We used to build cathedrals. What happened to us?

What modern architecture reveals about human devolution

I’m sad.

No, I’m not just sad.

I lament. I grieve.

Why do I lament and grieve?

Because

humanity has become retarded.

Not just retarded, but voluntarily retarded.

And no, I don’t mean that in an “offensive, dated” way.

It’s not an insult. It’s an observation.

You may think I’m going too far by using the word “retarded,” but for reasons I’m about to explain in this article, I don’t believe sugar-coated discourse is a courtesy humanity is entitled to.

The key phrase here is “for one’s age.”

Many modern humans have this funny little idea that we’re evolving forwards, getting “smarter” and “more advanced” with each passing day, by virtue of the fact that we’re moving forward in Time. Getting older means getting wiser, right?

Right?

Not necessarily.

The way I see it, we’re devolving.

Humanity, as a collective, has willingly chosen to forfeit our skills, our talents, our knowledge, and just about everything else that could make us a Divine Race.

Wanna know how I know that we’re devolving?

Well, just look at what we used to build:

I took these photos of various cathedrals during my last trip to NYC to visit my bestie,

Mickey Z.

.

Usually, when I visit my home city, the thing I look forward to most is the food. NYC’s food scene is unmatched. Every cultural cuisine you can think of is within walking distance, and available at all hours of the day.
But since taking up regular fasting as a spiritual practice, even NYC’s food didn’t wow me like it used to. I didn’t feel nourished by my long-loved “street candy” anymore.

Upon sharing this with Mickey, he pointed out that while the food didn’t feel nourishing, what did feel nourishing was to be inside these holy buildings.

When he said it, a light dawned in my heart, like a sudden total recall of the Truth.

Yes.

NYC’s diverse deliciousness of food was nourishing my physical body…

…but the cathedrals were nourishing my soul.

And when I shared his in-sight with some fellow fasters, one of them informed me that cathedrals are healing centers.

Cathedrals combine sound healing (by optimizing acoustic resonance with their precise, careful layout based on numerology and sacred geometry), light therapy (through the stained glass windows), aesthetic beauty, and all manner of balancing treatments that converge to restore coherence to the human body.

As a result of this meticulous attention to detail and coherence, all you have to do is stand inside a cathedral, and it begins harmonizing your body on all levels — physical and metaphysical.

photo set courtesy of @theuniverse_calling on instagram

In fact, I recently read The Occult Anatomy of Man by Manly P Hall, and was pleased to learn that ancient temples were intentionally built to reflect human anatomy.

For example, the altar is always found at the “head” of the church, analogous to where the pineal gland would be inside the brain. Thus, the careful attention given to activity at the altar is reflected, and assimilated subconsciously, by the human witness, activating their own pineal gland as a result.

The same applies to every other part of the temple; sacred rituals performed within the physical temple correspond to, and activate, the Inner Sanctum within the human body.

Now, with that in mind,

let’s take an honest look at the kind of shit we build today:

If it’s true that a building’s structure subconsciously affects the viewer (as an externalization of the soul),

what effect does it have to see buildings everywhere that are just… blocks?

Buildings with no “head,” no “limbs,” and no distinguishing features (and certainly no occulted references to spiritual centers like the pineal gland);
no vibrant colors — just dreary gray and beige;
lacking imagination and creativity;
lacking effort, forethought, or any sense of purpose….

Something happened to us. But what?

I once attended a poetry event on the theme of mental health. One of the performers was a woman diagnosed with bipolar. She said that she often found it difficult to discern when she had entered a “manic phase” or “depressive phase.”

But, she said, when she looked back at the art she’d been making leading up to her worsening mental state, the “warning signs” were clearly there in the art — in what her own subconscious was expressing symbolically through the mediums of paint and poetry.

Then she said something that stayed with me:

“My Art always knew before I did.”

One of the most horrifying things about Art, is that it reveals the truth through symbols.

So if the most impressive “art” humanity makes now, is whatever this shit is —

— that is telling us a truth about our spiritual state.

We have lost something.

No, not lost.

We have voluntarily forfeited something.

Our intelligence.

Our willpower.

Our divinity.

We could try to conspiracy-theory our way out of this one, for example by pointing fingers at the Nazis for weaponizing architecture to program people into feeling disempowered and hopeless (and it’s worth noting that people born after 1945 are 10× more likely to be depressed)…

…but the fact remains that we, collectively, have passively accepted life in a blighted landscape. We consent.

Because let’s face it: if we really didn’t want this landscape, then arguably we’d do something about it — for example, we’d guerilla-art all the billboards until they stopped bothering to make them. (Not that I’m trying to give anyone any ideas 👀)

We’ve collectively consented, if only subconsciously, to architecture so lifeless and soul-killing that it practically says “fuck you” to God, Whose genius created the heavens and the earth that we could only aspire to replicate in our own Art, and Whose generous gift of Life deserves a “thank you” that at least looks like it tried to be heartfelt.

But we don’t just fail to express any sort of virtue or gratitude for Life in our current architecture — no, we even go out of our way to destroy what others have created, as if symbolically expressing hatred for all that is Good: Life, Love, and Beauty itself.

I would go as far as to call this blasphemy.

Is it any wonder why people see less value in spirituality, mysticism, and the mere contemplation of God, if this is what churches look like now?

Modern churches don’t just fail to nourish the soul;

now they leech Life out of the body.

And I believe this increasingly rotten, deadening landscape is part of what drives technology addiction.

Surrounded by all this bleak, depressing architecture,

is it any wonder why people would rather spend their time in the virtual world inside their phones

which, though 2-dimensional, is far more colorful and stimulating than our 3D Corporate Billboard World?

StableDiffusion AI was prompted to animate “human evolution.” In response, it created this 40-second video depicting humans becoming increasingly indistinguishable from computer parts. What does this say about how AI “sees itself” on the evolutionary scale?

There Was Hope in the End

I try not to complain without counterbalancing my cynicism with hope.

As you may know, I have devoted my life to re-minding people that humans can fly.

But even if you don’t agree that humans are capable of literally flying,

I’m sure you can at least agree that humans are capable of doing far better than we’re currently doing:

We’re capable of making better Art. We’re capable of making genius Music. We’re capable of writing epic Literature. We’re even capable of making better porn, which I will be writing about soon.

Humans have an infinite wellspring of Potential
that we have not even begun to Real-ize,

and if you want proof of that, you need look no further

than the Old World architecture that already exists,

standing in triumphant contrast to our miserable modern-day architecture

as enduring evidence of What We’re Capable Of,

as a reminder of the divinity and greatness that presides within us,

and as a proclamation that the human spirit can — and will — triumph again.

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Thank you, lovelings ♥