SCHOLAR ISLAND

 

CATHEDRALS

 

 

"The single greatest shift in the history of mass-communication technology occurred in the fifteenth century....It was a cathedral....an awesome engine of communication."

Paul Berman (Quoted in Vartan Gregorian, "A Place Elsewhere: Reading in the Age of the Computer," Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 49, no.4 ,Jan 1996)

 

"If we could but understand Gothic art, we should be irresistibly led back to the truth."

-Auguste Rodin

 

"Medieval cathedrals are the finest flower of the art of sacred geometry which have risen in Europe. Physical manifestations of the summa theologiae, the microcosmic embodiment of the created universe, cathedrals in their perfect completed form, united in their position, orientation, geometry, proportion and symbolism, attempt to create the Great Work-the unification of man with God. Many cathedrals, such as Canterbury, Gloucester and Chartres, have been shown to have been built on the site of ancient megalithic circles, incorporating in their designs the positioning and geometry of the circles. geomantic ally sited so that they might employ to the best the telluric energies of the earth and the astrophysical influences of the heavens, the stone circles overthrown by zealous Christian saints were amalgamated into the very fabric of the churches which succeeded them.

Louis Charpentier made the suggestion that the ancient stones of megalithic structures in addition to absorbing cosmic and telluric influences acted as instruments of liberation. These stone instruments, he claimed, could accumulate and amplify the vibrations of the telluric waves, acting rather like a resonant drum. These energies, taken over by the Christians, still required a resonator, and this was provided by the stone walls and vaulting of the cathedral. "

Sacred Geometry
Nigel Pennick
Harper & Row Publishers

 

" ...thus while they were outside a clock struck twelve. 101 guns boomed from the fortress and the great choir struck up a chorus of 'Christ is RISEN' . In a flash all the candles were ignited, the great door was flung open and in poured a phalanx of clergy in gold, of choristers in blue, chanting the Easter hymn. "

(description of the great midnight mass at St. Isaac's Cathedral in old St. Petersburg)

 

 

"A Gothic church is a petrified religion."

            Coleridge

 

"Gothic cathedrals are complete models of the universe, whereas a modern planetarium, for all its beauty, knowledge and accuracy, is not. For the latter model completely omits man. The difference, of course, lies in the fact that the cathedrals, directly or indirectly, were designed by men who belonged to schools for the achievement of higher states of consciousness, and had the advantage of experience gained in such schools; whereas the designers of the planetarium are scientists and technicians, clever and qualified enough in their field, but claiming no particular knowledge of the potentialities of the human machine with which they have to work. "

            Rodney Collin
            The Theory of Celestial Influence

 

"In the cathedral, for example, the language of poetry, posture, ritual, scent, art and architecture were successfully combined; and something similar appears to have been done in the dramatic representation of the eluysian mysteries. Again in certain cases, for instance in the Great Pyramid, the language of architecture seems to have been used not only for the symbolism of its form, but in order to create in a person passing through the building in a certain way a quite definite series of emotional impressions and shocks, which had a definite meaning in themselves, and which were calculated to reveal the very nature of the person exposed to them. "

            Rodney Collin

 

The truth about Gothic is, first that it is alive, and second that it is on the march. It is the church militant, it is the only fighting architecture. "

            Henry Adams

 

"That was how man built the cathedrals. He didn't say; out of my breast springs this Cathedral! But in this vast whole I am a small part, I move and live and have my being.  I think there is the dual way of looking at things: Our way, which is to say I am all, all other things are but a radiation out of me. The other way is to try to conceive the whole, to build up a whole by means of symbolism because symbolism avoids the I and puts aside the egotist. "

            D.H. Lawrence

 

Cathedrals are the repository of the occult teachings.

 

"And what is the cathedral of today, which teaches men the structure of the Creation, but the equation that has taken the place of the rosette, or rose-window? Let us cease to pay a useless homage to the past, so that we can understand it better. The modern cathedral is not to be found in the large building made of glass and cement. The cathedral of the Middle Ages was the book of mysteries for the use of men yesterday. Today the book of mysteries is the work of mathematical physicists who compose it with ‘mathematical entities’ enshrined, like rose-windows, in such constructions as interplanetary rockets, atomic piles or the cyclotron. This is true continuity, the real link with tradition."

Louis Pauels & Jacques Bergier

Morning of the Magicians*

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Book: "Gothic: Architecture of the World" by Henri Sterlin

Book: "High Gothic: The Age of the Great Cathedrals" by Gunther Binding

Book: "Building the Great Cathedrals" by Francois icher

Book: "His Invention So Fertile: A Life of Christopher Wren" by Adrian Tinniswood

Book: "Cathedrals" by Robin S. Oggins

Book: "Cathedrals and Castles: Building in the Middle Ages" by Alain Erlande-Brandenburg

Book: "Building the Great Cathedrals" by Francois Icher

Book: "Great Gothic Cathedrals Of France" by Stan Parry

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