Torah Codes Tutorial
In this tutorial, we explain what Torah codes are and what they are not. We begin with some basic definitions, the first being for Equidistant Letter Sequence, or ELS for short.
Equidistant Letter Sequences (ELS)
An ELS is a sequence of letters of the text formed by starting with the letter of the first position of the ELS and then skipping the same number of text letters between successive letters of the ELS. The number of letters skipped between successive letters of the ELS is called the skip of the ELS.
To illustrate this, consider the following sentence.
This is the form we use for finding codes and I added letters precisely placed to form a longer example.
Put all letters to upper case, take away the spaces and punction
THISISTHEFORMWEUSEFORFINDINGCODESANDIADDEDLETTERSPRECISELYPLACEDTOFORMALONGEREXAMPLE
Now, start from the F of F ORM, count 10 letters to the O of FOR, count 10 letters to the O of CODES, and count 10 letters to the second D of ADDED to find the skip 10 ELS FOOD
THISISTHEFORMWEUSEFORFINDINGCODESANDIADDEDLETTERSPRECISELYPLACEDTOFORMALONGEREXAMPLE
The Code Cylinder
Next we spiral this string of characters around a cylinder of given size. This cylinder is called the code cylinder.
For our example sentence, we choose a cylinder size of 10 characters. We display the cylinder by cutting the cylinder vertically, opening it up and forming a flat sheet from it. We can then display the result as a table.
ORMWEUSEFO
RFINDINGCO
DESANDIADD
EDLETTERSP
RECISELYPL
ACEDTOFORM
ALONGEREXA
MPLEAAAAAA
In this table look at the characters vertically instead of horizontally and see if you can see some additional ELSs. There are ELSs of the key words: order and the name Gary occurring vertically.
RMWEUSEFO AAAAAA ORMWEUSEFO
FINDINGCO AAAAAA RFINDINCO
ESANDIADD AAAAAA DESANDIDD
DLETTERSP AAAAAA EDLETTESP
ECISELYPL AAAAAA RECISELPL
ACEDTOFORM AAAAAA ACEDTOFORM
ALONGEREXA AAAAAA ALONGEREXA
MPLEAAAAAA AAAAAA MPLEAAAAAA
ELSs do not constitute a Torah code and a table containing these three ELSs does not qualify as a code table.
ELS Geometry
- An ELS of skip 2 will appear in a horizontal arrangement, every other letter.
- An ELS of skip 40 on a cylinder of 40 columns will appear vertically.
- An ELS of skip 40 on a cylinder of 20 columns will appear vertically, every other row.
- An ELS of skip 41 on a cylinder of 40 columns will appear diagonally, successive letters of the ELS appearing one row down and one column over.
Website content by: Professor Robert M. Haralick