The Venus Blueprint

by Richard Merrick

  The Rosslyn Magic Ratio

  Immediately after reading the Mitchells’ press release in 2005 about Rosslyn’s musical cubes, I sent an introductory email to Stuart expressing my music perception theory and keen interest in his Rosslyn discovery. We began to correspond, and it was through him that I first learned of the angels and dragons carved into the pillars. Suggesting these symbols might have been intended to explain the 13:8 orbital resonance of Venus, I thought the chapel could offer evidence for the existence of some ancient harmonic science used in building temples.

  It was this resonance symbolism that led me to consider that the chapel’s dimensions might also hold a clue. I thought they might symbolize something else or perhaps enhance the chapel’s acoustics. Finding the chapel’s dimensions on www.RosslynChapel.org.uk, I began to look for harmonic proportions in its design (Fig. 2).

  FIGURE 2. Rosslyn dimensions balance outside to inside.

  Measuring the width dimensions first, there are 40.5 feet outside, 36 feet inside, and 18 feet across the inner choir area. These seemed innocent enough until I noticed their overall proportion of 18 / 36 / 40.5 was the ordered and repeating sequence 0.012345679. Thinking it might be a coincidence, I next divided the length dimensions of 72 feet inside by 36 feet from the center then 81 feet outside to find the same ratio only doubled. Simplifying this to the fraction 1/81, I found that 0.012345679 was actually the proportion of one foot to the total aboveground length. Assuming this to be some kind of numeric symbolism intended by the chapel’s designers, I named it the Rosslyn Magic Ratio.

  Through this ratio, I hypothesized the inner and outer dimensions of the chapel had been intended as a symbol of balance or harmony. It seemed to me that Rosslyn chapel had been designed as a kind of spiritual transformer to harmonize the outer cosmos with the inner spirit.

  Using powers of the Rosslyn Magic Ratio, I then divided a musical octave into eighty-one equal steps to see if I could find some musical symbolism or acoustical property that might have been behind the chapel’s peculiar design. Naming this octave tuning method Eighty-one Arithmetic Equal Temperament (81-AET), I collaborated with longtime friend Dan Reed to tune his piano to this temperament in order to experience directly its resonant qualities. What we found was 81-AET favored both the resonance of sixths and thirds as well as the consonance of fifths and fourths, creating an auditory sense of purity. I wondered, could this be the purpose of the Rosslyn Magic Ratio in the design?

  Through further research and experiments, I learned more about the Rosslyn Magic Ratio and how numbers can symbolize harmonic properties in nature. I even found this ratio was related to an “eye” resonance pattern surrounding the interval of a major sixth, the most resonant interval in music. This in turn led me toward the development of Harmonic Interference Theory, a set of thirty-four principles that explains music perception as a pattern-matching process between external wave patterns and identical patterns evolved in the human body and brain.

  As unlikely as it may sound, it was the Rosslyn Magic Ratio and angel-dragon symbolisms in the pillars of Rosslyn chapel that led me to conclude music perception functions as an inside-outside transform, just as the chapel itself seemed to be doing. Rosslyn chapel was the philosophical clue that helped me discover my theory of perception.

  Twin Beehives

  One of the most important things I found while studying the acoustical properties of Rosslyn was the importance of multiples of three. The outer length of the chapel is nine squared or eighty-one feet (9 times 32), while its inner length measures seventy-two feet (or 9 times 23). Since both of these dimensions share a common factor in nine, I thought it might be an important part of the chapel’s symbolism. I thought this for several reasons.

  First, by tradition the Chinese consider three (the square root of nine) to be a very lucky number, so build their temples in harmonic rings of nine, eighteen, twenty-seven, and eighty-one. In Hindu astrology there are also nine planet yantras, while nine is strongly associated with the Chinese dragon. The area of Hong Kong called Kowloon even means nine dragons, which is why they hold the annual dragon boat races there (something I had the pleasure of attending in 1988). There are nine Greek muses, nine lives of a cat, happiness on cloud nine, the spiral glyph of nine, and the list goes on and on. Nine has historically symbolized a state of supreme bliss and harmonic centeredness.

  More significantly, while researching the physics of music perception years earlier, I had discovered that number nine is also important in the physics of harmonics. What I found was the ninth wave partial actually intersects or interferes with the prime resonant frequency in a vibrating container to create a central axis of resonance for harmonic formation.

  By analyzing patterns of harmonic interference, I discovered that a frequency exactly nine times faster than its prime resonant frequency would naturally coincide with every point of maximum resonance and damping, whether in a vibrating string or some other vibrating medium. All other harmonic waves would then balance symmetrically around this ninth wave partial axis, sharing energy in their harmonic orbits much like the planets of our solar system share their gravitational field around the Sun. For this reason, I decided to name both the ninth wave partial and its corresponding ninth scale step the Harmonic Center. As it concerned Rosslyn, I thought the stave angel might be pointing to the centerline of the treble staff to identify it as the Harmonic Center.

