English gematria · Ciphers
Is English gematria real?
Real ciphers, no tradition
Only as a set of modern ciphers. Hebrew, Greek and Arabic letters were the everyday numerals of those languages; English letters never were, so every English system was devised by someone, from a poem in 1523 to calculator websites today. The adding is real. The meaning is not built in: with dozens of ciphers and thousands of words, matching totals are guaranteed by arithmetic.
Other words that “match”
2
History
Devised, not inherited
Letters as numbers is an old idea, but not an English one. Alphabetic numerals began with the Greeks around 600 BC and spread to Hebrew, Arabic, Armenian, Georgian, Cyrillic and others. Wikipedia’s list of alphabetic numeral systems has no English one.
Then people made some. In the Renaissance, gematria systems were devised for the Latin alphabet. The first English one was used by the poet John Skelton in 1523, in “The Garland of Laurel.” Rudolff published a Latin table in 1525 with A = 1 to Z = 24, and Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa defined another in 1532. In 1976 the English magician James Lees created “English Qaballa.”
A = 1 to Z = 26 is not Hebrew gematria either. Standard Hebrew letter values jump from 9 to 10, 20, 30 and up to 400. Counting straight through the alphabet matches a lesser Hebrew method, the ordinal count, which gives the 22 letters 1 to 22.
Why matches are certain
Few totals, many words
English ordinal totals are crowded. In a list of 9,884 common English words, A = 1 to Z = 26 produces only 198 different totals, and 9,873 of the words share their total with at least one other. GOD is 26, and so are 53 other words on the list, including dog, tea and data. JESUS is 74, like 108 of them, including cross, energy and London.
Every extra cipher adds more chances. Counting GOD in just four common ciphers, 295 words on the list match it in at least one. Statisticians call this the look-elsewhere effect: run enough tests and the unlikely result turns up. At a 1 in 100 chance per try, 100 tries give a 63 percent chance of at least one hit. One calculator site in this scene offers 31 ciphers to free users.
Even believers slip. A 1989 article in the word-play journal Word Ways reported on Joshua Persky’s book English is Gematria, with pairs like genius and madness, both 75. Its own examples include CARE as 30 and LORD as 44, but CARE is 27 and LORD is 49. The expert it quoted, Yaacov Auerbach, put it plainly: “Look at the small numbers he’s working with. You’re bound to get coincidences within such a small range.”
The decoding movement
Sites such as Gematria Effect News, run by Zachary K. Hubbard, apply ciphers to sports results and news dates and say gematria is used “to contrive propaganda, rig elections, rig sports.” That is the site’s own claim. No study supporting it was found, and the evidence offered is matches, which the machine above shows are always available.
The Bible code, tested
A related claim, that the Torah hides predictions in letters spaced at equal skips, was tested in the journal Statistical Science in 1999. The authors found the famous result reflected the choices made in designing the experiment, and used the same freedom to get an equally strong result from War and Peace. Real gematria is a tradition of reading, not a hidden code, as its oldest famous case, 666, shows.
Real vs legend
English gematria, sorted
| Claim | Status |
|---|---|
| English ciphers such as A = 1 to Z = 26 exist and have a history. | Real · since 1523 |
| English is an ancient gematria language like Hebrew. | Legend · devised later |
| The “Jewish” English cipher is the Hebrew method. | No · a Latin-alphabet cipher, since renamed “Latin” |
| “Sumerian” gematria comes from Sumer. | No · it multiplies A = 1 to Z = 26 by six |
| Matching totals reveal hidden design. | Legend · 198 totals for 9,884 words |
| Sports and news are scripted with gematria. | Claim · no evidence beyond matches |
| Statistics proved a Torah code. | No · reproduced in War and Peace |
Questions
English gematria
Does English have gematria?
Only invented ones. English never used its letters as numerals. Latin systems were devised in the Renaissance, and the first English use was by the poet John Skelton in 1523. Many more ciphers have been made since.
What equals 666 in gematria?
In Hebrew, נרון קסר, Nero Caesar. In English with A = 1 to Z = 26, no common word reaches 666. In the times six cipher sold as “Sumerian,” any word worth 111 gives 666, and 68 of 9,884 common words do, including computer and strength.
What is God in gematria?
GOD is 7 + 15 + 4 = 26 with A = 1 to Z = 26, and 156 in the times six cipher. In Hebrew, the divine name יהוה is also 26 and Elohim is 86. The two 26s come from different systems and match by coincidence.
Is English gematria accurate?
The adding is simple to check, but the meaning is not. Even the 1989 Word Ways article on English gematria has sums that do not add up: it gives CARE as 30 when it is 27.
What is simple gematria?
The A = 1 to Z = 26 cipher, also called English ordinal. It is the one Joshua Persky used in English is Gematria (1988).
What is the gematria effect?
The name of Zachary K. Hubbard’s decoding site and channel, which claims gematria is used to rig elections and sports. That is the site’s own claim; no study supporting it was found.
Sources
Where this comes from
- Gematria, Latin and English systems, Skelton, Rudolff, Agrippa, English Qaballa, ordinal method: Wikipedia.
- Alphabetic numeral systems and where they were used: Wikipedia.
- Hebrew numerals: Wikipedia.
- Barry Chamish, “Is English Gematria?”, Word Ways 22(4), 1989: Butler University.
- Gematrinator, cipher list and definitions: gematrinator.com.
- Gematria Effect News, “About”: gematriaeffect.news.
- Law of truly large numbers: Wikipedia.
- Look-elsewhere effect: Wikipedia.
- Brendan McKay, Dror Bar-Natan, Maya Bar-Hillel and Gil Kalai, “Solving the Bible Code Puzzle,” Statistical Science 14 (1999): anu.edu.au.
- Word list, “google-10000-english,” 9,884 common words, totals checked in Python: GitHub.
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