Sacred Geometry: The Four Faces of God

From Initiation by Elisabeth Haich

"The four sides of the pyramid symbolize the four faces of God, each of which taken alone and by itself manifests the three aspects of the first source, the divinity at rest within itself and standing above all creation...

From every point of the universe God manifests himself four-fold.  In each of the four directions fo the earth and the sky he radiates with a different effect... the winds coming from the four different directions have completely different effects.

• The north wind is dry, cool, with a quieting and paralysing effect.  In many parts of the world it even makes water hard as stone.
• The south wind always brings heat as an arrousing, vitalizing effect.
• The east wind is cool, refreshing.
• The west wind brings warmth and dampness -- in many places rain.  Its effect is fatiguing and soporific.

The Four Faces of God

• The first face - the north face - is fiery and has a vitalizing effect. That's why the south wind brings heat and stimulates living creatures to conceive new life.
• The second - the west face - is airy and cool. It makes everything movable, and that's why the east wind is refreshing.
• The third face of God - his eastern face - is damp, wet, and lukewarm.  It brings heaviness, inertia, warmth, dampness and precipitation, making all living creatures sleepy.  Their consciousness withdraws into their bodies.
• And lastly the fourth face - the south face of God - is cold.  It has a contracting, astringent, crystallizing, materializing effect.  It brings cold and calms the nerves.

"Each face of God, each cardinal point of the vault of heaven, contains within itself the three aspects of the unmanifested divintiy, and so the twelve signs of the zodiac come into being.

The three fiery aspects of the first face of God, of the first group, are revealed in the three constellations called Aries, Leo and Sagittarius.  The Lion is the first manifestation of God and consequently the great father of the entire zodiac.  That's why all three manifestations of the first face of God have a fatherly, life-givine character.

• The Ram - Aries - radiates the fire of youth, the procreative power of the young father who penetrates the bosom of nature, awakens new life, and sets it in motion.  The Ram is the power of spring which in its effect is just as wild and heedless, just as rammish as the ram itself.
• The Lion is the fire of the perfectly developed, dignified and respectable man, the mature father who radiates his creative power, his love and warmth towards all his children as he brings them up in affectionate care.  The Lion is the power of summer.
• The Centaur (Sagittarius) is a being that has grown beyond its animal nature, overcome it physical desires and aimed its consciousness twoards the high goal.

The three aspects of the second group, of the earthly-material face of God are: Taurus, Virgo and Capricornus, or the Bull, the Virgin and the Goat.  All three manifestations of this face of God reveal a motherly character.

• The Bull radiation makes it possible for the divine self, the creative principle, the logos, to become flesh.  The Bull awakens the power of conception in matter - in the female of the species - calling the bride to readiness.
• Virgo - the Virgin - is the spotless queen of heaven, the mother goddess of nature who has never been touched by a male and yet is pregnant with myriad creatures that are born from her divine body.
• The third aspect of the earthly face of God is Capricornus, the Goat.  This animal lives in the region of the hardest matter on earth, stones, rocks and boulders.  The centripetal force of the law of matter cause matter to reach the highest degree of hardness and consequently crystallize.

The three aspects of the third group, the vaporous face of God, are Gemini, Libra and Aquarius, or the Twins, the Balance and the Water Bearer.

• The sign of the Twins carries within itself the two halves of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil... The radiated power of Gemini manifests itself as the urge to learn.
• The radiation of the Libra constellation forces everything into equilibrium.  All the experiences man has collected are laid in the scales of the balance and weighed.
• The constellation Aquarius radiates the knowledge that has been gathered under the sign of the Twins, weighed in the balance, found worthwhile and codified into laws.

The three aspects of the fourth group, the aqueous face of God, are: the Crab, the Eagle (Scorpion) and Fishes, or Cancer, Scorpio and Pisces.

• The Zodiacal sign Crab symbolizes the little water of the hole in which the crab lives.  After it has caught its prey outside, it withdraws into its hole to digest it... The radiated power of the zodiacal sign of the Crab manifests itself as the introspective, self-analysing consciousness of the truth-seeking individual.
• The sign of the Scorpion-Eagle represents the great turning point when the crawling worm is transformed to the high flying eagle, redeemed, a being that has awakened and become conscious in the divine self.
• The fishes [Pisces] dwell in the endless ocean... The effect of the sign of the Fishes is redemption, dissolving away the personal in the impersonal, in the depths of the limitless self, in the divine and indivisible unity of all one being."