Gothic Theme Parks
Gothic Cathedrals and major Churches in N-France
The Early Gothic Cathedrals of Europe
Magnetic currents touching the Earth and telluric currents snaking up from the depths of the terrestrial strata, bring life that fructifies Earth & Man. Such places used to be marked with tall stones, called Dolmen & Menhirs, that localized and condensed the fertilizing properties of Earth and Heaven.
A 4.5m high prehistoric menhir, placed on the W-side of the Le Mans Cathedral in 1778, after its dolmen was demolished. Natural weathering of the sandstone has given the menhir's surface an appearance of carved drapery.
The Gothic and Romanesque architects and builders existed together and worked via different fraternities. Both building systems sprang from the same desire to make use of the earth's telluric currents, leyline crossings, and succussed water from wells at a given place to energetically benefit mankind.
Saint Denis, 1st French Gothic Cathedral
The Gothic cathedral can be perceived as such a tall stone. If there was no cavern, the Megalithics used a dolmenic chamber, acting as a resonant drum. The dolmen is a stone table resting on multiple supports. Christians used a crypt.
Two striking qualities of a stone are:
1. it acts as an accumulator and amplifier, like bricks;
2. it's capable of vibration.
The stone table is subjected to the forces of cohesiveness & weight, creating a state of tension, susceptible to vibration.
Dolmens or hunebedden are also used as megalithic tombs or burial mounds. Large stones lined up in two rows form the foundation and support a larger top stone. They date back to the Neolithic period, about 5.000 years ago.
Hunebed, or giant bed, from an Old Dutch word huyne which meant giant. The stones are glacial erratics, transported by slow-moving glaciers to the Netherlands during the last ice age. Today's dolmens are just skeletons of their past size.
The dolmen was covered in a mound of earth-containing sods, sand and cobbles, so that only the top of the capstones could be seen. There are 54 remaining dolmens, of which the biggest is 23 m. long, with 9 capstones, and weighs 20 tons.
The Christians built their resonant chamber utilizing a cupola and concave vault, however this design will not vibrate. To increase the terrestrial effect, Gregorian chant (pentatonic scale) was created, and also visual music in the form of geometrical harmony, such as the ogive, whose physical and physiological effects on a human appear to be extraordinary.
Here began a change in a human from being a slave to acting as a true individual, living in a community of common people.
Who taught the cathedral builders how to balance weight and counterweight, to arrange masses of stone so that the building vibrates to the tap of a fingernail? Did stained glass making come from an alchemist's crucible? Who gave to whom the secrets and magic behind:
- the crossed ogive and its clef stone?
- the pointed arch and its walls of stained glass?
- the flying buttresses supporting the various arches?
- Using iron staples and lead to hold blocks together?
Sacred knowledge from within or from someone's visit to Solomon's temple foundations in Jerusalem?
In 1186, the Knights Hospitalers/Templars, converted the Bab Mardum Mosque, built in Toledo in 999 AD, to a Christian chapel, and consacrated it to their Holy Cross:
Its significance is its contribution to early gothic architecture:
Early Islamic semi-circle arches create an ogive shape
Almohads Courtyard (1177) in Real Alcazar in Seville:
Maria Padilla Baths built to store rainwater
Chainage: To prevent twisting, toppling, or cracking of components, and ensure stability, the builders cut a hole and slots in a stone-block and sink-in an iron bar. When necessary, a rope will push the bar into the other component. Each corner gets a wedge. A clay seal is inlaid. When dried, molten lead is inserted via a special duct to seal the assembly:
As the facades and interiors became more and more complex by about 1250, drawings had to be made before construction. A collection of about 30 drawings of the Strasbourg Cathedral from the 13th century is exceptional:
Originally, all the stone work was painted in a wide variety of colors
The Gothic cathedral wonder is nothing less than an initiatory means of civilization, like awakening the sleeping beauty and then everyone else in the palace.
Strasbourg Cathedral drawings till 1277 were GMD:
It's like working with new processes on a completely new cultural basis, commercially and artistically. To be initiated is to be integrated with the play of natural forces and be penetrated by spirit.
'Starman' sculpture on 800 year old
Salamanca Cathedral, Spain
Essential human finds her/himself incorporated in the general harmony and material sculptures/structure of the cathedral, as an initiation in the most natural way possible, without empty theo-jargon, so as to quicken in her and him the consciousness of spirit, without which one is never complete.
