COSMOKRATOR COSMOKRATOR COSMOKRATOR COSMOKRATOR

If you want to avoid putting your finger-prints all over the surfaces, wear light fabric or polythene gloves, as given away in hair colouring kits. You can buy packets of disposable gloves in Boots.

Before beginning to stick the model together, notice generally how the parts will fit together, and see how there is only one way all the parts are going to fit together.

Photo's are of pre production version, production version has more vibrant metallic colours.

We recommend using a very small tube of strong, fast-drying, clear glue for best results (Uhu, Loctite or Pritt Stick). Use it sparingly, stroking a thin flat line of glue along the inside edge of each tab where it meets the colour.

First stick together the shapes around the black triangle, making a cup.

Don’t be in a hurry – stick only one or two tabs at a time, making sure you get the facets to meet at their common edges exactly, and avoid denting the corners.

In the early stages paper clips help in keeping surfaces pressed hard together.

Allow each new sticking to dry completely before moving on to the next one, otherwise the model will slide apart if still moist.

As the model progresses you will not be able to get a tight hold on the facets as the solid begins to close inwards round an invisible sphere. Now press surfaces together with fingers and thumb if you can reach.

As you get to the last tabs, and your fingers can no longer fit inside to press, it is becomes important to let the glue dry slightly before sticking the tabs, so that they adhere instantly when slotted into place.

Once you have the first cup established, fold down on to it, one by one, the next triangles and squares, leaving the deep pink square of i until last (it’s worth rehearsing with a ‘dry run’ the order you will stick each tab before you do it permanently with glue!).

Remember, do not try and stick too many tabs at the same time, as the shape is now getting tighter and it will be harder to put your finger in to press from inside and make a firm join. It is now even more important to let each glued tab dry completely before moving on to the next.

If you find you have pushed some facets in too deeply, stick a long sewing pin or needle under the corner to ease it back up to the right level.

You will find that the final deep pink facet for i bends over as a flap onto the remaining exposed tabs below it, making it easy to complete your model assembly.

Place the model on the work surface with this last-stuck facet on the bottom, pressing gently downwards for the final seal.

Buff up your completed Cosmokrator with a duster to get rid of any pressure marks incurred while making it.

Now you are ready to put it to use – or just contemplate it as it sits on your mantelpiece or windowsill, turning it to a different view from time to time.

Other equipment you could buy or borrow to enhance your use of Cosmokrator (apart from the tube of glue):

Copy of Sun Signs (Pan paperback) by Linda Goodman (see under Using Cosmokrator to understand friends and enemies)

Set of Acrylic Colours so you can paint your own Cosmokrator-based diagrams (see list under Cosmokrator's Colours)

Copy of Love Signs (Pan paperback) by Linda Goodman (see under Using Cosmokrator to find your ‘other half’’)

Getting started

In our Introduction to using Cosmokrator given on this website, given step by step in the order given in the right-hand menu on the Home Page of this website, we now suggest a primary exercise, which is to consider Opposites, and their application to life (Spanner/Veil 1).

The First Pair of Opposites

First take your assembled model in your hands. Place one forefinger on the top, polar centre œ on the black triangle, and your other forefinger on the bottom, silver Sirius Ö triangle.

With your thumb, you can now revolve the model between your two fingers. This simulates the spinning of the sky round the polar axis as experienced from planet earth - marked on your model in the black triangle by a cross inside a circle Å .

In terms of colour opposition, you can see that you have a Black –v- White opposition – the first polarity (we will always use the Chinese Ying-Yang symbol [ to represent polarity, -v- , or ‘opposition’). The Black [ White axis can symbolise such ideas as Night [ Day; Winter [ Summer; Female [ Male; Sky [ Earth; Death [ Life and so on – the really ultimate oppositions.

Using this opposition to interpret life is using Spanner 1. Spotting this opposition at work within existence is pulling aside Veil 1. In terms of our existence on the earthly plane, we contend with these oppositions all the time, and have to find ways to reconcile the tension of their pull in opposite directions.

Having seen the Polar Axis dimension of life, the next simple step to take in understanding Cosmokrator is to move into the world of colour, look at their effects, and their symbolism.

The Six Pairs of Colour Opposites

The colour spectrum of the rainbow (whose separate colours are the constituents of white light, which can be split through a prism into the separate hues of the colour waveband) can be arranged as pairs of complementary colours (this is fully explored in Book 0: Introduction – see under Forthcoming Books) - and this is how they are placed on Cosmokrator.

