Table of Contents

Introduction

IN QUEST OF THE CANON

1 THE HEAVENLY CITY AS ETERNAL STANDARD

The Cosmic Temple • The New Jerusalem • The Twelve Hides of Glastonbury • The New Jerusalem in Stonehenge • The Pattern in the Heavens • Contructing the New Jerusalem • Measuring the Courts of the City

2 NUMBER IN SACRED SCIENCE

The Numbers of the Canon • Gematria: The Names and Numbers of God • Symbolic or Sacred Geometry • Sacred Geometry in Dürer’s Melencolia • Music and Proportion • A Circle of Perpetual Choirs

3 NUMBER AND MEASURE

Lengths of Ancient Units of Measure • Summary of the Earth’s Dimensions • The Priority of the Foot • Astronomy


4 THE CITIES OF PLATO

The 5,040 Citizens of Magnesia • From Circle to Square: The City Brought to Earth • Plato’s Secrecy • Atlantis • The Measures of Atlantis • The Problem of the Plain • Why Atlantis Fell • Plato’s Cosmos and the Wanderings of the Soul • The Music of the Heavenly Wheels • The Numerical Creation Myth of Timaeus • The Harmonic Composition of the World Soul • The Number of the Soul


5 SYMBOLIC NUMBER

864, the Foundation Number • 3,168, the Perimeter of the New Jerusalem • 1,224, the Number of Paradise, and the 153 Fishes in the Net • 1,080, the Lunar Number • 666, the Solar Number and the Number of the Beast • 1,746, the Number of Fusion • Sacred Names from the Dimensions of the New Jerusalem

6 THE ANCIENT AND FUTURE COSMOLOGY

Heavenly Jerusalem, Its Invocation and Modern Function

Index of Names
Index of Numbers

About the Author

John Michell lives in London.

Reviews

“John Michell’s The Dimensions of Paradise is inarguably among the most important Gnostic transmissions of recent generations. With his candid, uncomplicated style, John has made widely available the visions, the laws, and the numbers held within pure geometry and which integrate earth and sky, movement and form, cosmos and mankind.”
*Robert Lawlor, author of Sacred Geometry: Its Philosophy and Practice and Voices of the First Day*

“John Michell has produced one of the primary texts for understanding the number system that encoded the prehistoric world view. He reveals how sacred geometry, myth, gematria, and the structure of numbers created a big picture lost soon after Plato, a knowledge replaced by derivative religious and materialistic ideas. The Dimensions of Paradise is an essential key to comprehending monuments such as the Great Pyramid and Stonehenge, but it also provides an initiatory journey into the ancient mind itself.”
*Richard Heath, author of Sacred Number and the Origins of Civilization*

"As usual, this is a dense, yet inspiring, read and one that has some practical nuggets in it for those who are looking for a kind of three-dimensional sacred geometry they can apply to daily life."
*Institute of Hermetic Studies, Mar 2008*

" . . . a top pick for New Age libraries interested in sacred geometry."
*The Midwest Book Review, April 08*

"A must for anyone looking for the science hidden within the matrix of life."
*Rahasya Poe, Lotus Guide magazine, July 2009*

“. . . most intriguing of books. Recommended.”
*EarthRites.org, May 2011*