Esoteric star religion and political Crusades.
In their book Rennes le Chateau Capital Secrete de l’Histoire de France, Jean
Pierre Deloux and Jacques Bretigny say this:
“The reader of Le (sic) Vraie langue Celtique et la (sic) Cromlech (sic) de
Renne-les-Bains needs to speak the Language of the Birds to understand the
word games of the phonetic cabala, and to know how to read the stars. He
must question the Tarot and the Zodiac to discover the secret of Arcadia,
hidden by the Cromlech of Rennes-les-Bains.”
We are tempted to follow the advice of Deloux and Bretigny here and use the
‘Language of the Birds’. In his book La Vraie langue Celtique et le Cromleck de
Rennes-les-Bains Henry Boudet uses some strange word associations. Although
Boudet was clearly a clever and educated man who spoke many languages, this
book makes some very odd claims that have been dismissed at face value by
academia. The book has not been translated into English successfully in my view
largely because doing so would lose the inner meaning of what Boudet was trying
to say; such is the nature of this book. He maintains that the Celts of the region
spoke in a language that was more akin to words found in the English language, a
suggestion that on the face of it is palpable nonsense. In Boudet’s introduction he
says:
“The Languedocian dialect spoken in our region does not appear a way of course
so that one can, while following it, to preserve the hope to arrive at an important
result. Nevertheless, this way, we traversed it with patience; in the firm
persuasion which Divine Providence would direct our steps and would allow us to
reach with the goal of our efforts. When the torch that we seek with anxiety, is
the watch of our eyes, its first ray fell on the name of the tectosages, and this ray
dazzled us. It was necessary any time not to be fully delivered to imagination, and
in the intention to convince us, us even of the reality of this light, suitable to
clarify Gallic Times, we tried to make it reflect by mirrors of the languages
Hebraic, Punic, Basque and Celtic. The result appeared serious to us, and before
being useful to us of the language of megalithic Tectosages to explain the
significance of the monuments of Rennes-les-Bains [the] object first of our
research, we applied it to the interpretation of the proper names taken in these
various languages. This is why one will find, initially, in this work these tests of
interpretation, because they are intended to be used as decisive proof.”
From this it would appear that this recognised scholar of language and archaeology
started out his research believing that the Neolithic people called by Strabo
‘Tectosages’ who were a Celtic tribe of his region, did not speak the Langue d’Oc
but used Hebrew, Punic, Basque and Celtic and we need these languages to try to
decipher the messages in the names of places in the area. It is also perhaps worth
noting that he refers to ‘us’ in the text, suggesting that this was not a lone
venture. If priests of the area were responsible in writing the parchments the
actual meaning of some of the phrases may well come from these Hebraic, Punic,
Basque or Celtic languages, or indeed from the Abbé Henry Boudet himself.
It can be said with confidence that Henri Boudet must have been an acquaintance
of a man called Jules Doinel. Doinel was the librarian at nearby Carcassonne and as
we know that Saunière, having built a library in La Tour Magdala, was a prolific
reader and a close friend of Boudet it is reasonable to suppose that Boudet would
have introduced Doinel to Saunière. As we have seen Doinel was deeply into
esoteric thought and he also knew Péladan, a man who once openly boasted that
he’d found the tomb of Jesus. We must look into the beliefs of those players on
the periphery of this mystery and see if we can get into their psyche in order to
understand the world that Bérenger Saunière found himself in at the turn of the
twentieth century.
The dictionary definition of a ‘Priory’ is a monastery run by a Prior (the first
contact?) who is under the jurisdiction of an Abbot. In other words a Priory is lower
in hierarchy than an Abbey. It is unlikely that a Secret Organization about which it
has been boasted that it has controlled major events for 1000 years and even
boasted the appointment of Popes, would give itself such a subordinate name.
Unless of course that this Priory of Sion was merely the public portal for a more
secretive organisation – perhaps the ‘Base’ of this secretive organisation is merely
called Zionism which has many lodges.
Interestingly Zionism was deemed to be racist by a United Nations resolution;
however the father of George W Bush repealed this. The former President George
Herbert Walker Bush is also a member of a quasi-Masonic group that emigrated to
America from Bavaria called The order of Death otherwise known as Skull and
Bones to outsiders. This is an organisation that ‘Taps’ young recruits at Yale and
has them ‘Born Again’ in a manner similar to the raising of Lazarus into a New
World of Enlightenment. Zionism does indeed seem to be controlling events at the
moment and does appear to have a ‘presence’ in a certain hotspots. The
suggestion was made that the Priory of Sion (the Greek and therefore the French
spelling for Zion) has influenced world events, but a priory is unlikely to do any
such thing beyond the recruitment of members for other more secret
organisations. Neither for that matter would an Abbey or indeed an Order of Sion.
But who would argue that Zionism is at the forefront of attempting to control
everything in the Middle East and in controlling the countries currently being
rallied together to combat Islam in what amounts to a New Crusade. The priory is
merely a portal for laypersons to enter the inner sanctum should they prove to be
of the right material; the Abbey is merely a study centre, the Order defines the
strict disciplines. The key is in the word Zionism itself a quite definite group of
individuals openly bent on World Domination, a group that would in fact stop at
nothing in order to achieve their goal and even attack their own people to provoke
public opinion into sanctioning their war.
A Priory is therefore a means of entry for new initiates to be introduced gradually
into a more pervasive and highly secretive world without drawing public attention
to it. Once an apprentice initiate has proven to be of the ‘right character’ and has
been, shall we say, led into a different way of thinking or in the manner of Lazarus
‘Born Again’ into a specific enlightenment where his/her soul can be reunited with
the spirit. This individual is further initiated into a new higher order within the
structure that was previously not revealed to the individual let alone to the
general public.
Secret Societies have a constant problem with recruitment, people die and for the
order to survive, unless it recruits from within its own families, it has to reach out
and bring in fresh blood from without. So how does this organisation recruit
without giving itself away? Presumably a Secret Society would wish to reach as
wide an audience as possible whilst at the same time keeping its most precious
secret(s) hidden. They do this, by creating, not a secret society, but a wider
known society with secrets. This new created society is given just enough esoteric
feel about it to attract the right people and would serve as the portal (a Priory
even) to an inner temple through which lay persons could enter and through
successive initiation suitable candidates would be moved from a secretive society
to a totally secret society where the most sacred secrets would be kept and even
the name would be sacred whilst others, not making the grade, will be kept in
blissful ignorance. Initiates not of the right calibre will be screened from the true
nature of the organisation they have joined, however those who show the right
credentials will be elevated into another level of ‘enlightenment’. These Societies
will develop their own recognition symbols which to the profane will appear
common place but to initiates will replace the need for a membership card and
published journals will carry signs only recognisable to a few. This is the way that
sacred knowledge can be preserved and passed on through the generations. The
Priory of Sion is most likely what Scottish rite freemason Albert Pike described as
for the ‘Blue Lodge’ apprentices, a mere portal to an inner Temple.
But it is clear that surrounding the stories of the Priory of Sion some significant
persons became involved who did appear to have a great deal of influence. A
publication in the Dossiers Secret is particularly interesting and this comes from
someone who called himself Jean Delaude and the publication was Le Cercle
d’Ulysse – The circle of Ulysses. In it the author says that the organisation can
make Popes and destroy kings. Indeed French writer and researcher into the
Rennes le Chateau mystery M Pauli seems to draw the conclusion that government
officials (in France anyway), and a great many other powerful people as well, are
either “members of Sion or obedient to it”.
The first crusade to recover the City of Zion had begun around 1095 when Peter
the Hermit had rallied the “Frankish kingdoms” into retaking Jerusalem after it
had been lost to the army of Omar ibn al-Khattib in 637CE, a mere five years after
the death of the prophet Mohammad. After some incredibly incompetent attempts
they had eventually retook Jerusalem on Friday July 8th 1099.
For certain Zionism exists and is extremely influential in orchestrating world
events from the Balfour declaration to the formation of the State of Israel in 1922,
but was there ever an Abbey of Sion? There is a Sion Abbey that exists today which
forms part of the Cistercian Order whose origins go back to 1098 when a new
community of Monks gathered near the town of Citeaux. Historians tell us that its
followers wished to arrive at a more faithful following of the Rule of St Benedict,
but this cannot be correct. Saint Robert, Abbot of Molesmes had founded the first
Monastery at Citeaux but it was St Bernard of Clairvaux born 1090 at the family
chateau at Fontaines near Dijon to parents belonging to the highest nobility who
wrote the Rule of St Benedict for that order. In the year 1116 when Saint Stephen
was the Abbot, Saint Bernard at the head of a band of Monks most of whom
appeared to be some blood relation of Bernard, founded a new house at Vallee
d’Absinthe in Langres, this was at a place called Claire Vallee and so Saint Bernard
named it Clairvaux. St Bernard of Clairvaux was the son of a Burgundinian Knight
and his mother had connections to the Cathars through the Counts of Toulouse.
It was Saint Bernard who put the ideals of the early Cistercians in writing in a very
inspired manner restoring the ‘Rule of St Benedict’ with all the rigor and sacrifice.
At his death in 1153 the Cistercian Order already totalled 353 monasteries and
with control over agriculture would become very influential. It was also St Bernard
of Clairvaux who traced the outlines in 1128 for the Knights Templar at the Council
of Troyes, capital of Champagne. The Knights Templar however had been
apparently formed ten years earlier around 1118, however the early history of the
Knights Templar are somewhat confused and although here follows a resume of the
Knights Templar’s origin this is by no means claimed to be definitive. Indeed some
of the names of the nine initial knights are in dispute.
Hugh de Payns had been the first master and founder of the Order of the Temple
(to give the Knights Templar their correct title) and he is shrouded in mystery.
However we can say with a degree of certainty that he had accompanied Hughes
Count of Champagne to the Holy Land around 1104. Some historians place Hugh de
Payns from Ardeche but most agree he came from Champagne. Hugh de Payns was
born around 1070 in the district of Payns, 10km from Troyes and was knighted
around 1085 because he is mentioned as Lord of Montigny in a charter from that
period. Hugh de Payns appears to have been an important person in the Court of
Count of Champagne as his name is mentioned several times as a witness of
donations made by Hughes, Count of Champagne. Hugh de Payns returned to
France the following year and revisited the Holy land in 1114 accompanied by
other knights from the Court of Champagne. Hugh de Payns and his eight
companions entered the service of the Holy Sepulchre Canon “to defend and
protect pilgrims who came to meditate in Jerusalem”. Their first action was to
build a tower of Destroit on the road from Cesaree to Haifa. In 1118 they created
the Order of the Poor Knights of Christ who took their vows in front of Jerusalem’s
Patriarch and assumed the name Knights of the Temple of Jerusalem or more
simply Knights of the Temple or just Templars. These nine knights remained there
until 1127 and for some reason did not engage themselves in the protection of
pilgrims but instead occupied themselves by clearing the underground stables of
King Solomon. After nine years Baldwin II King of Jerusalem and the Patriarch
Goromond decided to send Hugh de Payns back west to ask for help in the
protection of pilgrims and whilst in France they purchased land close to the village
of Peyrolles, some three miles east of Rennes le Chateau. At the same time
Baldwin sent a missive to Saint Bernard of Clairvaux for two reasons. First, to
establish recognition for the Templars and second this new burgeoning militia for
some reason suddenly required a Rule to live by and therefore Saint Bernard was
the ideal person to write it. Part of this rule was that no knights were allowed to
have possessions and all property was to be shared thus ensuring their loyalty.
During Hugh de Payns return to France for the next two years Hugh de Payns and
his companions travelled through France developing a unique set of warrior monks.
