Sacred geometry covers the figures that have been treated as carrying meaning as well as measure: the circle, the vesica piscis, the platonic solids, the Sri Yantra, the golden ratio and others. Building meaning into proportion is well attested in temple architecture, in mandala and yantra design and in Gothic masonry; some of the specific figures now grouped under the name, such as the Flower of Life, are modern labels for older decorative motifs. Each entry gives the figure, its construction and the traditions that use it.
Facts
Overview
- Entries in the Atlas
- 34
Contested Use
- Contested or Appropriated Modern Use
- The claim that the golden ratio governs the Parthenon, the Great Pyramid and the proportions of the human body is not supported by the measurements, though the popular "sacred geometry" literature repeats it. 1
Origins
- Whose Classification This Is
- Assigning the five regular solids to the four elements and to the cosmos is Plato's scheme in the Timaeus, of the fourth century BCE. It is a philosophical construction, not a survival from earlier temple practice. 2
Structure
- Structure
- Exactly five convex regular polyhedra exist. Euclid constructs all five and proves that there are no others. 3
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Meaning built into proportion
Sacred geometry covers the figures that traditions have treated as carrying meaning as well as measure: the circle, the vesica piscis, the platonic solids, the flower of life, the Sri Yantra, the golden ratio and others. The underlying idea is that certain shapes and proportions express something true about the cosmos, and that building them into temples, mandalas and diagrams aligns the work with that order.
Building meaning into proportion is well attested in temple architecture, religious art and cosmological diagrams across many cultures, from Egyptian and Greek building to Islamic geometric ornament to the yantras of Hindu and Buddhist practice.
Tradition and Modern Synthesis
Some of this material is genuinely ancient, the platonic solids and their cosmic assignments go back to Plato's Timaeus, the geometry of Gothic and Islamic architecture is real and studied, while much of the popular "sacred geometry" of recent decades, with its flower-of-life lore and grand claims, is a modern synthesis. The atlas distinguishes the historical geometry from the modern movement built around it.
The entries describe each figure, its construction, and the meanings various traditions have attached to it, noting which are old and which recent.