(Originally posted elsewhere — shared here due to its relevance in the context of Gematria.)
It is my firm belief that, whether it be UFOnauts, Thelemic texts or sacred scriptures, all ciphers will always deliver certain "meaningful" matches when we use them to "decode" those things.
One of the clearest examples of this can be found in Allen H. Greenfield's "Secret Cipher of the UFOnauts", in which he proposes that EQ / ALW / NAEQ is the "secret cipher" of the UFOnauts — for the simple fact that he was able to find "meaningful matches" when applying it to the cases he was researching.
But then a question arises:
What if we used a completely different cipher — would we still be able to find "meaningful matches"?
And the answer to this is an absolute YES.
Whether it be Simple/Ordinal, or John Farthing's Toavotea Key, or R. Leo Gillis' Trigrammaton Qabalah, or even Frater RIKB's Mars Kamea Gematria — or any other cipher you could think of — we will always find "meaningful" matches when we use this kind of ciphers to decode anything we want.
I did it before with the cipher of the Bavarian Illuminati, applying it to the names and specific phrases in Greenfield's book. I did it with Simple/Ordinal English. And I did it with Alphanumeric Qabbala, Edgar Joel Love's Cipher X, and even a personal experimental cipher — only to find that all of them, in a way or another, delivered some outstanding results when applied to this specific subject.
So what would make a cipher "relevant"?
Would it be the matches we can get when we apply it in a certain context?
Or is it the context we're working on that dictates which ciphers make sense to be used?
Also — how can we be sure that something was previously encoded with Gematria? Is it the "meaningful matches" we can get that "confirm" that? Or do we have to be extremely cautious in these things, for the simple reason that a "match" doesn't mean anything per se, except the meaning that we willingfully give to it?
Just some food for thought...
It is my firm belief that, whether it be UFOnauts, Thelemic texts or sacred scriptures, all ciphers will always deliver certain "meaningful" matches when we use them to "decode" those things.
Ok ...
Colour me a retard.
But all 'revelations' (in my opinion) can be delegated to not just subjective , but ....beyond human.
My point being.
The more that science gets into the quantum realm, the more you realise that
We are all connected
There are no revelations
We are all merely tapping into eachother
And Cosmic 'truths' all at the same time
In other words,
If Crowley is in a a hotel room high on weed or whatever after mediating, and he hears a voice in his head talking about things, it's because he is in a receptive state.
Receptive state can come from any manner of places, near-death, starvation, mediation, drug-high, booze-high, etc
Yes- half the time it's just yourself talking to yourself.
But the other half of the time, - You Know , you are plugged into the World.
No one needs make things up about numbers.
I think some members can back me up
This is the easy part. To reach the UFO's (sic)
The hard part is making it useful to your evolution as a spirit.
What if we used a completely different cipher — would we still be able to find "meaningful matches"?
And the answer to this is an absolute YES.
Back in the day, the first 8-bit computers were notoriously slow, even when programmed using machine language. The first time I wrote software that would analyze the complete text of Book of the Law using English-Hebrew gematria, the software ran so slow it was difficult to test it for bugs because of the time required to make math calculations using the cardinal values of the Hebrew gematria system. I realized that by using the values 1-26 instead, it would speed the program up by magnitudes, allowing the software to be tested and debugged. When I saw the gematria equations produced by the program, I was surprised to see how many words there are that share the same values, but quickly realized any system that uses the values 1-26 will produce what appear to be extraordinary connections between words, when they are actually random.
15 years later I was surprised to see the ALW/EQ group using the values 1-26, and realized whether it was intentional or not, they were duping people into believing they had found the English key to Liber Legis using little more than random word associations. On the other hand cardinal values are even worse! Hebrew gematria functions reasonably well because of the tri-consonantal structure of Hebrew words, where most words have no more than three or four letters. When the same values are applied to English words that are two to three times longer than Hebrew words, the word values are so large that very few words or even phrases will share the same value, making cardinal values almost useless for encoding anything complex in a text.
