8	KUM BA YAH	1	1	1
-	-	-	-	-
-	-	-	-	-
8	KUM BA YAH	-	-	-
-	KUM	45	9	9
-	BA	3	3	3
-	YAH	34	16	7
8	KUM BA YAH	82	28	19
-	-	8+2	2+8	1+9
-	-	10	10	10
-	-	1+0	1+0	1+0
8	KUM BA YAH	1	1	1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CITY OF REVELATION
John Michell

1972

THE TEMPLE

/Page 24/

"The earliest human societies were governed by gods, and then by kings who had inherited divine powers and the secrets of spiritual communication. At a later stage, as contact with the gods became more difficult, the king's prophetic function was fulfilled by another, the priest. This was the first break in the primeval order after the departure of the gods, and the balance of society was now in danger; but as long. as the king continued to rule under the influence of the priest's oracles the arrangement was found satisfactory; heaven and earth remained in concord. It was only when the dual forces represented by the two functionaries were no longer clearly distinguished, and the canonical society declined that prophecy and authority became rival principles.

So it has ever since remained, the excessive domination of the one producing a reaction in favour of the other in a pendulum motion of ever increasing violence. Yet 2000 years ago it was believed that the secret of the elemental science, by which the forces in nature may be recognised and controlled, was at last returning. The decaying fabric of the old world, finally destroyed by the legions, had been replaced by a new order, formed after the military and commercial image of Rome. It was naturally understood by the scholars and initiates of Alexandria that this unbalanced situation would inevitably bring forth opposition to the imperial power, which they identified with the principle bearing the number 666. Thisopposition would take the form of a prophetic revival at the instigation of the earth spirit, (Greek letters omitted) whose number, 1080, represents the antithesis of 666. At the same time the sun was entering Pisces, and it was reckoned that the appearance of a new sun god in conjunction with the upsurge of the terrestrial spirit would introduce a fresh epoch in sacred history.

The portents associated with the end of an era had long been apparent. The uncertain state of the world had created a renewed interest in the hermetic philosophy and the mysteries of initiation. People had taken to withdrawing from the cities and founding lonely communities in search of a new approach to life, and among the many prophets and teachers of the time were several of whom it was claimed that they were the Messiah of the age.

The great event took place probably at Alexandria in the shape of a birth long awaited by the astrologers. The reborn spirit was that of an ancient system of knowledge which, even in the time of Plato some 500 years earlier, had already been generally forgotten outside the hermetic schools of Egypt. The essence of this tradition, which consists ultimately of a mathematical demonstration of cosmic law, is so elusive, that it can only be grasped at certain times, when the influences of the age are favourable to vision and prophecy. Yet, even though it may vanish for generations and appear to have become lost for ever, the tradition is always revived, for its spores are deeply embedded in human nature, and the truth to which it refers is constant and unique.

Although it is known as the hermetic or secret tradition, its material content has never been hidden from anyone who felt inclined to study it. There are no esoteric schemes of geometry, no secret laws of mathematics, lost chords or musical harmonies which may not be discovered by searching. A profound scholarship in the various individual arts and sciences is open to whoever cares to achieve it without the necessity for any mystical initiation. The sum of all that has ever been discovered about the physical nature of the universe may be acquired through application and the use of reason.

However, there comes a stage in the work of every mature scientist and philosopher when the language of ordinary communication is no longer adequate to express certain aspects of his subject, of which he has become intuitively, but nonetheless certainly, aware. The disadvantage of the analytical approach is that it artificially isolates phenomena which are, like all else in nature, relative, having no individual significance other than in terms of the system to which they belong. The study of systems and of the laws which determine the relationships within and among the various classes of phenomena was therefore the chief concern of the ancient philosophers, and for this purpose they made use of a metaphysical, numerical language, serviceable in every department of science. This language may be discerned in the foundations of all great philosophies and religions of antiquity, including Christianity. Its expression varied according to the national characteristics of its adepts, but its numerical basis was everywhere identical. By means of this language it is possible to identify areas of reality normally beyond investigation, to extend logic into the realm of intuition and to activate parts of the mind otherwise dormant. Einstein experienced the need for it when he warned his students that it was necessary to follow their intuition in order to understand his cosmology; Jung also when he wrote that only a poet could appreciate his work. Both these masters were / Page 26 / impeded in their attempts to share their revelation with others for lack of a precise metaphysical language to guide the thoughts of their pupils towards a personal realisation of the same truth.

The visionary quest for a simple formula to express the one creative process that governs the entire range of cosmic motion is now generally regarded as the chimera of an earlier, more credulous age. Yet, even though it may appear to have no reasonable justification, the vision of a comprehensive world system remains an eternal poetic truth, an infallible stimulus to the imagination and thus a potential influence in human affairs. In former times when little distinction was made between the physical and the psychological needs of a healthy society, the natural human longing for a true understanding of the cosmic order as the model for a perfectly harmonious way of life was more generally appreciated. The most cherished possession of every race was its sacred canon of cosmology, embodied in the native laws, customs, legends, symbols and architecture as well as in the ritual of everyday life. The inner secrets of this life giving tradition were preserved in the principal temple, which both sheltered and displayed the sacred canon; for the temple was itself a canonical work, a model of the national cosmology and thus of the social and psychic structure of the people.

The functions and attributes of the temple were so numerous, that they may only be summarised in the ancient concept of the temple as a living organism, having both body and spirit. The body was that of God the macrocosm, for its form and dimensions were determined by reference to the structure of the heavens; but it was also the body of a man, the same set of proportions being found applicable on each scale. The ritual, varying with the seasons and cycles, provided the spirit and transformed a symbol, which has no life of its own but contains a vast living potential, into an instrument of light and fertility that illuminated the entire nation.

CITY OF REVELATION

John Michell

1972

THE TEMPLE

Page 24

"The functions and attributes of the temple were so numerous, that they may only be summarised in the ancient concept of the temple as a living organism, having both body and spirit. The body was that of God the macrocosm, for its form and dimensions were determined by reference to the structure of the heavens; but it was also the body of a man, the same set of proportions being found applicable on each scale. The ritual, varying with the seasons and cycles, provided the spirit and transformed a symbol, which has no life of its own but contains a vast living potential, into an instrument of light and fertility that illuminated the entire nation."

ZAZAZAZAZAZAZAZAZAAZAZAZAZAZAZAZAZAZ

(Greek letters omitted)

CITY OF REVELATION
John Michell

1972

CHAPTER

NINE

Page 95

The Literary Canon: 153 Fishes in the Net
Simon Peter went up and drew the net to land full of great fishes,

one hundred and fifty and three' (John 21;11).
Why there should have been exactly 153 fishes in the net is a question which has puzzled commentators from the earliest times. Obviously the number had an esoteric significance, and by reference to the sacred canon of number and geometry this may be discovered. The parables and many of the episodes in the New Testament form the literary expressions of geometrical processes. This is particularly clear in the case of the 153 fishes. The key is the number 1224, which is the value by gematria of both (Greek letters omitted) the net, and (Greek letters omitted) fishes. 1224 is equal to 8 times 153, and 153 is the sum of the numbers 1-17. Reference has already been made on earlier pages to the number 1224; the more important associations of this number are summarised on the next page.

The account in the twenty-first and last chapter of St John's Gospel of the miraculous draught of 153 fishes provides an excellent illustration of the ancient canon of numerology, rediscovered by the early Christian scholars and adopted for literary purposes in the composition of their sacred writings. The stages in the development of the story are represented in Fig. 31; (Figure omitted) the interpretation is as follows:

I. Seven disciples are on the shore of Tiberias. Simon Peter enters a:boat to go fishing; the others follow.

The number of (Greek letters omitted) Simon Peter, is 1925. A circle is therefore drawn with circumference 1925 to represent Peter, and six more circles are placed so that the circumference of each passes through the centre of the first circle and also through the centres of the two on either side. A larger circle contains them all. In this most economical fashion the seven disciples are packed into the circular boat, like the coracle of the Celtic saints, which, since the circumference of the lesser circles is 1925) will be found to have a diameter of 1224 (continues on page 97)

Page 96

NUMEROLOGY OF 1224
(1224 = (Greek letters omitted) the net = (Greek letters omitted) fishes)

Like all the important cabalistic numbers, 1224 has correspondences both in gematria and in the ratios of metrology. The significance of this number as a symbol of the perfect creation may be inferred from the following examples:

1224 = (Greek letters omitted) the Lord God

1224 = (Greek letters omitted) God's creation

1224 = (Greek letters omitted) the Plantation, an early Christian synonym of Paradise (see J. Danielou Primitive Christian Symbols, Chapter 2)

1225 = (Greek letters omitted) God's paradise.

1225 =(Greek letters omitted) literally One Whole of Wholes, Plato's phrase in Timaeus for the one, unique cosmic sphere embracing all its part One Whole of Wholes, Plato's phrase in Timaeus for the one, unique cosmic sphere embracing all its parts.

In Revelations 21, the total values of the names of the twelve foundation stones is three short of 12,240. The phrase (Greek letters omitted) the twelve foundation stones, has the value 1222.

1225 is the sum of all the first 49 numerals, and is therefore the number of the magic square of Venus, which consists of the numbers 1-49 arranged in a square block 7 x 7, each line column and diagonal amounting to 175. The number 153 has a similar property, being the sum of the numbers 1-17. In common with all the principal numbers of the.cosmic temple, 1224 is divisible by both 6 and 9, and 1224 or 1225 may be divided by all the first 10 numerals..."

The goddess who is Lucifer, Venus or Aphrodite is(Greek letters omitted) 2448.

The number 1224 and its multiple 2448 have the following properties in the numerology of measures.

2448 megalithic yards = 6660 feet

= 1500 MY + 1500 cubits

= 3520 + 352 cubits

2448 feet = 900 MY

2449 = square root 6,000,000

As an astronomical number, 12,240 is the number of miles in the earth's diameter together with two diameters of the moon

(7920 + 2160 + 2160). It is therefore the width of the cosmological city illustrated in Fig. 16. (Figure omitted)

/Page 97/

2. That night they caught nothing. In the morning they saw the resurrected Jesus on the shore, but failed to recognise him. He said to them, 'Cast the net on the right side of the ship and ye shall find.' They did so and made a great catch.

The act of casting a net from the side of a boat is described by placing the compass point on the circumference of the circle of the boat and drawing the arc of another circle, which contains the vesica piscis, the 'fish'. The diameter of this circle is also 1224, the number of (Greek letters omitted) the net, and (Greek letters omitted) fishes.

3. 'Now when Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he girt his fisher's coat unto him (for he was naked), and did cast himself into the sea.'

The arc of a third circle is drawn to the left of the boat, and Simon Peter is moved from the centre of the boat into the sea between the boat and the shore. The vesica that contains him represents the fisher's coat, for the Greek word is (Greek letters omitted) 1060, and since the width of this vesica is 612, its height is 1060.

'And the other disciples came in a little ship; (for they were not far from land, but as it were two hundred cubits) dragging the net with fishes.' In the net were 153 great fishes.

The net, 1224, with fishes, 1224, together number 2448 and 2448 is the measure round the perimeter of the 'fish' in the net. This great fish is divided into sixteen equal parts, forming the tetraktys of the Pythagoreans. The number 153 is brought out in two ways. First, the width of each of the sixteen lesser fish is 153; then there are sixteen smaller making up one greater fish, seventeen in all, and 153 is the sum of the numbers 1-17.

The disciples are said to be 200 cubits from land. The Greek cubit or ell, made up of 25 digits, was a length of about 18 inches, which may be 1.52 or 1.53 feet. 200 cubits is therefore equal to about 306 feet, and 306 is the radius or distance from centre to circumference of the circles that represent the disciples.

Stories such as this were composed to illustrate a secret doctrine, orally transmitted, to which we no longer have direct access, but which may to some extent be inferred through the contemplation of its symbols. The three intersecting circles produce the diagram of Hebrew mysticism, the Tree of Life, (Greek letters omitted) 1625, identified by its number with the tetraktys,(Greek letters omitted) 1626, the corresponding symbol in the Greek system. In the final episode of the 153 fishes, the disciples come to land and there is Jesus with a fire of coals and a fish laid upon it and bread. Fire, fish and bread represent the three worlds united in the cabalistic tree, the creative essences of / Page 98 / the upper world and the material body of the lower being linked by the mercurial spirit of the fish.

In this way the gnostic masters entertained and aided the memory of their pupils. Children still love the story of the miraculous draught of fishes, for it was constructed by references to the literary canon to have an enduring appeal in all ages. The same standards of number and proportion, by which all the arts and sciences of antiquity were regulated, provided poets and storytellers with the themes on which to exercise their individual talents. It is now recognised, that the ancient myths, including those of Christianity, have an astronomical reference, illustrating the progression of the seasons and aeons. Yet the cosmogonies are not derived merely from the stars; they are equally extensions of the alchemical language, recording the adventures of metals in the retort, their marriages and aversions, their changes of quality and colour. Again, these myths reflect the processes of the human mind and the cycles of influences by which it is governed. The origin of cosmogony must therefore be sought in the numbers of the Temple, which were said to comprehend every aspect of nature, providing the canon of literature as of all other arts. The cabalists believe that the sacred books of the Old Testament, read in the Hebrew language with an understanding of their numerical composition, have the power of communicating directly with the soul, avoiding the censorship of the intellect. Even in translation the episodes of scripture and mythology retain something of this quality, for the fact is, inexplicable though it may be, that there are certain archetypal stories and situations which recur over and again, not only in mythology and the romantic imagination, but also in the record of actual historical events.

One need only recall the memorable episodes in any book of popular history to realise that they are all variations on standard mythological themes. The deeds, attributes and characteristics of the Kings of England, for example, are inherited from their legendary, predecessors. Like Achilles before the walls of Troy, King Harold at the battle of Hastings has only one vulnerable chink in his armour. He raises his visor and, like Balor in the Irish myth, receives an arrow in the eye, upon which his army is put to rout. King Richard, a prisoner of the Saracens, is aroused by a familiar tune from below the window of his cell, played by his favourite minstrel, who has penetrated in disguise to the place of his master's captivity. So it is with the medieval Indian master yogi, who falls into oblivion as the lover of the Queen of Ceylon, remembering his true identity. only when his pupil, taking on the form of a dancing girl, enters the /

Page
99

(Figure 31 omitted)

Page100 / palace and sings a particular song. King Charles hides in an oak tree, thus enacting the ancient alchemical symbol which appears so frequently on the signboard of the Royal Oak or the King's Head Hotel. Despite all attempts at parting them, history and mythology cling together under the protection of popular wisdom. The phenomenon is most clearly apparent in the daily newspaper, in which a limited number of standard anecdotes are endlessly repeated with variations according to the fashion of the hour, the function of the comic strip being extended throughout the columns of news and comment.

In the time of the former civilisation, under the institution of the cosmic temple, it was reckoned that, since all men fall under the influences of certain gods or types, it were as well that these gods be recognised and accommodated, allowed to present their beneficial aspects instead of being left to manifest themselves as the monstrous images of human ignorance and superstition. According to Plato, the Egyptians of his own time, the fourth century BC, still retained the sacred canon of proportion, which had preserved the stability of their society over many thousands of years. This he describes in Book II of the Laws:

'ATH. The mere report will surprise you. That nation long ago recognized the truth, that compositions and melodies must be good if they are to be practised by the younger generation. They therefore drew up an inventory of all the standard types, and consecrated specimens of them in their temples. Painters and all other artists were forbidden to innovate on these models or to use any but the traditional standards, and the prohibition still remains in force both for these arts and for all departments of music. If you inspect their paintings and reliefs on the spot, you will find that the work of ten thousand years ago - I mean the expression not loosely, but quite literally - is neither better nor worse than that of today; the standard of art is identical in both cases.

