New Aqe ' Divinaiion Pei'sonai Transforrnation

You Are the Architect of Your Own DestinyErpand vour a\\'areness of the unir-ersai patterns that shape vour life withthe 5.?crr'.7 Geometrt Orncle. \ori, tbr the first time, r'ou can use this ancientrrisdom as a tool tor meditation, dir ination, and self-erploration.

\\-lren rre get to the point, run around ir circles, or go off on a tangent,r'e're alreadv interpreting our lives in geometrical terms. The samesortofa\\'alen6-\ can be turned to the subtle and communicative designs of sacredSeometr'\'. makinq them into sr-mbols that sen-e as a bridge between ourintuitir-e a\r areneis and the rrorld of our erperience. This Oracle includes;

. Thirq -three cards. each bearing an important diagramfrom the lore of traditional sacred geometrv

o -{a illq.stpated grridebook that presents the meaningof each card. ho'rs to cast and interpret readilgs, andmeditation suqgestions

. SteF-br-s-tep erercises tbr constructing traditionalgeometric torms and patterns ilrith the help of yourorrn geometer-s tools: comp.rss, straightedge, pencil,and paperl" and tool storing space in the kit box

I .':ii:

Socred Geometry: Design Your Life with Cosmic PrinciplesHow can the tenets of an ancient art help you gain insight into yourlife's path and purpose today? In Techniques for Geometric Transfor-mation,lohn Michael Greer shows you how to use the forgotten wis-dom of sacred geometry as a tool for expanded perception; a way todevelop awareness of the hidden patterns of reality that shape youreveryday life.

Easy to learn and use, the Sacred Geometry Oracle provides clear,insightful, and accurate readings about past, present, and futureevents. It emphasizes possibility, and the ability to choose the futureyou want.

Once, ancient builders used sacred geometry as a tool to designtemples and pyramids in accordance with cosmic patterns and univer-sal truths. With the knowledge you gain from this Oracle, you candesign your own life with the same sort of grace, power, and connec-tion to the cosmos.

>out the Authorrn Michael (lrccr lras bccn a student and practitioner of Hermeticrgic and Wcstcrrr csotcric spirituality since 1975. The author of sev-tl books, irrcltrdirrg Nutural Magic: Potions and Powers from thezgical ()onlctt itnrl Earlh Diyination, Earth Magic: A Practical GuideGaortttrttcy, irrrrl rrunrerous articles on Western magical traditions, heillso irlr irritirrtcd l)ruid of the Order of Bards Ovates and Druids)l]Ol)), ir sltrdcrrt of geomancy and sacred geometry, a Certifiedlo( Mustt'r', irrtd rrrt active member of two magical lodges. He lives inrr t I lt'.

Write to the Authoryorr wislr lo c

Tcchniqucs litr (laornetric Transformation o 2002 by lohn Michael Greer. All rights re-scrvcd. No pirrt of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever,incltrcling lutcrnct usage, without written permission from Llewellyn Publications ex-cept in thc case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

First EclitionSecond Printing,2005

Card and cover design by Gavin Dalton DuffyEcliting and book design by Rebecca Zins

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication DataGreer, John Michael.

Techniques for geometric transformation / John Michael Greer.-lst ed.P. cm'

Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.ISBN 0-7387-0051-71. Fortune-tellingbycards. 2. Geometry-Miscellanea. I. Title.

llf,'t878.G742002| 33.3'33-dc2l

2001046292

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ConfentsIntroduction to the Sacred Geometry Oracle : 1

The First CircleI : The Unmarked Card: 152:The Point: 193 : The Line:234 : The Circle:275 : The Spiral : 316 : The Ellipse : 357 :TheVesica Piscis:398 : The Equilateral Tiiangle:459 : The Hexagram:51

10: The Cross: 5711 : Quadrature of the Circle : 63

The Second Circle12 : The Right Tiiangle: 7113 : The Square: 7714: The Octagram:8315 : The Dodecagram: 89

The Tetrahedron : 93The Octahedron: 99The Icosahedron: 105

l61'7

18

19: The Cube:20: Square and2l : Gnomonic22 : Alternation

111

Diagonal: II7Expansion: 125:133

he Third CircleThe Double Square: 141Progression ofRoots : 147Discontinuous Proportion : 153Continuous Proportion : 159The Golden Proportion: 165The Pentagram: l7IThe Dodecahedron: 177Unity of Primary Roots : 185

