09-03-2009, 12:27 PM
Books and discussion in recent years have focused a lot of attention on the French alchemist Fulcaneli who Mysteries of the Cathedrals stands as a classic work on occult symbolism.
In his second edition of that book, Fulcanelli included an additional chapter which was entitled "The Cyclic Cross at Hendaye". This chapter has raised intense speculation and discussion for it seemed to indicate to some that Fulcanelli was specifically warning of the imminent end of "time" that has been regarded as the end of the world.
Of course time is a funny thing and relative. A dream, for example, can seem to last for hours and days, but take mere seconds.
But read on.
***
Fulcanelli’s inserted ‘Hendaye’ chapter in his Le Mystère des Cathédrales has lead to much debate and controversy…lately I have been having a look at some of the ‘research’ that is out there and have been saddened, as usual, by the outlandish claims and counterclaims made. It is another field for the pseudo-initiate types (no names mentioned, but ‘drowning not waving’ might give a clue) to squander their precious juices in, and thus remain oblivious to the truth which, hopefully still, remains under their noses.
Here is the Chapter in Question….(ps could not be bothered to recreate the Greek in the original)
The Cyclic Cross of Hendaye
Hendaye, a small frontier town in the Basque country, has its little houses huddled at the foot of the first spurs of the Pyrenees. It is framed by the green ocean, the broad, swift and shining Bidassoa and the grassy hills. One’s first impression, on seeing this rough and rugged landscape, is a rather painful and almost hostile one. On the horizon, over the sea, the natural austerity of the wild scene is scarcely relieved by the headland of Fuenterrabia, showing ochre in the crude light, thrusting into the dark greyish-green mirror-calm waters of the gulf. Apart from the Spanish character of its houses, the type of dialect of the inhabitants, and the very special attraction of a new beach, bristling with proud villas, Hendaye has nothing to hold the attention of the tourist, the archaeologist or the artist.
Leaving the station, a country road, skirting the railway line, leads to the parish church, situated in the middle of the village. This church, with its bare walls and its massive, squat rectangular tower, stands in a square a few steps above ground level and bordered by leafy trees. It is an ordinary, dull building, which has been renovated and is of no particular interest. However, near the south transept there is a humble stone cross, as simple as it is strange, hiding amidst the greenery of the square. It was formerly in the parish cemetery and it was only in 1842 that it was brought to its present site near the church. At least, that is what was told me by an old Basque man, who had for many years acted as sexton. As for the origin of this cross, it is unknown and I was not able to obtain any information at all about the date of its erection. However, judging by the shape of the base and the column, I would not think that it could be before the end of the seventeenth or beginning of the eighteenth century. Whatever its age, the Hendaye cross shows by the decoration of its pedestal that it is the strangest monument of primitive millenarism, the rarest symbolical translation of chiliasml which I have ever met. It is known that this doctrine, first accepted and then refuted by Origen, St. Denis of Alexandria and St. Jerome although it had not been condemned by the Church, was part of the esoteric tradition of the ancient hermetic philosophy.
The naivety of the bas-reliefs and their unskillful execution lead one to suppose that these stone emblems were not the work of a professional sculptor; but, aesthetic considerations apart, we must recognize that the unknown workman, who made these images, possessed real and profound knowledge of the universe.
