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| In Quest of the Spirit: The Caves Represent the Stages of the Initiation Path of the Future 'Perfect Ones' |
 The young Cathar neophyte begins his spiritual quest by walking up to the 'churches of Ussat’. He crosses the ‘symbolic wall’ which separates the too well known material, profane world, still possessing him, from the spiritual world yet unknown to him but to which he aspires deeply.
He then enters the cave-church of Ussat accompanied by an ancient. It is the beginning of a long training, another life with a rhythm of work, study, prayers and fasts.
Taking underground galleries and mountain paths, he arrives at the neighboring caves: the Chapel, the Kitchens, the Workshops, the Crypts, the cave of the Acacia where he will later discover a major symbol engraved in the rock: the Cross of the Grand Master.
After a certain time, his inner perception getting finer, he progresses towards the East and reaches another group of caves: ‘Ramploque’, the ‘Hermit’, the ‘Grand-Father’. Then he continues to the second stage of his initiation in the three sacred small caves: ‘Kepler’, ‘Mès-Naut’ and ‘Ka’ for the essential phase, called ‘Endura’, of total purification, of death to the lower life and of elevation.
As a candidate for perfection, he is now introduced to a process of initiation leading to the living truth, an ‘Endura’ in three phases two of which have already been partially experienced: Formation, Reformation and Transformation.
Before receiving the ‘Consolamentum’, the future Perfect had to abandon his ‘caterpillar’, that is to say, his life linked to matter, to get rid of it morally (cave of Kepler).
The caterpillar falls asleep within the chrysalis, after the death of its first matter.
The material man becomes a Spirit-Man in the second cave (Mès-Naut).
The third sacred cave (Ka) witnesses his transformation from Spirit-Man into an awakened Light Soul.
The chrysalis changes into a perfect insect which flies off, a perfect Soul.
The third and last stage of its ‘rebirth’ as a divine soul which has become pure Light, the future Perfect One is led to the most important of all the caves: 'Bethlehem' in Ornolac.
He goes through the ‘Mystic Door’ that separates the domain of the ‘living according to the soul’ from that of the dead. Beyond is a large stone house, the dwelling of the Cathar priests.
He enters the crucial part of his initiation. |
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