the rose croix: the templars' secret life

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A series of factual articles on the secret life the Knights Templar led.

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Table of Contents Introduction Chapter One: Who Were The Templars Chapter Two: The Founding Of The Templar Order Chapter Three: How The Templars Fought Chapter Four: How The Templars Became Warriors Chapter Five: The Templars And The Holy Grail Chapter Six: The Holy Grails Hiding Place Chapter Seven: The Saga Of The Templars Holy Grail Chapter Eight: The Templars Secret Society Chapter Nine: The Templars Secret Society And Their War Chapter Ten: The Trials of the Templars Chapter Eleven: What Happened To The Templars After Their Trials Chapter Twelve: The Templar Prophecy Chapter Thirteen: The Templars Nemesis: King Philip IV Of France Chapter Fourteen: Otto de Grandson: The Man Who Saved The Templars Chapter Fifteen: The Masons Connection To The Knights Templar Introduction The articles in the Rose-Croix: The Templars Secret Life complement information i n the historical novel about the Knights Templar, The Templars, Two Kings and a Pope. After fielding questions from Templar enthusiasts since publication of the novel, I decided to write down the information that formed its basis, all the f acts that I couldnt fit into the narrative; and this became The Rose-Croix. The information is the result of five years of research into a crucial 25-year p eriod in Templar history, before the Order of the Temple was disbanded. At one l evel the novel is the story of a covert war, of the secret organization known as The Brotherhood, and of the one man who stood at the center; a Swiss named Lord Otto de Grandson who became Englands King Edward I right-hand man. At another le vel, it is a spiritual story about Jesus secret teachings that he reserved for th e select few. These teachings became the Brotherhoods reason for being, why they fought their covert war against Frances King Philip IV, and the motivation behind their quest for egalitarian governance, a resurgence of democracy that led to t he creation of Switzerland. Following is a review of the novel that appeared on Amazon. I thought a third pa rtys perspective is always good, and the reviewer does an excellent job of summar izing. This novel unfolds as a thriller with all the white-knuckle excitement and intri gue, except that it s based on real events. In my opinion, as someone who has re ad just about everything about the Knights Templar, this novel presents accurate information as to who they were and how they lived, and the most up-to date fin dings on what really happened to them. The novel focuses on the war between the English and the French kings over the d uchy of Aquitaine. At the same time, The English king was trying to suppress Sco ttish rebels, and the French his own rebellion in Flanders. We learn that the Te mplars, and the secret organization behind them, "The Brotherhood," were secretl y involved in the conflicts in an attempt to stop the French monarch from domina ting the whole of Europe. We also learn about Lord Otto de Grandson, a Swiss who worked for the English king, and the key figure behind it all. The arrest of th e Templars in 1307 was just one chapter in this secret war. The Templars eventua lly ended up in Switzerland and Scotland, and this novel tells us how that came about. I m sure this story will appeal to fans of action-packed, page-turning thrillers . In the process the author does a great job of answering the big Templar myster ies: what happened to the Templars at Pilgrim Castle after the fall of Acre, how did the Templars find out about King Philip s plan to destroy them and engineer ed their escape, what was their secret society really like and what was its purp ose, and what was their connection to the Masons. But for people like me (I m a former Catholic monk and a Zen practitioner) this novel is of particular significance. Years ago I ran across another book that st

ated that the Templars (or a secret group within them) were mystics who practice d meditation, but it gave no further information. "The Templars, Two Kings and a Pope" describes how this came about, and what their practice was like. I now ha ve no doubt that they were Gnostics. The Brotherhood was just one of many secret Gnostic societies that sprung up at a time when such practices were heresy puni shable by death, but unlike the other societies that were persecuted and destroy ed by the fanatics of that time, this one was able to fight back because it had the best fighting force in the world at its disposal and tremendous resources an d skills. SpiritualClassicsBookReview.

Chapter One Who Were The Templars The order of the Poor Knights of Christ and the Temple of Solomon was officially in existence for almost 200 years, from 1119 to 1312; warrior-monks who achieve d notoriety in the Holy Land for their fighting skills and in Europe for their f inancial abilities. They were also rumored to be wealthy. In the period I studie d events came to a boil: the Templars, along with all Christian armies, were thr own out of the Holy Land by the Turks in 1291, and in 1307 the French King Phili p IV and the Pope imprisoned and tortured them supposedly because they had adopt ed heretical practices and become grossly overindulgent. Thats how the Order came to an end according to historians. But the legends claim that the Templars surv ived by settling in Scotland and Switzerland under the guise of a secret society , called The Brotherhood. The Rosicrucians in their 1614 Fama FraternitatisHistory of the Brotherhoodand other esoteric groups since then have claimed a direct conn ection, substantiating the notion that the Templars survived. In 1307 when the king of France went after the Order of the Temple, there were a pproximately 15,000 Templars. Of these, about 3,000 were knights, 1,000 squires, and 3,000 sergeants. The rest were priests, masons, smiths, medical personnel, lawyers, financiers, clerks, cooks, farmers, and assorted other occupations. Dur ing the time the Templars were in the Holy Land, there were also "Associates," n oblemen who served for some time in the Templars as punishment for a crime and d id not take vows, but had to live like monks nevertheless. They underwent traini ng and joined in fighting if deemed able, not as knights but in a lesser capacit y. Most likely, there was a special place in the ranks for them. The numbers in the Templar Order didnt vary significantly in the last two decades prior to 1307 that they were in existence. The number of commanderies (geograph ic groupings of castles, forts, farms, and other possessions) were reduced with the loss of the Holy Land, but these men were absorbed into commanderies in Euro pe. This was the usual process when combat personnel became too old, infirm, or disabled, they were sent to a commanderie in Europe to work in one of the many f arms, mills, or if literate, act as a clerk. If unable to work, they were allowe d to lead a life of quiet contemplation. It was an egalitarian system, in as muc h that sergeants were given similar consideration as knights, took similar vows and were well respected. Templars lives were austere and simple. When the French king ordered his men to f ind valuables in Templar castles in 1307, they were disappointed to discover tha t the monks actually lived in poverty. All the talk of a dissolute and luxurious life had been a fable. Knights came from the middle and lower nobility, and sergeants from the merchant and working class. Pages became squires and squires became knights. Grooms became sergeants. All to ok monastic vows, but not until a person became a sergeant or a knight was he el igible to take the permanent vows of dedication to serving Christ and loyalty to the Order. Grooms, pages and squires did not take permanent vows, and many left the Order voluntarily, or by failing to make the grade. Sergeants were there to support and assist their assigned knight, but also funct ioned as trainers of the squires to make them into knights.. So for a year or tw

o, the proud knights took orders from lowly sergeants, who were the molders and shapers of the mightiest force of its time, the holders of the skills and abilit ies that made a Knight Templar. I wrote at length about Templar training in the novel since it was left out of historical accounts. I looked at Templar skills a nd proficiency, and extrapolated from other military organizations with similar abilities. Templars spoke the Lingua Franca (the language of the Franks) what later became French. Sergeants spoke a mixture of Lingua Franca and other languages, a mixtur e that varied from country to country and region to region. Knights spoke a high er form of this language, closer to what was known as Provencal, the language of the court in England. Hardly anyone in any court spoke the local language. If y ou wanted to get ahead in that medieval world, be it as a guilds man, a merchant , a Templar, or a nobleman, you spoke the Lingua Franca. The commanderies in Europe had mostly non-combat personnel. There were a few com bat Templars to provide protection, but mostly the farmers, millers, bankers, la wyers, diplomats, and clerks worked to keep the farms and financial institutions going. In so doing, the Templars amassed substantial assets. They received many gifted lands and other properties, but their financial empire was all of their own doing. They started out by issuing letters of credit to traveling merchants, who could purchase a letter in their name to be redeemed only by them at their destination. This effectively thwarted robbers. The Templars also loaned money t o the kings of England and France and other noblemen. By 1307, European finances could not function without the Templar bankers. The Order was founded during the First Crusade by well-positioned knights with a lineage pointing to a common Cathar, and therefore Gnostic foundation. The Cath ars had been persecuted by a pope and a French king, and by the mid-1200s conside red vanquished. But obviously they were not; they simply morphed into a highly s ecretive organization known as The Brotherhood, which founded the Knights Templa r. For two centuries The Brotherhood led the Templars, functioning at its core, surrounded by a mostly fanatical rank-and-file. When the Order was attacked by a pope and a French king in 1307, the Brotherhood performed another vanishing act , this time finding safe haven in Scotland and Switzerland, where they continued their mission to preserve "The Knowing", or Gnosis, and to bring about democrat ic rule in a world long ruled by despots. Switzerland was their first achievemen t in this regard.

