AUTHOR’S NOTE: A large percentage of everything that goes on in our environment is cyclical rather than linear in nature (although some cycles like the 25,800 year “wobble” of the Earth’s axis are so long that it’s difficult to observe their periodicity). The alternation of day and night and the turning of the seasons are the most relevant to our lives, while semi-abstractions like number theory and wave theory unsurprisingly adhere to the same pattern of recurrence since sequential numeration and orderly repetition are observable phenomena in the natural world. Here I’m stretching out a bit on the subject of numerology as it applies to divination.

There is an esoteric practice known as “Theosophical reduction” (sometimes called “addition”) by which the digits in a complex number are added together as many times as necessary to arrive at a single-digit outcome (example: 256 = 2+5+6 = 13; 1+3 = 4). The interesting thing about this is that any single-digit number, when progressed by a sufficient quantity of identical increments, will bring the mathematical cycle back to where it started through Theosophical reduction. A representative case would be stacking up sixes: 6+6+6+6 = 24; 2+4 = 6, and tacking on three more sixes brings the total to 42, which of course yields 4+2 = 6. (I acknowledge that there are many other number combinations that will generate the same result by numerological addition, but here I’m chasing the idea of regular step-wise development.)

The number 9 is the most compelling expression of this since no matter how many nines you aggregate by addition (within reason, that is), you will always wind up back at 9 via a single reduction of the total, making 9 a mystical number of great power in standard occult usage. (The digits in 27, 45, 108, 360 and any other common multiple of nine we might expect to encounter in the practice of divination will immediately reduce to the seminal 9 with no supplemental arithmetic as was needed with the sixes.) At the other end of the spectrum, adding together ten “1’s” will produce 10, and 1+0 will return the tally to “1” while incorporating nine more “1’s” will total 19, and 1+9 = 10, which contracts further to “1” as 1+0. What goes around comes around, even when exhaustively iterated in this way!

The number 5 requires nine more installments of the baseline value (or 5×9=45, taking it up to 50) before the ramifications revert to 5 (5+0 = 5), while the number 8 demands nine more octile infusions to comprise 80, which shakes out as 8+0 = 8. On the other hand, if you apply “casting out nines” (subtracting groups of nine) to the reduction, you will make an interim stop at a double-digit number before arriving at a single integer. So, for example, 27 will resolve directly to 9 by summing 2 and 7, or to 18 by subtracting 9, which then takes you back to the base 9 by further addition (1+8 = 9). Another example is 80, which will diminish to 8 by the Theosophical addition method but lands first at 17 by casting out nines. This duality of character offers a choice of which one to apply in your metaphysical deliberations.

The practical application of this technique resides mostly with the Major Arcana, presenting a useful parallel by which we can relate the cards associated with the constituent numbers in meaningful ways as “numerological counterparts.” The Hermit (IX) and the Moon (XVIII) are thus “joined at the hip” (despite eyeing one another warily from opposite sides of the zodiac), and one could be viewed as the confederate of the other, although looking at the two side-by-side you might reasonably assume that the Hermit has been turned away from his mountain, or that he could be an unscrupulous guru devising “blinds” to bamboozle the unwary seeker. These combinations can take a good deal of pondering to sort out before the philosophical implications of their convergence make any sense.

In a reading, pulling the Magician, the Wheel of Fortune, the Sun and an Ace or two (all numerological articulations of “1”) could signify a robust initiative that – depending on the sequence of the cards – never quite makes it out of the starting gate. It has tons of potential but no real momentum or direction. The Sun hopes to prevail solely by fiat and not by dint of effort; it’s basically saying “Look at me, am I wonderful or what?” without lifting a finger to prove it, while the Magician shrugs and the Wheel of Fortune runs in circles. (I think the poet Archibald MacLeish would have had a lot of fun with that image.) The incipient Aces, symbolic of theoretical points-in-space, exhibit no mass and no movement; they are entirely inert in nature and require a galvanizing push or triggering impulse to release their stored energy. This looks like a positive reading on the surface but it is germinal rather than fruitful and really quite static in terms of advancement.

Among the Minor Arcana, the single-digit numbers can be broken down into their “isomorphs” (different pairs of numbers that add to the same total). In this model, think of Six as an amalgam of 1+5; 2+4; or 3+3 (as well as 2×3); the set you choose to examine within the context of a reading will highlight the participating energies. Odd numbers (other than the root number, “1”) are active and pursue change, while even numbers based on the binary “2” are passive and seek to maintain the status quo. (I’m indebted to French occultist Joseph Maxwell for this precept.)

Similarly, in astrology the harmonious “soft” aspects of 60 and 120 degrees (sextiles and trines) bring “good vibes” but little focused activity, which is why the no-nonsense German astrologers of the 1970s (who had little use for New Age mysticism) preferred to have the stimulating 45, 90 and 135-degree “hard” aspects show up in a chart because those angles imply a dynamic tension that is motivating (“stuff happens”) and therefore supports the prediction of future conditions. To complete the picture, the conjunction (zero degrees of separation) isn’t considered an aspect by traditional astrologers, while the 180-degree opposition portrays a kind of “face-off” that promotes mutual awareness but is too “locked-in” to the glaring and arm-waving of strenuously-competing agendas to nudge the matter toward any kind of cooperative conclusion.

Playing with these numbers is a lot of fun as well as offering revelatory insights for the purpose of divination. I use two “flavors” of esoteric number theory in my work (I steer clear of the exoteric “lucky-number” form of numerology): the Pythagorean geometric paradigm, which works well up to Five but tails off after that due to increasing conceptual intricacy, and the Qabalistic evolution based on the ten sephiroth of the Tree of Life that is ideal from the perspective of energy attenuation and modulation of the “Descent of Spirit into Matter” kind. The isomorph approach with its unitary and binary (that is, odd and even) structure is less useful for card-reading except as it might convey a dominant active or passive theme when parsed out and brought to bear on a spread; but it as at most an interesting side-trip. Who has the time or patience for that sort of fine-tuning in the middle of a reading?