In this time they accumulated wealth and property along with new recruits.
Precisely what made people give up their land so readily in order to join what on
the face of it was a mere police militia has never been established. Hugh de Payns
died in 1136 at the ripe old age, for the time, of 66 years.
Hugh de Payns was succeeded by Robert de Craon in 1136 as the Grand Master of
the Knights Templar who had been one of the original nine founding knights who
had accompanied Payns to Jerusalem and it was during de Craon’s reign as Grand
Master that Pope Innocent III awarded the Templars generous privileges. These
were decreed in the Papal Bull Omne Datum Optimum in 1139. These were
independence from all but the Popes ecclesiastical supervision, authorisation to
build chapels, oratories and cemeteries; authorisation to have Templar Chaplains;
exemption from Taxes, Tithes etc. This suddenly appears to be somewhat removed
from the mere militia for the protection of pilgrims to the Holy Land. Indeed one is
tempted to ask why this should warrant a quasi monastic order with Grand Masters
and special privileges merely to protect the passage of pilgrims and it is strange
and there’s little evidence that there were many pilgrims to protect that weren’t
already under arms themselves and perfectly able to offer self protection at this
time. The Pope also established a method for the election of future Masters of the
Order. Pope Innocent III also authorised the Order could keep all booty taken from
the Saracens. The Templars received an unprecedented amount of donations
during this period and even found themselves in a position to be able to refuse the
entire Kingdom of Aragon, which King Alphonse wanted to give the Templars to
inherit after his death. This was an area larger than France at the time.
Robert de Craon had some striking military successes against the Saracens and
contained several attacks in the regions of Beaufort and Banyas, despite
weaknesses in numbers. The Templars sacrificed their middle order of troops in
order to defend a retreat by the Frankish Army from the disastrous battle in
Teqoa. On the death of King Foulques in 1142 Robert de Craon became a mediator
between Queen Melissende and her son Baudouin. The mysterious Melissende had
ruled for five years and presided over a period that proved to be disastrous for the
Crusades. The city of Edesse fell and the Turk army killed some 30000 of its
inhabitants and transported a further 15000 as slaves.
In 1146 Saint Bernard of Clairvaux preached for a second crusade at Vézelay,
reputedly the resting place of the bones of Mary Magdalene, and on April 27th 1147
a new preceptory was built in Paris for the Templars and Pope Eugenius III granted
them the right to wear a red cross - A Rosy Cross.
Robert de Craon is said to have died in 1149 after the failure of the second crusade
and Evrard des Barres succeeded him as Templar Grand Master.
An abortive attempt was again made to seize the city of Edesse but only achieved
a reinforcement of power for the defender Nour ad-Din and Saladin eventually
liberated the city to his own advantage. This success against the crusaders united
the Muslims in Syria to his cause and by 1154 all was on a downhill spiral for the
second Crusade. Evrard des Barras resigned his position and retired to monastic
life. Bernard de Tremelay was elected fourth Grand Master of the Templars.
In August 1153 Bernard of Clairvaux died in the monastery at Clairvaux and in the
same year the siege of Ascalon began. Bernard de Tremelay died during this siege
and Andre de Montbard was named the fifth Grand Master. Nour ad Din’s army
eventually seized Damas in the same year that Frederic Barberousse was named
the Emperor of Germany.
In 1156 Andre de Montbard died and Bertrand de Blanchefort was elected as the
sixth Grand Master. We are told, although there is no independent confirmation,
that the Blanchefort family held land around Rennes le Chateau and this family
was eventually joined through marriage to the Hautpoul family. The mountain of
Blanchefort, approximately four miles from Rennes le Chateau will feature later in
the story in a very significant manner.
Bertrand de Blanchefort presided over the Templars during the gradual collapse of
the Crusade forces. In 1169 the great Salah ad Din (Saladin) was to take over the
Muslim army and eventually on July 3rd 1187 the crusaders suffered a crushing
defeat at the Horns of Hattin. Within a few months only Tyre, Antioch, Tripoli and
Gaza and a handful of castles remained in crusader hands. By September 20 th
Jerusalem was under siege and by October 2nd 1187 Saladin’s army was pouring
into Jerusalem whilst seemingly endless streams of dispossessed Christians
marched pathetically from the gates, Saladin had spared the residents of
Jerusalem and the city itself for a ransom. Saladin’s compassion was in stark
contrast to the savagery of the Frankish army of the first crusade led by Godfroi de
Bouillon. Two Christian shrines near to the Haram, the Convent of St Anne and the
Church of Zion were converted into centres of study and meditation for Sufi
Muslims. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre was spared destruction by Saladin and
agreed that Christian pilgrims could still visit this site. He also opened the city to
unrestricted Jewish settlement and a new Jewish quarter was established in the
southeast quadrant of the city.
The descendant of Frederic Barbarossa, Frederic II of Germany was to retake
Jerusalem in 1229 but again in 1239 the Crusader armies were defeated once
more. By 1244 the City of Zion had again fallen from the crusaders grasp and was
not to return to their possession again for another seven centuries. Several
attempts were made to retake the Holy Land with some successes notably by
Richard the Lionheart but there was also failures and eventually in 1291 the town
of Acre, the last vestige of Crusader power in the Holy Land, fell and all the
Eastern states disappeared from the Frankish empire. The Grand Master of the
Templars at the time was Guillaume de Beaujeu who died whilst defending the
walls of Acre. A year later in 1292 the last Grand Master of the Knights Templar,
Jacques de Molay was elected and the Templars retired to the Islands of Cyprus
and Rhodes.
On Friday 13th October 1307 all the Templars, along with their Grand Master
Jacques de Molay was arrested throughout the kingdom of France. This was carried
out on the orders of Philippe IV (le Bel) however it should be noted that Philippe
had also confiscated all Jewish possessions the year before.
There then followed a well-planned campaign to destroy the Templars. The day
after the arrests on October 14th a Royal manifesto from King Philippe le Bel was
distributed in the streets of Paris. It made public the reasons the Templars had
been arrested that included apostasy, obscene rituals, sodomy, idolatry and insults
against Christ himself. On the 15th the preaching brothers and Royal Officers ran
through the Palace gardens and Paris streets to expose the arrests to the “Brave
People” of Paris. The following day Philippe sent letters to all Princes and Prelates
of Christendom, inviting them to follow him and arrest the Templars in their
respective states. He only received three favourable answers from Basse-Lorraine,
Juliers and Cologne. Liege, Aragon and Albert, King of the Romans said the affair
was for the competence of the Pope. The English King Edward II (son-in-Law of
Philippe IV) replied that he would not be persuaded. Furthermore he would write
to the Kings of Portugal, Castile, Aragon and Sicilia suggesting they only take
action after due consideration of the accusations. From October 19 th to November
24th 136 Templars were tortured and all but three confessed to the crimes under
this torture. On October 27th Pope Clement V sent a letter of protest to the French
King concerning this treatment of the Templars.
However in 1308 Pope Clement V wrote a Bull Pastoralis Praeeminentiae ordering
all of the Princes of Christendom to arrest the Templars in their countries. What
caused this sudden change of heart by the Pope?
Prior to this in April 1307 a caravel belonging to the Knights Templar had sailed
down the River Seine from Paris. It was loaded to the gunwales with medieval ironbound chests brimming with Gold, Silver and Jewels. It is known that this
particular ship landed later in the Canary Islands. Other ships full of treasure left
France the same week destination unknown but speculation says that they went to
Portugal and Scotland.
The link from the Templars back to our story is through Bernard of Clairvaux and a
set of documents that appeared in the Biblioth èque Nationale in Paris in the
1960s. In these documents it is claimed that at the centre of all these operations
there existed a Secret Society known as the ‘Prieure de Sion’.
These include a document called Les Dossiers Secret registered to have been
placed there by one Henri Lobineau and recorded as 4º LM1 249 and dated from
1975 and largely concern themselves with genealogy lists of the Merovingian Kings
and a curious poem called Le Serpent Rouge. They also carry a list finishing in 1956
of some prominent names from art and science including Leonardo Da Vinci,
Botticelli, and Robert Boyle, the alchemist Nicolas Flamel and Isaac Newton as well
as some lesser well-known persons from French and English history.
These are lists of the apparent Grand Masters for this secret organisation. It is said
in the document that the Order were the true founders of the Knights Templar. All
of these Grand Masters are given as ‘speaking the tongue’ of Jean or Jeanne (if
female) and given a number starting at Jean de Gisors as JEAN II, implying that
there had been a JEAN I. Indeed the second Grand ‘Master’ is a woman, Marie de
St Clair and is referred to as ‘speaking the tongue of JEANNE I. In the section
above it can be seen that this order separates from the order of the Temple at
Gisors and speaks of the ‘Cutting of the Elm’ (l’Ormus) and the Order coming
under the protection of Saint Samson d’Orleans and takes an addition to their
name as the ‘Ordre de la Rose Croix Veritas’. Meeting under an Elm tree was
considered from time immemorial to be a symbolic meeting on neutral territory
the act of cutting it down would be symbolic that all talking was over. There is
some evidence that this act took place at a Royal meeting place at Gisors in 1188
and involved no less than Richard the Lionheart on one side and the Counts of
Sancerre, Chartres, Vendome and Barre and Sir Alain de Roucy on the other. The
Counts rode up to the Elm with crossbowmen and carpenters and despite the tree
having been reinforced with steel bands by King Richard the Counts managed to
cut down the tree.
Whether one doubts its validity or not the documents are interesting inasmuch as
the list of Grand Masters shows the letters O U R S surrounded by what looks like
the symbol we have already seen for the constellation of Virgo, and this zodiac
constellation link makes its first appearance further into our story. These
documents are those that are collectively known as the Prieure Documents and
they include other writings and geneologies deposited in the Bibliotheque
Nationale. Below is a list (but not exhaustive) of these other documents known
collectively as the Prieure documents:






Henri Boudet: Le Vraie Langue Celtique et le Cromleck de Rennes-les-Bains
Philippe d’Chérisey: Circuit (a fictional Novel)
The Secret files of Henri Lobineau: Les Dossiers Secretes these were
apparently put together by a man named Philippe Toscan de Plantier.
Eugene Stublein: Pierres gravees du Languedoc
Gaston de Koker, Pierres Fugere, Lois Saint-Maxent: Le Serpent Rouge
Jean De Laude: Le Cercle d’Ulysse. Jean De Laude is most certainly Philippe
de Chérisey.
The first publically recorded mention of the Prieure de Sion comes from Gérard de
Sède as early as 1962. Gérard de Sède’s books contain several veiled hints of this
Order; de Sède mentions it cryptically and almost in passing. Jean Cocteau, the
last Grand Master recorded on the list found in the Dossier Secret, was still alive
on this date. On his death Jean Cocteau was laid in state and intriguingly his
fingers were deliberately linked in an identical manner to the Magdalene frieze
under the altar in Rennes le Chateau. The date of Cocteau’s death is not listed on
these documents and it is therefore assumed that the list was made up before he
died. A close friend and protégé of Cocteau’s insists that Cocteau was not a
member of the Priory of Sion but does insist that Cocteau was connected to the
other Grand Masters by a genuine underground tradition. An accomplished artist,
Cocteau was known for his decoration of churches. He was buried near his home at
Milly-la-Fôret in the chapel of Saint-Blaise des Simples which he had decorated
with some of the most intriguing murals he had ever done, these are alive with
Double Entende and there is little doubt that Cocteau had some hidden agenda. He
believed that he had lived before and he believed in portals through which humans
could transcend time and space. He and his friend Salvador Dali often used the
term Phoenixology: to die and rise again in a perpetual motion. Cocteau had
himself photographed on more than one occasion in a Masonic pose and his bust at
his birthplace in Villefranche-sur-Mer outside the chapel St Pierre shows him in
such a pose. Cocteau stayed at Villefranche-sur-Mer in 1925 for his first attempt at
Opium detoxification and it was here that he later met his patron Francine
Weisweiller. Cocteau was staying here in 1925 but is a stones throw from the
ancestral home of the Rothschild family, thought to be prominent members of a
group called the Illuminati. The chapel of St Pierre at Villefranche-sur-Mer, also
decorated by Cocteau, positively shouts Masonic symbolism at the observer.
