The Chamber of the Mother’s Temple
Part One
India - ‘cradle of a new consciousness’
“Every Age has a Centre- its 0 – an area on the globe which must serve as the generator, the receiver of forces and the expeller of new transmuted energies. Such a centre therefore must reflect in the most precise way the truth of the Age to which it owes its being… (It) must be a point on the Earth that will be a cauldron of a sort, wherein the particular new aspect of Consciousness of this Manifestation must be ‘brewed’…
A centre of the Aquarian Age must be therefore the seat of the widest, deepest, highest understanding of the Divine Creation that has yet to manifest on Earth. It must be the cradle of a new consciousness which reveals an entirely new body of Knowledge.
This is the age ‘of the victory of Knowledge’; such a centre must offer the Earth the way to this victory; its very being must reveal the reality of this victory; its very being is the indication that the time has come for the fulfillment on Earth of all that the planet has been promised in the way of its destiny.’
The Centre (for this age ) is ‘The Temple of the Mother…” (Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet (Thea), The Gnostic Circle, Part Four, 4th ed, 2020, pp 265 – 66).
Thea gave us these stirring words in September 1974, along with the above graphic, showing three important areas on the globe related to the greater spiritualization of the Earth: Egypt, where only the Pyramids and Sphinx remain to show how the initiates preserved the knowledge of the cosmic harmonies; Crete in Greece where, for over 1500 years, the Eleusinian initiation rites honored the Goddesses – the Divine Mother and her daughter Persephone, – until 396 AD when the Temple rites were crushed, and Rome, where its spiritual influence was at its highest during the Renaissance period, with the extraordinary work of Leonardo DaVinci.
These three civilisations are the 9 – 6 – 3 of the triangle (above); India, who gave the world the Zero, was as yet an unknown factor. The nation was destined to remain hidden, to come forward as the cosmological Centre of the Earth – the Zero (0) – only during the 9th Manifestation, when the four members of the Solar Line would incarnate and the Earth was preparing to receive the Supramental manifestation (ibid, part four).
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On 21 February 1968 the cornerstone was laid for the new township of Auroville. The Mother had already begun to talk about what was to be the Centre and soul of her new creation. The expected vision came by early January 1970, with such extraordinary precision, that by 10 January she could draw up plans with details of design and measurement. The discussions regarding the Inner Chamber of the Temple were recorded but only released and published in 1981 (Thea, Genesis of the Mother’s Temple, see Preface- Chronicles of the Inner Chamber, Notion Press, 2018).
By the time Thea arrived at the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Pondicherry, India, in September of 1971, the foundations were dug and construction had begun. She became aware of the plan only in 1974 when the presiding architect showed it to her; this was shortly after the Mother’s passing, and by that time, she states, the plan was ‘ in no way recognizable as hers’:
‘…the 12 pillars of the original had been eliminated… the central symbol and pedestal had been removed and in place a 3-metre hole had been inserted… the entrance to the room, so carefully designed and placed by the Mother in her original plan … was also eliminated entirely; entrance was changed to two openings through the walls. And in the subtle sphere, less easily perceived by the naked eye but of far greater importance, the diameter of the room was inaccurately rendered and the 24 metre horizontal plane shortened by close to one metre.’ (Thea, Culture and Cosmos 3, The Vishaal Newsletter, vol. 7, no. 2)
By the 18th day after the plan had been given out, the Mother at 92 years of age was in no way physically capable to keep insisting that it be adopted; she ‘blessed’ all the changes the architects introduced and did not refer to her plan again (Ibid). It had been so disfigured that it could no longer legitimately be called ‘the Mother’s Chamber’ – it belonged to the architects and the builders.
However, the Divine would not allow the ‘falsehood’ to win, there was a ‘contingency plan’ in place, and with extraordinary dedication, Thea took up the work. In her words:
‘I have felt myself obliged to dedicate the better part of my energies to an unmasking of the operation’. And in this process the real and full gnosis was brought down and became the weapon of Truth, the sole power I would add, to serve in the re-establishment’(ibid).
The aim of Thea’s efforts was to convince the architect in charge, administrators and builders, of the need to follow the Mother’s exact plans (Thea, Matrimandir Disinformation – Once Again, The Vishaal Newsletter volume 3, no. 2; and Thea, 3 Appendices with Letters, ibid).
