A short annotated Prieure du Sion/RlC bibliography

Books I have read:

This is my "short list" of PoS/RlC books, along with a quick "heads up" as to my evaluation of them.... so you can decide for yourself whether they are worth reading. Remember, if you don't want to enrich what some people call "the RlC cottage industry," you can always read these in a library. I sometimes do.
 

• Holy Blood, Holy Grail by Baigent, Lincoln, and Leigh:  This is the book that, in many senses, started it all in 1981 (although there had been books in France by Charroux and de Sede, this brought the mystery to the attention of English, American, and other researchers), coming on the heels of several films by BBC producer Henry Lincoln. There are good and bad things I can say about this book. The first time I read it, I thought it was well-researched, simply because it contained so much voluminous detail on certain subjects. Alas, people have trashed me for making this remark. Apparently, there are a number of errors in the book, either from mistakes that Baigent, Lincoln, and Leigh made themselves, or from false assetions they accepted uncritically from the "prieure documents." This book put forth the hypothesis that many researchers now accept as "gospel": that the Priory of Sion and Rennes-les-Chateau are custodians of a "bloodline" descended from Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalen. It is only after combing through the primary sources - and the "prieure documents" are primary sources, regardless of their actual truth-value - that I came to realize that this may not be the "answer" to it all, after all.

• Messianic Legacy by BLL: This sequel to Holy Blood, Holy Grail comes in three parts. In many ways, it is a better book. The first part is the authors' attempt to chart the development of "alternative" Christianity. Essentially, they argue that Ebionite Messianic Judeo-Christianity and Celtic Christianity evolved together in Ireland into a sort of "alternative" to mainstream Pauline faith. Then, in the second part, there is an interesting exploration of Messianism in Western culture, and its positive and negative aspects. They devote some discussion to the way in which messianic ideals have been exploited by totalitarian regimes, including Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany. The third part would be the most interesting to PoS/RlC researchers, as it is an attempt to put some of Pierre Plantard's claims to the test. He answers some questions in his own words. One only wishes that the interviewers would have been more aggressive on certain "fuzzy" subjects. Suffice to say, part of the story includes some rather convoluted details of sequestered documents, forged signatures, fake birth certificates, pseudonymous attacks with pseudonymous replies, and a whole mess of chicanery. I've reread it several times, and I'm still not clear on what happened between 1963 and 1981 to the PoS (let alone after 1984), or how to make sense of the story of how the "parchments" supposedly wound up in England through the agents of the League of Antiquarian Booksellers. Indeed, the authors' admit their own sense of puzzlement and doubt at the end of the book.

• The Holy Place by Henry Lincoln: Henry Lincoln parted ways with Baigent and Leigh after 1986 or so. Baigent and Leigh appear to have gone on and pursued the matters of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the history of Freemasonry, and other esoteric topics. Lincoln, in turn, seems to have given up on the Priory, and set about joining forces with David Wood in uncovering a supposed sacred geometry within the RlC region, which he claims is more "verifiable." Lincoln can find pentagrams in just about every painting involved in the mystery (Poussin's, Cocteau's). At the conclusion of Lincoln's book, you will "discover" that the RlC landscape conceals a diagram that looks like a united pentagram-hexagram, passing through several points on the landscape. Other authors insist that, working with the same IGN maps Lincoln used, this diagram cannot be drawn without stretching the map. Read it, doodle on the maps for yourself, and be the judge. Lincoln has written a sequel to this, Keys to the Sacred Pattern, in which a more thorough account of how he became involved in the RlC affair in the 1970s is presented, and where he goes on to "discover" this same geometry at work in the Scandinavian isle of Bornholm.