CLIN. A most amazing state of affairs.

ATH. Or rather, one that is greatly to the credit of their statesmen and lawgivers. Doubtless one may find reason to criticize other Egyptian institutions, but in the matter of music at least it is a fact, and a most intriguing one, that it has actually proved possible in this area to canonize for ever by law melodies which are intrinsically correct. This must have been the work of a god or a god-like man (and indeed the local tradition is that the melodies which have been preserved for so many ages were the work of Isis}.'

Page101

Clinias the Cretan was just as surprised by the Athenian's account of the Egyptian canon as we may be today on realising that the stories of the New Testament were written in accordance with a system of numerology, the same that provided the model for the architects of Stonehenge and other cosmic temples. The matter, as Plato says, is most intriguing, for we are not here dealing simply with myths and ancient utopian dreams, but with a reality that was both the corner stone and the inspiration of human society over many thousands of years.

CITY OF REVELATION

John Michell

1972

Page101

The Literary Canon:
153 Fishes in the Net

"Clinias the Cretan was just as surprised by the Athenian's account of the Egyptian canon as we may be today on realising that the stories of the New Testament were written in accordance with a system of numerology, the same that provided the model for the architects of Stonehenge and other cosmic temples. The matter, as Plato says, is most intriguing, for we are not here dealing simply with myths and ancient utopian dreams, but with a reality that was both the corner stone and the inspiration of human society over many thousands of years."

CITY OF REVELATION

John Michell

1972

The Canon of Measures

Page 106

(Figure 34 omitted)

"...Each of these areas is a multiple of 0.74 Since the numbers 74 or 37 and their multiples were adopted by the founders of Christianity as the series on which their principal sacred names were constructed"
"...

Page107

"...A. E. Berriman in Historical Metrology gives several examples of Greek temples with floor areas contrived to produce perfect numbers in terms of the local unit, and he writes: 'There is no doubt that the inclusion of areas having significant numerical values was an objective in ancient architecture: the measurements of the old Athena Temple, for example, seem to express a theme on the number 7.'

7 is the number of Venus, so its appearance in the Temple of Athena is appropriate. As Berriman observes, the ground areas of ancient temples are significant in their numerical aspect. The areas in Hambidge's canonical geometry are commensurable, while the linear measurements are not, and the same applies to the ancient units of length, which are commensurable only in area. We thus find that the most characteristic numbers of a temple, those which provide the names of the deities that chiefly ruled it, are expressed in the form of areas. At Stonehenge the bluestone circle has an area of 666 square MY, and the sarsen circle with mean diameter 100.8 feet measures 1080 square MY. Since the numbers 666 and 1080 are respectively positive and negative or solar and lunar, the meaning of Stonehenge as the equilibrator of forces is confirmed in its numerology.

Sacred and cosmological measures

Sacred measures are those units which have no single origin, but refer to natural constants on more than one scale. The digit, for example, the basic small unit of Egyptian and Greek metrology, is the width of the index finger, and it is also a hundred-thousandth part of a nautical mile, which is defined as the length of a minute of latitude on the earth's surface. The mean value of the nautical mile is 6080 feet, and of the digit 0.0608 feet, but on account of the fact that the earth is not a regular sphere, these values change slightly with the latitude. At the latitude of Stonehenge the nautical mile is /Page 108/ 6083.5 feet; at the equator it is 6046 feet, and the corresponding digit is referred to in the dimensions of the Great Pyramid, which measures 3023 feet or 50,000 equatorial digits round the perimeter of its base. Ancient units of length that represent simple multiples of the digit include the Egyptian remen of 20 digits, the Greek cubit (25 digits), the Roman foot (16 digits) and the Roman furlong of 608 feet, a tenth part of the nautical mile.

From times beyond record the circumference of the earth, and of circles in general, has been divided into 360 degrees or 2160 minutes each of 60 seconds, and time is similarly measured. Cycles such as the astrological month of 2160 years, the Chaldean 360 years and the Hindu 864,000 years correspond to the moon's diameter of 2160 miles, and the sun's diameter, 864,000 miles, while each of the 360 degrees round the earth's equator measures 365,200 feet, the number of days in a thousand years.

HERE

All over the world the traditional units of length, area, weight and capacity are related to each other and derive from one original canon of cosmology. Two such are the English mile and the unit which now only survives in the East as the pu of Indo-China, its value given on p. 358 of L. D'A. Jackson's Modem Metrology as 2'72727 miles, the fraction recurring. Without previous knowledge of this unit, its former existence in Britain was deduced by Mr J. F. Neal from his analysis of the intervals between ancient sacred sites, who called it the 'megalithic mile' on account of its ratio to the mile being virtually the same as that of the megalithic yard to the foot. There are 14,400 feet in one megalithic mile; 6 megalithic miles or 86,400 feet is the distance between Stonehenge and Silbury Hill, the number 864 being characteristic of the solar centre; from Stonehenge to the source of its bluestones on the Prescelly Mountain of Pembrokeshire is just 50 megalithic miles.

The remarkable, cosmological relationship between the English mile and the megalithic mile is demonstrated in Fig. 16, in which the circle is squared by means of the earth and the moon together. The circles of earth and moon in their correct proportions are placed tangent to each other, and a circle is drawn to contain them both. The circumference of this greater circle is 31,680 miles, and 31,680 miles is also the perimeter of the square containing the circle of the earth. The ratio between the dimensions of the earth and the moon is 10 : ~'7~727, so

earth's diameter = 7920 miles .

moon's diameter = 792 megalithic miles ,~, ..

,.",

- ' ,C,

Page109 / perimeter of square containing the circle of the earth = 31,680 miles

" "" " " " " "" moon = 3168 mega- lithic miles

sun's diameter = 316,800 megalithic miles

The significance of these facts is unambiguous in proving the cosmo.. logical origins of the English and megalithic miles.

The measurement of time, cosmic distances and the body of the canonical man were formerly united in one scientific system by the canon of numbers which was common to them all. The beauty of the ancient units, some of which still survive as the English inch, foot, furlong, mile etc., is that they occur naturally in the measurement of all classes of phenomena from the human to the astronomical scale. Their sanctity is not therefore a matter of arbitrary convention or supe~stition, but inherent. By contrast the metre is not a sacred unit, for though it was calculated as an approximate fraction of the meridian, it corresponds to no length that has ever been found con- venient in actual use, its inventors having preferred the grandiose gesture of innovation above any considerations of tradition or human comfort.

At the root of our traditional units of measurement is the ancient, mystical science of numbers, to which Plato makes an obscure reference towards the end of Epinomis, here quoted from Lamb's translation.

'The most important and first (study) is of numbers in themselves:

not of those which are corporeal, but of the whole origin of the odd' and the even and the greatness of their influence on the nature of ic reality. When he has learnt these things, there comes next what they ,\ call by the very ridiculous name of geometry, when it proves to be

a manifest likening of numbers not like one another by nature in respect of the province of planes; and this will be clearly seen by him who is able to understand it to be a marvel, not of human but of divine origin. And then, after that, the numbers thrice increased and like to the solid nature, and those again which have been made unlike, he likens by another art, namely that which its adepts call ~ stereometry.'

The text is probably corrupt, the expressions are unfamiliar and it is hard to follow Plato's meaning. But the reference, both here and in another passage in Laws, is to some method of relating different classes of phenomena to one numerical system, by which the adept may come to understand the unifying principle in nature. Of this knowledge Plato declares that it is the greatest of all blessings both to him who possessed it and to his community, but if it can not be acquired, the best substitute is simple faith in God since, on the

Page 110

word of an initiate, matters are far better arranged than we can" possibly conceive. He continues,

'Every diagram and system of number and every combination of harmony and the agreement of the revolution of the stars must be made manifest as one in all to him who learns in the proper way, and will be made manifest if a man learns aright by keeping his eyes on unity; for it will be manifest to us as we reflect, that there is one bond naturally uniting all these things.'

The number 666 in metrology

The number which above all others acts as a bond between the various units of measurement is the perfect number of Chaldean

mathematics, 666. For example, 666 feet = 150 cubits + 150 MY while 666 square feet = 90 square MY. Also 6660 square yards =

902 square MY and 66,600 square feet = 1502 square cubits. The Babylonians had a decimal system, but they also reckoned in units of 6, 60 and 600 and a curious survival of this system is found in the letters which the Romans used as numerals, for the sum of I, V, X, L, C and D is 666. Builders' measuring rods were probably arranged in convenient lengths to produce this number, for a rod of Ii cubits

together with another of I i MY make up 6.66 feet which is the side

of a square with area 6 square MY. A remarkable assembly of 666s occurs in the rectangle made up of 9 x 4 squares, each of side 74 feet, which Bligh Bond,. while working at Glastonbury Abbey, believed to have formed the original area of the site. The length of this rectangle is 666 feet, its width is 296 feet and its area is 2664 square MY (666 x 4) or 66,600 square cubits. This is an example of how the number 666 combines the various other sacred numbers in one scheme, for the longer side of the rectangle, tradi. tionally the dominating, solar dimension, is 666 feet and the shorter side has the yin number 296, which is the number of Haaretz, the ~arth, according to the Hebrew cabala. The area in square MY is 2664, which with the addition of one unit, or colel, is the number of ()eo~ 0 na-r1J(! nav-ro,,(!a-rW(!, God the Father Almighty. 26,640 is also the number of lunar years in the great year. In this strange way ~he architects and masons of the old temples designed their works by the standards of the cosmology and sacred texts of their time.

The cubit, the megalithic yard and the foot are linked together in one system of numerology which features, above all, the number 666 together with the other triple numbers and the various cabalistic numbers, such as 1224, 2448, etc., referred to earlier. The scheme is

g i v e n o p p o s i t e

Page 111

"...The remarkable way in which whole units of the cubit and the MY are bonded together by means of the foot and the number 666 is here evident, and the series can be continued to provide the key to ancient numerology, for all the sacred numbers of the cabala have a common origin in the ratios between these units of measure- ment as they relate to the geometric structure of the Temple. The system of logic behind the physical sciences and the canon of every art were expressed in figures of numerology, the amulets and magic squares of Chaldean divination. The magic square of the sun, men. tioned in a previous work in connection with Stonehenge and repro- duced below, consists of the first 36 numerals, the sum of which is 666, arranged in a block 6 X 6, so that each line adds up to I I I,

while the sum of each symmetrical group of four numbers is 74 and the numbers round the perimeter amount to 370

THE MAGIC SQUARE OF THE SUN
PLEASE DO TABLE

112 City of Revelation II

There is a beauty in these curious figures which gr~ws upon further acquaintance with their subtleties. In former times, when the struc- ture of human psychology was properly observed to be the factor which conditions and limits our entire experience of reality, magic squares and similar numerical devices were fo\lnd to provide the link between human intelligence and cosmic truth. Poetry was not then regarded as a malicious spirit, to be placated with schoolbook fame and government grants, but as the constant that unites every genera- tion, the only rock on which may be founded the cosmology that remains true in all ages. The Maker of heaven and earth in the Christian creeds is nO&1JT1],", the poet."

CITY OF REVELATION
John Michell

1972

Page

90

"1746 in the astrologer's Holy City

In the number 1746 is found the key to Stjohn's twelve jewelled city of New Jerusalem described in Revelation 21. It is generally allowed that the twelve precious stones set in the foundations of the Holy City correspond to the signs of the zodiac. Dr R. H. Charles in his monumental Commentary on the Revelation of St John discusses the

Imatter at length and declares that Stjohn's astrological arrangement of the foundation gems was made with intent. The correspondences I

between the jewels and the signs are given by Kircher in OediPus i Aegyptiacus as set out below, and the appropriate Greek gods are

added.

I. The Ram amethyst Athena

2. The Bull hyacinth Aphrodite

" 't 3. The Twins chysoprase Apollo

c"..!~"'.;: 4. The Crab topaz Hermes

~ij!;~,,~: 5. The Lion beryl Zeus

.; 6. The Virgin chrysolite Demeter

\ --, 7. The Balance sardius Hephaistos

8. The Scorpion sardonyx Ares

9. The Archer smaragdus Artemis

10. The Goat chalcedon Hestia

11. The Water-carrier sapphire Hera

12. The Fishes jasper Poseidon

In the description of ~e New Jerusalem the stones are placed in reverse order beginning with the Pisceanjasper and ending with the amethyst of Aries. The reason is that the sun retreats through the twelve signs in the course of the Great Year, passing from Taurus to Aries and then through Pisces to Aquarius. The circular wall of the New Jerusalem and its twelve gems represent the nativity of the astrological sun reborn at the start of a new age, that of Pisces.

The esoteric name of Jesus was the Fish, a fact which if it were not already known might be inferred from the following gematria:

the name of Jesus, TO ovop,a 'I1]O'ov = 1289 the fish, 0' IX(Jv~ = 1289

Poseidon, olIo0'6t!5wv = 1289

'I1JO'ov~ 0 'IX(Jv~ has the number 2177 which identifies Jesus the Fish with the Ark of the Covenant, 1j "tPWTO~ T1J~ !5ta(J1J"1J~ 2178 and el~ noAvTtp,O~ p,af!YaetT1J~ 2178, one pearl of great price (Matthew 13-46). The masonic significance of 2178 is that 21,780 square feet are contained in half an acre and 21'78 feet =-8 MY, eight being

1746, Tlu Numher of Fusion 91 -:11 the number which, according to Irenaeus, the gnostics found char-

acteristic of Jesus, . 11]O'ov~ 888. As the sun of the Piscean age, Jesus

the Fish was born of Mary who is mare, the sea. In the Greek Scrip- tures Mary is spelt either Maeta 152 or, in the Hebrew fashion,

Maelap, 192. If to Maetap, 192 and . 11]O'ov~ 888 is added the third and

positively activated member .of the trinity, number 666, the sum of the three numbers is 1746, the number of fusion.

If the foundation gems of the New Jerusalem with their corre- sponding gods and zodiacal. signs are placed in order round the perimeter of a circle so that Pisces, Poseidon and the jasper stone occupy the 12 o'clock position, on the opposite side of the circle at 6 o'clock are Virgo, Demeter and chrysolite. The jasper stands at the top of the circle because the light of the New Jerusalem, the ,star by which it was lit, was 'like unto a stone most precious, even like a jasper stone, clear as crystal' (Revelation 21.11). This is the con- stellation Pisces, and the city, which is the sum of all its inhabitants, represents the human mind at the dawn of the Piscean age a~ the anticipated changes occur in the hierarchy of psychic powers, and a new god, Poseidon the Fish, steps on to the throne of his predecessor. The correspondences of Pisces come together with those of Virgo to produce the hierogamous union described by Plato as the fusion of the Same and the Other, from which is born the Christian Son of Man.

Pisces, lXOvE~ 1224- The Virgin, 1j 3laeOEVO~ 523

1747 - 1 = 't'a at'n:a "at 't'a l1:Eea, the Same'

and the Other

= a grain of mustard, etc.