: The Sphere: 193: Squaring the Circle : 199: The Human Canon :205

2324

25

2627

2829

303T

)z33

Reading the Oracle : 211Sample Readings: 217A Sacred Geometry Bibliography : 225Glossary :227Index: 231

Introduction to theSacred Oeometry 0racle

We live in a time of great transitions. After three centuries in whichthe Western world has been dominated by the ideology of science,more and more people are taking a hard look at the legacy of the Sci-entific Revolution, with its dream of a world totally subjected tohuman reason and its promise of limitless power through technology.The dream and the promise measure up poorly against the hard reali-ties of a spiritually empty, esthetically debased, culturally impover-ished, and environmentally devastated world.

In the last fifty years, in response to these concerns, teachings con-cerning mysticism, magic, divination, and inner development havecome out of the shadows to play an errer more prominent role inmodern life. These ancient traditions have proven themselves quitecapable of handling the complexities of a postmodern world-morecapable, indeed, than many approaches that carry the seal of officialscientific approval.

In the modern renaissance of traditional wisdom, though, the an-cient art of sacred geometry has played a surprisingly small role. At atime when the basic ideas of traditional wisdom are becoming evermore widely known, when everything from astrology to Zen has aready and increasingly knowledgeable audience, very few people haveeven encountered sacred geometry.

Much of the problem is simply a matter of how sacred geometryhas been presented in modern times. Memories of boring math class-es make the whole idea of sacred geometry seem cold, abstract, anddifficult to those who have never experienced it, and getting past thisbarrier has been a slow and difficult process.

vvrrrr il lcw stcllilr cxccptlolls' too, most of tlrc vcry sllall lrirrrtllirl 9lrcccrt books on sacred geometry falr short as useful introductions t'the art. on the one hand, these books betray a limited and sometimesinaccurate knowledge of the traditional lore. on the other, many ofthem have a habit of mixing sacred geometry together with a dizzyingassortment of speculations about lost continents, ancient astronauts.conspiracy theories, and the like. while I don't intend to pass judg-ment on such ideas, or to deny them merit on their own terms, it's fairto say that they don't have much to do with traditional sacred geome-try; muddling them together with geometrical studies has caused farmore confusion than clarity, and done some damage to sacred geom_etryt reputation besides.

Despite its importance, then, sacred geometry remains the mostneglected of the western world's wisdom teachings. This is particular-ly unfortunate at the present time, for it has things to offer that ourmodern world desperately needs. It was by way of sacred geometrythat ancient architects, artists, designers, and builders created struc-tures and works of art that still astonish the viewer by their beauty,their practicality, and their harmonious relationship to their sur-roundings. It was by way of sacred geometry that the spirituar and thepractical sides of life were woven together seamlessly in the everydayenvironments of city, town, workplace, and home. In an age when ourcities are drowned in soulless ugliness, and our lives are surroundedby objects designed for mechanical efficiency without any humanqualities whatsoever, the insights of sacred geometry have much tooffer us even on a practical level.

Understonding Socred Geometryour culture's forgetfulness of sacred geometry extends so far thatmany people have never heard of it, and some of those who know theterm use it in ways the traditional sacred geometers of the past wouldhardly recognize. Thus, a few paragraphs on matters of definition maybe useful here.

'l'lrt'lirrglislrwortl "lgt.onr('lty"(()t)l(.slrrrnt llrt,(;t(,(,1({(,(,,r,(,ltitt,lilcritf ly "cirrllr rncilsure nl('nt" (lrrrrrr.qr,, "t'lrr-tlr," itrrr.l tttt,lrrttt,',rrtcasrr rc").'l'lris poirrts bircl< ro thc'arrcicrrtorigirrs ol'gcornctry, whcu the art wasusccl ttl lay or-rt pattcrns on thc eartlr in order to Ineasure fields and es_tablish the ground plans tbr sacred structures.

