Physical plane

Meaning

The physical plane is one of the four planes of expression, the groups into which numerology sorts the letters of the birth name. It holds four letters only: D, E, M and W. Their values are 4 and 5, the numbers of structure and of movement.

The tradition links this plane to the body, the senses and practical action. Its number is read as the way a person deals with the tangible world: working with the hands, handling objects and places, getting things done. Where the mental plane plans and the emotional plane feels, the physical plane acts.

Two things are read here. The count of letters shows how much of the name leans on this channel. The number shows its style, read with the usual meaning of each number:

• A 4 here is read as method in practical matters: steady work, routines, things built to last.
• A 5 is read as a hands-on love of variety: movement, travel, learning by trying.
• A 1 is read as practical initiative, the person who starts the job.
• A 9 is read as practical effort with a wide aim, work that serves more than oneself.

A name with few letters on this plane is not read as clumsy or idle. Numerology reads it as a channel used less by habit, one that grows with simple practice: a craft, a sport, a routine.

In practice

Take a made-up person, Bernard Olivier Martin. His name has 20 letters. Four of them fall on the physical plane: the E and the D of Bernard, the E of Olivier, the M of Martin.

Ulune adds them in one total: 5 + 4 + 5 + 4 = 18 → 9. His physical plane is a 9.

Four letters out of twenty is a modest share. Numerology would read his practical side as present but not dominant. His name leans much more on the emotional plane, with ten letters. The 9 colours that practical side: action that tends to aim at others, such as helping, mending or serving a cause.

The reading also compares the planes. Bernard’s mental plane gives 6 with five letters, and his intuitive plane 4 with one letter. A reader might say his feelings lead, and his hands follow in service of them.

Across traditions

• Jung’s sensation. C. G. Jung’s Psychologische Typen (1921) names sensation as one of four functions: perceiving the world through the senses, as it is. It is the closest of the four to the physical plane.
• Earth. Liz Greene’s Relating (1977) pairs Jung’s sensation type with the element earth. Through her pairing, the physical plane meets the earth signs’ practical, concrete temperament. This is a resemblance, not a rule of numerology.

Origin and history

The planes of expression appear in twentieth-century Western numerology. Florence Campbell’s Your Days Are Numbered (1931) already speaks of them. Hans Decoz, whose rules Ulune follows, gives the letter groups Ulune uses, with D, E, M and W on the physical plane. The values of the letters are the Pythagorean ones.

How Ulune calculates it

• Ulune takes the full name at birth and finds every D, E, M and W in it. Accents are dropped first, so É counts as E.
• D and M are worth 4, E and W 5. W is always counted here, as it is never a vowel in Ulune.
• All of these letters are added in one total for the whole name, not name by name.
• The total is reduced by adding its digits until one is left. 11, 22 and 33 are kept: five letters such as D, E, M, E, D give 22, which stays 22.
• A total such as 14 or 13 is not marked as a karmic debt here: debts belong to core numbers only.
• A name with no D, E, M or W has no physical number. Ulune shows none, never a 0.

Correspondences