Hold the model in your hand and notice how pairs of triangles and squares form opposing combinations of colour. These can represent the powers of the planets and zodiac signs whose symbols are drawn on them.

In order not to clutter up the model with the written names of the signs and planets, which would distract from the power of the colours alone, we have given you the key to what they stand for in the diagram given under Cosmokrator and Astrology.

We suggest you print out, or draw out, the zodiac laid out on the flat as given in Cosmokrator and Astrology and then look at your model and read out to yourself what each symbol stands for, in order to familiarise yourself with the Planets, Signs and their colours.

You may even wish to paint in the colours on your flat version if you cannot wait to see our diagrams that do this in Books 7-10, since copying fixes them in the mind (see under Cosmokrator’s Colours).

You can see that the pairs of opposites for the Zodiac and its planets are expressed as pairs of complementary colours on Cosmokrator, while their actual sequence in order of time in the sky is given on the flat diagram.

Now you are ready to look at other sections on this website that show you how to use this knowledge in understanding aspects of your life – especially in your experience of periods of time, judging people and making colour decisions for your dress and surroundings.

What is Cosmokrator for?

‘He’s got the whole world in His hands’ – so the song goes, and so say the scriptures of most religions (metaphorical of course, since God can’t possibly have human hands). It would be intriguing to be able in some way to see the universe from the outside, in order to understand it. Cosmokrator is such a model of the universe that can be held in our hands.

There are other ways of achieving cosmos miniaturisation that are well-known - such as listening to a great symphony, sitting round a Persian carpet, or visiting a great cathedral – indeed the human body in ancient times was also seen as the summation of the universe and its parts (see Book 6 in our list of Forthcoming Books).

Cosmokrator, a beautiful coloured model expressing its harmonies, helps us to see aspects of the universe that we both contain and are contained within. It shows some well-known sequences of life, notably the colour spectrum and the sections of the sky above us that form the zodiac, along with their ruling planets.

Children and adults alike are attracted to it, and can use it richly, according to their capacity, even as absolute beginners.

Cosmokrator could be described as a multivalent ‘Spanner’ that helps you measure the Universe in different ways, while at the same time enabling you to see what clothes and hides its essence - hence we also term it a many-layered ‘Veil’!

In a nutshell, Cosmokrator uses simple number combinations, shapes, and the colour spectrum to help you understand the order and beauty of life. As a starter exercise, by using colour opposites alone, Cosmokrator can be used to explain plain numbers and music, and thereby the nature of the signs and planets of astrology, enabling even the beginner to:

interpret key personal characteristics of yourself, your friends and your enemies – and therefore to

pinpoint who actually your ‘other half’ could be;

have fun with it as a game for parties and family gatherings;

use it as a colour guide for astrologically balanced interior decoration, choice of dress and jewellery, or any other kind of design;

understand World Ages, and when the coming Age of Aquarius is due to begin;

use it at a deeper level as a means of regulating your life by complementary activities, and

as a support for meditation, prayer, contemplation – and your own transformation, with the help also of

a series of small books and poem cards that will be published over a period of time, starting with our introduction given on the www.cosmokrator.com website.

But there is much more about the Turning One (the literal meaning of the word ‘Universe’) contained in this 14-faceted model (7 facets for the days of the week, and 7 for the nights). Long ago the ancient Greeks saw that the main notes of the musical scale correspond to the numbers 1-7 (though the octave can be split into smaller intervals, increasing the number of subdivisions), and that the spacing of the planets corresponds to the intervals between the main notes of the Octave. To give one example of natural correspondences, the Sun equates to the middle note of the Octave, F/Fa and is expressed by the colour Gold.

In other words, a musical note expresses a number and a colour on different planes (or wavelengths), so that on a much larger scale, as the Greeks observed, notes and colours can then be related to a Sign and its Planet.

What we have tried to give you in your New, yet Old, Model of the Universe is a tangible object that sums up these musical correspondences, which enable transformation from one plane to another all the time – and we take it for granted. How else could your voice change into electrical impulses down a phone line and come out the other end as a voice again?

However, not everyone will want to look in such detail at the separate parts of sets of wavelengths, rewarding though it may be. The potential for using Cosmokrator in a light-hearted way at family tea, or at a party with friends and guests, is huge. It gives a rough guide to people’s Sun Signs, their particular colour, and what they are really like, according to the standard books on Astrology! In the shark-infested waters of office politics, it can defuse situations to find out the boss’s Sun Sign and look up the inside information about him (or other work colleagues, for that matter!).

