The hidden power of the Mystic Builders was not demonstrated in their majestic buildings only. It was also evidenced in the circumstances and conditions attendant upon their erection. A spirit of harmony between all workmen was required. Any altercation disbarred the contending parties from their task until such time as they became reconciled. Activities were begun and ended with dedicatory prayer and blessings.
Accompanying these bands of builders were persons whose office it was to furnish music during operations. This was a ministry carried on with the same high purpose as animated the builders. It was in the spirit of the minstrels who during this period of European history employed their musical gifts to perpetuate in song, legends of sacred import and initiatory truths veiled in poetic imagry. Hence, their performances were not merely for the benefit of the workers but also for large numbers of pilgrims that came daily to these cathedrals in the building as they would come to a holy shrine.
The Mystic Builders understood and worked in obedience to a spiritual law by which the temples they constructed proceeded simultaneously on both the inner and the outer planes. They knew that the construction of the inner or spiritual sanctuary was possible only by the active participation of many dedicated servers and loving and devoted contributors. A living sacrifice had to flow into the structure. This created an aura extending beyond the limits of the physical structure, the effect of which could be felt for miles. It was the spiritual powers flowing in and through this aura that became the magnet for drawing into its environs persons seeking a balm for troubled minds and healing for broken bodies. The seriously ill were sometimes brought in on litters, and many were the recorded miracles of restoration.
From the community surrounding a rising cathedral, contributors came from all classes, high and low. Nobles brought rich jewels; farmers, grain and other foods; the poor, a few stones perhaps. No one came empty handed and none went away without spiritual replenishment.
It is this spiritual factor which went into the great European Cathedrals that were erected during the period of the Renaissance that has, above all else, charged them with the elements of immortality. Glorious as are the physical art forms, it is not these alone that make them the inspirational monuments they are. These outer features can be duplicated. There is money and skill enough in the world to do this numberless times over. But the same spiritual ingredient is not now present that workmen, contributors and worshippers alike put into the old cathedrals. They gave to the rising edifice a substance from their very own souls. As the outer structure took form an inner counterpart was also being built.
The possibility does not exist in our day to repeat what the age of faith produced. The prevailing type of consciousness is quite.different. Today it is the mind, not the heart, that rules, with the result that the highest contribution man can make to spiritual advancement will be quite different from that made by man of medieval time. It is therefore no deprecation of the present age to say that it cannot do certain things done in past ages, and that attempts in our time to duplicate the creations of the cathedral builders of a few centuries ago prove relatively barren. Modern machinery, contract labor and munificent gifts from wealthy donors and large corporations can speedily erect a magnificent and monumental edifice; but it will lack the warmth, the atmosphere, the spiritual radiation that can be imparted to it by the love and prayers of those who labor on the structure and the offerings not only of a favored few who gave of their surplus, but of the many who have less to offer materially but who give richly of their very own selves. It was this self-giving which imparted to the cathedrals of old a glory that out-shines even their inspired architectural beauty.
Some years ago an effort was made in an American community to recapture something of the intangible elements that went into the building of the great cathedrals by having the edifice it constructed built as nearly as possible "by hand." Artisans whose specialized skills had been exclusively employed in the maintenance and restoration of the old European cathedrals were imported for the task. Stones were hand chiseled and the pews and all other woodwork were built piece by piece and hand carved. The attempt was to personalize every feature of the edifice. But this alone is not enough. Replacing a few machines with a large company of artisans who work not for love but for hire simply consumes added material resources without appreciably increasing spiritual riches. Such substitutions of men for machines would have meaning only if the latter were "mystic builders," true "operative Masons"; and if the supporting community poured its love and devotion into the project as did the peoples of the Renaissance when immortalizing their faith in the sacred shrines we know as the great cathedrals of old Europe.
It is recorded that the Temple of Solomon was built without ore or iron (materiality) or sound of hammer on stone (inharmonious rhythm). The same secret techniques were employed by the Mystic Builders, the result being immortal messages in stone whereto men come to pay homage to the highest within themselves and to their Creator.