This veiled reference in the Priory documents to some unknown authority that may
have been running affairs during the crusades and onwards appears on a single
page from the Dossiers Secrets themselves. The dossiers also carry an actual
quotation from Rene Grousset, who has been recognised to be a great authority on
the crusades and recognised by the official academia in his writings from around
the 1930s. According to this renowned and respected historian Grousset there
appeared to be a “Royal tradition” which ensured that Baudouin I, younger
brother of Godfroi de Bouuillon would become the King of Jerusalem because it
was “founded on the Rock of Sion”. Grousset went on to say that the King of
Jerusalem was a “dynasty” equal to the reigning Royal dynasties in Europe.
Following Grousset’s quotation we are introduced, in these ‘secret dossiers’, to
this mysterious Prieure de Sion but it is important to note (and not widely known)
here we are also introduced to the ‘Ordre de Sion’ by name in these same ‘Priory
documents’ at the same time. It goes on to say that this Ordre de Sion (not as
many have said, the Prieure de Sion) was founded by Godfroi de Bouillon and that
his younger brother Baudouin “owed his throne” to the order. The dossiers go on
to say that the Order’s official seat or headquarters was a specific abbey
– The Abbey of Notre Dame du Mont de Sion in Jerusalem.
These documents go on discuss a conclave of Calabrian monks who apparently left
the Belgian Abbey of Orval (Aurea Vallis) in 1090. These Calabrian monks,
according to these secret documents, helped to secure the election of Godfroi de
Bouillion as the de facto king of Jerusalem (City of Zion) during the first crusade. It
was in fact his younger brother Baudouin who eventually inherited the title as
Godfroi had previously refused the title only accepting the title of Defender of the
Faith. Orval later became a Cistercian Abbey and according to conventional history
these Calabrian monks are described for convenience as Benedictine or even
Augustine. This is historians assuming the default position and not wishing to be
controversial for, irrespective of whether the Dossiers Secrets are valid or not, it is
clear that these mysterious monks had little to do with the Benedictine Order and
the other imposed label of Augustine is, as we shall see, a standard default title
with little actual meaning. The name of the monks is decreed without offering any
proof other than the opinion of another, albeit medieval, writer who is also clearly
speculating. This “they are Augustine Monks” factoid is accepted purely on the
grounds that this is a medieval writer speculating seems to give his equally
unsubstantiated guess some credence amongst historians. Alas this is a typical
move by historians, because whilst they immediately dismiss the Dossiers Secret
because it was written in the 1960s they embrace an obscure testimony from
several hundred years ago without ever considering the source this writer may
have had in order to get this information and they embrace this as the definitive
proof simply on the grounds that the writer is medieval and not from the 1960s.
However it is known that the Benedictine Rule was not written until well after
these Calabrian monks had left for the Holy Land, indeed St Benedict never started
a monastic order. Standard tradition has it that his rule was started in 530CE
although there is absolutely no evidence of this and no Rule of St Benedict was in
existence until St Bernard of Clairvaux wrote the rule in the early 12 th century.
Crucially the Order of St Benedict differs fundamentally from other religious orders
in as much as it is a generic name for a religious family of monasteries and a
system of centralised authority has never been part of the Benedictine order.
The monastery of Orval became exceptionally rich under Cistercian Rule and by
1750 owned 300 towns, villages and manors in France, but it is to these monks
from the latter days of the eleventh century that we must draw our scrutiny for
the purposes of this story.
Is there anything to back up the claims of these Dossiers Secrets regarding these
mysterious monks from Calabria? As we have seen this order of monks was not
Benedictine, as no authoritative order actually exists, neither could they have
been Cistercian. Monastic orders normally form around the deeds of a saint but
there is nothing to indicate to us precisely what the form of dedication the
activities of these Calabrian Monks consisted of. All we know it seems from
conventional history is that they started the monastery at Orval in 1110 and then
moved away for some undisclosed reason coincidently at around the same time the
crusaders had established themselves in Jerusalem. The other claim that these
monks were Augustine may have a simple explanation. Tradition has it that monks
and hermits, dispersed by the Vandal invasion of North Africa in the fifth century,
fled to Europe where they established monasteries, particularly in northern and
central Italy. However it was not until 1244 that Pope Innocent IV formed these
monks into the Order of Hermits of St. Augustine by uniting several groups of
hermits and he ordered them to follow the Rule of St. Augustine, so by default
these monks may have been arbitrarily given the title Augustine even though they
weren’t. In 1256, Alexander IV joined other groups to the existing Order of St.
Augustine in the "Grand Union" and officially named them as a mendicant order.
Not wishing to be pedantic but the Rule of St Augustine i.e. The Augustine Order
didn’t exist under that name so these monks at Orval were obliged to follow no
Order decreed by the Pope in 1110. However I can accept that a disparate Order of
individual monks living as hermits could have got together under the same Order
and this is perhaps what the medieval chronicler is alluding to. But it is clear that
this medieval author never refered to the monks as Benedictine.
But it remains that a group of hermits (because that’s all they were at the end of
the 11th beginning of the 12th centuries) may have formed the group from Calabria,
Southern Italy and it was they who founded the monastery at Orval and then
moved to Mount Sion under the direction of King Baudouin. The Dossiers Secrets,
whilst not being confirmed correct, are not proven incorrect here and may well
contain inside knowledge not previously seen. We do not know what Order these
monks were conforming to if they conformed to an Order at all, the attempted
belittling of their importance by simply calling them Augustine or Benedictine just
doesn’t work here, indeed the official website for the Abbey at Orval does not
name the Order to which these original monks belonged.
One association that has been made to these monks is through the mystic and
esoterist Joachim of Fiore who also came from Calabria and who had lived as a
hermit there. However he lived some one hundred years after these mysteries
monks mentioned in the Dossiers Secret went to start the monastery at Orval, this
does not mean that some monks of this persuasion didn’t remain in Calabria.
Joachim spoke of three ages of history and said that the final age as spoken of in
Revelation, would be a purely spiritual age. Joachim regarded the Catholic Church
as the “whore of Babylon”. Joachim’s admirers came to believe that the beginning
of this New Age would be ushered in by the coming of a virtuous Pope from the
Franciscan Order and they considered Pope Celestine V to be this Pope. It is said
that Saunière carried a painting of Celestine V and this painting does have bishop’s
staffs set at familiar angles similar to those in Poussin’s Les Bergere d’Arcadie.
Perhaps I should point out for the purpose of our story and the establishment of
the significance of the pentacle into our mystery that the Pythagorian schools had
moved to Croton in Calabria from Samos and had established a secret religious
society there based upon the earlier Orpic Cult. Orphics revered Persephone (who
descended into Hades each winter and returned each spring) and Dionysus or
Bacchus (who also descended into Hades and returned). Orpheus was said to have
invented the Mysteries of Dionysus. Poetry containing distinctly Orphic beliefs has
been traced back to the 6th or at least 5th century BCE, and graffiti from the 5th
century BCE apparently refers to these "Orphics".
The Dossiers Secrets gives us the link that these monks from Calabria started the
monastery at Orval in 1091 and then went to Notre Dame du Mont Sion in
Jerusalem under the auspices of King Baudouin. We know that the part of the
Ardennes where the monastery was first built was in fact part of Godfroi de
Bouillon’s domain and according to Gérard de Sede this party of Monks was led by
an individual called Ursus. There are those who believe that this name to be a
corruption of the word Urséolus and say it from this person that the Russéolus took
their name and from whom the district of Roussillon and the ancient city of
Ruscino took its name. This is a typical tenuous link readily found by those looking
for an instant-coffee-time answer. Girard de Roussilon (Duke of Burgundy) has
been attributed the honour of installing the relics of Marie Madeleine in Vézelay in
Burgundy, presumably her body had been taken from the Grotte de Saint Maximin
le Sainte Baume in Provence. In the 13th century a descendant of Girard dies in the
crusades and bequeaths Châteauneuf to his widow Beatrix who lives her life in
prayer and one night sees a cross of light surrounded by stars, in a similar manor to
Constantine’s vision for his Sol Invictus. It is perhaps worth noting here that
Saunière appears to have also journeyed to Châteauneuf from Lyon having hired a
vehicle there. Roussillon takes its name from a more obvious source because Roux
and Sillon literally means ‘Rusty Red Furrow’ in French and is a fault line filled
with Iron Ore that runs roughly North/South down the eastern part of the district.
With regard to this mysterious Ursus, there is a Saint Ursus which the French call
Saint Ours who was called Sant Orso in Aosta, Italy where he founded a collegiate
church there in the 6th Century. Although Aosta is a long way from Calabria there
are some interesting coincidences worth noting here. Aosta, in northern Italy is
close to both the French and Swiss borders and is about a days horse ride through
the Grand St Bernard pass from Sion in Switzerland. Aosta became part of the
Kingdom of Burgundy in the 10th century and later became part of the House of
Savoy after 1032. The royal mint of the Merovingians was in Sion Switzerland and
some of these superb coins from there were in fact found in Britain inside the
Sutton Hoo treasure ship.
The St Bernard Pass was a featured itinerary of the Grand Tour that flourished
from 1660 onwards particularly amongst the British upper class and featured a
viewing of cultural artefacts of antiquity. The Grand Tour was a rite of passage for
the wealthy and could last for several months or indeed several years, the leader
of such a Grand Tour was called a Bear Leader. It became less popular when the
railways opened up travel opportunities for almost everyone. Sir Francis Dashwood,
later to be a Chancellor of the Exchequer for the British Government went on a
Grand Tour in 1726 at the age of 16, and it was he who founded the infamous
Hellfire Club in 1746.
Saint Gratus of Aosta (San Grato di Aosta) is the patron saint of Aosta. St Gratus
signed the acts of the synod of Milan in 451 AD as a priest. Gratus represented the
bishop of Aosta, Eustasius, at this council, signing the letter that the assembly sent
to Pope Leo I the Great in order to affirm its condemnation of the heresy of
Eutyches, who declared that Christ was "a fusion of human and divine elements".
This after the Archbishop of Constantinople Nestorius asserted that the Virgin Mary
should no longer be referred to as the ‘Mother of God’ (Theotokos), for according
to Nestorius Jesus had been born a mere man and became imbued later with a
divine nature, Eutyches had vehemently opposed this. However, both Eutyches
and Nestorius found themselves denounced as heretics at the Council of Chalcedon
in 451AD. Both Gratus and Eustasius were of Greek origin, they received their
education, and ecclesiastical formation from the type of monastic foundation in
Italy established by Eusebius of Vercelli and this was modeled on that of the
Eastern cenobites and therefore they did not live as hermits as the Calabrian
monks may have done. Gratus became bishop of Aosta sometime after 451, and
presided over the translation of various relics in the city around 470AD, including
those of Saint Innocent, one of the martyrs of the Theban Legion. The bishops of
Agaunum and Sion were present at this translation.