In her autobiographical account, Thea documents that she was ‘being carried into the world of higher knowledge, unknown until then’; but each discovery of the ‘cosmic essence’ of the Mother’s plans only brought rejection, and she became viewed as enemy no. 1 (The Tenth Day of Victory,2, Book one, ch 8).
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Destroying the original plans of the Mother’s Inner Chamber of her Temple is one thing, but hiding that fact and telling the public that what was built in Auroville was true to the original, is indeed another thing: ‘There are two problems we face: one is deception, and two is the impact the changes have on the atmosphere…’ (Chronicles of the Inner Chamber, Manifesto.) By 2003, there were many more people around the world who saw along with Thea, that the Temple erected in Auroville was not the Mother’s original vision, but what she called, ‘a shadow temple’ and they joined with her on 17 January, 2003, to publish the Manifesto of The Matrimandir Action Committee (MAC).
Their agenda set out to expose the falsehood and deception between the true original and what was constructed in Auroville; to ensure the Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust substantiates the true position (as it is their duty to preserve the Mother’s estate) and lastly to highlight and expose through the media the ‘value of the Mother’s vision and the place it holds in Sri Aurobindo’s work as the most valuable legacy left to humanity…’ (ibid).
From 18 February, 2003 through March 2004, MAC distributed far and wide 12 Chronicles (of the Inner Chamber of the Mother). Thea opens Chronicle One by addressing the purpose of the ‘perfect form’ in sacred art, sculpture and architecture in ancient India: to generate ‘an atmosphere that UPLIFTs, or allows for an uplifting of the surrounding environment’:
‘…It is unthinkable in India to establish a noble endeavor around a Symbol that is imperfect, flawed, or else distorted purposely or out of ignorance by impositions of the human ego. For these reasons all sacred art, sculpture and architecture were anonymously executed to lessen the prominence of the ego. In the place of honour there is, traditionally, the highest symbol of perfection, fashioned with meticulous care particularly in what concerns proportions and measurement. To stray from those ancient injunctions is unthinkable.’ (ibid, Chronicle 1)
She quotes the Mahamaya, XXII.92 and states it is common knowledge, to those who live in India or are familiar with Indian culture, that the ‘perfect form’ is a MODEL TO EMULATE, to GROW INTO: ‘…If the measurement of the temple is in every way perfect, there is perfection in the universe as well .‘
And in each of the subsequent Chronicles Thea walks the reader (and the student of cosmic harmonies) through the Mother’s original vision of the Chamber of her Temple; by Chronicle Nine it becomes obvious Thea has deciphered the architectural key given to her by the Mother and that ‘… the Vision lives on; its Knowledge has been revealed and preserved’.
As the Auroville construction was being built in cement and steel, Thea received a descent of Knowledge, a complete body of Gnosis, that allowed her to build, step by step, the true and original vision of the Mother. She documented the process in three volumes of The New Way, in The Chronicles of the Inner Chamber (cited above), numerous publications and two exhibitions (An analysis of all these documents is beyond the scope of this Theme, see References).
Aurodhan Gallery in Pondicherry was the site of Thea’s first exhibition in 2014, sponsored by Aeon Centre of Cosmology; a second followed a year later, at the Mati Ghar building of the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, New Delhi. The announcement (graphic right) indicates the intent Thea had in presenting both exhibitions: The Future Realisation: an exhibition connecting the Supramental Gnosis of the Mother to the Vedic Age.
Thea had the recorded Dialogues of the Mother’s own description of what she saw in the subtle plane (Thea, The Mother’s Dialogues on the Inner Chamber of her Temple, The Vishaal Newsletter, volume 1, no 5 and no. 6), and the four plans/views of the Inner Chamber (Thea, The New Way, 2, appendix IX). She was in a good position to bring the Mother’s original vision to the greater public ‘as the first cultural expression of the Supramental Truth-Consciousness….’ . (Thea, Guidebook to Exhibition, pp 3-4, and Exhibition photos and video, The Future Realisation Aurodhan Gallery, Pondicherry India, 2014, References).
