(Sages, flood survivors, and the first temple builders)
- OUR LEGACY BEQUEATHED BY GODS.
Written traditions such as the Edfu Building Texts inform us how groups of sages and creator gods embarked on temple-building programs at carefully chosen locations in the aftermath of a global flood.
Tales of traveling gods escaping a global deluge underscore the myths in practically every culture, and they regularly appear in groups of seven. In the Indian Vedas seven sages are said to have come from an island, “the home of the primeval ones” destroyed in a great flood. The few survivors became builder gods, the lords of light.” With them came the principle of maintaining indefinitely a society in perfect balance with itself and with the universe through earthly and cosmic balance.
They are called temples. Pyramids, stone circles, menhirs, dolmens, sanctuaries and mounds. Regardless of their shape and size, they all were built by faceless experts from forgotten ages to the same end: to act as mirrors of the heavens so that ordinary men and women may be transformed into gods.
Texts discovered at Nag Hammadi stipulate how leading away from such spiritual places caused people to die not knowing the truth, never understanding the Source or why they are here, deceived by darkness and ignorance.
This is a unique insight, a behind-the-scenes look into the mind and soul of temple-building: why these “special chosen locations” are so; how ordinary landscapes were transformed into places of power; and the seven principles that master craftsmen combined to transform mere stones and subtle forces into sacred environments.
(Temples as mirrors of heaven and machines of transformation)
Because temples are living organisms that amplify the human potential, the laws that govern them have been used and misused throughout history.
The secrets of the temple have been quietly handed down among esoteric societies such as the Cathars, Bogomils and Manicheists, later to be rediscovered by the Knights Templar during their excavations of the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem. The majority of these sects died horrifically at the hands of despots and brutal clergymen. Rather than give up timeless secrets, initiates took them to the grave. It is now time for the lost knowledge of temple-building to resurface. Like any sacred space, the idea behind this book is to let you enter as an initiate and re-emerge an adept.
Act I
- A LONG MEMORY OF PLACES OF POWER.
Celtic cultures –— and later the Druids — as well as the Bushmen of the Kalahari, were not just highly intuitive, but also telepathic. This natural-born ability enabled them to see the unseen and touch the untouchable.
sympathetic harmony, a surge of life energy is directed into the center of Gaia, sending streams of life force up to the surface and Earth becomes abundant with life. However, some places became significantly more abundant with this energy. The Hopi called them ‘the spots of the fawn’, 3 and over time they would become sacred places.
(Spirit roads, telluric currents, and sacred geography)
They are thresholds into a non-ordinary reality, places where the worlds of the material and the spirit convergence and the ancestors offer advice. The ancients appreciated that human beings are, first and foremost, individuals, and that their journey towards spiritual enlightenment is an individual act where success is based on persistence, patience and perseverance.
This is also one of the names of the Via Sacra (‘sacred way’) connecting the pyramid complex at Teotihuacan, which goes by a second name, the ‘Way of the Stars’.
Other celebrated spirit roads are those of the Australian Aboriginal tribes, whose oral tradition, altjurunga (‘dreamtime’), recalls events that took place over a million years ago. Thankfully, Aboriginal tribes are still with us, and it is from them that we get a sense of what it feels like to tune-in to the land. And why.
ancient people or modern shaman. Anyone attuned to the environment is able to open a doorway of communication at these focal spots, and that can lead to an intimate experience with the spirit of place. Mountaineers are just such a type. Although the concentration demanded of them requires intense mental clarity and total left-brain engagement, at certain moments a climber’s bond with the rock becomes a religious experience.
One such occasion occurred to Maurice Herzog while climbing the Annapurna in Nepal, a holy mountain named for the Goddess of Fertility: “I had the strangest and most vivid impressions such as I had never before known in the mountains… all sense of exertion was gone, as though there was no longer any gravity… I had never seen such complete transparency, and I was living in a world of crystal. Sounds were indistinct. The atmosphere like cotton wool. An astonishing happiness welled up in me, but I could not define it. An enormous gulf was between me and the world. This was a different universe… we were overstepping a boundary.”11
They are also unique in that they are located at unusual electromagnetic or gravitational hotspots. Every dawn, the Earth is subjected to a rise in the solar wind, which intensifies the planet’s geomagnetic field; at night this field weakens, then picks up at dawn and the cycle repeats ad infinitum. But there are places on the land where the geomagnetic field interacts with another force, and the effect intensifies. In physics it is called a telluric current; ancient people call it a spirit road. These subtle lines of force tend to travel better along soil with a high content of metal and water, and possibly quartz.