You can use the colours and signs on Cosmokrator to apply to your own life. Do you sometimes find you are repeating the same behaviour or getting into the same mood or situation again and again? You need to balance yourself, and the first way to do this is to find your opposite – in colour terms first, and then use it an indicator to other pursuits you could take up in order to achieve this.

By starting to see these seven pairs of opposites at work in life around us, Cosmokrator can be used as a focus for meditation, whether in the abstract, or in connection with related divinities. Its properties lie at the heart of religion, ancient and modern.

Cosmokrator can be used at a rudimentary level straight away by following (in strict order, or hopping about as the fancy takes you) the steps given on the home page menu of our www.cosmokrator.com website). From this we hope your interest in developing its use on more complex levels will be awakened.

But to gain the full benefit from you can do with it later on, once you are more familiar with it, you will want to read some or all of the fascinating series of small books about the seven separate Spanners, or Veils, that are contained within Cosmokrator (see under Forthcoming Books). Through them we gradually show how and why Cosmokrator works.

What ‘Cosmokrator’ means, and its structure

Reconstructed for modern consumption from ancient sources, the Greek word, ‘Cosmokrator’ means 'Ruler of the Cosmos’. ‘Cosmos’ itself means ‘Ordered Universe’. Our choice of name, echoes the word, ‘Protractor’ (a Perspex semicircular instrument used to measure angles) – or the word ‘Ruler’, the simplest instrument of all used for measuring - suggesting that Cosmokrator, too, is a measuring instrument for most aspects of the Cosmos. It is like an X-ray viewer that enables us to see and gain control of our surroundings, and then to rule them and ourselves wisely, and can be used by child or adult alike.

With beginners in mind, on this website we ask you to look at key oppositions - as the first way in which you can use Cosmokrator.

Your model is a Cosmos ruler in the form of a coloured cuboctahedron encompassing the entire colour spectrum, so it conveniently sums up in miniature the building blocks, or wave-bands of our Universe, and the laws which operate both within and beyond us. We will come to see separate clusters of Building Blocks taken together as ‘Spanners’ (an approach appealing more to men), and the same groups seen from the point of view of Wavebands as ‘Veils’ (a viewpoint appealing more to women).

Cosmokrator encapsulates Seven very distinct Spanners, or Veils. It consists of fourteen faces, coloured in seven opposed colour pairs that in turn contain a further closely related seven pairs of opposed hues - adding up to 28 colours in all, some of them metallic.

Cosmokrator happens also to have the signs of the zodiac and its ruling planets drawn on it, but this is only one level of its use. When not using the Astrology Spanner/Veil (actually a very advanced one, being Spanner/Veil No. 6), you can completely ignore the symbols and just concentrate on colours and their musical notes (see Books 0 and 1).

Having said that, Cosmokrator as a three-dimensional colour zodiac describes the all-encompassing heavens, like the Roman Sphere of Urania (see under Cosmokrator’s History). Because it is enriched by colour, it is a more multipurpose instrument than our Neolithic predecessors’ stone balls (see also under Cosmokrator’s History).

Cosmokrator is therefore a three-dimensional icon containing within it many cosmic verities that are helpful to us in understanding our position in the world. We can use it both as a serious icon and a frivolous trinket. On this website, by way of introduction, we explain a few generalities about it mostly from light-hearted angles, so as to give an overview of its potential – to make a start it is best first to use Cosmokrator quite superficially by playing with the idea of the separate pairs of opposites - the Spanner/Veil 1 approach - so as not to overwhelm you with the myriad possibilities of Cosmokrator all at once, many of which you personally might never want to use.

The full scope of Cosmokrator will gradually unfold under separate subject areas – see under Forthcoming Books.

Cosmokrator’s history

In ancient Sidon every year at the festival of Urania, Goddess of the starry Night Sky globe, a sphere representing this Goddess was placed in an open carriage and pulled through the streets amidst great celebration. Under Roman occupation this event was commemorated on coins (see illustration below) showing what the float looked like – a precursor of those we see in the Lord Mayor’s Show in London.

That festival was celebrated at the end of an era stretching back six or seven thousand years, during which time the first farmers had gradually been working out the cycles of the planets as they moved against the stars at night, in order to tell the time more accurately. We guess this must be so, not only because of the observatories (stone circles) built by Neolithic man in Europe, throughout the ancient Near East and as far east as India, but also because in recent decades small granite stone balls of unknown function dating back to this time, stored in the cellars and cupboards of museums in Britain, have now been recognised for what they are – precursors of Cosmokrator.