Chapter Two The Founding of The Templar Order Nine knights founded the Knights Templar on Christmas day, 1119 in Jerusalem on the aftermath of the First Crusade. Key among them was Hugh of Payns. Most of them had known ties to the Cathars. Their connection was clandestine, bu t detectable nevertheless after all these centuries. Hugh of Payns overlord was C ount Hugh of Champagne who was supporting the entire venture. A close friend of both Hughs was a Cistercian monk named Bernard of Clairvaux who had founded the m onastery at Clairvaux and was its abbot. He wrote the Templar Rules and was very likely a Cathar, a Gnostic group in France. At any rate, the principles espouse d in the rules he wrote for the Templars reflected Gnostic principles, thinly di sguised in Catholic terms. There was devotion to the Holy Mother not identified as the Virgin Mary, but always termed as The Holy Mother. The Holy Mother was an a ppellation used by Gnostics to describe Sophia, the female aspect of God, the mo ther of love and wisdom that counterbalances the Christ, the male aspect of God. Of note was also the distinction between Jesus the man, and Christ, the state t hat he achieved. This was a state of consciousness that all people could aspire to, and thus become the sons of God. There was also mention of the value of silent prayer, in the manner that we would call meditation today. This was quite a dep arture for any order, and Bernard was very careful how he worded these principle s. From then on, the Cistercian Order and the Templars remained very close.

Unfortunately not all Cistercians or Templars were the same. An austere form of fanaticism was pervasive throughout the Church. It was the norm, what begot the Crusades and the Inquisition. For most, Christianity was the only true religion because its founder was the Son of God. So it made sense that you would try to c onvert heretics to the only true religion, for the good of their immortal souls. A good many men joined military orders to fight the enemies of Christ, an extensi on of Taking up the Cross what they called going on Crusade. This is why a great m ajority of the men who comprised the Templars were religious fanatics. For the s mall minority who were not, they had to watch what they said and did, and at lea st appear to follow along. This was why secret societies sprung up, outside in s ociety and within the cloisters. One such group was The Brotherhood, residing ma inly within the Templars, but bridging Cistercians, the other military orders, a nd with members on the outside. Within The Brotherhood, the wording of Gnostic p rinciples could be clear and to the point. They could gather to meditate; they c ould raise their voices to Christ and the Holy Mother. But in daily life the two distinct populations of monks, the fanatics and the Gn ostic mystics, had to coexist. The Gnostics had to go to mass and appear just as fanatical if the need arose. After Cathars founded the Templars, the former found themselves hounded by the C hurch. This culminated in the mid 1200s with an all-out war in southern France wh ere they lived, in a region called the Languedoc. It took the combined efforts o f the French and the Church fifty years to eradicate the Cathars, at least those they could identify. This is where The Templars Two Kings and a Pope picks up t he story.

Chapter Three How The Templars Fought How did the Knights Templar fight? Actually, scant information is given in the m ost popular historical accounts. Piers Paul Read, who has sold more books than a nyone else skips over the subject. So does Gordon Napier; both of whom have prod uced otherwise exemplary books. Karen Ralls does mention weapons, but doesn t de scribe tactics or training. The assumption, implied and stated, is that Knights joined the Templars with whatever skill they brought with them and fought right away and somehow they made up the most formidable fighting force of the time. Th is simply does not make sense. True, the other military orders didnt seem to prov ide training, but then again, they didnt fight nearly as well as the Templars. In fact, there was no comparison. Most Templar records were destroyed when the Turks invaded Cyprus in 1571, conse quently we have no historical account of Templar training. For lack of documenta tion, I studied other military organizations that showed similar abilities. I we nt as far back as the Roman gladiators, the samurai, and Chinese and Japanese wa rrior monks. All of these shared with the Templars not just similar skills but a similar outlook in life, and viewed combat as a spiritual quest (yes, including the gladiators!). Winning was not as important as how one fought. Just as the T emplars, they all went into battle expecting to die, believing that an honorable death was a goal they all should aspire to. Honor was paramount, so was loyalty and obedience. Death became insignificant. This was the case both for the often -fanatical rank-and file Templars, and for the inner core, the mystical Brotherh ood. The training of those other warriors had surprising similarities and I figu red that Templar training must have followed along similar lines. In the novel I describe how Templars were taught to fight blind by wearing a helmet with no ey e slots. All of the groups I studied did the same; it was not just a practical m easure to be able to continue fighting while blinded, but a means to feel the batt lefield, the sharpening of ones senses that would help enormously while doing com bat. It was important for me to figure out every detail of Templar life, to produce a n accurate description of who they were. Weapons have a lot to do with battle ta ctics. If an army is wielding battle-axes rather than swords and lances, you don

t charge the enemy the same way; axes are heavier than swords, more unwieldy, i t takes longer to recover after a swing. The type of weapons the Templars used i mpacted how they would have trained and fought. All Templars used lance, sword, dagger, shield, and a suit of chain mail called a hauberk, that had plates of steel attached in mostly chest, back, shoulders an d knees. (It wasn t until the early 14th century that knights had armor from hea d to toe when steel was made lighter and stronger. Up to then suits of armor wer e too heavy for battle and were used exclusively for jousting). Templars did not use bow and arrows or crossbows; these were deemed cowardly, and were used by m ercenaries they hired. In the Holy Land these were Syrian Turcopoles. New recruits had to forgo the use of favorite weapons, such as the calltrop, a m ulti-pointed missile thrown at small range, the mace, battle-ax, talchion or bro adsword, and the flail, a baton with a chain and ball at one end. Out in the wor ld each feudal principality, be it a kingdom, earldom, county, or a duchy, had i ts own training practice depending with the castellan, seneschal, or marshall in charge of military training, but mostly dependent on the style of the knight do ing the training. (In feudal Europe, to become a knight one apprenticed for year s under a knight). Also, Europe had no standing army; knights served an apprenti ceship with one lord, say a count, then serve with the overlord (a duke, earl, o r king) for a time if the need arose. This all made for a variance of training, skill levels, tactics, and weapons used; and this is the diversity that Templar sergeants had to deal with, to mold one cohesive, well disciplined fighting body that would act in unison. A knight would come into the Templar Order as a squire-in-training, regardless w hether he had already been dubbed a knight elsewhere. If he made the grade, he w ould be knighted within a year or two, depending on abilities. The training was very rigorous, judging by the discipline and skill shown in battle. Starting wit h the Second Crusade, Templars fighting skill was far beyond other European knigh ts. Piers Paul Read relates how Templar Knights were often used to lead and prot ect crusading knights in the Holy Land. This disparity of skill level was probab ly one of the reasons why Templars were forbidden from entering tournaments. A Knight Templar was the equivalent of a modern-day tank, and this is how he was used tactically. He charged into battle surrounded on either side by his sergea nt and squire, who in turn were flanked by two mercenary bowmen. The knight brok e the enemy ranks with his charge, and his men protected his flanks. A typical f ormation consisted of thirty "lances" that is, each individual knight and his te am. This was a squadron. Two squadrons made up a battle group, what later became knows as a battalion.

Chapter Four How The Templars Became Warriors I found that the connection of the Gnostic Cathars to the Templars was direct an d unequivocal. As I mentioned in the article The Founding of the Templar Order, all nine knights who founded the Templars in Jerusalem after the First Crusade w ere very likely Cathars. The leader was Hugh of Payns, whose overlord and mentor was Count Hugh of Champagne; both of whom had ties to the Cathars. This was exe mplified when they went to Bernard of Clairvoux to ask him to write the rules th at would govern them. What Bernard wrote was right out of the Gnostic teachings, although couched in a way that would mollify any Christian fanatic The Cathars were a religious sect, not an ethnicity. They were a Gnostic group w ho lived in the south of France, in the Languedoc region. For centuries the Cath ars had welcomed freethinkers and mystics into their midst; Muslims, Jews, and C hristian. By the 10th century, Islams Gnostics had become the Sufis. A century la ter we find the first school of the Jewish Kabbalah in France. It didnt take long for all Gnostics of all faiths to be branded as heretics by the dominant religi ons. But anyone being persecuted for their beliefs anywhere could find sanctuary in the Languedoc. At one point the first and only Jewish kingdom in Europe exis ted briefly in this region.