This generates a hotspot called a conductivity discontinuity, and even though ancient people did not own magnetometers, they were able to locate them long before science built machines to prove them right. The Sioux call this energy skan, and when concentrated at power places it is claimed to influence the mind, creativity, as well as elevate personal power in the form of spiritual attuning. In essence, the energy raises one’s resonance, and contact with multiple power places builds up a kind of numinous state of mind.
His motivation for the stupendous journey was to “tame a local tiger,” an old euphemism for securing or anchoring telluric forces so as to create an energy hotspot or node. Padmasambhava’s flight obviously succeeded, for a prominent monastery named Taktsang Dzong (Tiger’s Nest), was later built on the edge of the mountain. Taktsang Dzong,
Certainly when one looks at some of these monasteries one has to ask, what kind of revelation prompted these endeavors that look like architectural experiments in anti-gravity? Delicate structures built on
(Sacred mountains as cosmic axis and path to paradise)
Perhaps the best known example throughout eastern religious lore is Sumeru, or Mt. Meru, for it represents at the same time an allegorical structure of the universe as well as the highest spiritual achievement sought by adepts in the physical, spiritual and metaphysical cosmology of Hindus, Buddhists and Jains; the roots of Jainism, in particular, are as old as mountains themselves, and its influence is noted in many other religions.
fear, anger, envy, and so forth. And once enlightenment is reached, one attains a state of bliss. Or as many prefer to call it, paradise.
The allegorical Mount Meru’s earthly counterpart is Mount Kailas, a 22,000-foot high granite cube that tapers into a pyramid-shaped summit, which is approached by pilgrims walking a path resembling an ever-decreasing spiral. Pilgrims to Mecca perform the same ritual around the cubic Ka’ba (‘spirit-body’) as do pilgrims to Ireland’s holiest sacred mountain, the pyramidal Cruach Phádraig. Like perambulating a labyrinth, the need to walk in slowly decreasing orbits induces oneness between mind, body, spirit, and God — it creates a shamanic experience that leads to a blissful state of oneness with all levels of creation. That is paradise.
Siva mulled this, agreed, and lowered his radiance, which would forever remain in the form of a mountain of fire. The spot is today marked by a pyramidal hill of red stone called Arunachela, also called the Sacred Red Hill. There is no doubt as to its numinous quality today, for at its base lies the 24-acre temple of Arunachaleswara, one of the five most important temples dedicated to Siva in India. The constructed temple is itself directly associated with deity, for Siva also manifested a column of stone on the hill’s eastern side, after which Visvakarma, the architect of the Gods, erected the first temple with the phallic symbol of Siva, the Sivalinga, housed inside
its Holy of Holies (the present-day structure rests on these extremely ancient foundations).22
In North America, such a place of connection between divinity and humanity is Tse´Bit’ai (‘rock with wings’), otherwise known as Shiprock.
Despite several trips to this magnificent part of the world I still cannot muster the right superlatives to bestow on this landscape temple — undiminished clarity is probably what best describes the sensation. The Dalai Lama himself was moved enough to name this power place A Spiritual Center of the Universe. Marotini, tutelary goddess of Kura Tawhiti. New Zealand. Kura Tawhiti is described as both ‘the highest place of learning’ and ‘the meeting place of the gods’. Its tradition far precedes that of the Maori, who were relative latecomers to New Zealand around 1300 AD. The creators of this astonishing outdoor classroom were the Waitaha, a race of mythical beings who are described as very tall and fair skinned, sometimes with reddish hair. A small number still exist today.
