Alton Towers, Sir Francis Bacon and the Rosicrucians
- Thread starter MJF
- Start date
Musicinventor
Jedi Master
To everyone contributing to this research; THANK YOU!!! This has been a most fascinating, informative, and thought provoking thread!
I think you are right on that quote from the C's. Does anyone know if scientists have discovered this enzyme yet? Maybe the authors retracted the article because flaws where detected in their theories. Who knows?
Dublin was my paternal grandfather's city. Mind you, he was a Victorian born in the late 1870's, so the Dublin he knew has largely disappeared. I have visited it a few times, mainly to see family. My three eldest children visited it last year for the first time and really enjoyed what was, unfortunately, just a flying visit. However, they certainly want to go back. Sadly, Dublin, like most Western European cities, has changed a lot since 1987 and you would certainly notice the difference if you were to go there now.
Nexus seem to be on a roll with articles on DNA and genetics. I have just bought the latest December/January edition today, which has an article with the title DNA as Wave Genetics by the late Professor Peter Gariaev. He was perhaps best known for his discovery in 1984 of the phantom DNA effect whereby an electromagnetic trace is still detectable in water after the DNA has been removed from the solution. He also championed the theory of wave genetics. He discovered through his experiments that genetic data and information held on the quantum level can be captured, transferred and influenced using electromagnetic and acoustic waves. Like the chicken/duck embryos I referred to in my previous post, Gariaev did a similar experiment where he shone a low power laser through some salamander embryos in one container onto some frog embryos in a separate container with the result that the frog embryos developed into adult salamanders.
He postulated that the genome is multidimensional and exists in a chromosome continuum - a stable wave that travels through the organism along the highly structured double-helix DNA and holds the genetic information as electromagnetic and acoustic holograms. He considered that these holograms that create nodes on the universal hologram as a record of all that is, and has been, are the true record of our genetic blueprint.
He had some very interesting genetic treatments, which brought scorn on him from conventional scientists but many who tried them claimed they worked. He died unexpectedly in November 2020 only a month after he had been advised that he had been short-listed for the 2021 Nobel Prize for medicine.
Dublin was my paternal grandfather's city. Mind you, he was a Victorian born in the late 1870's, so the Dublin he knew has largely disappeared. I have visited it a few times, mainly to see family. My three eldest children visited it last year for the first time and really enjoyed what was, unfortunately, just a flying visit. However, they certainly want to go back. Sadly, Dublin, like most Western European cities, has changed a lot since 1987 and you would certainly notice the difference if you were to go there now.
Nexus seem to be on a roll with articles on DNA and genetics. I have just bought the latest December/January edition today, which has an article with the title DNA as Wave Genetics by the late Professor Peter Gariaev. He was perhaps best known for his discovery in 1984 of the phantom DNA effect whereby an electromagnetic trace is still detectable in water after the DNA has been removed from the solution. He also championed the theory of wave genetics. He discovered through his experiments that genetic data and information held on the quantum level can be captured, transferred and influenced using electromagnetic and acoustic waves. Like the chicken/duck embryos I referred to in my previous post, Gariaev did a similar experiment where he shone a low power laser through some salamander embryos in one container onto some frog embryos in a separate container with the result that the frog embryos developed into adult salamanders.
He postulated that the genome is multidimensional and exists in a chromosome continuum - a stable wave that travels through the organism along the highly structured double-helix DNA and holds the genetic information as electromagnetic and acoustic holograms. He considered that these holograms that create nodes on the universal hologram as a record of all that is, and has been, are the true record of our genetic blueprint.
He had some very interesting genetic treatments, which brought scorn on him from conventional scientists but many who tried them claimed they worked. He died unexpectedly in November 2020 only a month after he had been advised that he had been short-listed for the 2021 Nobel Prize for medicine.
romseguy
The Force is Strong With This One
Yes respect for free will seems to be tied with the acknowledgement of responsibility, as in responsibility -to share info- falls in the hands of the person who is able to see (cf. what's important isn't who you are but what you see) what the other is not. In other words choosing between being and non-being.
Last edited:
Just a quick update to say that I am working on a new article, which aims to draw quite a few things together that we have discussed on this thread. My intention is that each fresh post will build on the last so as to expand out what I have learned from my research and hopefully create a more cohesive picture at the end of the day. As Laura found with her research, once you drill down into things, you find the most amazing connections everywhere. Hence, please keep an eye out, as I hope to post the new article in the near future.
moyal
Jedi Master
Meanwhile I found more about the kabbalistic conception of the Shekhinah in the book A Guide to the Zohar by Arthur Green.
The following is an except from chapter 3 of this book:
The “blessed Holy One,” as a personal God, is also the uppermost manifestation called “Israel,” thus serving as a model of idealized human personality. Each member of the house of Israel partakes of this Godhead, Who may also be understood as a totemic representation of His people below. “Jacob” is in this sense the perfect human—a new Adam, according to the sages—the radiant-faced elder extending blessing through the world.
This is also the God of imitatio dei. In balancing their own lives, Israel imitates the God who stands at the center between right and left, balancing all the cosmic forces. That God knows them and sees Himself in them, meaning that the struggle to integrate love and judgment [moyal: meaning in this contex the sephiras Ḥesed and Geburah] is not only the great human task but a reflection of the cosmic struggle.
The inner structure of psychic life is the hidden structure of the universe; it is because of this that humans can come to know God by the path of inward contemplation and true self-knowledge.
The key dialectical triad of Ḥesed-Gevurah-Tif’eret is followed on the kabbalistic chart [Otz Chiim- the kabbalistic "Tree of Live" diagramm] by a second triad, that of the sefirot Netsaḥ, Hod, and Yesod, arranged in the same manner as those above them. Little that is new takes place on this level of divinity. These sefirot are essentially channels through which the higher energies pass on their way into the tenth sefirah, Malkhut or Shekhinah, the source of all life for the lower worlds.
Historically speaking, the chart evolved in the period between the Bahir and the Zohar.
The mostly undefined seventh and eighth sefirot, Netsaḥ and Hod in classical Kabbalah, are descended from the two angels who occupied the ninth and tenth places in the Bahir passage quoted earlier. These two in turn are medieval expansions of the pair of angels called Metatron and Sandalphon in the older sources, standing in front of and behind the divine throne.
As Kabbalah evolved, it became important that Shekhinah be the tenth sefirah, the “end” or “gateway” of divinity, poised precisely at the transition point between divinity and the lower worlds.
To make this happen, the lowest two sefirot were “elevated” into side supports of the divine edifice. They represent the two pillars of the cosmic temple or the two thighs (sometimes the testicles) of the divine anthropos. The only major function assigned to Netsaḥ and Hod in the kabbalistic sources is that they serve as the sources of prophecy. Moses is the single human to rise to the level of Tif’eret, to become “bridegroom of the Shekhinah.” Other mortals can experience the sefirotic universe only as reflected in the Shekhinah, the single portal though which they can enter. (This is the “formal” view of the Kabbalists, though it is a position exceeded by a great many passages in the Zohar and elsewhere.) The prophets other than Moses occupy an intermediate position, receiving their visions and messages from the seventh and eighth sefirot, making prophecy a matter of participation in the inner sefirotic life of God. The ninth sefirah represents the joining together of all the cosmic forces, the flow of all the energies above now united again in a single place. In this sense the ninth sefirah is parallel to the second: Ḥokhmah began the flow of these forces from a single point; now Yesod, as the ninth is called, reassembles them and prepares to direct their flow once again.
The life force that flows among and animates the sefirot is often described in metaphors of either light or water, the two primal substances that best reify free-flowing energy. But when the cosmic forces are gathered in Yesod it bcomes [sic] clear that this flow is also to be seen as male sexual energy, specifically as semen, which the Greek physician Galen [!] saw as originating in the brain (Ḥokhmah), flowing down through the spinal column (the central column, Tif’eret), into the testicles (Netsaḥ and Hod), and then into the phallus (Yesod) [think chakras, kundalini].
The sefirotic process thus leads to the great union of the nine sefirot above, through Yesod, with the female Shekhinah. She becomes filled and impregnated with the fullness of divine energy and in turn gives birth to the lower worlds, including both angelic beings and human souls. The biblical personality associated with the ninth sefirah is Joseph, the only figure regularly described in rabbinic literature as tsaddiq, or “righteous.” He is given this epithet because he rejected the wiles of Potiphar’s wife, making him a symbol of male chastity [think "right-hand path"Spermo-Gnosticism"] or sexual purity.
The sefirah itself is thus often called tsaddiq, the place where God is represented as the embodiment of moral righteousness. So too is Yesod designated as berit, or “covenant,” again referring to sexual purity through the covenant of circumcision.
But there is more than one way to read these symbols. The ninth sefirah stands for male potency as well as sexual purity. The Kabbalists resolutely insist that these purposes are ideally identical and are not to be separated from one another. Of course sexual transgression and temptation were well known to them; the circle of the Zohar was quite extreme in its views on sexual sin and on the great damage it could cause to both soul and cosmos. But the inner world of the sefirot was completely holy, a place where no sin abided. Here the flow of male energy represented only fruitfulness and blessing.
The fulfillment of the entire sefirotic system, especially as seen in Castile, lay in the union of these two final sefirot. Yesod is, to be sure, the agent or lower manifestation of Tif’eret, the true bridegroom of the Song of Songs or the King who weds the Matronita, Shekhinah, the Grand lady of the cosmos.
But the fascination with the sexual aspect of this union is very strong, especially in the Zohar, and that leads to endless symbolic presentations of the union of Yesod and Malkhut, the feminine tenth sefirah. By far the richest network of symbolic associations is that connected with the tenth and final sefirah. As Malkhut (“kingdom”), it represents the realm over which the King (Tif’eret) has dominion, sustaining and protecting her as the true king takes responsibility for his kingdom. At the same time, it is this sefirah that is charged with dominion over the lower world; the blessed Holy One’s Malkhut is the lower world’s ruler. The Zohar’s frequent designation of her as the Matronita (a Latin word in Aramaic garb), Matron or Grand Lady of the cosmos, is its way of ascribing this queenly status.
The biblical personage associated with Malkhut is David (somewhat surprisingly, given its usual femininity), the symbol of kingship. While Malkhut receives the flow of all the upper sefirot from Yesod, She has a special affinity for the left side. For this reason She is sometimes called “the gentle aspect of judgment [Geburah],” although several Zohar passages paint her in portraits of seemingly ruthless vengeance in punishing the wicked. A most complicated picture of femininity appears in the Zohar, ranging from the most highly romanticized to the most frightening and bizarre.
The last sefirah is also called Shekhinah, an ancient rabbinic term for the indwelling divine presence. In the early Midrash, the Shekhinah was said to dwell in Israel’s midst, to follow them into exile, and to participate in their suffering. In the latest phases of midrashic literature there began to appear a distinction between God and His Shekhinah, partly a reflection of medieval philosophical attempts to assign the biblical anthropomorphisms to a being less than the Creator. In the medieval Jewish imagination this appelation for God was transformed into a winged divine being, hovering over the community of Israel and protecting them from harm. The Kabbalists identify this Shekhinah as the spouse or divine consort of the blessed Holy One. She is the tenth sefirah, therefore a part of God included within the divine ten-in-one unity. But She is tragically exiled, distanced from Her divine Spouse. Sometimes She is seen to be either seduced or taken captive by the evil hosts of sitra aḥara; then God and the righteous below must join forces in order to liberate Her. The great drama of religious life, according to the Kabbalists, is that of protecting Shekhinah from the forces of evil and joining Her to the holy Bridegroom, who ever awaits Her. Here one can see how medieval Jews adapted the values of chivalry—the rescue of the maiden from the clutches of evil—to fit their own spiritual context. In the midrashic tradition, Shekhinah identifies with the sufferings of the community of Israel and dwells in their midst. Nevertheless, a clear distinction is maintained between these two. Shekhinah is the presence of God; keneset yisra’el [!] is the collective body of the Jewish people. Sometimes the “Community of Israel” is indeed depicted as a hypostatic entity, standing in God’s presence and engaging in dialogue with Him. But this partner in dialogue is always other than God, representing His earthly beloved. In what was surely their most daring symbolic move, the Kabbalists combined these two figures, blurring the once obvious distinction between the human community of Israel and their divine protector. They claimed that Shekhinah is the Community of Israel; keneset yisra’el became another term for the tenth sefirah. Poised precisely at the border between the divine and the lower worlds, She is at once the this-worldly presentiment of God and a heavenly embodiment of Israel.
The identification of Shekhinah and keneset yisra’el enabled the Kabbalists to take over the entire midrashic tradition regarding the relationship of God and Israel and to declare it their own. Particularly, the rabbis’ reading of the Song of Songs as a love-dialogue between God and Israel was now transformed into the key text to set the poetic stage for depicting the inner unity of God as the love of male and female. The change made here in the dramatic structure of Jewish faith cannot be overstated. The radical monotheism of the prophets, insisting that YHVH had no consort other than His beloved people, was now set aside in favor of an intradivine romance. The essential relationship that Judaism came to depict was now the “secret of faith,” the union of male and female with God. The earthly community of Israel remains God’s partner and beloved people, but now He and they (the Kabbalists in particular) share in the task of restoring cosmic oneness, of bringing divine male and female face to face with one another so that the lights might shine throughout the universe, so that the waters of life might flow through Her to nourish and sustain all the worlds below.
As the female partner within the divine world, the tenth sefirah came to be described by a host of symbols, derived both from the natural world and from the legacy of Judaism, that are classically associated with femininity. She is the moon, dark on Her own but receiving and giving off the light of the sun. She is the sea, into whom all waters flow; the earth, longing to be fructified by the rain that falls from heaven. She is the heavenly Jerusalem, into whom the King will enter; She is the throne upon which He is seated, the Temple or tabernacle, dwelling-place of His glory. In a most blatantly sexual symbolization, She is aron ha-berit, the ark of the covenant, that in which the berit or covenant (meaning both the Torah and the circumcised phallus) is contained. The tenth sefirah is a passive-receptive female with regard to the sefirot above Her, receiving their energies and being fufilled by their presence within Her. But She is ruler, source of life, and font of all blessing for the worlds below, including the human soul.
The Kabbalist sees himself as a devotee of the Shekhinah, a spiritual knight of the Matronita. She may never be worshiped separately from the divine unity. Indeed, this separation of Shekhinah from the forces above was the terrible sin of Adam that brought about exile from Eden. Yet it is only through Her that humans have access to the mysteries beyond. All prayer is channelled through Her, seeking to energize Her and raise Her up in order to effect the sefirotic unity. The primary function of the religious life, with all its duties and obligations, is to rouse the Shekhinah into a state of love. All realms outside the divine proceed from Shekhinah. She is surrounded most immediately by a richly pictorialized host. Sometimes these surrounding beings are seen as angels; other times they are the maidens who attend the Bride at Her marriage canopy. They inhabit and rule over variously described realms or “palaces” of light and joy.
The Zohar devotes much attention to describing seven such palaces with names that include “Palace of Love,” “Palace of the Sapphire Brick” (alluding to the vision of God in Exodus 24:10), “Palace of Desire,” and so forth. The “palaces” (heikhalot) of the Zoharic world are historically derived from the remains of the ancient merkavah or heikhalot mysticism, a tradition that was only dimly remembered by the Zohar’s day. In placing the heikhalot beneath the Shekhinah, the Kabbalists meant to say that the visionary ascent of the merkavah mystic was a somewhat lesser sort of religious experience than their own symbolic-contemplative ascent to the heights of the sefirotic universe, an ascent with the Shekhinah as She reached into the highest realms. The energy stored in Malkhut reaches forth beyond the realm of divine fullness, through these palaces of light, into the lower worlds.
While the inner logic of the Kabbalists’ emanational thinking would seem to indicate that all beings, including the physical universe, flow forth from Shekhinah, the medieval abhorrence of associating God with corporeality complicates the picture, leaving Kabbalah with a complex and somewhat divided attitude toward the material world. The world in which we live, especially for the Zohar, is a thorough mingling of divine and demonic elements. Both the holy imprint of the ten sefirot and the frightening structure of multilayered qelippot, or demonic “shells,” are to be found within it.
moyal
Jedi Master
More from A Guide to the Zohar by Arthur Green:
The Zohar in Historical Context
We have spoken of the emergence of Kabbalah into public discourse as a result of the ongoing struggle with philosophy that characterized Provencal and Catalonian Jewry in the century after Maimonides. The Zohar, emerging in the last decades of the thirteenth century, contained strong echoes of that conflict, even though its sharpest phase had by then passed into history.
There happens to have survived a copy of Maimonides’ Guide for the Perplexed that was written for Rabbi Moses de Leon, the central figure of the circle in which the Zohar was composed. That manuscript stands alongside many references in the Zohar text itself, as well as in de Leon’s Hebrew treatises, telling us that the greatest work of Kabbalah was written partly in self-conscious response to what was universally taken to be the greatest work of Jewish philosophy.
The Zohar also has to be seen, however, in the broader context in which it was written.
I refer to the life of Spanish Jewry during the years of the Reconquista, in which small, threatened Jewish communities lived in the context of a proud, fervent, and militant Christianity. While the closing decades of the thirteenth century were not a particularly terrible period in the long history of Jewish-Catholic relations in Spain—certainly nothing to compare with what was to come a century later—Jews did live with a constant sense of being surrounded and besieged by Christian triumphalism.
The Zohar was composed in Castile of the late thirteenth century, a period that marked the near-completion of the Reconquista and something of a golden age of enlightenment in the history of medieval Christian Spain.
As the wars of conquest ended, the monarchy was able to ground itself and establish central authority over the semi-independent and often unruly Spanish nobility. This included responsibility for protection of the Jews, who generally fared better at the hands of kings than at the arbitrary mercy of local rivals.
Alfonso X (1252–1284) was known as el Sabio or “the Wise” because of his interest in the sciences, which he was willing to learn from Jews and Muslims when necessary, as well as in history, literature, and art.
Jews retained a high degree of juridical and cultural autonomy, as well as freedom of religious practice, in Castile of this period. They constituted a significant percentage of city and town dwellers, generally choosing to live in self-enclosed neighborhoods and communities. But Jews were seen by Christian society as barely tolerated outsiders, and they viewed themselves as humiliated and victimized exiles. As an emerging class of Christian burghers came to see the Jews as rivals, the economic opportunities afforded by the early Reconquista years were gradually eroded. Jews were required to wear distinguishing garb, synagogue building was restricted, and various burdens of extra taxation came to be an expected part of Jewish life. Most significantly, Jews were under constant pressure to convert to Christianity in the atmosphere of a church triumphant with the glory of having vanquished the Moorish armies and standing on the verge of ending the “stain” of Islamic incursion into Christian Europe.
Alfonso X commissioned translations of both the Qur’an and the Talmud into Castilian, partly out of scholarly interest but also as an aid to the ongoing missionary campaign. The success of the Reconquista itself was trumpeted as great testimony to the validity of Christian claims. The Christian supersessionist theology of the age claimed tirelessly that Judaism after Christ was an empty shell, a formalist attachment to the past, lacking in true faith. This message was delivered regularly in polemical writings, in sermons that Jews were forced to hear, and in casual encounters between Jews and Christians. We should remember that Jews in Spain spoke the same language as their neighbors and lived with them in the towns and cities. Their degree of linguistic and cultural alienation from their surroundings was significantly less than that of later Jews in Eastern Europe, the lens through which all Jewish diaspora experience is often mistakenly viewed in our time.
In this context, the Zohar may be viewed as a grand defense of Judaism, a poetic demonstration of the truth and superiority of Jewish faith. Its authors knew a great deal about Christianity, mostly from observing it at close hand but also from reading certain Christian works, including the New Testament, which Dominicans and other eager seekers of converts were only too happy to place in the hands of literate and inquisitive Jews. The Kabbalists’ attitude toward the religion of their Christian neighbors was a complex one, and it has come down to us through a veil of self-censorship.
Jews writing in medieval Europe, especially those promulgating innovative religious teachings that were controversial even within the Jewish community, must have been well aware that their works would be read by Christian censors (often themselves Jewish apostates) who would make them pay dearly for outright insults to the Christian faith.
The Zohar is filled with disdain and sometimes even outright hatred for the Gentile world. Continuing in the old midrashic tradition of re-painting the subtle shadings of biblical narrative in moralistic black and white, the Zohar pours endless heaps of wrath and malediction on Israel’s enemies. In the context of biblical commentary, these are always such ancient figures as Esau, Pharaoh, Amalek, Balaam, and the mixed multitude of runaway slaves who left Egypt with Israel, a group treated by the Zohar with special venom. All of these were rather safe objects for attack, but it does not take much imagination to realize that the true addressee of this resentment was the oppressor in whose midst the authors lived. This becomes significantly clearer when we consider the Zohar’s comments on the religion of these ancient enemies. It castigates them repeatedly as worshipers of the demonic and practitioners of black magic, as enemies of divine unity and therefore dangerous disturbers of the cosmic balance by which the world survives.
Israel, and especially the kabbalistic “companions” who understood this situation, are told to do all they can to right the balance and save the Shekhinah from those dark forces and their vast network of accursed supporters on earth.
As Moses fought off the evil spells of Balaam, darkest of all magicians, in his day, so must the disciples of Rabbi Shim’on fight those evil forces that stand opposed to the dawning of the messianic light that is soon to come. All of this is said, of course, without a single negative word about Christianity. But Rabbi Shim’on and his second-century companions lived in a time when the enemies of biblical Israel had long ago disappeared from the earth. They had been replaced by the Roman Empire—pagan in the days of Rabbi Shim’on, to be sure, but by the Zohar’s time, long associated with Christendom. The reader of the Zohar living in medieval Christian Spain was being firmly admonished to join the battle against those ancient enemies who strengthened the evil forces, wounded or captured the Shekhinah, and thus kept the divine light from shining into this world. It does not require a great deal of imagination to understand who these worshipers of darkness must have been, particularly in view of the fact that this was also the era when the Christian image of the Jew as magician and devil-worshiper was first becoming rampant. The Zohar’s unstated but clearly present view of Christianity as sorcery is a mirror reflection of the image of Judaism and Jews that was gaining acceptance throughout the Christian world.
But this is only one side of the picture.
As people of deep faith and of great literary and aesthetic sensibility, the Kabbalists could appreciate why Jews were impressed by, and perhaps even attracted to, certain aspects of the Christian story and the religious lives of the large and powerful monastic communities that were so prominent in Christian Spain. The tale of Jesus and his faithful apostles, the passion narrative, and the struggles of the early Church were all powerful and attractive stories. Aspects of Christian theology, including both the complicated oneness of the trinitarian God and the passionate and ever-present devotion to a quasi-divine female figure, made their mark on the kabbalistic imagination.
The monastic orders, and especially their commitment to celibacy and poverty, must have been impressive to mystics whose own tradition did not make such demands on them but who shared the medieval otherworldliness that would have highly esteemed such devotion.
The Kabbalists were deeply disconcerted by the power of Christianity to attract Jewish converts, an enterprise that was given high priority particularly by the powerful Dominican order. Much that is found in the Zohar was intended to serve as a counterweight to the potential attractiveness of Christanity to Jews, and perhaps even to the Kabbalists themselves. Of course this should not be seen as an exclusive way of reading the Zohar, a mystical work that was not composed chiefly as a polemical text. Nevertheless, the need to assert Judaism’s spirit proudly in the face of triumphalist Christianity stands in the background of the Zohar and should not be ignored as we read it.
The narrative and its setting is the first issue that comes to mind as we examine the Zohar in this light. The tale of a great holy man, Rabbi Shim’on ben Yoḥai, followed by a group of faithful disciples as he wanders about the Holy Land, especially the Galilee, has a familiar ring to it. The Zohar may be seen as proposing the account of this ancient band of Kabbalists as a counter myth to the Gospel tales of Jesus and his apostles. The Zohar’s holy men, master and disciples, love one another and shower each other with endless blessings and praises. They also have great supernatural encounters with other holy men, some of them anonymous, who reveal great secrets. The climax of the Zohar narrative, the Idra Zuta, is the tale of Rabbi Shim’on’s death, preceded by the precisely choreographed assemblage of his faithful disciples. Rabbi Shim’on, like Jesus a figure much associated with the period of Roman persecution of Judaism, dies in ecstacy rather than in martyrdom. But his death casts a dark shadow across the world and his disciples do not know how they will go on without him. Of course there are differences between the Zohar narrative and that of the Gospels. The influence is subtle and it is impossible to know to what extent it was conscious and to what extent it is simply a carryover of cultural patterns that were so widely accessible (depictions of the Last Supper, for example). Most basically different is the fact that the Zohar’s accounts of these wandering holy men always provide the setting for a return to mystical-homiletic interpretations of Scripture. The Zohar narrative in this sense remains addressed to an elite community of Torah scholars. The New Testament apostles were witnesses to miracles; the tales of healing and resurrection in those narratives (themselves modeled on the Elijah-Elisha tales in Hebrew Scripture) had wide appeal and were meant to attract a popular following to the nascent Christian movement. Rabbi Shim’on and his disciples offer surprisingly little by way of such miracles. Their single greatest supernatural act is the disclosure of the secret Torah, a miracle designed to appeal more to the mystical-intellectual elite than to the masses. The heart of Christian faith lies in the Incarnation, the claim that a specific human being at a particular time in history was in a full sense both God and man, or that God chose to reside wholly in the life, death, and resurrection of this single person. Incarnational faith is seemingly quite far from Judaism, which insists with the psalmist (Ps. 115:16) that “the heavens are the heavens of the Lord; the earth has He given to the children of Adam”; the border between divine and human realms remains quite firmly fixed. In the account of Sinai that stands at the heart of Torah—Judaism’s parallel, one might say, to the Incarnation in Christianity—Moses ascends the mountain and returns, still very much man and not God. His shining countenance and the people’s inability to look at him give some indication of the Near Eastern tales of apotheosis that lie behind this narrative, but in the Torah the line is not crossed: God is God and man is man. Only in the later midrashic tradition (reflecting on Ps. 90:1, “A Prayer of Moses, the Man of God”) are we told, somewhat shockingly to most Jewish ears, that Moses was “half man, half God.”
The Zohar remains on the Jewish side of this great theological divide, but comes very close to crossing it. The human tsaddiq is an earthly embodiment of the ninth sefirah or the tsaddiq figure within God. Rabbi Shim’on is the most perfect example of such an earthly tsaddiq. He is “the holy lamp,” giving light to the Temple above as well as to the earth around him. He embodies both Moses the prophet and Aaron the priest, each of whom may be seen as prefiguring an aspect of his person, the final revealer of those secrets that will allow for the great redemption that is soon to come.
Such biblical figures as Moses, Aaron, and King Solomon are regularly depicted in the Zohar as heirophants or mystagogues, priests who perform unfathomable mystery rites that are vital to the world’s survival.
It is clear that Rabbi Shim’on is the same figure for his own time (and perhaps for all the latter generations) that these men were for theirs. In this way he assumes a role that Rabbi Akiva sometimes plays in rabbinic and merkavah sources: that of a latter-day Moses. But both of those figures may be partly shaped as alternatives to the human-divine person of Christianity.
We have referred several times in this essay to the strong erotic element in Kabbalah and especially in the Zohar. The frank and uncensored use of bold sexual language for talking about the inner life of God is a major part of the Zohar’s legacy and found throughout the later mystical tradition. Such phrases as “to arouse the feminine waters” or “to serve with a living limb” became so much a part of the conventional language of later Kabbalah that one almost forgets how shocking it is that the divine life is being described in terms of female lubrication or maintaining an erection.
How did it happen that such unbridled eroticism was permitted to enter the domain of the sacred?
How especially could this have happened in a circle that was at the same time so very cautious and extreme in its views of sexual transgression or temptation?
Use of erotic language to describe the relationship between God and Israel was already well known in biblical times, as witnessed by several of the prophets, especially Hosea. In the rabbinic imagination, the chief vehicle for this all-important metaphor was the Song of Songs, claimed by none other than Rabbi Akiva as the “holy of holies” among the Scriptures. This assertion assumed an allegorical reading of the Song as describing the love and marriage between God and the community of Israel, an idealized representation of the Jewish people. This collectivist reading of the Canticle dominates throughout the midrashic tradition. Its importance was underscored by the fact that the Christian Church, from the time of Origen, had adopted a parallel interpretation, in which Christ and the ecclesia were the lover and beloved of the Song.
This Christian allegory was an important vehicle of supersessionist theology; the Church now served as the chosen maiden of divine delight. The Jews, whose rejection by God seemed so obviously confirmed by their historical plight, had a great need to hold fast to the faith that God was their true Lover, the one to whom they cried out even in His seeming absence: “On my bed at night I sought him whom my soul loves” (Cant. 3:1), knowing in faith that “here he stands behind our wall, peering through the lattice-work, gazing through the windows” (Cant. 2:9).
In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries there was a great shift in the reading of the Song of Songs, from a collectivist to an individualist allegory. The Canticle now came to be seen as a song between God and the soul, a reflection of the new emphasis on individual quest and personal pilgrimage in the religious life of the era. In Christianity this was the development of an old tradition and it especially flourished at the hands of Bernard of Clairvaux and other Cistercians. The Jews were slower to follow this trend, and their few attempts at it were not great successes. The individual Jewish reader (typically a noncelibate male) did not easily see himself as the bride or female beloved of God.
Instead the Jews developed another reading, one that was to reshape Jewish devotional life in a most basic way.
If the male Jewish reader could not wax passionate about the erotic relationship between himself and the essentially male figure of God, what was needed was a female presence, inserted between these two males, with whom both could have that passionate relationship. This is exactly what Kabbalah did in placing the female Shekhinah at the end of the sefirotic chart or as the gatekeeper between the upper and lower worlds.
The inner unity of the Godhead was now seen—especially in Castilian Kabbalah, as we have already noted—primarily in erotic terms. The union of “the blessed Holy One and His Shekhinah” became the central focus of all devotional life. But Israel too, as the devoted children, servants, and bridal attendants of the Shekhinah, served as “awakeners of her desire to unite with the Holy King.” They did this by cultivating their own love for the divine bride in their devoted lives of Torah study and performance of the commandments, including that of holy union with their own wives, an earthly representation of the union above. The presence of this feminine hypostasis opened the gateway to permit the revival of religious passion that so characterizes Kabbalah and especially the community of disciples depicted in the Zohar.
Where did the Jews get this idea of a female intermediary between themselves and God above?
It seems quite likely that this is a Jewish adaptation of the cult of the Virgin Mary, very much revived in the Western Church of the twelfth century, especially in France and Spain. Marian piety permeated the culture of Western Europe in this age: the dedication of cathedrals to the Virgin, roadside shrines, passion dramas, music, and art of all forms glorified her role. The Jews surely witnessed this and must have found themselves of two minds about it. On the one hand it would have confirmed their worst impressions of Christianity as pagan, idolatrous, and polytheistic. But there was also something beautiful and tender about the religious life associated with it that could not be ignored. The Jews, whose culture knew no glorification of virginity or celibacy, adapted the notion of a female object of worship to suit their own needs.
The notion that there is a divine (or quasi-divine) female presence poised at the entrance to the divine realm, one who loves her children, suffers with them, and accepts their prayers to be brought before the throne of God, is shared by the Marian and kabbalistic traditions. Most likely the latter, which developed in the century following the great Marian revival, is derivative of the former.
Once the female aspect of divinity was in place, without the Christian insistence on virginity, repressed erotic energies could find expression in the spiritual life and strivings of the Kabbalist. In practice, the Zohar’s authors indeed represent an especially strict halakhic viewpoint on all sexual matters, one that continued in kabbalistic circles for many centuries. But the gates were thrown wide open to the entrance of rarified and only lightly masked erotic fantasy to fuel the intensity of religious passion.
The Kabbalist’s self image as tsaddiq, the “guardian of the covenant,” was, as we have seen, at the same time an image of male potency. His task was to direct the aroused power of his kavvanah, or spiritual intention, toward Shekhinah, thus stirring the female waters within her so that she aroused, the tsaddiq above to unite with her, filling her with the flow of energy from beyond in the form of his male waters, the lights from above as divine semen. As she is filled, the fluid within her overflows to the lower world as well, and the earthly tsaddiq receives that blessing.
Here the paradigm is of a fully coital expression of sexual union, seemingly closer in some ways to the religion of South India than to the virginal and celibate piety of Christian monks. But the immediate influence that helped to stir these new energies within Judaism was clearly that of Christianity.
If we look again at the kabbalistic chart, especially at the elements highlighted within it by the Castilian Kabbalah, we may see a further parallel to the Christian structures of faith that so characterized this era. Tif’eret, or the blessed Holy One, stands at the center; this is the essential figure of the male Deity, the God of the Bible and Jewish tradition. He is flanked on right and left by Ḥesed and Din [Geburah], compassion and judgment. This triad of sefirot is complemented by Malkhut or Shekhinah at the lower end of the kabbalistic chart. Together these four sefirot constitute a whole, represented by such symbols as the four directions, the four species of Sukkot, the three patriarchs plus King David, and so forth. These are all Jewish symbols of great antiquity.
But if we look at this chart structurally, we cannot help but notice that it constitutes a trinity, with “God” at the center flanked by two others, with the female “below” them serving as intermediary between heaven and earth, bearer of prayers to God above and birth chamber of divine blessing as it flows into the world. Another kabbalistic configuration imagines Ḥokhmah as the Father, Tif’eret as the Son, and Shekhinah as His bride, to which parallels can also be found in the Christian sources.
