Prieure of Sion: The
Mystery Deepens
by Steven Mizrach
(Posted here by Wes Penre for
Illuminati News, April 11, 2004)
Like
many Americans, I first became aware of the mysterious Priory of Sion by reading
about them in the book Holy Blood, Holy Grail around 1987 or so.
Although the organization had gotten quite a bit of European attention in the
60s and 70s, authors Baigent, Lincoln,
and
Leigh first brought it to U.S. awareness with their bestselling book in the
early 1980s. The book caused a firestorm of controversy, especially among the
clergy, not so much for its discussion of secret societies and medieval history
as for its frank assertion that Jesus Christ might have had children and might
not have died on the cross. I was interested in the book for two reasons: the
first was that, as a Fortean, I thought it detailed an interesting alternative
(and somewhat conspiratorial) look at history which was worth considering and
investigating.
The second requires some degree of confession. I don’t wish to
offend people’s religious beliefs by stating my own. I am essentially a secular
Jew that distrusts most forms of organized religion. I long believed that the
essential narrative of Christ’s life as given in the New Testament was
inaccurate, and the way it was given was especially redacted to place blame and
guilt on Jewish people for his death. Thus, HBHG (how I shall heretofore
abbreviate the book Holy Blood, Holy Grail) suggested to me a possible
explanation of the life of Christ and the origins of Christianity that I found
more plausible — that Christianity really began among a sect of Jews (known as
the Nasoreans or Ebionites) who saw Jesus as a Messianic figure, but did not
deify him.
I first wrote about HBHG around 1990, focusing on the mystery
of Rennes-le-Chateau as described in that book and in Lionel Fanthorpe’s book (Secrets
of Rennes-le-Chateau), and only tangentially mentioning the Priory of Sion.
Here, I will not repeat what I wrote, which was essentially a summary of the
mystery of that village along with what I saw as some bizarre tangential leads
in Fanthorpe’s books. Those interested in the basic outlines of the mystery are
directed toward reading those two books. What I intend to do here is to explain
what new directions the authors have taken since then, as well as what new books
have been released on the subject, and what some of the threads were that
emerged while I was on the Priory-of-Sion (abbreviated as PoS) discussion list
in Fall of 1998. In many ways, the mystery has become even more curious,
encapsulating (like Danny Casolaro’s Octopus) increasing amounts of time
and space within its tentacles. Some PoS listmembers insisted that the
‘bloodline’ of the Priory went back millennia.
Baigent, Lincoln, and Leigh wrote a sequel to HBHG entitled
the Messianic Legacy. This book goes into further detail about early
Christian heresy, and suggests that the true ‘heretics’ (that is, those who
deviated from the original message or mission) may have actually been the
‘orthodox’ and ‘catholic’ Church Fathers like Iraneus, whereas the people who
held the actual truth of Christ’s life were the persecuted Gnostics, Ebionites,
and ‘Desposyni’. In the second section, it examines the Messianic ideal
throughout history, and some of its negative and positive impacts, especially in
European history. The third section examines some of the PoS’ curious
entanglements with modern crypto-political forces, such as the Knights of Malta,
P2 Masonic lodge, Kreisau Circle, Swiss Grand Loge Alpina, and various advocates
of Pan-European Union. The Messianic Legacy contains some hints that the trio
were beginning to become skeptical of the Priory, while continuing to believe
there was "foo" in the fire it had started over the village of Rennes-le-Chateau.
Afterwards, they divided paths, with Henry Lincoln joining in a geomantic quest
with David Wood, and Baigent and Leigh writing books on the Dead Sea Scrolls and
Freemasonry.
