The Meaning of Sacred Geometry part 2. What’s the Point?

Read part 1 of the Meaning of Sacred Geometry here,

“Ante omnia Punctum exstitit…”
“Before all things were, there was a Point.”
Anonymous, 18th century ‘Le Mystere de la Croix’

Sacred Geometry, to be fully appreciated and experienced, must be undertaken as a contemplative, or meditative exercise.  From the initial act of putting pencil or compass point to paper each act of geometry is charged with meaning.  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.  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.  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.  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.

Fragment of The School of Athens – fresco by Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino. Room of the Segnatura (1508-1511), Vatican.

To ancient masters and teachers geometry was seen as the definitive Holy Science from which emerged all other sciences.  Masonic author Carl Lundy affirms this status when he says:

“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.”

It should come as no surprise that ancient Mystics visualized God as a Geometrician. 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. This depiction exemplifies the verses from the 8th chapter of Proverbs, wherein Wisdom establishes her priority in the hierarchy of Creation by proclaiming:

“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. When he prepared the heavens, I was there: when he set his compass upon the face of the deep.”

God as Geometrician

This concept of God as geometrician is also depicted in a number of medieval bibles.  As an example, the frontispiece of the Bible Moralisée, ca. 1250, shows God about to impart order to the disordered primeval chaos within the circle by a rotation of the compass.

All 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. The construction can commence with either a straight line or the arc of a circle. Through the combination of straight lines and arcs the entire edifice of geometry can be produced. 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. 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. 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.

Metaphysical traditions have provided us with a variety of models to facilitate comprehension of the fundamental process of Creation. In the Pythagorean system, in the Tantric system and in the Kabbalah, this process commences with the manifestation of a single dimensionless point, a point, however, of infinite potentiality.  Modern cosmology now concurs with the ancient models by postulating the existence of an ultimate singularity that preceded the Big Bang— or however one cares to describe the initial moment of existence — the difference being that the archaic model requires an act of Deity while the modern view dispenses with a creative intelligence.

Kabbalistic Scholar Z’ev ben Shimon Halevi describes the process of Creation from the perspective of Kabbalah, the ancient system of Jewish mysticism:

“…the EN SOF AUR, the Endless Light of Will, was omniscient throughout Absolute All. From God knowing All, God willed the first separation so that God might behold God. This, we are told, was accomplished by a contraction in Absolute All, so as to make a place wherein the mirror of Existence might manifest. The place that was vacated was finite in that it was limited in relation to Absolute All that held it. This act of contraction, or Zimzum, as it was called, brought about the void of Unmanifest Existence even though it was, we are told, the size of a dimensionless dot in the midst of the Absolute.” 1

In Kabbalah the point, or dimensionless dot in the midst of the Absolute, is understood to be the condensation, or distillation of Gods essence. It first appears against the background of negative existence, but this background is separated from the ‘Absolute.’ It is this separation that forms initial act of manifestation. The Absolute from which the infinitesimal point is contracted is beyond all words and definitions, it is beyond space and time, it is beyond Eternity, it is beyond Infinity. To speak of it is utterly futile; it is both everything and nothing simultaneously. Between this indescribable, unimaginable and incomprehensible state and the Universe of galaxies, stars, planets, atoms, molecules, gravity, radiation, life— in short— Creation as we experience it, lies the zone of negative existence. The same author, Halevi, in An Introduction to Cabala describes this zone:

“Negative existence is the intermediary zone between the Godhead and his creation. It is the pause before the music begins, the silence behind each note, the blank canvas beneath every painting and the empty space ready to be filled. Without this non-existent Existence nothing could have its being. It is a void, yet without it and its potential, the relative Universe could not come into manifestation.”2

The Three Negative Veils

However, according to the tenets of Kabbalism, this zone has a structure comprised of three ‘veils’. That veil which is nearest our relative universe is the veil of Limitless Light, in the terminology of Kabbalah, the Ain Soph Aur. This Limitless Light Halevi likens to cosmic rays which are everywhere throughout the Universe and can penetrate densest matter. The second veil is Ain Soph, simply that which has no limit. It is the zone where the Ultimate void begins to emerge into something, but something without limits, utterly without end. NO-thing lies beyond this, the veil called simply, Ain. Beyond Ain is the Absolute. Halevi describes the nature and quality of the three veils:

“These three stages constitute a condensing, a crystallizing out of the Being who permeates the whole of All; of a point in the centre of a circumferenceless sphere. This distillation, this point, is without dimension either in time or space, yet it contains all the worlds from the uppermost realm down through the ladder of creation to the lowest end…This all inclusive dot is called the First Crown, the first indication of the Absolute, perhaps better known as I AM, the first of many God names.” 3

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