There are many modern architectural marvels in our contemporary world, constructed by great human effort, Thea explains; impressive though they be, ‘none have any gnostic content’. The Mother ‘saw’ the Inner Chamber of her Temple in the ‘subtle world’ and the purpose of the exhibition was to bring the viewer into contact with that sacred form ‘just as she saw it without any distortion’…uncontaminated…direct from the solar world…’.
Part Two
Connecting the Supramental Gnosis of the Mother’s Temple to the Vedic Age
It is critical that the student of cosmic harmonies understand why Thea called the Auroville Matrimandir ‘a serious aberration and blemish on an otherwise pristine play of circumstances that destiny has arranged for the Supramental Manifestation.’ In what the architect constructed, there is only the human condition ‘groping for light in the darkness’; by contrast, every single aspect of the Mother’s vision is a symbol of a higher Truth-Consciousness that is seeking to reveal itself in this new Aquarian Age. The Mother’s vision left humanity with the ‘keys of knowledge’ to make ‘a conscious passage into the new future, the Age of Supermind.’ (Chronicle Seven).
Thea explains: ‘The Mother incarnated to arrest the decline and reinstate the Divine Measure’, and by that time, the rectification work was of colossal proportions. Our earth entered the 9th Manifestation (234 BCE), with everything off-centre, shackled with enormous problems resulting from the loss of the ancient Vedic Way.
‘What caused such a complete shift in our collective consciousness so that the only reality for us is death and devastation? (Chronicle Ten)
With the decline of the Vedic vision and the rejection of the ‘soul’, millennia ago, there was a devastating denial of the Earth herself, the land of our birth. The entire global civilization fell under the spell of ‘a deep sleep’: in the West, the seeker was encouraged to reject our earth, her impermanence and change, for a reward in an ‘afterlife’. In the East, all ‘form’ of material creation was called ‘illusion’. The Goddess and idol worship, and all things born in time, were rejected; this includes our ‘Divine Measure’, i.e., our twelve month year of 365 days, which for the Vedic initiate was considered the ‘sacred journey’, or the ‘sacrifice’ (ibid).
The Mother’s task was ‘to re-connect the sacred sciences to that ancient source’ and to update them for this new Age, in which Supermind has manifested. Her vision did exactly that in the most remarkable way. The method the Mother employed to carry out her task is ‘Vedic to the core’, Thea states, referring to the ancient formulas of the Laws of Correspondence.
Thea gives the example of one such law that she used to unveil the ‘supreme rahasya (secret) of the Mother’s original plan: ‘one day for one year’ (Chronicle 7). For the Vedic Rishi who was highly attuned to the cosmic harmonies of our universe, the meaning of this is not so esoteric or difficult to understand: the 24 hour revolution of the earth on her axis which creates day and night is equal to the same revolution she takes around the sun in our 365 day year.
Using this correspondence, Thea asks the student to see with her, just as the Vedic Rishis would see. It becomes obvious why the Mother insisted on specific measurements for her Inner Chamber (see words in italics below, from the Mother’s Dialogues with her disciples). By the law of correspondence, The Mother’s Inner Chamber of her Temple is the Earth, ‘it is the symbol of the future realisation’ .
- The 24 metre wide floor is the Earth’s 24 hour day: ‘yes, that is understood, The 24 metres (diameter of floor) end at the walls.’ (graphic above)
- The 12 pillars are the Earth’s 12 months; ‘it will be a tower with twelve facets, each represents a month of the year…’
3. The 15.20 metres of Light descending onto the Globe is the Earth’s 365 days of the year; (Thea, The New Way 2, p. 205, – ‘24 hours divides into 365 days, 15.20 times’).
