THE ELEMENTS OF ASTROGEOMANCY (I)

Towards a Recreation of the Megalithic Spiritual Science 

© Xavier de la Huerga 2023

Context – The Primordial Continuum of Knowledge and the Unified Perception Mode

As it has been explained somewhere else in this blog, astrogeomancy attempts the reintegration of the elements making up the continuum of knowledge that was applied millennia ago by high megalithic cultures as the result of a unified perception mode; very different from the current perception mode of human beings. This primordial continuum of knowledge can only be understood today by our modern minds as a synthesis of several related but distinct scientific disciplines with aesthetic and spiritual dimensions integrated. However, it was in fact originally apprehended as a multi-faceted seamless whole, going beyond what we today call science, art and spirituality. Following the clues an solid proofs left behind by our ancestors - their monuments, mainly -, astrogeomancy attempts to recreate the unified perception mode behind this primordial continuum of knowledge through reverse engineering, studying and implementing simultaneously all those aspects we perceive today as separate fields.

The revolutionary discoveries of psychiatrist, neurophysiologist, historian and philosopher Iain McGilchrist on the roles of the two brain hemispheres, lends support to the existence of a "unified perception mode" amongst megalithic builders.

It is important to fix the mind's eye steadfastly onto the concept of a primordial continuum of knowledge not just as a synthesis of different elements blended together, but as a pre-existent whole without any fissures, that however displays a number of different facets or qualities pertaining to the greater body; a gestalt that not only transcends the sum of its parts, but antecedes it. During millennia, awareness of this continuum has been disintegrating, losing its original cohesion and breaking apart due to the loss of the unified perception mode among humans. 

The above realisation will help us to better understand the relationships, correspondences, connections and reciprocities - frequently acausal - between what the modern mind only perceives as a cluster of fortuitous coincidences and disconnected data, present throughout many of the enigmatic megalithic designs.

The Quadrivium

In the western world the megalithic primordial continuum of knowledge survived into history in a fragmented and diminished form through the Pythagorean schools and Plato's Academy. It eventually surfaced at the start of the Middle Ages by the hand and quill pen of Abbot Cassiodorus with the name of Quadrivium. From his codification of the ancient teachings into various encyclopedic compilations (Instituciones), the Quadrivium was established as the core curriculum for European universities until the XIV century.

This curriculum was centred around the Seven Liberating Arts, so called because they were  considered essential for the inner cultivation of free-thinking human beings. Of these seven arts, the Quadrivium constituted the advanced stage, consisting of arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and harmony - nowadays known as music theory or musicology.

Wrongly translated as "four ways", the precise meaning of Quadrivium is "quadruple way", or "place where four ways meet", which points back in time to the underlying unity found in the vision and methodology of the high megalithic cultures. Therefore, the Quadrivium was taught as a whole, implying that it was not possible to achieve a proper, deep comprehension of any of the four arts in isolation from the other three. Their simultaneous implementation on megalithic constructions exemplifies in the practice hundreds of cases in which these four disciplines weave themselves into a coherent whole.

A woman teaching geometry during the Middle Ages

The four arts/sciences that make up the Quadrivium are a very convenient starting point to elucidate the elements of astrogeomancy, even though many megalithic monuments encompass other disciplines such as metrology and geodesy and occasionally include a mysterious component that it is not easily explainable. We will have a look at those additional elements in the second part of this article.

One must be aware that we are not dealing here with the modern, conventional, utilitarian versions of these four disciplines, but with their ancient forms through which it is sought their capacity to trigger the spiritual revelatory experience, and with this transcendent approach, the holistic understanding of them all. As Plato tells us towards the end of Book VII of The Republic; “...when all these studies reach the point of inter-communion and connection with one another, and come to be considered in their mutual affinities, then, will the pursuit of them have a value for our objectives; otherwise there is no profit in them”. 

Be it as repository of prehistoric lore through the Pythagorean oral tradition, via his Egyptian contacts, or else as an original rediscoverer of a fragment of the prisca sapientia; Plato knew that it was vital for the education of healthy human beings to reassemble these four pieces of the scattered cosmic puzzle.

Each of the arts/sciences of the Quadrivium was portrayed as a female. Perhaps a memory of origins in the distant past?

