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Chapter XXXII
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The entry of the Prieure de Sion/Priory of Sion onto the world stage occurred via the efforts of Henry Lincoln, Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh. It all began rather innocently when Lincoln, a television writer, was on an ordinary family vacation back in 1969, at which time he stumbled upon a little mystery that he had no idea was soon going to explode into the mass consciousness as a result of his curiosity. He writes in Holy Blood, Holy Grail:
Lincoln goes on to say that this little omission continued to bother him "like an unfinished crossword puzzle," so he decided to see if he couldn't get funded to investigate it for a possible television show, thus satisfying his personal curiosity within the constraints of his work schedule which did not allow time for the investigation he would have liked to undertake. The idea was received favorably by his employers, the BBC, and he was sent to dig deeper into the mystery so as to make a short film. Lincoln arranged to meet the author of the book, M. de Sede in Paris in 1970 and there, asked him the question: "Why didn't you publish the message hidden in the parchments?" De Sede's answer astounded Lincoln: "What message?" Lincoln writes:
What kind of answer was that? "Because we thought it might interest someone like you to find it for yourself." Was Mr. Lincoln dealing with a very clever con artist, or some forces that were unknown? After all, nobody forced him to buy the book and read it; nobody forced him to be curious about the hidden message; nobody forced him to seek to investigate further. It was all a series of chance events. Or so it would seem. Nevertheless, there was the most curious fact that a number of documents, "Secret Dossiers," had been "published," (i.e. deposited in the Bibliotheque Nationale of France) several years in advance of Gerard de Sede's book and Henry Lincoln's curiosity. The earliest of these documents, dated August of 1965, is entitled Les descendants Merovingiens ou l'enigme du Razes Wisigoth, or The Merovingian descendants, or the enigma of Razes of the Visigoths. Its purported author is a Madeleine Blancasall, and claims to have been translated from German by a Vincent Celse-Nazaire, and supposedly published by the Grande Loge Alpina. The document describes the descent of the Merovingians from their alleged biblical origin to the 20th century, by way of the family of Plantard. The genealogy is signed by a Henri Lobineau. Now, of course, M. de Sede helpfully informed Henry Lincoln in advance that he must not look under the name "Lobineau," but instead must look under the name "Schidlof." Henry Lincoln notes:
And, of course, we note that the church of Rennes-les-Bains is dedicated to the two saints Celse and Nazaire. The Grande Loge Alpina, the main lodge of Swiss Freemasonry, denies all knowledge of this little work. Nine months after the deposit of this curious genealogy, in May of 1966, another document was deposited in the Bibliotheque Nationale. It also bears the imprint of the Grande Loge Alpina and the title is Un tresor Merovingien a Rennes-le-Chateau. The author is Antoine l'Ermite. The grotto of St. Antony the Hermit is only a short distance from Rennes. One month later, June, 1966, another document was deposited in the Bibliotheque entitled Pierres gravees du Languedoc, and this was a purported reprint of an earlier book published in 1884 by Austrian historian, Eugene Stublein. [Stublein DID exist and DID publish a book in 1877 entitled Description d'un voyage aux establissements thermaux de l'arrondissement de Limoux. There is, apparently, no known extant REAL copy of his 1884 book of which the 1966 version purports to be a copy.] Papers in the Dossiers also suggest that the author of the genealogies, Lobineau, was a pseudonym for this same Leo Schidlof, who had died in Switzerland the previous year. Schidlof's daughter has insisted that he knew nothing of genealogy. So, we find a dead man's name being used to give credibility to something with which he probably had absolutely no connection. Then, in March of 1967, still another document was deposited/published with the Bibliotheque Nationale. It was entitled Le serpent rouge, and this one had three authors: Messieurs de Koker, Saint-Maxent and Feugere. There is some disagreement over the date on which, after the necessary red tape had been gone through, the document was considered to be officially "published." The Depot legal states March 20th, but Lincoln et al gave it as January 17. This matter was investigated by another researcher, Franck Marie, who claims to have established the date of February 15. Whatever the date of deposit, it is a fact that Louis Saint-Maxent and Gaston de Koker were found hanged on 6 March, and Pierre Feugere the following day. Were these three men victims of revenge or a suicide pact as de Sede suggests? Their respective families all insist that the three were absolutely unaquainted with one another and that their deaths by hanging, so close to one another in time, are just horrible coincidence. The obvious conclusion is that someone found the names of three unrelated persons with suitable deaths in the French newspapers, put their names on this document, and THEN deposited it after falsifying the deposition slip and that the date of March 20, as given by the Bibliotheque Nationale, is the correct date. Again, we have dead men being made authors of books they probably knew nothing about. At about the same time of the publication of Gerard de Sede's book L'or de Rennes, another document attributed to Henri Lobineau was deposited with the Bibliotheque Nationale entitled Dossiers secrets. Lincoln et al say it was:
