Geometry is like a spiritual component of the physical world because it exists in potentia and is "invoked" like spirit when we begin connecting points with lines. Knowing these religious sciences as well as s/he did, the creator of the Phaistos Disk (Daedalus?) might have conceived of this clever way to invoke images by connecting pictographs (dots) with lines, that was both astounding to those who saw it and instructive as well. Most likely, the creator of the disk was highly educated in the study of containment of geometrical arrangements, their relationship to numbers (below), and the development of "method of exhaustion."

Method of exhaustion shows how to 'exhaust' the area of a circle by means of an inscribed polygon; if we successively double the number of sides in the polygon, we will eventually reduce the difference between the area of the polygon (known) and the area of the circle (unknown) to the point where it is smaller than any magnitude we choose. This method made it possible to calculate the area of a circle to any desired degree of accuracy; with a little further development, it could be used to calculate the area within (or under) other curves as well and to calculate the area bounded by certain spirals, and the surface area and volume of a sphere. (David C. Lindberg, The Beginnings of Western Science, pp.88, 89)

The method of exhaustion was probably borrowed by Euclid from his predecessor Eudoxus, (Ibid) (400-355 BCE), a Greek astronomer and mathematician credited with this inventive method of calculating proportion. The Phaistos Disk, containing the geometry of a pentagram inside a heptagon (the big star Sirius), seems to show exhaustion in use 1200 years before Eudoxus.

The number philosophy, shown in the table below, makes of a circle, in the mystical sense and in terms of mysticism of a much later period, an alchemical vessel, a Mixing Bowl, in which can be seen and analyzed the alchemical stages in the action of the Absolute in differentiating Self into a phenomenal universe through geometry. Each alchemical stage is introduced with 1-13 of the 13 precepts of the Emerald Table of Hermes Trismegistus, a legendary alchemical enigma and text puzzle from a much later period in history. Various cultures claim to have discovered the Emerald Table-Tabula Smaragdina. In one account of discovery, Alexander the Great found the table in the tomb of Hermes (Thoth). In another account, Sarah the wife of the biblical Abraham, found the entombed Hermes holding in his hands his table. Alternately, the precepts may have been written in Syriac.

These precepts of Hermes were cherished with a kind of religious fervour by the adepts (of alchemy), who looked upon them as summarising in a concealed form the fundamental secrets of alchemy and of the Philosopher's Stone. (John Read, F.R.S., From Alchemy to Chemistry)

In this geometry theology, ultimate reality is numerical, number is the key to the universe, and triangles are the fundamental building blocks of the cosmos; therefore, geometry is sacred. Included in the table are the precepts of Hermes, assigned to the geometry well over 2,000 years after the Phaistos Disk created, but this recounts the ancient tradition of ushering this enigmatical knowledge through the ages so that it does not get lost nor is understood by any other than initiates.

Geometry seems to have originated with the study of the vertex-vortex and involved, pre-eminently, the triangle and its uses in describing the properties of a circle and the geometry of the sphere for use in astronomy. Traditionally, we attribute this knowledge to the ancient Egyptians and credit them with the early work in geometry that involves this science of containment of geometrical arrangements. But to attribute all this knowledge to the Egyptians and to say that the Minoans had no knowledge of this, or were not major contributors to this early geometry, is to deny their brilliance and creative genius, which no right-minded person would do that took the time to look at the rest of their mighty civilization. The Phaistos Disk proves the Minoan's accomplishments in this science.

The properties of a circle are described efficiently by pi, 3.1416. The symbol for pi on the Phaistos Disk might be the "Y" sign, repeated 3 times on Side 1. The short line of the symbol is the radius (r) of a circle and the long line is the diameter (d). The ratio of the circumference of a circle (c) to its diameter (d=2r) is a constant number called pi, which equals c divided by 2r+3.1416. 2r with a vertex is a triangle = 3. A lingering association with the number 14 of 3.1416 could come from Egyptian mythology, in which the god Typhon, out pig hunting (2nd left) with his dogs (3rd left), chopped his brother Osiris into 14 pieces with an axe (4th right).

