Part 2 of The 33rd Degree in Freemasonry
The Templars, the Freemasons and the Essenes
In my previous article ‘Hiram Abiff – The Widow’s Son’, I quoted Laurence Gardner at length on the suggested Templar origins of Freemasonry as we know it today. Gardner supports the notion that modern Freemasonry derives from the Knights Templar who took refuge in Scotland after the violent suppression of their order. The C’s commented on this matter in the Session 26 July 1997:
Q: Now, all these Masons are very hot on the Sinclair family and the Rosslyn Chapel. They are certain that their guys came to America, because in this chapel, built supposedly by a Master Mason, there are carvings of corn, as in maize, and aloe vera plants. This is evidence, to them, that Prince Henry the Navigator and all the Templars and all that...
A: Nonsense!
Q: Well, then, what IS the explanation for these carvings in Rosslyn Chapel?
A: Visitors yes, but the Masonic creed is intertwined with ancient order of Essenes, arising out of ancient Egypt, from the secret knowledge stored at the base of the Sphinx, as left there by "Atlantean" survivors.
Q: Does anybody in the Masonic order know anything?
A: Yes.
Q: Well, how high do you have to go to get to know anything?
A: Page 33. Blond and blue-eyed, of course! Before genetic alteration, one branch stood eleven feet tall.
Q: Speaking of these tall guys, William Wallace's life was sort of symbolic, in my mind, and he was supposed to have been over 6 and a half feet tall. During the time that all that mess was going on over in Scotland with Wallace and the Bruce, the Templars were being dissolved in France...
A: Dissolved?!? We think not! They merely went "underground."
Q: Is that literally or figuratively?
A: Why not both?
Q: Well, there are Templar organizations that some Mason's claim to be in contact with.
A: And where do you suppose these are?
Q: Underground?
A: Bingo!
[…]
Q: Okay. This one book I just read, the guys came across the Mandeans who talked about a star called "Merica," and from this, these geniuses deduced that the Templars sailed to America! What DID happen to the Templar fleet?
A: Sail to underworld.
Thus, the C’s have told us that the Templars were never truly dissolved but instead went underground, both literally and figuratively, with the Templar fleet sailing to the underworld (which makes me think of the
Tuatha de Danaan where Irish mythology holds that they went underground to the netherworld). The C’s statement seems to support the notion that a band of Templars may have regrouped in Scotland and then, having seemingly faded into the background and obscurity, subsequently returned in the guise of modern Freemasonry. Moreover, the C’s are also saying that some elements of the Freemasons are still in contact with those Templars who went underground (are these Templars connected with the Nation of the Third Eye perhaps?). However, the major revelation here is that the Masonic creed is derived from the ancient order of the
Essenes, which in turn arose out of ancient Egypt and the secret knowledge that had been stored at the base of the Sphinx by Atlantean survivors. It is worth recalling here that the C’s have said the Great Pyramid at Giza was constructed in 8800 BC. Hence, the secret knowledge could have been stored as far back as the 9th millennium BC if not earlier given the Sphinx might possibly be older than the Great Pyramid. This could mean that the Essenes have a very ancient pedigree indeed. The C’s have also said that Stonehenge was constructed in 8,000 BC by the druids and that the group responsible knew the group responsible for building the Great Pyramid. Does this suggest that there is a link between the druids and the Essenes?
You will note that the C’s also gave a cryptic response to Laura’s question about how senior within the Freemasons did you need to be before you learned anything of real value. The C’s referred to “
Page 33”, which presumably is connected to the 33rd degree rank or Master Mason but then they added: “
Blond and blue-eyed, of course! Before genetic alteration, one branch stood eleven feet tall”. This seems to suggest that there is a racial connection too, which, given they mention blond and blue-eyed, would tend to indicate that these people were Aryans and most probably Celts. Moreover, given the reference to the fact that these people once stood eleven feet tall before a genetic alteration, it would suggest that these people were originally Nephilim, the giant children of the Sons of God in Genesis and perhaps the Titans of Greek mythology. British Celtic legends speak of Stonehenge being constructed by giants so there may be something to this. However, the question we need to ask is - when was this genetic alteration made? The C’s may have given us a clue in the
Session dated 20 October 2005 -
Link
A: Question is what is a Semite?
Q: (H) You make a remark that this thing with Hitler goes off planet. So was this something that was going on on Kantek before it exploded?
A: Yes.
Q: (H) Did the Semites have a significant role in the collapse of Atlantis?
