Klarinet Archive - Posting 000493.txt from 1999/02

From: LeliaLoban@-----.com
Subj: [kl] Musical/mathematical interview
Date: Sat, 13 Feb 1999 15:25:41 -0500

Dan Leeson wrote,
>...I kind of gave up on gemytria when Albert Schweitzer's name added up to
666. >

I love it!

> And that is one of the problems with gemytria. Given a particular number
value that you are looking for, you can, by slight changes of spelling of the
name involved, produce exactly what you want. In several cases, there were
examples in which the number 666 could only be achieved when one used Greek
instead of Hebrew. That is not dissimilar to lowering the river instead of
raising the bridge.>

>Given a specific word, there is only one gemytria that can be derived from
that word. But given a gemytria, there are thousands of words that can be
invented, found, developed, misspelled, etc. to achieve that sum.>

That's why numerolgy comes in so handy for fiction. In outlining _Passacaglia
and Fugue_, I found I could twist numerology to produce whatever results would
fit the plot. Dates fit into the system beautifully, too. *After* writing
the complete rough draft, during a period when I couldn't actually work on it,
I saved newpaper clippings about certain types of world events. Later, I
fixed up a calendar for the story and added passages in which a character
works out what appear to be startling and dire predictions that *actually came
true* on those exact dates in real life. The numerology looks surprisingly
credible, even though it's 100% bogus. True believers would of course respond
that maybe Lelia's numerology is bogus, but the real thing, aaaaah, that's
completely different.

Ed Lacy wrote,
> I forgot to mention in my original message that there is evidence that Bach
thought the numbers 14 and 5 were very important to him.... >

Dan Leeson wrote,
>This, too, is very interesting Ed, but it is no longer gemytria. It is
numerology or the belief that ordinary numbers hold extraordinary power and
meaning. It too is a fascinating topic and you have expanded my knowledge.
In effect Bach was interested in both numerology and gemytria if I understand
you correctly.>

As Ed Lacy says, the information about Bach is indirect, but it looks to me as
though Bach probably did use gematria for the purpose of doing numerology.
BTW, numerologists (occultists) writing in English often use the words
"gematria" and "numerology" interchangeably and I often catch myself doing the
same, even though I consider that usage incorrect, since it's not necessary to
believe in numerology in order to use the number alphabet for other purposes
(such as writing in code). This is one of those areas where the English
language seems to be evolving. The reason someone else had trouble finding
information online about "gemytria" is probably that there's no "official"
correct
spelling of the word in English. There are several variant spellings
resulting from various transliterations from the Hebrew, Arabic and Cryllic
alphabets. I use "gematria" (the more common spelling among horror and
fantasy writers), Dan Leeson uses "gemytria" (the better transliteration of
Hebrew) and I have also seen "gemetria" and "gymatria" and others that are
phonetically similar. I looked up all the variants I could think of in the
unabridged version of the Random House Dictionary of the English Language
(just to prove I'm a total pedant) and was unable to find an English
definition of the the word under any spelling, there or in several other
English dictionaries. In researching the topic, alas, you have to plug in at
least the variant spellings above to find the information.

Defining terms works pretty well on the klarinet list, but there's no use
arguing with true believers in the occult that they're using a word wrong --
or anything else. In Berkeley in 1995, at Mythcon (an annual convention for
scholars of mythology and writers and readers of mythic fantasy fiction), I
served on a panel about Tarot cards, which I collect. I used a stripped and
stacked Tarot deck to demonstrate a simple sleight-of-hand trick that many
professional fortune-tellers use to cheat. (Anxiety about a dire prognosis
for the future inspires a sitter to return for increasingly expensive regular
visits.) I shuffled the deck several times, "accidentally" dropped it on the
floor, gathered up the scattered cards, shuffled the deck again and then asked
the panellist next to me to cut it, before I predicted, accurately, which
cards I would draw I'm not a trained magician, but that trick, given away in
many children's magic books, is so easy that anyone with normal dexterity can
learn it. Although the majority of the audience understood my point that
almost any card trick that can be done with a poker deck works just as well as
with a Tarot deck, a vocal minority concluded that I only *thought* I'd rigged
the demonstration. They insisted I couldn't have faked it even though I
showed them exactly *how* I faked it. Several cornered me at a party that
night and earnestly attempted to persuade me that I'm psychic without
realizing it. (If I were psychic, I would have found myself a great bass
clarinet by now.) Far more people said that even though someone *could* cheat
like that, *their* card readers would never, ever do such a thing. (Well,
fine. Those people can go spend their money on fortune-tellers and I will save
mine for the bass clarinet that will appear when the moon is in the seventh
house or whatever.)

I hope that talking about Bach's numerology on the klarinet list doesn't
encourage superstition, but it's intriguing to try to puzzle out whether Bach
was a true believer or just a dabbler who sometimes played around with
numerology as one more way to give his music structure (which had to come from
somewhere, after all). He also had a much-underrated but quite wicked sense
of humor....

Lelia
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Robert Bloch's stock answer to questions about where his ideas came from:
"I have the heart of a little boy. I keep it in a jar on my desk."
--quoted in his autobiography, _Once Around the Bloch_
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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