Learning more about Chapter 8: Platonic bodies
This text is taken from Solomon, a huge online repository of Masonic knowledge. To explore it fully, please visit its dedicated web site at this link, where you’ll be able to explore the range of learning modules available, and have no difficulty in achieving that sometimes-elusive ‘daily advancement…’
The Platonic Solids are the five little white objects that lie in front of the Pedestal in most Chapters. They have a curious background and history. They were invented or discovered by Plato (429 – 347 BC) in ancient Greece around 380 BC. However they were first described by Pythagoras about 500 BC. Pythagoras (570 – 495 BC)was the guy whose theorem we all had to learn at school.
Who can remember it now? The five Platonic Solids are the only regular (equal sides) solids that can be constructed. There are only five Platonic Solids and these can be constructed from triangles, squares and pentagons with sides of equal length. It is not possible to construct a regular solid from a hexagon or anything with more sides. I can direct you to the full explanation of this statement but it involves complex, geometrical theory and having ploughed through it many times myself, I wonder if I am any better off, so I would simply say “Trust me I am a Royal Arch Mason.
Each body though represents one of “The four Elements and Sphere of the Universe”proposed by Plato. The four basic elements are Fire, Air, Earth and Water to which he added the Universe or everything else. Plato and his students argued that everything created by the Deity must be visible and tangible or it can’t exist – hence the importance of the solid shapes in ancient times
The Platonic Solids are explained as follows from the left to right, from the North in the Chapter.
- Tetrahedran– represents Fire because it is the sharpest and most agile and is formed by four equal and equilateral triangles
- Octahedran– represents Airbecause it is the least stable and is formed by eight equal and equilateral triangles
- Hexahedron (Cube) –represents Earth because it is the most stable shape and is formed by 6 equal squares
- Icosahedron– represents Water because it is the heaviest shape, and is formed by 20 equal and equilateral triangles
- Dodecahedron – represents the Sphere of the Universe because it is very close to a sphere, the most perfect form and is formed by 12 equal and equilateral pentagons,
There are also references and explanations about the relationship between the Triple Tau and the Seal of Solomon (Double Triangle) but these get even more complicated “Trust me I am…”
There is however one overriding and simple explanation to the presence of the Platonic Solids in our Chapters and that is they represent “Everything that God created”
Fire, Earth, Air, Water and the Universe, in its allegory Royal Arch Masonry is concerned with everything God created.
References. If you would like to read more then the next place to go is:
- The Freemasons Royal Arch Guide, E.E. Ogilvie and H. A. Thompson – Chapter 30
- The Royal Arch Jewel, A,D. Matthews
- The Five Platonic Bodies, Grand Chapter of Cumberland and Westmorland