At that time, all geometry was sacred, for two reasons. on the onehand, the Earth itself was understood as a living and holy being, andthose who measured it and patterned it recognized their responsibili-ty as mediators between the Earth and the people. Historically we canfind echoes of this attitude in the sacred status of boundary stones, inrituals performed at the founding of a city or the building of a temple,and in many other traditions that have endured from the distant past.This attitude had much to do with the origins of feng shui in china,and of similar systems, far less well-known, i' the western world andelsewhere.

on the other hand, it was recog nized early on that geometry itselfoffered pathways into the subtle realm of meaning and spirit that wecall sacred. The play of geometric form obeys laws that unfold fromthe nature of experienced reality itself, laws that are not subject tohuman whims or prejudices. Mastery of those laws provided knowl-edgeable individuals with tools to reshape the world, both on a physi-cal level-for geometry was the foundation of much of ancient archi-tecture and technology-and on subtler levels as well.

out of this recognition of the sacred possibilities of geometry, anextraordinary tradition of wisdom took shape. It was expressed inmany different forms in the cultures that treasured it; the forgottengeometers who planned and built the mighty stone circles of north-western Europe no doubt understood geometry in very different waysfrom the temple priests of Egypt, the initiates of the pythagoreanBrotherhood of ancient Greece, the Taoist sages of china, or the mas-ter builders of medieval Europe. Their work varied equally; it takesdifferent methods and somewhat different skills to trace out the de-sign of a stone circle, to erect a Gothic cathedral, to work out the pro-portions of a Renaissance painting, or to teach a new initiate to apply

t

Introduction to the Socred Geometry Orqcle

li('()nr('lrit rrl prirrt iplt's ol lrirllrrttt',trttl ltrtrnr()r)y l() lris ol ltt'l owrr tllrilyI i lt'.

Still, l c()lnnr()r) thrcurl ol irrsight runs throLlgh all ol'thcsc cxprcs-siorrs o1- tl'rc sacrccl gcornctry tradition. All of them recognized theneecl to join geonretric theory with its expression in practice. All ofthem knew how to fuse spirit, form, and matter into unity throughthe practice of their art. AII of them recognized that beauty and mean-ing come from the presence of the living spirit in form and matter,and all of them saw clearly that this comes through the creative mindfrom beyond,notfrom the individual ego and its manipulations.

These insights, however, did not remain central to geometric prac-tice. As societies grew more complex and human activities more spe-cialized, the practical side of geometry grew away from its roots in theliving spirit. This was a slow process, and by no means a continuousone. tvVhile there are records of purely practical geometry from an-cient Egyptian times, there were still times and places thereafter whenthe practical and spiritual sides of geometry were reunited, giving riseto soaring works of human genius, such as the temples of classicalGreece and the Gothic cathedrals of medieval Europe.

Only with the end of the Renaissance and the coming of the Scien-tific Revolution did the break become total. It's not an accident thatthe term "sacred geometry" came into being after this point. Onlywhen the main current of geometry in the West lost the last of its con-nections to the sacred was it necessary to create a new phrase, "sacredgeometry," to refer to what all geometry had once been.

We can define sacred geometry, then, as the art of using geometricforms as a gateway to the knowledge and presence of the living spirit.Ifyour only contact with geometry has been with the sort that's taughtin public schools, in other words, the approach on which the SacredGeometry Oracle is based may seem pretty strange. The emblems andexercises in this book, and in other books of traditional sacred geom-etry, have nothing to do with proving theorems or calculating thesides of trianglesl Instead, sacred geometry is about opening up theself to the experience of geometric tbrm, recognizing the presence of

trrrtlt'rlyirrli lirws irr tlrc;tliry ol'lirtttr, ittrtl lcirlrrinli lo trrrtlt'r'slrtrrrl llru tt ivcrsc irr rt clil'lt'r'ctr I ir rrtl clccpe l' way.

(icornctry was only one of a group of ancient arts wi[h the sambroacl purpose and approach, and most of the cultures that made usof sacred geometry drew on these other arts as well. In the Westerrworld, from Greek times to the end of the Renaissance, these arts werunited as the quadrivium or "Four Ways" of arithmetic, geometrlmusic, and astronomy.

All of these, it has to be remembered, were studied and practiced asacred disciplines. Nowadays, we might use different names to bettecommunicate what the branches of the quadrivium were about: numerology,the spiritual science of number; sacred geometry,the spiritual science of form; harmonics, which emtrraces not only the inner dimensions of music, but also the whole realm of relationship an