On the transverse arm of the cross-a Greek cross-is found the following inscription, consisting of two strange parallel lines of raised letters, forming words almost running into each other, in the same order as I give here:
OCRUXAVES
PESUNICA
Certainly it is easy to recognize the well-known phrase: 0 crux ave spes unica (Hail o cross, the only hope). However, if we were to translate it like a schoolboy, we should not know the purpose either of the base or of the cross and we might be surprised by such an invocation. In reality, we should carry carelessness and ignorance to the pitch of disregarding the elementary rules of grammar. The masculine word pes in the nominative requires the adjective unicus, agreeing in gender, and not the feminine form unica. It would, therefore, appear that the corruption of the word spes, hope, into pes, foot, by dropping the initial consonant, must be the unintentional result of a complete lack of knowledge on the part of our stone-cutter. But does inexperience really justify such uncouthness? I cannot think so. Indeed, a comparison of the other motifs, carried out by the same hand and in the same manner, shows evident care to reproduce the normal positioning, a care shown both in the placing and in the balance of the motifs. Why should the inscription have been treated less scrupulously? A careful examination of the latter shows that the letters are clear, if not elegant, and do not overlap (pl. XLVII). No doubt our workman traced them first in chalk or charcoal, and this rough draft must rule out any idea that a mistake occurred during the actual cutting of the letters. However, since this apparent mistake exists, it follows that it must really have been intended. The only reason that I can think of is that it is a sign put in on purpose, concealed under the appearance of an inexplicable blunder, and intended to arouse the curiosity of the observer. I will, therefore, state that, in my opinion, it was with knowledge and intent that the author arranged the inscription of his puzzling work in this way.
I had already been enlightened by studying the pedestal and knew in what way and by means of what key the Christian inscription of the monument should be read; but I was anxious to show investigators what help may be obtained in solving hidden matters from plain common sense, logic and reasoning.
The letter S, which takes on the curving shape of a snake, corresponds to the Greek khi (X) and takes over its esoteric meaning. It is the helicoidal track of the sun, having arrived at the zenith of its curve across space, at the time of the cyclic catastrophe.
It is a theoretical image of the Beast of the Apocalypse, of the dragon, which, on the days of Judgment, spews out fire and brimstone on macrocosmic creation. Thanks to the symbolic value of the letter S, displaced on purpose, we understand that the inscription must be translated in secret language, that is to say in the language of the gods or the language of the birds, and that the meaning must be found with the help of the rules of Diplomacy. Several authors, and particularly Grasset d’Orcet in his analysis of the Songe de Polyphile published by the Revue Britannique, have given these sufficiently clearly to make it unnecessary for me to repeat them. We shall, then, read in French, the language of the diplomats, the Latin just as it is written. Then, by making use of the permutation of vowels, we shall be able to read off the new words, forming, sentence, and reestablish the spelling, the word order and the literary sense another. In this way we obtain the following strange announcement: Il est écrit que la vie se réfugie en un seul espace (It is written that life takes refuge in a single space) 2 and we learn that a country exists, where death cannot reach man at the terrible time of the double cataclysm. As for the geographical location of this promised land, from which the élite will take part in the return of the golden age, it is up to us to find it. For the élite, the children of Elias, will be saved according to the word of Scripture, because their profound faith, their untiring perseverence in effort, will have earned for them the right to be promoted to the rank of disciples of the Christ-Light. They will bear his sign and will receive from him the mission renewing for regenerated humanity the chain of tradition of humanity which has disappeared.
The front of the cross, the part which received the three terrible nails fixing the agonized body of the Redeemer to the accursed wood, is indicated by the inscription INRI, carved on its transverse arm. It corresponds to the schematic image of the cycle, shown on the base (pl. XLVIII). Thus we have two symbolic crosses, both instruments of the same torture. Above is the divine cross, exemplifying the chosen means of expiation; below is the global cross, fixing the pole of the northern hemisphere and locating in time the fatal period of this expiation. God the Father holds in his hand this globe, surmounted by the fiery sign. The four great ages – historical representations of the four ages of the world – have their sovereigns shown holding this same attribute. They are Alexander, Augustus, Charlemagne and Louis XIV. 3 It is this which explains the inscription INRI, exoterically translated as Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudeorum (Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews), but which gives to the cross its secret meaning: Igne Natura Renovatur Integra (By fire nature is renewed whole). For it is by fire and in fire that our hemisphere will soon be tried. And just as, by means of fire, gold is separated from impure metals, so, Scripture says, the good will be separated from the wicked on the great Day of Judgment.
