Rereading my last posting on the Barbury Castle
Stepped Spiral I realise that the overwhelming significance of Pi and its
appearance now merits further discussion.
Before starting this I should report that there have
been some queries as to the precise timing of my work. Bear in mind that both
the spiral of the Barbury Castle 1991 formation and the role of Pi in the crop
circle narrative have been twin obsessions of mine for many years. To say that
Barbury 2 attracted my interest would be a colossal understatement! The
following notes are simply to clarify the record.
Karen Alexander e-mailed me on 5th June with her
intuition that the small circle near the centre might be a decimal point and
that the three outer rings might be an ellipsis. The following morning, the 6th,
I discovered how Pi was incorporated into the spiral and, later on the 6th,
Karen was contacted by Peter Leadbetter who had made the same discovery. I spoke
to him on the 7th.
I
am a researcher looking for insights and not a journalist seeking scoops. While
I am delighted to have been one of the people who fell on this find early, I am
even more delighted that the information is now freely available to all. But it
seems certain that the estimable Michael Reed was the first and should be
congratulated.
Since ancient times and through many cultures,
geometric forms have held powerful symbolic meaning. The circle was held to
represent God, heaven or the spiritual domain while the square symbolised the
world or the material realm.
Philosophers and geometers thus saw the ancient
conundrum of Squaring the Circle (or, as I prefer, Circling the Square) as a way
of representing, and a step towards achieving, a reconciliation between heaven
and earth. Geometrically, the task of constructing a square whose perimeter is
the same as the circumference of a circle is daunting. Even more so when it is
understood that Pi, the Constant used in all calculations involving circles,
spheres or cylinders and even ovals, is an irrational or infinite number.
Realising that is to accept that the circle may never be precisely squared.
Earth, by definition, can never be exactly congruent with heaven.
This need not diminish our aspirations, however.
Sacred Geometers worked tirelessly to resolve the apparently unresolvable. We,
or at least the optimists among us, can do the same.
The crop circles have referred to both the Squaring
of the Circle and Pi since the outset. Allan Brown has demonstrated that most of
the Quintuplet or dice five-spot formations squared the circle, often revealing
previously unknown methods. In the 2000 season I suggested that many formations
were powerfully reiterating Pi and I made a DVD, The Pi Hypothesis, to cover
this work.
Why, then, do I hold the 2008 Barbury Castle stepped
spiral to be so crucial a revelation and so important a contribution to our
research?
The crop circles seem to be showing us that we are
stuck at the
material phase of our development. We truly do still believe that all our
problems are susceptible to a mechanical/technical response. The irony, of
course, is that all our problems are caused by our reliance on
mechanical/technical solutions.
Presented with the breathtaking images of the crop
circles, wretched humanity, fixed in its material view of the cosmos, sees them
as blueprints for free-energy devices, anti-gravity engines, ET technology or
star charts predicting alignments or disclosing their authors’ origins. We
cannot see beyond our squareness. We are fixed in our limited Cartesian,
Newtonian, evidence-based world view. We are stuck with the weight of centuries
of constrained thinking which prevents our moving from the square of the
material world towards the circle of spirit.
Pi, the mediator between the world and heaven, is
shown so clearly, not because we poor earthlings need a lesson in mathematics.
Every school kid knows what Pi is. Since 1990 there have been many crop circles
which seemed to carry meaning or which lent themselves to a specific
interpretation. But there has never been a formation as clear, articulate and
inarguable as Barbury Castle 2008.
Why then might this number, which certainly they
know we are familiar with, be telegraphed here so forcefully?
Pi
is the symbolic key which mediates between dimensions. Perhaps they want us to
seize it. Perhaps they want us to square our own circles. MG
Once referred to as "Croppiedom's King of Controversy" Michael Glickman has long occupied a central space at the heart of public comment on the crop circle phenomenon. A former architect and teacher, he is now a renowned and inspirational speaker and writer. His work on the geometry and interpretation of the crop circles has spanned over 16 years. Michael has written several regular columns on the crop circles over his career, both in print and on the internet. Wheat from the Chaff is his latest incarnation. His book,