Pope Liberius sent Eusebius of Vercelli accompanied by the curiously named Bishop
Lucifer of Cagliari to the Emperor Constantius II at Arles in Gaul over the infamous
schism between the theologian Arius and the Trinity Christians. This forced the
Pope to invoke a council to discuss the Arians rejection of the dictates of the
Council of Nicea, clearly as late as the 6th century Christians were still debating
the true nature of Jesus.
In 1285, the Magna Legenda Sancti Grati, a fictitious and anachronistic account of
Gratus’ life to celebrate the translation of the saint's relics, was composed by
Jacques de Cours, then canon of Aosta cathedral.
In this account, it was alleged that St Gratus had been born into a noble Spartan
family and he had studied at Athens where he became a monk. In order to escape
the persecutions in the East, he fled to Rome, where he was well received and was
sent as an emissary to the court of Charlemagne. Gratus had experienced a vision
at the Pantheon, which had sent him to Aosta where he converted many pagans
and Charlemagne aided him in this mission. The legend continues that seemingly
by divine command, this vision sent him to the Holy Land to find the head of John
the Baptist. Saint Jucundus (Giocondo) accompanied him and Gratus allegedly
found the relic concealed in the palace of Herod. Smuggling it out of Jerusalem,
Gratus returned to Rome, where the story says that the church bells played on
their own accord in celebration. Gratus presented John's head to the Pope; but in
doing so, the jawbone remained in Gratus' hand. The Holy See interpreted this as a
sign, and the Pope allowed him to carry that precious relic back to Aosta. This
suggests that the head of St John the Baptist may be found around the town of
Aosta. Gratus continued to govern the diocese, while periodically withdrawing to a
hermitage with Jucundus. Caesar Baronius, who drafted a new edition to the
Roman Martyrology (1586), doubted the veracity of Gratus’ tale and in the
twentieth century, the historian Aimé Pierre Frutaz demonstrated without a doubt
that the Magna Legenda Sancti Grati was an invented tale. However, the tale still
seems to have spurred a Gratus cult into the areas of Piedmont, Lombardy,
Switzerland and Savoy and these are other areas of our interest in this story.
In the town of Aosta is the Arch of Augusta erected in 35 BC to celebrate the
victory of the Roman troops led by Consul Varro Murene over the local Celtic tribe
called the Salassi, who had frequented this strategic passage through the Alps
since 3000BCE. Here we have a surprising and unexpected coincidence for there
are few streets in the village of Rennes le Chateau but one street goes by the
name of Rue de la Salasse and Aosta is about a one and half days ride from
Annemasse where the Priory of Sion was started by Pierre Plantard and André
Bonhomme.
Saint Gratus of Aosta is usually depicted in art with a bunch of Grapes and the
head of John the Baptist and is the patron saint of the Benedictines. His feast day
is September 6th.
The Dossiers Secret says that the leader of the Calabrian monks was Ursus and this
is the Latin for Bear but specifically the male bear, OURS is French for bear and
ORSO is Italian for Bear. The female bear is Ursa and so therefore the
constellations of Ursa Major and Ursa Minor is specifically female, Ursus being
male. There is a school of thought that places this particular St Ursus of Aosta to
be of Irish or Celtic origin. There is a legend that between the years 473 and 500
the body of St Victor was brought to Geneva by the Queen of Burgundy
Theudesinde where she built a church in his name over the grave of Saint Ursus. In
1519 an old coffin in the form of a Roman urn was found and contained relics and
it bears the inscription.
Conditus hoc Sanctus
Tumulo Thebaidus Ursus
Here is the Holy Tomb of the Theban Ursus
It is said that he was the member of the Theban legion who were martyred for
refusing to worship idols, he is known throughout Switzerland and since the 12 th
century the baptismal name of Ursus is very common. There is a cathedral in the
town of Solothurn dedicated to St Ursus. Solothurn is to the northeast of Lake
Neufchatel renown for its early Celtic associations.
Upon their arrival at Orval, a journey that if made by land would have taken them
through the Grande St Bernard pass via Aosta, these mysterious Calabrian monks
received patronage of Mathilde de Toscan duchess of Lorraine. She was Godfroi de
Bouillon’s aunt and was effectively his foster mother. According to the Dossier
Secrets it was through Mathilde that these monks received the tract of land that
became Orval. This land is close to Stenay where the French king Dagobert II had
been assassinated earlier in the 7th century and excavations have revealed
Merovingian graves at Orval. This Saint Dagobert, who like The Magdalene and
Sarah is for some reason inexplicably sainted is of course mentioned in the
parchment one and Dagobert II was the last from the Eastern Merovingian bloodline
of Kings. These monks from Calabria did not remain in Orval long and everyone
agrees that they simply disappeared from history. The Prieure documents go on to
say that these monks were given all that special status by the eventual Defender of
the Faith of Jerusalem Godfroi de Bouillon but curiously were never given the
privilege of a conventional recorded history. It seems that their dedication was not
worth recording for posterity at the actual time of their occupation of Orval and
that their founding of what became one of the most successful abbeys in the world
is not even worthy of being commented upon by their successors or conventional
history. Or has it merely been scrubbed from recorded history; what stands out
from recorded history here is a lack of hardly any information about the initial
founding of this Abbey, an omission that stares one in the face.
It has been said that where truth is suppressed there legend is formed and we are
finding ourselves forced through having no hard evidence at all as to what
happened to these monks into conjecture as to their activities after they left
Orval. To simply abandon the journey here will guarantee us no further discovery
and a kind of lapse into recycled and useless solution that has led us nowhere. The
sensible action is to go on with these documents to see where they will lead us
with the proviso that they may not be a genuine historical facts but merely
someone’s own personal understanding of historical facts that are uncorroborated
unless there are other documents held in secret. If we do go on from the
information in these Dossiers we must try to link our journey to known points of
reference at every opportunity and to pick out the truth from the legend or indeed
any deliberate falsehoods that may exist. This is, however acceptable in science, it
is after all precisely the path that the science of the study of evolution has
followed and is still following as it too has little contemporary evidence for
comparison but still carries on with its hypothesis purely on the basis that the
hypothesis sort of fits. Of course the theory that it is all done by angels also fits if
one inserts a similar large number of ‘must-have-dones’ into the theory. However
we do have something in our favour for a group supposedly as influential as this
Order of Sion would, whilst not themselves being in direct evidence due to their
secrecy, have affected things around them in a quite distinctive way. We are at a
Black Hole analogy here, something that by its very nature cannot be directly seen
but will influence everything around it whose behaviour can be seen.
We can start to try to link the disappearance of this group with a sudden
appearance of a group that is connected with the successes of the crusades and
has links to Godfroi de Bouillon’s exploits in the Holy Land. But probably more
importantly we can take this ‘Sion’ that is said to control Western religion and
Politics including the Crusade against the forces of Islam and other perceived
heresies and link it to the history of the Languedoc area. This will include the
great heresy that was pursued there later by the Catholic Church with their
crusade against a heretical group known as the Albigensian Crusade. For surely this
influential Order, should it have existed, will have been involved in this in some
way.
So did anyone appear on the Temple of Notre Dame du Mont Sion at precisely the
time this Order of Monks disappeared from Orval? The answer is yes.
This apparent leader whose name was Ursus has been open to all kinds of
interpretation. One is immediately drawn, as already mentioned, to the reference
to the Latin name for Bear - Ursa. But similarly we are drawn back to the logo on
the list of Prieure de Sion Grand Masters. The word OURS appears inside a symbol
for Virgo at the top of this list and ‘Ours’ is French for Bear. The first connection
here then is the connection of the constellations of Ursa Major and Minor to the
constellation of Virgo in a single logo. Could these monks at Orval, having
originated from the land of the mysterious Pythagorian schools, have been involved
in the observation, tabulation and mapping of the movement of the Stars and
Planets? Again speculation says that this may have been the case for a document
that exists at the University of Ghent and written by Lambert de St Omer, who
describes in his manuscript Liber floridus ("book of flowers") which is an
encyclopaedia of Biblical, chronological, astronomical, geographical, theological,
philosophical and natural history subjects. It is described by scholars as an extract
or synopsis from different authors, and was begun in 1090 and finished in 1120. We
do not know from where Lambert de St Omer got his information and there is
speculation that it came from documents found by the Knights Templar during
their occupation of Temple Mount.
Tradition has it that these monks left the Ardennes to set up a Temple of ‘Our
Lady of Mount Zion’; this is a curious title, who is ‘our’ Lady of Mount Zion? A clue
may come from a passage from the Biblical minor prophet Micah. In Micah 4:8 it
says:
And thou, O tower of the flock, the strong hold of the daughter of Zion (Sion),
unto thee shall it come, even the first dominion; the kingdom shall come to the
daughter of Jerusalem. (KJV)
What is this ‘Our Lady of Mount Zion’? Mount Zion is a fact Mount Hermon, Jebel
esh-Sheikh and the prominent mountain standing at 9,230ft that forms Israel’s
northern border with Lebanon. The Sidonians called this mountain Sirion and is
thought to be the place where the transfiguration of Jesus took place.
Psalm 133 (KJV)
1 Behold, how good and how pleasant it is brethren to dwell together in unity
2 It is like the previous ointment upon the head, that ran down upon the beard, even
Aaron’s beard: that went down to the skirts of his garments;
3 As the dew of Hermon, and as the dew that descended upon the mountains of Sion: for
there the LORD commanded the blessing, even life for evermore.
The phrase ‘Watchtower of the Flock’ in Hebrew is Migdal-Eder. The word Migdalah
(Mig-daw-law) is the feminine form for tower and is figuratively a pyramidal bed of
flowers. Eder is literally an arrangement but mostly used to denote a Flock or
herd.
Could Migdalah-eder have been corrupted to ‘The Magdalene’?
Could the Flowery Landscape at the western end of Saunière’s church be a
direct allusion to this pyramidal bed of flowers?
Magdalene should be pronounced Mag-dal-ay-nay and is of Aramaic origin and is
the feminine derivative of Magdala: not any tower but ‘The’ Tower, and is an
actual place in Palestine. Is our Lady of Mount Zion, to whom this body of 12 th
century monks set up a dedication in Jerusalem ‘The Magdalene’? But this does not
mean, as so many people have postulated, that Mount Zion itself lies in Jerusalem.
Is Mary Magdalene the daughter of Zion? Is Saunière’s Tour Magdala a ‘Watchtower
of the Flock’, especially since his church was also dedicated to Saint Mary
Magdalene?
This ‘Watchtower of the Flock’ Migdal – Eder was a real place however and was a
mere one Roman mile (1000 paces) from the centre of Bethlehem on the road to
Jerusalem and it is where Jacob pitched his tent. It is unlikely that grazing sheep
would be tendered so close to the centre of town, so what was this ‘flock’ being
referred to here? The Mishnah suggests that this was a place where lambs were
kept that was due for Temple sacrificial slaughter. Therefore shepherds who
watched over their Flocks by night, described in the birth story of Jesus, were
therefore not conventional shepherds but rabbinical priests tending sacrificial
lambs.
Jacob’s wife Rachel, whose name actually means – Little Ewe but may also mean
‘innocence and gentility of a Rose’, may well have been buried at the site of this
tower.
And Jacob set a pillar upon her grave: that is the pillar of Rachel’s grave unto
this day. And Israel(Jacob) journeyed, and spread his tent beyond the tower
of Eder (KJV) - Genesis 35:20-21
Indeed tourists visiting Bethlehem today are told that this is Rachel’s place of
burial to this day.