The Cathars engaged in discussions with the Church to allow them to live in peac e, but in 1209 Pope Innocent III decided to exterminate them, to eradicate what he deemed as heresy. To motivate the French king and nobles, the pope decreed th at any Cathar land conquered would be free for the taking. The French king at th e time, Philip Augustus, deemed the papal decree an affront to his suzerainty ov er the region, but after his death, his son Louis pursued the crusade with zeal. It is of note that the Templars were founded almost a century before the 50-year crusade against the Cathars. The timing of the Orders founding was perhaps simpl y a happenstance, an opportunity that presented itself for the need to protect p ilgrims, but the notion must have taken years to develop, the radical concept th at monks would carry arms and engage in warfare. That was a very unique and star k departure from the norm in Christendom, but it had been around for centuries i n China and Japan. Starting in the 4th century, Buddhist monks in China, most notably the Shaolin, practiced their fighting skills as a means of spiritual attainment. Five centuri es later, the concept had spread to other Buddhist sects in Japan. It is very li kely that the Cathars heard about these monks from the mystics that came to them from all over the known world, most likely by way of the highly advanced Sultan ate of Granada, the most progressive bastion in Islam, and a relatively short ri de away across the Pyrenees. Way before the 10th century the Languedoc was alrea dy well known in mystical circles as a welcoming destination. At a time when the average European medieval person kept within ten miles of his/her place of birt h, people were still traveling far and wide in the Middle East and the Orient. M arco Polo was soon to change all that with his own trip down the old trade route s still in use from the time of the Roman Empire. It is very possible that Buddh ist monks would have come to the Languedoc after visiting Granada, a veritable m etropolis compared to what the rest of Europe had to offer. There is a lot of common ground between Gnosticism and Buddhism. In fact, Elaine Pagels, the Princeton Theologian author of The Gnostic Gospels, theorized that Jesus got his Gnostic concepts from Buddhists in Alexandria. It makes sense that once the Cathars realized how close their practice was to Bu ddhism, that they wanted to explore all of Buddhism, and would have been fascina ted to hear about the Shaolin monks. This is most likely where the idea for the Templar Order came from, a concept that was already in gestation when the Cathar knights who founded the Templars arrived in the Holy Land during the First Crus ade. Bernard of Clairvoux, wrote the Templar Rules and described their lives as Chris tian monks; in this respect they were much like their sister order, the Cisterci ans. The warrior aspect of the Templars had to come from another source, the Bud dhists in China. There is no other precedent, no other possible link. When found ing the order, the nine Cathar knights imparted on the Templars the Shaolin conc ept of fighting as a means to conquer the physical world, to transcend ones attac hments to life and fear of death. Like the Shaolin, the Templars learned that ho w one fights is more important than winning. All the accounts I read about the T emplars in battle reflected this, and once I understood this basic tenet of thei r lives I felt I could tell their story. For the Templars Two Kings and a Pope I took cold facts out of the history books and gave them the proper perspective, the way I knew a Templar would think and act.

Chapter Five The Templars And The Holy Grail Early on, while doing research for my novel, I was mystified by the recurrent me ntion of the Holy Grail in documents referring to the Knights Templar. It didn t make sense; by then I had defined that the core of the Templars, those who gave direction to the Order were without doubt Gnostic mystics who gave little impor tance to relics or anything in the material world, which they considered an illu sion, something to be dismissed. In those days of persecution by Church inquisitors, non-traditional Christians h

ad to hide their practice and find secret codes to communicate. This could be so mething as innocuous as drawing a cross with all four legs the same size, this m eant Gnostic balance, or a star of David which meant the coming together of male and female in all of us. When you met someone whom you thought might be a fello w Gnostic, you started with a salutation, "Beauseant". If they knew what it mean t, then you casually drew a cross on the ground with your sword or a stick. They would probably respond by drawing a Star of David or a dove. Then you knew you were safe and could talk freely. So with all of these secret codes, if a chalice stood for something else, what w ould it be? It definitely was not the cup that Jesus used in the last supper. Th is would mean nothing to those mystics, an actual cup? When I dug deeper, I found that starting even earlier, perhaps back to the 5th c entury, the Heart, that is the spiritual heart as opposed to the human organ, wa s symbolized by a drinking vessel. Catholics are familiar with paintings of The Sacred Heart of Jesus, so we know that there was veneration for Jesus Heart. Th e Gnostic Gospels refer consistently to the Heart of Christ that will open in al l of us. David Richo in The Sacred Heart of the World makes the definite connect ion between the symbol of a cup and the heart of Jesus. It s obvious that the symbol of the cup, or Holy Grail, the Templars were referr ing to something that was a direct connection to the Heart of Jesus. If we take into account how revolutionary Jesus message of love was in relation to the harsh tone of Judaism, then it stands to reason that it is this singular aspect of hi s teachings that identified him as a vessel of love, ergo his Heart. Elaine Page ls in her Gnostic Gospels tells us that Jesus gave secret instruction, what beca me known as Gnosticism, to the select few, and spoke in parables to the general public. These teachings were banned by the Church starting in the 5th century, b ut for those who knew of them, they would embody the essence of Jesus, his love, his Heart. If we put all the facts together, and add that Jesus was a Rabbi, a well-educated man who spoke and wrote in at least Greek and Aramaic, and he want ed to propagate his teachings, it stands to reason that he must have committed t hem to writing.. Then it makes sense that a document written by Jesus would be w hat the Templars were hiding as the Holy Grail; Jesus Heart. So what happened to the "Holy Grail", a gospel written by Jesus? That was a line of inquiry I pursued in my novel. I found evidence that it was a real document, the actual words of Jesus written by his own hand. The Brotherhood kept it as a treasure for many centuries, after they found it, very likely in the place and manner similar to what I describe in my novel. In the following article, The Hol y Grail s Hiding Place I talk about Hafiz Mountain and why it is the most likely locale. I am certain that the Jesus Gospel will resurface some day, perhaps buried under Rosslyn Chapel in Scotland, or hidden away in some Masonic temple. Time will te ll.

Chapter Six The Holy Grails Hiding Place The legend of the Holy Grail was born during the romantic era in the early middl e ages; an era that gave birth to the concept of courtly love, gallantry, and th e forbidden love that one was willing to die for. Many songs and poems were comp osed at the time by traveling minstrels, most having to do with beautiful damsel s, but some with great adventures and treasures, such as the Holy Grail. During the middle ages they thought that it all started with King Arthur and his court, but actually it was the middle ages that gave birth to the Arthurian mythyet ano ther product of the romantic era. So was there a Holy Grail? As the article The Templars And The Holy Grail makes cl ear, definitely yes. So where did the Templars find the Holy Grail, this Jesus Gos pel? I concluded that in the same place where the bulk of the books from the Lib rary of Alexandria were secreted to after Christian hordes started destroying ev erything that was not the approved Bible. According to what the Arabs recorded,

monks who had been in charge of the library took their books to a secret locatio n where they were translated into Arabic and disseminated throughout the Arab wo rld, back in 421, two centuries before the Prophet Mohammed, when Emperor Consta ntine made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire. Thats also the time when the Gnostic Gospels were buried, what was found in 1947 in a cave in Egypt and became known as the Naj-Hammadi Library, the finding that revolutioniz ed our knowledge of Jesus teachings. Dr. Pagelss book, The Gnostic Gospels is base d on her study of these documents. Unfortunately there was no gospel written by Jesus among them, but as I discuss in The Saga of The Templars Holy Grail, this is to be expected, since Jesus meant for readership to be restricted to the very se lect few. A thesis in my novel is that the monks at the Library of Alexandria had the secr et Jesus Gospel. The reasoning is simple; Alexandria was not only the cultural c enter of the Empire, it was also its most progressive city, where Jesus learned what became his Gnosticism, from Buddhists. Buddhism did have an impact in the c ity where intellectual inquiry was the norm, where most of the greatest learned men came. So yes, it makes sense that whoever was in charge of the library would reflect the citys culture, and the biggest, most complete library in all of the Roman Empire, ran by mystical Christian monks, would certainly have copies of Je sus document. Just the fact that they wanted to save the knowledge in their hands by handing it over to the Arabs speaks volumes about what they were like. So where did the Library of Alexandria monks take their books including the Jesu s Gospel? I placed myself in their place, studying what was known about the worl d at the time and what was happening around them. As fanatical Christian hordes started descending on the library to destroy its contents, the monks had to act fast. They looked for a safe place that was well away from invaders and fanatica l hordes, and in a direction away from danger. To achieve this, from Alexandria you would have to look due west, towards what was then known as the Libyan wilde rness, basically the western-most chunk of Africa that encompasses most of the S ahara. Well, fortunately for them, and for me, someone else had escaped in that direction centuries before, with a similar goal in mind, to find a safe haven aw ay from violence, in this case, an invading army. These were the mystics who lef t Judea and Israel during the Assyrian invasion in 722 BCE and founded a colony hidden away in the Tibesti Mountains in what is todays Chad. For well over two mi llennia this was a place known to the mystical underground, a place where one co uld find sanctuary away from so-called civilization, a place to pray and meditat e in peace. Looking at a map of that time, the Tibesti Mountains made perfect sense. In fact , it would have been hard to pass up. It is hard to get to, one has to cross man y miles of desert, but once in the mountains there are valleys with 20 inches of rain a year, plenty to support a colony. No other location offered relative pro ximity, safe passage, habitability, and the promise of a peaceful life. I figured that the place had a name, a code name that would not give away its lo cation. In the novel I called it Hafiz Mountain, because Hafiz in Arabic means t o preserve knowledge, as in writing, memorizing, or secreting it away, and I fig ured thats what the mystical underground and then the Brotherhood would have call ed it, or something very similar. In the book, the document is found and taken away to Europe by the Brotherhood. Centuries prior another copy was very likely found by the nine Templars who foun ded the Order, only to be lost. This time it made sense to keep the remaining co pies safe until the last minute, because possession of such a document was so da ngerous. In any case, the Holy Grail made its way to Europe, I believe in a mann er very close to what I describe in The Templars Two Kings and a Pope.

