Genesis

Magic, bacause of its astonishing harmony; magic, because of its ideal shape; magic, because of its long history through different human traditions. Number 12 or “duodenary” (whose corresponding geometrical figure is the dodecahedron) appears in many mythologies : with the twelve Gods in the Heights; in the distribution of the compass rose (the winds: Eurus, Scolans, Notus, Auster, Africus Euroauster, Zephirus, Stannus, Ireierus, boreas, Aquilo, Volturnus); among the vedics, who believed that the 12 days of Boreal winter, from Christmas to the Epiphany, were an image, a replica of the whole year; the same in chinese tradition.

There is also the division of half a day in 12 hours, of the year in 12 months; in music, the dodecafonic scale; in astrology, 12 zodiac signs and 12 in chinese horoscope. And the list goes on, since this duodenary constitution is wherever you search: they are twelve in the “circular counsil” of the Dalai Lama; 12 the sons Jacob, 12 the chiefs of the 12 tribes of Israel (Ruben, Simeon, Levi, Juda, Dan, Neftali, Gad, Aser, Isacar, Zabulon, Joseph and Benjamin); 12 the apostles (Meter, Andrew, Philip, Bartholomew, James, Alphaeus, Judas Thaddaeus, John, Thomas, Matthew, Simon the Canaanite, Judas Iscariot); 12 the Knights of the Round Table; 12 the historical Peers of France; 12 the divisions of Etruscan state; 12 the lictors established by Romulus. 12 is imperishable.

Plato considered that the artificer of the universe had created order out of primordial chaos through forms and essential numbers which served as archetypical models, as a link between the upper and the lower World. These essential bodies are five, the only regular bodies whose inner angles and edges are equal. Plato gave each of them a basic element of nature: cube=earth; tetrahedron=fire; octohedron=air; icosahedron=water; and for dodecahedron he reserved the most important element, the quintessence, the ether.

That’s because he had discovered that the dodecahedron (the polyhedron the closest to the perfection of the sphere) expressed in mathematical terms (the language of Creation) the divinity of spherical shape, with its 12 pentagonal faces (pentagones whence the golden ratio was obtained, present everywhere in nature), its 20 vertexes and 30 edges.