Dimensions of Sacred Geography

Chapter 14 of Blavatsky’s Isis Unveiled, vol. 1 featured a pioneering study of Sacred Architecture and Sacred Geography and the field is doing very well nowadays thank you very much, notably with the work of people such as Rana P.B. Singh of India, below are the fivefold dimensions of sacred geography from Visioning Sacred Geography, Rana P.B. Singh from Sacred Geography of Goddesses in South Asia, p. 9:

The notion of sacred geography refers to an all-encompassing reality that maintain the prāna (ethereal breathe/ life-force) by interactional web of the five gross elements (mahābhutas), viz. earth, air, water, fire, and ether/space. The interactional web of network may further be reflected into at least five dimensions (cf. Pogačnik 2007: 5-6):

(i) Dimension of eternity ― representation of primeval vibration, the divine all-presence, the light of light, e.g. sacred territory like Vindhyāchal Kshetra.

(ii) Archetypal dimension of reality ― the inherent quality of spatial manifestation that preserves the sense of planetary creation or archetypal patterns behind reality, e.g. representation of other sacred places of India in the sacredscapes of Banaras.

(iii) Dimension of consciousness ― the operational system of cosmic ideas and archetypes that makes the mindset and covers the range from mental to emotional, and from intuitive to rational ― ultimately making the ‘belief systems’, e.g. various myths, folk believes and rituals that make the consciousness always alive, active and expanding.

(iv) Etheric dimension ― possessing vital-energy or bio-energetic dimensions, symbolised with ether that invisible hold and manifests the rest four elements, e.g. Vital-energy fields, Earth chakras, and channel/orsite of vital power or places of healing.

(v) Material dimension ― the dimension in which embodiment of minerals, plants, animals, human beings, landscape features, stars and the Earth’s crust takes place ― the visual world of physical perceptibility.