The main thrust of this odd collection of items was the establishing of Pierre Plantard de St.-Clair as a direct lineal descendant of Dagobert II, who was assassinated in 679 and was not known to have had any legitimate issue. It seems that the name "Lobineau," was derived from the Rue Lobineau near Saint-Sulpice in Paris, the church that plays a significant part in the story of Berenger Sauniere. But, before we proceed, let's just give the story itself a general overview: In 1885, at the age of 33, Abbe Berenger Sauniere became priest of Rennes-le-Chateau and employed a young girl named Marie Denarnaud as his housekeeper. She became his lifetime companion and confidante. The church was terribly run down and the village was poor and it seemed that Abbe Sauniere faced a life of penury and obscurity. However, he received a serendipitous donation (though the source of this money varies from researcher to researcher) and decided to upgrade his church a bit. During the renovation work, he supposedly discovered some mysterious documents containing a coded message. He then made a trip to Paris and hung out with some fellows with connections to the Parisian occult world, purchased copies of an odd selection of paintings from the Louvre, and returned to Rennes. At this point it is said that his behavior suggested strange doings. He was reported to have been tramping around the country side collecting rocks, holing up in the church doing secretive things at night, and then, ultimately, redecorating the church in a bizarre way. At some point, he traveled a great deal and it was reported that money poured in to his housekeeper during his travels, originating, it is said, from various religious houses around Europe. Over the next twenty years, Abbe Sauniere allegedly spent huge amounts of money on his building projects, entertaining lavishly, living the high life and other activities. That's the basic story. Of course, there were a couple of murders tossed in for good measure and an on again, off again friendship with another priest who was equally mysterious and clearly involved in whatever was going on. The region already had legends of buried treasure, and now it was thought that Abbe Sauniere found it or, at least, part of it. And now, the curious story of the "accursed treasure" of Rennes-le-Chateau was to be brought to the attention of the world by the BBC through the efforts of Henry Lincoln. At his meeting with Gerard de Sede, Lincoln indicated that he wanted to make this short television program. De Sede agreed to assist in such a project by digging up all the information he could and sending it to Lincoln.
[Laura's note: in other words, whoever deciphered the documents MUST have also possessed the key either by virtue of being the author of the documents AND key, or by having been given same.]
This item, the Poussin painting, The Shepherds of Arcadia, had a strange effect on me at the time that I was reading the story. There was a reproduction of it in the article about the Rennes-le-Chateau mystery, but it was a poor copy. I was thumbing through an art book on my shelves, trying to find any scholarly commentary, and lo and behold, there was a large, full page reproduction of it right there. I cut it out of the book and pinned it to the wall over my desk where I could see it all the time and went back to studying the matter at hand. With the addition of such mysterious developments, Henry Lincoln decided to do more research and make a longer program. The first screening of The Lost Treasure of Jerusalem, which was the result of the first stages of research into the matter, was on February of 1972. Essentially, the conclusion was that Abbe Sauniere had discovered the Temple Treasure of the Jews. Supposedly, it had been taken by the Romans and then, when the Visigoths sacked Rome, they took it and it ended up in Rennes-le-Chateau. Apparently, the public was consumed with curiosity about this mystery, so a follow-up film was planned with more research. In 1974, The Priest, the Painter and the Devil was screened, and it was an unmitigated hit with viewers. More research was needed and Mr. Lincoln decided that the many complexities of the mystery were too much for one man, so Richard Leigh, a writer with graduate degrees and knowledge of history, philosophy, esoterica, etc. was brought onboard. Richard brought in Michael Baigent, a photojournalist and researcher of Templar history. The three of them began to dig into the problem of Rennes-le-Chateau in a more thorough way and produced another television special entitled The Shadow of The Templars in 1979. Mr. Lincoln writes:
What Lincoln, Leigh and Baigent claim to have found is the secret that Jesus was a king in a long line of Priest kings, and that he had been married to Mary Magdalene, and produced a child, born posthumously (after his crucifixion), and that this child had been spirited away to France to be the progenitor of the kings of the Franks, the Merovingian, and that this Holy/Royal Bloodline is the real secret contained in the mysteries of the "Holy Grail" stories. How in the world did a story about a possible hidden treasure found by an obscure priest in a remote corner of rural France transmogrify itself into THAT?! Good question. It's a complicated story that you will have to read on your own for all the juicy details. But intimately connected to the "how" of it, and far more important, is the "who says?" A group calling itself Le Prieure de Sion, The Priory of Sion, and its purported agent, Pierre Plantard. Messrs.. Lincoln, Leigh and Baigent write in the conclusion of Holy Blood, Holy Grail,