• Secrets of Rennes-les-Chateau by Lionel Fanthorpe: This is one of the first books I read on Rennes-les-Chateau in which the subject of the "Priory" was given short shrift, and more subsidiary mysteries were explored. Lionel Fanthorpe, the Anglican motorcycle-riding priest who wrote this book, is apparently an avid fan of science fiction and a member of Mensa. I do not agree with Fanthorpe's reasoning that the Gospels cannot have ever been possibly edited or revised, but you would expect this argument from a priest. This was the first book in which I read about the murder of Antoine Gelis, the "Oak Island mystery", the full account of the parchment deciphering, or some of the pre-1800s history of Rennes-les-Chateau: some of this info is quite valuable. Anyway, in this book, you will discover Fanthorpe's argument that RlC is a tesseract-based gateway into other dimensions where one can contact the Gaian intelligence of the planet. OK, on to the next book.

• The Templar Revelation by Pincknett and Prince: Pincknett and Prince wrote a book prior to this one, about the Shroud of Turin. You will discover the same argument in this book, that Leonardo da Vinci created the Shroud in the 1500s and put his face on it. Indeed, a PoS "informant," "Giovanni," who they met in a cafe (where else?) even tells them they are on the right track. This book is also a two-parter. In the first part, there is some interesting exploration of Leonardo da Vinci's links to "Johannism," Sauniere's links to the Magdalene and Martinism, and some speculations about the Templars and the PoS. The second part is the duo's attempt to rewrite the history of Christianity. If you think HBHG messes with the origins of Christianity, be prepared for a shocker when you read this one. Pincknett and Prince argue that Jesus was an Egyptian Gnostic sex magician, and that Mary Magdalene was not his wife, but instead only a magickal concubine who he had Tantric sex with. Oh yeah, and he had John the Baptist murdered so he could perform sorcery with the severed head. Last but not least, there is nothing whatsoever Judaic in Christianity, claim this duo, since the whole faith was imported wholesale from the Egyptian Mysteries. If you're a Biblical scholar, you can stop laughing now. This trail gets picked up in book three, the Stargate Conspiracy, which is not a PoS/RlC book per se, but is a much better and much more interesting book on how the "New Egyptology" (the Sphinx is 10,000 years old, the Egyptians got their civilization from aliens from Sirius, etc.) is part of a fascist "Con" to convince people that a group of ETs known as the Nine of Heliopolis will soon return and take over our planet. The appendix offers an interesting argument that a hallucinogenic plant, the Blue Lotus, was the shamanistic "stargate" to immortality of the Egyptians.

• The Second Messiah by Knight and Lomas: In their first book, the Hiram Key, Masonic authors Knight and Lomas attempt to argue that Hiram Abiff was Phaoroh Seqenenre Tao, that Moses was a genocidal fanatic, and that in Rosslyn Chapel's vaults is buried the Key to Everything. The Templars were heretics and they are the basis of Masonry; end of story. Their second book, The Second Messiah, suggests that the image on the Shroud of Turin is really that of Jacques de Molay, tortured in a mock-crucifixion prior to his burning at the stake. The "miraculous" appearance of his image on the cloth supposedly signalled to Joachmite followers that he was Paraclete, or Messiah of the age of the Holy Spirit. I like the way in whch Knight and Lomas explore the "Ebionite"/"Jacobite" roots of Freemasonry, but a lot of the rest of these works leave me cold. And Knight and Lomas do not deal directly with the PoS/RlC mysteries, although they do argue, similarly to HBHG, that there are "Rex Deus" families in Europe descended from Levitical and Davidic Messianic families from Judaea.

• The Bloodline of the Holy Grail by Laurence Gardner: Eccch, I hate this book. How do I hate it? Let me count the ways. It uses Barbara Thiering to rewrite Biblical history, distorts geneaology beyond known recognition, and claims that a Belgian guy, "HRH Prince Michael of Albany," who couldn't run a taco stand, is the rightful Stuart king of England, Scotland, and America. Gardner is associated with the Dragon Order - or one of the Dragon Orders, in any case, now that he has parted from Adrian Wagner and Nicholas de Vere - and you'll also find in here the argument that Vlad Tepes, the original "Drakul," was part of the bloodline. Yes, the sacred bloodline is made up of blood-drinking, pineal-gland snacking, albino dark elves who drink menstrual blood ("Starfire") and powdered white monatomic gold to stay immortal. Besides being descended from Jesus and MM. Gardner has since gone on to argue Tolkien is nonfiction, that this bloodline comes from Annunaki from the 12th planet of our solar system, and things even more ridiculous.