Chapter Seven The Saga Of The Templars Holy Grail The Templars Holy Grail has been sought after, secreted away, possibly destroyed, only to surface again in the mysterious labyrinth of Christendom intrigue.

The legends point to the existence of a Holy Grail. Historical evidence defines it as a Gnostic Gospel written by Jesus. But where has it been all these centuri es? Jesus taught what became known as Gnosticism to the select few, those he deemed ready. It is unknown to how many of his twelve disciples he imparted his secret teachings, but what survives today as the Gnostic Gospels, what was found in a c ave in Egypt in 1947 and is known as the Naj Hammadi library, contain the writin gs of Mary Magdalene and Thomas. But why then wasnt there a gospel written by Jesus as well? If he wrote something , wouldnt there be at least references to such a document? Among the Gnostic Gosp els there is one called the Gospel of the Savior, but no one knows who the autho r is as yet. Whatever the case might be about that document, wouldnt a gospel wri tten by Jesus been singled out and heralded through the centuries? Well, not if it started out as a secret document by the author himself, giving very specific instructions that it cannot be disseminated. Jesus meant his secret teachings fo r those who were ready, and these were few and far between. To the masses he spo ke in parables, to the minds with limited understanding that could not conceive of God residing inside them. He knew that should his teachings be made public, t hey would be grossly misinterpreted, and indeed they were. People were burned at the stake in the Middle Ages for claiming that they had God inside them. If suc h a document had made its way to Church officials, in all probability they would have either destroyed it or hidden it, for the same reason that it was so valua ble to the Brotherhood, the secret Gnostic organization behind the Templars: it validated Gnosticism as Jesus true teachings while doing away with the Churchs rea son for being, the whole notion that one can only reach God and salvation throug h its priests, teachings and liturgy. The first instance that the Jesus Gospel surfaced was shortly after the founding of the Templar Order in 1119. The nine Gnostic knights who founded the order, a lmost immediately started digging around Solomons Temple where they were headquar tered. In due course they stopped digging and made their way to Rome where they exacted huge concessions from the pontiff that guaranteed the viability of their new order. Historians have speculated as to what it was that they found that th ey could use to sway the pope. The Temple of Solomon had contained the legendary Ark of the Covenant, but the chances that it was still around after all those c enturies would be unlikely, given that the Temple had been destroyed and rebuilt several times, and even then, its possession would not have given such a powerf ul bargaining position to the Templars. What would have done it, would be a Jesu s Gospel that if made public, would have meant the end of the Churchs role as int ermediary. But did they find it under the Temple? Not likely. Through the centur ies the place had been just too much of a target, not a good hiding place for an ything of value. Its far more likely that the nine Gnostic Templars were after so mething buried near the Temple. What lay next to the Temple of Solomon in Jesus t ime was the Antonia Fortress, the Romans administrative center that had also hous ed a jail where Jesus had been held before being crucified. Several Roman jails had cells dug into the ground. It is then possible that Jesus cell could have sur vived. But why would it hold anything so valuable and who put it there and why? When studying mystics, it pays to think like one. In The Templars Two Kings and a Pope, William and Hughes are also after the Jesu s Gospel. They are instructed to find Jesus cell where he meditated and prayed for long hours, because this is the only place left where his essence has been l eft relatively undisturbed. They make the journey and imbue themselves with Jesu s essence that leads them to where his gospel was hidden. This line of reasoning would have made perfect sense to a mystic of the time. For centuries, before emb arking on a pilgrimage it was customary to seek the essence of the saint one wan ted to reach through the pilgrimage. I believe this is what the nine Templars we re after; they found Jesus cell, and in due course they found where the gospel wa s hidden. To us this whole process would seem like magical thinking, but in thos e days thats how things worked, how people thought and acted, and is the process I applied in the novel given that I was writing about medieval Templars. At any rate, by however process and means, it was found.

After the nine Templars originally found it, the next time the gospel surfaced w as almost a century and a half later, on March 25, 1244, when the Cathar castle of Montsegur in the Languedoc region of France fell to the popes army. Legend has it that a handful of Cathars (who were Gnostics) within the Castle took the Hol y Grail with them before the castle fell. It makes sense that the Templars loaned the Gospel to other Gnostics. After all, it validated their faith as the true teachings of Jesus, and it was probably pa ssed around from one group to another. The next time we hear about the Holy Grail, its back in Templar hands, that is th eir Brotherhood, and they make it to Scotland with it. My theory is that these were copies, not the original. Even before medieval time s, copies signed by reputable scribes were considered just as good as the origin al. In fact, it was necessary to make copies to safeguard the original. Anyone w ith a blade for scraping and a quill could make changes to a document, but copie s made by reputable scribes was a way to safeguard the integrity of the text. Th e original in Jesus actual handwriting would have been treasured in a sacred plac e, much as the Ark of the Covenant had been because of its mystical rather than practical value. In the novel, the gospel has to be a copy, for it came from the Library of Alexa ndria. For centuries the scribes at the library copied every document they came across. The law said that any ship containing books, or any traveler who came in to the city had to surrender their books for copying. This is how the library be came the foremost depository of knowledge in the Empire. In the article The Holy Grails Hiding Place, I describe how and why several copies made it from Alexandr ia to the depository called Hafiz Mountain in the Tibesti Mountains, in present day Chad. The Templars in the novel go after one of these copies because they kn ow that their time in the Holy Land is running out as the Turks are about to exp el all Christian armies. Its quite conceivable that the copy that the original Templars found in 1120, the one at Montsegnur in 1244 and the one the Templars took to Scotland in 1307, we re all different copies; but I doubt it, you couldnt have anything so potentially dangerous loose. Someone could alter the writing and make it say something diff erent, and then the other copies would have to come to the surface to correct th e falsehood, probably resulting in their destruction. There was probably one cop y always guarded by Templars who had orders to destroy it if necessary. My thought is that the copy found by the original nine Templars was the same as the one at Montsegur, and this one copy was destroyed before it fell into enemy hands. The Brotherhood decided at this point to leave the remaining copies where they were, safe in their original hiding place, the Hafiz Mountain in the novel , a very likely real depository for the Gospel and the other books from the Libr ary of Alexandria. It is at Hafiz Mountain that the Templars in the novel find a copy of the Gospel . This is one of several instances in the book where fiction approximates what r eally happened. The rest of the novel, the impact that the Gospel had on the Bro therhood, what they had to do to protect it, and how it shaped history, is very real.

