A BEGINNER'S GUIDE TO CONSTRUCTING THE UNIVERSE: THE MATHEMATICAL ARCHETYPES OF NATURE, ART & SCIENCE
Michael S. Schneider
Explores the mathematical principles made visible in flowers, shells, crystals, plants, and the human body, and expressed in the symbolic language of myths and fairytales, in religion, art and architecture.
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"Traditionally, the center is the most honorable place, known to the Greeks as 'the keep of Zeus.' Protector of hearths and boundaries (centers and circumferences) and the source of moral order, Zeus dispensed judgment from the center."
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"Everything seeks unity. The goal of many religions and mythic ordeals is to return to a lost state of Divine Oneness. But we have no need to return to a state of oneness because unity is axiomatic and we already are integrated in it."
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"This knowledge of ourselves as part of a harmonious whole is now dimmed to everyday awareness, but it can be part of a great vision to be reclaimed."
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"Number should not be understood solely as a construction of consciousness, but also as an archetype and thus as a constituent of nature both within and without." Marie Louise vonFranz
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"Only a self-imposed illusion of separateness keeps us from recognizing our own center of awareness and identity with the One"
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"Oh, grant me my prayer, that I may never lose the touch of the one in the play of the many." Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941), Indian poet
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"We experience resonance on a very personal level in our rapport with the people we know and meet… Each of us unconsciously broadcasts the energy of our inner life and receives that with which we are in tune."
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"The perfection of mathematical beauty is such that whatsoever is most beautiful and regular is also found to be most useful and excellent." Sir D'Arcy Wentworth Thompson
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"The one Godhead, secret in all beings, all-pervading, the inner Self of all, presiding over all action, witness, conscious knower and absolute….the One in control over the many,… fashions one seed in many ways." Swetaswatara Upanishad
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"I am One that transorms into Two…I am Two that transforms into Four…I am Four that transforms into Eight…After this I am One again." Egyptian (Hermopolitan) creation myth
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"What nature creates has eternity in it." Isaac Bashevis Singer (1904-1991), American author
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"At the center of our Self, deep within our consciousness, is a calm 'I.' Like the calm 'eye' within a storm, our center is untouched by psychological turbulence. Peaceful, it observes all from the vantage of wisdom. Placid, it is unmoved by the turbulent weather of the surrounding psyche. When you're feeling connected with your center it seems very familiar. It feels like the Self you know best, like who and what you know your Self to be, calm in knowing without thinking. To be centered is not the same as being 'self-centered' or selfish. Instead, it is identity with the deep, divine power that motivates us."
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"Numbers, as archetypal structural constants of the collective unconscious, possess a dynamic, active aspect which is especially important to keep in mind. It is not what we can do with numbers but what they do to our consciousness that is essential." Marie-Louise vonFranz, Jungian psychologist and writer
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"The world is single and it came into being from the center outwards." Joannes Stobaeus (5th century), Greek anthologist
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"Everything an Indian does is in a circle, and that is because the power of the world always works in circles, and everything tries to be round." Black Elk (1863-1950), Native American elder
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"Each circle you see or create is a profound statement about the transcendental nature of the uni-verse."
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"The central secret is to know that the various human passions and feelings and emotions in the human heart are not wrong in themselves; only they have to be carefully controlled and given a higher and higher direction, until they attain the very highest condition of excellence." Vivekananda (1863-1902), Indian spiritual teacher
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"Nature itself rests on an internal foundation of archetypal principles symbolized by numbers, shapes, and their arithmetic and geometric relationships."
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"'Harmony' (from the Greek 'harmonia', signifying 'fitting together') in music, as elsewhere in the cosmos, comes from the reconciliation of opposites by a third element, bringing them all a new unity."
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"Through meditation and self-contemplation we can seek a more subtle center, our higher or deeper self, the power that motivates the actions, emotions, thoughts, and desires. This center of gravity is not in space but in pure awareness, the 'place' in you now aware of these very words."
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"Looking at a circle is like looking into a mirror. We create and respond irresistibly to circles, cylinders, and spheres because we recognize ourselves in them. The message of the shape bypasses our conscious mental circuitry and speaks directly to the quiet intelligence of our deepest being. The circle is a reflection of the world's – and our own – deep perfection, unity, design excellence, wholenes, and divine nature."
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"Even the seasons form a great circle in their changing, and always come back again to where they were…. and so it is in everything where Power moves." Black Elk, Native American elder
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"A common theme in worldwide mythology is the human as microcosm, a miniature model of the whole universe…this view was long considered a key to the understanding of the Self. The ancient philosophers saw their inner lives arranged according to nature's own harmonies, for in nature, geometry, and their spiritual lives they discovered the same principles."
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"The archetypal principles of number manifest themselves as forms around us. Circles and spheres, triangles, squares, pentagons, spirals, and the five Platonic volumes represent principles that shape the world."
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"The union of the mathematician with the poet, fervor with measure, passion with correctness, this surely is the ideal." William James (1842-1910), American psychologist and philosopher
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