Going Fishing? Think on This Piscis
So much to share, so little time....sigh..... This week in Philosophical/Sacred Geometry I ran across the Vesica Piscis in Euclid. What is this and why do we give a flying flip? Well, let me tell you. It is without question one of the most singular significant symbols in all of history. Come on admit it, that's a heck of a start eh?
Lets begin with Euclid, that masterful expositor of Greek mathematics and one of the all time historical selling books of all time, The Elements. In his very first proposition[1], he forms the Vesica Piscis and talks about it. What is this figure? It is the utter simplest to form. Using a compass, whirl a circle (any size). Then on the circumference of that circle keeping the same length on the compass, the same sized opening, whirl another circle. The overlapping area, the almond shaped place is the Vesica Piscis. It reminded the ancients of a fish bladder, so they called it such, Vesica Pisces. In this one, I have drawn the rhomboid (two triangles joined at their base).
This vesica is the "womb" from which so very astonishing shapes in number and significance are given birth to.
Barbara Walker noted this almond shape (Mandorla) represented in the ancient Indian religions in the East the Yoni, which was also known and understood in ancient Egypt when a fish swallowed the penis of Osiris. As such a womb, Jesus was often depicted in it when it was superimposed on the belly of the Virgin Mother in Medieval art of Christianity.[2]
This shape has been used to enclose many different pieces of art and even used in the architecture of buildings. It has correlations to musical ratios and philosophical religious concepts from earliest antiquity, with many religions through time simply adapting it to their own use from the older ways.[3]
Above all else, the Vesica is perennially and eternally associated with the square root of three.[4] And in that there are inumberable stories and connections, but this is the one I will share with you this time. It's a fun start. It is natural to connect points in geometry as you produce the figures. Points are where lines cross, significant places on the figure, etc. So the long line is the square root of three in length, and the radius of the circle (the short line that crosses it horizontally is equal to 1. So it's a 1: square root 3 ratio.
With gematria, each letter of the alphabet (Hebrew or Greek, and I have heard it is true with Latin also) has a number because in ancient times the Arabic numerals were not available to be used by the ancient Greeks or Hebrews so they used what they had. The result as they used their own language, was, word could be equal to numbers, and numbers could represent words. True, it's not our method, but it was theirs. And they planned and wrote their stories and based their philosophies on this concept. Here is a fun example I recently came across.
The Tetragrammaton, the famous name of Deity in the Old Testament YHWH has a gematric value of 26. That is, each of the letters have their own numerical value, and when each one is added together come to a total of 26. Yeah, and? Well, when we assign a value to the horizontal short line in the center of the vesica to that 26 that means the long line = 26 x the square root of three, which equals 45. So with 26 short line, the long line is 45. So? Well, as it turns out, the name of Adam, the man YHWH created = 45. Oh... well what a rather blase coincidence, so? O.K., a coincidence. Now what? What if we played around with the math a little and asked to subtract 26 from 45? 45-26 = 19. Ain't math grand? Well, as it happens, 19 just happens to be the name of Adam's wife, Eve in gematric value. Just coincidence I suppose. What the Vesica is showing us in this case is the relationship of man, woman, and God as the ancient Hebrews taught it. A nice cozy little group one must admit. Yeah well, so?
Lets look at this at a little different angle. At Genesis 1, the creation account, the first Hebrew words Beresheit bara Elohim et HaShamayim ve'et ha'aretz have a total value of 2701, counting the value of each Hebrew letters. This number is the results of multiplying two of the most all pervasive gematric triangular numbers in existence 37x73 = 2701, which is one of the KEY numbers to the entire carefully and intelligently planned and executed system of gematria/geometry in the Bible, BOTH Old and New Testament. But I have to save that for other papers as it will take several hundreds of pages. That this key number comes up in this context is significant and takes away the coincidence, showing a systemized effort to present a coherent, sober, and stunning overall plan, a "gnosis" if you will in the scriptures and in religious philosophy.
O.K., O.K., slobber all over about the number, so what? Ah, well, then we ask what if we take the number of YHWH, namely 26, and take the number of Adam, namely 45 and we square BOTH those numbers and add them together? We arrive at 676 and 2025, which.......... wait for it........... = 2071. Most interesting! Well, if we enclose the Vesica in a rectangle, like this one on the left, then it is a 26, 45 rectangle which has a diagonal of of square root of 2071. Now, lets look further and realize that the circle within which this rectangle can be drawn, all four corners touching the circle, has a circumference of 163. The figure on the right with the purple rectangle in a green circle. Because the radius is 26, and to get the circumference of 163 we need Pi multiplied by 2r or the diameter, i.e. 26 x 2 = 52. This number, 52, is also the number of the square root of 2701! Why is this so interesting? Because 52 is also the gematric value of "Elohim (at Exo. 32:11) as well as the gematric value of "son." Oh, and did I mention that the number 163 gematrically has the value of "This World?"
A couple things I take away from this. First, the very circle itself is a powerful metaphorical symbol for God. As God emanates the creation within Himself, a second circle appears in manifestation, and within that shared space of the infinite (pi is incommensurable, meaning it has an literally INFINITE decimal point, 3.141596....... calculated out to trillions of places and no pattern or end), the Vesica, all the rest of finite creation takes place. This is the ancient philosophy using gematria and geometry in conjunction, the one shows the other. The infinite is within the finite graphically as well as numerically. And this in turn appears through the words of their stories and philosophy as numerical/linguistic connection. It is planned, it is intelligent and carefully executed, and hidden, rather encoded in a most in-genius (pun intended) manner! A regular person just reads the stories and is entertained. The ones who search find "gnosis."
The second thing is, and unfortunately, this won't be the same with readers who are just unaware of the all-inclusivity involved here, this is the tip of a very enormous iceberg of a complete system of correlations, not only linguistically, numerically, and geometrically, but musically as well, across religious cultural lines of Greek and Hebrew, to name the most obvious two here in the West. Only through constant exposure and analysis, calculating and probing can the entire iceberg be grasped. We don't even see the tip of it here, but a mere little ripple in the water on the surface indicating something is present. It is this comprehensive systematic coherent embodiment of multiple disciplines that cause one to realize this is no accident, but a carefully planned scheme, and is found literally... literally now, across the entire face of the scriptures from Genesis to Revelation. It is to that this website will attempt to expound and present, through time, and numerous, many numerous papers. The ancients are far more intellectually genius than they have been given credit for. There really, actually was, from their vantage point and learning, an Apostolic Gnosis. It is to that I will explore.
Endnotes
1. Euclid, The Elements, translated and annotated by Sir Thomas L. Heath, Barnes & Noble, 2006: 89-92.
2. Barbara Walker, The Women's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets, Harper And Row Publishers, 1983: 1045-1046.
3. David Fideler shows connections with art and buildings, Jesus Christ, Sun of God, Quest Books, 1993: 284-285. Michael S. Schneider, A Beginner's Guide to Constructing the Universe, HarperPerennial, 1995: 31-37. Significant discussions are found concerning the musical harmonies are in Michael S. Schneider, A Voyage From 1 to 5, Exploring Harmony in Mathematics, Nature and Art, HarperPerennial, 2003: 14- 17.
4. John Michell, The Dimensions of Paradise, Inner Traditions, 2008: 77. See also Marke Pawson, Gematria, the Numbers of Infinity, Green Magic, 2004: 22.