Poseidon, lTOO'Et!5WV 1219

Demeter, Ll1]p,1[t'1]f!. 468

1687 = 't'atn'ov "at Oa't'Ef!.Ov, the Same and the

Other

= de't'o~ ~w1]~, Bread of Life (1686)

= 6 ap,vo~ 't'ov OEOV, the Lamb of God (1685)

jasper, laO'3lt~ 5°1

chrysolite, xeVO'OAtOO~ 1689

2 19° = vlo~ avOeW3l0V, Son of Man

~ CHAPTER EIGHT,~"

, 1746, The Number of Fusion ~

We have earlier referred to the number 1746 as the number or fusion, because it is the sum of 666 and 1080, the symbolic number of yang, positive and yin, negative forces respectively. According to the ancient cosmogony, creation issues from the union of these two forces, and the primal unit of creation was known in allegory as "O"~O," <1LVanew,", a grain of mustard seed. In the three synoptic Gospels the grain of mustard is described as the least of all seeds from which sprang the tree of the universe, 'and the birds of the air sheltered in its branches' (Luke 13.14).

The parable of the mustard seed has a particular significance to Christian mystics, for it is followed in St Mark's Gospel by the verse referring to the esoteric teaching of Jesus: 'But without a parable spake he not unto them: and when they were alone, he expounded all things to his disciples' (Mark 4.34).

In all three Gospels the grain of ~ustard is "O~~O," <1LVanew,", which has the value by gematria of 1746; further insight into the meaning of this phrase may be gained, following the cabalistic method, by comparing it with others of the same number, some of which are-listed at the end of the chapter.

The various correspondences of 1746 in the gematria of the New Testament, in sacred geometry and the ground plan of the cosmic temple, in astrology and in Plato's Timaeus cosmogony reveal the number of fusion as the most significant and informative of all sym- bolic numbers. The following are some examples of its use.

I746, the Same and the Other in Plato's cosmogony

Contrary to the opinion of Dr Jowett, Plato was an initiated mystic, and used the language of gematria and geometrical allegory. Throughout much of early Christendom his books were regarded as sacred writings, and so they remained in the masonic schools and guilds of the middle ages. In his most famous work, the creatiou

8,1

,...

86 Ciry of Revelation

myth in Timaeus, Plato makes an unmistakeable reference to the number 1746 as the principal number in a scheme of mystical geometry, by which is illustrated the process of creation and the birth of the Holy City.

Creation comes about through the union of two forces, positive and negative, corresponding to the symbolic numbers 666 and 1080. These two are called by Plato 'the Same and the Other', -ra av.,;a "at -ra l:I:eea, of which phrase the value by gematria is 1746 or 666 + 1080.

In Timaeus 35 Plato began his account of the method by which God constituted the universal soul from the Same and the Other which, being 'naturally difficult to mix', were brought together through the medium of a third, Essence. These three are chopped up into various w~ights and portions and kneaded together according to a numerical recipe which Plato provides. The whole is drawn out in a line, which is then divided in two equal lengths, and these two lengths are laid one across the other. In Bury's translation, 'He laid the twain one against tr- ~ other, the middle of one to the middle of the other, like a great cross +.'

The cross is not in fact + but x, because the word used' here is Xt meaning the letter X, whose number is 600, the value of "oapo~, cosmos. The translation continues:

'and (He) bent either of them into a circle, and joined them, each to itself, and also to the other, at a point opposite to where they had first been laid together. And he "encompassed them about with the motion that revolves in the same spot continually, and He made the one circle outer and the other inner. And the outer motion He ordained to be the Motion of the Same, and the inner motion the Motion of the Other. And he made the motion of the Same to be toward the right along the side, and the Motion of the Other to be toward the left along the diagonal.'

FIGURE 27 The geometry of Creation.(omitted)
Page 87

1746, The Number of Fusion 81
Most commentators have supposed that the two rings were placed one inside the other with their planes at right angles, but obviously two equal circles will not fit together in this way, and Plato could hardly have believed them capable of doing so. Inner and' Outer, Same and Other are used here as expressions of the duality which is also implied by the twin circles of the vesica piscis; for it is the vesica to which Plato here refers.

The method by which the act of creation was performed is curiously hard to visualise, and can best be imitated by means of two equal lengths of string, SS and 00 in Fig. 27(a), laid across each other and over a vertical line. The two lengths represent the Same

and the Other. .

In (b), the upper half of the Other is bent to the left to form a semi-circle on the vertical line or diameter; thus appears the symbol, of the Christian mysteries, the XP of XelaTO~, Christ, and from this

it may be inferred that the first stage in the creative process is

the birth of the Son.

The lower half of the Other is now bent up to complete the circle,

and in (c) the Same is treated likewise, forming the second circle of

the vesica piscis.

Plato then divides the circle of the Other by drawing within it six more concentric rings according to the ratios of the Pythagorean c@:~ Lamda, which contains all the numbers and proportions from which '~~ the universe was made. The Other now consists of seven unequal circles, representing the seven planetary influences or types of motion that reign within the cosmos and the human soul. The ,;;.~ geometry of the number seven was the most precious of all secrets to ,~.'~ the temple geometers, nor has it yet been revealed, and Plato has ;j:' nothing more to say on the subject. However, the diagram so far :;;c~ disclosed is of great interest, for the gematria of Plato's phrases :'~~ relates this to the ideal city, described in Laws, which is also the

city of New Jerusalem, the lost and promised Kingdom.

1746 in sacred geometry

If the two axes of Plato's x, the Same and the Other, are eac allowed to be 1746 in length, in accordance with their gematria, an are enclosed in two vesicas as in Fig. 28, the circle produced at th centre by the intersection of the vesicas has a diameter of 1008 an circumference 3168. In other words, it is the canonical city of th New Jerusalem, Stonehenge etc.1 which Plato, as we nave alread

seen, also refers to in Laws.

Page 88

FIGURE 28 (figure omitted) Two vesica with their longer axes, each 1746 feet in length, placed at right angles, enclose a circle with diameter 1008 and circumference 3168, the dimensions of the Holy City. This figure is the perfect symbol of the cosmic temple as equilibrator of forces.

This same figure has recently been published in T. C. Stewart's The City as an Image of Man as the Founding of an Indian Temple, from Manasava Shilpa Shastra. It provides the simplest approximate method of squaring the circle, for the points where the sides of the two vesicas intersect give the corners of a square whose perimeter is about equal to the circumference of the circle contained with the vesica's width.

No doubt this beautiful construction of the Indian temple geo- meters was also used at Stonehenge and at every other centre where the myth of the Same and the Other was reproduced in the symbol of the circle squared.

The relevance of Plato's cosmogony to the geometrical origin of the Great Pyramid' lies in the following: if the two lengths 9f the X measuring 1746 each are bent into circles as in the first stage of creation, and placed together to form the vesica piscis, the whole being enclosed in a greater vesica as in Fig. 29, the triangle obtained through this construction has the same angles as the Pyramid, 5 I 0 5 I' at base, and also) if the diagram is measured in units of feet,

..

Page 89

FIGURE 29 (Figure omitted) The profile of the Great Pyramid (base angle 51° 51') plays an im-portant part in sacred geometry and arithmetic, Its height in feet, 481, is the length of a vesica formed by two circles each of circumference 1746, the number of fusion, Each of these circles has a diameter of 555 which, if measured in feet, makes the area of each circle 5'555 acres, another example of the ancient use of number to reconcile incommensurables and of the sacred origin of British measures.

The two circles are enclosed in a greater vesica and the Pyramid can then be constructed as shown in the above diagram, The length of its base is 755 feet or

t x 555 MY. I

the same dimensions as the actual monument: height 480'5 feet, base 755 feet. The importance of the number 1746 will be further appreciated when the dimensions of this figure are taken. The rhombus contained within the vesica made by the two c~rcles of circumference 1746 has an area of 66,600, while the area of the triangle representing the Pyramid's profile is 66,600 X 2'72.

Like every important number of the cosmic temple, 1746 corres- ponds by gematria to many sacred and magical phrases and is also prominent in the ratios of canonical geometry and metrology. 1746 is distinguished numerologically as the circumference of a circle with diameter 555, and this circle, among its other qualities reviewed above, contains a hexagon whose area is exactly 200,000. Another remarkable property of the number 1746, which again demonstrates the antiquity and sacred origin of British metrology is that two

circles, each with circumference of 1746 yards, contain between,

th::-:n area of =' c ." . .

on. D Li

FIGURE IS Geometry of number 5: pentagon, pentagram, ";5 rectangle and golden section (AB: AC) constructed from square.

the golden section, 1,618 or ~2~, which is derived from the 2

canonical v'5 rectangle. From this figure is also obtained the pentagon containing the five-pointed star, symbol of man, with its sides divided by the golden section. Fig. 18 illustrates the geometry of the number 5.

Three is the trinity of creative powers and six. is the number by which, it was said, the universe was made and by which it was cer': tainly measured by the Chaldean astronomers and their more ancient predecessors. The hexagon is a cosmic figure, chiefly associ- ated with the inanimate form in nature, the crystal, the snowflake, the cells of a honeycomb. It is a curious fact of geometry that exactly six equal circles can be placed round the perimeter of an equal seventh, and in the case of a sphere, exactly twelve will pack round a thirteenth so that each touches the nucleus and its four neighbours. As in the order of space, so in the spiritual hierarchy, Christ, Osiris, Mohammed being among those who figure as the central sphere with twelve retainers.

72 City of Revelation

The angle formed by the two sides of the pentagon is 108°, which as 1080 is the characteristic yin number, 1080 miles being the diameter of the moon, and 1080 the number of the Holy Spirit, con- sidered by the gnostics to be lunar in nature. This principle is also characterised by the number 7, and 1080 is virtually twice 7 X 77. The angles of the hexagon are 60° and 120°, cosmic and solar num- bers. As symbols of sacred geometry, the hexagon represents the macrocosm, the pentagon the microcosm, and the two figures in combination symbolise the relationship between man and cosmos. The true cosmology must therefore include elements of both six and five. A significant charge brought against the gnostic magicians by St Irenaeus in the tenth of his books Against Heresies is that in their numerical theology they neglect the number five, even though, as he points out, a man has five fingers and five senses, Christ fed the 5000 with five loaves, there are five extremities of the Cross, etc. The implication is that the gnostics have no regard for humility and humanity, preferring instead the sexagesimal numbers that relate to power and knowledge. Much the same was said against the Roman Church by Puritans at the Reformation.

The reconciliation of six and five and many of the other objects of sacred geometry may be achieved by means of the figure known as the vesica piscis. The 'vessel of the fish' is the simplest and most informative geometrical symbol, being the orifice formed of two interpenetrating circles, the centre of each lying on the circumference of the other: this is the womb (rom which are generated all the numbers and ratios of the Temple. Owing to its high reputation among the masonic builders of medieval cathedrals and to the Piscean associations of its name, the vesica has often been thought especially characteristic of the Christian mysteries. It recurs through- out the New Testament as the esoteric symbol on which the holy myths are constructed, an example of which we review later in Stjohn's story of the 153 fishes in the net, and its influence on archi- tects and scholars at the Renaissance was considerable. According to Mayananda's The Wonaer Beyona, a treatise on the vesica, and the teaching preparatory to initiation formerly associated with it, its

Greek name was The Holiest of Holies, 0 ayto~ T(/)v ayt(/)V, the value of which phrase is 2368, the number of Jesus Christ. Many Christian symbols, including the shape of the bishop's mitre have been derived from the vesica, which also provided the early Christian cipher of the fish. In Fig. 20(a) the eye of the fish corresponds to the geometric eye of the rectangle that encloses the vesica. This is the root three rectangle, the ratio between its sides qeing I : '\13 or I : 1.732. A

-~ ~---

A B

FIGURE 20 (a) The Fish; (b) -/3 rectangle and 'eye'.

line from the corner of the V3 rectangle, drawn perpendicular to its diagonal, intersects the diagonal at the eye and continues to the opposite side to define the reciprocal rectangle (Fig. 20b). In the case of the root three rectangle this line also divides the length into three equal parts, a property unique to this figure.

AlthQugh the vesica was particularly influential at the beginning of Christianity as it is at all such periods in history, it has been respected from the earliest times as a symbol of the sacred marriage, with the spiritual world of essences as the circle on the right pene- trating the world of material phenomena on the left. Again, the length and width of the vesica, its longer and shorter axes, are con- sidered respectively positive and negative. There are many numer- ological illustrations of this arrangement: for instance, a vesica of width just over 353, the number of Hermes, has a length of612, Zeus, showing the lunar-solar relationship of these two deities. It must however be emphasised that the polar attributes of symbolic numbers fluctuate, following the universal law of nature. Nothing of itself positive or negative, for the meaning of these terms is relative. Any number can occupy any position in a geometric scheme, and its meaning varies accordingly. Thus 612, Zeus, the number that is positive in relation to 353, Hermes, may be taken as the negative width of a vesica, in which case 1060 becomes the positive length, and 1060 is the number of nVEvp,a (}sov, Spirit of God (Revelation

3.1) and of Etrov, Zion, the sacred mountain; one more than 1060 is ' Ano;;'wv, Apollo and one less gives nAl}(!())p,a, the gnostics' Pleroma

or plenitude of spiritual powers. 1062 is St Paul's l:II naGt nav't'a (}EO~,

God in All. All these are phrases whose reference is to the supreme principle above any s: !ole deity. The inference is that the' corre- spondences of number 612 give to those of 353 and receive from 1060. For this reason the gematria of a cabalistic number includes words and phrases of similar meaning together with others in direct contrast to represent negative and positive a,spects, the essence behind any pair of opposites being one and the same.

C.R.-5

~-

FIGURE 2 I Square, rh9mbus and hexagon from vesica.

The shape that is most characteristic of the vesica piscis is the rhombus of two equilateral triangles, again representing a duality, the upper triangle positive, the lower negative, as flower arid robt~ From this is derived the hexagon, its perimeter equal to six radii of the circle that contains it. The square on the vesica's width may also be drawn, its upper corners defined by the perimeters of the twin circles (Fig. 21). All these figures are constructed with compasses of fixed radius in the classical manner, and one of the problems that concerned the temple geometers was to construct a regular pentagon under these conditions. The solution (Fig. 22), published by Durer in his Course in the Art of Measurement with Compasses and Ruler and reproduced in C. Bou)eau's The Painter's Secret Geometry is a sufficiently close approximation for practical purposes of design. The union of hexagon and pentagon is achieved through the medium of the vesica.

This is an example of the esoteric geometry formerly revealed only to the initiated masters of the various guilds and withheld from popular knowledge. The pentagram or five-pointed star, which can be drawn freely in one continuous line, J:i., was the emblem of the school of Pythagoras and has always been a symbol of the mys- teries, 5 being the hermetic number. Pythagoras himself, an initiate of the Egyptian mysteries, was persecuted and destroyed by those who considered that his teaching of geometry and number was a betrayal of Hermes, whose priests reserved for themselves the exclu- sive privilege of instruction in such matters. His adoption of the pentagram was found particularly obnoxious, for students of the number 5 are involved in the most powerful and dangerous of all subjects, human motivation. There is an obvious connection between the pentagram and the body of the canonical man crucified, which is confirmed in the golden section measurements of the human body, and the following circumstance could scarcely have been ignor~<l

-,' .. CHAPTER. SEVf.N !~i;

111..'(:7, ..

