Science/technology expositions in France 96.

Report by Dr. Yitzhak (Isaac) Hayut-Man, cyber-architect,
Academic Director, the Academy of Jerusalem;
Director, The High-Or (Living Light) Company;
Researcher, Optomedic Medical Technologies.


Contents:

Introduction
1. The EuroDisney complex
2. The Futuroscope at Poitier
3. The City of Science and Industry at La-Villette Park
4. The Science Museum in Paris
5. La Rochelle
6. "The Church Of Light" moving multimedia show
7. The megalith complex at Carnac, Brittany
8. High Gothic: Mount St. Michell and the Paris Notre Dame Cathedral
9. The Eiffel Tower and cruising through Les Grand Boulevards of Paris
10. A Proposed "Celestial Paris" model for Le Defence and the science Museums
References

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4. The Science Museum in Paris:

Situated in a great palace in the center of Paris, just off the Champs Elise', this science museum is no a poor second to the science museum at La Villette, showing hardly anything that is not exhibited there as well or better. What it can do to regain its primacy is to make a better use of its impressive classical structure. The great holographic human figure discussed above could perhaps much better fit in the high space of the entrance hall of that palace. More generally, this space can be construed as a general space for projecting great composite holographic images of changing themes.

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5. La Rochelle:

This beautiful old port has been the scene for two notable attempts at religious innovations in France. The Templars have been hunted down by king Philip IV "le Beau" in 1307, tortured by the Roman "Holy Inquisition" and declared by the papal authorities as heretics and made their escape through La Rochelle. The Huegenots were put down by the armies of Cardinal Richelieu and many had to flee to the New World. Perhaps in these days of greater religious tolerance, this city could house some living exhibit of religious development and experimentation? This could be done perhaps in conjunction with the theme of the port for "the New World" and a place fit for exploring various current mythologies. For example, the Atlantis mythologies have millions of adherents on both sides of the Atlantic ocean, and the Templar myth seems to be growing (see the parody on it in Eco's "Foucoult's Pendulum" and many scholarly studies, such as Partner (1981) and Barber (1994).)

The point is that the old port of La Rochell makes an ideal basin for water-and-light shows - far better than the small artificial lake at the center of the Futuroscope. It can be a great place for displaying images rising from the womb of the water - namely the collective unconscious - and into the air and the light. Many sorts of emerging images can be considered and developed (e.g. UFO's, see the relevant section on Disneyland above).

These remarks are cryptic as it is not yet even clear to whom could one turn for making such suggestions.

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6. "The Church Of Light" moving multimedia show:

While at La-Rochelle, I had the occasion to see a show of "Le Eglise de Lumier" (The Church of Light) show put up by Mr. _______ _______. As Mr. _________ presented himself to me, he is not a technician or a dramatist, but he is certainly a Christian, and that he has presented this show in a hundred Churches already. To this I responded that I was not a Christian, but a Jew, and I am quite willing to advise him how his show could be made much more attractive and effective.

The show took place in the (classicist style I believe) Cathedral at La Rochell When the massive columns were lit by appropriate colored stage lightings, certain effects of depth, almost bordering on magic, were produced. A large spherical projection screen was hung from the upper back of the central stage/altar of the cathedral, and on it were projected static images of the main Christian sacred characters and of the protagonists of the particular historic drama selected: the Christianization of Gaul by King Clovis and his wife Clotild . There were also lights projected upon the intricate architecture of that beautiful edifice, and even a laser beamer (of the type used principally at discotheques) was used to project moving points upon the walls. There was fine accompaniment and singing by the artist from his own hymns, and there were about half a dozen actors staging basic scenes of the historic story.

For us two non-French speakers: an Israeli and a 13 years old Danish girl, the show was a disappointment. My daughter thought the show was rather unprofessional. I thought the basic story was not good enough as an attempt to animate the great French churches and the Christian history, especially when they came to La-Rochelle (marking, as noted above, the historic place in France for developing religious innovation). Not knowing yet whether I could discuss the more fundamental theological issues with Mr. _____, I limit my following recommendations to questions of means and of style of presenting the contents.