Because of the second commandment, Jews were held back from any concrete expression of these structures beyond occasional diagrams and charts. But imagine what such kabbalistic images might have looked like in stained glass, for example. There we would have found something indeed very closely parallel to the image-world of medieval Christianity.
It is not at all clear how conscious the Kabbalists themselves were of these patterns of cultural influence. Commonalities of structure that may appear obvious to us from the vantage point of distant centuries may not have been at all clear to those who bore them. Consciously or not, these tremendous importations of spiritual structures were carried out in a subtle and highly creative way, so the connections were far from obvious. Anything less than this would have led to the Kabbalists being labeled heretics and enemies of Judaism, precisely the opposite of their goal, which was to strengthen Judaism in the face of its all-powerful and dangerous rival. It was in part because they were themselves so affected by the attractiveness of Christianity that the authors of the Zohar set out to create a Judaism of renewed mythic power and old-new symbolic forms. Far from being crypto-Christians, they sought to create a more compelling Jewish myth, one that would fortify Jews in resisting Christianity. An area in which we can clearly see this attempt to put forth a Judaism that stands in direct challenge to Christianity is that of the relationship between marriage and the presence of Shekhinah or the Holy Spirit.
The culture of Christian Spain in the thirteenth century was highly monastic. The time of the Zohar was the great heyday of both Dominican and Franciscan spirituality, and these and other orders played a great role in the socioeconomic as well as the religious life of the surrounding culture. While Judaism contained neither a tradition of monasticism nor a glorification of celibacy, the great monastic establishments must have been impressive to Jewish pietists, who did share in some of the values represented by the monkish life. Scholars have long noted the influence of Christian monasticism (especially its glorification of poverty) on circles close to the Zohar. In sharp contrast to the Christian glorification of celibacy, the Zohar insists (with relatively meager support in earlier Jewish sources) that an unmarried man is merely half a person and that the Shekhinah does not dwell where the wholeness of male-female union is lacking. When a man is away from his wife, the Zohar tells us—whether he is traveling, busy studying Torah with his companions, or prevented from union with her because of her menstrual impurity—the Shekhinah joins to him, becoming his female spiritual companion. But she does so only by merit of the fact that he has an earthly female partner to whom he will return in holy union. Anyone who has no wife cannot expect that the presence of God will be joined to him. Moses is the sole exception to this rule. The Zohar’s insistence on the spiritual necessity of marriage can best be understood, relative to Castile of the thirteenth century, as a frontal attack on Christian monasticism, focusing its claim precisely where it would hurt most. Abstinence from marriage, claims the Zohar, does not free one for marriage to God, as the monks would have it; rather, celibacy makes it impossible for one to contain the presence of the Holy Spirit. The relationship of the Kabbalah and the Zohar to the surrounding Christian culture was thus highly ambivalent and complex. The resentment that the Jews naturally bore as an oppressed and taunted minority is very much present in the outcries of the Zohar’s speakers against the wicked nations. From a formal theological and halakhic point of view, the Zohar offers not the slightest leniency in its attitude toward Christianity or any other non-Jewish religion. But operating as it did on the plane of myth and imagination, the Zohar absorbed subtle cultural influences and structures of thought that were current in the surrounding culture. The Zohar is very much a reflection of Judaism in the setting of the medieval Christian West, shaped by a unique interweaving of resentment, attraction, and creative adaptation.
The Zohar in Historical Context
We have spoken of the emergence of Kabbalah into public discourse as a result of the ongoing struggle with philosophy that characterized Provencal and Catalonian Jewry in the century after Maimonides. The Zohar, emerging in the last decades of the thirteenth century, contained strong echoes of that conflict, even though its sharpest phase had by then passed into history.
There happens to have survived a copy of Maimonides’ Guide for the Perplexed that was written for Rabbi Moses de Leon, the central figure of the circle in which the Zohar was composed. That manuscript stands alongside many references in the Zohar text itself, as well as in de Leon’s Hebrew treatises, telling us that the greatest work of Kabbalah was written partly in self-conscious response to what was universally taken to be the greatest work of Jewish philosophy.
The Zohar also has to be seen, however, in the broader context in which it was written.
I refer to the life of Spanish Jewry during the years of the Reconquista, in which small, threatened Jewish communities lived in the context of a proud, fervent, and militant Christianity. While the closing decades of the thirteenth century were not a particularly terrible period in the long history of Jewish-Catholic relations in Spain—certainly nothing to compare with what was to come a century later—Jews did live with a constant sense of being surrounded and besieged by Christian triumphalism.
The Zohar was composed in Castile of the late thirteenth century, a period that marked the near-completion of the Reconquista and something of a golden age of enlightenment in the history of medieval Christian Spain.
As the wars of conquest ended, the monarchy was able to ground itself and establish central authority over the semi-independent and often unruly Spanish nobility. This included responsibility for protection of the Jews, who generally fared better at the hands of kings than at the arbitrary mercy of local rivals.
Alfonso X (1252–1284) was known as el Sabio or “the Wise” because of his interest in the sciences, which he was willing to learn from Jews and Muslims when necessary, as well as in history, literature, and art.
Jews retained a high degree of juridical and cultural autonomy, as well as freedom of religious practice, in Castile of this period. They constituted a significant percentage of city and town dwellers, generally choosing to live in self-enclosed neighborhoods and communities. But Jews were seen by Christian society as barely tolerated outsiders, and they viewed themselves as humiliated and victimized exiles. As an emerging class of Christian burghers came to see the Jews as rivals, the economic opportunities afforded by the early Reconquista years were gradually eroded. Jews were required to wear distinguishing garb, synagogue building was restricted, and various burdens of extra taxation came to be an expected part of Jewish life. Most significantly, Jews were under constant pressure to convert to Christianity in the atmosphere of a church triumphant with the glory of having vanquished the Moorish armies and standing on the verge of ending the “stain” of Islamic incursion into Christian Europe.
Alfonso X commissioned translations of both the Qur’an and the Talmud into Castilian, partly out of scholarly interest but also as an aid to the ongoing missionary campaign. The success of the Reconquista itself was trumpeted as great testimony to the validity of Christian claims. The Christian supersessionist theology of the age claimed tirelessly that Judaism after Christ was an empty shell, a formalist attachment to the past, lacking in true faith. This message was delivered regularly in polemical writings, in sermons that Jews were forced to hear, and in casual encounters between Jews and Christians. We should remember that Jews in Spain spoke the same language as their neighbors and lived with them in the towns and cities. Their degree of linguistic and cultural alienation from their surroundings was significantly less than that of later Jews in Eastern Europe, the lens through which all Jewish diaspora experience is often mistakenly viewed in our time.
In this context, the Zohar may be viewed as a grand defense of Judaism, a poetic demonstration of the truth and superiority of Jewish faith. Its authors knew a great deal about Christianity, mostly from observing it at close hand but also from reading certain Christian works, including the New Testament, which Dominicans and other eager seekers of converts were only too happy to place in the hands of literate and inquisitive Jews. The Kabbalists’ attitude toward the religion of their Christian neighbors was a complex one, and it has come down to us through a veil of self-censorship.
Jews writing in medieval Europe, especially those promulgating innovative religious teachings that were controversial even within the Jewish community, must have been well aware that their works would be read by Christian censors (often themselves Jewish apostates) who would make them pay dearly for outright insults to the Christian faith.
The Zohar is filled with disdain and sometimes even outright hatred for the Gentile world. Continuing in the old midrashic tradition of re-painting the subtle shadings of biblical narrative in moralistic black and white, the Zohar pours endless heaps of wrath and malediction on Israel’s enemies. In the context of biblical commentary, these are always such ancient figures as Esau, Pharaoh, Amalek, Balaam, and the mixed multitude of runaway slaves who left Egypt with Israel, a group treated by the Zohar with special venom. All of these were rather safe objects for attack, but it does not take much imagination to realize that the true addressee of this resentment was the oppressor in whose midst the authors lived. This becomes significantly clearer when we consider the Zohar’s comments on the religion of these ancient enemies. It castigates them repeatedly as worshipers of the demonic and practitioners of black magic, as enemies of divine unity and therefore dangerous disturbers of the cosmic balance by which the world survives.
Israel, and especially the kabbalistic “companions” who understood this situation, are told to do all they can to right the balance and save the Shekhinah from those dark forces and their vast network of accursed supporters on earth.
As Moses fought off the evil spells of Balaam, darkest of all magicians, in his day, so must the disciples of Rabbi Shim’on fight those evil forces that stand opposed to the dawning of the messianic light that is soon to come. All of this is said, of course, without a single negative word about Christianity. But Rabbi Shim’on and his second-century companions lived in a time when the enemies of biblical Israel had long ago disappeared from the earth. They had been replaced by the Roman Empire—pagan in the days of Rabbi Shim’on, to be sure, but by the Zohar’s time, long associated with Christendom. The reader of the Zohar living in medieval Christian Spain was being firmly admonished to join the battle against those ancient enemies who strengthened the evil forces, wounded or captured the Shekhinah, and thus kept the divine light from shining into this world. It does not require a great deal of imagination to understand who these worshipers of darkness must have been, particularly in view of the fact that this was also the era when the Christian image of the Jew as magician and devil-worshiper was first becoming rampant. The Zohar’s unstated but clearly present view of Christianity as sorcery is a mirror reflection of the image of Judaism and Jews that was gaining acceptance throughout the Christian world.
But this is only one side of the picture.
As people of deep faith and of great literary and aesthetic sensibility, the Kabbalists could appreciate why Jews were impressed by, and perhaps even attracted to, certain aspects of the Christian story and the religious lives of the large and powerful monastic communities that were so prominent in Christian Spain. The tale of Jesus and his faithful apostles, the passion narrative, and the struggles of the early Church were all powerful and attractive stories. Aspects of Christian theology, including both the complicated oneness of the trinitarian God and the passionate and ever-present devotion to a quasi-divine female figure, made their mark on the kabbalistic imagination.
The monastic orders, and especially their commitment to celibacy and poverty, must have been impressive to mystics whose own tradition did not make such demands on them but who shared the medieval otherworldliness that would have highly esteemed such devotion.
The Kabbalists were deeply disconcerted by the power of Christianity to attract Jewish converts, an enterprise that was given high priority particularly by the powerful Dominican order. Much that is found in the Zohar was intended to serve as a counterweight to the potential attractiveness of Christanity to Jews, and perhaps even to the Kabbalists themselves. Of course this should not be seen as an exclusive way of reading the Zohar, a mystical work that was not composed chiefly as a polemical text. Nevertheless, the need to assert Judaism’s spirit proudly in the face of triumphalist Christianity stands in the background of the Zohar and should not be ignored as we read it.
The narrative and its setting is the first issue that comes to mind as we examine the Zohar in this light. The tale of a great holy man, Rabbi Shim’on ben Yoḥai, followed by a group of faithful disciples as he wanders about the Holy Land, especially the Galilee, has a familiar ring to it. The Zohar may be seen as proposing the account of this ancient band of Kabbalists as a counter myth to the Gospel tales of Jesus and his apostles. The Zohar’s holy men, master and disciples, love one another and shower each other with endless blessings and praises. They also have great supernatural encounters with other holy men, some of them anonymous, who reveal great secrets. The climax of the Zohar narrative, the Idra Zuta, is the tale of Rabbi Shim’on’s death, preceded by the precisely choreographed assemblage of his faithful disciples. Rabbi Shim’on, like Jesus a figure much associated with the period of Roman persecution of Judaism, dies in ecstacy rather than in martyrdom. But his death casts a dark shadow across the world and his disciples do not know how they will go on without him. Of course there are differences between the Zohar narrative and that of the Gospels. The influence is subtle and it is impossible to know to what extent it was conscious and to what extent it is simply a carryover of cultural patterns that were so widely accessible (depictions of the Last Supper, for example). Most basically different is the fact that the Zohar’s accounts of these wandering holy men always provide the setting for a return to mystical-homiletic interpretations of Scripture. The Zohar narrative in this sense remains addressed to an elite community of Torah scholars. The New Testament apostles were witnesses to miracles; the tales of healing and resurrection in those narratives (themselves modeled on the Elijah-Elisha tales in Hebrew Scripture) had wide appeal and were meant to attract a popular following to the nascent Christian movement. Rabbi Shim’on and his disciples offer surprisingly little by way of such miracles. Their single greatest supernatural act is the disclosure of the secret Torah, a miracle designed to appeal more to the mystical-intellectual elite than to the masses. The heart of Christian faith lies in the Incarnation, the claim that a specific human being at a particular time in history was in a full sense both God and man, or that God chose to reside wholly in the life, death, and resurrection of this single person. Incarnational faith is seemingly quite far from Judaism, which insists with the psalmist (Ps. 115:16) that “the heavens are the heavens of the Lord; the earth has He given to the children of Adam”; the border between divine and human realms remains quite firmly fixed. In the account of Sinai that stands at the heart of Torah—Judaism’s parallel, one might say, to the Incarnation in Christianity—Moses ascends the mountain and returns, still very much man and not God. His shining countenance and the people’s inability to look at him give some indication of the Near Eastern tales of apotheosis that lie behind this narrative, but in the Torah the line is not crossed: God is God and man is man. Only in the later midrashic tradition (reflecting on Ps. 90:1, “A Prayer of Moses, the Man of God”) are we told, somewhat shockingly to most Jewish ears, that Moses was “half man, half God.”
The Zohar remains on the Jewish side of this great theological divide, but comes very close to crossing it. The human tsaddiq is an earthly embodiment of the ninth sefirah or the tsaddiq figure within God. Rabbi Shim’on is the most perfect example of such an earthly tsaddiq. He is “the holy lamp,” giving light to the Temple above as well as to the earth around him. He embodies both Moses the prophet and Aaron the priest, each of whom may be seen as prefiguring an aspect of his person, the final revealer of those secrets that will allow for the great redemption that is soon to come.
Such biblical figures as Moses, Aaron, and King Solomon are regularly depicted in the Zohar as heirophants or mystagogues, priests who perform unfathomable mystery rites that are vital to the world’s survival.
It is clear that Rabbi Shim’on is the same figure for his own time (and perhaps for all the latter generations) that these men were for theirs. In this way he assumes a role that Rabbi Akiva sometimes plays in rabbinic and merkavah sources: that of a latter-day Moses. But both of those figures may be partly shaped as alternatives to the human-divine person of Christianity.
We have referred several times in this essay to the strong erotic element in Kabbalah and especially in the Zohar. The frank and uncensored use of bold sexual language for talking about the inner life of God is a major part of the Zohar’s legacy and found throughout the later mystical tradition. Such phrases as “to arouse the feminine waters” or “to serve with a living limb” became so much a part of the conventional language of later Kabbalah that one almost forgets how shocking it is that the divine life is being described in terms of female lubrication or maintaining an erection.
How did it happen that such unbridled eroticism was permitted to enter the domain of the sacred?
How especially could this have happened in a circle that was at the same time so very cautious and extreme in its views of sexual transgression or temptation?
Use of erotic language to describe the relationship between God and Israel was already well known in biblical times, as witnessed by several of the prophets, especially Hosea. In the rabbinic imagination, the chief vehicle for this all-important metaphor was the Song of Songs, claimed by none other than Rabbi Akiva as the “holy of holies” among the Scriptures. This assertion assumed an allegorical reading of the Song as describing the love and marriage between God and the community of Israel, an idealized representation of the Jewish people. This collectivist reading of the Canticle dominates throughout the midrashic tradition. Its importance was underscored by the fact that the Christian Church, from the time of Origen, had adopted a parallel interpretation, in which Christ and the ecclesia were the lover and beloved of the Song.
This Christian allegory was an important vehicle of supersessionist theology; the Church now served as the chosen maiden of divine delight. The Jews, whose rejection by God seemed so obviously confirmed by their historical plight, had a great need to hold fast to the faith that God was their true Lover, the one to whom they cried out even in His seeming absence: “On my bed at night I sought him whom my soul loves” (Cant. 3:1), knowing in faith that “here he stands behind our wall, peering through the lattice-work, gazing through the windows” (Cant. 2:9).
In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries there was a great shift in the reading of the Song of Songs, from a collectivist to an individualist allegory. The Canticle now came to be seen as a song between God and the soul, a reflection of the new emphasis on individual quest and personal pilgrimage in the religious life of the era. In Christianity this was the development of an old tradition and it especially flourished at the hands of Bernard of Clairvaux and other Cistercians. The Jews were slower to follow this trend, and their few attempts at it were not great successes. The individual Jewish reader (typically a noncelibate male) did not easily see himself as the bride or female beloved of God.
Instead the Jews developed another reading, one that was to reshape Jewish devotional life in a most basic way.
If the male Jewish reader could not wax passionate about the erotic relationship between himself and the essentially male figure of God, what was needed was a female presence, inserted between these two males, with whom both could have that passionate relationship. This is exactly what Kabbalah did in placing the female Shekhinah at the end of the sefirotic chart or as the gatekeeper between the upper and lower worlds.
The inner unity of the Godhead was now seen—especially in Castilian Kabbalah, as we have already noted—primarily in erotic terms. The union of “the blessed Holy One and His Shekhinah” became the central focus of all devotional life. But Israel too, as the devoted children, servants, and bridal attendants of the Shekhinah, served as “awakeners of her desire to unite with the Holy King.” They did this by cultivating their own love for the divine bride in their devoted lives of Torah study and performance of the commandments, including that of holy union with their own wives, an earthly representation of the union above. The presence of this feminine hypostasis opened the gateway to permit the revival of religious passion that so characterizes Kabbalah and especially the community of disciples depicted in the Zohar.
Where did the Jews get this idea of a female intermediary between themselves and God above?
It seems quite likely that this is a Jewish adaptation of the cult of the Virgin Mary, very much revived in the Western Church of the twelfth century, especially in France and Spain. Marian piety permeated the culture of Western Europe in this age: the dedication of cathedrals to the Virgin, roadside shrines, passion dramas, music, and art of all forms glorified her role. The Jews surely witnessed this and must have found themselves of two minds about it. On the one hand it would have confirmed their worst impressions of Christianity as pagan, idolatrous, and polytheistic. But there was also something beautiful and tender about the religious life associated with it that could not be ignored. The Jews, whose culture knew no glorification of virginity or celibacy, adapted the notion of a female object of worship to suit their own needs.
The notion that there is a divine (or quasi-divine) female presence poised at the entrance to the divine realm, one who loves her children, suffers with them, and accepts their prayers to be brought before the throne of God, is shared by the Marian and kabbalistic traditions. Most likely the latter, which developed in the century following the great Marian revival, is derivative of the former.
Once the female aspect of divinity was in place, without the Christian insistence on virginity, repressed erotic energies could find expression in the spiritual life and strivings of the Kabbalist. In practice, the Zohar’s authors indeed represent an especially strict halakhic viewpoint on all sexual matters, one that continued in kabbalistic circles for many centuries. But the gates were thrown wide open to the entrance of rarified and only lightly masked erotic fantasy to fuel the intensity of religious passion.
The Kabbalist’s self image as tsaddiq, the “guardian of the covenant,” was, as we have seen, at the same time an image of male potency. His task was to direct the aroused power of his kavvanah, or spiritual intention, toward Shekhinah, thus stirring the female waters within her so that she aroused, the tsaddiq above to unite with her, filling her with the flow of energy from beyond in the form of his male waters, the lights from above as divine semen. As she is filled, the fluid within her overflows to the lower world as well, and the earthly tsaddiq receives that blessing.
Here the paradigm is of a fully coital expression of sexual union, seemingly closer in some ways to the religion of South India than to the virginal and celibate piety of Christian monks. But the immediate influence that helped to stir these new energies within Judaism was clearly that of Christianity.
If we look again at the kabbalistic chart, especially at the elements highlighted within it by the Castilian Kabbalah, we may see a further parallel to the Christian structures of faith that so characterized this era. Tif’eret, or the blessed Holy One, stands at the center; this is the essential figure of the male Deity, the God of the Bible and Jewish tradition. He is flanked on right and left by Ḥesed and Din [Geburah], compassion and judgment. This triad of sefirot is complemented by Malkhut or Shekhinah at the lower end of the kabbalistic chart. Together these four sefirot constitute a whole, represented by such symbols as the four directions, the four species of Sukkot, the three patriarchs plus King David, and so forth. These are all Jewish symbols of great antiquity.
But if we look at this chart structurally, we cannot help but notice that it constitutes a trinity, with “God” at the center flanked by two others, with the female “below” them serving as intermediary between heaven and earth, bearer of prayers to God above and birth chamber of divine blessing as it flows into the world. Another kabbalistic configuration imagines Ḥokhmah as the Father, Tif’eret as the Son, and Shekhinah as His bride, to which parallels can also be found in the Christian sources.
Because of the second commandment, Jews were held back from any concrete expression of these structures beyond occasional diagrams and charts. But imagine what such kabbalistic images might have looked like in stained glass, for example. There we would have found something indeed very closely parallel to the image-world of medieval Christianity.
It is not at all clear how conscious the Kabbalists themselves were of these patterns of cultural influence. Commonalities of structure that may appear obvious to us from the vantage point of distant centuries may not have been at all clear to those who bore them. Consciously or not, these tremendous importations of spiritual structures were carried out in a subtle and highly creative way, so the connections were far from obvious. Anything less than this would have led to the Kabbalists being labeled heretics and enemies of Judaism, precisely the opposite of their goal, which was to strengthen Judaism in the face of its all-powerful and dangerous rival. It was in part because they were themselves so affected by the attractiveness of Christianity that the authors of the Zohar set out to create a Judaism of renewed mythic power and old-new symbolic forms. Far from being crypto-Christians, they sought to create a more compelling Jewish myth, one that would fortify Jews in resisting Christianity. An area in which we can clearly see this attempt to put forth a Judaism that stands in direct challenge to Christianity is that of the relationship between marriage and the presence of Shekhinah or the Holy Spirit.
The culture of Christian Spain in the thirteenth century was highly monastic. The time of the Zohar was the great heyday of both Dominican and Franciscan spirituality, and these and other orders played a great role in the socioeconomic as well as the religious life of the surrounding culture. While Judaism contained neither a tradition of monasticism nor a glorification of celibacy, the great monastic establishments must have been impressive to Jewish pietists, who did share in some of the values represented by the monkish life. Scholars have long noted the influence of Christian monasticism (especially its glorification of poverty) on circles close to the Zohar. In sharp contrast to the Christian glorification of celibacy, the Zohar insists (with relatively meager support in earlier Jewish sources) that an unmarried man is merely half a person and that the Shekhinah does not dwell where the wholeness of male-female union is lacking. When a man is away from his wife, the Zohar tells us—whether he is traveling, busy studying Torah with his companions, or prevented from union with her because of her menstrual impurity—the Shekhinah joins to him, becoming his female spiritual companion. But she does so only by merit of the fact that he has an earthly female partner to whom he will return in holy union. Anyone who has no wife cannot expect that the presence of God will be joined to him. Moses is the sole exception to this rule. The Zohar’s insistence on the spiritual necessity of marriage can best be understood, relative to Castile of the thirteenth century, as a frontal attack on Christian monasticism, focusing its claim precisely where it would hurt most. Abstinence from marriage, claims the Zohar, does not free one for marriage to God, as the monks would have it; rather, celibacy makes it impossible for one to contain the presence of the Holy Spirit. The relationship of the Kabbalah and the Zohar to the surrounding Christian culture was thus highly ambivalent and complex. The resentment that the Jews naturally bore as an oppressed and taunted minority is very much present in the outcries of the Zohar’s speakers against the wicked nations. From a formal theological and halakhic point of view, the Zohar offers not the slightest leniency in its attitude toward Christianity or any other non-Jewish religion. But operating as it did on the plane of myth and imagination, the Zohar absorbed subtle cultural influences and structures of thought that were current in the surrounding culture. The Zohar is very much a reflection of Judaism in the setting of the medieval Christian West, shaped by a unique interweaving of resentment, attraction, and creative adaptation.
Last edited:
The Knights Templar and the Head of God
Dan’s Car
Q: Okay. Who are the 'philosophers of Dancar?'
A: Philosophers who ride around in Dan's car.
Q: That was a serious question! Where and what is Dancar?
A: Why do you suppose the response was light-hearted?
Q: Well, come on! What is Dan's car?
A: We ask you to define as best you can.
Q: A 'car' belonging to Dan. The subject was talked about in the 18th century.
A: Yes.
Q: To what place were they referring when they talked about Dancar?
A: British.
Q: Why would they call it Dancar?
A: Locator.
Q: There is no place called Dancar.
A: No?
“Graham Phillips claimed Ralph de Sudeley may have found the Ark of the Covenant when he discovered the Maccabean treasure at Jebel al Madhbah [Petra]. Because Sudeley returned to Britain, it is theorised that he may have taken the Ark to Great Britain with him.”
The Grail and Carts
A: Idea centre.
Session 7 November 1994:
Q: (L) What was the "Ark of the Covenant"?
A: Power cell.
Q: (L) What was the origin of this power cell?
A: Lizards given to the Jews to use for manipulation of others.
Q: (L) Why was it that if you came close to this object or touched it you would die?
A: Energy overload; scrambling by reverse electromagnetism.
Q: (L) What is reverse electromagnetism?
A: Turned inward.
Q: (L) What effect does it produce?
A: Liquification of matter.
Q: (L) Well, that is pleasant. This "cell" was kept in an ornate box of some sort, is that correct?
A: Yes.
Q: (L) Why was it only the priests who could handle it?
A: Only those who would not try to use for selfish reasons.
Q: (L) But then did just coming near it injure a person?
A: Yes.
Q: (L) Well why were these individuals able to come near it?
A: Nonselfish energy field.
Session 11 April 1998:
Q: Ummm, in reading this funny book I just finished {I believe it was “Fingerprints of the Gods” by Graham Hancock}, I discovered that there is the tradition of the Ark of the Covenant being in Ethiopia. This guy did a bunch of research on it, and it seems possible that it is there, and that it may even be active. Is it, in fact, in the church of St. Mary of Zion in Ethiopia?
A: No.
Q: Where is it?
A: If we were to reveal this to you, it would be akin to giving a hand grenade to a baby!!
Q: Well, I just thought I would ask! What I found out was that this wonderful Hakluyt Society that chronicled the funny business in the Canary Islands {which I had read previously, and which claimed that the Ark of the Covenant was there} also kept track of the goings on in Ethiopia. One of the things they told about was the carrying of the Ark in procession by red or blond headed guys. And there was the Croix Patte of the Templars on a number of objects in Ethiopia. The Rose Croix. Did we have Templars there [MJF: The answer is yes, since the Templars did have a presence in Ethiopia], or what was going on? Was the Ark there and was it then taken somewhere else?
A: The Ark of the Covenant is not what you think it is.
Q: You guys said that it was a power cell. I don't have some sort of romantic idea of it. I can accept that. But there are all these stories about it and a lot of people have mythologized it. What do you mean by saying such a thing. What is the Ark? [MJF: a TDRAM?]
A: See Oak Island. {Trans-dimensional Atomic Remolecularizer?}
Q: It seems that the Templars were in charge of building the Cathedral at Chartres, and there is a tableau on one of the porches of Melchizedek and the Queen of Sheba. Equidistant between them is the Ark of the Covenant in a cart. Melchizedek is holding a cup that is supposed to be the Holy Grail. Inside this cup is a cylindrical object of stone. What is this?
A: Greater sight. [MJF: Curiously, the C’s statement here would fit in well with Baphomet’s description as “the seer of the passage” – see more below on this.]
Figure of Melchizedek holding a cup that is supposed to be the Holy Grail
Q: What?! (A) Is it a symbol or a device?
A: Why cannot it be both?
Q: (A) It can be both, but is it both?
A: Yes.
Q: (A) So, it is a device for greater sight like a crystal ball, yes?
A: Only when utilized exactly precisely.
Session 23 August 2001:
Q: (L) Did they, or did they not, have the Ark of the Covenant? Was this given to this group of people by 4th density?
A: Close.
Q: (L) Who was it originally given to?
A: Abraham.
Q: (L) Who gave it to him?
A: Sara.
Q: (L) Is the story of Rachel stealing the household gods from her father may have really been the story of Sara stealing the Ark from Akhenaten?
A: Yes.
Q: (L) No wonder Akhenaten was hot to follow them. He wasn't after Sara, he wanted his Ark back.
A: Yes.
Q: (L) Who gave the Ark to Akhenaten?
A: STS 4th Density.
Session 2 February 2003:
Q: One of the questions we would like to clear up is the issue of the Holy Grail and the Ark. Is the Ark of the Covenant - the ark thing given to the early pre-Mosaic Jews that you have described previously - the same as the Holy Grail?
A: No.
Q: (L) So there are two completely different technologies?
A: If you wish to term it such.
[…]
Q: (L) One aspect of the variation on the story was that Jacob gave his brother, Esau, the 'blessing' and some 'gift.' Does this reflect an accurate part of the story that Moses, in his form as Jacob, passed something on to someone else’s - something that was important?
A: Yes.
Q: (L) Was it Moses/Abraham who was doing this?
A: Yes.
Q: (L) Who did he pass it on to?
A: It was finally understood by "Moses" that the danger of the object was greater than the ability of descendants to resist corruption. He handed it over to those who had created it.
Q: (Galahad) Was it STS or STO forces that created it?
A: STS.
Q: (Galahad) So, the Ark was an object created by STS. Did this amount to some sort of realization on Moses' part? Did he start to wake up?
A: Yes. The story of the "contending with the angel" was the significant turning point as well as the moment of return
A: Mayans.
Q: (L) What was the purpose of that skull?
A: Study brain. Long message follows pause: Now: skull was to learn about soul; reflective remolecularization imaging. Grays do this with abductees.
Q: (L) Through what kind of instrument.
A: Energy focusing.
Another term for “focusing” is “lensing” and this may provide us with another clue to the nature of the Grail.
Q: (L) We were making some theories about this object that Vincent Bridges was looking for - the Ark of the Covenant, or the Holy Grail. I believe that we understand that this is an object that is of great usefulness, some kind of lensing device. Is that correct?
A: Yes.
Q: Okay. Next: On this subject of 'looking for the frequency of light,' the 'undreamed of treasures in Rhineland,' and needing a better 'handl' on it. I came to the conclusion that it might be Liechtenstein because of the 'handle of a stein' and Liecht is light in German, so we have the frequency of light with a handle on it, or Liechtenstein. And, in this place there is a little town called Triesen.
A: What does stein mean, is it "written in stone?" [MJF: Could this be a very oblique reference to the inscription “Hic Amititur Archa Cederis”, “Through the Ark thou shall work”...?]
Q: Stein as in 'grail,' and stone as in 'philosopher's.' So, maybe we are getting close.
A: What does Einstein mean?
Q: 'One stone.' And a stein is a cup and a stone at the same time. So, Triesen is in the 'beautiful countryside between the Rhine and the alpine world.' There is an alp called Lawena, nearby Lake Constance, and the Swiss canton of St. Gallen. You said something about being buried in 'Galle' and this seems to have all the related elements collected together... all the key words... so am I...
A: On the right track? It looks good.
The emergence of the Grail romances coincided with the final years of the Templars, which in turn coincided with the commencement of the Renaissance as the C’s noted:
Q: Why was the 12th century the focal point for the propagation of the grail legends, the troubadours, the whole thing?
A: Beginning of "Renaissance."
Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart
Continued in Part 2
Before continuing with my article on Poussin’s Mountainous Mystery, I thought it would be appropriate to look at the activities of the Knights Templar since if the Grail had at some stage been buried within Mt. Pech Cardou (which does not necessarily mean it is still there), then the Templars or their associates (e.g., the Cistercians and the Premonstratensians) are the most likely people to have deposited it there. As noted, the area of the Languedoc where Mt. Pech Cardou is located was at the beginning of the 14th century a Templar stronghold with the Tour Blanchefort (the White Fort), depicted in two of Poussin’s paintings, being a Templer watchtower and the nearby preceptory at Bézu being a major Templar fortress, which effectively gave the Templars control over the whole area. As mentioned previously, the psychometric induced vision which the author Andrew Collins and his psychic friend Richard Ward had of two monks riding a horse and cart somewhere in the Languedoc in medieval times whilst carrying to safety a two-faced head reliquary (Baphomet?) previously held by the Knights Templar in England, as narrated in Collins’ book Twenty-First Century Grail, suggests that the Templars did possess the Grail but that it had been held in England and not France, Spain or Portugal after its discovery and the subsequent expulsion of the Templars from Jerusalem in 1187 AD.
But if it was stored away in England, how did it get there and how was it transported over to France after the Templar Order had been suppressed? Collins gave one clue to the latter question when he mentions in his book that the Templars had the help of the White Canons, who are the Catholic monastic order of the Premonstratensians (aka the Norbertines in England). However, before relating how the White Canons assisted the Templars in this endeavour, I would like to take a closer look at the activities of the Templars prior to their suppression. Before doing so, I would like to raise an interesting conjecture concerning Richard Ward’s vision of a medieval cart transporting the Grail to safety since, if true, this may not have been the first time the Grail had been transported to safety in this manner.
