Hi both -
Gematria - the art of reading letters by the numbers ascribved to them, is an ancient art. There is Hebrew gematria, Greek gematria, Latin gematria ... English gematria. In my Hermetic days we had three levels of meaning for ever letter of the alphabet as well as numerical values attached to their meanings ... and so it goes on.
Take a look at
http://www.meru.org which offers some intriguing views on the text of Genesis.
John 21:11 reads: "Simon Peter went up, and drew the net to land full of great fishes, an hundred and fifty and three: and for all there were so many, yet was not the net broken."
According to Greek myth Zeus let fly two eagles from opposite ends of the earth, and they flew towards each other and met over the town of Delphi, and this point at which they met was thus determined as the centre of the earth. The point was marked by the Omphalos stone in the temple of Apollo. When Harmonia wove the Veil representing the whole universe, she started with the Omphalos stone at the centre and from there worked outward.
The number 153 has been demonstrated (in
Alexandra magazine) to correspond to a mathematical diagram of the Veil of Harmonia.
If you look at this site
http://asis.com/~stag/153list.html there are 1,717 refernces to the number 153!
The New Age loves it, of course, because of its mystique, but that's not to say there's nothing to it, not by a long way.
But it is a huge study.
Thomas