Lincoln’s books, the Holy Place and its sequel Keys
to the Sacred Pattern, pick up where David Wood’s GenIsis and
GenEset leave off. Although Wood goes into the far more bizarre territory of
goddesses, sexual magick, alien origins for humankind, and planetary-destroying
comets whose arrival was predicted in ancient monuments, he was the first to
suggest that the "treasure" of Rennes-le-Chateau might consist of a network of
ley-lines in the area forming a massive geomantic cosmic diagram — in essence a
"temple" writ large on the entire landscape. Lincoln follows his lead,
discarding some of his more bizarre ideas, and actually produces a diagram of
what the ‘Temple’ might look like — a sort of pentagram-hexagram combination
whose points seem to include many of the major towns, sacred sites, and natural
features of the area. A listmember on the PoS’ list brought something to my
attention which was fairly significant: this diagram’s nodes actually form the
Qabalistic Tree of Life when connected. This is significant because the Qabalah
is thought to be, at its oldest, only 2 millennia old; whereas some of the sites
in the ‘temple’ of the Rennes region appear to be of the megalithic era, and
should thus be twice as old…
One author that seems to have been inspired by Henry Lincoln
is British Mason Patrick Byrne, who offers his theory through a ‘e-book’ which
can solely be downloaded through the Internet. Byrne believes that the key to
the mystery may lie in the Masonic Degree of the Holy Royal Arch. Suffice to
say, in the interests of brevity, Byrne believes that Masonic symbolism seems to
also link up to a geomantic diagram in the area, and that in essence the root of
the story seems to be that the Templars found the Ark of the Covenant underneath
Solomon’s Temple and brought it to the mountain known as Pech Cardou in the
Languedoc as a hiding place. Pech Cardou seems to be pointed to as the key node
of this geomantic network, however, Byrne thinks that the Ark might no longer be
there since some Allied Masons may have moved it to prevent it from falling into
the hands of the Nazis. He seems to suggest that the French national
cartographic authority — the IGN — is in some way descended from the Knights
Hospitaller — and is further (aren’t they always?) blocking further inquiry into
this area.
Baigent and Leigh’s research has been to further probe the
history of early Christianity and specifically the controversy surrounding
academic censorship of the Dead Sea Scrolls in the Dead Sea Scrolls Deception.
They have helped a mass audience appreciate the work of maverick Biblical
scholar Robert Eisenman, who has suggested that Jesus’ brother James may have
led his ‘Nasorean’ sect after his death, that the Essenes, Zadokites, and
"Nasoreans" may have been different labels for the same 1st century
Judaic nationalist movement, and that Paul of Tarsus (yep, that Paul) may
have been the Liar and persecutor of the Qumran community referred to in the
Dead Sea Scrolls. In the Temple and the Lodge, they probe the possible
origins of Freemasonry in fugitive Knights Templar fleeing to Scotland and
creating their new rituals of secrecy and mutual protection in the Rosslyn
Chapel of the Sinclair Family, and they even allude to curious legends that the
Sinclairs and the Templars may have brought the Grail (although whether this is
a bloodline or an artefact is not specified) to the New World prior to Columbus
in the 13th century (a la Michael Bradley). Those interested in more
of these New World connections should check out Bradley’s book Holy Grail
across the Atlantic, or Andrew Sinclair’s the Sword and the Grail.
Some other recent books on this subject have been Picknett and
Prince’s Templar Revelation and a duo of books by Masons Knight and
Lomas. TR deals with Picknett and Prince’s theory that the Shroud of Turin was
created by Leonardo de Vinci as a quasi-photostatic self-portrait, and they link
the so-called "Shroud Mafia" (the Lirey family and others who possessed the
Shroud) to the Priory of Sion, which they see as ultimately being a "Johannite"
organization which venerates John the Baptist as a superior figure to Jesus and
has its roots in Egyptian religion. Knight and Lomas’ first book (The Hiram
Key) suggests that the origins of Freemasonry lie in the ancient Egyptian
ritual of phaoronic resurrection, and that the murder of Hiram of Abiff is
actually a mask for the historically documented murder of phaoroh Seqenenre Tao.