Part Three
The Imminent in the Core
It was on 3 January 1970, The Mother talked about the ‘symbol’ that was to occupy the Centre of the Inner Chamber – ‘the symbol of the future’:
‘The architects have to see that the columns are beautiful, that the walls are beautiful, that the proportions are exact – all that is very good – and then the symbol at the centre. The aspect of beauty, naturally it is the architect who ought to see to it, but all the questions of calculation… and the important thing is that, the play of the sun on the centre. Because that becomes the symbol – the symbol of the future.’ (The Mother’s Dialogues, op cit, and Chronicles of the Inner Chamber, Notion Press, 2018, Part 3, The Mother’s Talks)
In the 10 January Talks, the Mother asks her disciple: ‘The exact measurement (of the globe ) is on the plan, it must be marked. Isn’t it marked, the size of the globe? And the disciple answers. 70 cm (ibid). The Mother did not specify the measurements of the pedestal. However, in the same 10 January dialogues, she told her disciple: ‘I did not think all that. I saw. It is like these symbols of Sri Aurobindo…when I am speaking of the Centre, I still see four symbols of Sri Aurobindo, which support each other at the corners, like that, and the colour, a strange colour…an orange tinted gold, very warm…’. (ibid)
Thea discovered the precise dimensions of the pedestal (50 cm height and 60 cm width) by noting the differences in Sri Aurobindo’s symbol before and after the Mother revised it on 6 May, 1964 (Chronicle Ten). The symbol on the right shows the revision with the four corners touching just as in the Mother’s vision. With this discovery Thea could describe the great mystery of how the 9th Avatar becomes the 10th .
In the Mother’s Chamber is the record of Sri Aurobindo’s conscious departure on 5 December 1950 and his return to earth 13 years later (Chronicle Ten, and B White, Keys of Gnosis). Thea describes this as the ‘alchemy of transmutation in the Pedestal‘, (Guidebook, Delhi Exhibition, 2015):
‘…the vastness beyond (the Transcendent – the 9) is compressed to a ‘seed’; the intensity of compaction gives birth to the One (the Imminent – the 0).
…the Pedestal is four-sided, each side of which corresponds to the contents of the soul wherein Transcendent, Cosmic and Individual creative principles are compacted;
…the reversal is the great Mystery of our material creation, whereby this side of the material demarcation is joined to the upholder of the universal manifestation ‘on the other side’. Their number equivalents are 9/6/3/0-1.
In the accompanying image, titled The Geometry of Time in the Core, Thea links the three aspects of the Divine – Transcendent, Cosmic and Individual – to their number power, 9/6/ 3 and to TIME (see Theme 5 of this website on number power). The following formula, she writes, reveals the true nature of reality beyond Relativity: (there are) ‘3 dimensions of Time, the ‘4th of which is the point of Space.’ (ibid ).
Thea encourages the student of cosmic harmonies to read the Chronicles in their chronological order; they are written in such a way, that after reading the first nine, the ‘initiate’ is prepared to enter into the ‘Cosmic Womb of the Divine Mother’ , and her Vision becomes ‘a living reality’. Entry into the Core of the Temple, through Chronicles Ten, Eleven and Twelve, opens a realization that has not been possible before on our Earth (Chronicle 10).
Part Four
India in the Chamber’s Core
‘India as the geo-cosmological Centre is to the Earth what the soul is to individual incarnation. The soul contains the individual’s private portal to the Source. Similarly, India, as the planet’s own soul, is the link or the portal to the Source. Similarly, India, as the planet’s own soul, is the link or the portal to an ever-replenishing, eternal fount of light and power and bliss. Unique among cultures she is the cosmological constant that connects the comity of nations to the other side where the source of Light and Power is found.’ (Thea, On the Nature of Centreship, a Message to India, 1)
The landmass of Akhand Bharat measures 40 degrees longitude and 30 degrees latitude. Thea employs the same Vedic tools used by the Seers, (the Law of Equivalence) to show the central place that India holds in the Mother’s Chamber. The central ray of light falling onto the light-filled Globe, which measures 70 cm diameter, is equal to ‘Akhand Bharat’, 30 degrees latitude plus 40 degrees longitude’ (Image right).
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The Mother’s vision shows why the loss of this Divine Measure of our Year is so devastating for India, why it began her ‘dark ages’ with invasion upon invasion continung to ‘darken the light’. As noted in many of the Themes throughout this website (see Theme 3 in particular) India celebrates the Makar Sankranti on 15 January rather than on the 21/22 December Solstice, which is the true gateway to Capricorn in the Tropical Zodiac.
This is illustrated in the graphic to the left: the 15.20 metre central ray of light falling from the ceiling onto the Globe and Pedestal corresponds to our Calendar year of time. When it hits the top of the Globe the date is 22/23 December, January 1 is found at the globe’s centre and January 5th at the pedestal top.