Chapter Eight The Templars Secret Society The members of the Brotherhood, which was the Gnostic group the Templar founders belonged to, and became the core of the Templars, functioned the same as the ot her groups, except that its existence was not known for centuries, not until the Rosicrucians shocked the world in the early 17th century with a publication cal led Fama Fraternitatis, History of the Brotherhood, the Rosicrucian Manifesto. The text describes Gnostic principles in Alchemy terms with references to the RoseCross and to those who came before us, the mysterious superiors connected to the s upposedly defunct Knights Templar. We know about the Brotherhood s secret codes and symbols, which they bestowed on

the Templar order. The Templar rank and file had no idea what their peculiar re d cross (the Rose-Croix, with all four legs the same size, signifying Gnostic ba lance and the rose-the color red and the flower, signifying Christ) or the term Beauseant meant, (literally "To Be Whole,") which they used as salutation, battl e cry and the name of their flag, the black and white. For the uninitiated, this was simply a peculiar turn of phrase, perhaps meaning completion of oneself in the Church, but for the Gnostics it meant the ultimate spiritual goal, what we w ould call enlightenment today. So what exactly was Gnosticism? The Gnostic Gospels that were discovered in 1947 in a cave in Egypt shed much light into the subject. Up to then what we knew ab out Gnosticism was that it was a religious tradition outside of the mainstream t hat had been banned at one point, one that evolved into different sects with as much dogma, ritual, and misconceptions as any other 2,000 year old religion. Gno sticism is the foundation of the Jewish Kabbalah, Islam s Sufism, and what becam e known as Christian Kabbalah or Christian Mysticism, in addition to several ind ependent groups; all with their own particular dogma and ritual. But the Gnostic gospels contained in those mud jars found in a cave in Egypt in 1947 when event ually translated revealed Jesus unadulterated secret teachings, the original Gnos ticism, what he reserved for the few he considered ready. His disciples Thomas a nd Mary Magdalene wrote the two most famous gospels found in those jars. They of fer us a glimpse of Jesus and his message by contemporaries, unlike the four gos pels in the Bible, which were written many decades after Jesus passing and recoun ted an oral tradition. Gnosis means knowledge in Greek, the knowledge we acquire by going inside and kn owing who we really are, one with God. This, very simply is what Jesus taught. O nce we attain this God-knowledge, also known as the Christ consciousness, a pers on would see the God in all, be one with all. This was the Templars Beauseant, to be whole. This meant that there was no need for Church or priests, that anyon e could know God by simply learning techniques of meditation, quieting the mind and body and letting ones spirit soar. It threatened the Churchs very existence, s o they banned it. But groups formed to continue what they considered as Jesus real teachings. They came together in secret, and sometimes, fatally out in the open, as was the case with the Cathars. The Church was successful in eradicating most Gnostic groups, but evidently, the Brotherhood decided to go deep underground and remain as such for centuries, ev entually spawning other groups, most notably, the Masons and Rosicrucians. Following publication of The Templars Two Kings and a Pope two 33-degree Masons, both historians, contacted me. They felt that the novel confirmed information t hey already had, but that it also opened new lines of inquiry regarding their le gendary connection to the Knights Templar and where their mystical practice came from, what they refer to as The Ancient Mysteries, the Gnosticism they inherited from the Brotherhood, which is imparted in the topmost three degrees when Masons are initiated as Knights Templar.

Chapter Nine The Templars Secret Society And Their War For centuries, the legends about the Templars said that they fought a covert war against the king of France. In my novel, The Templars, Two Kings and a Pope, I prove that this was the case. I found that The Brotherhood, the Templars secret s ociety, engaged in a war against the French king Philip IV, to prevent him from becoming Holy Roman Emperor and thus taking under his control much of Europe. Whats the evidence? I provide step-by-step detail in the novel, but here are the highlights: We can start with the fact that three successive French prime ministers died in sudden and suspicious circumstances, to be followed by their king. The "French S cheme" resided in these men, and it died with them. That was my first clue. Two popes had also died suspiciously, one quite openly assassinated by Nogaret, the

French prime minister, to pave the way for the French pope handpicked by Philip. The entire Scottish royal family had also died one after the other until there was no legitimate successor to the throne. Apparently assassins from both sides had been quite busy over the years. Confirmation came when I took a careful look at the three foremost armed engagem ent of that time: the Battle of the Golden Spurs in Flanders in 1302; the Battle of Bannockburn in Scotland in 1314; and the Battle of Morgarten in Switzerland in 1315. The battle in Flanders signaled the first time in European history that infantry defeated a major cavalry force. The previously unarmed and untrained Flemish gu ildsmen acquired a new weapon, a pike that they used to beat back the formidable French army. They also exhibited tremendous skill and discipline, the obvious r esult of expert training. The French army was lured by the Flemish to a broken p lain ill suited for cavalry and were met by the pikemen. The same thing happened in Scotland, this time the Scots defeated the English cavalry on a boggy plain. A year later, Swiss peasants, again armed with pikes, and surprisingly well tra ined, defeated the Austrian cavalry. The pike, consisting of a 12 to 16-ft long heavy spear, had an ax-blade and a ho ok by the tip. The blade was used against armor and the hook to unseat a rider, but its main purpose was to anchor the butt into the ground to stop a charging h orseman. It was an evolution of the long sharpened poles the Arabs used successf ully against Templar charges in the Holy Land (a pike of another form was used b y the ancient Spartans, but in the 14th century its particular characteristics, use and development shows a clear path to the Templars experience in the Holy L and). The Arabs were also adept at luring the Templars into well-laid traps plac ing horses at a disadvantage; on either broken plains or narrow canyons where th ey were met by men holding the long sharpened poles. Only someone like a Templar (or conceivably but very unlikely, an Arab) could have conceived the weapon and tactic from personal experience. This, and the fact that experienced military m en trained the guilds men and peasants in Flanders, Switzerland and Scotland, un doubtedly point to the presence of Templars and of The Brotherhood in all three places. Digging deeper, I found that a key member of The Brotherhood, was a Swiss, Lord Otto de Grandson, who was England s King Edwards right-hand-man, and who retired to the soon to be formed Swiss Republic right after the kings death. He had much to do with what happened. The French court spoke openly about how the Holy Roman Empires crown rightfully b elonged to their king. The Empire at that point was in the hands of the Hapsburg s, the German-Austro dynasty. Had the French king, Philip IV, succeeded in takin g over the Empire he would have controlled most of Europe. The retaking of the H oly land would have been feasible at that point, which was apparently his ultima te goal. Obviously the English crown would have considered a French king as Holy Roman Em peror a great threat to their existence and would have tried to prevent it at an y cost. The French and English had been perennial enemies for centuries. But the English king had troubles of his own. As I describe in my novel, the revolt in Scotland was a debilitating distraction to the point that Edward I was largely i neffectual in fighting the French in both Flanders and also Aquitaine, a duchy i n France that both kings claimed. There is plenty of evidence that the French ki ng meddled heavily in Scotland to keep the English occupied, starting by making sure that all Scottish royals died, which precipitated the whole situation for t he English, by opening an opportunity to take over the kingdom. It was all quite a sophisticated and convoluted plot. Besides wanting to wrestle Aquitane from the English, Flanders was a county (rul ed by a count) that Philip IV also wanted for himself, but as I mentioned before , his initial attempt failed. Had he been able to conquer Flanders, its wealth i n textiles would have been his, a tremendous boon to his coffers, which would ha ve enabled him to hire a large army. His next step would have been the invasion of England, and then the Empires crown would have been easily his. To pave the wa y, he had already named one of his men, a French bishop, as pope, who dutifully

supported everything he did, even threatening excommunication to those who oppos ed Philip. The failure in Flanders served to significantly weaken the French king. The one in Scotland opened the kingdom as a safe haven for the Templars and the subseque nt treaty meant that the English army was no longer engaged and could face the F rench if necessary. The Austrians defeat in Switzerland made that Empires crown lo se its appeal. Had the French king become emperor at this juncture, he would hav e inherited a second long lasting, weakening war. Flanders was already a huge dr ain and now the Swiss seemed unbeatable. I go into greater detail in the novel, but in a nutshell, that s how The Brother hood managed to stop the French king while securing a haven for themselves in Sc otland and Switzerland. This was a secret and intense war of spies, intrigue, as sassinations, and careful orchestration that went on for several years, engineer ed by Lord Otto de Grandson. But how did the French king, Philip IV get the notion that he could conquer Euro pe and most of the Middle East? In all probability, it started with his grandfather, Louis IX, the famous Saint L ouis. He was quite the crusader, a failed one at that, except for the Albigensian Crusade, which he conducted against his own people, the French living in Langue doc; the Cathars that were responsible for the founding of the Templars, the pea ceful and tolerant Gnostics he and the pope wanted obliterated. Louis died on hi s last crusade, one he launched against Tunis. He was definitely pious in terms of that age, and that meant killing all whom he considered enemies of the Church . It seems that he passed on his frustration at driving off the Muslims from the Holy Land to his son and grandson, as well as his religious fanaticism. Althoug h they spoke of their hatred for the enemies of Christ they did not pursue another crusade after Tunis, and seemed to be bidding their time for the right moment.