Their second book (The Second Messiah) offers their own unique take on
the Shroud of Turin — that it is in fact the shroud in which Jacques de Molay,
the final Grand Master of the Knights Templar, was wrapped when he was tortured
(in a mock re-enactment of the crucifixion) by the French royal torturer; and
that the Shroud was seen as affirming deMolay’s Messianic status to followers of
Joachim of Fiora (who proclaimed a third age of the Holy Spirit was immanent) in
the 13th century (hence the Church’s decision to distance itself from
the relic.)
Laurence Gardner’s Bloodline of the Holy Grail
recapitulates some of Barbara Thiering’s "barking mad" theories of New Testament
interpretation (she believes that scions of the Judaic royal houses had to
abstain from having sex with their spouses for six years between each
conception) with efforts to track the Grail lineage in British (as opposed to
French) history. Gardner seems to have the strange dual goals of anointing
Prince Michael of Albany the current Stewart (and hence Grail-Messianic) king,
and to convince Americans that they were once (and probably should thus be
again) willing to accept a Stewart constitutional monarchy as a viable form of
government. Gardner’s motives seem tied up with the mysterious Dragon Order
which he is a member of — a chivalric group which may or may not be in some way
allied or tied into the PoS. In recent articles in Nexus magazine,
Gardner has suggested the secret of the Grail bloodline may be some sort of
mysterious elixir, "StarFire," which provides immortality and the ability to
travel through space and time. He has also hinted that the Grail ‘bloodline’
may, in fact, consist of albinistic elflike extraterrestrial beings that feast
in a vampiric fashion on pineal glands. Gardner’s writings seem to be getting
stranger and stranger — I wish I was making that last sentence up.
Andrews and Schellenberger’s book the Tomb of G-d
returns to the mysterious mount of Pech Cardou and offers a different suggestion
as to what might be found underneath. (Considering how many people think
something is buried under this mountain, I don’t know why anyone has yet to
excavate there — unlike Rosslyn Chapel, the mountain is not private property.)
The Tomb of God hints that Jesus was not in fact resurrected — and that
his body was mummified and entombed beneath Pech Cardou and remains there to
this day — it was the "treasure" discovered by Abbe Sauniere through the
parchments he found and his knowledge of its existence (which led to a
concomitant renunciation of his faith) was one of the reasons he was denied
absolution by his superiors on his deathbed. (They hint that the other tomb —
which is in Poussin’s painting and was, until recently, part of the real Rennes
landscape before being dynamited — is a red herring.) Along more bizarre lines,
Laidler’s book the Head of G-d suggests that Jesus’ body was lost but his
head was embalmed and preserved and buried beneath Rosslyn Chapel. (It
apparently had a short stint as the totemic "Baphomet" head of the Templars.)
Ean Begg’s the Cult of the Black Virgin is mostly about
the origins of the mysterious Black Virgins of Europe and their connections to
esoteric saints, goddess traditions, the Cathars and other heretical sects, and
Jungian depth psychology. However, Begg also discusses the Priory of Sion and
notes that in most records, the full name of the organization is the Order of
Our Lady of Sion. He hints that that Lady might not be the Virgin Mary, Mary
Magdalene, or even Isis, but instead the goddess Rosmerthe, associated with the
Mount Sion found in Switzerland, and the female embodiment for the Celts of
their ideal of sovereignty. Two other interesting (if dubious) books (which I
have not read) include Elizabeth Van Buren’s Refuge of the Apocalypse
(which hits hard on the Merovingians-as-extraterrestrials theory) and Martha
Neyman’s the Horse of G-d, which seems to investigate more deeply the
symbolism of Sauniere’s exceedingly bizarre Church, and suggests the Ark is
buried beneath the Church. Also worth noting is Robinson’s Born in Blood,
Graham Hancock’s Sign and the Seal, and Wallace-Murphy’s Rosslyn:
Guardian of Secrets, which also deal with Masonic-Templar links.