The Four Convergent Sacred Arts

Arithmetic.  Beyond calculus and the purely quantitative functions of number, there are its qualitative characteristics, the dynamics of interrelations and proportions, the regularity and harmony of ratios. Sacred arithmetic investigates number in its abstract purity, its symbolic dimension leads us to a deep understanding of reality, of the form or archetype of the good. As Plato expounds in The Republic; “...until they see the nature of numbers with the mind only; not like merchants or retail-traders, with a view to buying or selling... but for the sake of the soul herself; and because this will be the easiest way for her to pass from becoming to Truth and Being." The Pythagorean axiom; "all is number" illustrates the realisation that the deepest substrate of reality and the language through which nature becomes intelligible is number.

Geometry. Again through Plato's dialogues and also Pythagoras' teachings, is emphasised the capacity of geometry to take us to the ultimate truth, beauty and goodness, beyond its utilitarian and mundane applications. The description of geometry as "the art of the ever-true", defines this eminently spiritual perspective, which is also known nowadays as sacred geometry. In the context of megalithic culture, geometry takes on its true etymological meaning, since it is applied to measuring the earth and to define the placement and orientation of monuments at a geodetic scale. Thus we can rightly define geometry as "number in space"

Astronomy. In antiquity until the Middle Ages, astronomy was identical with astrology, in an age when the prevalent and very universal paradigm was animism and the universe was alive, possessed intelligence and was filled with purpose. In the animist cosmovision, the heavens are populated with archetypes embodied in the planetary and stellar orbs, cosmic forces - goddesses, gods, titans - interact with human beings and through their movements generate cycles, calendrical computations, sacred festivals and the arrangement of society around them. The rising and setting of celestial bodies produce alignments to topographic features, providing the geometric and angular parameters for the orientation of settlements and temples that spring up as a reflection of heaven on earth. The role of sunlight is sacred; physical sunlight being a consequence and manifestation of divine light. It is fitting to define sacred astronomy as "number in movement, both in time and space".

Harmony. The length of a flute, or a tensed string, the dimensions and shape of an instrument, determine its capacity and type of resonance, establishing a direct relationship between space, form and sound generation. On the other hand, there is also a relationship between sound and movement - hence, time -, since audible vibration is oscillation and this in turn, is endowed with velocity, or frequency and amplitude. The sacred science of harmony, is centred not only in defining and understanding the numerical relationships existing between musical intervals, but in investigating and discovering those which are most harmonious and produce sympathetic resonances¹ connected with astronomical phenomena, geometric patterns and numerical relationships; that is, with the other three fields of study encompassed by the Quadrivium.

1 -  Sympathetic resonance is defined in musical terms as a harmonic phenomenon in which a vibratory body in a state of rest responds to external vibrations with which it has a harmonic similarity. A guitar string, for example, when it is plucked and produces a note, causes a vibration in any other strings tuned to that same note, even across higher and lower octaves.

The Elements of Astrogeomancy (II) - In the forthcoming second part of this article, another key element of the astrogeomantic megalithic canon is explored; metrology, together with its astounding geodetic and musical harmonic correspondences.

Astrogeomancy Courses in 2024

The Starseeders Encounter for a New Earth and the Restoration of the World Soul

 

ASTROGEOMANCY, GEOMANCY 

AND FENG SHUI 

Survival and Universality of the Prehistoric Science of Space Harmonisation

© Xavier de la Huerga 2023

The word astrogeomacy is a neologism formed by three particles; astro and geo - referring to the stars and the earth – and mancy, from the Greek word manteia, which is commonly translated as "method to divine the future”. However, in the context of the word astrogeomancy, this last particle has another meaning.

Divination in Time – Divination in Space

Geomancy, literally means "earth divination" and is broadly defined as the art of divining future events by means of markings, figures and lines randomly formed upon the surface of the earth or by the interpretation of landscape features. Thus, it would be logical to think of astrogeomancy as a variation of geomancy that uses astrology or astronomy. However, astrogeomancy has nothing to do with divining the future and everything with recovering the memory of our prehistoric past, it concerns itself with the reconstruction, study and application of the knowledge used to create the megalithic monuments and, most crucially, with the reactivation of the perceptual mode and consciousness possessed by their architects; a mode of unified perception with the cosmos that allows the human being to act as an agent of evolutive consciousness; a holistic awareness to which humankind is returning, as this age of exacerbated materialism and dehumanizing technologies gives way to a deeper understanding of the inextricable bond between spirituality and nature.

