The Mind of God

The City of the Alpha

Our study of the origins of the Grail bloodline had lead us to a race of ancient mythical god-kings, of which nearly identical descriptions can be found in the records of cultures spanning a wide spectrum of times and locales. These god-kings were portrayed in Judeo-Christian lore as the fallen angels and “Sons of God” of the Bible, or the “Watchers” of The Book of Enoch, and were personified by one figure in particular: Cain. We also discovered that these god-kings were equivalent to the kings of Atlantis described by Plato. It appeared that this mysterious “Atlantis” may have been the original home of this sea-faring, civilizing race.

We also learned about some of the incredible feats of construction attributed to these god-kings in legend. Time and again in the course of our research we have encountered tales connecting them to the construction of man-made mountains and islands; and often, in relation to these, subterranean cities. We had been lead by clues, rather strangely, to investigate the myths associated with the “Hollow Earth” theory – myths of the underground empire of Agartha, ruled by the “Lord of the Earth”, and lit by a “Black Sun” located in the Earth’s center. We were convinced that there was a direct connection between the legendary subterranean kingdoms of ancient mythology and the Grail saga, but we weren’t at first able to find too many direct connections to the Rennes- le -Chateau story - just lots and lots of tantalizing clues hinting at it. We knew, for instance, that the area is covered with numerous underground tunnels, and many believe that at least one of these tunnels leads to Sauniere’s mysterious treasure. We also knew that Rennes-le-Chateau was considered a sort of metaphysical gateway between Heaven and Hell, the “House of God and Gateway to Heaven”, as Sauniere, quoting from the Bible, described it. The entire mystery, and the surrounding area, are steeped with legends of the Devil, and therefore of the Underworld. And we knew that Otto Rahn, a Nazi SS employee, had been sent to the Cathar fortress of Montsegur in Southern France to look for the Grail stone in the caves of the mountain, which, he believed, lead to an underground temple in which the relic was housed. We had even read a reference to the Black Sun as a “Merovingian symbol.” Why, then, had their been no mention of these subjects in Holy Blood, Holy Grail or The Messianic Legacy? If the subjects of Atlantis and Agartha related to the mystery of the Grail, or that of Rennes-le-Chateau, would not the Priory of Sion have at least hinted at it somewhere along the line?

The answer to this question came when we discovered, on the website, of M. Paul Smith¹, his excellent translations of the articles that appeared in Vaincre, the wartime journal published by the Order of Alpha Galates and edited by their Grand Master, Pierre Plantard, supposedly before he joined the Priory of Sion. However, as we’ve said, it is apparent that the Priory and Alpha Galates were one and the same. Vaincre, therefore, is a Priory document. And what these articles said confirmed our suspicions beyond our wildest imaginings.

Alpha Galates, as revealed by Vaincre, obviously believes in Atlantis, and in the Atlantean originn of the French race. In fact, Alpha Galates claims to be perpetuating the Atlantean tradition, which was also practiced, they say, by the Druids. In an article by “Le Comte de Moncharville” entitled The East and the West, it is written that:

“...France, through Brittany, was also familiar with the Atlantean tradition, of which the Druidic cult (with its sacrifices to the Sun, the ceremony of mistletoe, menhirs and dolmens, and institutions of chivalry) is merely the survival. ... When Catholicism chased the Druids out of Gaul, some of the monks collected together the Atlantean traditions and formed the Alpha, which then split into two branches: the Cistercians, who adopted Christianity, and the Chivalric Order of Galate, which preserved the Atlantean tradition.”

De Monarchville’s assertions match those expressed in a book called Preadamites, cited by Ignatius Donnelly’s Atlantis: The Antediluvian World (although the author of the book is nowhere mentioned.) The passage cited reads:

“The Gauls possessed traditions upon the subject of Atlantis which were collected by the Roman historian Timagenes, who lived in the first century before Christ. He represents that three distinct people dwelt in Gaul: 1. The indigenous population, which I suppose to be Mongoloids, who had long dwelt in Europe; 2. The invaders from a distant island, which I understand to be Atlantis; 3. The Aryan Gaul.”²