The idea of doing "A Cathedral of Light" in the great French Cathedrals is a capital idea. I would have been utterly thrilled to design such a show for, say, Chartres Cathedral. By looking at these edifices, I know that the religion of the builders of the cathedral speaks to me far more than the religion of the Christian Church Fathers. It is this religion and not the religion of the victorious Clovis or the Frank Crusaders that I can even identify with (all these heros proved was that they could kill better). As an enigmatic French scholar (Foulcanelli, 1925) has shown, this was an esoteric, even alchemical, craft religion. As other scholars have shown, it represented a Templar tradition which developed into the Craft Free Masonry. There are concepts of Light, both concrete and symbolic (had not Jesus said: "I Am the Light onto the World?"), already embedded within the structure of the cathedrals, and these should be amplified by the modern means to produce "The Church of Light" and even draw the Divine Light itself.

In the same words, I believe that Drawing Light through the windows can be added to by laser technology, even transformed into Drawing the Divine Light. More interesting than letting some regular church goers to see the familiar old story shown with some new means would be to let believers actively interact to draw out of the divine that they have gained and mesh it with the light of the should of the others to produce a veritable "Church (or synagogue) of Light". Better than a spiritually empty Futuroscope would be a "Holyscope" (or Holiscope) that will show the interaction of the spirits and the souls of the participants.

One could try to decode the "language of light" of the cathedral builders. My guess is that it was mainly a primitive version of the theories of Light that are found in the still-living tradition of the Kabbalah. So I shall use the main categories of "Or Yashar" (straight, or honest, Light), "Or Hozer" (reflected, sometimes deceptive, Light) and Or Makif (Environmental, normally invisible, Light). A prime device of Christian art to show one type of Or Makif was to draw circular halos around the heads of the saints.

By erecting a portable tabernacle (Sukkah) at the central square of the cross-plan of the typical cathedral, there is formed a frame for a cube made of a light diaphanous screens. On these there can be projected moving images, both usual movie projections and whatever develops in laser-tracing. But much more, this space can be a container for the incense (Ktoret) which can then act as the three-dimensional projection media for a 3D matrix of holographic spheres and images in and out of them. Each sphere may represent the soul of one of the congregation, and to the extent that his/her "soulights" turn on, a "soul transmigration" can be enacted by feeding the measured "spiritual states" of that person (or more precisely, the co-entailed process manifolds as explained in Pask's Interaction of Actors Theory) to the central display. These "soul-lights" then seem to congregate at this cube, which may be legitimately interpreted as the New Jerusalem or "The Church of Light".

As for the spiritual lights of the spectators at their place, there are various means to exhibit them. The most engaging demo at the Parisian Museum of Science was a cubical (I think) altar which two girls were put upon and charged with static electricity until all their hairs stood up and lightning came from their fingers. Something like that could be done to prime the participants for a Carolyn photography show - probably even visible there and then. By this or other means (which I have a handle on), the auras of the people can be rendered visible as colored spheres and/or halos.

It might have seen strange so far to include a discussion on churches in a report on science expositions. But in light of the above remarks, one could re-construe the church as an experimental facility for observing the effectiveness of various teachings of Christianity (and/or of other religions).

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7. The megalith complex at Carnac, Brittany:

This is probably the world's biggest megalith complex. Whatever else were the intentions of the priest-builders of this shrine, they certainly showed the great dedication of the native people of this rich land to build great monuments. Among the many speculators of early monuments and earth-energies (Michell, 1983), a French group (_____, 198_) has shown energy lines in ancient sacred edifices to run as parallel lines, just as are marked at Carnac. Such megalith can gather the "Earth Lights" (Deveroux, 1982) rising from charged (stressed piezo-electrical) geological strata and make these lights manifest. So perhaps the light-show that was seen on occasions at ancient Carnac was a good precursor to the light show I experienced driving at night along the Champs Elyse boulevard with its twelve parallel traffic lanes. With the time of the visit being at the close of the Atlanta Olympic Games, one could speculate on the Carnac site as being a racing site of trying to keep pace with the earthly lights, but this may well have been a place for a dance-like movements in synch with these manifestations of the Adamah (the Living Earth in Biblical terms, to differentiate from the pagan Gaia).