Water run-off via the gutters/downspouts and buttresses to the gargoyles:
The proportions between the 3 dimensions in most Gothic Cathedrals include transcendental numbers like pi(π) & phi(ø). Buttress frameworks and vaults balance the horizontal & vertical gravity and wind forces:
Exalted Soul
The Golden Mean proportional dimensions of the Gothic Cathedrals allow them and the earth below them to resonate with the Harmonic EM waves or pulsations of the Stars, which makes them "Edifices of Exalted Energies" within which each Soul can feel what it feels like to be a Star.
Besides satisfying the Soul, the immediate surroundings of a sacred site will often satisfy all other appetites through entertainment events like theme fairs, thrilling attractions, a wide variety of foods and drinks, memorabilia, stores, etc.
Space Suit of the Soul
The use of enzymes as foundation for fertilizers, pesticides, fungicides, and herbicides, allows the Soil in the Earth to regenerate and re-energize itself and feed the roots of plants & trees with certain micro-organisms, that were destroyed by chemicals, but are badly needed for optimal nourishment of fruits and vegetables, to maintain Healthy Human bodies.
It is both a physical and a meta-physical theme park !
Detailed architectural drawings for the Gothic cathedrals, including the labyrinth patterns were obtained from a 2nd century Greek alchemical manuscript, dedicated to the Notre Dame de Lumiere ("Our Lady of Light").
Height of nave of Reims Cathedral is 144 roman feet,
same number as the New Jerusalem wall (Rev 21:17)
The 12th-13th century Gothic cathedrals never depicted a crucified Christ, and are thus true temples that act as portals to the kingdom of heaven. They required more than just calculating forces & resistances. It demanded knowledge of the laws of number, matter, spirit, physiology, psychology, if the edifice had to work directly on the souls of men.
First is the unique location, the gift of the earth. Then comes the 1st man, wise and inspired by God. He communicates the dedication of the temple, using an esoteric language, with mystical meanings and sacred proportions. The 2nd man, of learning, translates it into numbers, that will express the relationship with the world. The 3rd man, a master-builder, a master of the compass and knotted rope, materializes this harmony of words, lines and numbers.
Three Tables seem to birth the Grail. They constitute a way of initiation. The Grail is an alchemical symbol associated with the word Cauldron. Every Greek temple had its Cup. Alchemy is the art of gathering and concentrating a vital current and the concentration is called the Philosopher's Stone, whose powerful activity allows the Adept to do what would take ages otherwise, to change base metal into silver or gold, actually or not. Transmutation through concentration on the vital stream in themselves was what the pilgrims sought.
The 3 tables express a sequence of 3 births and are: round, square, rectangle (2 squares) out of which came the GMR. You cannot reach the square table of "comprehension" (a box in which' numbers' have to pushed around using one's mind, like a game) after visiting ("squaring") the round table, the labyrinth where a 'rebirth' can be experienced in its center. The rectangular (dbl square or GMR) is the place where the mystical and holy ritual of gesture and rhythm is played out.
Inverted 5p Star in Amiens Cathedral Northface
The length of most naves is in the relation of an octave with the length of the choir; its width is in relation of an octave with the width of the aisles. These proportions are also found in the elevation. line and angle, height and width. A system of verticals and horizontals reveal a series of intervals, a musical scale, in accord with the five-pointed star. There are two architectures in these Gothic cathedrals, one of stone, the other being the elements that create a huge sound-box.
The star is enclosed in a circle whose diam. is the height of the keystone of the vault. The 2 lower points of the star in the circle are at the center of arcs of a circle that form the 2 sides of the ogive. The arcs cut the circle at 2 higher lateral points. The clef-stone, the stone that vibrates, thus creating 'music', is placed in the top of the crossed ogives.
The crossed ogive is built on the principle of transformation of lateral into vertical thrust, and weight. Weight that creates thrust becomes its own negation. The stone is in a state of tension, which the master-builder can tune.
The power of the true Gothic stained-glass window comes less from the color of the mosaics than from a certain un-analyzable quality of both color and glass. It doesn't react to light like ordinary glass, but seems to turn into a precious stone that itself becomes luminous. Luminosity and color are not caused by irization brought about by the elements, but by something never reproduced after the 13th century.