Another article from Vaincre, entitled The ‘Southern Cross’ - Rallying Point for the Pure of Heart, by Auguste Brisieux, connects Atlantis directly to France, specifically the province of Brittany, and describes in fantastic terms Atlantean civilization, as well as its downfall. It states:

“Lemuria, a small country situated on the ancient continent on Atlantis, of roughly the same size as our Brittany, and which is now no more than the vestige of a thousand years of history, rich in spiritual, moral and intellectual glory, of which the Southern Cross was the national emblem, appears to us today to be shrouded in mystery, a mystery that many legends have helped preserve. In reality, however, this was the Land of Initiates, and whereas we ourselves are still in our infancy the Lemurians already knew about the power of the waves, the laws of the Cosmos and karmic cycles - they knew both how to govern and how to obey... This great continent collapsed into materialism, fell prey to the dark forces, rejected the rule of law, destroyed its temples and[its people] massacred in large numbers, although those who survived succeeded in establishing themselves on our present continent, in our Brittany. But for men, as for nations, the law of karma exists - Atlantis, submerged beneath the putrefying flames, suffered the penalty for its sins. However, the Southern Cross, a constellation of the Southern Hemisphere... remained the happy insignia of the great initiates of the West.”

The symbol of the octopus, which appears on the Blanchefort tombstone and also within the pages of the Priory of Sion’s Secret Dossiers, is another symbol of Atlantis, it seems. It can be found at the end of an article about the Heiron du Val d’Or (translated in Appendix C of this book), and is actually lifted from a book by Paul le Cour called The Age of Aquarius. The article is dated June 24th, 1926, which is the same date upon which the French Magazine Atlantis was founded - a magazine edited by Le Cour, which, it is said, the Priory of Sion published. In The Age of Aquarius, the octopus is referred to as “a symbol of the primitive tradition.” By “primitive”, they probably just mean “original” or “primordial”, for they saw the Atlantean tradition as the most pure. In one of the issues of Vaincre, a quote from Paul Le Cour is included which states: “...When a stream is polluted it is necesary, if you are to find pure water, to go back to the source. It’s the same with tradition - it only remains pure at its origin.” This “stream” of tradition, as you’ll recall, has been named by the Priory of Sion and the Grail families “the underground stream.”

And it is underground where the publishers of Vaincre see the remains of the Atlantean tradition, preserved in subterranean cities populated by an advanced race. In The East and the West, by Le Comte de Moncharville, is a most astounding passage:

“During the mission to Tibet I succeeded in making contact - while I was in Lhasa, in the Forbidden City of Agartha, which is the seat of the Government of the Living Buddha, the ‘Dalai Lama’ - with several monks of the great monastery there. During the several years that my mission to Lhasa lasted I managed to win the confidence and friendship of them all, and I learned what probably no other initiate of the West has ever known, compared to which the famous Secret Doctrine of H.P. Blavatsky seem only a fragment of the truth. When I was on the point of leaving, the monks led me along seemingly interminable staircases carved into the mountain into a veritable underground town located underneath the temples. And there they gave me a glimpse of the collection of objects that had been brought from Atlantis before the catastrophe there.
Then I visited the Sanctuary of the Dragon, where, for the first time since the Orient, I attended a ceremony of a Superior Rite, and finally, during my last few days there, I had the opportunity to contemplate electrical machines of a kind unknown today, which had been brought from Atlantis and which made it possible to impart to the subterranean rooms a light and atmosphere that was exactly the same as that of the open air, which had so surprised me during my first visit to the heart of the mountain. These machines were also used by the ‘Dalai Lama’ to erect around the Forbidden City of Agartha magnetic barriers that prevented undesirable strangers from penetrating therein.”

This underground structure, according to Moncharville, was constructed by “Galatean knights”, precursors of the Knights Templar who were the preservers of the Atlantian tradition, and the originators of chivalry. He writes:

“...they worked the But-Or (‘the Gold Mines’) and constructed below-ground the city of the Alpha, the biggest city in the world, and completed ... the Sanctuary of the Dragon on one of the Mounts of the Dragon. Then, in the year 812, they suddenly disappeared. Some days later, amid a rumble of thunder, the sea covered the places where the last Atlanteans had lived. From this time onward, only one of the Mounts of the Dragon, towering above the waves, remained to provide evidence, through the existence of its sanctuary, of the activities of the Galatean knights.”