• Lost Treasure of the Knights Templar by Steven Sora: This book by Steven Sora picks up where Michael Bradley (Holy Grail Across the Atlantic) and Andrew Sinclair (The Sword and the Grail) leave off. If you want to follow this mystery to Canada and the New World, this is the book to read. You'll find Henry Sinclair puttering around in Nova Scotia, the Sulpicians puttering around in Montreal, and the argument that Poussin's Arcadia was New England. An interesting book, and less preposterous than some of the others.

• Cosmic Trigger III by Robert Anton Wilson: Robert Anton Wilson has always been avidly interested in the PoS mystery, I'm guessing the fact that Sirius was involved got him hooked. In Cosmic Trigger II and III, he talks about the PoS, and some of the more recent works about it, going beyond the original essay he wrote on the subject for Gnosis #6. (Another article in Gnosis, by Robert Richardson, essentially trashes the PoS as a hoax inspired by Julius Evola and fascist metaphysics.) RAW inspired my theory that the "modern" PoS has its roots in Symbolism and Surrealism, but I guess the real inspiration for that theory was his late wife, Arlen. He also talks about (and trashes) "Hawthorne Abendsen's" theory (that's the name of PKD's character in Man in the High Castle) that the PoS is a homosexual, hyper-masculinist fascist warrior society... it's amazing how one group can inspire so many myriad perspectives. I met Abendsen online, who goes by the net nom de plume DasGoat. Later on, somebody told me DasGoat was Robert Anton Wilson. Oh well, somebody page Emperor Norton.

• The Cult of the Black Virgin by Ean Begg: This is Ean Begg's book about the relationship between the Black Virgins of Europe, the remnants of goddess worship, and Jungian archetypal symbolism. However, there's a heavy dash of material on the "PoS" in this book, which mainly seems to originate from authors Deloux and Bretigny. In it, we discover that the place where the PoS meets are often chosen because of the presence of Black Virgins there, and that they consider the BV equivalent to Mary Magdalene, Isis of Egypt, and Rosemertha of Sion. Plus, you will meet Raphael Patai's theory that Anath-Bethel is the lost goddess of Judaism, originally the consort of Yhvh.
• Web of Gold by Guy Patton: I do not agree with this book's exposition of Jewish origins or affairs, which I find troubling. I also disagree with its basic hypotheses -- 1) that the primary interest of the PoS is in the gold of the Temple of Solomon, supposedly buried in the Corbieres, or that its primary ideology is one of Catholic fascism and neo-monarchism; and 2) that the key interest Sauniere had in the region was to locate gold. Essentially, the book argues, via association, that Mitterand and Plantard are Vichy criminals, who knew the whereabouts of Nazi gold shipments which in a roundabout way led to the massacre at Oradour-sur-Glane in France and the arrest of co-author Robin Mackness. I suspect one of this book's main flaws is that it relies on Roger-Rene Dagobert, who Torkain calls "a liar and a mythomaniac". Still, there is some interesting material in here, on the involvement of such disparate figures as Roger-Patrice Pelat, Marlene Dietrich, and Otto Rahn in the PoS/RlC saga.
• Rex Deus by Tim Wallace-Murphy, Marilyn Hopkins, and Graham Simmans. All of the key royal families of Europe are descended not just from Jesus and the Magdalene (although some apparently are), but instead the 24 High Priests of the Temple in Jerusalem, who functioned as some kind of "stud farm," taking on the identities of angels and going around impregnating the hapless women who participated in their Temple School. Their one key source for Rex Deus is an anonymous informant, "Michael", whose family traditions seem strangely based on Barbara Thiering, and who they themselves admit told them something impossible (that Jesus was reburied on the Temple Mount.) So, we discover in this book that HBHG was wrong in the specifics (the priory documents were fake), but in fact the hypothesis at the end is correct, and, yes, those luminaries the Sinclairs and "HRH Prince Michael of Albany" are descendants of Jesus and MM. I waited with baited breath for the next-to-last chapter, "Rex Deus: the Evidence," only to find out they still had no evidence for their theory. There is nothing new to learn from this book; it is a useless rehashing of old theories, and simply rewarms a concept that makes no sense to me.

