How the World Is Made_ The Story of Creation According to -- John Michell; Allan Brown -- Mar 01, 2012 -- Thames & Hudson -- 9780500290378 -- c7d244156887c253bcd3a51cf203cb95 -- Anna’s Archive

John Michell
HOW THE WORLD IS MADE

.THE STORY OF CREATION ACCORDING [0
SACRED GEOMETRY
with Allan Brown
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Thames « Hudson
THE STORY OF CREATION ACCORDING TO
SACRED GEOMETRY
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John Michell

THE STORY OF CREATION ACCORDING TO
SACRED GEOMETRY
with Allan Brown
%~Y. Thames & Hudson

First published in the United Kingdom in 2009 by
Thames & Hudson Ltd, 181A High Holborn,
London WC1V 7QX
Copyright © 2009 John Michell and Allan Brown
First paperback edition 2012
All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in

any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording
or any other information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in
writing from the publisher.
Any copy of this book issued by the publisher as a paperback is sold subject to the
condition that it shall not by way of trade or otherwise be lent, resold, hired out or
otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding
or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition
including these words being imposed on a subsequent purchaser.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978-0-500-29037-8
Printed and bound in China by Toppan Leefung
To find out about all our publications, please visit www.thamesandhudson.com.

There you can subscribe to our e-newsletter, browse or download our current
catalogue, and buy any titles that are in print.
Dedication
And Acknowledgements
Great minds and noble spirits have gone before us in the field of geometry.
Still living is one whose influence in the modern renaissance of philosophical
geometry in the ancient tradition is primary. He is our Pythagoras, a revealer of
neglected truths and a teacher who has inspired and transformed generations of
students from all parts of the world. His pupils and followers include practically
everyone listed below. This book is dedicated to our master geometer:
KET CRITCHLOW
With hearty thanks to the following for the various ways they have all assisted
with this work:
Richard Adams, Sam Adams, Alex Brown, Christopher Gibbs, Michael

Glickman, Jason Godwin, Merrily Harpur, Frances Howard-Gordon, John
James, Robert Lawlor, Roland Marti (‘amicable’ paper cutting on page 236),
John Martineau, Joan Moore, Alex Munslow, John Neal, Scott Olsen, Christine
Rhone, Michael Schneider, Malcolm Stewart, Rosemary Taylor, and Stephen
Wilmoth.
Contents
Publisher’s Preface XI
The Hand and the Computer

A Note on the Illustrations Xill
Part |
THE GEOMETER’S CREATION
1. How the World Began
And Why, and Why Worry?
¢ The Geometer’s Creator
* Creative Geometry: Introducing the Ratios
¢ Genesis and the Great Geometer
¢ The Number of the Universe
2. The Number 5040

Key to the World Plan
¢ Earth, Moon, and the Circle Squared
3. The Circle, the Square

And the Meaning of Pi
* TU in Practice
¢ Tt in the Pyramid
¢ Tt Equals 3? An Antiquarian Fantasy
¢ The mt Patterns
* Cosmological Revelations in Crop Circles
¢ The Revelation at Crooked Soley
4, Initiation
And the Vision of Heavenly Order 62
¢ An Initiate’s Vision: St John and the Heavenly Jerusalem 64
¢ Heaven on Earth: The Pattern of the Sanctuary 69
* The Numbers of the Holy City and Their Meanings 1
¢ 3168, the Number of Our Lord Jesus Christ 7S
¢ 1080, the Lunar Number, the Solar 666, and Their Sum, 1746 74
° 864, the Foundation Number 8|
Part 2
THE PHYSICAL CREATION
5. The Dodecad
A Summary of the Numbers One to Twelve 86
6. The One and Only

Symbol of the Universe 87
7. The Geometry of Two

Duality and the World of Paradox 88
8. The Geometry of Three

The Vesica Piscis and Material Creation 90
¢ The Vesica Piscis and the Marriage Made in Heaven 90
¢ The Net with 153 Fishes, a Geometer’s Parable 97
¢ The Triangles That Fill Up Space |O2
¢ Pythagorean Triangles lO5
* The Second Pythagorean Triangle 5—12—13 |O6
9. Four and the Square
Reason, Stability, Order |O9
¢ The Rational Square and the Root-2 Proportion |O9
* Doubling the Area of a Square: An Exercise in Recollection I10
10. Six and the Hexagon

The Perfect Number II9
11. Eight and the Octagon

For Peace and Justice Ves:
12. The Majestic Twelve

The Number of Universal Order and Harmony I50
* Twelve Tribes and the Revelation of the Heavenly Order SZ
Farto
THE CREATION OF LIFE
13. Five and Ten
Numbers of Life and Growth |66
¢ Life and the Pentagon |66
* Five and the Golden Section 168
¢ Humanity and the Pentagram [78
* Pentagonal Dances |82
¢ Sex and the Pentagram: Meeting, Mating, and Breeding |86
¢ Pentagonal Marriages with Other Shapes 202
° Five and Seven 208
Part4
THE WORLD SOUL
14. The Holy Seven
Symbol of the World Soul 2|2
¢ Seven and the Mysteries Ae
¢ Seven, Nine, and the Septenary Number 216
* Twelve and Seven: The Supreme Numerical Marriage 219
15. Geometry and Love

Approaching the Climax 232
fae
ATLANTIS
16. A Geometer’s Nightmare
Plato's Pentagonal Allegory 240)
¢ Atlantis: The Historical Record 240
¢ Atlantis: Its Foundation and Growth JAS:
¢ Squaring the Circle, Atlantis Style 24/7
¢ Atlantis: The Pentagonal Edifice 25|
¢ Atlantis: The Basic Geometry py!
¢ Atlantis and the Golden Section 258
¢ The Meaning of Atlantis 260
About the Author 264

Index 269
Publisher's Preface
You have in your hands the final chapter in John Michell’s written life. It is
not entirely surprising—given his passionate interest in sacred proportion—
that John would leave this world just as his final work was entering it. This
inverse relationship is only deepened by the ideas put forth in the book—that
everything is woven together in an all-inclusive world image—that “pattern
in the heavens,” as Socrates called it, “which anyone can find and establish
within themselves.”
John understood that in order to live happily—and anyone who knew him
can attest that he did—people must incorporate sacred proportion into their
lives. A champion of traditional units of measure, such as feet and pounds,
which are based on celestial proportions, he knew that when we use these cos-
mic systems we help create harmony in society and the world as a whole.
John’s rejection of the church of progress and its systems was not simply
because “old is always better” but because he saw that the current alienation
of modern humanity, the source of so much unhappiness, is aided and abetted
by our abandonment of proportion. He knew that our loss of connection with
the sacred had resulted in our inability to construct meaningful lives. As he
said in Confessions of a Radical Traditionalist: “You do not have to be a New
Ager to conclude that the only world order in which human nature can hap-
pily exist is the sacred order, the cosmological expression of ideal harmony and
proportion which constituted the esoteric base behind every ancient lasting
civilization.”
Known for the twinkle in his eye, John was a living example that being
attuned to the sacredness of the cosmos brings a happiness to your world not
found elsewhere. Through his many works, both written and drawn, and his
ya
Publishers Preface
love of conversation, he shared this wisdom in vivid detail. The fascinating

beauty of his drawings—stunningly showcased in this volume—attests to
the profound power and importance of sacred proportion that he wished to
convey.
Thank you, John, for sharing your harmonious world. May your pattern
in the heavens be found within each of us.
Xl
The Hand and the
Computer
A Note on the Illustrations
The watercolours and some of the coloured diagrams in this book were done
over a stretch of years beginning in the 1960s. In 2003 many of them were
exhibited in London at Christopher Gibbs’s gallery in Pimlico. Others were
added later and the process continues. Despite their embellishment and occa-
sional whimsicalities, these drawings are not regarded as ‘art’ (a term somewhat
degraded at present). Nor are they meant simply as decorations. Their purpose is
to illustrate, as simply and attractively as possible, the basic types and characters
in the world of geometry, their marriages and reproductions, and how the dif-
ferent types fit together within a comprehensive scheme of geometry that sym-
bolizes the structure of the universe.
The drawings and paintings were mostly done before computers got the
upper hand and mechanized draughtsmanship. This development has been
much lamented—for example, in a new book, which happened to arrive just as
this was being written, Drawing Geometry by the architect and geometer Jon
Allen. Here is what he says.
There is great value in drawing by hand, and good reason to resist the temp-
tation to resort to a computer. We lose something when we use computers
to draw geometry. However beguiling their mechanical precision, they lack
“heart”: in some subtle way we become observers rather than participants.
... To surrender the experience of drawing by hand for the convenience of
digital storage, revision, and transmission seems a great shame—and essen-
tially misses the point, that drawing geometry is as powerful a meditation,
or as inspiring a creative activity, as it is possible to find.
X1il
That is well said, but it is not the last word on the subject. Geometri-
cal drawing, especially with colour, and above all in the spirit of research, is a
delightful and satisfying occupation. It is like learning an instrument and play-
ing music. Yet even before the computer took over, geometers had the use of
mechanical aids, such as photocopying for the repetition of patterns. Many of
the cursive designs here were augmented in this way. Since computers can over-
ride cutting and pasting by hand and achieve the required result more efficiently,
it is reasonable to take advantage of this convenience. In the hands of an artist
the computer is an artistic medium. That is shown here by Allan Brown, who
designed this book, brought it to order, and composed many of its diagrams.
With their clarity and precision and the sensitivity in their lines and tones, they
are ideal in this context—and, with all respect to Jon Allen, they are certainly
not lacking in ‘heart’.
To illustrate the point, here is Allan Brown’s computer-drawn version of the
Heavenly City or New Jerusalem diagram (opposite, below), the central image of
traditional cosmology. There are several views of it in this book, showing its vari-
ous aspects and meanings. In this figure it is perfectly delineated while retaining
its beauty and spirit.
X1V
Creation is not finished—the world occurs anew every moment.

HANS-PETER DURR, PROFESSOR OF QUANTUM PHYSICS
AT THE MAX PLANCK INSTITUTE
XV
The grand book of the universe... was written in the language
of mathematics, and its characters are triangles, circles, and other
geometrical figures, without which it is impossible to understand a single
word of it.
GALILEO GALILEI, 1623
Fig. 1 (opposite). The Heavenly City is a geometer’s name for the traditional diagram that represents the
order of the universe and the numerical code that underlies it. An illuminated version of it is shown
opposite. There are many allusions to this diagram in ancient relics and writings, but it was not until
1971 that it came into the open to provide the key to the long-lost science and philosophy that has,
at various times and places, created the conditions for a golden age. .
The Heavenly City (depicted here in one of its many forms as a tree bearing “twelve manner
of fruits”) contains the numbers, measures, shapes, proportions, and musical harmonies that are
constant in nature. It presents a universe which reconciles all the opposite and disparate elements
that comprise it. It is an image of paradise, of the immanent perfection that can be found in every
order of existence, from the cosmos to the individual. This perfection is by no means obvious, but
many people in all ages have glimpsed it, with the effect of changing their lives. In the Heavenly City
diagram visionary experience is combined with numerical and scientific reason to produce an active
symbol of divine wisdom restored to earth.
raicel
THE GEOMETER'S CREATION
| - flow the World Began
And Why, and Why Worry?
How did the world begin? There is no certain answer to that or to any other
of the big questions on the origins oflife, consciousness, culture, and language.
The very nature of our existence is a mystery. In the centre of human knowledge
is a large gap which, for the sake of decency, we cover over with a veil of myths,
faiths, and theories. Ignorance should not be seen naked, but the problem is,
how should we cloak it?
This sounds like a problem for fashion experts, and in a way it is. There
are fashions in cosmology, as in philosophy, religion, archaeology, anthropology,
and every other field. Myths come and go, and so do scientific theories. It may
not seem to matter very much which particular formula or fairy story is used to
explain the universe, but in reality it is crucial, because the way we understand
the world and our own origins largely determines our attitude towards life and
how we experience it.
One thing we do know, not just from the ancient philosophers but from
common observation, is that the world is reflexive and responds to however we
choose or are taught to imagine it. There are two extremes to how our existence
can be visualized. At one extreme this world is a reflection of the heavenly para-
dise, at the other it is hell on earth. You can choose whichever model you like,
and the consequences will follow.
A simple illustration of the reflexive universe is the everyday phenomenon of
coincidences. A word newly learnt is immediately heard again, a friend who has
just been mentioned unexpectedly calls. There seems to be no meaning in these
odd incidents, and we normally laugh them off. Speak of the devil, we say, or,
it’s a small world. But there are certain coincidences which we can hardly help
seeing as significant. Sometimes they are so appropriate that they seem to be
How the World Began
answers to prayer, need, or intense desire. It is as if we had actually willed them

to happen. Almost every writer is familiar with the ‘library angel’ that causes
you to pick up the one book or item in the whole of literature that you need at
the time. Some of the recorded instances of this effect seem literally miraculous.
Then there is the opposite effect, also well known to writers but less likely to
be mentioned, of a needed book that vanishes from its usual place, cannot be
found anywhere, but later reappears, just where it always should have been.
There are times when luck seems to be with you, when fortune smiles and
everything seems to keep going right, and there are other times when it is just
one problem after another. This brings up the interesting question, can one
attract good luck and happiness—and, if so, how? Happiness, of course, is a state
of mind, and the mind can only be happy when you feel at ease in your sur-
roundings, not troubled by doubts, fears, and uncertainties. In normal, peaceful
conditions, causes of unhappiness are mostly minor and localized. But there is
a larger, more lasting cause which can overshadow the whole of life, depriving
the mind of its natural state of contentment. A common and deep-rooted source
of worry is doubt and fear about the nature of the universe, its creator (if any),
what it is supposed to mean, and how we are supposed to relate to it. To deal
with these anxieties, preparing the mind for receiving light, luck, and happiness,
is the real purpose of cosmology.
Cosmology naturally has to do with the cosmos, the philosopher’s term for
the entire, self-contained universe, including ourselves and our own observa-
tions of it. Modern, scientific cosmology is artificially limited. It tries to exclude
the human viewpoint, has no concern for human psychology, and fails to
acknowledge the powerful influence that cosmography—the way the universe is
described—exerts upon the minds of people exposed to it. Not just individuals
but whole societies, nations, and cultures are conditioned by the prevailing view
of the world. There is no such thing as an objective, value-free cosmology. Every
type of world image has its corresponding effect on minds, perceptions, moral
values, forms of government, and every other human system. However hard
they may try, cosmologists cannot avoid being influential far beyond their
The Geometers (1‘eallon
|
)
Fig. 2. The scientific

creation myth ina
nutshell, by cartoonist
Merrily Harpur
own specialized field. Modern society and the modern mind are both to a con-
siderable extent products of modern cosmology.
An example of the cross-influence between a cosmological image and human
affairs generally is the expanding-universe theory. Briefly outlined, it states that
the universe began suddenly, explosively, by some unique accident, with a big
bang whose debris is still receding outwards into space. On this one small frag-
ment of matter, this Earth, conditions happened to be suitable for the appear-
ance of life, which came about through another accident, also perhaps unique,
involving a highly improbable or outrageously coincidental chain of chemical
reactions. Creatures arose of different orders and species, endowed with vari-
ous levels of intelligence, and one species somehow acquired the art of abstract
thinking, causing it to worry about such questions as how the world began, to
invent all sorts of explanatory myths, and then to fight over them.
The big bang cosmogony (creation myth) reflects modern thinking with its
belief in expansion and progress and is also used to justify it. It is a story that
suits the big corporations, the monopolists, the ever larger and more elaborate
institutions of politics, economics, science, and education. It goes well with the
theory that corresponds to it in the world of biology, the theory of evolution,
which also tells a story of chance origins from nothing, followed by growth and
elaboration. Both these theories reject the notion of a creative intelligence at
work. The qualities they tend to encourage are innovation and inventiveness at
How the World Began
the expense of custom and tradition. You need not be a feminist thinker to iden-
tify these theories as products of the solar, imperial, masculine type of mind. A
telling criticism of modern cosmology is that it is a creation of self-centred rea-
soning and tends to produce that unhappy being, the self-centred individual.
There is no compelling reason to believe absolutely in any particular theory
of origins. The experts themselves cannot agree on what picture of the uni-
verse is the most true or likely. Against the big bang theory are others, a promi-
nent rival being the steady-state cosmology. One version of this states that the
universe has no beginning and no end, either in time or space. Conservative-
minded people are attracted to that belief by its steady-state social implications,
but it is unacceptable to philosophy because the universe is a material structure
and neither immortality nor infinity are properties of matter. Another school of
thought, an old one now in resurgence, sees Intelligent Design as the ultimate
cause of things. Its followers are unconvinced by the notion of chance coinci-
dences as the creative agency behind the finely tuned conditions in which life is
possible. The odds, as they see it, are against chance and in favour of conscious
thought and purpose—implying thereby a Creator.
These contrasting and contradictory beliefs are all drawn from the same scien-
tific data, and each of them has its adherents among scientists of the same age and
education, equally qualified to pronounce on the subject of cosmology. The exis-
tence of so many equal but opposite experts, each with his or her own idea about
the origin and nature of the universe, demonstrates that on these essential ques-
tions nothing at all is known—for certain. Nor will it ever be. The scientific quest
for a mechanistic blueprint of the universal system is ill-conceived—an example
of ‘misplaced concretism’—and can only lead to disappointment, confusion, and
cynicism. For the world creature, as it is traditionally regarded, cannot be known
simply by its chemistry and dynamics. Like all creatures it has its moods, whims,
and irrationalities, and it reveals itself subtly, in its own time and manner, to any-
one who becomes interested in and grows to love any aspect of it.
The aspect of nature illustrated in this book is its geometrical and numeri-
cal structure. This again is the traditional approach to cosmology, practised in
The Geometers Creation
the schools of antiquity and justified by Galileo in the seventeenth century. The
“grand book” of the universe, he proclaimed, “was written in the language of
mathematics, and its characters are triangles, circles, and other geometrical fig-
ures, without which it is impossible to understand a single word of it.”
At the root of these geometrical studies, and developed through them,
is a worldview that is very different from the scientific version. It fulfils all
that is required of a cosmology, being in accord with our physical knowledge
of the universe, but describing it as an organic whole—as the macrocosm or
large-scale counterpart of its microcosm, the human mind. It is that constant,
ever-recurring picture of the world which has many names and symbols—the
perennial philosophy, the cosmic canon, divine law, the heavenly city, the gar-
den of paradise, the philosopher’s stone, the holy grail. Behind all these images
is a central core of knowledge which is true at all times. It sanctifies the indi-
vidual in whom it is established, and its periods of social influence are times
of justice and the rebirth of culture.
The present age is a time of uncertainty, of actual or impending chaos, and
it is also a time of revelation. As a natural response to the inadequacies of the
present worldview, another mode of perception is spontaneously reappearing. It
is the ancient and traditional outlook, never refuted but set aside by the modern
‘enlightenment’ in favour of a more literalistic assault upon the mysteries of exis-
tence. Returning with it are the long-lost secrets of the esoteric code of science
that sustained all ancient civilizations throughout their legendary golden ages.
The Geometer’s Creator

.
Traditional cosmology and the schemes of geometry that illustrate it develop

from a central point. In practical geometry this centre is marked by the indenta-
tion made by the point of a compass in drawing a circle; in cosmology it sym-
bolizes the pole of the universe. By geometric convention, the centre point has
no dimensions, and neither has the universal pole. The existence of the pole
is acknowledged through necessity, because the circle of the universe, like any
How the World Began
Fig. 3. From behind the
cloud or veil of mystery

that conceals his nature,
the Creator protrudes
his compass and
having, like any author,
written the title of his

work, outlines it by his
spinning axis. That, more
or less, is the geometer’s

story.
revolving disc or sphere, must have a fixed centre or axis on which it spins. The
nature of this constant but dimensionless fixed element is a mystery beyond
rational resolution, and the same mystery arises with the question of who or what
is the source of Creation. The answer of course is the Creator, the Great Geom-
eter of our creation myth, otherwise God, Allah, the Great Spirit, the Higher
Power, the Unlimited, the First Cause ... an archetype with many names but
no definitions. By convention and without further implications, the Creator is
called ‘he’, and his central position in the universe is symbolized by the univer-
sal pole. The pole itself is taken to represent divine law—the unchanging, ever-
lasting code of harmonies and proportions on which the universe revolves.
The Creator in this story dreamt up the world as an imitation of his own
ideal state. He made it as a spherically shaped living creature, complete with
body, soul, and spirit. It is the only independent creature that exists, for all other
creatures are merely parts of it, dependent upon it and upon each other. Other
dimensions and existences there may well be, but all are embraced by the unique
Whole. This universal creature is therefore the natural symbol of the number
One. It is an autonomous entity and outside it there is nothing.
Traditional cosmogonies (stories of how the world began) are centred upon
the Creator simply because there is no better alternative. One option is to centre
the universe upon oneself and one’s own transitory existence. That is called solip-
sism, and its sad effects can be seen in anyone who suffers from being self-centred.
Also solipsistic are the images of modern cosmology, whose source and centre are
in the inventive minds of mathematicians. The least controversial attribute of
the cosmic centre is Mystery. You cannot depict a mystery; it has no image and
nothing definite can be said about it. The same is true of the philosopher's God.
This is the God known to Jewish cabalists as En Soph, meaning an existence
to which nothing positive can be attributed because it combines and reconciles
all the opposite elements to which it gave birth. In certain mystical religions the
Creator is so transcendent that he is not even allowed existence. This is not the
sort of God upon which cults and faiths can flourish, for there is nothing there
to grasp hold of.
How the World Began
You need uctbea scientist or study cn

theSlade
To see Hrat there’s yeaay in ove an aes
rom powhah phere
Fig. 4. The geometer’s breakfast. On a blue-rimmed china plate sits a poached egg on toast—a humble image
of the geometer’s universe. The hexagon, drawn on the diameter of the egg yolk, is contained by the ring of
white which is held within the square of toast. Through the corners of the toast passes the blue circle which,
in the geometer’s creation diagram, contains the whole universe. The chequered mat is a double square and
the rest of the figure is developed from it.
In this book the traditional creation myth is developed and illustrated

by means of geometry, the principles of which are not human inventions but
are discovered ready-made in nature. Geometry, it can be said, is more deeply
rooted in nature than any of nature’s physical products. It is the same and as
true everywhere, at all times. It is even older than the world itself, for it is the
art by which God framed and measured out his creation. “He made all things in
number and measure and weight”, says the apocryphal Book of Wisdom.
Creative Geometry: Introducing the Ratios

The Creator, according to our myth, did everything in the simplest, most eco-
nomical way, showing his benevolence by making his work easy for anyone to
follow. The material part of his creation was accomplished in three stages, using
the first three proportions in geometry. These are m, ¥2 (the square root of 2),
Fig. 5. The first three ratios
1. The first ratio in geometry is 1 to 7, the ratio between

the diameter of a circle and its circumference.
2. The second ratio is 1 to the square root of 2, or 1:1.4142

... the ratio between the side of a square and its
diagonal.
10)
¢ 3. The third ratio is 1 to the square root of 3, or 1:1.732...
the ratio between the length and breadth of a rhombus
(two equilateral triangles back to back).
How the World began
and ¥3 (the square root of 3). The figures that correspond to these are the circle,
the square, and the triangle.
There is a fourth basic ratio, V5 (the square root of 5) and its derivative, the
‘golden section’. These pertain to the creation of life and occur at a later stage
with the geometry of 5 and 10.
Fig. 6. Combining the ratios to construct

the universal diagram
1 (a). The circle representing the sublunary
world is enclosed by two arcs struck from
each end of its diameter. This provides the
cross-axis which is then used to generate two
similar arcs.
_ 1(b). The whole figure is then enclosed in a

circle.
2. A square is added and a circle drawn

through its corners. The result is a central
circle surrounded by two rings.
3. Taking the area of the inner circle as 1, the

area of the first ring is 2 and the outer ring 3.
Fig. 7 (right). The universal diagram appears at the centre
of the poached egg on toast (page 9). The total area of the
plate is six times that of the yolk, and the area of the yolk
is half that of its white.
Fig. 8 (below). The successive root ratios are combined in

one diagram. The square 1 by 1 has a diagonal of ¥2 which
is swung down to the base line, making a rectangle with
sides 1 and V2. The diagonal of this figure is V3. The series
continues through 74 and V5 onward.
|?G
How the World Began
Genesis and the Great Geometer

Developing naturally along with the first stages in geometry is a cosmogony or
story of how the world was made. It starts with a Creator, the Great Geometer,
whose benevolence caused him to undertake the work. He was equipped with
a ruler and compass by which can be constructed the primary figures of plane
geometry, those that correspond to the first twelve numbers (with the excep-
tions of the mysterious Seven and Nine and the unsubstantial Eleven). The
world was designed by reason so that geometers can discover and reproduce its
essential structure. Since everything about it is as good as it can possibly be, the
universe was formed in the most perfect of all shapes, the sphere, represented in
two dimensions by the circle. The story is that the Creator, from his position at
the centre, revolved the shaft of his compass, corresponding to the world pole,
and swung a circle which includes everything.
A simple version of the geometer’s creation myth is in Genesis, chapter
1, where the Creator’s work is described in six stages—or seven including his
Sabbath day of rest. A parallel account is given in Plato’s Timaeus, written in
the fourth century BC, which has been called a commentary on Genesis with
added geometrical details. There are, however, doubts about the prior antiquity
of Genesis, and it may be the other way round: that the Timaeus was the origi-
nal version and the biblical account followed. In any case, both were derived
from the same source, from the scientifically grounded, numerically structured
description of the universe that was adopted by successive religions and cultures
throughout the ancient world. The story that goes with it is a geometric alle-
gory. It was never meant to be taken too literally; but since we evidently need
a creation myth, it might as well be the best one. That was Plato’s reasoning in
Timaeus where he accepted the traditional account as “the most likely story”.
In the Genesis cosmogony the first three stages follow the classical devel-
opment of geometry, beginning with the point, line, and circle and continuing
with the square and triangle, as shown on page 14.
13
Fig. 9. The Creator’s geometry

1 and 2. The Creator conceives of the universe, draws the
cosmic circle to define its limits, and brings it to order by
adding its two axes. He is then able to draw a square within
the circle. This introduces the first two ratios in geometry.
The first is x, the ratio between the circle’s diameter and its
circumference, and the second is ¥2, by which the side of
the square is related to its diagonal.
3. He then draws a circle within the square. The area of this

circle is half that of the original circle, so in this way he has
divided the universe into two equal halves, upper and lower,
representing light and darkness and all the apparent duali-
ties in nature. The circumference of the inner circle provides
the Firmament by which the Creator separates the ‘waters
above’ from the ‘waters below’.
4. Within the lower circle, the Firmament, the Creator con-

structs two triangles overlapping to form a hexagon. Thereby
he introduces the third, 1:V3 ratio in geometry. He draws a
circle through the six corners of the hexagon. This central
circle represents the sublunary world of our existence. The
3. The heavens divided from the
Baltic actel dreacet Gark and light ring outside it is the heavens and the outer ring is the Zodiac,
the realm of the twelve gods.
The inner circle and the two rings around it have relative
areas of 1, 2, and 3. The completed diagram depicts the cre-
ated universe, perfectly structured but devoid of animals
and human intelligence. These are provided at the next stage
in creation (see part 3).
4. The land (centre) separated
from the ocean
How the World Began
Fig. 10. Stages in the creation story: Genesis and Plato
1. In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

And the earth was without form and void. —Genesis 1]
He wanted everything to be as near to his own perfection as

possible. —PLato, Timaeus 29
He made the universe as one whole, made up of all whole

entities, perfect and undecaying. He gave it the shape that
befitted its nature. The proper shape for the creature which
was designed to comprehend all creatures within itself is a
figure which contains every (geometric) figure. Thus he made
it in the shape of a sphere, the figure which is most similar to
himself. —Timaeus
2. Seeing the universe in a restless state of inharmonious

and disorderly motion, God brought it into order because he
considered that order was in every way better than disorder.
—TIMAEUS
3. God divided the light from the darkness. .. . He made the

firmament and divided the waters which were under the fir-
mament from the waters above. —GENESIS
4. And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gath-
ered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear.
— GENESIS
The Number of the Universe

The universe was made spherical because that is the most perfect shape, and
it was also given the perfect number. As the only created entity that is totally
self-sufficient, it is the natural symbol of One. But it also has another number,
that of the sacred power or principle to which it is dedicated. The practice in
religious architecture was to express the dedication of a temple through the area
of its ground plan. The universe was dedicated to the traditional twelve gods of
the cosmos, each represented by one of the first twelve numbers. Its area as a cit-
cle, the two-dimensional form of a sphere, is therefore the number 479,001,600,
or 1x2x3x4x5x6x7x8x 10x 11 x 12, known to mathematicians as
‘factorial 12’ and denoted by the symbol 12!.
In the geometer’s cosmogony, illustrated on the previous pages, the universe
is divided into two equal areas by inscribing within it a square containing a
circle. The diameter of the universal circle (area 12!), divided by V2, gives the
diameter of the inner circle as 17460. The reference is to 1746 which is called
the ‘number of fusion’ because it unites by addition the two numbers which
symbolize the two opposite principles in nature, positive and negative. The first
of these is the number 666, a solar number applied to the rational, decisive part
of the mind. On the opposite pole is 1080, standing for the imagination and all
that is influenced by the moon. Their sum, 1746, has many important associa-
tions on the esoteric number code, introduced on page 72.
Within this circle of diameter 17460 (the circle representing the firma-
ment between the upper and lower worlds) a six-pointed star or hexagram is
drawn, together with the circle that passes through its inner angles. The area
of this inner circle is precisely a sixth part of the original 12! circle, and its
calculated radius is 5040 or 7!. It represents the sublunary world, the sphere
of the earth within the orbit of her influential companion, the moon. This
circle with radius equal to 5040 or 1X 2X3 X4xX5X 6X7 is the ‘cosmologi-
cal circle’ of the “Heavenly City’ diagram, the central symbol in the geometer’s
creation myth.
lb
How the World Began
Fig. 11. The geometer’s universe is

traditionally dedicated to the twelve gods,
symbolized by the ruaibers Ito 12.
Multiplied together they produce 12!
or ‘factorial 12’ or] x2x3%x4x5x6x7x8x
9 x10 x 11x 12. This is the area of the whole
universal circle.
1x2x3x4x5x6x7x8x9xl0xllx12
Fig. 12. The square drawn within the

universal circle, and the circle within that
square, both have a width of 17460. 1746,
the ‘number of fusion’, unites by addition

the numbers 666 and 1080, symbols of the
solar and lunar aspects of nature.
The area of the cosmological circle, being a sixth part of the 12! circle of
the universe, can be expressed as 2 x 11!. Around it is the ring bounded by the
firmament, whose area is 4 x 11!, and the area of the outer ring within the uni-
versal circumference is 6 x 11!. The areas of the inner circle and its two con-
centric rings are therefore in the proportion 1, 2, 3. This cosmological figure
includes the first three ratios, the twelve gods, types, or tones, and the numeri-
cal harmony of the universal system. It is an image of a living being, perfect in
all its parts, “one whole of wholes” as Plato called it, satisfying its own needs
and dependent on nothing but the will of its creator.
Fig. 13. Within the circle of diameter 17460 is a six-

pointed star or hexagram with a circle drawn through its
intersection points. This circle has a radius of 5040 or 7!.
Its area is a sixth part of the area of the universal circle.
It represents the sublunary world and is elaborated in the
Heavenly City diagram.