On each of the four sides of the pedestal, a different symbol is to be seen. One has the image of the sun, another of the moon; the third shows a great star and the last a geometric figure, which, as I have just said, is none other than the diagram used by the initiates to indicate the solar cycle. It is a simple circle, divided into four sectors by two diameters cutting each other at right angles. The sectors each bear an A, which shows that they stand for the four ages of the world. This is a complete hieroglyph of the universe, composed of the conventional signs for heaven and earth, the spiritual and the temporal, the macrocosm and the microcosm, in which major emblems of the redemption (cross) and the world (circle) are found in association.
In medieval times, these four phases of the great cyclic period, whose continuous rotation was expressed in antiquity by means of a circle divided by two perpendicular diameters, were generally represented by the four evangelists or by their symbolic letter, which was the Greek alpha, or, more often still, by the four evangelical beasts surrounding Christ, the living human representation of the cross. This is the traditional formula, which one meets frequently on the tympana of Roman porches. Jesus is shown there seated, his left hand resting on a book, his right raised in the gesture of benediction, and separated from the four beasts, which attend him, by an ellipse, called the mystic almond. These groups, which a generally isolated from other scenes by a garland of clouds, always have their figures placed in the same order, as may be seen in the cathedrals of Chartres (royal portal) and Le Mans (west porch), in the Church of the Templars at Luz (Hautes Pyrénées) and the Church of Civray (Vienne), on the porch of St. Trophime at Arles, etc. (pl. XLIX).
‘And before the throne,’ writes St. John, ‘there was a sea of glass, like unto crystal: and in the midst of the throne, and round about the throne, were four beasts full of eyes before and behind. And the first beast was like a lion, and the second beast like a calf, and the third beast had a face as a man, and the fourth beast was like a flying eagle.’ 4
This agrees with Ezekiel’s version: ‘And I looked, and behold… a great cloud, and a fire infolding itself and a brightness was about it, and out of the midst thereof as the colour of amber, out of the midst of the fire. Also out of the midst thereof came the likeness of four living creatures…. As for the likeness of their faces, they four had the face of a man, and the face of a lion on the right side; and they four had the face of an ox on the left side; they four also had the face of an eagle.’5
In Hindu mythology, the four equal sectors of the circle, formed by the cross, were the basis of a rather strange mystical conception. The entire cycle of human evolution is figured there in the form of a cow, symbolizing Virtue, each of whose four feet rests on one of the sectors representing the four ages of the world. In the first age, corresponding to the Greek age of gold and called the Creda Yuga or age of innocence, Virtue is firmly established on earth: the cow stands squarely on four legs. In the Treda Yuga or second age, corresponding to the age of silver, it is weakened and stands only on three legs. During the Touvabara Yuga, or third age, which is the age of bronze, it is reduced to two legs. Finally, in the age of iron, our own age, the cyclic cow or human virtue reaches the utmost degree of feebleness and senility: it is scarcely able to stand, balanc ing on only one leg. It is the fourth and last age Kali Y uga, the age of misery, misfortune and decrepitude.
The age of iron has no other seal than that of Death. Its heirogryph is the skeleton, bearing: the attiributes of Saturn: the empty hour-glass, symbol of time run out, and the scythe, reproduced in the figure seven, which is the number of transformation, or destruction, of annihilation. The Gospel of this fatal age is the one written under the inspiration of St. Matthew. Matthaeus, Greek******, comes from****,****, which means science. This word has given****,****, study, knowledge, from****, to learn. It is the Gospel according to Science, the last of all but for us the first, because it teaches us that, save for a small number of the élite, we must all perish. For this reason the angel was made the attribute of St. Matthew, because science, which alone is capable of penetrating the mystery of things, of beings and their destiny, can give man wings to raise him to knowledge of the highest truths and finally to God.
In his second edition of that book, Fulcanelli included an additional chapter which was entitled "The Cyclic Cross at Hendaye". This chapter has raised intense speculation and discussion for it seemed to indicate to some that Fulcanelli was specifically warning of the imminent end of "time" that has been regarded as the end of the world.
