The name 'Shematria' is a contraction of the words "Shem" and "Gematria", and in hebrew the word שמטריה Shematria means "that Umbrella.
Back in 2015, after finding the ciphers for the Bible and the Book of the Law, Shematria was no more than a twinkle in my eye, as I worked on the verses of the Bible and Liber Al vel Legis, trying to understand the scribal methodologies of their writers. I'd began to write about the Hermetic & Magical appropriation of the Merkabah tradition and I was doing all the calculations in my head, because there wasn't a gematria calculator that was coded with the ciphers. I found programs that promised to be programmable, but weren't really, or just didn't work on my desktop. This meant that research into the formal system of gematria proceeded quite slowly, until I saw that I would need a bespoke calculator to make any great strides in the subject.
My programming skills were seriously rusty - (I'm talking Commodore 64 Basic, LOGO, & CorelScript rusty), so at first I looked around to see if I could interest a coder in the project. I’m not really good at waiting around for things to happen though, so it wasn’t very long before I decided to take on the project myself.
In 2016 I began to learn the Python Programming language, and I used it to code my first calculator script. From thereon in I began to learn how to make an online version of the calculator I was using at home. In April 2018, I signed up for a free account with pythonanywhere.com and got going on the design of the calculator, and soon after Shematria went live for the first time.
The Shematria database began as a Gematria correspondence to the Strong’s concordance. I created a program to give every word in the concordance a gematria value. Soon after that I began to fill the database with the results of my calculations, and accepted calculations from fellow gematraists working with the ciphers. As I was working on deciphering calculations with the Bible, I realized how convenient it would be if a gematria Bible was available on the same page as the calculator.
Shematria began to take on a more familiar design after I stumbled across Mobirise; an html editor that made making webpages and forms easier. It was so easy that the calculator went through multiple designs before I settled on what I wanted. This one featured Leah Hirsig, the Scarlet Woman of Aleister Crowley.
Since those early days, Shematria has added; a Notariqon tool; a gematria reference to the Book of the Law; and a scratchpad; a Galay script meme maker; and links to learning tools, videos and articles on gematria. I have also published an accompanying 'how-to' and 'history' book: 'Behold! The Art and Practice of Gematria.'
Gematria in biblical times was a formal system of early mathematics.
That means it had known rules and conventions, like our system of math does today.
It's is a beautiful and ancient art that is a crucial key to biblical exegesis and occult symbolism.
Research into the formal system of gematria has taken me thousands of hours, but I've found the story of how hieroglyphics were first deciphered to be personally inspiring. The knowledge of the hieroglyphs was unfolded and refined in stages as different authors added to our understanding of the writing script. They corrected any errors that had crept in and took the field forward. The story of how biblical gematria was deciphered is also one that unfolds in stages, involving Kabbalistic and Occult authors, Aleister Crowley, myself, modern day students of the art, and academics that study the origins of the alphabet.
Since August 2019, this calculator has had 1612425 visits. Our understanding of the art and practice of gematria is still unfolding, but if the story of the decipherment of Hieroglyphics is anything to go by, then this work will be further refined over time. This is an excellent and inspiring fact to me, and something I look forward to. After all, the best exegesis of a text flows from the methods actually used by its writer, so these breakthroughs in the decipherment of the Bible promises new vistas finally being opened for biblical studies.