How the World Began
Fig. 14. The area of the inner circle is 2 x Il!. The area
of the middle ring is 4 x 1l!. The area of the outer ring
is 6x I1!. Total area = 12!. By this construction the area
of the universal circle is divided into 12 equal parts
corresponding to its twelve ruling gods.
Fig. 15. Area of universal circle = 12!

Radius of ‘sublunary world’ circle = 7!
Total area 12!
At this early stage in cosmography the numbers 12 and
7 appear together in their expanded forms 12! and 7!
(meaning the first 12 numbers multiplied together and
the numbers up to 7 multiplied together, respectively).
19
2-The Number 5040
Key to the World Plan
The most interesting part of the universal diagram—and the main subject of
this book—is its central part, the circle of radius 5040. The number 5040 stands
above all others as the characteristic symbol of the traditional canon of number
and proportion. This numerical code was the source and basic standard of all the
arts, sciences, and institutions of ancient civilizations that were founded upon
cosmological principles to reflect the order of the heavens. Plato throughout all
his writings refers to the canon of number. It was upheld, he says, by the rul-
ing priests of Egypt and was responsible for the long endurance of their civiliza-
tion. In Laws he insists that the ideal state constitution, as a whole and in all
its departments and divisions, should be based on the number 5040. This is the
number of citizens in his ideal city-state, and the land is divided between them
into 5040 equal portions.
In explaining his choice of this number, Plato gives the simple arithmetical
reasons that 5040 is divisible by every one of the first twelve numbers, apart
from 11, and is also the product of the first seven, ie., 1 x2x3x4x5x6x7
= 5040. It therefore allows the greatest possible variety of subdivisions within
the state pattern. He left it at that and said nothing about the cosmological sig-
nificance of 5040. The importance of that number, as Plato was well aware, is
that 5040 is the radius of the inner circle in the world-plan diagram on which
his constitution was modelled. The circle with radius 5040 represents the ‘sub-
lunary world’, the sphere of the earth beneath the one face of the moon that is
shown to us. It is made up of the moon’s radius, 1080 miles, plus 3960 miles,
the mean radius of the earth. |
The world plan and the code of number that comprises it are essentially
duodecimal, based on the numbers 1 to 12. Our sublunary world, however, is
2()
The Number 5040
dominated by a lesser range, the numbers 1 to 10. In these first ten numbers,
called by geometers the Decad, 7 is the pivotal number, the pole of the system,
producing, by multiplication in each direction, the number 5040.
1x2x3x4x5x6x7 5040, and

7x8x9x 10 = 5040
Among the many other properties of 5040 is that it forms the radius of the cir-
cle which, in the geometer’s picture of creation, represents the sublunary world. That
radius is the distance from the centre of the earth to the centre of the moon when
the two bodies are placed tangent to each other. They are, of course, far apart, but
the mean distance between them, 237,600 miles, like all the dimensions and ratios
of the solar system, is commensurable with them both, for 237,600 miles is equal to
the earth’s mean radius times 60 or the moon’s radius times 220.
Fig. 16. Seven and Twelve in the measure round the moon. The moon is traditionally the source of measure
and time-keeping. In its dimensions are encoded all the numbers of the Dodecad, the numbers 1-12.
Measured in feet its radius (1080 miles) is 5,702,400, a number equal to 1x 2x3x4x5x6x8x9x10x1l. The
only numbers missing from this sequence are 7 and 12. They are reserved for the lunar circumference whose
length is simply 12 to the power of 7 (i.e., 12’) ft. In this calculation the Fibonacci T, 864/275, is used (see
pages 36-38).
Earth, Moon, and the Circle Squared

A primary and essential operation in creative geometry is the squaring of the circle.
This work can be approached in two ways; either it means constructing a square
of the same area as that of a given circle, or the circle and square are drawn with
equal perimeters. Either way the squared circle represents the first marriage of
opposites. The circle, with its perimeter measured by the irrational number 1, and
with no point where it begins or ends, is the natural symbol of the divine, eternal
element in creation, preceding matter. In contrast, the square is a rational figure, the
measure round its perimeter being precisely four times its width. It is the symbol
of earth and solid matter, and of human works rather than products of nature. In
sacred architecture the circle of the dome refers to the heavens and the square base
to earth. The combination of circle and square, heaven and earth, spirit and mat-
ter, provides the foundation pattern of temples universally, going back to very early
times. It is the basic plan of historical cities, laid out on cosmological principles
by the priestly geomancers with their ritualised science of land-surveying. These
in ancient Rome were the augurs, whose duties included the design of towns and
landscapes. The first augur, according to legend, was Romulus, the founder of
Rome. He marked out its ground plan as a circle and a square combined.
The largest and most obvious squared circle in nature is provided by the
earth and the moon, whose combined radii amount to 5040 miles.
Earth’s mean radius = 3960

Moon’s radius = 1080
5040 miles
With radius of 5040 the circumference of the sublunary circle is 31680, the
same as the measure round the square containing the earth.
Radius of circle = 5040; circumference 31680

Side of square = 7920; perimeter 31680
The Number 5040
The measures of the earth and the moon
L
'
t
'
'
1
1
1
1
U
1
1
'
1
1
1
1
1
1 '
;
1
‘
t t \)
LS
earn : 1 i 1
1 1 ' i
2160 | l 2160 Li
t
'
1 1 : \
; : 7920 1
!
1
t
i 3960 1
ec cee a, 2 1
1
5040
U
1
'
25a ee: AN CRT
12240
Fig. 17. The circle of the sublunary world, radius 5040 miles, passes through the centres of the moon circles
(radius 1080 miles) that touch the central circle of earth (radius 3960). The sum of 1080 and 3960 is 5040, the
key number in the traditional cosmology.
23
Perimeter of square: 31680 Circumference of circle: 31680
Fig. 18. The diagram of the earth and moon in mutual contact produces the squared circle (square and circle
with equal perimeters). The square containing the earth has the same measure round its four sides (4 x 7920 =
31680) as the circle through the centres of the moons (5040 x 44/7 = 31680).
This striking fact of nature is not, as might at first be supposed, the origin of the ancient numerical
cosmology, but merely one of its manifestations and only apparent when the dimensions are given correctly
in miles. More basic is the code of number in which 5040 (= 1x2x3x4x5x6x 7), the radius of the circle,
and 7920 (= 8 x 9x 10 x 11), the circle’s quadrant, are the core components. Multiplied together, these two
numbers produce 39,916,800 or I1!. Twice Il! gives the area of the circle with radius 5040 and, as already
shown, the geometric expansion of that circle produces 12!—the symbolic, two-dimensional area of the
universe,
24
The Number 5040
Perimeter of square: 44 Circumference of circle: 44
Fig. 19. To procure the actual dimensions of the earth, moon, and other features of this plan, multiply the
basic measures by 720 (=1x2x3x4x5x6=8x9x

10)
All these numbers are multiples of 720 (= 1 x 2x 3x 4x5 x 6), and when
divided by that number they give the dimensions of the squared circle diagram
in its simplest terms: the radius of the circle is reduced from 5040 to 7, the
moon’s diameter becomes 3, the earth’s 11, and 44 is the perimeter of both the
circle and the square.
Fig. 20. Area of cosmological circle (radius x 2 circumference) = 2 x 11!
It so happens—by a barely credible coincidence or by an inexplicable action

of conscious design—that the actual dimensions of earth and moon codify the
numbers 1 to 11 in the most economical manner through the circle with radius
5040. The quadrant or quarter part of its circumference is 7920. The dimen-
sions of that circle consist of the first eleven numbers, for:
radius, 5040 1x2x3x4x5x6x7

quadrant, 7920 $x<9 x10 11
The product of these two numbers, 5040 x 7920, is 11! and twice that num-
ber is the area of the sublunary circle with radius 5040.
720 5040 39916800

= 11!
1x2x3x4x5x6x7x8x9x10 1x2x3x4x5x6x7x8x9x10xll
5040 720 5040 7920
26
The Number 5040
Fig. 21. The squared circle formed by the earth and moon
a. Earth and moon with their relative dimensions of 11 to 3.

b. Earth and moon forming the squared circle.
c. Four moons occupy the quarters of the squared circle.
d. Eight further moons complete the cosmological circle. Their circumferences
pass through the eight points where the equal square and circle meet.
WS
Fig. 22. Symbols and images of the squared circle
28
The Number 5040
Fig. 23. Beneath the circle (dark) of the Firmament, the ring of twelve lunar circles is divided into quarters at the
points where the circle through the moons cuts the corners of the square. In cosmographic imagery, through
these gaps the four rivers of paradise flow outwards and heavenly influences enter the sublunary world.
Fig. 24. A simple way of constructing the traditional plan of the Heavenly City is to begin with the first Pythagorean
triangle (see pages 105-8) with sides of 3, 4, and 5. On the 3 side draw a square and on the far side of the square
place another, reciprocal 3-4-5 triangle. This produces a baseline of 4 + 3 + 4 = 11. Draw a square on the baseline,
inscribing a circle within it and another circle within the square 3 by 3. These two circles are same-scale images
of the earth and moon. From the centre of the earth circle draw a circle through the centre of the moon. Its
circumference, with 7 as 22/7, is 44, the same measure round the four sides of the square containing the earth.
The Number 5040
Fig. 25. Division into 1l parts and development of squared-circle figure (after M. Stewart)
3/7ths 3/11ths
7th VWiith
a. The star cut diagram b. 7th part division c. IIth part division
Fig. 26 a—c. The key to constructing the Heavenly City plan is to divide a given line into Il parts. This can be
achieved precisely by means of an ancient and ever-useful geometric device named after Archimedes, the
‘sand-reckoner’s diagram’ or the ‘star cut’. Through the intersections of the lines with the square containing
this diagram, the geometer can divide the sides of the square into 11 and 7 parts as well as into the musical
ratios, 1:2, 2:3, 3:4, 8:9. This diagram has been closely analysed by geometer Malcolm Stewart and is the
subject of his monograph (yet unpublished).
|
¢ Bii~
Brae
Sag
Na
.]
© nates
:
OS
eS
we
.
—~e
cLy
.G
Fig. 27. A third way of constructing the Heavenly City plan is through the most sacred of numerical
marriages, the union of Twelve and Seven. The construction begins with the division of a circle into 4 x 7 or
28 parts. For this see fig. 194. These 28 points are the framework for positioning the twelve lunar circles of
the Heavenly City plan. As seen in the diagram above, 12 of the 28 points indicate the centres of the lunar
circles, which are each drawn to touch the two adjacent arms of the 28-pointed figure. Another 8 points
fit between and touch the pairs of circles on either side of them, and the remaining 8 touch the 8 circles
that mark the spots where the square and circle meet. These last 8 points do not themselves mark the
intersections of square and circle but position the circles that pass through the intersection.
The Number 5040
7920 x 11714
7920
Fig. 28. For number fanciers the Heavenly City plan is a constant
source of delightful ratios and harmonies. Here for example, the
ratio 14:11 or 4/Tt (taking 1 as 22/7) appears in the divisions of the
side of the square measuring 7920. Dividing it by 14 and multiplying
by Il gives the distance between the two square-circle meeting
points on that side. This allows the calculation that the four gaps
in the circle at the corners of the square each measure 1200, and
the eight small gaps between the circles, marked by arms of the
28-pointed figure, are each 120. The circle of circumference 31680
is made up of 24 arcs covering 12 moon diameters (25920), 4 gaps
(4800), and 8 small gaps (960).
Fig. 29. The twelve lunar circles, diameter 2160 miles, also represent
the twelve ‘great’ months, each of 2160 years, which the sun passes
through in turn while completing its 25920-year circuit of the
zodiac.
30
Fig. 30. An aspect of the Heavenly City plan that has attracted the attention of mathematicians is the
dimensions of the 12-sided figure that can be drawn outside its lunar circles. First in the field was lan
Sommerville of 1960s’ Beat Hotel fame. He noticed that this dodecagon is regular at its ‘polar’ sides (NSEW)
but the other eight sides are slightly shorter due to the groupings of the circles they touch, and that the area
enclosed by this figure is close to 120,000,000, emphasizing the characteristic Twelve in the cosmological
scheme. Working to a tolerance of 1:2500 (about equal to the deviation of 22/7 from true Tt) he obtained
whole numbers for the sides of the dodecagon, 3280 for the four longer and 3270 for the eight shorter
sides, making the perimeter virtually equal to 36000 feet in terms of the old English foot that relates 12:11
to the current foot. Among other significant numbers in the scheme are the measures of the two radii
to the decagon, 6336 and 6300, relating as 176:175, the first being a fifth part of the circumference of the
cosmological circle, 31680. Sommerville’s paper, “A Note on the Dimensions of the Irregular Dodecagon
Associated with the New Jerusalem”, was written in 1974.
34
The Number 5040
THE HEAVENS DECLARE

THE GLORY OF GOD
ANDTHE FIRMAMENT
SHOWETh HIS HANDIWORK
Fig. 31. The practise of creative geometry is not materially rewarding: its attraction is that it is based on
universal truth and goes beyond the fluctuating fads and fashions of scientific literalism. By combinations of
shapes, beginning with the square and the circle, it aims to depict the pre-existent code of number behind all
natural manifestations.
Se)on
o° The Circle, the Square
And the Meaning of Pi
What is this thing called pi? It is the Greek letter 7, pronounced ‘pie’ (or by
the Greeks ‘pee’) and denoting the periphery or circumference of a circle in
relation to its diameter. 1:7 is the first and most important ratio in geometry,
but many of us leave school with no clear understanding of 7 or the definition
of its length. That is not really surprising because no one has ever known the
exact value of m and no one ever will. It has been called “a transcendental figure
without resolution”. Mathematicians from ancient times have worked it out to
hundreds of decimal places and, with computers, to several billions, but without
finding a regular pattern or any whole-number fraction between a circle’s diam-
eter and its circumference. There is, it has been proved, no such thing; 1 is a
string of numbers beginning 3.141592654 . .. and going on forever.
Fig. 32. (a) True pi, (b) conventional pi, and

(c) Fibonacci’s approximation
The Circle, the Square
Fig. 33. As far as the eye

can see and the hand
can draw, the diameter
of a circle is made up of
7 and the circumference
of 22 equal intervals. The
difference between this

and true Tt is about | part
in 2486 or about 2 ft. in
a mile.
Tt in Practice
The fact that 7 is irrational and transcendental is no cause for despair. Perfect
m may be unobtainable but it is never needed, because there is no such thing on
earth as a perfect circle. The nearest thing we have is the equator, and the most
accurate one we see is the disc of the sun. For all practical work 7 is given a
fractional approximation. The Romans were satisfied with 3% or 3.125 because
they found the eighth part simpler than the more accurate 3'/;, but that value,
22/7, is commonly used today as it was in ancient times. Also of prehistoric
origins is the slightly more accurate 7 of 864/275 or 3.14181818. This was the
version adopted by Fibonacci (Leonardo of Pisa) in the thirteenth century. Ear-

lier, in fifth-century China, learned astronomers recorded the most accurate
small-number value for 7, 355/113 or 3.14159292 . . . which is correct to several
millionth parts of one percent. Who could ask for anything more? Only those
literalists who wish for a universe that is describable in rational, whole numbers.
But according to our myth, what we have is merely the best possible universe,
a material copy of the transcendental reality in which alone can be found pure
reason or pure anything.
Fig. 34. The pi fraction, 22/7, is neatly expressed in this crop circle, 250 ft. wide, at Woodborough Hill,
Wiltshire, in 2000. The circumference is divided by 44 points, and the 308 triangles form 14 concentric rings
(44/14 = 22/7),
38
The Cirele, the Square
A curious piece of research that caught the interest of Einstein, because
it involves a spontaneous appearance of 7 in nature, was carried out by Hans-
Hendrik Stolum, professor of earth sciences at Cambridge. He measured the
lengths of the earth’s longer rivers, first in a straight line from their sources to
their mouths and then, laboriously, along the course of their meanderings, and
found that the ratio of the first length to the second tends to be 1 to 3.14, an
approximation to 7. Marc-Alain Ouaknin, who reports on this in The Mystery
of Number, suggests that this recurring deviation of rivers from the straight
course represents the ratio between order and entropy or chaos. Or perhaps,
since everything that moves in nature tends to perform circles, rivers too have
that ‘desire’, and though their destiny is to enter the ocean, they would rather
proceed by the circular route than straight along the diameter. By such pleasant
thoughts we are seduced away from the aridity of scientific literalism into the
glories of animistic imagination.
Tt in the Pyramid
Histories of Western science generally take an evolutionary line. They begin
with the Greek philosophers from about 500 BC, describing their attempts to
define 7 and thereby square the circle, and tracing the rise of knowledge through
medieval superstition to the present state of enlightenment.
That is one way of looking at things; but the trouble with it is that, long
before any Western civilization, there is evidence of a superior, universal sci-
ence which has left its mark in the monuments of later times. Well-known
examples are the Egyptian pyramids, Stonehenge, and the ritual complexes of
Mexico and the East. The purpose they served is no longer recognized because
it was a form of state magic. It was based on the recognition of spirit and the
process of rebirth, and all its institutions were governed by a code of univer-
sal law, a canon of harmonies expressed musically and through number. This
knowledge, by all traditional accounts, originated in divine revelation. From
time to time, in different parts of the world, the gods appear, show us the laws
Og
of nature that we should live by, and then depart, leaving with us the code of
science upon which successive civilizations have been founded, everywhere.
The Great Pyramid of Egypt seems to have had many functions in connec-
tion with the ancient mystical sciences. Now it is in a state of ruin, but it still
maintains one of its original purposes, to provide a record for posterity. It states
in monumental form the numerical, harmonic standards that were at the foun-
dation of Egyptian culture: Many codes and formulas are woven into its pro-
portions and measures. The first of these, blatantly displayed in the height and
girth of the Pyramid, is the 22/7 value for rt.
The original height of the Great Pyramid is 280 Egyptian cubits of 1.7181818
ft., and the measured length of its base is 440 cubits. In units of feet that is:
height = 481.09091; side of base = 756; perimeter of base = 3024 ft.
If the height is taken as the radius of a circle, the circumference of that cit-
cle is equal to the measure round the four sides of the pyramid.
height, 481.09091 x 44/7 = 3024 ft. = perimeter
The wealth of numerical and scientific knowledge encoded in the structure

of the pyramid is considered anachronistic. It is so far beyond the supposed
capacity of its age that respectable scholars shy away from studying it. Others
have hailed it as an alien artefact, the work of gods or space-beings. These reac-
tions have a common source, ignorance of the ancient science. The pyramid
retains many mysteries, most obviously in its construction; its standards of craft
and engineering are inexplicable to modern experts. As a monumental record,
however, it is a true product of its age, a summary of the esoteric code of num-
bers and proportions that, according to Plato in the Laws, maintained the high
civilization of Egypt unchanged “for at least ten thousand years”. That sounds
like a science worthy of the name.
The ancient monument-builders of Egypt and elsewhere were obviously
40)
Figs. 35 and 36. The Great

Pyramid with 7:11 ratio
between its height and

baseline is a product of
$1 the squared circle.
4]
familiar with the mathematical constants such as 7 and © and in their units
of measurement is clear proof that they had precise knowledge of the earth’s
dimensions. In that they were far ahead of the eighteenth-century French sci-
entists whose inaccurate measuring of the meridian led to a metre that is sadly
deficient by ancient standards. The question that haunts this subject is this: how
is it that the high science of antiquity became so neglected and forgotten that,
in the early days of Western science, learned men were groping for the value of 7
and had no apparent knowledge of the ancient scientific tradition?
The probable answer is that, after the collapse of the old order, followed by
the rule of tyrants, the old tradition went underground and was imparted only in
Fig. 37. The elevation of the Great Pyramid produced by the squared circle. Its height forms the radius of the
outer circle, and its base is the width of the square with perimeter equal to the circle’s circumference. In the
pyramid the base measures 756 ft., so the perimeter of both square and circle is 3024 ft. These dimensions
are 21:22 with those of the cosmological diagram in which the perimeters of both square and circle are 3168
and the base of the triangle is 792. This 21:22 ratio between two circles is illustrated again in fig. 39.
42
private, through ritual initiation. Many religions preserved the esoteric learning
they had inherited. Plato in his academy taught it to chosen youths under an oath
of secrecy; and it was present in early Christianity through the Gnostics. These
masters of the old science were suppressed by the Church, as also were all succes-
sive schools of mystical revivalists and ‘heretics’. As a result, Christianity lost touch
with the ancient tradition and deprived itself of the mystical science and theology
that inspired all previous religions. All Western religions today share that igno-
rance. Originally founded on truth, reason, and the ancient scientific tradition,
they have lapsed into corruption and dogmatic superstitions. There are many good
souls, even initiated ones, in Jewry, Christianity, and the Muslim faith, but their
voices are barely heard amid the clamour of ignorant fanatics.
unit = 1 Egyptian royal yard = 3.4757486 ft.
Fig. 38. A visual image of TT is in the lintel stones of the Stonehenge sarsen circle. There were 30 of them in
a ring, held together by tongue-and-groove joints. If the outer rim of a lintel stone were folded inwards to
form a circle, the circle’s diameter would be equal to the width of the stone. So its width relates to its outer
rim as 1 to Tt. The width of a lintel stone is a thirtieth part of the outer diameter of the lintel ring.
The unit here is the yard, or 3 feet of the Egyptian royal foot. The length of this unit is 3.4757486, a six-
millionth part of the earth’s polar radius. There are 14 of these units in the inner radius of the lintel ring and
15 in the outer radius.
43
Tt Equals 3? An Antiquarian Fantasy

The evolutionist, rise-ofman historians often claim that the ancients were igno-
rant and believed the earth is flat and that 7 = 3. Any reading of classical authors
will dispel the first claim; it has long been recognized that the earth is an ‘oblate
spheroid’. As to the second, it is obvious nonsense to say that 1 = 3, because the
six sides of a hexagon inscribed within a circle are three times the circle’s diam-
eter and the circumference is clearly longer. Archimedes in the second century BC
tried to discover x by doubling and redoubling the sides of the inscribed hexagon
until it approached a true circle, and at the same time he circumscribed similar
polygons around the circle. The average between them, he reckoned, would give
him something like 7. It gave him 3.141851, slightly better than 22/7.
Those who like to think that the ancients believed 7 = 3 point to sacred
texts, including the Bible, where this seems to be stated. In I Kings 7:23 is
described the great bowl or “molten sea” that Hiram of Tyre, King Solomon’s
architect, constructed at the Temple of Jerusalem in the ninth century BC.
He made a molten sea, ten cubits from the one brim to the other: and a line
of thirty cubits did compass it round about.
With the diameter 10 cubits and the circumference 30, the great architect
must surely have thought that 7 = 3. But this reckons without the brim of the
bowl which was a handsbreadth wide. The molten sea had two sets of dimen-
sions, inner and outer, so two different cubits are involved, relating to each other
as 21:22. Thus if cubit A is 22, cubit B is 21 units.
Ten cubits A or 220 units measure the outer diameter of the bowl and 10
cubits B or 210 units the inner. Three times the outer diameter is 660 units,
and 660 divided by 22/7 is 210 or 10 cubits B. Half the difference between the
two cubits, 5 units, is the width of the rim.
If cubit A is 1.5 ft., the width of the rim is about 4.1 inches, the approxi-
mate handbreadth of a 6 ft. man.
By this account, Hiram designed the molten sea so that its inner circumfer-
ence was 3 times its overall diameter. The 1 he used was 22/7.
Inner diameter = 10 x cubit B

Outer diameter = 10 x cubit A
Inner circumference = 30 x cubit A = 22/7 x cubit B
Outer circumference = 22/7 x cubit A
[oa
Ww
aes
Cc
=)
oO
i A
units
10
Fig. 39. Hiram of Tyre’s great bowl, or “molten sea”.

The 1 Patterns
Numbers have their own kind of beauty but, as in the notes of music, it is not
easily apparent when they are written down in symbols. That is certainly the
case with 7. As an endless chain of meaningless figures it is an irrational mon-
ster. But when rationalized as 22/7, the beauty of 7 is made visible in the pat-
terns created by the 4/m or 14: 11 ratio between the circle and the square. Shown
opposite are the four principal relationships between these two basic shapes.
a. A circle containing a square. The area of the square is 14, of the circle
22. The sum of these two areas is 36, allowing them to be displayed
together in a two-toned square 6 x 6.
b. A square and circle with equal perimeters. The area of the square is 11,
of the circle 14. These areas together (11 + 14 = 25) are shown in a
square 5 x 5.
c. A circle within a square. If the area of the square is 14, that of the circle
is 11. This is the reverse of b, so the same 5 x 5 square illustrates both,
with tones reversed.
d. A square and a circle with equal areas, both taken as 11. Together they
do not add up to a square number, so the relationship of their areas can
not be illustrated like the others.
This last combination, of equal square and circle, is somewhat neglected by

modern geometers, but it was well known to the ancients, whose exercises in
circle-squaring concentrated more upon this type of union than on the square
and circle with equal perimeters. There are various known approximations to
squaring the circle in terms of equal areas, but none of them is very accurate.
The method shown in figure 41 (see page 48) gives the best result by far. It is
laborious in practise, but it brings the square and circle with equal areas into
scale with the other combinations.
The key to this construction is that the square of area 11 has a side of V11,
46
a. Square in circle
V11x
14/11
Fig. 40. The four
types of square-circle
relationships, drawn
on the same scale

| —___—_ ¥11 (39 squares) —__—___
Fe ¥14 (44 squares) a
Fig. 41. Square and circle with equal areas. The ratio between the side of a square and the diameter of a
circle equal to it in area is Vl to V14, very close to 39 to 44. In the measure round their perimeters the ratio
is reversed, the distance around the four sides of the square being longer by 44 to 39 than the circumference
of the circle. In this construction the square of 44 x 44 divisions contains the Circle. The blue square 39 x 39
has the same area as the circle. This figure is repeated opposite in the synthesis of square-circle relationships.
and the diameter of a circle of area 11 is ¥14. The ratio between V11 and 14 is
virtually 39 to 44. So, to draw a circle and square with equal areas, make a square
with its side divided into 11 parts (by the construction in figure 26 on page 31)
and divide each part into quarters, making a length of 44. Deduct 2% parts from
each end, obtaining a square of 39. A square of side 39 and a circle of diameter 44
have equal areas to an accuracy of about 1 in 3000—rather better than 22/7 as 7.
48
Fig. 42. The four types of square-circle combinations, drawn to the same scale, are assembled within one
diagram. The areas of the five concentric shapes that comprise it are, starting at the outside, circles: 22, 14, Il,
and squares: 14 and 11.

In this synthesis can be found: circle containing square; square containing circle; square and circle with
equal perimeters; square and circle with equal areas (twice).
Finally in figure 42, the four types of square-circle relationships are brought
together in one simple figure, using just two squares and three circles.
Fig. 43. The squared circle with equal areas. In Michael Maier’s Atalanta Fugiens, a book of alchemical engravings
by Johann de Bry, published in 1618, is this puzzle-picture of a geometer constructing a figure through a
combination of square, circle, and triangle. He has only got so far in his work and two main components in the
scheme are still undone. They are added here in red. When the figure is complete it shows that the geometer’s
purpose is to square the circle by constructing a square and circle with equal areas.
The geometer begins by drawing the small circle containing a man and woman and enclosing it in a square.
He then places the point of his compass on each of the two bottom corners of the square in turn and swings arcs,
with radius equal to the square’s diagonal, to cut the extended base line of the square. This gives him the base
line for his triangle, which is drawn through the upper corners of the square. Then, with the point of his compass
placed halfway along the square’s upper side, he draws two circles. In de Bry’s picture he is just completing the
first circle, drawn through the base corners of the triangle. The second circle (red) is drawn through the apex of
the triangle. Finally the geometer draws a square to enclose the second circle. The area of this circle is supposed
to be the same as the area of the outer circle square, but actually it is smaller than the square by about 1 percent.
The pi pattern appears in two different squares

5x 5and 6x 6. The 5 x 5 grid here contains 14
dark and 11 light areas, showing the 14:11 ratio

between a square and the circle it contains, or
it has 11 dark and 14 light, corresponding to the
11:14 ratio between the areas of the square and
circle in the squared-circle diagram.
Fig. 44 (above). Pi pattern of four 5 x 5 squares
Fig. 45. 1] to 14 pi pattern depicting the pi
symbol
Fig. 46. Six 5 x 5

squares showing
the 11:14 ratio
between dark and
light areas
The Cirele, the Square
Fig. 47. Six types of 5x 5 squares, each with 11 red and 14 yellow areas
Fig. 48. The 6 x 6 square
a 7
ZiV SO>
these squares produce
12
ets, O
ASE. e C»
this beautifully woven V; oe xy
and bordered pattern.
squares make this pi-

The Circle. the Square
Fig. 50. An octagonal form of the pi pattern is

made of nine 6 x 6 squares, each containing 14
dark and 22 light brown squares.
Fig. 51. The pi symbol in a square 6 x 6 with 14

red and 22 yellow squares
Fig. 52. The 6 x 6 square pi pattern
is here subdivided to be 12 x 12,
containing 88 light squares and 56
dark. Four of these 12 x 12 squares are
set together above.
Fig. 53. The same type of octagon
discovered from the air in the ancient
Peruvian landscape (see also fig. 130).