3168, The Perimeter of the Temple

If the numbers of the sacred principles, mentioned by St John in

connection with the New Jerusalem, are obtained from the Greek ;:f~

text by the cabalistic method of gematria, it is found that they cor- respond to the dimensions of the City, set out in Fig 16. For example, the perimeter of a hexagon contained within the circle representing the earth, 7920 feet in diameter, measures 2376 feet, and 2376 is the number of oL (}())(}B~a WtOC1't'OAOt deVtov, the twelve apostles of the Lamb (Revelation 21.14). 2376 X 2 feet is equal to

1746 MY, and 1745 = oL (}())(}B~a WtOC1't'OAOt, the twelve apostles.

The names of the apostles are said to be in the twelve foundations of the wall of the city. The wall i.s the circle of diameter 7920 feet and 14,400 cubits in circumference, and the foundations are the twelve corners of the double hexagon inscribed within it, following

the customary pattern of an astrological chart. The position of the" twelve apostles in the scheme is thus clearly defined. ':,'1,;

~...

Of all the canonical numbers the most notable is 3168. The New ~~

Jerusalem measures 48,000 furlongs or 31,680,000 feet round the ?"i

perimeter of its four sides; the mean perimeter of the Stonehenge sarsen circle is 316.8 feet; the perimeter of the square 12 hides of Glastonbury is 31,680 feet; the significance of 31,680 in the canon of cosmology is illustrated in Fig. I I, and we shall also find this number set round the border of Plato's mystical city, described in Laws.

Obviously the number 3168 had an important symbolic meaning, the Christian interpretation of which is provided in New Testament gematria. The most sacred name of Christianity is Kvf!to, '1'1]l1ov, Xf!tOTO', Lord Jesus Christ, and the number of these three words together is 3 I 68. Kvf!to, is an astrological term meaning the ruler or dominant influence.

Another sacred phrase from the New Testament, t1 oovapt, TOV

Xf!BtOTOV, the Power of Christ (2 CorintPians 12.9) has the value 3168 if the alternative spelling of Christos, Xee&O'r~, is a;dopted. .

'7'7 '

78 City of Revelation

The perimeter of the temple is 3168, Lord Jesus Christ, when the temple is measured by the foot, the most sacred unit of ancient metrology. In terms of th~ megalithic yard (2'72 feet), however, the perimeter measures 1164, because 3168 feet = 1164 MY. Yet this makes no difference to the symbolic interpretation by gematria, for 1164 is the number of another name of Christ, v10, fJeov, Son of God.

As a geodetic or earth-measuring number, 3168 also demonstrates the antiquity and sacred origin of British metrology, for

31,680 inches = half a mile.

31,680 ft. = 6 miles.

31,680 furlongs = 3960 miles = radius of the earth.

31,680 miles = perimeter of square containing the terrestrial sphere.

31,680 miles = circumference of circle drawn on the combined diameters

of the earth and moon (10,080 miles).

Other cosmological correspondences of 3168 are given on page 109.

The Stonehenge sarsen circle with circumference of 316,8 feet contains a~ area of 888 square yards, 888 being the number of Jesus, which is equal to 1080 square MY. The circle contained within a square of perimeter 316,8 feet, corresponding to the bluestone circle at Stonehenge, has an area of 666 square MY. Thus the two stone circles at Stonehenge have areas of 1080 and 666 square MY, these two numbers representing the opposite poles of lunar and solar or negative and positive energy.

The number 144 or 122 is. characteristic of the New Jerusalem scheme, and3x68 demonstrates the value ofn as ¥ in terms of this number, for 144 X 7 = 1008 and 144 X 22 = 3168.

3168 in Plato's city

A remarkable use of the number 3168 occurs in Plato's account in Book V of.Laws of the mystical dimensions of the perfect city. Throughout his work Plato makes guarded reference to a secret canon of numbers that applies universally to every aspect of human life and activity, including government, astronomy, acoustics, kinetics, plane and solid geometry and divination. Linear measure- ments, areas and volumes are obviously incommensurabie, but Plato declares that there are certain numbers that link these with each other and with all phenomena capable of being measured. As an example of these numbers, the study of which Plato recommends as the most sanctifying of all pursuits, he gives 504°. This is the ideal number of citizens in the state and serves other purposes in con-

--

FIGURE 24 Plato's city divided into 5040 rings, Perimeter = 31,680, Areas:

A + a - B + b - C + c - 31,680.

commensurable by number. The entire circle is divided into two halves, each containing 39,916,800 square units of land. These numbers, which are inherent in the New Jerusalem scheme, have

the following significance:

31,680 is divisible 'by all the numbers 1-12 with the exception of 7 I5°4° = 1 X 2 X 3 X 4 X 5. X 6 X 7

39,916,800 = I X 2 X 3 X 4 X 5 X 6 X 7 X 8 X 9 x. 10 X II

5040, the radius of the circular city, is the product of the numbers. 1-7; 7920, the side of the square city, is the product of numbers 8 - 1 I. In each case the perimeter of the city is 31,680. In Plato's Republic is the famous, cryptic reference to the 'marriage number', which should be consulted by the guardians of the state in all matters relating to the seasonal union of male and female. There appear to be two numbers involved, adding up to a third, but the riddle is so obscure that no firm solution ha~ been reached despite the vast literature on the subject. For various reasons the number 12,960,000 or 36002 is most commonly proposed, and this would seem appro-

priate, for 12,960 = 5040 + 7920. 12,960 therefore represents the

union of square and circle, symbol of the sacred marriage, and the gematria is also appropriate, for 1296 = Maf!ta p'7}'r7}f! . 17}O'ov, Mary mother of Jesus.

IIn Laws VIII 848D the twelve radial divisions of the circular state are each inscribed with a villa1!e. a market place and a temnl~ to

3168, The Perimeter of the Temple 81

one of the twelve gods, and Plato insists that all existing shrines of local and aboz:iginal deities be respected, following the ancient

custom. Now the twelve gods are at <5(J)<5e"a (Jeot, the name carved

on the stone pillar at the centre of Athens, from which all distances were measured and where the sacred paths converged. The number of their name is 1008, the diameter of the circle with circumference 3168, and within one unit 3168 is the number of vao~ 't'~v <5(J)"e"a (Je(J)v, .temple of the twelve gods. Three versions of the Holy City are placed together below.

Plato's twelve gods were arranged by astrologers into six pairs of opposites, and these correspond to the twelve gods of Stonehenge whose days are discovered in the astronomical features of the temple, indicated, as Professor Hawkins shows, by six two-way stone alignments to the eight extreme positions of the moon and four of the sun.

a b c

II' ."'.""1% .""iI Q", 'rl1"~

3168 3168 3168

FIGURE 25 Gematria of the Cal\onical Temple.

a. Diam: The 12 Gods, Circ: Temple of the 12 Gods

b. Diam: The 12 Saints, Circ: The Sanctuaries of the Apostles

c. Radius: The Temple, Circ: LordJesus Christ.

The number 3168 in English sacred geography

A mystery too deep for present inquiry concerns the ancient geographical arrangement of temples in relation to each other. That there was some esoteric scheme linking the various centres has always been an item of occult tradition, and the idea is supported by the discovery of identical figures of numerology in all cosmic temples; but the first modern indication of a planned location of ancient sites was provided by Alfred Watkins in his principal work, The Old Straight Track, first published in 1925, and recently repub- lished. Scarcely anything is now known of the aims and methods of

82 City of Revelation

this forgotten sciencet whose monuments are the relics of a neolithic world civilisation. Howevert the invariable inclusion of the number 3168 as the perimeter of the cosmic temple suggests thatt following the ancient practice of relating microcosm to macrocosm, this num- ber may have been used in the g~eater measurements of sacred geography.

Evidence that this may be so is found in the Welsh Triadst verses of great antiquity that incorporate oral traditions from prehistoric bardic historians. In one of theset Glastonburyt the choir of Am- brbsius or Stonehenge and Llan Illtud Vawr which is by Llantwit Major in Glamorgan are described as the three perpetual choirs of Britaint where 2400 saints maintained a ceaseless chantt 100 saints at each choir for every hour of the day and night. These correspond to the twenty-four elders in Revelation who stand before the throne of the Lamb, 'having every one of them harpst and golden vials full of odourst which are the prayers of saints. And they sung a new song.t When the song changedt a new age began.

The song of the elders in the temple varied with the seasons and cyclest changing every hour and every year but never endingt and this concept of the perpetual chant forms the highest expression of the templets function. The Tulers at the sacred centre were deeply concerned with the passage of time and with the interpretation of its prevailing influences. The quality of a time, like the quality of a placet is something which is easier to feel than to communicate. Photography is a recent inventiont but it is already noticeable that the earliest plates show a landscape whicht even where little physical change has taken placet is in some way different from the same scene as it appears in a modern photograph. It is not simply a matter of different equipmentt for a picture taken now with an early camera remains perceptibly of the present. There ist as it weret a quality of light that varies in every age, always apparent in the work of the different generations of painters and now becoming discernible in photographs.

As the light ofa time variest so does the sound. It was understood in the school of Pythagoras that each of the heavenly bodies resonates at a certain pitcht and the prevailing celestial harmonYt varying according to the relative intervals between the planetst rings con- tinuously in our earst imperceptible because we have never experi- enced its absence. The sound of a time nevertheless has a considerable influence on human behaviour. Fashions in music; orbit round a centralt immovable canon of eternal harmonies in response to the planetary cycles. The success of a popular musician depends on the

3168, The Perimeter of the Temple 83

extent to which he is in tune with his times. Once expressed, the matter becomes obvious.

The song that the elders sang at the perpetuaic~9ir was an astro- logical chant, pitched to the music of the spheres, celebrating the order of the heavens and guiding the ritual order of life on earth. The temple was the central power station of the whole country, transmitting throughout the nation the current of the divine word, generated through the ceaseless activity of its astrologers, priests and officials. As the times changed, so did the song, and the pattern of life was adjusted accordingly. The hours of the day, the seasons of the year, all the greater and lesser cycles of time were reflec;ted in the temple ceremonial. Plato in Laws speaks ofa kingdom in the remote past, ruled by the gods in person, and later, on the departure of the gods, by their trained human representatives. The first human rulers possessed the true canon and the cosmic temple, its projection, the perfect instrument of government, from which proceeded the daily life of th~ individual and the seasonal events in the farmer's and hunter's year. The transient dream of earthly existence was sustained by the reality of life within the temple.

The round of festivals in the Church Calendar and in the country- side is composed of fragments from the old perpetual chant. The church, in succession to the temple, preserved the records of the past and measured the progress of time, both daily and astronomical. The chime of its clock and the regular tolling of the bells were heard far across the quiet meadows of the former landscape, regulating the activities appropriate to the hour in the same way that the Church festivals were once observed in connection with the various stages in the cycle of agriculture. At Glastonbury Abbey there was an elabor- ate astronomical clock which perished after the Dissolution but was similar to the clock at Wells Cathedral, which was made by the same master in the fourteenth century. This remains in fine order and displays a circular dial, divided into 24 hours, set within a square frame like the plan of the New Jerusalem. Every hour a star moves round the circle and a golden sun advances one twenty-fourth part of its orbit. The days of the lunar month are indicated and also the age of the current moon. Processions of knights appear hourly and a figure called Jack Blandifer kicks the bells with his heels. This ingenious mechanism is a medieval monument to time, an artful representation of a function of the temple.

There is a curious symmetry in the geographicallocations of the three perpetual choirs of Britain. The axis of Glastonbury Abbey is orientated about 3° north of east in the direction of Stonehenge, the

84: City of Revelation

distance between Stonehenge and Glastonbury being some 38.9 miles. This is also the distance from Glastonbury to Llantwit Major,

the site of the third choir, and if lines are drawn on j), map from Glastonbury to. Stonehenge and Llantwit, they form an angle of about 144°. Moreover, the angle at Stonehenge between the line from Glastonbury and the line down the Avenue towards midsummer sunrise is also 144°. If the midsummer line is produced 38.9 miles from Stonehenge, it terminates at Goring on Thames, where a temple was formerly sited near the river crossing of several pre- historic tracks.

144 is the typical New Jerusalem number and it is also the number of degrees in the outer angle of a dekagon. It is therefore possible, assuming Llantwit, Glastonbury, Stonehenge and Goring to occupy four of the ten points of a dekagon, to compute the geographical position of the centre on which the per:petual choirs pivot. It turns out to be on the Malvern Hills above Ledbury, the oldest rock formations in England. The exact spot is just south of the prehistoric city on Midsummer Hill; it is at a hamlet marked on the map as Whiteleafed Oak, the meeting point of three counties, Worcester, Hereford and Gloucester. There is a legend of the Whiteleafed Oak, but it is not recorded, and although local people remember others who once knew it, they thexnselves have either forgotten the story or do not care to tell it. There is an alchemical flavour in the name; the oak was sacred to the Druids, a whiteleaved or variegated speci- men no doubt particularly so, and it is certainly as it should be that the legendary tree at the centre of the perpetual choir cycle is now the boundary mark of the three festival choirs of Hereford, Worcester and Gloucester.

That this may not be altogether fanciful is indicated by the fact that a circle struck from the Whiteleafed Oak, with the three per- petual choirs of Llantwit, Glastonbury and Stonehenge on its perimeter, has a radius of 504 furlongs and circumference of 3168 fYrIQng:~.

60 CitY of Revelation

circle of equal perimeter~ it is necessary first to draw a triangle, and of all triangles the largest and most conspicuous in the world are the four sides of the Great Pyramid, which face the four points

of the compass and mark the spot formerly regarded as the centre of the earth. The original function of the Pyramid, to promote the union of cosmic and terrestrial forces by which the earth is made fertile, is clearly stated in the symbolism of its geomet~., for the Pyramid is above all a monument to the art of squaring the circle.

In the diagram below, the elevation of one of the Pyramid's triangu- lar sides, with the angle apparent at ground level of 5 10 51', is placed over the plan of its square base, and a circle is added with radius equal to the Pyramid's height. The measure round the square base

of the Pyramid is known from the meticulous survey commissioned by the Egyptian Government in 1925, to be 3023 feet or 1760 royal cubits. Its height is 280 cubits, and a circle with radius 280 has a

" \

FIGURE 10

circumference of 1760. The perimeters of square and circle in Fig. 10 are therefore equal, and it remains only to find the method by which this figure may be constructed. This is the most crucial exercise in sacred geometry, the key to the New Jerusalem, and it is performed with the use only of those instruments attributed to the Creator, a straight edge and compasses.

The squared circle of th~ HolY CitY produced by the earth and moon.

It is a curious fact of nature, ignored by modern cosmologists but evidently of the greatest interest to the" ancient predecessors, that the answer to the problem of squaring the circle is presented nightly to public view, for it occurs in the relative dimensions of the earth and the moon; and this same source provides the sacred numbers of the canon.