Chapter Ten The Trials of The Templars On Friday October the 13th, 1307, all members of the Order of the Temple within the kingdom of France were rounded up by French troops on orders from the pope, who was doing the French kings bidding. Shortly thereafter all the kings of Europ e followed suit. How this came about is a long and convoluted story, purposely misconstrued, lied about, and obscured by the powers that be, but without doubt, a product of the most powerful king of its time, Philip IV of France. Historians would say either it was greed that drove him, the quest for all the money and goods the Templars had accumulated in the previous two centuries; or a product of his fanatical ca tholic beliefs, his conviction that the Templars had become heretical, given to lascivious and dissolute practices involving homosexual sex, partying, and a lux urious life style. In actuality, the kings of France, starting with Philips grandfather, the suppose dly saintly Louis, had become obsessed with the reclaiming of the empire that Ch arlemagne had created, which they believed was their birth-right, in affect the conquest of all of Europe and most of the Middle East; the Emperors crown that ce nturies later Napoleon would wear. A reference to this plot surfaced in a wonder ful treatise, Barbara Tuchmans A Distant Mirror, The Calamitous 14th Century. Its clear that the French monarchs had a long-lived obsession with the Holy Roman Em pire and restoring it to its former glory. To accomplish this, Philip, his father and grandfather, had devised a plan that involved the destruction of the Templars and the conquest of England as the firs t two steps. A preparatory step involved the placing on the papal throne a compl iant French bishop they could control. This plan, and how the Brotherhood effect ively thwarted it, is the centerpiece of my novel, The Templars, Two Kings and a Pope. In doing this, the Brotherhood consented to the apparent destruction of t he Templars as part of a convoluted secret war they conducted against the French king. A telling fact is that out of the 15,000 Templars of that time in Europe

only 5,000 were captured or accounted for by the authorities. The rest simply di sappeared. This is proof that the Templars knew well in advance of Philip s plan , and that they decided to let him believe that he had destroyed the order so th ey could escape and continue their work from Scotland and Switzerland. The 5,000 were mostly old men who offered no resistance. The most salient charge s, what actually was used to convict them, were accusations of venerating a blac k cat, Bahomet, of homosexual practices, and of spitting on a cross and denying Christ. Like any other trumped up charges, if the prosecution finds any glimmer of truth in one, the rest, the most egregious, will be believed by association. This is a ploy lawyers have been using since the time of Cicero. The Templars were guilt y of prompting recruits of denying Christ and spitting on the Cross, but, as I d escribe in the novel, this was a test, one of several, to see if they would stan d by their convictions. These types of tests were, and still are, common in mili tary and para-military organizations where character traits are paramount. Those who failed, spat on the Cross and denied Christ, were not made Knights Templar. These are the ones who came forth to testify during the Templar trials, the one s who never made it through Templar training and were still resentful. As for the two other accusations, they were simply ridiculous. Any Templar who e ngaged in any sexual activity was summarily imprisoned, and very likely thrown o ut of the Order. As for venerating Bahomet the black kitty, and the charge that this represented a conversion to Islam...it s laughable. Muslims do not revere a ny objects or images; in fact this is a central tenet of their faith. So how did the Templars decide to go along with a plan that called for the sacri fice of some of their brothers to be falsely accused, tortured, and burned at th e stake? It was part of their culture, death and sacrifice for their brothers an d Christ was what they had practiced for two hundred years.

Chapter Eleven What Happened to the Templars After Their Trials The trials of the Templars went on for over a decade. The only kingdom that refu sed to arrest and prosecute them was rebel-held Scotland, although their assets were supposedly passed on to other orders. But in fact, Templars in that kingdom continued to live almost as normally as they had before. Small wonder, given th at they were hard at work on behalf of rebel leader Robert de Bruce. England had a new king, Edward II, who was trying desperately to measure up to h is father, the much-loved Edward Long Shanks. To the new kings credit, no Templar w as ever tortured, and most were set free in due time, after the fervor died away . But overall most of the Templars in Europe were never arrested. From all the rec ords of all the kingdoms combined we can account for almost 5,000 Templars, out of a total population of a bit over 15,000. For days before the fateful Friday October the 13th of 1307 when French troops a rrested all Templars in their kingdom, Templar ships had gathered in the French Harbor of La Rochelle on the Atlantic coast. On the morning of Friday the 13th, they were all gone. In fact, of all the extensive Templar fleet, not a single sh ip was ever captured. For years prior, in Scotland, Robert de Bruce and his troops could make no headw ay against the superior English army, which held key castles. But inexplicably, in the fall of 1306 they started winning while eyewitnesses reported seeing Temp lars fighting with the rebels. After the fateful Friday the 13th, the Scottish r ebels couldnt lose. At the same time, forest cantons in the Alps had declared the ir independence from Austria. The mostly peasant infantry fought with great disc ipline, using long pikes against the cavalry with devastating results. Right abo ut the time that the Templars were arrested and their financial practices shut d own, Switzerland became a nation and took over the practice almost seamlessly. In The Templars Two Kings and a Pope I describe how the Swiss Lord Otto de Grand son, Edward I right-hand-man, in conjunction with the Brotherhood, carefully eng

ineered the Templars exodus to Scotland and Switzerland. For years, Otto and the Brotherhood stood by as Edward I shamelessly tried to take over Scotland, betray ing the trust placed on him by Scottish nobles to safeguard their kingdom and ov ersee the ascendancy of a rightful heir to their throne. It started out with the suspicious deaths of all the Scottish royal family. The French king was trying his best to make life as difficult as possible for Edward in Scotland, and its ve ry likely that he was behind the deaths of the Scottish royals, who were related to Edward, in order to lure him into trying to take over the Scottish kingdom. The French king had plans to invade England, and wanted Edward weak and distract ed. This is where the Brotherhood stepped in, by engineering a trap for the Fren ch king in Flanders. They had successfully recruited the textile guilds and trai ned them with pikes to fight Philips powerful cavalry. In a well-laid trap, they lured the French army into a craggy field ill suited for a cavalry charge. This was the very same tactic used by the Swiss rebels years later, and in fact, the very same trap with minor variations, that was used by the Scots to defeat Edwar d IIs army. In Flanders, the rebel war lasted for a long time, always a drain on the French. Eventually they succeeded and became a nation, Belgium. The Brotherhood was well aware that the French plan to take over the Holy Roman Empire had a long precedent, and would continue on by French monarchs unless the y stopped it once and for all. The Brotherhood used all tools at their disposal, including assassination, to do away with The French Scheme. They managed to stop Philip, and they succeeded in starting a new nation, Switze rland, secured the independence of Scotland, and continued with their harassment of the French in Flanders. But they knew that that wasnt enough, they had to mak e sure the era of despotic rule came to a stop. Switzerland was the first democr acy in Europe in 2,000 years. In England and France they continued their work to weaken the monarchy and strengthen parliament. Eventually, over several centuries, they triumphed. But their crowning achieveme nt came with the founding of the United States. Several of the founding fathers were 33 degree Masons, linear descendants and mystical and ideological inheritor s of The Brotherhood.

Chapter Twelve The Templar Prophecy On October Friday the 13th 1307 when French troops went to arrest all Templars i n France on orders from the pope, they found that a good many of the Templars ha d vanished. Much later, way after the trials were over and the French king and the pope had met their untimely ends, people found that most, about two-thirds of the Templar s in Europe had made their escape to destinations unknown. It became evident tha t the Templars knew well in advance of the pope and French kings plans against th em. At the time no one knew how the Templars got wind of the plan. Three centuri es later, the Rosicrucians let it be known that there had been a secret Gnostic organization behind the Templars. Its implied in the Rosicrucian document that th e name of the group was The Brotherhood. Legends sprung up telling that the Brot herhood had saved the Templars. We now know that this actually happened. The question is how did the Brotherhood manage to divulge the plan to the rank and file without making its own presence known? That was quite a feat. They couldnt just come up and say: "We are a secre t organization with spies all over because we are heretics and need to protect o urselves against the Church, and in the process we found out that the pope and k ing of France want to destroy us". Most of the Templars rank and file reflected t he population at the time, they adhered to the Churchs teachings with heart and s oul and would have probably turned against their own brothers had they known tha t they were a secretive Gnostic group, that is heretics, according to Church dog ma. A couple of references I ran across made me think of a prophecy, but where and h ow would the Brotherhood come up with such a thing? I then found that there had

been a famous prophet of that time, Caesarius of Heisterbach, and the fact that he was a Cistercian gave me pause, for Cistercians were the sister Order of the Templars, as close to the Templars as any other Order could come. They were the unarmed Templars, as it were. Over the years there had been a lot of dealings be tween the two orders, a lot of common ground and working together. Caesarius prop hecies were mostly run-of-the-mill; when the world would end, disasters coming u p, etc. I theorized that The Brotherhood might have ascribed a convenient prophe sy to him, one that would describe the attempt of the French king and pope again st the Templars. They would have had to tie the prophecy close to things they kn ew were going to happen, and merge it with the French kings own plans. This is so mething that the rank-and-file would readily believe, and it probably said that the Templars would be destroyed by the pope and French king after the fall of th e Holy Land, for the Brotherhood knew that the French king was waiting for such an inevitable event before launching his plan. To validate my theory, I examined the historical trail to see if there was evidence that such a prophesy could ha ve existed, and I found that there was; that the Brotherhood could very well hav e used Caesarius as a safe venue to let their own people know what was going to happen. At the time, seers were common, some were considered heretics, but those within the Church were thought of as Gods means to warn his people, and their wo rds, no matter how shocking, were to be trusted and taken seriously. Caesarious prophecy is featured prominently in my novel, although I can t fully a ttest to the existence. The Brotherhood, after al, functioned in secret and ther e were no written records, but we can read behind the unexplained gaps in histor y, the mysteries, and find a plausible explanation. In this case a prophesy is a sound theory, and if it wasn t exactly the way I formulated it, then it was som ething very close to it. The fact that there was a Cistercian monk named Caesari us who made prophesies at about the right time does make it plausible.