Cosmological Revelations in Crop Circles

The initiate’s path is said to be lighted up by revelations. These range from flashes
or moments of insight to the ultimate vision of the heavenly order, as experienced
by St John. The ancients attributed these inspirations to a god, Thoth, Hermes,
Mercurius, the communicator of divine intelligence and sometimes a deceiver, as
subtle and elusive as his corresponding metal, quicksilver. C. G. Jung in his last,
most prophetic book, on the UFO phenomenon, published in 1959, interpreted
the signs and wonders reported in the skies as portents of world-changing revela-
tions to come. These, as he well knew, would not come through official channels
or by human decision, but through strange irrationalities that the modern mind
-disdains and ignores—mercurial effects such as miracles, apparitions, encounters
with ‘aliens’, spontaneous initiations, and the revelations in crop circles.
Some of the watercolours in this book were copied from designs that have
appeared mysteriously, overnight, as large-scale impressions on fields of wheat
and other crops, remaining there, open for inspection, until the harvest. In
Wiltshire and the counties of southern England, where the phenomenon has
been most active, crop circles came to public attention around 1990. From the
beginning they attracted pranksters and hoaxers, and no one to this day (in
2008) can say to what extent these enthusiasts amplified the evidence, by copy-
ing the designs or inventing their own. Every summer new designs occur, some-
times with references to the traditional code of number and geometry that we
are here following. Behind the glamour and trickery in the crop circle enigma is
a serious, subtle mind and, evidently, a serious, high-level purpose.
The alchemical writer Patrick Harpur sees in crop circles the signature of Mer-
curius, joker and initiator. His mysteries are not riddles to be solved but are exhib-
ited to delight and stimulate the mind. Those who have followed the crop circle
mystery have been led on to interest in other subjects and to heightened apprecia-
tion of existence. If crop circles have a purpose, it must be evident in their actual
effect. That imputes them benevolence and a source which, if you reject gods and
space-beings, can be called the Good, to wya8ov, whose number is 504.
Fig. 54. This pi pattern, one of the many possible versions, consists of 36 squares, each 6 x 6, making 1296
squares of which 504 are dark and 792 light coloured (ratio 7:11). The same pattern can be transferred onto a
circular grid, still displaying the same canonical numbers, 504, 792, and their sum, 1296.
28
The Revelation at Crooked Soley

A full account of the amazing crop circle that occurred in a Wiltshire wheat
field in 2002 can be found in a small publication, Crooked Soley, a Crop Circle
Revelation, by Allan Brown and John Michell. The purpose of writing it was
to record an otherwise disregarded event, the brief appearance of a design in
which the key numbers of traditional cosmology were woven into the form of
a DNA strip. Within a wide ring of selectively laid-down wheat stalks, the area
was divided by 72 arcs into 1296 little sections, in 792 of which the crop was
laid to the ground, while 504 clumps of wheat were left standing (figure 55).
This is a version of the pi pattern, for 792 to 504 is 7:11.
Fig. 55. The Crooked

Soley crop circle.
The extraordinary
design of a DNA
strand weaves
together the primary
canonical numbers,
504 and 792, in 1296
areas of standing
and laid-down
wheat. In this
drawing the standing

‘squares’ of wheat
are shown in orange,
the laid-down areas

in light yellow.
The wheat field was at a rustic hamlet, Crooked Soley near Hungerford,
Berks. It was harvested the same day that the circle was reported. No one
inspected the design on the ground, and the only records of it are Steve Alex-
ander’s photographs, taken from the air on the morning of its appearance. No
one claims to have made it or even to know how it could have been done. And
beyond the technical mystery is the even greater one, the mystery of the mind
and purpose behind this significant design.
The numbers displayed at Crooked Soley, 504, 792, and their sum, 1296,
or 6 x 6 x 6 x 6, are the principal components in the canon of number and the
cosmological diagram upon which this book is structured. They are prominent
on different scales throughout number and the numerical sciences, not for any
human reasons but simply through the law of number. As 5040 and 7920 they
measure the squared circle formed by moon and earth, providing the framework
for the geometer’s story of creation.
There is no need to look for any coded message in the beautiful design.
Clearly and openly it draws attention to that long-lost standard of cosmology
which, whenever it reappears, brings light and comfort to those who receive it.
The principal symbolic numbers, 72, 504, 792, 1296, expressed in the
Crooked Soley design, are ten times smaller than the familiar 720, 5040,
etc., in the cosmological diagram. These decimal changes of scale give the num-
bers different mathematical properties, but their symbolism is the same in every
dimension. When scale demands it, as at Crooked Soley where a design incorpo-
rating 5040 and 7920 would be an impractical monstrosity, 504 and 792 have to
stand in. It is the same at Stonehenge where the mean radius of the sarsen circle
with lintels measures 50.4 feet. And in gematria, when only a lengthy phrase
would contain letters to the value of 5040, its tenth part, 504, occurs instead.
The gematria of 504 is highly distinguished. It is the number of number
itself in that y apiOuetixa, arithmetic, is 504. Also expressed by that number
are the two principles most valued by the Greek philosophers, goodness and
holiness.
|)
504 = to ayafov, the Good

To aytov, the Holy
As shown in the diagrams on page 73, 504 is the radius of a circle with
3168, the number of Lord Jesus Christ, in its circumference.
Another token of its virtue is that 504 unites the first pair of ‘amicable
numbers’, highly regarded in the school of Pythagoras. Amicable numbers are
those whose factors add up to each other. The first pair are 220, whose factors
add up to 284, and 284 whose factors add up to 220. The sum of this agreeable
pair of numbers is 504.
The other prominent numbers at Crooked Soley have striking gematria. 720
gives vous, mous, or divine intelligence, and 1296 stands for the feminine prin-
ciple that rules nature—in both its pagan and Christian forms:
1296 = Gea navtwv, Goddess of all

Mapta untyp Ingov, Mary, mother ofJesus
6
4+ Initiation
And the Vision of the Heavenly Order
Geometry has many practical uses, in land surveying (geometry means liter-
ally “earth measuring”), architecture, engineering, military science, and every-
day matters such as laying a carpet or parking a car. Its proper use, however,
is for cosmological purposes, for investigating nature and bringing to light the
wonderful range of patterns and types within the fabric of the Creator's uni-
verse. The study of number has a similar object. The ancient Greeks and all phi-
losophers in the old tradition emphasized the importance of number, not for
commercial or secular advantage but because numerical studies, philosophically
directed, lead the mind into a world of abstract order and towards a state of
understanding that the Greeks called zous, meaning ‘divine intelligence’.
In the days of the old Mystery schools zous was achieved through a process
of ritual initiation by those who had been educated and made ready for it. Their
preparation included long, disciplined studies in number, music, and geom-
etry along with astronomy, navigation, surveying, philosophy, philology, and
the other canonical arts and sciences. There was little writing in those schools;
instruction was verbal and practical, much of it imparted through chants, verses,
and rhythmic recitations that lodged it forever in youthful memories.
Geometry and number were the main instruments by which candidates for
initiation were led up towards the climactic ordeal when the Mysteries were
unveiled before them. Initiation is a spiritual rebirth, an entry into a new world,
illuminated by ous. It is the same old world but seen with new eyes and recog-
nized for what it really is, a divine paradise. That perception has been gained by
many people, spontaneously. But the old initiates were made ready for it, and
when they experienced the vision of true reality, they saw in all its glory the pat-
tern of universal order that was familiar to them through their studies. “There
62
Initiation
is a pattern in the heavens”, said Socrates (Republic 592), “where those who want
to can see it and establish it in their own hearts.”
Fig. 56. Entrance to
Plato's Academy in
Athens, fourth century
BC, a fanciful view
featuring his imaginary

cat, Nous. Nailed
to the door is his
recorded notice, “No
one who is ignorant of
geometry may enter”.

Ha.
iD)
An Initiate’s Vision: St John and the

Heavenly Jerusalem
“And I saw a new heaven and a new earth”. Thus begins St John’s account of his
initiatory vision in the twenty-first chapter of Revelation. This book, the last in
the Christian Bible, is rooted in the Mysteries. Many of its scenes and images
relate to the ordeal of death and rebirth during the initiation process. Mystics
and imaginative people have always been attracted to the dramas and enigmas
of St John’s book, but modern theologians tend to avoid it on the grounds that
it is beyond rational understanding.
As an initiate of the Mystery schools that flourished in the early days of
Christianity, St John was a profound scholar in the Gnostic tradition, well versed
in the language of apocalyptic. It is a language of symbols and allegories, used in
the historical and prophetic writings of all ancient religions. Two images, paired
together, are recurrent in sacred histories. They illustrate a constant theme, the
process of rise and fall, death and rebirth, that occurs on all levels of nature and
is represented in the apocalyptic language by two cities. In Revelation these cities
are called Babylon the Great and the New Jerusalem. The first is a grand, impe-
rial, mercantile city, grown rich and decadent and ripe for its fall. This duly takes
place and is vividly described in Revelation 18. As Babylon meets its doom and is
destroyed amidst fire and tempest, the rich men and the whores weep and wail
while the righteous rejoice. Then comes the centrepiece of St John’s vision. An
angel leads him up to a high mountain, meaning in the esoteric language a state
of high vision, and shows him the ‘heavenly pattern’, the perfect order of creation.
Following tradition, St John pictured it as an ideal city, the New Jerusalem.
It was a glorious city, radiant with golden light, glowing and sparkling like a
jasper stone and with twelve facets. The wall of the city was studded with twelve
different gemstones and it had twelve gates, three each to north, south, east, and
west. The twelve gates were also twelve lustrous pearls, guarded by twelve angels
and bearing the names of the twelve tribes of Israel. In the twelve foundations
of the wall were the names of the twelve apostles of Jesus. As a cosmological
(4
Initiation
| The heavenly Jerusalem, 12 gemstones

P| / } fic 0g gel t pee =
| ana the 12 fiuits of tne tee of life.
| “And the leaves of the tree were for
| if i [can fa } 5 a) |
tne healing o; tne nations.”~ Revelation 21-221
} :
oe ee Fig. 57. The
Heavenly City
image the Heavenly City was complete in all its parts, containing the shapes,
sounds, colours, movements, and every other element in creation. It was won-
derful beyond description, far lovelier than any object of normal, earthly vision.
Yet its outward appearance was a reflection of something even more wonder-
ful. From the course of esoteric studies that preceded his initiation, St John was
aware of the numerical and geometric structure of creation, and he referred to it
in his account of the Heavenly City.
6)
The framework of the New Jerusalem pattern is duodecimal, organized

by the number Twelve, with twelve gates, corners, and other features arranged
in four groups of three to face the four directions. Twelve is the first numeri-
cal symbol of universal order. Its dominant position in the field of number
itself is the reason for our twelve-fold divisions of concepts and phenomena,
such as the zodiac with its 12 signs or gods, the 12 months of the year, the
12 notes of music, and the 360 degrees in a circle. The duodecimal theme is
continued in the dimensions of the Heavenly City. In St John’s allegory the
angel who had induced his vision gave him a “reed like a rod” and told him
to measure the New Jerusalem. The result of his survey is summed up by
the basic duodecimal numbers, 12 and 144. The overall shape of the city is
a cube, measuring 12 thousand furlongs on each side, and it had a high wall
144 cubits round.
These measures are on completely different scales, implying that the pat-
tern exists on all dimensions from the astronomical to the microcosmic. Twelve
thousand furlongs (660 feet = 1 furlong; 8 furlongs = 1 mile) means 7,920,000
ft. or 1500 miles, whereas the measure round the wall is only 144 cubits. The
cubit indicated here is the unit of 1.728 ft., associated with ancient Egypt and
prominent in the ground plan of the temple at Jerusalem. It is also a duodecimal
unit, for 1.728 is a thousandth part of 12°. The wall of St John’s city is therefore
five times duodecimal, for its circuit is 144 x 1.728 or a thousandth part of 12 x
Deal2eg2 alfe
Reconciliation between the 248.832 ft. in the measure round the wall and
the 7920000 ft. in the side of the cube (a square in plane geometry) is achieved
when they are brought to the same scale. That can be done by multiplying the
first by a hundred and dividing the second by a thousand, making them 24883.2
and 7920. The reference is then plain, for:
7920 miles = earth’s mean diameter

24883.2 miles = earth’s meridian circumference
66
Initiation
The value for 7 in this calculation, 864/275 or 3.141818 ..., is slightly

better than the more convenient 22/7. It occurs in the ratios of traditional cos-
mology and was adopted by Fibonacci in 1220. It can therefore be called the
Fibonacci pi. By its use the earth’s dimensions are set out in figures of equal
accuracy to those quoted today and superior to those obtained by the French
scientists who measured the meridian at the end of the eighteenth century.
The length they established was deficient, and the metre they derived from it,
intended to be a ten-millionth part of a quadrant of the meridian, was too short
to be truly geodetic. The ancient, canonical length of the meridian, a tenth part
of 12 x 12 x 12 x 12 x 12 miles, is virtually the same as the figure (40,045,000
metres) from recent satellite surveys.
STONEHENGE
Stones now standing

——- [A Stones fallen ovmissing--[
|
Fig. 58. The basic

dimensions of
Stonehenge are the
same as those of the

Heavenly City diagram
ona scale of1to 100.

The mean radius and
the circumference
round the centre of
the outer ring measure

50.4 and 316.8 ft.,
and 316.8 is also the
measure round the
square containing the
circle of bluestones,
making its diameter
192 Tt.
By these numbers and dimensions the meaning of St John’s luminous city is

made clear. His vision was of the earth as paradise, a divine creation reflecting
the glory of its Creator and as perfect as any reflection or copy of the Ideal can
ever be. It was not just a flash of vision, a transient moment of insight, but a
lasting perception of the truth that St John and other initiates acquired at their
experience of rebirth. They saw “the new heaven and the new earth” and were
free to dwell in it. Thereafter they had no fear of death and lived according to
their vision in a state of love and understanding.
Both Plato and his master, Socrates, spoke openly about the post-initiation
state of mous and the perception of paradise on earth. It is, insisted Plato, the
real earth behind the dull, murky version that is apparent to our physical senses.
Like St John and in the same symbolic language, he speaks of gemstones. In the
real world of high vision and imagination, emeralds, rubies, and all natural phe-
nomena have more colour and sparkle than those we normally behold. There
is, taught Socrates, a way into that world that anyone can take without under-
going ritual initiation. It is by cultivating belief in truth and justice and living
by them. That, of course, is very hard to do. The laborious initiation process
could prove to be an easier option.
EARTH
diameter
Fig. 59. The
duodecimal
numbers in
the earth’s
mean diameter
and meridian
circumference
68
Initiation
Heaven on Earth: The Pattern of the Sanctuary

The plan of Magnesia, Plato’s ideal community described in the Laws, was
based on his first principle, that “no state can find happiness unless the artist
drawing it uses a divine pattern”. The pattern he used was the central feature of
the traditional Heavenly City diagram, the circle of earth within a square. The
width of both square and circle in the cosmological model is 7920 miles, and in
the holy city or sanctuary model 7920 ft.
In both versions of Magnesia—the ideal heavenly circle and the practical,
earthly square—the whole area, minus the lands set aside for shrines, roads, and
utilities, is divided between the 5040 households, 420 in each of the 12 sec-
tions. The areas held by each tribe in the square pattern (figure 61 on page 71)
can be measured simply in acres, but in measuring the area of the circular sanc-
tuary a different unit applies. It is defined as the area of a circle with radius 12 ft.
This area is a seventh part of 3168 sq. ft. In the traditional sanctuary pattern,
the circle 24 ft. in diameter is the ground plan of the central, circular shrine,
enclosing the symbolic world pole. Its floor area provides the unit by which the
whole scheme is measured. In The Dimensions ofParadise, chapter 4 (where the
subject is more fully explored), it is called the NJ unit.
In figure 60 (page 70) the circular area, minus the strips of common land, is
similarly distributed between the 5040 households, 420 to each tribe. Plato gives
many other details of the land divisions, bringing out further numerical subtle-
ties in the scheme. No doubt he used it in his academy to develop the minds of
his pupils, which, he said, is best done through the study of number. The first
exercise would have been: calculate the amount of land allotted to each of the
5040 households in both the square and the circular pattern. Expressed in the
NJ unit of 3168/7 sq. ft., the answers are:
Circular plan (fig. 60) Square plan (fig. 61)
in the smaller sections 17.28 = 12x 12x .12 units 22 units

in the larger sections 21.60 = 6x 6x .6 units 27.5 units
69
=————_—_—_—_—_—_—_——_ 7920 ————_—_———
Fig. 60. The sanctified earth at the centre of the Heavenly City diagram is divided between the 12 tribes
separated by 8 strips of common land. Plato's elaborate arithmetic allows four holdings to each family,
two in the city (inner ring) and two in the country beyond, everyone having their fair share. This is the ideal
pattern, made practical in the square version opposite.
10)
Initiation
Ata
120 acres
ti, 3168 Pa he Ez 320 > 3168 ————_
132 132
7920 a
Fig. 61. The square, practical form of the traditional cosmological pattern, is measured rationally in acres
(lacre = 66 x 660 ft.). The strips of common land (blue) are deducted from the green sections.
The Numbers of the Holy City and Their Meanings

Every dimension in the cosmological diagram or holy city has its canonical
number, and these all have certain meanings. By the mystical techniques of
‘gematria’ numbers can be expressed by letters of the alphabet and interpreted
by names and phrases made up of those letters. The Hebrew and Arabic alpha-
bets are adapted to this practise, and so is the Greek of the New Testament.
The early Christian initiates, the Gnostics, followed tradition in composing the
holy names of the new religion in accordance with numbers. Correspondences
between Greek letters and numbers are set out below.
The number of any name, word, or phrase is obtained by adding together
the numbers of the letters comprising it. Thus Jesus, written Ijcous in the New
Testament, is I (10) + y (8) + o ( 200) + o (70) + v (400) + s (200) = 888,
and Mithras, Met@pas, the solar deity known as lord of the 365 days in a year,
has the appropriate number, for Met8pas is 40 + 5 + 10 + 9 + 100 + 1 + 200
= 365. The same number is discovered also in the name of Abraxas, ABpagas,
365. These examples were quoted by St Irenaeus, the heresy-hunting Bishop of
Lyons in the second century. He was a leader of the campaign by the Church
to extirpate Gnosticism on the grounds of its mystical outlook and its perpetu-
ation of the pagan sciences such as gematria. St John, on the other hand, was a
thorough Gnostic. His use of numbers as letters is demonstrated in Revelation
13, where he gives “the number of the beast” as Xs or 600 + 60 + 6 = 666.
Greek Alphabet and numbers
Aa BB Ty Ad Ee Li Hy ©8
1 2 , 4 5 }} 8 9
I Kx Ad Mu Ny a Oo [Ir
10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
Pp 2c Nis Yo te) Xx Yy Qw
100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800
Initiation
3168, the Number of Our Lord Jesus Christ

One of the reasons why the Gnostic scholars and mystical theologians who
founded the Christian religion were so cruelly persecuted by the authorities of
the early Church was because of names. Jesus is not a Jewish name; the historical
Saviour was called something like Joshua. The name Ingous was adopted so as to
bring out the number 888, a number that would have applied to a corresponding
figure in pagan religion. The number 888 is still regarded as a number of good
fortune in the divinatory codes of China and the East. The addition to Jesus, 888,
of Christ, 1480, makes Jesus Christ, 2368, and the third term, Kuptog, Lord, 800,
produces the full title of the Christian principal, Lord Jesus Christ, Kuptos Iygous
Xptotos, whose number is therefore 800 + 888 + 1480 = 3168. This number is
curiously linked to 666 because 6660 is the sum of all the factors of 3168.
Bound together with 31680 is the number 5040, these two measuring the
circumference and the radius of the cosmological circle. A quarter of 31680 is
7920, the number of miles in the earth’s mean diameter and the key number,
along with 5040, in the numerical scheme of the Heavenly City.
dH0EK {TOV to
faeos * Ge
we xo ent eis
@
ot Owdexa Geor ot Owdexa aytot TO wylov To wyadov
3168 3168 3168
a. Diameter: The 12 Gods (1008)

Circumference: Temple of the 12 Gods (3168)
b. Diameter: The 12 Saints (1008)
Circumference: The Sanctuaries of the Apostles (3168)
c. Radius (left); The Holy (504); Radius (right): The Good (504)
Circumference: Lord Jesus Christ (3168)
1080, the Lunar Number, the Solar 666,

and Their Sum, | 746
These three primary symbolic numbers together represent the trinity of powers.
It is an elemental trinity, not personified, as in the Christian Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit, but combining the solar, generative element (666), its lunar, reflec-
tive opposite (1080), and their sum, 1746, number of the universal spirit.
The number 1080, the number of miles in the moon’s radius, is an impor-
tant element in the numerical scheme of the Heavenly City diagram. It is per-
haps the most widely known of all sacred, symbolic numbers, producing for
example the 108 beads in the Buddhist or Hindu rosary, the 10800 stanzas in
the Rigveda, each of 40 syllables, the 10800 bricks in the Zoroastrian fire-altar,
the 1080 pillars round the Odinists’ hall of Valhalla, the 1080 minims that
make up the Jewish hour, and the 10800 years in each of the four seasons of the
Hindu Kali Yuga. Civilization, said Heraclitus, is destroyed every 10800 years.
This, according to modern reckoning, is the approximate interval between suc-
cessive ice ages. In astronomy, 108 is the mean distance between the earth and
the sun, measured by the sun’s diameter (864,000 miles), and the same distance
is equal to 4 x 10800 diameters of the moon (whose radius is 1080 miles). The
old astronomers were familiar with this number. Hipparchus gave 1080 as the
number of stars of first-magnitude brightness, and Galileo reckoned that the sun’s
radius is 1080 times longer that the diameter of a sixth-magnitude star.
Other appearances of this number are as 108, the atomic weight of silver,
the 108-degree angles of the pentagon, the geometer’s emblem of life, and the
1080 breaths normally taken in one hour. From these and other applications of
1080 in its various dimensions comes an image of the silvery moon. In contrast
to its symbolic opposite, the sun, the moon has a quiet, subtle influence on our
sublunary world. It draws the tides of oceans and stirs up the earth’s vital cur-
rents, the periods of the female, the intuitive part of the mind, and the spirit
that moves oracles. In traditional philosophy the moon is called the source of
measure. Its cycle produces the 28 days of the lunar calendar used by nomadic
Initiation
people, and its dimensions set the standards in the canon of number that orders
the solar system.
The number that arranges the first seven polygons in symmetrical and equal
pairs is 1080. This is one of those ‘magic’ numbers that occurs in different
contexts throughout the field of number and is recognized in all societies
based on the number canon. Two pentagons, each containing the sum of 540
degrees, have 1080 degrees together, and the other figures pair off to produce
the same number.
To illustrate this symmetry one has to include a O-sided shape. It is the
point or dot, visible in geometric practise as the indentation made by the
compass point at the centre of a construction, but classically defined as hav-
ing no dimensions. It therefore has no sides. The pair to the octagon with its
combined angles of 1080° must be a figure with no internal angles. It is repre-
sented by the first figure in geometry, the dot within a circle.
Table of Combined Internal Angles of Polygons
dot 0° triangle. 180° square 360° pentagon 540°

octagon 1080° heptagon 900° hexagon 720° pentagon 540°
sum of angles 1080° 1080° 1080° 1080°
Fig. 62. The number

1080 in the internal
angles of the first

seven polygons
10
The gematria of 1080 confirms the character of that number as the pri-
mary symbol of the spiritual, mystical ‘night side of nature’, the yin or female
aspect, associated with the underworld, the imagination, the gift of prophecy,
and springs of healing and inspiration. The importance of 1080 in Christianity
is as the number of the Holy Spirit, corresponding to the Earth Spirit of pagan
religion. Their two names in Greek have the same letters with only one transpo-
sition, and therefore the same number, emphasizing their common meaning.
1080 = to aytov rvevua, the Holy Spirit

= To yatov tvevua, the Earth Spirit
Other appropriate phrases with the number 1080 are:
1080 = ryyy codtas, fountain of wisdom

4 Taptapos, Tartarus, the nether world
= 0 Qeoc ma8evoc yng, the virgin god of earth
y apuovia Kocpov, the universal harmony
By the convention of gematria one unit can be added to or omitted from

the number of a word without altering its meaning. Thus, the number 1081 =
y avoaos, the Abyss, and Xatvpot, satyrs or regional spirits. The number 1079
gives 0 XOovioc, the god of the underworld, and 1082 numbers y TPOETetar,
prophecy, ovpofopos, the ouroboros serpent, and y tyy7n vdatos, the “well of water
springing up into everlasting life” (John 4:14). All these symbols and images have
a common reference to the mystical number 1080.
On the opposite pole to 1080 is 666, a number regarded with superstitious
awe by those who associate it with the Devil. This idea goes back to St John and
Revelation 13 where he identified the “number of the Beast” by the three Greek
letters, Chi (X), Xi (€), and Sigma (=) that stand for 600, 60, and 6. Before
going into this delicate subject, the true nature of 666 is explored through its
arithmetic properties.
Initiation
The number 666 is the thirty-sixth triangular number. Triangular num-

bers, set out on the next page up to 666, begin with 1, the next is 3 (= 1 +
2), then come 6 (= 1 + 2 + 3), 10 (= 1 + 2 + 3 + 4), and so on. The numeral
666 is the sum of all numbers up to 36. These numbers 1 to 36 also form a
‘magic square’ (see figure 64), where each line, column, and diagonal adds
up to 111 and the whole to 666. The traditional name for this, the magic
square of the Sun, acknowledges the solar symbolism of 666. The number
also occurs as the sum of the first six Roman number symbols, I + V + X +
L + C + D, the values of which, 1 + 5 + 10 + 50 + 100 + 500, amount to
666.
The first twelve numbers, split into two halves, are curiously productive of
the solar number, for:
1x2x3x4x5x6 = 720
7x8x9x10x 11x12 = 665280
666000
In St John’s account there are actually two beasts. The first one he sees ris-
ing up from the sea, and the second is born from the earth. The second beast
sets up the first as an idol, an object of compulsory worship, and decrees that
“no man might buy or sell, save that he had the mark or the name of the beast,
or the number of his name”. To discover the name of the first beast, St John
tells his readers to work out his number, for it is the number of a man, “and his
number is 666” (kato apt@uosg avtov XEX).
This passage has perplexed the learned for almost two millennia, while gen-
erations of fanatics have laboured to identify the man with the number 666 as
the Antichrist or the person who they think best fits that description. The sec-
ond beast, who establishes the first as the object of a worldwide cult, is clearly
some ruling authority. That in St John’s time would have been the Roman
empire or the Roman Church that succeeded it. As to the first beast, whose
image, marked with a deadly wound, was made the chief emblem of the cult, he
~]~j
must have been a religious leader, officially venerated but disdained as an idol by
St John and the early Christian Gnostics.
The answer to this conundrum is made plain through the esoteric code of
symbolic number that St John makes use of throughout his book. In the last
verse of Revelation 13 he wrote: “Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understand-
ing (nous) count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man”. Then
comes the key phrase: “And his number is 666”. In that phrase, given in Greek
on page 77, is concealed a number, not the exoteric 666 that needs no counting,
but a number that emerges by adding up the numerical values of the letters in
the phrase. They amount to 2368. The name with that number can be found
among the holy names introduced with the number 3168 on page 73. Readers
can find it for themselves and draw their own conclusions, and then it will be
seen why orthodox theologians draw away from the subject. But St John warns
that only those with understanding—meaning those initiated into the mysteries
of symbolic number—should count the number. The name has been published,
with proper obscurity, within the discourse on 666 in The Dimensions of Para-
dise, where those who are truly motivated can study the matter further.
The word ‘beast’ (therion), used in old-fashioned translations of the New
Fig. 63. The number
666 is the thirty-sixth

triangular number,
meaning that it is the
sum of numbers from
1 to 36. The first 36
triangular numbers,
beginning 1,3, 6,10...
up to 666, make up
‘ °92F7F7ODHD0DODO0O0OD0D00000CO000
CCO0OGCOCOFCOO9DOGOGoOeCOCOOFD HOODOO O OOo Ooo Oo
the pyramid.
Initiation
1820
[22]21[17
}25}29}10] 9|26. Fig. 64. Magic square of
36] 5 |33] 4| 2|31 i

Testament, means simply a wild animal; there is nothing ‘beastly’ about the
number 666. Numbers symbolize natural principles which in themselves are
neither good nor evil. The number 666 is the polar opposite of 1080, and it
is also its complement and partner. The number 1080 is the essential lunar
number, applying to the world of imagination and the gifts of the holy spirit,
whereas 666 refers to pure solar energy. As the symbolic number of the sun,
666 implies male authority and the principle of reason. Princes of this world
rule in the spirit of that number; and the influence of 666 is evident in the
materialism that dominates modern economics. But were it not for 666 and
what it stands for, the world would lose its vitality and grow sterile. In the
names and phrases that yield this number through gematria can be seen its
overall character.
666 = 7 pny, the mind, understanding, reason

= Tapa Gov, from God or from above
665 = opyy Veov, divine wrath

= otha Mov, weapons of God
Many of the characters and images in Revelation appear to be the direct

opposites of each other. The whore and the ‘beast’ of Babylon are opposed to
the bride and the lamb of the New Jerusalem, and the two cities are similarly
contrasted. Yet in St John’s allegory they are linked together and have similar
names, as if to represent two sides of the same coin. The implication is that
Babylon, the decadent, doomed city, is essentially no different from the holy
Jerusalem. They are merely at different stages in the cycle of rise and fall that
continues throughout history. And their citizens are the same good souls who
inhabit every stage in the process. This is made clear in the names of the two
cities, for numerically they are identical.
1285 = Bagvdwy, Babylon

y ayia Todts y Iepovadyy, the holy city Jerusalem
The numbers 666 and 1080, solar and lunar respectively, are also bound
together in a partnership of opposites which, when happily consummated (by
adding the two together), generates the blissful state of unity and wholeness
that follows the initiation ritual. In sacred or alchemical writing this state is
described by such terms as the Glory of the God of Israel, the number of which
is 666 + 1080 = 1746.
1746 is referred to as the ‘number of fusion’, being the sum of the two
numbers that represent sun and moon or the two opposite poles in creation.
It is the pivotal number in the cosmological diagram which is the framework
of our geometer’s creation myth, for 17460 measures the side of the square
that stands within the universal circle (area 12!) and relates as ¥3:1 with the
diameter of the circle representing the sublunary world. As a numerical sym-
bol of the whole scheme, pictured as the Heavenly City, it has the appropriate
gematria, for
1746 =Iepovoadnu, y Tohts Gov, Jerusalem the city of God

Initiation
The sublime symbolism of the ‘number of fusion’ is illustrated by the holy

phrases, used in the New Testament or Gnostic texts, whose letters add up to
that number. Many of them are to do with the Mysteries and the seed of mys-
tical doctrine that was implanted in the initiate’s mind and developed as the
tree of knowledge. In three of the New Testament Gospels (¢.g., Luke 13:19) it
is called the “grain of mustard seed”, supposedly the smallest of all seeds, and
in Mark 4:30-34 it is used as an allegory for the secret knowledge that Jesus
revealed to his disciples. In the Greek of the New Testament the grain of mus-
tard seed has the number 1746, and 1747 gives ‘the divine Gnosis’, yvwotg Sou,
meaning direct knowledge of God. With these names, below, are some of the
others that have been discovered with the same number and similar meanings:
1746 = xoxxog ctvarews, grain of mustard seed

= TO Kkexpvuevvov tvevua, the hidden spirit
= To Tvevua koopov, the universal spirit
= 0 Oycavpoc Iycov, the treasure of Jesus
= 0 vouos o mvevuatiKos, the spiritual law
= y Peotys mvevpatos, the divinity of spirit
= y doba tov Geov Iopayd, the glory of the God of Israel
1747 = yvwots Geov, knowledge of God, or divine Gnosis

