Rose window from St Denis Paris.
Here is a lengthy extract from Mysterium Artorius that is central to the mood the book tries to establish. It is good to make use of visuals and music in this format to enhance it.
Twelfth Century Ambiance
A crucial distinction was made by PD Ouspensky in A New Model of the Universe. He wrote of the dynamic interplay between the principles of civilisation and barbarism that weaves its way through history. An unashamed advocate of esotericism, he claimed that, “The beginning of culture comes from the inner circle of humanity, and often it comes by means that are violent. Missionaries of the inner circle civilise savage races sometimes by fire and sword, because there can be no other means but violence to deal with a savage people. Later the principles of civilisation develop and gradually create those forms of man’s spiritual manifestation which are called religion, philosophy, science and art, and also those forms of social life which create for the individual a certain freedom, leisure, security and the possibility of self-manifestation in higher spheres of activity.”
Ouspensky
However, “the original forms of civilisation cultivated certain forms of barbarism for the protection of their own existence, their own defence” and, “these forms of barbarism very soon outgrow civilisation. Very soon they begin to see the aim of their existence in themselves. Their strength lies in the fact that they can exist by themselves, without help from outside. Civilisation, on the contrary, having come from outside can only exist and develop by receiving outside help, that is, the help of the esoteric circle. But the evolving forms of barbarism very soon cut off civilisation from its source, and then civilisation, losing confidence in the reason for its separate existence, begins to serve the developed forms of barbarism, in the belief that here lies its aim and destiny.--- Civilisation is, as it were, recast in the mould of barbarism.”
Historians of art and culture refer to a twelfth century Renaissance. This was the period I came to increasingly focus upon, feeling that it manifested with mind-shattering intensity, the processes of which Ouspensky wrote. It was, briefly, a time of incredible openness and expansion when, as far as I was concerned, to use the words of Julius Evola, “suprahistorical reality imposed itself on history”. It wasn’t long though, before a barbaric contraction had occurred and the Middle Ages of popular conception, of the Inquisition and constant terror of the devil and all his works, had set in. This was the backdrop to the Grail era.
St Denis. Photo Yasuhiko Nishigaki.
In the early twelfth century in Paris, a remarkable blend of influences led to far-reaching developments that would later strangely resonate in Glastonbury. It had begun centuries before with the mis-identification of three different figures. An obscure associate of St Paul named Dionysius the Areopagite was mixed up with a neo-platonic Gnostic tinged Christian mystical philosopher now generally known as Pseudo Dionysius. They were in turn falsely linked with the patron Saint of Paris, St Denis. All three became one individual.
A royal abbey named after the saint became the most important in Paris. The bones of saints and kings were gathered together, figures that stretched back into a mythological past. Coronations and state affairs were held there. The tales of Arthur formed a body of literature that came to be known as the Matter of Britain. There was already a Matter of France in existence and it was cultivated at the abbey of St Denis. This was centred on Charlemagne and his knights such as Roland. It served to promote national identity and the image and credibility of the French monarchy.
In 1123, one Abbot Suger took charge of the place. He was a major political figure who had served as prime minister and was closely allied with the monarchy having actually arranged and presided over the marriage of Eleanor of Aquitaine to the future King Louis.
As well as his worldly wisdom Suger was also a mystic, moved by the writings attributed to the saint of Paris. Dionysius is an often under-estimated figure of tremendous importance in the western mystery tradition. He is probably best known for his classification of nine orders or choirs of angels into seraphim and cherubim etc. He praised the virtues of divine names. There are many points of similarity with Qabalistic teachings. He later influenced Renaissance magi who in turn inspired the Golden Dawn. In the twentieth century Rudolf Steiner made much of his angelic hierarchies. Most importantly to Abbot Suger, Dionysius extolled the divine light, God’s holy fire that animates the entire universe. “Lux continua,” continuous light, became Suger’s ultimate metaphor for God. To be purified, illuminated and perfected in divine light seemed the ultimate mysticism.
The abbot wanted to rebuild the existing church in a spectacular manner that would make it the wonder of Europe. It would be constructed to present the teachings of Paris’ patron saint to the world, to lead people to the divine light. Nine chapels in the eastern apse and a further nine in the crypt would call to mind the nine orders of angels. The decoration would evoke the city of the New Jerusalem. By 1133, Suger had assembled an international team of artists and craftsmen, including Arabic glass-makers. The whole style of the building, including the first major appearance of huge coloured stained glass windows in Europe was an event of significant cultural impact.
