Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra (London: Dent, 1933), p. 97.
Sanctioned by Pope Innocent III, this was a crusade in the true sense of the word. The rewards were the same as for the crusaders in Palestine and Syria: absolution of all sins, a place in heaven and all that they could plunder. Following the fall of the city of Béziers, an officer enquired of the pope's representative, Arnold-Amaury, abbot of Cîteaux, how they might distinguish between heretics and true believers. The Abbot is reputed to have replied, "Kill them all. God will recognise his own." Between 15,000 and 20,000 men, women and children, both Cathars and Catholics were slaughtered. While this story may well be apocryphal, it is conservatively estimated that more than half a million people were killed during the Albigensian crusades. Chas S. Clifton, Encyclopedia of Heresies and Heretics (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 1992), p. 10.
Paul Venerable Turner, The Education of Le Corbusier (New York: Garland Publishing, 1977), p. 203. n. 48.
"To this Jura, whose backdrop is the forest and the mountains it is necessary to add, to place Le Corbusier exactly, the Languedoc of the 'Parfaits' of Cathar origin. Corbu was very proud of these Jurassian and Mediterranean roots, even if he did perhaps lay claim to the second [of these] more strongly." Jean Petit, Le Corbusier parle (Paris, 1967), p. 12.
Le Corbusier, Le Corbusier Sketchbooks (1954-1957) (Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1982). Sketchbook P26 v. 3, p. 318. Note also on the same page; "[the] burning of the Church at Le Locle in 1300 É archives of the Jeanneret family end here."
Turner, The Education of Le Corbusier p. 202. n. 48.
Edouard Schuré, The Great Initiates: A Study of the Secret History of Religions (New York: Steiner Books, 1992). For details of the inscription see Turner, The Education of Le Corbusier pp. 24, 202, n. 43.
Schuré, The Great Initiates p. 352.
Schuré, The Great Initiates pp. 285-286.
Schuré, The Great Initiates p. 318. "Pythagoras stood up. His fascinated gaze fixed itself upon the Doric facade of the temple. The severe building seemed transfigured beneath the chaste rays of Diana. He thought he saw the ideal image of the world and the solution he was seeking. For the base, columns, architrave and triangular pediment suddenly represented for him the threefold nature of man and universe, of microcosm and macrocosm, crowned with divine unity, which is itself a trinity. Cosmos, dominated and penetrated by God, formed the holy tetrad, vast and pure symbol, origin of nature and model of the gods." p. 275.
Schuré, The Great Initiates p. 319. Le Corbusier also transcribed a passage from Rabelais' Gargantua and Pantagruel which dealt at length with the secret meaning imbued within the combinatory aspect of the first four numbers. Le Corbusier, Le Corbusier Sketchbooks (1954-1957) (London: Thames and Hudson, 1981), Sketchbook H32, v. 3, p. 32.
Le Corbusier, The Modulor (London: Faber & Faber, 1954), p. 71.
Le Corbusier, The Modular pp. 191-225.
Schuré, The Great Initiates p. 289.
Zoroastrianism was the dualistic religion founded by the Persian prophet Zoroaster in the 7th or early 6th century BC and set forth in the sacred writings of the Zend-Avesta. It is based on the concept of a continuous struggle between the god of creation, light and goodness, Ormazd, and his arch enemy, Ahriman, the spirit of evil and darkness.
Mani, the founder of the Manichaean sect, was born in Babylonia in AD 216. He was flayed to death, skinned and decapitated in AD 277 after incurring the hostility of the Zoroastrian priesthood.
Until recently known only through the testimony of its enemies, such as St Augustine, Manichaeism was based on the doctrine of the two roots which are the opposite, eternal principles of God and matter, (or light and darkness). The mixture of light and dark created man and the material things. The separation of the mixture, the true object of Manichaean ethics, could only be achieved by complete asceticism. The Manichaean 'Elect,' in order to achieve redemption and deliverance from transmigration, had to abstain from sexual intercourse, meat, wine and property, as these were regarded as binding the soul to matter (darkness). The Elect were supported by their disciples, a more worldly order called 'Hearers,' who by keeping simple moral rules hoped to be reincarnated as one of the Elect.
Coronis, while pregnant with Apollo's child, had an affair with Ischys, an Arcadian. Apollo learned this from the raven which brought word to Delphi. In his anger Apollo had Artemis kill Coronis. But when she was on the funeral pyre, he took the unborn child, Asclepius, from her womb and gave him to Chiron to foster. Afterwards Apollo turned the raven from white to black for bearing the bad news.
Early Christian writers record the seven grades of Mithariac initiation as Corax (Raven), Nymphus (Bride), Miles (Soldier), Leo (Lion), Perses (Persian), Heliodromus (Courier of the Sun), and Pater (Father).
See Richard A. Moore, Le Corbusier: Myth and Meta-Architecture (Atlanta: Georgia State University, 1977).
Le Corbusier, The Chapel at Ronchamp (London: Architectural Press, 1957), p. 47.
Interestingly, this symbolism reproduces the ancient Sumerian myth of the slaying of the celestial Taurus by Gilgamesh (Orion): two constellations that set when the sign of Scorpio rises, giving the impression that it causes their disappearance.
Giuseppe M. Sesti, The Glorious Constellations (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1991), pp. 62-63.
Sesti, The Glorious Constellations p. 450.
Elisabeth Henry, Orpheus with his Lute (London: Bristol Classical Press, 1992), p. 155.
For a complete description of the symbolism found in Le Corbusier's late works see Richard A. Moore, Le Corbusier and the Mecanique Spirituelle: Part III (1948-65) The Late Period (Ann Arbor, Michigan: University Microfilms International, 1979), pp. 287-359.
Le Corbusier, Le Corbusier Sketchbooks Sketchbook M53, v. 3, p. 133.
Turner, The Education of Le Corbusier p. 56.
Le Corbusier, Le Corbusier Sketchbooks Sketchbook P26, v. 3, p. 315.
Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra p. 144.
There is indisputable evidence that this sketchbook existed, Le Corbusier explicitly referred to it in Sketchbook number 70.
C. E. Jeanneret-Gris, Le Corbusier Last Works ed. Willy Boesiger (London: Thames and Hudson, 1970), p. 177.