The Projective Temple
These pieces, below, are the first I’ve seen to denote how others considered that projective means, from a single/central form, would be used by Solomon (and perhaps other ancient temple-builders).
This author takes the liberty to assume the ‘central projective form’ was a cubic structure, connected to the tree of life and star-of-david / vesica progenitors.
I find the language of ‘light/shadow’ (lucis/umbra) to speak of gradations of light/rainbow, and the counterpart shadow — and that these are parable, for refined and unrefined matter. Consider how the same could be seen via those stones which pass light – or refract, absorb, or block it. The absorption of light may then relate to the Kmer/black of the Nile, Nuit and thus fertility –> Womanhood; and the masculine thus transmitting the light that impregnates. Just shooting from the hip…
Working out the male/female vesica in projective illuminations [from atop a pillar] seems to not be any great leap of the imagination.
“Anthanasius Kircher (1601–1680) was a Jesuit scholar & polymath employed by the Collegio Romano whose breadth of inquiry spawned a host of books on topics ranging across fields diverse as magnetism, linguistics, optics, music, mathematics & geology. A ‘pioneer’ in the attempt to reconstruct the lost art of reading Egyptian hieroglyphics, he compiled his 20 years’ research drawing from Chaldean astrology, Pythagorean mathematics, Greek & Latin mythology, alchemy, and the Hebrew Kabbalah into the 4-folio volume, Oedipus Aegypticus (c. 1652-4).
Providing one of the earliest renditions of the Tree of Life exhibiting the structure & symmetry of a projection, Kircher elaborated upon an earlier version of the diagram provided by a Christian convert from Judaism, Phillipe d’Aquin (1625), by designating which of the 22 letters corresponded to each of the pathways interconnecting its’ 10 sefirot.
Kircher had already written one of earliest accounts on projecting images in his Ars Magna Lucis et Umbrae (“The Great Art of Light and Shadow”, 1646) wherein he suggested such methods were used by the priesthood of Solomon’s Temple and warns against their unscrupulous abuse. As all that’s required to project the 3-d skeleton of a cube (or of any solid) is enough light to cast its shadow upon a 2-d plane, the technology for obtaining such a matrix was well within the reach of ancient geometers.”
Quoted from here. The full original of this work of Ars Magna Lucis et Umbrae is hosted here. Most printed plates from the book can be found [semi-strewn] amid this photostream.