- THE MYSTERY OF THE THREE STEPS OF VISHNU. “Establish the triangle and the problem is two-thirds solved.” ~ Pythagoras
(The triangle, triadic deity, and the geometry of cosmic order)
The concept of triadic deity is found throughout world mythology, in which three inter-related creative forces are represented by a central figure or god with two supporting entities – such as the Christian God, whose aspect comprises Father-Son-Holy Spirit. This idea of wholeness is personified on an earthly level in the Egyptian ibis-headed god Djehuti (Thoth, to the Greeks), who is honored as thrice great after he becomes the embodiment of perfection.
Thanks to the machinations of the Church, the attainment of knowledge gets Adam and Eve booted out of paradise, the apple is labeled forbidden fruit, and worse, the whole episode is presided by a serpent who was doing fine as a symbol of telluric forces until the Church turned it into the devil. And just like that, knowledge becomes evil, and coming into contact with it removes you from that state of bliss. But ‘drinking’ of this knowledge and applying it was precisely the reason why we sought out places of power on the land, and why gods with benevolent intentions, like Siva, imprinted it at special spots for us to find.
few phrases later in the Rig Veda we are given another cunning piece of information: “He, like a rounded wheel, hath set in swift motion his 90 racing steeds together with the four….” We are here presented with an instruction concealed in an allegorical tale, which was a time-honored method of preserving ancient — and vital — universal knowledge. Since 90 racing steeds x 4 = 360, it implies the number of degrees in a circumference of a “rounded wheel”. 6 Since Vishnu is measuring a sphere called the Earth, and the sphere is a circle in 3-D, would the siting of landscape temples along the surface of the sphere have something to do with Vishnu’s three steps? After all, he was also in charge of restoring order to the world. Very orderly sacred mountains.
In China, three Buddhist sacred mountains are associated with Bodhisattvas — bodhi meaning ‘enlightenment’ and sattva meaning ‘being’.
The triangle is a reconciling relationship between opposing forces, symbolized by the number two, dark and light, good and evil. But a third element brings balance through relationship. Egyptologist John Anthony West expresses it succinctly: “Male/female is not a relationship. For there to be a relationship there must be ‘love’ or at least ‘desire’. A sculptor and a block of wood will not produce a statue. The sculptor must have ‘inspiration’.” 14 The same can be said for the triangular movements of a creator god as he deposited information at energetically-sensitive locations in our physical domain through a beam of light: one, the creative force; two, manifests knowledge; three, for the love of humanity. In this respect Vishnu and Siva (together with Brahma) are all working for and towards the same indivisible whole.
To them the isosceles triangle, above all, embodies the stability of the Absolute Ground of Being of Buddha consciousness. And yet, all of this is but a mirror of natural forces at play: as Aristotle concluded in his study of organic forms, the isosceles triangle is inherent in the gnomic pattern of growth in nature.
Expressed three-dimensionally, geometry becomes polyhedral or solid geometry. Thus, a triangle in three-dimensional space becomes a tetrahedron, otherwise known as a triangular pyramid. It is one of the principal Platonic solids as well as the glue of God, because in nature it is the geometry that bonds all molecules. In other words, the tetrahedron is the prime bonding pattern of matter.
The core belief of ancient esoteric practices states that human life should strive to reflect the inherent perfection of natural forces around it, such as the orderly motions of the heavens. This was the sky-ground dualism so beloved of the Egyptians, as reflected in their maxim As Above, So Below, as well as the Gnostic As Without, So Within. It was then up to the initiate to acquire the knowledge through direct contact and immersion in the processes imprinted at sacred places.
- NAVELS OF THE EARTH, PLACES OF THE GODS.
(The omphalos as cosmic navel and umbilical to the divine)
The Tamil tradition of Arunachala as a repository of a creator god’s power and knowledge is ancient, prehistoric even.
The Sacred Center. Iceland is home to Europe’s only true high desert, a forbidding and unforgiving place of desolate lava fields and icy crags. And yet there have always been persistent memories as far back as the Viking Sagas that amid this inhospitable terrain lies paradise. Only an eternal optimist could visualize this.
The triple spiral, symbol of the three faces of God and the flow of energy in nature, is found from Ireland to Korea. Center: The symbol of the Isle of Man.
