Published on www.philosophyoffreedom.com (http://www.philosophyoffreedom.com)

Sacred Geometry and Christ - the Community of the Future

By Tim Bourke
Created 11/28/2007 - 3:56am
If you observe the physical body in this objective but more sensitive and subtle way, I'm sure you can arrive for yourself at many more relationships of geometrical figures to the human body.

 

 

 

 

Last time at http://www.philosophyoffreedom.com/node/2384 [1] I characterised the human body when walking as revealing what I might tentatively call a "spiritual" figure of eight or lemniscate:

It's important to remember that this is not just an external physical shape - while it is related to physical space, there are what we normally think of as "internal" events or phenomena like thinking, feeling and even the sensations of breathing and so on related to particular parts of the above shape.

If you observe the physical body in this objective but more sensitive and subtle way, I'm sure you can arrive for yourself at many more relationships of geometrical figures to the human body.  Joel has posted a very interesting example here at http://www.philosophyoffreedom.com/node/2426#comment-5304 [2] based on his own observations and investigations.

Another interesting example relates to the four temperaments - see for example the article posted by Tom here recently http://www.philosophyoffreedom.com/node/2379 [3]. 

 

Tetrahedron - Fire - Choleric Temperament - Human Head

Octahedron - Air - Sanguine Temperament - Human Chest

Icosahedron - Water - Phlegmatic Temperament - Human Abdomen

 Hexahedron/Cube - Earth - Melancholic Temperament - Human Limbs

We can imagine these four shapes with the above correspondences superimposed on the above figure of eight and human body - we thus have a living picture of how various tendencies in the human being relate to each other.

This description would best be taken as simply an aesthetic or artistic depiction of the connection of various ideas and observations of the human body.  The above Platonic solids have been traditionally connected with the four elements as outlined in Plato's Timaeus (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timaeus_%28dialogue%29 [4]).

It is notable that many artistic depictions of ideal past, present and future communities incorporate an element of geometry and number.  For example: the twelve disciples (often gathered around a round table) seated in an upper room when the tongues of flame of the Holy Spirit descend; the Knights of King Arthur gathered at the Round Table when they see the vision of the Grail; the four living creatures in the Old Testament Book of Ezekiel; and examples too numerous to mention in the Book of Revelation.

We can imagine in our example that the four extremes, as it were, of human behaviour which are connected to our physical existence (choleric, sanguine, phlegmatic and melancholic with three examples or varieties of each) are gathered at the table in the upper room when the Holy Spirit descends.  Such an image then represents a connection to the fulfillment of an ideal human body or human being, as it were, into a community of human beings - Christ in you, and in the community that you are a part of.

 


Source URL:
http://www.philosophyoffreedom.com/node/2432