  For instance, take the key of A major in which the ninth harmonic partial becomes the ninth scale step B. From earlier discussions, you will recall that the centerline pointed to by the stave angle is also B between A and C. Since nine is also a common factor in the dimensions of the chapel, the designers of Rosslyn may have been calling out the importance of the ninth as the Harmonic Center for the prime resonant frequency of A. In this way, number nine and note B would both be symbols of resonance alluding to the Harmonic Center of the staff.

  But there was one other reason I thought the stave angel’s B was a clue about the chapel’s design. Just prior to my visit to the chapel in 2010, workers in the Rosslyn restoration project had discovered two man-made stone beehives built into the roof of the chapel on either side of the Shekinah Pillar directly above the Earl and Prince Pillars. They found that real bees had used the hives for centuries by entering through a small hole carved into the shape of a five-petaled rose.

  Learning of this, I could not help wondering if these beehives might be another clue that “Bee” was the point of balance, symmetry, and resonance in the chapel. Could they again be referring to the middle tone B of the stave angel? And could this have something to do with the dimensions of the chapel, particularly at the pillars where both the stave angel and the beehives are located?

  As I began studying the historical association between ancient religions and bees, this hypothesis seemed to make more and more sense. Bees are considered by many ancient cultures to be transcendental creatures. For example, the region of northern Egypt stretching from the Delta to Memphis was known as “Ta-Bitty,” or “the land of the bee.” Other civilizations based their mythology on a utopian land of milk and honey, considered to be the most abundant and fertile place imaginable. Bees were symbols of fertility not just in life, but also in the afterlife.

  On the walls of Egyptian tombs, bees are portrayed with offerings of honey for important Egyptian deities. Honey was considered the nectar of the gods and used for medicinal purposes, while beeswax was used by medicine men and women to create effigies used in rituals. Ramses III was said to have offered fifteen tons of honey to the Nile god Hapi in the twelfth century BC. Believed to travel with the dead even into the afterlife, sealed jars of honey were placed next to sarcophagi as food for the soul.

  Venus and corresponding goddesses were also associated with bees. In the Christian Bible, Melchizedek brought three gifts for communion to the patriarch Abraham, all said to be from the planet Venus. One gift was a beehive. The Pythagoreans also worshipped bees as the sacred creatures of Aphr
odite, an association that continued with Roman Venus.

  This tradition migrated into Europe with the Frankish Merovingian rulers of Gaul, who embroidered bees on their purple robes and decorated the canopies of their thrones with gigantic figures of these insects. Visitors to the Vatican will even find bees carved into the wooden canopy overlooking the tomb of St. Peter in the Basilica as a symbol of everlasting life.

  These cultures and civilizations knew something mostly forgotten today. Bees are an essential fertilizer of plants and as such are critical to animal and human survival. At the same time, ancient cultures recognized bees as musical creatures since they create a buzzing sound while performing their pollinating duties. Bumblebees even sing to help themselves fly.

  It is a fact that bumblebees have a resonance chamber that helps them lift off and remain airborne. This feature is believed to overcome the fact that their tiny wings are aerodynamically too small to lift their oversized bodies. Using resonance to supercharge the air beneath their wings, these hefty insects fly by using tiny vortices to provide extra lift.

  A bee’s buzz might also explain their honeycomb pattern. On a vibrated surface, hexagonal cymatic patterns form when the fifth harmonic partial is combined with the fundamental to create a minor sixth. If bees create this cymatic pattern on the surface of their hive, it may well act as a resonant template to guide them in building their hexagonal grid.

  As a harmonic interval of five to one and musical minor sixth, this hexagonal grid represents the ratio 8:5 equal to 1.6, which is very close to the golden ratio of 1.618033. In this way the bee’s honeycomb corresponds to the golden sections in Venus’s orbital resonance pattern with Earth. Could it be, I wondered, that some harmonic association like this was known to exist between bees and the planet Venus that led to their symbolic association?

  While it has yet to be proven that cymatic patterning acts as an architectural template for beehive construction, it is certainly possible that a symbolic fertility connection between Venus and bees based on resonant patterning could have existed in ancient times. Assuming this, the question becomes: Was this symbolism intended at Rosslyn? If B and Bee really were used together as a symbol of resonance for the ninth or Harmonic Center of the treble staff, it would not only confirm the Mitchells’ interpretation of the stave angel but also connect it to the beehives and nine factor found in the dimensions of the chapel.

  Continuing this logic, the twin beehives balanced on either side of the Shekinah Pillar in the ceiling would have been intended as a pun explaining how nature’s fertility center is located at the Harmonic Center or “B” between the two beehive pillars A and C. This would have then identified the middle Shekinah Pillar as the resonant Harmonic Center of the chapel and thus the point of maximum fertility.

  If this was indeed the designer’s intent, then we can draw several more conclusions. First, Rosslyn might actually be the birthplace of the five-line treble staff centered on B, now standard for all written music. It would address musicologists’ concern that the treble clef was not yet in use during the fifteenth century. After all, the treble (or triple) clef had to start somewhere, so why not with the treble pillars in Rosslyn?

  Second, the chapel would have been designed to teach harmonic principles of resonance and balance through a fusion of acoustical, geometric, and symbolic elements. This would be in keeping with many ancient religions and Gnostic practices, such as sacred geometry, astrology, and numerology, which were once unified through music and harmonic theory.

