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Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris (1163-1345 A.D.)
Above is a satellite photo of Notre Dame de Paris taken in 2006 (Google Maps)
The Cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris is more than seven hundred years old, but it is only the most recent religious temple to occupy this sacred site. Before Julius Caesar, the Celtic Druids held their religious services in the sacred groves on this island in the Seine River. After the Roman conquest, a temple dedicated to Jupiter was constructed. In about 528 A.D. during the reign of the Merovingian King Childebert I, the Christians built a basilica dedicated to St. Etienne. Later a church in the Romanesque style replaced the basilica and stood there until 1163. In that year, Maurice de Sully (ca. 1100 - 1196), the bishop of Paris, laid the cornerstone for a new cathedral dedicated to "Our Lady" (Notre Dame in French) that was intended to confirm the position of Paris as one of the dominant centers of Christendom. Bishop de Sully, impressed by the new Gothic style Abbey of Saint-Denis, thought that a new Gothic style cathedral would increase the prestige of the capital immensely. He devoted the rest of his life and most of his wealth to the cathedral's construction. Work on the new cathedral began during the reign of King Louis VII and would not be completed until the reign of Philip VI; thus the cathedral took almost two centuries to complete. During the construction period, many architects worked on the site, as is evidenced by the differing styles of different parts of the building. Construction of the western facade, with its distinctive two towers, began in about 1200, before the nave had been completed. Between 1210 and 1220, the construction of the southern facade with the famous Rose Window and the great halls beneath the towers was undertaken. The towers were completed around 1245, but the entire cathedral was not completed until about 1345.
Comments by P. D. OuspenskyP. D. Ouspensky in about 1935
The great Fourth Way teacher, P. D. Ouspensky, in his book entitled A New Model of the Universe made the following comments (at pages 345-349) concerning Notre Dame de Paris: So much has been written about the Cathedral of Notre Dame, and so little is actually known about it. One who has never tried to find out anything about it for himself; or to make something out of the available material, would never believe how little in fact is known about the building of the cathedral. It took many years to build; the dates when it was begun and when it was finished are known; the bishops who, in one way or another, contributed to this construction are also known, and so are the popes and kings of that time. But nothing has remained concerning the builders themselves with the exception of names, and even that seldom. And no facts have remained concerning the schools which stood behind all that was created by that strange period which began about the year one thousand and lasted for about four centuries.It is known that there existed schools of builders. Of course they had to exist, for every master worked and ordinarily lived with his pupils. In this way painters worked, in this way sculptors worked. In this way, naturally, architects worked. But behind these individual schools stood other institutions of very complex origin. And these were not merely architectural schools or schools of masons. The building of cathedrals was part of a colossal and cleverly devised plan which permitted the existence of entirely free philosophical and psychological schools in the rude, absurd, cruel, superstitious, bigoted and scholastic Middle Ages. These schools have left us an immense heritage, almost all of which we have already wasted without understanding its meaning and value.These schools, which built the “Gothic” cathedrals, concealed themselves so well that traces of them can now be found only by those who already know that such schools must have existed. Certainly the Catholic Church of the 11th and 12th centuries, which already used the torture and stake for heretics and strangled all free thought, did not build Notre Dame. There is not the slightest doubt that for a time the Church was made an instrument for the preservation and propagation of the ideas of true Christianity, that is, of true religion or true knowledge, which were absolutely foreign to it.And there is nothing improbable in the fact that the whole scheme of the building of cathedrals and of the organization of schools under cover of this building activity was created because of the growing heretic-mania in the Catholic Church and because the Church was rapidly losing those qualities which had made it a refuge for knowledge. By the end of the first thousand years of the Christian era the monasteries had gathered all the science, all the knowledge, of that time. But the legalization of the hunting and prosecution of heretics, and the approach of the Inquisition, made it impossible for knowledge to reside in monasteries.There was then found or, to speak more accurately, created, for this knowledge a new and convenient refuge. The knowledge left the monasteries and passed into architectural schools, "schools of masons". The style later called “Gothic” and at the time known as the “new” or "modern", of which the characteristic feature was the pointed arch, was accepted as the distinctive sign of the schools. The schools within presented a complex organization and were divided into different degrees; this means that in every “school of masons “where all the sciences necessary for architects were taught there were inner schools in which the true meaning of religious allegories and symbols was explained and in which was studied “esoteric philosophy” or the science of the relations between God, man and the universe, that is, the very "magic", for a mere thought of which people were put on the rack and burnt at the stake. The schools lasted up to the Renaissance, when the existence of “secular science” became possible. The new science, carried away by the novelty of free thought and free investigation, very soon forgot its origin and beginning, and forgot also the role of the “Gothic” cathedrals in the preservation and