The temple and the text

Across unrelated cultures, ritual architecture stages the same progression: from open public space, through successive thresholds of restricted access, into a small, dark, sealed chamber at the heart of the structure. Karnak's gates drop the light level with each pylon until the sanctuary is entered by lamplight. Newgrange funnels a single passage to a midwinter sunbeam. The hypothesis: this is sensory restriction used deliberately, and the itinerary texts script in time what the buildings stage in space.

Method: 17 progression systems encoded as zone sequences with access levels (0 public to 4 sealed). Each system's access curve is correlated against each tradition's darkness trajectory in narrative order.