CanonThe full title of the book is Canon: An Exposition of the Pagan Mystery Perpetuated in the Cabala As the Rule of All the Arts , meaning that the message of the ancient mystery religions has been perpetuated in the Kaballah, and that this was used to generate a canon for the building and the other arts. According to the author, the Kaballah was the esoteric doctrine of the Cathedral builders, the Tree of Life is the most important Kaballistic symbol, and a system of numbers and ideas derived from the Kaballah and incorporated in the Tree informs the works of the Kaballists. He suggests that a book might have ten chapters or four volumes as the Tree has ten spheres and four worlds. [Note that the 32 degrees of the Scottish Rites correspond to the 10 spheres plus the 22 paths on the tree.] There are 22 Hebrew letters and Tarot trumps and chapters in the Revelation. First he introduces the Mysteries, astronomy, and myth making , noting that "Astronomy was a part of the hidden doctrine of the mysteries… The myths and fables of all people contain veiled allusions to astronomical fact." (p22) In his introduction to the Kaballah, he suggests that it was a postulate of philosophers that the soul's journey was effected through seven planetary spheres, while I suggest that this is one of the myths that he mentions. I don't believe that philosophers believed this story. I believe that the story is an astronomy learning tool. In the Enoch story there are nine of them and they are called arches (arcs), but the idea is the same, the soul comes from and returns to the Milky Way via seven planetary spheres. [The Milky Way at the top and earth at the bottom add to nine total spheres.] *After pointing out that the Kabbalistic doctrine had been reduced to a 10 step graphical image, he uses the H-shaped Kircher tree (on page 50 of the book) exculsively (never mentioning other possible shapes for the tree).
 1521 *When he shows the Milan Cathedral plan (above) he never mentions astronomy or the tree of life, instead he focuses on the vesica and cross, as a sexual metaphor. In the book he shows Caesarino's plan for the cathedral with regulating lines and a rhombus grid. (See Robert Lawlor's image of the Amiens Catherdral on page 93 of his 1982 version of Sacred Geometry featuring a similar rhombus pattern.) We see the same rhombus grid on the roof of the model that Architect Hughes Libergier is holding in his hand. Both images appear to feature the rhombus symbolically.
 1263 Adding a couple of lines to the the cathedral plan produces the Gates of Light (a-shaped) tree. The metaphor that the cathedral builders were going for was the soul's journey ala the Tree of Life, as well as the vesica and cross. We now see the person on the Gates of Light book cover to be a mason holding his model. I'm sure that Stirling would have noticed this had he not been distracted by Kircher's version of the tree. This is the connection that Striling was looking for but never found.
The Map and Cathedral PlansThe A-shaped tree also appears to be the template favored by DC planners. The map tree does not use Daath (Scott Circle) but does use the top points of the pentagram, which the map cube does not use. The map incorporates both the Tree and the Cube. The top circle on the cube and sphere one on the map tree are both represented by the Scottish Rites House of the Temple. The pentagram is highlighted in the map but not in the cathedral plan. The pentagon represents the microcosm while the hexagon represents the macrocosm.
 1) The thesis of the book is (in part) that a system of numbers and ideas derived from the Kaballah and incorporated in the Tree informs the works of the Kaballists, yet when introducing the Milan cathedral plan, he never seeks to connect it to the tree, but rather develops a sub-thesis about the mystery of the vesica and the cross (P 11-13), a sexual metaphor. 2) When introducing the form of the tree he uses Kircher's tree, which does not fit the Milan Cathedral plan, and he fails to mention the Gates of Light tree, which fits both the cathedral and the DC map plans. I show how the seven sphere story relates to both the tree, the star of david and metatron's cube. Then how only one version of the tree fits the ad triangulum form used in the map and the cathedral plans, tying up loose ends in the Canon. The term 'Metatron's Cube' appears to be a new one. While Pike and Waites mention Metatron, neither mentions a cube. The figure that John Mitchell uses as his template for St Mary's at Glastonbury is M's Cube. David Fideler 'three worlds of greek cosmology' image is also based on M's Cube. Schneider never mentions the cube. Metatron's Cube encompasses the Tree of Life and is a cube with 12 gates.
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