The Primeval Mound, the central stone, and its encompassing temple subsequently become a source of initiation, but only to those who have the patience and integrity to undertake the journey into gnosis: “These are they who are outside Het Benben… They see Ra with their eyes and they enter into his secret teachings… I protect my hidden things in Het Benben.” 19
In Egypt these took on the shape of obelisks, atop of which a Benben would be fitted as a capstone and plated with electrum, a highly conductive alloy composed of two-thirds gold and one-third silver.
As for the navel stones themselves, they have magnetic properties, and traditions state how they were used by magician-priests for mana, ‘magic’ (similar to the Egyptian hekau), which helped concentrate their mental powers while they made the giant statues move silently through the air and land them according to some geodetic plan. 26
The symbolism repeats cross-culturally, from the Sagas of Odin and the Yggdrasil Tree, to the Tree of Knowledge in the garden of Eden, to the story of Jacob’s ladder –—even Jack and the Beanstalk. They also tend to be nodes from which entire civilizations emerged, bound by a set of cosmic laws directing them to live a harmonious life which, if adhered to, could be maintained indefinitely. As the late antiquarian pioneer John Michell summarized: “Traditional cosmologies describe a centered universe in which the principle of order is ultimately paramount. Their social product is a cosmologically ordered form of civilization whose central symbol is the world-pole penetrating the earth.” 28
Here it is possible to draw parallels between the navels of the earth and the navel of the body – not a huge leap considering we emanate from the soil. The navel marks the geodetic center of the human body, but it is also the point of entry of information, disguised as subtle energy, into its electromagnetic circuitry. 29 The phrase ‘a gut feeling’ that so describes the moment one receives information from the surrounding landscape probably derives from this interaction. And just as our navels were initially connected to a source of physical nourishment via the umbilical cord, so the terrestrial omphalos connects us to an invisible source for spiritual sustenance.
“Authority at the navel of the earth is upheld by the omphalos rock, which retains the heat of the sun; while the lunar principle is active in the waters that rise beneath the rock, drawn by the moon and corresponding to the dimension of the mind below consciousness.” 31 If this assumption is correct then the stone’s intended purpose as a mediating agent between earth and sky is true to its function.
Philosophers such as Plato warned of the consequences of stepping away from the sacred center and the imbalance it brings upon society and the individual. In both Laws and Timaeus, Plato illustrates the ideal city-state as one anchored by a central, sacred omphalos, out of which radiate twelve lines, with the land and its people defined by specific numerical and geometric codes. There are multiple layers of cosmology encoded in Plato’s writings,37 and in this respect his work and intent are no different to that of the creator gods and their landscape temples and lingams, or the architects who implemented their plans. Plato even notes that the locating of the omphalos was always attended to by specialists within a special priesthood.
These and many other acts originated from a Golden Age, when men of great stature were moved by an unshakable duty to the divine to create temples as cities of knowledge, what the Hindu call Jnana Puri.
- CITIES OF KNOWLEDGE.
(Golden Age builders and the dating of sacred cities)
Honing-in further on the true date of Tiwanaku, around the site are several statues of unusual-looking humanoids surrounded with puzzling, carved images of animals bearing a resemblance to Toxodons, a Pilocene/Pleistocene mammal that became extinct over 16,000 years ago. Then there is the question of astral alignments. In the ancient world, temples such as Stonehenge, Carnac, the Giza Pyramids, Angkor, Luxor, etc. have been proven beyond reasonable doubt that all were aligned to the extreme rising and setting points of the Sun and/or Moon, to specific stars and even entire constellations. It would be unusual if Tiwanaku proved to be the exception.
Posnansky’s observations were proved to be correct, and the date of construction for the Kalasasaya was pegged at 15,000 BC, 13 proving that Tiwanaku could indeed have been built during the mythical Golden Age, when men were as gods and achieved the seemingly impossible.
given to the island. Like Giza, it’s said to be the place of the ‘First Time’, the primordial mound first created by Kon-Tiki Viracocha through the utterance of a sound. Like Atum and Siva, he represents the threefold nature of a creator god; he was also a solar deity who, as legend has it, also existed in human form. 21
Acting as ‘cities of knowledge’, they provided guidance in daily ritual and instruction in the proper conduct of human affairs. Or at least that was the intention: that the adepts should teach the laws bound in the temple, thereby extending the education and spiritual experience of lay people and creating a trickle-down effect throughout the population.