Upon arriving at the front or main Western Gate of Chartres Cathedral, one can see a magnificent carving of Jesus the Christ on a throne, surrounded by an oval shape. In sacred iconography this oval shape is called “Mandorle” which is the Italian term for “almond”. This special oval shape that can be found on many icons or religious carvings and statues. The Mandorle is always associated with the sacredness of “Spirit”.

But why an almond?

• More than 3,000 years ago, for the Hebrews, the almond tree was the symbol of the immortality of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
• Being the first tree to bloom at springtime, the almond tree has also been associated with regeneration and new life.
• Being hidden within a thick pod, the almond itself has been used to symbolize the True Knowledge found by “One Who Knows”.

True Knowledge is not having the emotionally oriented feeling of a specific experience, nor is it to have the mentally oriented wisdom about an experience. One gains True Knowledge by combining both the personal experience and the real wisdom about an experience, henceforth becomming “One Who Knows” that specific experience in life.

Long ago, people had True Knowledge of their connection to the energies of God’s Love and Light. They were living all of their experiences within that direct connection. It included the way they ate, worked, breathed, etc. During this early period, all activities and rituals contained much in the way of spiritual energies and wisdom, for people were consciously aware they had never left God. In that distant past, people included God in everything they did, and they knew how to see and feel God’s electro-magnetic energies of Love and Light everywhere.

We are not our fingers, our toes, our brain or our head, for all of these items are simply temporary body parts. We, ourselves, are eternal. We are a collection of memories, from all of our experiences, electro-magnetically recorded within our Consciousnesses, or Light Bodies. One’s Light Body, or “Spirit”, envelops one’s human physical body.

Prayer, meditation and spiritual techniques enable spiritual expansion because they are ways to infuse energies of Love and Light within one’s Spirit in order to expand the size of one’s Light Body. Through daily practice, one eventually reaches an “Enlighted” state of Consciousness allowing them to Ascend when they are ready.

Light is electrical mental energy and Love is magnetic emotional energy. In the quiet of prayer and meditation, one goes inside to combine, or merge, the magnetic energies of their feelings with the eletrical energies of their thoughts. One could picture the process by saying they merge the devotional feelings’ circle of their Love with the wise thoughts’ circle of their Light, creating an overlapping effect which propels them to experience more of Creation, or spiritually evolve.

All Master Teachers cognized and taught the wisdom of how to spiritually evolve, or Ascend back to God, from a True Knowledge standpoint. All Master Teachers such as Shiva, Moses, Jesus and others taught about how the energies of two circles of Love and Light can merge. If you draw two circles, or spheres, overlapping each other in perfect harmony, the centre of one circle, or sphere, being on the edge of the other, you discover in the center a “Mandorle”. This area is very sacred because there the total is greater than the sum of its parts.

Much information in the Old Testament and New Testament was changed in order to hide the truth from people who do not value spiritual teachings. Unfortunately, the “Rabbis and Emperor Popes” did not continue their own studies or work with the esoteric teachings which resulted in the loss of ancient knowledge to everyone. Only a glimmer of light remains in religions, but that is enough to guide devoted people to Enlightenment and Ascension within their own religion.

The fish of Christianity is but one part of the Roman Empire’s bastardization of the teachings of Jesus. The fish is all that remains from Jesus’ teaching of the Earthly Spirit Light Body when he used two oranges or spheres to create a Vesica Pisces in order to describe Ascension. However, the Roman Emperor Popes changed Jesus’ teachings. The spheres were eliminated, the Vesica was dropped, a tail was added and the Pisces was retained. The end result was a dead fish and the death of the true teachings and knowledge of Jesus. And so it has gone on for many centuries, in all religions.

The Knights Templar recovered Jesus’ truths from the Ark of the Covenant. The Knights Templar practised the spiritual techniques and wisdom of Jesus. The Knights Templar could live their lives in the Christs Unceasing Light of God’s Unconditional Love and properly heal others. As a symbol for the energies of Unconditional Love they used, then and now, the Knights Templar depicted Jesus within a Mandorle over the main entrance of their wonder-filled Chartres Cathedral.

The Mandorle is so sacred that it is found on all levels of Creation. Our Creation Book explains how God starts a Creation by creating a duplicate of God. Then, God and God’s Creation merge together their “circles of Love and Light”, thereby creating a Mandorle of tremendous magnitude from which all there is to a Creation spring forth. In addition, everything in Creation is comprised of different arrangements of sub-atomic Golden Spheres, bound together through their Unconditional Love by Mandorles, or “Vesica Pisces”. From galaxies and solar systems to molecules and atoms, God’s chosen way to bind all of the basic building blocks of Creation together with Love is the Mandorle. (Editor’s Note: “Vesica Pisces” is a latin terminology used to describe the elongated and oval shape of a Mandorle, which looks like a fish).

That is why almonds, or “mandorles”, has been used to depict/symbolize various situations where two sets of energies join together, as well as what the union may produce. This led to quite humorous legends about maids getting pregnant by falling asleep beneath almond trees while thinking about their loved one.

However, there is a less fanciful aspect to the legend. It is common knowledge that when two people join together in Love, they may exchange golden rings. Knowingly or unknowingly, this process symbolizes the union of their circles of Love and Light, in order to create an enhanced spiritual growth for each other. It is in those Loving and caring relationships where two people have joined together in Unconditional Love, that both can evolve together and move rapidly into higher levels of consciousness. (Editor’s Note: Gold has been used for millennia in spiritual ceremonies. Gold is the purest conductor for the electro-magnetic energies of Love and Light from God. Wheras gold was first used to enhance spiritual abilities of spiritually oriented people, it soon became a lure for self-serving people. And today, people still kill, maim and steal others to get gold, but they do not even comprehend the true spiritual value behind it).

The representation of Jesus the Christ within a Mandorle above the main Western Gate of Chartres Cathedral offers all people a powerful way for to be reminded of their connection to the Unceasing Light of God’s Unconditional Love. It tells a magnificent, eternal, tale of how we first came down here to experience Creation while retaining our connection to the highest levels of Love and Light.