But if it was stored away in England, how did it get there and how was it transported over to France after the Templar Order had been suppressed? Collins gave one clue to the latter question when he mentions in his book that the Templars had the help of the White Canons, who are the Catholic monastic order of the Premonstratensians (aka the Norbertines in England). However, before relating how the White Canons assisted the Templars in this endeavour, I would like to take a closer look at the activities of the Templars prior to their suppression. Before doing so, I would like to raise an interesting conjecture concerning Richard Ward’s vision of a medieval cart transporting the Grail to safety since, if true, this may not have been the first time the Grail had been transported to safety in this manner.
Dan’s Car
When Laura once quizzed the C’s on the identity of the mysterious 'Philosophers of Dancar’ referred to in the early 17th century Rosicrucian Manifesto known by its short name of the Fama, the C’s gave what on the surface seems a rather flippant response:
Q: Okay. Who are the 'philosophers of Dancar?'
A: Philosophers who ride around in Dan's car.
Q: That was a serious question! Where and what is Dancar?
A: Why do you suppose the response was light-hearted?
Q: Well, come on! What is Dan's car?
A: We ask you to define as best you can.
Q: A 'car' belonging to Dan. The subject was talked about in the 18th century.
A: Yes.
Q: To what place were they referring when they talked about Dancar?
A: British.
Q: Why would they call it Dancar?
A: Locator.
Q: There is no place called Dancar.
A: No?
As previously mentioned, I feel confident that ‘Dancar’ is a cypher for the town of Doncaster in the English county of Yorkshire. As we learned in my last post on the Princes in the Tower, Yorkshire, apart from being the former territory of the Celtic Brigantes tribe and the county through which the river Trent (ref. “the holder of the Trent”) flows out to the sea at the Humber Estuary, was the power centre of the ‘House of York’ centred on the ancient city of York, which had briefly been the capitol of the Roman Empire, a city in which the Emperor Constantine (whose mother Helen may have been British) would be proclaimed emperor before he marched on Rome. York was also the traditional centre of English Freemasonry and the city that was home to Guy Fawkes and some of the other Gun Powder Plotters who had sought to assassinate King James I, who may in turn have had clandestine links with the English Rosicrucians of the time. As an interesting aside, I learned only the other night that Guy Fawkes’ cell at the Tower of London, where he was tortured, was next door to that of Sir Walter Raleigh (though Raleigh’s accommodation was far more luxurious by comparison) who may have had his own links to the Rosicrucians through his infamous ‘School of Night’.
However, returning to the C’s little joke at Laura’s expense, why did they say “Philosophers who ride around in Dan's car“? The prefix “Don” can be likened to “Dan” as a reference to the goddess Danu of the Tuatha de Danaan, who I believe may be the Israelite Tribe of Dan who can also be linked to the Danaans, who were close allies of the Trojans during the Trojan War and allies of the Hittites in the latter’s conflicts with Egypt at the time of Pharoah Ramses II. Which make me wonder if the exiled Trojans became the Hittites? Moreover, as we learned in a previous post, “Car” was one of the names of the British Mother Goddess who can be likened to Danu. In the name “Doncaster”, the suffix “caster” is a reference to “Castra”, the Roman name for a fortress (in the Celtic language this becomes “Caer”) since Doncaster was a Roman garrison town duing the time of the Roman occupation of Britain. Today though, the word “car” is synonymous with motor car, the term motor car being itself an abbreviation of motorised carriage. But the word “carriage” derives from the same root as the word “cart”, a conveyance from which the horse drawn carriage would subsequently evolve.
However, If Danu and Car, as Mother Goddesses, can be associated with the Grail, from which all one’s requirements for Earthly sustenance could supposedly be obtained, then it could be the C’s were trying to draw our attention to the Grail and the fact that it may have been transported by cart (car) on occasion during its long history. Prior to it being hidden away by the Prophet Jeremiah before the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians, it probably resided in the Ark of the Covenant in which it was transported by the Levits (who were also Hittites) before the Ark found its permanent resting place in the sanctuary of the ‘Holy of Holies’ in the Temple of Jerusalem. As we know from the biblical story, the Ark of the Covenant was carried by the Levites during the period of the forty years wandering in the desert. If, as I believe, the Knights Templar found the Grail then they would have had to transport it in secret from its place of concealment. We know that Jerusalem was besieged and eventually overcome by the Saracens towards the end of the 12th century, which would have required the Templars to transport the Ark to safety before it fell into Saracen hands. I watched an interesting documentary series a while ago where the presenters, who were former special forces operatives, examined a possible escape route within the extensive tunnel system found under Jerusalem, which was well known to the Templars. These wide tunnels would certainly have provided the means by which the Templars could have smuggled the Grail out from under the watchful eyes of the besieging Saracens. From there it may have gone by cart to the city of Acre, which became the Templars’ main base in the Holy Land after the fall of Jerusalem. However, Acre itself would eventually fall to Islamic forces and the Grail would have needed to have been spirited out of the Middle East to the greater safety of Western Europe. Some researchers even believe it may have been taken to the newly built cathedral of Notre Dame Chartres where it was hidden away.
The English author Graham Phillips has though proposed an alternative theory where the Ark/Grail may have been discovered just prior to the fall of Jerusalem at the ancient city of Petra in today’s Jordan by an English Knight Templar named Ralph de Sudeley who returned to England in 1189 a very rich man, building a large, well-manned Templar preceptory on an estate he purchased at Herdewyke in Warwickshire, in what today is very much Shakespeare country. He allegedly brought back with him sacred relics from the Holy Land, which were displayed by the Templar priests at their chapel in Herdewyke, which still survives to this day. The relics were never found after the demise of the Templar priests and monks of Herdewyke when the Black Death struck Europe in the mid-14th century. However, Phillips believes that a local historian may have found some of them in the 20th century who chose to hide them again, leaving cryptic clues to their whereabouts in the stained-glass windows he commissioned for a local church. Phillips and his American friends the Russells seemingly tracked them down by deciphering the clues contained in the windows and for their troubles they discovered a number of precious stones, which seemed to possess interesting powers and may even have been some of the ‘Stones of Fire’ worn on the Israelite High Priest’s sacred breastplate (known as the Ephod). They also found a half-broken stone, which had strange unknown inscriptions on it that could not be identified by experts at the British Museum. Could this stone have been part of one of the Tablets upon which the Mosaic Ten Commandments were inscribed I wonder? For more on this, see my earlier article The Knights Templar, Jeremiah and the Ark of the Covenant.
Intriguingly, Wikipedia now cites Phillip’s theory concerning Ralph de Sudeley’s alleged discovery of the Ark of the Covenant and the treasure of the Temple at Petra:
However, returning to the C’s little joke at Laura’s expense, why did they say “Philosophers who ride around in Dan's car“? The prefix “Don” can be likened to “Dan” as a reference to the goddess Danu of the Tuatha de Danaan, who I believe may be the Israelite Tribe of Dan who can also be linked to the Danaans, who were close allies of the Trojans during the Trojan War and allies of the Hittites in the latter’s conflicts with Egypt at the time of Pharoah Ramses II. Which make me wonder if the exiled Trojans became the Hittites? Moreover, as we learned in a previous post, “Car” was one of the names of the British Mother Goddess who can be likened to Danu. In the name “Doncaster”, the suffix “caster” is a reference to “Castra”, the Roman name for a fortress (in the Celtic language this becomes “Caer”) since Doncaster was a Roman garrison town duing the time of the Roman occupation of Britain. Today though, the word “car” is synonymous with motor car, the term motor car being itself an abbreviation of motorised carriage. But the word “carriage” derives from the same root as the word “cart”, a conveyance from which the horse drawn carriage would subsequently evolve.
However, If Danu and Car, as Mother Goddesses, can be associated with the Grail, from which all one’s requirements for Earthly sustenance could supposedly be obtained, then it could be the C’s were trying to draw our attention to the Grail and the fact that it may have been transported by cart (car) on occasion during its long history. Prior to it being hidden away by the Prophet Jeremiah before the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians, it probably resided in the Ark of the Covenant in which it was transported by the Levits (who were also Hittites) before the Ark found its permanent resting place in the sanctuary of the ‘Holy of Holies’ in the Temple of Jerusalem. As we know from the biblical story, the Ark of the Covenant was carried by the Levites during the period of the forty years wandering in the desert. If, as I believe, the Knights Templar found the Grail then they would have had to transport it in secret from its place of concealment. We know that Jerusalem was besieged and eventually overcome by the Saracens towards the end of the 12th century, which would have required the Templars to transport the Ark to safety before it fell into Saracen hands. I watched an interesting documentary series a while ago where the presenters, who were former special forces operatives, examined a possible escape route within the extensive tunnel system found under Jerusalem, which was well known to the Templars. These wide tunnels would certainly have provided the means by which the Templars could have smuggled the Grail out from under the watchful eyes of the besieging Saracens. From there it may have gone by cart to the city of Acre, which became the Templars’ main base in the Holy Land after the fall of Jerusalem. However, Acre itself would eventually fall to Islamic forces and the Grail would have needed to have been spirited out of the Middle East to the greater safety of Western Europe. Some researchers even believe it may have been taken to the newly built cathedral of Notre Dame Chartres where it was hidden away.
The English author Graham Phillips has though proposed an alternative theory where the Ark/Grail may have been discovered just prior to the fall of Jerusalem at the ancient city of Petra in today’s Jordan by an English Knight Templar named Ralph de Sudeley who returned to England in 1189 a very rich man, building a large, well-manned Templar preceptory on an estate he purchased at Herdewyke in Warwickshire, in what today is very much Shakespeare country. He allegedly brought back with him sacred relics from the Holy Land, which were displayed by the Templar priests at their chapel in Herdewyke, which still survives to this day. The relics were never found after the demise of the Templar priests and monks of Herdewyke when the Black Death struck Europe in the mid-14th century. However, Phillips believes that a local historian may have found some of them in the 20th century who chose to hide them again, leaving cryptic clues to their whereabouts in the stained-glass windows he commissioned for a local church. Phillips and his American friends the Russells seemingly tracked them down by deciphering the clues contained in the windows and for their troubles they discovered a number of precious stones, which seemed to possess interesting powers and may even have been some of the ‘Stones of Fire’ worn on the Israelite High Priest’s sacred breastplate (known as the Ephod). They also found a half-broken stone, which had strange unknown inscriptions on it that could not be identified by experts at the British Museum. Could this stone have been part of one of the Tablets upon which the Mosaic Ten Commandments were inscribed I wonder? For more on this, see my earlier article The Knights Templar, Jeremiah and the Ark of the Covenant.
Intriguingly, Wikipedia now cites Phillip’s theory concerning Ralph de Sudeley’s alleged discovery of the Ark of the Covenant and the treasure of the Temple at Petra:
“Graham Phillips claimed Ralph de Sudeley may have found the Ark of the Covenant when he discovered the Maccabean treasure at Jebel al Madhbah [Petra]. Because Sudeley returned to Britain, it is theorised that he may have taken the Ark to Great Britain with him.”
Apart from Phillips, another researcher, the late Zena Halpern, proposed that Ralph de Sudeley had sailed with the Ark of the Covenant (and Grail?) to Oak Island in what is today Nova scotia, Canada (which prior to this had been part of the French territory of Arcadie (Arcadia)) where he buried it. Interestingly, there is mounting evidence to suggest that the Templars had visited Nova Scotia and Oak Island in the late 13th or early 14th century, so her theory cannot be dismissed out of hand. Alternatively, if the Grail had found its way to England, it could have been under the agency of an English proto-Templar knight called Ormus le Guidon who supposedly participated in the First Crusade, which saw the successful capture of the Holy City of Jerusalem. Whatever the truth of the matter, Ormus would build a preceptory at Biddulph in Staffordshire with a chapel that would eventually become a Cistercian religious house under the name of Springwood Priory. It is Graham Phillip’s belief that the chapel was built over a cave that had been sacred to the Celtic tribe that occupied this territory, the cave becoming a vault of the chapel where Templar artefacts and scrolls may have been hidden prior to the order’s suppression in 1314. Phillips also believes that the vault may have been discovered by 17th century Rosicrucians in which they found lost knowledge possessed by the Templars within its confines. The chapel, though much dilapidated, still exists in isolation as part of a modern farm complex, but sadly the ancient floor has been covered over by concrete. However, is it possible that the Templar chapel once held something of far more significance - the Holy Grail perhaps?
The Grail and Carts
Before pursuing this theory, I think it worth exploring the Grail’s link with carts. We have already seen Andrew Collins’ and Richard Ward’s Grail quest vision of what may have been the Grail being transported in a horse drawn cart to safety by two monastic figures.
However, there is an earlier depiction of the Ark and the Grail being transported by a cart and this is to be found in a carving made into a pillar of the Cathedral of Notre Dame de Chartres, a magnificent Gothic church which I have had the privilege of visiting on a few occasions. The carving is known as the ‘Portal of the Initiates’. On this pillar there is a bas relief of an Ark being carried on a wheeled cart. We should note here that the Church authorities have never said anything officially about possible connections between the Ark and Chartres Cathedral.
The inscription on the Bas-Relief depicting the Ark reads “Hic Amititur Archa Cederis”, meaning “Through the Ark thou shall work”...
What does this strange inscription mean? Given that the Templars were in one way or another behind the construction of most, if not all, the Gothic cathedrals built in France and other parts of Europe in the early Middle Ages (and had a direct involvement with many of the stonemason guilds, like that of the ‘Children of Solomon’, who built them), this reference to the Ark of the Covenant in a carving or statue cannot be merely coincidental. The question might be posed “Through the Ark thou shall work” what? Could this be a reference to alchemical operations – which are described in occult circles as the “work”? Is it the transformation of society by knowledge perhaps? As it so happens, the Grail has sometimes been linked with the Philosopher’s Stone of which the C’s once said:
Q: (L) What is the "philosophers stone?"However, there is an earlier depiction of the Ark and the Grail being transported by a cart and this is to be found in a carving made into a pillar of the Cathedral of Notre Dame de Chartres, a magnificent Gothic church which I have had the privilege of visiting on a few occasions. The carving is known as the ‘Portal of the Initiates’. On this pillar there is a bas relief of an Ark being carried on a wheeled cart. We should note here that the Church authorities have never said anything officially about possible connections between the Ark and Chartres Cathedral.
The inscription on the Bas-Relief depicting the Ark reads “Hic Amititur Archa Cederis”, meaning “Through the Ark thou shall work”...
What does this strange inscription mean? Given that the Templars were in one way or another behind the construction of most, if not all, the Gothic cathedrals built in France and other parts of Europe in the early Middle Ages (and had a direct involvement with many of the stonemason guilds, like that of the ‘Children of Solomon’, who built them), this reference to the Ark of the Covenant in a carving or statue cannot be merely coincidental. The question might be posed “Through the Ark thou shall work” what? Could this be a reference to alchemical operations – which are described in occult circles as the “work”? Is it the transformation of society by knowledge perhaps? As it so happens, the Grail has sometimes been linked with the Philosopher’s Stone of which the C’s once said:
A: Idea centre.
We should note here that the Ark is especially sacred to the Jewish people but has far less importance for Christians since Jesus Christ is the focus of Christian attention. Indeed, in the Catholic Litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary (who the cathedral of Notre Dame is supposedly dedicated to), the Ark of the Covenant is listed as one of her honorary titles - see Litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary.pdf (elcatholics.org). If the Templars did discover and retrieve the Ark of the Covenant, then we know from the C’s that it no longer contained the deadly power cell that had been used by Abraham/Moses to destroy the Israelites’ enemies since the C’s told us that Abraham/Moses handed it back to the 4th density STS forces who had originally created it. I set out below the various references to the Ark in the transcripts, which are relevant to us here:
Session 7 November 1994:
Q: (L) What was the "Ark of the Covenant"?
A: Power cell.
Q: (L) What was the origin of this power cell?
A: Lizards given to the Jews to use for manipulation of others.
Q: (L) Why was it that if you came close to this object or touched it you would die?
A: Energy overload; scrambling by reverse electromagnetism.
Q: (L) What is reverse electromagnetism?
A: Turned inward.
Q: (L) What effect does it produce?
A: Liquification of matter.
Q: (L) Well, that is pleasant. This "cell" was kept in an ornate box of some sort, is that correct?
A: Yes.
Q: (L) Why was it only the priests who could handle it?
A: Only those who would not try to use for selfish reasons.
Q: (L) But then did just coming near it injure a person?
A: Yes.
Q: (L) Well why were these individuals able to come near it?
A: Nonselfish energy field.
Session 11 April 1998:
Q: Ummm, in reading this funny book I just finished {I believe it was “Fingerprints of the Gods” by Graham Hancock}, I discovered that there is the tradition of the Ark of the Covenant being in Ethiopia. This guy did a bunch of research on it, and it seems possible that it is there, and that it may even be active. Is it, in fact, in the church of St. Mary of Zion in Ethiopia?
A: No.
Q: Where is it?
A: If we were to reveal this to you, it would be akin to giving a hand grenade to a baby!!
Q: Well, I just thought I would ask! What I found out was that this wonderful Hakluyt Society that chronicled the funny business in the Canary Islands {which I had read previously, and which claimed that the Ark of the Covenant was there} also kept track of the goings on in Ethiopia. One of the things they told about was the carrying of the Ark in procession by red or blond headed guys. And there was the Croix Patte of the Templars on a number of objects in Ethiopia. The Rose Croix. Did we have Templars there [MJF: The answer is yes, since the Templars did have a presence in Ethiopia], or what was going on? Was the Ark there and was it then taken somewhere else?
A: The Ark of the Covenant is not what you think it is.
Q: You guys said that it was a power cell. I don't have some sort of romantic idea of it. I can accept that. But there are all these stories about it and a lot of people have mythologized it. What do you mean by saying such a thing. What is the Ark? [MJF: a TDRAM?]
A: See Oak Island. {Trans-dimensional Atomic Remolecularizer?}
Q: It seems that the Templars were in charge of building the Cathedral at Chartres, and there is a tableau on one of the porches of Melchizedek and the Queen of Sheba. Equidistant between them is the Ark of the Covenant in a cart. Melchizedek is holding a cup that is supposed to be the Holy Grail. Inside this cup is a cylindrical object of stone. What is this?
A: Greater sight. [MJF: Curiously, the C’s statement here would fit in well with Baphomet’s description as “the seer of the passage” – see more below on this.]
Figure of Melchizedek holding a cup that is supposed to be the Holy Grail
A: Why cannot it be both?
Q: (A) It can be both, but is it both?
A: Yes.
Q: (A) So, it is a device for greater sight like a crystal ball, yes?
A: Only when utilized exactly precisely.
Session 23 August 2001:
Q: (L) Did they, or did they not, have the Ark of the Covenant? Was this given to this group of people by 4th density?
A: Close.
Q: (L) Who was it originally given to?
A: Abraham.
Q: (L) Who gave it to him?
A: Sara.
Q: (L) Is the story of Rachel stealing the household gods from her father may have really been the story of Sara stealing the Ark from Akhenaten?
A: Yes.
Q: (L) No wonder Akhenaten was hot to follow them. He wasn't after Sara, he wanted his Ark back.
A: Yes.
Q: (L) Who gave the Ark to Akhenaten?
A: STS 4th Density.
Session 2 February 2003:
Q: One of the questions we would like to clear up is the issue of the Holy Grail and the Ark. Is the Ark of the Covenant - the ark thing given to the early pre-Mosaic Jews that you have described previously - the same as the Holy Grail?
A: No.
Q: (L) So there are two completely different technologies?
A: If you wish to term it such.
[…]
Q: (L) One aspect of the variation on the story was that Jacob gave his brother, Esau, the 'blessing' and some 'gift.' Does this reflect an accurate part of the story that Moses, in his form as Jacob, passed something on to someone else’s - something that was important?
A: Yes.
Q: (L) Was it Moses/Abraham who was doing this?
A: Yes.
Q: (L) Who did he pass it on to?
A: It was finally understood by "Moses" that the danger of the object was greater than the ability of descendants to resist corruption. He handed it over to those who had created it.
Q: (Galahad) Was it STS or STO forces that created it?
A: STS.
Q: (Galahad) So, the Ark was an object created by STS. Did this amount to some sort of realization on Moses' part? Did he start to wake up?
A: Yes. The story of the "contending with the angel" was the significant turning point as well as the moment of return
You will observe that the C’s refer to the Grail above as being both a symbol and a device but not necessarily as a technology, and it also appears to manifest greater sight (or insight?) rather like a crystal ball is said to do so. Could a pure crystal skull (crystal being a form of stone of course) referred to as ‘Baphomet’ by the Templars be the device the C’s were referring to here? Afterall, they once said that the Mitchell-Hedges Skull discovered in Central America in the 1930’s was used by the Mayans (Atlantean descendants) to learn about the soul and reflective re-molecularization imaging, which certainly would be a useful skill if you had a TDARM handy:
Q: (L) Who carved the crystal skull found in Central America? [MJF: The Mitchell-Hedges Skull]
A: Mayans.
Q: (L) What was the purpose of that skull?
A: Study brain. Long message follows pause: Now: skull was to learn about soul; reflective remolecularization imaging. Grays do this with abductees.
Q: (L) Through what kind of instrument.
A: Energy focusing.
Another term for “focusing” is “lensing” and this may provide us with another clue to the nature of the Grail.
Q: (L) We were making some theories about this object that Vincent Bridges was looking for - the Ark of the Covenant, or the Holy Grail. I believe that we understand that this is an object that is of great usefulness, some kind of lensing device. Is that correct?
A: Yes.
The fact that a pure crystal skull is also a stone may also reflect in what the C’s said here, with an intriguing nod to Einstein and his theories of relativity, which involved the bending of star light by gravity, who lived and worked in Switzerland where St Gallen is located:
Q: Okay. Next: On this subject of 'looking for the frequency of light,' the 'undreamed of treasures in Rhineland,' and needing a better 'handl' on it. I came to the conclusion that it might be Liechtenstein because of the 'handle of a stein' and Liecht is light in German, so we have the frequency of light with a handle on it, or Liechtenstein. And, in this place there is a little town called Triesen.
A: What does stein mean, is it "written in stone?" [MJF: Could this be a very oblique reference to the inscription “Hic Amititur Archa Cederis”, “Through the Ark thou shall work”...?]
Q: Stein as in 'grail,' and stone as in 'philosopher's.' So, maybe we are getting close.
A: What does Einstein mean?
Q: 'One stone.' And a stein is a cup and a stone at the same time. So, Triesen is in the 'beautiful countryside between the Rhine and the alpine world.' There is an alp called Lawena, nearby Lake Constance, and the Swiss canton of St. Gallen. You said something about being buried in 'Galle' and this seems to have all the related elements collected together... all the key words... so am I...
A: On the right track? It looks good.
However, if the power cell that gave the Ark its fearsome reputation had been handed back to the STS forces who had created it for the Israelites/Jews, what did the Ark contain that was still so important. Well, it probable contained the Tablets of Destiny or the Ten Commandments, together with pots of monoatomic gold white powder. However, I think it also held the Holy Grail and still did when the Templars found the Ark at some time in the 12th century. I also believe the depiction of the cart with the Ark of the Covenant and the cup the statue Melchizedek is holding, inside of which is a cylindrical object of stone (the Grail?) are deliberate pointers to the fact that the Templars had found both the Ark and the Grail. Insofar as I am aware, the Old Testament stories never describe the Ark as being transported by cart but that it was carried everywhere by four Levites who used attached poles (just as the Egyptians had used when transporting their idols by Ark-like coffers or boxes). This suggests the depiction of the cart in the stone carving relates to a later time and most probably to the Templars who had carried it to safety in this manner.
The emergence of the Grail romances coincided with the final years of the Templars, which in turn coincided with the commencement of the Renaissance as the C’s noted:
Q: Why was the 12th century the focal point for the propagation of the grail legends, the troubadours, the whole thing?
A: Beginning of "Renaissance."
Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart
It is interesting to learn then that one of the first stories of the Arthurian legend to feature Sir Lancelot as a prominent character was a 12th-century Old French poem by Chrétien de Troyes (although it is believed that Chrétien did not complete the text himself, which is an interesting revelation in itself) called Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart (in French: Lancelot, le Chevalier de la charrette). Of course, Chrétien is perhaps best remembered for his epic tale of Percival and the Story of the Holy Grail, which was written between 1181 and 1190 and was never completed by Chrétien. As with Perceval, the last thousand lines of Lancelot were written by Godefroi de Leigni, apparently by arrangement with Chrétien. In the case of Perceval, it is understood the poet's death prevented him from completing the work but in the case of Lancelot, no reason is given. This has not stopped speculation that Chrétien did not approve of Lancelot's adulterous subject (in which case he seems unlikely to have invented Lancelot).
The narrative talks about the abduction of Queen Guinevere and was the first text to feature the illicit love affair between Lancelot and Guinevere. Chrétien's writings impacted the Arthurian canon, establishing Lancelot’s subsequent prominence in English literature. He was the first writer to deal with the Arthurian themes of the lineage of Lancelot, his relationship to Guinevere, secret love and infidelity, and the idea of courtly love.
The story centres on Lancelot’s rescue of Guinevere after she has been abducted by Meleagant, the malevolent son of King Bademagu, the righteous ruler of the nearby Kingdom of Gorre. It deals with Lancelot's trials rescuing Guinevere, and his struggle to balance his duties as a warrior and as a lover bound by societal conventions.
The book begins with Guinevere being abducted by Meleagant, who has tricked Arthur into allowing him to do so. After Gawain protests Arthur’s decision to let them go, Arthur allows Gawain to pursue them. While Gawain is searching for the pair, he runs into the (then unnamed) Lancelot who, after riding his horse to death, convinces Gawain to lend him a horse in pursuit of the queen. Lancelot then speeds after Guinevere. When Gawain catches up to him, Lancelot has worn out his new horse to death just as he did his previous one. Lancelot then encounters a cart-driving dwarf, who says he will tell Lancelot where Guinevere and her captor went if Lancelot agrees to ride in his cart. Lancelot boards the cart reluctantly as this is a dishonourable form of transport for a knight. Gawain, unwilling to demean himself in this manner, chooses to follow on horseback instead. Along this journey they encounter many obstacles. Lancelot is regularly derided by locals along his journey for having reduced himself to such a lowly stature by riding in the aforementioned cart. For those who wish to see a fuller synopsis of the tale you will find it at the following link: Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart - Wikipedia
I find it interesting though that Lancelot, a character who is intimately tied up with Grail lore, is depicted in the story as dishonourably riding in a cart with a dwarf who happens to know the secret of Guinevere’s whereabouts. Although the tale, which is a classic quest story involving many challenges for Lancelot along the way, revolves principally around saving Guinevere, I can’t help wondering whether she may be a cypher for the Grail and the use of a cart as an important part of the narrative hints that a cart, as depicted in the carving of the ‘Portal of the Initiates’ at Chartres Cathedral (a portal being a gateway) may have once been used to carry the Ark and the Grail to safety, thus serving a noble purpose. In Christian terms, the greatest human virtue is humility, the touchstone of all graces, so Lancelot stooping to riding a cart in order to rescue Guinevere, shows him displaying a profound humility representative of an STO disposition, which is a pre-requisite for those who serve the Grail. Recall here what the C’s said about the Levite priests and the need to generate a non-selfish energy field when near the Ark. Could Chrétien have known of any of this?
The Knight of the Cart contains a preface explaining how the story was assigned to him by Marie de Champagne, who became the Countess of Champagne by her marriage to Henry I of Champagne. Marie de Champagne was well known for her interest in affairs of courtly love and is believed to have suggested the inclusion of this theme into the story.
Chrétien credits Marie with providing the matiere e san (matière et sen in Modern French). Matiere is a cognate of the English word "matter". It has been translated as meaning the well-known story (in this case, the story of Lancelot). San is harder to translate though. It's generally agreed to refer to the twist, the addition, or derivation (in this case, the affair). However, could there have been a hidden, more subtle twist to the story, particularly given the Count of Champagne’s close links to the Templars, one that those in the know would have recognised? Indeed, many believe the emergence of the Grail romances was instigated by the Templars after they had discovered the Grail in the Holy Land and brought it back to Europe with them. Was the reference to the cart thus a reference to how a cart was used by the Templars to take the Ark and the Grail to safety?
If the Grail is the pure crystal skull called Baphomet, the Head of God, where did the Templars take it once it left the Holy Land? The presumption is that they took it to France. Indeed, there is a popular theory that it was concealed at Chartres Cathedral. However, according to Andrew Collins in his book Twenty-First Century Grail there is a distinct possibility that it was brought to England at some stage.
The narrative talks about the abduction of Queen Guinevere and was the first text to feature the illicit love affair between Lancelot and Guinevere. Chrétien's writings impacted the Arthurian canon, establishing Lancelot’s subsequent prominence in English literature. He was the first writer to deal with the Arthurian themes of the lineage of Lancelot, his relationship to Guinevere, secret love and infidelity, and the idea of courtly love.
The story centres on Lancelot’s rescue of Guinevere after she has been abducted by Meleagant, the malevolent son of King Bademagu, the righteous ruler of the nearby Kingdom of Gorre. It deals with Lancelot's trials rescuing Guinevere, and his struggle to balance his duties as a warrior and as a lover bound by societal conventions.
The book begins with Guinevere being abducted by Meleagant, who has tricked Arthur into allowing him to do so. After Gawain protests Arthur’s decision to let them go, Arthur allows Gawain to pursue them. While Gawain is searching for the pair, he runs into the (then unnamed) Lancelot who, after riding his horse to death, convinces Gawain to lend him a horse in pursuit of the queen. Lancelot then speeds after Guinevere. When Gawain catches up to him, Lancelot has worn out his new horse to death just as he did his previous one. Lancelot then encounters a cart-driving dwarf, who says he will tell Lancelot where Guinevere and her captor went if Lancelot agrees to ride in his cart. Lancelot boards the cart reluctantly as this is a dishonourable form of transport for a knight. Gawain, unwilling to demean himself in this manner, chooses to follow on horseback instead. Along this journey they encounter many obstacles. Lancelot is regularly derided by locals along his journey for having reduced himself to such a lowly stature by riding in the aforementioned cart. For those who wish to see a fuller synopsis of the tale you will find it at the following link: Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart - Wikipedia
I find it interesting though that Lancelot, a character who is intimately tied up with Grail lore, is depicted in the story as dishonourably riding in a cart with a dwarf who happens to know the secret of Guinevere’s whereabouts. Although the tale, which is a classic quest story involving many challenges for Lancelot along the way, revolves principally around saving Guinevere, I can’t help wondering whether she may be a cypher for the Grail and the use of a cart as an important part of the narrative hints that a cart, as depicted in the carving of the ‘Portal of the Initiates’ at Chartres Cathedral (a portal being a gateway) may have once been used to carry the Ark and the Grail to safety, thus serving a noble purpose. In Christian terms, the greatest human virtue is humility, the touchstone of all graces, so Lancelot stooping to riding a cart in order to rescue Guinevere, shows him displaying a profound humility representative of an STO disposition, which is a pre-requisite for those who serve the Grail. Recall here what the C’s said about the Levite priests and the need to generate a non-selfish energy field when near the Ark. Could Chrétien have known of any of this?
The Knight of the Cart contains a preface explaining how the story was assigned to him by Marie de Champagne, who became the Countess of Champagne by her marriage to Henry I of Champagne. Marie de Champagne was well known for her interest in affairs of courtly love and is believed to have suggested the inclusion of this theme into the story.
Chrétien credits Marie with providing the matiere e san (matière et sen in Modern French). Matiere is a cognate of the English word "matter". It has been translated as meaning the well-known story (in this case, the story of Lancelot). San is harder to translate though. It's generally agreed to refer to the twist, the addition, or derivation (in this case, the affair). However, could there have been a hidden, more subtle twist to the story, particularly given the Count of Champagne’s close links to the Templars, one that those in the know would have recognised? Indeed, many believe the emergence of the Grail romances was instigated by the Templars after they had discovered the Grail in the Holy Land and brought it back to Europe with them. Was the reference to the cart thus a reference to how a cart was used by the Templars to take the Ark and the Grail to safety?
If the Grail is the pure crystal skull called Baphomet, the Head of God, where did the Templars take it once it left the Holy Land? The presumption is that they took it to France. Indeed, there is a popular theory that it was concealed at Chartres Cathedral. However, according to Andrew Collins in his book Twenty-First Century Grail there is a distinct possibility that it was brought to England at some stage.
Continued in Part 2
The Knights Templar and the Head of God Part 2
The Head of God in England
Richard Ward’s Dream
The Statue of Asmodeus at the Church at Rennes-le-Chateau
Session 20 June 1998:
Q: What was the head worshipped by the Templars that was supposed to have been called "Baphomet?"
A: Seer of the passage.
Q: What does that mean?
A: Remember, secrets of Knights Templar were kept in caves** guided by eternally burning lamps.
Q: So, we are back to something else. I once asked about the Third Man Theme and that perhaps you meant that the imagery was that of the Triple Goddess relating to the Isle of Man … and you said ‘if viewed through sheets of rain.’ So, in this book that I am reading, it talks about the fact that the Celts of Gaul worshipped the Rain as the manifestation of the Goddess, and the Celts of Scotland worshipped the Sun … the male God. Does this relate in any way to this remark you made about sheets of rain?
A: In an offhand way.
Q: Anything further you can tell me in terms of a clue about ‘sheets of rain?’
A: Not for now, when you get there, you will find the chalice.
Q: Where and WHAT chalice?
A: Wait and see!
The C’s expounded on this in the session dated 28 May 2013:
Q: (L) Today is 28 May 2013. And we apparently have a bunch of questions written down here, and a lot of things on our minds. So I guess we might as well get started here. Hello.