If an ordinal gematria system were used to encode something in the Book of the Law, it would have to be something impossible or unlikely to occur at random, and have to consist of recognizable symmetry. Something like a sequence of words or sentences that consist of prime numbers, or a sequence of sentences that share the same value, which is so rare that most gematria systems can't make two sentences in a row equal the same value, let alone three or more. For those reasons I have to laugh when anyone states that gematria can't prove anything, when it could prove everything.
The first time I wrote software that would analyze the complete text of Book of the Law using English-Hebrew gematria, the software ran so slow it was difficult to test it for bugs because of the time required to make math calculations using the cardinal values of the Hebrew gematria system. I realized that by using the values 1-26 instead, it would speed the program up by magnitudes, allowing the software to be tested and debugged. When I saw the gematria equations produced by the program, I was surprised to see how many words there are that share the same values, but quickly realized any system that uses the values 1-26 will produce what appear to be extraordinary connections between words, when they are actually random.
Precisely! In fact, what I call the "Standard" system of Gematria (what you call the "cardinal values") allows for much less equivalences than the Ordinal system, since the range of its values is larger, and thus it is less likely for two words or phrases to share the same value. That's one of the basic principles of Gematria, and one of the fundamental mathematical laws of probabilities behind "numerical matches" in Gematria.
15 years later I was surprised to see the ALW/EQ group using the values 1-26, and realized whether it was intentional or not, they were duping people into believing they had found the English key to Liber Legis using little more than random word associations.
I find it funny that you condemn EQ/ALW because its values go only from 1 to 26 (which is true) — but the same principle could (in principle) be applied to your own "Tri-key" solution, and even to my own alphanumeric solution, or in fact to most "solutions" to AL II:76 that we know of. And that's precisely what I was talking about. To base the "strength" of a cipher on the "meaningful matches" we can find with it may not always be the smartest solution, for the simple reason that most (if not all) ordinal-like ciphers will always deliver pretty good results when applied to the text of the Book of the Law.
On the other hand cardinal values are even worse! Hebrew gematria functions reasonably well because of the tri-consonantal structure of Hebrew words, where most words have no more than three or four letters. When the same values are applied to English words that are two to three times longer than Hebrew words, the word values are so large that very few words or even phrases will share the same value, making cardinal values almost useless for encoding anything complex in a text.
I wouldn't say it's useless — maybe it simply makes the encoding process harder. Harder, not impossible — so it certainly isn't useless. Particularly if one encodes hidden references using related ciphers simultaneously (i.e. for example Standard & Ordinal). I've done it myself before, so that's not news to me.
If an ordinal gematria system were used to encode something in the Book of the Law, it would have to be something impossible or unlikely to occur at random, and have to consist of recognizable symmetry. Something like a sequence of words or sentences that consist of prime numbers, or a sequence of sentences that share the same value, which is so rare that most gematria systems can't make two sentences in a row equal the same value, let alone three or more. For those reasons I have to laugh when anyone states that gematria can't prove anything, when it could prove everything.
I didn't say that Gematria can't prove anything. My point is that using only "meaningful matches" to validate a cipher (particularly an ordinal-like cipher) may not always be the wisest thing to do, for the reasons already stated above. Because if we can "prove" that a cipher is valid because it delivers "meaningful matches" — wouldn't we likewise be able to prove that it isn't valid because those "meaningful matches" are not unique to that cipher? That's precisely what I wish to convey.
A true solution to some of the mysteries of Liber AL would have to be extremely simple and clear beyond any doubt. And it can't depend on "meaningful matches" only, but instead on specific clues given in the source material. My alphanumeric theory for a solution to AL II:76 is one such solution that doesn't depend on numerical matches exclusively, but relies instead on very specific clues left in the source material.
"Be ye well assured all that the solution, when it is found, will be unquestionable. It will be marked by the most sublime simplicity, and carry immediate conviction."
