Page Contents:

Introduction
Examples
Technical Details
Essays
Applications

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Introduction

For those who would like to work in English rather than say Greek or Hebrew for their gematria (numerical correspondence to letters, words and phrases), there s a method developed by English Thelemites. Briefly, English Qabballa was developed by James Lees and others, the 'counting well' technique on which wakanaba is based was developed by Stefan Dajnowicz who also developed the two trees schema, and Wakanaba chant and sigil techniques were developed from there by Jake Stratton-Kent.  These are the sources for the wakanaba method which is useful not only for gematria, but also for the construction of chants and sigils. Although based on a cipher in Liber Al  , it has been found to be quite powerful in many contexts. The main idea is to consider the ordinal values of the letters of the English alphabet and various permutations.  The one favored by Thelemites is to begin numbering the alphabet with 'a' as 1 and then to number every 11th letter in sequence ( a=1, l=2, w=3,...) and use Liber AL and their class A materials as a base.  Claims have been made that using the standard  sequence of a=1, b=2, .... is more useful with the King James Bible  and the works of Shakespeare as a base.  Some experimentation has been made with other sequencing. Hebrew uses an altogether different method of assigning values to letters and uses the Torah and associated literature as a base.  Arabic and Greek also have their gematrias and methods of deriving sigils and chants as well as sacred literature bases. EQ and wakanaba are a continuation of the tradition.  As time permits and I find good sites, I'll furnish links to these others, but for now I want to discuss wakanaba in EQ-11 or ( see  Robin's Links to the Mystical Internet ) NAEQ (New Aeon English Qaballa) as it is also known. 

EQ - 1 and EQ - 11 are given in the table below       

An example of using the valuations for qaballistic association : MOON = 21+7+7+14 = 49 = ROSE = EROS.  In EQ-1, MOON = 13+15+15+14 = 57, ROSE and EROS = 52.  EQ-11 is the preferred system as more work has been done with it and the results have been striking based on Liber Al in which it was found. As noted, there has also been some work using EQ-1 in connection with the King James Bible but it is less explored. It is also said to be possible to apply EQ-1 to the works of Shakespeare. EQ-1 may appeal more to traditionalists. Other sequences have been tried including a variant called the Gematria of Nothing (GON).  An additional correspondence for the letters of the English Alphabet is the 'coincidental' match of 26 lunations - 13 new and 13 full moons - in the course of the Solar Year.  There is also a natural match of the 28 lunar mansions to the 28 letters of the Arabic alphabet.  Further discussion of natural match patterns and symbolism appears in another section, this one is focused on gematria and it's uses in English.   

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Examples

The best place to begin is with an example.  The technical details follow. 

My artistic abilities and graphics package are limited so these examples by Tala may give a better idea of what can be done.  

Mars % Uranus	Motion % Matter
Soror Tala *	Soror Tala *

[working on a better presentation of Mars% Uranus; needs to be cropped and resized]

  * permanent inclusion and note on her other work pending approval by artist

Note : It is always best to do these by hand initially, both for the direct interaction and due to the obvious convenience for crunching numbers and getting an idea of what the sigil will look like in raw form.  

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Technical Details

Each cell of the square (it can be a rectangle if the words or phrases are of unequal length) has the vale of the sum of the row letter plus the column letter.  In step 2 only the last digits of the entries are used. In step 3 the numbers are replaced with symbols or glyphs as follows :  1 gets a point, 2 gets a line (I used a line for both here), 3 is a w shape, 4 is a cross, 5 is like a cursive capital C, 6 is like the flat sign in music, 0,7,and 8 are blank, 9 is like the flat sign in music turned upside down. Artistic license and inspiration are used to connect and aesthetically finish the final design.         

The chant is based on the idea of the use of 'barbarous' names and Moon language according to the following rules : 

Vowels are always completed by L.

A completes W K N B (hence wakanaba as the name of the method).

O completes H  V Y M

U completes S  G  J  X

I completes D  R  F  T 

E completes Z  C Q  P 

For numbers greater than 26, 0 is always treated as a a 7 = the letter O.

Values greater than 26 are treated as sets of single digits (e.g. 38 = WZ)

The 'grand word' found by 'counting well' is added to the chant for emphasis as taste and meter dictate.  Syllables can be joined to make more pronounceable 'words' and meter or cadence are largely determined by the number of syllables per line and the strategic addition of the grand word. 

