• Lavishly illustrated with hundreds of detailed diagrams and technical illustrations exploring the evolution and importance of the starcut diagram

• Shows how the starcut diagram underlies the shaman’s dance in China, the Vedic Fire Altar in India, Raphael frescoes, labyrinth designs, the Great Pyramid in Egypt, and the building of ancient cities

• Explains how the starcut diagram was used in building and design, how it relates to Pythagoras’s Tetrakys, and how it contains knowledge of the Tree of Life

As Malcolm Stewart reveals in this lavishly illustrated study, the simple square figure of the starcut diagram, created only with circles, has extraordinary geometric properties. It allows you to make mathematically exact measurements and build perfectly true level structures without a computer, calculator, slide rule, plumb bob, or laser level. Sharing his extensive research, along with hundreds of detailed diagrams and technical illustrations, Stewart shows how the starcut diagram was the key to the building of humanity’s first cities and how it underlies many significant patterns and proportions around the world.

The author explains how to create the starcut diagram using circles drawn from the vesica piscis. He shows how it was at the foundation of ancient building and design, illustrating the connections between the diagram and the creation of mandalas and yantras, stained glass windows, architectural ground plans, temples and other sacred buildings, and surveying methods. He also shows how the starcut diagram reveals ancient geometric knowledge of pi, the Fibonacci sequence, the Golden Number, Pythagorean shapes and seals, the power of 108 and other sacred numbers, and magic squares.

Exploring the starcut diagram’s cosmological and theological implications, Stewart explains how it contains knowledge of the Tree of Life and the Kabbalah. He examines how it relates to the Tetraktys, the key teaching device of Pythagoras, and other cosmograms. Demonstrating the ancient relationships between number, geometry, cosmology, and musical harmony, the author shows how the simple shape of the starcut diagram unifies the many threads of sacred geometry into one beautiful mathematical tapestry.

Malcolm Stewart is an author, musician, and designer who has created mosaic, stained glass, landscape, and interior designs for a range of secular and sacred environments. He is a former priest, television producer, UN project director, and administrator for Ockenden Venture, a refugee relief charity. He has lectured widely throughout the UK, Europe, the US, and Canada. He lives in Tilford, Surrey, England.

Acknowledgments

Prologue

1 An Introduction to Sacred Geometry: Who Tastes Knows
2 Unity in the Liberal Arts
3 Opening the Box
4 Altar of the First Fire
5 The Tartans of Pythagoras
6 Pyramid Connections
7 The Sword Master’s Floor Plan
8 The Hidden Geometry of the “Divine Raphael”
9 Guardian Apollo
10 Conjecture
11 Beautiful Diagonals
12 Clues to a Forgotten Lore
13 The Mother of All Pentagons
14 The Area Key
15 The Secret and the Sacred
16 Wheels of Number and Time
17 Powers of 108
18 Ten Pebbles in the Sand
19 Harmony at the Horizon of Being
20 The Shape of Concord
21 The Lyre of Apollo
22 The Puzzle That Drives You Mad
23 Reflections within the Light
24 Inevitable Sufis
25 The Luo Shu and the Limping Dance
26 . . . Finally

Epilogue

appendix
The Starcut Glass Bead Games

Bibliography

Index