Note that they "stumbled upon," and were "led to" this conclusion, and it was, apparently, the idea that the Priory of Sion wanted them to believe and publish. About the latter they say:
What do they think this proof is that is in the possession of the Priory of Sion? They write:
There are a few problems with this. If M. Plantard claims that the Priory of Sion holds the Treasure of Solomon's Temple, they must have a pretty empty treasury and maybe that's why he has been known to do the "Midnight flit" without paying his rent, (as has been reported by a number of researchers into his past and background). You see, the Temple of Solomon was looted by Antiochus Epiphanes NOT Titus. And, of course, this was AFTER the Temple had been sacked by Rameses in 930 BC, and the Babylonians in 586 BC As I have noted elsewhere, the existence of the original Temple of Solomon is problematical. There is actually no evidence that it EVER existed - in Israel, that is. Yet, somehow, the scribe Ezra managed to convince Cyrus, King of Persia, of the "chosenness" of his people, thereby garnering support for the return of the Jews to Israel and the "rebuilding of the temple." I would suggest that this was not a "rebuilding," but an original building motivated by myths and legends patched together by Ezra, extended in time by endless faked genealogies designed to deceive. By convincing Cyrus that the Israelites had been guided and chosen by the One God, he would naturally think that he would be blessed by Israel's god if he assisted this project. According to the Book of Ezra, there was a whole slew of treasure given to the Jews by the Persians to put in their new temple. This was done approximately 516 BC And, supposedly, for the next 481 years the treasure of Solomon's rebuilt temple just hung out there doing what treasure in a temple is supposed to do. We should note right here that the Ark of the Covenant disappeared from view and discussion between 750 B.C and 650 B.C., more than a hundred years before Ezra, who would have, if he had been able to do so without being caught out at lying, claimed that it was still present among the treasure. Over and over again we read in these Rennes-le-Chateau books a citation from Josephus that Titus sacked the Temple in Jerusalem and made off with the treasure. However, that is not quite accurate as I have just noted above. Here is the relevant excerpt from Josephus about the loss of the treasure of the Temple:
Note that Josephus clearly says that Antiochus "left the Temple bare." Not only that, but he also "emptied it of its secret treasure, and left nothing at all remaining." Those are strong words. And nowhere does Josephus indicate that the Temple was ever again replenished in terms of treasure. The story is, in the short version, in the year 175 BC, Antiochus IV, also known as Epiphanes, murdered Seleucus IV and took the throne. In the year 169 BC Antiochus invaded Egypt in an attempt to destroy the Ptolemaic Dynasty. Soon it was rumored back in Palestine that the king had been killed in battle. The news of Antiochus' death was false, however, and when he returned to Jerusalem, he entered the Temple and stole a great deal of valuable treasure, an act which the pious Jews looked upon as an abomination before God. The following year (168 BC) Antiochus renewed his campaign against the Egyptians, but he was stopped by the Roman representative Popilius Laenus, and was ordered to leave Egypt and never come back. This so infuriated Antiochus that he came back and took out his frustration on the city of Jerusalem. He tore down the city walls, slaughtered a great many of the Jews, ordered the Jewish Scriptures to be destroyed, and he and his soldiers brought prostitutes into the Temple and there had sex with them in order to defile the Temple. He also issued orders that everyone was to worship the Greek gods, and he established the death penalty for anyone who practiced circumcision, or who observed the Sabbath or any of the Jewish religious feasts and sacrifices. The cruelty of Antiochus in enforcing these new laws against the Jews became legendary. The final outrage for the pious Jews of the land came when Antiochus sacked the Temple and erected an altar there to the pagan god Zeus. Then, on December 25, 168 BC, Antiochus offered a pig to Zeus on the altar of Jehovah/Yahweh. Now, if the treasure was taken by Antiochus in 169 B.C., that is 200 years before Titus sacked Jerusalem, and during all of this time, Jerusalem was in an almost constant state of occupation by foreign powers, oppression and/or revolt, such conditions were definitely not conducive to either assembling or displaying any treasure of significance, much less keeping any! Josephus never mentions any "restoration of the treasure" in the temple. What Antiochus did with it, we can only guess, but the likelihood is that it was spent wildly and wantonly. Nevertheless, one writer on Rennes-le-Chateau claims that confirmation of the existence of this treasure comes from the discovery of the Copper Scroll in Cave 3, Qumran, in 1952. This turned out to be a list of 64 hiding places in Jerusalem and surrounding districts, where gold, silver, Temple offerings and so forth are said to have been deposited. In modern terms, it amounts to 65 tons of silver and 26 tons of gold. The experts are arguing over it, but the consensus of opinion is that the style