Gothic architecture appeared quite suddenly, "without preamble," Charpentier writes, as he begins to unfold his theory of the mystical origins of the famous Chartres Cathedral in France.

Mysteries from the old religion mix with mysteries from the new. The cathedral is built on an ancient, pre-Christian sacred site. Each year on the summer solstice, the sun illuminates a certain flagstone in the transept. In the center of its stone floor is a labyrinth. In a grotto, beneath the church, by an ancient well, is found the Black Virgin, the statue of a woman with a child seated on her knee, that was purportedly sculpted by Druids before Jesus's birth.

No one has yet solved the mystery of how the colors of the stained glass windows were accomplished or their particular unique luminosity. "They are a product of high science," claims Charpentier, "a product of alchemy."

Charpentier proposes that the Knights Templar may have transported the Ark of the Covenant to a hiding place in Chartres Cathedral. He even suggests the possibility that a copy was made and hidden in Egypt.
When other, larger cities ran short of funds to complete their great cathedrals (there were eighty such Gothic structures under construction simultaneously, twenty of them in France), Chartres moved forward. Again, Charpentier points to the Knights Templar. They were the ones, he posits, who financed its completion.

To gain most benefit from Charpentier's theories and insights, having a friendly interest in mathematics is essential. How else can you get through many of his revelations?

'The "Cubit of Chartres" is 0.738 meters. All measurements are made
of it and even the thickness of the octagonal pillars. . . . [0.738 is] the
hundred thousandth part of the degree of the parallel of latitude of
Chartres.'

The cathedral's builders were not merely architects or master masons, according to Charpentier. Of necessity, they would have had an incredible store of scientific and mathematical knowledge. Ancient underground caverns, the great pyramids of Egypt, the Temple of Solomon, the Holy Grail, the Philosopher's Stone—they all figure in the mystery of Chartres Cathedral, writes Charpentier. (October 1999) ( )