In the lower diagram of Fig. lIthe circles of earth and moon iIt

J

62 City of Revelation

their correct proportions are placed tangent to each other, and each is framed within a square. The earth's diameter is 7920 miles and the moon's is 2160 miles, so the perimeters of the two squares are: terrestrial 31,680 miles, lunar 8640 miles. In terms of the convention n = ¥, the circle is here perfectly squared. The combined radii of the earth (3960) and the moon (1080) amount to 5040 miles, Plato's mystical number, so the circumference of a circle struck from the centre of the earth and passing through the centre of the "moon measures 31,680 miles, which is also the perimeter of the square containing the earth.

The construction of this figure is simply achieved by means of a Pythagorean right-angle triangle with sides in the proportion 3, 4, 5, a triangle particularly appropriate to the New Jerusalem because 3 + 4 + 5 = 12. If the outer corner of the square'contain- ing the moon is joined to the corresponding corner of the square con- taining the earth, the triangle thus formed has sides of 2160, 2880 and 3600 miles; divided by their highest common factor, 720, these numbers become 3, 4 and 5. In this way, starting with the first Pythagorean triangle and using the actual proportions and dimen- sions of the solar system, the canonical figure of the 12-sided New Jerusalem is developed.

Confronted with facts such as these, it is scarcely possible to avoid the conclusio~, orthodox in every age but the present, that the cosmic canon, inherent in the solar system as in every other department of nature, was revealed to men, not invented by them.

The complete scheme of the New Jerusalem, its twelve pe.::rls and seven stars

The New Jerusalem is now revealed as St John described it in Revelation 21. Fig. 12 opposite is developed from the diagram of the terrestrial and lunar spheres shown in Fig. I I but measured in feet rather than miles. Round the circle of the earth, contained in the square, are placed twelve circles of the relative size of the moon. These are arranged like the signs of the zodiac in four groups of three, so that the circumference of each of the two outer circles in every group of three touches the point where the circle drawn through their centres meets the square of equal perimeter. The twelve circles are contained within a twelve-sided figure which, because the circles are not evenly spaced round the perimeter of the greater circle, is not quite a regular dodekagon; the four pairs of its sides that meet opposite the corners of the square are slightly drawn in towards the centre to bring them into contact with their respective

FIGURE 12 The New Jerusalem.

circles. It is difficult therefore to compute the exact distance round the twelve walls, but the average length of one side is certainly very close to 3264 feet or 1200 MY, and in this case the perimeter of the twelve sides is 14,400 MY, and the area of the whole figure 120 million square feet. All the principal dimensions of the Holy City are framed as multiples of 12, and with the exception of 12 itself they all reduce to 9.

From St John's account of the Holy City the following passages, relevant to this diagram, are extracted..

The City 'had a wall great and high, and had twelve gates, and at the gates twelve angels, and names Written thereon which are the names of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel: on the east three gates; on the north three gates; on the south three gates; and on the west three gates. And the wall of the city had twelve founda- tions, and in them the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.

- -

FIGURE 13 The Holy City as a symbol of unity with the two incommensurables square and circle, reconciled by the cross. The diagonals of the square and the points where the square meets the cross are used to divide the circle into 12 virtually equal parts.

'And the city lieth foursquare, and the length is as large as the breadOth: and he measured the city with the reed, twelve thousand furlongs. . . And he measured the wall thereof, an hundred and forty and four cubits.

'And the foundations of the wall of the city were garnished with all manner of precious stones. . . . And the twelve gates were twelve pearls; every several gate was of one pearl.

'In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.'

The twelve pearls at the gates of the New Jerusalem are the twelve lunar circles, the diameter of each being 2160 feet; but they are also

the twelve fruits of the tree of life, one for each month, for 2160 miles is the diameter of the moon, and 2160 years is the length of the Platonic month, the time taken by the sun to move through one complete sign of the zodiac and a twelfth part of the great year. The twelve circles can therefore be taken to represent the twelve signs, and the whole figure is both an image of the universe and a model

.. CHAPTER TWO

. The Temple

In the course of the following chapters we shall examine a certain way of thought which in some ages is considered as the justification for human existence, in others as an aspect of madness, for ideas, being emanations of the gods, follow a cyclical career and their influence waxes and wanes accordingly. The attraction of this philosophy is that it professes to interpret a wide and varied range of phenomena by means ofa few simple laws, which are those of natural growth and movement. Its masters are both mystics and logicians, insisting that nothing be accepted as true that can not be proved so in two ways: by reason and poetic intuition. These two criteria are brought to- gether through the medium of geometry and musical harmony, arts which are founded on rational principles yet may also be appreciated directly by the senses.

The last occasion on which this way of thought achieved any great influence was at the start of the Piscean age which coincided with the rise of Christianity; the history of the last 2000 years records its sup- pression and gradual decline. The events of that time must now be forever obscure, for within two centuries of the birth of Christ the extraordinary situation had arisen, that the Church had become identified with the very institution it originally set out to oppose, and persecuted in the name of Rome those of its members who continued to deny Roman authority.

There is no difficulty in understanding how this came about, for the process was natural and continues to repeat itself as long as men fail to recognise the forces by which history is created. All revolution- ary movements follow the same pattern. Each contains representa- tives of two contrasting types, as it were the prophets and the priests, those who actively oppose the prevailing order and those who are more concerned with devising a system to replace it. If the movement

l succeeds, the priests inherit the power of their predecessors and put

an end to ideas of further change, for the authority threatened is now their own. Each side feels justified in its motives and fails t~

~3

24 City oj Revelation

understand those of the other, since both are under the influence of eternally rival forces, and unless this is recognised they continue to mistake the spirit of obsession for the divine will and become ever more deeply confirmed in fanaticism.

This uncomfortable process has become endemic ever since the collapse of the former world order and the loss of the ancient canon of proportion on which it was founded. The earliest human societies were governed by gods, and then by kings who ,had inherited divine powers and the secrets of spiritual communication. At a later stage, as contact with the gods became more d~fficult, the king's prophetic function was fulfilled by another, the priest. This was the first break in the primeval order after th.e departure of the gods, and the balance of society was now in danger; but as long. as the king continued to rule under the influence of the priest's oracles the arrangement was found satisfactory; heaven and earth remained in concord. It was only when the dual forces reprepented by the two functionaries were no longer clearly distinguished, and the canonical soci~y declined that prophecy and authority became rival principles.

So it has ever since remained, the excessive domination of the one producing a reaction in favour of the other in a pendulum motion of ever increasing violence. Yet 2000 years ago it was believed that the secret of the elemental sc~ence, by which the forces in liature may be recognised and controlled, was at last returning. The decaying fabric of the old world, finally destroyed by the legions, had been replaced by a new order, 1ormed after the militaf.'j and ~ommercial image of Rome. It was naturally understood by the scholars and initiates of Alexandria that this unbalanced situation would inevitably bring forth opposition to the imperial power, which they identified with the principle bearing the number 666. This. opposition would take the form of a prophetic revival at the instigation of the earth spirit, Z'E,uEA(J), whose number, 1080, represents the antithesis of 666. At the same time the sun was entering Pisces, and it was reckoned that the appearance of a new sun god in conjunction with the upsurge of the terrestrial spirit would introduce a fresh epoch in sacred history.

The portents associated with the end of an era had long been apparent. The uncertain state of the world had created a renewed interest in the hermetic philosophy and the mysteries of initiation. People had taken to withdrawing from the cities and founding lonely communities in search of a new approach to life, and among the many prophets and teachers of the time were several of whom it was claimed that they were the Messiah of the age.

- The great event took place probably at Alexandria in the shape or ~

~

, 17Ie Templl 25

a birth long awaited by the astrologers. The reborn spirit was that of an ancient system of knowledge which, even in the time of Plato some 500 years earlier, had already been generally forgotten outside the hermetic schools of Egypt. The essence of this tradition, which consists ultimately of a mathematical demonstration of cosmic law, is so elusive, that it can only be grasped at certain times, when the influences of the age are favourable to vision and prophecy. Yet, even though it may vanish for generations and appear to have be~ come lost for ever, the tradition is always revived, for its spores are deeply embedded in human nature, and the truth to which it refers is constant and unique.

Although it is known as the hermetic or secret tradition, its ma~ terial content has never been hidden from anyone who felt inclined to study it. There are no esoteric schemes of geometry, no secret laws of mathematics, lost chords or musical harmonies which may not be discovered by searching. A profound scholarship in the various indi~ vidual arts and sciences is open to whoever cares to achieve it without the necessity for any mystical initiation. The sum of all that has ever been discovered about the physical nature of the universe may be acquired through applic,ation and the use of reason.

However, there comes a stage in the work of every mature scientist and philosopher when the language of ordinary communication is no longer adequate to express certain aspects of his subject, of which he has become intuitively, but nonetheless certainly, aware. The disadvantage of the analytical approach is that it artificially isolates phenomena which are, like all else in nature, relative, having no individual significance other than in terms of the system to which they belong. The study of systems and of the laws which determine the relationships within and among the various classes of phenomena was therefore the chief concern of the ancient philosophers, and for this purpose they made use of a metaphysical, numerical language, ser~ viceable in every department of science. This language may be dis~ cerned in the foundations of all great philosophies and religions of antiquity, including Christianity. Its expression varied according to the national characteristics of its adepts, but its numerical basis was everywhere identical. By means of this language it is possible to identify areas of reality normally beyond investigation, to extend logic into the realm of intuition and to activate parts of the mind otherwise dormant. Einstein experienced the need for it when he warned his students that it was necessary to follow their intuition in order to understand his cosmology; lung also when he wrote that only a poet could appreciate his work. Both these masters were

26 City of Revelation I

impeded in their attempts to share their revelation with others for lack of a precise metaphysical language to guide the thoughts of their

Ipupils towards a personal realisation of the same truth. The visionary quest for a simple formula to express the one creative

Iprocess that governs the entire range of cosmic motion is now gener-

ally regarded as the chimera of an earlier, more credulous age. Yet, even though it may appear to have no reasonable justification, the vision of a comprehensive world system remains an eternal poetic truth, an infallible stimulus to the imagination and thus a potential influence in human affairs. In former times~ when little distinction was made between the physical and the psychological needs of a 4ealthy society, the natural human longing for a true understanding of the cosmic order as the model for a perfectly harmonious way of life was more generally appreciated. The most cherished possession of every race was its sacred canon of cosmology, embodied in the native laws, customs, legends, symbols and architecture as well as in the ritual of everyday life. The inner secrets of this life giving tradi- tion were preserved in the principal temple, which both sheltered and displayed the sacred canon; for the temple was itself a canonical work, a model of the national cosmology and thus of the social and psychic structure of the people.

The functions and attributes of the temple were so numerous, that they may only be summarised in the ancient concept of the te~ple as a living organism, having both body and spirit. The body was tha,t of God the macrocosm, for its form and dimensions were determined by reference to the structure of the heavens; but it was also the body of a man, the same set of proportions being found applicable on each scale. The ritual, varying with the seasons and cycles, provided the spirit and transformed a symbol, which has no life of its own but contains a vast living potential, into an instrument of light and fer- tility that illuminated the entire nation.

The temple was also the seat of government, and everything that took place there was understood to have a direct influence on the life of the people. It was therefore a matter of the greatest concern that the ritual observances should follow the cosmic rhythm, for if the temple fell out of tune with the times, if the rulers became insensitive to the current forces or failed to preserve harmonious relationships among themselves, the same defects would appear throughout society, A rational explanation of this belief in the wide efficacy of acts per- formed at the sacred centre is provided by Lord Raglan, who in The TemPle and the House derives the origins of the feudal manor house, the palace of the local lord, from the ancient cosmic temple: 'All new

77ze Temple 27

features start in the palaces and spread to the cottages; they start in the capitals and spread to the provinces; they start in the centres of civilisation and spread to the wilds. No peasant, backwoodsman or savage ever started anything new.'

This may represent an extreme aristocratic view of the natural order, but it comes of a far deeper understanding of human society, which is inevitably hierarchical, than is revealed in the most ingen- ious utopias of egalitarian world improvers. It was formerly reckoned that since every system must have its sun and every society its king,

it were better that the royal prerogative be sanctified, defined and limited by law, than that it be usurped by whatever gang leader might acquire the power to do so. However, the significance of the temple was not merely social and political: its chief function was as the local power station, the generator of a current which obviated the need for any further technological contrivance. The considera- tions behind the plan and position of the temple were astronomical, geometrical and numerical, and they were also geological, for the site

of the temple was decided by reference to the field of terrestrial magnetism and located where the fusion between the earth current and the forces of cosmic radiation would naturally occur.

Of the Temple at Jerusalem, the mystical centre of the Jews, Dr ; Raphael Patai writes in his book Man and the Temple:

'Nor was the cosmic significance of the Temple exhausted with the light that emanated from it. In the middle of the Temple, and con- stituting the floor of the Holy of Holies, was a huge native rock which was adorned by Jewish legends with the peculiar features of an OmPhalos, a Navel of the Earth. This rock, called in Hebrew Ebhen Shetfyyah, the Stone of Foundation, was the first solid thing created, and was placed by God amidst the as yet boundless fluid of the pri- meval waters. Legend has it that just as the body of an embryo is built up in its mother's womb from its navel, so God built up the earth concentrically around this Sto,ne, the Navel of the Earth. Andjust as the body of the embryo receives its nourishment from the navel, so the whole earth too receives the waters that nourish it from this Navel.'

The invariable practice in antiquity of locating sacred buildings immediately above underground springs and watercourses, as at the Temple of Jerusalem, constitutes one of the greatest mysteries of the past, for evidently some principle was involved of which we are now totally unaware. It is a fact, however, that the feeling which comes to many sensitive people at ancient ritual sites, that they are standing on ground which is in some way inherently sacred, accords with the experience of dowsers or water diviners, who detect underground

28 City of Revelation

springs beneath every old church and the sites of prehistoric stones. Further information on this subject has recently been provided by the dowser, Guy Underwood, in his book The Pattern of the Past, in which he shows that the ground plans of churches and temples are in some way related to the pattern of underground water beneath them. Yet, in accordance with the remarkable unity between the symbol, the thing symbolised, and the spirit behind them both, that charac-

terises the omPhalos or sacred centre, the actual existence of under-

ground water was seen as a token that the spiritual water, the stimu- lus to prophetic inspiration, would also be present at the spot. And it was this quality that rendered the site of the Temple peculiarly suitable as the centre of the nation, the oracle and seat of government. For at that place the priests and governors would be most susceptible to the spiritual influences, and find a supernatural guidance in their conduct and decisions.

The notion of the Temple as the place of union between cosmic and terrestrial forces has been held by all people. To the Babylonians their House of God and to the Greeks the rock at Delphi represented the universal creation centre, of which examples can be found in every land. To the Jews, however, has fallen the honourable charge of preserving their living tradition into the present time, so that the image of the Temple of Jerusalem restored has become accepted in the language of symbolism throughout a great part of the world as representing the eternal aspiration of mystics, to witness the return of the prophetic spirit and the consequent appearance of a revealed world order, necessary for the re-establishment of a human civilisa- tion. It was this dream that inspired the early Christian gnostics, the hermetic societies, the Knights Templar and the Order of St John, the medieval ~abalists and magicians. The first aim of the Free- masons was the restoration of the Temple. Alchemists worked to the same end in seeking the philosopher's stone, the perfect balance of refined elements. Scholars in each generation have examined the sacred and prophetic books to establish the true dimensions of the Temple, in which lies the key to the secrets of the lost primeval harmony. The figure of the New Jerusalem still plays a leading part in the imagery of nonconformist and revivalist movements, being particularly prominent in the foundation myths of colonial America, for the ancient dream of the divine order translated to earth is an essential characteristic of the human race.

