The belief in the magical power of numbers. This belief is probably universal in all sophisticated cultures. In the West it is based on the Pythagorean idea that all things can be ultimately reduced to a relationship with numbers. Pythagoras (sixth century B.C.E.), a mystic, regarded mathematics as a spiritual discipline leading to the discovery of abstract general truths. Numerology was used in China in the first century, and Hindu and Buddhist teachings also embody number patterning and number symbolism. Jewish students of the Kabbalah have their own numerological system gematria. In the Middle Ages music, geometry, and astronomy were connected by numbers. People’s lives were thought to be the microcosm of the greater macrocosm of the universe.
Today numerology is prominent in many forms of fortune-telling and character reading. A frequently used system allocates numbers to letters of the English alphabet. But this leads to difficulties because in ancient numerology there was no English language, so practitioners have to correlate the English letter to a Hebrew alphabet.