Gematria and Correspondence Notes 

EQ Techniques

Counting Well : Counting well is symbolized by the % glyph and is simply the sum of the first word or phrase times the number of letters in the second word or phrase plus the sum of the second word or phrase times the number of letters in the first word or phrase. Algebraically :

A%B = value of A * number of letters in B + value of B * number of letters in A

An oft used example due to it's brevity and significance is NU % HAD.

In EQ-11 N = 14, U = 17, H = 4, A = 1, D = 6 so NU = 31, HAD = 11.

NU % HAD = 31 * 3 + 11 * 2 = 93 + 22 = 115 = MERCURY. 

Counting Well is also used as a check on the accuracy of the math in wakanaba figures as the sum of the values of the columns = the sum of the values of the rows = top word or phrase % side word or phrase.

In the OPEN DOOR example OPEN = 72, DOOR = 42. so OPEN % DOOR = 4 * 72 + 4 * 32 = 288 + 128 = 416 = 60 + 136 + 132 + 88 (colmn sums) = 96 + 100 + 100 + 120 (row Sums) and yields the 'grand word'. 

The Power of the Word : The digits reversed, as if dyslexic, show the 'power' of the word. For example the power of 93 is 39. One of the words valued at 39 is MARS (M = 21, A = 1, R = 12, S = 5).  So, one might say that words and concepts whose value is 93 derive their power from Mars. 

Mathematical Techniques :

When the value of a word or phrase is a prime number, square, cube, or can be expressed as a series - such as the additive and multiplicative factorials often used to determine probability; then the word or phrase has added significance. Examples of factorials : 7!+ = 7 + 6 + 5 + 4 + 3 + 2 + 1 = 28 and is called the mystic number of 7 in traditional literature; 4! = 4 * 3 * 2 * 1 = 24 and has no name that I'm aware of in the literature but is significant in probability theory and, in my opinion, shows a valid linkage. Of course higher powers of numbers are also significant and as are other mathematical properties and relations.  For instance 1 is the identity for multiplication and is the building block of the integers; and so is NOT considered a prime. 

Traditional Techniques : 

These are many and covered in the appropriate literature. I'll furnish links and a short synopsis when I get a chance.

Natural Resonance :

Often there are associations in nature that connect a number with an animal or natural phenomena. For example the hexagonal shape of honeycomb chambers and the bilateral symmetry of most terrestrial life forms. The 28 vertebrae of the human spine is another example. 

There are also natural connections with the cycles and interactions of the planets, as for example 13 Moons in a Solar year would associate 13 with the Moon and with a full cycle or a unity. Further examples may be found in the periods of the planets and the conjunction cycles of the inner planets Mercury and Venus which form a celestial hexagram for Mercury, and a celestial pentagram for Venus, thus associating 6 with Mercury and 5 with Venus at this level. The 11 year sunspot cycles associates 11 with the Sun. Among the synodic conjunctions of the planets, Jupiter/Saturn at about every 20 years stands out as the Hebrews associate this number with Jupiter and their letter Kaph.  In the Tarot the letter and the planet are associated with the 10th Trump, Fortune. The cycle of these planets corresponds to cycles of government policy and thus affects fortune generally. 

Along these same lines, the shapes of letters and their resemblance to natural forms or suggestion of other symbols is also thought to be significant.

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Essays

On Using Wakanaba for Chants and Barbarous Names 

by Jake Stratton-Kent


Barbarous names in traditional magick were frequently obtained by means
of the technique of permutation, which may be studied in Agrippa and in
Kaplan's Meditation and Kabbalah. A great practical advantage of the
permutation method was that names and words could be devised as
necessary rather than slavishly copied from older sources. Agrippa
emphasizes that these and similar techniques may be used with Latin,
Greek and other alphabets as well as Hebrew.