After the destruction of the actual Temple of Jerusalem, the sym- bolic Temple reappeared among the early Christians as the New Jerusalem, representing the anticipated return of the age of prophecy,

The TemPle 29 in which the former contact with the source of divine revelation would be restored, and life would resume its true course in accordance with cosmic rhythm. As symbols there is nc difference between the Temple and the New Jerusalem, for the vision of unity, to which both refer is eternally the same, even though it may reveal itself in an infinite variety of forms according to the education and state of mind of whoever receives it. Mystics who perceive, however fleetingly, the architecture of creation are in no doubt that the content of their vision represents an everlasting truth, the same that has occurred to their predecessors throughout all time. Transcendental perception of the cosmic order is as constant as the order itself. It is this recognition of a unifying truth that has led so many enlightened men to seek a common language of vision in the schemes of geometry, symbols and numbers that are fundamental in all sacred art and literature. Such a language was known to the builders of the Temple, who laid out its proportions after the manner of a musical composition to figure the harmonies of creation, and it survived in the Hebrew cabala even after the destruction of the Temple had interrupted the continual flow of this language and removed the living influence of the sacred phrases from the daily life of the people.

In the Hebrew tradition, Belzebiel who built the Tabernacle 'knew the combination of letters with which heaven and earth were made'. The letters of the Hebrew and Greek alphabets were also used as numbers, and the numerical ratios in the dimensions of the Temple could thus be expressed as words. According to a second century talmudic text quoted by Dr Patai, 'the two Cherubs over the Ark of the Covenant were made to correspond to the two holy names of God: Yahweh and Elohim'. Other parts of the Temple were laid out to contain in their proportions the various powerful words and har- monies through the medium of gematria, the science of relating sounds and letters to numbers. In the str~cture of the Temple was set out the cosmology of its builders, and through examination of this struc- ture, by reference to the cabalistic science of antiquity, it is possible to gain some insight into the patriarchal philosophy and the methods by which the prosperity of former civilisations was maintained.

..' CHAPTER THREE

The JV ew Jerusalem

That there was once a golden age of perfect spiritual knowledge, that the lost kingdom is not merely a recurrent mystical dream, becomes evident to whoever studies the canon of government and science that sustained it. Like the temple, the canon was considered to be a living archetype and to follow a cycle of reincarnations, linked with that of the gods by whom it was first revealed. The early Christians wit- nessed the ancient spirit reborn, and St John recorded the event in the twenty-first chapter of Revelation:

'And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and

the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea.

And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down, from

God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.' ,

~,"

~

St John then delineates the canonical city with the temple at the' ,

centre, taking as his model the basic figure of sacred geometry, the circle contained within the square. Verses 15-17:

'And he that talked with me had a golden reed to measure the city, and the gates thereof and the wall thereof.

And the city lieth foursquare, and the length is as large as the breadth: and he measured the city with the reed, twelve thousand furlongs. The length and the breadth and the height of it are equal.

And he measured the wall thereof, an hundred and forty and four

cubits, according to the measure of a man, that is, of the angel.' ,:'

This description seems at first rather puzzling. Evidently the holy':

city appeared in the form of a cube, but it is hard to reconcile the cube measuring 12,000 furlongs on each side with the wall of 144

f cubits. The New English Bible wi!ho.ut a.ny aut~ority at al~ from ~he Greek text makes the wall 144 cubIts zn height, an InterpretatIon whIch

, condemns the passage to total obscurity, for once the relevant units

l of measurement are identified, the relationship between those two

: dimensions is found to be a matter of simple geometry.

The word stadion, in this context translated as a furlong, refers to

l 51

32: (.try "J ltion

the unit of 600 feet, which naturally varies according to the local value of the foot, The Greek foot is about 12'15 inches, so the cor- responding stadion is 607'5 feet, However, the dimensions of the New Jerusalem derive from a tradition far earlier than St John and Christianity, and the appropriate unit is here the Sumerian foot, This has been accurately defined from the graduated tablet known as Gudea's Rule, now in the Louvre; Berriman in Historical Metrotog)' gives the value of the Sumerian foot as 13'2 inches or 1'1 English feet, The stadion is therefore 600 Sumerian feet or 660 English feet, which is equal to the furlong, The first and inspired translation of the Scriptures into English is correct: the stadion and the furlong are the -same, and it is the furlong divided into 660 English feet that measures the New Jerusalem,

The cubit of New Jerusalem is the Egyptian royal cubit for which, if~=3t, we must here accept a full length of 1'728 feet, The normal length of the cubit is between 1'718 and I '72 feet, but slight varia- tions were allowed in the values of the sacred units in accordance with the requirements of each particular trade, The significance of the cubit of 1'728 feet is that 1728 = 12 X 12 X 12, and there is an actual reference to this unit in Revelations 11,1, in which St John is given 'a reed like unto a rod', "a).apo; opotO; ea{1<5q>, with which to measure the temple of God, the altar and the worshippers, Here

the value by gematria of the phrase "a).af.l,O; opotO; ea{1<5q> is 1729,

while the altar, 'fO (}vO'taO"f1]etOV, is 1 728, the perfect cube of I 2, The temple of God is synonymous with the frame of the canonical man, and O'wpa ' 11]O'ov, body of Jesus, has the value of 1729' Since the New Jerusalem is described throughout in units of 12, no doubt the cubit of 1'729 or 1'728 feet, a tenth of an inch in excess of the accepted value, was adopted for the sake of numerical harmony in the literary account of the city,

The macro cosmic city of 12,000 furlongs square and the micro- cosmic citadel wall of 144 cubits differ in scale but belong to one geometric figure, When they are brought to commensurable propor- tions, it is found that a square of 12 furlongs exactly contains a circle of 24,890 feet or 14,400 cubits round, The nucleus of StJohn's New Jerusalem can thus be identified as a cube containing a sphere which is in fact a model of the earth on the scale I ",ot: I mile, for the dia- meter of the sphere is 7920 feet, and the earth's mean diameter 7920 miles,

Contemplation of this figure can provide an insight into the ancient science of proportion and the philosophy of cosmic equilibrium, symbolised in the New jerusalem, the Temple restored, The reality

~ FJoU1i.B J The New Jerusalem. .

behind the symbol is too comprehensive for adequate expression, and must ultimately remain a matter of personal understanding. It ap- pears that there are certain moments in history, as well in the develop- ment of each individual, when the ancient canon of proportion to which ,this figure belongs becomes animated by the influences of the time, acquiring a renewed significance and stimulating a certain pattern of thought, associated with prophecy and cosmic awareness. St John's Revelation was a work of the ancient prophetic spirit that characterised the early days of Christianity. Caught up in a vision on the isle of Patmos, St John saw the wheels and cycles of cosmic motion, watched the unfolding geometry of perpetual creation and experienced the rhythms and harmonies by which the universe is maintained. This was the climax of his initiation. The impressions received at such a moment are beyond the range of ordinary com- munication, and St John had recourse to the ancient, metaphysical language, constructed round the image of the Temple or holy city. The book of Revelation is an arrangement of symbols, each having a precise meaning in terms of the others and a corresponding numerical value, by reference to which various groups of symbols could be placed together in geometric or harmonic order, the total sum of all amounting to the complete structure of the Temple itself. As Blavat- sky wrote in Isis, 'The whole Revelation is simply an allegorical nar- rative of the Mysteries and initiation therein of a candidate, who is John himself.'

It has always been recognised by Hebrew scholars that their sacred texts, including those of the Old Testament, were written in accord- ance with a code of numbers, but although the key to their interpreta- tion by means of the numerkal values attributed to the Hebrew letters is still known, the science of the cabala has seemed of little interest in modern times. The Greek citbala, the language of Pythag- orean and Christian gnostic mysticism, has attracted even less atten-

tion, and were it not for the examples of its use given by certain of

34 Gity of Revelation

the early Fathers, direct evidence of its former existence would be scarce. Following its rejection of the gnostic tradition in about the second century, the Church adopted the policy of destroying all records which associated early Christianity with former beliefs and practices, particularly those relating to cosmology and the various sciences that supported it. However, it is still possible by reference to certain gnostic passages in the New Testament and other early Greek texts to gain some knowledge of the numerical system, by which the first Christians were able to demonstrate the eternal truth behind their creed and to prove the legitimacy of the Christian legend in the interpretation of the new age. Other examples of the figure of the New Jerusalem, of which one was conceived thousands of years before the time of StJohn, are described in the next chap- ters to show tllat the vision in Revelation was by no means unique, but was experienced by Stjohn as the portento~ return of an ancient spirit, which he described in the traditional' language of mysticism,

known to initiates of the gnostic schools. .

The mystical language, the most venerable human art, consists of an alphabet, each letter representing a certain sound which is also the expression of an archetypal form of energy. The visionary may experience the process of creation as a scheme of geometry, colours or musical harmonies and become aware that these manifestations all refer to one basic pattern of elemental motion, directed by forces known as the gods. He is then able to draw up a table of correspon- dences, in which to every letter is attributed its characteristic shape, note and colour and, above all, its number. The first and most per- fect magical alphabet is said to have been a gift from the gods to the first enlightened man, and this belief is justified by the fact that the same notion occurs spontaneously to mystics in all ~ges. Apart from the maJ:lY legends which describe the origin of letters in divine revela- tion, there is Plato's account in Gratylos, Lully's system of science which he developed from a vision of letters and numerals in the eleventh century and intuitive notes on the 'Language of the Gods' in The Candle of Vision by the Irish seer' A.E.'

'The roots of human speech are the sound correspondences of powers which in their combination and interaction make up the universe. The mind of man is made in the image of Deity, and the elements of speech are related to the powers in his mind and through

it to the being of the Oversoul.'

The peculiar significance of the mystical language is that it is received both by inheritance from the past and by personal exper- ience in the present. It is the only medium by which thoughts con-

The New Jerusalem 35

ceived in one age can be transmitted to others throughout all time, and since it is the language of Revelation, we must become ac- quainted with its structure in order to receive Stjohn's message.

lntroauction to the Numerical Symbolism in the New Jerusalem

'I lifted up my eyes again, and looked, and behold a man with

a measuring line in his hand.

'Then said I, Whither goest thou? And he said unto me, To measure Jerusalem, to see what is the breadth thereof, and what is the length thereof. ..' Zechariah 2

'Thou son of man, shew the house to the house of Israel, that they may be ashamed of their iniquities: and let them measure the pat- tern. ..' Ezekiel 43,10

In every account of the holy city, the importance of measuring its dimensions is emphasised; and this is meant literally, for the fabric of the temple contains the secrets of the ancient world set out in such a way that they may be read by anyone in whatever age who cares to undertake the study of the language in which they are written, which is the language of geometry and number.

If we are to folIo"" the advice offered by Ezekiel and Zechariah and obey the instructions given in Revelation 1 I, 'Rise and measure the temple of God', we must first become familiar with the ancient canon of measurements which apply to figures of sacred geometry. This is given in Chapter 10 together with the geometric scheme that combines the various units. Four units in particular are relevant to our purpose in examining the Ne"" Jerusalem: they are the English foot, the megalithic yard (MY) of 2'72 feet, the Egyptian remen, 1'2165 feet and the cubit, 1'72 feet.

Having measured the temple by these units, we shall find that certain numbers and series of numbers are particularly emphasised; these will be familiar to whoever has studied with reference to the cabalistic science of gematria the numerical structure of the Old and New Testaments, and their significance will also be recognised by astronomers as representing planetary periods and distances, by astrologers in relation to the zodiacal cycles of time, by musicians, alchemists, mathematicians and whoever else deals with number in connection with the processes of nature. The numerical formulae in the cosmic temple were applied to every department of knowledge and extended to matters of theology, the same balance of numbers being taken to express the spiritual hierarchy as were used within the systems of physical science. Each number is therefore a symbol with

36 City of Revelation

a corresponding principle in every class of creation, and together they represent the primeval view of a reality which still remains unaltered and will so remain as long as the human race endures.

A study of the ancient language of numerology could be prolonged through a lifetime, and to avoid doing so we must concentrate on those numbers which are most prominent in the dimensions of the Temple. The various schemes of geometry and numerology synthes- ised in the Temple each relate to one of the first ten numerals, but since Jerusalem was the solar capital of the nation, its characteristic number is 6. The plan of the temple represents the material creation, and the number 6, as Philo explains in Book I of De Opificio Mundi, is an image of matter, because God finished his work on the sixth day. In Genesis, according to Philo, Moses 'makes mortal things com- pare with the number 6, the happy and blessed things with the num- ber 7'. St Augustine in The City of God also writes of the perfection of number 6, for 'in this did God make perfect all his works. Wherefore this number is not to be despised, but has the esteem apparently con- firmed by many places of scripture. Nor was it said in vain of God's works: "Thou madest all things in number, weight and measure." , It is the unique property of number 6, on account of which it was held perfect, that it is both the sum and the product of all its factors

excluding itself, for 1 +2 +3 = 6 and 1 X 2 X 3 = 6.

6 is ,the number of the cosmos, and the Greek word, "0<1f.t°'"' sig- nifying the cosmic order, has the value by gematria of 600. The ancient astronomers"adopted the mile as the unit which measures the cosmic intervals in terms of the number 6, and procured the follow- ing sacred numbers:

Diameter of sun = 864,000 miles (12 X 12 X 6000)

Diameter of moon = 2160 miles (6 X 6 X 60)

Diameter of earth = 7920 miles (12 X 660)

Mean circumference of earth = 24,883'2 miles (12 X 12 X 12 X 12

X 1'2)

Speed of earth round sun = 66,600 miles per hour

Distance between earth and moon = 6 X 60 X 660 miles or 60 X earth's radius

The present British units of metrology have their origin in ancient cosmology. The mean diameter of the earth is 7920 miles, there are 7920 inches in a furlong and 7920 feet in a league, while 7920 feet or 12 furlongs is also the measure of the side of New Jeru- salem. Moreover, 7920 feet is the side ora square containing 1440 acres, of which fact the significance will be made clear in the next

chapter. ~-

.~- -

, FIGURE 2 ~."c -

In the ground plan of the New Jerusalem, above, the side of the square being I 2 furlongs or 7920 feet in length, the perimeter is 6 miles, and the circumference of the circle that contains the square is 6-666 miles. The area of this circle is 33,300,000 square cubits, while the area'ofthe smaller circle contained within the square of the New Jerusalem is 6,660,000 square MY. The number 666, which is thus prominently displayed in the foundations of the Holy City, is para- mount within the ancient numerical scheme, for the old philosophers were not selective in their view of reality, but drew up their cosmol- ogies to include every true element in the hierarchy of creative powers, irrespective of fluctuating notions of morality. As St Ignatius observed, good and evil are simply human opinions. 666 has attracted more attention than any other cabalistic number and a great many works have been composed on the subject, principally on account of its appearance in Revelation 13 as the number of the beast, an enigma to which we return later.

The New Jerusalem is described as a cube measuring 12,000 fur- longs on every side. The area of one face is therefore 144 million square furlongs and the area of its outer surface, the sum of its six faces, is 864 million square furlongs. This number 864, is particu- larly characteristic of the sacred centre, as its following associations prove.