At any rate, it would be fairly straightforward operation to make a spectacular light-(and sound) -show at Carnac, where the lines of erect stones will relay a laser beam from one stone to another.

Now the megalithic temple at Carnac formed just one node in a continent-wide system of straight lines between sacred sites and along which more sacred sites are aligned. It may also be good to note that the pattern of intersecting alignments was recreated in the layout of Paris from Le-Notre to Haussmann (and on in space and time to the new Le Defence central business district).

Perhaps the most comprehensive redrawing of these ancient "Ley Lines" (Watkins, 1925) was made by John Michell, who drew attention to the great length of the "Saint Michael Lines" (Broadhurst and Miller, 1989; Michell and Rhone, 1991) that align on Mount St. Michell at Brittany, and how they bridge across all Europe between Glastonbury in Britain and Mount Carmel in Israel.

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8. High Gothic: Mount St. Michell and the Paris Notre Dame Cathedral:

In looking for a new system of symbolic sites that unifies the New Europe, it is worthwhile to look at the high past achievements of the Gothic construction. The greatest monuments are thus the Gothic Cathedrals and especially Mount Saint Michell. Mount Saint Michell, built continuously over several centuries, became one of the greatest pilgrimage sites of Europe. The pilgrim would prepare to go West - on to the edge of the continent and into the Great Sea, when (s)he would see the Gothic image of The City of God seeming to rise from the sea.

Unfortunately, I did not have the occasion to do more than marvel at it from outside. It certainly could have given the inspiration for Disney's Castle of the Sleeping Beauty, but I do not know whether they had there underground caverns for the Beast's lair, as they have at Disney. As many of the sites along the Saint Michael line are associated with encountering dragons, it may well be the case.

I did not have the opportunity to see Mount Saint Michell at night, but I trust that it is well flood-lighted to look like a veritable castle-city of Light. Yet it would be still more imposing if it would throw out lightenings to the sky (much as I'm sure it draws lightenings from the clouds on stormy nights. Whatever the terrestrial currents that run through it, some further high-voltage electric charging of certain pointed roofs, much as the girls were charged at the Paris Science museum, and some further equipment

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9. The Eiffel Tower and cruising through Les Grand Boulevards of Paris:

I have ascended the Eiffel Tower before visiting Carnac and Mount Saint Michell, but with these later visit, I could reflect on the great possibilities which I have failed to perceive during the actual visit. From the Tour Eiffel, one can see just two of the great straight alignments that characterize the plan of Paris and give her her very special grand character. For Paris is also known as "The City of Light" and that probably because the many illuminations of her monuments are rendered impressive by the immensely long lines of visibility.

The immense resources gathered from French people by the collapsing monarchy and the short-lived Empire became invested in the transformation of Paris to its current pattern. The boulevards had to be straight so that a cannon could shoot and the cavalry, stopped otherwise by the barricades of the alleys, could charge through them. But soon they became an obsession on their own rights and aesthetic appeal - they became the true Imperial Obsession of France.

The origin of the Gothic architecture, I believe, is the defeat of the Crusaders at the Holy Land. What was discovered there about the new possible union between the Cross and the Crescent (embodied in the Dome of the Rock which they Christened as "Templo Domini") was then invested in architecture rather than in military adventures. Likewise, rather than try again to fight all of Europe, the second Napoleon gave the Imperial might to Baron Haussmann to rebuild Paris. With this, an enigmatic thing happened.

What was discovered by the Baroque architects and applied so grandly in Paris was apparently an unconscious rediscovery of the megalithic art of alignment of Ley Lines, though perhaps with little regard to hidden terrestrial currents.

Had the Tour Eiffel be dismantled and reerected at the Etoil (or simpler, another reproduction of it), at the intersection of the twelve roads, the spectators from its top would clearly see the grand design of "the Paris Ley System". Frozen in the past and dedicated only to memories of war, the central place of Paris is an alienated place that fails to serve as the highlight of the greater potential of Paris as "the City of Light", or even "the Radiant City" (to quote Le-Courbusier in a certain way).