of the document, i.e. dry realism, along with the fact that it is recorded on copper, a valuable metal in its own right which therefore would not have been used to record a fairy tale, all contribute to the idea that it describes a REAL treasure. Now, just WHAT treasure it was describing is in dispute. Was this the treasure from the Temple at Jerusalem? Not very likely. In the first place, the scroll was found among the Qumran/Essene documents. The Essenes were dedicated opponents of the Temple at Jerusalem; so the Essene community would have been a hostile environment for such a list, to say the least, if it WERE the Temple treasure. Besides that difficulty, it is not likely that the sack of the Temple was foreseen so that any treasure, if it had existed by this time, could have been hidden. And, of course, hidden treasure around the time of the fall of Jerusalem to Titus contradicts the words of Josephus who has already told us that it was all plundered by Antiochus. There are experts who propose that the treasure listed on the Copper scroll belonged to the Essenes themselves, which is hard to understand since they were advocates of poverty, simplicity and were a relatively small community. So, that is all that can safely be said about the "proof" of the Copper scroll. It is certainly suggestive of some group that had a treasure, but just who or what this group was cannot be determined. Maybe some of the clues the Cassiopaeans have given will point us in the direction of this group? But more on that later. In 35 B.C., Herod decided to build a new Temple because, apparently, the old one was pretty run-down and must have been falling apart. It was this temple that was sacked by Titus. It is possible that Herod did some decorating and jazzed things up with a little gold here and there, but it is unlikely that he had the resources to adorn his temple in the manner of the former one. Josephus' remarks relating to the Roman sacking of the temple of Herod are as follows:
Notice that here, Josephus made no mention of Titus making off with the Treasure of the Temple. Yet, Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln cite a record of this purported carrying off of the treasure by Titus. And everybody who has researched in Rennes-le-Chateau since then, has referred back to this "original research" of Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln which claims that Titus and the Romans took possession of the Treasure of the Jewish Temple. It has even been said that the Arch of Titus, built in AD 81 by the Senate at Rome, is proof of this because it has a bas relief depicting the return of the triumphant General Titus, the priceless seven-branched candlestick carried on the shoulders of Jewish prisoners. If you look at this bas relief, you see the giant menorah and an object that can only be a stylized representation of the scroll of the Torah. I have to think that this "proof" that Titus obtained the treasure of the Temple at Jerusalem may fall under the category of artistic symbolism. How else could one express the conquest of the Jews other than depicting their main religious symbols on a bas relief? And, of course, this menorah taken by Titus could certainly have been gold. But, it seems clear that the main treasure, the piles of loot that everyone is looking for, actually disappeared with Antiochus, and what he did with it is anybody's guess. But, such a detail as that doesn't stop the Rennes-le-Chateau crowd! The story continues that when the Visigoths sacked Rome, Alaric took the Temple treasure of Jerusalem and it ended up in the Languedoc. The conclusions reached by Lincoln, Leigh and Baigent are very well presented, even if somewhat carelessly researched, and it is much easier to read it as they originally wrote it than to attempt to summarize all of it, but the main point should be that the whole thing started with Gerard De Sede's book Le tresor maudit de Rennes (The Accursed Treasure of Rennes), which Henry Lincoln read on his vacation in France. And also keep in mind that most of the "source notes" in the back of the book refer to the information supplied by the purported Priory of Sion and its "agents." The intrepid threesome were pretty busy. By the time they finish with their investigation, we have not only the Treasure of the Temple of Solomon hiding at Rennes, we also have the Treasure of the Templars and the Treasure of the Cathars! We have all the noble families of the region connected to the Templars as Guardians of the Grail, we have the Holy Grail and maybe even the Ark of the Covenant! Heck, all the mysteries of the whole blasted planet are right there in Rennes-le-Chateau for the enterprising treasure seeker to discover! And the Pied Piper is the Priory of Sion. The whole deal about the Priory of Sion boils down to this: Their claim is that a secret order, (The Priory of Sion), predates the Knights Templar and that the Templars were actually created as the military and administrative arm of this other group. Supposedly, the heads of this Prieure de Sion, Grand Masters as they are called, are nearly all people whose names are famous through history. Supposedly, even though the Templars were dissolved between 1307 and 1314, the Prieure was untouched by this tragedy, and continues up to the present day, playing a significant part in contemporary international affairs. And, here's the clincher: its declared objective is the restoration of the Merovingian dynasty!!! Why? Well, because they are supposed to be the descendants of Jesus and Mary Magdalene and the proof is in their long hair! (Just joking!)
