How to calculate gematria

The six steps

1. Choose and name the cipher. Decide which letter-value table you are using — English Ordinal (A = 1 … Z = 26), a Hebrew method such as Mispar Hechrachi, Greek isopsephy, or another documented cipher — and write its name next to your result. A gematria value without its cipher is ambiguous.
2. Prepare the text. Keep only letters. Drop spaces, punctuation and digits; ignore capitals (except in the Francis Bacon cipher); strip Hebrew vowel points and Greek accents. Decide on spelling and stick to it, since “Iesus” and “Jesus” give different values in some ciphers.
3. Look up each letter. Write the word with a space under each letter and, from your cipher’s table, write each letter’s value beneath it. For English Ordinal count from the anchors E 5, J 10, O 15, T 20, Z 26; for Hebrew remember the three tiers 1–9, 10–90, 100–400.
4. Add the values. Sum the numbers to get the word’s total. For a phrase, total each word first, then add the word totals; keeping the subtotals lets you check your work.
5. Reduce if your tradition does. Optionally add the digits of the total repeatedly until a single digit remains (74 → 7 + 4 = 11 → 1 + 1 = 2). Numerology always does this; classical gematria usually does not. Record both the full total and the reduction if in doubt.
6. Check the result. Recount the letters, re-add the column, and confirm with the calculator, which shows the same letter-by-letter layout. If a source gives a different value, compare tables before assuming an error — most discrepancies are a different cipher under the same name.

Worked example: English

Cipher: English Ordinal (A = 1 … Z = 26). Word: gematria.

Counting from anchors keeps this quick: G is two after E (7), M is three after J (13), R is two before T (18). For a phrase — say the word — do each word separately (the = 33, word = 60) and add (93); the subtotals make an error easy to find.

Worked example: Hebrew

Cipher: Mispar Hechrachi, the standard values^{[1] Source: Gematria}. Word: שלום (shalom, peace). Hebrew reads right to left, so the first letter is the rightmost.

Two things to watch. First, the final letter: ם is 40 here, 600 in Gadol — the single most common source of disagreement between Hebrew calculators. Second, if your text is pointed (has vowel dots), ignore the dots entirely; they are not letters.

Worked example: Greek

Cipher: Greek isopsephy, the Milesian numerals^{[2] Source: Greek numerals}. Word: λόγος (logos, word). Accents are ignored; the final sigma ς is 200 like σ.

Reducing a total

To reduce, add the digits of the total; if the result has more than one digit, repeat. 74 → 7 + 4 = 11 → 1 + 1 = 2. 376 → 3 + 7 + 6 = 16 → 7. The result is the number’s digit root, which is also the remainder when dividing by 9 (with 9 in place of 0). Numerology stops at 11, 22 or 33 as “master numbers”; gematria calculators, including this one, reduce all the way. Whether to reduce at all depends on what you are doing: classical Hebrew gematria compares full totals (318, 358, 611), numerology wants a single digit, and the online English community quotes both.

Common mistakes

• Using a table without naming it. The value is meaningless without the cipher. Write it down.
• Mixing two tables. Gematrix’s “English Gematria” is A = 6, not A = 1^{[3] Source: Gematria calculator}; its “Jewish Gematria” is Latin, not Hebrew. Gematrinator’s “Full Reduction” has K = 2, but some numerology charts keep K = 11^{[4] Source: Gematrinator calculator}. Check the letter values.
• Counting a Hebrew final letter the wrong way for your method. Base value in Hechrachi, Siduri and Katan; 500–900 in Gadol only.
• Counting the Greek pair στ as stigma (6). It is sigma + tau, 500.
• Letting spelling drift. Iesus/Jesus, Yeshua/Jeshua, with or without a final letter — decide once and say which.
• Miscounting from the anchors. N is 14, not 13; W is 23, not 22. Recount any letter you had to think about.
• Reading a match as proof. Common totals are shared by hundreds of words. Finishing the arithmetic is the start of the work, not the end — see is gematria accurate?.

Doing it faster

Once you can do it by hand, let the calculator do it. Type or paste a phrase and every cipher updates as you type; select a row and the breakdown panel lays out exactly the letter-and-value column you would write on paper, with word subtotals for phrases. Print the chart if you want the tables beside you offline. The point of learning the hand method is not speed; it is that afterwards no number on any site — including this one — is a mystery to you.