The prophet Micah has made the parallel between Rachel and ‘The daughter of
Zion’ again, and here is the full passage:
And thou O tower of the flock, the strong hold of the daughter of Zion, unto
thee shall come, even the first dominion; the kingdom shall come to the
daughter of Jerusalem
Now why dost thou cry out aloud? Is there no king in thee? Is thy counsellor
perished? For pangs have been taken as a woman in travail.
Be in pain, and labour to bring forth, O daughter of Zion, like the woman in
travail: for now shalt thou go forth out of the city, and thou shalt dwell in the
field, and thou shalt go even to Babylon; there thou shalt be delivered; there
the Lord shall redeem thee from the hand of thine enemies. (KJV) – Micah 4:10
The woman in travail labouring in pain was Rachel; she died in childbirth, whilst
Israel (Jacob) journeyed beyond the ‘Tower of Eder’ – Migdal-Eder. Rachel - The
Little Lamb buried under the pillar set by Jacob, the son of Isaac with whom God
had made a covenant whilst he was still in the womb of Sarah, for Isaac was the
son of Abraham and Sarah the Egyptian Princess whom God had called the Mother
of Nations. From Micah we have a woman called the daughter of Zion who is in the
travails of childbirth, crying out loud even though there may be a king within her
womb about to be born. But Micah is one of the last prophets of the Old Testament
and long after Rachel, which ‘Daughter of Zion’ apparently also a ‘Tower of the
Flock’ (a Migdal-Eder) is Micah referring to here?
Is this Daughter of Zion travailing in birth in fact Mary Magdalene or is it merely
symbolic? Does this Mother of Nations in fact have an astronomical meaning?
The first chapter of the New Testament begins with seventeen verses of a
description of the bloodline from David up to Joseph the ‘surrogate’ father of
Jesus.
Joseph descendent of David, father of Solomon, described as the husband of the
mother of Jesus and there is no mention of her bloodline at all. Is this Mary mother
of Jesus the Daughter of Zion and who is apparently unworthy of any other
mention beyond her being the wife of a man who isn’t the father of Jesus anyway?
A Daughter of Zion and yet has no bloodline mentioned in Matthew. There is a
woman who is the Daughter of Zion somewhere who travails in childbirth and
expecting a king according to Micah. So who is this ‘OUR Lady of Mount Zion’? Is
there a pattern or a ‘Pesher’ here? Is this ‘Daughter of Zion’ described by Micah
the same for which our monks from the Ardennes have set up an Abbey dedicated
to ‘Our Lady of Mount Zion’? Is Mary, Mother of Jesus, Micah’s ‘Tower of the
Flock’/Daughter of Zion about to give birth to a king or is it The Magdalene –
Migdal-Eder? - The Tower of the Flock from which all can be controlled. How can
The Magdalene be, for she is about to give birth to a king? - Unless she too was
pregnant with the Lamb of God.
Are we talking about a royalist bloodline here from Sarah the Mother of Nations? A bloodline stemming from this Daughter of Zion and descendant of the royal blood
of David? People generally skip around the prospect but it is nevertheless a fact
that the first 17 verses of the New Testament talks about a bloodline and there is
simply no getting around this. On the one hand Micah holds this Daughter of Zion
with some importance but then later Mary mother of Jesus is considered not
worthy to be called anything but the mere wife of Joseph at the beginning of the
New Testament. She is the wife of a man who is merely the surrogate father of a
King of the Jews who conceived by the Holy Ghost and remember the Holy Ghost
did not exist in the Christian church before the Council of Nicea. The Daughter of
Zion is clearly the Watchtower of the Flock – The Magdalene and significantly she
travails in childbirth with possibly a king in her womb. To carry this further she
travails in childbirth after the King is sacrificed and the significance of this will
become clearer later.
So going with the assumption that the Daughter of Zion travailed in childbirth, did
her offspring journey to England? Is that what William Blake is speaking about in
the words of the song Jerusalem? (Zion) where he asks the question:
“And did those feet in ancient time walk upon England’s mountains green?” “And
was the Holy Lamb of God in England’s pleasant pastures seen?” –
Legend and tradition concerning Joseph of Arimathea, Glastonbury and the Grail
seem to think so. Glastonbury Abbey was the first above ground church outside the
Judea and it carries a stone with the inscription “Jesus Maria” and a thorn bush
that really does flower twice a year. A place that was the only place in England
exempted from any tithes after conquest by the Normans in 1066AD. Why was
England considered the senior Christian country in Medieval Europe? Was it because
the “Holy Lamb of God had on England’s pleasant pastures been seen”? Or did it
have a tradition that was uniquely recognised?
So what has this Daughter of Zion to do with Saunière and the church of Saint
Marie Madeleine in Rennes le Chateau? Saunière constructed the Magdala tower at
the edge of the escarpment and in his church he creates images of Mary of Bethany
anointing the feet of Jesus and it doesn’t matter if this is ritual this is an intimate
and erotic act whichever way you look at it. Saunière also constructs the Villa
Bethania depicting Jesus and the Sacred Heart. This intimate foot anointing act is
depicted in Saunière’s in a stained glass window; it is also mentioned in the plain
text of the Shepherdess parchment. Perhaps this stained glass window is worth
studying. The window can be seen below and it tells us a great deal if one looks
carefully.
What can we see? We have Jesus and the four bearded gentlemen who are
probably his disciples sitting at a table with Mary of Bethany anointing the feet of
Jesus with spikenard. Now we know from the story the names of the four disciples
with Jesus and one of them is Saint Lazarus. Judas who was also there rebuked
Jesus and Mary for using the expensive spikenard.
It was then that Jesus said a curious thing. In verses 7 and 8 he said:
7Then said Jesus, Let her alone: against the day of my burying hath she kept this.
8For the poor always ye have with you; but me ye have not always.
Whatever way you look at this there’s a ritual occurring here and it isn’t Christian
or Jewish. Look again at Saunière’s window, we know we have the disciples there
and we have Saint Lazarus there because the text says so. All of these disciples
(with the exception of Judas) are sainted, yet only Jesus and Mary have halos. If
saints in this particular instance do not have halos then why does Mary of Bethany
have a halo?
A further examination shows Jesus’ halo shows a Celtic cross inset, but Mary’s halo
has nothing.
A pagan scene is being depicted here and Jesus’ halo with the cross in it represents
the Sun and Mary’s halo with no cross represents the moon shown at half moon
phase. Now we know that the anointing ceremony is part of the preparation to
have the King sacrificed, the bible tells us so. However this is a practice spoken
about by Sir James George Frazer in his book The Golden Bough. Where the King is
sacrificed at the end of his term and the Queen (who will be pregnant by this king)
will assume the rule during the fertile summer until the King is reborn again as his
offspring. This event took place six days before the Passover and this occurs at the
first full moon after the spring equinox. In other words this event occurred at the
Celtic festival of Eostara (Easter) which occurs on or after March 21st and is the
time when the Sun is in Pisces, the opposite sign to Virgo. A full moon occurs when
the earth is in between the sun and the moon, so therefore if the sun is in Pisces
the moon must be in Virgo. The spring equinox is nine months before the winter
solstice when the King (The Sun) is reborn. Nine months also happens to be the
normal gestation period for a human baby.
But we also get an introduction to the story of Jacob as we enter his church. As
you approach the church one sees a triangular section that contains many features.
At the very apex of the triangle is a red ribbon draped over the cross and contains
the phrase ‘In Hoc Signo Vinces’ which means ‘In this sign you will conquer’; a
phrase that is repeated in French immediately inside the church over the devil
motif only apparently this time conquering ‘him’. It is the motto adopted by
Constantine after his vision of a CROSS in the sky just before the battle of Milvian
Bridge when his armies defeated that of Maxentius in the year 312CE. His armies
later carried the Labarum with the Greek letters Chi and Rho (χρ).
The triangular section above the entrance to the church carries a representation of
Saint Marie Madeleine and she carries a cross at an angle of 140 degrees, which is
the direction of a place called Coume Sourde that is close to the centre of a
pentacle of mountains. Either side of her are ornate roses set into pots, in other
words surrounded by ‘innocence and gentility of a Rose’.
Underneath is the phrase:
Regnum Mundi et omnem ornatum soeculi contempsi propter anorem domini
mei Jesu Christi quem vidi quen amavi in cremini quem dilexi.
“I have had contempt for the kingdom of this world, and all the temporal
adornments, because of the love of my Lord Jesus Christ, whom I saw, whom I
loved, in whom I believed, and whom I worshipped.”
This phrase does not appear in any bible and is straight out of Cathar thinking,
having contempt for the kingdom of this world. The phrase does appear however in
an important book of prayer called the Book of Hours, a book that shall appear
very significant in this mystery.
The most significant thing here is why Saunière should think this phrase so
important as to place it over the entrance to his church and once again Saunière
draws attention for he has spelled several words wrong yet again. The words
SOECULI, ANOREM, QUEM and CREMINI are not in the Latin language. Saunière
apparently spent the equivalent of two months salary on this door arch alone and
it is carved from a single piece of masonry. As these mistakes are painted on it
would have been easy to correct them once they had been no doubt pointed out by
keen visitors with a command of Latin. No it appears that these mistakes like
others around and inside the church are once again unaltered and deliberate. The
contractor was apparently a company by the name of M.M. Giscard a company
from Toulouse, this was invoiced at the same time as the terracotta decorated
pulpit made by the same company.
The passage comes from the Hour of Matins which is divided into three sections
called Nocturnes and each nocturne is further divided into three Psalms with
antiphons followed by readings. Between each reading there are “Responsorial” or
short prayers or poetry. The passage that Saunière chose is the responsorial in the
3rd Nocturne.
Some researchers feel that these mistakes indicate that Saunière was somehow
aware of the contents of the Gospel of Thomas, one of the Nag Hammadi scrolls
that were found until 1945. Thomas means twin and some people feel that Thomas
was Jesus’ twin brother. This theory of Saunière being aware of the Gnostic
Gospels is reinforced by there being statues inside the church of Mary with a baby
Jesus and also a statue of Joseph carrying another baby Jesus and holding a lily.
However in this particular mystery one learns to look for coded meanings when
spelling mistakes are made for if one takes the incorrect words here i.e. SOECULI,
ANOREM, QUEM and CREMINI the following anagram can be made:
E LUMINE ES NORMA CIRCINOQUE
“The light is normally the square and compass.”
This is of course highly speculative but this theory may be reinforced not only by
the widely known Masonic symbolism of the square and compass but also by the
message which immediately follows this passage on this arch at the entrance to
Saunière’s church the phrase.
TERRIBILIS EST LOCUS ISTE
This is a passage from Genesis and concerns his dream about the pillar set by Jacob
upon which he set out his vision. The place appeared by all the descriptions to be a
place where there had been standing stones placed by a previous civilization which
he described as the ‘Gates of the Heavens’. A term again repeated by Saunière
over the door to his church.
For it is now clear that standing stone circles have existed in the Negev Highlands
of Israel long before the followers of Moses arrived in the Promised land and it
does appear that the religion of the early Israelites was, at least in part, stolen
from a previous time and civilisation and the adepts of this time were probably
called ‘The Watchers’ who watched the stars from their ‘Watchtowers’ – Migdalah.
The following is the passage from which Saunière’s took his passage over the door
to the church:
10And Jacob goeth out from Beer-Sheba, and
goeth toward Haran,
17 and he feareth, and saith, `How
fearful [is] this place; this is nothing
but a house of God, and this a gate of
the heavens.'
11and he toucheth at a [certain] place, and
lodgeth there, for the sun hath gone in, and
he taketh of the stones of the place, and
maketh [them] his pillows, and lieth down in
that place.
