l’Hermitage du Mystique was located in the heart of the Ariège, a region where historical, cultural and spiritual lines seem to cross and overlap.
For me, this place carried more than beauty. It brought together traces of ancient human development, prehistoric creativity, religious conflict, mystical insight and sacred architecture. Different traditions, each with their own forms and stories, seemed to hold fragments of a larger understanding of human consciousness.
Although the physical project did not take form as first imagined, l’Hermitage du Mystique became an important visionary origin for The Original Foundation. It opened a field of reflection on religion, matter, the body, the feminine principle, and the next step in human consciousness.
This film belongs to the original phase of l’Hermitage du Mystique. It shows the atmosphere, longing and vision from which The Original Foundation first began to take shape.
A sky full of stars
The vision that opened
During the course of this project, a whole new vision opened in me: a vision on the role of religion through different periods of human history, and on the way sacred places have given space to the development of consciousness, both in the past and in our time now.
l’Hermitage du Mystique brought together questions around religion, body, matter, the feminine principle, sacred architecture and the future of consciousness.
Some of the texts and reflections written during that period are gathered here, not as a plan to be executed, but as a record of the vision that gave birth to The Original Foundation.
The role of religionThe feminine PrincipleThe body and the EarthThe Celestine ChapelEscola da Mística
The role of religion
The Ariège is a region deeply marked by religious history. Most visibly, it carries the memory of the Cathars: a spiritual movement whose teachings differed strongly from the official doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church.
The persecution of the Cathars was merciless. Their strongholds were destroyed, and Montségur, often remembered as their final bastion, became a place of deep tragedy. After a long siege, more than two hundred Cathars chose death rather than renouncing their faith.
The Cathars placed great emphasis on the spiritual soul. In their worldview, masculine and feminine forces held a more equal place than in the dominant religious structures of their time. Yet they also saw the material world, including the human body, as a prison for the soul — something to be transcended rather than fully inhabited.
The Roman Catholic Church, on the other hand, carried a different emphasis. It gave strong form to structure, authority, doctrine and outward order. Within that worldview, the feminine was often placed beneath the masculine, both theologically and socially. The story of Eve and the Fall contributed to a long cultural pattern in which feminine power was distrusted or diminished.
Seen through the consciousness of their time, I do not see either tradition as simply right or wrong. I see that both carried part of a larger human development. Each held a fragment of understanding. Each also left something out.
This is where the vision of l’Hermitage du Mystique began to open.
The Feminine Principle
Within the religious history of this region, something essential becomes visible: the feminine principle was never fully allowed to take its rightful place.
In the Cathar tradition, the feminine was not rejected in the same way as in the Catholic worldview. There was a deeper equality between masculine and feminine forces. Yet the body and the material world were still seen as something to move beyond.
In the Catholic tradition, both the body and the feminine were often placed under suspicion. Matter became something lower. The feminine became associated with temptation, sin or weakness.
From the perspective of consciousness today, this reveals a missing piece.
The next step is not to reject religion, nor to romanticise the past. It is to bring together what has long been separated: spirit and matter, masculine and feminine, soul and body, heaven and earth.
For me, l’Hermitage du Mystique opened this question in a very concrete way. How can the feminine principle return — not as an ideology, but as a living force of receptivity, embodiment, intuition, creativity and care?
This question became one of the deeper foundations from which Escola da Mística would later arise.
The Body and the Earth
The region around l’Hermitage du Mystique also carries much older traces of human development.
Only a short distance away lies the cave of Mas d’Azil, one of the great prehistoric caves of Europe. It holds traces of different prehistoric cultures, including the Magdalenian people, who left behind refined tools, ornaments, works of art and cave paintings.
The precision and beauty of these objects reveal a culture with a deep sense of symbolism, aesthetics and relationship to matter. These were not merely people surviving in a harsh world. They were creators, observers and innovators, using art and form to understand and communicate with the world around them.
At the end of the Ice Age, a new culture emerged, known as the Azilian, named after the cave of Mas d’Azil. As climate, landscape and animal life changed, this culture adapted. Life became simpler, more oriented toward smaller game and plant-based food such as nuts and berries.
In this line from prehistory to the present, I began to see a larger movement of consciousness.
The Magdalenian world showed a powerful mastery of matter, survival, beauty and form.
The Azilian world reflected adaptation to the rhythms of nature and nourishment.
The Catholic tradition gave form to structure, authority and outward development.
The Cathar tradition opened attention to the invisible, the soul and the world of energy.
And now, in our time, another movement is asking to emerge.
A movement in which the body is no longer rejected.
Matter is no longer seen as lower.
The Earth is no longer merely a resource.
And consciousness is not meant to escape life, but to become embodied within it.
This is the heart of the vision that l’Hermitage du Mystique awakened in me.
The Celestine Chapel
At the centre of this story stood a small church: a place I had fallen in love with.
This church, connected to l’Hermitage du Mystique, was brought to life in 1862 by Abbé Pierre Marie Rousse, whose creative spirit and devotion left a remarkable imprint on the place.
For me, the church became more than a building. It became a symbol of the meeting point between history and future, religion and consciousness, matter and spirit, devotion and creativity.
Although l’Hermitage du Mystique did not become a physical sanctuary as first imagined, the inspiration of the church remained alive. I have given it a place as The Celestine Chapel: not as a project to be realised, but as a symbolic and visionary online sanctuary on the website of Escola da Mística.
The Celestine Chapel carries the memory of what opened there: the possibility of a sacred space where the old lines are not denied, but brought into a new relationship with consciousness, embodiment and the feminine principle.
From l’Hermitage to Escola da Mística
Looking back, I see l’Hermitage du Mystique not as a failed project, but as a visionary spark.
The house was sold in April 2025 before the project could be realised. And in truth, the form I had first imagined was larger than I was meant to carry at that time.
But the vision did not disappear.
What remained was the essence: the longing to create places and pathways where consciousness, body, Earth, spirit and the feminine principle can meet again.
In time, this essence found a more natural and embodied form in Portugal.
Escola da Mística became the living continuation of this vision: smaller, more intimate, more feminine, and more closely connected to the rhythm of the land and the moment.
Where l’Hermitage du Mystique opened the vision, Escola da Mística now gives it ground.