= pvotytia Ingov, Mysteries of Jesus
1745 TATNP, VLOG , VEDA, Father, Son, Spirit
864, the Foundation Number

Ancient Athens, according to Plato in Critias, was founded by a divine pair,
Athena and Hephaistos, representing the two opposite signs of the zodiac,
Aries and Libra. Significantly, the combined numbers of their names, A@yva
69 + Hoatotos 795, add up to 864, called the “foundation number’.
The number 864 is a foundation stone in the code of canonical numbers

that formulates the universe. Its character is solar and orderly, and its most
prominent appearance is in the sun whose diameter is 864000 miles. That is
400 times the diameter of the moon (2160 miles) and, strange though it be, the
moon’s distance from the sun is about 400 times its distance from earth. That is
why the moon’s disk fits neatly over the sun at a total eclipse.
The table of comparative sizes and distances of sun, moon, and earth, set
out on page 83, shows the organizing function of 8640 and its fractions, 4320,
2160, 1080, often in conjunction with 11, reflecting the 11:3 ratio between the
diameters of earth and moon. Notable appearances of 864 include the radius of
the Grand Orb (the earth’s circuit around the sun or vice versa in earth-centred
cosmology), which is 93,312000 miles or 86400 x 1080, a tenth part of the
sun’s diameter multiplied by the radius of the moon.
The number 86400 is the number of seconds in a 24-hour day, and this
number extends through all the vast ages covered by traditional chronology, cul-
minating in the period of 8640 million years which the Hindus call a day and a
night of Brahma. In the 12-note musical scale and in metrology 864 is a famil-
iar number. The royal Egyptian half-cubit of .864 feet is a standard measure in
the pyramids and in the former temple at Jerusalem.
The image of 864 that emerges from its symbolism in many different fields
is a square altar or cornerstone, linking earth and heaven. It corresponds to the
rock of foundation, placed at the earth’s centre to hold-down the waters of the
abyss—providing the firm ground on which human institutions are founded.
The altar is a cube of 12 feet, making its superficial area (the combined areas of
its six sides) equal to 864 square feet. Half of it is buried, half on the surface, so
its total volume, 12 x 12 x 12 or 1728 cubic feet, is in two parts, both of 864
cubic feet. The cube in which St John saw the Heavenly Jerusalem also mea-
sured 12 x 12 x 12, but in units of a thousand furlongs. Reduced to 12 furlongs
or 7920 feet on each side, its six faces have a combined area of 864 square fur-
longs which is also 8640 acres (43560 square feet = 1 acre).
Every aspect of 864 is reflected in its gematria. Jerusalem is 864, and so is
Initiation
the cornerstone of which, in St John’s account, there were twelve in the holy
city. The number 864 is also the number of the thysiasterion, the altar. Other
phrases, below, indicate the central position of 864 in the numerical cosmology.
864 = Iepovoahnyu, Jerusalem

= ywvia, foundation, cornerstone
= Qvotactyptoy, altar
= ahnPeta xoouov, universal truth
= aywwy, holy of holies
= Qewv, temple of the gods
As a solar number, measuring the sun and the solar system, 864 is related to
the 365-day solar year, ruled by Abraxas from his central throne. The number of
Abraxas is appropriately 365, and his seat, §poves ABpatac, is 864. Another name,
signifying a bearer of solar intelligence, is Pythagoras, [lv@wyopac, 864.
More clearly than any other symbolic number, 864 reveals its essential mean-
ing through its correspondences in astronomy, time-keeping, music, measure-
ment, and gematria. It is indeed the foundation stone in studies of number and
cosmology.
Earth Moon Sun Distance

diameter diameter diameter Earth—Moon
Moon diameter
2,160 miles
Sun diameter
864,000 miles
Earth—Moon distance
237,600 miles
Earth—Sun distance
93,312,000 miles
83
Fig. 65 (opposite). Traditionally, and from the geometer’s point of view, this is a duodecimal universe.
Its numerical structure is dominated by powers and multiples of Twelve, while twelve-fold geometry is
the framework in which all other regular shapes are happily combined.
O
Patt
THE PHYSICAL CREATION
Dare a) eae 9 gi Nae
)°The Dodecad
A Summary of the Numbers One to Twelve
The first twelve numbers, the basic components in the numerical cosmology,
fall into three categories along with their respective types of geometry.
First come the structural numbers and the geometries that occur in the
architecture of the universe. These numbers are Four and Eight (V2 proportion)
and Three and Six (V3 proportion). Set above them, as the first symbol of uni-
versal order, is the number Twelve, whose geometry embraces them all.
Five and Ten pertain to life and growth and are the subject of part 3. Seven
is the number of the soul and, though it has priority, is the last to be illustrated
in the geometer’s cosmogony. That is the tradition, and the reason for it is that
Seven is a symbol of the initiatory process completed. It therefore comes at the
end of the geometer’s allegory. With Seven is placed the mystical Nine, another
symbol of the Mysteries. Their natural associate is Eleven, because polygons
with 7, 9, and 11 sides are the outsiders—the only ones in the Dodecad that
cannot be constructed with ruler and compass.
Eleven is the number that bridges the gap between the Decad and the
Dodecad. Mediating between the two complete systems, the sublunary Ten and
the heavenly Twelve, Eleven has no distinct characteristic of its own. Its geome-
try is alienated from other systems and it has no place in architecture or music.
Yet in the realm of number Eleven is active in ratios and relationships, espe-
cially in partnership with Seven, as in 22:7 (x) and 99:70 (V2). An arithmetical
function of Eleven is to sum up the numbers 1 to 9, both forwards and back-
wards, through a sequence beginning, 11 x 11 = 121, 111 x 111 = 12321 and
culminating 111111111 x 111111111 = 12345678987654321.
In this series of units can be seen the rungs of a ladder from the Decad to the
Dodecad—fanciful, of course, but a visible image to those who have the eye for it.
86
6-The One and Only
Symbol of the Universe
One is, obviously and by definition, unique. The Greek sophists with their peda-
gogic humour used to say that there are two classes of number, the first contain-
ing the number One and the second all the other numbers. The geometric image of
One is a circle with its microcosm, the round dot at its centre made by the point of
its creator's compass. The same image symbolizes the whole universe, the only true,
self-sufficient representation of the One that is conceivable. On that scale, the central
dot is a cross section of the world pole. Therein is the mystery that haunts physics
and metaphysics alike. The earth spins on its axis, implying that there is an actual
pole, however thin. Yet this pole must revolve, so where and what is the constant,
unmoving centre? It seems to be devoured by infinite regression. Here the geometer’s
myth comes to the rescue. The dot at the centre of a diagram is called “dimension-
less’ and taken to symbolize the unchanging element in Creation, on which every-
thing revolves, that is, divine law.
Fig. 66. This is the first figure in

geometry, symbol of number One
and the unique universe. The dot is
dimensionless and conceptually non-
existent. But it is the first and most
essential element in this construction.
87
(- The Geometry i|N
of ‘Two
Duality and the World of Paradox
The geometric symbol of Two is two points joined by a line, for example the
diameter of a circle, or the line that connects the two centres of a ‘vesica piscis’
(see The Geometry of Three, page 90). With this image enters the duality that
runs through nature, gives two sides to every question, and makes this a world
of paradox.
Fig. 67. Two is the

line between two
focal points and is
seen in the division
of a circle into two
equal areas.
88
The Geometry of Two
2 SWZ
=.
SS
Fig. 68. The two poles of a magnet create an energy field, displayed in this crop circle from Avebury Trusloe,
Wiltshire, at the end of July 2000. The outer circle is divided by 60 points (58 visible) and lines are drawn
from each point to each of the two foci—as in the diagram below the figure.
89
8: The Geometry
of Three
The Vesica Piscis and Material Creation
The Vesica Piscis and the Marriage Made in Heaven

Symbols of the material creation begin with the first composite figure in
geometry—made up of two separate shapes. It is the union of two equal cir-
cles, each circle passing through the centre of the other. The shape made by
the two overlapping circles has been given many names, usually implying that it
is a source or mother of geometric forms. In creative geometry it is commonly
known as the ‘vesica piscis’, the fish vessel, because it looks something like a fish.
This productive union of two circles is the first and most perfect of geometric
marriages. In alchemical terms it represents the conjunction of two opposites, two
of the same kind who finally come together after their separation and refinement
apart. Without losing their individualities or merging into one, the two oppositely
charged or sexed entities find their point of balance and are creative together.
It is an ideal image—too good to be true, some would say—but it is constantly
reflected in the processes of nature and it lights up our human dreams.
In the practice of geometry the vesica piscis appears at the very beginning,
as the first construction that everyone makes after picking up a compass. Fur-
ther experiments lead to the six-petal flower and the realization that the radius
of a circle divides its circumference into exactly six parts. It is natural and easy
to develop the figure further, bringing in all the shapes that conform to the V3
proportion—the triangle, rhomb, hexagon, and V3 rectangle.
The first product of the vesica is a twin pair of equilateral triangles standing
base to base. This four-sided figure is called a rhomb or rhombus, which is also
the name of a flat fish, like a turbot. The equal-sided triangle is the first regular
90)
The Geometry of Three
polygon, so Three is the first number that encloses an area. It is often regarded
by geometers as the first real number, One and Two being abstract principles.
Fig. 69. Two circles mate, each passing
through the centre of the other. In the

area where they overlap—the womb as
geometers imagine it—is generated a
rhombus. Its two halves, black and white

like their parents, are set together point
to point, and when they mate they slide
over each other to form a hexagon.
9]
The Physical Creation
Fig. 70. Geometric
products of the
v3 grid
Fig. 71. Circles
closely packed
produce the same
diamond lattice
pattern.
Fig. 72. Formed by the
union of two equal
circles, the vesica

piscis gives birth to the
rhombus, made of two

equilateral triangles. If the
width of this figure is 1, its
height is V3, giving birth
to the ‘root 3’ proportion
that prevails throughout
the physical world.
x
XX
: OO
y
iv
LY
a i e |
BOOKA eee
90
Fig. 74. The fish and the rhombus. The rhombus, first symbol of the v3 proportion, has given its name to flat
fish, like the turbot, that have the same diamond-shaped outline. Tradition confirms its association with the
fish. This is emphasised in the peculiar story of the “153 fishes in the net” that occurs in the last chapter of St
John’s gospel.
Fig. 75. The v3 ‘fish’ geometry. The eye of the fish is located in the V3 rectangle at the point where its
diagonal is intersected by the line drawn perpendicular to it from one of its corners. The point where the
line meets the opposite side of the rectangle divides the figure into three equal parts.
94
Fig. 76. 144 fishes

in a bowl (v3 grid)
9)
pre
~
~
oD
@
<icareC)
aS
SS
oO
[e)
=
68
ye
SP
&
a
fishes, 24 blue,
24 red, in the v3
pattern of a
church window
6
Fig. 78. The nine divisions

of a rhombus hold nine
pairs of fish.
The Net with |53 Fishes, a Geometer’s Parable

Many of the stories and parables in the life of Jesus were repeated from earlier
sources. Some of them have a numerical and geometric framework, for example
the ‘miracles of multiplication’ summarized in Mark 8:19-20. These are the
miracles, attributed to many saints and ascetics, both men and women, where a
limited supply of food is made sufficient to feed a great many people. Jesus per-
formed two such miracles, once when he fed the 5000 with 5 loaves and 2 fishes,
and again when 4000 of his followers were satisfied by 7 loaves and a few fishes
among them all. On the first occasion 12 baskets of food were left over and on
the second 7 baskets remained. In these numbers, as Jesus emphasised, sacred
allegories were concealed which the disciples failed to understand. Nor can they
be understood today. There is, however, one miracle that is openly numerical and
clearly refers to a scheme of geometry based on the V3 proportion—the story of
the miraculous catch of precisely 153 fishes (John 21).
97
Why 153? It is a triangular number, the sum of all the numbers from 1 to
17. Eighty times 153 is 12240, a number that applies to the Heavenly City dia-
gram as its outer diameter, being equal to the earth’s diameter in miles plus two
diameters of the moon. 1224 is the key to the story of the 153 fishes in the net.
It is the number by gematria of both to dixtvov, the net, and 1Svec, fishes.
Fig. 79. The

geometry and
numbers of the 153
netted fishes Mae : Sea .

The gematria of 1224 + 1 brings out phrases which identify 1224 as a
numerical symbol of paradise on earth. These are some examples.
1224 = oxuptos o 9eoc, the Lord God

= xttots Gov, God’s Creation
= xoxo Qeov, divine circle
= » outeta, the plantation, an epithet of paradise
1223 = 1 odo¢ napadetcov, the way of paradise
1225 = 0 mapadetcoc S20, God’s paradise, i-e., the Garden of Eden
= eyw ett y odoc, I am the way (John 14:6)
= 9 dixatoovvy Qeov, the righteousness of God
= evodov odwv, the one Whole of wholes, Plato’s name in Timaeus for
the unique sphere of the cosmos
98
AG |
6 {E
St John’s story begins when St Peter decides to go fishing by night in the

Sea of Tiberias and takes six of the other disciples with him. They enter a boat,
which can either be depicted as circular like a coracle or boat-shaped by enclos-
ing the circle in a vesica. They pack in as six overlapping circles with the circle
of St Peter in the middle (figure 80, page 99). The number of Ztwwv o Tletpos,
Simon Peter as he is called in St John’s account, is 1925, which is the circumfer-
ence of a circle with diameter 612'/7, taken as 612. With 612 as the diameter
of the central circle representing Simon Peter, the width of the circular boat is
1224.
The seven disciples plied their net all night but caught nothing. As dawn
broke they saw a figure on the shore. At first they did not recognise Jesus, who
had risen from the grave after his entombment. He advised them to cast their
net on the right side of the boat, and when they did so the net was almost bro-
ken by the weight of the 153 fishes that filled it. Simon Peter jumped into the
water and towed the boat to land, a distance of about 200 cubits, with the net
of fishes behind it.
In the geometrical sense, the disciples cast the net on the right side of the
boat by placing the point of their compass on the circumference of the circular
boat and drawing an arc of another circle with the same radius, 612, containing
a vesica piscis. The rhombus within the vesica is then divided by 6 lines into 16
smaller diamond shapes. The width of the vesica being 612, each of the 16 divi-
sions is 153 in width. These represent 16 small fish or, together with the great
fish that contains them, 17 fishes in all. Here again the number 153 comes in,
for the sum of numbers 1 to 17 is 153. Each side of the greater rhombus fish
measures 153 x 4 = 612, so the measure round its perimeter is 612 x 4 which
is 2448 or 1224 + 1224, the number of to dixtvov, the net, plus the number of
Ove, fishes.
The fish geometry and the number system based on 17 and 153 contin-
ues in the rest of St John’s story. When Simon Peter sees the net bursting with
fishes, he puts on his fisherman’s coat and dives into the sea so as to pull the
boat to land. The number of the fisherman’s coat, y emevdutys, is 1060 which
is the height of a vesica whose width is 612, the same as the diameter of Simon
Peter in the boat. The geometric image makes his coat long and hooded. The
boat is ‘about’ 200 cubits from land. A cubit is 1.5 feet, so the distance is about
300 feet, allowing it to be 306 feet. That is the distance from the centre of the
Simon Peter circle to the surrounding circle of land. The diameter of this all-
enclosing circle is 2448 or 16 x 153, closely corresponding to the number of the
sea of Tiberias or Galilee (Sahacca Tahthatas ths Tibeptadoc = 2446), where
the miracle of the 153 fishes took place.
When the disciples come to land, the risen Jesus is awaiting them. He has lit
a fire and is grilling fish for them to eat with the bread he has provided. There
is much symbolism in this story, far beyond the numerical. Jesus was known
esoterically as the Fish and was identified with the Age of Pisces, the Fishes, or
IXOYEX, 1224. This name and number are given by the sum of the initial let-
ters of his holy epithets. Jesus (I = 10), Christ (X = 600), of God (© = 9), son
(Y = 400), Emmanuel (E = 5), Saviour (2 = 200) add up to 1224, the number
of Pisces, the dominant sign in the Christian era.
The story of the 153 fishes provides a glimpse into the sacred code of geom-
etry and number that was taught in the Mystery schools and adapted to the
Christian myth by those who formulated the new religion.
Fig. 81. The large
rhombus fish and
the 16 smaller ones
within it make 17
in all, a reference
to 153, the sum of
numbers 1 to 17.
10]
The Triangles That Fill Up Space

The importance of the triangle in the structuring of space is demonstrated in
the five regular figures of three-dimensional or solid geometry by which Plato
in Timaeus (54-57) symbolizes the five elements, earth, air, fire, water, and the
ether. Three of these, the tetrahedron (4 sides), the octahedron (8 sides), and
the icosahedron (20 sides), are made up of equilateral triangles and represent in
order fire, air, and water. The two other solids are the cube or hexahedron with
six square sides, the symbol of earth, and the dodecahedron with twelve pen-
tagonal sides which represents the ‘ether’ and orders the whole universe. Johann
Kepler in the seventeenth century showed how these five regular solids, each
contained in a sphere, fit together within the dodecahedron to create a geom-
eters world image.
There are two kinds of right-angle triangle. One is the isosceles with two
equal sides and the other, the scalene, with three unequal sides. The first is
half a square bisected along its diagonal, with angles of 90, 45, and 45 degrees,
while the scalene has an infinite variety of shapes. The most perfect of these,
said Plato, is half an equilateral triangle, with one side half the length of its
hypotenuse and with angles of 90, 60, and 30 degrees. These two triangles, each
united with its pair, are the building blocks of creation, forming the first four
regular solids which, in the geometer’s cosmology, correspond to atoms. As the
basic components of fire, earth, air, and water, they are in constant motion, and
as they knock and jostle each other they are broken up into separate triangles,
which are then sub-divided into similar shapes on different scales. At the same
time, the particles are reassembling, small triangles joining with others to make
big ones and these combining to form new atoms or geometric solids. The sca-
lene triangles can become parts of tetrahedrons, octahedrons, or icosahedrons,
because these have sides made of equilateral triangles, whereas the isosceles can
only fit into a cube, the element of earth.
102
As an essay in physics, Plato’s account is strikingly odd, but he persists with

it in detail, describing the interactions of the atoms and elements and illustrat-
ing the correspondences between earth, air, fire, and water and the four geo-
metric shapes. For example, spicy dishes taste hot and burn like fire because
the spice atoms are tetrahedrons, the smallest and most prickly of shapes. Sweet
and creamy things, on the other hand, consist mainly of icosahedrons, whose
rounded shape soothes and pleases the tongue. That sounds plausible enough,
but no one today would take Plato’s account literally, and no one was ever meant
to. Plato is here elaborating on the traditional, geometric myth of creation. With
high wit and beautiful imagery he is leading his students into the intricacies of
solid geometry, not boring them with shapes, numbers, and figures but bring-
ing life to the subject through the allegories attached to it. A noticeable omis-
sion from Plato’s story is the fifth regular solid, the dodecahedron. It plays no
part in the clashing and breaking-up to which the other four are subjected. All
that Plato says in Timaeus is that “God used it for arranging the constellations
on the whole heaven”. Elsewhere (Phaedrus 110) he indicates that the dodeca-
hedron is the earth’s essential form—its etheric envelope perhaps. As a symbol
the dodecahedron is uniquely significant, for with its twelve pentagonal faces, it
provides an image of the ideal earth, where all twelve types of humanity dwell
in harmony under the guidance of the twelve zodiacal gods. The reality of this
image, if only on the level of ideals, is apparent in the dodecahedron, the most
perfect and noble polyhedron in geometry.
Tetrahedron Cube Octahedron Icosahedron Dodecahedron
Shape of sides: triangle square triangle triangle pentagon
Sides: 4 6 8 20 WZ
Corners: 4 8 6 12 20
Fig. 82. Thefive | Edges: 6 2 12 30 30

regular or . .
Element: fire earth air water ether
Platonic solids
isosceles
Fig. 83. The two triangles that feature in the sides of the first four regular solids. They can be subdivided
endlessly into parts which are always similar to themselves, illustrating Plato’s account of the dissolution and
reconstitution of atoms.
Pythagorean Triangles
Pythagorean triangles have a right angle and whole numbers on each of their
three sides. Though given the name of geometry’s great hero, they were not his
original discovery. The records of ancient Babylon show that these triangles and
the systems behind them were perfectly known in that period. But he made
good use of them to demonstrate the gist and core of his teaching—that the
universe is a divinely born creature, perfect in all its parts because it is based
on the most perfect of paradigms, number itself: As a means to persuading his
pupils towards that perception, he revealed to them the order that prevails in
the world of Pythagorean triangles.
A modern revealer of this order is the geometrical researcher Joan Moore of
Weston-Super-Mare, whose analysis and identification of Pythagorean triangles
results in two series, both starting with the basic triangle with sides 3 and 4 and
hypotenuse 5. The two series, as here illustrated begin:
3-4-5 3-4-5
5-12-13 8-15-17
7-24-25 |WAS Beis
9-40-41 16-63-65
The regular progressions apparent in these terms bring to light an endless

sequence of Pythagorean triangles. Some of them are prominent in ancient geo-
metric designs, in temples and across landscapes.
Fig. 84. A square 7 x 7 contains eight of the first type of

Pythagorean triangle with sides of 3, 4, 5, leaving a blank
square in the middle.

Fig. 85 (left). In the centre is the 7 x 7 square (previous page) containing eight 3-4-5 triangles around a small
blank square. The next square contains eight 5-12-13 triangles, and the series continues 7-24-25, 9-40-41...
Fig. 86 (right). The second series of Pythagorean triangles starts, like the first, with a blank square surrounded
by eight 3-4-5 triangles, and the series continues 8-15-17, 12-35-37, and onwards.
The 5—!2—13 Pythagorean Triangle

The oldest recognized example of the 5-12-13 Pythagorean triangle is the large-
scale construction identified by Robin Heath. Its base line runs due west from
Stonehenge to the centre of Lundy Island in the Bristol Channel where a right
angle locates the third point of the triangle in the Prescelli hills of Wales, source
of the Stonehenge bluestones. The ‘station stone’ rectangle at Stonehenge is part
of this prehistoric scheme, for its sides of 5 and 12 with hypotenuse 13 repeat
the larger triangle on the scale of 1 to 2500. The large 5-12-13 triangle has
sides measuring each a seventh part of 360, 864, and 936 miles. From this data
can be calculated the precise dimensions of the Stonehenge rectangle, leading to
further discoveries in the field of ancient science. Details are in The Measure of
Albion (Robin Heath and John Michell, 2004).
51°55'21.4286” N
eee el ele
Fig. 87. The

Stonehenge—Lundy
triangle
Fig. 88. The ‘station

stone’ rectangle at
Stonehenge
107
A rectangle made of two 5-12-13 triangles shaped the Temple at Jerusa-

lem, founded by King Solomon in 961 BC and reconstructed on the same site in
Roman times. Measuring 120 by 288 cubits it stood within the ‘eschatological’
temple prophesied by Isaiah, the dimensions of which are six times larger, i.c., 720
by 1728 cubits. This cubit is the same as that used by St John to measure the New
Jerusalem, 1.728 ft., so the length in feet of the greater Jerusalem temple is 1728
x 1.728 ft. a thousandth part of 12 x 12 x 12 x 12 x 12 x 12 ft. The plan of the
temple is said to have been a divine revelation to Solomon’s father, King David.
Fig. 89. The 5 by 12 rectangle containing the eschatological temple at Jerusalem is delineated by architectural
landmarks, such as the Tomb of Absalom to the east. Within it, at the crossings of the diagonals, are the two
sacred rocks of Jewry and Christianity. These are the Rock of Foundation in Solomon's Holy of Holies (east)
and Golgotha, where Jesus was crucified (west). The distance between them is 864 cubits.
108
9- our and the
Square
Reason, Stability, and Order
The Rational Square and the Root-2 Proportion

A further product of the vesica, the geometer’s womb image, is the square, sym-
bol of the number Four. If the Creator had the use of a T-square, as the Masonic
emblem indicates, he could easily have drawn a square with his ready-made right
angle. According to our myth, however, he had nothing but a compass and ruler,
and when geometers talk of ‘constructing’ a figure, they mean drawing it with
these instruments alone. The simplest way of constructing a square is to draw
a circle with a diameter and enclose it in a vesica. Joining the two ends of the
diameter to the two points where the longer axis of the vesica cuts the circle
completes the square.
Fig. 90 (left).
Constructing a
square from a vesica

piscis
Fig. 91 (right). The

root-2 rectangle has
its longer side equal
to the diagonal of
the square on its

shorter side. For its
practical advantages
see figure 116.
109
In contrast to the circle, whose circumference is defined as its width times

the irrational 7, the square is a rational figure; the measure round its four sides is
equal to four times its width. It stands for reason, stability, and order, as implied
by such phrases as ‘fair and square’ and ‘standing four-square’. The cube, the
three-dimensional extension of the square, is the traditional symbol of earth
and firm ground. Plato calls it the most stable of the geometric solids. Four or
2 x 2 is the first square number. With it the world acquired its four quarters
and directions, four seasons, four primary colours, and the root-2 proportion
favoured by rational administrators. The square is not often apparent in nature
but dominates architecture and the works of man.
Doubling the Area of a Square: An Exercise in Recollection

The square, the most solid and material of geometric shapes, was used by Socrates
to demonstrate the most highly ineffable of his philosophical doctrines, the
immortality of the soul. We have, he observed, certain innate forms of knowl-
edge which can be drawn out (educated) into our conscious minds. Knowledge,
said Socrates, is recollection. The truths of number and geometry, for example,
are within us, and we can either discover them for ourselves or, once they have
been pointed out to us, we recognize them as old friends. If we have not been
instructed in these things in this life, we must have learnt them in some other
existence. In that case there is an immortal element in our beings—the soul.
In Plato’s Meno is the extraordinary account of how Socrates claimed to
prove his point. Meno, a rich man, was a disciple of Socrates, and at his house
the master was speaking about virtue, what it really is and why and how one
should attempt to acquire it. In the tradition of initiates, those who have learnt
that reality is in our souls, he saw virtue as whatever feeds and cultivates the
soul—which is nous, or total understanding. Everyone, he said, knows how to
double the area of a square—if only they can remember it.
He asked Meno to bring forward one of his attendant slave boys, one who
had been brought up in his household and had never received any form of
Four and the Square
Fig. 92. A quiet life

There’s so much noise and bustle that
I’ve come to the decision
to go back to the place where I was born,
when nothing ever happened and,
instead of television,
we used to watch the blackbird on the lawn.
scholarly education. Socrates, probably using a sand tray, drew a square and
asked the boy to draw another, double in size. That’s easy, said the lad. He
doubled the length of one side of the square and made a greater square upon
it, but Socrates soon convinced him that the area of this square was not twice
that of the original but four times larger. The base line must be 1% times the
side of the original square, suggested the boy, but that did not work either,
and the poor youth, who had confidently asserted that he knew how to double
a square, was reduced to confusion. That, said Socrates, is an excellent thing. If
you once believed something and it is proved false, you are motivated to discover
the truth. That is the first step towards knowledge.
If that boy had been given compasses or dividers, he could easily have doubled
the square by swinging its diagonal onto its extended base line, thereby obtaining
the ¥2 length needed to make a square of area 2. But in that case he would have
needed to know the Pythagoras theorem. Socrates led him by an easier path. He
took the boy’s first square, measuring 2 x 2, and pointed out that, if you halved it,
you would have the required area. The square is made up of four smaller squares,
and when you divide each of them along its diagonal, you obtain a central square
whose area is equal to four halves, which make two. Then you can see that the
way to double the area of a given square is to draw a square on its diagonal.
Once the boy had seen that, thought Socrates, he would be drawn on to
further studies and, if a normal, intelligent youth, would be set on the path
towards initiation and nous.
As a type of messiah, who set out to purge the world of errors and bring
both the individual and society into the state of nous, Socrates had to battle
on two fronts. First he had to expose the false assumptions that are handed
down by fathers, mothers, grandmothers, and generations of schoolmasters,
and then, having broken down all beliefs and prejudices, to reconstitute
minds with the truths that lie beyond opinion. Truths that lie? That is the
paradox of earthly existence, where authorities proclaim great lies to be true,
and truth resides, as ever, among the few who dare cultivate it. And that is
why Socrates, who was executed for speaking truth several centuries before
ie
Four and the Square
Jesus, said in the Republic that a perfectly just man is bound to be crucified.
There is no doubt that Socrates, like all initiates, truly believed in the
immortality of the soul, but it is hard to accept that he proved it by doubling
the square with Meno’s slave boy. In the first place he led him on blatantly, and
it was not the boy but Socrates himself who solved the problem. Then again, is
doubling the square a token of immortality? As faithful geometers, we can see
this as a parable, an expression of truth in the guise of a good story.
Fig. 93. Doubling the square
The square that has to be doubled. For convenience Socrates makes it 2 x 2 with an area of 4.
;
The boy’s first effort. Doubling the base line...
... produces a square that is not twice but four times the area of the original.
His second try, halving his original extension of the base line to make its length 3, gives
a square of 9 rather than the required 8. The boy is confused and admits to not know-
ing the solution to the problem. But his curiosity is aroused and Socrates proceeds
to engage his reason. By dividing all four squares into halves along their diagonals, he
forms a central square containing four halves. He asks the boy to count them. In the
original square there are two halves, and in the new square four halves. The boy is then
congratulated on doubling the square!.
Fig. 94. This arrangement of squares looks like a letter rack or block of pigeon holes. It is one of the ingenious
types of geometry used by the Cosmati, the guild of marblers and paviours who flourished in Italy in the
Middle Ages,
[|
Four and the Square
Fig. 95. Another work by the Cosmati geometers is the marble pavement in Westminster Abbey, laid down in
in 1268. Overall it is a symbolic picture of the universe. One of its features is the combination of square and
triangle, illustrating together the v2 and v3 proportions.

