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Dedicated to the memory of Father Charles W. Polzer, SJ, friend and colleague.
Introduction: The Historical Background
Churches, erected as the centers of missions founded by Spanish priests to Christianize native populations from California to Texas, have fascinated generations of Anglo-Americans. The attraction has resulted in numerous books and articles of serious scholarship by researchers and an uncountable number of popular articles by journalists. The foci of the more serious students have been on style, materials and structure, European and Moorish influences, and presumed New World innovations. What most researchers have failed to grasp is how the façade relates to the volumetric whole, how that integration was achieved by sacred geometry, and how the use of geometry and celestial alignments assured the continuum of a cosmic view handed down through several thousand years from early Neolithic times.
To understand the complexity of the cosmic view, we must be aware of the sacred nature of astronomy and geometry and the mysticism of numbers. Priest-astronomers of all the great centers of civilization in both the Old and New Worlds tracked the courses of the sun, moon, and planets. This was because they were considered to be not only the abodes of the gods, but, in a sense, the deities themselves revealing their seasonal peregrinations across the heavens. Geometry evolved as a result of tracking the courses of the sun and moon. Solar observations were effected by setting up a control point, from which daily sightings of the rising and setting points of the sun were probably marked with stones on the ground. Thus, the arc of a circle was described. The circle was then divided by observing the summer solstice, when the sun reaches its zenith in its annual cycle and produces the longest day of the year, and the winter solstice, when the sun descends to its nadir and produces the shortest day of the year. The circle was divided further by the twice annual occurrence of the equinox, when the diurnal cycle is balanced between day and night. The basic forms of geometry were now established: the circle and the halving if it with the summer or winter solstice or the vernal or autumnal equinox. The circle could be divided into quadrants by intersecting...