
Living tradition
Pythagorean numerology
Ancient Greece; reborn in Europe and America in the 20th century.
Every letter has a number; your name and date reduce to figures the tradition reads as talents and lessons.
How it's done
- 01Add the digits of your date down to one figure: your life path.
- 02Turn your name into numbers with the 1-to-9 table.
- 03Keep 11, 22 and 33: they are not reduced.
With your own tools
Pen and paper are enough; the usual mistake is reducing the master numbers.
With Ocluna
Ocluna does the exact maths and explains each number; you just enter name and date.

What Madame Iselda tells you
- Pythagoras taught that number is the essence of all things; his disciples swore in secret on the tetractys, a triangle of ten dots.
- The letter-to-number table we use today was popularised by a music teacher, Sarah Balliett, in the United States around 1900.
- Pythagoras taught that number is the essence of all things; his disciples swore in secret on the tetractys, a triangle of ten dots.
- In Pythagorean numerology each letter is worth 1 to 9 according to its position in the alphabet: A, J and S are worth 1; B, K and T are worth 2, and so on.
- Modern Pythagorean tradition calls 11, 22, and 33 master numbers, and it is the only family that is not reduced to a single digit when calculating the life path.
- Adding the value of letters is older than modern numerology: in Hebrew it is called gematria and in Greek isopsephy, and it already appears in ancient inscriptions.
- Tables for converting names into numbers circulated throughout Europe thanks to Cornelius Agrippa's De occulta philosophia, printed in Cologne in 1533.
- Reducing a number by summing its digits until only one remains is called the digital root in mathematics, and it yields the same result as the remainder of dividing it by nine.
This reading is symbolic self-knowledge and entertainment content based on folk traditions. It does not predict the future, is not medical, legal or financial advice, and does not replace qualified professionals.