Ashmolean Museum

Cosmokrator has fourteen flat facets so is comparable to the granite stone ball illustrated here (slightly battered – it is over 5,000 years old, after all) – though its fourteen facets are spheroid (Cosmokrator is not, in this sense, so sophisticated - but it is coloured!). The picture can be misleading as to size, for it is no bigger than a tennis ball, and nestles neatly in the cupped palm of the hand. Its geometrical partitions are accurate, with plain, curved surfaces that may originally have been polished. Not all the balls are plain - some of the others (literally hundreds with differing numbers of facets have been found in northern Scotland - Aberdeenshire in particular) have spirals or hatched markings carved on them.

We cannot know precisely what these stone balls were used for, but they are astonishing in their accuracy, and must have been important instruments of calculation for people to bother to carve them in such a hard stone. We do not know if they were used to understand sectors of the sky, or as spherical abaci – what is certain is that these pure shapes precede Plato and Aristotle’s descriptions of the underlying three-dimensional geometry of the universe in similar terms, in their writings of c.500-350 B.C. Stone Age Man in Britain had got there long before the Greeks.

I like to think Cosmokrator is the twenty-first century successor to these Neolithic instruments, and that by using it we are attaching ourselves to ancient roots, continuing the work of our stone age ancestors, so clever at measuring and making. The story of their recent rediscovery in neglected drawers of Britain’s key museums is given in more detail in our book on architecture (Book 11).

Cosmokrator and astronomy

The First Pair of Opposites The symbol we use for any opposition is [.

On the model the polar centre is represented by the dark grey outer triangle with the symbol of the dark sun on it, to represent the dark point at the centre of the sky, for in our era the exact North Pole is not marked by a particular star. This is the upper end of the Polar Axis round which the stars appear to spin as we stand on Earth. At the inner triangle we have placed the symbol for Earth (the circle with the cross inside), because the North Pole is directly related to our position standing on Earth and looking up at it in a straight line. Both these symbols appear over each other in the centre of the diagram given under Cosmokrator and Astrology, shown with the Signs of the Zodiac and their ruling Planets radiating around this dual centre.

We have used the ancient Egyptian convention of running the polar axis from the black sun of the Pole to the silver-white star, Sirius on Earth’s horizon. On your model it is positioned exactly opposite on the underneath of the model as a five-pointed star, and is also thus marked on the outer circumference of the flat diagram (which you may wish to print out to refer to and colour in with the same colours as on your model (see list of paints to use under Cosmokrator's Colours)). In Egypt during the Gemini-Sagittarian era, when Sirius started to appear in the sky at sunrise the astronomers of the time noted that it heralded the imminent flooding of the Nile river a month later, and so this brightest star in the sky was worshipped as the Goddess Isis, and celebrated as the marker for the start of Egypt’s New Year at the Summer Solstice.

Because of this ancient tradition of using Sirius as the marker for the beginning of the year (like the third, alarm-setting hand on an alarm clock) the five-pointed star on Cosmokrator also stands for this same 'alarm hand' marker - known today by astronomers as the ‘Vernal Point’ - the marker which alerts society to the start day of the next new year. (Only many centuries later did Egyptian astronomers realise that Sirius itself slips backward in the zodiac and is not as reliable a pointer for the New Year as they thought.)

We have placed a Spiral in the triangle within the Sirius triangle at the base of Cosmokrator, to represent the phenomenon known as the Precession of the Equinoxes, or the backward slippage of the Vernal Point round the zodiac over a period of 25,000 years (termed the ‘Great Year’ by Plato). This is explained fully in one of our final books but see also under Understanding World Ages. The same spiral is indicated by one turn in the outer circumference of the flat diagram in Cosmokrator and Astrology.

We have now explored the first polarity on Cosmokrator – Earth [ Heaven, shown as the Black and White opposition. We have looked at Å [ œ (the Polar Axis) and Ö [ - (the Horizon around which the Sun and New Year marker (Vernal Point) come together during a Year). These are the two primary fixed fields in our experience of Time which, like tent pole and tent, make a framework in space for all the stars and planets that pass round inside it, which ancient Man used as a vast clock of increasing refinement (see our Book 9 on Astronomy, and under Understanding World Ages.

Now we are well positioned to consider the revolving Colours on Cosmokrator – which taken in this context stands for the sky, divided into the territories of the Planets and their Signs as held in place by the Polar Axis. The Zodiac wheels one circuit every day against the Horizon as the Sun rises against it every day along the Ecliptic during one whole Year (the 'Ecliptic' is, literally, the path the Sun follows through the Zodiac stars).

Cosmokrator as a calendar