There are moments in life that stand out with such a ring of truth that someone said or something we see that sets off that sense of yes - that's how it is. From that point on, our lives are changed. We live by a new paradigm. This happened for me sometime around 1972. I was visiting a community in Scotland and saw a film showing the effect of sound vibration on dust pollen scattered on a drum skin. The pollen was scattered randomly over the surface of the skin but once the single sound began, the skin began to vibrate and the pollen began to pull together in the most extraordinary organic-like forms such a ferns with lacy tendrils. Several years ago I saw this phenomenon again on film, this time showing the effects of first one sound, then a second one. The first sound produced a static pattern but the second sound created another pattern which interacted with the first to produce a motion much like that of the heart pumping blood. The study of the effects of sound on matter goes by the name of Cymatics. We are at the threshold of rediscovering the ancient wisdom of vibrations, of sound and the creative power of the Word. The creative power of sound, and thus its translation into numerology, is very strong in the Middle East, which was at least one of the major locations of our earliest civilizations. The Hebrew writings are beginning to reveal secrets of number and sound placed within sacred documents, which give startling information about our universe. As we look back through history we find two trends: 1) a steady progression from cave dweller to our present technological civilization, and 2) advances and declines of many civilizations. In recent times we have been finding that some civilizations, now extinct, had an understanding of a science of universal laws that exceeds what we know today. A few scientists and scholars poking around in that dust have made some extraordinary findings. Those among us who are arrogant enough to believe that we are at the pinnacle of civilization are humbled. How does all of this relate to Chaldean numerology? We know that the land of Chaldea was situated at the mouth of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers near the Persian Gulf, the present location of southern Iraq and Kuwait. This was the location where thousands of years earlier Enki, the Sumerian god-scientist, built his city, Eridu. The Chaldean civilization was known for its knowledge of the stars and magic. It would stand to reason that one of the major mystery schools of ancient times would be in Chaldea and this school would have much information on vibration, a science which I am convinced was at the heart of much of the scientific knowledge of the ancients. To distinguish one vibration from another, names and numbers are assigned. In the visual area, these differences are given names such as red, orange, yellow, green and so forth. Is it possible the ancients were also able to discriminate between vibrations of behavior and character leading to necessary choices the individual would need to make in order to develop his or her spiritual self? The study of numerology would seem to indicate that this is so. It has only been within the last one thousand years that science and spirit were separated into two unrelated categories. Before then, science and spirit were interrelated - matter imbued with spirit. The ancients did not arbitrarily separate spirit from science, so planets, stars, numbers, minerals and vegetation not only were outer things, but had inner souls. Pure material science was probably beyond the comprehension of the ancient scientist-priest whose interest was not limited to the outer, material world, but extended to evolving humanity. The number vibration, by the ancient definition, would have the "soul" of a particular behavioral pattern in it. The sounds in our spoken language resonate at different vibrational frequencies which are associated with the numbers. Therefore, our name gives us the signature of who we are, while the birthdate indicates the path of evolutionary growth we have chosen, on a soul level, to take. The numerologist, through study and meditation, attunes to the number patterns and by combining the various patterns, develops an understanding of who a person is through their name, what properties they have brought with them to express, and how they can assure evolutionary success by following the indications of their life path numbers. Although this science surely precedes recorded history, Pythagoras is considered the father of numerology. During the early years of the fifth century BC he gathered information from the ancient mystery schools of the known world, including those of Chaldea. In 529 BC he founded a school for a religious brotherhood in Crotona which studied vibrations in music, mathematics, philosophy, architecture, astronomy and physics. Among his studies was numerology, gleaned from Chaldean teachings. However, Pythagoras, like so many brilliant people through the ages, was not popular with the authorities. His school was burned and he was killed. One of his disciples, attempting to reconstruct his teachings in numerology without a full comprehension of the science which backed it, produced the system we currently know as Pythagorean numerology. At the time Pythagoras developed numerology, the sequence of letters in the alphabet must have indeed resonated to the number sequence. Therefore, it worked! Since then, however, our modern alphabet has had new letters placed without relationship to sound-number vibration, so a numerology based on letter sequence to number sequence is no longer accurate. Our recent work with Chaldean numerology attempts to restore the original relationships of sound to number. With research in sound presently expanding in this country and abroad, some of these relationships hopefully will be illuminated and refined so that numerology can once again be considered a true science of behavior and evolution. In the meantime, Chaldean numerology as we presently use it, offers much valuable information which helps to guide the sincere seeker into the meaning of life, particularly his or her own life.   Leeya Thompson, has a Masters Degree in Transpersonal Psychology, and has been as student of numerology for almost 40 years. For information about her classes and readings, please e-mail her: Leeya@pacific.net or call The Tenacity Press, the publisher of her book, The Rediscovery of Chaldean Numerology, at 800-738-6721.