Gematria - Sepher Sapphires Volume 1.pdf

The book Liber 777, attributed to Aleister Crowley was one of the first to create a set of tables
relating various parts of ceremonial magic to thirty-two numbers representing the ten spheres and
twenty-two paths of the Kabalistic Tree of Life.
This work is one of the first books published on gematria. Gematria is the study of words and
phrases with the same numerical value are related in some way. Crowley's tabulations were the
most extensive published to date. However, his book was not the first. Agrippa in his work, Three
Books of Occult Philosophy, listed few dozen words relating Divine Names relating to each of the
Sephiroth.
David Godwin's book, Godwin's Cabalistic Encyclopedia takes the study of gematria and order
of magnitude beyond Liber 777. My book, Sepher Sapphires, began out of my love of numbers
and as an indispensable aid in the study and practice of magic.
The important of numbers and the use of gematria cannot be underestimated. It is one of the
pillars of magic. Agrippa states in Book 2, Chapter 1 :
"The Doctrines of Mathematics are so necessary to, and have such an affinity with Magic, that
they that do profess it without them, are quite out of the way, and labor in vain, and shall in no
wise obtain their desired effect. For whatsoever things are, and are done in these inferior natural
virtues, are all done, and governed by number, weight, measure, harmony, motion, and light."
Agrippa states in Chapter 2:
". . . all things which were first made by the nature of things in its first Age, seem to be formed by
the proportion of numbers, for this was the principal pattern in the mind of the Creator. . . . hence
the motion of the Stars, and the revolution of the heaven, and the state of all things subsist by the
uniting together of numbers. Numbers therefore are endowed with great and sublime virtues. . . .
all things that are, and are made, subsist by, and receive their virtue from numbers. For time
consists of number, and all motion, and action, and all things which are subject to time, and
motion [Astrology]."
Therefore, the study of number, proportion, astrology, sound and color are keys to magic.
Additionally, without gematria and numerical relations, it would not be possible to create
magical talismans. Agrippa continues in Book 2, Chapter 2: