An honest history
The idea is ancient. The system is modern. Numerology is usually sold as 2,500 years old, and part of that is true: people have thought about the meaning of numbers since at least the time of Pythagoras. But the method this site uses, with its letter values, Life Paths, and master numbers, was put together in the early 1900s.
The short version
- Old: the belief that numbers describe the world, which goes back to Pythagoras and his followers in ancient Greece.
- Modern: the system itself. Adding up a birth date, giving each English letter a number, and keeping 11 and 22 as master numbers all come from American writers in the early 1900s.
- Newer still: the Arrows on the grid, which came from Phillips's teacher in the 20th century.
A timeline
- About 570 BC
Pythagoras is born on the Greek island of Samos.
His exact dates are not known. Historians usually give a range of about 570 to 490 BC.
- About 530 BC
He settles in Croton, in southern Italy, and gathers a community of followers.
Sources differ on the year; some give about 518 BC. The group mixed philosophy, religion, and politics, and was later driven out of the city.
- The next 150 years
Nothing written by Pythagoras survives, and most ancient sources say he wrote nothing.
His teaching passed on by word of mouth. Later Pythagoreans, such as Philolaus, wrote books that survive only in fragments.
- About 350 BC
Aristotle describes "the so-called Pythagoreans" as people who thought numbers were the basic stuff of the world.
This is the idea later summed up as "all is number." It is a description of the group, written about 150 years after Pythagoras died.
- About AD 300
Iamblichus writes On the Pythagorean Life, one of the main ancient accounts.
It was written roughly 800 years after Pythagoras lived, rarely names its sources, and mixes history with legend.
- 1905 to 1908
In the United States, L. Dow Balliett publishes books that lay out a system of numbers for names and birth dates.
Her system uses the English alphabet and keeps 11 and 22 as master numbers. Much of modern numerology starts here.
- 1910s
Julia Seton, a friend of Balliett, teaches and popularizes the system in New York.
She is often said to have coined the word "numerology." That claim is repeated widely but is hard to pin to a date.
- 1926
Cheiro publishes his Book of Numbers in London.
It follows a different letter table, the Chaldean one. This site keeps that tradition separate.
- 1930s
Florence Campbell (1931) and Juno Jordan (1936) publish popular guides. Jordan also runs a numerology study group in California for about 25 years.
Their books spread the Balliett system to a wide audience.
- 1954
In Australia, David A. Phillips meets his teacher, Hettie Templeton.
Phillips says Templeton taught him the Arrows, the named lines on the grid. She had learned of them in the early 1900s, then changed and expanded them.
- 1980
Phillips publishes the book that became The Complete Book of Numerology, this site's main source for the grid, the rows, and the Arrows.
It was later revised and reissued by Hay House in 2005.
Where our own source goes too far
David A. Phillips is this site's main guide to the grid, and his book is careful and useful. On history, though, it says more than the evidence supports. Phillips writes that Pythagoras was born in 608 BC and founded a "university" at Croton whose second stage taught the "Science of Numbers, more commonly known today as numerology."
Historians give Pythagoras a later birth, around 570 BC. More importantly, most of what we know about him was written 700 to 800 years after he died, by writers who mixed history with legend. Nothing ties him to adding up birth dates. And the letter table numerology uses, A is 1, B is 2, and so on, is built on the modern English alphabet, which did not exist in his time.
Phillips is honest about one part himself. Of the Arrows, he writes: "It is uncertain whether Pythagoras ever used this pertinent aspect of numerology." He learned them from his teacher.
Why this matters to you
A method does not need to be ancient to be worth using. It does need to be described truthfully. Numbers World uses this system the way you might use a well-made set of questions: as a mirror for noticing what you already carry, not as old secret knowledge, and not as a forecast.
If a reading here ever feels uncannily accurate, there are good reasons for that which have nothing to do with the numbers being magic. Read why it can feel true →
Sources
- David A. Phillips, The Complete Book of Numerology, Angus & Robertson, 1980; Hay House edition, 2005. Chapter 1 (Pythagoras, Templeton) and Chapter 6 (the Arrows).
- Dictionary of Scientific Biography, "Pythagoras of Samos," via the MacTutor History of Mathematics archive, University of St Andrews.
- Iamblichus, On the Pythagorean Life, translated with notes by Gillian Clark, Liverpool University Press (Translated Texts for Historians).
- Catherine Yronwode, "Numerology Bibliography," for the publication dates of Balliett, Seton, Cheiro, Campbell, and Jordan.
Last checked October 2026. If you find an error, the methodology page explains how we correct things.