Triforium-Chartres-cathedral-choir-roof
Divine light is made visible for humans via alchemically stained glass. The windows are a product of which can be confirmed by anyone who has seen them in their full glory.
Based on evidence in documents deposited by the 9 Knights Templar with the Cistercians, the same glass appeared in the 11th century in the laboratories of certain Persian adepts, among whom was Omar Khayam, the poet of the rose, and Sufi-alchemist Jabir ibn Hayyan (721-815), the original formulator of the alchemic-stained-glass, especially the healing effects of 415-465 nm blue.
No alchemical experiment can be attempted in daylight, because daylight has a particle of energy that is penetrating, sterilizing and relatively dangerous to life. The experiment in alchemy that is directed at the human being, initiation, must take place in a cavern or crypt. The Greek mysteries were enacted at night. The cathedral's alchemical windows act as a filter to retain the particle that is harmful to man's brain. Thus, viewing these windows during the day, has a healing effect on the human body and brain.
So where does this all come to? Consider this scene:
Man enters the Gothic structure, the Earth Ship. The ogive helps him to stand erect. He is in a world where the more a stone weighs, the lighter it is. Stone becomes spirit. Within he feels the resonance with this material. He proceeds by following the telluric current. He stands before the round Table, named Labyrinth because of certain designs on the flagstones, in which it is impossible to get lost because the only path leads to the center. He goes unshod so that the feet are in direct contact with stone that is acting as an accumulator for the properties of the current, whose power is working in him.
Labyrinth
The man who reaches the center feels changed. Then he advances to the square, the intellectual Table where the Numbers expressed in the cathedral can be seen and then rationalized, when viewing the roses. Alchemically, the rose stands for the action of fire. Only at the square table is a simultaneous inflow from all three rose windows perceptible. Thus, here speaks the cathedral to the mind. To pass to the rectangular, mystical Table one has to renounce the 'world'.
Towards the end of the 13th century there seems to have been a withdrawal of spirit from the western world. What was required of the impuls or wave of building Gothic Cathedrals, the ships/vehicles of salvation, was accomplished.
Hereafter, a Cistercian abbot led a crusade against the Albigenses, the Dominicans invented the Inquisition, and the Knights Templar were put to trial. The Beauty sleeps once more. But she will awake at the appointed time.
Over 800 years, hundreds of millions of people have traveled to these Gothic cathedrals to experience entertainment, education, and transformation.
Notre Dame in Paris in its original glory
The stained glass windows, paintings, sculptures, and iron for decoration and chainage (strengthening corners to avoiding twisting/swaying of building) were the only medieval teaching aides available.
Sacred geometry was deliberately used throughout the design to stimulate the feeling of being in a different world that seemed to have no-space, no-time, and no-thing.
As the Piscean age has come to an end, will we rediscover and re-experience the impulses that led to the building of more than 80 Gothic cathedrals more than 800 yrs ago?
Saturated with digital and mobile technology, people look for a moral compass to satisfy their meta-physical heart. Many religions offer such a value system on which to anchor their lives, but these organizations often cope with rampant materialism, money-worship and corruption as well. Thus, a growing number of people worldwide has to look for this ethical blueprint, inner peace and social stability, elsewhere.
IT IS THEREFORE VITAL TO USE SACRED PROPORTIONS, to animate both a modern entertainment & education structure and the physical structure of its human visitors, who can rediscover the intrinsic nature of their own sacredness, and the sacredness of the world around them, while also satisfying their secular and physical needs.
Because, when you have no sense of sacredness it becomes irrelevant if you destroy something or someone or not .....
The Amiens Cathedral is laid out ad quadratum, and in the measure of man, the Roman foot (29.5 cm).
Then there is the 7-pointed star: signifying incarnation. It is also the symbol of the Black Virgin. The master-craftsman took his essential measurements from it. For squaring the circle, he used the druidical cord of knots and segments.
7-pointed star: symbol of protection and perfection
The Chartres Cathedral may be the finest example of early French Gothic architectural design based on the interaction of two 5-pointed stars, and thus built using the golden mean proportions of perfect harmony and perfect resonance with the cosmos:
Sacred and Secular culturally united in Paris
Ancient Roman bridge leads to Roman Catholic Cathedral built inside the
Great Mosque of Cordoba with its 856 columns and horseshoe arches
Islam brought this type arch to Spain in the 9th+ century
St.Nicolas Cathedral converted to Mosque in 1575 in Cyprus
