Sunday, December 02, 2007

Sacred Geometry from Wikipedia

Sacred geometry may be understood as a worldview of pattern recognition, a complex system of hallowed attribution and signification that may subsume religious and cultural values to the fundamental structures and relationships of such complexes as space, time and form. According to this discipline, the basic patterns of existence are perceived as sacred: for by contemplating and communing with them one is thereby contemplating the Mysterium Magnum, the patterning relationships of the Great Design. By studying the nature of these patterns, forms and relationships and their manifold intra- and interconnectivity one may gain insight into the scientific, philosophical, psychological, aesthetic and mystical continuĆ¼m. That is, the laws and lore of the Universe.

The term sacred geometry is also used for geometry which is employed in the design of sacred architecture and sacred art. The underlying belief is that geometry and mathematical ratios, harmonics and proportionality discoverable from geometry also gird music, light, cosmology, and other observable and sensate features of the Universe. This value system has been held throughout the World from time immemorial to prehistory, a cultural universal endemic to the Human Condition. Sacred geometry is the foundation of the design, architecture, fabrication and construction of sacred structures such as temples, mosques, megaliths, monuments and churches; sacred space such as altars, temenos and tabernacles; places of congregation such as sacred groves, village greens and holy wells and the creation of religious art, iconography and divine proportionality. Sacred geometry, art, iconography and architecture need not be monolithic and enduring, but may be temporary and yielding, such as visualization and non-permanent sandpainting and medicine wheels.