Fig. 96. Three and Four are brought together under the aegis of Twelve. Starting from the central hexagram,
the 6-sided geometry develops into a 12-sided polygon. On these 12 sides squares and triangles alternate,
both inwards and outwards, and the gaps between the outer figures are filled with 12 similar triangles.
Four and the Square >
Fig. 97. Falling leaves: a pattern that combines the V2 (square) proportion with the V3 (rhombus). These
figures illustrate the union of Three and Four, the first mixed marriage, i.e., between two different numbers.
LZ
r
ww
vA
—-10-Six and the
Hexagon
The Perfect Number
According to the story in the first chapter of Genesis, which is based on num-
ber and geometry, the universe was completed in six days. The number Six was
allotted to the period of creation because it is the first perfect number. As St
Augustine wrote in The City of God, “God, even though he could have created
the world in an instant, decided to dedicate it to six days in order to reflect on
the perfection of the universe”.
A perfect number, as defined since ancient times, is a number that is the
sum of its factors. The factors of 6 are 1, 2, and 3, and 1 +2 + 3 = 6. The next
perfect number is 28 because the sum of its factors, 1 + 2+ 4+ 7 + 14, equals
28. The third such number is 496, and after that perfect numbers become even
rarer, 33,550,336 being only the fifth. Six is not only the first perfect number, it
is unique in being doubly perfect because, as well as being the sum of its factors,
it is their product also, for 1 x 2 x3 = 6.
Six is also called the marriage number because the hexagon is created by the
union of the two equal triangles which are the first issue of the vesica piscis.
The hexagon and six-pointed star are easy to construct with the Creator's ruler
and compass. The measure round the six sides of a hexagon is exactly six times the
radius of the circle that contains it. Thus six pennies or plates or equal circles can
be placed round an equal seventh so that each circle touches the central circle and
its two neighbours. To construct a hexagon, draw a circle with its diameter, place
the compass point on one end of the diameter and, without changing the compass
opening, mark off two points on the circumference. Repeating the process from
the other end of the diameter provides six equally spaced points around the circle.
From this can be drawn an endless succession of hexagonal patterns, the under-
lying grid being the diamond-shaped network produced by the V3 proportion.
The geometry of the number Six is regular and repetitive and occurs mainly
in inorganic nature, such as the growth of crystals, the cells of a honeycomb,
and the orderly structure of the universe. Hexagons will pack together endlessly,
as also will triangles and squares, for they relate to matter rather than to life or
spirit, which are represented by other orders of geometry.
Hexagonal geometry is so easy and rational that geometers tend to pass it
by and move on to more challenging systems. But as every child with a compass
knows, there is great satisfaction in the patterns to be found within the simple
hexagonal order. And there are more subtleties and illusions in it than is imme-
diately obvious. The perfection of Six is emphasized in Genesis for good reason.
In the geometer’s myth the Great Architect wanted the structure of his creation
to be perfect, so he used the geometry of Six to make it so.
Fig. 99. The hexagonal rug. This classical hexagon pattern is one of nature’s wonders. It is a 1: V3 rectangle
containing 216 hexagons. Each hexagon consists of 3 diamond rhombs, differently toned to give the 3-D
effect. The are 216 dark diamonds, and the other 4 tones are in pairs of 216 each. The numeral 216 is the
appropriate hexagon number being 6 x 6 x 6. The 12 horizontal rows in the hexagon pattern show regular
intervals between their 4 tones.
Six and the Hexagon
Fig. 100. This mat on a polished wooden floor displays the hexagon pattern and contains 1296 (= 6 x 6 x 6 x 6)
diamond shapes.
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Fig. 101. Hexagonal geometry is often displayed
in crop circles. This specimen, situated below
Silbury Hill, Wiltshire, in 1997, has a fringe of 126

‘gemstones’ (54 large, 72 small).
Fig. 102. The crop circle with its precious
geometry is cordoned off by the imaginary

intertwining of a hexagon and a hexagram.
122
Six and the Hexagon
Fig. 103. The strange, baroque pattern formed by the lay of the wheat within the Silbury Hill formation is
given colour to create a jewel-like effect.
123
I1-Kight and the
Octagon
For Peace and Justice
Eight is the first cubic number (2 x 2 x 2). Like the cube the octagon has eight
corners and is made up of squares. In the octagon is consummated the second
of the sacred marriages in geometry, the union of two equal squares, overlapping
diagonally. From these square associations the octagon derives the earthly side
of its character. It conforms throughout to the 2 proportion.
Eight belongs to the class of numbers called ‘evenly even’ because they can be
halved and halved again right down to 1. In the same way, a sheet of the ordinary
A4-size typing paper, whose sides are in the 1: /2 proportion, can be folded in half
to make AS, half of which is A6, and so on, always retaining the same V2 ratio in
its sides. The evenly even series begins 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64... . These numbers are
popular with architects and were much used by the medieval masons. In churches
and chapter houses throughout Europe their wonderful octagonal and sixteen-fold
symmetries in stone delight the senses and at the same time are strictly functional
in roofing and supporting their structures.
A common architectural use for the octagon is to bridge the gap between square
and circle, as when a dome or a cylindrical spire, symbolizing the heavens, is set
upon a square base, symbol of earth. The octagon that mediates between these two
opposite shapes has the appropriate angelic symbolism. This is indicated by its char-
acteristic number, given by the sum of its eight 135-degree interior angles, which is
1080, the number of the Holy Spirit. Octagons are often found in the bases of old
stone crosses and holy fountains.
As evidence of their higher nature, octagons will not pack together like trian-
gles, squares, and hexagons. In a crowd they line up and down in orderly fashion,
124
Hight and the Octagon
leaving blank squares on four of their sides (figure 104, top). This is a common til-
ing pattern, a favourite for bathroom floors. ‘Male’ octagons with points on each of
their eight sides stand farther away from each other, tip to tip, separated by an equal
number of pointed crosses (figure 104, below). These cross shapes, for reasons to be
explained, can be called hermaphrodite octagons. Despite their formality, octagons
are highly adaptable, have many possible divisions, and generate a large number
of patterns, both in themselves and in formation with others of their kind.
Fig. 104. Octagons,
packed as closely as
possible, produce
the ‘bathroom tile’

pattern. Octagon
stars, made by two
squares in marriage,
are divided from

each other by
pointed crosses.
129
pe eee
Fig. 105. An attractive construction of an octagon by arcs from the points of a given square, NSEW, passing
through its centre. By this method the circle, through the points of the octagon, is divided into both eight
and twelve parts.
Fig. 106. The three octagonal sexes. In accordance with their reputation for fairness, octagonal figures have
three sexes: male, female, and hermaphroditic. These three types constantly mingle with and transform into
each other. The male octagon is so called because it has protruding points on all eight sides. In the female
octagon the points are folded inwards to make eight recesses, and the hermaphrodite figure, cross shaped,
has four protrusions and four recesses.
Fig. 107. Justice and equilibrium. As the architectural link between square and circle, the octagon stands for
peace through reconciliation of heaven and earth. And since lasting peace is impossible without justice, that
virtue is also demonstrated in the octagon. There are many ways of drawing eight-sided and eight-pointed
figures and dividing their areas. Those that best depict the
fair, even-handed nature of the octagon have areas equally
divided between light and dark. These figures and their

dominant number Eight are popular in eastern systems of
divination and are considered lucky. These and the following
examples of octagonal patterns begin with a selection that
exhibit justice in their equal dark and light areas, and continue
with unequal examples.
Fig. 109. Octagon types

Fight and the Octagon
Love)
a= =SSo
tL. (e)U fooO oO fo
types (light and dark
blue) in a colourful
frame
129
a RU Rts RI este AC ane als
Fig. 111. Octagonal spinners
130
Fig. 112. Octagons are a byword for dignified stability but here is a rare example of an octagonal dance.
Fig. 113. Octagonal leaf and flower patterns
131
Fig. 114. Octagonal economy. Another illustration of justice in the octagon occurs in this method of
constructing an octagon with sides equal to that of a given square. Four circles are drawn on the corners of
the central square, passing through its centre. The points where the extended sides of the square cut the rims
of the circles mark the eight angles of the octagon.
A circle is drawn to contain the four circles, and it is calculated that its area is equal to that of the four
circles individually combined. That means that the areas where they overlap are equal to the areas they do
not cover. Also equal are the two lengths of line that make up this figure. (There are twenty-four lines in all,
including the four semi-diagonals.) If the four equal sides of the square and the eight sides of the octagon
measure two units, the other twelve lines measure V2.
Fig. 115. The root-2 rectangle and its uses. The rectangle featured in the octagon, with sides of 1x v2 (or 2 x
V2 if the longer side is put first), has the unique property that, when it is divided into two, its half has the
same proportion as the whole. This division is made by the thin line drawn perpendicular to its diagonal. The
point where they intersect is the ‘eye’ of the rectangle around which successive root-2 rectangles spiral. This
proportion, made rational as 99 x 70, was known by the ancient geometers and is used in the modern A4, A3,
etc., paper sizes, A4 being 297 x 210mm or 3 times 99 x 70. These dimensions, about 11.7 x 8.3 inches, are too
big for this book, as well as objectionably

metric, but the root-2 proportion is
attractive, so we have chosen the simple
9.9 x7 inches.
Fig. 116. Four root-2 rectangles form the

greater part of an octagon. Their areas,
taken together, exceed the other areas
(blue) by ¥2 to].
ag
RE
ALRITE
Sie
Te
LOIS
GEENA
A
Oe
Ee
ut
LIES
VEE
LEONG
DE
ORL
iCFIA
a
RE
UNO
SES
SS
LP
Fig. 117. Eight A-series envelopes, in the
root-2 proportion, arranged on a card table,

overlap to create an inner and an outer
octagon.
Fig. 118. A-series envelopes, because of their
root-2 proportion, lie together with their
flaps open on an octagonal table.

Fig. 119. The root-2 overlapping rectangles are repeated within the central octagon and recede inwards
towards infinity.
Fig. 120. The component
parts of this octagon

are rearranged to form
the two strips above
and below it.
136
Fig. 121. The twenty-
four isosceles triangles
that make up a hollow

octagram are packed
together in the
rectangle below it.
137
: Fig. 122. Octagonal kite in SUSSEK)
Fig. 123. These basketwork depictions

of a marriage between two squares are
made up of cross-shaped ‘hermaphrodite
octagons’.
ee eat
Our ancient forefathers, God rest their bones,

Cut down the trees and. cleaved, the land ofstones,
Then, having drawn & squore with its Magonal,
Used. it our settlement octagonal.
We've rather {solated in these woods
Butdonot need, to purchase many goods,
For at the start our ancestors decided Fig. 124. Octagonal
That we should live on what our landsprovided, = :
economy: a forest
Me 4
settlement
gen
aes
Fig. 125. Octagonal illumination with wise counsel from Ecclesiastes 12

a0
ac
OL
Bo
if
Bo
til
@o
oa
Fig. 126. A beautiful and geometrically ingenious octagon appeared in this crop formation at Alton Barnes,
Wiltshire, in 2004. It is not difficult to draw and colour by hand, but on this scale, about 200 ft. across, it is a
formidable night’s work.
143
FES
BYSs
Fig. 127 (previous pages) and 128 (above). Cursive octagonal patterns. A web of strips at right angles with
octagonal holes is woven by repetitions of the octagonal types below.
Fig. 129. Octagonal details from the cursive octagonal pattern
146
Fig. 130. Huge geometric figures, accurately surveyed across the rough mountain landscape of Peru, can
only be seen wholly from the air. This design in the Palpa mountains is a rational variation of the octagon,
made up of two unequal squares within the overall grid of small squares. The respective areas of the squares
forming the octagon are as 8:9, the interval of a musical tone. The dimensions of the whole figure can be
calculated from the estimated length of one side of the little squares, 26.4 ft. See also figs. 52 and 53.
Figs. 131 (above) and 132 (left). Eight and

Twelve, The same construction, beginning
with four arcs or (for the sake of completion)
circles centred upon the four corners of a
square, divides the circle around the square
into both eight and twelve parts,
148
Fig. 133. The arithmetical

progression 4, 8, 12
is illustrated by this
combination of shapes
corresponding to these
numbers. By the widths
of the strips making up
the 12-pointed figure, the
overlying square in the
octagon is divided into 9
lesser squares.
Fig. 134. Combinations of
Twelve and Eight with

ruler and compass
149
12-The Majestic
Twelve
The Number of Universal Order
and Harmony
In the field of number, Twelve is the ruler of all. The entire structure of number
is basically duodecimal, and so is the cosmological diagram that depicts, through
the paradigm of number, the entire universe. Twelve is above all the number of
order. It is the root number in the code of proportions that governs the solar
system, and it therefore plays the leading part in all aspects of cosmologically
ordered societies, wherever they arise. It may be called the framework number.
Twelve is the first number to be called ‘super-abundant, meaning that the sum
of its factors is greater than itself. The factors of 12 are 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, adding up to
16. Its shape, the dodecagon, accommodates the geometries of the structural num-
bers Three, Four, Six, Eight, and also, as shown later, the geometry of Seven. The
twelve-pointed figure is made up of three squares, four triangles, or two hexagons.
In three-dimensional geometry the number Twelve reigns supreme. Ever
since Johann Kepler claimed to have packed all the five regular or Platonic
solids into successive shells, corresponding to the planetary orbits, geometers
and physicists have followed the same path towards the depiction of universal
order, from the astronomical to the atomic scale. Our master-geometer, Keith
Critchlow, in his book of 1969, Order in Space, emphasizes the twelve-sided
dodecahedron as the all-embracing shape, and he shows how twelve spheres,
compressed together, give rise to the other solid figures. (See also his Islamic
Patterns where the regular solids are examined in detail.) A model of the five
regular solids, fitted within each other and all enclosed by a dodecahedron,
is exhibited by Stephen Wilmoth, architect and geometer of California. The
t ()
The Majestic Twelve
twelve-sided figure, he concludes, is the matrix and generator of all the other
shapes. On the sub-atomic level, where solid matter gives way to abstract geom-
etry, Dr Robert J. Moon of the University of Chicago has analysed the nuclei
of atoms comprising the various elements, showing how they conform to the
shapes of the five regular and thirteen semi-regular or Archimedean solids.
The puritan fundamentalists of science are suspicious of such approaches, see-
ing in them a gateway to deism—and perhaps they are right. Facts are indeed
neutral, but perception of the same beautiful, rational organisation in every
dimension of nature leads inevitably to meditation on its source.
The drawing (page 162) of the twelve spheres, each touching an equal
thirteenth at the centre, depicts the geometric model for the entire range and
variety of groups of twelve around a leader. Jesus and his disciples provide the
most obvious example for Christians, but the pattern is endlessly repeated in
the traditions of all nations, where a great teacher, hero, or religious founder is
surrounded by a group of twelve knights or holy men, who divide the country
around them into twelve zodiacal sections. Legendary examples include King
Arthur, Charlemagne, Solomon and the twelve tribes of Israel, Odin who led
the twelve gods to Scandinavia, and St Finian with the twelve scholar-saints of
old Ireland. Sometimes the central thirteenth is replaced by a holy shrine or ora-
tory, where twelve missionaries, like St Joseph and his followers in the Glaston-
bury legend, maintain a perpetual round of prayer and chant.
In recognition of the essentially duodecimal nature of number, the circle is
traditionally divided into 60 degrees, each of 60 minutes or 3600 seconds. The
French revolutionaries wanted a 400-degree circle to go with their metric system,
but that made the angle of a triangle 66.666 . . . degrees rather than 60, so the
idea was dropped. In some remote, unknown age, the zodiac was divided into
twelve sections, so that the sun passed through one zodiacal house or sign in
2160 years, which is 6 x 6 x 60, the same as the diameter of the moon in miles
and ten times the number of minutes in a circle. Music was similarly adapted to
the chromatic scale of twelve notes, and nations were divided accordingly into
twelve tribes with twelve gods, each ruling one section of the zodiac.
Twelve Tribes and the Revelation of the Heavenly Order

Twelve is associated with Apollo, the solar deity whose dominance coincides
with settlement, civilisation, and a social order designed to reflect the twelve-
fold pattern of the cosmos. Like its model, the sublunary centre of the univer-
sal diagram, the nation was divided into two halves, four quarters, and twelve
tribes, three to each quarter. Each tribe was placed under one of the twelve
zodiacal gods, and each had its corresponding tone of music and celebrated one
of the twelve episodes in the national saga—that of Gilgamesh for the Babylo-
nians and the twelve-part Arthurian cycle in Celtic regions.
At the centre of these cosmological societies, making the thirteenth sphere
amid the twelve, was the national sanctuary and the seat of the ruler, a sacred
king who played the Sun in the ritual drama. It was rare that he actually sat
there, because his whole life was a procession. Like the sun passing through the
zodiac, the king with his court and retinue proceeded month by month through
the circle of twelve tribes, holding law-courts in each and presiding over games
and festivals. Dramas were enacted about the particular episode of the national
saga that was located in the landscape of that tribe, and the festival music echoed
their particular note in the twelve-part chant. At the end of the circuit, usually
at midsummer, the whole nation came together at the ritual centre where the
national parliament and the high court had their sessions. These were always
in the open air, with twelve councillors, twelve judges, and the ever-traditional
twelve jurymen to represent the twelve human types. It was a time of sports and
contests, trading and treating, music, dancing, and all sorts of entertainments,
and at the centre of it all was the serious business of upholding the nation’s law-
code, said to have been divinely given, together with its standards of culture.
Nation-states founded upon the cosmological pattern have been known in
every part of the world. Their legendary origin is as perpetual choirs, where each
tribe contributed its note to a sacred chant that passed continuously round the cir-
cuit of twelve. The first amphyctiony (league of twelve tribes or choristers around a
common sanctuary) was established, according to the Greek tradition, by Orpheus
The Majestic Twelve
and was centred upon Delphi. There, in the midst of the sanctuary, was the
holy shrine, said to be the birthplace of the nation and also the spot where the
world pole passed through the earth. This was a universal claim, attached to
the centre of every cosmologically ordered society. It was demonstrated by sit-
ing the national sanctuary on the symbolic pole of each country, meaning the
longest line, preferably north-south, that could be drawn through it. The ideal
spot was halfway along the axis, but if the terrain there was unsuitable, compro-
mises were necessary. Examples of this practice are collected in a previous book,
At the Centre of the World (1994), and subsequent research (mostly confined to
island realms where the boundaries are drawn by nature) has produced others.
The present significance of this is that, wherever the national place of assembly
has been located exactly or nearly halfway along the pole of a country, it was the
hub and focus of a ritualised social order, based on the duodecimal pattern and
the same traditional code of universal harmony.
All this, you may suppose, was long ago and far away. Even in Plato’s time
the old, Orphean, twelve-tribe choir and order of society were no longer in
popular memory. His attempt to revive the old order was partly practical and
political (in the model constitution he describes in Laws), but equally it was
on the level of the mind. The code of knowledge behind these societies, said
Plato, was divine revelation, a lighting-up of minds. Every nation that has
adopted the cosmological pattern as its foundation claims to have received it
from some god or goddess. Plato’s story in Laws is that from time to time
the gods appear on earth and rule over us—but so lightly and naturally that
we do not even know that we are being governed. When they leave us, they
impart the secrets of their rule to certain people, urging them to maintain
the god-given laws and customs, never changing their modes of music or any
aspect of their culture. As long as this is done all goes well. It is as if the gods
were still ruling or, in another image, as if the Holy Grail were apparent on
earth. But entropy is always at work and human nature is weak. Eventually
the order established by the gods becomes diluted and the enchantment that
held it is broken. That is when progress begins, the march of civilisation and
153
the rise towards the great state of Babylon—or, in Plato’s allegory, doomed
Atlantis.
Most interesting here is Plato’s assertion that revelations of the heavenly
order occur at different times and always have done. Yet the content of these
revelations, and their numerical core, is always the same. Sometimes it must
happen that the revelation strikes someone who is in a position to institute it—a
young, initiated ruler perhaps who can reform his people on cosmological prin-
ciples. Far more often, of course, it is to individuals whose power extends little
farther than their own minds. There, in the mind, is where Socrates said that
the ‘pattern in the heavens’ might be established, and there, in the minds of his
students and readers, Plato wanted to install the divine code of knowledge, the
instrument of peace and understanding.
In supposing that revelations took place only in the remote past, we are evi-
dently mistaken. Long after Plato’s time the very same form of constitution that
he described has been implemented in various parts of the world. It was enacted
by the Norsemen in the ninth and tenth centuries, when they settled Iceland
and the Faroes and divided both countries and each part of them in accordance
with that same code of number and geometry. When the French colonizers
seized Madagascar at the end of the nineteenth century, deposing its queen, they
discovered a full-blown, cosmological state pattern and a ritual form of govern-
ment through a council of the twelve kings of the twelve tribes into which the
people were divided. Anthropologists were puzzled by how precisely the elabo-
rate constitution and ceremonies of the Madagascan state paralleled those of old
Iceland and of Ireland in the days of its high kings. The apparent conclusion is
that these and all cosmological societies everywhere have been founded upon
the same canon, code of knowledge, and symbolic world plan that Plato took as
the basis of his ideal city and state of mind.
The most essential part of the revealed pattern of universal order is the num-
ber Twelve. As the symbol of the architecture behind the cosmos (whose total
area in our universal diagram is 12!), it is a number to be respected. Its geomet-
ric forms are pleasingly complete and symmetrical. Its proportions accommo-
The Majestic Twelve
date all the structural orders of geometry, and it is divisible into halves, thirds,
and quarters—unlike the simple, sublunary Ten. If a society, or its human unit,
is to be orientated with reality, it should surely count and categorize everything
in twelves. Yet Ten is a good, useful number, also to be respected, and it is duly
combined with Twelve in the ancient number system. There is no obvious geo-
metrical union between these two basic numbers, symbols respectively of struc-
ture and life, but it is provided on a lower level by their halves, Six and Five,
whose combinations are illustrated later, beginning on page 202.
The most perfect of all geometric marriages must be that between Twelve
and Seven, body and soul. The construction of this union is again not obvious,
but it is the climax of the geometer’s odyssey, and it is achieved with great rejoic-
ing in the last part of this story.
Fig. 135. Dividing

a circle into 12
parts—method 1.
Four arcs through the
centre of the circle
from each of its four
quarters make the
12-part division.
190
es
Fig. 136. Dividing a circle into 12—method 2.
The circle is enclosed in a square divided into

16 lesser squares. Lines from the centre to the
points where the circle meets the straight lines
divide the circle into 12.
The Majestic Twelve
Fig. 137. Four triangles

or three squares (here
with another three
squares inside them)
combine to produce
the 12-faceted figure

that symbolizes
perfect structure
and the harmonious
cycles of the cosmos.
107
Fig. 138. The 4 triangles that make up a
12-pointed figure create 90° angles, allowing 12

squares to fit around it and to overlap neatly
around the centre.
108
The Majestic Twelve
| LISix grey geese
i Six pink geese

Sharing a nut. F
Pe en ge es Renton
Fig. 139. A whirling dodecagon, or twelve geese on a common, with a nut

eS : aa
fe
SS IN
Fig. 140. The famous 12-faceted east window

of Chartres cathedral is based on the
12-pointed star which begins, conceptually,
beyond the window itself (pale) and defines
the sides of the 12 squares that tumble

around its centre.
160
The Majestic Twelve
Fig. 141. This design,

based on a Wiltshire
crop circle, is made
up of 12 circles struck
from 12 regularly
spaced points around
the inner circle. The

figure has 24 radii
and 120 separate
S
areas.
Bay
\\My
<x \Z si
Wil Fig. 142. Variations on
the 12-part division
161
Fig. 143. The dodecahedron, the leader and most mystical

of the five regular solid figures, has twelve sides, each of
which is a pentagon. The pentagon star, as illustrated later,
is a natural symbol of humanity, so the dodecahedron
signifies the highest ideals, the twelve nations or types
of personality united within the harmony of the number
Twelve. It also illustrates the traditional, sacred pattern of

twelve tribes around a common sanctuary or twelve saints
or heroes with a thirteenth as leader.
There is another version of the legendary group

of twelve, without the addition of a thirteenth. Examples include the eleven missionaries, together with
St Joseph, who founded the church at Glastonbury, and the twelve tribes of Israel in their early days,
who each presided in turn without a permanent central authority. These two groupings each have their
own geometric prototype, shown in the drawings of Keith Critchlow and reproduced below from his 1966
book, Order in Space.
The first, where the twelve spheres all touch a thirteenth of equal size, is called a ‘cuboctahedron’.
In the second, the twelve spheres have no need for a central nucleus of equal size and the figure
is categorized as an ‘icosahedron’, the Platonic dual of the dodecahedron. This figure, like the
dodecahedron, has twelve faces.
Fig. 144. Twelve spheres around athirteenth of equal proportions (cuboctahedron, left) and twelve spheres
without a centre (icosahedron, right)
162
The Majestic Twelve
Fig. 145. The Heavenly City
163
Fig. 146 (opposite). The marriage of two pentagrams, five-pointed stars, generates this firework display
of pentagonal geometry.
O
Part 5
THE CREATION OF LIFE
The Geometry of Five and Ten
13-Five and len
Numbers of Life and Growth
Life and the Pentagon

On the third day of creation, according to Genesis, the Creator, having separated
earth from ocean and provided dry land, began seeding it with grass, herbs, fruit
trees, and plants of all kinds. For this new stage in his work, the introduction of
life, the Creator needed another kind of geometry, the pentagonal, illustrating
the Pentad, the number Five, the primary symbol of life and the living spirit.
Five has left its signature throughout nature. Briar roses and most other
wildflowers have five petals with pentagonal stamens and tiny geometrical pat-
terns around their centres, reflecting the number Five. All trees and shrubs that
bear edible fruit have five-sided flowers, and their pentagonal geometry is con-
tinued in the fruit itself. Cutting an apple in two along its equator exposes the
delicate little pentagram formed by its seeds. The same pentagonal shapes and
details occur in starfish and many other marine creatures of all sizes, down to
the microscopic level. The wonders of natural geometry are endlessly varied, yet
in every case so apt and ingenious that geometers are made humble by an art so
far beyond their own abilities. The old clergyman-naturalists of days gone by
were drawn irresistibly towards the conclusion that behind nature’s artwork is
the mind and purpose of a great Artist. “Consider the lilies of the field”, cried
Jesus. “They toil not neither do they spin: and yet I say unto you, that even
Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.”
Darwin’s revolution burst the bubble. The Creator was torn from his throne
and demoted to a figment of imagination, while Evolution was set up in his
place. Yet at the same time, the development of photography and science opened
a new perspective on nature’s geometry. Artists, scientists, mystics, and anyone
who has been struck by the phenomenon of artistic design in nature are united
Five and Ten
in praise of it. Whatever the cause may be, the beauty and wit in the designs of
living forms is apparent to all who care to look.
In our geometrical creation story, the Creator is a mythic character, named
as the leading player in the drama, but otherwise unknown. He is not the dog-
matic, humanized God of religious creationism, and he is not encumbered with
the literalism that evolutionists apply to their First Principle. We call him the
Great Geometer, just for the sake of our story. But without him and his won-
derful Creation there would not be any story to tell.
In the Pythagoreans’ colleges where numbers were studied as individual
entities, Five was held in great honour and the pentagram was made the emblem
of their brotherhood. Their mystic sigils showed its five points each with the
letter of an appropriate virtue or deity, such as Yyeta, Health, or Epuns, Hermes,
the god most closely identified with the number Five. Five was called the mar-
riage number—not just because it unites Two and Three, but from its link with
humanity and all other creatures that breed in pairs. You cannot go far into
pentagonal geometry without seeing that, in order fully to develop its patterns,
the pentagon has to find another of its kind to link up with, forming a ten-
sided figure, the decagon, which enables it to reproduce. In the Symposium Plato
repeats the strange, geometric fable of how human beings were once happily
joined together in pairs and rolled along the ground like hoops. But even then
they behaved badly, and God punished them by splitting up the pairs. Ever since
then, we have been trying to find our natural partners, our other halves, and
join up with them to regain the former bliss. “The Desire and Pursuit of the
Whole” is Plato’s name for this process. The geometric clues to the diagrams
that must have illustrated the Symposium story are too obscure for certain inter-
pretation, but the figure the storyteller had in mind was evidently a decagon or
ten-pointed star, made up of two pentagramsin union. When torn apart (prob-
ably by some technique like origami paper-folding and cutting) the two pen-
tagons are geometrically sterile and yearn for reunion. Their styles of marriage
and separation are displayed in some of the following illustrations.
The Creation of Life
Five and the Golden Section

With the number Five and the appearance of life on earth, the Creator brought
into play the last of the four principal ratios in geometry, the ratio of 1 to
1.618033989 ... Commonly known as the golden cut or section, this ratio gov-
erns the whole field of pentagonal geometry, beginning with the pentagram
itself which conforms to the golden section in all its limbs and parts.
Fig. 147. The beautiful necessity. A fact of nature, mundane or wonderous as you care to see it, is that ten
pentagons stand side by side in a perfect ring, while the ten pentagrams they contain touch each other's
limbs, as in a dance.
168
Five and Ten
Fig. 148. Like all pentagonal and decagonal figures, the ring of pentagons is dominated by the phi ()
ratio, 1:1.618 or 0.618 :1. This is the ratio known as the golden section, much prized by mystical geometers
because, through its influence on the shape and proportions of phenomena throughout nature, it indicates
the pre-existence of a numerical law-code. In these diagrams ® denotes 1.618... and ¢ is 0.618...
Fig. 149. The workings of the golden section are illustrated by the rectangle with sides in the ratio 1:M. Here
they are D:@’, a ratio that can be also expressed as (1+ ):(1 + ®) or 1.618: 2.618 which are all the same
thing. The ‘eye’ of the rectangle (the point where its diagonal is cut at right angles by a line from its corner) is
the pivot on which successively smaller golden section rectangles revolve. It is also the focus of the golden
section spiral which governs the growth and form of ferns, shells, and organisms throughout nature.
® = (V5 + 1)/2 = 1.618033989 .. .
us B
= (V5 - 1)/2 = 0.618033989 .. .
Fig. 150. Dividing a line in the golden section. EF is

the line to be divided in the golden section. Make it
the vertical axis of a square ABDC. The arcs DF and

CF cut lines ED and EC at G’ and G. With centre E,
draw an arc through G’ and G. The point where it
cuts EF divides EF in the proportion 1: ¢.
170
Five and Ten
The golden section number has some peculiar characteristics, confusing and
fascinating at the same time. In the first place it is actually two numbers, dif
ferent but intimately related. They are both written and spoken of as (phi.
According to geometers’ lore, this Greek letter was used because it is the initial of
Phidias, the architect who built the Parthenon, but an alternative reason is that $
has the appropriate numerical value of 500. It is pronounced according to prefer-
ence either ‘fy’ as in ‘defy’ (the English custom) or in the Greek way, ‘fee’. The
two versions of phi derive from two similar formulas, both featuring the square
root of 5. They are:
ioe) 2s = 1.61822 .= greater D, and

e5cel/2 0.618... lesser
This useful distinction between the larger and smaller versions of phi is rec-
ommended by Scott Olsen in his book The Golden Section. Large phi, he sug-
gests, should be pronounced ‘fy’ and denoted by the capital letter ®, with lesser
phi spoken as ‘fee’ and written 9.
Examples of the peculiar, punning relationships between 0.618 (6), 1.618
(D), and 2.618 (9) are:
L/O0.618 32; = 1.618... orinphisymbols 1/¢ =i