Of course time is a funny thing and relative. A dream, for example, can seem to last for hours and days, but take mere seconds.
But read on.
***
Fulcanelli’s inserted ‘Hendaye’ chapter in his Le Mystère des Cathédrales has lead to much debate and controversy…lately I have been having a look at some of the ‘research’ that is out there and have been saddened, as usual, by the outlandish claims and counterclaims made. It is another field for the pseudo-initiate types (no names mentioned, but ‘drowning not waving’ might give a clue) to squander their precious juices in, and thus remain oblivious to the truth which, hopefully still, remains under their noses.
Here is the Chapter in Question….(ps could not be bothered to recreate the Greek in the original)
The Cyclic Cross of Hendaye
Hendaye, a small frontier town in the Basque country, has its little houses huddled at the foot of the first spurs of the Pyrenees. It is framed by the green ocean, the broad, swift and shining Bidassoa and the grassy hills. One’s first impression, on seeing this rough and rugged landscape, is a rather painful and almost hostile one. On the horizon, over the sea, the natural austerity of the wild scene is scarcely relieved by the headland of Fuenterrabia, showing ochre in the crude light, thrusting into the dark greyish-green mirror-calm waters of the gulf. Apart from the Spanish character of its houses, the type of dialect of the inhabitants, and the very special attraction of a new beach, bristling with proud villas, Hendaye has nothing to hold the attention of the tourist, the archaeologist or the artist.
Leaving the station, a country road, skirting the railway line, leads to the parish church, situated in the middle of the village. This church, with its bare walls and its massive, squat rectangular tower, stands in a square a few steps above ground level and bordered by leafy trees. It is an ordinary, dull building, which has been renovated and is of no particular interest. However, near the south transept there is a humble stone cross, as simple as it is strange, hiding amidst the greenery of the square. It was formerly in the parish cemetery and it was only in 1842 that it was brought to its present site near the church. At least, that is what was told me by an old Basque man, who had for many years acted as sexton. As for the origin of this cross, it is unknown and I was not able to obtain any information at all about the date of its erection. However, judging by the shape of the base and the column, I would not think that it could be before the end of the seventeenth or beginning of the eighteenth century. Whatever its age, the Hendaye cross shows by the decoration of its pedestal that it is the strangest monument of primitive millenarism, the rarest symbolical translation of chiliasml which I have ever met. It is known that this doctrine, first accepted and then refuted by Origen, St. Denis of Alexandria and St. Jerome although it had not been condemned by the Church, was part of the esoteric tradition of the ancient hermetic philosophy.
The naivety of the bas-reliefs and their unskillful execution lead one to suppose that these stone emblems were not the work of a professional sculptor; but, aesthetic considerations apart, we must recognize that the unknown workman, who made these images, possessed real and profound knowledge of the universe.
On the transverse arm of the cross-a Greek cross-is found the following inscription, consisting of two strange parallel lines of raised letters, forming words almost running into each other, in the same order as I give here:
OCRUXAVES
PESUNICA
Certainly it is easy to recognize the well-known phrase: 0 crux ave spes unica (Hail o cross, the only hope). However, if we were to translate it like a schoolboy, we should not know the purpose either of the base or of the cross and we might be surprised by such an invocation. In reality, we should carry carelessness and ignorance to the pitch of disregarding the elementary rules of grammar. The masculine word pes in the nominative requires the adjective unicus, agreeing in gender, and not the feminine form unica. It would, therefore, appear that the corruption of the word spes, hope, into pes, foot, by dropping the initial consonant, must be the unintentional result of a complete lack of knowledge on the part of our stone-cutter. But does inexperience really justify such uncouthness? I cannot think so. Indeed, a comparison of the other motifs, carried out by the same hand and in the same manner, shows evident care to reproduce the normal positioning, a care shown both in the placing and in the balance of the motifs. Why should the inscription have been treated less scrupulously? A careful examination of the latter shows that the letters are clear, if not elegant, and do not overlap (pl. XLVII). No doubt our workman traced them first in chalk or charcoal, and this rough draft must rule out any idea that a mistake occurred during the actual cutting of the letters. However, since this apparent mistake exists, it follows that it must really have been intended. The only reason that I can think of is that it is a sign put in on purpose, concealed under the appearance of an inexplicable blunder, and intended to arouse the curiosity of the observer. I will, therefore, state that, in my opinion, it was with knowledge and intent that the author arranged the inscription of his puzzling work in this way.
