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Most disciplines in this atlas sit inside one or two traditions. One does not. Numerology, the practice of reading number as a bearer of meaning, is recorded here with a live tie into nine separate religions, more than any other discipline the atlas holds.

Nine Traditions, Different Alphabets

The nine are Ancient Greek Religion, the Baha'i Faith, Christianity, Gnosticism, Hermeticism, Islam, Judaism, Neoplatonism, and Pythagoreanism, and they did not arrive at number symbolism by one shared method. Judaism reads the numeric values built into its own alphabet, gematria. Islam reads its own alphabet the same way, in the abjad reckoning. Pythagoreanism, the root the atlas traces several of the others through, holds that number is not a description of reality but its actual substance, a claim Neoplatonism inherited and extended into its own account of what stands beneath being itself.

One Practice Doing Different Work in Each

Christianity folds numerology into its own symbolism, reading numbers named in scripture as bearers of doctrine. Gnosticism used it to structure the ranks of its own unseen cosmos. Hermeticism absorbed the Pythagorean and Neoplatonic material into its own synthesis of number, astrology, and alchemy. Ancient Greek Religion carried it as an undercurrent of Pythagorean cult practice before either Christianity or Islam existed to inherit it. The Baha'i Faith reached it independently and late: its own Badi calendar divides the devotional year into nineteen months of nineteen days. Nine religions, one discipline, and by the atlas's own count it is not tied with anything else.

Where To Read More

• NumerologyDivinatory DisciplinesThe discipline itself, claimed by nine religions, the atlas's highest convergence count
• PythagoreanismEsoteric / OccultThe root several of the other eight traditions trace their own numerology through
• JudaismAbrahamic (Monotheistic)Reads its own alphabet's numeric values as gematria
• IslamAbrahamic (Monotheistic)Reads its own alphabet the same way, in the abjad reckoning
• Bahá’í FaithAbrahamic (Monotheistic)Reached numerology independently and late, its own devotional calendar built on the number nineteen
• Badi (Baha'i) CalendarSolarThe calendar itself: nineteen months of nineteen days