Lesson One
Welcome to Arithmancy 101! This will be more of an introductory course into Arithmancy so you have a working knowledge of what Arithmancy is and how it works. For Lesson One, we will simply go over the history of Arithmancy and how it came to be. So sit back, relax, and let's have a bit of a history lesson.
Arithmancy
What is Arithmancy? Arithmancy is a very precise kind of magic that deals with numbers. It is used to predict the future through multiple different ways including assigning numbers to letters and calculating people's numbers through the letters in their names. In a way, you could say that Arithmancy deals with numbers and letters because in many cases letters are involved. Arithmancy is a form of Divination since they both involve predicting the future, however, Arithmancy is a more precise way to do so in many people's eyes since there seems to be a solid science to it. For people who dislike Divination, they may find themselves enjoying Arithmancy for that reason, it seems more believable like there's good reasoning behind their findings. Most forms of Divination do not involve studying out of books, but Arithmancy does. There are set rules and it's a very measurable scientific branch of Divination.
History
Arithmancy was first used by the Ancient Greeks. We know this because we have found historical evidence of Arithmancy being used. If that is the case, then how did they use it? Why would they even bother using it? Well, for a number of reasons. There were a lot of battles going on at that time and, like every human being, they wanted to know what the result of these battles would be before they happened. How did they do this? Arithmancy of course. Like nowadays Arithmancy, they would assign numbers to the letters in each combatants name to figure out what the outcome of the battle would be. Through this first use of Arithmancy, it began to spread.
The next time we see Arithmancy come around is in the ninth century when, in Arabia, the Chaldeans used it. The Chaldeans are where our modern number system came from. The Chaldeans were renowned as astronomers and astrologers in 800 BC. They used Arithmancy by dividing their alphabet into three different parts, each part formed out of seven numbers, which they then assigned to each of the planets, of which seven were known at the time. Today, we still use this system.
Pythagoras
However, we wouldn't have Arithmancy at all without Pythagoras who we attribute with first creating mathematics and numbers. Pythagoras didn't represent numbers as we represent them today with a symbol. Instead, he decided to show them visually through pebbles that were called psiphi. This way, people were better able to visualize the concept and this opened the gateway to modern Geometry. Eventually, a number system was devised but not until around the 6th century when the symbol for zero was created by an Indian mathematician named Brahmagupta.
Nowadays, we use these numeral systems and symbols to learn Arithmancy to predict the future and people's personalities. In the next lesson, we will discuss exactly how we do so.