I don't know, and I won't quote from some convenient source of forgotten lore that proves everything I say (although given time, I can probably find something!). But, people have always played with numbers in some form, Lewis Carroll was a master at it. Whether all forms of numerology have their root in Kabbalah is doubtful, as there must made been other influences in the mix. Rather, I would argue that it seems that way just because Kabbalah works so well, in an if-it-hadn't-been-invented-someone-would-have-invented-it-anyway kind of fashion.
not sure what a 'convenient source of forgotten lore that proves everything I say' is. Does that trump ' if-it-hadn't-been-invented-someone-would-have-invented-it-anyway' ?
It is certainly complex enough to deal with a complicated tool like Tarot. Other forms of numerology may not be up to the task, and in fact do deal with wearing green and lucky numbers.
I suppose that is basically the gist of my posts here.
What I find interesting about Pytagorean numerology is that it is very similar to Kabbalistic thinking, in that one is unity, two is duality, etc. Rough parallels can be drawn. The planets and their sounds were also added to this in some fashion, although I'm not too sure about that in any case.
Just to clarify again; I am suggesting, for us; modern western culture, that most of our concepts of numerology came either from Greek or jewish sources (and later the Arabs who were influenced by similar things the Greeks and Jews were - via Hermetics, or perhaps more correctly the Alexandrian Synthesis ). Sure there were other and older and 'natural sources' but thats like saying, well, men thought about things before there were Greek Philosophers.
In any case, I would be interested to see some reverse-engineering with something like the Waite deck and some other form of numerology tacked on. I know, for example, why the Five of Cups is what it is according to the rules the deck itself runs on, but if another form was added on, would it "work?"
Exactly! One would need to correlate their 'numerological' meanings and associations with the cards (if, upon deeper examination we find they actually ARE different from the classical 'numerology' already associated with them {
} ) and log a register of readings and tabulate the results ... much as did some astrological researchers.
They might find, as I did as a lad, that when I made my deck of Qabbalah cards - 1 to 10 for the Sephiroth and sets in each world and another set for the paths that I was actually making a tarot deck
- DOH! <big teenage forehead palm slap>