  And third, since this symbolic connection of honeybees to Venus and the Hebrew Shekinah stretches so far back in time, the design of the chapel must have been based on much older knowledge. Sinclair and Hay could not have invented the underlying design of Rosslyn chapel. Instead they must have reproduced it from some ancient model or template.

  CHAPTER 2

  Womb of Resonance

  In a series of email exchanges prior to my trip, the Mitchells had informed me of three stone carvings in Rosslyn that resembled giant microphones. Stuart sent me a link to a 360-degree panoramic view of the altar, with a note to look closely at three large carvings projecting downward from the arches at the eastern end of the chapel. Upon careful inspection, I could see what he was talking about. There were three termination points above the Holy of Holies area that were in direct alignment with three rows of pillars running the length of the chapel.

  The carvings really did look something like microphones. Each “microphone head” was partially hollow and covered with an ornamental stone pattern suggestive of a windscreen. Yet each microphone was carved a little differently, one even bearing the face of the Green Man character. All shared the same underlying geometry that connected them to the arches and musical cubes suspended above the pillars.

  Since the microphones were termination points for all of the pillars and arches, it did seem plausible to me that they might be more than mere decoration. It seemed they might be intended as sound resonators (not unlike real microphones), capable of picking up sound and resonating it throughout the entire stone chapel. Conversely they might do the exact opposite, propagating any sound resonating in the chapel and focusing it in the Holy of Holies, like speakers. Either way, they seemed purposeful in design.

  In later discussions, I learned that Tommy thought the microphones could correspond to the three musical notes pointed to by the stave angel. This seemed logical since the stave angel points to what would be line B and spaces A and C in the treble clef. Given the earlier association of A, B, and C with the three pillars, there may well be an additional association of these musical notes with the three microphones.

  But could they be something more than pure symbol? Could they have something to do with the acoustical and geometrical tuning of the space inside the chapel, once again centered on the Shekinah?

  Chapel Tuning

  Returning to my earlier work on Rosslyn’s harmonic proportions, I decided to determine which A, B, and C frequencies would resonate best within the chapel and thus be an acoustical match for its dimensions. I began by analyzing a laser scan of the chapel’s interior, just created as part of a joint project between Historic Scotland and the Glasgow School of Art Digital Design Studio. Since many different dimensions had been attributed to Rosslyn in the past, this laser scan was the first high-precision measurement of the chapel’s inner dimensions and geometry (Fig. 3).

  FIGURE 3. Rosslyn tuned to resonate horizontally and damp vertically

  Overlaying the harmonic interference curve I had developed in my earlier music perception study, I identified the point of maximum resonance inside the chapel to be located at the east end of the high choir loft—exactly where the high ceiling stops and the lower arches and center pillars begin. Needless to say, I was surprised to find the correlation of this Gaussian curve to a fifteenth-century chapel, especially since mathematician Carl Gauss was not born until 1777. It suggested the inner choir area of the chapel had been intentionally designed as a resonance chamber to reflect and amplify sound waves in a horizontal direction inside the chapel.

  But in studying the height dimension of the choir, I also found a deadening or damping effect. The 44.5-foot height of the choir forms a golden ratio to the chapel length and width, making the height-to-length ratio equal to 72 feet/44.5 feet 1.618. Since the overall interior width is half the length at thirty-six feet and the choir half again at eighteen feet, sound waves are allowed to reflect and resonate in the horizontal direction, but then inhibited in the vertical direction. This is due to the fact that the golden ratio height proportion damps out echoes that might otherwise form in the stone chapel. In this way, the chapel represents an ideal resonance chamber where spoken words and music can propagate with the greatest possible clarity.

  Given such an acoustically balanced design, I began to wonder about the prime resonant frequency of the chapel. If I could determine this, I would know which reference pitch and musical tuning would fit best inside its dimensions and t
hus be able to deduce the three specific frequencies of the microphones, pillars, stave angel, and beehives.

  Using the formula for the speed of sound at room temperature, I calculated the chapel’s prime resonant frequency to be 27 hertz.2 Based on my calculations, this frequency should have a wavelength equal to the length of the chapel while traveling end to end in one second at room temperature. From this, I used the formula for the speed of sound to calculate the theoretical tuning frequency for the chapel as A-422.25 at room temperature.

  The first thing I noticed about this was the prime resonant frequency is the geometric inverse of the length in feet, which is 27 cycles per second traveling 72 feet. That seemed terribly coincidental to me, hinting that the English foot might have actually been based on the speed of sound rather than the conventional explanation of a human foot. This makes sense considering acoustics were once critical in highly reflective stone buildings and that a unit of measure compatible with the speed of sound would have made it much easier to build acoustically balanced stone chambers.

  While we cannot prove how or why Rosslyn was designed like this, musical instruments tuned to A-422.25 should certainly sound best in that chapel, at least at a room temperature of about 20°C (68°F). From this I began to wonder if this tuning had ever been used before. Doing a little research, I found it had indeed been used before and even had a name: Classical tuning.