A: New world coming.
Q: (L) And who do we have with us tonight?
A: Miecekaii of Cassiopaean Future.
Q: (L) What did you mean by, "New world coming"?
A: You are in the transition and it will accelerate dramatically soon.
Quote from session dated 13 February 2011:
Q: (Andromeda) What's up with the cracked airplane windows that have been showing up in the news?
A: Electrical charges have many effects. By the way, that is the reason for some of the animal deaths: electrical discharges.
Q: (Belibaste) Because there's more dust between the ionosphere and the surface of the earth. (A***) Is that also why I've been getting shocked by electrical equipment recently?
A: Yes
Q: (Perceval) Is that electrical discharges from the sun, or...
A: Sheets of rain, or dust plus electricity. Snow too.
(L) So that was the last reference to the term that is exercising my mind right now: “sheets of rain”, and what brought it to my mind was of course the current state of the planet which is quite dire as far as I can see. There are enormous amounts of rain falling in many, many places. It's been raining here almost continuously since December at least, and we had rain before that. (Perceval) It's still snowing in a lot of places. (L) It's snowing in places, and you just mentioned that in this last excerpt... You said, "Sheets of rain, or dust plus electricity. Snow too." And Belibaste asked, "Because there's more dust between the ionosphere and the surface of the earth." Is that what we're looking at in the term “sheets of rain”? Something that conducts electricity... Is this related to these extreme amounts of rainfall and snowfall? Is it all electrical phenomena, like even the jet stream and all that sort of thing?
A: Indeed, and the rain can conduct.
Q: (L) Okay, so going back to my triple goddess viewed through sheets of rain, since I now have a different understanding of what these "gods" and "goddesses" represented, that they probably were cometary bodies... What you're saying, or what I'm assuming you're saying, is the triple goddess viewed through sheets of rain is essentially a comet or comets? Is it electrical discharges? (Belibaste) The cause of the sheets of rain might be the triple goddess, i.e. triple comet. (L) Oh... Is Belibaste right on that? That the cause of the sheets of rain could be a triple cometary body?
A: Close. Also consider plasma shapes including those that may appear "chalice like".
Q: (Belibaste) This cometary body is highly charged, and because of potential difference, there's a discharge with the surface of earth, in the atmosphere, leading to sheets and rain and thunders and plasma sheath which can have a chalice shape.
Q: We don't understand.
A: Knowledge protects.
Q: But what is this L V? [MJF: Love?]
A: Process of L V. Source. [Source of Love – God at 7th Density?]
Q: (V) Does this mean that the process of deprogramming will lead to the source?
A: L V I 3 5 Ark. [MJF: Could this be a subtle reference to the Ark of the Covenant and to Leviticus Chapter 3 verse 5: And Aaron’s sons shall burn it on the altar upon the burnt sacrifice, which is upon the wood that is on the fire: it is an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the Lord].
Q: (Confusion expressed about this last "clue.")
A: L 5 I 3 for more. Mirror.
Q: (V) So we will know more or be able to get more via the mirror?
A: Yes. Goodbye.
Ward’s Vision
This strange ceremony involving seven knights pointing their swords towards a scantily clad woman (who may have represented any of the pagan mother goddess figures) who was holding a chalice aloft, whilst a young knight (a Perceval figure) was holding a reliquary within which was the ‘Head of God’ (Baphomet), makes me think of what the C’s said here:
Session 26 July 1997:
Q: What is the meaning of 'The Widow's Son?' The implication?
A: Stalks path of wisdom incarnate.
Q: Why is this described as a Widow's son? This was the appellation of Perceval...
A: Perceval was knighted in the court of seven.
Q: The court of seven what?
A: Swords points signify crystal transmitter of truth beholden.
Q: So, the Percys DID know something. I understand that the Percy family has a collection of 62 alchemical manuscripts... which is actually how I found out about Alnwick - I was tracking these alchemical texts....
A: But if you go there, do not ask for the key!
Osiris’ Tree of Life
In his book, Henry states:
In the hieroglyph of Osiris two ‘TET’ pillars are featured on either side a mysterious object that resembles the Hebrew Ark of the Covenant. Beside them is Osiris’ Pillar of Love (far right). The Pillar of Osiris stood approximately forty feet tall and was lined with gold.
This pillar contains what appears to be a serpent. However, we are told it actually contained the “head” of Osiris.
The hieroglyph of Osiris
A: Perceval was knighted in the court of seven.
Q: The court of seven what?
A: Swords points signify crystal transmitter of truth beholden.
Q: (L) They also talk about the ‘Seven Sages.’ You once said that Perceval was ‘knighted in the Court of Seven and that the sword’s points signify ‘crystal transmitter of truth beholden.’ Do these seven sages relate to this ‘Court of Seven’ that you mentioned?
A: Close.
Q: (L) When you said ‘swords points signify crystal transmitter of truth beholden,’ could you elaborate on that remark?
A: Has celestial meaning.
Q: Another thing: I researched the word Emerald, and that it is derived from the word orient, which is Orion, and that they go back to words from which we also derive Aurora and gold. Is there something about the element gold, such as the atomic number, or anything, that is a specific frequency of light that is important?
A: Gold, when heated to its liquidation temperature, gives off energy waves which, when properly channelled, open the door to higher density experience. Clue to this is in the way that gold can be an effective transceiver of radio waves and transdimensional communications.
Q: (L) Okay, going back to the pyramid. In the Pyramid Texts, when they talk about the ‘Boat of Millions of Years,’ what are they talking about?
A: Time machine.
As to the carving of the Green Man at St Michael’s Church at Garway, here is what William Henry says of the Green Man:
“The Green Man is a powerful mythic image known to every civilization. He is depicted with vegetation symbolizing the Life Force or Word of God spewing from his mouth. He is known by many names throughout the world: Adonis (Greek, Roman), “the Lord,” and Dionysus are a few of his names.”
Q: Okay. I have several books on the subject. I will start tomorrow. Now, when the Templars were arrested, they were accused of worshipping a head, or skull, and also the god Baphomet. Were these spurious accusations designed to defame them?
A: Skull was of pure crystal.
The Head of God in England
Although Andrew Collins relies to a large extent on the psychic gifts of his friend Richard Ward in his Grail quest as recounted in his book, he also learned much from official English records of the period that dealt with Templar affairs. Much of this account centres around one English Templar knight in particular who appears to have been charged by the Grand Master of the Temple with protecting the Grail and getting it safely out of the country.
Richard Ward’s Dream
The book starts with Ward having a frightening dream which involved a life-sized statue of a seated demonic figure with tiny horns on its head that was located in a cave lit by burning torches. The description of this statue reminded me somewhat of the statue of the demon Asmodeus* (see statue below) that Abbé Bérenger Saunière displayed in his church in Rennes-le-Château, which is still there so far as I am aware.
The Statue of Asmodeus at the Church at Rennes-le-Chateau
In Ward’s dream a very tall red-haired, pale skinned man illuminated by an intense golden aura and wearing close fitting leather armour suddenly appeared carrying a long slim sword. Instinctively Ward recognised him as Bartzabel the angel of Mars. Ward continues by saying that Bartzabel raised his sword exclaiming “Behold Baphomet the Baptiser of Wisdom” referring to the stone statue before him. On waking from the dream, Ward seemed to recall that he had visited the cave in question some time ago and it was located in Hastings in Sussex. Ward felt that what he saw were the caves as they must have looked in the past, when the place was perhaps used for ritualistic purposes by some Templar-linked group, since Baphomet was the name given to an idol allegedly worshipped by the Templars. Collins after researching the matter, learned that in the early 19th century an Austrian orientalist named Baron Joseph von Hammer-Pürgstall proposed that Baphomet derived its name from the Greek bapho metis, meaning baptiser of wisdom, a theory that has grown with popularity ever since. Interestingly, the biblical researcher Hugh Schonfield, a Dead Sea Scrolls scholar, in his book The Essene Odyssey reached the same conclusion by using the Jewish Akbash Cipher, a complex code developed originally by the Essenes, to decipher the name which he decoded as meaning ‘Sophia’ – see: The Essene odyssey : the mystery of the True Teacher and the Essene impact on the shaping of human destiny : Schonfield, Hugh J. (Hugh Joseph), 1901-1988 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive. Baphomet would, however, come to be symbolised in the 19th century by a horned deity – part human and part goat – as depicted in a famous drawing by French occultist Eliphas Levi.
*I would mention at this point, as it will become more relevant later, that in Jewish Talmudic tradition, Asmodeus was the leader of 72 demons (aliens?) who assisted King Solomon in building his temple by the use of magic (or advanced technology?). According to legend, Solomon was able to control these demons through a magic talisman he possessed known as the Sigel or Seal of Solomon. We should also remember here that the full name of the Knights Templar was the Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon. In addition, the Freemasons, who many believe are the successors to the Templars, feature Solomon’s Temple significantly in their rituals, especially in the initiation rite of the Third Degree of Master Mason, where the murder of the mythic figure of Solomon’s chief architect and builder of the Temple, Hiram Abiff, forms a major part of the ceremony, Hiram being the model that all Freemasons are supposed to follow.
Collins researched into the Hastings Caves and discovered that they had been called St. Clement’s Caves, which started as natural fissures in the sandstone rock, which were later enlarged through excavation of the soft sandstone for use in glass manufacture. They only received a public mention as late as 1786 when Matthew Skinner, a visitor to the town, wrote about them and proposed that they might once have been an hermitage or an oratory since a deeply incised, equal-armed cross was to be seen just outside the doorway (sadly since destroyed). Although the caves were blocked up in 1811, they would be reopened, extended and finally opened to the public in 1827. The caves were thereafter used for all sorts of activities including dinner functions, an air raid shelter, a dance hall, and a wax works. However, beyond its known history, rumours have persisted that the caves were once used for devil worship, which may have been connected with the horned statue in the so-called Chapel, which is set in a niche between corridors. What is clear from earlier town guides is that this statue pre-dates earlier statues or sculptures present in the caves and the statue has been identified for some reason with St. Clement since at least 1833. For Collins this suggested that there was a relationship between the statue and the caves’ dedication to St. Clement who was St Peter’s third successor as Bishop of Rome or Pope at the end of the 1st century AD. How did this come about?
Collins learned that the local Norman church was dedicated to St Clement, the patron saint of sailors whose symbol was the anchor (recalling here that the blue anchor is also a symbol widely used by the Rosicrucians). However, Collins subsequently learned that St. Clement, who was deliberately drowned by the Roman authorities after being tied to an anchor and thrown into the sea, was also the saint of choice of the Templar fleet. He also learned that the Templars had been based at Hastings Castle, which was founded immediately after the Battle of Hastings in 1066 by William the Conqueror and is based only a few hundred yards uphill from St. Clement’s Caves. Collins also discovered that Templars associated with the foundation of a medieval round church dedicated to St Clement close to the Essex Thameside town of Grays Thurrock were closely linked with Hastings Castle, which might explain why the local church, and by extension the caves, was dedicated to St Clement. This made Collins wonder whether the Templars may have been responsible for the conversion of the Hastings Caves into an oratory. This speculation by Collins concerning the Caves made me think of what the C’s once said about the Templars:
*I would mention at this point, as it will become more relevant later, that in Jewish Talmudic tradition, Asmodeus was the leader of 72 demons (aliens?) who assisted King Solomon in building his temple by the use of magic (or advanced technology?). According to legend, Solomon was able to control these demons through a magic talisman he possessed known as the Sigel or Seal of Solomon. We should also remember here that the full name of the Knights Templar was the Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon. In addition, the Freemasons, who many believe are the successors to the Templars, feature Solomon’s Temple significantly in their rituals, especially in the initiation rite of the Third Degree of Master Mason, where the murder of the mythic figure of Solomon’s chief architect and builder of the Temple, Hiram Abiff, forms a major part of the ceremony, Hiram being the model that all Freemasons are supposed to follow.
Collins researched into the Hastings Caves and discovered that they had been called St. Clement’s Caves, which started as natural fissures in the sandstone rock, which were later enlarged through excavation of the soft sandstone for use in glass manufacture. They only received a public mention as late as 1786 when Matthew Skinner, a visitor to the town, wrote about them and proposed that they might once have been an hermitage or an oratory since a deeply incised, equal-armed cross was to be seen just outside the doorway (sadly since destroyed). Although the caves were blocked up in 1811, they would be reopened, extended and finally opened to the public in 1827. The caves were thereafter used for all sorts of activities including dinner functions, an air raid shelter, a dance hall, and a wax works. However, beyond its known history, rumours have persisted that the caves were once used for devil worship, which may have been connected with the horned statue in the so-called Chapel, which is set in a niche between corridors. What is clear from earlier town guides is that this statue pre-dates earlier statues or sculptures present in the caves and the statue has been identified for some reason with St. Clement since at least 1833. For Collins this suggested that there was a relationship between the statue and the caves’ dedication to St. Clement who was St Peter’s third successor as Bishop of Rome or Pope at the end of the 1st century AD. How did this come about?
Collins learned that the local Norman church was dedicated to St Clement, the patron saint of sailors whose symbol was the anchor (recalling here that the blue anchor is also a symbol widely used by the Rosicrucians). However, Collins subsequently learned that St. Clement, who was deliberately drowned by the Roman authorities after being tied to an anchor and thrown into the sea, was also the saint of choice of the Templar fleet. He also learned that the Templars had been based at Hastings Castle, which was founded immediately after the Battle of Hastings in 1066 by William the Conqueror and is based only a few hundred yards uphill from St. Clement’s Caves. Collins also discovered that Templars associated with the foundation of a medieval round church dedicated to St Clement close to the Essex Thameside town of Grays Thurrock were closely linked with Hastings Castle, which might explain why the local church, and by extension the caves, was dedicated to St Clement. This made Collins wonder whether the Templars may have been responsible for the conversion of the Hastings Caves into an oratory. This speculation by Collins concerning the Caves made me think of what the C’s once said about the Templars:
Session 20 June 1998:
Q: What was the head worshipped by the Templars that was supposed to have been called "Baphomet?"
A: Seer of the passage.
Q: What does that mean?
A: Remember, secrets of Knights Templar were kept in caves** guided by eternally burning lamps.
**This point may also be directed to the church vault located under the remains of the chapel at Springwood Priory in Staffordshire, originally a Templar foundation, which, according to author Graham Phillips, may have been built over and around a cave once sacred to the local Celts. You will note that the C’s referred to caves in the plural here. This point may also be relevant to other cave systems which may have been used by the Templars in Spain, Portugal and Italy and perhaps even Switzerland – ref. the Dragonloch (Dragon’s Lair) Cave near St. Gallen. It may come as no surprise to readers to learn that there is also a cavern within Mt Pech Cardou in the Languedoc region of southern France, but this revelation awaits a further post.]
However, the C‘s seem to be implying here that the Baphomet crystal skull was at one time or another kept in a cave. Could the Hastings Caves have been one such place perhaps?
Ward’s Second DreamHowever, the C‘s seem to be implying here that the Baphomet crystal skull was at one time or another kept in a cave. Could the Hastings Caves have been one such place perhaps?
Richard Ward found himself back in the Hastings Caves before the statue of Baphomet, which was illuminated by a dull orange glow cast by flaming torches, in a follow-up dream. This time there was no angel of Mars appearing out of the rock but just the figure of the English occultist Aleister Crowley who would feature on and off throughout Collins account. Crowley made Ward aware that he had been brought back to the caves by the legend of the Holy Grail, which for Crowley was his Cup of Babalon. Ward experienced an overwhelming feeling of the presence in the caves in the distant past of Knights Templar and a passionate concern for a holy relic linked directly with the Grail, which Crowley wanted Ward to find. In the dream he told Ward “Take the Baptism of Wisdom and learn the truth.” At this, Ward saw a female hand of a woman with red hair reaching down into the earth, her fingers searching and feeling until they made contact with the metal surface of a small, silver-plated chalice. Ward recognised the woman as fellow psychic Helen Laurens who in Easter of that year with Andrew Collins had found the chalice in question by psychic means at a church in Ide Hill, near Sevenoaks in Kent. She too had been in contact with the spirit of Aleister Crowley through a series of dreams she experienced in 1979. Ward was left wondering what possible significance this might have to the Hastings Caves, Baphomet and a search for the Holy Grail particularly where Crowley, once described in a celebrated legal case as the ‘wickedest man in the world’, appeared to be his guide.
For those readers familiar with Aleister Crowley’s life, they may already be aware of the significance of the Cup of Babalon, but I don’t intend to dwell on his role in this story very much nor on his Cup, since I wish to focus instead on the Head of God, which features prominently in Collins’ account. Suffice to say that the Cup of Babalon was Crowley’s take on the ‘Whore of Babylon’, the woman of St John’s revelations who rides the seven-headed beast of the Apocalypse and holds a cup containing the blood of the saints and martyrs. For Crowley, Babalon was the consort of Baphomet within the unique magical system he developed for the Order of the Templars of the East (the “OTO”). Crowley would design his own unique Tarot pack where one card “Lust” depicted Babalon astride the seven-headed beast of the Apocalypse holding aloft a golden chalice.
It is interesting therefore that the Grail should be connected in this way to the Apocalypse given what is going on right now in the world. It leads me to wonder whether the finding of the Grail is an event that is linked in some way to the end of the world or at least to the transition to 4th density with the arrival of the Wave. Did the C’s signal as much when they said the following to Laura:
For those readers familiar with Aleister Crowley’s life, they may already be aware of the significance of the Cup of Babalon, but I don’t intend to dwell on his role in this story very much nor on his Cup, since I wish to focus instead on the Head of God, which features prominently in Collins’ account. Suffice to say that the Cup of Babalon was Crowley’s take on the ‘Whore of Babylon’, the woman of St John’s revelations who rides the seven-headed beast of the Apocalypse and holds a cup containing the blood of the saints and martyrs. For Crowley, Babalon was the consort of Baphomet within the unique magical system he developed for the Order of the Templars of the East (the “OTO”). Crowley would design his own unique Tarot pack where one card “Lust” depicted Babalon astride the seven-headed beast of the Apocalypse holding aloft a golden chalice.
It is interesting therefore that the Grail should be connected in this way to the Apocalypse given what is going on right now in the world. It leads me to wonder whether the finding of the Grail is an event that is linked in some way to the end of the world or at least to the transition to 4th density with the arrival of the Wave. Did the C’s signal as much when they said the following to Laura:
Q: So, we are back to something else. I once asked about the Third Man Theme and that perhaps you meant that the imagery was that of the Triple Goddess relating to the Isle of Man … and you said ‘if viewed through sheets of rain.’ So, in this book that I am reading, it talks about the fact that the Celts of Gaul worshipped the Rain as the manifestation of the Goddess, and the Celts of Scotland worshipped the Sun … the male God. Does this relate in any way to this remark you made about sheets of rain?
A: In an offhand way.
Q: Anything further you can tell me in terms of a clue about ‘sheets of rain?’
A: Not for now, when you get there, you will find the chalice.
Q: Where and WHAT chalice?
A: Wait and see!
The C’s expounded on this in the session dated 28 May 2013:
Q: (L) Today is 28 May 2013. And we apparently have a bunch of questions written down here, and a lot of things on our minds. So I guess we might as well get started here. Hello.
A: New world coming.
Q: (L) And who do we have with us tonight?
A: Miecekaii of Cassiopaean Future.
Q: (L) What did you mean by, "New world coming"?
A: You are in the transition and it will accelerate dramatically soon.
Quote from session dated 13 February 2011:
Q: (Andromeda) What's up with the cracked airplane windows that have been showing up in the news?
A: Electrical charges have many effects. By the way, that is the reason for some of the animal deaths: electrical discharges.
Q: (Belibaste) Because there's more dust between the ionosphere and the surface of the earth. (A***) Is that also why I've been getting shocked by electrical equipment recently?
A: Yes
Q: (Perceval) Is that electrical discharges from the sun, or...
A: Sheets of rain, or dust plus electricity. Snow too.
(L) So that was the last reference to the term that is exercising my mind right now: “sheets of rain”, and what brought it to my mind was of course the current state of the planet which is quite dire as far as I can see. There are enormous amounts of rain falling in many, many places. It's been raining here almost continuously since December at least, and we had rain before that. (Perceval) It's still snowing in a lot of places. (L) It's snowing in places, and you just mentioned that in this last excerpt... You said, "Sheets of rain, or dust plus electricity. Snow too." And Belibaste asked, "Because there's more dust between the ionosphere and the surface of the earth." Is that what we're looking at in the term “sheets of rain”? Something that conducts electricity... Is this related to these extreme amounts of rainfall and snowfall? Is it all electrical phenomena, like even the jet stream and all that sort of thing?
A: Indeed, and the rain can conduct.
Q: (L) Okay, so going back to my triple goddess viewed through sheets of rain, since I now have a different understanding of what these "gods" and "goddesses" represented, that they probably were cometary bodies... What you're saying, or what I'm assuming you're saying, is the triple goddess viewed through sheets of rain is essentially a comet or comets? Is it electrical discharges? (Belibaste) The cause of the sheets of rain might be the triple goddess, i.e. triple comet. (L) Oh... Is Belibaste right on that? That the cause of the sheets of rain could be a triple cometary body?
A: Close. Also consider plasma shapes including those that may appear "chalice like".
Q: (Belibaste) This cometary body is highly charged, and because of potential difference, there's a discharge with the surface of earth, in the atmosphere, leading to sheets and rain and thunders and plasma sheath which can have a chalice shape.
A chalice is obviously a form of drinking cup, which is often connected to the Communion Cup used by priests when celebrating the Eucharist and is linked by many Christians to the Holy Grail as being the chalice from which Christ and the Apostles drank at the Last Supper. It might also be linked to the Norse Horn of Plenty from which no thirst was ever slaked – which can be viewed as another metaphor for the Holy Grail. Finally, we have the mirror image representations of Nicolas Poussin’s painting of The Shepherds of Arcadia where a chalice and a skull appear. The C’s have spoken of finding artefacts, so it is possible that the Grail is also connected to specific artefacts including a chalice of some kind? It would be advisable to keep this thought in mind when I come to expand on the comments I made recently about the strange goings on in Girona, Spain, which involved Abbé Berenger Saunière, his young French lover and a group dedicated to protecting the secret of the Grail.
Ward’s dream finished with Crowley showing him a golden star of seven points, which Crowley had used as an abstract symbol for his concept of Babalon. Within its centre would be drawn two conjoining arcs representing the female vulva, emphasising its female character. For some reason this reminds me of the mirror image of Poussin’s painting as shown below, where a skull and two chalices appear, one of which is formed from tree foliage and is suspended over a hollow mountain, which might be viewed as the entrance to the female vulva:
Ward’s dream finished with Crowley showing him a golden star of seven points, which Crowley had used as an abstract symbol for his concept of Babalon. Within its centre would be drawn two conjoining arcs representing the female vulva, emphasising its female character. For some reason this reminds me of the mirror image of Poussin’s painting as shown below, where a skull and two chalices appear, one of which is formed from tree foliage and is suspended over a hollow mountain, which might be viewed as the entrance to the female vulva:
The dream finished with the name of a book being repeated again and again: Liber CLVI (Book 156). Ward on waking formed the view that the book reference was probably to a book written by Crowley. However, what he did know was that the number 156 was attributed by Crowley to Babalon through the gematria system since its letters when changed into Hebrew added up to this same amount. Hence, to his mind Liber CLVI was presumably about Babalon. This reference to Liber CLVI reminds me of a similar reference the C’s once gave Laura in session dated 17 March 2001, which was done under hypnotism with Vincent Bridges:
A: L V...
Q: We don't understand.
A: Knowledge protects.
Q: But what is this L V? [MJF: Love?]
A: Process of L V. Source. [Source of Love – God at 7th Density?]
Q: (V) Does this mean that the process of deprogramming will lead to the source?
A: L V I 3 5 Ark. [MJF: Could this be a subtle reference to the Ark of the Covenant and to Leviticus Chapter 3 verse 5: And Aaron’s sons shall burn it on the altar upon the burnt sacrifice, which is upon the wood that is on the fire: it is an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the Lord].
Q: (Confusion expressed about this last "clue.")
A: L 5 I 3 for more. Mirror.
Q: (V) So we will know more or be able to get more via the mirror?
A: Yes. Goodbye.
Ward’s Vision
Richard Ward would find himself back in the Hastings Caves yet again in a psychic vison he experienced soon after the second dream. This vision occurred on 4th December, which is curiously the very day I am writing this particular piece and is the day my late father was born on. In Ward’s new vision, he found himself back in the Hastings Caves which were illuminated once again by flame-lit torches. However, standing before him this time were two figures from very different time periods. The first figure was Aleister Crowley dressed bizarrely as a ringmaster in a Victorian circus. The second figure was a medieval knight dressed in a pointed brown woollen cowl. Crowley told Ward that the other figure was Stephen de Staplebridge, a Templar knight. With this announcement, the feeling came to Ward that just one year after his induction into a secret chapter of the Knights Templar, de Staplebridge had visited the caves for reasons relating to the Order’s veneration of Baphomet and the Grail [MJF: which for me is one and the same thing].
Crowley claimed that there had been a key involved in de Staplebridge’s initiation. Ward then saw a flash of a strange man called Arnold dressed in a leather apron who was fashioning the Baphomet figure with crude tools in the year 1692 (which you will note coincides with the age of the 17th century Rosicrucians). Crowley continued by saying that they (the Knights Templar) would show him the key and the Star of Babalon. Apparently, the Cup of Babalon was at the centre of the star. Crowley insisted that Ward should draw the seven-spoked star of Babalon. Ward wondered if this meant the star should be drawn on a map. If so, what were the markers. Was one of them the Hastings Caves. Crowley told hm to read between the lines of his work and to “Draw the star, take the cup, and the mystery of all things will be revealed”.
Ward then saw the setting change to that of the interior of a stone tower connected to the Church of St Michael at Garway in Herefordshire where seven Templar knights in white surcoats were lying in a star-shaped pattern on the stone floor. Their feet were directed towards the centre of the circle, as were their drawn broadswords, held between the knights’ open legs. In their midst was a scantily clad woman holding aloft a small cup or chalice, while the knight Ward saw earlier, Stephen de Staplebridge, who was also in chainmail and a white surcoat, was stood by and seemingly officiating over what was going on. As if aware that the setting was now being observed by prying eyes from beyond time, the Templar Knight turned around to reveal that he was holding a silver reliquary (a relic holder) in the shape of a two-faced bearded head at which he proclaimed: “I bring you the Head of God.”
Crowley claimed that there had been a key involved in de Staplebridge’s initiation. Ward then saw a flash of a strange man called Arnold dressed in a leather apron who was fashioning the Baphomet figure with crude tools in the year 1692 (which you will note coincides with the age of the 17th century Rosicrucians). Crowley continued by saying that they (the Knights Templar) would show him the key and the Star of Babalon. Apparently, the Cup of Babalon was at the centre of the star. Crowley insisted that Ward should draw the seven-spoked star of Babalon. Ward wondered if this meant the star should be drawn on a map. If so, what were the markers. Was one of them the Hastings Caves. Crowley told hm to read between the lines of his work and to “Draw the star, take the cup, and the mystery of all things will be revealed”.
Ward then saw the setting change to that of the interior of a stone tower connected to the Church of St Michael at Garway in Herefordshire where seven Templar knights in white surcoats were lying in a star-shaped pattern on the stone floor. Their feet were directed towards the centre of the circle, as were their drawn broadswords, held between the knights’ open legs. In their midst was a scantily clad woman holding aloft a small cup or chalice, while the knight Ward saw earlier, Stephen de Staplebridge, who was also in chainmail and a white surcoat, was stood by and seemingly officiating over what was going on. As if aware that the setting was now being observed by prying eyes from beyond time, the Templar Knight turned around to reveal that he was holding a silver reliquary (a relic holder) in the shape of a two-faced bearded head at which he proclaimed: “I bring you the Head of God.”
This strange ceremony involving seven knights pointing their swords towards a scantily clad woman (who may have represented any of the pagan mother goddess figures) who was holding a chalice aloft, whilst a young knight (a Perceval figure) was holding a reliquary within which was the ‘Head of God’ (Baphomet), makes me think of what the C’s said here:
Session 26 July 1997:
Q: What is the meaning of 'The Widow's Son?' The implication?
A: Stalks path of wisdom incarnate.
Q: Why is this described as a Widow's son? This was the appellation of Perceval...
A: Perceval was knighted in the court of seven.
Q: The court of seven what?
A: Swords points signify crystal transmitter of truth beholden.
There may, of course, be no connection but I have always thought that the C’s reference to a “crystal transmitter of truth beholden” was really a reference to the pure crystal skull the Templars called Baphomet – the Head of God, which in turn is the Grail, as signified here by a chalice or by the reliquary held by Stephen de Staplebridge.
And then there is the image of the two-faced bearded head reliquary (that is a container not the relic itself), which clearly reminds one of the Roman god Janus, who may be depicted in one of the alternative mirror image versions of Poussin’s painting of The Shepherds of Arcadia (see below) where a chalice and a skull also appear. Is this just a coincidence? Indeed, the double-headed bearded figure in the centre of the mirrored image of the painting even sits atop a shadowy cup or chalice. Did Poussin intend people to make this connection between Janus and the Grail? Had Poussin seen or taken part, as a Freemason or Rosicrucian, in a similar initiation ceremony as the one the Templar Knights who appeared in Ward’s vision were participating in?
The shadowy chalice represents something that to me looks more like a large libation cup rather than a conventional chalice or drinking cup. I say this because I watched a few months ago a very interesting TV series presented by Dan Brown (yes, he of The Da Vinci Code fame), who holds himself out as an expert on the Templars, which dealt with the authenticity or otherwise of a haul of Templar treasure and artefacts that had been unearthed in Portugal in the 1960’s and subsequently bought as a job lot by a couple of English collectors for their collection of historic artefacts that included, inter alia, many objects that had belonged to the medieval Templars. Amongst the artefacts in their haul were a reputed Grand Master’s sword, an ornate carved casket and a large black obsidian libation cup that had evidently been used by Portuguese Templars in their ceremonies, perhaps like the one depicted in Ward’s vision where a chalice was being held by a woman representing a Venus like figure. The two collectors, who were well read up on the Templars themselves, realised that the libation cup might have held potions or cocktails made from hallucinatory plants such as magic mushrooms, which contain the psychoactive compound psilocybin that can induce hallucinogenic/psychedelic effects in people. The libation cup was determined to be genuine as were the other Templar artefacts. This leads one to the inevitable conclusion that some Templars indulged in unholy, if not overtly sacrilegious practices, like the ceremony Ward experienced in his vision, which on the face of it seems more like some Dionysian initiation rite than a Christian ceremony. The Dionysian Mysteries were rituals in ancient Greece and Rome which sometimes used intoxicants and other trance-inducing techniques and were comparable to and linked with the more ancient Orphic Mysteries supposedly composed by Orpheus himself. These Mysteries may have influenced the early Jewish and Christian Gnostics and, later still, gnostic oriented groups such as the Cathars and Templars.
St Michael’s Church at GarwayAnd then there is the image of the two-faced bearded head reliquary (that is a container not the relic itself), which clearly reminds one of the Roman god Janus, who may be depicted in one of the alternative mirror image versions of Poussin’s painting of The Shepherds of Arcadia (see below) where a chalice and a skull also appear. Is this just a coincidence? Indeed, the double-headed bearded figure in the centre of the mirrored image of the painting even sits atop a shadowy cup or chalice. Did Poussin intend people to make this connection between Janus and the Grail? Had Poussin seen or taken part, as a Freemason or Rosicrucian, in a similar initiation ceremony as the one the Templar Knights who appeared in Ward’s vision were participating in?
The shadowy chalice represents something that to me looks more like a large libation cup rather than a conventional chalice or drinking cup. I say this because I watched a few months ago a very interesting TV series presented by Dan Brown (yes, he of The Da Vinci Code fame), who holds himself out as an expert on the Templars, which dealt with the authenticity or otherwise of a haul of Templar treasure and artefacts that had been unearthed in Portugal in the 1960’s and subsequently bought as a job lot by a couple of English collectors for their collection of historic artefacts that included, inter alia, many objects that had belonged to the medieval Templars. Amongst the artefacts in their haul were a reputed Grand Master’s sword, an ornate carved casket and a large black obsidian libation cup that had evidently been used by Portuguese Templars in their ceremonies, perhaps like the one depicted in Ward’s vision where a chalice was being held by a woman representing a Venus like figure. The two collectors, who were well read up on the Templars themselves, realised that the libation cup might have held potions or cocktails made from hallucinatory plants such as magic mushrooms, which contain the psychoactive compound psilocybin that can induce hallucinogenic/psychedelic effects in people. The libation cup was determined to be genuine as were the other Templar artefacts. This leads one to the inevitable conclusion that some Templars indulged in unholy, if not overtly sacrilegious practices, like the ceremony Ward experienced in his vision, which on the face of it seems more like some Dionysian initiation rite than a Christian ceremony. The Dionysian Mysteries were rituals in ancient Greece and Rome which sometimes used intoxicants and other trance-inducing techniques and were comparable to and linked with the more ancient Orphic Mysteries supposedly composed by Orpheus himself. These Mysteries may have influenced the early Jewish and Christian Gnostics and, later still, gnostic oriented groups such as the Cathars and Templars.