A geomancer from the Dogon tribe (Mali) interprets the patterns of a geomantic grid originated from the tracks left by a fox. In the worldview of ancestral cultures the concept of randomness doesn't exist, every event is sacred. (Image: www.earthtreasurevase.org)

The table above portrays the 16 geomantic figures into which the ancient shamanic system of divination evolved within the Western hermetic tradition. (Image: www.psychicscience.org)

On the other hand and since the mid 20^th century, the meaning of geomancy has been extended to encompass practices like dowsing or radiesthesia, a form of “divination in space” commonly centred on the subsoil or on the human body for therapeutic ends. Likewise, so-called ley lines, lung mei (dragon paths) or telluric currents and the attendant concept of a planetary grid formed by those invisible energy lines and embodying the concept of a subtle spiritual body for the Earth, also fall nowadays under the term geomancy.

In the same way, the disciplines of vaastu shastra and feng shui are commonly referred to as Indian and Chinese geomancy, respectively. They both have prehistoric origins and share with astrogeomancy several elements that are distinctive of the megalithic methodology; such as the fusion of sacred geometry, astronomy and metrology together with a multidimensional use of number and the integration of structures within the surrounding landscape and geology. 

Angkor Vat is the biggest temple in the world (162 hectares and more than a thousand buildings). It was built following the canon and methodology of Vaastu Shastra. The transcendentally beautiful positioning of the Sun during the equinoxes shows the astrogeomantic principle of alignment, simultaneously astronomical and spiritual (Imagen:©1999 Santha Faiia. wwwhttps://grahamhancock.com).

Feng Shui and Chi

Feng shui (wind water) considers the omnipresence of Chi – a subtle energy that affects human beings and is susceptible of modification – as a starting point for the analysis and subsequent prescription of a geographic place or habitable space, with the purpose to harmonize and optimize its use. The principles of feng shui have been utilised during millennia to locate, design and build all the capital cities of China, its temples, sacred enclosures, palaces, tombs, community spaces, agricultural plots, roads. Its origins are fused with those of Taoism, 4,000 years ago at the very least.

The concept of Chi is not easily explainable to the modern mind dominated by the left cerebral hemisphere and spiritually buried under the paradigm of scientific materialism, from which it is encouraged to distrust its intuition. Chi is mostly spoken of as a force or energy, although the original methodology of feng shui seems to be describing something more akin to a morphic resonance field, when it tells us that in order to harmonize and balance Chi, the strategy to follow is eminently astronomical, topographic and geometric, which it is then rounded off by an interpretation based on cosmological and mumerical archetypes.

(Above) Someone in China, 2.300 years ago, forged a spoon out of magnetite and thus was born the magnetic compass, which was exclusively used for Feng Shui until the XI century. (Below) A later example of a geomantic Feng Shui compass with seven concentric rings that contain a profusion of spatial-temporal information, as well as directional, astronomical, astrological and philosophical formulae. (Images: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_compass)

Feng shui seeks an alignment with the cycles of the Sun, Moon, planets, the circumpolar stars and other constellations and, within certain modalities (such as the flying stars school), astrology is also combined. This celestial and temporal dimension is conjoined to the earthly and spatial plane by careful evaluation of the surrounding landscape, taking into account the shapes, contours and geological elements of the place; the topographic features are interpreted metaphorically in terms of different directional qualities of Chi; the azure dragon, the white tiger, etc. Both the terrestrial and astronomical factors possess complex numerological and archetypal inter-relations, which are schematically depicted in cosmograms; numerico-geometric representations of the cosmos that bear witness to the extreme antiquity of feng shui. 

Two versions of the Luo Shu “River Map”cosmogram. Beneath its apparent simplicity lie many layers of meaning in geometric and numerological key.

Conclusion

Both in vaastu shastra and feng shui, we can see fragments of that mode of unified perception so characteristic of the high cultures of antiquity who built astonishing megalithic monuments to harmonise, spiritualise and beautify the landscape. A worldview close to animism in its capacity to hear the silent voice of the Earth and resonate with its invisible vital forces, whilst at the same time partaking of the most exact scientific methodology in order to track astronomical patterns, compute calendrical cycles and construct huge, precise geometries across the planet. Astrogeomancy is therefore, concerned with harmonising not only inhabited spaces, but our collective home - the Earth – and the microcosmic spark within the human soul. Without doubt, its study can help us recover the great matrix of forgotten wisdom that allows us to understand empirically a more poetic and esoteric definition of Astrogeomancy; the ancient spiritual art and science of alignment between Heaven and Earth.

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Starseeders Encounter, Ecuador. June 2024