— The New and Old Commentaries to Liber AL vel Legis, The Book of the Law (link).
That's one of the basic principles of Gematria, and one of the fundamental mathematical laws of probabilities behind "numerical matches" in Gematria.
Agreed, but most people, especially those new to gematria, are unaware of the probabilities. For instance, out of the trillions of possibilities there are for permutations of the 1-26 system, one system in every 52 will make the letters ABKALGMORY equal 113, whereas with the cardinal values, one permutation out of every 134,000 can produce the same value. That was the reason I worked with cardinal values exclusively for almost 20 years, until I started experimenting with the ordinal values to see what was actually possible.
I find it funny that you condemn EQ/ALW because its values go only from 1 to 26 (which is true) — but the same principle could (in principle) be applied to your own "Tri-key" solution, and even to my own alphanumeric solution, or in fact to most "solutions" to AL II:76 that we know of.
I'm not critical they use the values 1-26, I'm critical for not realizing the underlying mathematics involved, and for claiming they have discovered the English key to the Book of the Law when they offer no true evidence of it.
The possibilities do exist for using the values 1-26 to demonstrate a gematria equation that is unlikely to occur at random, and since you mentioned the Tri-key, I'll provide the most unique stand-alone example I have come across: What meaneth this o prophet = 143, consisting of the sentence that appears immediately after the II:76 puzzle, and after the numbers within it, which add to 143. The circumstances of its appearance are remarkable, while only one permutation out of every 500,000 ordinal systems will produce the equation. While the equation in itself is not proof the English key has been identified, it serves as an indicator of it. The reason the equation is so scarce among ordinal systems is because 143 is a very low value for 25 letters. Likewise, if the value was inordinately high, similar odds would be apparent.
I didn't say that Gematria can't prove anything
No, but a lot of people that think that, hence my statement.
A true solution to some of the mysteries of Liber AL would have to be extremely simple and clear beyond any doubt
The issues with simple solutions is they are the ones most likely to manifest as random patterns, while also accomplishing the least in terms of conveying information. If just one group of letters in the II:76 puzzle consisted of TRRIRT, it would be conceptually remarkable, given they translate into the numbers 299792, the true speed of light, which was not determined accurately until 1947. Regardless, the pattern could still be random, with the chances of it consisting of 1/15000, which is far less than the previous example.
I agree with you about the clarity of solutions: the pieces have to genuinely fall in place and make sense, as opposed to being strained and "fiddled with" as our resident skeptics have accused me of unjustly.
My alphanumeric theory for a solution to AL II:76 is one such solution that doesn't depend on numerical matches exclusively, but relies instead on very specific clues left in the source material.
I agree: viable verse solutions will require both numeric and ideological content that conveys a distinct message or information.
"Be ye well assured all that the solution, when it is found, will be unquestionable. It will be marked by the most sublime simplicity, and carry immediate conviction."
The simplicity that Crowley hoped for is unlikely based on the aforementioned issues.
I have been working on something the last few weeks that will change everything, and demonstrate something no one has ever seen or conceived of before in relation to the Book of the Law. I look forward to your response.
Dwtw
In the case of Liber CCXX, it specifically says in the text not to change a letter. The common sense understanding of that injunction is that the entire text is one long cipher, and changing even one letter of it will wreck it. This is not far-fetched. Ask any computer programmer how one missing or extra glyph can put a bug in the code. If you're text-searching a vast book for the name Ayyangar, and spell it Ayyanagar, you will get no results.
Given the fact that every letter matters, my first question for any prospective gematria of Liber AL is: what is the full total of the entire text? To date, I have gotten no answer which produces a significant number from any English gematria system. Except for Trigrammaton, where the Global Sum of Liber CCXX = 267,696 = 11 x 156 x 156.
