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T H
E R E N N E
S – L E - C H
 T E A U T H E M E P A R K PAGE 4 THE
LINCOLN STORY & ITS
AFTERMATH |
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PAGES (Just click on the page you wish to
go to): Page 1—Abandon
All Hope: Introduction to a Hermeneutical Hell Page 2—“The
Saunière Episode” Who Wrote It? Page 3—The Plantard Subplot Page 4—The
Lincoln Story & Its Aftermath Page 5—
Puzzling Pieces of the Story Page 6—Summing
Up Page 7—Links
& Sources All pages are best viewed by monitors set
to 800 X 600 resolution. |
Since there’s no way out now, on with
how “The Saunière Episode” was even more entertainingly “written” by other
authors. De Sède’s 1967 book, which, it
is surprising to realize, barely mentioned a Merovingian connection to “the
mystery,” was then accidentally read in 1969 by a vacationing, French-speaking,
BBC-TV documentarian named Henry Lincoln, who eventually
made the Merovingian connection into a very big thing indeed and gave Plantard’s Priory of Sion considerable hope to be taken
seriously as an ancient society holding great truths to its bosom. Hopes that
In the next three decades, Lincoln
brought “The Mystery of Rennes-le-Château” to the English-speaking world
through a series of TV documentaries (beginning in 1972 with “The Lost Treasure
of Jerusalem”) and also by authoring or co-authoring (with Michael Baigent and
Richard Leigh) several books on it, beginning with Holy Blood, Holy Grail
(1982), and lately by producing several provocative tour-guide videos. It is largely the version argued for by
Lincoln, Baigent, and Leigh, inspired by and partially based on the De
Sède-Priory account, with similar subsequent work inspired by both, that I’ve
been referring to here as “the popular story” or “the popular version.” Popular because it’s by far the best written
and the most intriguing and provocative and most historically wide-ranging
account with the most significant implications.
It’s doubtful that most of the attention this case has received would
have occurred without Lincoln et al.
Brits have been in the forefront of
much of the serious research ever since
At least with
The targeting especially transpired
when Lincoln met with the principals, the cast of characters, who, it turns
out, did indeed think of themselves as “characters,” as in a play or TV drama,
essentially four
characters in search of an author—Plantard, De Sède, De Chérisey,
Chaumeil. As meetings, first with De
Sède (beginning in 1970), and then, beginning in 1976, with Plantard and other
members of the Priory (De Sède seemingly dropping out, apparently over some
book royalty dispute) occurred in preparation for the TV documentaries,
Strangely, however, the lure was at
times withdrawn by a teasing strategy. As, intrigued but wary, Lincoln delved
deeper, he became aware that he was sometimes being watched, and that
occasionally evidence under his consideration was tampered with or deliberately
denied him or even destroyed. All of
which was, according to the plot line here, being managed by Plantard. Or “mismanaged” if you think the strategy was
absurd or inept. Or were the managers
themselves simply absurdists, who were no more than
playing postmodern games with truth?
Adding to
Early on
Whatever “the truth,” certainly there is no gainsaying the fact that
Rennes-le-Château has had an interesting and perhaps fabulous past, worth
investigating for its own sake, whether “The Saunière Episode” with its Priory
element pans out or not. Especially if the “sacred
geometry” and/or the Zodiac planisphere some have
found on the ground around
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And interpretation can get pretty
wild. Now we come to where we decidedly
have to take the bad with the good, as if we haven’t already been doing
that. Lincoln’s broadcasts and books led to a deluge of irresponsible
treasure hunting and mostly amateur sleuthing and, especially noteworthy, cult
and occult enthusiasm. To sum up
the latter, Nostradamus lives, thanks to Rennes-le-Château! And that’s always good business. Not that
Nostradamus can be ruled out as connected, for he had some doings in the area,
seemed to have secret alliances with people associated with Priory of Sion or Knights Templar “history,” and is thought to have
written his oracles in code to disguise a political agenda copasetic with the
Priory or Templar families, but it’s just that Nostradamus always attracts
those looking for
a true prophet, which he was not.
A major amount of the writing being done
about “the mystery” is of the very esoteric mystical mystery tour sort, New Age
or Old Game, and it is so extensive and various that I’ll have to pass on
providing anything more than a brief summary. Some of it is amazingly clever,
showing how esoteric,
astrologically-based mysticism/spiritualism has always followed around
the Hermetic/ Alchemical/ Pythagorean/ Cabalistic/ Gnostic traditions; but,
informative as it is, much of it is for the Crystal Ball and Horoscope set
only. That’s okay for fun, and I grasp
the realities behind the Tarot and other esoteric symbolism and how seriously
our ancestors took this symbolism, but this is not my cup of tea. I don’t question the existence of the
esoteric tradition from ancient times, and I grant its use through the
centuries by secret societies (such as a real Priory of Sion or Rex Deus
families, if such existed), but I see it largely as expression of a counterculture for
intellectuals who either couldn’t abide popular delusions or who wished to lend
truth to popular delusions by giving them extra dimensions appreciable by a
spiritual elect. Nor do I doubt
that at times individuals in the esoteric tradition possessed unusual Wisdom
and perhaps even unusual Powers—that, in short, the tradition has nurtured
greatness from time to time, such as among the Merovingians, perhaps, or Jesus,
if he was part of it. But I doubt that
it’s easily tapped into by just anyone in possession of “secret formulas” or
that recondite rituals or Tarot card and Horoscope reading will get you closer
to God or to Spiritual Triumph over the nasty material world. Flat out, I don’t accept, at least
literally, the dualism of
spirit and matter that underlies all this esoteric knowledge, for life
is all one, and always has been and always will be, world without end. People have simply misunderstood what
“matter” is. But that’s matter for another time.