The major alignment of Paris is from the Etoil down the Tuilleries gardens and through the Louvre. I may be wrong and it needs checking, but my guess is that this alignment was made as parallel to the alignment of the Cathedral of Our Lady of Paris, and that alignment, in turn, should have been towards Jerusalem. The further rebuilding of Paris under the successors of de Gaul (who retreated from the last hold of the French Empire) were along the extension of the same alignment - the new Central Business District of Le Defence.

The major, and newly-extended, alignment visible from the Tour Eiffel is through the Trocadero and on to the new agglomeration of office blocks that make the extension of the major alignment. Le defence is thus perceivable from the Tour Eiffel as the next extension of Paris in a manner typical of the timeless pattern of Ley Line "terraforming". How can this potential be realized?

Driving through Paris was a new and exhilarating experience. The peripheral roads function well, though unpleasantly. Driving through the Grandes Boulevards is truly terrific, and Paris can be experienced as a unity through driving, rather than be a maddening experience of fighting the traffic. But Le Defence is a flop, built primarily to accommodate the cars, it becomes to the driver a jumble of ramps to underground parking lots. The experience for the pedestrian is different, but the loss of the great perspective for the faster traffic aught to be noted.

Above ground, there is a jumble of office blocks, mitigated only somewhat by the great hollow cube at the center. What is it? What aught it to signify? The visitor is free to guess. For me, coming from Jerusalem and obsessed with the theme of the New Jerusalem (or in Hebrew "the Celestial Jerusalem"), this substitute and successor to the Arch of Triumph seems a symbol of the cube-like New Jerusalem in the (Christian) Biblical Book of Revelation.

This discovery was already largely made by John Michell, whose "View Over Atlantis" (1969, 1973) and especially "New View Over Atlantis" (1983) showed a progression from the megalith temples to the New Jerusalem. Recalling the Gothic Cathedrals and Mount Saint Michell, it seems that it is by contemplating the Celestial City that the French architectural genius finds its greatest expressions. I wish to make some initial and rough suggestions to this possible task, having contemplated for already some years the New Jerusalem and the possible actualization of its Celestial Temple through cyber-architecture and opto-electronic

Le Defence can be rendered more coherent by building a cone or a pyramid of light beams with its apex as high as the Tour Eiffel, making the whole jumble seem as a unitary entity . It is, however, also possible to erect towers of light as extensions of the existing towers (the multinationals would jump to do it, if permitted to put there their logos), but just as high as possible within a pyramid of measuring lights. So the outcome would be something akin to the whole Mount Saint Michell on a still much greater scale. From the top of the Pyramid, to the tops of the towers of Eiffel and at the Etoile, beams of laser lights could be drawn, and from them on to slender, almost invisible, towers above the other Parisian focus points marking a Celestial City of Lights on the Parisian skies.

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10. A Proposed "Celestial Paris" model for Le Defence and the science Museums:

The practical contribution which I would like to make would be an exhibit appropriate for all the expositions discussed above - the Paris Museum of Science, the Futuroscope and the City of Science and Industry at La-Villette, as well as for a filling for the hollow cube at Le Defence. This exhibit would be different scale models of such a "Celestial Paris". These could prove quite spectacular and attractive for many fine audiences. But they will be also didactic models, dedicated to the most important science for our time - the science of building civilization in the era of the global urbanization of the human race. The cubic "Tabernacle" of the High-Or Heavenly Jerusalem Model act as a source of inspiration.

Building a big Tabernacle (much as discussed in section _ above) holding the optical equipment over the scale model of Paris, any urban phenomenon could be mapped with its local value displayed as a column or point of light above that place to form its 3D map. Display of historical and projected values would make a dynamic (4D, and in fact even 5D) display. Meshing various competing and potentially complementary modern phenomena, urban trends will display themselves like waves upon the sea, with lights rising and reflecting within transparent cubes. These effects recall "the Sea of Glass" of the Book of Revelation and the water-like pure marbles of the heavenly mansions observed by the Talmudic Jewish sages-mystics.