Lincoln, Leigh &Baigent (LL&B) say that there are enigmas surrounding the origins of the Merovingians because they did not find any abrupt transition or usurpation - that they seemed already to rule over the Franks; that they were duly acknowledged kings. Not only that, but it seems that there was something special about the one who gave the name to the dynasty, Merovee/Merovech/Meroveus. They state that he was a semi-supernatural figure. LL&B say that according to both the leading Frankish chronicler and subsequent tradition, Meroveus was born of two fathers. When already pregnant by her husband, King Clodio, Merovee's mother supposedly went swimming in the ocean. In the water she is said to have been seduced or raped by a "Quinotaur." What a Quinotaur is, we have no clue. Nevertheless, this creature impregnated her a second time and when Merovee was born, he supposedly had a dual bloodline. Yes, it is true that very often, behind a facade of legend lies a truth. And here LL&B suggest that the seed of truth behind this one is that there was an intermarriage of some sort, a pedigree transmitted through the mother, as in Judaism, for instance. The idea is bruited that this might indicate a alliance with someone from "beyond the sea." In any event, because of this, Merovee was supposed to be a supernatural being and "the Merovingian dynasty was mantled in an aura of mystery and magic."
The remark is made after this that Napoleon not only had the miniature golden bees affixed to his coronation robes, but that he commissioned a genealogy report by someone named Abbe Pinchon, the ostensible reason being to determine if the Merovingian bloodline had survive the fall of the dynasty. And then we get the clincher for this one: much of the so-called Prieure documents are genealogies based on those compiled at Napoleon's request! Now, who do we have to thank for all of this startling information? Well, the Priory of Sion, of course. If we look to the back of Holy Blood, Holy Grail where the reference notes are assembled, we find that the whole story is based on "a comprehensive body of material is contained in L'Or de Rennes pour un Napoleon" which is handily made available by one of Pierre Plantard's close associates, Philippe de Cherisey. The first thing we want to look at is the "tradition" of the origins of the Merovingians. What their chronicler, Gregory of Tours says in book II.9 of his History of the Franks is:
Gregory then quotes directly from the Historia:
The History of the Franks, in the words of one translator, "is spattered with blood and festers with pus, it re-echoes with the animal screams of men and women being tortured unto death: yet Gregory never once questions this effective method of exacting confession, implicating confederates, or simply satisfying the blood-lust of Queens and Kings. ...Time and time again, usually at the conclusion of some most serious passage, of some stomach-turning description, he adds an amusing comment, often a sly quip at himself." I can assure you myself that this is not a book for the highly imaginative nor the squeamish. It's a great read, however. And, what may happen to you by the time you finish reading it is that you will think: Good Riddance! What person in their right mind would want those lunatics back in power? There is definitely something about the Merovingian blood - it is tainted with madness. According to Dr. Ian Wood, author of The Merovingian Kingdoms,450-751 AD, the Franks were the last of the invaders of Gaul; and the most successful. In spite of this, their origins are shrouded in mist. Clovis's father, Childeric I, is the first of the dynasty who is well attested by legitimate sources and before him, most of the evidence for a royal dynasty is legend. The Franks were reasonably well known to the Roman emperors in the 4th century; but even they couldn't make up their minds as to who, exactly, they were. Neverthless, the myths and legends that have been shaped around them may hold some clues. On the other hand, they may be more red herrings.
Gregory could not understand how the Franks of the late fourth and early fifth centuries could be related to those led by the Merovingians in the late fifth and sixth centuries. What distressed him the most was the failure to talk about the royal lines, the kings. If Gregory had read Ammianus Marcellinus, as Wood notes, he would have known about a Frankish king called Mallobaudes. Gregory tried to make Faramund the father of Chlodio. This would have served to unite the Trojan and Merovingian families. Fredegar, on the other hand clearly stated the Trojan origin and then, after the death of Francio just said that they were ruled by duces, or petty kings. This was his explanation for the lack of a royal family that was so upsetting to Gregory. Fredegar also provided an account of Merovech's birth, which may cast light both on the origins of the Merovingians and also on the strangeness of the account by Gregory.