The indefatigable Robert Anton Wilson weighs in on the mystery
of the Priory in Cosmic Trigger III (which is not the first time — he has
written about them in Gnosis magazine and elsewhere.) Wilson is
fascinated by the Priory’s claim to be descended from beings from Sirius — which
ties in to his work, as well as that of Robert K. Temple and the hallucinations
(visions?) of late sci-fi author Philip K. Dick. However, one of the overarching
meta-themes of CT III seems to be the borderlands where truth and fiction
overpower each other (such as the possibility that one man, "Elmyr," may have
painted most of the ‘masterpieces’ currently hanging in European galleries
supposedly created by ‘old masters’), and Wilson gives strong play to his wife
Arlen’s theory that the Priory is really a pataphysical conspiracy initiated by
‘grand master’ Jean Cocteau. (Pataphysique, an art movement created by
Alfred Jarry at the beginning of the 20th century, had strong links
to Surrealism, Dadaism, and Concrete Poetry; in essence, it postulated that the
main mission for art was to bullshit people.) In essence, a massive hoax pulled
off as sort of a giant work of performance art.
Tired of theories from authors testing the limits of human
imagination? Well, you’ve yet to meet the unpublished ‘Sion wonks’ that populate
the Priory of Sion mailing list. During my brief time on the list, I met
"Idris," who suggested the conspiracy hid an ancient malevolent Sumerian
extraterrestrial virus and the search for an antidote, "Fastcat," who asserted
that the Merovingians were alive and well in California and were also part of
the foundation for Mormonism, and "Online.Design," who thought that the PoS hid
secret geometry in the Great Pyramid which could predict any event which had
happened in human history. "DasGoat" (aka Hawthorne Abendsen) saw the PoS at the
heart of patriarchal, Catholico-fascist, cryptopolitical P2/Opus Dei/Knights of
Malta-style conspiracies. "Stella Maris" described harassment at the hands of
rogue elements from the Dragon Order because her abilities of
‘psycho-navigation’ helped her unlock the puzzles sponsored by their website,
Entropic Arts. And then there was "Queribus," who took her name from the last
stronghold of the Cathars in France, who was ever so interested in Begg’s Black
Virgins. (Although deeply mystical, she also had a great deal more sense than
some of the others.)
Not everyone used the ubiquitous pseudonyms. (As always, I
went by "Seeker1".) Alan Harmony (who as far as I know used his own name)
suggested that the true basis of Jesus’ teaching was the prophetic power of
dreams, and that his own dreams led him to believe (like David Wood and Ian
Campbell) that a disastrous comet was heading to strike the Earth which could
only be deflected by the Ark of the Covenant, which he asserted was hidden from
the Priory in Canada. We even had posters claiming that the PoS had hidden
treasure troves buried in the U.S., that Jesus was actually a Celtic Druid, that
the PoS "bloodline" originated with the godlike ‘Nephilim’ of Andrew Collins’
book From Ashes to Angels, and that the PoS had been taken over (at least
in Europe) by the Sicilian Mafia (themselves descended from the Carbonari and
the Risorgimiento.) And, to no one’s surprise, we entertained two people who
claimed to be members of the Priory of Sion — "Daemon Magus" (an
occultist who wrote for a magazine for homeless people) and "Count Roman
Alexandre Umberto Guelfi," a neo-Templar Knight who seems to actually go by (in
everyday life) the name "Roman A. Gibbs."
Both were, not surprisingly, cryptic and unforthcoming about
the organization, although Guelfi indicated that the ‘wellspring’ of the
Priory’s bloodline began (long before David, Jesus, Merovech, or Godfroi de
Bouillion) in the Middle East around 3500 BCE, and hinted but never verified
that the source of the ‘wellspring’ was extraterrestrial. Daemon Magus asserted
that the successor to the Grand Mastership of the PoS, which was held until 1984
by Pierre Plantard, was a Canadian, Carl LaFleur. Msr. LaFleur, claimed Daemon
Magus, made him head of the Gnostic Patriarchate of North America (and he showed
me a letter verifying this), which, he indicated, was really the "front" for the
‘secondary’ order of the Priory (which, with some deliberateness, he called
"P2") in North America. However, LaFleur was driven out, he claimed, by more
sinister elements within the Priory (people more interested in power and wealth
than esotericism), and Magus thought he could have been kidnapped or even
murdered. At this point, he really didn’t know who was in charge of "P1" (the
European Priory.) Is any of this true? I have no way of knowing. If anyone can
verify the identity of this individual (LaFleur) for me, it might go a long way.
