Learning Numerology

That is the whole idea of numerology in one sentence. The rest is learning to listen. You do not need to be good at maths, and you do not need to memorise a book of meanings before you start. If you can add 7 and 5, you can do every sum on these pages.

What numerology is

Numerology is the study of the meaning carried by numbers, and of how those numbers show up in a life. It is very old. Most of what is taught today in the West goes back to Pythagoras, the Greek teacher better known for his triangles, who held that number sits underneath everything. The Pythagorean system is the one I use, and it is the one these pages teach.

There are other systems. The Chaldean system, for example, gives the letters different values and works in a different way. They are not wrong, they are simply different languages. If you mix them you get a muddle, so pick one and stay with it. Everything here is Pythagorean, from the letter values to the way a number is reduced.

Where your numbers come from

There are only two sources, and you already have both.

The first is your date of birth. Your Life Path, your Birthday number, your Personal Year and the long cycles of your life all come from the day, month and year you arrived. Nothing can ever change it. You can move house, change jobs and change your name, and your birth date stays exactly where it was.

The second is your name. Every letter has a number from 1 to 9, and when you add up the letters you get your Destiny number (what you came here to express), your Soul Urge (what you want, underneath everything) and your Personality (how other people see you at first). The Letter Values page shows you how.

A chart, not a number

Most people meet numerology through one number, usually the Life Path, read in a magazine or on a website. They read the paragraph, it half fits, and they decide numerology is a bit hit and miss.

It would be. One number on its own is one instrument playing one note.

What I read is the whole chart: a dozen or more numbers, each sitting in its own position, each describing a different part of the same person. A Life Path 1 with a Soul Urge 2 is a very different person from a Life Path 1 with a Soul Urge 1. The first leads because the road asks it to, and quietly longs for company the whole way. The second leads because it would not know how to do anything else. Same Life Path. Different life.

So when you work out your first number and the description only half fits, do not throw it out. Keep it, and keep going. The other half is usually sitting in another number, and the moment you find it the whole picture settles.

Two names

This is the part people do not expect.

If you have only ever had one name, you have one set of name numbers. If you have changed your name, by marriage, by divorce, by choice, or by dropping a first name you never liked, you have two.

Your birth name is the blueprint. It is the name you arrived with, and it describes what you brought into this life. It never stops working, even if you have not used it in forty years.

Your current name is the active overlay. It sits on top of the blueprint and colours how you are expressing it now. Sometimes the two agree, and the change of name barely shifts a thing. Sometimes they pull in quite different directions, and a person who married into a new number will tell me their whole life felt different after the wedding, and not only because of the husband. Go figure.

So when you work out your name numbers, do both, and look at where they agree and where they pull.

Your first exercise

Start with your Life Path. It comes from your date of birth, it describes the road you are walking this lifetime, and every other number in your chart leans on it.

You reduce the day, the month and the year separately, then add the three results and reduce again. Take Sarah Jane Mitchell, an invented woman I use as an example on several of these pages, born on 14 March 1987. The day, 14, is 1 plus 4, which is 5. March is the third month, so 3. The year is 1 plus 9 plus 8 plus 7, which is 25, and 2 plus 5 is 7. Then 5 plus 3 plus 7 is 15, and 1 plus 5 is 6. Sarah walks a Life Path 6.

The Life Path post in the daily posts walks you through it step by step, with a second example and a one line taste of each road. Do your own sum, read the line for your number, and then sit with it for a week. Notice where it fits and where it does not. That second list is the useful one, because it tells you where to look next.

Where to go next

How to Reduce a Number teaches the arithmetic properly, including the Master Numbers that are never reduced and the Karmic Debt numbers that can hide inside a sum. The Letter Values gives you the table for turning a name into numbers, with a full name worked letter by letter.

The Core Numbers brings the main positions together: Life Path, Destiny, Soul Urge, Personality and Birthday, and how they talk to each other. Personal Year, Month and Day shows you the timing of your own year, right down to today. Karmic Lessons looks at the numbers missing from your name, and The Reality and Growth Numbers looks at what your chart grows into as you mature.

The Pinnacles, The Challenges and The Major Cycles are the long chapters of a life, the big seasons that run for years at a time. Biorhythms looks at the shorter physical, emotional and mental rhythms that rise and fall every few weeks.

And The Numbers gives each number its own page, 1 to 9, then 11, 22 and 33, so that once you have found a number anywhere in your chart, you can read what it carries.

Take it slowly. One number at a time is plenty. You will be your own teacher. You will be your own guide. All I will do is help you to remember what you already know.

If you would like your own numbers read as part of a full chart, my readings are here.