Grid of the Gods

by Farrell, Joseph P.

  The relief is found on the Great Porch of the famous Paris cathedral.

  At first glance, the dictates of Christian piety will perhaps decode the relief in a predictable way: a figure is seated on a throne, holding a scepter in the left hand, and two books — one open, and the other closed — in the right, with the curious figure of a ladder between the knees. This, piety will suggest, is Christ, the King of Heaven, seated on the throne of Heaven, holding open the Book of the Gospels, perhaps, and the closed Book of Life, to be opened by Him at the apocalypse. The ladder is, perhaps, a symbolism of Jacob’s ladder, by which heaven and earth were united, and thus a fitting symbol of Christ. It is a testimony to the skill of the symbolists that the figure can be interpreted in this fashion.

  But to one schooled in esotericism, the symbol is capable of a very different interpretation. A closer glance at the figure reveals a carefully executed androgyny, neither fully masculine, nor fully feminine. Or rather, it is both fully masculine and feminine simultaneously. As such, it is equally an alchemical, as well as a Christian symbol, for it thus functions as a symbol of the physical medium itself, as alchemy understood it. Fulcanelli writes elsewhere “The spirit cannot but feel troubled in the presence of this even more paradoxical antithesis: the torch of alchemical thought illuminating the temple of Christian thought.”4

  From this vantage point, the rest of the relief decodes itself in very different terms. Fulcanelli notes that the famous cathedral, “like most French cathedrals, is dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary or the Virgin Mother.”5 However, there is an esoteric and alchemical significance even in this, and the bas relief on the Great Porch reveals it:

  In the place of honour, facing the parvis, alchemy is represented by a woman, with her head touching the clouds. Seated on a throne, she holds in her left hand a sceptre, the sign of royal power, while her right hand supports two books, one closed (esotericism) the other open (exotericism). Supported between her knees and leaning against her chest, is the ladder with nine rungs — scala philosophorum -hieroglyph of the patience which the faithful must possess in the course of the nine successive operations of the hermetic labour…6

  Beyond the fact that Fulcanelli has glossed the androgynous nature of the relief, the symbol could be taken straight from Vishnu’s first “tripartation,” the primordial nothingness standing over against him after that initial “tripartation” in all its stark, undifferentiated femininity.

  It is, Fulcanelli observes, “the seal of the secular Great Work” of alchemy “on the very face of the Christian Great Work.”7 This Virgin Mother depicted here is “stripped of her symbolical veil” and thus

  is none other than the personification of the primitive substance, used by the Principle, the creator of all that is, for the furtherance of his designs. This is the meaning (and, indeed, a very clear one) of this strange epithet, which we read in the Mass of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin, of which the text reads:

  “The Lord possessed me at the beginning of his ways. I existed before he formed any creature. I existed from all eternity, before the earth was created. The abysses were not yet and already I was conceived.…”8

  For Fulcanelli, the bas relief was a therefore also a clue to the profoundly different alchemical and esoteric meaning of familiar passages of the Bible, meanings at variance with the popular meanings ascribed to them by piety.

  The meaning was clear: the Virgin Mother was a symbol of that primordial mater, the primordial “mother” or matter, the physical medium from which, according to alchemy, all else derived. Small wonder, then, that alchemical symbolism should adorn the great cathedrals where, according to the dogmas of the mediaeval church, another transmutation called “transubstantiation” was performed in a ritual act understood by the Church to be sacrificial, for behind the exoteric dogma and ritual, a hidden esotericism was perhaps at work, biding its time behind Christian symbols, until it could once again re-emerge as itself, and freed from the necessity of having to disguise itself. The very fact that these symbols are alchemical, and boldly emblazoned on France’s most famous Gothic cathedrals, is testament to something else, namely, that an alchemical, hermetic elite continued in Europe throughout the centuries, overseeing and guiding their construction.

  During his most recent research in Paris, as with his spine tingling pilgrimage to Chichen Itza, at least one thing was quite clearly revealed to Scott de Hart; both at Notre Dame as well as within the dark catacombs of the City of Lights, he was a witness to the ritual and alchemical march of humanity into the hidden chambers of the gods’ playground. It is well to heed the warning for posted in the catacombs when taking this journey:”Arrête! C’esticil’empire de la mort,” Stop! This is the empire of death.

  Finally, there is, as we also saw, a deeper reality to this ancient view of the physical medium, to the view that existed before it became twisted into rituals of spiritual debt and sacrifice, and that is the view that the medium was an overflowing fecundity, a primordial androgynous “Nothing” from which all else flowed. It was a primordial “divine simplicity,” an empire of life, that created a very strange set of symbols, a set of symbols we have only briefly touched upon in these pages, and whose full range of expression and implications have yet to be plumbed.

  But plumbing those depths is a task for another book. For now, this task, this survey, and the hints of its implications, is completed.

  Joseph P. Farrell

  Scott D. de Hart

  The Main Arch of the Great Porch of Notre Dame de Paris

  Notes

  1 E. Canseliet, “Preface to the First Edition,” Fulcanelli, Le Mystère des Cathédrales, trans. Mary Sworder (Lsa Vegas, Nevada: Brotherhood of Life, 2007), pp. 6–7.

  2 That mystery has never been adequately solved. “Fulcanelli” appeared in 1920s France, and just as quickly, disappeared, after entrusting the manuscript for his now famous alchemical study of the gothic cathedrals to his disciple. There are those that believe that there is a strong case to be made that “Fulcanelli” was none other than the famous esotericist Rene Schwaller de Lubicz, and one of us, Joseph P. Farrell, inclines to this view.

  3 Fulcanelli, Le Mystère des Cathedrales, trans. from the French by Mary Sworder (Las Vegas: Brotherhood of Life, 2007), photo insert betwen pp. 70 and 71.

  4 Fulcanelli, Le Mystère des Cathédrales, p. 104.

  5 Ibid., p. 69.

  6 Ibid., p. 70.

  7 Fulcanelli, , Le Mystère des Cathédrales, p. 70.

  8 Ibid.

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  About the Authors

  Joseph P. Farrell is from South Dakota, receiving his B.A. in Biblical Studies and Philosophy in 1979, and his M.A. in Historical Theology in 1983. He went up to Pembroke College of the University of Oxford in 1984, and received his doctorate in Patristics in 1987. Scott D. de Hart received his M.A. in Historical Theology in 1993, and went up to the University of Oxford that same year, receiving his doctorate in Theology from Wycliffe Hall, the University of Oxford, in 1997. His dissertation Anglo-Catholics, Authority, and Ritualism was published as an ebook in 2010. Dr. de Hart has four sons, Wesley, Calvin, Alexander, and Bennett. Dr. Farrell and Dr. de Hart met in 1993, and from that time since have been friends and colleagues in research, lecturing, and writing, discussing many of the historical, scientific, and religious subjects represented in this book. The Grid of the Gods is their first official collaboration. They are planning a series of future collaborative books as sequels to stand in the arch of Genes, Giants, Monsters and Men (Feral House), and The Grid of the Gods.