864,000, we have already noticed, is the measure of the sun's dia- meter in miles. Then the number by gematria of' IE(!ovual.7Jp, Jeru- salem the solar capital of the nation, is 864. Twvta, the corner of the earth on which stood the angel in Revelation 7.1, has the number 864. The holy of holies in the temple has the same number, for the values of the letters of aytwv amount to 864, and 8EWV, the temple of the gods is also 864. In Hindu chronology 864,000 years is a division

of the Yuga, the Great Age of 4,320,000 years in which a new type

38 City of Revelation

of man is born. 8,640,000,000 years, the longest period of time reckoned in the ancient East, is known as 'one day and night of Brahma'. On the human time scale there are 86,400 seconds in a 24 hour day. As a number of Christian sacred geometry, 864 has the further significance that a square of area 86,400 measures 294 on each side and 1176 round the perimeter, and 294 is the number of

'S""A'iJ'O'ta, church, while 1 1 76 = vio" p,ovoy8V1J", only-begotten Son.

In this way the masonic architect, laying out the plan of a temple, was able to combine all the sacred numbers in one scheme by follow- ing the proportions of canonical geometry.

Each part of Solomon's Temple was made to represent some aspect of heaven or earth, and the corresponding sacred names and numbers were woven into the linear dimensions and areas of the various courts; so it is in the plan of the New Jerusalem. In the dimensions of St John's city are found the numbers which identify it as the ancient cosmic Temple renewed by revelation, and we can see how it is that the Christian names for the old sacred principles were formed by reference to these numbers. In the first of his two chapters on Noah's Ark in The City of God, Book XV, St Augustine writes, 'And the ark being all of square wood signifies the unmoved constancy of the saints (aytwv = 864); for cast a cube or square body which way you will, it will ever stand firm.' The Ark may thus be identified as a symbol with the cube of the New Jerusalem, and both refer to the foundation rock at Jerusalem, placed at the centre of the world to keep down the waters of the abyss. The Christian centre was the Place of the Skull, Q 'tono" ,eeavtov, whose number by gematria is one unit in excess of 1440, and 1440 is the number of acres in the square New Jerusalem of side 12 furlongs. The holy mountain Sion was known as the Mount of the Lord, 6eo" ;eVetov, which also has the value 1440. In Revelation 4, the Lamb on Mount Sion stands with the 144,000 redeemed from the earth. 1440 is also the number of Q oZ"o" ;eVetOV, the House of the Lord.

Of the numbers already mentioned, 864 is solar, occurs in the sun's dimensions and in solar chronology; it is the number of Jerusalem ('IseovO'aI.'iJ'l'- = 864), the holy of holies (aytwv = 864), the temple of the gods ((Jswv = 864), the corner stone (ywvta = 864) and the throne of Abraxas, one of the ancient gods representing the 365 days of the solar year (Oeovo,,' APea~a", throne of Abraxas = 499 +365 =

864). 666 represents the active principle in creation and growth, cor- responding in some degree to the Christian concept of the Father or, more particularly, to the gnostic demiurge, ruler of the lower, material world. 144, being 12 X 12, the ~rea of tile square New

The New Jerusalem - 39

Jerusalem, typifies the rock of salvation, the holy mountain at the centre of the earth, habitation of the saints. Stjohn's city has twelve gates guarded by twelve angels and inscribed with the names of the twelve tribes; it has twelve foundations, each with one of twelve precious stones and the names of the twelve apostles. Stjohn is told in Revelation I I. I to measure the altar, TO OvO'taa'ft](1tov, which has the value of 1728 or 12 X 12 X 12. Without the article OvO'taa'ft](1tov numbers 864 (O"t" = 6). Within the cube of the New Jerusalem is a sphere, described by St John as 14:4 cubits round, which has a diameter of 79'20 feet, and this represents the earth on the scale I foot to 100 miles, for 7920 miles is the earth's mean diameter.

All these numbers, 864, 666, 144, 7920, 1728 and others prominent in the dimensions of the New Jerusalem, as 1008, 1080, 1224 etc, which will be examined later, are multiples of 6 and they are also multiples of 9. In the old numerical philosophy nine, the trinity of trinities,. was considered as the number of finality, judgment and the fulfilment of prophecy because it complements the series of the first nine nume~ical powers, which is perfected and renewed by the num. ber ten. Nine and six are closely associated in numerology; their product is 54 and 540 is the number of "(1,O't,", judgment.

The numbers so far examined are predominantly solar in character, identifying Jerusalem as the rock on which the institutions of the nation are founded, the centre of its government and intellectual life. According to Jewish legend, the waters of Noah's flood vanished into the cleft in the rock on the site of the Temple, and the foundation stone was placed above to press them down. On this stone is built the Temple. One day, it is said, the waters will rise up again, thrust aside the rock and pour out another great flood to destroy all civilisation.

Yet the waters are not merely a destructive force, they are a neces- sary element in fertility. The eastern garden has a fountain at the centre, from which the waters flow in labyrinthine channels to ir- rigate the plants. If the fountain dries up, the garden dies; if it flows with too great force, the garden is washed away. The same is true of the symbolic fountain that penetrates the surface of the conscious, intellectual mind, and fertilises it with the waters from the deep chasm of the unconscious. Order, discipline, the rock of faith, the intellectual law, the rule of Caesar, all these are required by human nature, which demands the comfort and assurance of an organised society.

But these are not its only requirements. However perfectly the

garden is laid out and planted, without water it is sterile. So also with '

40 City of Revelation

the mind. Against reason stand prophecy, poetry, revelation, the desire for liberty and the millenarian influence of the holy spirit. These are not, as some still believe, vestiges of a primitive stage in evolution. They belong to human nature and are no more dispensible than the fountain in the garden, for by them is the mind irrigated and made fertile. The great fanatics, as Chesterton remarked, are also great rationalists, unable to see how their various systems, each demonstrably true in terms of its own logic, may yet appear totally absurd in the light of human experience. There are two opposite sides to reality, corresponding in the mind to the solar power of the intellect and the lunar influence of the intuition. Again, each of these is of dual nature. The intellect is both the wise king and the cruel tyrant; the intuition is the spirit of true revelation and it is the Devil. From the human point of view the desirability or otherwise of these two opposites depends on the balance of the relationships between them. Both are represented in the numerical symbolism of the New Jerusalem, for both are eternal principles, and the true cosmology cannot contain the one without the other. The plan of the canonical temple illustrates how they may best be brought into union, so that each presents its most beneficial aspect.

According to the sacred history of Plato, the world is periodically destroyed either by flood or fire. In recent years the unchecked rule of Caesar with his state religion, worship of the intellect, has so flourished that the imperial fire may seem a more familiar and there- fore preferable alternative to the flood of anarchical mysticism. Modern philosophers have tended to become the instruments and partisans of one or other of the two rival forces, emphasising one aspect of reality at the expense of its opposite, without regard' for the ancient cosmology that reconciles both. On the one hand is the romantic belief in the happiness of the innocent and ignorant savage, a mythical creature; on the other, Hobbes's famous, though equally mythical description of the horrors of early human existence: 'no Knowledge of the face of the Earth; no account of Time; no Arts; no Letters; no Society; and which is worst of all, continuall feare, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poore, nasty, brutish and short'.

This poetic account of primeval anarchy iJ not true history; the earliest societies are the most structured and hierarchical. It is how- ever the perfect expression of a psy~hological state, cosmic paranoia, which may lie behind the bravest exterior and often induces an ex- treme, rational and authoritarian attitude to life. Those who most dread to contemplate the uncertainties inherent in the human view

77ze New Jerusalem ~: 41 Ii

of the natural order become the stern priests of the temple, firmly set on the rock that presses down the waters of tl1e flood. This is well illustrated in Jung's anecdote about Freud in Memories, Dreams and

Reflections.

'I can still recall vividly how Freud said to me, "My dear Jung, promise me never to abandon the sexual theory. That is the most essential thing of all. You see, we must make a dogma of it, an un-

shakable bulwark" . .. In some astonishment I asked him, "A bulwark - against what?" To which he replied, "Against the black

tide of mud" - and here he hesitated for a moment, then added - "of

occultism." ,

The black tide of occultism, to be suppressed by the phallic rock of Freud's sexual theory, represents one aspect of the waters beneath the temple. The mischievous spirit in the fairy story, corked up in a bottle by the magician and thrown into the depths of the sea, is an image with the same meaning; so also is the old serpent, the Devil in

Revelation 20.

'And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the Key or the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand, and he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, and cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, until the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season.'

The old serpent is Mercury, god of revelation, who is both the devastating flood and the fountain set in the middle of the garden. The symbol of the unconscious mind is a deep pool of subterranean water, in which the fool sees the reflection of his own face and claims a vision. The entrance to the pool is therefore sealed with a rock, and on this foundation the temple is built and the garden is laid out around it. Also on the rock, and serving a similar function, is the ark

that rides on the surface of the flood, containing the sacred measures,

and the secrets of canon that survive from one civilisation to the next. For sooner or later, if the weight of authority bears too heavily on the rock, and the fertilising influence of the underground waters is en- tirely cut off, the waters rise under pressure until they explode in a violent torrent, destroying all that stands above them.

864: is the number that symbolises the rock and the solar city'

founded upon it; 666 represents the imperial authority by which the city is governed. Against these two is 1080 which, as explained in Chapter 14:, is the number of the bottomless pit and the underground waters; but it is also the number of nfJ"fJ aocpta", Fountain of Wisdom,

C.R.-3 ",e. "..

42 City of Revelation

and of TO aytOV nvevpa, the Holy Spirit. Thus 1080 represents both the inspiration of the mystic and the madness of occultism, for the source is in each case the same. The aspect of the number that presents itself on invocation is not however beyond human control, the appropriate formula being contained in the sacred ratios of the canon.

,~ 7i"" and Portents . 19

the great year. or the modern flying saucer rumours Jung wrote, 'As we know from ancient Egyptian history they are symptoms of psychic changes that always appear at the end of one Platonic month and at the beginning of another.'

For his work on flying saucers Jung was attacked on two sides, by

those who insisted that the phenomenon was of a purely psychological .

nature and by others equally certain that flying saucers are as material as ourselves. The analogy with human nature does not, however, support the mechanical theory for, as the philosopher magicians of antiquity were. aware, intelligence is made up of the same creative influences that reign throughout the universe, so it is impossible to attribute an exclusively external or internal origin to portentous phenomena such as are now seen in the skies. The magical belief was that, although the power of the gods is irresistible, indivi- dually they are inferior to men, and if he becomes conscious of the position and achieves dominion over his mind, a man can become in himself the temple of the gods and dispose of their influence to his own advantage instead of being for ever at the mercy ofunrecognised forces.

Man, temple and cosmos were therefore seen to be identical, and i

on this understanding the entire philosophy and science of the ancien~ world was founded. Unless the justification for this point of view is appreciated, it is impossible to gain any deep insight into the history of the past or to sympathise with the re-establishment of mystical perception at the present. Scholars who like to trace the progress of science from the first manufactured tool to the most recent agent of world destruction have cruelly misunderstood the geocentric cos- mologies of antiquity, which were adopted for philosophic reasons, not as models of physical reality. The medieval Church declared the earth to be at the centre of the universe as a matter of actual fact, to the disadvantage of those who knew otherwise; but it is obvious from our knowledge of their achievements that the early Chinese and Chaldean astronomers could never have thought such a thing, and th~ subtleties recently discovered in the megalithic stone arrange- ments of Britain and France suppose a knowledge of the solar system on the part of the inhabitants of Europe at least 4000 years ago, which was only regained in the age of Galileo. The Greeks, who had forgot- ten the observational science and adopted their cosmology from the Egyptians, may have concluded through the exercise of pious reason that the planets revolved round the earth at the centre, though Newton believed that Ptolomy had placed them in this relationship for astrological purposesj Confucius certainly taught the heliocentric

20 Ciry of Revelation

system, which was also adopted by the early Celtic Church in Britain until its suppression by Rome. Moreover, the existence of the ancient canon, which we shall inspect in later chapters, with its complement of cosmic numbers and measurements, reveals a higher level of astro- nomical skill in the remote past than in any period known to history

In this lies the difference between what Jung distinguished as the scientific view of the world and the world of actual experience, that whereas we are now asked to regard ourselves as irrelevant particles in infinite space, the ancient philosophers were concerned with the relationship between men and their environment, with the individual ~t the centre of his own universe. The earth moves round the sun, but from the terrestrial point of view it is the other way about. The astro- loger is only concerned with the planetary positions as they affect the earth and his own particular part of it, so his chart is drawn up with the earth at the centre and himself at the centre of the earth.

The cosmologies of all nations were framed in this way. The temple, like Jerusalem on medieval maps, was in the middle; within it the King's chamber, and the King on his throne at the heart of all. Not only did he symbolise the sun, he actually was the sun of the social order as the proton is of the atom. From him ~manated the solar radiance by which the kingdom was made prosperous and fertile. His instrument was the temple, which not only acted as a transmitter of his power, but as an accumulator of the cosmic forces by which he was charged. The chief reason why the astronomical orientations of temples was considered of such importance was that the influences bearing on the King, and through him on the people, must be those appropriate to the time and situation.

The geocentric universe was not originally a concept born of ig- norance, but a recognition of reality. There are as many stars in the universe as there are grains of sand on the sea shores, and formerly there were many nations across the world, each one ordered after the cosmic model, an organic unit conscious of its own orbit and recog~ nising those of its neighbours. A man was known to be an insignificant item in the cosmos, a small component in a group, one of many com~ prising the body of a petty kingdom. But although his place in the cosmic hierarchy might appear fixed and limited, in fact each man was its lord, for if the whole universe was made up of infinite units such as himself, yet he too was made up of the same elements that comprise the whole. Space stretched out endlessly in both directions with the man at the centre. The great magicians were those who understood this, not just as a theory but as experienced reality, and the further we see back into the past the more general the realisation

-~{~

., :i

1ime and Portents 2 i'

appears to have been. It was not simply a question of greater sensi~ tivity in former ages, but of greater knowledge. This knowledge has suffered eclipse with the lJ.se of a different approach to science. But we arc neither more stupid nor more clever than the people of any other period since the first moment of consciousness; merely, the changing light of the times illuminates different areas of perception. It is not therefore with the intention of reviewing a dead and out. moded way of thought that we here study the cosmic canon of the ancient world; its relevance will be apparent to all who find in the situation of the present living evidence of the cyclical nature of influences.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Prophecy

/P165/

A comfortable conclusion for this last chapter would be to suggest that the prophetic spirit, now inevitably resurging to dethrone its rival, the intellectual law, will necessarily bring with it the New Jerusalem and the return of the gods, thus fulfilling the dreams of mystics in all ages since the destruction of the primeval kingdom. This issue may more especially be anticipated at the present time as the spring point enters Aquarius, and the earth becomes subject to the intensified flux of cosmic radiation for which such periods of transition are noted. There is moreover a sufficient number of remarkable portents in evidence to fill the almanacs of the most cautious astrologers. Were an ancient Egyptian prophet to be translated into this century, he would already have declared the end to be not only in sight, but almost within reach. The death of birds and fishes, together with sudden, devastating plagues of mutated insects and rodents, marked disturbances in the order of nature and human society, symptoms of unrest and confusion, all these are the classical portents of change in its most revolutionary aspect. From all over the world are heard reports of strange, inexplicable aerial phenomena which, as Jung pointed out, have always been associated with the end of an era. These events are taking place at a time which the astrologers' calendar shows as the start of a new month in the great year.