A principal justification for this
whole esoteric approach is partly in the fact that the Merovingian kings, more
priests than kings, apparently, were known for their spiritual/magical powers,
presumably inherited, and partly because many of the beliefs of local
“heretics” past—Arians, Gnostics, Knights Templar, and Cathars
mainly—have historical connections to esoteric traditions, all of which no
doubt have some reality behind the astrological/ alchemical/ esoteric
symbolism. Dependent on the old
Zoroastrian dualism of light and dark, spirit and matter, these esoteric
traditions express the age-old attempt to satisfy our desire for immortality
through a proper balancing of spirit and matter that will allow the adept to
spiral out of material existence or the alchemist to transmute to pure spirit
or an astral body of pure light. But
some of the people who are interested in this approach apply these traditions
in ways that make Rennes-le-Château key to nothing less than an impending
cosmic cataclysm that will resolve, once and for all, the old dualism.
If you wish to pursue this apocalyptic angle,
and also to see how Rennes-le-Château can matter even without Saunière, Elizabeth Van Buren’s Refuge
of the Apocalypse: Doorway Into Other Dimensions is a good place to
start, and that will lead you to other books.
However, please note that the standard of proof in such books is very
low, logical gaps abound, every symbol needs to mean six or seven things to
make sense of the overall scheme, and at times you will feel that you are being
asked to acquiesce in the Rorschach ink blot test responses of the author,
which are surprisingly sexist, given the times (as, for example, the male
principle represents the “above,” the female the “below”).
Van Buren amazingly finds the entire
Zodiac laid out on the ground in the Rennes-le-Château vicinity and alluded to
in Saunière’s church, which she also thinks constitutes a sort of map to an
underground Holy Temple (perhaps meant figuratively, referring to the human
mind, but some take it literally) that will serve as a portal to escape the
coming apocalypse. For those in the
know.
Well, if the pyramid complex that
includes the Great Pyramid of Egypt is a mirror of the Orion
constellation, as has been plausibly argued, it seems equally plausible that
the cleverest of the ancients knew how to mimic the heavens in their
terrestrial planning and building, and it's further plausible that such may
have occurred in the Rennes-le-Château area at the hands of the Celtic Druids
or some even earlier people. Also
plausible is the argument found in Greg Rigby’s On Earth As It Is In Heaven that the Celts
established holy sites in northern France that mimicked on the ground the
constellation of Ursa Major (the Big Dipper), with
its handle pointing to Rennes-le-Château as the pole star. Plausible, yes, but one must still question
that this has any implications for an apocalypse. And then there are the searchers for
“Atlantis” (meaning any Lost Civilization prior to the Egyptians), who think
the apocalypse that wiped out “Atlantis” is headed our way again, be ready to
duck! See Weidner and Bridges’ Monument to the End of Time:
Alchemy, Fulcanelli, and the Great Cross. For a history and criticism of apocalyptic thinking, see http://chuma.cas.usf.edu/~dietrich/apocalypse.html. And then come
back here.
And so as one group of True Believers
after another finds itself fascinated by Rennes-le-Château, this Disney World
for Heretics keeps bringing in new business.
Although the Hotel la Tour long ago went out of business, and the hotel
keeper and his successor have died, other tourist accommodations in the area appear
to be thriving. One can now choose among
a nearby renovated castle in Couiza, down the hill
from Rennes-le-Château on the River Aude, and other
less grand hotels in the area, such as in quaint Rennes-les-Bains,
an old Roman spa town in a valley just east.
And it’s just a matter of time, I’d bet, before that Visigoth castle in
Rennes-le-Château becomes habitable for tourists!
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Rennes-les-Bains, on the River Blanque, formerly a Roman spa known for its |
Above, the mountain on the left and above Rennes-les-Bains
is next to |
I’m only half joking when I say that
we decidedly have the makings of a theme park in Rennes-le-Château and
vicinity, a kind of Disney World for the intellectually and spiritually curious,
for aspiring heretics and impious pilgrims. But, then, genuine mysteries and
insincere commercial exploitation of them have always gone hand in hand. God-forsaken
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The Magical A wider angle would reveal that most of seems to have been dedicated to Saints Getting and Spending. |
Well, amateur and occult and
commercial enthusiasm may be too often misguided or misinformed or misleading,
but it keeps the spotlight on this thing, and we can’t have enough light here,
Gnostic or otherwise. Following, now,
is a list of particular elements of the “mystery” that could use further
light.
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Click her to go
on to Page 5—PUZZLING PIECES OF THE STORY |