A: Indeed!
Q: (H) So, when we're looking at a replay, we're REALLY looking at a replay!
A: Yup.
Q: (Discussion of who are the Semites) (H) So the real Semites are the Aryans?
A: You got it!
Q: (L) So that means that the rank and file of Jews that have carried the tradition, the Arabic types, just took on the tradition and carried it and set it back to these Aryan types. They were just intermediaries. (J) Semites is like Middle Eastern, isn't it?
A: Is it? Was it?
Q: (H) Then the genetic tweak, was it made in the Aryan Semites or was it made in the Jews that we know as Jews today?
A: Aryan. Reason for destruction of Jews of the "Abrahamic" line.
The reference to Jews of the Abrahamic line ties us back into the Celts and the sons of Abraham, Isaac born from Nefertiti and Ishmael born from Hagar, Nefertiti’s daughter. We know that both Nefertiti and her daughter Meritaten had enlarged craniums so were clearly hybrids. This is borne out by what the C’s said in the
session dated 18 March 2000:
A: Trace gene.
Q: Where did the trace gene come from?
A: Last "call."
Q: The last visit of the Nephilim?
A: Close enough.
Q: Did the gene come through Ankhenaten or Nefertiti?
A: One sound like nephilim, or your "Nefilim."
However, the C’s refer to the original genetic tweak being made to the Semites 130,000 years ago, which suggests it may have occurred on Kantek before it exploded.
There was also another reference to ‘page 33’ in the
Session dated 26 July 1997:
Q: Okay, let's get to some of these questions... let's do some quick ones first. Would you comment on the fact that RhoChi is a mirror image of ChiRho, as though Rosy Cross were a mirror image of Christianity... added to this the fact that Dionysos, in the Titian painting, looks like he is stepping out of a mirror... also, the mirrors that showed up in the Etruscan book Ark sent, and the Well of Hagar which turned out to be Beer-lahai-roi, or the well of the living mirror... very funny things popping up after you mentioned the word mirror last week! Could you comment?
A: Better check the "leaflets..."
Q: Leaflet...? (T) Young leaf?
A: Patch of Zion.
Q: Okay, help me out here...
A: We are...
Q: Do you mean the 'budding olive tree?'
A: If you explore the caverns to which the wanderers go in the sides of cliffs in order to seek refuge from deluge, you will know...
Q: Obviously something will be discovered on this. I am taking it as a clue to work on. Do you mean the caves all along the cliffs on the Canary Islands where the Virgin of Candelaria was found?
A: Yes. Page 33?
However, this time the reference relates to the Canary Islands that were occupied by that strange Stone Age people known as the
Guanches, who were wiped out after the Spanish invasion and conquest of the islands in the 15th century (N.B. Laura devotes a whole section to the Guanches in Chapter 11 of The Secret History of the World. See also
Guanches - Wikipedia). The C’s make it quite clear in the passage above that some Atlanteans sought refuge in the cliff caverns in Tenerife from the deluge and went on to survive the cataclysm. This suggests the Guanches were the direct descendents of these Atlantean survivors and their ancestors did not migrate to the island. It is also known that among the Guanches there were men and women of great stature (being ‘Page 33’ perhaps).
An early account of the Guanche population was made around AD 1150 by the Arab geographer
Muhammad al-Idrisi in the
Nuzhatul Mushtaq, a book he wrote for
King Roger II of Sicily, in which al-Idrisi described the Guanche men as tall and of a reddish-brown complexion. He also visited a village whose inhabitants were often “fair haired with long and flaxen hair and the women of a rare beauty". “Page 33” may just be a reference to page 33 of a leaflet Laura had on the Canary Islands but it may again have been a reference to the ancestors or predecessors of the Freemasons/Osirians and the modern 33rd degree.
The C’s reference to “
Patch of Zion” also makes me wonder if they were again drawing attention to a Jewish or Semitic link with the Guanches. “Zion” does, of course, refer to Mount Zion or Sion, which traditionally is a mountain to the south of Jerusalem that overlooks the current city and according to the Bible is the hill on which the city of David was built but is also used in a general way to mean
"holy place" or "
kingdom of heaven”. It even makes me wonder if the Tuatha de Danaan may have used Tenerife as a stepping stone on their way to Ireland from the Middle East. If you are not aware, Tenerife is a particular UFO hotspot and has been for a long time. If Tenerife was a residual part of the old empire of Atlantis that sank beneath the waves, it might also be a candidate for Arcadia, in which case the C’s statement that “
Arcadia is a crossroads for the one Essene, the Aryan one of Trent” might lend credence to my suggestion that Tenerife in the Canary Islands was a stepping stone or cross roads for members of the Tuatha de Danaan en route to the British Isles, including Hagar/Meritaten and Abraham/Moses (after his assumption) among their number.
