crowley)
You can take any word, any name, and express it in tarot trumps. And then read it like a spread. If you give me in this thread the word you want to "write" in tarot cards, let me know, and I'll give you the letters, in Hebrew and Roman letters, so you can look up the cards and if you want to, do some magical gematria.
And now here are the Hebrew card titles. Just to give you some information others don't have
The ha- before the word means the.
0 Fool ha-soteh השוטה
1 Magician ha-kosem הקוסם
2 High Priestess ha-kohenet הכוהנת
3 Empress ha-kesarit הקיסרית
4 Emperor ha-keysar הקיסר
5 Hierophant ha-kohen הכהן
6 Lovers ha-ohavim האוהבים
7 Chariot ha-merkava המרכבה
8 TdM, Thoth: Justice tzedek צדק RWS: Strength koach כוח
9 Hermit ha-nazir הנזיר
10 Wheel of Fortune galgal ha-mazal גלגל המזל
11 TdM, Thoth: Strength koach כוח RWS: Justice tzedek צדק
12 Hanged Man ha-talui התלוי
13 Death mavet מוות
14 Temperance mezeg מזג
15 Devil ha-satan השטן
16 Tower ha-migdal המגדל
17 Star ha-kochav הכוכב
18 Moon ha-yareach הירח
19 Sun ha-shemesh השמש
20 Judgement yom ha-din יום הדין
21 World ha-olam העולם
While I'm writing this, I notice how clever this is - mezeg means indeed temperance, but it also means to pour. Mezeg avir, the mixture of air, means weather. Mazgan is air condition, and mezeg also means temperament - mezeg cham is a hot temperament. And there we have temper, temperature, pouring, tempering. I never noticed that before. What a pity it will be hidden in this thread. Maybe I'll put it out somewhere else, too.
Re: Gematria and tarot for beginners
I want to add - the paths on the Tree of Life also belong here, there are many versions on the Internet, and it's also included as a card in a number of decks.
Once you know the letters, trumps and paths, you know more about the cards where they appear. Of course, the minors are associated with the number of the sephirah - all Aces are Kether, all Twos are Chochma etc.
If you have in a reading, let's say, a Six of Wands and Two of Wands close to an Emperor, you know that the energy can flow easily and powerfully.
But this is already Kabbalah, of course I can't really separate Kabbalah and Gematria, but I wrote already a lot about Kabbalah here.
Once you know the letters, trumps and paths, you know more about the cards where they appear. Of course, the minors are associated with the number of the sephirah - all Aces are Kether, all Twos are Chochma etc.
If you have in a reading, let's say, a Six of Wands and Two of Wands close to an Emperor, you know that the energy can flow easily and powerfully.
But this is already Kabbalah, of course I can't really separate Kabbalah and Gematria, but I wrote already a lot about Kabbalah here.
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TheLoracular
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Re: Gematria and tarot for beginners
Thank you so much for posting all of this !!! It is absolutely wonderful and fascinating to read and appreciate Gematria (and Qabalistic Tarot) at its finest.
Re: Gematria and tarot for beginners
If you want me to transcribe a word or name to Hebrew, you can tell me so here, or in a PM. Then you can do the rest of the checks on your own.
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TheLoracular
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- Joined: 14 Sep 2020, 15:50
Re: Gematria and tarot for beginners
I have wordsNemia wrote: ↑22 May 2021, 16:42 You can take any word, any name, and express it in tarot trumps. And then read it like a spread. If you give me in this thread the word you want to "write" in tarot cards, let me know, and I'll give you the letters, in Hebrew and Roman letters, so you can look up the cards and if you want to, do some magical gematria.
Laurel (my first name) for the larks!
... and the other words are your opinion on what Hebrew words best suit, and their gematria
Reflection, both as "mirror's reflection" and Reflection as contemplation.
Attraction, both as "pulling towards" and "sexual appeal" if they are different (and might or might not be?) What would be the best Hebrew word for Desire as in craving? What is the Hebrew word for "need" compared to "desire/want"?
And while I'm being so curious and needy and you are offering and being so helpful? Would Nepesh, the "animal soul" translate directly to "instinct" in English?
Re: Gematria and tarot for beginners
No, nefesh is not instinct. Nefesh is the soul, and it also stands for a person. How many nefashot live in this house? for example. Nafshi, the adjective, is also used for psychological diseases, machalat nefesh would be a mental disorder. Nefesh is very much like the German Seele which describes exactly the same.
For instinct, we use the English/German word: instinct
I've looked it up and other possiblilities are choosh, which is more like a sense ("natural sense") or yetser which is more like a drive. Instinct, reflex, these words are taken from other languages (the Bible doesn't mention them....).
laurel לאורל lamed, aleph, vav, resh, lamed
The plant laurel is called in Hebrew Dafna and a popular girl's name.
dafna דפנה dalet peh nun heh
Reflection in a mirror: השתפקות hishtakfut: he shin tav kuf pe vav tav
For personal reflection, I'd say cheshbon nefesh, an account of the soul. חשבון נפש chet shin bet vav nun-final nun peh shin
Many people use the word reflektzia in professional settings, but for a real look within yourself, I'd go with cheshbon nefesh.
Attraction is meshicha, משיכה both physical, when you pull a carrot from the soil, but also when you feel a physical pull towards someone.
Attraction, pull משיכה meshicha: mem shin yod kaf heh
Desire is tshooka, need is tzorech
Desire תשוקה tshooka: tav shin vav kuf he
Need צורך tzorech: tzadi vav resh kaf-final
For instinct, we use the English/German word: instinct
I've looked it up and other possiblilities are choosh, which is more like a sense ("natural sense") or yetser which is more like a drive. Instinct, reflex, these words are taken from other languages (the Bible doesn't mention them....).
laurel לאורל lamed, aleph, vav, resh, lamed
The plant laurel is called in Hebrew Dafna and a popular girl's name.
dafna דפנה dalet peh nun heh
Reflection in a mirror: השתפקות hishtakfut: he shin tav kuf pe vav tav
For personal reflection, I'd say cheshbon nefesh, an account of the soul. חשבון נפש chet shin bet vav nun-final nun peh shin
Many people use the word reflektzia
in professional settings, but for a real look within yourself, I'd go with cheshbon nefesh. Attraction is meshicha, משיכה both physical, when you pull a carrot from the soil, but also when you feel a physical pull towards someone.
Attraction, pull משיכה meshicha: mem shin yod kaf heh
Desire is tshooka, need is tzorech
Desire תשוקה tshooka: tav shin vav kuf he
Need צורך tzorech: tzadi vav resh kaf-final
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TheLoracular
- Sage
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- Joined: 14 Sep 2020, 15:50
Re: Gematria and tarot for beginners
That was all wonderful and useful.
What book or resource would you recommend for learning basic Hebrew grammar? There is so much that teaches the alphabet and lists of keywords or references for translating Biblical terms but maybe its time for me to be a little less ignorant about grammar rules and how to identify more than just ha- as prefix for "the" and וְ as a prefix for "and"
What book or resource would you recommend for learning basic Hebrew grammar? There is so much that teaches the alphabet and lists of keywords or references for translating Biblical terms but maybe its time for me to be a little less ignorant about grammar rules and how to identify more than just ha- as prefix for "the" and וְ as a prefix for "and"