12And he dreameth, and lo, a ladder set up
on the earth, and its head is touching the
heavens; and lo, messengers of God are
going up and coming down by it;
13and lo, Jehovah is standing upon it, and
He saith, `I [am] Jehovah, God of Abraham
thy father, and God of Isaac; the land on
which thou art lying, to thee I give it, and to
thy seed;
14and thy seed hath been as the dust of the
land, and thou hast broken forth westward,
and eastward, and northward, and
southward, and all families of the ground
have been blessed in thee and in thy seed.
15`And lo, I [am] with thee, and have kept
thee whithersoever thou goest, and have
caused thee to turn back unto this ground;
for I leave thee not till that I have surely
done that which I have spoken to thee.'
16And Jacob awaketh out of his sleep, and
saith, `Surely Jehovah is in this place, and I
knew not;'
18And Jacob riseth early in the morning, and
taketh the stone which he hath made his
pillows, and maketh it a standing pillar, and
poureth oil upon its top,
19and he calleth the name of that place
Bethel, [house of God,] and yet, Luz [is] the
name of the city at the first.
Genesis 31:10 – 19
Haran, mentioned in this passage, is in the semi-arid Negev. Israel’s Mizpe-Ramon
Astronomical Observatory is currently sited in the Negev Desert which has a
perfect climate for astronomical observations. The picture above shows the
inscription above the entrance to Saunière’s church ‘Terribilis est Locus iste’ – How
fearful is this place, taken directly from this passage from Genesis 31:17. Below
that is the keystone of the arch with the Coat of Arms of Pope Leo XIII, the Pope
who warned the world of the dangers of freemasonry.
The Hebrew Bible calls the stone circles masseboth (mah-tseh-vot; singular
massebah), which translates as "pillars" or "standing stones." Most are circular in
nature and have been set vertically into the ground, individually or in groups, and
are abundant in these desert regions. There are at least 142 independent
masseboth sites and most face east, the direction of the rising sun.
They date back to the 11th and 10th millennia BCE. The most common period was
the sixth to the third millennia BCE and were continually being erected through
the Biblical period and beyond.
Oriented to the cardinal points they were ritual sites and sacred to the desert
people. Here they connected the heaven and the earth to gain access to the sky,
and in doing so, they were granted access to god. This was the same motivation for
the construction of Stonehenge in England.
Couple this of course with the fact that the area around Rennes le Chateau is
indeed a Temple laid out in the Landscape, described in Le Serpent Rouge as the
New Temple of Solomon and also not forgetting the book written by Henri Boudet
La vraie Langue Celtique et le Cromleck de Rennes-les-Bains who even described it
as being ten to twelve miles in diameters. It does seem that the certain aspects
origins of Judaism and subsequently Christianity were in fact formed from the
finding and personal interpretation of these stone circles by the early Jewish
patriarchs.
As we know Saunière was a staunch royalist so how do these references to Jacob
fit in with Saunière’s royalist affiliations? Well Jacob returned to Bethel after
twenty two years and not only was Jacob now blessed with great riches but that
Bethel was the place for his God, the God of Abraham and in Genesis 35 God
changes the name of Jacob to Israel (meaning Sons ruling with God) and informs
Israel (Jacob) that:
“….nations and company of nations shall be of thee and kings shall come out of
thy loins” (Gen 35:11-12).
It really couldn’t be any clearer we are talking about a bloodline of royal
descendents from the house of David.
“And this kingdom, even the first dominion shall come to the daughter of Zion and
the Tower of the Flock (Migdal-Eder) shall be its strong hold (hill).” It appears
that it shall be inherited by a woman.
The Stone of Scone, which had been brought to England by the Angevin king
Edward I and now resides in back in Edinburgh, is the pillar on which the Kings and
Queens of the United Kingdom are crowned upon. This stone is considered by many
to be Jacob’s pillar but had been originally used to crown the Celtic kings of
Ireland and Scotland. The legend is that Jeremiah accompanied by the daughter of
Zedekiah took the stone to Tara the seat of the Celtic kings in Ireland. Then the
first Scottish king St Fergus took it to Scone (pronounced Skoon) in the ninth
century. This stone was then seized by Edward I, a French Plantagenet king of
England from the house of Anjou, in 1296 and who clearly was aware of its
significance and he then took it to St Edwards’s chapel in Westminster Abbey in
London. All of the Kings and Queens of the United Kingdom have been crowned
upon this stone thus avowing their allegiance to the Royal seed of David or indeed
“coming from the very loins of Israel (Jacob)”. Or is this stone from a previous
religious order that already had its Kings and Queens crowned upon a megalith and
Jacob merely picked up on this tradition?
When a candidate for the Masonic Royal Arch degree is blindfolded he is set in
front of three steps, these are known as Jacob’s ladder. The initiate is assisted to
climb this three-stepped ladder. The chaplain reads from
I Corinthians 13:13, each rung being labelled as he
progresses upwards (1) Faith (2) Hope (3) Charity. Faith in
the great architect of the Universe; Hope in Salvation;
and to be in Charity with all men. The words are
deceptive; the ceremony is progressive salvation through
ritual initiation. This ceremony, from the ancient
mysteries, is a spiritual rebirth akin to being ‘Born Again’
and in all the mystery schools this journey from earth to
heaven is re-enacted and is wholly pagan in origin. This
Masonic symbolism has however been shown in stone on
the left.
What is shown here on the left is a crescent moon
amongst the star system the Pleiades with the three rung
ladder joining earth to heaven. This ‘three steps to
heaven’ was described by Masonic writer Robert Hewitt
Brown 32˚ as the ladder of the three rounds in his book
Stella Theology and Masonic Astronomy. The book is a series of questions and
answers and he describes the Ladder of the three rounds thus;
“Q. What is the significance of the ladder of the three rounds, and why is it
representative as leading up to the ‘seven stars’ or the Pleiades?
A. This emblem is clearly but a modification of the latter of the Mysteries,
consisting as we’ve seen of the seven rounds – and is of the same general
astronomical meaning. The Sun, when ascending from the winter solstice to the
vernal equinox, the constellation Taurus, and the Pleiades, or seven stars situated
therein, passes successively through three signs of the zodiac, to wit Aquarius,
Pisces and Aries. These three signs are therefore emblematically represented by a
ladder of three principal rounds, by means of which the Sun climbs up from the
point of his lowest southern declination to the vernal equinox and the ‘seven
stars’ in Taurus. The foregoing is the emblem of the Masonic ladder as generally
represented.”
He describes the Pleiades thus:
“Q. To what does the Masonic emblem of the seven stars allude?
A. To the Pleiades, or seven stars in Taurus. These stars were called by the
Romans Vergili, or Virgins of Spring. The constellation Taurus was anciently
at the vernal equinox, and the year formerly then began. Thus Virgil,
referring to a remoter age, in the Georgics Book 1 says:
‘Candidus auratis aperit cum
Cornibus annum taurus’
When the bright bull with the gilded
Horns opens the year.
Job speaks of the Pleiades, also as exerting sweet influence, expressive of the
balmy air of spring which accompanies the approach to the Sun to the
constellation of Taurus and the seven stars. This Masonic emblem, therefore, has
a direct allusion to the vernal equinox, and thus becomes a beautiful symbol of
immortality, reminding us also, of that starry home beyond the grave to which
the soul of man aspires. It was for these reasons that, of all the ‘hosts of heaven’
the Pleiades were selected as an emblem by our ancient brethren – THE MASONIC
LADDER OF THREE ROUNDS.”
Perhaps it is worth continuing with these interesting musings from Robert Hewlitt
Brown a 32˚ freemason.
“THE ZODIACAL LADDER
Ladder of three rounds on the zodiac to Pleiades
The emblematic meaning now attached to the masonic ladder, which refers it to
the one "Jacob saw in his vision," is neither lost nor sacrificed, even if we admit
the probable origin of the emblem in that of the ancient mysteries. Its symbolism
is, however, thus made more extended and impressive, so that we gain rather
than lose by so referring it.
The initiation into all the ancient mysteries, it will be remembered, was a drama
founded upon the astronomical allegory of the death and resurrection of the
sun, and was intended to, and did, impress upon the mind of the candidate, in the
strongest manner possible, the two great doctrines of the unity of God and the
immortality of man.
These are to-day the two great fundamental principles of Freemasonry, and are
illustrated and taught in a similar manner in the ritual of the third degree.
The solar allegory and emblems of the ancient mysteries have, however, a
twofold meaning:
1) Being founded, as before stated, on the passage of the sun among the twelve
constellations of the zodiac - his overthrow by the three autumnal months, his
return to life at the vernal equinox, and his exaltation at the summer solstice
they therefore taught and illustrated all the leading principles of astronomy, and
thus had an important scientific value to the initiated.
2) By personifying the sun, and requiring the candidate to represent him, the
whole solar phenomena were exhibited in an allegorical manner, and became
symbolical of the unity of God and the immortality of the soul. The ladder of the
Mysteries, being but an emblem intended to illustrate the main solar allegory,
had the same twofold symbolism.
When full explained to the initiated, it fixed upon the mind certain great facts in
astronomical science. It taught the order and position of the signs of the zodiac;
the ascent of the sun from the point of his lowest declination below the equator
to that of his highest above it, by seven equal gradiated steps. It also taught the
duration of and order of the seasons, the length of the solar year, and many other
particulars of the greatest importance of agriculture, as well as to science and art
generally.
The emblem, viewed in an allegorical sense, also taught, by solar analogy, the
unity of God and the life everlasting. The ladder in this sense was the emblem of
the ascent into heaven from the lower hemisphere - the underworld of darkness,
winter, and death. This mystic ladder leads to the "seven stars," or the Pleiades,
shining in the constelation(sic) Taurus, at the golden gates of spring. It mounted
still onward and upward, to the summit of the Royal Arch of heaven, thus
emblematically teaching us that by the ladder of virtue the soul of man will at
last pierce the "cloudy canopy," and mount to the highest circle of "the starrydecked heavens," to dwell for ever triumphant over death and the grave.
Thus, it is logical that the Pleiades as a Masonic symbol in America is as old as the
craft's beginnings on this continent due to its importance in the old country. It
was only a matter of years after 1717 that Speculative Masons, later called
"Moderns," were setting up shop in Boston and the Carolinas. Masonic aprons,
engravings, and other paraphanalia(sic) were emblazoned with a grouping of 7
stars, and this practice continues to this day. As discussed in the Sibly treatise,
the chart for the Grand Lodge of London boasts the Moon conjunct the Pleiades.”
This could not be more Celtic in origin.
Perhaps it should be revealed at this point that the name Pleiades is derived from
a word that means ‘Flock of Doves’. The central star of the Pleiades is called
Alcyone (pronounced Al Sion). Is this Flock of doves the stars in the heavens as
seen by those who watched their flocks by night and saw the Angel of the Lord?
The Angel of the Lord being Aldebaran, in Taurus, at the golden gates of spring,
Aldebaran means The Follower in Arabic or he who follows the Pleiades?
Is a kingdom going to come to the Daughter of Zion?
Migdal-Eder - The Watchtower of the Flock
Well some people think so because incredibly the star Alcyone (Al Sion) is thought
by some including The Watchtower Society (The Jehovah’s witnesses) to be the
place where the God Jehovah actually dwells.
Is this why a body of Monks whose leader was Ursus (the male bear) should leave
Belgium and go to a mountaintop in Israel perhaps to study some geometry and
astronomy in the tradition of Pythagoras, who had a Mystery School first in
Calabria and then on Mount Carmel in Israel?