I would add that I have visited Tenerife on three occasions and have climbed to the top of Mount Teide, which is the highest mountain on Spanish territory (over 12,000 feet high) and is still an active volcano. When I stood on the summit, I saw the whole island below me with the clouds swirling all around the coastline. It seemed to me as if I was standing atop an inverted or upside down ice cream cone. It also made me think of how the Greeks may have viewed their gods looking down on mankind from the top of Mount Olympus. The island of Tenerife is a remarkable mixture of geography for such a small island (see
Tenerife - Wikipedia). Mount Teide, the giant volcano that dominates the centre of the island, is surrounded by a barren, volcanic rock wasteland that forms the national park of Las Cañadas, which comprises a semi-caldera of about 130 km2 (50 sq mi) in area. Broadly speaking, the north of the island is lush, wetter and tropical whilst the south is more dry and arid. However, the topography and geography of the island varies greatly, so there are parts of Tenerife that contain pine and laurel forests and even alpine pastures. Hence, there are places to be found in Tenerife that certainly could resemble the type of idyllic Arcadian setting like the one shown in Nicolas Poussin’s painting of the ‘
Shepherds of Arcadia’.
When last I visited there in 2015, I visited the national museum in the capital of Santa Cruz with my two daughters. I have driven all around the island in the past looking for signs of any remaining Guanche communities. Supposedly, there are native islanders who still have Guanche blood and characteristics in them. However, it is hard to distinguish them today from the Spanish colonists, as they were of similar racial stock. Remember that many Spaniards are of Celtic stock and the Milesian Celts in Ireland (from whom I am descended) also came from Spain. However, I did get to see some Guanches in the museum since the Guanches had the custom of mummifying their dead like the Egyptians and the museum has a collection of Guanche mummies on display. Indeed, my teenage daughter got the shock of her life when she rounded the corner and without warning ran right into the mummies that are exhibited in glass cases. I heard a shriek up ahead and found my daughter looking in horror at these mummies. She had never seen dead bodies before. The mummies on display are pretty dessicated though but I did note that most of them had red or brownish hair. They would have been tall as well when alive but there were no giants on display. Here is what Wikipedia has to say about the subject:
“Mummification was not commonly practiced throughout the islands but was highly developed on Tenerife in particular. The Guanches embalmed their dead; many mummies have been found in an extreme state of desiccation, each weighing not more than 6 or 7 pounds. Two almost inaccessible caves in a vertical rock by the shore 3 miles from Santa Cruz on Tenerife are said still to contain remains. The process of embalming seems to have varied. In Tenerife and Gran Canaria, the corpse was simply wrapped up in goat and sheep skins, while in other islands a resinous substance was used to preserve the body, which was then placed in a cave difficult to access, or buried under a tumulous. The work of embalming was reserved for a special class, with women tending to female corpses, and men for the male ones. Embalming seems not to have been universal, and bodies were often simply hidden in caves or buried”.
Quoting Wikipedia again - Little is known of the religion of the Guanches. There was a general belief in a supreme being, called
Achamán in Tenerife,
Acoran in Gran Canaria, Eraoranhan in Hierro, and
Abora in La Palma. The women of Hierro worshipped a goddess called
Moneiba. According to tradition,
the male and female gods lived in mountains, from which they descended to hear the prayers of the people. On other islands, the natives venerated the sun, moon, earth and stars. A belief in an evil spirit was general. The demon of Tenerife was called
Guayota and lived at the peak of Mount Teide, which was the hell called
Echeyde; in Tenerife and Gran Canaria, the minor demons took the form of wild black woolly dogs called Jucanchas in the first and
Tibicenas in the latter, which lived in deep caves of the mountains, emerging at night to attack livestock and human beings.
In Tenerife,
Magec (god of the Sun) and
Chaxiraxi (the goddess mother) were also worshipped. In times of drought, the Guanches drove their flocks to consecrated grounds, where the lambs were separated from their mothers in the belief
that their plaintive bleating would melt the heart of the Great Spirit. During the religious feasts, hostilities were held in abeyance, from war to personal quarrels.