The Church of St. Michael at Garway and the separate stone tower, which featured in Richard Ward’s vision, still exist today. A church has stood on the site since Celtic times, dating back to the early 7th century when a monastery was established there. The Templars would arrive in 1180 and would build a typical Templar round church (which were actually designed around an octagonal structure, thus denoting the significance of the number 8 to the Templars as in the Eight Beatitudes) based on the model of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. The church today has been much modified and now reflects the more standard rectangular model for Christian churches, no longer being circular. Moreover, the stone tower that was once separate, which no doubt was built by the Templars for defensive purposes, is now joined on to the back of the church. Although, it is many centuries since the church was last used by the Templars, they have still left their mark on the fabric of the church and the stone tower. For example, within the church is a carving of a green man with horns (see image below), which some researchers link with the demon Asmodeus (see my earlier comments on the Sigel of Solomon and the demonic statue at Rennes-le-Château). This is clearly not Christian symbolism, but it does suggest that the Templars, who as builders themselves, were behind the construction of many of the finest Gothic medieval cathedrals in Europe, especially in France, were aware of the link between Solomon and the demon Asmodeus, as seemingly was Abbe Berenger Saunière. But this link with Solomon does not end there, as there is a stone niche carved within the church called a piscina – which is usually a shallow basin placed near the altar of a church, or in the vestry or sacristy, that is used for washing out the communion vessels. However, the one at Garway has an interesting carving above it, which seems to depict the Sigel of Solomon (see below). Unfortunately, I was not able to locate a photograph of the piscina and its carving to append to this article.
It is also worth bearing in mind here that the Sigel of Solomon, although linked to King Solomon, was not really a Christian symbol, as is the case with the Green Man too. However, if you look closely at the figure at the centre of the symbol (which bears a very vague similarity to the symbol used in Dr John Dee’s Monas Hieroglyphica), you can discern a keyhole shape, something I have commented on in this thread before. Indeed, the Templars designed the Gothic cathedrals on a key-hole like pattern when viewed from above. As I have mentioned before, the ubiquitous figure of a keyhole crops up in numerous ancient sites in many countries (including Japan, India and Sardinia), but also in modern structures such as the Vatican and even in a key-hole style monument recently discovered on Mars. So, what is it about the shape of a keyhole? However, where you have a keyhole, you must also have a key to unlock it. At this point, we should recall the words addressed to Richard Ward by Crowley where Crowley claimed that there had been a key involved in de Staplebridge’s initiation. Crowley also told him that they (the Knights Templar) would show him the key and the Star of Babalon. Indeed, at the end of the book, Collins, his wife Sue and Ward would find an old-fashioned metal key with mysterious markings, sigils or symbols on one side of it buried just under the wall of a church at the village of Binsey in Oxfordshire that was dedicated to the Saxon saint St. Frideswide who was connected by legend to a sacred well that was located there. Before finding the key Crowley had mentioned, Collins, his wife and Ward had a fleeting vision of the Baphomet figure (Asmodeus) at St Clement’s Caves in Hastings with a physical key placed in its cupped hands and one of them reaching out and taking it. Collins also linked the key in his vision to the bottomless pit of the Book of Revelation and the being of light known as the Fifth Angel who fell as a star and held the key to the pit, which the Grail seemed to have something to do with. Ward also believed that the key had either come from, or was connected to, the Chateau at Arques (see my last post on this) which is near to Rennes-le-Château and was immensely important for some reason.
It is also worth bearing in mind here that the Sigel of Solomon, although linked to King Solomon, was not really a Christian symbol, as is the case with the Green Man too. However, if you look closely at the figure at the centre of the symbol (which bears a very vague similarity to the symbol used in Dr John Dee’s Monas Hieroglyphica), you can discern a keyhole shape, something I have commented on in this thread before. Indeed, the Templars designed the Gothic cathedrals on a key-hole like pattern when viewed from above. As I have mentioned before, the ubiquitous figure of a keyhole crops up in numerous ancient sites in many countries (including Japan, India and Sardinia), but also in modern structures such as the Vatican and even in a key-hole style monument recently discovered on Mars. So, what is it about the shape of a keyhole? However, where you have a keyhole, you must also have a key to unlock it. At this point, we should recall the words addressed to Richard Ward by Crowley where Crowley claimed that there had been a key involved in de Staplebridge’s initiation. Crowley also told him that they (the Knights Templar) would show him the key and the Star of Babalon. Indeed, at the end of the book, Collins, his wife Sue and Ward would find an old-fashioned metal key with mysterious markings, sigils or symbols on one side of it buried just under the wall of a church at the village of Binsey in Oxfordshire that was dedicated to the Saxon saint St. Frideswide who was connected by legend to a sacred well that was located there. Before finding the key Crowley had mentioned, Collins, his wife and Ward had a fleeting vision of the Baphomet figure (Asmodeus) at St Clement’s Caves in Hastings with a physical key placed in its cupped hands and one of them reaching out and taking it. Collins also linked the key in his vision to the bottomless pit of the Book of Revelation and the being of light known as the Fifth Angel who fell as a star and held the key to the pit, which the Grail seemed to have something to do with. Ward also believed that the key had either come from, or was connected to, the Chateau at Arques (see my last post on this) which is near to Rennes-le-Château and was immensely important for some reason.
The carving of the Green Man or Asmodeus on a column at Garway Church
For some reason, this makes me think of what the C’s told Laura here:
Q: So, the Percys DID know something. I understand that the Percy family has a collection of 62 alchemical manuscripts... which is actually how I found out about Alnwick - I was tracking these alchemical texts....
A: But if you go there, do not ask for the key!
The Sigel of Solomon
When I look at the symbolism on the Sigel of Solomon, I am left wondering whether it is in fact depicting some sort of technological device, the nature of which was long lost on the ancient Israelites and Jews. Indeed, if it does have anything to do with the Grail, then it is likely that the Grail was a major component within the device in question, perhaps as a modern computer (“mother stone” = mother board) or microchip is at the heart of most modern technological devices or machines – think of the engine management systems (EMS) in modern motor cars for example. We should also factor in the Ark of the Covenant here since the power cell the C’s spoke of may have provided the power to operate the device. You may recall a post I did some time ago where I cited the work of the American researcher and author William Henry who made a connection between the Grail (in its guise as the Head of Osiris) and its use in conjunction with something very like the Ark of the Covenant in Pharaonic Egypt in his book Blue Apples (see: Blue Apples - 8 (bibliotecapleyades.net)).
Osiris’ Tree of Life
In his book, Henry states:
In the hieroglyph of Osiris two ‘TET’ pillars are featured on either side a mysterious object that resembles the Hebrew Ark of the Covenant. Beside them is Osiris’ Pillar of Love (far right). The Pillar of Osiris stood approximately forty feet tall and was lined with gold.
This pillar contains what appears to be a serpent. However, we are told it actually contained the “head” of Osiris.
The hieroglyph of Osiris
When the Pillar is mounted to the portable stand which resembles (in form and likely in function) the Biblical Ark of the Covenant, a device of enormous power is created. It is a golden needle or antenna that ties the ‘thread’ (cord, chord) between the upper world and the lower worlds.
If Henry is correct, did the Grail in the form of the pure crystal skull the Templars called Baphomet act as a transmitter and receiver at the heart of the Osiris device? Could this be why the C’s said:
If Henry is correct, did the Grail in the form of the pure crystal skull the Templars called Baphomet act as a transmitter and receiver at the heart of the Osiris device? Could this be why the C’s said:
A: Perceval was knighted in the court of seven.
Q: The court of seven what?
A: Swords points signify crystal transmitter of truth beholden.
Could the Grail have been used in this way at Stephen de Staplebridge’s initiation at Garway? Afterall, many legends speak of the Templars possessing a talking head, which may also be linked by earlier legends to the Celts talking ‘Head of Bran’ (see more below on this) and the Greeks singing head of Orpheus. The C’s expounded on this matter in a subsequent session:
Q: (L) They also talk about the ‘Seven Sages.’ You once said that Perceval was ‘knighted in the Court of Seven and that the sword’s points signify ‘crystal transmitter of truth beholden.’ Do these seven sages relate to this ‘Court of Seven’ that you mentioned?
A: Close.
Q: (L) When you said ‘swords points signify crystal transmitter of truth beholden,’ could you elaborate on that remark?
A: Has celestial meaning.
As to a celestial meaning, this might connect with Ward’s vision where he saw the seven Templar knights lying in a star-shaped pattern on the floor of the stone tower at Garway with their swords pointing to the centre of the circle and Crowley later showing him a golden star of seven points. Was Baphomet both the pure crystal skull and the C’s crystal transmitter of truth beholden that the seven knights were pointing at?
And as to Henry’s statement that “The Pillar of Osiris stood approximately forty feet tall and was lined with gold” could this connect with what the Cs said here:
Q: Another thing: I researched the word Emerald, and that it is derived from the word orient, which is Orion, and that they go back to words from which we also derive Aurora and gold. Is there something about the element gold, such as the atomic number, or anything, that is a specific frequency of light that is important?
A: Gold, when heated to its liquidation temperature, gives off energy waves which, when properly channelled, open the door to higher density experience. Clue to this is in the way that gold can be an effective transceiver of radio waves and transdimensional communications.
Did the C’s have the Ark of the Covenant in mind here since it was made of wood but lined with solid gold and was used by Moses to communicate with Yahweh via the two golden angels on the Mercy Seat or lid of the Ark?
If the Grail formed part of a larger device, how many parts were there to this device. My understanding is that there were three and I hope to develop this point in a subsequent post.
We should probably also compare the Sigel of Solomon with the angelic seals of the planetary angels and the signs that were later adopted for use in modern electronics, whose origins remain a mystery (see my earlier post). Again, there may be a pointer here to lost ancient technology rather than occult iamgery.
Let us not also forget that the C’s have told us that the Grail was used to bring a party of Kantekkians to Earth prior to their planet exploding. Was the Grail used in this instance to transport a time ship to Earth like the one the Egyptians referred to in the Pyramid Texts as the ‘Boat of a Million Years’:
If the Grail formed part of a larger device, how many parts were there to this device. My understanding is that there were three and I hope to develop this point in a subsequent post.
We should probably also compare the Sigel of Solomon with the angelic seals of the planetary angels and the signs that were later adopted for use in modern electronics, whose origins remain a mystery (see my earlier post). Again, there may be a pointer here to lost ancient technology rather than occult iamgery.
Let us not also forget that the C’s have told us that the Grail was used to bring a party of Kantekkians to Earth prior to their planet exploding. Was the Grail used in this instance to transport a time ship to Earth like the one the Egyptians referred to in the Pyramid Texts as the ‘Boat of a Million Years’:
Q: (L) Okay, going back to the pyramid. In the Pyramid Texts, when they talk about the ‘Boat of Millions of Years,’ what are they talking about?
A: Time machine.
If so, then it is perhaps significant that the Egyptians often depicted Osiris’ head at the top of a long pole projecting from the Boat of a Million Years. Does this signify that Osiris’ head was in fact Baphomet, the pure crystal skull of the Knights Templar and the Holy Grail? See the image of the Djed Pillar below.
As to the carving of the Green Man at St Michael’s Church at Garway, here is what William Henry says of the Green Man:
“The Green Man is a powerful mythic image known to every civilization. He is depicted with vegetation symbolizing the Life Force or Word of God spewing from his mouth. He is known by many names throughout the world: Adonis (Greek, Roman), “the Lord,” and Dionysus are a few of his names.”
The reference to Dionysus brings us back to the Dionysian rituals again and the strange Templar ceremony that Ward saw in his vision, which might have involved the participants drinking conscious altering substances from the chalice, or libation cup, the scantily clad woman was holding.
Ward’s vision would finish with him receiving a sudden download of knowledge, which made him aware that the silver reliquary represented Baphomet, the idol of the Templars. For him, this suddenly made sense of all the stories of the warrior monks worshipping a bearded head that spoke to them. However, he adds that inside its beaten metal frame were pieces of a skull belonging to the patron of the order (St John the Baptist). It was a sacred relic of immense importance treasured by the Templars of England and used by them in their ceremonies. Speaking directly to Ward, Stephen de Staplebridge urged that “only when the true nature of the star is realised, and you possess the cup, will this be given to you”.
I wonder if this star is either the brown dwarf star that is a companion to our sun or the star which is due to go supernova at the time of our transition to 4th density?
It is interesting that Andrew Collins ends this narrative by discussing the accuracy of so-called psychic information such as this. He claims that the best psychic can only produce an accuracy factor in the region of ninety per cent (90%) at best and most run of the mill psychics and mediums score far worse. Bearing this thought in mind, I would make the observation that Ward and Collins assume the Head of God is the remains of the skull of St John the Baptist, which, if true, would certainly have been a precious and significant relic in the eyes of medieval Christians of the period. However, even if sacred, this revelation does not match what the C’s said about Baphomet, which is that the skull was made of pure crystal (and not bone fragments):
Ward’s vision would finish with him receiving a sudden download of knowledge, which made him aware that the silver reliquary represented Baphomet, the idol of the Templars. For him, this suddenly made sense of all the stories of the warrior monks worshipping a bearded head that spoke to them. However, he adds that inside its beaten metal frame were pieces of a skull belonging to the patron of the order (St John the Baptist). It was a sacred relic of immense importance treasured by the Templars of England and used by them in their ceremonies. Speaking directly to Ward, Stephen de Staplebridge urged that “only when the true nature of the star is realised, and you possess the cup, will this be given to you”.
I wonder if this star is either the brown dwarf star that is a companion to our sun or the star which is due to go supernova at the time of our transition to 4th density?
It is interesting that Andrew Collins ends this narrative by discussing the accuracy of so-called psychic information such as this. He claims that the best psychic can only produce an accuracy factor in the region of ninety per cent (90%) at best and most run of the mill psychics and mediums score far worse. Bearing this thought in mind, I would make the observation that Ward and Collins assume the Head of God is the remains of the skull of St John the Baptist, which, if true, would certainly have been a precious and significant relic in the eyes of medieval Christians of the period. However, even if sacred, this revelation does not match what the C’s said about Baphomet, which is that the skull was made of pure crystal (and not bone fragments):
Q: Okay. I have several books on the subject. I will start tomorrow. Now, when the Templars were arrested, they were accused of worshipping a head, or skull, and also the god Baphomet. Were these spurious accusations designed to defame them?
A: Skull was of pure crystal.
This description of the skull certainly is at variance with the description Ward gives above. Moreover, if Baphomet meant the ‘Baptiser (or baptism) of Wisdom’ as declared by Bartzabel the angel of Mars (see above), then this hardly fits with the role of John the Baptist in the New Testament, whose rite of baptism was that of water which symbolically washed away the baptised person’s sins, whereas Christ would institute a baptism of water and the Holy Spirit which continues to this day in the Christian rite of Baptism. It has been alleged that the Templars whilst in the Middle East became Johannites who worshiped John the Baptist as the true Christ, which, if true, would certainly make the fragmentary skull of John the Baptist even more precious to them. However, even if these Templars viewed John the Baptist as the incarnation of Christ, as Ward claims, this does not really match the description of the talking ‘Head of God’. Moreover, we cannot get away from the fact that what the C’s described as being the skull of Baphomet is something that was clearly non-human and non-organic. Thus, if the relic the Templars worshipped as Baphomet was a pure crystal skull, we must assume that what Ward saw was something else besides the real Baphomet, albeit that this something may still have been a sacred relic. Alternatively, the difference in description may be explained away by a measure of inaccuracy occurring in Ward’s reception of the information, which could have been influenced by the presence of Aleister Crowley’s dark spirit. Hence, I will proceed on the basis that the English Templars at Garway may have possessed what the C’s described as Baphomet, which they retained in a special silver reliquary that was similar in appearance to Janus, the bearded and double-headed Roman god.
Continued in Part 3
Continued in Part 3
The Knights Templar and the Head of God Part 3
Stephen de Staplebridge
The fact that the Panel was set within a stylized diamond shaped frame intrigues me though since it reminds me of something the C’s once said about the Philosophers Stone of the alchemists:
Q: (L) What is the "philosophers stone?"
A: Idea centre.
Q: (L) How can this idea centre be accessed?
A: Many ways: meditation is the best.
Q: (L) Is there any visual image of the philosopher's stone that one could use to access it in meditation?
A: Yes. Diamond or prism.
“It is certainly difficult to believe that the accounts of the ceremony of initiation given in detail by men in different countries, all closely resembling each other, yet related in different phraseology, could be pure inventions. Had the victims been driven to invent they would surely have contradicted each other, have cried out in their agony that all kinds of wild and fantastic rites had taken place in order to satisfy the demands of their interlocutors. But no, each seems to be describing the same ceremony more or less completely, with characteristic touches that indicate the personality of the speaker, and in the main all the stories tally.”
As Farrell concludes: “The common features of the confessions, even when the Templars were not under torture , appearing before the Papal Commission, suggests that there is some kernel of truth to the charges, that there is something hidden within the Order that it wished to protect at all costs.”
Could that something have been the Holy Grail, the most powerful and significant relic of them all?
Jacques de Molay at Garway
“Surrounded by tall trees … hidden away, veiled in mystery, it gives a feeling that it is hiding something … Its importance can be understood because we know that the last Grand Master of the Templars, Jacques de Molay, visited Garway preceptory in 1294. One of the few preceptories in England to receive the honour.”
Collins concluded this analysis of Richard Ward’s vision by quoting Ward where he said:
“I feel that the head used at Garway for the star ritual involving the seven knights was important to the whole Order, not just in England but also in France.”
“Don’t ask me why I say this, but I feel it remained in this country for a few years after the arrest of the English Templars and was then taken out of the country under a cloak of secrecy, very possibly with the help of Stephen de Staplebridge”.
Collins responded by asking “where did it land up?” Ward replied:
“As ridiculous as this might seem, I think it ended up at or very close to Rennes-le-Château.”
Returning to Ward’s account, he then added:
“I would even go so far as to say that the head was in some way responsible for the mystery of Rennes-le-Château and that Saunière was aware of its existence. He thought he knew where it was hidden, and this somehow brought him into conflict with some organisation, probably the Vatican [MJF: or the Rosicrucians]. They ensured that he lived a happy and prosperous life on the condition that he kept quiet about the whole matter, since there were elements of which would have undermined the foundations of the Catholic faith.
You know it is strange. I see the head as being kept inside a stone casket at some time. I reckon the Vatican made some attempt to steal it, not from Saunière but from someone else – someone who was in on the secret – but they failed. Somehow those involved were tricked into taking the wrong thing and so the head remained safe and is still out there today. Saunière knew this, and although he was unable to reveal to anyone what was going on, he did manage to leave various clues as to its whereabouts inside the church at Rennes-le-Château.
He added “There are other clues at Arques. There is a chateau there which is important to this story.”
“I’m not sure, although I get the feeling there’s a relationship between the two and that it involves the Languedoc somehow, and the beliefs of the Cathars.”
The Templars of Rhedae
*The present church of St Mary Magdalene, at which Berenger Saunière was parish priest from 1885 until his death in 1917, was formerly a chapel attached to the town’s château.
**Ref. Gérard de Sede’s The Accursed Treasure of Rennes-le-Château (1967).
The Confession of Stephen de Staplebridge
Up to this point we have only heard of the Templar Knight Stephen de Staplebridge through the dreams and visions of the psychic Richard Ward. Was there any evidence such a person by this name ever existed and, if so, was he a Templar Knight who had connections to Garway? The answer is a profound yes since Andrew Collins would unearth evidence for him through the diligent research of two men, the first being Ken Tullet, the archivist at Christchurch Priory and the second being Geoff Wilson, who was the owner of the Manor House at Templecombe in Somerset, which incorporates the surviving fragments of the Templar preceptory’s main gatehouse.
What these two men have uncovered is truly revelatory and deserves much wider exposure. Their evidence reveals that a core of English Templars survived the suppression of their Order for many years afterwards and this group would go on to establish Freemasonry in England long before its official inception in the 18th century. It also supports Joseph’s Farrell’s contention that at least some of the Templars were guilty of the charges levelled against them by the Catholic Church and King Phillip 1V of France. The survival of this group of Templars may even have implications for Laura and her Knight ancestors, as I will show below. What follows is Stephen de Staplebridge’s confession as drawn from various sources including notes compiled by Ken Tullet and the late Ray Lax of Christchurch Priory between 1994-1997, Wilkins Concilia Magnae Britanniae et Hiberniae, London 1737 and the diocesan records of Hereford and Worcester:
“When on Earth my name was Stephen de Staplebridge, and I declare, God save, that this is my story. A nobleman by birth, and of the knightly class, I was received into the virtuous Order of the Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and the Temple of Solomon on the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the year of Our Lord, 1295. It took place at the preceptory of Keele in the shire [County] of Stafford, and was presided over by my Lord Guy de Forester, the Master of the Temple in England [MJF: de Forester was most likely the same family name as that of the Knight Templar Ormus le Guidon who came from Staffordshire and whose father was Richard Forester. Ormus would build the Templar preceptory at Biddulph that later became Springwood Priory under the Cistercian Order]. Present on this occasion were chaplains John de Reives and Henry de Daumari, and Brother Hugh the macebearer. I accepted my duties to God, in his mercy, and a short while later, in the year 1297, I was received into the second order, the Templi Secretum, although this time the rites were conducted behind closed doors so that the profane might not know their sacred nature. It took place at Lydele, and the receptor this time was none other than the new Master of the Temple, Brian de Jay, a man of forthright spirit. Thereafter I was able to travel with better freedom to pursue the path which God had set forth for me. For ten years all went well until in October 1307 the King of France, Philip the Fair, with the aid of his Holiness Pope Clement V, declared that our Holy Order was guilty of committing many heinous crimes against the Lord Jesus Christ, and other evil mischiefs which cannot be spoken.
I was able to elude capture by taking flight from Lydele, hiding my face beneath a cloak and a cowl, and joining with other fugitives. I was hunted down by the bailiffs of Our Lord the King. During this time, my brethren’s duties were manifold, and ever did we think that one day the Magister Templi. Jacques de Molay, and our fallen brothers in France, would be absolved of the evil crimes levelled against them, and that our full dignity would be restored.
It was in the year 1311, close to the time of midsummer, that whilst attending to business at New Sarum, in the shire of Wiltshire, I was arrested by officers of Our Lord the King and taken in chains to Newgate in London, where I was given up to the Chief Inquisitors. None of them had any sympathy for the plight of the Holy Order, for they wished only to extract false testimony from me and those of my brothers in custody at this time. I was brought for questioning before Their Graces the Bishops of London and Chichester, and then dragged to St Paul’s Church where I was again accused of great blasphemies and made to confess my sins. Under pressure of torture, and worse still a painful death, I told them a little of my reception into the two orders, and then begged for mercy. I was absolved by His Grace, the Bishop of Chichester, and released from interrogation.
For too long I was left in gaol, as my brethren tore at their chains and went mad by the day, and then without warning, in the year 1313, I was sent to do penance at the Priory of Our Lady of Merton in the shire of Surrey, which is a holy house of the Order of the Blessed Saint Augustine [the Augustinians*]. To keep me, they were awarded four pence daily, and for a while I accepted the duties given to me and attended their services as a poor canon of Christ. Yet the priory was more thrifty than many I have known and His Grace the Prior and his canons suffered badly from this poorness. I could not endure their virtuous lifestyle and longed to live in all honour and dedication among my brethren, whose wills had not gone astray.
*So yet again we find a mention of Augustinian monks, canons, or friars, which reminds me of what the C’s said here:
The Templi Secretum
Most tellingly, he stated that ‘the Order’s errors had originated in the diocese of Agen’ in Aquitaine, where a major Templar commanderie was located, with the implication that the fault lay with one Roncelin de Fos, Master of Provence, who was Master of the Temple in England (1252-56) and again Master of Provence (1260-78).
Collins notes that de Fos was a very important player with respect to understanding the inner order of the Templars [MJF: again, another example of the C’s circles within circles], for just as de Staplebridge asserted, there is a strong belief amongst some experts on the Templar mysteries that it was he who had instituted the Templi Secretum (secret temple), which involved denying Jesus as God and spitting and trampling on the Cross. Roncelin de Fos was born at Fos-sur-Mer, a small port not far from the port city of Marseilles in Provence. His entire family were already involved in the Knights Templar, and they held deep memories of the massacre of the Cathars, particularly those killed at Béziers on 22 July 1209, the feast-day of St Mary Magdalene, whom the Cathars revered as the spiritual bride of Jesus Christ. It should be noted here that Roncelin de Fos soon became a vassal for the King of Aragon, under whose control were the Templars of Roussillon and Aragon, with their preceptory at Bézu (founded in the mid-13th century) so near to Rennes-le-Château.
However, for Collins what was most significant of all, was that the name of Roncelin de Fos was found on a strange Templar document alleged to have been discovered in 1794 in the Corsino Library of the Vatican Archives by Friedrich Münther, Bishop of Copenhagen, and/or in a Masonic library in Hamburg Germany. Known variously as the ‘Statutes of Roncelin’, ‘The Secret Rule’ and the ‘Book of the Baptism of Fire’, it sets out the Secret Statutes of the Knights Templar. It bears at its base the name of Robert de Samfort, Procurator of the Templar Order in England in 1240, although Roncelin de Fos is said to have had a hand in its composition. Although the Statutes’ authenticity is dismissed out of hand by Templar historians, Collins feels it is worth investigating as it contains some very important statements pertinent to the Grail and the Head of God. For example, a candidate’s reception into the Templi Secretum, which would involve a receptor and three brothers as witnesses, included both a ritual and a consolamentum, the Cathar name for their version of the nocturnal communion meal taken by the early Christians. Indeed, the Secret Statutes actually refer to the fact that Albigensis’ (Cathars), as well as other members of other heretical and Gnostic sects, are to be allowed admittance into the Templi Secretum.
Jesus is referred to in the ritual and consolamentum described in the Secret Statutes simply as ‘Mary’s son called Jesus’, while, again with the Cathar reception, verses of John’s gospel are read out during the oration. The so-called ‘Third Prayer’ is called ‘The Baphomet’ and opens with a reading from the first verses of the Koran, after which the receptor adds: ‘One master, one faith, one baptism, one God father of all and who in invocation of God’s name shall be saved.’ After this he raises the neophyte and anoints his eyelids with consecrated oil, with the words: ‘I want to anoint you, friend of God, with the oil of Grace, so you may see the light of your fire baptism for so it shines for thee and for us on our path of truth and eternal life.’
At this point, an ‘image of Baphomet’, almost certainly a head reliquary, is ‘retired from its shrine’ as the receptor says: ’The people that walked through darkness have seen a great light and it has shone for all those sitting in the trees of the dead. There are three who pay homage to God and the world and [these] three are St John.’ Thereafter, all brothers shout out ‘Yah Allah’, which means ‘Splendour of God’, at which they kiss the image and touch it with their belts (the waist cord of their belts). Once the ritual is over, the consoled, or chosen one, is then led to the library archives where he learns about ‘the Divine Science, of God, of young Jesus, the true Baphomet, the new Babylon, of [the] nature of things, of eternal life, as well as: the Secret Science of the Great Philosophy: Abrax and the talismans. These things must be rigorously hidden to the ecclesiastics admitted in the Order [i.e., the Priests].’
I would make the observation here that aspects of this ritual remind me of the conferring of the various degrees involved in the ancient Egyptian initiatory path of the adept that I described in my article The Egyptian Pilgrimage of Initiation. This involved the candidate being introduced to more and more esoteric knowledge, including the sacred sciences, as they progressed through the seven degrees culminating in that of the highest, the Illuminati. This ritualistic process may have been carried over into the Egyptian Essenes and from them to the Jewish Essenes, after which it may have been inherited by the medieval Assassins – whose secret teachings may have influenced the Templars, as reflected by the use of the cry ‘Yah Allah’ in the ritual. The other observation I would make is that this ritual is clearly heretical from a Christian viewpoint, and it is interesting that in the account of the ritual it states that these things must be rigorously hidden from the ecclesiastics of the Order who no doubt would have been horrified by such heresy. If the account of this ritual is true, it would certainly explain why the Templar priest John de Stoke was readily prepared to admit to the existence of such illicit activities to his inquisitors since it is an easy matter to confess the truth.
However, Andrew Collins was able to recognise in this account the origin behind Richard Ward’s reference to a Templar-inspired ‘baptism of fire’, which the Angel Bartzabel and the spirit of Aleister Crowley had instructed him to take before the Baphomet statue in the Hastings Caves. Collins adds that in the Cathar consolamentum the candidate received the Holy Spirit in a manner that was likened to how the apostles and disciples of Christ received the divine fire of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, which is seen by some Christians as the fulfilment of John the Baptist’s prophecy that one would come after him, i.e., Jesus, who would baptise not with water but with the Holy Spirit and fire. For Collins, this then was why the reception into the Templi Secretum was known as the ‘Baptism of Fire’ since it borrowed directly from the Cathars’ own consolamentum. As Collins comments, this in itself does not authenticate the document, but it does show that whoever composed it had a profound understanding of Cathar religious practices. Collins notes more significantly that it is known that even before the fall of the last Cathar stronghold at Montsegur in 1244, various noblemen from families with known Cathar affiliations joined the ranks of the Templars of Roussillon-Aragon, whose administrative centre was at Mas Déu in France. This led Collins to wonder if they brought with them into the Order knowledge not only of the consolamentum but also of other unorthodox religious practices. With Roncelin de Fos’s own associations with the Aragonese king, might he have constructed the rituals for a knight’s reception into the Order’s inner chapter based on the new-found Cathar influence among the Templars of Roussillon-Aragon.
Collins continues by observing that it would seem certain that Stephen de Staplebridge must have undergone a ritual and consolamentum similar to that described in the Secret Statutes since he cited Roncelin de Fos as being responsible for leading the Order astray. For Collins, exactly why de Staplebridge should have admitted to this is difficult to determine, although it appears that he was certainly privy to the organisation and infrastructure of the Templi Secretum. Whatever the reason, the likelihood is that de Staplebridge’s second reception involved him kissing ‘the image of Baphomet’, which Collins thought was very probably a head reliquary, perhaps even the one Richard Ward saw being used in the bizarre ritual at Garway. It was also here that in 1294 Jacques de Molay, the Master of the Order and the former Grand Preceptor in England, had received the Templar priest John de Stoke into the Templi Secretum, confirming the place’s significance to the Order’s inner chapter or circle.
Abraxus
Gnostics identified Abraxas with the Hebrew god Yahweh (under the Greek form "IAO"). Amulets and seals bearing the figure of Abraxas were popular in the 2nd century AD, and these stones survived in the treasuries of the Middle Ages. Thus, the Templars' use of Abraxas as a seal was most likely a result of their expansive treasuries containing a number of ancient gemstones.
Abraxas took the form of a composite deity with the head of a rooster, the body of a man – his legs replaced by two snakes – and with a shield symbolising the sun in one hand and a flail in the other. In the other form, he bore the head of a lion. Abraxas was seen as a controller of time through the movement of the sun, a supposition confirmed by the fact that the numerical value of his name is said to add up to 365, the number of days in a solar year, and the number of aeons, or ages, over which he rules.
Apart from appearing in the Secret Statutes, Abraxus features as the image on a counter seal of Templar origin (see my earlier post), thus confirming the influence that Gnosticism held within the Order. For example. Abraxas appeared on the seal of a Templar Grand Master in a French charter dated 1214 (see below):
Stephen de Staplebridge
Once Collins was made aware of what Ward had seen in his vision, he set about trying to discover whether Stephen de Staplebridge really existed and, if so, was he connected with the Garway church in Herefordshire and with the Hastings Caves. The results of his searches were both surprising and revealing.
The stone tower at the church at Garway certainly existed since Collins and Ward had visited it in March 1997 as part of another psychic quest. They and the friends who accompanied them had, like the Templar knights in Ward’s vision, lain down on the floor of the tower in a star pattern during a Templar-style ritual, which they conducted in accordance with psychic instructions delivered to Collins in dreams and visions. Collins was also aware that there had been a major Templar preceptory in the vicinity of Garway, which thrived until the arrest of its remaining knights in 1308.
Collins quickly discovered that Staplebridge was the medieval name for a small village in the county of Dorset known as Stalbridge. This, in itself, does not prove that Stephen de Staplebridge actually came from there, although this was an age when people often adopted as their surname their place of origin whereby Stephen de Staplebridge could have stood for Stephen of Staplebridge. However, Collins immediately noted that only a few miles over the border from Stalbridge in the county of Somerset was the village of Templecombe that was the site of a major Templar preceptory dating back to 1185. Although little today is known about the Templar’s activities at Templecombe, they may well have been linked with the thriving wool industry which the Templars helped to introduce to the West Country whilst some sources suggest it could have been a regional centre for training and recruiting local men for the Crusades in the Holy Land. The fact that the Templecombe estate was located close to the old Bristol Road would suggest that the Templars there would have had close ties to the great medieval port of Bristol where a major Templar preceptory was located at Temple Mead, where to this day the main Bristol railway station still bears the name of Temple Meads (which is close to where my parents-in-law once lived, as did my cousin who managed the public house just opposite the station). In this last connection it should be noted that ships belonging to the Templar fleet would regularly arrive at Bristol from the French ports of La Rochelle and Marseilles delivering arms, munitions and other produce and supplies to the Order’s key properties in England. What is certain though is that Stephen de Staplebridge’s name was not listed among those of the four remaining Templars at the preceptory at Templecombe when they were arrested in 1308.