Chapter Thirteen The Templars Nemesis: King Philip IV of France. Who was King Philip IV, Le Bel, Literally, The Beautiful? I was curious about the ma n who went after the Knights Templar with the sole intent to destroy them. What was his motivation? His admirers through the centuries have pointed out how he changed France for th e better: instituted new laws and brought order; this is definitely the case, bu t one could argue that the work he supposedly accomplished was the product of hi s powerful ministers, Flote, Marigny, and Nogaret, and that the king was an imag e projected by a very efficient propaganda machine that his ministers controlled . But why did he persecute the Knights Templar who at time were a much respected a nd admired order? Historians point to his courts previous persecution of the Jews and the Italian Lombard bankers, for the sole purpose of expropriating their as sets, and conveniently erasing debts of the crown. So money, they point out, was the main reason, after all, the Templars were rumored to be extremely wealthy. Going after foreigners as the Italian bankers and the Jews, who were not conside red French, was politically easy. No one rose to their defense. But going after th e much-loved Templars was different, Philip and his ministers knew that he would be despised for it. But there is more to it. There are two incidents that gave me a good look at how Philip, and the court ar ound him, operated. The first one had to do with his mother in law. She had been at odds with a local bishop, and wanted to get rid of him. She went to Philip f or help. In short order the propaganda machine made the bishop into an evil figu re with satanic connections who had put a curse on the mother-in-law. Philip had the man put in chains on charges of witchcraft. The second incident involved Ph ilips daughter, Isabella, who came to her father and accused her three sisters in -law of adultery. He had them put in prison, where two died. Years later, after Philip had met his own end, it became evident that Isabella had been cheating on

her husband, the Prince of Wales, for quite some time, going back to the time s he made her accusation. She very cleverly pre-empted her sisters in-law accusing her. The two incidents point out that Philip had very devious people around him and that he was an easy pawn to manipulation. During Philips time, it was widely suspected that his prime ministers were the po wer behind the throne. They certainly knew how to appeal to his vanity, while pa dding their own positions for wealth and power, to the point that the monarchy b ecame a large, bloated, and powerful bureaucracy. So much for law and order: the y taxed and penalized people at will for their own benefit. It is this factor th at led me to believe that one of Philips most trusted men, Cantor de Milly, was O tto de Grandsons (Englands Edward I chief diplomat) master spy. My evidence is tha t Cantor was perhaps the only man who served close to Philip who never got rich and powerful at his expense. As reward for long years of service, he got a posit ion as clerk to Philips petulant and disagreeable daughter, Isabella, Philips conf idant, and Cantors source of information since he wrote and read all the correspo ndence between the daughter and her father. People around Philip knew which buttons to push to get results; his religious fa naticism mixed with a grandiose sense of self and rather dull intelligence made him a ready target. His court portrayed him as someone above even the pope, Gods true lieutenant on earth. In fact, he did place himself above the pope when he h andpicked a French bishop, Bertrand de Got, as his puppet pope. His propaganda machine made Philip into a saint who performed miracles, filling in the shadow of his famous grandfather, Saint Louis. It is in this shadow that he lived. In fact, it is my assertion in the novel, based on solid evidence, tha t Philip IV had little choice in going after the Templars, because it was part o f a larger plan handed to him by his father and grandfather, the French Scheme. He res where his propaganda machine tried to pave the way for the grand plan, by fir st making him into a saint, then a candidate to become the first Rex Bellator in c harge of all military orders; crusader of all crusaders, and ultimately the natu ral Holy Roman Emperor, king of all kings, ruler of Europe. There is no question that he wanted to be the emperor so that he could lead the ultimate crusade tha t would liberate the Holy Land once and for all; this is what drove him, why he believed that once he got a hold of the Templars treasure and got them and the En glish king out of the way, all he had to do was claim the Emperors crown and he w ould be the most powerful monarch since Charlemagne. Or so, he was led to believ e. Studying Philips life under this light, things make sense: the expulsion of the J ews, the war with England, the invasion of Flanders and the murder of two popes. Certainly he, or more aptly, his ministers were after something big. Studying t he prime ministers, Flote, Marigny and Nogaret, one finds very strong and able p ersonalities who had risen through the ranks on their own merit. They set their own pace, and left their mark on French culture, so it makes perfect sense that they wanted their king to be all-powerful; this would translate into greater wea lth and power for themselves. So who among those three wanted to get rid of the Templars? The surprising answe r, as I make clear in my novel, is that none. They were all in turn manipulated by one man, Lord Otto de Grandson, a Swiss working as the English Kings chief dip lomat. His goal was not the destruction of the Templars, but the creation of a v ery special nation, the first democratic republic in modern times, Switzerland. For this, he first had to stop the French monarch from becoming the Holy Roman E mperor, and he needed the Templars. But Philip was not the only king to be manipulated.. Otto de Grandson had to man ipulate his own king Edward I and vie for control with another master manipulato r, Bishop Anthony Bek, who ended up very wealthy as a result of his finagling of the English king. To understand how this manipulation worked, we need only to read Machiavellis The Prince. This type of intrigue ran rampant throughout Europe. Every court, from lowly counties, duchies, and earldoms, played their courtly games to various degre es. It was part of the fabric of high society. If you survived it meant that you became very adept at scheming. In the novel, an earls son is very adept at court

ly games. In his case he used rape as a tool, and he created havoc with peoples l ives. This was not unusual, in those games anything went. They became a fabric o f courtly culture, and pervaded how everyone in the nobility behaved. We can then say that the master gamesman of them all was Otto de Grandson. He go t wind of the French Scheme and used it very effectively to achieve what he wanted , but unlike the often-sadistic courtly games, he wasnt after the satisfaction of controlling someone, it was a far greater end result, the liberation of his hom eland.

Chapter Fourteen Otto de Grandson: The Man Who Saved The Templars One very satisfying finding as a result of my research for The Templars Two King s and a Pope, my novel about the Knights Templar, was the discovery of Lord Otto de Grandson and the enormity of his accomplishments. He worked in secret to est ablish the first democracy in Europe in 2,000 years, Switzerland. As it turns ou t, I wasnt the first to discover him; the Bundesbrief Society, a group dedicated to Swiss heritage contacted me after I published the novel to tell me that they had been researching Otto as well, and agreed with my findings. Be that as it ma y, Im still very gratified to have found him on my own and to publicize what he d id. I became intrigued with Lord Otto de Grandson early on during my research. Once I confirmed what the Templars Gnostic secret society, The Brotherhood, had accomp lished in their covert war against the French king Philip IV, to keep him from t aking over the Holy Roman Empire, mostly through the English, I knew that someon e near Englands Edward I had to be a member of The Brotherhood. It was just a mat ter of identifying key suspects and tracking their movements to see whether they were in the right place at the right time; and of course, any hints as to their motivation and character. Lord Otto de Grandson quickly stood out: a seemingly loyal subject, the kings key diplomat in his dealings with the French crown. When I discovered that he had made a special trip to Acre as it fell to the Turks, h e became my key candidate, for I knew that this was probably the time when The B rotherhood secured their cherished Holy Grail," the only plausible reason why a 5 3-year old key English official, who also happened to be a high-ranking Brotherh ood member, was doing battle in the Holy Land while his precious talents were so rely needed back home. He had already Taken up the Cross (gone on Crusade) with Ed ward years before, so his duty to the Church had been satisfied. When I found ou t that he was a Swiss (that is the cantons that would soon form the republic), I knew I had found my man. When I graphed key events that had to do with the form ation of Switzerland with Ottos life, there was no doubt. He alone was responsibl e for everything that led to that notorious emancipation, a radical new paradigm in governance that did away with monarchy. One key indicator that Otto had a secret master plan was the timing of a critica l event. Not long after the Templars were arrested on orders from the pope and t hey ceased their invaluable financial operations, Switzerland was open for busin ess, providing the same services. Centuries later historians found that a key nu mber of Templars had moved to Switzerland with their financial know-how at the r ight moment. I discovered evidence that the Templars had also helped by training and possibly leading the local peasants to fight against the Austrians. It s no coincidence that Switzerland s flag consists of a Templar cross (all four legs the same size) against a red background. When I put together the other pieces, how Flanders was used to distract and weak en the French, the tug of war in Scotland, the evident assassination of key Fren ch officials and ultimately very likely Philip IV; it all pointed to the working s of The Brotherhood, and specifically Lord Otto de Grandson, whose ultimate tar get was the Holy Roman Empire, which at the time was relatively weak and disorga nized. It was very important for Otto and his cohorts to keep it that way. If th e French king became Emperor, all of Ottos plans would forever dissipate as the E mpire became unified with the most powerful and highly organized monarchy in Eur