These are numbers which are extremely important in Crowley's magick, and they did not occur randomly; they occurred as a result of using the key to the English Alphabet that he was tasked to find and which he gave us in his comment to Liber XXVII. And this total can be found hidden in significant portions of the text, such as the first verse and the Cipher of 2:76. This Global Sum is also 143 x 208, where 143 = The Book of the Law, and 208 = Nuit + Hadit + Ra-Hoor-Khuit. Now, giving us a text whose grand total is the product of its title and the names of its three divinities is pretty significant. Making some words or phrases within the text match each other, or match other important numbers, pales in comparison to that result.
If a given system produces some huge 6-digit prime number for the full text of Liber CCXX, then one has to ask, what is the meaning of this code Aiwass has transmitted? Why send us a huge number that is not connected with the Aeon that you're announcing? What is missing, or what has been added? or what has been calculated incorrectly?
Litllwtw
O.L.
In the case of Liber CCXX, it specifically says in the text not to change a letter. The common sense understanding of that injunction is that the entire text is one long cipher, and changing even one letter of it will wreck it.
The injunction could also serve to preserve the letter frequency counts.
Given the fact that every letter matters, my first question for any prospective gematria of Liber AL is: what is the full total of the entire text? To date, I have gotten no answer which produces a significant number from any English gematria system. Except for Trigrammaton, where the Global Sum of Liber CCXX = 267,696 = 11 x 156 x 156.
The result is not the simple product of gematria--there several other numeric calculations being thrown into the mix, and while it doesn't bother me, someone could accuse you of fiddling to produce a desired result.
There are over 100 multiplication equations that will produce the value 267696. 51 of them involve values that are less than 1000, while 21 of them use values that are less than 100; this provides you with an unusual amount of flexibility in finding a set of values that can be multiplied to arrive at 267696, and makes it impossible to distinguish the result from one that could be random.
Making some words or phrases within the text match each other, or match other important numbers, pales in comparison to that result.
Not necessarily. As noted above, the chances of the sentence that follows the puzzle equaling 143 randomly are 1/500,000. The chances of the TEG system making the letters of Liber Legis equal the value needed to arrive at 267696 are 1/135,000.
Why send us a huge number that is not connected with the Aeon that you're announcing?
Better yet, why send a huge number at all when many more smaller numbers can be produced from the text and be used to create multiple multi-dimensional constructs.
In the case of Liber CCXX, it specifically says in the text not to change a letter. The common sense understanding of that injunction is that the entire text is one long cipher, and changing even one letter of it will wreck it.
Not sure i am seeing the common sense understanding you perceive.
i always interpreted this command as placing great importance on the integrity of the text as such- not to preserve a cypher or letter-counts, but simply forbidding revision, edits, or any change to the content of this allegedly sacred, received text.
My explanation seems more Occam's razor-y.
Except for Trigrammaton, where the Global Sum of Liber CCXX = 267,696
You may find this interesting. In writing software that can analyze the concept of Global Sums, adding the values for the letters in Liber Legis one at a time is such a slow process that even with a fast computer it could take days to make a determination as to what the chances are a system can produce the sum 267696. To get around the limitation, I used the letter frequency counts to speed the process up by multiplying the value for each letter times its count, which reduces the required calculations from thousands to only 26.
i always interpreted this command as placing great importance on the integrity of the text as such- not to preserve a cypher or letter-counts, but simply forbidding revision, edits, or any change to the content of this allegedly sacred, received text.
My explanation seems more Occam's razor-y.
Dwtw
I think that may be a distinction without a difference. By not allowing the text to be corrupted, both results are guaranteed. The one result entails the other. If you intend to preserve a text perfectly intact, then whatever the text is supposed to convey will have its integrity preserved. So I guess your more general way of stating it would be more razor-like. But it will entail the integrity of any hidden cipher, if such exists.
And as we approach the tenth anniversary of the willful violation of that edict, it's helpful to cite the example of changing a single letter from F to K. It changed the meaning of one word, and thence the entire passage that contains it.
Litllwtw
O.L.
