Divinity Atlas

Sacred Correspondences
Numerology Positions

Personality

Name Number

Citation Formats

General Reference

APA Style

BibTeX

Origin 1908 to 1965

The consonants of the birth name, summed and reduced, read as the impression a person makes before anyone knows them. It is the outward complement to the Soul Urge, and it inherits the same unsettled question about the letter Y from the opposite side: every rule that hands Y to the vowels takes it away from the consonants, so a name with a Y shifts both numbers at once. Vowels plus consonants always sum to the Expression, which makes the three name numbers a closed set rather than three independent readings.

Facts
Origins
Origin Period
1908 to 1965 1Tradition: Modern name numerology (Mrs. L. Dow Balliett and her successors)
Origin Period
The numerological chart and its positions were built in the United States between 1908 and the 1960s. Balliett's The Philosophy of Numbers of 1908 supplied the letter-value chart and the first positions; the pinnacles, challenges, cycles and personal-year figures were added by later authors. No position here is attested before the twentieth century. 1
Attributed Author / Compiler
Mrs. L. Dow Balliett and her successors. The atlas's own sources for these thirty-two positions name four different authors, Balliett in 1908, Cheiro in 1926, Florence Campbell in 1931 and Juno Jordan in 1965, for a scheme presented to readers as one system with one pedigree. The layering is the honest fact about them. 1Tradition: Modern name numerology (Mrs. L. Dow Balliett and her successors)
Attributions
Calculation
Sum the values of the consonants in the full birth name, reduced 1
Identity
Number Category
Name Number 1
Learn More
The Personality Number

The Personality number is calculated from the consonants of the full birth name, converted by the Pythagorean chart and reduced, and it is the counterpart of the Soul Urge taken from the vowels. Where the vowels are held to sound the inner life, the consonants are the visible frame of the name, so the number they yield is read as the outer self, the persona, the impression a person makes and the part of the character shown to the world, the face rather than the heart behind it.

The three name-based numbers together, Expression from all the letters, Soul Urge from the vowels, Personality from the consonants, form the core of the name reading, with the Life Path from the birth date completing the set. All of it depends on the exact Latin spelling of the name and belongs to the American numerology assembled around 1900 by Balliett and systematised by Jordan, the system called Pythagorean without warrant from antiquity.

The Name of Record, and Whose Record It Is

The Personality number sums the consonants of the full birth name, and the instruction to use the full birth name is doing more work than it appears to. It assumes there is one, that it is recoverable, and that it is the name that matters.

For a large number of people at least one of those fails. Adoption may replace the recorded name entirely, sometimes without the later name-holder having access to the earlier one. Registration practice varies: in some jurisdictions a middle name is recorded and in others it is not, so two people given identical names by their parents can have different documents. Names are misspelled by registrars and the misspelling becomes the record. Refugee and displacement documentation frequently reconstructs a name from memory.

Order matters too. The system was built for a naming convention in which a personal name precedes a family name, and it treats the first name as first in several positions. In the many cultures where the family name comes first, or where a patronymic sits between, applying the rule requires a decision that the rule does not describe.

Practitioners resolve all of this case by case, usually by asking the client, which puts the client in the position of choosing an input before the calculation runs. That is worth knowing when the resulting figure is presented as something given rather than chosen. Within the tradition the Personality is the least interior of the name positions, which makes the dependence on a document less awkward here than it is for the Soul Urge.

Correspondences & Relations

Numbers

As a Personality the one is read as the impression of self-sufficiency: someone who appears to have decided already. The consonants describe what is seen, not what is felt, so this can belong to a person who is privately unsure. What the tradition claims is that others will not perceive the uncertainty, and will treat the person as more formidable than they experience themselves to be.

As a Personality the eleven presents as unusual in a way people notice before they can name it, an impression of intensity or transparency rather than of any specific trait. Held unreduced it is read as a surface that carries charge. Reduced to a two, the same consonants would describe an ordinary approachability, and the two readings are not close to each other.

As a Personality the two comes across as approachable and unthreatening, someone easy to confide in. Because this position describes only the outer surface, the reading says nothing about how accommodating the person actually is. The literature notes that a two Personality over a harder Soul Urge is frequently underestimated, and that this is sometimes deliberate.

As a Personality the twenty-two gives an impression of unusual capability, of someone whose scale exceeds their situation. The tradition treats this as a heavy surface to carry, since it raises expectations before any work has been shown. Where the reader reduces it to a four, the impression becomes simple dependability, which is a considerably lighter thing to be met with.

As a Personality the three reads as attractive and animated, a first impression made quickly and favourably. The tradition treats this as the most socially useful Personality number and the least informative one, since a bright surface tells an observer very little. Its cost is being taken as lighter than one is, which becomes a practical problem in serious rooms.

As a Personality the thirty-three presents as compassionate to a degree that strangers register immediately, which draws people in need toward it. Given the unsettled standing of the number, many readers will treat these same consonants as a six and describe an ordinary warmth instead. The difference between the two readings is one of intensity rather than of kind.

As a Personality the four presents as solid, plain and reliable, a person who looks like they will do what they said. The impression is of substance rather than charm. The literature reads its drawback as being seen as unimaginative, since the same qualities that make a four trusted with responsibility make others slow to consider them for anything unproven.

As a Personality the five reads as vivid and unpredictable, someone interesting on first meeting and hard to place afterwards. The consonant number describes the impression only, so this can belong to a settled and cautious person. The tradition notes that a five surface attracts attention easily and holds it inconsistently, which suits some lives and complicates others.

As a Personality the six presents as warm and responsible, the person others approach with a problem. It is the most immediately reassuring of the surfaces. Its cost is being cast in that role before consenting to it: the impression recruits, and the tradition reads the overburdened six as someone who was volunteered by their own appearance.

As a Personality the seven reads as reserved, watchful, and slightly apart. Others tend to find it dignified or find it cold, and rarely find it neutral. The literature is careful that this describes reception rather than character: a seven Personality over a warm Soul Urge belongs to a person who is repeatedly assumed to be aloof and is not.

As a Personality the eight presents as capable and consequential, someone who looks like they have authority whether or not they hold any. The impression opens doors and invites challenge in equal measure. The tradition reads its risk as being met with resistance before saying anything, because a surface that suggests power is answered as power.

As a Personality the nine reads as broad, gracious and somewhat impersonal, a manner that includes everyone and singles out no one. It gives the impression of a person with a wider frame of reference than the room. Its noted drawback is a certain distance: warmth distributed evenly can be experienced by any individual as warmth withheld.

Cross-Tradition Connections

Disciplines That Use This

The chart positions a numerological reading is built from, as distinct from the numbers themselves.

Sources
1. Numerology: Or, What Pythagoras Wrought
Underwood Dudley, Mathematical Association of America (Spectrum series), 1997the chapter on Mrs. L. Dow BalliettView the Source
The Philosophy of Numbers: Their Tones and Colors
L. Dow Balliett, L. N. Fowler, 1908The consonants of the name
Quote, The consonants of the name
The consonants are summed separately from the vowels and read as the outward impression.

Take a Related Quiz

Comments (0)
No comments yet. Be the first to share a thought.
Reader Challenges (0 open reader challenges)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.

View At A Past Year

Choose a year to see this entry's facts and connections as the atlas records them at that moment: what it held then, what it held instead, and what it had not yet adopted. Choose Present for the current record.