Secrets of the Solar Cycle, Part III

Tympanum at Vezelay, detail

In the last post, I mentioned that the medieval masters encoded esoteric material regarding the nature of solar and planetary influence on spiritual development in the art and architecture of Gothic cathedrals. This knowledge was passed down from ancient times, and its nearly total loss is a recent event in the context of human history. Our modern astrology is a fragment of a much more expansive set of teachings and understandings that centered around inner spiritual conditions—not temporal predictions. The conventional applications of astrology—who should I date? Will I finally make some money?— were in all likelihood developed simply to make sure the discipline would be passed down to future generations. 

In order to take a look at some of the esoteric ideas of finer foods and astral forces, let's take a look at the tympanum found on the Cathedral of the Abbey of Vezelay.

As I explained in the past two essays, in medieval art, Christ always plays the role of the sun in the astrological spectrum. It's a reversal of the actual condition on earth; here in the solar system, the sun is the material representative of Christ and God, not the other way around. That is to say, the sun is an aperture through which much higher influences flow into material creation. These forces are primarily spiritual in nature and serve for the spiritual development of the entire solar system; whereas modern physics only recognizes the physical aspects of the sun.

In the tympanum, which has several different esoteric teachings about levels of creation on it, we see Christ surrounded by three bands of carvings. 

The first band, upon which Christ stands and which He is also surrounded by on the left and the right, represents the lowest level, the level we are on. He takes the central position because he is the solar or higher influence at the heart of all human activity. He's surrounded by ordinary human activities because He has descended to earth from the heavens.

The level directly above this is the level of the astrological signs of the zodiac, along with various medallions representing seasonal activity. From an esoteric point of view, this is the level not of earth, but the astral level, the level of the planets. Everything that takes place here may look like it's taking place on the human level —we see human figures tending the vines, plowing fields, gathering wheat, and so on—but in fact the activities represent the creation of astral, or spiritual, foods for mankind. 

We know this because according to Emmanuel Swedenborg’s doctrine of correspondences, everything that takes place on earth is the reflection of a corresponding spiritual action in heaven. Indeed, in the Bible, we see countless examples where ordinary food is compared to spiritual qualities of various kinds. This is part of the action of correspondence and its symbolic use throughout sacred texts from many different ancient cultures. 

These understandings, along with the associated iconography, were still active at the time the Gothic cathedrals were built, which probably explains Gurdjieff's great admiration for them. After all, it's certain he saw this tympanum and others like it – he was an avid traveler and tourist throughout France—and he would have recognized the significance of the levels built into them, along with the activities taking place on each level. To us, of course, it's confusing — most of the esoteric spiritual doctrines of earlier eras have been forgotten. When we see human beings on what is clearly the astral level in this tympanum engaged in various human activities, we assume they have something to do with what is going on from month to month on earth—whereas, without any doubt, these are activities taking place on a higher level. Hence their separation from the earthly level and their association with the starry medallion symbols of the zodiac. 

Above them is a third band which represents not planets, but the cosmos in general. Its design is generic because what takes place on this level is essentially unknowable to us. The highest level we can perceive is the one directly above us, and that one faintly, at best. This idea is remarkably consistent with Swedenborg's observations about levels, where angels from one level of heaven can't at all see the angels in the next level above them.

The activities taking place in the middle band represent the action of the higher on the lower. Christ is directly associated with that level – hence the large gap in the human action surrounding him, which puts him into direct metaphysical contact with the level of the signs of the zodiac and the associated activity. 

Just as Christ fed mankind with the spiritual food of his body and blood, acting as the light (the sun) of the world, so, in this work of art, the solar system prepares food for its lower levels through cyclical and seasonal actions. There was nothing unusual or surprising, in the minds of medieval thinkers, with believing that the natural was an incontrovertible reflection of the spiritual.

Once we realize this – and taking into account the fact that the signs of the zodiac are incredibly ancient, and were routinely inscribed on the ceilings of temples in ancient Egypt, as well as the inner lids of their sarcophagi —we can intuit that the individual signs of the zodiac did not just represent constellations, but also a range of spiritual foods, each one of which was available according to the season the sign appeared in. 

The entire group of constellations is not just a map of the seasons in which ordinary food is grown, but also a map of the kinds of foods that are grown for the soul throughout a solar year. There are probably vestiges of this teaching hidden in the various qualities expressed by the signs of the zodiac; and that in itself could become a whole study of its own.

Go. and sense, and be well.

Lee

Lee van Laer is a Senior Editor at Parabola Magazine.