THE BADGER Quarterly Magazine Year 1 Volume 3

Cathedrals are the entry way to God's kingdom, in order to build them knowledge of numbers as well as matter and spirit are needed.

The head mason didn't need calculations, he only needed a measure and a piece of rope in order to build the cathedral of Chartres.

Yet the measures were not random: they are connected to the proportions of the earth and, perhaps, of the sky. The plans measured by the rope are a projection of the music of the spheres, developed according to the Great Law. The rope (cubit from Chartres) is 0,783 mtrs, this is the one hundred thousand part of the parallel of Charters (at Rheims the cubit is 0,71, at Amiens is 0,70, both are fractions of the parallels passing through these cathedrals. By using these numbers the architect has established an harmonic relationship with the telluric force/energy.

In actual fact, the central point of the cathedral is in connection with the head of the Vouivre, as the Druids used to call the energy stream from the Earth.

In front of it stands the choir, its length is double its width (as in most Egyptian and Greek temples, as well as in Salomon's). The diagonal of this rectangle is 1,618, the golden number, the Phi of mathematics, from which the PI is calculated (3,1416), this is the number that allows us to find the circumference of a circle when we know its diameter.

This choir allows to transform the rectangle into a circle: the squaring of the circle obtained geometrically.

In the cathedral at Charters there is such a circle: it is the inlaid labyrinth in the floor at the beginning of the nave. This is an esoteric and spiritual path of initiation.

For those who didn't know this was a place of devotion, to be walked on their knees. For the initiates it was the difficult and dangerous path of self search.

Just like in Crete, where you had to go to the centre of the earth, to the centre of yourself, in order to meet the monster, the Minotaur. The profane will certainly meet with his death; the initiate, who holds Ariadne's thread, will reach the centre, will kill the monster and will return to the light, just like Theseus did.