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[Jim Eshelman]

IMHO so much that is inherent to Qabalastic cosmology (as reflected in Hebrew gematria) is built upon the multiples (and permutations) of the numbers such as 7, 13, and 37...

What does anyone think is the source/ motivation of this preference for these numbers?

LOL - I'm laughing at myself! - I'm glad I came back to read this because I misread it the first time.

I honestly thought your question was what we thought about your motiviation in this preference for these numbers. The answer to that question seemed self-evident to me... it's the constitution of your particular psyche.

One of the tasks of the A.'.A.'. Practicus is to identify a number which explains the whole universe - and these are not expected to be the same number from initiate to initiate.

Now, returning to what I think you really meant by the question... I don't necessarily agree that there is anything fundamental about those numbers in contrast to others, but I do agree that these are extremely prominent in much classical Qabalah. The numbers you mentioned are all primes, and they all deal with ideas of love and unity. Seven also awakens the irrational aspect of the psyche.[/b]

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[Jim Eshelman]

Interestingly (or not), in the set of all primes 13 is the 7th prime. 37 is the 13th prime. (btw 151 is the 37th prime)

Yes, that is interesting. Thanks.

And it can be traced back further with interest: 7 is the 5th prime, 5 is the 4th. (The pattern breaks there, so 5 is the reasonable starting point of the set, I think.)

BTW, 151 is an interesting number to me, though it isn't so obvious in the best known and most conventional Hebrew gematria. A few unusual or lesser known items, plus several items in the Latin Simplex, have made it stand out for me. The most important single entry for the number in Hebrew is surely the phrase IHVH ALHIM IHVH AChD - almost the same as another enormously important similar phrase in Deuteronomy. But it is also Eheieh spelled in full (ALP HH YVD HH), MQVH (The Fountain of Living Waters), QNA (jealous - one of the better known descriptors of IHVH), etc. In Latin, though, it picks up these:

FERRO ATQUE IGNI - With fire and sword
MAGISTER TEMPLI - “Master of the Temple”; title of the 8=3 Grade
MORS JANUA VITÆ - Death is the gate of life
PER VITAM LUCIS - Through the life of the Light.

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[theophiles]

I think that perhaps numbers, gematria, geometry, geography,
measures, and a great deal of other subjects, like music,
were at one time all considered to be 'one' subject.

That is, that they were related by the numbers being used,
the 'sacred' numbers.

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[Jim Eshelman]

Yeppers!! The liberal arts (of which there were 7) of the ancients were composed of two super subjects called the trivium and quadrivium. The trivium dealt largely with language composed of Rhetoric, grammar and dialectic. The quadrivium dealt with numbers and was composed of Arithmetic, Geometry, Astronomy, and Music.

Yes, within the Seven Liberal Arts, the trivium consists of grammar, rhetoric, and logic, and the quadrivium of arithmetic (number as itself), geometry (number in space), music (number in time), and astronomy or cosmology (number in time and space).

What astounds me about the roots of these things is that in a single century and place - Greece in the 5th Century BC - the foundation of Western Civilization and the pattern for the evolution of the Ruach were established. Socrates’ illuminated wisdom, Plato’s love of wisdom, and Aristotle’s matured idealism (and the foundation of science and thought that he gave us) marked the time. Alexander the Great built his empire, bearing Greek learning and values to most of the world then known. Mathematics and especially geometry were truly born. More of this sort of thing can be traced back to the few decades of Greece's Classical Age than to the whole of the rest of Western history.