kwaw said:
Place the letters in a circle and connect each letter. The first 'lines' connect every sequential letter a-b-g- etc creates 'one' circle; connect every second letter sh-a-g; th-b-d; etc. this gives you the second circle, then every third letter, every fourth etc and you arrive at a series of lines whose tangents prescribe 10 circles, and eleven lines that go through the centre from one letter to its letter opposite letter on the circle, giving you 22 lines radiating from the centre to a letter on the circumference.
Kwaw
Hm ... Of course you can make a circle of the letters ... does the Sepher Yetzirah suggest, that the reader should draw a circle?
Well, yes, here, according Aryeh Kaplan:
"2,4:
Twenty-two foundation letters. They are set in a circle as 231 Gates. The circle rotates back and forth. And this is a sign: There is no good higher than delight (ONG), and there is no evil lower than plague (NGO).
2.5.:
How? Weigh them and transpose them, Alef with each one, and each one with Alef. Bet with each one , and each one with Bet. They repeat in a cycle. Therefore, everything formed and everything spoken emanates in one name.
2.6.: Form substance out of chaos and make nonexistence in to existence. Carve great pillars out of air that cannot be grasped . This is the sign. This is the sign : one foreseees, transposes, and makes all creation and all words with one Name. A a sign of this : Twenty two objects in a single body."
I don't understand your comment. If you start AB ... as first cycle and AC... as second and AT .. as last, then I count 32 circles (19 regular circles with 22 elements, one with 2 circles with 11 elements (cause 2x11 = 22), one with 11 circles with 2 elements (cause 11x2=22)).
32 is a nice number, but I don't think, that it is essentially relevant here.
... but I see, the connection lines form as tangents circles, right, there are ten circles and 11 lines cross in the center. That seems, what you wanted to say. Good.
Anyway, I would say, that the passage of the text is "dark". "The circle rotates back and forth" ... that's dark, interpretable in many directions.
Actually the 231 Gates have 462 results or, somehow, 484 elements: AB creates also BA and AA, BB, GG also should be considered.