Reveals the ancient mathematical principles refuting the notion of the solar system as an accidental creation * Reveals how ancient civilizations encoded their secret knowledge of the sky in mythology, music, and sacred measures * Shows how modern culture can benefit from the ancient astronomical and astrological worldview based on number * Shows the role of ratio and harmonic proportions in the creation of the material world Humanity's understanding of number was deeper and richer when the concept of creation was rooted in direct experience. But modern sensibility favors knowledge based exclusively on physical laws. We have forgotten what our ancestors once knew: that numbers and their properties create the forms of the world. Ancient units of measurement held within them the secrets of cosmic proportion and alignment that are hidden by the arbitrary decimal units of modern mathematical thinking. Sacred numbers arose from ancient man's observations of the heavens. Just as base ten numbers relate to the fingers and toes in terms of counting, each celestial period divides into the others like fingers revealing the base numbers of planetary creation. This ancient system made the art of counting a sacramental art, its units being given spiritual meanings beyond just measurement. The imperial yard, for example, retains a direct relationship to the Equator, the length of a day and a year, and the angular values of Earth, Moon, and Jupiter. The ancients encoded their secret knowledge of the skies within mythology, music, monuments, and units of sacred measurement. They understood that the ripeness of the natural world is the perfection of ratio and realized that the planetary environment--and time itself--is a creation of number.
Four stars are for the concepts the book presents, not because it is particularly well written. It is interesting and develops some incredible relationships. In particular, matrices can be constructed using celestial periods which yield musical harmonics, and that the stability of our solar system is based on an intricate system of energies from all the other planets and our moon. But... Although I've got a degree in math, I'm not real familiar with astronomy. In some chapters, I had to stop several times, get online, find out the point this author was trying to make, then go back to this book once I figured it out. It was a lot of work, and it didn't need to be this difficult to present. Here's a prime example from page 38: "As seen in the last chapter, the practical year is divided into five equal pieces by the eightfold, Fibonacci-based synodic year of Venus." This could have easily read, "Five Venus orbits equal eight Earth orbits, and this 8:5 ratio approximates the Golden Mean." Whew! It may not sound as intellectual, but you don't have to re-read it five times to get the meaning. On a positive aspect, the figures (drawings) showing relationships between orbital periods, days, etc. were excellent and a great aid in visualizing the relationships. Even with the difficulties, it is well worth reading.
Astonishing
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 17 years ago
An incredible work. This is the type of information we should have been studying in school, not the nonsense that passes for today's education.
Was the solar syatem designed?
Published by Thriftbooks.com User , 19 years ago
Why do the "Intelligent Design" people put all their effort into demolishing a superior system of biology. The best indications of design are in the numerical facts of the solar system where the golden mean is found and the numbers of the orbit of the moon match those of the orbit of Jupiter. Richard Heath, continuing a path pioneered by John Mitchell and others presents facts that are hard to digest. Yes, I would like read a debunking of what is presented here, but I have a feeling that I will not get one. The book is sometimes difficult to follow, and one must read some parts more than once to understand them. Constantly one feels that this cannot be. The measurements of the bodies in our solar system must be just happenstance. They cannot fit together in a numeric system as presented here. So is Heath twisting the numbers? Apparently not. Then what does it mean that this is so? Certainly this is a challenge for science, but it actually an even bigger one for the dogmatists of our age. The so-called "Intelligent Design" people will not accept this because to do so requires an acceptance of older gods.
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