Studies in the Mystical Symbolism of The Secret Sovereign: The Queen of Heaven

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Secret Christians

Masked Madonna

Spiritual crisis of the West  

THE MASKED MADONNA

by Owen St. Victor

In the early literature of Christianity (and Islam,) the Mother of Jesus is symbolically connected with veils. The young Mary, it was reported, had sat in the Temple behind a series of seven curtains where she embroidered the veil which hung before the Holy of Holies. In an alternate but equivalent symbology in the early art of the Church, the ‘Black  Madonnas’ began to appear: mysterious portraits and miracle-working statues depicting the Mother of Jesus and the Queen of Heaven with a very dark complexion.

To these traditions may be added the ‘Feast of Mary’s Veil’, celebrated in the Russian Orthodox Church. This commemorates her mystical apparition at Constantinople, where she was seen with her face masked. This dark mask was lifted and miraculously became a luminous veil which she held  above her witnesses. Even before the Christian and Islamic traditions were diffused, the Hebrew poets had anticipated the same theme. The Eternal Feminine was viewed as having been the mystical consort of King Solomon as well as the Shulamite of the ‘Song of Songs’ – ‘dark but comely’ (1:56). Later, the rabbis spoke also of the bright and dark aspects of the feminine ‘presence’ of God – the Shekinah.

The Madonna’s evidence is found beyond the Abrahamic creeds. The Northern Buddhists depict two Taras in their heavens while the Hindu saint, Ramakrishna, acknowledged that ‘She is dark – but like the sky, only at a distance.’

The present book, THE MASKED MADONNA, accepts the luminosity of the Virgin’s ideal form as she is conventionally represented, but also invites the reader to agree again with the ‘Song of Songs’ (4.1): ’Behold You are beautiful….behind Your Veil.’

Series: The Christian Mysteries Louvain/Mechelen 1988

Published in English, this series begins with three books by mystic and scholar Owen St. Victor, who explores a path in the philosophies of ancient theosophia and hermetics, naming and describing the sources of many almost unknown teachings which disclose the way of inner development in its higher aspects. These investigations of our Christianised spiritual heritage uncover much that was long-ago lost, or has been relegated to inaccessible books, specialist knowledge, and traditions reserved for initiates of the esoteric.

The covers of the first three volumes in this series are illustrated by symbolic images: ‘Secret Christians’ cover shows the unique circular rose window of the Cathedral of Strasbourg admired by Goethe and by the ancient and modern Friends of God. ‘The Masked Madonna’ is illustrated by the celebrated figure of ‘Seated Wisdom’. ‘Epiphany’s cover is a symbolic representation of St. John, the Jordan prophet. All three images are represented at the back of this book.

THE MASKED MADONNA

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