Most researchers agree that the Guanches performed their worship in the open, under sacred trees such as pine or drago, or near sacred mountains such as Mount Teide, which was believed to be the abode of the devil
Guayota. Mount Teide was sacred to the aboriginal Guanches. But sometimes the Guanches also performed worship in caves, as in "Cave of Achbinico" in Tenerife. Until the 20th century, there were in the Canary Islands (especially in northern Tenerife) individuals called "
Animeros". They were similar to healers and mystics with a syncretic beliefs combining elements of the Guanche religion and Christianity. As in other countries close to the islands (e.g.
marabouts from the
Maghreb), the
Animeros were considered "
persons blessed by God".
Ritual worship in the open under sacred trees reminds me very much of the Druids who often conducted their ceremonies in groves or under sacred trees such as the Oak or Yew. I also would make a connection here between the ‘Animeros’ and the Druids and Essenes, since the latter were viewed as healers and mystics too. This suggests to me that in the Animeros, Druids and Essenes we are probably seeing the continuation of an ancient mystic tradition that dates all the way back to Atlantis and may now continue within the Freemasons and Rosicrucians and in the monastic traditions of religious orders such as the Carmelites, Franciscans and Cistercians etc. No doubt the Animeros may also have had a lot in common with Shamans and would probably be considered as being ‘
Shining Ones’ by Gardiner and Osborn.
The reference to the Guanches driving their sheep flocks to consecrated ground in times of drought where the lambs would be separated from their mothers in the belief that their plaintive bleating would melt the heart of the Great Spirit makes me think for some reason of the C’s strange statement to Laura about “
lambs beying in the Knight” one day in connection with the upcoming transformation to 4th density.
Human Sacrifice
Although little is known about this practice, it has been shown that the Guanches performed both animal sacrifices and human sacrifices.
In Tenerife during the summer solstice, the Guanches were accustomed to kill livestock and throw them into a fire as an offering to the gods. Bethencourt Alfonso has claimed that goat kids were tied by the legs, alive, to a stake so that they could be heard bleating by the gods. It is likely that animals were also sacrificed on the other islands.
As for human sacrifices, in Tenerife it was the custom to throw the
Punta de Rasca a living child at sunrise at the summer solstice. Sometimes these children came from all parts of the island, even from remote areas of
Punta de Rasca. It follows that it was a common custom of the island. On this island sacrificing other human victims associated with the death of the king, where adult men rushed to the sea are also known. Embalmers who produced the Guanche mummies also had a habit of throwing into the sea one year after the king's death.
Child sacrifice has been seen in other cultures, especially in the Mediterranean — Carthage (now Tunisia), Ugarit in the current Syria, Cyprus and Crete. I would point out that the Druids also practised human sacrifice and child sacrifice featured strongly in the worship of the Canaanite god
Moloch. Since 1935, scholars have debated whether or not the term Moloch refers to a type of sacrifice on the basis of a similar term, also spelled
mlk, which means "sacrifice" in the Punic language (that of Carthage). This second position has grown increasingly popular but it remains contested. Among proponents of this second position, controversy continues as to whether the sacrifices were offered to
Yahweh or another deity, and whether they were a native Israelite religious custom or a Phoenician import. Since the medieval period, Moloch has often been portrayed as a bull-headed idol with outstretched hands over a fire; this depiction takes the brief mentions of Moloch in the Bible and combines them with various sources, including ancient accounts of Carthaginian child sacrifice and the legend of the
Minotaur in Crete. See
Moloch - Wikipedia
We obviously need to study the Druids and Essenes more carefully to detect the present day roots of the Freemasons. I aim to do some follow up posts on both groups as well as the Rosicrucians. However, before doing so I would like to refer back to the strange individual we know as the Comte de St. Germain and his putative links with Freemasonry since I have discovered more material linking him to that secretive order.
You will recall that in my earlier articles ‘
It is not Germaine’ and ‘
The Comte de St. Germain’ I proposed that the Count may have been a Jacobite agent and a leading Freemason/Rosicrucian who hid behind the image of a dandy much in the same way that
Baroness Orczy's fictional character
Sir Percy Blakeney led a double life, apparently being nothing more than a wealthy fop, but in reality a formidable swordsman and a quick-thinking master of disguise and escape artist known as the ‘
Scarlet Pimpernel’. The mysterious Scarlet Pimpernel takes his nickname from the small red flower he draws on his messages. Could Baroness Orczy have based her hero on the Comte de St. Germain perhaps? Does the small red flower denote the red rose (the Rose of Sharon) often taken to symbolise the Rosicrucians?
