Robert Lawlor, Sacred Geometry: Philosophy and Practice, Crossroad, New York, 1982.
The “phenomenal world we perceive,” Lawlor writes, “is best understood as systems of pure pattern, as geometric structures of form and proportion.” The “architecture of physical existence is determined by an invisible, immaterial world of pure form and geometry.” Bernard of Clairvaux, founder of the Cistercian Order, wrote that, “God is length, width, height, and depth.” Within the monasteries and abbeys of the Cistercian Order, Bernard instructed, “there must be no decoration, only proportion.”
To Plato, number is the basis of pattern. Pattern is the basis of form. Form is the basis of matter. To Pythagoras and Plato, the world is an unfoldment of forms. “To enter a temple constructed wholly of invariable geometric proportions,” according to Lawlor, “is to enter an abode of eternal truth. Geometry enables us to pass over the obscurity of material nature…to the luminous regions of perfect reality” and “come into resonance with the universal order.”
The builders of Chares explored the relationships between music, geometry, and architecture. They were aware that “heard vibration could be translated into seen form.” In many religious traditions, the divine is seen as transforming into sound vibration and thus generating the universe. The same patterns of vibration that comprise sound and music form, beneath the surface, the essence of matter as well. Lawlor provides dozens of detailed diagrammatic drawings that illustrate beautifully this unfolding of the inner order of creation.