Chartres Cathedral

 

 

... At eight o'clock the next morning I took a bus to Orléans, and changed there for Chartres, also by bus, with a two hour stopover in between. The gare de rentiers (bus station) in Chartres was full of angry-looking teenagers. I found a hotel near the station called Jéhan de Beauce, very proper, not too expensive. It was early in the afternoon. Leaving my bags in my room, I set out on foot for the cathedral, which was not far away. The weather was sunny. I could hardly wait!

 

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Even before I entered, I was talking endearments to "her" in my head, and the feeling welled up to the point of tears as I entered the door into the transept. The inner space was even more powerful than I had remembered it on our last visit in 1969. I moved about the cathedral in a transport of exaltation, gazing about me with fresh wonder. Every window, every wall, pillar, statue, the whole, such a marvel! I walked to the nave and west to the great labyrinth in the floor.

 

Turning at its west edge, I advanced, my pendulum in my hand, step by slow step, stopping in between to let the pendulum gyrate. At each step, representing a different path in the maze, it swung in the opposite direction. Arriving at the lip, the energy there was very strong, and the pendulum swung wildly, counter-clockwise. Suddenly, I realized that the center was no longer open - the petals at its heart were now covered by a kind of manhole cover of concrete bound in by a thick iron ring, with several large nailheads showing through the concrete! I stepped onto the center and held out my pendulum. Nothing! There was no flow of energy at all there! "They have nailed you down!" I cried inside my head. "They are trying to kill you!" I felt devastated. Again and again I dowsed the energy flow. Each time the same result. I was in tears. I wanted to pry up that huge, ugly lid, or what looked to me like a lid, nailed shut.

 

Nothing was quite the same after that discovery. Near the door of the transept where I had come in was a little chapel to the virgin. Her statue was dressed in colored cloth, and there were paper flowers and candles everywhere. It felt to me like a testament to credulity. I felt no energy there at all. In the little store at the back of the nave were copies of a monthly diocesan magazine. One of them was on the subject of the "so-called mysteries" of the cathedral, particularly the labyrinth, which was described as having solely symbolic significance as representing man's need to better himself in goodness and holiness. I had a strong impression that a lot of effort was being exerted by the diocese to keep this magnificent and ancient edifice strictly in the power of the priesthood and of orthodox doctrine.

 

I left, feeling depressed and angry, walked around the town for a while, then went to my hotel room and to bed very early. The depth of my distress was simply proportional to the height of my response to the overwhelming power in that building.

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