I can’t find a biography or anything about him.
Although I was skeptical of both, I still had the strange
dilemma of facing the fact that they seemed to know too much to be trolls. I
told both of them I thought they were either frauds or disinformers, but for all
I know we on the list may have entertained ‘Sionites’ unawares. Perennial topics
of discussion on the PoS listserve were, not surprisingly and in no particular
order, the authenticity of the Shroud, the origins of Gnosticism, early
Christianity, whether the PoS had a New World or American "branch" operating in
the U.S., the fate of the Templars after their dissolution, the validity of
‘Merovingian’ origins for modern European royal houses (such as the Stuarts and
Hapsburgs), the role of Freemasonry in Europe and the U.S., and the location of
the Ark of the Covenant and the Holy Grail. (At least one poster thought the two
artefacts were, in fact, one and the same.) One thread that seems to stick in my
mind is the mysterious survival throughout history of skull and crossbones
symbolism, and what it might or might not have to do with the PoS.
The skull and crossbones seems to have been used as an emblem
first and foremost by esoteric and heretical groups as a symbol of rebirth. It
later became the battle flag of the Knights Templar (and a nasty rumor about the
Templars claimed they chose it because of a horrific necromantic ritual) and, in
the 17th century, the "Jolly Roger" flag of British and French
pirates. Most mysteriously, it is the emblem of the secret society Scull N’
Bones at Yale, which George Bush and so many other members of the American elite
have been initiated into. (Yale’s graduating classes, according to some authors,
seem to have provided the rich white young men of distinction which formed the
early OSS and, later, the CIA.) What are the connections here? Did some of the
post-dissolution Templars eventually turn their naval skills toward the service
of pirate fleets? (We know many in Portugal eventually joined the Knights of
Christ who, with Prince Henry the Navigator, circumnavigated the world’s
oceans.) Why does the secret society S & B use a skull in its ceremonies which
supposedly belongs to, of all people, the Native American Geronimo? Is it to
commemorate, in some sinister ritualistic way, the "piracy" and plunder of
Native lands in the U.S.? Is there a link between Scull N’ Bones and the (less
secretive) academic honor society Phi Beta Kappa?
And, of course, there was the lingering doubt that behind all
of this might be nothing. There is no definitive proof that the PoS
existed prior to 1956, when an organization by that name appeared in French
official records, although it claims (through its secretly deposited documents
in the French national library) to have originated from an earlier organization,
the Ordre du Sion, founded by Godfroi de Bouillion, Hugh de Payns, and a
Calabrian monk named Ursus in 1099. And there has been at least one book
suggesting that all of Father Sauniere’s illicit wealth came from selling masses
(simony) — thus, he may have made up all the business about parchments and
hidden treasure in Rennes-le-Chateau to cover up his ill-gotten gains. Other
authors insist that Sauniere found a Visigothic gold stash or a gold mine
belonging to the Dagobert family (take your pick); end of story. So — ask
yourself this. Why would Sauniere have redecorated his church with such garish
and odd symbolism? Why do the families that seem to comprise the PoS seem to
have acted against the French monarchy earlier in history? And, according to Ted
Cranshaw, even if Sion forged the Rennes parchments in the 1950s, the "code"
contained therein must date back to the 18th century. Is the PoS just
a modern ‘artwork’ tying together disparate figures in history (Poussin, Lord
Shugborough, etc.) or are their paintings and monuments really part of a mystery
which goes back (at least) several centuries?
