Sacred Geometry Oracle [Misc. Supplies]

John Michael Greer (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 8, 2002

The cosmic patterns and universal truths of sacred geometry bridge past and future. Now you can put this ancient wisdom to work in your own life with the SACRED GEOMETRY ORACLE. This kit contains 33 cards, each representing a basic figure in traditional sacred geometry, and each relating to one of the basic patterns of the universe - patterns that form the hidden structure of our everyday lives. Use the cards for divination, meditation, and self-exploration.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

John Michael Greer (Western Maryland) has been a student of occult traditions and the unexplained for more than thirty years. A Freemason, a student of geomancy and sacred geometry, and a widely read blogger, he is also the author of numerous books, including Monsters, The New Encyclopedia of the Occult and Secrets of the Lost Symbol, and currently serves as the Grand Archdruid of the Ancient Order of Druids in America (AODA), a contemporary school of Druid nature spirituality. Greer has contributed articles to Renaissance Magazine, Golden Dawn Journal, Mezlim, New Moon Rising, Gnosis, and Alexandria.

 

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Introduction to the Sacred Geometry Oracle

We live in a time of great transitions. After three centuries in which the Western world has been dominated by the ideology of science, more and more people are taking a hard look at the legacy of the Scientific Revolution, with its dream of a world totally subjected to human reason and its promise of limitless power through technology. The dream and the promise measure up poorly against the hard realities of a spiritually empty, esthetically debased, culturally impoverished, and environmentally devastated world. In the last fifty years, in response to these concerns, teachings concerning mysticism, magic, divination, and inner development have come out of the shadows to play an ever more prominent role in modern life. These ancient traditions have proven themselves quite capable of handling the complexities of a postmodern world-more capable, indeed, than many approaches that carry the seal of official scientific approval. In the modern renaissance of traditional wisdom, though, the ancient art of sacred geometry has played a surprisingly small role. At a time when the basic ideas of traditional wisdom are becoming ever more widely known, when everything from astrology to Zen has a ready and increasingly knowledgeable audience, very few people have even encountered sacred geometry. Much of the problem is simply a matter of how sacred geometry has been presented in modern times. Memories of boring math classes make the whole idea of sacred geometry seem cold, abstract, and difficult to those who have never experienced it, and getting past this barrier has been a slow and difficult process. With a few stellar exceptions, too, most of the very small handful of recent books on sacred geometry fall short as useful introductions to the art. On the one hand, these books betray a limited and sometimes inaccurate knowledge of the traditional lore. On the other, many of them have a habit of mixing sacred geometry together with a dizzying assortment of speculations about lost continents, ancient astronauts, conspiracy theories, and the like. While I don’ intend to pass judgment on such ideas, or to deny them merit on their own terms, it’ fair to say that they don’ have much to do with traditional sacred geometry; muddling them together with geometrical studies has caused far more confusion than clarity, and done some damage to sacred geometry’ reputation besides. Despite its importance, then, sacred geometry remains the most neglected of the Western world’ wisdom teachings. This is particularly unfortunate at the present time, for it has things to offer that our modern world desperately needs. It was by way of sacred geometry that ancient architects, artists, designers, and builders created structures and works of art that still astonish the viewer by their beauty, their practicality, and their harmonious relationship to their surroundings. It was by way of sacred geometry that the spiritual and the practical sides of life were woven together seamlessly in the everyday environments of city, town, workplace, and home. In an age when our cities are drowned in soulless ugliness, and our lives are surrounded by objects designed for mechanical efficiency without any human qualities whatsoever, the insights of sacred geometry have much to offer us even on a practical level. Understanding Sacred Geometry Our culture’ forgetfulness of sacred geometry extends so far that many people have never heard of it, and some of those who know the term use it in ways the traditional sacred geometers of the past would hardly recognize. Thus, a few paragraphs on matters of definition may be useful here. The English word “eometry”comes from the Greek geometria, literally “arth measurement”(from ge, “arth,”and metron, “easure”. This points back to the ancient origins of geometry, when the art was used to lay out patterns on the earth in order to measure fields and establish the ground plans for sacred structures. At that time, all geometry was sacred, for two reasons. On the one hand, the Earth itself was understood as a living and holy being, and those who measured it and patterned it recognized their responsibility as mediators between the Earth and the people. Historically we can find echoes of this attitude in the sacred status of boundary stones, in rituals performed at the founding of a city or the building of a temple, and in many other traditions that have endured from the distant past. This attitude had much to do with the origins of feng shui in China, and of similar systems, far less well-known, in the Western world and elsewhere. On the other hand, it was recognized early on that geometry itself offered pathways into the subtle realm of meaning and spirit that we call sacred. The play of geometric form obeys laws that unfold from the nature of experienced reality itself, laws that are not subject to human whims or prejudices. Mastery of those laws provided knowledgeable individuals with tools to reshape the world, both on a physical level-for geometry was the foundation of much of ancient architecture and technology-and on subtler levels as well. Out of this recognition of the sacred possibilities of geometry, an extraordinary tradition of wisdom took shape. It was expressed in many different forms in the cultures that treasured it; the forgotten geometers who planned and built the mighty stone circles of northwestern Europe no doubt understood geometry in very different ways from the temple priests of Egypt, the initiates of the Pythagorean Brotherhood of ancient Greece, the Taoist sages of China, or the master builders of medieval Europe. Their work varied equally; it takes different methods and somewhat different skills to trace out the design of a stone circle, to erect a Gothic cathedral, to work out the proportions of a Renaissance painting, or to teach a new initiate to apply geometrical principles of balance and harmony to his or her own daily life. Still, a common thread of insight runs...(Continues)

