Supervised by Ms.M
Affiliation: KARASU CHANNEL
Traditions studied: 12+ (Western astrology, Four Pillars of Destiny, Nine Star Ki, tarot, runes, palmistry & physiognomy, name numerology, numerology, feng shui, Vedic astrology / Zi Wei, Onmyodo, spiritual reading, and more)
Personal readings: by request via Contact,
currently booked years out
Read about Expression Number
About this reading: The Expression Number is calculated from the letters of your name converted into numbers, rather than from your birth date. It's said to reveal how you express yourself to the outside world — the way your innate talents and personality come through. Unlike Seimei Handan (which reads kanji stroke counts), this number is built on the letters, or sounds, of a name.
The Expression Number comes from a name because, in numerology, a name is treated as the signal you send out to the world. On top of the fixed foundation of your birth date (the Life Path Number), your name — a symbol given to you after birth and used continuously within society — is thought to shape how your talents tend to come across outwardly. As we see it here, the Expression Number reads less like your "true self" and more like a social mirror, showing how you come across and how others understand you.
Lore column: The Land of Kotodama: Why Sounds Were Thought to Hold Power
A short read on the legends and strange tales around this reading, with this site's own view.
Behind a reading that draws a number from the sound of a name, an older belief shows through: that words themselves hold power. In Japan this is called kotodama, the spirit of words. In the eighth-century poetry anthology Man'yoshu, the poet Yamanoue no Okura, praying for the safe voyage of an envoy to Tang China, called Japan "the land where the spirit of words brings blessings." The word kotodama is said to appear in only about three poems in the Man'yoshu, and some scholars point out that it is sung of less as a power of words alone than as a power that works through a relationship with the gods.
In the Edo period, scholars of the National Learning movement are said to have debated the idea that each sound of the Japanese syllabary carried its own meaning and spiritual quality. This mystification of sound points in a strangely similar direction to Western numerology, which reads a name by giving a number to each letter of the alphabet.
Everyday taboo words, such as avoiding "cut" or "part" at a wedding and never saying "fall" in front of someone facing an entrance exam, are said to be kotodama belief woven into daily life.
As we see it here, faith in kotodama grew from a fear that what is spoken might come true, and from the hope that is its flip side. This is our own conjecture, but the people who avoided ill-omened words probably wanted to believe that by guarding their speech they could protect the people and lives they cared about. Turning the sound of your own name into a number and studying it seems an extension of the same prayer: the wish to know what lies within the sound you are called by every day.
Add this to your favorites to find it again anytime from your My Page.