Understanding the role of sacred geometry in cosmology and human affairs

• Explains how ancient societies that grasped the timeless principles of sacred geometry were able to create flourishing societies

• Illustrates the social and spiritual values in the natural progression of number

• Contains more than 300 full-color drawings showing the interplay of number and sacred geometry

Galileo described the universe as a large book written in the language of mathematics, which can only be read by those with knowledge of its characters--triangles, circles, and other geometrical figures. The laws of geometry are not human inventions. They are found ready-made in nature and hold a truth that is the same in all times and all places and is older than the world itself.

In How the World Is Made John Michell explains how ancient societies that grasped the timeless principles of sacred geometry were able to create flourishing societies. His more than 300 full-color illustrations reveal the secret code within these geometrical figures and how they express the spiritual meanings in the key numbers of 1 through 12. For example, the number 8 and its octagon are symbols of peace and stability, the holy 7 and its seven-sided figure are connected to the world-soul. He identifies the various regular shapes and shows their constructions; their natural symbolism; their meetings, matings, and ways of breeding; and their functions within the universal order. Some are musical and structural, others relate to life and humanity. In the process of making these discoveries, Michell helps us see the world in a new light. Disparate shapes and their corresponding numbers are woven together, resolving themselves into an all-inclusive world image--that “pattern in the heavens,” as Socrates called it, “which anyone can find and establish within themselves.”
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An informative companion for travellers seeking the ancient spirit of England. A renowned expert on sacred places takes readers on an unforgettable journey where peace and sanctity are almost tangible. Features: *Ruined abbeys and cathedrals *Pagan sites *Megalithic temples *Shrines of saints and visionaries *Holy wells *Island sanctuaries...

The symbolism and power behind sacred locations in ancient and modern times

• Explains the need and role for ritual centers in modern society

• Examines ancient territorial centers in ancient Egypt, Greece, Africa and Asia, and Iceland and the British Isles

• Reveals the code of number and geometry behind the idealistic social structure of the ritual center, formed to imitate the heavenly order

Symbols of ritual centers are among the most persistent elements of myth and belief between cultures widely separated in time and space. Every tribe and state had its “generation center,” a sacred area within its heartland where its legendary founders gave birth to its people and established their laws. Within the inner sanctum of the sanctuary was an altar or pillar, the omphalos or navel stone, that marked the midpoint of the home territory and represented the world-pole on which everything revolved. It was the focus of a perpetual cycle of rituals and festivals that passed with the seasons around the country and held its people under the spell of a golden age.

In this book John Michell reveals the precise methods by which the ancients located the appropriate centers and adopted them as sanctuaries. The same principles of ritual geography in the siting of Akhenaten’s capital in Egypt and Megalopolis in classical Greece apply also to the traditional centers of small territories and islands. The rediscovery of these sites--such as the spot at the center of Ireland where the Celtic High Kings were installed--sheds new light on the ritualized order of prehistoric societies and the sacred, scientific code on which they were founded. These revelations from the distant past are of great significance in present times, for in them are the secrets of harmony on every scale, from the personal to the universal. Restoring the sacred center to its former place of prominence offers the possibility of a renaissance of human culture, ideally centered upon the image of a perfectly ordered Cosmos.

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