And, it seems that we have a serious problem here: Chlodio was recorded by Sidonius Apollinaris as having lost a battle at the vicus Helena in Artois - an event that took place c. 448 AD. Merovech would then have to belong to the second half of the fifth century if he was Chlodio's son. This suggests that the emergence of the family as a power should also be dated to this same period. At the same time, Faramund, who is supposed to have been Chlodio's father, is not attested to in any early source. In other words, the Merovingians were not a significant dynasty at all before the mid-fifth century. Their origins were separate and later than those of their people. In this respect, we can see that it is possible that Thuringia may have truly been more significant to the family of Meroveus than to the origins of the Franks themselves. If we consider the fact that Merovech's son, Childeric, had close ties to Thuringia (remember the story of Basina!), it is altogether possible that the Merovingians originated in the east of Frankish territory. In other words, the "Trojan origin" story of the Franks seems to belong to the people themselves, and not the family of Merovech. The family's own stories of its origins are peculiarly supernatural and pagan and different from the Franks themselves. I have before me a book entitled The Plantagenet Chronicles, which is a compilation of the many contemporary documents written by various medieval chroniclers regarding the Angevin dynasty. Most of these writers were monks living in monasteries or attached to great cathedrals. They were, for the most part, members of well-established institutions who took great pride in their traditions and whose agenda was to protect their own properties and independence within the feudal system. These historians didn't try to produce rational and detached analyses. Their intent was to demonstrate the power of god via the presence and activity of the Holy Mother Church. If they could make an example out of a saint or a king, they did so shamelessly. Nevertheless, even though they were making "morality lessons" out of their material, for the most part, they were still reporting facts. In reading the Plantagenet Chronicles, we find that the Counts of Anjou were said to have come from the Devil. Gerald of Wales refers to the legend that they were descended from the daughter of Satan, a woman named Melusine, who was the wife of an early Angevin count. The problem is, this was only promulgated in much later times, probably by Richard the Lionheart who was quoted as saying: "What wonder if we lack the natural affections of mankind - we come from the Devil and must needs go back to the Devil." My curiosity is piqued by this story of the origins of the Angevins which is so similar to the story about the Merovingians. My question is: has this story been "borrowed?" Or is it common to certain peoples because of some relationship to strange "beings?" As to whether it applied to either group is debatable. Count Fulk Rechin de Anjou (1068-1109), admitted that he knew nothing of the first three of his line: Ingelgar, (the first Count of Anjou), Fulk the Red, and Fulk the Good (941-960). Nevertheless, the 12th century seems to have been a great time of mythmaking when many noble houses invented pedigrees in order to give themselves legendary ancestors. And we may discover a reason for this as we go along! The enormous volume of literature that has resulted from the story of Berenger Sauniere suggests to me that the mystery of Rennes-le-Chateau is a "staging area" for a subject that is of great importance to someone! The ideas reek with the stench of having been "planted" and systematically released to tease and entice researchers and treasure hunters around the world. Part of the "aura" of the material rests on the fact that it is supposed to originate with "highly privileged" sources. The subjects that are all connected together in this morass of disinformation include the Cathars, the Templars, the Merovingian kings, the Rosicrucians, the Masons, the Nazis and, of course, the royal line of Jesus Christ! But, all of this may be a series of red herrings! The majority of the so-called "documentation" of the events of Rennes-le-Chateau and the Priory of Sion nearly always turns out to be of dubious, if not untraceable authorship. Names of the dead are regularly "borrowed" for attribution, and when investigations ensue, inevitably prove to be false. Addresses of "significance" turn out to not even exist. Documents seem to appear and disappear within the Bibliotheque Nationale, appearing first in one form, then another. The whole problem seems to stem from the fact that LL&B accepted the claims and documents of the Priory of Sion mainly due to a series of numerous "strange coincidences" and anomalous findings during the course of their research. Whoever was behind these events picked their publicists well because these events were experienced by people with considerable ability to influence the thinking of large numbers of people. And they did. They worked carefully and put their findings together clearly and eloquently despite a curious blindered optimism that what they were experiencing HAD to be the truth because, of course, THEY were experiencing it and it clearly was not being faked because there simply wasn't anybody who could fake all the "confirmations" and synchronicities they encountered. It would have been a conspiracy of such vast proportions, over such long periods of time, that such was incomprehensible. Well, without considering the Control System and space/time manipulation capabilities of 4th density beings, it IS incomprehensible. We have to remember something the Cassiopaeans said here:
Notice the initial remark about disinformation diverting our attention away from reality, leaving us open to capture, conquest and even possible destruction! Nevertheless, the idea of a royal bloodline of Christ created not only a sensation, but a veritable industry of books. We are here in the presence of mythology in the making and it is awesome to witness it! Most people never noticed that LL&B repeatedly urged caution about accepting the Priory of Sion as valid and its documents as unimpeachable, even if they, themselves, tended to "believe." At the end of their second book The Messianic Legacy, they wrote:
Well, let me suggest someone else who could provide a messiah that will literally knock the socks off the peoples of the world: 4th density Orion STS. And from following this Priory of Sion phenomenon, it looks exactly like this is the groundwork for just such a coup. How about a little One World Religion with that New World Order? Will that be "to go?" This small sample of details seem like strong evidence for a conspiracy of multi-national individuals and groups seeking global domination but if we consider the Hermetic maxim, as above, so below, we have to see that all these events and movements in our world express a more inclusive reality - that of a 4th density control system seeking hegemony; playing the cards over centuries, melding small groups into larger and larger groups with ever greater expansion and renewal in the image of "fire and light."
