Sacred Geometry

Long ago, a brilliant Greek named Pythagoras, probably educated in that home of magic Egypt, laid down laws governing geometry and architecture that hold true and fast to this day.

But he was far more than just a mathematician or architect. Rather, he was a brilliant mystic who created his own religion, connecting the patterns and laws he saw in nature with counterparts in something later named by Plato the “World of the Forms.” In essence, he created a religion around sacred geometry.

To understand this, one must understand the world of the forms. Plato, building on what he’d learned from Socrates, first postulated this: that there was a world that we could not touch, where the things we see in the real world – for instance, a vase – are reflected from, where the perfect VASE exists in pristine and untouchable form.

This is a powerful idea. It implies that there is a perfection beyond this world that we can conceive of, even if we cannot touch it. And if you examine geometry, you will find this world of the forms easy to see, and understand the link between this Platonic idea, based on the teachings of Pythagoras, and sacred geometry.

For instance, geometric rules state that there is a perfectly straight line that can be used mathematically in geometric – even though that perfectly straight line cannot exist in reality. (Magnify any scanned “straight” line and look, if you don’t believe me.) They also postulate the existence of a perfect point (a location that nothing else can overlap), a perfect sphere, a perfect square, etc. Geometry is all about perfection.

It is also about patterns: multiplicatives, Fibonacci progressions, the Golden Ratio, or fractals, for instance. These patterns, applied to real life, can never be truly duplicated; but they can be seen repeated, in degraded form, over and over in nature. They have also been related by mystics throughout the years to vibrational resonances, and to the principle that each part, each atom or human or car part, is attached in an inseparable relationship to the whole of the universe. Geometry, in essence, is a perfect example of mystical oneness that has permeated most parts of science – because it is right.

A sphere, for instance, is the simplest, most perfect form. In space, astronauts have found that liquids seek to form a sphere when exposed to zero-gravity fields. It has only one surface which looks alike all over, and thus has been used for millennia as an expression of perfection, completeness, and integrity (as in the music of the spheres).

Pi, a mathematical constant and irrational number, is derived from spheres and circles, and was one of the mysteries of that ancient cult of sacred geometry. It can never be expressed as a perfect ratio of two whole numbers, but is absolutely critical for expressing the dimensions of a circle. Pi, more than any other geometrical element, has been used to demonstrate the impossibility of this world ever doing more than emulating that distant world of the forms.

And at the center of that circle, from which the radius pi depends on is measured, is an infinitesimal point, a semi-imaginary place that has no dimensions and is infinite in number. This point transcends time and space, and the fact that we can conceive of it is no different or better than the fact that we can conceive of the divine – it may, in fact, come from the same place in our souls.

Sacred geometry examines these and other geometrical forms, patterns, and laws, found throughout ancient history as well as in modern science. By understanding the rules, often irrational, that govern the world in which we live in, the sacred mathematician hopes to thus understand the Creator that laid down those rules. Scratch a real mathematician, and you will usually find a mystic, not a rational and boring professor. Another of his descendants today is the Freemason, whose sacred symbols include mathematical measuring devices.