Our Lineage and Founding Philosophy
Frater S of IP, shares his perspective on our group work and lineage.
As someone living in Glastonbury, England, I see that the British Folk Spirit is wrapped around us, so to speak. But this is not the end of the matter. The Inner Abbey is an aspect of Binah – the form that manifests all forms and, as such, the form in which we approach the Inner Abbey will change as we as people and our circumstances change.
As the archetypal temple, the Inner Abbey is the womb of Christ consciousness and so the form that it can arise in will be whatever form enables us to reach into that Presence.
Another key link with this work is the School of Chartres and the contemplation of the Abbey of Chartres (a.k.a. Cathedral of Our Lady of Chartres), as the school of Neo Platonic Contemplation and the House of the Black Madonna.
Fr VPIS notes that this, as well as Fulcanelli’s (1922) Le Mystère des Cathédrales (The Mystery of the Cathedrals, brings a much deeper understanding of the Inner Abbey temple form.
The connection with Chartres also helps to forge a potent link with the Christian Hermetic tradition of Valentin Tomberg, adds Sr S.A.M. who for decades has worked with this wonderful spiritual teacher who settled in England in later life and still speaks to seekers from beyond the grave.
Dion Fortune
Dion Fortune’s received “The Cosmic Doctrine” teachings which work through the magical imagination point into this more universal direction.
Indeed the teachers that are the source of this work stem from ancient Greece, as well as the British Isles. This can point us into a level of work that is truly universal – a living geometry of light that arises from the apparently simple statement of Dion Fortune “God is Pressure.”
Surrendering to this pressure we contemplate the Unmanifest Deity as the field of interstellar space, contemplate the first movement of the current in space which gives rise to the 3 rings of the cosmos, the 12 rays and the seven planes and contemplate the infinite number of relationships that arise as we contemplate them.
All of this in a sense is within the contemplative zone of the Inner Abbey, for the Abbey is the mediating form the mirror of wisdom which enables us to contemplate this living shape. It is one of the books of the Inner Library.
These contemplations may take us into a deepened understanding of the contemplative forms of the first degree, seeing them as aspects of the living geometry we have been contemplating.
Thus, the Sphere of Contemplation – as well as taking us body and soul into the experience of recollection – brings us into the contemplation of the Platonic forms and their interaction.
The call and response of the Spear and the Flame and the Cup and the Sea, which are rooted in the cubic mystery of the Upper Room, awaken the Christian Mystery in our flesh, from where it is carried out into the inner worlds through the spiralling staircase – all of which deepens us into the mystery of the Cloud of Unknowing where we see and are seen, we know and are known.