We are at the turning point where nations all over the world are discussing political union as part of a single, universal, world-society. And it is religion that is seen as the glue to put it all together. The only problem we have when contemplating this is: who is on first? There are many who believe the old lie that "...the boundaries that focus & protect each 'world' can only be traversed by beings who are psychically & morally pure." They further promulgate the idea that "...the orgins of meddlers are local and terrestrial. More sub-Human than Human. Atavistic. Who would propagate the conceit that they were from elsewhere, possessing great powers, and worth fearing: a well-worn bluff and ploy." This view is promoted in Nicholas Hagger's book The Fire and the Stones, where we find the following:
Thus we find a completely different perspective; one in which the Illuminati, which the author has connected to world controlling banking interests that finance wars and revolutions, are the "good guys" because, in the end, what is being "evolved" is a Universal religion and government! He has charted what he calls "The vision of god in twenty-five civilisations," which he says is a "Grand Unified Theory of World History and Religion." He defines 61 stages of civilization and sees, essentially, the "lies" propagated in the name of religion as acceptable if they produce "civilizational" results. In my own studies, which seem to be more in depth than Mr. Haggar's, I have come to different conclusions for the very reason that such "stages" always end in the subsuming of one or more cultures into another, and this is almost inevitably linked to genocide. But, Mr. Haggar simply glosses over that fact in his drive to present the end result as a positive outcome. I wonder if he is aware that the ultimate subsumation could be into the force behind his image of "Fire." Experience - through millennia - has shown us, as LL&B write above:
And we are again reminded of what the Cassiopaeans have said in regard to this:
And, most certainly, this Rennes-le-Chateau business is one of the clearest examples of such manipulations, as we will soon see. It is, as Mr. Haggar suggests: "A movement to remysticise Christendom, and other religions," designed as the infrastructure of a "one world-wide (albeit American-created) civilisation." He also astutely points out that "... from the point of view of the coming American-led world-wide civilisation, the New Age groups have been doing excellent work in preparing for the world-wide culture ahead." It is extremely interesting that Mr. Haggar suggests that this "New World Religion" will be "American created" in light of a remark made by the Cassiopaeans:
Yes indeed, flocks of them will be on the tops of skyscrapers holding their welcome signs, dancing and celebrating the arrival of their "saviors;" those coming to "serve mankind." As the "main course," I should add. In the autumn of 1996, the BBC presented another Rennes-le-Chateau program that essentially "debunked" the whole thing. They were now saying that the parchments that were supposed to have been found by Berenger Sauniere were modern forgeries. It seems that they were forged by a close associate of Pierre Plantard, the Marquis Philippe de Cherisey. Apparently, they had quarreled and one ratted on the other. Pierre Plantard was exposed as a subversive with Nazi connections and extreme right wing political inclinations. Not only that, but M. Plantard had convictions for crimes of deception. The so-called Secret Dossiers of the Priory of Sion that had been planted in the Bibliotheque Nationale where shown to be very clever fabrications combining a deep knowledge of history combined with masterful divergences into fantasy. And so on. Apparently, from the research done for this program, it was learned that Gerard de Sede knew that the documents were forged either before his first meeting with Henry Lincoln, or very soon thereafter. Henry Lincoln and his associates worked for ten years unaware that they were being led down the primrose path. Nevertheless, most of the authors who have written on the subject of Rennes-le-Chateau have followed the research of LL&B. They all seem to accept the validity of the Priory of Sion and the Priory documents and Secret Dossiers and all that. Nevertheless, there was SOMETHING going on there in Rennes-le-Chateau that was very powerful to deceive so many people! Recently, a new book was published entitled Web of Gold by a gentleman named Guy Patton. Mr. Patton contends that there IS a cabal of some sort surrounding the Rennes-le-Chateau mystery, and they are associated with Nazi types. He makes a good case for Plantard's association with such. More interesting is his connection of the politics of the Abbe Sauniere with certain groups who were involved in the Arktos myth of Aryan Supremacy. This is a most interesting series of observations