Since writing those articles, I came across some material posted on the Forum under a thread related to
David Icke and
James Redfield, which seems to establish yet firmer links to the Count and Freemasonry and the role he played in promoting and developing the movement during the 18th century. Please note that I have bolded certain parts of the quoted material in order to draw your attention. See:
About David Icke & James Redfield
“Your point about Mdm. Helen Balvatsky & Germain is quite interesting.
Here we have Charles W Leadbeater 33rd degree himself from "Glimpses of Masonic History" 1926:
“[quote author=CWL] A definite commission appears to have been given to them by the H.O.A.T.F., the Master the Comte de S. Germain Himself, to mould all these various traditions, which He had caused them to inherit, into a rite which should express to some extent the power for good of the Egyptian succession in a form suited to a more modern age. These orders they proceeded to carry out as faithfully as possible, and the result of their labours was the Rite of Perfection or of Heredom of twenty-five degrees, all of which are still contained in our modern Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite.[/quote]”
“Germain” = The central influence of masonic thought & reformation itself?!
Also, for any new ager who thinks this notion of the Akashic records is new:
“[quote author=CWL] It will be seen that this occult knowledge depends no more upon the study of books and records than do the experiences of the mystics; both belong to a higher order of consciousness, the existence of which cannot be satisfactorily demonstrated on the physical plane. Nevertheless, the study of the physical-plane records of the past is of value in confirming the historical researches of the trained occultist, who is able to read what are sometimes called the akashic records, and so to acquire an accurate knowledge of the past. This subject is so little understood that it may perhaps be useful if at this point I quote somewhat at length from a book entitled Clairvoyance which I wrote many years ago:
34. On the mental plane (the records) have two widely different aspects. When the visitor to that plane is not thinking specially of them in any way, these records simply form a background to whatever is going on, just as the reflections in a pier-glass at the end of a room might form a background to the life of the people in it. It must always be borne in mind that under these conditions they are really merely reflections from the ceaseless activity of a great Consciousness upon a far higher plane. …
35. But if the trained investigator turns his attention especially to any one scene, or wishes to call it up before him, an extraordinary change at once takes place, for this is the plane of thought, and to think of anything is to bring it instantaneously before you. For example, if a man wills to see the record of the landing of Julius Caesar in England, he finds himself in a moment … standing on the shore among the legionaries, with the whole scene being enacted around him, precisely in every respect as he would have seen it if he had stood there in the flesh on that autumn morning in the year 55 B.C. Since what he sees is but a reflection, the actors are of course entirely unconscious of him, nor can any effort of his change the course of their action in the smallest degree, except only that he can control the rate at which the drama shall pass before him - can have the events of a whole year rehearsed before his eyes in a single hour, or can at any moment stop the movement altogether, and hold any particular scene in view as a picture as long as he chooses.
36. In truth he observes not only what he would have seen if he had been there at the time in the flesh, but much more. He hears and understands all that the people say, and he is conscious of all their thoughts and motives; and one of the most interesting of the many possibilities which open up before one who has learnt to read the records is the study of the thought of ages long past - the thought of the cave-men and the lake-dwellers as well as that which ruled the mighty civilizations of Atlantis, of Egypt or Chaldaea. What splendid possibilities open up before the man who is in full possession of this power may easily be imagined. He has before him a field of historical research of most entrancing interest. Not only can he review at his leisure all history with which we are acquainted, correcting as he examines it the many errors and misconceptions which have crept into the accounts handed down to us; he can also range at will over the whole story of the world from its very beginning, watching the slow development of intellect in man, the descent of the Lords of the Flame, and the growth of the mighty civilizations which They founded.[/quote]
and:
[quote author=CWL]The whole position will be best understood if it can be realized that the plan of Masonry is in the hands of the H.O.A.T.F., who rules His mighty Order with perfect justice and the most marvellous skill, so that all that can be done is done for the greatest good of all. The powers that stand behind Freemasonry are great and holy, and it is but right that they should be conferred in their fullness only upon those who are likely to use them as they should be used and to treat them with the reverence they deserve. There is a great and glorious reality in the background all the time, ever pressing towards realization, and employing whatever channels are available for its manifestation. Whatever can be used is always used to the very fullest extent, and none need fear that he is overlooked. It is obvious, however, that where the Brn [i.e., Brethren]. think more of gratifying their own vanity than of the Hidden Work, where they spend their time in banqueting and revelry and curtail the sacred ritual in order that they may adjourn as quickly as possible to the South, they are less worthy channels of the Divine Glory than those more spiritual Brn. who are willing to study and to understand. All the time the H.O.A.T.F. is watching; He sees the slightest endeavour of the Craftsmen to serve, and He will pour forth His wondrous power just in so far as the Brn. become worthy of it.[/quote]”
So Freemasons enshrining Germain for hundreds of years. Wow.”