Suger referred to it as an “opus modernum,” a modern work. In terms of its effects on people’s consciousness, the new multi-media art-form with its synaesthetic blending of space, light, colour, sound, and smell in the interaction of building and ritual would be the LSD of the day. It was very much a case of the shock of the new. The medium was a vital aspect of the message.
This prototype Gothic cathedral was finished in 1144. It’s an irony of cultural history that the term “Gothic” was never used by the people of the time. It arose hundreds of years later in a critical backlash that derided the style as barbaric. The term has endured and its negative connotations dissolved. The dedication ceremony at St Denis was attended by many leading figures of the age, including the royal couple Louis VII and Eleanor of Aquitaine, a multi-national host of bishops, a vast throng of nobility, and the top ecclesiastical superstar of the time, Bernard of Clairvaux.
One extraordinary artefact was a notable centrepiece for the dazzling bejewelled edifice. A sardonyx cup, now considered to have originated in Alexandria during the second to first centuries BC, was incorporated into a gold and silver chalice adorned with gems. It was used to hold wine for Mass and had featured in Eleanor’s coronation. The Suger chalice (now in the National Gallery of Art in Washington) is one of the minor contenders in the cup of Christ relic stakes. What’s interesting here is that such an item, regardless of its true provenance, was a focal point of such a richly realised cosmological vision in stone and glass, the main model for a whole culture that followed. From its beginnings at St. Denis, the new style soon spread all over Europe.
During the first millennium of the Catholic Church the central Mass rite of the Eucharist was not yet finalised. It had evolved from what appears to have been a commemorative meal expressive of group communion and solidarity. At the beginning of the Gothic Grail era, the form of the ceremony was still developing. Many tales were also circulating at the time of the romances of people being sustained solely by the Eucharistic host. It was at the end of the twelfth century that elements such as the elevation of the host and the ringing of bells became commonplace. Performance in the new cathedrals and churches would have seemed intense and dramatic. The mysterious rite was conducted amidst candles and incense by people in striking costumes. Not everyone had believed in transubstantiation, the real presence of Christ, that the Mass wine and wafer was his blood and body. This became official doctrine at the Fourth Lateran Council of 1215. It helped enforce papal power throughout Western Europe. Only the officially sanctioned could perform it. Any deviance was heresy and subject to increasingly grim punishment.
In 1141, a mystically inclined nun named Hildegard of Bingen in Germany had an experience when, “a burning light of tremendous brightness coming from heaven poured into my entire mind, like a flame that does not burn but enkindles. It inflamed my entire heart and breast, like the sun that warms an object with its rays.”
This and future visions contained images, voices, and strangely floating written words that formed the basis of a forty year long outpouring of art, theology, prophecy, medicine, and above all, music, that made her one of the wonders of the age, chastiser of corrupt priests, the confidante of common folk and the Holy Roman Emperor.
Hildegard was a very real example of the presence and potency of the experience of divine light that was inspiring the Gothic cathedral building. The fact that she was a woman who managed to make her voice heard and accepted also says something about the spirit of the time.
There has been a considerable revival of interest in Hildegard in recent times. The publication of Theologian Matthew Foxs' epochal masterpiece Original Blessing in 1983 was a significant factor as it featured an extended consideration of her work (and caused Fox to be excommunicated in the process).
High quality recordings of her music in its original form are readily available and a number of modern imaginative soundscapes have been created to accompany it.
Psychedelic Catholic mysticism? Those appreciative of Rudolf Steiner's work may find of interest.
Mother of the World by Nicholas Roerich
The great cathedrals that were appearing all over Europe were primarily dedicated to the Virgin Mary whose cult was massively expanded by their success. Bernard of Clairvaux was a major figure in the initial process. He was another incredible balance of politician and mystic. The Cistercian order of monks had been rescued by him from floundering fortunes and transformed into one of the most dynamic multi-national corporations of the day. Bernard had inaugurated the Second Crusade in 1146 in France, preaching to a football stadium sized crowd that included Louis and Eleanor. A less successful undertaking was a mission to the heretical Cathars.
