In the compass itself we have symbolized the primordial duality of Rest and Motion, of stillness and action, for one point of the compass remains fixed while the other moves, generating the center and the circumference of a circle, generatrix of all subsequent form. With these tools, and an appropriate state of mind, the geometrician can imitate the primordial process by which the Universe of Time and Space emerged into existence. To begin an exercise in Sacred Geometry four tools are required: A clean sheet of paper, a straight-edge of some kind, a pair of drawing compasses and a good sharp pencil. Through the combination of straight lines and arcs the entire edifice of geometry can be produced. The construction can commence with either a straight line or the arc of a circle. 1250, shows God about to impart order to the disordered primeval chaos within the circle by a rotation of the compass.Īll geometric constructions begin with a single point, represented by the moment that the point of the compass or the point of the pencil contacts paper. As an example, the frontispiece of the Bible Moralisée, ca. This concept of God as geometrician is also depicted in a number of medieval bibles.
When he prepared the heavens, I was there: when he set his compass upon the face of the deep.” God as Geometrician “I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was…While as yet he had not made the earth, nor the fields, nor the highest part of the dust of the world. This depiction exemplifies the verses from the 8th chapter of Proverbs, wherein Wisdom establishes her priority in the hierarchy of Creation by proclaiming: That concept is nowhere better portrayed than in William Blakes famous 1794 painting The Ancient of Days, depicting the Demiurge, the Creator God of the Universe, setting his compass upon the Face of the Deep, and through the turning of the compass bringing Order out of unformed Chaos. It should come as no surprise that ancient Mystics visualized God as a Geometrician. The presumed requirement on the part of Plato, the acknowledged greatest Metaphysician of the Hellenic world, that anyone seeking admission to his academy must be conversant with the principles of Geometry, affirms the importance of this form of mental training to anyone desiring to tread the path to Metaphysical Knowledge. “All science rests upon mathematics, and mathematics is first and last, geometry… Geometry is the ultimate fact we have won out of a puzzling universe.”
Masonic author Carl Lundy affirms this status when he says: To ancient masters and teachers geometry was seen as the definitive Holy Science from which emerged all other sciences. Room of the Segnatura (1508-1511), Vatican. Fragment of The School of Athens – fresco by Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino. From these simple operations, the Geometrician soon learns to generate an infinite variety of form and pattern, and is, thereby, following in the footsteps of Nature herself, such being the indispensable requirement for success on the Hermetic path. It is nothing less than this ultimate act of Creation which is replicated through the placing of pencil upon paper and from this point the drawing of a line or arc. Indeed, the emergence of the Universe from the unknowable and unfathomable void, before the very existence of Time and Space, was an act of Geometry. The process of producing the forms, patterns and symbols of Sacred Geometry should be undertaken as a ritual act, where each line, curve, shape, gesture or operation takes on a significance far beyond the mere act itself, and reveals fundamental processes of creativity on a vast scale and range of phenomenon, from the geometry of atomic and molecular organization, through the forms and patterns of biological systems, to the scale of the cosmos itself and the very structure of Space and Time. From the initial act of putting pencil or compass point to paper each act of geometry is charged with meaning. Sacred Geometry, to be fully appreciated and experienced, must be undertaken as a contemplative, or meditative exercise. “Before all things were, there was a Point.”Īnonymous, 18th century ‘Le Mystere de la Croix’
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