I would confess that I have not read
Charles W Leadbeater’s "
Glimpses of Masonic History" published in 1926. However, it does seem to back up what Laurence Gardner has said about the Count and his links to the Stuart court, being himself a cousin of Bonnie Prince Charlie. It is interesting that the passages quoted from Leadbeater’s book refer, amongst other things, to ‘
the Rite of Perfection’ or of ‘
Heredom’. You may recall that I had quoted Gardner in his book ‘The Shadow of Solomon’ where he said:
“
In early Masonic terms, the prevailing Royal Order associated with the the Rosy Cross in Scotland was that of the Heredom (Holy Mount) of Kilwinning, Ayshire – possibly founded by King David I – for which James Stewart, 5ht High Steward (died 1309) had been a Grand Master. It is for this reason that Freemasonry’s current side degree, Knight of the Rosy Cross, is said to stem from that constitution. – although it does so only in theory. The legitimate Rosicrucian Grand Mastership of St. Germain was inherent in the 1688 exile of Stuart Household Orders to France. King James II subsequently constituted the Noble Order of the Guard of St. Germaine in Paris on 18 June 1692. The Heredom of Kilwinning and the Knight of the Rosy Cross degrees still exist today within the Royal Order of Scotland.”
Hence, Leadbeater seems to be suggesting that the Comte de S. Germain and his acolytes (Charles Radclyffe and Andrew Ramsay) took the existing Order of Heredom and converted it into a modernised form of ritual spread through twenty-five degrees of the new
Scottish Rite. He also alludes to the degrees being inherited from the Egyptian tradition or succession. This might just be whimsical fancy on Leadbeater’s part if it were not for the fact that the C’s said the origins of Freemasonry stem from the Osirians of Egypt and dates back to 5,633 BC. I would also observe that what Leadbeater describes as ‘
clairvoyance’ appears to me to be what we today would call ‘
remote viewing’. Moreover, are what he refers to as the ‘
Lords of the Flame’ (think Mount Sinai here) merely a reference to what today we think of as the STS Lizards?
However, Gardner also had more to say about the role of the Comte de St. Germain, who he names as the Marquis de Montferrat in ‘
The Shadow of Solomon’. Gardner makes reference to
Benjamin Franklin, American revolutionary, founding father, statesman and scientist who became America’s ambassador to France in 1776 and was a member of the Royal Society in England from 1757. He himself was the founder and first secretary of the American Philosophical Society. Gardner claims that in England he also became involved with the Royal Society’s offshoot lodge at High Wycombe, the
Knights of St Francis of Medmenham Abbey, better known today as the
Hellfire Club. According to Gardner, Franklin became a close colleague of its founder,
Sir Francis Dashwood, and was an active member of the Club for five years from 1757. There are many who think the Hellfire Club was in fact a Rosicrucian front organisation. I hope to have more to say about this organisation in a subsequent post. Gardner though takes the line that the Hellfire Club was an undercover Jacobite cell. Gardner claims that when Franklin was in France, he visited the Languedoc region (a Cathar or Albigensian stronghold in the 13th century) and became involved with the Rosicrucian fraternity of the ‘
Bonnie Prince’ and his mentor, the Comte de St. Germain, establishing the Masonic Order that eventually became formalised as the
Commandery of Carcasonne. According to Gardner, the records of this Order are now held by the Grand Orient Lodge of France.
Gardner claims that Franklin would through these links have undoubtedly become aware of an ancient Rosicrucian philosophy which the Templars had called called
Ormus (for more on the relevance of
Ormus see my previous articles). He also claims that the Comte de St. Germain, a fellow mason, was at the forefront of philosophical education in Paris. He states that:
“
As a leading Templar of the ancient Hermetic Rite of Philalethes*, the Count was subsequently an elected delegate of the Paris Grand Convention of Masons. Plans were laid at this time to bring notable French Templars such as the Marquis de Lafayette into the American Revolution, and they set up conspiratorial headquarters at one of Count St. Germain’s workshops - the old Templar preceptory at Bezu in Languedoc. Grand Orient records detail the Count as being President of the Parliament of the Temple“.