On account of the present neglect of sacred history in favour of the secular variety with its microscopic view of time, the psychological influence of the gods is not generally recognised; instead, the symptoms of change are studied from the political and sociological point of view, and interpreted by reference to the personal canons of professional moralists rather than by astrological precedent. For all that utopians may like to believe, it remains a law of nature that unanimous agreement on any subject is an impossibility. Opinions form, as it were, a magnetic field between two poles, which fluctuate according to the amount of force which each side can bring to the /Page 166/ issue, but can never be reconciled. It is therefore only to be expected that the peculiar circumstances of the age should produce the widest range of opinions as to their nature and probable outcome.

Modern prophets are in general agreement that the changes now in progress are of a most fundamental quality; to arrive at such a conclusion it is scarcely necessary to possess the gifts of a Nostradamus. However, lacking the fixed tables of the old astrologers, they are unable to determine the true significance of current portents in terms of the future. The more rational seers proclaim the approaching end of the human span on earth, pointing out that the institutions and processes which have brought about the terrestrial sickness are so firmly established that nothing short of cataclysm will move them. Others believe that catastrophe will somehow be averted by science and ingenuity, and there are those who nurture the mystical hopes referred to in the first paragraph.

It must be admitted that the physical evidence strongly favours the cataclysmic school of prophecy. From the rational point of view, there is no reason to doubt that within the next few years the earth will die of plague, poison, burns or wounds, for the forces promoting this end are not of human origin, nor are they under human control. Two facts stand in opposition to produce a dilemma beyond logical resolution. The first is that it will never be possible to extend the industrial prosperity of Europe and North America throughout the other continents, for the spiral of consumption and waste necessary for its survival has reached the point where the earth's fertility and its stock of mineral resources are already threatened, and further exploitation will shortly put an end to both. The second, equally cogent fact is that there is no way to limit or reduce industrial and economic development without destroying its very roots. The technological revolution must continuously expand if it is to remain in force, yet it can no longer do so for the reasons already given; and since all the prevailing social and political institutions are entirely dependent on theories which presume the possibility of endless growth, they can scarcely be expected to question the justification for their own existence by admitting the necessity for fundamental change. Individuals may abdicate from power, but organisations, being less intelligent, are the more stubborn. According to the rational prophets, there is therefore no alternative to violent explosion through the collision of two opposing forces, neither of which can be diverted. It is also pointed out that the traditional period of 10,800 years that separates the times of catastrophe, when the population is decimated by flood or fire, has already elapsed since the /Page 167/ date given by Plato for the inundation of Atlantis, and by this reckoning the destruction by fire is now to be expected.

Those who dispute the inevitability of this conclusion based their hopes on the belief that experimental science, having produced the crisis, will find the means to dissolve it. However, since all programmes of scientific research are set up by the political and commercial organisations and must work on their behalf, scientists are unable to carry out or publish work unfavourable to the immediate interests of these bodies. The leaders of all industrialised nations hold power by virtue of their promises or proven ability to suppress symptoms of change and to maintain the rigidity of the present structure, and in this they will continue to the end, not out of personal vindictiveness, but because such is their function. The modern political canon allows for superficial changes, but is unable to comprehend those of a more extreme nature. Ancient history is misunderstood or considered irrelevant to the present issue, for the theory of progress rests on the assumption that men are now different in quality to their predecessors, no longer subject to the psychic influences that were once the chief study of the court astrologers. These influences are not recognised by modern convention, so they are not considered in matters of official policy. Having abolished the gods, we are unable to account for their continued activity. Scientists, deprived of a common metaphysical language are thus barred from any direct approach to the radical problems of the age and, like politicians, must be content with devising expediencies to delay the inevitable climax of an irreversible process.

The third group of prophets, referred to above, are those particularly susceptible to the influences of the time, who believe that the rising god of a new age will produce the psychic changes within each individual necessary for the re-establishment of a balanced order. The desire for a new revelation is a natural product of confused times, and is commonly expressed in popular millenarian movements and in the cargo cults of tribal societies disturbed by foreign influence. Ever since the departure of the gods, the end of the world or the beginning of another has been regularly proclaimed by those who felt that the only solution to the problems of the time lay in the renewal of divine intervention. Yet these expectations are ever disappointed. The early Christians anticipated the immediate overthrow of the Roman empire and the appearance of God's kingdom on earth. When this failed, they placed their .hopes on the promise of the Comforter in St John's Gospel and on the words in the penultimate verse of Revelation, 'Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even /Page 168/ so come Lord Jesus.' Still nothing changed; the spirit declined in frustration, prophecy was discredited and the Church, lli"lnly established in the middle of the city the prophets called Babylon, announced that the great moment was already past and burnt those who encouraged hopes of a further revelation.

So it is with all revolutions that are allowed to follow undirected their own natural course, and so it will continue with increasing emphasis as long as reality is allowed to remain unrecognised. When the meaning of the ancient canon was lost, the key to a balanced world vanished with it. Ever since that time, the pendulum of revolt, reaction and repression swings faster and more violently. There is no knowledge of the forces behind its motion, and consequently no attempt to restore the dynamic equilibrium. Over and again the same processes repeat themselves as the gods run wild. Unaware of their presence and unable to account for their influence, the secularised authorities have no alternative but to oppose the manifestations' of psychic changes, whose significance they have no means of understanding. The beast of the age, frustrated in his efforts to penetrate the rigid, unresponsive body of the social organism, turns savage, destroys his unwilling bride and emerges from the chaos for his coronation in the new Babylon. The tyrants of the revolution, armoured in moral righteousness and fiercely intolerant of heretics, are seven times more oppressive than their corrupt predecessors, evoking a correspondingly extreme reaction.

In times when the nature of the gods as vital influences in human society was the subject of scientific inquiry, the attitude towards the divine was not expressed in formal acts of piety to an uncertain ideal, but was founded on the most practical considerations of human interest. The reverence now associated with church attendance is, like religious intolerance and fanaticism, a modern invention, developed in our own era as a substitute for knowledge. In the ancient world, such things were unknown, for by reference to the canon they may clearly be recognised as aberrations.

As we have seen, the essential function of the canon was to provide an instrument by which the various influences that affect human existence might be discerned, analysed and brought under control. It was formerly believed that men are potentially superior to the individual gods, for although the power of the gods is irresistible, it is not theirs to dispose of at will. The gods are confined to certain seasons and areas of influence which they are not free to vary. Those who understand the principles by which they are guided may therefore direct the divine powers to human advantage. By accepting the /Page 169/ inevitability of change and by recognising its nature, it was once found possible to channel the current influences through society in such a way that they performed their correct function as agents of fertility rather than of destruction.

Anyone who has contemplated the various depths of meaning contained in the symbolic numbers 666 and 1080 will perceive that the forces to which they refer have now become so mutually anti-pathetic, and so utterly frustrated in their natural desire for union, that each is now disposed towards violence, leading inevitably to disaster on a scale no less than cataclysmic. The crisis is of a triple nature, individual, social and economic. The physical state of the world, as the ancient philosophers so clearly understood, is reflected in the body of society and in each of its members. From this came the Taoist saying that whoever wishes to put the world in order should begin with the reform of his own country; this through his city, this through his family, the first step in the whole process being the reform of himself. The great alchemists, whose ultimate aspiration was to procure the birth of a divinity among men, found it necessary first to invoke within themselves the spirit they wished to share with others. In the same tradition Plato wrote that the man who acquires the art of stereometry, the likening of unlike things which is the function of the canon, sanctifies not only himself but also the city and the age in which he lives. The thought behind these various expressions was that the state of a society is determined by the individuals who comprise it; that the cosmic influences are manifest on earth through the medium of the human mind, and this is the instrument by which they may be controlled and held in balance. For the instrument to be effective, it requires that the individual become aware of the current influences to which he is subject, and to this end the canon was devised; for by analogy with the dynamics of geometrical and numerological relationships, the world of phenomena is revealed as the product of archetypal forces, whose behaviour in any circumstances is predictable once their nature is understood. From the early days of the Christian Church, and particularly since the time of Darwin, the false hypotheses on which the received theories of history are formed have become so deeply embedded in the foundations of European culture that whoever doubts them may find himself suspected not so much of heresy as of lunacy. Virtually every modern book in any way concerned with the question of human origins contains some such statement as that with which Bertrand Russell begins the chapter on Evolution in his Religion and Science:

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'The sciences have developed in an order the reverse of what might have been expected. What was most remote from ourselves was first brought under the domain of law, and then, gradually what was nearer: first the heavens, next the earth, then animal and vegetable life, then the human body, and last of all (as yet very imperfectly) the human mind.'

In direct contradiction to such opinions is the fact that the canon in its most ancient and perfect state formed a complete representation of the human mind which, as no one can doubt who is familiar with even the later and most decadent traditions of alchemy, was understood in the remotest past with a certainty of which we are now scarcely able to conceive. In fact human consciousness since the initial revelation appears to have suffered the decline which Russell himself at the end of the same chapter in Religion and Science describes as characteristic of the cosmos:

'There is no law of cosmic progress, but only an oscillation upward and downward, with a slow trend downward on the balance owing to the diffusion of energy.'

Whether this general tendency towards intermittent decline is absolute, or whether it merely occupies the intervals between widely separated seasons of sudden, intense creative activity, constituting progress on a grander scale, is a question to which no answer will ever be possible. The cycles of time, like the progression towards the macrocosmic and microcosmic in matter, are apparently infinite and, from the human point of view, beyond comprehension. But even though our perception of time is necessarily limited, modern ignorance in this respect is largely self induced, since the sacred histories, which refer back to the dawn of consciousness, have always been available and our knowledge of them has lately been extended by the researches of anthropologists. From these we know that men were once as animals, that for some reason the human species was enlightened and came into direct contact with the gods, from whom they received the canon of cosmic law; that the split between heaven and earth, following on the gods' departure, has ever since widened into a chasm, within which the duality of forces rages in furious opposition, the secret of their reconciliation having been lost.

Nevertheless, despite the apparent inevitability of the approaching world destruction, the prophets have always regarded the fall of Babylon as a necessary stage in the birth of the New Jerusalem; and the two events are also closely associated in popular belief. Modern histories are written for the most part from the Apollonian point of view and deal with the activities of priests and rulers to the neglect /Page 171/ of prophets, heretics and radicals, an important exception being Norman Cohn's The Pursuit of the Millenium. Professor Cohn describes the enduring influence of the New Jerusalem on mystical revolutionaries in early Christian and mediaeval times and its reappearance in our own, and it is obvious from his record that the notion of a golden age, lost but one day to be restored, is not merely an individual or collective aberration, but exists as an archetypal inhabitant of the human mind. The fact that it occurs most commonly to lunatics or discontented fanatics is no reflection on its essential reality. Such people do not invent their compensatory fantasies or take them from literary sources. In Blake's phrase, 'Everything possible to be believed is an image of truth', the madness of one age becoming the orthodoxy of another. Though far from manifest at the present time, the New Jerusalem remains a living force, particularly among those whose conditions of life are least in accord with its ideals. Since it can not be exorcised, it has therefore to be recognised and brought. into the open.

Following the theory of evolutionary progress, it is now generally supposed that the reality of the golden age is psychological and nothing more, that it is true myth but false history. The consequence of this belief is that, if the golden age never existed in the past, the promise of its re-establishment in the future is a delusion. Prophets and idealists are thus considered dangerous and ignorant fanatics, unaware of the fact that psychological science has exposed their visions as baseless fantasies.

The dreadful fate of most prophetic and millenarian movements throughout the past age, in which the faithful have regularly been slaughtered through the fanaticism of their own leaders and the jealousy of Caesar's priests, encourages the belief that the dream of a golden age is but symptomatic of a desire to escape the realities of life, that naturally afflicts the oppressed and weak minded. But the New Jerusalem is not simply an image that recurs to confused and ignorant visionaries. Examination of its recorded dimensions reveals it as a symbol of the cosmic canon and a formula for the maintenance of harmonious relationships, that was once applied to every department of life including the art of government. To Plato and St John, both initiated into the same esoteric traditions of history, the Holy City was a sacred relic of the Lost Kingdom, whose survival as an archetype in popular memory continually frustrates the rational schemes of tyrants until such time as it is finally restored.

Obviously, if the golden age was never manifest, it can scarcely be expected to return, and the prophets were therefore concerned to /Page 172/ preserve the actual dimensions of the Holy City as a token to future generations of its former existence. The characteristic of the golden age is that it was a time of perfect equilibrium, when the rhythm of life followed the cosmic cycles; this state of affairs is commemorated in the allegory of the New Jerusalem. In the dimensions of the City, which are also those of its physical reflection, the canonical temple, is set out the formula for the balance of power between 666, the emperor, and 1080, the people, and between their correspondences in every realm. The temple is therefore a monument to the science of the ancient world, and the actual existence of the temple as at Stonehenge provides the historical justification for the legend of the golden age.

Having once been known, there is no reason why the secrets of the cosmic temple and its use as an equilibrator of forces should not be regained when the purpose of the ancient science is again recognised. Never before has the existence of the positive and negative forces in nature and the need for some method of establishing an equitable relationship between them been more clearly apparent than at the present time. A confrontation is taking place between two rival cosmologies. The first, dominated by the force of 666 and appealing to the solar aspect of human nature, promotes destruction by fire and radiation. The second is characterised by the number 1080, the number of spiritual perception, humility, freedom and love, which for all their virtues, are also historically the ingredients of popular revolt; thus 1080 is associated with the rising waters of the flood. Both these two cosmologies are comprehensive and entirely rational in their own terms; but since the universe is not a purely rational phenomenon, being composed throughout of logically irreconcilable elements, the true cosmology must be similarly framed. So it is that 666 added to 1080 gives 1746, the number of the grain of mustard seed, from which grow the roots and branches of the great tree, symbol of cosmic unity.

In his Alchemical Studies C. G. Jung wrote:

'The balance of the primordial world is upset. what I have said is not intended as a criticism, for I am deeply convinced not only of the relentless logic but of the expediency of this development. The emphatic differentiation of opposites is synonymous with sharper discrimination, and that is the sine qua non for any broadening or heightening of consciousness.'

In common with all true mystics Jung looks beyond the immediate and painful consequences of the alienation of forces and foresees a /Page 173/ repetition of the procreative act of union, the issue of which has many names, the Christian version being the New Jerusalem.

That the process of transition from one type of consciousness to another, involving the confrontation of two incompatible ways of thought, may be a violently destructive affair, has never been concealed by the prophets. Such is the pattern of change in nature. To avoid becoming blindly committed to one or other of the two opposing forces as the result of individual circumstances, it is necessary to become aware of each, as Jung implies in the passage quoted above. The gods play the cruellest tricks on those who fail to acknowledge their influence. Portents unobserved recur with increasing emphasis until they become literally violent in their desire to attract attention. At such times of crisis the individual is presented with a choice which is his alone: either to accept the notion of some recent philosophers that the gods are dead and have been replaced by an omniscient secular authority, or to follow the example of the gnostics in preferring the reality that is evident to the senses, however much it may be denied by those who fancy it in their interest to do so.