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here is a lot of arguing about the history of numerology. Different groups like to carry on about how they have the "real true numerology," and they clutch this idea very tightly to their horrid little hearts.Pythagoras is often regarded as the father of numerology. It is true that he regarded numbers as both mystical and practical forces. He was interested in numbers and their vibrations with respect to things like colours and musical notes, though. He wasn't sitting down, scroll in hand, bothering himself with life paths and name analysis, though. He simply wasn't doing those things.
That didn't happen until many centuries later, when an occultist named Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa took up the Aramaic alphanumeric key, which had long since been applied to the Hebrew alphabet and used by Hebrew mystics and scholars for gematria (the numerology of words) and mapped the numbers 1 to 9 onto the Latin alphabet as it was in the 1500s. "Pythagorean Numerology" would be better called "Agrippan Numerology," but 99.9% of the New Age community has never heard of him. That alphabet key is not exactly what we are familiar with today, but it is close.
In today's modern world, the numerology we call "Pythagorean" comes from a woman named Sarah Balliet from New Jersey, who wrote books under the name Mrs. L. Dow Balliet. Her good friend and fellow number mystic, Dr. Julia Seton, MD, coined the term "numerology", probably because saying "The Balliet System of the Tone and Vibration of Numbers" was a bit cumbersome.
Sarah Balliet was no doubt influenced by Agrippa and Pythagoras, but her teachings actually sound a lot like someone who came before her, but not as long ago as Agrippa. Aso Neith Cochran, a mystic from Missouri, affectionately called "Mother Cochran" by her clients and fans, practiced "the mystical science of numbers" in New York City. She never wrote a single book, but much was written about her and her methods in US newspapers in the early 1900s. She also taught, and her teachings show up not only in the work of Sarah Balliet, but in the work of financier W.D. Gann. She had a roster of high society and celebrity clients of the day, including silent film stars and New York City politicians and stock market professionals. She spent several years in Europe as well, consulting in clinics with doctors in countries like Switzerland and Austria, as well as reading for the Who's Who of European society.
At the same time in Europe, a much more flamboyant personality was spreading the good news about mystical math. Cheiro, a pseudonym for William John Warner, was an Irish astrologer, numerologist, and palmist who asserted that he learned all that he knew from Brahmin teachers in India. He called his numerology "Chaldean". The calculations and interpretations are a little different from the Western Pythagorean ones. The alphabet key is also different; the letters are placed with numbers based on their sound, not on their place in the alphabet. The number nine is also not used in the Chaldean alphabet key. While there is nothing linking Cheiro to Mother Cochran, given that they ran in the same circles at about the same time, it is likely that they crossed paths.
At the same time, the astrologer Sepharial (Walter Gorm Old) was writing about numerology, using formulas similar to Cheiro. His alphabet key was somewhat different, as it assigned phonetic sounds like "tz" and "th" numerical values and included the number nine. He also had an exotic backstory involving teachings in India, but I will leave that for a post I will be making that focuses more on him and his compatriot, Cheiro.
The Church of Light, based in the USA, founded by astrologer and occultist C.C. Zain (Benjamin Parker Williams) uses an alphabet key similar to Sepharial's and has even printed it on their Tarot cards, the Brotherhood of Light Tarot Deck. "Sacred Tarot", still being published by the organization, is a companion book to these cards.
There are many more authors from the 1880s to the 1940s who wrote about and influenced numerology. Over the years, their work has faded, and we have gone from "this work was influenced by Pythagoras and Agrippa" to "This is the undisputed and unbroken super secret teachings of Pythagoras himself" or "This is the super secret mystical number teachings that come directly from ancient Egyptian Shamans and you have to initiate to the different levels" on too many websites hawking too many courses to count.
Numerology is modern. What we use today is the result of several occultists and mystics in Europe, the UK, and the USA (and other places, too, no doubt!) experimenting, watching patterns play out in the real world, and going back to the drawing board when their predictions did not pan out. It is not an unbroken line back to Pythagoras, the ancient Egyptians, the Atlanteans, or the Pleidians. It is modern, and much of what the public has been exposed to through mass-market publications is derived from the work of Sarah Balliet, Dr. Julia Seton, MD, and her daughter, Dr. Juno Jordan, PhD.
The same can be said for the Chaldean and Vedic branches of numerology. Either Vedic numerology is three Chaldean numerologies in a trenchcoat or Chaldean numerology is three Vedic numerologies in a trenchcoat -- they are almost indistinguishable from each other. While ancient Indian texts like the Sankhya Shastra deal with the philosophy of numbers, there is no evidence in the Vedas of a system for calculating your Life Path number, Day Number, Personal Year, or any other placement from either your birthday or your name, to predict your career, personality, or anything else.
It's👏all👏modern👏
So here is how I approach it, and it always seems to irritate other numerologists: It's all valid. There is no such thing as the "wrong" numerology. If Western systems resonate with you, study them. If you prefer Eastern systems, jump in. I've seen "Vedic Numerologists" using Pythagorean letter keys. I've seen "Chaldean Numerologists" calculate Life Paths with the whole date of birth. Although I've been practising Eastern (Chaldean and Vedic) systems for well over twenty years, I still use some Western chart placements. Why? Because they work! I teach both, and prefer using Ank Jyotish.
Eastern and Western numerology take different roads, but they arrive at the same damned place.
Being modern and lacking an ancient body of work doesn't make any numerological system wrong. It's actually exciting because 150 years is still really YOUNG for a system of metaphysics. It puts us at the helm, creating the body of work that people will use for centuries to come.