However, Templecombe would in 1945 yield an amazing discovery which may have a bearing on the Templar veneration of the idol they called Baphomet for when the owner of a cottage in West Street, just off the High Street, removed the ceiling of an outhouse, he uncovered a painted wooden panel, which was tentatively dated to 1280 AD, a time when the Templars were still in residence. The panel depicts an extraordinary bearded male head of great serenity with shoulder length red-brown hair set within a stylised diamond-shaped frame, which Collins states further accentuated its mesmeric form. Scholars have been extremely cautious as regards the identity of the face on the Templecombe Panel and its probable association with the Templars, although some see a remarkable similarity between the face on the Panel and that on the famous Shroud of Turin, which is a relic of immense significance to Roman Catholics throughout the world. Although Collins dismisses it as a medieval fake, some researchers believe the Shroud may have come into the possession of the Templars, having possibly been seized from Byzantine hands during the infamous sacking of Constantinople, which the Templars, aided and abetted by the Venetian state, played a major part in. However, Collins asks the question why Christ’s head should be shown as being severed, suggesting that it is more likely the Templecombe Panel portrays the head of St John the Baptist, a figure intimately linked with the Templars, whose head was famously chopped of by King Herod at the bidding of his temptress daughter-in-law Salome.
The stone tower at the church at Garway certainly existed since Collins and Ward had visited it in March 1997 as part of another psychic quest. They and the friends who accompanied them had, like the Templar knights in Ward’s vision, lain down on the floor of the tower in a star pattern during a Templar-style ritual, which they conducted in accordance with psychic instructions delivered to Collins in dreams and visions. Collins was also aware that there had been a major Templar preceptory in the vicinity of Garway, which thrived until the arrest of its remaining knights in 1308.
Collins quickly discovered that Staplebridge was the medieval name for a small village in the county of Dorset known as Stalbridge. This, in itself, does not prove that Stephen de Staplebridge actually came from there, although this was an age when people often adopted as their surname their place of origin whereby Stephen de Staplebridge could have stood for Stephen of Staplebridge. However, Collins immediately noted that only a few miles over the border from Stalbridge in the county of Somerset was the village of Templecombe that was the site of a major Templar preceptory dating back to 1185. Although little today is known about the Templar’s activities at Templecombe, they may well have been linked with the thriving wool industry which the Templars helped to introduce to the West Country whilst some sources suggest it could have been a regional centre for training and recruiting local men for the Crusades in the Holy Land. The fact that the Templecombe estate was located close to the old Bristol Road would suggest that the Templars there would have had close ties to the great medieval port of Bristol where a major Templar preceptory was located at Temple Mead, where to this day the main Bristol railway station still bears the name of Temple Meads (which is close to where my parents-in-law once lived, as did my cousin who managed the public house just opposite the station). In this last connection it should be noted that ships belonging to the Templar fleet would regularly arrive at Bristol from the French ports of La Rochelle and Marseilles delivering arms, munitions and other produce and supplies to the Order’s key properties in England. What is certain though is that Stephen de Staplebridge’s name was not listed among those of the four remaining Templars at the preceptory at Templecombe when they were arrested in 1308.
However, Templecombe would in 1945 yield an amazing discovery which may have a bearing on the Templar veneration of the idol they called Baphomet for when the owner of a cottage in West Street, just off the High Street, removed the ceiling of an outhouse, he uncovered a painted wooden panel, which was tentatively dated to 1280 AD, a time when the Templars were still in residence. The panel depicts an extraordinary bearded male head of great serenity with shoulder length red-brown hair set within a stylised diamond-shaped frame, which Collins states further accentuated its mesmeric form. Scholars have been extremely cautious as regards the identity of the face on the Templecombe Panel and its probable association with the Templars, although some see a remarkable similarity between the face on the Panel and that on the famous Shroud of Turin, which is a relic of immense significance to Roman Catholics throughout the world. Although Collins dismisses it as a medieval fake, some researchers believe the Shroud may have come into the possession of the Templars, having possibly been seized from Byzantine hands during the infamous sacking of Constantinople, which the Templars, aided and abetted by the Venetian state, played a major part in. However, Collins asks the question why Christ’s head should be shown as being severed, suggesting that it is more likely the Templecombe Panel portrays the head of St John the Baptist, a figure intimately linked with the Templars, whose head was famously chopped of by King Herod at the bidding of his temptress daughter-in-law Salome.
The fact that the Panel was set within a stylized diamond shaped frame intrigues me though since it reminds me of something the C’s once said about the Philosophers Stone of the alchemists:
Q: (L) What is the "philosophers stone?"
A: Idea centre.
Q: (L) How can this idea centre be accessed?
A: Many ways: meditation is the best.
Q: (L) Is there any visual image of the philosopher's stone that one could use to access it in meditation?
A: Yes. Diamond or prism.
This leads me to wonder whether the Philosopher’s Stone might be directly connected to the Grail. If the Templecombe Panel was placed there by the Templars, did they deliberately use a diamond shaped frame so as to enhance the practice of meditation before the image? Let us also not forget that the diamond suit in the modern pack of playing cards may well be linked to the Grail and, along with the other three suits, to the four treasures of the Tuatha de Danaan (see my earlier posts on the Alton Towers thread regarding this subject).
Ward’s vision and dreams would encourage Collins to look more closely at the Templars’ activities at Garway and his research would pay off handsomely when he found documentary evidence providing an account of a secret initiation at Garway, which showed that the preceptory had been of extreme importance to the Templars.
The Confession of John de StokeWard’s vision and dreams would encourage Collins to look more closely at the Templars’ activities at Garway and his research would pay off handsomely when he found documentary evidence providing an account of a secret initiation at Garway, which showed that the preceptory had been of extreme importance to the Templars.
The account related to the confession of a Templar priest (not a knight) named John de Stoke who attended upon the spiritual needs of the brother knights. On 1 July 1311 he made a formal statement concerning his two separate receptions into the Order. The first of these had taken place 18 years before hand and this had been orthodox in nature. However, a year later in 1294 he underwent a second, more secretive initiation at the preceptory at ‘Garway’, which was presided over by none other than the Grand Master of the Temple, Jacques de Molay (who would in fact be the last official Grand Master of the Order). John de Stoke claimed that during the ceremony, a crucifix was placed before him and he was asked by de Molay what it signified, to which he responded: “Jesus Christ who had suffered for the redemption of the human race.” This was not the answer the Master of the Temple had expected for he responded: “You speak badly, and you are in error, for he was the son of a certain woman, and since he said he was the Son of God, he was crucified.”
Jacques de Molay next asked de Stoke to deny Christ, and when he did not, the priest was threatened with prison. To back this threat up, two knights held their swords menacingly towards de Stokes, forcing him to make the denial. When the priest asked who he should honour with his devotions if not Christ, de Molay told him to rejoice “in the great Omnipotent God, who created Heaven and Earth”, and not in the Crucifixion.”
Collins points out that John de Stoke could have easily made his confession under extreme torture, or with an assurance that if he confessed, he would be absolved of his sins and released from captivity (which he was two days later). However, Joseph Farrell in his book Thrice Great Hermetica and the Janus Age countered the assumption that has been made by Templar researchers that all Templar confessions were made under torture or duress by pointing out that not all confessions were made under torture. For example, he points out that Pope Clement V (to whom the Templars in theory owed their ultimate loyalty) received in private audience “a certain Knight of the Order, of great nobility and held by the said Order in no slight esteem” who testified to the abominations that took place on the reception of the Brethren, the spitting on the cross and other things that were not lawful nor, humanly speaking, decent. There is no doubt though that many Templars were barbarically tortured especially in France, England, and Spain. But Farrell then cites Nesta H Webster in her book Secret Societies and Subversive Movements where she states:
Jacques de Molay next asked de Stoke to deny Christ, and when he did not, the priest was threatened with prison. To back this threat up, two knights held their swords menacingly towards de Stokes, forcing him to make the denial. When the priest asked who he should honour with his devotions if not Christ, de Molay told him to rejoice “in the great Omnipotent God, who created Heaven and Earth”, and not in the Crucifixion.”
Collins points out that John de Stoke could have easily made his confession under extreme torture, or with an assurance that if he confessed, he would be absolved of his sins and released from captivity (which he was two days later). However, Joseph Farrell in his book Thrice Great Hermetica and the Janus Age countered the assumption that has been made by Templar researchers that all Templar confessions were made under torture or duress by pointing out that not all confessions were made under torture. For example, he points out that Pope Clement V (to whom the Templars in theory owed their ultimate loyalty) received in private audience “a certain Knight of the Order, of great nobility and held by the said Order in no slight esteem” who testified to the abominations that took place on the reception of the Brethren, the spitting on the cross and other things that were not lawful nor, humanly speaking, decent. There is no doubt though that many Templars were barbarically tortured especially in France, England, and Spain. But Farrell then cites Nesta H Webster in her book Secret Societies and Subversive Movements where she states:
“It is certainly difficult to believe that the accounts of the ceremony of initiation given in detail by men in different countries, all closely resembling each other, yet related in different phraseology, could be pure inventions. Had the victims been driven to invent they would surely have contradicted each other, have cried out in their agony that all kinds of wild and fantastic rites had taken place in order to satisfy the demands of their interlocutors. But no, each seems to be describing the same ceremony more or less completely, with characteristic touches that indicate the personality of the speaker, and in the main all the stories tally.”
As Farrell concludes: “The common features of the confessions, even when the Templars were not under torture , appearing before the Papal Commission, suggests that there is some kernel of truth to the charges, that there is something hidden within the Order that it wished to protect at all costs.”
Could that something have been the Holy Grail, the most powerful and significant relic of them all?
Farrell lists the charges that were brought against the Templars of which two may be particularly relevant to the initiation ceremony at Garway and the confession of John de Stoke, these are:
- Worshipping a severed head, which in some cases is described as having two, even sometimes three, faces.
- That Christ had not died to redeem all mankind but only for his own sins.
The fact that in Richard Ward’s vision Stephen de Staplebridge was holding a silver reliquary in the shape of a two-faced, bearded head, at what seemed to be his initiation into the Templar Order and at which he proclaimed: “I bring you the Head of God”, would seem to corroborate the first charge mentioned above. Moreover, John de Stoke’s confession alleging that Jacques de Molay, the Grand Master of the Temple, had asked de Stoke to deny Christ and his redemptive act of dying on the Cross for mankind’s sins, would also seem to corroborate the second charge too. Hence, as Joseph Farrell points out, there is good reason to believe that at least some of the Templars may have been guilty as charged in spite of the loyal defence of their modern-day supporters found amongst writers, researchers and historians.
Jacques de Molay at Garway
In his book, Andrew Collins asked a very important question in relation to Jacques de Molay’s presence at the initiation of John de Stoke at Garway. He ponders why such a high-ranking Templar should have travelled to Garway on the dangerous Welsh border, especially as he had only become the 23rd Master of the Temple the previous year and was now based in Cyprus where the Order had its headquarters. Presumably it was unusual for Jacques de Molay to visit an English preceptory, especially for the initiation of a lowly priest. Collins astutely adds that when de Molay visited, it would have been in the company of a retinue of foreign knights, his personal bodyguard, and servants, making secret visits almost impossible. Collins then asks whether the association of Jacques de Molay with Garway records some kind of hitherto unrecorded significance to the place. Might it be linked with the idea that it contained a holy relic of immense importance to the Order, possibly a special head reliquary? Collins then quotes from an article in the Temple magazine on the church of St. Michael at Garway and Jacques de Molay’s appearance there at the second initiation of John de Stoke, which makes some interesting observations:
“Surrounded by tall trees … hidden away, veiled in mystery, it gives a feeling that it is hiding something … Its importance can be understood because we know that the last Grand Master of the Templars, Jacques de Molay, visited Garway preceptory in 1294. One of the few preceptories in England to receive the honour.”
Collins then adds weight to the argument that Garway may have possessed a special head reliquary by the fact that during the trials of the English Templars, a Minorite friar came forward to affirm that there were idols worshipped by his brethren. Four of them were in the possession of preceptories in England. One of these was at a place he called ‘Bristelham’, which can only be a reference to Bristol. Collins asks was it possible that one of these idols, presumably the one held at Bristol, found its way to Garway. However, there is no indication in his account of what any of these idols looked like. According to Richard Ward’s vision, the one at Garway was silver, two-faced, with a beard on one face at least [MJF: this is only the description of the reliquary or relic holder and not the relic itself]. Collins then notes that this description matches that of a head witnessed by Guillaume de Arrablay, the French King’s almoner, when he received admission into the Order, presumably at the Paris preceptory. Apparently, it was carried before him and placed on the high altar at which he was able to see that it was made of silver with ‘two faces, a terrible look, and a silver beard’. Other knights described seeing very similar heads, some with single faces and others even with three faces, although whether these had been moved around from preceptory to preceptory is not made clear.
This is interesting because a two-faced, bearded head reminds us immediately of the two-faced Roman god Janus, who the English poet and mythologist Robert Graves believes was modelled originally on the goddess Cardea in her guise as Carmenta. Moreover, a triple faced head relic also reminds us of the triple nature of the ancient Mother Goddess representing the maiden, mother and crone or the past, present and the future. It also ties in with the myth of three Gorgon sisters of which Medusa’s head (a cipher for the Grail) seems to have represented the present, as she was the only one of the sisters who could be killed.
This is interesting because a two-faced, bearded head reminds us immediately of the two-faced Roman god Janus, who the English poet and mythologist Robert Graves believes was modelled originally on the goddess Cardea in her guise as Carmenta. Moreover, a triple faced head relic also reminds us of the triple nature of the ancient Mother Goddess representing the maiden, mother and crone or the past, present and the future. It also ties in with the myth of three Gorgon sisters of which Medusa’s head (a cipher for the Grail) seems to have represented the present, as she was the only one of the sisters who could be killed.
Collins concluded this analysis of Richard Ward’s vision by quoting Ward where he said:
“I feel that the head used at Garway for the star ritual involving the seven knights was important to the whole Order, not just in England but also in France.”
Collins then asks what became of it since the head never fell into the possession of King Edward II as it certainly would have been recorded in history. Collins wondered whether the inquisition may have got hold of it and spirited it away to Rome [MJF: there are certainly those who believe that the Vatican has the Ark of the Covenant]. Ward rejected this proposal and said:
“Don’t ask me why I say this, but I feel it remained in this country for a few years after the arrest of the English Templars and was then taken out of the country under a cloak of secrecy, very possibly with the help of Stephen de Staplebridge”.
Collins responded by asking “where did it land up?” Ward replied:
“As ridiculous as this might seem, I think it ended up at or very close to Rennes-le-Château.”
Collins then went into the genesis of the mystery of Rennes-le-Château and the links of the Templars to this region, including their long-term wish to create their own separate Templar kingdom based around the Languedoc-Roussillon region of today’s southern France and the then Spanish kingdom of Aragon. This leads me to speculate whether the Templars may have been trying to recreate the old kingdom of Arcadia prior to its annexation by the kingdom of Mycenae.
Collins makes much of how the Templars of Roussillon-Aragon sought and gained land and properties at Le Bézu [MJF: which we should recall is a derivative of the anagram “Zuber” which the C’s referred to in the transcripts] four miles south south-east of Rennes-le-Château in spite of the fact that there was already a Templar presence in the area at Campaigne-sur-Aude, which came under the control of the French Templar commanderie of Douzens located close to the fortified city of Carcassone. This has led historians to question why the Templars of the south should have wanted to found a preceptory at Le Bézu so close to Campaigne-sur-Aude. We have, of course, discussed the Templars of Le Bézu and its purported links to hidden treasure before on the Alton Towers thread so I won’t repeat what Collins has to say on the matter. However, Collins does note that, unlike their French brethren, thy were not arrested prior to the dissolution of the Order in 1312. Thus, to Collins it made sense why any Templar relic may have been shipped back to this region, where it would remain safe in the hands of these Templar knights who were under the exclusive protection of the King of Aragon. Collins mused as to whether this is what may have happened to Ward’s two-faced head reliquary, which seems to have started its journey from Garway in Herefordshire, England to end up somewhere in the French Languedoc.
Collins makes much of how the Templars of Roussillon-Aragon sought and gained land and properties at Le Bézu [MJF: which we should recall is a derivative of the anagram “Zuber” which the C’s referred to in the transcripts] four miles south south-east of Rennes-le-Château in spite of the fact that there was already a Templar presence in the area at Campaigne-sur-Aude, which came under the control of the French Templar commanderie of Douzens located close to the fortified city of Carcassone. This has led historians to question why the Templars of the south should have wanted to found a preceptory at Le Bézu so close to Campaigne-sur-Aude. We have, of course, discussed the Templars of Le Bézu and its purported links to hidden treasure before on the Alton Towers thread so I won’t repeat what Collins has to say on the matter. However, Collins does note that, unlike their French brethren, thy were not arrested prior to the dissolution of the Order in 1312. Thus, to Collins it made sense why any Templar relic may have been shipped back to this region, where it would remain safe in the hands of these Templar knights who were under the exclusive protection of the King of Aragon. Collins mused as to whether this is what may have happened to Ward’s two-faced head reliquary, which seems to have started its journey from Garway in Herefordshire, England to end up somewhere in the French Languedoc.
Returning to Ward’s account, he then added:
“I would even go so far as to say that the head was in some way responsible for the mystery of Rennes-le-Château and that Saunière was aware of its existence. He thought he knew where it was hidden, and this somehow brought him into conflict with some organisation, probably the Vatican [MJF: or the Rosicrucians]. They ensured that he lived a happy and prosperous life on the condition that he kept quiet about the whole matter, since there were elements of which would have undermined the foundations of the Catholic faith.
You know it is strange. I see the head as being kept inside a stone casket at some time. I reckon the Vatican made some attempt to steal it, not from Saunière but from someone else – someone who was in on the secret – but they failed. Somehow those involved were tricked into taking the wrong thing and so the head remained safe and is still out there today. Saunière knew this, and although he was unable to reveal to anyone what was going on, he did manage to leave various clues as to its whereabouts inside the church at Rennes-le-Château.
He added “There are other clues at Arques. There is a chateau there which is important to this story.”
Collins then asked Ward what he thought the connection was between the ‘Head of God’ and the quest to find the Holy Grail [MJF: to me they are one and the same thing]. Ward responded whilst shrugging his shoulders:
“I’m not sure, although I get the feeling there’s a relationship between the two and that it involves the Languedoc somehow, and the beliefs of the Cathars.”
This last statement would hold true when Collins went on to discover that the Templars did indeed experience an influx of former Cathars into their ranks (see more below on this) after the Cathars had been all but eradicated during the Albigensian Crusade.
The Two Johns
At this point, Collins went into several chapters on the Cathars, the Gnostics and the cult of St John the Evangelist, including the Johannine community and the Gnostic sects of the Ophites and the Naasenes, whose names derive from the Greek word for snake and the Hebrew form of the same name respectively. It is also a fact that the only Christian gospel the Cathars would use was that of the evangelist St John.
Collins also dwelt on the cult of the two Johns, i.e., St John the Evangelist and St John the Baptist both of whom were specially venerated by the Templars and later by the Freemasons for whom they act as patron saints.
Collins points out that with St John the Baptist’s feast day occurring on 24th June [MJF: curiously which is the day I got married on] and St John the Evangelist’s feast day occurring on 27th December (dates which are close to the Summer and Winter solstices) if viewed as the sun’s yearly cycle in the form of a circle with the two Johns standing back-to-back at its centre, you would have St John the Baptist gazing out towards the point of midsummer and his counterpart St John the Evangelist facing the sun at midwinter. Collins wondered whether this is something the Templars attempted to express as twin-faced head reliquaries of the sort described in their trials and as viewed in Ward’s vison. Interestingly, Collins notes that the nativity of St John the Baptist is considered to be 24th June as is the date of St John the Evangelist’s death, which if true provides even further confirmation of the two saint’s dual relationship as regards the solstices. And, of course, the image of two bearded men standing back-to-back conjures up the image of the Roman god Janus.
It should also be noted here that St John the Baptist’s head is usually associated with being served up on a platter after he had been beheaded by King Herod at his stepdaughter Salome’s behest, who legend holds performed an erotic dance (the ‘Dance of the Seven Veils’) in front of Herod, the price of his resulting lust being the head of the Baptist. This imagery in turn reminds one of the Grail being carried in procession on a platter in Perceval’s vision of the Holy Grail, which he experienced in the Grail Castle of the Fisher King. Moreover, St John the Evangelist is traditionally associated with a poisoned cup or chalice from which he drank without being harmed, an event often symbolised in Christian iconography by a black snake slithering out of the chalice. So, in the personages of the two Johns, we find the images of a head and a cup both of which were present in Richard Ward’s vision of the ritual performed by the Templar Knights in the stone tower at St Michael’s Church, Garway.
It should also be noted here that St John the Baptist’s head is usually associated with being served up on a platter after he had been beheaded by King Herod at his stepdaughter Salome’s behest, who legend holds performed an erotic dance (the ‘Dance of the Seven Veils’) in front of Herod, the price of his resulting lust being the head of the Baptist. This imagery in turn reminds one of the Grail being carried in procession on a platter in Perceval’s vision of the Holy Grail, which he experienced in the Grail Castle of the Fisher King. Moreover, St John the Evangelist is traditionally associated with a poisoned cup or chalice from which he drank without being harmed, an event often symbolised in Christian iconography by a black snake slithering out of the chalice. So, in the personages of the two Johns, we find the images of a head and a cup both of which were present in Richard Ward’s vision of the ritual performed by the Templar Knights in the stone tower at St Michael’s Church, Garway.
The Templars of Rhedae
As stated above, Richard Ward believed that Rennes-le-Château and its mystery might hold a key to discovering both the Templar reliquary referred to as the ‘Head of God’ and the Grail itself [MJF: possibly because they are one and the same thing]. Andrew Collins’ research revealed that records show that on 16 March 1147 two brothers, Pierre de St Jean (John in French) and Bonetus de Rhedae (which Collins believes is the ancient name for Rennes-le-Château but which I think is the crossroads town of Quillan), following the advice and will of their mother Blanche [MJF: a significant name in the mystery of Rennes-le-Château] gave their entire possessions, including vast swathes of arable land, villas, farms, vineyards, gardens, lakes, water supplies and much more to the Knights Templar. In addition, Pierre and Bonetus donated to the Order titles and deeds to properties in Espéraze, a town just north-west of Rennes-le-Château, St Jean de Brucafel near Carcassone, and at Douzens and Campagne-sur-Aude, where major Templar commanderies would later be built. Five days later Pierre de St Jean was received into the Order. He would climb rapidly through the Templar ranks becoming in 1156 the Master at Brucafel and in 1159 he is recorded as having been the ‘Procurateur of the Honour of Rhedez’ of the Maison Seigneuriale of Rennes-le-Château. Collins adds that from 1167 to 1169, the citadel prospered under him, for he was by this time ‘Commandeur’ (i.e., preceptor) of Douzens and Brucafel, ‘Preceptor and Master’ of the two Honours of Carcassone and Rhedez (Rennes-le-Château), with the title of ‘Minister, magister, Commendator, Preceptor, Procurans Honoris Militaie’.
Collins notes that there seems little doubt that the medieval charter in which these transactions are preserved confirms that there was a prominent Templar presence at Rennes-le-Château as early as 1147, a fact that seems to have received scant attention by researchers. Collins notes that how long this presence remained is unclear, although it might well explain the former existence there of a church of St John, which was destroyed by an assault on the besieged citadel in 1361, which by that time had become no more than a defensive town. It seems those responsible for these actions were Aragonese mercenaries loyal to Prince Henri de Trastamare who opposed the rule of his brother Pierre I, King of Aragon and Castille. According to tradition, the Church of St John* was dismantled stone by stone as the mercenaries were ‘searching for a precious deposit**. Collins speculates here whether the Aragonese mercenaries had been attempting to find the silver head reliquary known as the ‘Head of God’ (which may have been transported from England to Rennes-le-Château shortly after the arrest of the English Templars in January 1308) when they dismantled the citadel’s Church of St John stone by stone. Could knowledge of its existence have come from former Knights Templar of Roussillon-Aragon loyal to the King of Aragon and Castille?
Collins notes that there seems little doubt that the medieval charter in which these transactions are preserved confirms that there was a prominent Templar presence at Rennes-le-Château as early as 1147, a fact that seems to have received scant attention by researchers. Collins notes that how long this presence remained is unclear, although it might well explain the former existence there of a church of St John, which was destroyed by an assault on the besieged citadel in 1361, which by that time had become no more than a defensive town. It seems those responsible for these actions were Aragonese mercenaries loyal to Prince Henri de Trastamare who opposed the rule of his brother Pierre I, King of Aragon and Castille. According to tradition, the Church of St John* was dismantled stone by stone as the mercenaries were ‘searching for a precious deposit**. Collins speculates here whether the Aragonese mercenaries had been attempting to find the silver head reliquary known as the ‘Head of God’ (which may have been transported from England to Rennes-le-Château shortly after the arrest of the English Templars in January 1308) when they dismantled the citadel’s Church of St John stone by stone. Could knowledge of its existence have come from former Knights Templar of Roussillon-Aragon loyal to the King of Aragon and Castille?
*The present church of St Mary Magdalene, at which Berenger Saunière was parish priest from 1885 until his death in 1917, was formerly a chapel attached to the town’s château.
**Ref. Gérard de Sede’s The Accursed Treasure of Rennes-le-Château (1967).
The Confession of Stephen de Staplebridge
Up to this point we have only heard of the Templar Knight Stephen de Staplebridge through the dreams and visions of the psychic Richard Ward. Was there any evidence such a person by this name ever existed and, if so, was he a Templar Knight who had connections to Garway? The answer is a profound yes since Andrew Collins would unearth evidence for him through the diligent research of two men, the first being Ken Tullet, the archivist at Christchurch Priory and the second being Geoff Wilson, who was the owner of the Manor House at Templecombe in Somerset, which incorporates the surviving fragments of the Templar preceptory’s main gatehouse.
What these two men have uncovered is truly revelatory and deserves much wider exposure. Their evidence reveals that a core of English Templars survived the suppression of their Order for many years afterwards and this group would go on to establish Freemasonry in England long before its official inception in the 18th century. It also supports Joseph’s Farrell’s contention that at least some of the Templars were guilty of the charges levelled against them by the Catholic Church and King Phillip 1V of France. The survival of this group of Templars may even have implications for Laura and her Knight ancestors, as I will show below. What follows is Stephen de Staplebridge’s confession as drawn from various sources including notes compiled by Ken Tullet and the late Ray Lax of Christchurch Priory between 1994-1997, Wilkins Concilia Magnae Britanniae et Hiberniae, London 1737 and the diocesan records of Hereford and Worcester:
“When on Earth my name was Stephen de Staplebridge, and I declare, God save, that this is my story. A nobleman by birth, and of the knightly class, I was received into the virtuous Order of the Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and the Temple of Solomon on the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the year of Our Lord, 1295. It took place at the preceptory of Keele in the shire [County] of Stafford, and was presided over by my Lord Guy de Forester, the Master of the Temple in England [MJF: de Forester was most likely the same family name as that of the Knight Templar Ormus le Guidon who came from Staffordshire and whose father was Richard Forester. Ormus would build the Templar preceptory at Biddulph that later became Springwood Priory under the Cistercian Order]. Present on this occasion were chaplains John de Reives and Henry de Daumari, and Brother Hugh the macebearer. I accepted my duties to God, in his mercy, and a short while later, in the year 1297, I was received into the second order, the Templi Secretum, although this time the rites were conducted behind closed doors so that the profane might not know their sacred nature. It took place at Lydele, and the receptor this time was none other than the new Master of the Temple, Brian de Jay, a man of forthright spirit. Thereafter I was able to travel with better freedom to pursue the path which God had set forth for me. For ten years all went well until in October 1307 the King of France, Philip the Fair, with the aid of his Holiness Pope Clement V, declared that our Holy Order was guilty of committing many heinous crimes against the Lord Jesus Christ, and other evil mischiefs which cannot be spoken.
I was able to elude capture by taking flight from Lydele, hiding my face beneath a cloak and a cowl, and joining with other fugitives. I was hunted down by the bailiffs of Our Lord the King. During this time, my brethren’s duties were manifold, and ever did we think that one day the Magister Templi. Jacques de Molay, and our fallen brothers in France, would be absolved of the evil crimes levelled against them, and that our full dignity would be restored.
It was in the year 1311, close to the time of midsummer, that whilst attending to business at New Sarum, in the shire of Wiltshire, I was arrested by officers of Our Lord the King and taken in chains to Newgate in London, where I was given up to the Chief Inquisitors. None of them had any sympathy for the plight of the Holy Order, for they wished only to extract false testimony from me and those of my brothers in custody at this time. I was brought for questioning before Their Graces the Bishops of London and Chichester, and then dragged to St Paul’s Church where I was again accused of great blasphemies and made to confess my sins. Under pressure of torture, and worse still a painful death, I told them a little of my reception into the two orders, and then begged for mercy. I was absolved by His Grace, the Bishop of Chichester, and released from interrogation.
For too long I was left in gaol, as my brethren tore at their chains and went mad by the day, and then without warning, in the year 1313, I was sent to do penance at the Priory of Our Lady of Merton in the shire of Surrey, which is a holy house of the Order of the Blessed Saint Augustine [the Augustinians*]. To keep me, they were awarded four pence daily, and for a while I accepted the duties given to me and attended their services as a poor canon of Christ. Yet the priory was more thrifty than many I have known and His Grace the Prior and his canons suffered badly from this poorness. I could not endure their virtuous lifestyle and longed to live in all honour and dedication among my brethren, whose wills had not gone astray.
Q: … And when I drew little lines connecting them all, they enclosed this plain of San Augustin....
A: And who was Saint Augustine/San Augustin... Augustus, Augustine Monks, etc?
This was even when in the year 1312 the Council of Vienne headed by his Holiness Pope Clement V, and other men of the Holy Church, dissolved our Order because of the false testimonies offered by those enemies whose mischiefs were enough to see it trodden into the dirt. It was with these thoughts that I took leave of the priory and reverted back to being a fugitive once more. In faith, I survived, moving by night and resting by day, in the knowledge that my fellow brethren convened in secret to exact the duties of Our Lord God and the Blessed Saints, and to make plans for a new order to continue the ideals of the old.
After a while, time enough for me to complete what I was meant to do for my brethren, I journeyed once more to New Sarum and was apprehended by the town’s bailiffs. They took me in chains back to Newgate where I was hauled before no less than fifteen bishops who insisted that I should reveal more of the Templi Secretum, but I said nothing, and was allowed to return to gaol, there to rot with the filth of the streets.
Then in the year 1319, the prior of Christchurch in Dorset, whose canons like those at Merton Priory followed the rules of Blessed Saint Augustine was instructed by His Grace the Bishop of Winchester to receive me into its house. Yet since I was an apostate, he was told that I should not be allowed to advance beyond the first tonsure, for fear that I would seek my freedom, or else beguile the minds of the canons with false ideas.
Ken Tullett discovered Stephen de Staplebridge following the chance discovery of a Purbeck coffin lid in the loft of the church of St Michael, built in the 15th century over the site of the priory’s Lady Chapel. He found on the slab’s surface a cross pattée (Maltese Cross) enclosed in a circle attached to a long shaft, besides which was a crudely carved sword. Professor Kemp of the University of Reading felt that it dated to around the mid-14th century prompting Tullett and his colleague, the late Ray Lax, to conclude that it might have marked the grave of a Knight Templar even though the Order had been suppressed forty years earlier. On examining the priory’s records, the two men found a reference to Stephen de Staplebridge and wondered whether the grave may have belonged to him. Tullett and Lax would go on to find an incredible amount of information on this rebel Templar and his family.
Although Geoff Wilson was not able to find out as much information about Stephen de Staplebridge, he was able to rebut the suggestion that if he had come from nearby Stalbridge he may have been inducted into the Order at Templecombe. It turned out that Templecombe was almost certainly an ‘initial training centre’ for those young men who were destined for the Crusades in the Holy Land. It did not receive those of a knightly class, which Stephen de Staplebridge would certainly seem to have been. He was described in Wilkins Concilia Magnae Britanniae et Hiberniae, which contains a comprehensive account of the trials of the Knight Templar as milicie, i.e., a knight. It says that he also gave his testimony in French, which meant that he saw himself as a nobleman (French was still the lingua franca of the nobility in England then). This would therefore explain why he was received into the Order at the preceptory of Keele rather than Templecombe. Collins found this connection with Keele in Staffordshire fascinating for he previously had come across a collection of stone coffin lids which belonged to Knights Templar from Keele. He had found them up against the wall of the church of St Lawrence at Biddulph a town just north of Stoke-on-Trent in Staffordshire and thought they may have been transferred there from the nearby Hulton Abbey, a Cisterician institution with close links to the Templars at Keele [MJF: although his fellow researcher and author Graham Phillips believes the coffin lids may have come from the nearby Springwood Priory at Biddulph, which had been the site of an earlier Templar preceptory founded by Ormus le Guidon (see my earlier posts on this]. Like the stone coffin lid at St Michael’s loft in Christchurch Priory, each coffin lid bears the cross pattée at the end of a long shaft, alongside which are carved weapons representing those that were buried with the knight, usually a sword or an axe. However, as Collins notes, this did not prove that the coffin was that of Stephen de Staplebridge for there is no evidence to prove that he died and was buried in Christchurch Priory.
