Up until now, I had understood that Gematria is the eons-old Jewish method of assigning a numerical value to a Jewish letter, and thereby assigning a numerical value to words spelled with Jewish letters.
In reading The Goddess in the Gospels: Reclaiming the Sacred Feminine by Margaret Starbird, I find out that these number codes were “hidden in the Greek texts of canonical Scripture” (page 9) and so presumably in Greek rather than Jewish letters. Wikipedia offers Gematria relationship tables for finding these values from Jewish letters, for numbers 1 to 9, 10 to 90, and 100 to 900, i.e. for 27 letters. Starbird on the other hand offers values for numbers 1 to 9 leaving out the number 6, numbers 10 to 80, and 100 to 800, i.e. for 24 letters of the Greek alphabet.
Which system is right?
Can both be right?
Aah! I find that the system Starbird uses of giving values to Greek letters is also called Isopsephy, according to Wikipedia. No, the Wikipedia system assigns transliteration values to 27 letters again. This is intriguing.
Category Archives: Researcher
An Insult: “Do You Blog?”
In the 2010 movie Life as We Know It, Josh Duhamel’s character asks Catherine Heigl’s character, about her lame life: “Do you blog?”
Indignantly, she replies, “No.”
I blog and I watch movies. I love both.
Watching movies is a great way to understand human nature, to watch the things that trigger other people and, in watching, to apply those triggers to my life. Kim Barthel has a lot to say about triggers in her book Conversations With a Rattlesnake, co-authored with Theo Fleury.
Aural Intimacy
Radio is the most intimate of the mass media vehicles, what used to be called “broadcasting,” as in “casting ideas abroad.” So, when the most intimate interviews invite a person in and speak to one’s ears and heart, they settle into a deep place. From there, it’s hard to see the diverse sides of an interviewer’s nature.
Maybe that’s how it is with close friends and neighbours who turn out to be quite different from whom we thought they were. We continue to treasure who we thought they were.
Angels
I was delighted to hear Mother Jessica Schaap’s sermon in church on Sunday. Here’s a link to it. Delighted, because, although Christianity includes angels in its doctrine, there’s seldom a discussion about them.
Many world religions refer to angels: Judaism, Christianity, Eastern Orthodoxy, Islam, Bahá’í Faith, Mormonism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism. Icons and paintings are everywhere, but these days it seems that angels have moved into the secular realm.
I used to love singing this gorgeous duet about angels with my friend Danièle Walker. It’s from the operetta Hansel and Gretel by Engelbert Humperdinck (whose name was co-opted in the mid-1960s by a pop singer).
When at night I go to sleep
Fourteen angels watch do keep
Two my head are guarding
Two my feet are guiding
Two are on my right hand
Two are on my left hand
Two who warmly cover
Two who o’er me hover
Two to whom ’tis given
To guide my steps to Heaven.
Michael Jackson fans, all spiritual seekers, and authors of influence
Attention all Michael Jackson fans, all spiritual seekers, and all authors (and potential authors) of influence! There’s an event on tonight that you won’t want to miss. Details are here:
When? Wed, June 25 (7-10pm)
Where? Vital Health Medical, 1855 W 4th Ave, Vancouver, BC
Yikes, that’s tonight. Are you free? It’s going to be a great event with exciting dance performances, music, and talks from Raamayan Ananda, the author of Michael Jackson:
New Book Coming Out – Heart Led Living
Sue Dumais, one of my recent authors (I work as an editor of inspirational and influential books), is launching her book Heart Led Living in two ways:
- with
Julian of Norwich
“Sin is inevitable,
But all shall be well,
And all shall be well,
And all manner of thing shall be well.”
This is probably the anchorite Mother Julian of Norwich’s most famous quote. And here are two more of her poetic promises, brought into modern English by Ralph Milton in his book, The Essence of Julian. This one is from page 66:
“Truth sees God;
wisdom perceives God,
and from these two comes a third,
the holy, wondering delight