1 +0618... =A0618 142 Or l+o =@
V6IS a ).G18> = 0.6185... of Ox =6
14+ 1.618... =) OLR ae dol 1+O0 =%
NOlSee Olga = G618x59. OF Ds OO) ea"
Weise (018sce = 2.618615 o8 0/6 =0
In all these calculations the phi family numbers have to be taken at their
true value rather than as here abbreviated.
The phi ratio is embedded in number itself. If you take any pair of numbers,
say 6 and 9, add them together to make 15, then add 9 to 15 making 24, add 15
to 24 and so on, the series develops as 6, 9, 15, 24, 39, 63, 102, 165, 267... The
further it goes the nearer it comes to producing true ® as the ratio between suc-
cessive terms. The last pair above, 267/165, gives 1.6181818, and the accuracy
improves at every step, approaching infinity without ever yielding the perfect
phi as a whole-number fraction.
A quicker, more economical way of approaching phi is by the same method
but starting with the numbers 0 and 1. Their sum is 1 which, added to the last
term, 1, makes 2; then 2 + 1 = 3; 3 + 2 = 5; 5 + 3 = 8, and the series contin-
ues, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, and so on, as far as anyone wishes to take it. The
last pair above, 144/89, give phi as virtually 1.618, slightly less than the ideal.
The next pair, 233/144, makes it slightly too big at 1.618055, and so it goes on,
successive ratios bracketing true phi ever more closely, like a tendril spiralling
around a pole.
This progression of numbers was named in the nineteenth century after
Fibonacci (Leonardo of Pisa), who came across it in the thirteenth century while
calculating the rate at which an enclosed colony of rabbits tends to increase its
numbers. The ratio he came up with was close to 1.618. Long before then the
golden section proportion was used in the monumental architecture of Egypt and
elsewhere in the ancient world. Plato refers to it in the Republic, but always guard-
edly and in few words as if it were an initiate’s secret. In his Timaeus cosmogony
he is similarly reticent about the dodecahedron, the fifth of his geometric solids,
whose twelve pentagonal faces are proportioned by the golden section. The secrets
of the golden ratio were, perhaps, considered too holy for open discussion.
If that was the case, it is certainly not so today. Since the nineteenth cen-
tury artists and biologists with philosophical tendencies have become entranced
by the golden section and the many different ways in which it determines the
forms and patterns of growth throughout nature. There is now a vast literature
on the subject. Some researchers have made a cult of phi, seeing its influence in
every type of form and motion, to the exclusion of all other systems of propor-
tion. A more rigorous approach has established the science of Phyllotaxis, mean-
ing the arrangement of leaves. It began with the observation that leaves grow
Do
Five and Ten
round a stem in a certain order, entirely practical in that it ensures the greatest
possible amount of light for each shoot, and at the same time conforming to
the phi proportion and bringing in the Fibonacci numbers. The same pattern
occurs in every manifestation of life. A popular example is the sunflower with
the disc of seeds in its head. These grow as two sets of spirals in opposite direc-
tions, typically in the ratio 89:55 or 55:34, both of which are adjacent pairs
of Fibonacci numbers. The scales of pine cones, pineapples, artichokes, and all
other fruits of that kind are arranged similarly in accordance with phi. Many of
nature’s spirals, in the growth of ferns for example, display the same tendency.
In these studies of life is much pleasure and insight, which is more than can be
said for the fruitless battle between the rival dogmatists, religious and scientific,
to establish a single, hard-and-fast explanation for the wonders of our existence.
Fig. 151. Pentagonal
construction ending
in a 30-sided polygon
VS
<<
ee
|
>
INKA
a |
ge ee
rt Et rete tn ne nn
Fig. 152. Constructing pentagons. There are many good ways of constructing a pentagon. Here are two
I
favourites. First, the classical method (starting with a square and an arc from the centre of its base through
its upper corners), the second given (below) in Robert Lawlor’s Sacred Geometry, which divides the circle
into 10 parts.
74
Five and Ten
Fig. 153. A striking pentagonal crop formation,
found in a field of wheat near Chute Causeway,

Wiltshire, in July 2007. The five outer figures
(above) are each made up of five pentagrams
around a central pentagram (left).
Fig. 154. Developments from a central
pentagon. Constructions that start from a
central pentagon or pentagram are restricted
in their growth. For breeding purposes, a pair
of pentagons, i.e., a decagon, should lie at the
centre.
L76
Five and Ten
Fig. 155. Thorns and

rose, developments
from a central
pentagon
Humanity and the Pentagram

One of the classical exercises in geometry is to construct the ideal, canonical
man. As we know from tradition, “man is the measure of all things”. We are the
sum of creation, possessing all animal traits as well as our own unique human-
ity, and in our bodily framework are the proportions and measures of the uni-
verse. With that understanding, the sculptors of antiquity made statues of gods
and heroes, ideally proportioned according to the canon of number by which all
human works and activities, from music to statecraft, were carefully regulated.
In the ancient civilisations of Egypt, the East, South America, and wher-
ever societies were founded on the model of the cosmos, standards were set and
insisted upon, and innovations were discouraged. In the canon of number could
be found all the modes of music and orders of geometry that are true and lawful.
Each of these was associated with a certain god or goddess, who thereby accu-
mulated a great many ‘correspondences’—her mode of music, dancing, architec-
ture, and, above all, her name in which was expressed her characteristic number.
Athena (j A8yva) the Greek goddess, for example, has by gematria the number
77, and like all goddesses of wisdom is naturally linked with the number Seven.
Her shrines and temples were planned and measured by 7, and her music was
the scale of 7 notes rather than the 12-note scale of Apollo. The purpose of this
art was magical, to provide the conditions by which each deity could most effec-
tively be invoked.
There were many gods and goddesses, so many types of music and ritual
were appropriate at certain times and places. In sculpture also, different orders
of number and geometry were used according to the nature of the subject.
For representing the canonical man, the standard model was Apollo, the most
beautiful among the gods and the most perfectly proportioned. On the human
scale his height is 6 feet, so is the stretch of his arms, and his foot is a seventh
part of that. His actual dimensions vary according to the particular foot in
which they are measured. The Greek kouros, the ideal youth reflecting Apollo,
is 6 Greek or 6.048 English feet tall, and his foot measures .864 ft. That is
178
Five and Ten
the ideal white male type. Other races have different standards and measures,
and female beauty is judged by other criteria, those of Aphrodite rather than
Apollo.
All races and both sexes, however, have a natural affinity with the penta-
gram. Its five points correspond to our extremities, four limbs and a head, and
the likeness is emphasized by the proportions of our bodies. These are largely
in accordance with the golden section. Much research and measuring has estab-
lished that in a 6-foot man the average length from the top of his head to his
navel is about 27% inches and from the navel to the ground 44% inches, a ratio
of 55:89 or 1.61818. Another appearance of the golden ratio is between the
length of the hand up to the wrist and the forearm. A golden progression of
1, 1.618, 2.618 is exemplified by the three bones in each of our fingers. Our
chin and cheekbones provide three points of the pentagon that shapes our faces.
The illustrations here of pentagrams dressed up to look like people are certainly
fanciful, but they merely exaggerate the truth, that the five-sided figure with its
golden ratio proportions is the basic model of the human form.
Fig. 156. Superstitious
people are wary of the
downward-pointing
pentacle, seeing it
as the image of the
horned devil. Turned

round, it became
another unlikely
character.
179
. . Fr Bag es Seca hc i! sceatantethe IP eRSCE aon onan: CREE RAS BIS eet ‘ is
Fig. 157. A genial oo
host. A welcoming
pentagram stands
within a ‘pentagonal
hexagon’.
180)
Five and Ten
acrobats in the
spotlight
house and family.
The dimensional
difference between
the smaller and larger
figures is 1:1.618...
18]
Pentagonal Dances
One of the everyday miracles of existence is that ten pentagrams in contact with
each other form a perfect ring. It goes with the other basic miracle of geometry,
that six circles or spheres touch each other and the central seventh. There is not
supposed to be anything supernatural in these happy coincidences. They are facts
of geometry and reason. But without them there would be no geometry and no
evidence of a creative mind behind the miraculous order of the universe.
One aspect of the universal order that neither of the literal-minded parties,
the Darwinian materialists or the religious creationists, even attempts to explain
is the humour in it. In the first place, the whole system is based on paradox—on
the one hand and on the other—and the only way to accept and reconcile a par-
adox is through humour. Examples of wit—the highest form of humour—are
constantly noticed by cosmologists and occur throughout studies of number and
creative geometry. In the structure of number there are many puns and witty
juxtapositions. On a more popular level, it is widely accepted by the professors
of Fortean studies (mysterious phenomena) that jokes, puns, and playful coinci-
dences are built into the way the world works and the way we experience it. One
way of seeing this is to follow Patrick Harpur in Daimonic Reality, remember-
ing that Hermes, famous for his tricks and humour, is one of the twelve gods
and is bound to have his say in how the world is run.
Pentagrams with their five extremities are not only shaped like the human
frame, they share many of our natural habits, especially in their couplings and
dancing. One of the most delightful studies in geometry is the various ways in
which pentagrams dance. The simplest sort of dance, known to everyone every-
where, is joining hands and singing and dancing in a ring. The singing of pen-
tagrams is for speculative musicologists to investigate—presumably it is based
on the pentagonal scale. Their modes of dancing, however, can be discovered
and illustrated through geometry. The positions they assume at the beginning
of their dance determine how it will proceed—that is, the type of pattern they
will form in the course of geometric development.
182
Five and Ten
A group of five pentagrams will dance prettily with a hand on their neigh-
bour’s shoulder (figure 162), and ten pentagons will fic around them. Another
fifteen decagons can be placed outside the ten, but these are separated by gaps
and the pattern goes no further. For a full-blown pentagonal dance five couples
are needed, making a ring of ten. Either they stand as widely separated as pos-
sible, touching fingertips, or hands and feet are placed together, or they support
each other in close contact. Their most intimate coupling is when each pair
overlies each other (figure 166), but then they are not exactly dancing.
Fig. 160.
In the
most widely spaced
ring of ten dancing
pentagons the figures

touch fingertips.
The six-sided shapes
that separate the
dancers above and
below are ‘pentagonal
hexagons’.
yes wf
Fig. 161. Two identical sets of ten pentagrams form closely packed rings. Their different ways of holding
each other determine whether the figure they make, inside and out, is a pentagon or a decagon. Students
of pentagonal proportions may calculate the relative sizes of these two shapes. Since the red background
in both pictures is made up of rhombuses and half-rhombuses, it is easy to reckon that the area around the
central pentagon (10 stars + 25 rhombuses + 5 halves) is larger than the area around the decagon (10 stars + 20
rhombuses + 10 halves) by 1] to 10. But when the central areas are included, which figure is larger overall?
Five and Ten
Fig. 162. Five pentagrams dance in a ring with
arms on each other’s shoulders. Ten pentagons
pack in around them and fifteen others outside
them complete the development.
Fig. 163. The natural tendency of pentagons
to dance is illustrated by these five shapely
legs that emerge from the construction of a
decagon.
18)
Sex and the Pentagram:

Meeting, Mating, and Breeding
The pentagon, as already pointed out, is unproductive on its own and needs to
find a partner of its own kind before it can breed: Breeding in the geometri-
cal sense means reproducing itself in such a way that its offspring can do the
same, allowing further pentagonal generations to develop. Triangles, hexagons,
and rectangles do it simply but lifelessly, in the way that crystals grow. But as an
emblem of life, the pentagonal figure breeds organically. And they are also like
us in having various ways of dancing, ten in a ring.
Figure 155 on page 177 shows what happens when a pentagon tries to repro-
duce on its own. The central pentagon will support five others on its five sides,
and around them can be placed a ring of five pentagrams, but other shapes are
then needed to further the development. If you start with the five-pointed star
in the middle (figure 154 on page 176), five pentagons will lodge in its angles,
but when another five are added, gaps appear and again it is a dead end.
There are two different forms of pentagonal marriage, resulting in two dif-
ferent forms of reproduction. The first union is between two pentagrams, inter-
twining within a ten-sided frame. Around it stand ten pentagons in a ring, and
upon them ride ten pentagrams with touching fingertips. The next generation
of pentagons, twenty of them, fit round the pentagram ring, and then form
their own rings round the ten sides of ten decagons. The pattern is illustrated
in the sequence of drawings beginning on page 253. It is the foundation plan of
Plato’s geometrical Atlantis.
The second kind of marriage between pentagons or pentagrams has rarely
been noticed or written about, It came to light during research into the pattern
that overlies the old city of Jerusalem, where this form of pentagonal reconcilia-
tion is a significant feature. In this form of marriage the two pentagrams overlie
each other, head to groin, creating a regular-sided but differently angled hexa-
gon. Paired together in that six-sided shape, the pentagrams multiply themselves
hexagon-style, though with added subtleties.
186
Five and Ten
“Two pentacles (five-pointed stars) agreect to intertwine.

They did it in the natural way that pentacles combine. ;
Their children were five pairs oftwins, not all afther identical, Fig. 164. Intertwined
That's just the way it happens when you're breeding froma pentacle,
Fn
ee4 ‘
pentacles and their
ten 10-pointed
offspring
Fig. 165. The ten decagons produced by the breeding pair of pentacles in the previous picture have become
ten points around them. The ten divisions that proceed from each point merge with the parent couple to
create bird-like shapes—or a curly mop of hair.
[8s
Five and Ten
Fig. 166. The second way in which pentagons and pentacles mate. Two pentagons, black and white or male
and female, stand point to point and then slip over each other to make an equal-sided ‘pentagonal hexagon’.
The two pentacles do the same. Pentagons on their own will not pack together to make a continuous
pattern, but when two of them are married the hexagonal figure they make can be multiplied endlessly.
189
Fig. 167. Ten-sided tablecloth with married
pentagons
Fig. 168. Ten single figures in a ring
10)
Five and Ten
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Fig. 169. The pentagonal married couple produce the 6-sided shape referred to as the pentagonal hexagon.
19]
Figs. 170, 171, 172,

173. The patterns
generated by the
pentagonal hexagon
are extended further
by tessellation.
192
Five and Ten
Figs. 171 and 172.
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194
Five and Ten
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This wallpaper looks very odd and makes some people smile,
And first of all I found it rather hateful.
But then my decorator said its quite the latest style
Fig. 176. Tessellation And that I really ought to be more grateful
of figure 174b
196
Five and Ten
Fig. 177. The pentagonal rhombus. Besides the regular pentagram with five straight limbs forming angles of
36°, there is another five-pointed figure known to geometers and often used by designers. The angle at its
points is 72° and it is made up of five pentagonal rhombuses. These are the apex angles of a decagram; the
two pentagrams that comprise it have apex angles of 72°.
Fig. 178. Five pentagonal rhombs, each divided into quarters, fit together to make 72° stars or, rearranged, a
pentagon with central pentagram.

Fig. 179. The pentagonal rhombus (top) forms the greater part (gold) of a pentagon. The other piece of the
pentagon shaped like a paper boat and coloured blue, forms one of the ten divisions of the blue and white
decagon below it, giving a spiral effect. The pentagonal rhombus fill the space between two pentagrams and
fits their angles.
198
Five and Ten
Fig. 180. The pentagonal hexagon behind the tessellated patterns on the previous pages can be cut up and
rearranged to produce the pentagonal rhombus.
199
20 co Be!
i oo —= vo
kKaie O (ge)— (<8)=
of Allah, source
of all living things,

is reflected in
geometrical gardens
of paradise on earth.
200
Five and Ten
<a
is ‘ PA
\4 Bes TAG
ne}2S on
> Ky.
Fig. 182. The Persian

Garden of Cyrus in
the fifth century BC is
a legendary example.
These patterns are
made of five pentagonal
rhombuses derived
from the pentagonal
hexagons previously
illustrated.
201
Pentagonal Marriages with Other Shapes

Pentagons are natural breeders and they will also couple with other shapes, most
easily with a hexagon. This marriage between the geometries of Five and Six is
symbolically satisfying because it combines the pentagonal patterns of organic
growth with the crystalline pattern exhibited in the hexagon.
The shapes representing Five and Six belong to different orders, but through
techniques of synthetic geometry they can be brought together in one construc-
tion to depict the actuality of life and matter in unison.
Fig. 183. Hexagonal
shapes emerging from
a central pentagon
202
Five and Ten
Fig. 184. From regular pentagrams in the central area some crafty geometry results in the appearance of 15
hexagrams in a ring around the perimeter.

204
Five and Ten
Fig. 186. From a perfectly regular centre the hexagonal geometry transforms itself gracefully to
accommodate the pentagons and stars at the six corners of the figure.
200
Fig. 187. One way towards combining the

geometries of two different numbers within
a circle is to divide the circumference by the
product of those numbers. Thus in unifying Five
and Six the circle is divided by 30. This leads
to the construction above. It is shaped by the
numbers Six and Twelve which determine its

divisions, but the 25 stars within it are all (apart
from the central hexagon) pentagonal.
An interesting feature of this diagram,
reproduced left, is the ring of 12 dancing pentacles
(rather than the usual 10), bounded by hexagons.
2()6
Five and Ten
Fig. 188. Fives and Fours. Another geometric marriage—in which the pentagon is united with the
square, symbol of earth—is illustrated by a circle divided into 20 parts. At the centre, five squares
stand on the sides of a pentagon. Around them the ring of ten pentagons (violet) is formed by two
large pentagrams (with central red stripes) which also shape the ten pentagrams in the outer ring. The
other ten spaces in the twenty-sided outer ring are filled by squares.
207
Five and Seven
Five and Seven are represented by such different orders of geometry that there
is no obvious way of reconciling them. Dividing a circle into 5 x 7 = 35 equal
parts is not geometrically possible. Perhaps it is unnecessary, because the com-
bined symbolisms of Five (life) and Seven (holiness and the world soul) convey
the idea that life is sacred, and that doctrine is built into the geometer’s creation
myth from the beginning.
Fig. 189. A contrivance for linking Seven with Five and Ten. The central decagon is surrounded by
pentagonal elements, accommodating the ring of seven pentacles.
208
Five and Ten
Fig. 190. Five of the
figures above are
placed together (with
overlapping stars)
around a central
red pentagon. This
marriage of Five and
Seven (producing 35)
is depicted in the
finished pentagon
edged by 35 stars and
with 35 other dark

Stars inside it.
209
A seven-sided figure is impossible to draw
With perfect mathematical precision,
And ifyou try to do it you are absolutely sure
To find your effort treated with derision.
Yet mystical philosophers will readily declare
That nothing in this world is really true.
So here you see a heptagon from triangle and square.
For any human purpose it will do.
Fig. 191 (opposite). An adequate depiction

O
Part 4
THE WORLD SOUL
The Mysterious and Holy Seven
14-The Holy Seven
Symbol of the World Soul
Seven and the Mysteries

With the number Seven the geometer’s creation story enters another dimension,
going beyond the physical universe and earthly life into the world of divinity.
Seven is the number of the world soul. It is not therefore reckoned as a created
number, because soul existed before creation, and its corresponding number is
given the same priority. It is the divine spirit that appears at the very beginning
of the Bible story, in Genesis 1, where:
the world was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the
deep. And the Spirit of God moved over the face of the waters.
That was the state of things before the Creator began his geometry and
before he made images of One, Two, Three, etc. Seven was there already, and the
Creator honoured it by perfecting his work in seven days, the last of which he
made holy. Seven is not often manifest in nature—though certain special plants
have seven-fold leaves—but in sacred or symbolic geography the ideal landscape
includes seven hills, springs, streams, and other features. In cosmology Seven is
taken to be the number of the universal axis, the conceptual pole on which every-
thing revolves while the axis itself remains fixed and unchanging. That makes
it a symbol of divine law, which never varies. With 7 as the measure of a circle’s
axis or radius, its circumference is a whole number, 22 or 44. In the cosmological
diagram the radius is 5040 or 7!. Those numbers occupy the pole position in the
Decad, balancing the numbers on each side of 7, for 1x2x3x4x5x6x7=
5040 and 7 x 8x 9 x 10 = 5040.
As a number of eternity, never generated and not subject to dissolution,
aa
The Holy Seven
Seven is the natural symbol of the eternal feminine principle, typified by Ath-
ena, the goddess of wisdom, who was never born but sprang, fully armed, from
the head of her father, Zeus. Athena is a constant virgin, and Seven is called the
virgin number, the arithmetical reason being that it is the only number in the
Decad that was not born (meaning it is not the product of any two other num-
bers) and does not breed (as, e.g., 2 and 4 ‘breed’ 8 and 2 x 5 produces 10).
The heptagon, the figure that illustrates Seven, has the characteristics of a
virgin, who cannot be made or laid down. It has been proved impossible to con-
struct a perfect heptagon with ruler and compass. There are several techniques in
geometry by which it can be done, well enough to satisfy everyone but the pedant,
and the results, as here illustrated, are of great beauty and interest. But Seven is
ever the virgin, ever wrapped in mystery and never submitting to the mastery of
reason.
The feminine nature of Seven is apparent in its relationship with the cycles
of the moon and women. Four weeks of seven days are the four phases of the
moon in its twenty-eight-day month, the seventh day is the holy Sabbath, and in
Jewish ritual every seventh year is Sabbatical, while every seven times seven years
is the Jubilee. The great Jewish feasts last seven days, and between two of them
are seven weeks. In contrast to the septenary lunar calendar, Twelve is the domi-
nant number in solar time-keeping. This opposition between Seven and Twelve,
and their reconciliation in the most perfect of all numerical marriages, is shortly
to be illustrated.
Another feminine aspect of Seven is its connection with dreams, prophecies,
and the mantic arts. In archaic Greece, before the rise of the Apollonian priest-
hood, oracles were telluric and necromantic, communicating with the spirits of
earth and the underworld and largely operated by women. Wisdom herself is a
virgin goddess—Isis, Sophia, or St Catherine in early Christianity. Socrates in
the Symposium claims to have learnt his wisdom from Diotima, a lady who also
instructed him in love. Yet Seven itself is not partial towards either sex, being an
emblem of wisdom and exerting its influence wherever virtue and philosophy
are cultivated. The tradition of seven oracular priestesses, virgins, sisters, or wise
The World Soul
women is paralleled by the seven sages of Greece, the seven roshis of Buddhism,
and the ‘seven wise masters’ whose legend is that they taught the seven liberal
arts to the son of a Roman emperor. In the Gnostic imagery of Revelation, there
are seven spirits of God and seven angels guard his throne. It is placed within
the central, seventh ring of heaven and approached through the seven stages or
‘Veils’ of initiation. These correspond to the natural path to initiation, through
the conventional seven ages of a complete lifetime.
In the simplest, most natural stage of the human cycle, the stage of tribal
migration or nomadism that precedes civilization and the twelve-part rationali-
sation of the zodiac, the guiding social principles are those symbolized by Seven.
The pattern of life reflects the wanderings of the seven stars or planets, time is
measured by the seven lights of the Great Bear and seasons by the seven-fold
cycle of the moon, while music is pitched to the seven-note scale of the rustic
pipe.
Everything that can be called sacred and eternal is appropriately numbered
in sevens. In the system of correspondences, developed in the Mystery schools
of pagan and early Christian times, the seven wanderers of the heavens—Sun,
Moon, Mars, Venus, Mercury, Jupiter, and Saturn—were each found partners
among other septenary groups—the seven metals, colours of the rainbow, musi-
cal notes, sounds, tastes, moods or humours, and so on, including the seven vow-
els of the classical Greek and Hebrew alphabets. Many of these affinities seem
contrived and arbitrary, and often they vary according to the view of whoever
practises the system. But its categorisations were never meant to be scientific in
the literal sense. Tables of correspondences were for use in religious and magical
rituals, for the invocation of specific powers and influences. Those who worked
with them adapted them as they found most effective.
This table of correspondences (opposite), could be extended further to
include other seven-fold categories. But enough is enough. The affinities sug-
gested here have their own fascination and may be of use to magicians, decora-
tors, and dealers in glamour.
The numerical and musical composition of the world soul is calculated in
214
The Holy Seven
the Republic, but Plato’s clues to it are too ambiguous to be followed with any
certainty. It is made up of the same canonical numbers, mostly duodecimal, that
occur throughout all codes of traditional science, cosmology, chronology, music,
measurement, physics, and symbolic geometry. As a scale of music, the world
soul stretches into the fifth octave, the extreme range, perhaps, of the human
voice. It winds around the universe and its axis, connecting all creation with its
divine source. From its name, the Universal Soul or Soul of All, comes the num-
ber that illustrates the mystical doctrine of the Trinity, where the Holy Spirit or
world soul is combined with two other sacred principles as Three in One.
The Soul of All, y yoyy mavtwv = 2997 = 111x3x3x3
This same number was discovered by Frederick Bligh Bond and Dr T. S.

Lea in 1917 and published in their list of holy phrases which produce by gema-
tria numbers that are multiples of 37. The number 2997 is equal to 37 x 81, and
Bond and Lea discovered in it another epithet of the world soul:
2997 = owtypia tov Koapov, Salvation of the World
TABLE OF CORRESPONDENCES
Heavenly Day Note |Colour| Metal Jewel | Greek | Sound

body vowel
Venus epsilon | shorte

= are)
Sun iota short i
Mars Tuesday omicron
Jupiter Thursday upsilon
Saturn Saturday
The World Soul
Seven, Nine, and the Septenary Number

Nine is a mysterious number, an emblem of esoteric science and the Mysteries.
It is the triple three of Trismegistos, thrice-greatest Hermes, the psychopomp
or mystic initiator. Followers of Gurdjieff use the enneagram, the nine-pointed
figure, as a source and illustration of the master’s philosophy. They are jeal-
ous in guarding its secrets, possibly because they really know nothing that
you cannot discover for yourself. Many claim to have constructed a perfect
enneagon, but no such construction has been proved and geometers say it is
an impossibility.
Nine is called repetitive because the digits of all its multiples can be reduced
to nine: twice nine is 18 and 1 + 8 = 9; 3 x 9 = 27 and 2 + 7 = 9 and so on.
Any number whose digits reduce to 9 must be divisible by 9.
There is a strange affinity between the numbers Nine and Seven. Not only
are they both emblems of mystery, with mysterious constructions, but they are
both intimately related to the same curious number, the ‘septenary number’
142857. That is the number that recurs when any number that is not a multiple
of 7 is divided by 7, e.g., 1/7 = .142857142847 ..., the six-digit sequence end-
lessly recurring. Here are the six versions of the septenary number, each begin-
ning at a different place in the sequence, and how they arise.
1 million + 7 = 142857... = 11 x 13 x 999 x 1

2 million 257 <=-285/ 14.4. =o 1y x 513. << 999
3 millions 7" =342857 lee = 1 1355699933
Amillion 2 2= 571428. 2..= 11 x3 999 5a 4
§ million + 7 = 714285... = 11 x 13 x 999 x 5
6 million + 7 = 857142... = 11 x 13 x 999 x 6
Every version of the septenary number is a multiple of 999, and wherever

you begin the sequence, its first three digits added to the next three produce
999.
The Holy Seven
142 + 857 = 999
428 + 571 = 999
285 + 714 = 999
Another diversion is to add the six versions of the septenary number together
in pairs.
142857 428571 285714

+ 857142 + 571428 + 714285
999999 2992797 Vee ees
Then again you can arrange the factors of 142857 in interesting patterns,
such as:
14238577 = 1) Ll x 117
LSEXSS3 5X58
Pe seul lie Klse 333
Moreover, the square of 142857 ..., multiplied by 7, equals 142857...
This septenary number is mercurial, full of tricks and puns, while at the
same time pointing to an arcane code that links the mysteries of Seven with
those of Nine. It provides a clue to the construction of the enneagon. This nine-
sided figure is made up of three equilateral triangles, but whereas anyone can
divide a circle into three, six, or twelve equal parts, the construction of three
triangles with their points equally spaced round a circle is an enigma. Geomet-
ric tradition says that the first step is to write the numbers 1 to 9 around a circle,
with 9 in the 12 oclock position, and locate points 3, 6, and 9 by inscribing a tri-
angle. These are the three numbers that do not occur in the septenary sequence.
To complete the figure symmetrically, the other six points are joined in the septe-
nary order, 1, 4, 2, 8, 5, 7. This figure (see figure 193 on page 218) is not properly
The World Soul
a construction. One way of drawing the enneagon with ruler and compass, though
not quite perfectly, is shown below in figure 192.
Fig. 192. Dividing a circle into 9 parts. Draw the circle. Inscribe in it a triangle and number its points 3, 6, 9,
with 9 in the 12 0’ clock position. Inscribe the reciprocal triangle to create a 6-pointed star with a hexagon
at its centre. Do not number the points of this second triangle. From each point of the second, unnumbered
triangle draw arcs to pass through the furthest pair of points of the central hexagon. Where these arcs meet
the circle are the 6 remaining points of the enneagon.
Fig. 193. The septenary pattern in the enneagon.
The 9, 3, 6 triangle is drawn, and the 6 remaining

points, joined in the sequence of the septenary
number, 1, 4, 2, 8, 5, 7, complete the symmetrical

figure.
218
The Holy Seven
Twelve and Seven: The Supreme Numerical Marriage

The two great opposites in nature—partners through necessity and carefully
woven together by the Great Geometer—are body and soul, symbolized respec-
tively by Twelve and Seven. The geometry of Twelve is beautifully proportioned,
Apollo-like, a work of symmetry and reason, whereas Seven is indefinable and
wrapt in mystery.
In cosmologically ordered societies, in the traditional world plan they imi-
tate, and in geometry itself, Seven and Twelve are bound together in a truly
wonderful manner, completing through their union the image of Creation that
is the object of the geometer’s quest. The construction by which this sacred mar-
riage is illustrated was evidently known in ancient times, for it is an essential ele-
ment in the cosmological diagram on which ancient institutions were founded.
Twelve and Seven, being abstract number symbols, are not sexualised, but in
the lower world they are attached to qualities regarded as male or female. The
rational, orderly Twelve plays the conventional part of the man to the female
Seven, which stands for imagination and the soul of nature. In early classical
societies these two opposites were ingeniously combined. A council of twelve
elders decided the affairs of state, but every decision they took was referred to
the state oracle, typically conducted by seven sibyls. If the oracle women foresaw
trouble through any of the elders’ decisions, they could veto it. In this way the
interests of Twelve and Seven were happily balanced, following the old principle,
man proposes, woman decides. But this is more a tendency than a hard-and-fast
rule. As in Plato’s Republic, women could be on the ruling council and male
prophets might serve the oracle.
In all cosmographies and cosmological myths, Twelve and Seven are equally
prominent. Cities have 7 gates, are built on 7 hills, and are founded on 7 springs.
In St John’s visions of heaven and hell, depicted in Revelation, are 7 churches,
7 golden candlesticks, 7 angels, 7 spirits of God, 7 kings, crowns, mountains,
thunders, and plagues, a Beast with 7 horns, and a 7-headed dragon. In the
divinely ordered city of heavenly Jerusalem are 12 gates guarded by 12 angels,
The World Soul
12 cornerstones, 12 kinds of fruit and gemstones, and the names of the 12 tribes
of Israel together with those of the 12 Apostles.
It is impossible to interpret all this imagery, but an overall impression is that
St John’s Seven is applied to the primordial, elemental world, and his Twelve
characterizes the perfect, universal order in the heavenly city. The model by
which he expressed this was, as shown earlier, the sublunary centre of the tradi-
tional world plan. The main feature in that diagram, after the combination of
square and circle, is the marriage of Twelve and Seven. Its geometry is developed
in the following pages.
Fig. 194. Dividing a Circle into Seven

You can never do it exactly, but two close approximations to the septenary
division of a circle have long been known. Both are simple and beautiful; the
accuracy of the first is better than 1 in 1000.
Method 1 (top left to bottom left)

a. The circle is enclosed in a square, and on the base of the square an equi-
lateral triangle is drawn. Lines from the centre of the base to the intersec-
tion points of circle and triangle form two sides of a heptagon.
b. The reciprocal triangle on the opposite side of the square allows the
circle to be divided into 14 parts. See how neatly the sides of the triangle
hold the inner 14-pointed figure.
c. Two triangles added on the other two sides of the square procure the
28-part division of the circle. This is the basic figure behind the complete
cosmological diagram of the Heavenly City.
Method 2 (top right to bottom right)
d. Another way of dividing a circle into 7 virtually equal parts is to inscribe

an equilateral triangle within the circle and draw an arc from one of its
points to bisect two of its sides. Where the arc meets the circle are the
two 7-division points.
The Holy Seven
a. Seven divisions d. Seven divisions
c. Twenty-eight divisions f. Forty-two divisions
e. Two further arcs from the other two points of the triangle divide the
circle into 21 parts.
f. A second reciprocal triangle is added to produce a hexagon within the
circle and divide the circumference into 42 points.
22]
The World Soul
Fig. 195. The 42 divisions of the circle,
shown on the previous page, are
doubled through this construction to
84 or 7 x 12. Twelve arcs form the 12
points around the centre, and the 84

divisions accommodate the 7 ‘petals’.
: a ee eg
/
\ WMOESRoaess 2 ett titt s/f
wanes Vee
~
4 H é ga
@
eB ge! é
|hei
ool
N
Fig. 196. The central 12-pointed va
Ss
figure is created by arcs, while ragg,

Sr
straight lines define the 84
divisions and the 7-pointed star.
DY,
The Holy Seven
\ we
angv
/
y
ee
B Z
a
TVX
AEN BS a NS
4
/
Fig. 197. Twelve and Seven, symbolic opposites, standing respectively for rational order and transcendental
imagination, have a natural inclination towards each other. The depiction of their sacred marriage is one of
the principal attainments of cosmological geometry. It begins with two constructions (figure 194 on page 221)
where two different triangles are used to divide a circle into 7 parts. One of the two triangles is inscribed
within the circle, the other stands on the base of the square containing it. When these triangles are drawn
to overlie each other, and their sides are extended to the borders of the square, the result is a magnificent
display of duodecimal geometry, capable of many different expressions.
The drawings that were originally meant to achieve a 7-fold division have developed spontaneously
into a 12-fold figure with a dodecagon at its centre.
a. The two triangles are placed together and their sides extended to the square.
b. The reciprocal triangle is added on the top side of the square.

cand d. The triangles drawn on the other two sides complete the diagram.
The World Soul
Figs. 198 (this page) and 199 (opposite).