The ConfessionsA: And who was Saint Augustine/San Augustin... Augustus, Augustine Monks, etc?
This was even when in the year 1312 the Council of Vienne headed by his Holiness Pope Clement V, and other men of the Holy Church, dissolved our Order because of the false testimonies offered by those enemies whose mischiefs were enough to see it trodden into the dirt. It was with these thoughts that I took leave of the priory and reverted back to being a fugitive once more. In faith, I survived, moving by night and resting by day, in the knowledge that my fellow brethren convened in secret to exact the duties of Our Lord God and the Blessed Saints, and to make plans for a new order to continue the ideals of the old.
After a while, time enough for me to complete what I was meant to do for my brethren, I journeyed once more to New Sarum and was apprehended by the town’s bailiffs. They took me in chains back to Newgate where I was hauled before no less than fifteen bishops who insisted that I should reveal more of the Templi Secretum, but I said nothing, and was allowed to return to gaol, there to rot with the filth of the streets.
Then in the year 1319, the prior of Christchurch in Dorset, whose canons like those at Merton Priory followed the rules of Blessed Saint Augustine was instructed by His Grace the Bishop of Winchester to receive me into its house. Yet since I was an apostate, he was told that I should not be allowed to advance beyond the first tonsure, for fear that I would seek my freedom, or else beguile the minds of the canons with false ideas.
Ken Tullett discovered Stephen de Staplebridge following the chance discovery of a Purbeck coffin lid in the loft of the church of St Michael, built in the 15th century over the site of the priory’s Lady Chapel. He found on the slab’s surface a cross pattée (Maltese Cross) enclosed in a circle attached to a long shaft, besides which was a crudely carved sword. Professor Kemp of the University of Reading felt that it dated to around the mid-14th century prompting Tullett and his colleague, the late Ray Lax, to conclude that it might have marked the grave of a Knight Templar even though the Order had been suppressed forty years earlier. On examining the priory’s records, the two men found a reference to Stephen de Staplebridge and wondered whether the grave may have belonged to him. Tullett and Lax would go on to find an incredible amount of information on this rebel Templar and his family.
Although Geoff Wilson was not able to find out as much information about Stephen de Staplebridge, he was able to rebut the suggestion that if he had come from nearby Stalbridge he may have been inducted into the Order at Templecombe. It turned out that Templecombe was almost certainly an ‘initial training centre’ for those young men who were destined for the Crusades in the Holy Land. It did not receive those of a knightly class, which Stephen de Staplebridge would certainly seem to have been. He was described in Wilkins Concilia Magnae Britanniae et Hiberniae, which contains a comprehensive account of the trials of the Knight Templar as milicie, i.e., a knight. It says that he also gave his testimony in French, which meant that he saw himself as a nobleman (French was still the lingua franca of the nobility in England then). This would therefore explain why he was received into the Order at the preceptory of Keele rather than Templecombe. Collins found this connection with Keele in Staffordshire fascinating for he previously had come across a collection of stone coffin lids which belonged to Knights Templar from Keele. He had found them up against the wall of the church of St Lawrence at Biddulph a town just north of Stoke-on-Trent in Staffordshire and thought they may have been transferred there from the nearby Hulton Abbey, a Cisterician institution with close links to the Templars at Keele [MJF: although his fellow researcher and author Graham Phillips believes the coffin lids may have come from the nearby Springwood Priory at Biddulph, which had been the site of an earlier Templar preceptory founded by Ormus le Guidon (see my earlier posts on this]. Like the stone coffin lid at St Michael’s loft in Christchurch Priory, each coffin lid bears the cross pattée at the end of a long shaft, alongside which are carved weapons representing those that were buried with the knight, usually a sword or an axe. However, as Collins notes, this did not prove that the coffin was that of Stephen de Staplebridge for there is no evidence to prove that he died and was buried in Christchurch Priory.
What Geoff Wilson was able to show Collins were certain references in books to Stephen de Staplebridge concerning the confession at his initial trial. As a ‘fugitive Templar, he was arrested in June 1311 by the King’s officers at New Sarum (modern Salisbury), in the county of Wiltshire, and in the presence of the Bishops of London and Chichester on 23 June, made what are described as ‘the first confessions comparable to those [of his brethren] in France. He admitted that there were two admissions into the Order, the first of which was ‘licit and good’ and the other ‘against the faith’. He said that he had been received by both methods, in the first instance in ’an honest manner’ and on the second in the manner described. This had taken place at Lydele, thought to be the Templar preceptory in Lydele in Shropshire. The receptor on this occasion was Brian de Jay, Master of the Temple in England 1296-98, something which immediately marks Staplebridge as important, since it cannot be often that such a high-ranking Templar would preside over an investiture of this type, even though de Jay came from Shropshire himself. Curiously, Brian de Jay was later to support the cause of King Edward I (the Hammer of the Scots) of England against the Scots, leading him to breaking with the Templar rule. He thus became the model for the evil Templar, Sir Brian de Bois Guilbert, in Sir Walter Scotts’s famous novel Ivanhoe. De Jay would eventually be killed in 1298 fighting the Scots at the Battle of Falkirk, reputedly at the hands of Sir William Wallace himself (ref. the Mel Gibson movie Braveheart).
According to Stephen de Staplebridge’s own accounts of his reception into the second order, a cross was brought in and then, in the presence of two brothers with drawn swords, Brian de Jay informed him: “It is necessary for you to deny that Jesus Christ is God and man, and to deny Mary, his mother, and to spit on this cross.” Allegedly, he told his confessors that he was ‘frightened’ when forced to do this, but went ahead anyway, making the requisite denials, although he claimed that it was ‘by the mouth, and not in the heart’, and that he spat not on the cross but on the hand next to it. Apparently, the reception, which he said was quite usual in the Order, had occurred at dawn. In addition to this, Stephen de Staplebridge spoke of how members of the Order were told not to believe in the sacrament, how the Magister Templi, Master of the Temple, was able to give absolution of sins and homosexuality was allowed (this being one of the charges levelled against the Templars by Pope Clement V and King Philip IV). One could argue here that Stephen de Staplebridge merely told them what they wanted to hear to save himself, particularly as he made it known that he was aware that a fellow knight, William Bachelor, about whom various Templars had been questioned, had died in prison through torture.
According to Stephen de Staplebridge’s own accounts of his reception into the second order, a cross was brought in and then, in the presence of two brothers with drawn swords, Brian de Jay informed him: “It is necessary for you to deny that Jesus Christ is God and man, and to deny Mary, his mother, and to spit on this cross.” Allegedly, he told his confessors that he was ‘frightened’ when forced to do this, but went ahead anyway, making the requisite denials, although he claimed that it was ‘by the mouth, and not in the heart’, and that he spat not on the cross but on the hand next to it. Apparently, the reception, which he said was quite usual in the Order, had occurred at dawn. In addition to this, Stephen de Staplebridge spoke of how members of the Order were told not to believe in the sacrament, how the Magister Templi, Master of the Temple, was able to give absolution of sins and homosexuality was allowed (this being one of the charges levelled against the Templars by Pope Clement V and King Philip IV). One could argue here that Stephen de Staplebridge merely told them what they wanted to hear to save himself, particularly as he made it known that he was aware that a fellow knight, William Bachelor, about whom various Templars had been questioned, had died in prison through torture.
The Templi Secretum
Most tellingly, he stated that ‘the Order’s errors had originated in the diocese of Agen’ in Aquitaine, where a major Templar commanderie was located, with the implication that the fault lay with one Roncelin de Fos, Master of Provence, who was Master of the Temple in England (1252-56) and again Master of Provence (1260-78).
Collins notes that de Fos was a very important player with respect to understanding the inner order of the Templars [MJF: again, another example of the C’s circles within circles], for just as de Staplebridge asserted, there is a strong belief amongst some experts on the Templar mysteries that it was he who had instituted the Templi Secretum (secret temple), which involved denying Jesus as God and spitting and trampling on the Cross. Roncelin de Fos was born at Fos-sur-Mer, a small port not far from the port city of Marseilles in Provence. His entire family were already involved in the Knights Templar, and they held deep memories of the massacre of the Cathars, particularly those killed at Béziers on 22 July 1209, the feast-day of St Mary Magdalene, whom the Cathars revered as the spiritual bride of Jesus Christ. It should be noted here that Roncelin de Fos soon became a vassal for the King of Aragon, under whose control were the Templars of Roussillon and Aragon, with their preceptory at Bézu (founded in the mid-13th century) so near to Rennes-le-Château.
However, for Collins what was most significant of all, was that the name of Roncelin de Fos was found on a strange Templar document alleged to have been discovered in 1794 in the Corsino Library of the Vatican Archives by Friedrich Münther, Bishop of Copenhagen, and/or in a Masonic library in Hamburg Germany. Known variously as the ‘Statutes of Roncelin’, ‘The Secret Rule’ and the ‘Book of the Baptism of Fire’, it sets out the Secret Statutes of the Knights Templar. It bears at its base the name of Robert de Samfort, Procurator of the Templar Order in England in 1240, although Roncelin de Fos is said to have had a hand in its composition. Although the Statutes’ authenticity is dismissed out of hand by Templar historians, Collins feels it is worth investigating as it contains some very important statements pertinent to the Grail and the Head of God. For example, a candidate’s reception into the Templi Secretum, which would involve a receptor and three brothers as witnesses, included both a ritual and a consolamentum, the Cathar name for their version of the nocturnal communion meal taken by the early Christians. Indeed, the Secret Statutes actually refer to the fact that Albigensis’ (Cathars), as well as other members of other heretical and Gnostic sects, are to be allowed admittance into the Templi Secretum.
Jesus is referred to in the ritual and consolamentum described in the Secret Statutes simply as ‘Mary’s son called Jesus’, while, again with the Cathar reception, verses of John’s gospel are read out during the oration. The so-called ‘Third Prayer’ is called ‘The Baphomet’ and opens with a reading from the first verses of the Koran, after which the receptor adds: ‘One master, one faith, one baptism, one God father of all and who in invocation of God’s name shall be saved.’ After this he raises the neophyte and anoints his eyelids with consecrated oil, with the words: ‘I want to anoint you, friend of God, with the oil of Grace, so you may see the light of your fire baptism for so it shines for thee and for us on our path of truth and eternal life.’
At this point, an ‘image of Baphomet’, almost certainly a head reliquary, is ‘retired from its shrine’ as the receptor says: ’The people that walked through darkness have seen a great light and it has shone for all those sitting in the trees of the dead. There are three who pay homage to God and the world and [these] three are St John.’ Thereafter, all brothers shout out ‘Yah Allah’, which means ‘Splendour of God’, at which they kiss the image and touch it with their belts (the waist cord of their belts). Once the ritual is over, the consoled, or chosen one, is then led to the library archives where he learns about ‘the Divine Science, of God, of young Jesus, the true Baphomet, the new Babylon, of [the] nature of things, of eternal life, as well as: the Secret Science of the Great Philosophy: Abrax and the talismans. These things must be rigorously hidden to the ecclesiastics admitted in the Order [i.e., the Priests].’
I would make the observation here that aspects of this ritual remind me of the conferring of the various degrees involved in the ancient Egyptian initiatory path of the adept that I described in my article The Egyptian Pilgrimage of Initiation. This involved the candidate being introduced to more and more esoteric knowledge, including the sacred sciences, as they progressed through the seven degrees culminating in that of the highest, the Illuminati. This ritualistic process may have been carried over into the Egyptian Essenes and from them to the Jewish Essenes, after which it may have been inherited by the medieval Assassins – whose secret teachings may have influenced the Templars, as reflected by the use of the cry ‘Yah Allah’ in the ritual. The other observation I would make is that this ritual is clearly heretical from a Christian viewpoint, and it is interesting that in the account of the ritual it states that these things must be rigorously hidden from the ecclesiastics of the Order who no doubt would have been horrified by such heresy. If the account of this ritual is true, it would certainly explain why the Templar priest John de Stoke was readily prepared to admit to the existence of such illicit activities to his inquisitors since it is an easy matter to confess the truth.
However, Andrew Collins was able to recognise in this account the origin behind Richard Ward’s reference to a Templar-inspired ‘baptism of fire’, which the Angel Bartzabel and the spirit of Aleister Crowley had instructed him to take before the Baphomet statue in the Hastings Caves. Collins adds that in the Cathar consolamentum the candidate received the Holy Spirit in a manner that was likened to how the apostles and disciples of Christ received the divine fire of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, which is seen by some Christians as the fulfilment of John the Baptist’s prophecy that one would come after him, i.e., Jesus, who would baptise not with water but with the Holy Spirit and fire. For Collins, this then was why the reception into the Templi Secretum was known as the ‘Baptism of Fire’ since it borrowed directly from the Cathars’ own consolamentum. As Collins comments, this in itself does not authenticate the document, but it does show that whoever composed it had a profound understanding of Cathar religious practices. Collins notes more significantly that it is known that even before the fall of the last Cathar stronghold at Montsegur in 1244, various noblemen from families with known Cathar affiliations joined the ranks of the Templars of Roussillon-Aragon, whose administrative centre was at Mas Déu in France. This led Collins to wonder if they brought with them into the Order knowledge not only of the consolamentum but also of other unorthodox religious practices. With Roncelin de Fos’s own associations with the Aragonese king, might he have constructed the rituals for a knight’s reception into the Order’s inner chapter based on the new-found Cathar influence among the Templars of Roussillon-Aragon.
Collins continues by observing that it would seem certain that Stephen de Staplebridge must have undergone a ritual and consolamentum similar to that described in the Secret Statutes since he cited Roncelin de Fos as being responsible for leading the Order astray. For Collins, exactly why de Staplebridge should have admitted to this is difficult to determine, although it appears that he was certainly privy to the organisation and infrastructure of the Templi Secretum. Whatever the reason, the likelihood is that de Staplebridge’s second reception involved him kissing ‘the image of Baphomet’, which Collins thought was very probably a head reliquary, perhaps even the one Richard Ward saw being used in the bizarre ritual at Garway. It was also here that in 1294 Jacques de Molay, the Master of the Order and the former Grand Preceptor in England, had received the Templar priest John de Stoke into the Templi Secretum, confirming the place’s significance to the Order’s inner chapter or circle.
Abraxus
During that ritual, Ward had seen seven knights lying in a star pattern in the presence of not only de Staplebridge and the head reliquary, but also a scantily clad woman holding a cup, who probably represented the Gnostic concept of Sophia, female wisdom [MJF: recalling here how Schonfield using the Akbash Cipher discovered that the word ‘Baphomet’ transformed into Sophia]. Collins sees a link her between the Templars and Gnosticism as being certain, for the reference in the Secret Stautes to ‘Abrax’ alludes to a demiurge called Abraxus who was venerated principally by the followers of Basilides, a Gnostic based in Alexandria, who flourished circa 120-140 AD. The word Abraxas (or Abrasax or Abracax) was engraved on certain antique stones, called Abraxas stones, which were used as amulets or charms by Gnostic sects.
Gnostics identified Abraxas with the Hebrew god Yahweh (under the Greek form "IAO"). Amulets and seals bearing the figure of Abraxas were popular in the 2nd century AD, and these stones survived in the treasuries of the Middle Ages. Thus, the Templars' use of Abraxas as a seal was most likely a result of their expansive treasuries containing a number of ancient gemstones.
Abraxas took the form of a composite deity with the head of a rooster, the body of a man – his legs replaced by two snakes – and with a shield symbolising the sun in one hand and a flail in the other. In the other form, he bore the head of a lion. Abraxas was seen as a controller of time through the movement of the sun, a supposition confirmed by the fact that the numerical value of his name is said to add up to 365, the number of days in a solar year, and the number of aeons, or ages, over which he rules.
Apart from appearing in the Secret Statutes, Abraxus features as the image on a counter seal of Templar origin (see my earlier post), thus confirming the influence that Gnosticism held within the Order. For example. Abraxas appeared on the seal of a Templar Grand Master in a French charter dated 1214 (see below):
To the right of this engraved image are the seven stars, representing the seven planets and the seven spheres of existence [MJF: seven densities?], while inside a border are the words Templi Secretum, confirming the seal’s use as a sign of the Order’s inner chapter.
The Garway Piscina
Earlier in this article, I mentioned the piscina carved into a niche in the church of St Michael Garway. Collins believes that the interconnected carved imagery or graffiti appearing above the opening to the piscina is probably of Gnostic-Templar origin. Collins notes that directly above the ‘head’ positioned like a crown, is a triangle with hatching, very possibly a representation of the Great Pyramid, over which is an equal-armed cross inside a circle – the two being linked together by a square box. For Collins, this sits within a pair of ‘wings’, which to him are just that, wings, like those which flank the sun-disc in Ancient Egyptian art. Alternatively, he thinks they could denote the cross section of a bowl, plausibly signifying the communion cup of the Eucharist [MJF: or a libation cup similar to the one I referred to earlier]. On each side of the ‘head’ are other carved forms – to its left is a fish, a Christian sign denoting Christ, and to the right is a snake, the Gnostic symbol of knowledge and wisdom very much associated with Sophia. As Collins notes, whatever the true symbolism of this graffiti, their nature suggests that those who carved them were familiar with the Gnostic Christian mysteries.
The Mind of Stephen de Staplebridge the Apostate
Andrew Collins discovered before the end of his first trial that Stephen de Staplebridge did something very curious indeed:
“And then bending with knees to the ground, with eyes uplifted and hands clasped together, with tears, sighs and laments, he devotedly asked for the mercy and grace of the Holy Church; and that there should be enjoined on him a salutary penance for what he had done, saying that he did not care about the death of the body, nor about other torments, but only for the safety of the soul.”
As Collins points out, this might initially look like the words and actions of a man full of remorse for the ills that he had done, but something does not quite add up. For a start, we know that many such Templar confessions were obtained under torture or with the threat of a painful death by torture. Secondly, this was a man who after being given the chance to do penance at the Augustinian Priory of Merton, quickly went absent without leave. Subsequently, he was caught again at New Sarum (Salisbury) and despatched eventually to the Augustinian Priory of Christchurch (Collins also wondered here what special importance New Sarum may have held for de Staplebridge). Due to his blatantly troublesome nature, the Prior there was told not to advance him beyond the first level of tonsure, most probably because the clergy feared he would incite unrest among the canons. Collins thus took the view that there was every reason to suspect that Stephen de Staplebridge’s actions in front of the Bishops of London and Chichester implied a ruse on his part so that he might forego torture and possible death and, instead, be given a ‘soft sentence’ which he knew would allow him to escape when the opportunity arose, as actually happened.
Interestingly, another historical source spoke of Stephen de Staplebridge as one of two Templars listed in connection with the preceptory at Lydley in Shropshire, when in 1308 the Order’s confiscated estates there were valued at £44. The preceptory’s warden, Henry de Halton, gave himself up, but as Evelyn Lord in The Knights Templar in Britain admits: “Stephen de Staplebridge escaped, threw off his robe and fled to Salisbury where he was eventually arrested”. More significantly, Lord refers to him as ‘the apostate’, the rebel, a fitting epithet for a knight who defied his would-be captors for so long. It would appear from the evidence adduced above that he was indeed an apostate and one who evidently did not let his belief in the rule of the Templars die when the Order was officially dissolved.
Continues in Part 4The Mind of Stephen de Staplebridge the Apostate
Andrew Collins discovered before the end of his first trial that Stephen de Staplebridge did something very curious indeed:
“And then bending with knees to the ground, with eyes uplifted and hands clasped together, with tears, sighs and laments, he devotedly asked for the mercy and grace of the Holy Church; and that there should be enjoined on him a salutary penance for what he had done, saying that he did not care about the death of the body, nor about other torments, but only for the safety of the soul.”
As Collins points out, this might initially look like the words and actions of a man full of remorse for the ills that he had done, but something does not quite add up. For a start, we know that many such Templar confessions were obtained under torture or with the threat of a painful death by torture. Secondly, this was a man who after being given the chance to do penance at the Augustinian Priory of Merton, quickly went absent without leave. Subsequently, he was caught again at New Sarum (Salisbury) and despatched eventually to the Augustinian Priory of Christchurch (Collins also wondered here what special importance New Sarum may have held for de Staplebridge). Due to his blatantly troublesome nature, the Prior there was told not to advance him beyond the first level of tonsure, most probably because the clergy feared he would incite unrest among the canons. Collins thus took the view that there was every reason to suspect that Stephen de Staplebridge’s actions in front of the Bishops of London and Chichester implied a ruse on his part so that he might forego torture and possible death and, instead, be given a ‘soft sentence’ which he knew would allow him to escape when the opportunity arose, as actually happened.
Interestingly, another historical source spoke of Stephen de Staplebridge as one of two Templars listed in connection with the preceptory at Lydley in Shropshire, when in 1308 the Order’s confiscated estates there were valued at £44. The preceptory’s warden, Henry de Halton, gave himself up, but as Evelyn Lord in The Knights Templar in Britain admits: “Stephen de Staplebridge escaped, threw off his robe and fled to Salisbury where he was eventually arrested”. More significantly, Lord refers to him as ‘the apostate’, the rebel, a fitting epithet for a knight who defied his would-be captors for so long. It would appear from the evidence adduced above that he was indeed an apostate and one who evidently did not let his belief in the rule of the Templars die when the Order was officially dissolved.
The Knights Templar and the Head of God Part 4
The Great Society
For a brief video on the Templar initiation rites, see:
See also the poem titled the Tyler’s Toast: Traveling Templar: The Tyler's Toast
Laura’s Ancestor Willielmo Knyght
Session 27 June 1998:
Q: We got a genealogy program and I have been loading all this data into it thinking that I am going to find something. You told me to investigate the Knight line and I have gotten back to Willielmo Knyght back in 1325, but I need to know what it is I am looking for. I have all these other lines, and it is a crazy bunch of people and strange events...
A: You have dug up the figures, now analyze.
Q: Analyze. What am I supposed to see in seeing these figures?
A: The figures are the people.
Q: Well, the thing about this Knyght guy is that I think a) he took the name because he was a child of a Templar who decided to call himself "Knyght" because he was a Knight of the Temple who had blended into the landscape, so to speak, after the disbanding of the Templars, or b) that he was incognito. Why would a person take this name? I mean, there were so many knights, functionally speaking, so why would a person take this name unless they were trying to be incognito and not use their true name?
A: Right.
Q: So, which direction should I go? Who was this guy? Who was he really? He sort of appeared out of the blue?
A: Search.
Q: Okay, I will keep searching.
The First Vision
A: First, some blockbuster stuff for the Knighted ones... Look upon a detailed map, and reflect, remember lonely journeys from long ago, and begin to unlock shattering mysteries which will lead to revelations opening the door to the greatest learning burst yet!!
Q: (L) You said "knighted ones," as though there were some significance to the name...
A: Discover...
[…]
Q: (L) A black hole. Okay. Well, there is sure a lot of stuff that has gone on in our lives for which there is simply no rational explanation. (TK) They sure have been giving a lot of stuff tonight without a lot of questions...
A: Visits through trees, forests, leading to a perfectly square clearing...
The White Canons of Langdon Abbey
The End of Andrew Collins’ Quest
Collins summed up his quandary towards the end of his quest, which you will recall resulted in him finding an old metal key with strange symbols and sigils on one side, when he said:
Session 19 April 1997:
Q: Am I correct in my assessment that the origin of the Grail stories was the story of the Head of Bran?
A: But what was the "origin" of Brahna?
Q: Well, from the way I am interpreting what I have found, I have two possibilities: One is the Celts from Kantek, and two: a Nephilim hybrid.
A: Could be one and the same.
The Great Society
Collins notes that as the Templars in England had nearly three months grace between the arrest and the imprisonment of their French brethren and the issuing of the warrant for their own arrest many of them simply vanished before the King’s bailiffs had a chance to raid their preceptories. Often the Templar preceptories were found to be deserted or manned by just one or two caretaker knights, the rest already having gone underground (any treasures or gold having also mysteriously disappeared in the process). It is known that the rebels shaved of their traditional long beards, threw away their white surcoats and took on new identities and professions in order to evade arrest.
They probably used a series of safe houses, or ‘lodges’ (perhaps a barn, croft, or gamekeeper’s hut) in order to go about their business unhindered by the authorities. Collins notes that John J Robinson in his book Born in Blood: The Lost Secrets of Freemasonry suggested that these Templar fugitives formed themselves into secret enclaves or ‘lodges’ (after the places where they could meet in safety) under the control of a much more mutual aid and protection society, whereby its members recognised each other by covert charges, handshakes, signs and catechisms.
Known as the ‘Great Society’, a term which first appears following the Peasants Revolt of 1381 to denote those who ignited and controlled the country-wide insurrection against the existing feudal system, this shadowy organisation remained underground for nearly four centuries and resurfaced into the public eye as the Ancient Order of Free and Accepted Freemasons (Freemasonry) during the first quarter of the 18th century (see: Peasants' Revolt - Wikipedia). If a Templar inspired Freemasonry was responsible for the Peasants Revolt, then it set a pattern for future revolts as in the French and American Revolutions of the 18th century and the Russian Revolution of the 19th century in which Freemasonic lodges are known to have played a major part. One unusual feature of the Peasants Revolt, which may betray the hand of the Templars lying behind it, is the fact that although many buildings were burned down in London during the revolt, including those of the Knights Hospitaller, none of the old Templar establishments (e.g., the Temple Church on Fleet Street and its environs) were touched.
It is also interesting to note that the Peasants Revolt was led by a person known to history as Wat Tyler, although his original surname is unknown. It is thought that the name "Tyler" came from his occupation as a roof tiler, but this has not been confirmed. However, the title “Tyler” (or “Tiler”) also denotes the name of the office of “outer guard” of a Masonic Lodge who prevents ineligible Freemasons (who are known as cowans), malicious individuals, or the merely curious from entering the lodge during meetings. Traditionally he sits outside the lodge meeting room armed with a sword. The sword has no scabbard, as it is his symbolic duty to always have his sword drawn, ready for the defence of his post. This reflects the practice of the Knights Templars who would always have a Templar soldier keeping guard with a sword outside the room or location where a Templar ceremony was taking place. Hence, this suggests there may have been a connection between Wat Tyler and the early Freemasons who may well have been the successors to the band of fugitive Templars who would meet up in lodges (see above). If so, it suggests that the subsequent revolutions that were inspired by Freemasonry could have represented a sort of revenge by the Templars on the monarchies and feudal ruling classes that had suppressed them. It could also have reflected a long-term plan to create a new societal order based on democracy, without monarchs and nobles, which may be seen to an extent in Sir Francis Bacon’s utopian-type book The New Atlantis that would help to inspire leading American Freemasons and Rosicrucians to instigate the American Revolution. It is not for nothing that President George H Bush frequently referred to the United States of America as the ‘New Atlantis’.
The term the ‘Great Society’ would continue to resonate down through the ages since in 1964 it was used in the USA as an expression for an ambitious series of policy initiatives, legislation, and programs spearheaded by President Lyndon B. Johnson, which was one of the largest comprehensive social reform plans in modern history. Its main goals were to end poverty, reduce crime, abolish inequality, and improve the environment. – see: Great Society - Programs, Definition & LBJ | HISTORY
To back up his groundbreaking theories, Robinson provided evidence that the Freemasons did not originate among medieval stonemason building guilds, a view that has been popularly promoted by researchers and writers of Masonic history, as well as by the Freemasons themselves. Rather, Robinson showed that much of the Masonic symbolism connected with the tools and paraphernalia associated with Craft Masonry derived either from its roots in medieval Templarism or from a more respectable history of Speculative Freemasonry created in the 17th century to hide its true origins.
Collins notes that one popular symbol used by Freemasons in Masonic lodges (in addition to those of the black and white chequerboard mosaic flooring, the compass and the square) is the circle divided into four parts. This is composed of the circle itself, a point at its centre, and two parallel lines – one each side of the circle. In Masonic lore, the circle is taken to symbolise the boundless universe, while the centre point is the individual mason and the parallel lines the ‘staffs of St John the Baptist and St John the Evangelist’. Robinson argue that the first usage of this device derives from his proposed mediaeval mutual-protection society for fugitive Templars, whose members would draw the circle in four parts in the earth at their makeshift lodges, something which recalled the rotundas which emulated the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, which lay behind the design of many of the Templars round churches like that of St Michael at Garway. Collins points out that if this view is correct, then it is yet further evidence for devotion among the Templars to the two Johns, St John the Baptist and St John the Evangelist.
Collins could therefore envisage Stephen de Staplebridge belonging to just such a band of outcasts, clearing up unfinished business on behalf of his beloved Order. Yet, even if this were so, did this make him responsible for the disposal or safe passage of certain Templar relics such as the Head of God? Did Stephen de Staplebridge’s knowledge of Roncelin de Fos, with his connections to Provence and the King of Aragon, begin to make sense of why this special head reliquary might have made its way to the French Languedoc following the fall of the English Templars.
They probably used a series of safe houses, or ‘lodges’ (perhaps a barn, croft, or gamekeeper’s hut) in order to go about their business unhindered by the authorities. Collins notes that John J Robinson in his book Born in Blood: The Lost Secrets of Freemasonry suggested that these Templar fugitives formed themselves into secret enclaves or ‘lodges’ (after the places where they could meet in safety) under the control of a much more mutual aid and protection society, whereby its members recognised each other by covert charges, handshakes, signs and catechisms.
Known as the ‘Great Society’, a term which first appears following the Peasants Revolt of 1381 to denote those who ignited and controlled the country-wide insurrection against the existing feudal system, this shadowy organisation remained underground for nearly four centuries and resurfaced into the public eye as the Ancient Order of Free and Accepted Freemasons (Freemasonry) during the first quarter of the 18th century (see: Peasants' Revolt - Wikipedia). If a Templar inspired Freemasonry was responsible for the Peasants Revolt, then it set a pattern for future revolts as in the French and American Revolutions of the 18th century and the Russian Revolution of the 19th century in which Freemasonic lodges are known to have played a major part. One unusual feature of the Peasants Revolt, which may betray the hand of the Templars lying behind it, is the fact that although many buildings were burned down in London during the revolt, including those of the Knights Hospitaller, none of the old Templar establishments (e.g., the Temple Church on Fleet Street and its environs) were touched.
It is also interesting to note that the Peasants Revolt was led by a person known to history as Wat Tyler, although his original surname is unknown. It is thought that the name "Tyler" came from his occupation as a roof tiler, but this has not been confirmed. However, the title “Tyler” (or “Tiler”) also denotes the name of the office of “outer guard” of a Masonic Lodge who prevents ineligible Freemasons (who are known as cowans), malicious individuals, or the merely curious from entering the lodge during meetings. Traditionally he sits outside the lodge meeting room armed with a sword. The sword has no scabbard, as it is his symbolic duty to always have his sword drawn, ready for the defence of his post. This reflects the practice of the Knights Templars who would always have a Templar soldier keeping guard with a sword outside the room or location where a Templar ceremony was taking place. Hence, this suggests there may have been a connection between Wat Tyler and the early Freemasons who may well have been the successors to the band of fugitive Templars who would meet up in lodges (see above). If so, it suggests that the subsequent revolutions that were inspired by Freemasonry could have represented a sort of revenge by the Templars on the monarchies and feudal ruling classes that had suppressed them. It could also have reflected a long-term plan to create a new societal order based on democracy, without monarchs and nobles, which may be seen to an extent in Sir Francis Bacon’s utopian-type book The New Atlantis that would help to inspire leading American Freemasons and Rosicrucians to instigate the American Revolution. It is not for nothing that President George H Bush frequently referred to the United States of America as the ‘New Atlantis’.
The term the ‘Great Society’ would continue to resonate down through the ages since in 1964 it was used in the USA as an expression for an ambitious series of policy initiatives, legislation, and programs spearheaded by President Lyndon B. Johnson, which was one of the largest comprehensive social reform plans in modern history. Its main goals were to end poverty, reduce crime, abolish inequality, and improve the environment. – see: Great Society - Programs, Definition & LBJ | HISTORY
To back up his groundbreaking theories, Robinson provided evidence that the Freemasons did not originate among medieval stonemason building guilds, a view that has been popularly promoted by researchers and writers of Masonic history, as well as by the Freemasons themselves. Rather, Robinson showed that much of the Masonic symbolism connected with the tools and paraphernalia associated with Craft Masonry derived either from its roots in medieval Templarism or from a more respectable history of Speculative Freemasonry created in the 17th century to hide its true origins.
Collins notes that one popular symbol used by Freemasons in Masonic lodges (in addition to those of the black and white chequerboard mosaic flooring, the compass and the square) is the circle divided into four parts. This is composed of the circle itself, a point at its centre, and two parallel lines – one each side of the circle. In Masonic lore, the circle is taken to symbolise the boundless universe, while the centre point is the individual mason and the parallel lines the ‘staffs of St John the Baptist and St John the Evangelist’. Robinson argue that the first usage of this device derives from his proposed mediaeval mutual-protection society for fugitive Templars, whose members would draw the circle in four parts in the earth at their makeshift lodges, something which recalled the rotundas which emulated the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, which lay behind the design of many of the Templars round churches like that of St Michael at Garway. Collins points out that if this view is correct, then it is yet further evidence for devotion among the Templars to the two Johns, St John the Baptist and St John the Evangelist.
