Balder Ex-Libris

Author : Markale Jean
Title : The church of Mary Magdalene The sacred feminine and the treasure of Rennes-le-Ghateau
Year : 1989

Link download : Markale_Jean_-_The_church_of_Mary_Magdalene.zip

On roads of stone and dust. It is hard for travelers who have been making their way up the upper Aude Valley out of Carcassonne to imagine what is taking place on high - that is to say, on the plateau. The valley is rich in shady groves and ancient picturesque villages such as Limoux and Alet, and the eye is continually drawn to the flowing river whose path is determined by the promontories bordering its winding path. Once travelers have progressed to Couiza, where the Sals River flows into the Aude, they will be tempted to continue southward toward Quillan, the gap leading to those castles constructed "on the flank of the abyss" (to borrow Andre Breton’s expression) - castles that are described as Cathar. For here is a land that bears the imprint of those whom many people have been a bit too quick to call dualists, heretics, and Albigensians. Everything here depends on what travelers truly seek: either the gold of the Holy Grail or the gold of the devil. The quests for both of these - not mutually exclusive - do need to be undertaken over time. From Couiza it is possible to make a detour to the east and, following the Sals Valley, to climb a steep path that leads to the top of the plateau, into the midst of rocks and mineral dust that have accumulated over the centuries. There, "on the flank of the abyss," looms a strange village lost at the end of a culdesac, a hamlet sitting atop the setting sun, and barely distinguishable from the surrounding stone : the village of Rennes-le-Chateau. ...