Product Details

• Misc. Supplies: 240 pages
• Publisher: Llewellyn Publications (January 8, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0738700517
• ISBN-13: 978-0738700519
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.5 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #454,107 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #91 in Books > Religion & Spirituality > New Age > Divination > Fortune Telling

More About the Author

Born in the gritty Navy town of Bremerton, Washington and raised in the south Seattle suburbs, I began writing about as soon as I could hold a pencil. SF editor George Scithers' dictum that all would-be writers have a million words of so of bad prose in them, and have to write it out, pretty much sums up the couple of decades between my first serious attempt to write a book and my first published book, "Paths of Wisdom", which appeared in 1996. These days I live in Cumberland, Maryland with my spouse Sara; serve as presiding officer -- Grand Archdruid is the official title -- of the Ancient Order of Druids in America (AODA), a Druid order founded in 1912; and write in half a dozen nonfiction fields, nearly all of them focused on the revival of forgotten ideas, insights, and traditions of practice from the rubbish heap of history.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Heavenly Inspired, April 23, 2007

By 

Marco "Energy Consciousness" (Melbourne Australia) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Sacred Geometry Oracle (Misc. Supplies)

I highly recommend this Sacred Geometry Oracle. The cards are fantastic and the companion book helps understand how each symbol may significant to you. This book can help guide you if you are a begineer, regular practioner or advanced.

In nature, we find patterns, designs and structures from the most minuscule particles, to expressions of life discernible by human eyes, to the greater cosmos. These inevitably follow geometrical archetypes, which reveal to us the nature of each form and its vibrational resonances. They are also symbolic of the underlying metaphysical principle of the inseparable relationship of the part to the whole. It is this principle of oneness underlying all geometry that permeates the architecture of all form in its myriad diversity. This principle of interconnectedness, inseparability and union provides us with a continuous reminder of our relationship to the whole, a blueprint for the mind to the sacred foundation of all things created.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars sacred geometry divination, March 14, 2010

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Crystal Gayle (Washington) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Sacred Geometry Oracle (Misc. Supplies)

I am glad someone has finally produced a set of cards with the book for sacred geometry. I especially liked the way both sides of the energy field are addressed as in positive and reversed. However I had hoped for images that were noticeably missing like the flower of life, tree of life, a 9 pointed star. I felt that certain common sacred images should reasonably be expected on a set of sacred geometry.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars What Your Geometry Teacher Should Have Told You, July 6, 2009

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Thomas F. Vallowe "Tom Vallowe" (SF Bay area, CA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Sacred Geometry Oracle (Misc. Supplies)

I remember Geometry as being the second most boring class in high school, Algebra being the worst. I got this oracle because I liked the look of the cards. Not pretty pictures of kings and queens and knights, like a standard tarot deck, but simple geometric forms that kind of glow and reach out to you. The exercises in the enclosed book are simple to do and put me in the mindset of a ancient geometer. With a few basic tools--pencils, straight edge, etc., you can draw all the forms illustrated on these cards. I'm sure you can go deeper into this subject, but for a novice like me, this was great beginning. As for being an oracle, I am not into divination and do not use it as such, so you're on your own as far as that goes. My main gripes are that the box it came in started coming apart on day one, and I had to find another box so I wouldn't lose my cards. I also think that the book was missing a page. This book-card set is not like a tarot deck, but is for those who like a hands-on form of "yoga." If you are into yantras or mandalas, you might give this a try.