*
Philalethes was an Ancient Greek name meaning "lover of truth" that was often adopted by people down the ages as a pseudonym. For example,
Thomas Vaughan, a 17th century English alchemist and philosopher, used the name. Vaughan was responsible for translating into English in 1652 the
Fama Fraternitatis Rosae Crucis, an anonymous Rosicrucian manifesto first published in 1614 in Kassel, Germany.
The Rite of Philaléthes was founded in Paris in 1772 and was devoted to the study of esotericism. Hence, it would appear not to have been quite as ancient as Gardner would have us believe. Today there is also the
Philalethes Society, a Masonic research society based in North America that was founded in October 1928 by a group of Masonic authors led by
Cyrus Field Willard. It was designed to serve the needs of those in search of deeper insight into the history, rituals and symbolism of Freemasonry. The Philalethes journal features original research, Masonic education articles, book reviews, art and poetry by new and established Masonic writers and has long served as the de facto magazine for North American Freemasonry.
If, however, what Gardner claims is correct, then this is incredible since it links the Comte de St. Germain all the way back to the Templars of Bézu, who we previously learned were the only Templars not to have been molested by King Phillipe IV of France when he violently suppressed the order in 1307. I discussed the importance of Bézu, which is in close proximity to Rennes-le-Château in my earlier article titled ‘
The Grail Bloodline’. Here is what I said about Bézu:
I have previously recounted how in 1307 all Templars throughout France were arrested by King Philippe’s seneschals. However, this is not quite true since one preceptory slipped unscathed through the King’s net – this was the preceptory of Bézu, adjacent to Rennes-le-Château. Why was this? The answer may lie in the fact that the commander of the Templar garrison at Bézu was a Seigneur de Goth. Before taking the name of Pope Clement V, the archbishop of Bordeaux (King Philippe’s effective pawn) was Bertrand de Goth. Moreover, his mother was Ida de Blanchefort of the same family as Bertrand de Blanchefort, the Templar’s fourth Grand Master between 1153 and 1170. Was Pope Clement privy to some great secret entrusted to the custody of his family? Was this a secret that remained in the Blanchefort family until the 18th Century, when the Abbé Antoine Bigou, the curé of Rennes-le-Château and confessor to Marie de Blanchfort, composed the parchments found by Abbé Sauniere in a column within his church, which would spark of the mystery of Rennes-le-Château? If this were the case, it would explain why the pope might well have extended some sort of immunity to his relative commanding the Templar detachment at Bézu.
Strange Goings-on at Bézu
Bertrand de Blanchefort was perhaps the most significant of all the Templar Grand Masters. It was he that transformed the Templars into the superbly efficient, well organised and highly disciplined hierarchical institution that they thereafter became. It was he that launched them into high level diplomacy and international politics. It was he that created for them a major sphere of influence in Europe, particularly in France. According to the evidence that survives, his mentor (and perhaps the immediately preceding Grand Master) was none other than André de Montbard, St. Bernard’s uncle and one of the co-founders of the Templars. Within a few years of the Templars’ incorporation, Bertrand not only joined their ranks but also conferred on them lands in the region of Rennes-le-Château and Bézu.
In 1156 when Bertrand was Grand Master, the Order is said to have imported to the area a contingent of German-speaking miners. These miners were subject to a rigid, virtually military discipline whereby they were forbidden to fraternise in any way with the local population and were kept strictly segregated from the surrounding community. Their alleged task was to work the goldmines on the slopes at the mountain of Blanchefort – mines which had been utterly exhausted by the Romans nearly a thousand years before. During the 17th Century, French engineers were commissioned to investigate the mineralogical prospects of the area and to draw up detailed reports. One of these engineers, Cesar d’Arcons, discussed the ruins he had found within his report. On the basis of his research, he concluded that the German miners did not seem to have been engaged in mining. He was not sure what they had been engaged in – smelting maybe, melting something down, constructing something out of metal, perhaps even excavating a subterranean chamber or crypt of some sort and creating a type of depository. One should remember that the Templars normally stored their wealth and treasure within their well-guarded preceptories, so this is highly suspicious behaviour. Could it be that they were preparing a secret hideaway for a very special treasure that they had either located or were expecting to find and bring back to France in the near future?
