It is no secret that mathematics follows certain laws of nature and that these patterns can be seen over and over again in our world, from the shape of leaves, flowers, and even snowflakes to the most pleasing arrangements of ancient shapes and sculptures. For ancient people, uncovering these rules of geometry and nature had a spiritual as well as mathematical significance.

For instance, Pythagoras, who is credited with developing the Pythagorean theorem about triangles, was actually a philosopher and religious leader of ancient Greece. Though today we largely remember him for math and scientific developments, in his time these were not differentiated from his spiritual beliefs.

In some traditions, natural, mathematical and scientific patterns were considered proof of spiritual input and influence, and therefore geometric ratios, shapes, and designs were imparted with particular spiritual meanings and significances. This influence is seen in the designs of many spiritual spaces such as temples, churches, and monasteries, throughout the world.

In the twentieth century, New Age spirituality revived and adopted some of these beliefs, and took them further, stating that these aesthetically pleasing shapes reveal underlying truths about the nature of the universe and even hold the keys to unlocking higher states of human consciousness.

And while math is cool, and shapes are pretty, the scientific basis for these belief systems remain a little bit thin on the ground. There are myriad YouTube videos where people will try to make connections between various geometric shapes beloved by the ancients and spiritual truths, but many of these rely on incomplete and poorly-understood mathematical generalizations and even just plain errors.

Our brains are pattern-seeking machines, so we are likely to find the discovery of such patterns, and their repeat, to be fascinating, aesthetically pleasing, and worthy of study. Does that make them spiritually significant, or is numerology not all that different from astrology?

These shapes are fun and pretty, but they don’t necessarily hold the keys to the universe.

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