Homage to Pythagoras: Rediscovering Sacred Science

Homage to Pythagoras collects essential documents by people at the leading edge of the sacred sciences today. These articles―both scholarly and sympathetic to the Pythagorean perspective―are proof of the contemporary interest in Pythagoras’ philosophy as a living reality and provide a major addition to the field of Pythagorean studies and traditional mathematics. Contents:

• Introduction by Christopher Bamford
• “Ancient Temple Architecture” by Robert Lawlor
• “The Platonic Tradition on the Nature of Proportion” by Keith Critchlow
• “What is Sacred Architecture? by Keith Critchlow
• “Twelve Criteria for Sacred Architecture” by Keith Critchlow
• “Pythagorean Number as Form, Color, and Light” by Robert Lawlor
• “The Two Lights” by Arthur Zajonc
• “Apollo: The Pythagorean Definition of God” by Anne Macaulay
• “Blake, Yeats, and Pythagoras” by Kathleen Raine

About the Authors

ROBERT LAWLOR is the author of Sacred Geometry; Earth Honoring; and Voices of the First Day. After training as a painter and a sculptor, he became a yoga student of Sri Aurobindo and lived for many years in Pondicherry, India, where he was a founding member of Auroville. In India, he discovered the works of the French Egyptologist and esotericist, R. A. Schwaller de Lubicz, which led him to explore the principles and practices of ancient sacred science.

KEITH CRITCHLOW is the author of Order in Space; and Time Stands Still. A painter, Critchlow discovered geometry intuitively. A period of intensive geometric practice and work with Buckminster Fuller led him to recognize that the universal principles of geometry are revealed and confirmed both by the area of design where art and mathematics meet and in the study of nature and ancient and medieval sacred cosmological architecture of temples, cathedrals, and mosques. He has been a senior lecturer at the Architectural Association in London and taught Islamic Art at the Royal College of Art. He has also participated as geometer in various sacred architectural projects, and is a cofounder of Temenos, a journal devoted to the arts and imagination, and Kairos, a society that investigates, studies, and promotes traditional values of art and science.

ARTHUR ZAJONC is Professor of Physics at Amherst College, where his research has concerned the nature of light and the experimental foundations of quantum mechanics. He has also taught and written extensively on interdisciplinary aspects of science, the history of science, culture, and spirituality, especially the works of Goethe and Rudolf Steiner. He is the author Catching the Light and The New Physics and Cosmology, featuring dialogues with the Dalai Lama. He has been a visiting scientist at many laboratories and was a Fulbright professor.

ANNE MACAULAY lives in Scotland where she has, for many years, studied the origins of the alphabet, the history of the guitar, the figure of Apollo, and other mysteries surrounding Pythagorean thought. She has lectured at Research into Lost Knowledge Organization (RILKO) and was a trustee of the Salisbury Center in Edinburgh.

KATHLEEN RAINE was a British poet with an international reputation as a scholar of the imagination. A renowned student of William Blake, a penetrating critic, and a profound autobiographer, she wrote numerous books and articles. Kathleen Raine was a cofounder and the editor of Temenos.