Kabbalah Numerology

Two ways of counting a name

The Pythagorean system gives every letter a value from 1 to 9 and starts again at 1 when it reaches J, and again at S.
It is the system behind The Core Numbers, your Destiny, your Soul Urge and your Personality.

Kabbalah numerology borrows its shape from the Hebrew alphabet instead.
In Hebrew every letter is also a number, and the numbers keep climbing. The first nine letters count 1 to 9, the next nine count 10 to 90, and the last letters count in hundreds.
Reading a word by the total of its letters is called gematria, and it is very old.

I lay that same ladder over the English alphabet.
The values are these. A 1, B 2, C 3, D 4, E 5, F 6, G 7, H 8, I 9. Then J 10, K 20, L 30, M 40, N 50, O 60, P 70, Q 80, R 90. Then S 100, T 200, U 300, V 400, W 500, X 600, Y 700, Z 800.

You will notice the totals get large quickly. A single W is worth more than most whole Pythagorean names.
That is the point of it. Letters at the end of the alphabet carry a weight here that the other system spreads out evenly, so a name full of late letters reads very differently by this count.

The method

Write out your full name as it was given at birth, every name, spelled the way it was spelled on the day.
Give each letter its value from the ladder above.
Add them all. Spaces are ignored, every letter is counted, and there is no split into vowels and consonants.
Then reduce the total by adding its digits, and keep adding until one digit is left, 1 to 9.
No Master Numbers are kept in this system. An 11 or a 22 on the way down is worth noticing, and then it is reduced like anything else.

That single digit is your Kabbalah number.
It places your name on the sephirah of that number, Kether at 1 down to Yesod at 9.
Nobody lands on Malkuth or Daath by this sum, and I say more about that on their pages.

Two worked examples

Sarah Jane Mitchell.
Sarah is S 100, A 1, R 90, A 1, H 8, which comes to 200.
Jane is J 10, A 1, N 50, E 5, which comes to 66.
Mitchell is M 40, I 9, T 200, C 3, H 8, E 5, L 30, L 30, which comes to 325.
The total is 591. Then 5 + 9 + 1 = 15, and 1 + 5 = 6.
Her Kabbalah number is 6, and her name sits on Tiphareth, Beauty, at the centre of the Tree.

Emma Louise Hart.
Emma is E 5, M 40, M 40, A 1, which comes to 86.
Louise is L 30, O 60, U 300, I 9, S 100, E 5, which comes to 504.
Hart is H 8, A 1, R 90, T 200, which comes to 299.
The total is 889. Then 8 + 8 + 9 = 25, and 2 + 5 = 7.
Her Kabbalah number is 7, and her name sits on Netzach, Victory, on the right hand pillar.

Notice what happens when a name is taken on its own.
Sarah by herself is 200, which reduces to 2, Chokmah.
Add Jane and Mitchell and she moves to 6.
The full name at birth is the one I read first. The parts are commentary.

The name you use now

I read the name you go by today the same way, and set it beside the birth name.
A married name, a shortened name, a name you chose for yourself: each has its own total and its own sphere.
In my experience the birth name describes the blueprint and the name in daily use describes the house you have built on it, and they are often a different number.
That difference is worth a conversation, which is exactly how I treat it with the Pythagorean numbers too.

Where this comes from, and where it does not

I want to be plain about one thing.
The Hebrew letters carry numbers, and reading words by those numbers belongs to the Jewish mystical tradition and goes back many centuries.
Laying that ladder of values over the English alphabet is a twentieth century idea.
The Zohar does not do it, and I make no claim that this is the Kabbalah of the Jewish tradition.

I use it anyway, for a practical reason.
It gives me a second reading of a name that is quite different from the Pythagorean one, because the weighting is so different.
Two people with the same Destiny number can land on very different spheres here, and the two readings side by side tell me more than either does alone.
Treat it as a tool from the Western tarot tradition, which is what it is, and treat the tradition it borrowed from with respect.

How it differs from the Pythagorean numbers

The Pythagorean numbers describe a person: what you are here to do, what you want underneath, how you come across.
The Kabbalah number describes where on the Tree your name sits. It is a position, a place to stand, and the character comes from reading the sphere you are standing on.
A Pythagorean 4 is a builder. A Kabbalah 4 sits on Chesed, Mercy, and is about generosity. The same digit, two different streams, and I never fold one into the other.
If you have not done your Pythagorean numbers yet, The Letter Values and The Core Numbers pages take you through them step by step.

Two numbers worth a pause: 18 and 22

The tradition keeps two numbers whole, and they are worth knowing when they turn up as a total or as a step in your reduction.
Sarah passes through 15 and Emma through 25 on the way down, so look at your own steps as well as your answer.

18 is the value of the Hebrew word for life, and I also read it as a number of conflict, obstacles and illusion.
It asks whether a life is being lived, or lived inside a story you have told yourself about it.
When 18 appears in a name total or in a step of the reduction, I take it as a nudge to check what is real and what only looks real, and I say so gently, because people who carry an 18 have usually already had their share of hard lessons in exactly that.

22 is the number of the Hebrew letters and of the paths on the Tree.
It stands for the whole map at once, every way the energy can move between the spheres, and in the Pythagorean stream it is the master builder.
When 22 appears as a total or a step, I read it as a name that wants to build something that lasts, and that may spend the first half of a life working out what.
Both of them are landmarks on the way to your answer. The answer itself is always a single digit, and your sphere is always one of the first nine.

What your number tells you

Each sephirah has its own page under The Sephiroth, and that is where your number takes you next.
Read your page for who you are when your name sits there, where the sphere falls on the Tree, which tarot cards sit on it, and how it compares with The Number page of the same digit.
If you have laid the Tree of Life Spread, you already know your sphere's position in it, and the card you drew there is worth a second look.

The Kabbalah number is coming to Find Your Numbers and Signs, so the arithmetic will be done for you.
Until then, the back of an envelope works fine. It always has.

If you would like your own chart read, my readings are here.