In 1099 the crusaders after a bloody fight took Jerusalem they were led by Godfroi
de Bouillon. South of Jerusalem is a high hill that is also called Mount Sion. On this
hill there originally stood a ruined Byzantine Basilica dating from the fourth
century that was called ‘The Mother of all Churches’. According to various
charters de Bouillon built an Abbey upon the site of this Basilica at his express
command. According to records and charters it was a self-containing unit and
extremely well fortified. It was given the name Abbey of Notre Dame du Mont de
Sion – (Abbey of Our Lady of the Mount of Zion). No record exists describing which
specific religious Order was given the task of occupying this newly formed Abbey.
Apart from the Dossiers Secret themselves there is no mention of an Order of Sion
other than a brief mention in a Papal Bull from the 12 th century describing
monasteries and abbeys throughout Palestine and in particular Mount Carmel and
also Southern Italy and France. It would be reasonable to assume that the
conqueror of Jerusalem in the first crusade, Godfroi de Bouillon’s newly formed
Abbey of Notre Dame du Mont de Sion would indeed have an ‘Order of Sion’
running its affairs. Why wouldn’t it for at this same time an order of Monks and
Knights which occupied the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and were also duly
formed by Godfroi de Bouillon into a constituted Order called ‘the Order of the
Holy Sepulchre’?
As we have seen according to some historians this Abbey situated on Mount Sion
was occupied by a chapter described as Augustinian canons and were under the
direction of an Abbot. This community assumed the title of ‘Sainte-Marie du Mont
Syon et du Saint-Esprit’ - Saint Mary of Sion and of the Holy Spirit, so we now know
that Our Lady of Sion is called Mary. The Holy Spirit is usually depicted as a dove
decending from heaven and you are reminded that the Pleiades mean Flock of
Doves.
Another historian from 1698 said that there were ‘knights’ attached to this Abbey
of Notre Dame de Sion who took the name of ‘Chevaliers de l’Ordre de Notre Dame
de Sion’. There is a charter that is dated July 19 th 1116 that refers to Notre Dame
de Sion, which is signed by a Prior Arnaldus, and another dated May 2 nd 1125 where
Arnaldus is a name appears again and here significantly alongside that of Hughes
de Payn, the first grand Master of the Knights Templar.
This term NOTRE DAME keeps on appearing, Notre Dame of course means Our Lady
but in France specifically means Notre Dame de Lumiere. Who is this ‘Our Lady of
Light’, that is distinguishable from others? Normally it is thought to be Mary
mother of Jesus, if that is so then what precisely does the Virgin Mary have to do
with ‘The Chevalier de l’Ordre de Notre Dame de Sion? What has the Virgin mother
of Jesus have to do with Sion or Light? Mary wife of Joseph, a woman unworthy of
being described in the book of Matthew as anything other than the wife of a man
who himself was only the surrogate father of Jesus?
In Latin the word Virgineus simply means a woman of marriageable age and indeed
in Hebrew text Mary was described as an Alma, which also means a woman of
marriageable age. Why the emphasis on the Virgin birth? Well Jesus is actually
described as ‘Born of a Virgin not by a Virgin’ a concept that can be attributed to
many Deities and Prophets and in the context of star constellations suddenly this
perhaps takes on another meaning. Could it be that, using the world’s oldest
science - astrology, Jesus was merely born under the star sign of Virgo or indeed
more controversially is merely is epithet for the sun itself. Is this why the Magi
journeyed to follow the star of Bethlehem that appeared in the east (i.e. Sunrise)
and that it is the position of Spica in the constellation of Virgo rising with the Sun
that is important here? It will be shown later that this concept leads us to the first
hint of sinister overtones in this for the date September 11 th is indicated here, for
the Sun rises in the constellation of Virgo in second week of September.
This constellation of Virgo keeps cropping up
throughout our story; we have already seen
the symbol for Virgo as a logo on the Dossiers
Secrets with OURS (Bear) in it, but a French
writer Louis Carpentier also features it
prominently in a work from the 1960s. There
is a Cathedral in Reims with the curious name
‘Notre Dame L’Epine - Our Lady of the Thorn’.
According to Carpentier in his book Mysteries
of Chartres Cathedral this, and the
Cathedral at Reims, are part of a map of
France that is laid out in the shape of the
constellation of Virgo. According to him this
constellation was important to the founders
of France who of course were the
Merovingians. His drawing is shown here; the
upper pattern shows the actual constellation
of Virgo and the alpha star Spica he calls
L’Epi. The lower pattern shows all the towns
containing churches or Cathedrals called
Notre Dame - Our Lady; that were built in the
period from 1194 to 1220 Including Chartres.
Twenty-six years and all of these Cathedrals were built more or less around the
same time, a huge undertaking and huge strain on the available skilled workers
required. Chartres itself was only a small village why did it need a cathedral in this
position? Carpentier asks the question why Chartres was built in preference to the
Churches of Amiens, Reims and even Paris, a very reasonable question. What is
also worth mentioning here where Carpentier doesn’t is the fact that many of
these cathedrals had labyrinths mapped out on the floor. For some reason the
Catholic saw fit to destroy most of these labyrinths in the 17th and 18th centuries.
At Auxerre in 1690, Sens in 1768, Reims in 1778, Arras and Poiters were removed
before this and the labyrinth at Saint Omer was removed around 1778; however
the labyrinth at Chartres has survived.
The drawing from Louis Carpentier's book Mysteries of Chartres Cathedral written
in 1966 is shown above.
He calls alpha Virginis - L'EPI or The Thorn, which the English speaking nations call
SPICA – The ear of Corn. According to him this corresponds to the Cathedral at
Notre Dame de L’Epine – Our Lady of the Thorn close to Reims. We know L’Epi as
Spica, which is the Latin for Corn, and this word is found in plain sight right in the
middle of the triangle on the Dagobert parchment. According to Louis Carpentier,
Chartres corresponds to the star Porrima who is the Roman Goddess of Childbirth.
Is this virgin (Virgo) experiencing the travails of childbirth in the manner of Rachel
in order to give birth to a king?
The synchronicity becomes too much when we learn that the constellation called
Virgo is known to the Hebrews as the House of Bread or Beth-Lehem. The star
Spica which the French call The Thorn is associated with ears of corn and that it
also contains a star Porrima named after a Roman Goddess associated with
childbirth and that this entire constellation has been linked to France and the
founders of France – the Merovingians?
When making some further studies of the significance of the constellation of Virgo
we find that several cultures seem to share a common theme. To the Sumerians
the constellation of Virgo was known as Inanna the Queen of Heaven. The
Akkadians and Babyonians knew it as Ishtar The Leading One. The Egyptians knew
it as Isis, the Hindus as Kauni - The Maiden. To the Persians it was known as Khosha
“The Ear of Wheat” and the Semites as Astarte who was the consort of El Shaddai
who was the God of Abraham. The Greeks however knew it as Demeter (or
Persephone) the Earth Goddess. It is from the Romans that we get the name Virgo
but it was also known by them as Ceres (Ear of Wheat or Corn) but to the Anglo
Saxons it was known as Eostre The Goddess of Spring and it is from her that we get
the name Easter. One is of course is also reminded that the plain text of the
Dagobert parchment speaks of Jesus (The Sun?) and the 12 disciples (Zodiac?)
walking in the Corn field.
Interestingly the author Lawrence Gardner also speaks about the layout of the
Cathedrals of Northern France and describes them as a depiction of an extended
constellation of Virgo. However Gardner places the Alpha star Spica as
corresponding to the cathedral of Chartres. Gardner also goes on to speak of the
centre of the constellation Spica corresponding to Chartres as the “Womb of the
Earth”. It is important to state here that for no given reason no person has been
buried at Chartres Cathedral unlike every other church and cathedral in France.
Although Gardner seems to differ from Carpentier in the detail as to what star
corresponds with which cathedral, the common theme of the early Merovingian
France being a copy of the constellation of Virgo seems to be agreed upon. Are we
looking at a religion within the Catholic Church that has its origin in pagan star
worship?
Is this Saunière’s secret?
What we have here is a Hermetic reverence to the stars and in the ‘As above so
below’ Hermetic tradition we clearly have an attempt to align churches, roads and
even mountain tops with star sightings at specific times of the year and this star
reverence is common to all three of the Judeo/Christian/Islam religions and the
common worship of the City of Jerusalem is a consequence of this reverence
because the Doom of the Rock as we shall see is also aligned.
But let us first return to the area of Rennes and Saunière and Henry Boudet. Did
Saunière build an astronomical observatory above his library and call this the Tour
Magdala – after Migdal-Eder – The Watchtower of the Flock – The Flock being the
stars or at least specific stars? You will also remember the enigmatic book by
Boudet called La Vraie Langue Celtique et le Cromleck de Rennes-les-Bains, where
Boudet seems to make an attempt to explain the many standing stones and
menhirs around him. For a priest (especially a catholic priest) the presence of
these markers from the past not explained in the Christian Bible would be a
constant enigma. At Rennes-les-Bains Boudet would have come into contact with
many outside visitors coming to take the waters there. The church stands at the
side of the river Sals, a shallow river that is slightly salty, and is in a steep valley
with little opportunity for star gazing, unlike Rennes le Chateau. The church has an
interesting carving of a baptismal scene and is worth seeing however tucked away
in the far right corner that would be unseen unless you aware of its presence, we
have the following panting.
If one looks at the inset on the right it shows the arm of the dead Christ clearly
pointing at the Crown of Thorns and a bowl with bread in it and one is aware of
perhaps a clue if we start thinking in terms of star patterns. Does the cathedral at
Reims known as Our Lady of the Thorn have a connection to this painting? Maybe!
What does the crown of thorns mean anyway? In Christianity the thorns are
significant for Fall of Man and symbolises sin or the transition from innocent
obedience of God to a state of guilty obedience to God. However there is an
astrological meaning here, and concerns The Decans of the constellation Virgo. A
Decan is a ten day sub division of the sign. What is being signified here is the Third
Decan and is associated with The Northern Crown or Corona Borealis which lies just
northeast of the constellation of Hercules and consists of a small semicircular
pattern of stars exactly like the Crown of Thorns in the painting. To astrologers
Corona Borealis suggests that a sacrifice and effort required to complete work for
a good cause can make this a Crown of Thorns. The fact that the Third Decan
starts on September 11th may also be significant as this may well be the actual
date of the birth of Jesus in 3BCE.
A clue from the tombstone that forms the key for the second stage of decryption
using the Vigenere code is MORT EPEE – Death Thorn. The painting is by an
unknown artist and is called ‘Christ with the Hare’ because of the curious Hares
head on the knee of Christ. It is almost a copy of a Van Dyke painting at Antwerp
except it is reversed so it was likely traced from this original. The painting was
offered to the church by Paul François-Vincent de Fleury de Blanchefort, he of the
Fleury landscape in the church at Rennes le Chateau and through marriage to her
daughter Elizabeth the inheritor of the treasures of Marie de Blanchefort.
Firstly Mary Mother of Jesus is in a cave and is depicted cradling a dead Christ,
looking towards the roof of the cave where some have discerned a cross and
gesturing with her hand the dead body of Jesus as if to say ‘here is the dead
Jesus’. However a statue of Mary Magdalene appears at the entrance to the Grotte
de la Madeleine in St- Maximin where Mary Magdalene this time is cradling the
dead Christ, a scenario not explained in any biblical text that I am aware of.
Outside the cave there is a rock that resembles the paw of bear.
