Sacred geometry is the geometry used in the planning and construction of religious structures such as churches, temples, mosques, religious monuments, altars, tabernacles; as well as for sacred spaces such as temenoi, sacred groves, village greens and holy wells, and the creation of religious art. In sacred geometry, symbolic and sacred meanings are ascribed to certain geometric shapes and certain geometric proportions,
In the ancient world certain numbers had symbolic meaning, aside from their ordinary use for counting or calculating … plane figures, the polygons, triangles, squares, hexagons, and so forth, were related to the numbers (three and the triangle, for example), were thought of in a similar way, and in fact, carried even more emotional significance than the numbers themselves, because they were visual.
The belief that God created the universe according to a geometric plan has ancient origins. Plutarch attributed the belief to Plato, writing “Plato said God geometrizes continually” In modern times the mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss adapted this quote, saying “God arithmetizes.” Music
Pythagoras found that an oscillating string stopped halfway along its length produces an octave relative to the string’s fundamental, while a ratio of 2:3 produces a perfect fifth and 3:4 produces a perfect fourth. Pythagoreans believed that these harmonic ratios gave music powers of healing which could “harmonize” an out-of-balance body. This belief has been revived in modern times.
Many forms observed in nature can be related to geometry (for reasons of resource optimization). For example, the chambered nautilus grows at a constant rate and so its shell forms a logarithmic spiral to accommodate that growth without changing shape. Also, honeybees construct hexagonal cells to hold their honey. These and other correspondences are seen by believers in sacred geometry to be further proof of the cosmic significance of geometric forms. These phenomena can, however, be explained through natural principles.
Art and architecture
The golden ratio, geometric ratios, and geometric figures were often employed in the design of Egyptian, ancient Indian, Greek and Roman architecture. Medieval European cathedrals also incorporated symbolic geometry. Indian and Himalayan spiritual communities often constructed temples and fortifications on design plans of mandala and yantra. Many of the sacred geometry principles of the human body and of ancient architecture have been compiled into the Vitruvian Man drawing by Leonardo Da Vinci, itself based on the much older writings of the roman architect Vitruvius.
Contemporary usage
Sacred geometry describes mathematical order to the intrinsic nature of the universe. Among the most prevalent traditional geometric forms are the sine wave, the sphere, the vesica piscis, the torus (donut), the 5 platonic solids, the golden spiral, the tesseract (4-dimensional cube), Fractals and the star tetrahedron (2 oppositely oriented and interpenetrating tetrahedrons) which leads to the merkaba.