that will have great bearing on our story as we progress. Unfortunately, Mr. Patton didn't check the sources of his sources and the book is rather shallow in terms of claiming that the whole issue is the great treasure of the Temple and that this is what the Nazis and others have been after for a very long time. It is not that, I can assure you. But, as we will see, they are definitely after something that they believe will give them ultimate power over the entire globe. And it may be that the secret to this is revealed in Rennes-le-Chateau to those astute enough to wade through the disinformation. It does seem pretty clear that there is a strong belief in a treasure of some sort being hidden in the region, but another book, The Horse of God, (which suggests by a series of more amazing coincidences that the treasure is the Ark of the Covenant), indicated that Abbe Sauniere was being paid by Abbe Boudet. Tracking the spending habits of Abbe Sauniere does seem to confirm this. He did have a falling out with Boudet, his friend, and during this time, the flow of money ceased. Shortly after their reconciliation, the money began to flow again and Sauniere made some ambitious building plans, but Boudet died rather soon after, and it was all brought to a halt by Sauniere's death as well. Maybe one brought about the death of the other and then had to be gotten rid of himself? Another recent book has come along, Rex Deus, that surpasses all the others in its absurdity and reliance on the same old assumptions. Only the fraud chronicled in this one is truly pathetic compared to the work of the Priory of Sion! In Rex Deus, the "bloodline" is that of the 24 elders of the Temple of Jerusalem, and the only proponent of the idea is a strange informant who mysteriously appears to the authors and tells them his story with great sincerity and conviction. But, unfortunately, he was unable to provide the documents that he claimed existed because his brother sold the dresser in which they were hidden! How sad and how convenient! Of course, the authors claim to be extremely impressed by his manner, his story, and the subsequent "verification" they found in other works (most of which were based on the Rennes-le-Chateau business to begin with). Geez! Didn't they learn anything from LL&B's experiences?! The only question I have for Marilyn Hopkins, Graham Simmans and Tim Wallace-Murphy about their book, mentioned above, is: did you ask your guy to take a blood test? If he was of the line of the priests of the Temple as he claims, that means he is a Cohen, and it has been proven scientifically that the Cohens have a very distinct set of genetic markers. Cohanim (plural of Cohen) are the priestly family of the Jewish people, members of the Tribe of Levi. Jewish tradition, based on the Torah, is that all Cohanim are direct descendants of Aaron, the brother of Moses. The Cohen line is patrilineal -- passed from father to son without interruption for 3,300 years, or more than 100 generations. In a study, as reported in the prestigious British science journal, Nature (January 2, 1997), 188 Jewish males were asked to contribute some cheek cells from which their DNA was extracted for study. Participants from Israel, England and North America were asked to identify whether they were a Cohen, Levi or Israelite, and to identify their family background. The results of the analysis of the Y chromosome markers of the Cohanim and non-Cohanim were indeed significant. A particular marker, (YAP-) was detected in 98.5 percent of the Cohanim, and in a significantly lower percentage of non-Cohanim. In a second study, Dr. Skorecki and associates gathered more DNA samples and expanded their selection of Y chromosome markers. Solidifying their hypothesis of the Cohens' common ancestor, they found that a particular array of six chromosomal markers was found in 97 of the 106 Cohens tested. This collection of markers has come to be known as the Cohen Modal Hapoltype (CMH) -- the standard genetic signature of the Jewish priestly family. The chances of these findings happening at random is greater than one in 10,000. In the absence of a single shred of evidence to prove the "Rex Deus" claims of their informant, it wouldn't be too much to ask for this - a few cheek cells and you've got a case. Without it, you've done nothing but clutter the market with more of the same old nonsense. But, getting back to the repeated incidents of "amazing synchronicities" and coincidences, and being "led" to this or that amazing discovery, I think that the authors of The Tomb of God , (which claims that the secret is that the body of Jesus is buried near Rennes), and The Horse of God, are right up there with LL&B for weirdness! The experiences described by Martha Neyman, author of the latter work, prompted an exchange between us that I would like to share here:
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