The Egyptian goddess Isis found all the pieces of Osiris that Typhon had scattered, except for his "generative member." Unfortunately, it was eaten by the Nile crab and the "sharp-snout" fish. As a result, the crab and the sharp-snout were venerated by the Egyptian priests and declared taboo to eat, along with the pig that ate some other pieces of Osiris. The crab appears once on Side 1, the sharp-snout appears four times in Side 2 and twice on Side 1, and the pig once on side 1.

In this geometry theology, the triangle is "sacred" because it represents the "plain of truth," the "hearth of the universe" and thesis-antithesis-synthesis. In mysticism of a much later time, gnosis (knowledge of holy things) is beyond reach unless one's feet have crossed the "plain of truth," meaning the study of Sacred Geometry and the triangle, particularly the magic 3-4-5 triangle, the perfect right triangle (left), revealed by connecting the 3 Daedalus Wings of Icarus pictographs on side 1 of the Phaistos Disk (2nd left).

The sacred 60 is also significant because long before 1600 BCE the 60-system of counting was used by the Mesopotamians, who were avid astronomers as were the Egyptians. The application of the sexagesimal (60-system) system in astronomy was continued by Greek and Hindu astronomers until about 500 CE. Since most of the constellation names originated in Crete and Greece, it is safe to say that because of the symbols on the disk and the knowledge of the use of the 60-system by Greek astronomers much later, the 60-system was employed by the Minoans in their astronomical calculations. The three 60's--the 60 soul types of the vertex-vortex, the 60 of the 3-4-5 triangle (3x4=12x5=60), and the 60-system of counting in astronomy--are inseparable syncretisms, in terms of symbolisms found on the disk.

And they (crocodiles of the Nile) lay sixty [eggs] and hatch them out in as many days, and the longest-lived of them live as many years-which is the first of the measures for those who treat systematically of celestial [phenomena]. (Timaeus of Plato, in Thrice-Greatest Hermes, G.R.S. Mead, Vol.3, p.198)

That is (re: the celestial phenomena), presumably, either the 60 of the Chaldaeans, or the 3x4x5 of the 'most perfect' triangle of the Mathematici. (Israel Regardie, The Golden Dawn)

The most perfect triangle, the right triangle, "has its perpendicular [side] of 'three', its base of 'four,' and its hypotenuse of 'five...' (The Cosmopolite in Les Mystere des Cathedrales, Fulcanelli;)

And one might conjecture the Egyptians [also revered] the fairest of triangles, likening the nature of the universe especially to this... (Regardie)

The Egyptians, millennia before Pythagoras, employed the magic 3-4-5 triangle of the Pythagorean Theorem, c2=a2+b2. The result, 25, was the number of letters in the Egyptian alphabet. (W. Marsham Adams in Mead)

And five makes a square equal to the number of letters among Egyptians, and a period of as many years as the Apis lives. (Mead)

Again, by the relative position of its (the ibis') legs to one another, and [of those] to its beak, it forms an equilateral triangle... (Wallace Budge in Mead)

Not only the number 60 but also the number five was sacred because it symbolized the hypotenuse of the "perfect" 3-4-5 triangle, the right triangle of the Pythagorean Theorem, divinized on the Phaistos Disk 1200 years or so before Pythagoras proved it.

For the 'three' is the first 'odd' and perfect; while the 'four' is square from side 'even' two; and the 'five' resembles partly its father and partly its mother, being composed of 'three' and 'two.' (Plutarch in Mead, Vol.1, p.234)

We must, accordingly, compare its (right triangle) perpendicular to male, its base to female, and its hypotenuse to the offspring of both; and [conjecture] Osiris as its source, Isis as receptacle, and Horus as result. (Plutarch in Mead, Vol.1, p.234)

And panta [all] is only a slight variant of pente [five]; and they (the Egyptians) call counting pempasasthai [reckoning by fives]. (Plutarch in Mead, Vol.1, p.234)