In France there is an expression “lever un Lièvre” (to pick up a Hare), which is a
phrase that means to bring something of importance up to date. Boudet, the
former curé of Rennes les Bains church and a contemporary of Saunière, allegedly
wrote in a book, with three versions dated 1891, 1914 and another in 1914, about,
the born again brother of Mary of Bethany, Lazarus and the book is called “Lazare
Véni Foras!”(Lazarus step forward). In this book Boudet told us to think about a
Hare which encourages us to think about a treasure. We are also told in the book
that Lazarus came to Rennes les Bains to take the waters
there. Boudet is making reference to the raising of the dead
ceremony mentioned earlier which is so important in Occult
tradition. The books are considered by some researchers to be
forgeries, the 1914 version with 317 pages has page 295
missing, the other 1914 version has 327 pages. Researcher
Pierre Jarnac has reportedly found similar text in a book
written in 1924 by R.P. Charles Para. The book was advertised
in an esoteric publication and put on sale by a certain Nacim
Djama who has given a traceable address in Toulouse; however
it appears that no researcher has followed up on this address.
The purpose of this supposed forgery (if it is a forgery) is
unclear as the only information it imparts is what has been mentioned here.
One is reminded that Saunière placed a dedication to a Lazariste on his cross in the
church garden. Boudet informs us in this book that this is the only essential thing
and that there is a cavern that serves as a “temporary shelter”, in this cave we
will make or see a burning hearth and this place will be marked with or by the
image of the shroud. Is he talking about the burial place of Christ here or is he
talking of some kind of sacrificial Altar?
But in the context of Lazarus, is Boudet talking about Jesus himself being raised
from the dead? In the painting Christ of the Hare we see the hand of the dead
Christ pointing at a Crown of Thorns and the sponge in a bowl and I.N.R.I meaning
Jesus of Nazareth King of the Jews, a dynastic title. Jesus was not the only person
to be raised from the dead, so was Lazarus; Mary’s brother we’re told. Are we
looking for a cave that has a burning hearth, a place marked with the image of the
shroud, what manner of treasure will we find there if we think about a Hare?
The hare is a constellation called Lepus that sits underneath the constellation of
Orion lying just south of the celestial equator. In Greek mythology the Hare is
fleeing the Dog Star Canis Major. However the 3rd century BCE poet Callimachus
when singing the praises of Diana (Artemis) said that she delighted in hares flesh
and also hunted them. However a leaping Hare is very significant in occult circles
and symbolises the moon as many cultures do not see a man’s face in the moon but
the image of a hare.
As a footnote Julius Caesar wrote about his war in Gaul in Commentarii de Bello
Gallico and in it he describes how the Druids found the “Centre of the earth”
which Caesar specifically described as being linked to the Moon and the Sun.
Boudet from La Vraie Langue Celtique and using a technique called ‘The Language
of the Birds’ seems to allude to the suggestion that Rennes was the most important
city in Gaul and there “everything about time and death is learned about” and
that this knowledge is given by those who believe in the Occult. Everything about
time and death is linked to the measurement of the movements of the Earth the
Moon and Sun.
Yet again we have another tenuous link to draw upon here for in last verse of Le
Serpent Rouge where it says:
“My emotion was great “Deliver me out of the mire” I said, and I awoke
immediately. I haven’t told you that this dream I’d had this 17th January, feast of
St Sulpice. Afterwards my trouble persisting, I wanted after reflection to tell you
a story by Perrault….”
The author of le Serpent Rouge has already mentioned the phrase “Deliver me out
of the mire” in the verse entitled Virgo and is a phrase from Psalm 69:14. The
author has already mentioned ‘Sleeping Beauty’ a story written by Charles
Perrault. The correct title of Sleeping Beauty is “La Belle au Bois dormant” (The
beauty of the Sleeping Wood). It was part of his the “Contes de ma Mere I’Oye”
(Mother Goose Tales). Sleeping Beauty had the original title of the tales of “Sole,
Lune, e Talia” (Sun, Moon and Talia) and was taken from Giambattista Basile.
In Basile’s story of Talia falls into a death like sleep when a splinter of flax
becomes embedded under her fingernail. One day a king goes out hawking and
discovers the sleeping maiden. In Basile’s story he rapes her whilst she is asleep
and nine months later she gives birth to twins. One of the twins suckles her finger
and pulls out the splinter of flax and she awakes and eventually the king marries
her and she names the twins Sun and Moon
Returning to Le Serpent Rouge, the Sleeping Beauty is associated with the 64 tiles
and the document even carries a woman trying to reassemble the cube shaped
stones. Below are the relavent verses, it says:
Taurus
Thanks to him, henceforth with measured steps and a sure eye, I am able to discover
the dispersed sixty-four stones of the Brothers of the BEAUTY of the black wood,
escaping the pursuit of usurpers, had sown along the way as they fled from the white
Fort.
Gemini
To reassemble the scattered stones, to work with square and compass to put them in
regular order, to find the line of the meridian in going from East to West, then looking
from the South to the North, then finally in all directions to discover the solution,
stationing oneself in front of the fourteen stones marked with a cross. The circle being
the ring and the crown, and he being the diadem of the Queen of the castle.
Cancer
The mosaic tiles of this sacred place are alternatively black and white, and Jesus, like
Asmodeus regards their alignments. My view seems incapable of seeing the summit
where dwells hidden the marvellous beauty. Not being Hercules with magical powers
how can I solve the mysterious symbols engraved by witnesses of the past. However,
in the sanctuary is the font, fountain of love for those who believe, reminding us of
these words, BY THIS SIGN YOU WILL CONQUER him.
Leo
The scent of the perfume of her whom I wish to liberate, mounts upwards towards me.
Long ago she was named Isis, queen of the benevolent spring, COME TO ME ALL
YOU WHO LABOUR AND ARE HEAVY LADEN AND I WILL COMFORT YOU.
Others knew her as MAGDALENE with the celebrated vase of healing balm. The
initiates knew her true name OUR LADY OF THE CROSS.
In folklore the story of Sleeping Beauty is symbolic and some analysists have
associated it with the replacement of the lunar year (with its thirteen months,
symbolically depicted by the thirteen fairies) with the solar year (which has
twelve, symbolically the invited fairies). In Perrault’s version the wicked fairy is
the 8th month which is Virgo in Le Serpent Rouge.
Le Serpent Rouge is a link to our mystery. Now most will cite the dubious nature of
this document as reason not to give it any scrutiny at all, that’s fine. However I
would also cite the similar dubious nature of the Poussin and Teniers paintings and
if one wants to include this into any study then one cannot pick and mix whatever
it suits one to use. If you are looking for geometry in the Poussin painting that was
only brought to our attention by the large parchment and Le Serpent Rouge then
one must include this latter document also. The fact that the Dossier Secrets
makes no claim for Le Serpent Rouge being nothing but a recent document and we
also must assume that due to the Blue Apples phenomenon in Saunière’s church on
17th January the large parchment can only be either contemporary with or made
since Saunière and so therefore any reference to Poussin must be recent also, but
does this actually matter? At the beginning of this chapter I mentioned an anomaly
that is usually overlooked by researchers and it is that in Le Serpent Rouge verse
entitled Sagittarius it says:
“...facing me I see unwinding endlessly by his coils, the enormous RED SERPENT
mentioned in the parchments”
A Red Serpent is not mentioned in any Priory of Sion parchments or documents that
I am aware of. Are we to assume from this that there are more parchments out
there?
Le Serpent Rouge is full of clues and words that ring bells in the mind of the
knowledgeable researcher but it also has anomalies. What should be said is that
does not specifically mention the church of Rennes le Chateau once. The closest it
gets is it mentioning the phrases used by Saunière in his church ‘PAR CE SIGNE TU
LE VAINCRAS’ and ‘VENEZ A MOI VOUS TOUS SOUFFREZ ET QUI ETES ACCABLES ET
JE VOUS SOULANGERAI’. It mentions Poussin but not Teniers but it mentions
Delacroix, the artist who painted the three paintings in the Chapel of Angels in St
Sulpice and it specifically mentions St Sulpice.
So it does not mention Rennes le Chateau but it may hint at the area – “White rock
looking beyond the Black rock towards the south” for instance. The story starts
with the verse entitled Aquarius and we are indeed about to move into the New
Age of Aquarius. The church of Rennes le Chateau is paved with black and white
tiles and this is mentioned alongside the words JESUS and ASMODEUS and says that
they “observe their [the tiles] alignment.” The tiles in the church are offset and
aligned to the north and south, the church itself being at an angle of 60 degrees.
The poem Le Serpent Rouge is significant and the knowledge that it was written
recently is of no consequence whatsoever. That initiates into this mystery should
only be from the distant past is a total non-sequitir as we know of Hermetic
societies are still at work today. Indeed they are at work around Rennes le Chateau
as the recent re-arrangement of Saunière’s private presbitary chapel will testify.
Le Serpent Rouge was supposedly written by three hanged men and the
significance of this and the Tarot will be explained later. If these observations are
correct then it seems that Saunière or his predecessors laid out the church of Saint
Marie Madeleine as some kind of Solar Temple, perhaps even a Temple of Solomon.
The verse called Leo seems to describe who we are looking for:
“I am aware of the scent of perfume which impregnates the sepulchre of the one I
must release.”
Here we have the allusion to the legend of how the body of Mary Magdalene was
found in St Maximin en Provence and the sweet scent that came from her mouth.
“Long ago her name was ISIS. Queen of the benevolent streams”
This verse is better rendered in French: source faisant le Bien.
This is a direct reference to the Chevaliers Bienfaisants de la Cité Sainte
There is a legend that there was indeed a Temple to Isis built in this area and that
this Temple was situated at the end of the long ridge called La Pique where only
the scree slope now remains. I shall speak more on this later but suffice to say
here that if this is true then this will be in the centre of a pentacle of mountains.
Perhaps the Temple referred to by Le Serpent Rouge is in Paris, the capital city of
France and this is undoubtedly build upon a Temple to the Goddess Isis where the
Abbey of St Germain des Prés now stands. A 16th century historian claimed the
name Paris came from the phrase ‘Near the Temple of Isis’ or Parisi. The Coat of
Arms of Paris commissioned by Napoleon shows Isis on the prow of her boat being
led by her star, the star Sirius. The church of St Germain des Prés is separated
from the church of St Sulpice by the Rue Lobineau the name chosen as the author
of the Dossier Secrets. A deflocked Benedictine monk called Antoine-Joseph
Pernety is said to have influenced the famous healer and magician Giuseppi
Balsamo who is better known as the Count of Cagliostro. Pernety started the
Hermetic ritual of Perfection and Pernety came from the Abbey of St Germain des
Prés. Pernety practised his art in Berlin and is said to have been an influence on
the German Illuminati, indeed Pernety began the Illuminati of Avignon in 1760. In
1770 Pernety also began La Grande Loge Eccossaise du Comtat Venaissin. This
lodge was raided in 1774 and its papers confiscated by order of the Pope, however
it was revived in 1789. Amonst its members were Giuseppi Balsamo (Count of
Cagliostro) and his friend Baron de Corberon, Mesmer, Marquis de Thomé and
Marquis de Puysegur. In the book Les Illuminés d’Avignon by Joanny Bricaud we
read:
“today its members having become affiliated to Martinism, the society had ceased
to exist”
This same author says that the Degree of Knight of the Sun founded by Pernety,
which is divided into two degrees, forms now the 27 th and 28th grades of the
Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rites.
Pernety practiced astral and talismanic magic and during his séances he started
them with the following words:
“…the science into which I am about to initiate you is the first and most ancient
of sciences. It emanates from Nature or rather it is Nature herself perfected by
art and based on experience”
The world’s first science was Astrology.