The Count Well technique provides a ready means of permutation without
the theological or linguistic problems involved in the older systems. It
does so not by means of an 'anglified' rendition of the Hebrew system,
but by developing upon a technique at the heart of the E.'.Q.'. system
itself. Each square (or more properly grid) obtained by counting well is
essentially a series of numerical permutations of the original 'Double
Word'. All that needs to be done is to turn these numerical permutations
back into letters and syllables. In order to do this we first look at
the numbers in the scale 1 to 26, since these are already attributed to
the English Alphabet. However counting well gives numbers in the range 2
to 52. Numbers above 26 are expressed in terms of their digits, i.e. 27
as 2 and 7. Simply turning each number into its letter equivalent will
produce words superficially resembling both Dee's and Bertiaux's
artificial languages. The problem then is how to pronounce them. Hebrew
manages this either through a method of attributing vowel points to such
artificial words (some of which then become actual Hebrew words) or
taking D as Da on the basis that D's name is dAleth.

This identical method was later borrowed by the Golden Dawn to render
Enochian pronounceable, a not altogether satisfactory grafting from one
system to another. The system from which this was 'borrowed' involves
the famous 'Shemhamphorash', the 'Divided' or 'Seventy-two fold' Name.
This played a major part in Hebrew Practical Kabbalah in the system of
Abraham Abulafia (1240 to 1300). This book is hardly the place for an
extended discussion of this great Pre-Zohar Kabbalist (see Scholem's
Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism and Kaplan's Meditation and Kabbalah),
but it is worth emphasising that, while the Golden Dawn's Qabalah has
been shown to owe much to Isaac Luria, the system of Abulafia has far
more to offer the modern 'Practical Qaballist'. In the following
quotation he seems to be referring to the 'Proto-language' concept we
encountered earlier:

'Take in your hand a scribe's pen. Write speedily, letting your tongue
utter the words with a pleasant melody, very slowly. Understand the
words that leave your lips. The words can consist of anything that you
desire, in any language that you desire, for you must return all
languages to their original substance. I have alluded to this
elsewhere.... but this is its proper place....'
From Aryeh Kaplan's Meditation and Kabbalah.

English Qaballa has had many inspired moments in the course of its
development - and the solution to the problem of pronunciation described
above is yet another example of 'the hand of the inscrutable gods' in it
all. The vowels in the E.'.Q.'. alphabet series are in the order AOUIE,
they have the combined value of 73 = MANTRA, POWER, RUNES, GIANT &c. &c.
Among the consonants the letter L has a special place as an element of
AL and LA. It's shape also suggests the horizontal and vertical
components of a graph or grid. In order to render the other
consonants pronounceable they require one or other of these vowels,
while a good case can be made for pairing the vowels with the letter L,
and for making L into LA as reflex of AL.

A square showing which vowel corresponds with which consonants is shown
below. The order of the vowels and consonants is unchanged, they have
simply been separated in order to place them in the square. The letter L
is the factor which balances them, as appropriate to its attribution to
Libra in 'Old Letters'.

A|WKNB
O|HVYM
U|SGJX
I|DRFT
E|ZCQP
-----

The first line gives us WA KA NA BA, for which reason this technique is
called Wakanaba or Wakan. The complete alphabet then can be expressed
as:

AL LA WA HO SU DI OL ZE KA VO GU RI CE
NA YO JU UL FI QE BA MO XU IL TI EL PE

This can be turned into a chanted spell, the eight pairs of 'triplets'
balanced rhythmically against each other and the two last syllables
breaking the rhythm as an exclamation. The rhythmic section aids the
passive contemplation of an image, sigil or square etc., the breaking of
the rhythm with exclamation actively internalises or charges the symbol.

ALLAWA, HOSUDI;
OLZEKA, VOGURI;
CENAYO, JUULFI;
QEBAMO, XUILTI:
EL PE!

For convenience the numbers 27 to 52 are listed in Wakan form here, but
with a little experiment and familiarisation the student will no longer
find it necessary to consult these tables.

27. LA-OL 34. WA-HO. 41. HO-AL. 48. HO-ZE.
28. LA-ZE 35. WA-SU. 42. HO-LA. 49. HO-KA.
29. LA-KA 36. WA-DI. 43. HO-WA. 50. HO-OL.
30. WA-OL 37. WA-OL. 44. HO-HO. 51. HO-AL.
31. WA-AL 38. WA-ZE. 45. HO-SU. 52. HO-LA
32. WA-LA 39. WA-KA. 46. HO-DI.
33. WA-WA 40. HO-OL. 47. HO-OL.

