Temple and Contemplation brings together for the first ... - ImagoMundi

THE IMAGO TEMPLI IN CONFRONTATION
through a Pyrenean amphitheatre echo each other, in that each of them
sets the same catastrophe at the centre of world history: the destruction of
the Temple, of the same Temple. Nevertheless, over the centuries a
triumphal Image occurs and recurs, opposing this despair with the tenacity
of permanent defiance: the Image of the rebuilding of the Temple, the
coming of the New Temple, which assumes the dimensions of a cosmic
restoration. The two images, of the destruction and of the rebuilding of the
Temple, are inseparable one from the other. They draw on the same
source, and they configurate a vision of the world which in both its
horizontal and vertical dimension is dominated by the Image of the
Temple, Imago Templi, and which conjoins the destiny of the city-temple
and the destiny of the community-temple in the body of the Knights
Templar.
I use the term Imago Templi in order to typify and stabilize a specific
intention in a Latin form ne varietur, thus avoiding the vicissitudes of
translation. I should therefore explain how this Imago Templi has in the
end come to impose itself on me as a student of Islamic gnosis, not by
leading me away from this gnosis, but on the contrary by allowing me to
penetrate to the heart of that for which I am seeking. In explaining this, I
will also be delineating the successive stages of the present study.
Unlike modern philosophers of History, visionary theosophers always
have someone—a personal messenger—who comes to give them instructions
and to be their guide. Where does he come from? In the famous
recital of Hayy ibn Yaqzan, composed by Avicenna, the messenger—the
Angel—on being asked by the visionary whence he comes, replies: "I
come from the TEMPLE", or, to be precise, from Bayt al-Maqdis. This
latter term, which is the literal Arabic equivalent of the Hebrew Beth hamiqdash,
means, to be sure, the "sacrosanct house"; but as we know, the
symbol of the dwelling-place is commonly used to denote the temple. 4 The
Arabic term designates Jerusalem; but the answer given to Avicenna
refers not to the Jerusalem of this world, but to the celestial Temple of
which the earthly Jerusalem is the image. We hear the same answer given
in Suhravardi's visionary recitals. 5 Often, indeed, for the sake of precision,
4 Cf. H. Corbin, Avicenna and the Visionary Recital, trans. W. R. Trask (Texas, Spring
Publications Inc, 1980), pp. 137 ff. See also copyright page of this translation: vol.
II of Corbin's original 1954 edition is not included in it.
5 Cf. Suhravardi, 'Le Vade-mecum des fideles d'amour', chap. V (the response of
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THE IMAGO TEMPLI IN CONFRONTATION
we get the expression Na-Kuja-abad, the "country of non-where", or Ruh-abad,
the "country of the Spirit". 6 Thus the question arises: at what boundary
or limit does the meeting take place between the visionary and the
Angel "who comes from the Temple?" Hence, too, at what boundary or
limit is this Image of the Temple disclosed to the visionary, so that he
receives the revelation of the Angel who belongs to the Temple?
Our mystical theosophers have explained themselves with extreme
clarity on this point, and in doing so show themselves to be in profound
agreement with all visionaries of the "New Temple". What is in question
is a world which conditions a fundamental spiritual experience, the secret
of which initially escapes us Occidentals because for us this world has for
some centuries been a lost continent. It is the world situated midway
between the world of purely intelligible realities and the world of sense
perception; the world that I have called the imaginal world ('alam al-mithal,
mundus imaginalis) in order to avoid any confusion with what is commonly
designated imaginary. 7
Let us be quite clear about this. Our visionary theosophers—Suhravardi's
Ishraqiyun—are no less aware than we are of the perils of the
imaginary. I will recall briefly the metaphysics of the Imagination in, say,
Suhravardi. The Imagination possesses a twofold aspect and fulfils a
twofold function. 8 On the one hand there is the passive imagination, the
imagination that "re-presents" or "re-produces" (khayal). As such the
imagination is, quite simply, the storehouse that garners all the images
perceived by the sensorium, this latter being the mirror in which all the
perceptions of the external senses converge. On the other hand there is the
active Imagination (mutakhayyilah). This active Imagination is caught
between two fires. It can submit docilely to the injunctions of the estimalory
faculty (wahmiyah), in which case it is the rational animal that assesses
things in a way related to that of animals. The rational animal can and in
Love to Zulaykha), in my anthology of fifteen treatises by Suhravardi entitled
L'Archange empourpre, Documents spirituels 14 (Paris, Fayard, 1976), IX pp 306-
. 307-
6 Ibid., index. See also H. Corbin, En Islam iranien: aspects spirituels et philosophiques
(Paris, Gallimard, 1971-1972, new edn 1978), vol. IV, general index s.v. Na-Kojaiibad,
Ruhabad.
7 Ibid., s.v. imaginal. See also H. Corbin, 'Science traditionnelle et renaissance
spirituelle', in Cahiers de l'Universite Saint-Jean de Jerusalem, I, 1975.
8. Cf. Suhravardi, 'Les Temples de la Lumiere', 7th temple, the French translation in
op. cit. (note 5), II, pp. 63-66.
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