The Temple Balsall formation, Warwickshire – July 21st (approx.) 2011
The Temple Balsall formation – July 2011
I have thought very long and hard about this blog and have wrestled with it over a prolonged period of time. There is a tale to be told about the reporting of this formation, but it is mired in the murky underworld of crop circle politics. I decided in the end to concentrate on the virtues of the formation rather than tell a story which if anything only distracted from the formation. Certainly, in the end, the tale added nothing to our understanding of it. I apologise to those of you that read this blog that enjoy a bit of intrigue and gossip, but I just couldn’t bring myself to write about it. All I can say in my defence is that I have saved you all from the temptation to use “Feet that are swift to run into mischief” (as King Solomon is said to have loudly decried), and have instead hopefully offered you something meaningful and much more interesting…
The Temple Balsall formation was one of a small number of crop circles to occur outside the usual Wiltshire/Hampshire heartlands where the phenomenon in the UK most often occurs. In fact, 2011 had seen two rather beautiful and impressive formations near Louth in Lincolnshire in the early part of the season, and the very first circle of 2011 had occurred near Chepstow in Gwent. Having said this, it is still relatively rare to find large and complex formations outside the usual stomping grounds, but I think it goes to show that not all the best formations happen within Wiltshire’s borders.
As its name suggests Temple Balsall has historical connections to the Knights Templar, the land there was gifted to the knights as a reward for their bravery in the crusades. They established a community there until their dissolution by Papal bull in the early 1300s. However, Temple Balsall still has a thriving Christian community to this day.
There is no reason to directly connect the Knights Templar to the crop circles. While it might be true that there might have been an awareness of the ‘Liberal Arts’ within such organisations – many see the Templars as the forerunners of the modern Freemasons – there is nothing much else that connects them. There is of course much land in the UK that once belonged to the Templars and that still bears their name. From time to time crop circles have occurred on that land – a circle appeared at Temple Farm on the Marlborough Downs for instance in 2011 – but I doubt that in itself constitutes a genuine connection.
Outline & underlying geometry. Division by thirty-two, Eight rings and four ribbons.
As far as I am aware, there have been no other circles at Temple Balsall or in that area before, so this was a first; I can’t help wondering what the locals made of it!
The formation itself was a classic mandala design, not unlike a gigantic rose window, but instead of the classical twelve-fold geometry so often found in church windows, this design was full of square numbers; four, eight, sixteen and thirty-two.
The encompassing circle is divided into thirty-two sections to create the design, then four criss-crossing ribbons (two sets of two) with reverse-point (V-shape) ends are placed at 90 degree angles to one another this creates sixteen points around the perimeter of the circle. It is this unusual V-shape that makes the pattern unique and interesting and also forms the octagram at the centre of the formation. Eight intersecting circles are then added which create the eight narrow oval shapes in the mid-part of the circle. The rest of the pattern is then picked out from the intersections of these combining parts.
The pattern is then picked-out from the skeleton geometry
It is the numbers that are most important thing about this formation. Eight, sixteen and thirty-two are all intensifications of the number four. I think this ‘intensification’ of number with in the circles is of great importance. Intensification of thought, or consciousness, brings about transformation. Anyone who has obsessively an intensely engaged with any subject often breaks through the mundane and the superficial; they delve into the deeper layers of meaning and connection not accessible in normal states of consciousness. To me, it gives them another dimension, where this intensification of number in the crop circles occurs, and a power that is very hard to quantify – a very deep power.
This idea is expressed directly by the numbers at play in this formation – particularly four and eight. Four (as I am sure you all know by now) is the number of ‘material reality’ – the physical world.
Finalised drawing with colour to imitate both a church window and the spiritual quality of the formation
In the Geometer’s creation story it is the first ‘thing’ to be born from the Vesica, it is also the first ‘square’ number. Eight, is an intensification of four in that it is the first ‘cubic’ number (two times two times two), it is therefore four, with an extra dimension. This is an intensification of the number four, a deepening of dimension. Eight has been called the number of ‘periodic renewal’ or the number of ‘resonance’ It is the number that sounds the octave, after the seven notes of the musical scale, it returns to the beginning, but simultaneously takes us somewhere new. Again the idea of an intensification (resonance) and ‘periodic renewal’ (a repetition adding depth, dimension, or scale) is also played out. The fact that this process carries on into sixteen, then thirty-two only repeats the whole pattern, to greater intensifications and we begin to see glimpses of a fourth dimension emerging from within the numbers. The tesseract (fourth dimensional cube) has sixteen corners…
Resonance, echoes, intensification, the deepening and addition of dimensions are all part of the geometry of this formation. It is truly remarkable. It speaks to me of the transformation of the world springing up from within itself – it is perhaps a dangerous, subversive formation, yet one that seems completely in tune with the transformations occurring in our world right now.
The beautiful central lay of the formation, showing an octogram shape.
It is a reflection of this shift in consciousness that is underway.
These ideas of intensification, the emergence of the fourth dimension and the interconnectedness of things are also part of Gebser’s idea of a new emerging state of consciousness which he called the Integral. We currently stand on the cusp between our Mental/Rational age of science and objectivity and a newly emerging Integral state. It seems that sometimes the crop circles provide an uncanny and a-rational commentary upon that process. Gebser also talked of the ‘concretisation of the spiritual’ in relation to the Integral state. What are crop circles, if not spiritual ideas made manifest and concrete on the face of the earth?
Drawing this crop circle was to dive headlong into the depths of this process of intensification and transformation. It required an intense concentration of mind, and was yet simultaneously a wonderfully spiritual experience. If the formation made the spiritual concrete in the field – the act of drawing it made the spiritual concrete on the page.
KAREN ALEXANDER – FEBRUARY 2012
Post Script
As I was searching the web I found these two images, one of a rose window divided into sixteen and another divided by thirty-two. The sixteen window is only shown as a diagram here, but the glass shows Christ at the centre with his twelve apostles and four saints and the thirty-two window is Christ at the centre with twelve apostles and twenty angels. Note the life-giving number five at the centre of each of these windows; Christ said “I am the way, the truth and the life”.
