Esoteric Influence

Sacred geometry, what is it? How and why does it connect the web of into the center of Christian western Europe. Islam, Judaism, Pythagorean, Hermetic, Neo- Platonic thought.

  To answer this we must visit the period of history when these various thoughts were prevalent. Did Christianity collect these various thoughts and over time combine them in with Christian teachings?

   In the 7^th and 8^th centuries Islam was spreading throughout the Mideast and northern Africa across the Straits of Gibraltar and into the Iberian Peninsula, across the Pyrenees Mountains and into France.

  Islamic rule was at its peak during the 10^th century.   It was during this time that King Athelston ruled England. Perhaps some of the concepts of ‘sacred geometry’ worked its way north from Spain and France.

   The armies of Islam were halted at the Battle of Poiters in 732 AD by Charles Martel, but the theology of Islam remained. In 1469, the marriage of Ferdinand of Argon and his cousin Isabelle of Castile started the purification of Spain.

   This meant expelling all of the Islamic and Jews from their country through a program that became known as the Spanish Inquisition.

   It has been said that this process also banished the intelligence of the Jews and the sensuality of the Moors. Throughout history Spain has been the repository of esoteric knowledge obtained over the seven centuries since the Battle of Pouters and the rein of Ferdinand and Isabelle.

  It was at this time that many alchemists traveled to Spain to acquire certain knowledge. This knowledge traveled with the Christian exploration of the lands to the west. But these esoteric thoughts soon had quite a bit of competition.

   During the crusades the Knight Templar’s killed tens of thousands of Islamic and Jewish occupants. However they also learned from them, although their goal was to destroy them.

   The court of Emperor Frederick II Hohenstauffen of Sicily became a center for esoteric thought. He had Muslim, Jewish and Christian scholars present in his court with scientific, artistic and medical expression. In Emperor Hohenstauffen court freedom of expression was the rule and not the exception. This was the early stages of the Renaissance.

   The reality of the Knight Templar’s was although they were Christian they wanted to combine these three faiths under one cloak. The Templar’s were well known builders, using their own tradesmen they formed trade guilds, they built their own castle’s and precepretories.

  The architecture of their building was Byzantine in nature, representing cultures beyond the influence of the Vatican.

  They were also patrons as well as protectors of other trade guilds and frequently became members of their trade guilds. The Templar’s also accepted tradesmen from these guilds and they were known as’ associates of the Temple’.

   They lived within the walls of the precepretory where they had their own independent villages. They received many of the benefits as the Knights, free from taxation and road tolls.

   The Knight Templar’s were the protectors of the trails, roads and waterways. The Nobel’s would travel on pilgrimages to the Holy Land escorted by the Templar’s.

   They would deposit their money with a precepetory in their home country and retrieve it upon arrival in the Holy Land. This was the first form of international banking that was known to the world.

  It was through the Knight Templar that esoteric thought, sacred geometry and architecture made its way into northern, western Europe and to the lands to the west.

   The majority of the Templar’s were just soldiers, but then there were those that were educated in history, mathematics and architecture. The Templar’s only existed for two and a half centuries but they left a big footprint on history.

   After their oppression by the Church and France they went into a reorganization which was well planned. They had six months’ notice to prepare before going underground. But they had lost their leadership. The leaders, the Grand Master, the Seneschal, the Marshal, Treasure several Sergeants  along with 620 knights, that went willingly to meet the inquisitors without so much as a fight. 

The Knight Templar’s were 20,000 Strong at this time. It has often been said that the Templar’s were the military arm of the Cistercian Monastery.

   This alone is indicative of something out of the ordinary. These knights’s had a 200 year fierce reputation, life under the Latin Rule was very specific. 

  Under the Latin Rule they were required to be armed at all times, to eat in silence, to never surrender, and to regroup with other knight’s if they were ever to be over run. They were not allowed to surrender. These are just a few of the rules of the 76 initial rules written by the Cistercian Monk Bernard of Clairvaux many more rules were added over the years.

   When they lost their leadership it was a devastating blow to the Temple, although the entire Temple performed the rituals, they didn’t all understand the knowledge.

  They all observed sacred knowledge and the geometry, but most didn't have the education to understand it. Information was very compartmentalize, as you grew in the tiers you were given more responsibility and knowledge.

   The connection that may have existed between the Templar’s and the operative stone masons diminished overtime. By the fifteenth century a good deal of this knowledge was lost. However there was a fresh infusion of new knowledge from elsewhere.

  In 1453 Constantinople and what was left of the Byzantine Empire fell to the Turks. There was a significant movement of refugee’s into western Europe, along with their treasure which they accumulated over the last thousand years.

  These treasures consisted of the Library of Alexandria, texts on Hermeticism, Neo-Platonism, Gnosticism, Cabbalism, astrology, alchemy, sacred geometry, and all of the teachings and traditions  which were collected in Alexandria between the first and third centuries.

   This knowledge was constantly updated over the years. All the ships that passed through Alexandria Egypt were required to turn over all of their books, scripts and any other documents to the library. Most of these documents were transcribed and returned to the ships, but not always.

   In 1492, Ferdinand and Isabella, as part of the Spanish inquisition, started to expel all Jewish and Islamic peoples from their domain. This also produced refugee’s seeking sanctuary to the north and east in Europe. They brought with them esoteric knowledge which had been filtering into their domains since the 7^th century.

  This had great influence on the development of western civilization. Historians and scholars are in agreement that this is perhaps the most significant aspect of the Renaissance.

   This Byzantine information found its way to Italy where it was analyzed and studied. Academies were instituted and began assimilating and dispensing this information.

  Over the next one hundred years this information passed to the rest of Europe. Sacred geometry was considered occult and magic up until this point, but was no longer limited to just architecture but also into the arts and paintings, much to the disdain of the church.

  Sacred geometry was soon contained in all of the arts from music to poetry and of course into the dramatic arts. There came a very founding concept with Freemasonry with the Neo-Platonic teaching shortly after the dissemination of sacred knowledge during the Renaissance.

  There was a renewed interest created into the classical thoughts of Plato. In Plato’s ‘Architect of the Universe’ the creator is called ‘tekton’ which means craftsman or builder. According to Plato ‘arche-tekton’ meant Master Builder. Plato asserts that the arche-tekton created the universe by using geometry.