With this pronunciation aid we can now turn to the numbers in our
squares. 27 now becomes LA-OL, 43 becomes HO-WA and so on. Any number
can be expressed, and more importantly the words of power so derived are
all pronounceable, however alien they may sound. The large number of
vowels in each 'spell' give an ecstatic edge to the chants which is
partly why the Gnostics (and even church choirs) made such great use of
them.

A good habit for pronouncing the vowel sounds is A = Ah, O = Oh, U = Oo,
I = Eee, E = Eh/Airh. This will be found to produce sonorous and
magically/mantrically effective sounds, (this applies fairly well as a
rule of thumb in the use of old Gnostic god-names etc.; only armchair
wizards would pronounce IAO as Eye Aye Oh rather than Eeaaoh).

Results Magick with Wakanaba.

A purely 'results-magick' application of the Wakanaba technique is in
'mantric-sigils', when the original stated purpose is disguised not by
rearrangement of syllables of the original sentence, but by reducing
each word in the statement to its gematria value and converting those
values into sounds by means of the Wakanaba technique.

To take a classic example from Austin Spare, the intention:

'This my will to have the strength of a tiger'

gives us the gematria values 56 36 30 31 40 53 119 25 1 95

converting these by means of the Wakanaba technique we obtain:

SUDI WADI WAOL WALA HOOL SUWA ALALKA LASU AL KASU

which may be converted into phrases according to taste, for example:

SUDIWADI WAOLWA, OLWALA HOOL:
SUWA ALALKA, LASU ALKASU!

Alternatively (or in addition) we can total the entire statement of
intent

56+36+30+31+40+53+119+25+1+95=486

and convert 486 via Wakanaba, obtaining the word SUZEDI, which can be
used as a mantric word in its own right, or added to the above as the
climactic word of a chanted spell. The methods of potentising such
spells are fairly numerous and are to be found in many contemporary
works on Chaos Magick, sexual occultism and sigil techniques etc. The
first and foremost is simply to repeat the mantra while seated in asana,
over and over again thus inducing an altered state of consciousness
and forgetfulness of the magical intention. A species of glossolalia
will frequently result if the mantra is repeated out loud, and while
this should not be forced or over-indulged, neither should it be
inhibited or suppressed.

Other means of producing incantations and mantras from Magick Squares
(including the column totals and combined values etc.) may readily be
evolved:

a) the Wakan method, where 128 equals ALLAZE

b) the gematria method, finding or constructing a Name with the value
128, such as BAPHOMET or BES-NA-MAUT.

c) The number spelt 'in full', ONE TWO EIGHT gives 46, 34 and 87, giving
us the Names: I-I, ABRA, FALUTLI. (Or since 12 substitutes for 1 in the
A.M.E.N. schema take 89 in place of 46 and use a Name of that value,
thus NU-HAD-IT, ABRA, FALUTLI).

d) a combination of these, for example: AL (Wakan), ABRA (gematria of
number spelt), ZE (Wakan), thus AL-ABRA-ZE.

Further methods are readily devised with some experience and intuition.

INTRODUCING THE WAKANABA KAMEA EXTRAPOLATOR!

The following material is the result of the author's anal retentive
involvement with magick squares, barbarous tongues and other
peculiarities of the Grimoire Tradition. The results are spectacular
in many ways, not least being the ease of pronunciation of the
barbarous language which results from the technique, and the
inexhaustible quantity of "custom derived" words, and indeed entire
incantations, which may be obtained with the minimum of industry by the
magician or sorcerer who is stumped for a really mean and utterly
original incantation for every conceivable occasion.

The Wakanaba Kamea Extrapolater is a refinement on the magick squares
derived from the "Counting Well" technique used in English Qaballa to
combine words and obtain values in the higher ranges of the numerical
series. In simple maths this consists of the formula 'value of word a
times number of letters in word b and vice versa. Thus using the EQ
values of the English Alphabet if the process of counting well is
represented by % we can write:
AZURE % LIDDED = 718, or MIDNIGHT % SUN = 666, ABRA % HADABRA = 418.
etc.

The simple math technique outlined above represents the slower process
of forming a grid, with word a written across the top, word b written
down the side and the value of the letter combinations written in the
appropriate sub-squares of our Magick Square, or if the words be unequal
in length, Magick Rectangle!