The Roussillon Detachment
Hence, we see there had been a Templar presence in the vicinity of Rennes-le-Château since at least the mid-twelfth century. By 1285 there was also a major preceptory at Campagne-sur-Aude a few miles from Bézu. However, near the end of the 13th Century, Pierre de Voisins, the lord of Bézu and Rennes-le-Château, invited a separate detachment of Templars to the area from the Aragonese province of Roussillon. This detachment established itself on the summit of the mountain of Bézu, erecting a lookout post and a chapel. Ostensibly, they had been invited to maintain the security of the region and protect the pilgrim route which ran through the valley to Santiago de Compastela in Spain. It is unclear why these extra knights were needed since they cannot have been very numerous – not enough to have made a significant difference. Besides, there were already Templars in the surrounding area. Moreover, Pierre de Voisins already had troops of his own, who, together with the Templars already there, could guarantee the safety of the region. So why did the additional Roussillon Templars come to Bézu? According to local tradition, they came to spy and to exploit or bury or guard a treasure of some sort. Could this treasure have been the Holy Grail? Whatever their mysterious mission was, they obviously enjoyed some kind of special immunity since, alone of all the other Templars in France, they were left unmolested by King Philippe on that fateful day of 13th October 1307.
Gardner links the Templars and their interest in Bezu to Ormus (mono-atomic gold) and easily accessible access to alluvial gold. He believes that they found such alluvial gold at Bezu, where the land was rich in near-surface gold from old mine workings – precisely what they needed for the transmutation basis. He suggests that it was to gain access to this gold that Bertrand de Blanchefort, the local landowner, was brought into the Order soon after the Templars returned from Jerusalem and was later rewarded with the Grand Mastership in 1153. Although I believe there is something to what he alleges, Gardner’s argument may be a little too simplistic. The gold mines around Bézu had supposedly been utterly exhausted by the Romans nearly a thousand years before the Templars arrived there. Moreover, as stated above, Cesar d’Arcons, a French 17th century engineer, had concluded from his research that the German miners brought in by Bertrand to work the gold mines in 1156 had not seemed to have been engaging in mining. This could be explained by the fact, I suppose, that they were conducting alluvial mining, which is a method of extracting minerals or metals by dredging alluvial deposits. The simplest form of this is panning for gold in water courses. The Templars might also have been able to bring more sophisticated mining techniques to bear than those the Romans had employed a thousand years earlier. However, we do know that the C’s have said that the Templars knew the secret of levitation and ORMEs (Orbitally Rearranged Monoatomic Elements) in the form of monoatomic gold is certainly one of them, since monoatomic gold has anti-gravitational properties.
Gardner then goes on to make the bold claim that the net result of the establishment of the headquarters at the old Templar preceptory at Bézu was that, in conjunction with the Jacobite Royal Society members in London and adherents at the Académie Française, aspects of the strategy for the American War of Independence were formulated at Carcassone, and the French joined the American campaign in 1778. If the Comte de St. Germain had a workshop at the Templar preceptory at Bézu, which was used as the conspiratorial headquarters, this might suggest that he was well aware of the building’s earlier history. It would seem that the Comte de St. Germain either was, or saw himself as, a latter day Knight Templar. Could he have been one of those in communication with the Templars who the C’s have said went (literally) underground? If so, was the Count following their orders and were the Templars on a revenge mission as far as the Georgian royal establishment of England was concerned?
I have mentioned before that the American War of Independence may have been a continuation of the Jacobite Masonic battle against the Dutch/German usurpers of the English throne. With so many English army officers being fellow Freemasons of the American revolutionary leaders, even belonging to the same lodges, some of whom may well have had sympathies with the goals of their revolutionary brother masons, could this internal Masonic struggle between the Jacobite and Georgian branches of English Freemasonry explain the somewhat lacklustre performance of the British Army at times during the Revolutionary War? Gardner seems to think so. Furthermore, the part Gardner alleges the Comte de St. Germain played in this could also support Many P Hall’s assertion in his ‘Secret Destiny of America’ that the Comte de St. Germain was the strange old Professor whose speech in Philadelphia on the evening of July 4, 1776 electrified the Continental Congress into action to sign the Declaration of Independence (for more on this see my article ‘The Comte de Saint-Germain’)?
Taking all this into account, it certainly places a very interesting spin on the C’s use of the expression “
It is not Germaine”.