Chartres cathedral and windows.
Bernard interacted with all of the major game-players of the age. There is correspondence between him and Hildegard. He was primarily a mystic. A childhood experience, difficult to classify today, when he received some drops of milk from a statue of the Virgin Mary, produced a lifelong veneration. The statue in question was one of the enigmatic Black Madonnas. Bernard went on to write a prodigious number of sermons linking the Virgin to material in the Old Testament Song of Songs, a piece full of the erotic and mystical divine feminine, characterised as black. After Suger initiated the Gothic epoch at St Denis, Bernard was a prime mover behind the greatest masterpiece of esoteric architecture that followed soon afterwards. Built on what was once a major Druidic site, Chartres cathedral has spawned a whole industry of interpretation. What’s not in dispute is the central importance of a Black Madonna statue originally displayed in a crypt there.
Joachim of Fiore was an abbot obsessed with potential hidden meanings in the Bible. Sometime between 1190 and 1195 he came to conclusions that would make him the most important of all medieval visionaries, an influence across an astonishingly diverse spectrum right through into the present day. He believed that history was intricately linked to the unfolding of god’s plan for humanity. It was divided into three ages that were presided over by the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. There had been 42 generations between Adam and Christ, the first age of the Father. He believed that another 42 would complete the era of the Son. The glorious epoch of the Holy Spirit would then descend. As Norman Cohn summarised it in The Pursuit of the Millennium, “If the first age had been one of fear and servitude and the second age one of faith and filial submission, the third age would be one of love, joy and freedom, when the knowledge of God would be revealed directly in the hearts of all men.”
Joachim's three ages.
There was a time of overlap between the ages. Joachim believed that the first stirrings of the age of the Holy Spirit would be clearly felt by 1260. After his death in 1202 assorted false writings were attributed to him. The incredible subsequent history of his ideas need not concern us here. Sufficient to note that the idea of three ages, “entered into the common stock of European social mythology” and some mystics and heretics would come to feel the imminence of the age of the Spirit.
The same spiritual cultural influences and conditions that produced the building of the Gothic cathedrals, the massive expansion of the cult of the Virgin Mary, the debate about the Eucharist, a divine light download in a visionary nun, and led a mystic to believe that the age of the Holy Spirit was about to dawn, were also present in the creation of the Grail literature.
Modern stained glass Grail from Tintagel Hall of Chivalry.
When it comes to the great tales themselves, it can be useful to begin with the perspective of the German medievalist Friedrich Heer. “There can no longer be any doubt that the theme of the great romantic epics --- is initiation, dedication, metamorphosis, and absorption into a higher and fuller life, at once more human and more divine”. Enter the mystery with that attitude and the ambiance of the twelfth century all around one and the journey can be a most fruitful one.
Since writing this post I have gone on to make a video inspired by the same material, featuring music by Hildegard of Bingen so it seems appropriate to add it here.
Postscript
The section in Mysterium Artorius on Twelfth Century Ambiance took shape between 2000 and 2004 when I was fortunate to have visited Bingen on a number of occasions. This was in the context of journeys to see Mother Meera at her home base in Germany. Some of these were as part of the legendary group trips that set out from Glastonbury and others accompanied by my partner Rachel. It has been stated that Mother Meera is an incarnation of the Divine Mother and therefore, in many respects, comparable to the Catholic concept of the Virgin Mary. This is, of course, an outlandish idea that some may even find offensive. She gives what the Hindus call darshan , when individuals are given a brief touch and glance by her. This is sufficient to enable her to transmit a divine light into one's entire being that works in whatever way is most appropriate.
I can only say that on a personal level Mother Meera represents the most astonishing mystery I have ever come into contact with and has always managed to have a stupendous effect on me. The combination of her spiritual transmission and visits to Bingen and Disiboden (a ruined site that was the location of Hildegard's visions and still retains a potent force)helped me to actually feel rather that just intellectually understand that divine light force, those tongues of fire, that seem to have been so powerfully present during what I have called the Grail era. This is what led to me referring to Meera as a "living Grail" in the dedications in Mysterium Artorius.
Om Namo Bhagavate Mata Meera
The majority of text in this blog post comes from Mysterium Artorius.
