'Did you find the ideas beyond your capacity of understanding and acceptance?'. As an after-thought, she added, 'Actually the chair is used for structured meditation and should rightfully be called the Chair of Reflection.'
His attention was totally upon the sights around them. They walked further around the temple and he noticed that similar to most of the city's buildings, they used marble, granite, lime-stone and even cut and polished conglomerates for their exotic designs. As center pieces on stone slab tables they used crystalliferous rock of pink, yellow, green, and purple.
In the buildings he entered, his notice was drawn to the numerous statues. These people were statue oriented, he thought, as he viewed unicorns, dragons, centaurs, angels, and men with animal heads and their opposite, animals with the heads of men.
'Some of these displays are a little bit on the far side of weird!' the man now called Albion commented, as he studied the beautifully crafted artistry of their works.
The visitor could well understand where Egyptians got many ideas for their art. Walls contained beautiful inlaid mosaic tile displayed in a variety of colors, red used horizontally and blues on the vertical. Some tile were obviously glazed in ovens,for they contained a cobalt-blue porcelain cast, one of his favorite colors. Intricately set into place, they formed gigantic murals. Pictures of dolphins and beautifully shaped birds cavorted across the wall surfaces. The rooms appeared light, airy and spacious. They were designed for people needing much freedom and space.
'Is there something from your structured musical meditation you might care to question?' asked Thelama, as they walked.
'The speaker talked of the spirit becoming caught within matter. How would you describe this?" asked Albion.
'Spirit and matter form the root principle of the universe. Both are inseparable, yet ever separated, such as two poles in polarity on the physical plane. Two similar poles always repel each other as opposites always attract." she answered.
'Which is fortunate for males and females.' he commented.
'This temple is sometimes called the temple of dolphins because of its many murals showing our cretaceous friends. Here they receive help utilizing ideas about spirit and matter to further thinking, but ultimately to purify soul." she continued, outlining activities he watched as they passed by various groups.
'It is here their soul is awakened to its spiritual heritage, trained in perspective, abstraction, modeling, and characterization. Young use this awakening as reminder of the positive path. Art is used to benefit body, mind, and spirit. It is here artists work with many experts such as those teachers and guides skilled in ways of the psyche.'
'We call them psychologists," added the stranger.
She continued, 'The artists create pictures of individuals as each person describes how they would want to be. These can be used in daily life by the student. They look at them periodically throughout their day. By studying and meditating upon them, they mentally as well as physically develop themselves accordingly. Initiates to the brotherhood of your patron, Hermes, use this same principle. However, they practice creating pictures in their mind to an even more intense level of understanding. They call it the art of visualization, sort of creating their own `virtual reality' without the aid of mechanical technology.'
Was that G.I. Gurdjieff he thought he heard, clapping his hands in approval as their steps echoed from granite walls around them? It was either that or George Leonard deep into his transformation with Maria Montessori smiling an endorsement!
'Similar to clipping out pictures as part of wish-fulfillment, and putting them on the front of your refrigerator, if you were in our society," added Albion, thinking about ice-cubes and the luxury of a tall cool drink.
The woman continued her talking tour. 'The physical building is planned very much as the other temple and is used primarily as an educational institution where Aztlanteans come for physical, mental, and spiritual knowledge. As a school it teaches universal knowledge, so we call it our university. It classifies students according to what social needs they can best serve. Their talent should be utilized in a hands-on approach for the good of themselves and society.'
'A rather utopian concept the communists of the future will tout as their mainspring for controlling the masses," he added. 'What you need here is an early model of Horace Mann.'
She continued her explanation of the purposes carried out in the Temple Beautiful. 'Here the young are taught the relationships of the universe. We thoroughly investigate the relationship of man to fellow man and of man's relationship to the creative forces found within himself and available from parallel realities as well. Some records are kept here and duplicates are stored in the Hall of Initiates eventually to be located somewhere around the Great Pyramid of Magan Thoth built long ago.'
'Perhaps there are duplicate records found in other areas of the world?' he asked, thinking of his world and time and not of his own condition sitting in his parallel reality.
'That may be part of the projects being planned and executed by Thoth and his White Brotherhood," she responded. 'You must ask that question of the Cord Measurer.
'Speaking of that, tell me if I am right in assuming that Thoth and Hermes are one and the same. He could have told me but didn't. Almost as though he wanted me to figure it out myself.'
'You concluded that, did you?' commented the girl. 'My only answer can be, he wears many faces, whether as Hermanos or Thoth will be his option,' she answered. 'Now it is time for you to see the other temple. Don't worry! When you are ready....'
'Yah, I know. `...the teacher will appear. Now I know where the Sufi idea about teachers came from!'
They exited from the back and walked past the exercise area and the Hippodrome stadium carved out of the sloping hillside. When they entered the other building, Jake (his name in real time) could see it was true; the two temples were alike in physical layout.
'If it is true Temple of Sacrifice means sacrificing man's base nature, how is this accomplished?" asked Albion, straight away. 'I am reminded that in early alchemy the goal was to turn base metal into gold. Perhaps in the literature that was merely metaphorical? The beast-man into the golden angelic man?'
'Yes and no. For our present purposes, you will be able to see much healing done in this temple. We use massage as well as color and music. Meditation is also good therapy used here as it was in Temple Beautiful. The triune of physical, mental, and spiritual cannot be separated; thus, the holistic approach is acknowledged and used in both temples. The emphasis here is upon releasing base emotions.
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