For people interested in pursuing further leads on the Prieure
du Sion/ Rennes-le-Chateau mystery, I think there are several directions that
could use more research. There seems to have been a veritable explosion of
neo-Templar organizations within the last decade — one of the most famous may
have been the Order of the Solar Temple, whose members committed mass suicide
shortly before the Heaven’s Gate sect did (promptly attracting far more media
attention.) As one listmember put it, Templar organizations are "popping up out
of the woodwork." While there have been chivalric societies claiming (however
falsely) Templar pedigrees in the past 500 years, they seem to be sprouting up
like mushrooms now. One of the notions that is alluded to in Messianic Legacy
is that there may some sort of conflict between the Priory of Sion and the
Knights of Malta — a conflict thought to originate from the original rivalry
between the Hospitallers and the Templars during the Crusades. Conspiracy
watchers will note that the Knights have a number of interesting honorary
American members, such as Alexander Haig.
Another interesting question is whether or not the Templars
and/or Sion and/or the Sinclair family of Rosslyn may have established some sort
of presence in the New World prior to Columbus. Does Sion’s grasp extend to the
New World? Bradley thinks they may have sequestered the Grail — or something
else of value — in the famous "Money Pit" of Oak Island near Nova Scotia…
whereas Fanthorpe thinks there is some sort of mysterious link between the
Cajuns of Louisiana and "Arcadia" (as opposed to Accadia). (There is a curious
Cajun folk song about Good King Dagobert… sort of an unusual ballad.) ‘Fastcat’
thinks that some of Mormon doctrine (although, he suggested, the majority is
erroneous) arose out of ‘Templar Masonry’. And of course there are the curious
hints of Masonic influence in both the creation of the American government as
well as even the layout of the streets of its Capitol. Is it possible the more
"left wing" of Sion may have committed itself to republicanism (as opposed to
the monarchist goals of the other wing) and sought to realize it through the
American experiment?
There is the curious question as to whether Chris Carter’s
mysterious Millennium Group from his TV show Millennium is based on the
Priory of Sion. In one episode, it was revealed that the group controlled (or
protected) a ‘bloodline’ which according to ‘DNA schematics’ was ‘proven’ to be
the offspring of Jesus and Mary Magdalene. There seems to be some hints that if
Sion has some sort of ‘plan’ for European unification under Merovingian
rulership, that it is about to pass one of its major milestones around the turn
of the millennium. There are hints that one or more republican countries in
Europe may be restoring their monarchies soon (although only for ceremonial
purposes, as Spain did with King Juan Carlos I) — with ‘Merovingians’ at the
throne? Of course, the riddle of Sion already had Christian eschatologists going
apeshit, since they see the whole scenario as coming straight out of the Book of
Revelations (although others think it more closely follows the prophecies of
Nostradamus, who may have been a Priory agent.) If the group exists, and it has
connections to the existing power structure in the French government, some of
the things going on in connection with France’s Millennial plans (which include
highlighting the Paris Meridian, something Lincoln and Byrne find highly
significant) may need to be examined more closely.
If the PoS is a hoax, it is one of the best orchestrated ones
of all time. If it really exists, it may be one of the most powerful secret
societies of all time. Sion’s goals may include a reunification of the world’s
major monotheistic faiths and/or a unification of all of Europe. On the other
hand, this all-powerful secret society — according to its own documents — never
once managed, through the course of several centuries, to topple a single French
king and put one of their ‘bloodline’ on the throne. So we should be cautious.
"Members" of Sion such as Pierre Plantard and the Marquis de Cherisey have
already admitted that they rely on disinformation to accomplish their
objectives. Any strategy of that kind always tries first and foremost to make a
group appear more all-powerful than it really is. Also, there is the possibility
that the PoS is a fraud exploiting a nonetheless genuine mystery at Rennes-le-Chateau.
Whichever the case may be, the mystery deserves closer scrutiny by people of a
Fortean persuasion, for as far as I can see, it remains "case not closed."
Updated/Revised:
Saturday, February 09, 2008 16:15:14 -0800