The elementary space-cells of the large cubical space receive accounts of the state of affairs on the city block below them (as a "blue Steel", or even UFO-type overheads observer). Appropriate values of these terrestrial observations may then release the laser beams that will intersect to form an appropriately colored sphere of light. Metered by the ley-lines-as-laser-beams, that 4D matrix of lights gives rise to intricate forms - the "Crystallization" (Christalization?) of separate glittering lights into a stable dissipative structure of lights - a Celestial City of Lights.

The space itself may be further warped by "strange attractors" of "ideal forms" (e.g. the nested platonic solids of Kepler's model of the solar system, combinations of three dimensional Crosses or Stars of David (as interlocking pyramids), a Christmas Tree/Tree of Life, etc.) that introduce systemic biases in this meta-transformations. These lines of "celestial influence" may, at times, be revealed to the (participant) observers as a system of laser beams. With such a facility, Saint Augustine's old thesis could be put (symbolically and extensively) to experimental tests how the City of Man may be redeemed and how it may seem from the point of view of the City of God.

(Only Allah and the Blessed Mother of God know, perhaps this journey propelled my stuffed cranium and the attendant parts through a sketch or blueprint for a cybernetic "Cathedral of Lights" in Paris, with the inside of the Notre Dame Cathedral as its ultimate locus.)

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References:

Baigent, M. & Leigh, R. (199_):
"The Temple and the Lodge".

Barber, M. (1994):
"The New Knighthood - a History of the Order of the Temple". Cambridge University Press.

Bradburne, J.M. (1991):
"Beyond Hands-On: Truth-telling and the Doing of Science". in R. D. Glanville and G. de Zeeuw (eds.) "Mutual Uses of Cybernetics and Science. special issue of Systemica, the journal of the Systeemgroep Nederland (Dutch Systems Group). Thesis Publishers, Amsterdam.

Broadhurst P. and Miller H. (1989):
"The Sun and the Serpent". Pendragon Press.

Devereux Paul (1982):
"Earthlights - Towards an Understanding of the UFO Enigma". Turnstone Press Ltd.

Fulcanelli (1925):
"Le Mystere des Cathedrales". Translated from the French by M. Sworder. British edition (1971) bt Neville Spearman Ltd, USA edition (1984) bt Brotherhood of Life, Albuquerque New Mexico.

Hayut-Man, Y.I. (1991):
"Computer Games for Social and Spiritual Development - a survey of the HEJERA Games". in R. D. Glanville and G. de Zeeuw (eds.) "Mutual Uses of Cybernetics and Science. special issue of Systemica, the journal of the Systeemgroep Nederland (Dutch Systems Group). Thesis Publishers, Amsterdam.

Jung, C.G. (1954?):
"Flying Saucers, a Modern _____ of things seen in the sky ".....

Lincoln, H. Baigent, M. & Leigh, R. ( ):
The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail; The Messianic Legacy ....

Michell, J. (1967):
"The Flying Saucer Vision". London, Abacus.

Michell, J. (1983):
"The New View Over Atlantis". London, Thames and Hudson.

Michell, J. and Rhone Ch. (1991):
"Twelve-Tribe NAtions and the Science of Enchanting the Landscape". London, Thames and Hudson.

Monory Rene (ed):
"The Futuroscope - Harnessing the Future at Europe's Park of the Image", Editions du Moniteur 1992)

Partner, P. (1981):
"The Knights Templar and their Myth". Oxford University Press. Paperback Destiny Books, Rochester Vermont 1990.

Yates Frances (1966):
"The Art of Memory". Routledge & Kegan Paul. Penguin Peregrine Books 1969 and 1978.

Schwaller de Lubitch (1977):
"The Temple of Man". translated from the French (1949) by R. & D. Lawlor. Inner Traditions International, Rochester Vermont.

Watkins, A. (1925):
"The Old Straight Line". Methuen & Co.
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