Gematria is a traditional mystical system where alphabetical letters are assigned numerical values, allowing practitioners to find hidden connections between words that happen to add up to the exact same number.

A closer look

Gematria is a traditional mystical system where alphabetical letters are assigned numerical values, allowing practitioners to find hidden connections between words that happen to add up to the exact same number. Kabbalists used this extensively to decode secret messages supposedly hidden by God within the text of the Hebrew Bible, believing that mathematical equivalence implied a deep spiritual connection. This means if the word for snake and the word for messiah have the same numerical value, a mystic will spend years writing essays about how they are cosmically intertwined. In practical terms, it is the ancient theological equivalent of a conspiracy theorist connecting red strings on a corkboard because two unrelated words both happen to have seven letters