I had already been enlightened by studying the pedestal and knew in what way and by means of what key the Christian inscription of the monument should be read; but I was anxious to show investigators what help may be obtained in solving hidden matters from plain common sense, logic and reasoning.
The letter S, which takes on the curving shape of a snake, corresponds to the Greek khi (X) and takes over its esoteric meaning. It is the helicoidal track of the sun, having arrived at the zenith of its curve across space, at the time of the cyclic catastrophe.
It is a theoretical image of the Beast of the Apocalypse, of the dragon, which, on the days of Judgment, spews out fire and brimstone on macrocosmic creation. Thanks to the symbolic value of the letter S, displaced on purpose, we understand that the inscription must be translated in secret language, that is to say in the language of the gods or the language of the birds, and that the meaning must be found with the help of the rules of Diplomacy. Several authors, and particularly Grasset d’Orcet in his analysis of the Songe de Polyphile published by the Revue Britannique, have given these sufficiently clearly to make it unnecessary for me to repeat them. We shall, then, read in French, the language of the diplomats, the Latin just as it is written. Then, by making use of the permutation of vowels, we shall be able to read off the new words, forming, sentence, and reestablish the spelling, the word order and the literary sense another. In this way we obtain the following strange announcement: Il est écrit que la vie se réfugie en un seul espace (It is written that life takes refuge in a single space) 2 and we learn that a country exists, where death cannot reach man at the terrible time of the double cataclysm. As for the geographical location of this promised land, from which the élite will take part in the return of the golden age, it is up to us to find it. For the élite, the children of Elias, will be saved according to the word of Scripture, because their profound faith, their untiring perseverence in effort, will have earned for them the right to be promoted to the rank of disciples of the Christ-Light. They will bear his sign and will receive from him the mission renewing for regenerated humanity the chain of tradition of humanity which has disappeared.
The front of the cross, the part which received the three terrible nails fixing the agonized body of the Redeemer to the accursed wood, is indicated by the inscription INRI, carved on its transverse arm. It corresponds to the schematic image of the cycle, shown on the base (pl. XLVIII). Thus we have two symbolic crosses, both instruments of the same torture. Above is the divine cross, exemplifying the chosen means of expiation; below is the global cross, fixing the pole of the northern hemisphere and locating in time the fatal period of this expiation. God the Father holds in his hand this globe, surmounted by the fiery sign. The four great ages – historical representations of the four ages of the world – have their sovereigns shown holding this same attribute. They are Alexander, Augustus, Charlemagne and Louis XIV. 3 It is this which explains the inscription INRI, exoterically translated as Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudeorum (Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews), but which gives to the cross its secret meaning: Igne Natura Renovatur Integra (By fire nature is renewed whole). For it is by fire and in fire that our hemisphere will soon be tried. And just as, by means of fire, gold is separated from impure metals, so, Scripture says, the good will be separated from the wicked on the great Day of Judgment.
On each of the four sides of the pedestal, a different symbol is to be seen. One has the image of the sun, another of the moon; the third shows a great star and the last a geometric figure, which, as I have just said, is none other than the diagram used by the initiates to indicate the solar cycle. It is a simple circle, divided into four sectors by two diameters cutting each other at right angles. The sectors each bear an A, which shows that they stand for the four ages of the world. This is a complete hieroglyph of the universe, composed of the conventional signs for heaven and earth, the spiritual and the temporal, the macrocosm and the microcosm, in which major emblems of the redemption (cross) and the world (circle) are found in association.