Thea writes that the Mother took birth to rectify this loss, to reconnect the nation to the fourfold Vedic harmonies (of the Solstices and Equinoxes). This is why India needs the true and original vision of the Chamber of the Mother’s Temple. It was to be (and is) ‘… the channel through which India will take her place once again as the magnetic pole of the Earth, and from that centermost point affect the destiny of every nation on Earth’.(Chronicle 8)
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Addendum
The Mother Chamber – an appeal to America in Defence of the Sacred Feminine
Despite a 45 year long yoga of documenting evidence re. ‘misrepresentation of the Mother’s vision in the Auroville Shadow Temple’, Thea notes that public tours through the Matrimandir were still being conducted and visitors still being told that the construction standing there was ‘the Mother’s original’.
She states this In Part One of a Four part series, written in July 2015, the year before her passing. What disturbs me, she reflected, is not so much that the ‘shadow temple’ was built through ignorance, by people who chose to satisfy their own ambitions instead of the Mother’s vision; ‘this I can understand and accept.’
Rather, she emphasized, it is the fact that what is really under attack, and has been from the beginning, is ‘reinstatement of the Sacred Feminine.’ The full implications of this have not been well understood. During the 2000 years prior to our current times, ‘Goddess worship throughout the world was decimated’, the final blow was the closure of the Eleusinian Mysteries and the rise of Christianity, in 396 AD. (Thea, Mother’s Chamber, an appeal to America in defence of the Sacred Feminine, part one).
The Ichthyus, (the fish), was the symbol of those times well into the Piscean Age; it was displaced by the ‘off-centred cross’. The calamities facing our civilization today are the consequences of that displacement; for example, Thea advises, look to the Greek Mother-Daughter myth: after Persephone is raped and taken on Pluto’s steeds to the underworld, Demeter in mourning searches the Earth for her daughter. She withdraws her graces, leaving the Earth parched and suffering. Our planet is playing out that mythic tale today, she writes, from the rape of women to unceasing cycles of ecological upheaval. Should we be surprised that the ‘forces’ rose up to suppress the sacred contents of the Mother’s Chamber, Thea asks.
The real and only enemy of the Divine Plan is ‘inertia’, symbolized by the ‘crucified Son’ – he resurrects and rises up and away from our planet Earth to pass into a ‘static peace’, leaving the Earth bereft of movement – the Sacred Feminine (ibid). Thea assures her students:
‘The Chamber the Mother saw and measured is the contours in sacred geometry of the Earth’s Soul (Persephone). This is what is required to save the Earth. This is the grace of the Divine Demeter restored. The new creation must and will be centred on that luminous truth and not the ego, for the Great Mother herself took birth along with her Daughter, to whom she passed on this treasure to save the Earth and restore the Sacred Feminine for all times to come. (ibid)
Comments
Related Books: The Chamber of the Mother’s Temple
References: The Chamber of the Mother’s Temple
Culture and Cosmos – 3, Establishment of the Vedic Dharma and Contemporary Indian Society, Part 1 Volume 7 No 2, June 1992.
‘….(the Mother) left humanity, India, with a ‘new model of the universe’. This was the culmination of her mission. But it was not the end of the work, nor of the Line. Two further stages remained and only half the work had been accomplished successfully. The most difficult portion stands before us and its successful completion hinged precisely on the discovery of the time factor in that ‘model’. Without that the exercise would have been entirely sterile, static, non-evolutionary and inorganic: once again simply speculative and abstract’…
Matrimandir Disinformation – Once again, The Vishaal Newsletter Volume 3 No 2, June 1988.
‘…The error in question concerns the room’s diameter. The Mother wanted the chamber to measure 24 metres inside, wall to wall. In the Matrimandir Talks she makes this abundantly clear, and those Talks were circulated privately to the architects and builders in the first half of 1974, long before the chamber was built. But the first drawing placed this 24-metre diameter measurement OUTSIDE the walls. Thus calculating the thickness of the walls, the chamber would come to measure close to one metre less than the desired 24. So what, it may be argued. Then, of course, why be concerned with dimensions at all?…’
The Vishaal Newsletter, Three Appendices to Volume 3, no. 2 Supplement June 1988.