The Kamea Extrapolator is designed to turn each sub-square into a
syllable, and applying simple rules these are combined into lines of
an incantation; the same process can then be applied to the value of
each column to provide the second "verse" of the incantation, and the
value of the entire square into a Grand Word or Name which is placed
at the end of each verse.

The method is as follows: every number in a magick square represents
either a letter in the range 1 to 26, or, in the case of higher
numbers, a combination of letters. These letters are then rendered
pronounceable by the simple device of supplying every consonant but L
with a vowel, on the following
pattern:
W K N B receive an A, (thus "WAKANABA")
H V Y M receive an O,
S G J X receive an U,
D R F T receive an I,
Z C Q P receive an E.

Whenever a number equivalent to a vowel occurs ( i.e. 7 = O etc.) it is
given an L, thus O = OL. When the number 2 appears (either by itself,
or as part of a number higher than 26) it becomes LA. (There is a
further optional rule whereby double numbers are halved, i.e. 44
becomes HO not HO-HO; this may not hold good for the column values which
as we will see produce altogether different words, though retaining the
virtue of easy pronunciation.)

The final rule is that zero when it appears in numbers higher than 26 is
treated as if a 7, for fairly obvious reasons. An example of the
entire technique follows, from a square published in an earlier issue
of this Journal. The square was derived from the words BLACK/STONE
counted well together. The use to which this may be put is determined
in this case by the numerical value 600, interpreted as extending the
Law (LAW = 6) into the Three Worlds (three digit number). So having
ascertained the purpose of the rite, we can go on from the talismanic
square to the qaballistic incantation:
25 44 27 34 45 = EL HE LE WA-HO HO-SU
7 26 9 16 27 = OL PE KA JU LO
6 25 8 15 26 = DI EL ZE YU PE
18 37 20 27 38 = FI WO BA LO WAZE
14 33 16 23 34 = NA WA JU IL WA-HO.
70 165 80 115 170 gives us OLOL ALDISU ZE-OL ALALSU ALOLOL.
600 provides us with the Great Word: DIOL-OL.

Rationalising these expressions to personal taste, we would end up with
an incantation as follows:
a) ELHOLO WAHO HOSU, OLPEKA JULO, DI ELZE YUPE! FI-WO BALOWAZE; NAWA
JUILWA-HO! - DIOL-OL!
b) OL-OL ALDISU ZE-OL ALALSU ALOL-OL: DIOL-OL!

Jake Stratton-Kent.

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Applications

Wakanabas or the appropriate Greek, Hebrew or Arabic equivalent methods, some of which can be found in Agrippa or in the Golden Dawn literature, can be used in a number of contexts. 

Golden Dawn	Three Books
Regardie	Agrippa

Chants and invocations for particular rites can be derived.  One of the ways this might be done is to insert short chants of the 'barbarous words found by this method into an otherwise English or Latin set of verses.  Cantrips or short spells for specific purpose might be prepared initially by constructing a wakanaba and a short chant by this method and then used as desired by visualizing the sigil and reciting the chant to reconnect the state of mind and the energy. Obviously they can be as sigils and as the central feature of talisman and artefacts. For longer term and more pronounced effects there should likely be an election linking the cantrip, talisman, or artefact to an appropriate fixed star.  

Intensity and Duration

For intermediate intensity and duration, the planets are used. Planetary aspects and lots would likely give lesser intensity and duration and the zodiac signs and lunar mansions, while constants, need a planet or light in residence to be useful.  When basing the magical tool or artefact on a portent, the strength and duration depend on the brightness and length of the period of effect. For example, a spell or artefact created in 1572 using the power of the nova of that year would continue to 2052 or the 480 years of it's period of effect.  In contrast, Nova Cygni of 1975 gives it's force for only 4 years and would have expired in 1979. A talisman keyed to Jupiter/Saturn would need to be renewed every 20 years. Reports suggest that planetary talisman generally have their greatest effect for from 4-6 weeks although there are exceptions and they may establish a new and stable condition under well chosen circumstances. 

Conjuration

Using wakanabas in connection with conjuration is an area that needs to be explored.  It may be that presenting one's intent or charge in the form of a wakanaba may give the spirit something extra to work with and it may be a clearer and more specific way to get your request across and to set the conditions under which you want the results.               .            

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