In medieval times, these four phases of the great cyclic period, whose continuous rotation was expressed in antiquity by means of a circle divided by two perpendicular diameters, were generally represented by the four evangelists or by their symbolic letter, which was the Greek alpha, or, more often still, by the four evangelical beasts surrounding Christ, the living human representation of the cross. This is the traditional formula, which one meets frequently on the tympana of Roman porches. Jesus is shown there seated, his left hand resting on a book, his right raised in the gesture of benediction, and separated from the four beasts, which attend him, by an ellipse, called the mystic almond. These groups, which a generally isolated from other scenes by a garland of clouds, always have their figures placed in the same order, as may be seen in the cathedrals of Chartres (royal portal) and Le Mans (west porch), in the Church of the Templars at Luz (Hautes Pyrénées) and the Church of Civray (Vienne), on the porch of St. Trophime at Arles, etc. (pl. XLIX).
‘And before the throne,’ writes St. John, ‘there was a sea of glass, like unto crystal: and in the midst of the throne, and round about the throne, were four beasts full of eyes before and behind. And the first beast was like a lion, and the second beast like a calf, and the third beast had a face as a man, and the fourth beast was like a flying eagle.’ 4
This agrees with Ezekiel’s version: ‘And I looked, and behold… a great cloud, and a fire infolding itself and a brightness was about it, and out of the midst thereof as the colour of amber, out of the midst of the fire. Also out of the midst thereof came the likeness of four living creatures…. As for the likeness of their faces, they four had the face of a man, and the face of a lion on the right side; and they four had the face of an ox on the left side; they four also had the face of an eagle.’5
In Hindu mythology, the four equal sectors of the circle, formed by the cross, were the basis of a rather strange mystical conception. The entire cycle of human evolution is figured there in the form of a cow, symbolizing Virtue, each of whose four feet rests on one of the sectors representing the four ages of the world. In the first age, corresponding to the Greek age of gold and called the Creda Yuga or age of innocence, Virtue is firmly established on earth: the cow stands squarely on four legs. In the Treda Yuga or second age, corresponding to the age of silver, it is weakened and stands only on three legs. During the Touvabara Yuga, or third age, which is the age of bronze, it is reduced to two legs. Finally, in the age of iron, our own age, the cyclic cow or human virtue reaches the utmost degree of feebleness and senility: it is scarcely able to stand, balanc ing on only one leg. It is the fourth and last age Kali Y uga, the age of misery, misfortune and decrepitude.
The age of iron has no other seal than that of Death. Its heirogryph is the skeleton, bearing: the attiributes of Saturn: the empty hour-glass, symbol of time run out, and the scythe, reproduced in the figure seven, which is the number of transformation, or destruction, of annihilation. The Gospel of this fatal age is the one written under the inspiration of St. Matthew. Matthaeus, Greek******, comes from****,****, which means science. This word has given****,****, study, knowledge, from****, to learn. It is the Gospel according to Science, the last of all but for us the first, because it teaches us that, save for a small number of the élite, we must all perish. For this reason the angel was made the attribute of St. Matthew, because science, which alone is capable of penetrating the mystery of things, of beings and their destiny, can give man wings to raise him to knowledge of the highest truths and finally to God.
The shadow is a moral problem that challenges the whole ego-personality, for no one can become conscious of the shadow without considerable moral effort. To become conscious of it involves recognizing the dark aspects of the personality as present and real. This act is the essential condition for any kind of self-knowledge.
Carl Jung - Aion (1951). CW 9, Part II: P.14![[Image: 592px-Finis_gloriae_mundi_from_Juan_Valdez_Leal.jpg]](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/36/Finis_gloriae_mundi_from_Juan_Valdez_Leal.jpg/592px-Finis_gloriae_mundi_from_Juan_Valdez_Leal.jpg)
![[Image: 590px-In_ictu_oculi.jpg]](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/ca/In_ictu_oculi.jpg/590px-In_ictu_oculi.jpg)