Journey into the Temples of Humankind:The Hall of Metals

[vc_row][vc_column width=”1/1″][vc_column_text]This circular Temple is dedicated to metals and to time. Eight precious glass windows represent eight faces, complemented by symbols from the Damanhurian Sacred Language, as well as information about the metals, and landscapes that symbolically represent human life stages. The progression from the youngest age, connected to iron, to the oldest one, connected with gold, symbolizes human existence as a journey of spiritual refinement.
Four doors in Tiffany glass dedicated to air, water, earth and fire embellish the niches in the walls. In front of each door and in the center of the Hall, ceramic columns are decorated as if they were trees that grow from above to below, representing the tree of immortality. This Hall is linked with time and has the function of connecting the dimension of physical life to the Beyond.[/vc_column_text][vc_single_image media=”60890″ media_width_percent=”100″][vc_column_text]In this Hall, humanity symbolically fights against its negative characteristics: knights and dancers on the terracotta ceiling protect the central fire, opposing the allegories of vices represented in the floor mosaic. The symbolic theme of the Hall of Metals is based on opposition and action: the importance of choice, knowledge and will for transforming negative elements into positive ones and overcoming the need for conflict.
This Hall is available for meditations connected to one’s life path, to contact oneself in different moments in time, and to prepare for making inspired choices.[/vc_column_text][vc_single_image media=”60894″ media_width_percent=”100″][vc_column_text]

Immerse yourself in a Journey into the Temples of Humankind with Unicorno:

I find myself walking on tiptoe; the silence is so deep, in this space that resembles the shape of a Tibetan cup. The delicate and mysterious vibration of this sacred place and the sound of the instrument that opens the perception of the Hall appears truly majestic to me. I feel almost intimidated, as if I am violating this place but I immerse myself with respect and emotion, in the dim, soft, golden light. I sit in the center of the hall and behind me is the large central column.
I try to understand with my eyes the whole circumference of the hall, and then the ceiling, and the floor, both delimited by a double square, the symbol of Damanhur, which is found on the yellow flag of the Federation.This Hall leads into the heart of Alchemy, telling of the different frequencies and temporalities of metals. The duration of the metals, in fact, is very broad, much more than that of the “living forces”. In this way the living beings in Alchemy are called, and each metal represents a different time fraction within time, which we imagine as a great sea.

[/vc_column_text][vc_single_image media=”60892″ media_width_percent=”100″][vc_column_text]

Precisely for this reason, in the alchemical laboratory, metals have specific functions. It is not possible to deal with the vast temporal territory using only the living forces, so ephemeral, but a variety and a temporal thickness is necessary that the metals can offer.

One of the principles of the art applied to the Temples is the saturation of the senses. There are paintings, glass, mosaics and sounds which are used to combine and create a kind of “sensorial short circuit”, many and different are the stimuli that come from outside. Perfumes are also important to achieve this particular state of consciousness and each room has a connection with a specific scent, which in a certain sense helps to activate it, just as it happens with the instrument that “recognizes” the sound. In Metals, the perfume is incense, while in the Hall of the Earth the scent is musk and there is a saturation of the senses. In fact, my eyes move voraciously from one point to another, to try to grasp as much as possible.

[/vc_column_text][vc_single_image media=”60884″ media_width_percent=”100″][vc_column_text]

Once satiated by its splendid complexity, I am ready to discover the richness of the individual details. I get up and look, one by one, at the eight windows that fill the many niches of the walls, each of which describes, through symbols and images, the characteristics of the metal to which the niche is dedicated. The characteristics are described on glass bands linked to lead where I find the chemical symbol, the melting temperature, the atomic mass, the sign of the Tarot and the zodiac, the planet and the color corresponding to each metal.

In reality, what strikes me the most is that the central image of each window, around which all the other symbols rotate, is a luminous human face, which gives light to all that is around it. Perhaps meaning that it is the alchemist who, with his research, gives meaning and measure to everything and that his body, which lives the passing of time on it’s own, is represented here by the alternation of the seasons, is an alchemical laboratory capable of grasping the complexity of the universe and participating in its manifestations. The faces are different, because they represent the ages of the human being to which the different metals are connected. Colorful pieces of glass mosaics elaborate knowledge and tell about the variety of experiences of life.

[/vc_column_text][vc_button button_color=”accent” size=”btn-xl” radius=”btn-round” border_width=”0″ link=”url:http%3A%2F%2Fwww.damanhur.org%2Fen%2Fthe-books-of-damanhur%23journey-into-the-temples-of-humankind-en||target:%20_blank|”]Do you want to read the whole journey?[/vc_button][vc_single_image media=”60443″ media_width_percent=”100″ title=”Sound experience in the Hall of Metals.”][/vc_column][/vc_row]