Developed from the previous diagrams
showing the geometry of Seven, these

patterns, both made up of 12 spokes or
cardboard strips, are totally duodecimal.
224
The Holy Seven
220
The World Soul
Fig. 200. The duodecimal pattern is incomplete because the 12 strips that comprise it have not yet run their
course. It is finished when each of the strips has crossed each of the others, except for the one parallel to it.
The result is a 12-pointed, interlaced figure produced in traditional dances with swords or wands.
226
The Holy Seven
7 ta cae es Fig. 201. The lonely

5 moarok pbovethe sea,
wry thing ts organized
toe wayitought
irbe) princess. Her window
Buk sometimes on wenn” Look out between) the bars ee
: Fund.gaze upon thewatery moon and dream wpon the stars is barred by the
" a duodecimal pattern.
227
The World Soul
Fig. 202. Constructing the Heavenly
City. The first stage in the geometer's

depiction of the ideal cosmology is
dividing a circle into 28 parts. That,

as previously shown, is done with a
high degree of accuracy by drawing
four triangles within a square, each

one based on one of its four sides.
This produces the inner dodecagon.
The four arcs of the outer circle

passing through the yellow areas each
cover a twenty-eighth part of the

circumference.
Fig. 203. The outer circle is divided

geometrically into 28 parts. Eight of
Eo
the division marks are given by the
intersections of the circle and the

four limbs; the other twenty can be
3;
located with the compass. The 28
points are joined together in regular =x
RY
AS
o—
> =
> ER =
order. This creates the 28-pointed
ring (pink) around the centre. — eD
228
The Holy Seven
a>
ae
EO vs
Ss
e ‘i
oH Bes.
‘woe
Fig. 204. The construction for
dividing a circle into 28 parts
leads to this pattern (top). The
white ring around the centre is

occupied (below), by the twelve
corners of the three squares
produced by extending the lines

from the corners of the square.
229
The World Soul
Fig. 205. The
28-pointed figure
locates the positions of
the 12 moon circles that
stand around the circle

of the earth and form
the squared circle.
Fig. 206. A jewelled
cross set around with

twelve pearls ina
symbol of the heavenly
paradise and a mark
of dedication to its
restoration upon earth
The Holy Seven
Fig. 207. Seven and Twelve united and the Heavenly City revealed
23]
1D: Geometry and Love
Approaching the Climax
The geometer’s creation myth is an accompaniment to the traditional process of

initiation which leads through the arts and sciences towards the ultimate high
state of love and understanding. Above the clamour of the rival world-explainers,
the literal-minded creationists, and the dogmatic evolutionists, it strikes a note
that resonates in the mind, because it is the note of truth. Our story of how the
world came into being is not made up from random beliefs and opinions, but
exists ready-made in the numbers, shapes, and harmonies that are the essence of
nature herself. It can properly be called universal, for the truths on which it is
based are ever and everywhere the same.
Universal though it may be, the geometer’s myth does not pretend to offer a
universal cult or belief system. Everyone has their favourite ways and prejudices,
and as long as there are different nations, cultures, and individuals, so it will
always be. It is said that “God likes to be praised in different voices”. There are
many ways of investigating the universe other than through abstract number and
geometry, and many people enjoy satisfactory careers without even hearing about
traditional cosmology. Those who enter this subject often do so as a last resort,
having failed to discover firm ground in the pragmatic sciences or religious dog-
mas. That, we are told, is how it should be.
Plato in Jon rebuked the self-righteous young musician who boasted that he
was only interested in the ‘best’ lyrics, asking him, “How can you recognize the
best when you do not know the worst?” He advised his pupils to study everything
and take an interest in life generally. In the traditional allegories of a human life
span, such as Pilgrim's Progress, the traveller descends into dark and dismal places
before approaching the distant light of his goal. This suggests that the philoso-
pher’s cosmology is acquired, if at all, through personal experience and after many
Geometry and Love
SPREE USE
ap
WN
\a
if
RL
Oy Vr,
¥
is>
ST)ae
ot
v2
>,
Ke!
a y
G ar den ofEpicuru Ss
Fig. 208. The Garden of Epicurus where this most amiable of philosophers taught young women, his
favourite pupils , to trust their senses and enjoy life’ 5 beauties and pleasures.
238
The World Soul
disappointments. Those who become aware of its existence do not necessarily give
up the faiths they were brought up in. Every religion has its core of initiated mys-
tics, whose common perception is that all expressions of belief, as well as every
human soul, have their due place in the divine order. This is true tolerance, not
the sort than comes from fear and laziness, but tolerance that is produced by love.
The level of love is the highest of the four stages in the classical process of
selfdevelopment. The first is the level of ignorance, when you do not even know
that there is anything worth knowing; then comes the level of opinion (as in
the inconclusive arguments from different viewpoints that constitute media
debates); and the third stage, knowledge, is attained by study. The fourth stage,
that of nous, or divine understanding, is called the level of love. It could be
achieved through initiation, and there is a strange, mystical account by Socrates,
quoted in Plato’s Symposium, of the process by which he entered the state of
love. His guide was Diotima, a wise woman who initiated him in love at the
same time as she taught him philosophy. She showed him how to cultivate love,
first by extending it beyond the body of the loved one until you can love more
widely, even universally, seeing the beauty inherent in everything and everyone.
Then, said Socrates, comes the moment of climax, when you meet Love itself.
That moment, he declared, is worth everything. The example of his life there-
after gives insight into the state of mind of someone who has had the experience
of Love itself. Renouncing all ambitions, careless of fame and fortune, he spoke
quietly to a few young admirers in the marketplace in Athens. He only spoke
the truth, as established by reason, without glamour or deception. When men
of rank and authority came to seek his praise and approval, he proved to them
through their own admissions that they were ignorant and misguided. Among
friends he taught the doctrine of rebirth, reasoning that the soul is the only real
and lasting part of an individual and should therefore be given more attention
than one’s physical appetites. And the nourishment the soul needs are the eter-
nal virtues of justice, truth, and love. So relentlessly honest was Socrates, so inca-
pable of lies and flattery, that he was put on trial for rejecting the conventional
values of society, sentenced to death, and executed.
Geometry and Love
In that way, as if following the script of an eternal drama, Socrates fulfilled

his own prophecy, quoted in the Republic 361d, that if ever there were such a
thing as a perfectly honest man, he would be mocked and crucified. A few hun-
dred years later Jesus followed the same script. Neither of those two men really
wanted to be martyrs, but they were caught up in the drama and played their
parts to the end. There was nothing else they could do because, having achieved
the level of love and understanding, they could never reenter the world of lies
and compromises, as their persecutors demanded.
The first attribute of the level of love, it seems, is recognition of soul, in the
universe itself and in every creature. A person who has risen to that level sees his
fellow beings in their souls, with no regard for their pretensions or self-images.
A problem with that, as Socrates found, is that people of importance or self-
importance, if not treated with the deference they think due to them, may take
offence and become enemies. There are other obvious drawbacks to a life of love
and truthfulness, so it is not surprising that few even aspire to that level. Yet,
according to those who have gained it, it is the only real and worthwhile way of
living. In that case, how do you get there?
The sages who have written about this say that the first step in the path
to understanding is taken by whoever wants to take it, who feels the need or
is somehow impelled to do so. Sometimes the impetus occurs spontaneously,
through a near-death experience perhaps, or in shamanic societies by attract-
ing spirits and weird happenings such as involuntary levitation. Otherwise the
first step is taken by someone who has heard about initiation and the state of
love and determines to acquire them, by dedicating all senses to perceiving
the goodness in human souls rather than their flaws. That perception, further
developed, brings into sight another world, the earthly paradise, an image that
from early childhood our minds and senses have been trained to obliterate. It
is that multicoloured world as described by certain poets and, most vividly,
by St John in his vision of the Heavenly City on earth. It’s the same as the
more familiar world of despair and suicide, but those who have seen the earth
as paradise insist that this, its ideal aspect, is far more true and real than the
230
The World Soul
miserable image that materialism and the modern mind project upon it.
The high vision that mystics call reality has also been called the ‘primordial’
vision, meaning that it has been a property of human nature since the beginning.
It is said to be one component of the Holy Grail, the symbol in Celtic mysticism
of personal enlightenment and the restoration of divine order. The other compo-
nent of the Grail is the ‘primordial tradition’. That is where geometry comes in,
together with number and cosmology. The primordial tradition is based on num-
ber, and the constitution of number is the ‘first paradigm’, the most faithful reflec-
tion of pure reason and the mind of the Creator. In whatever times and places this
tradition has prevailed, the numerical sciences have been given priority, particu-
larly in the training of administrators. For by these sciences, number, music, and
geometry, minds are attuned to reason and proportion, producing justice and wise
rulers. That is as good as it gets, by modern reckoning. But there is something
even better. The ideal in any constitution, social and political or individual and
mental, comes about through the sacred marriage of complementary opposites, as
for example the primordial vision and the primordial tradition. Similar marriages
are a feature of symbolic geometry, as exhibited throughout this book—the mar-
riage of square and circle, the uniting of numbers Twelve and Seven, the mating
dances of pentagrams. All of these can be called acts of love, and their occurrence
among and between the archetypal figures of geometry suggests that ‘the power of
love’ is as good a name for the force that produced and maintains the harmony of
the universe as any of the terms invented by modern physics.
Fig. 209. Pythagoras said that a lover

is “one who is the other |,such as
are 220 and 284”. For details of the
‘amicable’ numbers, 220 and 284, and
their sum 504, see page 61.
36
GUN
Geometry and Love
Fig. 210. Mitochondrial DNA strand, or true

lovers’ knot
Fig. 211. Triangular construction in a crop
circle. Justice is represented by the equal

areas of dark and light.
Fig. 212 (opposite). This overhead view of Atlantis may look from another perspective like the seaside
headquarters of an international corporation, and in a way that is what it was. Atlantis became the
capital of a vast empire that came to grief. This is the ground plan as Plato specified it. The green
rectangle of 20 by 30 squares is formed by water channels with a wide canal round its borders. The
south side of the canal runs parallel to the sea, and its two ends meet at the city of Atlantis (the
small, white circle near the centre of the sea coast). Beyond the plain are mountains, well populated
and with all kinds of animals, plants, and minerals.
Paiotee)
ATLANTIS
A Geometrical Diversion
16-A Geometer’s Nightmare
Plato’s Pentagonal Allegory
Atlantis: The Historical Record

The most extraordinary geometric structure that anyone has ever dreamt up
must surely be Plato’s Atlantis. As developed in the following pages, it is a mon-
strous edifice in pentagonal geometry, a mode that is quite unsuited for city
planning. But in Atlantis everything that could go wrong did go wrong, and
eventually it fell, catastrophically.
There are two aspects to Plato’s account of Atlantis, historical and allegor-
ical. The first step is to separate and sort them out, beginning here with the
historical side of Atlantis and moving on to the more certain and interesting
part—the meaning behind Plato’s elaborate scheme of Atlantean geometry.
Nothing that Plato wrote has attracted so much popular attention as his
story of the lost city, capital of an island continent that suddenly disappeared
beneath the waves. It is a fantastic story with the vivid unreality of a dream.
Yet in the two books that he wrote late in life describing Atlantis, Timaeus
and Cyitias, Plato insisted on the basic truth behind it—that there really was
a vast island in the Atlantic, just beyond the straits of Gibraltar, bigger than
Libya and Asia Minor put together. Its eastern shore lay opposite the Spanish
region of Gadira (Cadiz) and it extended westwards towards the “opposite con-
tinent’, which can only mean America. Access to that continent was then pos-
sible through a chain of islands that linked it to the western end of Atlantis.
The destruction of Atlantis, according to Plato, took place 9000 years before
his time—about 11,500 years ago for us—so sceptics have good reason to reject
the episode as true history. There was, however, one medium by which a record
of such great antiquity might have survived up to the late centuries BC. That
medium was ancient Egypt. In his Laws Plato states that, by strictly upholding
240)
A Geometers Nightmare
the canon of law they had received from their divine founders, the Egyptians
maintained their high standards of culture for “literally ten thousand years”. In
their temples the priestly authorities kept records of past events that all other
nations had long forgotten.
That, we are told in the Timaeus, is how the memory of Atlantis was pre-
served. In around 600 BC the learned Solon, one of the seven sages of ancient
Greece, heard its history from a priest in Egypt. In old age Solon repeated it to
a young friend who passed it on to his descendants, and in that way it reached
his great-grandson, Critias, one of the brilliant, noble youths who surrounded
the master Socrates. As Plato tells the story, Socrates, having spoken to a small
group of his disciples about the ideal constitution of ancient Athens, invited
them each to discourse on some related subject. Timaeus recited his famous
treatise on the numerical composition of the world, and Critias gave the his-
tory of Atlantis.
The reason the Egyptian priest brought up the subject of Atlantis while
conversing with Solon was to demonstrate the unique antiquity of the Egyptian
records. “You Greeks are like children”, he said. “You have no historical memory;
you cannot even remember the most glorious thing you ever did—when you stood
alone against the mighty Atlantean empire, defeating its army and setting free the
Mediterranean nations it had enslaved.” Soon after that victory, said the priest,
there was an almighty cataclysm. Atlantis went under, taking with it the army of
Greek heroes (who, presumably, were carrying the war to the enemy’s heartland).
Up to this point the story is not implausible. The earth is an unstable crea-
ture, subject to sudden shifts in mood and appearance. It is traditionally sup-
posed that over great periods of time areas of land and sea change places. Also,
if you look at a chart of the north Atlantic, it is easy to locate the site of Atlan-
tis, just where Plato said it was. To the west of Spain and Portugal, the islands
of Azores rise up far into the Atlantic, with shallow waters all around them,
and with former river beds extending far out to sea as evidence of larger areas
of land under water. From the Azores westwards, a chain of rocks and shoals
does indeed resemble a former island chain leading to the wide, shallow banks
24]
Atlantis
off Newfoundland. A geological upheaval, eleven or twelve thousand years ago,

from the great Atlantic rift that crosses the area could quite possibly have put
Atlantis under water.
The first modern writer to revive Atlantis was Ignatius Donnelly, the adven-
turous, imaginative United States congressman, whose book, Azlantis: The
Antediluvian World, was published in 1882. It caused a sensation. Mr William
Gladstone, the British prime minister, was so impressed by the manifold proofs
of Atlantis that Donnelly had assembled that he wanted to send the British
navy into the Atlantic to conduct researches. No doubt they would have settled
the matter one way or the other, but, sad to say, Gladstone’s proposal was vetoed
by the Treasury. Ever since then, books about Atlantis have gushed forth, some-
times with channelled messages from long-departed islanders, nearly always with
Atlantis displaced from where Plato specifically located it.
All over the world are drowned lands and underwater cities, and their dis-
Fig. 213. Rings of

water and land
in Atlantis city,
measured in stadia
242
coverers like to call them Atlantis. But the only Atlantis that has a right to the
name lay just beyond the Pillars of Hercules, forming a partial land bridge to
America.
Atlantis: Its Foundation and Growth

Whatever you may think about Atlantis from the historical or geographi-
cal point of view, Plato’s strange description of its constitutional structure can
hardly be called history. It is another of his geometrical allegories. One of his
techniques was to take some popular belief or weird happening—the near-death
experience of the soldier in the Republic, for example—and adapt its framework
to accommodate his esoteric teachings. He was interested in the old Atlantis
legend and made it useful for his purpose, reshaping it as the story of a nation
that was flawed from the beginning, with an imperfect foundation and con-
stitution. Over many generations the Atlanteans prospered, grew rich through
trade, and developed a great empire. But finally their imperfections caught up
with them. They became greedy and decadent and overreached themselves in
foreign adventures. Their defeat by the poor but vigorous Greeks was followed
by divine retribution. Zeus called a council of the twelve gods to decide how to
punish Atlantis, and amid storms and tempests the great island was obliterated
from history.
In Plato’s version of the apocalyptic cycle, Atlantis plays the same part as
Babylon in Revelation. In this tradition the corrupt, luxurious city, heading for
its fall, alternates with the divinely founded, perfectly ordered constitution that
Plato projected upon archaic Athens and St John upon the ideal Jerusalem. For
the ground plan of his ideal Athens, Plato adopted the traditional, cosmologi-
cal diagram with its radius of 5040 and its 5040 independent citizens. Its out-
line as the best possible state pattern—the pattern of the heavens reproduced on
earth—is shown on page 250. The pattern on which Atlantis was founded is a
sort of parody of the ideal. It is an ingenious scheme of geometry, and the city it
produced was magnificent—far richer and more populous than virtuous Athens.
243
Atlantis
But there was something wrong with Atlantis, a basic flaw in its foundation pat-
tern, that prevented it from working properly and led eventually to its downfall.
Instead of the universal Twelve, the Atlanteans adopted Ten as the basis of their
state geometry—anticipating the modern fashion for metrics and decimals. The
results of that, and the errors and ambiguities that ensued from it, are illustrated
in the following analysis of Atlantean geometry.
The history of Atlantis begins with its foundation. At the beginning of the
world the twelve gods divided the earth between them, each ruling one of its
twelve sections and its traditional twelve nations. Poseidon, god of the ocean,
was naturally allotted the sea-girt realm of Atlantis. There he found a mortal
woman, Cleito, and married her, and she bore him “five pairs of twins”, all boys.
When they grew up they inherited the island between them, each with his own
province, and thereafter Atlantis was ruled as a confederacy of ten kingdoms,
subject to the same laws and customs.
With many curious details Plato dwells upon the splendours of Atlantis, its
gardens, fountains, and statues, the coloured stones in its towers and walls and
the precious metals that covered its public buildings, temples, and palaces. It is
a glorious picture, and no doubt every feature of it has symbolic meaning. But
here we are mainly concerned with the ground plan of Atlantis whose dimen-
sions Plato carefully provides. The units in which he gives them are the foot and
the stadion of 600 feet.
The city of Atlantis was situated near the middle of the south coast of the
island (the reason it was not precisely in the middle will be seen later). On its
landward side it was surrounded bya large, fertile plain, enclosed by mountains
which ran down to the sea on either side. In these mountains lived a great many
country people and animals of all kinds. At the centre of the city was a low
hill, Cleito’s ancestral home, where she and Poseidon bred their ten sons. The
god isolated it by surrounding the hill with five concentric rings, three of water
and two of land, equidistant from each other. Later generations of Atlanteans
improved the amenities through a vast programme of engineering works.
They regulated the three rings of water, giving them precise dimensions
244
(figure 213 on page 242). The innermost, surrounding the island hill, was 1 sta-
dion wide, the next 2 stadia, and the outermost 3 stadia. Between them were
two rings of land, the inner 2 and the outer 3 stadia wide. The diameter of the
central island was 5 stadia. All the rings were lined with stone walls covered in
various metals. It is difficult to see how the Atlanteans could have adapted the
original rings, which were equidistant from each other, so as to give them these
proportions without exchanging areas of land and water to no apparent purpose.
But they had an overall plan and they stuck to it. Their next labour was to dig
a canal, 300 feet wide and 50 stadia in length, from the outermost ring of water
to the sea. A narrower extension of the canal was cut inwards through the rings
of land up to the ring of water around the central island.
The next thing the Atlanteans did was typical of their awkward habits. The
land within the rings of water rose naturally towards the central hill, so the
canal through the rings of land had to be cut deep. Over it and across the rings
of land they built a road to the island hill, with bridges that made the canal into
a tunnel. The bridges were “about” 100 feet wide, probably the same as the canal
below them. It is not easy to imagine this arrangement; it is an engineer's night-
mare. But it evidently worked well enough, for the city became a bustling port
with merchant ships and triremes of all nations crowding its rings of water.
Atlantis was furnished with every delight and luxury, especially the island
hill. At its centre, surrounded by a wall of gold, was the holy of holies, the for-
mer marriage bed of Poseidon and Cleito where the five pairs of twins were con-
ceived. Enclosing it was the temple of Poseidon, 1 stadion long and 300 feet
wide, adorned with gold, silver, ivory (there were elephants in Atlantis), and
‘orichalc’, a metal peculiar to Atlantis that “gleamed like fire”. Statues of the
original ten kings with their ten wives stood around it, and the whole was sur-
rounded by the wall of the acropolis, clad in orichalc, and by the outer wall of
the island which was covered with tin.
Finally, the whole city and its surroundings were contained within a great
wall, beginning at the seaward end of the canal, 50 stadia from the outer ring
of water, and continuing at the same distance to make a circle round the city.
Atlantis
Houses were clustered inside the wall and probably, along with their gardens,
filled the space between the wall and the outer ring of water. Calculating the
area of this space produces a remarkable result. To find this area you deduct
the area of the inner city within the rings from that of the whole city within
the great wall (with 7 x r’ as the area of a circle, r'= radius and 7 = 22/7).
The answer turns out to be 4,356,000,000 square feet, and 43560 square feet is
one acre, the acre we still use today. That means that the whole area of Atlan-
tis city beyond its outer ring of water is 100,000 acres. Plato does not say how
many people there were in Atlantis, but there were certainly many more than
the 60,000 families of free citizens who formed the land-owning class. If there
had been 100,000 families in the walled city outside the water rings, they would
have had an acre of house and garden each.
100,000 acres — N
Fig. 214. Rings of water
and land in Atlantis city,
measured in stadia
246
\ Geometers Nightmare
Squaring the Circle, Atlantis Style

Every city planned symbolically by geomancers or augers had one indispensable
feature, a squared circle. This in the cosmological diagram is represented by the
circle of radius 5040 and the square of side 7920, both figures having perimeters
of 31680. In the Atlantis plan the squared circle is not immediately evident. It
only comes to light when the city is placed in its position on the plain. When
this is done the squared circle appears, virtually the Femme as thatio® theveostia:
logical diagram but, like everything in Atlantis, slightly wrong.
Like the city itself, the plain on which Atlantis was founded was given
regular geometric form by an early generation of Atlanteans. They dug a great
ditch all round it, 1 stadion wide, to form a rectangular canal, 3000 stadia
from east to west and 2000 stadia from north to south. From the northern
side they made smaller cross canals, 100 feet wide, spaced at intervals of 100
stadia, running straight across the plain to its southern sides, and they did
the same between the eastern and western sides, thus creating a block of 20 x
30 or 600 island squares. These, says Plato, were each divided into 100 allot-
ments, each of 100 square stadia, and divided among the 60,000 free citizens
of Atlantis, each with his family and a large number of retainers from the sur-
rounding mountains.
A geometric problem to this work is how to divide a square area into 100
equal allotments (assuming that each citizen wants equal access to a water-
way). And its planners have made an obvious blunder. They have not allowed
for the area taken up by the waterways. Nor have they taken into account the
area occupied by the city. This gap between the specifications and their possible
fulfilment would have frustrated the Atlantean surveyors and been the cause
of endless quibbling boundary disputes—the most common cause of friction
between neighbours.
The plan of Atlantis, figure 212 on page 239, shows where the city stood in
relation to its plain. It was, says Plato, “near the middle of the plain and about
fifty stadia inland”. That means it was near the middle of the southern side
Atlantis
of the plain, at the end of the 50-stadia-long canal from the sea. It could not
have been precisely halfway along the plain, because it would then have stood
over one of the north-south waterways (31 in all including the arms of the wide
canal at each end) that divided the southern side of the plain into thirty parts.
Fig. 215. The inadequate squared circle: A scheme of ten-faceted, decagonal geometry links all the
parts of the Atlantis plan from the central, ringed area to the wall around the whole city. Overlaying
the circle of the outer wall is the square of blue lines, one of the 600 squares separated by water
channels that make up the Atlantean plain. The side of the square is 100 stadia long, making its
perimeter 400 stadia. The diameter of the circular wall is 127, so its circumference is 399 /7—slightly
too short for a perfect squared circle.
248
It therefore had to be placed to one side of the halfway point, on and overlap-
ping one of the square islands. This isLand—or, rather, the square of water chan-
nels around it—is the missing square in the Atlantean squared circle. The side
of this square, as given, is 100 stadia, so the measure round its four sides is 400.
The diameter of the circular wall around Atlantis, also given, is 100 stadia plus
the diameter of the ringed inner city, 27 stadia. Its total diameter is therefore
127 stadia, so the circumference of the wall (127 x 22/7) is not quite 400 but
399'/; stadia. Another near-miss by the Atlanteans. How beautifully and wittily
Plato makes his point—that the defective foundation pattern of Atlantis meant
that everything there was flawed.
At the root of Atlantis and its problems is that its founder, Poseidon, mar-
ried a mortal woman, and eventually, says Plato, “the mortal element prevailed”.
Yet the foundation plan of Atlantis was very near the ideal that it tried to imi-
tate, the cosmological or Heavenly City diagram on which Plato’s ancient Ath-
ens was based. On the following page the two versions of the squared circle, the
Atlantean and the traditional ideal, are compared and analysed together. The
comparison is purely in number and proportion; scale is not involved. Atlantis is
measured in feet and stadia, the Heavenly City in feet and miles, but these units
serve merely to bring out the required numbers.
Plato must have worked hard on his Atlantean constitution, making it near
enough to the ideal to be worth studying, but full of errors and inaccuracies. No
doubt it was useful for the mode of instruction that he attributes to Socrates,
leading his pupils through the world of false opinions towards the state of
understanding he called ‘nous’. This tradition of learning was not invented by
Plato, Socrates, or Pythagoras before them, but was apparently reconstructed
by them and others of their time from relics of the ancient science, preserved
most effectively by the Egyptian priests. Now it is lost—so completely that its
very existence is no longer recognized. It is not, however, beyond recall. Being
rooted in human nature—as Socrates insisted—and certainly inherent in num-
ber, geometry, and cosmology, it is there for anyone at any time who sees good
reason to bring it again into light.
249
Atlantis
Atlantis and Plato’s Ideal City Compared

Fig. 216. The squared circles of Plato’s ideal city and Atlantis compared. In each case the
difference between the radii of the two outer concentric circles is equal to the radius
of the inner circle. Yet the Atlantean squared circle is slightly defective.
Ideal city Atlantis
inner city, radius = 1080 ft. inner city, radius = 13 stadia
circle within square, radius = 3960 ft. circle within square, radius = 50 stadia
square, perimeter = 31680 ft. square, perimeter = 400 stadia
outer circle, radius = 5040 ft. outer circle, radius = 632 stadia
circumference = 31680 ft. circumference = 399'/ stadia