Collins could therefore envisage Stephen de Staplebridge belonging to just such a band of outcasts, clearing up unfinished business on behalf of his beloved Order. Yet, even if this were so, did this make him responsible for the disposal or safe passage of certain Templar relics such as the Head of God? Did Stephen de Staplebridge’s knowledge of Roncelin de Fos, with his connections to Provence and the King of Aragon, begin to make sense of why this special head reliquary might have made its way to the French Languedoc following the fall of the English Templars.
For a brief video on the Templar initiation rites, see:
See also the poem titled the Tyler’s Toast: Traveling Templar: The Tyler's Toast
Laura’s Ancestor Willielmo Knyght
Above we saw how many English Templars took the breathing space they were offered before the King’s men raided their preceptories to shave of their beards, throw away their white surcoats and take on new identities and professions to evade arrest. This could also involve abandoning their vows of celibacy and marrying. Thus, could the father of Laura’s ancestor, Willielmo Knyght, who was born in 1325 AD, have been one of these Templar fugitives?
Session 27 June 1998:
Q: We got a genealogy program and I have been loading all this data into it thinking that I am going to find something. You told me to investigate the Knight line and I have gotten back to Willielmo Knyght back in 1325, but I need to know what it is I am looking for. I have all these other lines, and it is a crazy bunch of people and strange events...
A: You have dug up the figures, now analyze.
Q: Analyze. What am I supposed to see in seeing these figures?
A: The figures are the people.
Q: Well, the thing about this Knyght guy is that I think a) he took the name because he was a child of a Templar who decided to call himself "Knyght" because he was a Knight of the Temple who had blended into the landscape, so to speak, after the disbanding of the Templars, or b) that he was incognito. Why would a person take this name? I mean, there were so many knights, functionally speaking, so why would a person take this name unless they were trying to be incognito and not use their true name?
A: Right.
Q: So, which direction should I go? Who was this guy? Who was he really? He sort of appeared out of the blue?
A: Search.
Q: Okay, I will keep searching.
It might be worth Lauar researching the names of Templar knights in the Yorkshire region to see whether any of them were unaccounted for and then cross check the registration of births (drawn from church records) on modern ancestry sites to see if the name Willielmo Knyght crops up and, if so, see who his parents were.
Richard Ward’s Further Visions
The First Vision
We have, of course, to take Richard Ward’s psychic visions on trust here but if what he claimed to see in his dreams and vision actually transpired, then it may explain how the Head of God was smuggled out of England to France. Set out below is Andrew Collins account of what Richard Ward told him he saw in his vision:
“Under the light of the full moon, four fugitive Templar knights carried on their shoulders a wooden bier that supported a small stone ark [MJF: shades here of the four Levites who carried the biblical Ark of the Covenant], or coffer, on which were strange forms representing their lord and master Baphomet. Inside the box was something of immense value and significance, a sacred idol venerated by the Order. It was to be taken across the sea to where it would be safe from the Holy [Catholic] Church, which having heard stories of its presence in this realm, would stop at nothing until it was in its possession.
The party moved swiftly along quiet paths and tracks that crossed empty fields, entered pitch-black woods, and climbed the highest hills, all to avoid the undue interest of the king’s bailiffs and untrustworthy churchmen. A few years beforehand, these former Knights Templar had discarded their distinctive white and red livery and shaven off their long beards, and now they journeyed as merchants, travellers, and noblemen, bearing false names and colours that would not arouse suspicion.
Stephen de Staplebridge, dressed in knight’s dress and woollen hood, in the company of two other brothers wearing coarse brown cowls [MJF: could these be the two brown cowled figures riding in a cart in Southern France with the Head of God in his later vision?], walked briskly in front of the procession, making sure the path ahead was always clear. As they passed over one final hill crest, they gazed down at the night fires and moonlit water which raised hopes that all would be fine, for they knew the port of Dover was within easy reach. As the first light of dawn faintly illuminated the eastern sky, the brethren entered the outskirts of the town and sought out a prearranged rendezvous point, where the precious cargo was unloaded from the bier and given into the possession of trusted friends.“
All Ward could add to this later was that he felt that the stone casket was taken out of the country via Dover, but where it went from there, or where it exactly came from, he didn’t know. I should add here that Collins’ and Ward’s focus in their Grail quest was always on a cup or chalice rather than the Head of God. Hence, when Ward experienced his vision, he and Collins had in fact been focused on what they viewed as being the Grail cup. It never seemed to occur to Collins that Baphomet, the Head of God, could be the true Grail.
The Second Vision“Under the light of the full moon, four fugitive Templar knights carried on their shoulders a wooden bier that supported a small stone ark [MJF: shades here of the four Levites who carried the biblical Ark of the Covenant], or coffer, on which were strange forms representing their lord and master Baphomet. Inside the box was something of immense value and significance, a sacred idol venerated by the Order. It was to be taken across the sea to where it would be safe from the Holy [Catholic] Church, which having heard stories of its presence in this realm, would stop at nothing until it was in its possession.
The party moved swiftly along quiet paths and tracks that crossed empty fields, entered pitch-black woods, and climbed the highest hills, all to avoid the undue interest of the king’s bailiffs and untrustworthy churchmen. A few years beforehand, these former Knights Templar had discarded their distinctive white and red livery and shaven off their long beards, and now they journeyed as merchants, travellers, and noblemen, bearing false names and colours that would not arouse suspicion.
Stephen de Staplebridge, dressed in knight’s dress and woollen hood, in the company of two other brothers wearing coarse brown cowls [MJF: could these be the two brown cowled figures riding in a cart in Southern France with the Head of God in his later vision?], walked briskly in front of the procession, making sure the path ahead was always clear. As they passed over one final hill crest, they gazed down at the night fires and moonlit water which raised hopes that all would be fine, for they knew the port of Dover was within easy reach. As the first light of dawn faintly illuminated the eastern sky, the brethren entered the outskirts of the town and sought out a prearranged rendezvous point, where the precious cargo was unloaded from the bier and given into the possession of trusted friends.“
All Ward could add to this later was that he felt that the stone casket was taken out of the country via Dover, but where it went from there, or where it exactly came from, he didn’t know. I should add here that Collins’ and Ward’s focus in their Grail quest was always on a cup or chalice rather than the Head of God. Hence, when Ward experienced his vision, he and Collins had in fact been focused on what they viewed as being the Grail cup. It never seemed to occur to Collins that Baphomet, the Head of God, could be the true Grail.
A short time later, Richard Ward had a follow-up vision in which he now saw seven Templar fugitives. their floppy brown hoods withdrawn, standing in a circle around a small stone chapel located in the middle of a woodland clearing. Like the Tyler who guards the entrance to a Masonic lodge (see above), their drawn swords were pointed to the ground as they kept watch for any intruders that might approach the temporary resting place of the Head of God.
Inside the small nave of the chapel, the precious holy relic had been concealed beneath the chapel’s altar, where it would remain for exactly seven days before being transferred to the port of Dover. This solemn duty was overseen by Stephen de Staplebridge, who had supervised the transfer of the silver reliquary from Garway via the oratory of St Clement in the town of Hastings to this ancient place of sovereignty. As the ‘Head of Bran’ had protected Britain against plagues and invasion so long as it remained buried beneath the White Mound – on which the Tower of London was constructed - the buried head would be its own talisman.
I find it curious that Collins should make a connection here between the precious relic the Templars referred to as Baphomet and the Head of Bran (Abraham?) since in my view they may well be one and the same thing, i.e., the Grail. If so, does this suggest that this was perhaps the second time the Grail had been in Britain. Could the Grail have been the ‘Apple of Discord’ of Greek mythology (as well as the Golden Fleece in the story of Jason and the Argonauts) that had triggered the Trojan War, which according to the author Iman Wilkens was fought in around Cambridge in the east of Britain during the Bronze Age?
After Ward had described his vision of the seven knights (N.B. the same number that had taken part in the strange ceremony Ward had seen taking place at St Michael’s Garway in Herefordshire), Collins asked him to tell him more about these seven fugitive knights who had guarded the Head at the remote chapel for exactly seven days. Collins wanted to know when Ward felt this event had taken place. Ward reckoned it had occurred just a few years after the arrest of the Templars. He said “I’d say around 1311-12. That’s when the Head left England for good.”
There may be no connection at all, but what Richard Ward described in this last vision, puts me in mind of what the C’s said in the session dated 4 May 1996:
Inside the small nave of the chapel, the precious holy relic had been concealed beneath the chapel’s altar, where it would remain for exactly seven days before being transferred to the port of Dover. This solemn duty was overseen by Stephen de Staplebridge, who had supervised the transfer of the silver reliquary from Garway via the oratory of St Clement in the town of Hastings to this ancient place of sovereignty. As the ‘Head of Bran’ had protected Britain against plagues and invasion so long as it remained buried beneath the White Mound – on which the Tower of London was constructed - the buried head would be its own talisman.
I find it curious that Collins should make a connection here between the precious relic the Templars referred to as Baphomet and the Head of Bran (Abraham?) since in my view they may well be one and the same thing, i.e., the Grail. If so, does this suggest that this was perhaps the second time the Grail had been in Britain. Could the Grail have been the ‘Apple of Discord’ of Greek mythology (as well as the Golden Fleece in the story of Jason and the Argonauts) that had triggered the Trojan War, which according to the author Iman Wilkens was fought in around Cambridge in the east of Britain during the Bronze Age?
After Ward had described his vision of the seven knights (N.B. the same number that had taken part in the strange ceremony Ward had seen taking place at St Michael’s Garway in Herefordshire), Collins asked him to tell him more about these seven fugitive knights who had guarded the Head at the remote chapel for exactly seven days. Collins wanted to know when Ward felt this event had taken place. Ward reckoned it had occurred just a few years after the arrest of the Templars. He said “I’d say around 1311-12. That’s when the Head left England for good.”
There may be no connection at all, but what Richard Ward described in this last vision, puts me in mind of what the C’s said in the session dated 4 May 1996:
A: First, some blockbuster stuff for the Knighted ones... Look upon a detailed map, and reflect, remember lonely journeys from long ago, and begin to unlock shattering mysteries which will lead to revelations opening the door to the greatest learning burst yet!!
Q: (L) You said "knighted ones," as though there were some significance to the name...
A: Discover...
[…]
Q: (L) A black hole. Okay. Well, there is sure a lot of stuff that has gone on in our lives for which there is simply no rational explanation. (TK) They sure have been giving a lot of stuff tonight without a lot of questions...
A: Visits through trees, forests, leading to a perfectly square clearing...
The seven Knights Templar were, of course “Knighted ones” and the chapel where they hid the Grail was in the middle of a woodland clearing. Please note that in 1311, southern England had far more woodland than it does today. Indeed, you could walk for miles through thick forests and woods, as you still can today in the part of Surrey (next door to Kent) where I live. Moreover, with a few exceptions, roads in those days were no better than dirt tracks for horses and carts. The days of well-constructed, paved Roman roads were by then centuries ago in the past. Moreover, the C’s reference to “perfectly square” may suggest a Masonic significance for the square is an important symbol to the Freemasons. Masons also talk about “being on the square” as a coded question for asking someone if they are a member of a Masonic lodge. We also learned above that Templar fugitives like those seen in Ward’s vision may have established the first lodges in what would eventually become English Freemasonry. In addition, a square shaped chapel would naturally occupy a perfectly square forest clearing. Finally, Ward and Collins had looked at a detailed Ordinance Survey map in order to locate the stone chapel (which they referred to as ‘The Chapel of Abominations’ since some occultists, perhaps linked with Aleister Crowley’s Ordo Templi Orientis, had participated in a rite of passage ceremony at the chapel in 1952). The ruined chapel turned out to be located in woodland belonging to Bisley Manor, which was only a few miles north of Dover in Kent.
The White Canons of Langdon Abbey
In a previous article, I mentioned how the White Canons known as the Premonstratensians, or the Norbertines in England, had helped in smuggling the Head of God out of England where it ended up somewhere in the Languedoc in southern France. But how did the White Canons assist the Templars in this venture and which particular group of White Canons were responsible for this?
Having ascertained that the chapel the Templars had used was a small, ruined chapel which stood within the grounds of the Manor of Bisley in Kent, Andrew Collins decided to research into the local area and discovered that the Premonstratensians or White Canons had built an Abbey in 1192 AD at West Langdon, which is about three miles from the port of Dover, after they had been gifted lands and money by Sir William de Auberville (who was the King’s Justiciar or chief minister – equivalent today to a Prime Minister) who owned Bisley Manor. In addition to this gift of land he granted the Canons possession of various local churches as well as the Bisley chapel. The chapel had been built soon after the Norman conquest in 1066 and had been used by the residents of Bisley Manor for private services. As a possession of Langdon Abbey, its Canons celebrated Mass there each day until the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1536, whereafter it was abandoned and became redundant. It was certainly in ruins by the end of the 18th century.
Collins uncovered some strange facts about the Abbot of Langdon Abbey during the timeframe that the Head of God is supposed to have left England for France. It seems that in 1331 royal protection was granted to the Abbot, Wiiliam ‘whilst he was going beyond the seas on the king’s service’. Moreover, in 1316, 1325 and 1329 he was given licence ‘to cross at Dover’ to attend the General Chapter held at Prémontré (from which the Order draws its name), the mother house of the Premonstratensians which is near Laon. Collins also discovered that Abbot William seems to have been an important figure at Prémontré itself, since in 1310 he was asked to act as the principal intermediary in a dispute between the Abbot of Prémontré and the English houses of the Order. Collins pondered whether he could have been responsible for ensuring that the Head of God reached France safely.
However, I discovered in my own research that Abbot William had also enjoyed the patronage of King Edward II for in 1325, Edward had recuperated at the Abbey, having been taken ill on the road to Dover. Thus, on 28 August 1325, King Edward out of affection for Abbot William and the canons' granted to them the advowson of the church of Tonge, which had belonged to the rebel Bartholomew de Badlesmere; with licence for appropriation. The King was then staying at Langdon, and it is possible that his affection for the Abbot may have been more than a phrase; for the latter was afterwards mixed up with the disastrous attempt of the Earl of Kent to restore Edward to the throne, when he was supposed to be still alive. Edward did not enjoy a good relationship with his French wife and Queen Isabella (the daughter of Philip IV of France who had ruthlessly suppressed the Templars in 1307) who, with the help of the surviving Templar priests at Herdewyke in Warwickshire (a preceptory established by Templar Knight and crusader, Sir Ralph de Sudely - who may have found the lost Ark of the Covenant at Petra in Jordan), would topple (and perhaps even kill) her husband from his throne, placing her son Edward on the throne in his father’s stead.
The Premonstratensians were founded by St Norbert and would receive Papal recognition in 1126 only two years before the Templars received their own official recognition. One possible link between the Premonstratensians and Templars was that St Norbert was a close friend of St Bernard of Clairvaux who had written the Rule for the Templars based on that of his own Cistercian Order. However, much as St Norbert admired the Cistercian ideals, he preferred to adopt for his Order the more austere form of the Augustinian Rule. Although in 1126 the Order possessed only nine houses, like the Cistercians they would enjoy phenomenal growth so that by the middle of the 14th century the Order is said to have owned over 1300 male monasteries and 400 convents in several countries. Interestingly, the Premonstratensians shared in St John the Baptist the same patron saint as the Templars. The Order has always paid special devotion to St John and a large number of their houses are dedicated to the saint. By tradition, the Abbey of Prémontré had been constructed over the ruins of a chapel dedicated to St John the Baptist after St Norbert had experienced a vision of the Blessed Virgin Mary whilst praying there, who instructed him to build an abbey on the spot. For Collins, if the Head of God really was a twin-faced reliquary containing fragments of the skull of St John the Baptist [MJF: perhaps a Templar cover story for Baphomet], then it made sense as to why fugitive Templars might have been in league with an Abbot of Langdon Abbey just three miles away from Temple Ewell, the main preceptory of the Templars in Kent. It was almost certain that Abbot William’s predecessors would have had regular dealings with the local Templars. On learning that Abbot William regularly crossed the Channel, on either the King’s business or official ecclesiastical business, this made him a likely candidate as the person responsible for carrying the Templar relic out of the country for who would have suspected a devout holy man such as William of dealing with known fugitives.
Having ascertained that the chapel the Templars had used was a small, ruined chapel which stood within the grounds of the Manor of Bisley in Kent, Andrew Collins decided to research into the local area and discovered that the Premonstratensians or White Canons had built an Abbey in 1192 AD at West Langdon, which is about three miles from the port of Dover, after they had been gifted lands and money by Sir William de Auberville (who was the King’s Justiciar or chief minister – equivalent today to a Prime Minister) who owned Bisley Manor. In addition to this gift of land he granted the Canons possession of various local churches as well as the Bisley chapel. The chapel had been built soon after the Norman conquest in 1066 and had been used by the residents of Bisley Manor for private services. As a possession of Langdon Abbey, its Canons celebrated Mass there each day until the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1536, whereafter it was abandoned and became redundant. It was certainly in ruins by the end of the 18th century.
Collins uncovered some strange facts about the Abbot of Langdon Abbey during the timeframe that the Head of God is supposed to have left England for France. It seems that in 1331 royal protection was granted to the Abbot, Wiiliam ‘whilst he was going beyond the seas on the king’s service’. Moreover, in 1316, 1325 and 1329 he was given licence ‘to cross at Dover’ to attend the General Chapter held at Prémontré (from which the Order draws its name), the mother house of the Premonstratensians which is near Laon. Collins also discovered that Abbot William seems to have been an important figure at Prémontré itself, since in 1310 he was asked to act as the principal intermediary in a dispute between the Abbot of Prémontré and the English houses of the Order. Collins pondered whether he could have been responsible for ensuring that the Head of God reached France safely.
However, I discovered in my own research that Abbot William had also enjoyed the patronage of King Edward II for in 1325, Edward had recuperated at the Abbey, having been taken ill on the road to Dover. Thus, on 28 August 1325, King Edward out of affection for Abbot William and the canons' granted to them the advowson of the church of Tonge, which had belonged to the rebel Bartholomew de Badlesmere; with licence for appropriation. The King was then staying at Langdon, and it is possible that his affection for the Abbot may have been more than a phrase; for the latter was afterwards mixed up with the disastrous attempt of the Earl of Kent to restore Edward to the throne, when he was supposed to be still alive. Edward did not enjoy a good relationship with his French wife and Queen Isabella (the daughter of Philip IV of France who had ruthlessly suppressed the Templars in 1307) who, with the help of the surviving Templar priests at Herdewyke in Warwickshire (a preceptory established by Templar Knight and crusader, Sir Ralph de Sudely - who may have found the lost Ark of the Covenant at Petra in Jordan), would topple (and perhaps even kill) her husband from his throne, placing her son Edward on the throne in his father’s stead.
The Premonstratensians were founded by St Norbert and would receive Papal recognition in 1126 only two years before the Templars received their own official recognition. One possible link between the Premonstratensians and Templars was that St Norbert was a close friend of St Bernard of Clairvaux who had written the Rule for the Templars based on that of his own Cistercian Order. However, much as St Norbert admired the Cistercian ideals, he preferred to adopt for his Order the more austere form of the Augustinian Rule. Although in 1126 the Order possessed only nine houses, like the Cistercians they would enjoy phenomenal growth so that by the middle of the 14th century the Order is said to have owned over 1300 male monasteries and 400 convents in several countries. Interestingly, the Premonstratensians shared in St John the Baptist the same patron saint as the Templars. The Order has always paid special devotion to St John and a large number of their houses are dedicated to the saint. By tradition, the Abbey of Prémontré had been constructed over the ruins of a chapel dedicated to St John the Baptist after St Norbert had experienced a vision of the Blessed Virgin Mary whilst praying there, who instructed him to build an abbey on the spot. For Collins, if the Head of God really was a twin-faced reliquary containing fragments of the skull of St John the Baptist [MJF: perhaps a Templar cover story for Baphomet], then it made sense as to why fugitive Templars might have been in league with an Abbot of Langdon Abbey just three miles away from Temple Ewell, the main preceptory of the Templars in Kent. It was almost certain that Abbot William’s predecessors would have had regular dealings with the local Templars. On learning that Abbot William regularly crossed the Channel, on either the King’s business or official ecclesiastical business, this made him a likely candidate as the person responsible for carrying the Templar relic out of the country for who would have suspected a devout holy man such as William of dealing with known fugitives.
The End of Andrew Collins’ Quest
In his book, Collins makes clear that his Grail quest involved trying to find a cup or chalice that might be the Holy Grail, which he was then meant to use in a ceremony conducted at the Chapel of Abominations, which turned out to be the chapel at Bisley Manor, on 22 July, the feast day of St Mary Magdalene. This ceremony involved Collins and Richard Ward adopting a back-to-back Janus like pose whilst Collins wife Sue lay on the ground holding a cup (which had been provided by Graham Phillips – see more below on this) on her navel, which she then passed over her head in a symbolic way. This ceremony had been instigated to some extent by the spirit of the occultist Aleister Crowley who seemed to have an undue hold over the psychic Richard Ward. To my way of thinking, the involvement of Crowley should have raised a red flag. No doubt any Christians who had seen the trio performing this occultic ritual would have been horrified and would have viewed it as a desecration of a former place of Christian worship. However, the reference to Janus in the ceremony brings us back to the Janus imagery in one of the two mirror versions of Nicolas Poussin’s painting of The Shepherds of Arcadia. Did the C’s intend this possibly as a clue to the Templars’ (with their double-headed, Janus like silver reliquary) involvement in the hiding away of Baphomet, the Head of God, in the French Languedoc, that formed part of Gallia and Arcadia?
Ironically, Collins, his wife and Richard Ward never found any chalice or cup during their extensive searches in Britain but instead were gifted a small green stone cup (the one used in the ceremony I referred to above) by his friend and fellow author Graham Phillips, which Phillips believed was the Magdalene’s alabastron, or the unguent jar or vase that contained the spikenard or ointment used by Mary Magdalene to anoint Jesus’s head and feet, wiping the ointment away afterwards with her hair, prior to his crucifixion. In Christian art, the Magdalene is often shown with this vessel either held in her hand or placed at her feet. From medieval times the jar or vase occasionally received an upgrade to a chalice or ciborium (a vessel used for holding consecrated eucharist hosts) into which descends a dove, a symbol of the Holy Spirit. This same bird signified divine love in Jewish mysticism and was a symbol of the Shulamite Woman in Solomon’s Song of Songs (which relates to the ‘Rose of Sharon’ and thus in my view to the Grail). However, as Collins points out, this same bird was also a totemic device of Near Eastern pagan goddesses of sex and love (Ishtar, Inanna etc. and the Roman goddess Venus) – their attributes seemingly being absorbed into the cult of the Magdalene: the dove even becoming Mary’s personal emblem by these means. Some of these love goddesses were often shown bearing a cup, filled with the waters of life, representing their association with the fecundity of the land (something also true of the Holy Grail in many Grail romances). However, the Holy Grail is also identified in the medieval Grail romances primarily as a receptacle of the Holy Blood of Christ through the auspices of either Mary Magdalene, Joseph of Arimathea or Nicodemus.
Phillips believed that the Magdalene’s alabastron had been found in Jerusalem by the Empress Helena, i.e., St Helen the Christian mother of Emperor Constantine around 326 AD. She returned with it to Rome where it remained until the capital of the Western Empire came under threat from the Visigoths in 410 AD. He claims that before the Visigoths sacked Rome, the sacred vessel was taken to the city of Viroconium in Shropshire, England, which was then under the control of the rulers of the ancient Celtic kingdom of Powis, who remained loyal to Rome. Phillips believes these rulers were the ancestors of Owan Ddantgwyn, who was his candidate for King Arthur, who eventually became its guardian, hence the Grail’s association with the Arthurian legends. He believed it was passed on from generation to generation until it came into the hands of Fulk Fitz Warine of Whittington (White Castle – the Grail Castle) and much later to Sir Robert Vernon (1577-1625) of Hodnet Hall where some time afterwards it was concealed in the caves at Hawkstone Park, thirteen miles from Whittington, where it remained hidden until its rediscovery. In Hodnet’s parish church, Phillips was drawn to a stained-glass window or four lights, each one showing one of the four Evangelists. The one of St John caught his attention since the strangely effeminate figure held a chalice which was reminiscent of Mary Magdalene carrying her alabastron. Above the image was an eagle, St John’s evangelical symbol. This made him think of the caves inside Hawkstone Park’s Grotto Hill where there stood statues of the four evangelical symbols (Tetramorphs) – the lion, the bull, the eagle, and man. This led him to wonder whether the cup, symbolised by the chalice in the hand of St John, might have been concealed behind the eagle statue.
Unfortunately, Phillips discovered that the statues had been removed and broken up in 1917 during the First World War, which meant that any mystery they may have concealed had been lost long ago. However, undaunted, Phillips turned up the name of the local builder, a Walter Langham, who was responsible for removing the statues from the caves. He discovered that a small stone cup had indeed been found by Langham inside the eagle as it was being broken up. Phillips managed to track down a female descendant of Langham who checked through a box of heirlooms left by her ancestor and came across a small green stone cup, which Phillips took to be the one found at Hawkstone Park. She handed it over to Phillips who kept it in his apartment in Coventry until he handed it over to Andrew Collins two days before Collins conducted the ceremony at the chapel at Bisley Manor on 22nd July.
In March 2004, Collins took the small green stone cup to the Natural History Museum in London to be examined. Collins had doubts as to whether the cup was made from onyx, thinking that it might be Oriental alabaster instead, aka onyx marble. Similar to true onyx, it bears characteristic green, white and honey-brown colour banding. The only real difference between the two types of stone is that onyx is a hard silicate or quartz-based rock whereas Oriental alabaster is a slightly softer sulphate-based or calcareous substance (calcite). Using an acid test, the experts were able to show that the cup was fashioned from Oriental alabaster or alabastrites, which increased the vessel’s chances of having been manufactured in either Egypt or the Near East during Roman times. This did not, of course, prove that it was definitely the Magdalene’s alabastron, but it left the possibility open.
Ironically, Collins, his wife and Richard Ward never found any chalice or cup during their extensive searches in Britain but instead were gifted a small green stone cup (the one used in the ceremony I referred to above) by his friend and fellow author Graham Phillips, which Phillips believed was the Magdalene’s alabastron, or the unguent jar or vase that contained the spikenard or ointment used by Mary Magdalene to anoint Jesus’s head and feet, wiping the ointment away afterwards with her hair, prior to his crucifixion. In Christian art, the Magdalene is often shown with this vessel either held in her hand or placed at her feet. From medieval times the jar or vase occasionally received an upgrade to a chalice or ciborium (a vessel used for holding consecrated eucharist hosts) into which descends a dove, a symbol of the Holy Spirit. This same bird signified divine love in Jewish mysticism and was a symbol of the Shulamite Woman in Solomon’s Song of Songs (which relates to the ‘Rose of Sharon’ and thus in my view to the Grail). However, as Collins points out, this same bird was also a totemic device of Near Eastern pagan goddesses of sex and love (Ishtar, Inanna etc. and the Roman goddess Venus) – their attributes seemingly being absorbed into the cult of the Magdalene: the dove even becoming Mary’s personal emblem by these means. Some of these love goddesses were often shown bearing a cup, filled with the waters of life, representing their association with the fecundity of the land (something also true of the Holy Grail in many Grail romances). However, the Holy Grail is also identified in the medieval Grail romances primarily as a receptacle of the Holy Blood of Christ through the auspices of either Mary Magdalene, Joseph of Arimathea or Nicodemus.
Phillips believed that the Magdalene’s alabastron had been found in Jerusalem by the Empress Helena, i.e., St Helen the Christian mother of Emperor Constantine around 326 AD. She returned with it to Rome where it remained until the capital of the Western Empire came under threat from the Visigoths in 410 AD. He claims that before the Visigoths sacked Rome, the sacred vessel was taken to the city of Viroconium in Shropshire, England, which was then under the control of the rulers of the ancient Celtic kingdom of Powis, who remained loyal to Rome. Phillips believes these rulers were the ancestors of Owan Ddantgwyn, who was his candidate for King Arthur, who eventually became its guardian, hence the Grail’s association with the Arthurian legends. He believed it was passed on from generation to generation until it came into the hands of Fulk Fitz Warine of Whittington (White Castle – the Grail Castle) and much later to Sir Robert Vernon (1577-1625) of Hodnet Hall where some time afterwards it was concealed in the caves at Hawkstone Park, thirteen miles from Whittington, where it remained hidden until its rediscovery. In Hodnet’s parish church, Phillips was drawn to a stained-glass window or four lights, each one showing one of the four Evangelists. The one of St John caught his attention since the strangely effeminate figure held a chalice which was reminiscent of Mary Magdalene carrying her alabastron. Above the image was an eagle, St John’s evangelical symbol. This made him think of the caves inside Hawkstone Park’s Grotto Hill where there stood statues of the four evangelical symbols (Tetramorphs) – the lion, the bull, the eagle, and man. This led him to wonder whether the cup, symbolised by the chalice in the hand of St John, might have been concealed behind the eagle statue.
Unfortunately, Phillips discovered that the statues had been removed and broken up in 1917 during the First World War, which meant that any mystery they may have concealed had been lost long ago. However, undaunted, Phillips turned up the name of the local builder, a Walter Langham, who was responsible for removing the statues from the caves. He discovered that a small stone cup had indeed been found by Langham inside the eagle as it was being broken up. Phillips managed to track down a female descendant of Langham who checked through a box of heirlooms left by her ancestor and came across a small green stone cup, which Phillips took to be the one found at Hawkstone Park. She handed it over to Phillips who kept it in his apartment in Coventry until he handed it over to Andrew Collins two days before Collins conducted the ceremony at the chapel at Bisley Manor on 22nd July.
In March 2004, Collins took the small green stone cup to the Natural History Museum in London to be examined. Collins had doubts as to whether the cup was made from onyx, thinking that it might be Oriental alabaster instead, aka onyx marble. Similar to true onyx, it bears characteristic green, white and honey-brown colour banding. The only real difference between the two types of stone is that onyx is a hard silicate or quartz-based rock whereas Oriental alabaster is a slightly softer sulphate-based or calcareous substance (calcite). Using an acid test, the experts were able to show that the cup was fashioned from Oriental alabaster or alabastrites, which increased the vessel’s chances of having been manufactured in either Egypt or the Near East during Roman times. This did not, of course, prove that it was definitely the Magdalene’s alabastron, but it left the possibility open.
Collins summed up his quandary towards the end of his quest, which you will recall resulted in him finding an old metal key with strange symbols and sigils on one side, when he said:
“So, what exactly was the ‘truth of the Grail’? Had we not already completed our quest to find the Grail cup? And how was this linked with the quest to trace the whereabouts of the Head of God? Was the head of John the Baptist really linked with the concept of the Grail? Although a Welsh Grail romance of late 13th century composition entitled Peredur describes the Grail as a head on a platter, this can easily be seen to relate, not to the head of John the Baptist, but to that of the folk hero Bran the Blessed. According to legend, this was buried beneath the White Mound, where the Tower of London was built in Norman times.”
However, we have an advantage over Andrew Collins since the C’s have told us that Baphomet, the alleged talking head which the Templars venerated, was a pure crystal skull not one made of human bone and silver. Hence, if it is the Grail, it cannot be the head of John the Baptist or one of the Templar head relics made from silver or even a real human skull like the one Laura referred to here in the transcripts:
Q: It says in this 'Holy Blood, Holy Grail' book that, among the artifacts that were recovered from the Templars at the time of their arrest, was a woman's skull decorated with gold or silver with a sign on it that said 'Caput LVIIIm' which could either be 58 m or, if the m meant 1,000, then the 58 would be subtracted leaving 942, or it could be 58 and the Virgo symbol. Of these three ideas, is it one of them? However, we have an advantage over Andrew Collins since the C’s have told us that Baphomet, the alleged talking head which the Templars venerated, was a pure crystal skull not one made of human bone and silver. Hence, if it is the Grail, it cannot be the head of John the Baptist or one of the Templar head relics made from silver or even a real human skull like the one Laura referred to here in the transcripts:
No doubt the Templars kept such heads in their preceptories as a reminder or imitation of Baphomet, but at the end of the day there was only the one ‘Head of God’.
As to Collins’ reference to the Grail as a head on a platter (as described in the Welsh Grail romance Peredur) being more likely to relate to the Head of Bran than to the head of John the Baptist, this notion seems to accord with Laura’s thoughts as expressed here:
Session 19 April 1997:
Q: Am I correct in my assessment that the origin of the Grail stories was the story of the Head of Bran?
A: But what was the "origin" of Brahna?
Q: Well, from the way I am interpreting what I have found, I have two possibilities: One is the Celts from Kantek, and two: a Nephilim hybrid.
A: Could be one and the same.
You will note that the C’s did not negate Laura’s assessment but referred instead to “Brahna”, which may provide an interesting connection to the Hittite hybrid we know today as the biblical Abraham.
In my next post, I will continue looking at the Templars and will put forward a theory as to how they may have discovered the Ark of the Covenant and the Grail. The article will also look at the genetics of the Jewish Essenes based at Qumran and the wider Jewish priesthood, which to my surprise provides an interesting link to the Nephilim that could possibly explain the C’s answer to Laura above.
In my next post, I will continue looking at the Templars and will put forward a theory as to how they may have discovered the Ark of the Covenant and the Grail. The article will also look at the genetics of the Jewish Essenes based at Qumran and the wider Jewish priesthood, which to my surprise provides an interesting link to the Nephilim that could possibly explain the C’s answer to Laura above.