successive transmission of knowledge.But Notre Dame has remained, and to this day guards and shows us the ideas of the schools and the ideas of the true "freemasons".It is known that Notre Dame, at least in its exterior, is at present nearer to what it was originally than it has been during the past three centuries. After an incalculable number of ignorant, pious alterations, after the storm of revolution which destroyed what had survived these alterations, Notre Dame was restored in the second part of the i9th century by a man who had deep understanding of its idea. But what has remained of the really old and what is new it is difficult to say, not for lack of historical data, but because the “new” is often in fact the "old".Such, for instance, is the tall, slender, pierced spire over the eastern part of the cathedral, from which the twelve Apostles, preceded by the apocalyptic beasts, are descending to the four corners of the world. The old spire was demolished in 1787. What we now see is a structure of the 19th century and, together with the figures of the Apostles, is the work of Viollet-le-Duc, the restorer of the cathedral during the Second Empire. But not even Viollet-le-Duc could create the view from the big towers over the city including this spire and the Apostles; he could not create the whole scenic effect which was undoubtedly a part of the builders’ design. The spire with the Apostles is an inseparable part of this view. You stand on the top of one of the big towers and look towards the east. The city, the houses, the river, the bridges, the tiny, microscopic people. . . . And not one of these people sees the spire, or sees the Teachers descending upon the earth preceded by the apocalyptic beasts. This is quite natural, because from there, from the earth, it is difficult to distinguish them. If you go there, to the embankment of the Seine, to the bridge, the Apostles will appear from there almost as small as the people appear from here, and they will merge into the details of the roof of the cathedral. They can be seen only if one knows of their existence. But who cares to know? And the gargoyles? They are regarded either simply as an ornament, or as individual creations of different artists at different times. In actual fact, however, they are one of the most important features of the builders’ design.This design was very complex. To be more exact, it is not even one design, but several designs completing one another. The builders wished to put all their knowledge, all their ideas, into Notre Dame. You find there mathematics, astronomy; some very strange ideas of biology or “evolution” in the stone bushes, on which human heads grow, on the balustrade of the large platform under the flying buttresses.The gargoyles and other figures of Notre Dame transmit to us the psychological ideas of its builders, chiefly the idea of the complexity of the soul. These figures are the soul of Notre Dame, its different "I"s: pensive, melancholy, watching, derisive, malignant, absorbedin themselves, devouring something, looking intensely into a distance invisible to us, as does the strange woman in the headdress of a nun, which can be seen above the capitals of the columns of a small turret high up on the south side of the cathedral. The gargoyles and all the other figures of Notre Dame possess one very strange property: beside them people cannot be drawn, painted or photographed; beside them people appear dead, expressionless stone images.It is difficult to explain these "I"s of Notre Dame; they must be felt, and they can be felt. But it is necessary to choose the time when Paris becomes quiet. This happens before daybreak, when it is not yet quite light but when it is already possible to distinguish some of these strange beings sleeping above. I remember such a night; it was before the war. I was making a short stay in Paris on the way to India and was wandering about the town for the last time. It was already growing light, and the air was becoming cold. The moon moved swiftly among the clouds. I walked round the whole cathedral. The huge massive towers stood as though on the alert. But I already understood their secret. And I knew that I was taking with me a firm conviction, which nothing could shake, that this exists, that is, that there is another history apart from the history of crime, and that there is another thought, which created Notre Dame and its figures. I was going to search for other traces of this thought, and I was sure that I should find them. Eight years passed before I saw Notre Dame again. These were the years of almost unprecedented commotion and destruction. And it seemed to me that something had changed in Notre Dame, as though it was beginning to have a presentiment of its approaching end. During these years, which have written such brilliant pages into the history of crime, bombs dropped over Notre Dame, shells burst, and it was only by accident that Notre Dame did not share the fate of that wonderful fairy-tale of the twelfth century, Rheims Cathedral, which perished a victim of progress and civilization. And when I went up the tower and again saw the descending Apostles I was struck by the vainness and almost complete uselessness of attempts to teach people something they have no desire whatever to know.And again, as many times before, I could find only one argument against this, namely, that perhaps the aim both of the teaching of the Apostles and of the construction of Notre Dame was not to teach all the people, but only to transmit certain ideas to a few men through the "space of time ". Modern science conquers space within the limits of the surface of the small earth. Esoteric science has conquered time, and it knows methods of transferring its ideas intact and of establishing communications between schools through hundreds and thousands of years.
Comments by Fulcanelli
The great 20th century alchemist and hermeticist, writing in French under the pen name of Fulcanelli (real name unknown), performed a detailed analysis of the Cathedral de Notre Dame in his 1926 book entitled Le Mystère des Cathédrales. Set forth below are a few key elements (in English translation) of his analysis:
To be provided at a later date.
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