Books I have not read, but plan to as soon as they show up in a nearby library:

• The Horse of G-d by Martha Neyman: Apparently this is available on CD-ROM. I know little about it, but Martha seems to think the Ark of the Convenant is buried near Rennes-les-Chateau, and claims to have fully "deciphered" the parchment codes and what they mean.

• Geneset by David Wood and Ian Campbell: I have never sat down and read either this, or its predecessor GenIsis, but browsing the authors' web pages have left me cold. They appear to have turned the RlC story into a bad episode of Battlestar Galactica. Apparently, in these pages, you will find killer comets, alien DNA, the Face on Mars, Jesus "bobbitizing" himself, and lots of similar stuff. But I have heard there is some good information in these books, which is why I plan to look at them eventually.

• On Earth as it is in Heaven by Greg Rigby: Rennes-les-Chateau is the site of a terrestrial zodiac, an attempt to create a "map" of the stars here on earth. Know very little about this, but it seems similar to Simon Miles' work.

• Kingdom Come by Jim Hougan: Ok, this is a fictional novel, but most of what Hougan has written up to this point is non-fiction on Watergate, the CIA, international spookcraft, and so on. So, this being his first attempt at fiction, you do wonder if he was trying to say something that he could only intimate in a fiction work. In this book, you'll encounter a "Magdalene Society" headed by Ezra Pound, who attempts to put C.G. Jung's ideas into practice, and is entangled in international espionage. Hougan seems to be trying to suggest something about the PoS through the vehicle of fiction...

Books on the Internet:

Two e-books on the Internet I can recommend are Patrick Byrne's Lost Secrets of Rennes-les-Chateau and Freemasonry, although I find that it contains the most convoluted account of links between Masonry and Templarism I've ever seen (the Templars became Hospitallers, the Hospitallers became the Masons, the Masons became the IGN of France. Got it? No? Neither do I.), and Nick Mazet's Tamed Eyes: the True Story of Rennes-les-Chateau. Nick's book is so chock full of almost obsessive detail that it can be overwhelming. I do not agree with Nick's theory that the PoS originated from the Fratres Arvales of ancient Rome, or that the importance of RlC is that there was a temple of Janus in the region, but this contains some interesting research on both PoS and RlC.

Caveat Lector:

I have not read these, and do not plan to, either.
 

• Head of G-d by Keith Laidler: Jesus' head is buried in the vaults under Rosslyn Chapel. Where's the rest of him? And how come it hasn't turned into a skull? Preservatives?
• Tomb of G-d by Andrews and Schellenberger: Jesus' body is buried undeneath Pech Cardou. Seems like everybody has to figure in Jesus into the ending of their book somehow.
• Refuge of the Apocalypse by Elizabeth van Buren: Well, she may be descended from Martin van Buren, and she may live in RlC, but she sounds nuts to me. The "Quinotaur" that Merovech was descended from was a fish-monster from Sirius. 'nuff said.
• Anything by Ahmed Osman or Karl Luckert: the Hebrews were Egyptian, Jesus was a Phaoroh, Moses was Akhenaten, the Bible is a thinly veiled chronicle of Egyptian history, everything is Egyptian. Got it?