Atlantis: The Pentagonal Edifice

An earlier essay on Atlantis, in The Dimensions of Paradise, showed the out-
line of the pentagonal or ten-part scheme of geometry that links together the
various parts of the Atlantis plan. Since then, further study has filled out the
diagram and disclosed the geometry that determined in every detail the form
and dimensions of the ringed city. This geometry is so elaborate and cumber-
some that no sane person would attempt to complete it by hand. Perhaps Plato
set it as an exercise to punish his lazy or over-confident students. One can go so
far with drawing the Atlantis plan (see page 255), but after that it is job for the
computer. The following computer-made images of Atlantis, the ringed city in
all its pentagonal glory, were executed by Allan Brown.
At the centre of Atlantis is the island with radius of 2% stadia, focused upon
the shrine where Cleito gave birth to her five pairs of twins. It is surrounded by
a golden wall. Then there is the temple of Poseidon, the statues of the first ten
kings with their wives, the wall of the acropolis, and all kinds of adornments—a
gigantic statue of Poseidon with his hundred water nymphs riding on dolphins,
springs and hot baths, groves, gardens, houses, and palaces. Behind these details
the main features of the plan can be located from Plato’s description. The cen-
tral shrine, birthplace of the ten sons, is obviously ten-sided, the twins being
represented by a decagon-star as shown on page 253. Poseidon’s temple, 300 by
600 feet, encloses it; the statues of the ten kings and their wives, represented by
ten decagons, stand in a ring around the temple, and this whole sacred area, the
acropolis, is protected by a wall. Outside it is the ring wall around the island,
and then comes the first of the three water rings, 1 stadion in width. Every-
thing here is geometric, made up of pentagons, with rings of pentagrams or five-
pointed stars to represents the main three walls of the island, and with decagons
for the ten king-and-queen statues and the central shrine.
The picture on page 255, illustrating the natural development of the pen-
tagonal pattern around a central decagon, is also the plan of the central island of
Atlantis. Once you see how the pentagon pattern expands in successive bands,
Atlantis
one stadion or 600 feet apart, it is then possible to depict the entire city with its
rings of land and water. The first thing you notice is that the rings and walls,
which in the central area of the diagram begin with a true circle, become more
and more like decagons. By the end of the process the circles that are meant to
follow the lines of the walls almost lose touch with them and only pass through
the pairs of stars at the corners. These pairs, where they stand at the bridges over
the canal, can be taken to represent the pairs of guard towers that Plato situated
there. One has to pity the Atlanteans. Everything they did was artfully planned
and started off so well, but soon began to go wrong and ended in failure. They
could not divide their lands properly; they could not get their squared circle right,
and the circular rings they planned for their inner city turned into decagons. The
pentagon is a beautiful shape and the patterns it produces are among the loveliest
in geometry, but it is not suitable for construction work or for the ground plan of
a centralized state. The planners of Atlantis, like the Pythagoreans, venerated the
pentagon, but they did not understand its nature. It is an organic figure, related
to humanity, and the patterns it produces are shaped by the ring dances that pen-
tagrams perform in their different ways (see Pentagonal Dances, page 182). The
first ring of ten forms a circle hand to hand and foot to foot, but as the number of
dancers grows, always in increments of twenty, they have to adapt their groupings,
until their decimal nature takes over entirely and their ring becomes a decagon.
Atlantis: The Basic Geometry

The ground plan of Atlantis starts with a ten-sided decagon in the middle and
develops outwards in successive rings of pentagons and pentagram stars. The
only other shapes are, first, the rhombus that fills the gaps between the penta-
gons in their rings and, second, the decagon. Each decagon has ten pentagons
around it, accomodating the tendency of the pentagon to form rings and spirals.
This construction is well known to students of pentagonal geometry, for only
in this way, by alternating rings of stars with rings of pentagons encircling deca-
gons, is a centralized, theoretically endless pentagonal development possible.
Fig. 217. Constructing Atlantis. Stage A. At
the hub is the shrine within the temple of
Poseidon where Cleito gave birth to her
five pairs of male twins, the future kings of
Atlantis. This is represented geometrically
by a decagon with five pairs of horns.
Fig. 218. Stage B. Pentagons around the
central decagon
Atlantis
Fig. 219. Stage C. Around the central decagon develops the inner part
of the pentagonal growth pattern on which the city of Atlantis was

founded. The ring of stars represents the wall round the central shrine.
Within the circle of the wall is the temple of Poseidon (highlighted),
1 stadion long and half as wide. Its curved ends may be the reason why
Plato said there was something barbaric about it.
Fig. 220. Stage D. The pentagonal development up to the second ring of

stars which forms the wall around the acropolis. The ten decagons in a
ring, symbolizing the statues of the first ten kings of Atlantis together
with their queens, have been drawn in different ways to illustrate some
of the many geometric possibilities.
Fig. 221. Stage E. This pattern shows the central island bordered by the third wall made up of 50
stars (they increase at each stage by 20). The distance between each successive wall is 1 stadion, the
diameter of the inner ring-wall is 1 stadion, so the radius of the island is as Plato gives it, 2/2 stadia.
The above image, showing the pentagonal development of Atlantis up to the rim of the central island,
was drawn and coloured by hand, but that is about as far as one can take it. It is hard to believe that
anyone, even a pupil at Plato’s Academy, has ever constructed the entire plan of Atlantis manually. The
principle behind the development is simple, but the labour of completing it is vast and mechanical.
That makes it a job for the computer. The pictures that follow are computer designs by Allan Brown.
They are the first depictions of Atlantis city and its pentagonal geometry that have ever been seen.
Atlantis
28,
}
see‘oll
Fig. 222. Stage F. The full pentagonal geometry of the central island (top) and the whole city
206
A Geometer’s Nightmare
Fig. 223. The pentagonal, ten-sided geometry of

Atlantis city was difficult to reconcile with its land
and water rings. The geometric solution is to draw the
rings through the pairs of pentagons (Plato’s “guard-
- houses”) that stand at the corners of the successive
decagons.
Fig. 224. The rings of Atlantis pass through the pairs of

pentagrams that ‘guard’ the corners of the decagons.
207
Atlantis
Atlantis and the Golden Section

Plato is careful to provide enough measurements in his Atlantis plan to make it
geometrically coherent, and in his description of the city and its foundation he
clearly hints that its geometry is pentagonal and ten-sided. With knowledge of
his basic plan, further information on Atlantean arithmetic is supplied, such as
its units of measure and the numbers used in its pentagonal ratios.
The geometric structure of Atlantis is a compilation of four related shapes,
the pentagon, the pentagram, the decagon, and the pentagonal diamond that fills
the gaps between the dancing stars. There are only two measurements in the dia-
gram, and they are in the proportion of the golden section, 1 to 1.618 . . . The
first appears in the sides of the pentagons, and the second measures the radii
of the decagons and the lengths of the diamonds between the pentagrams’
limbs. One stadion or 600 feet is the distance between the centres of each
pair of decagons in line from the centre of the diagram. This length is made
up of five intervals, two of them 1 unit long and three of 1.618. This ratio can
be represented by any two successive numbers in the Fibonacci series, but the
most suitable pair for the Atlanteans was 21 and 34. These are the numbers
that sum up the Decad on which Atlantis was founded, for:
21=14+24+3+4+5+46,
and
34=7+8+9+10
With 21 units as the shorter and 34 as the greater length in the Atlantis
plan, the length of the stadion is 144 and the radius of the central island is 360
units. This sounds like another Atlantean blunder, for 360 is naturally the cir-
cumference of a circle rather than its radius.
208
340) 21 re hora 34 Reo) 34. «| 2 34 34 ye Ba)

55
89
144
233
2’ stadia = 360
Fig. 225. A section of the Atlantis plan, showing the radius of the central island from its midpoint (left)
to the centre of the surrounding wall. Its given length is 2/2 stadia which is 360 Atlantis units. The
two distances that make up this length are of 21 and 34 units. As seen above, the Fibonacci series, 21,
34, 55, 89, 144... is built into the pentagonal geometry.
209
Atlantis
The Meaning of Atlantis

The interesting question of what Plato meant by his elaborate account of Atlan-
tis is preceded by a brief summary of its composition.
At the heart of Atlantis is the sacred shrine where Poseidon and Cleito gen-
erated the first ten kings. It is enclosed by a golden wall, the innermost of the
eight concentric walls of the ringed city. These in the diagram are represented
by the successive rings of linked pentagram stars. The inner ring, surrounding
the shrine, is made up of ten stars. Its diameter is 1 stadion or 144 Atlantis mea-
sures. Poseidon’s temple, 144 long and 72 wide in the Atlantis measures, stands
over the shrine and contains the central decagon of the pattern. Plato, although
giving its length and width, does not say that the temple is rectangular but that
there is “something barbaric” about it. It seems that the temple’s two ends were
rounded in conformance with the circle of the shrine.
Outside and around the temple is the ring of ten statues portraying the ten
kings, the original five pairs of twins, together with their wives. They are aptly
represented in the diagram by ten decagons. Beyond the circle of statues is the
wall of the acropolis, already showing signs of reverting from a circle to a deca-
gon, and then the wall of the island itself. Then come the three rings of water
and two of land, all in accordance with the pentagonal ground plan.
What Plato meant by all this—and why he spent so much effort and inge-
nuity in laying out a constitution that could never work—is not so evident. One
possibility is that, through his elaborate exercise in pentagonal geometry, he was
satirizing the Pythagoreans who swore by the Tetractys and the number Ten
and took the pentagon as their emblem. Pythagoras, whose name yields the
‘foundation number’ 864, was a semi-mythic character whose followers estab-
lished his cult and worshipped him as a light-bearer. Like all such movements,
with secret rites and radical aims, the Pythagoreans were often looked upon
suspiciously by their neighbours, and in the century before Plato their institu-
tions were suppressed throughout Greece. Plato never openly mentioned them
but, like his master Socrates, he would not have favoured their cultishness. Nor:
260)
would he have liked their idolization of Five, Ten, and the golden section, with
the humanistic values inherent in that order of proportion. Ten and the pen-
tagon are the rulers of life on earth, but in the philosophy of number Twelve
is supreme. The Pythagoreans were high idealists, but Plato’s criticism of them
seems to be that, in promoting political and social reforms on a practical level,
they were diverging from the true ideal, the sanctification of the world through
divine justice symbolized by the number Twelve.
The more obvious reason for Plato’s Atlantis geometry was to make a con-
trast between the failed constitution and the pattern of state that he advocated.
Everything the Atlanteans did was contrary to the precepts he laid down, espe-
cially in his Laws. For one thing, their city was near the sea, and Plato’s view was
that seaports attract ruffians and troublemakers. Then there were too many of
them, many times more than Plato’s ideal 5040 citizens. The Atlanteans became
great merchants, importing foreign luxuries and doing well for themselves indi-
vidually, while neglecting virtue. Then they conquered an empire and sank fur-
ther into degradation, and finally, all of a sudden, they came to grief.
It is a great story, and it is a salutary lesson to any nation, group, or indi-
vidual that is inclined towards greed and tyranny. But its essential, most earnest
lesson is on the level of number and geometry. Atlantean number was decimal,
reckoned in units of ten, and its geometry was the same. The decagon and pen-
tagon, as already pointed out, produce the most beautiful and interesting pat-
terns, but the pentagonal, golden section system of proportion is too elaborate
for construction purposes. In the ‘pattern of the heavens’, the cosmological dia-
gram from which Plato derived his ideal constitution, the dominant frame-
work number is Twelve. Atlantis was a type of Utopia, a man-made system,
good-looking enough from our human point of view, but mistakenly founded
upon the number Ten. That was the “mortal element” in the Atlantis constitu-
tion and the main reason why it did not work.
Atlantis
1?
eee
KIL
6 weyCo,
CF
<i
yee
Yige
Fig. 226. Downtown Atlantis: the geometry of its centre. Successive rings of stars (pink) frame the
centralised pentagon pattern. In the geometrical story of Atlantis the inner ring borders the sacred
shrine, the second the acropolis, the third the central island, and the fourth the inner ring of water.
The outer ring of stars encloses half the inner ring of land,
)
6)
<p |
i
UuInd paiv Weg pry awere wf0 YAOM
yan ay Uaos PUP Gusde Bun wpe
pa wee Usage aityy ayaen an te
Someone must have hit isright note, because everything:

suddenly began fallng inbo pla
Fig. 227. Atlantis, the growth of its pentagonal constitution, and (upside down) its fall
About the Author
John Michell (1933-2009)
Fideler
David
by
Photo
John Michell, pictured in Michigan in 1990, while visiting with scholar David Fideler
A pioneer researcher and specialist in the field of ancient, traditional science,

John Michell is the author of more than 40 books that have profoundly influ-
enced modern thinking. Michell’s legacy began when his interest in UFOs
inspired the 1967 book The Flying Saucer Vision, which then led to his breakout
work The View Over Atlantis in 1969. It was this book, which connects sacred
sites, number and proportion, UFOs, and forgotten knowledge of ancient tradi-
tions and myths, that placed John Michell at the center of the British counter-
culture and New Age movement.
About the Author
Those two books, along with their sequel The City of Revelation (1971),
provided a context for the alternative views that were germinating at the time
and brought new, underground ideas into the mainstream.
John Frederick Michell was born in London on February 9, 1933, and grew
up in the Hampshire and Berkshire countryside, where he enjoyed collecting
moths. This earthy proclivity was a hint at Michell’s later preferences—though
an academic who graduated from Eton and Trinity College in Cambridge,
Michell preferred a bohemian lifestyle to an academic one. After college, he
served the Royal Navy as a Russian interpreter and translator before pursuing
an unsuccessful career in real estate. Giving up on the property business, he
immersed himself in the underground movement and worked for countercul-
ture publications. He had wide-ranging interests, founding a magazine on crop
circles and becoming a leader in the fight against the metric system in Britain
and the United States. True to form, he favored measurements like pounds and
feet because they came from traditional cultures.
In the late 1950s Michell relocated to London, and it was then that UFOs
first caught his imagination. He noticed that “it was quite obvious that people
were having experiences that weren't allowed for within the context of our edu-
cation. There was a split between the view of the world we'd been taught and
accepted unquestioningly and the world of actual experience.”
The popularity of Michell’s books brought a surge of interest in Britain’s
own sacred sites: Glastonbury and Stonehenge. The Glastonbury Festival in
1971 featured a stage built to emulate the pyramid of Cheops as specified by
Michell’s calculations of its sacred geometry and hosted performers such as
David Bowie and Traffic. Michell also guided the Rolling Stones on a UFO
expedition at Stonehenge.
In his later work, Michell wrote extensively about the metaphysical and spir-
itual qualities of the universe—those universal truths that are codified in nature
and continually rediscovered, from ancient times to today. He explored the
sacred numbers and geometry found in nature and in spiritual mysteries, such as
Fibonacci spirals and the golden angle and the divine city of the New Jerusalem.
260
About the Author
According to Michell, “Wherever you look, in archaeology and ancient history

or in the modern records of parapsychology and strange phenomena, you find
evidence to contradict every theory and ‘certainty’ of official science. The real
world is quite different from the way our teachers describe it, and it is a great
deal more interesting.”
Michell was a member of the Lindisfarne Association and a teacher at its
School of Sacred Architecture. He lectured at the Kairos Foundation, an “edu-
cational charity specifically founded to promote the recovery of traditional
values in the Arts and Sciences,” and also lectured at The Prince’s School of
Traditional Arts.
In addition to his published books, he was the author of numerous humor-
ous short treatises and articles in publications as diverse as the International
Times, The Temenos Academy Review, and The Spectator. Since 1997, he wrote
a column of humor, philosophy, and social commentary in Britain’s The Oldie

magazine, an anthology of which was published in 2005 as Confessions ofa Rad-
ical Traditionalist.
John Michell died April 24, 2009, at the age of 76 as this final work, How
the World Is Made, was nearing its final production stages. A complete list of
his published books is listed below.
Works by John Michell

1967 The Flying Saucer Vision: the Holy Grail Restored
1969 The View Over Atlantis
1972 City of Revelation: On the Proportions and Symbolic Numbers of the Cosmic
Temple
1974 The Flying Saucer Vision: The Holy Grail Restored
1974 The Old Stones ofLand’s End
1975 The Earth Spirit: Its Ways, Shrines, and Mysteries
1977 Phenomena: A Book of Wonders, with Robert J. M. Rickard
266
About the Author
D7 Natural Likeness: Faces and Figures in Nature

1979 Inventorum Natura, with Plinius Secundus C.
1981 Ancient Metrology: The Dimensions of Stonehenge and of the Whole World as
Therein Symbolized
1982 Living Wonders: Mysteries and Curiosities of the Animal World, with Robert J.
M. Rickard
1982 Megalithomania: Artists, Antiquarians & Archaeologists at the Old Stone
Monuments
1983 The New View Over Atlantis
1984 Eccentric Lives and Peculiar Notions
1985 Stonehenge: Its Druids, Custodians, Festival and Future
1988 Geosophy: An Overview of Earth Mysteries, with Paul Devereux, John Steele,
John Michell, Nigel Pennick, Vente Brennan, Harry Oldfield, and more (a
Mystic Fire Video)
1986 Feng-Shui: The Science of Sacred Landscape in Old China, with Ernest J. Eitel.
1989 The Traveller's Key to Sacred England
1989 Secrets of the Stones: New Revelations ofAstro-Archaeology and the Mystical Sci-
ences ofAntiquity
1989 Earth Spirit: Its Ways, Shrines and Mysteries
1991 Twelve Tribe Nations and the Science ofEnchanting the Landscape, with Chris-
tine Rhone
1994 At the Center of the World: Polar Symbolism Discovered in Celtic, Norse and
Other Ritualized Landscapes
1996 Who Wrote Shakespeare?
1997 New Light on the Ancient Mystery of Glastonbury
2000 Unexplained Phenomena: Mysteries and Curiosities of Science, Folklore and
Superstition, with Robert J. M. Rickard
2000 The Temple at Jerusalem: A Relevation
2001 The Dimensions ofParadise: The Proportions and Symbolic Numbers ofAncient
Cosmology
About the Author
2001 A Little History ofAstro-Archaeology

2003 The Traveler’s Guide to Sacred England: A Guide to the Legends, Lore and
Landscapes ofEngland’s Sacred Places
2003 Prehistoric Sacred Sites of Cornwall
2003 Crooked Soley: A Crop Circle Revelation, with Allan Brown
2005 Esoterické Anglie: pr’'vodce po posvatn’ch mistech, legendach a povstech, with
Miloslav Korbelik
2005 Confessions ofa Radical Traditionalist
2006 Prehistoric Sacred Sites of Cornwall
2006 Euphonics: A Poet's Dictionary of Sounds
2006 The Lost Science of Measuring the Earth: Discovering the Sacred Geometry of
the Ancients, with Robin Heath
2007 The Star Temple ofAvalon, with Nicholas Mann, Philippa Glasson, and Robin
Heath
2008 The Dimensions of Paradise: Sacred Geometry, Ancient Science, and the Heav-
enly Order
on Earth
2008 New Light on the Ancient Mystery of Glastonbury
2008 Twelve-Tribe Nations: Sacred Number and the Golden Age
2009 The Sacred Center: The Ancient Art ofLocating Sanctuaries
2009 How the World Is Made: The Story of Creation according to Sacred Geometry
268
Index
Numbers in italics indicate figures or figure legends.
Abraxas, 72, 83 Cosmaiti, the, 1//4-115

Allen, Jon, xi-xii Critias, 81, 240, 241
Alexander, Steve, 60 Crooked Soley, a Crop Circle Revelation,
America, 240, 243 59-61, 268
Amphyctionic league, 152-53 crop circles,
Aphrodite, 179 Alton Barnes, 143
Apollo, 152, 178-79, 213, 219 Avebury, 89
Arthur, King, 151, 152 Chute Causeway, 175
At the Centre of the World, 153, 267 Crooked Soley, 59-61
Athena, 81, 178, 213 Silbury Hill, 122-23
Athens, 63, 81, 234, 241, 243 Wiltshire, 38, 57, 59, 89, 122, 143, 161
Atlantis, 154, 186, 238-263 Woodborough Hill, 38
Azores, 241 Cyrus, garden of, 201
Babylon, 64, 80, 105, 152, 154, 243 Darwin, Charles, 166, 182
Beast, number of, 72-80 David, King, 108
Big Bang theory, 4-6 de Bry, Johann, 50
Bond, F. Bligh, 215 Delphi, 153
Buddhism, 214 Dimensions ofParadise, 69,78, 251, 267, 268
Diotima, 213, 234
Cadiz, 240 DNA, 59, 59, 237
Charlemagne, 151 dodecahedron, 102-4, 104, 150, 162, 172
Chartres cathedral, 160 Donnelly, Ignatius, 242
Cleito, 244-45, 251, 253, 260 Atlantis, the Antediluvian World, 242
coincidences, 2, 5, 182 Durr, Hans-Peter, xiii
cosmological diagram, 12, 29, 42, 60, 152-55,

220 earth spirit, 76
cosmology, 3-5 Egypt, 20, 39-43, 66, 82, 172, 178
Critchlow, Keith, v, 162 Eight, 27, 33, 124-49
Order in Space, 150 Einstein, Albert, 39
Islamic Patterns, 150 Eleven, 13, 86
269
Index
En Soph, 8 Holy Grail, 6, 153, 236

Epicurus, 233 Holy Spirit, 74, 76, 79, 124, 215
Fibonacci (Leonardo of Pisa), 36, 38, 172 Iceland, 154

numbers, 21, 67-68, 172-73, 258-59 initiation, 62
fish symbolism, 90-98, 94, 95, 96 Intelligent Design, 5
Five, 86, 166-210 Ireland, 151, 154
Four, 27, 86, 109-18 Irenaeus, 72
Israel, 12 tribes of, 64, 151, 162, 220
Galileo Galilei, xiv, 6, 74 Isis, 213
gematria, 60-61, 72-83, 98, 178, 215 Italy, 114
Genesis, 13-15, 119, 166, 212
geomancy, 22 Jerusalem, The New, xii, 34, 64-66, 80, 82,
geometry, uses of, 62 108, 219
Gibbs, Christopher, v, xi Jesus, 64, 72, 73, 81, 97-101, 108, 112-13,
Gilgamesh, 152 151, 166, 235
Gladstone, William, 242 Jewish calendar, 74, 213
Glastonbury, 151, 162 Jung, Carl G., 57
Gnostics, 43, 72, 78
golden section (phi), 168-77, 258-59 Kali Yuga, 74
Golgotha, 108 Kepler, Johann, 102, 150
Great Bear, 214
Greek alphabet and numbers, 72 Lawlor, Robert, Sacred Geometry, 174
Gurdjieff, George I., 216 Lea, Rev. T. Simcox, 215
Lundy Island, 106-7
Harpur, Merrily, v, 4
Harpur, Patrick, 57 Madagascar, 154
Daimonic Reality, 182 magic squares, 77
Heath, Robin, The Measure ofAlbion, 106 Magnesia, 69
Heavenly City plan, xii, xiv, 6, 16, 18, 30-34, Maier, Michael, Atalanta Fugiens, 50
65-70, 70, 73, 80, 98, 163, 220, 228, Marriages between
228-31, 249 circle and square, 22-32, 42, 45-50,
Hephaistos, 81 247-50
Heraclitus, 74 Eight and Twelve, 126, 148-49
Hermes, 57, 167; 182,216 Five and Seven, 208-9
Hindu chronology, 74, 82 Five and Six, 202-6
Hipparchus, 74 Four and Five, 207
Hiram ofTyre, 44-45, 45 Seven and Twelve, 2/, 219-31
ias)
Index
Three and Four, 115-16 philosopher’s stone, 6

two circles, 90-92, 91, 92 phyllotaxis, 172
two pentagons, 166, 187-96 pi, 36-56
two squares, 125, 140 conventional, 21, 36, 37
two triangles, 91, 119 Fibonacci, 21, 36, 37-38, 67
Mercurius, 57 in the Pyramid, 39-43
metric system, 42, 67, 151 pi pattern, 46, 51-56, 58, 59
miracles of multiplication, 97 Pilgrim’s Progress, 232
Mithras, 72 Pisces, Age of, 101
moon, 21-24, 21, 24, 27, 30, 82-83 Plato
Moon, RobertJ., 151 Critias, 81, 240, 241
Moore, Joan, 105 Ton, 232
Mysteries, the, 62 Laws, 20, 40, 69, 153, 240, 261
Meno, 110
New Testament, 72, 79, 81 Phaedrus, 103
Newfoundland, 242 Republic, 63, 113, 172, 215, 219, 235, 243
Nine, 216-18 Symposium, 167, 213, 234
numbers Timaeus, 13, 15, 98, 102, 103, 240
amicable, 61, 236 Plato’s Academy, 43, 63, 69, 255
evenly even, 124 Platonic solids, 102-3, 104, 151, 162
perfect, 119 polygons, 75
super-abundant, 150 decagon, 166-209, 252-57
triangular, 77-78, 78 dodecagon, 86, 150, 159, 223, 228
enneagon, 86, 216, 217, 218,
Odin, 74, 151 heptagon, 75, 210, 213, 220
Olsen, Scott, The Golden Section, 171 hexagon, 91, 116-23
One, 8, 16, 87 octagon, 124-149
oracles, 213, 219 pentagon, 166-209
Orpheus, 152-53 square, 109-14, 150
Ouaknin, Marc-Alain, The Mystery of triangle, 30, 102-8, 150
Number, 39 Poseidon, 244-45, 249, 251, 253, 254, 260
Pyramid, the Great, 40-42, 82
Parthenon, 171 Pythagoras, Pythagoreans, 61, 83, 112, 236,
pentagonal hexagons, 183, 191-196, 199-201 249, 260
perpetual choirs, 152
Peruvian octagon, 56, 147 ratios, geometric, 10-12
Phidias, 171 Revelation, Book of, 64, 72, 76, 78, 214, 219,
phi (see golden section) 243
271
Index
Rigveda, 74 3168; 22, 24, 67, 71, 73

Romulus, 22 3960; 20, 22, 23, 24, 250
5040; 16, 18, 19, 20-35, 60-61, 69, 73,
St Augustine, City ofGod, 119 212,243
St Catherine, 213 666; 16, 17, 72, 73, 76-80
St Finian, 151 720; 25, 25761, 7557 7,108
St John, 57, 64-68, 72, 77, 82, 100, 108, 235, 7920; 22, 23-24, 26, 33, 60, 66, 69, 70-71,
243 73, 82, 247
St Joseph of Arimathaea, 151, 162 864; 74, 81-83, 108,
St Peter, 99; 100 888; 72-73
Sanctuary, the, 69-71
septenary number, 216-18, 2/8 Ten, 86, 166-209, 260-61
Seven, 86, 155, 178, 208-9, 212-31, Tetractys, 260
hills, springs, etc., 212, 219 Three, 90-108
planets, notes, colours, metals, etc., 213-14 Timaeus, 13, 15, 98, 102, 103, 172, 240, 241
sages, sibyls, angels, etc., 214, 219 Tree of Life, xiv
Six, 119-23 Triangles
Socrates, 63, 68, 110, 112-13, 113, 154, 213, Isosceles & scalene, 104, 137, 192-94
234-35, 241, 249 Pythagorean, 30, 105-8
Solomon, King, 44, /08, 151, 166 Trismegistos, 216
Solon, 241 Twelve, 16, 2/, 32, 66, 84, 86, 116, 148,
Sommerville, Ian, 34 148-63, 219-31, 261
Stewart, Malcolm, 31, 3/ Tribes, fruits, gemstones, etc., 64-67,
Stolum, Prof. H-H., 39 219-20
Stonehenge, 39, 43, 67, 106-7 Two, 88-89
sun, diameter of, 82
symbolic and canonical numbers Valhalla, 74
1080; 16, 17, 21, 22, 23, 74-83 Vesica piscis, 90-92, 97-101
11! (= 39,916,800); 17, 18, 21, 24
12!(=479,001,600); 16, 17, 18, 19 Westminster Abbey, 75
1224; 23, 98, 98, 100, 101 Wilmoth, Stephen, 150
1296; 58-61 Wisdom, Book of, 9
153; 94-101 world axis, 7-8, 87, 212, 215
1728; 82, 108 world soul, 208, 212-30
1746; 17-18, 80-81
216032333970, 82, 151 Zeus, 213, 243
248,832; 66 Zodiac, 14, 33, 66, 81, 103, 151-52
28; 32, 74, 213, 228-30
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‘Instructive and illustrative ... John Michell has stamped this book with |
the freshness and originality that are his hallmark. It is a worthy bequest of an
extraordinary mind ... a source of inspiration for seekers in the arts, mathematics
and the Mysteries’ — Temenos Academy Review
‘A delightful book: clear, witty, beautiful and illuminating’ — The Spectator
‘Utterly gorgeous ... 288 full-colour pages of wisdom and wonder ... A thing
to be cherished, a work of art, it is also a beautifully illustrated geometry primer
with philosophical commentary ... the text is Michell’s finest prose — cool,
succinct and rational’ — Fortean Times
(as
ent forefathers, God. rest their-bones,

the trues ond. cleared the lama ofstones,
drawn & syunre with its dlagenal,
our settlement octagonal.
John Michell (1933-2009), educated at Eton and Cambridge, was the pioneer researcher and
specialist in the field of ancient, traditional science. He is the author of more than forty books that
have profoundly influenced modern thinking, including A Little History of Astro-Archaeology,
The New View Over Atlantis and The Dimensions ofParadise.
Allan Brown is an illustrator who specializes in sacred geometrical figures.
www.thamesandhudson.com ©
ISBN 978-0-500-29037-8
©
On the cover
Th ral d Front: Heavenly City or New Jerusalem diagram. ||
ames & u son Back: Octagonal economy: a forest settlement. 9 780
500 29 0378

How the World Is Made_ The Story of Creation According to -- John Michell; Allan Brown -- Mar 01, 2012 -- Thames & Hudson -- 9780500290378 -- c7d244156887c253bcd3a51cf203cb95 -- Anna’s Archive

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John Michell

HOW THE WORLD IS MADE

HOW THE WORLD IS MADE

%~Y. Thames & Hudson

Copyright © 2009 John Michell and Allan Brown

First paperback edition 2012

All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

Printed and bound in China by Toppan Leefung

To find out about all our publications, please visit www.thamesandhudson.com.

Richard Adams, Sam Adams, Alex Brown, Christopher Gibbs, Michael

The Hand and the Computer

2. The Number 5040

3. The Circle, the Square

6. The One and Only

7. The Geometry of Two

8. The Geometry of Three

10. Six and the Hexagon

11. Eight and the Octagon

12. The Majestic Twelve

15. Geometry and Love

About the Author 264

love of conversation, he shared this wisdom in vivid detail. The fascinating

Creation is not finished—the world occurs anew every moment.

AT THE MAX PLANCK INSTITUTE

answers to prayer, need, or intense desire. It is as if we had actually willed them

Fig. 2. The scientific

The Geometer’s Creator

Traditional cosmology and the schemes of geometry that illustrate it develop

Fig. 3. From behind the

cloud or veil of mystery

written the title of his

or less, is the geometer’s

You need uctbea scientist or study cn

In this book the traditional creation myth is developed and illustrated

Creative Geometry: Introducing the Ratios

Fig. 5. The first three ratios

1. The first ratio in geometry is 1 to 7, the ratio between

2. The second ratio is 1 to the square root of 2, or 1:1.4142

Fig. 6. Combining the ratios to construct

_ 1(b). The whole figure is then enclosed in a

2. A square is added and a circle drawn

3. Taking the area of the inner circle as 1, the

Fig. 7 (right). The universal diagram appears at the centre

is half that of its white.

Fig. 8 (below). The successive root ratios are combined in

Genesis and the Great Geometer

Fig. 9. The Creator’s geometry

3. He then draws a circle within the square. The area of this

4. Within the lower circle, the Firmament, the Creator con-

Fig. 10. Stages in the creation story: Genesis and Plato

1. In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

He wanted everything to be as near to his own perfection as

He made the universe as one whole, made up of all whole

2. Seeing the universe in a restless state of inharmonious

3. God divided the light from the darkness. .. . He made the

mament from the waters above. —GENESIS

The Number of the Universe

Fig. 11. The geometer’s universe is

Fig. 12. The square drawn within the

| —___—_ ¥11 (39 squares) ——_