The Double Triangle, Hexagon, Hexad, or the Number Six

By George Oliver
Posted by hexnet ::

The following is a transcript of Chapter VI of The Pythagorean Triangle: Or, the Science of Numbers by the Rev. Dr. George Oliver, a noted 19th century English Freemason. I have compiled this from several sources, including the Internet Archive, Google Books, and my own copy of the work. I slightly reworked the layout where necessary, including sort of rejiggering the chapter opening here. I've made several minor typographic modifications as well, such as removing the spaces before semicolons (a form of punctuation the good Doctor seems to have had a particular fondness for).

The rest of the book consists of similar musings on the other natural numbers, up to ten. I do not necessarily agree with Dr. Oliver's views, either on the hexad in particular, or on Christian numerology in general. I certainly don't agree with his cryptodecimalist ontology. But it is nonetheless an interesting treatment of the subject, and I offer it here as a noteworthy historical artifact of antiquarian hexagonal thought.

A PDF version of the full book can be downloaded from our Hexagonal Library.

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Tags:
pythagorean, six, arithmology, platonism, freemasonry, hexad, numerology

Decad as vesica piscis

Posted by hexnet ::
Decad as vesica piscis

Here we see another form of the Pythagorean decad, highlighting its hexagonal nature.

Geometries such as this have been used by people throughout history—Pythagoreans, Freemasons, &c.—to justify decimalism. This is a false understanding of the decad. In both this diagram, as well as in the Tetractys, it is clear that the fundamental organizational principle is hexagonal, not decadian. The concept of ten emanates from the underlying reality of the hexagon—not the other way around.

Tags:
circles, pythagorean, sacred geometry, arithmology, decad, tetractys, vesica piscis