Foreword:
A few approaches to a Mystery
Analogy
Our interpretation of the Sator Square is based on the conviction that this artefact is a medium for very ancient teachings, condensed in the form of symbols and allusions. A way of transmitting that is very characteristic of the Tradition of Hermes. Analogy is absolutely central to ancient thought; we are therefore entitled to assume that this is the case in the context of the Sator Square.
Here is the definition of analogy given byetymonline.com1:
Analogy (n.)
Early 15c.,"correspondence, proportion," from Old Frenchanalogie or directly from Latinanalogia, from Greekanalogia"proportion," fromana"upon, according to" (see ana-)+ logos"ratio," also"word, speech, reckoning" (from PIE2 root *leg"to collect, gather," with derivatives meaning"to speak, to 'pick out words'"). A Greek mathematical term given a wider sense by Plato. The meaning"partial agreement, likeness or proportion between things" is from 1540s.
In logic,"an argument from the similarity of things in some ways inferring their similarity in others," c. 1600.”
The FrenchCentre National de Ressources Textuelles et Lexicales precises: “in the philosophic-theological language of the Thomists and Neo-Thomists (St Thomas Aquinas), analogy is the relationship of resemblance that beings maintain with God by virtue of the fact that they derive their existence from Him.”3
This iscrucial andessential, in all the meanings of these adjectives: analogy – as well as etymology - could just be the remembrance of our Universal and Spiritual genealogy.
“Of all things, the measure is man”, said the Sophist Protagoras of Abdera (485-415 BC) quoted in Plato’s dialogueThe Theaetetus. The sentence can be interpreted in the sense of relativism, putting man in an illusory way at the center of Nature…
But much deeper, in a humbler and nobler way, it is the truth that the Human mind and body, being originated from the Creation and the Creator, allow him to measure the Universe, as some scientists do of the giant Micromegas, in Voltaire’s novella of the same name (1752).
Magic Squares are commonly used in magic and cryptography. Is this an indication of a desire to transmit a message to decode?
The main characteristic of a magic square is the numerical constant. However, in the case that interests us it is not a question of a numerical constant but rather of thematic constants, as we will notice. These themes are common to cultural contexts and periods that are sometimes very distant in time and space.
The Vitruvian Man, (c. 1490) Accademia, Venice (public domain)
The Emerald Tablet and the Sator Square
One of the founding texts of the Analogic Method isThe Emerald Tablet, also known as theSmaragdine Tablet or theTabula Smaragdina, attributed to Hermes Trismegistus. “Hermes Trismegistus, also spelled Hermes Trismegistos, (is) the Greek name applied to the Egyptian god Thoth as the reputed author or source of the Hermetic writings, works of revelation, on occult subjects and theology. Thoth was the scribe of the gods, the inventor of writings and the patron of all the arts dependent on writing, including medecine, astronomy and magic. At least as early as Herodotus, Greeks had identified him with their god Hermes, and by the 3rd century bce the identification was official. On the Rosetta Stone (196 bce) Hermes “the great, the great” is evidently Thoth. The epithet Trismegistus (Greek: “thrice-greatest”) occurs o