ope. All of this is the subject of my novel, and how everything came to a head i n 1315 after a long and secret war against the French king in which Otto success fully maneuvered the Templars, the English, the Scots, the Flemish and ultimatel y the French, for his own ends. In the process he saved the Templar Order from b eing destroyed by the French king. The events that he had set in motion eventual ly led the Brotherhood s leadership no other option but to escape en masse to Sc otland and Switzerland. Otto was a very astute, energetic, highly intelligent man who used every skill a nd talent at his disposal to free his homeland. But how did he manage to end up in England in such a position of power? Otto was a small child when his father went to work for the English crown. This seems very unusual for someone to come from so far away, an obscure forest canto n (a district) within the Holy Roman Empires territory and under the jurisdiction of the Duchy of Austria. Ottos family was very well off; they were land barons i n the area of Lake Neuchatel and the town of Grandson (Great Sound). What would motivate a wealthy land baron in Switzerland to go to work for the En glish crown, a long and perilous journey to a foreign and remote land, and why w ould he take his infant son? Why not his entire family? The answer can be found in the deceivingly sudden and successful emancipation of the forest cantons from the Holy Roman Empire one generation later. It would se em that Ottos father was already connected to The Brotherhood, and that he was pe rhaps one of several plants in key European courts, plausibly even the papacy. A f ather would pass on his mission to his son, waiting for the right opportunity to act. This Swiss master plan evidently took much planning and very elaborate, pa tient, and methodical implementation, an almost impossible undertaking that succ eeded thanks to Otto. Otto was the same age as the future Edward I, and they became fast childhood fri ends (a plausible reason for his being brought along by his father). They studie d, played, and were knighted together; when they grew up Otto became Edwards conf idant and faithful aide. He was right beside his king when he went on Crusade an d on the various campaigns, including Wales. He saved his kings life, at least on ce, when Edward was struck with a poisoned arrow during the Crusade and Otto suc ked the poison out. In due time, Edward bestowed lands to his loyal friend, but Otto never moved away from the court. When hostilities started against France, O tto made himself indispensable as the kings chief diplomat. All the while Otto was working in secret within The Brotherhood, maneuvering the Templars to contain the French king in Aquitaine, developing a rebel uprising i n Flanders against Philip and training the peasant army in the forest cantons. Following the successful conclusion of his efforts, Otto retired to his castle i n Switzerland where he lived peacefully until his death at the ripe old age of 9 0. The Swiss example led to the French revolution and the formation of the United S tates. It is doubtful that either would have taken place without the Swiss model .

Chapter Fifteen The Masons Connection To The Knights Templar Evidence suggests that present day Masons have a clear and direct connection to the Templars secret society, The Brotherhood. At this point let me point out that I am not a Mason. Following the publication of The Templars, Two Kings and a Pope I received feedback from two 33 Degree Mas ons. Overall they were very pleased with my novel, which they felt clarified the ir history and gave substance to their connection to the Knights Templar. The bo ok also made public their Ancient Mysteries, the Gnostic teachings that Jesus taug ht and that the novel describes as The Brotherhoods mystical practice. Apparently I was also describing the Masons 33 Degree mysticism. One of them loaned me thei r Monitoring Guide, which describes their 33 degrees in detail with appropriate symbols.

These symbols confirmed that the Masons, at least from the 30th Degree on up in which they are initiated as Knights Templar, are linear descendants from the Tem plars secret Brotherhood. The Templar Cross, the Croix Rose or Red Cross, is widely used and originally called Rose Croix (grammatically incorrect in modern French ). All four extremities are the same size which is a Gnostic symbol for balance. The symbol of the rose is also used, which for the Brotherhood meant the Christ consciousness. In one scene in the novel I describe how Jesus prison cell was pe rmeated with a faint scent of roses. This made perfect sense to the 33 Degree Ma sons. In old French, the color red was called rose, also the name of the flower, w hich makes the name of the Templar cross and why it was red, code for the Christ consciousness. Gnostics believed that this was a state every person could achie ve. The Christ consciousness was the perfect state of balance, which they termed Bea useant, literally be whole, in the Lingua Franca, the old french the Templars spok e. This term is presently widely used by the Masons. The other symbol of balance , which the Masons also widely use, is what looks like a Star of David, comprise d by two spades, one upward or male, one downward, or female. This means the com ing together of the male and female in all of us. The Gnostic faith balances the female aspect of God, Sophia, with the male, Christ; which we will all embody a t some point when we reach Beauseant, symbolized by the Templars flag, black and white stripes of equal size, and a theme still used by the Masons. So, how did the connection between the Templars Brotherhood and the Masons take p lace? In the research I conducted for my novel I found that once they left the H oly Land, the Templars and The Brotherhood found themselves embroiled in a cover t and intense war against the king of France, Philip IV to keep him from taking over the Holy Roman Empire. To accomplish this he first needed both the Order of the Temple and the King of England out of the way, because they could stop him, and he also needed their money. The Brotherhood had to act quickly. If Philip invaded England there was no stopp ing him. They realized that this was first in the French kings list. They came ne xt. They needed something to distract him, a war that would pull him away from E ngland. They turned to Flanders, what is today Belgium. It was ruled by a count, a nominal subject of the French monarch. The county was split along ethnic line s; for centuries the French speakers and the Dutch had been at odds. There were also very powerful guilds of textile workers, for it was the processing of wool that made Flanders. The nobility was very weak and easy prey for a rising workin g class. The Brotherhood decided to approach the Dutch-speaking guilds, train them, and u se them to fight the French. This worked out perfectly. The "Battle of the Golde n Spurs" saw the defeat of the powerful French cavalry by lowly infantry. This b attle and what led to it are graphically described in the novel, along with the weapons, training and tactics, for I feel this is a very crucial episode in Temp lar history. In the book I lead into the Flemish excursion with a venture by two of the main characters (fashioned after real historical figures) that find them working with weavers who moonlight as entertainers at fairs. This gives them the idea for Fl anders, the possibility of using the powerful guilds. Im sure that something alon g these lines took place; some incident that led The Brotherhood to look into th e guilds, for otherwise the social divide was so strong at this time in history that such a working arrangement was unthinkable. After Flanders, The Brotherhood continued to work with the guilds. When they rea ched Scotland, it was just natural that they would link up with them. In the nov el, this happens through a sergeant, a natural link between the noble knights an d the working class. It makes sense that the Brotherhood would seek out the most powerful guild around, which was made up of learned men, men who built cathedra ls and bridges and not only could read and write, but were also relatively sophi sticated. What the Brotherhood needed, was an organization they could infiltrate and control so they could find a safe haven for The Knowing, Jesus secret teaching s. Its evident that they had in their possession a copy of Jesus actual writing, a Jesus Gospel, and they also needed a hiding place for it.

They connected with the Masons and passed on their secrets. In the 16th century when the puritans rose to power in Britain, most of the writ ten records of the Masons and other Gnostic and non-traditional Christian denomi nations, were destroyed. The Masons had to reinvent themselves in the 17th centu ry, mostly from what was passed down as legend. In the course of the years some misconceptions came into play, including a dash of Egyptology, the result of the Egypt obsession that ran through Europe in the 19th century. But surprisingly, the main body of Jesus secret teachings did survive, and are being practiced by p resent day 33 Degree Masons, and also by their offshoot, the Rosicrucians. ###