...dates from the 17th century, and was a rebuild of the previous cathedral, which was destroyed during the French Wars of Religion. That cathedral in its turn had been built to replace a still earlier one which had been destroyed in the 12th century during the Albigensian Crusade.
---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <turquoiseb@...> wrote : Hi Buck, I'm going to respond atypically seriously to your query. Utrecht is only a few minutes away from Leiden by train, and I'm sure that Dom Tower might be a nice enough place to meditate if it were still part of a larger church, but it isn't. The tower is now all that's left of it. For more info, see this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dom_Tower_of_Utrecht http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dom_Tower_of_Utrecht But quite honestly if I were looking for a church to meditate in there are a few nice ones here in Leiden. And to be even more honest, if I were looking to meditate anywhere other than home, I actually prefer meditating in nature to meditating in *supposed* "holy places" like churches. Don't get me wrong...some churches and cathedrals in Europe *are* actually very beautiful, and have a certain kind of stillness to them. It's *not* caused by any "field effect," however, but by the intentional use of space and form by the architects. When it comes to "field effect," many of the churches and cathedrals of Europe (such as the Papal Palace in Avignon) are IMO downright creepy and low-vibe, possibly due to the fact that they were used by the Inquisition as locations in which to torture and kill people. One of the most interesting churches I've been to in Europe, in terms of my interest in cults, religions, and the history of religious folly, is a large cathedral in Uzès, France, where I spent a few weeks this past summer. When you enter the church from the ground floor, you pass into a large room full of traditional church pews, just like many other churches. But looking up, I noticed that there were large balconies on both sides of the room. Balconies, but no stairs leading to them. There was no way to get to the balconies from within the church. This was a mystery I had to solve, so I asked around and found the following odd story. It turns out that in its heyday this was a Catholic cathedral, but there were many Protestants in the town. To "save their souls," the Protestants were *required* to attend Catholic mass every Sunday. Skip it, and you could be put to death. But at the same time, you couldn't have these low-life Protestant scum sitting side by side with the upscale Catholics now, could you? So they built the two balconies and put doors and stairways leading to them on the outside of the church. While the Catholics got to sit comfortably in the main hall of the cathedral, the Protestants had to stand for the whole service, crammed into the too-small-for-them balconies. Go figure, eh? Just one of the many stories of religious conflict and craziness here in Europe, and an illustration of why if I'm seeking a nice, silent place to meditate, churches are not the first place that springs to my mind. From: "dhamiltony2k5@... [FairfieldLife]" <FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com> To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Sent: Friday, November 28, 2014 11:55 AM Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: All you need to know about the differences between US and Netherlands Om The Dom Tower in Utrecht.. Dear Turqb, is the Dom a nice place to go in to meditate, spiritually? It is nearby to you? You could go there to meditate? Does it hold a spiritual coherence generating field effect sort of like the Domes do in Fairfield, Iowa? Which denomination was it built by? Just wondering if it is a place that you could easily use if you were inclined spiritually to do that, -Buck in Iowa Waiting 10 Months For The Perfect Drone Footage http://digg.com/video/waiting-ten-months-for-the-perfect-drone-footage http://digg.com/video/waiting-ten-months-for-the-perfect-drone-footage Waiting 10 Months For The Perfect Drone Footage http://digg.com/video/waiting-ten-months-for-the-perfect-drone-footage Dutch filmmakers Jelte Keur and Reinout van Schie waited 10 months for the right weather conditions to shoot this amazing drone footage of the Dom Tower in Utrecht... View on digg.com http://digg.com/video/waiting-ten-months-for-the-perfect-drone-footage Preview by Yahoo