Thea presents three letters as Appendices to the article, ‘Matrimandir Disinformation – Once Again’: Appendix 1: A memorandum on Integrity of Purpose to Shyam Sunder Jhunjhunwala, 9 May, 1975; Appendix 2: Concerning the July 1977 issue of Gazette Aurovilienne, regarding a controvery about dimensions and certain details in the construction of the inner room of Matrimandir and Appendix 3: to the Government Administrator of Auroville, 1980, on the Subject of Untruth of Matrimandir Architects, a petition for redress.
The Mother’s Dialogues on Her Temple, The Vishaal Newsletter, Volume 1, number 5, December 1986.
In The New Way, Volumes 1&2, Appendix I consists of extracts from the Mother’s Talks on the Matrimandir. In 1981, a more complete version of these dialogues was released by the editor. They appeared in L’Agenda de Mere, Volumes 10 and 11. To provide our readers with this fuller version, we shall be reproducing these dialogues in this and the next issue of Vishaal, omitting only what is not directly related to the genesis of the Temple. Here are the dialogues of the Mother on 31 December, 1969 and 3 January 1970.
The Mother’s Dialogues on her Temple (continued from Volume 1, no. 5), The Vishaal Newsletter, volume 1, number 6, February 1987.
‘We continue in this issue to present the more complete version of the Mother’s Talks on the Matrimandir than appeared as Appendix I of The New Way, Volumes 1&2. The period covered by these dialogues was from 31 December, 1969, to 17 January, 1970, eighteen days in all. The Talks reproduced in this issue are the final two. 10 January, and 17 January 1970.’
Barbara White, The Geometry of Time – Keys of Gnosis, 4 August, 2015
‘Thea has added a new function for Geometry, a means of connecting points in Time and applying them to real events in the world by date; the year or month or day they occurred. In the Mother’s Chamber, envisioned by her in 1969-70, a central Ray descends from the top of the Chamber and passes through the Globe and Pedestal below where it comes to a halt at the Mother’s upholding symbol. Here at the critical point the vertical descent shifts to the horizontal plane and number values shift from 9-6-3-0 to 1, 2, 3 and so forth. The movement has changed into an energy that pervades all that is encompassed in that point’s wide influence on Earth. It is the birth of Form in the world …’
On the Nature of Centreship: a Message to India 1, 11 January 2013
‘…India as geo-cosmological Centre is to the Earth what the soul is to individual incarnation. The soul contains the individual’s private portal to the Source. Similarly, India, as the planet’s own soul, is the link or the portal to an ever-replenishing, eternal fount of light and power and bliss. Unique among cultures she is the cosmological constant that connects the comity of nations to ‘the other side’ where the source of Light and Power is found…’
The Mother’s Chamber, an appeal for America in defense of the Sacred Feminine, 2 – 4 August, 2015 , Part One:
‘It was the Mother’s act of measuring that linked the vision to the most ancient Vedic Age and placed it not only on a par with certain extant structures that indicate the presence of a now-lost knowledge such as the Great Pyramid at Giza, but far above them in that she brought to the Earth what is known as the Divine Measure. She accomplished what St John had prophesied in Revelation as the ‘golden reed’, Chapter XXI-15: And he that talked with me had a golden reed to measure the city, and the gates thereof, and the wall thereof’.
Guidebook and Video series: Exhibition, The Future Realisation, Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, New Delhi, 2015
‘…The ultimate message of our exhibit is that the temple is within. The Core of the Mother’s inspired vision is the property of each individual; its light as we see in the translucent Globe – is within. In this new age, the task is to become the Temple – i.e., to unveil that light and free it from the shadows that until now have covered the soul’s luminous rays.’
Video series: Exhibition, the Future Realisation, Aurodhan Gallery Pondicherry, 2014
Here is a list of links to The Future Realisation Exhibit Video Series, featuring footage and Q&A with Patrizia Norelli-Bachelet from the exhibition which took place 9-27 February 2014 at Aurodhan Art Gallery in Pondicherry. The exhibition was a presentation ‘connecting the Supramental Gnosis of the Mother to the Vedic Age’ and featured the sacred measurements given by the Mother regarding the Inner Chamber of her Temple, from 31 December 1969 to 17 January 1970.