History records but few impulses that have proven so far-reaching and wide-spread as that which expressed itself in the mighty pageantry of cathedral building. Each arch and doorway, every tiered column and stained glass window ofttimes embodied the consecrated devotion of an entire family. Generations went into the perfecting of these monumental edifices, one building on the contributions of the other and so creating hallowed structures that were vibrant with the beating of reverent hearts and pulsing with the ardent spirit of consecrated servers. Children were dedicated and prepared from earliest infancy to carry on the work of their forebears. So it often happened that some single portion of a cathedral such as a stained glass window, an altar or a chapel, was worked upon by two or more generations in the same family, each generation bringing to its task not only its skill as builders, but impregnating the product of its craftsmanship with enduring powers of the spirit. Consequently, although many centuries have passed since the Mystic Builders ceased their earthly labors, this magic has not deserted the cathedrals. When a reverential person enters one of these long consecrated sanctuaries he feels intuitively the presence of spiritual influences that set the place apart from the world without. This holy atmosphere was there from the beginning. It was made part of the very foundation of the structure and continued to go into the labor of the dedicated builders which in some instances carried on for centuries before the structure's completion. The devotions of the streams of worshippers who entered the sacred precincts of these cathedrals year after year and century after century have added tremendous substance and power to the spiritual aura in which they are developed.
Important events in the life of Christ outline the Path of Initiation into the Christian Mysteries, the Cruciform Path. The medieval cathedrals are constructed on a cruciform pattern. In this they conform to one of the basic features of the Christian initiatory Temple located in the inner spiritual realm.
There is another important correspondence to be noted between the medieval cathedrals and the ancient Mystery Temples. For example, the Temple of Solomon contained three principal divisions: The outer court, the inner court and the Holy Place. In the cathedrals, the nave represents the outer court; the transept (arms of the cross), the inner court; the apse, the sanctuary or Holy Place. Around the apse are a number of chapels which symbolize various steps or degrees which the aspirant experiences as he approaches or enters the "Holy of Holies."
Polarity, which is the fundamental principle of Initiation, is symbolically incorporated in the architecture of the cathedrals. Double towers that adorn a cathedral correspond to the two masonic columns, Jachin and Boaz. A Mason keeps his working tools in Jachin, the masculine pole. This is reflected in the decorative motif of the cathedrals where the tower representing the masculine principle is taller, more imposing and more richly decorated than the tower representing the feminine principle.
Each new spiritual impulse released upon earth gives birth to an art expressive of the fundamental need and aspiration of the time. Thus, for example, the deep religious faith of the Medieval Age found logical expression in the lofty arches and up-reaching spires of Gothic architecture. Very truly has this style of building art been described as symbolically representative of souls on fire with Christ.
In medieval times there was a Guild of mystic builders, the members of which went about from place to place, from country to country, in the service of their craft. This Guild is said to have had its origin among returned crusaders who during their long sojourn in the Holy Land and surrounding countries acquired a deep interest in certain occult arts. They possessed varied and unusual gifts and many of them were employed in work on the great cathedrals that were in the process of building in their time. These Guild members had a signature by which they were known, just as did the early Christians who chose for one of their identification marks two fishes bound together with a single cord — indicating their recognition of the Piscean Age for which they were pioneering, the fishes being the astronomical symbol of the sign Pisces. So the highly specialized craftsmen of the builders Guild had a mark which they inscribed on buildings on which they worked. This was sometimes a mallet or gavel, exoteric emblems of their craft, and at other times the single letter G, by which they proclaimed the fact that God was in the house they built. They literally charged the physical materials with the magnetic powers of spirit; and before commencing work on the structure dedicated the ground on which it was to rise. The spirit which they infused into their creations remained with the completed buildings like an aura of light and fragrance, of which it could fittingly be said that it was not just a house made with hands but also a structure eternal in the heavens.
This invisible reality found a most beautiful and poetic description in the words of Manson, in the drama The Servant in the House, by Charles Rann Kennedy. Manson is speaking to a Bishop whom he seeks to impress with the importance of taking into account more than just wood and stone and steel in the Church he is contemplating building. "I am afraid some people never see it at all. You must understand, this is no dead pile of stone and unmeaning timber. It is a living thing... When you enter it you hear a sound-a sound as of some mighty poem chanted. Listen long enough, and you'll learn that it is made up of the beating of human hearts, of the nameless music of men's souls — that is, if you have ears. If you have eyes, you will presently see the church itself — a looming mystery of many shapes and shadows, leaping sheer from floor to dome. The work of no ordinary builder!... The pillars of it go up like the brawny trunks of heroes; the sweet human flesh of men and women is moulded about its bulwarks, strong, impregnable; the faces of little children laugh out from every cornerstone; the terrible spans and arches of it are the joined hands of comrades; and up in the heights and spaces there are inscribed the numberless musing of all the dreamers of the world. It is yet building — building and built upon. Sometimes the work goes forward in deep darkness; sometimes in blinding light; now beneath the burden of unutterable anguish; now to the tune of a great laughter and heroic shoutings like the cry of thunder. Sometimes, in the silence of the night-time, one may hear the tiny hammerings of the comrades at work up in the dome — the comrades that have climbed ahead."
— Corinne Heline