Moncharville reveals the location of the Sanctuary to be, once again, the French province of Brittany, and the “Mounts of the Dragon” are actually located on the site currently known as Mount St. Michel (where St. Michael supposedly defeated the infamous Dragon.) Coincidentally, we had already been researching Mt. St. Michel in connection to the Grail mystery years before ever learning of this text. What initially drew our attention there were the assertions made by some that Mt. St. Michel is one of a series of purportedly man-made mountains which form what is called “the St. Michael line”: a series of sacred sites (all named after St. Michael) that stretch from Israel to Britain, forming a line across the map of Europe. They are situated in Jerusalem, Greece, Brittany and Cornwall. Those in England and France are placed far enough off the coast that they constitute islands. Folklore in the south of England states that St. Michael’s Mount was an island actually built in ancient times by giants.³ According to the Priory of Sion’s Dossiers Secrets, Mont. St. Michel in Brittany once served as one of their commandaries. If the Priory’s own claims are to be taken seriously, that means that their own Grand Masters held court inside a subterranean temple built beneath an apparently man-made mountain. Monarchville continues his amazing description of this underground temple:

“The Sanctuary of the Dragon was not abandoned - a new monastery was constructed on its site. And so, beneath the crypt located underneath the flagstone of the Galatean Knights a crypt more ancient still, dating from this period, gives access to the old Sanctuary. It was through the Sancutary of the Dragon that the first knights passed to meet with the subterranean dwellers, who lead them to the heart of the Breton crypts 379 meters down, in the City of the Alpha, where the Temple of Aga was located. Is this still the only entrance to the City of the Alpha? No, but it is very certainly the oldest.”

When we first read the above-quoted passages, we were absolutely astounded. For whatever readon, Baigent, et.al. had chosen to ignore this information completely.⁴ But now we had corroboration directly from the publications of the Priory of Sion that they believed in underground cities like Agartha, the fabled city located in the center of the Earth, which they maintained was built by Atlanteans, and that the oldest entrance to this vast underworld was located in France. This passageway was thought to reach to the center of the Earth, and not just far underground, as indicated by a line from Monarchville’s article which reads:

“Finally, in the Round Table, my guide pointed something out to me. I immediately approached it, as I had racognized the small round altar of Lhasa, but here there were some voices that I had already heard, nonetheless muffled, as if they came from the center of the earth.”

So then, we thought, if such a thing exists in Brittany, many miles to the North and on the other side of France, why could there not be something similar at Rennes-le-Chateau? From the above-quoted passages, one line in particular struck us as odd: “And so, beneath the crypt located underneath the flagstone of the Galatean Knights a crypt more ancient still, dating from this period, gives access to the old Sanctuary.” For in the Church of St. Magdalene in Rennes-le-Chateau, it was underneath “The Knight’s Flagstone” that Sauniere discovered, soon after finding the parchments, an underground crypt, as well as, perhaps, something more. He was extremely secretive about it, and would not allow the workmen who helped him lift the stone to see what was underneath it. It is believed that the “Knight’s Flagstone” depicts Templar Knights because two of them are seen seated on the same horse, an earmark of the Templars. But the flagstone is badly damaged, and the knights are very crudely depicted anyway, making it unclear exactly what sort of people they are. Perhaps the “Knight’s Flagstone” was placed there as a clue, mimicking the flagstone of the Galatean knights in Brittany. Perhaps, like its Breton cousin, it conceals an entrance to a subterranean city. And perhaps, like in Brittany, there are man-made mountains above ground which mark its location. To pursue this angle, we would have to examine the sacred geometry encoded into the landscape of Rennes-le-Chateau.

A Pentacle of Mountains

The sunrise at Rennes-le-Chateau has to be seen to be believed. The first visible rays of the sunlight fall directly upon the village, and nowhere else. One moment the entire landscape is cloaked in darkness, and the next minute the village begins to glow eerily. Gradually, the glow becomes increasingly intense, until the village appears as a golden beacon shining in the midst of a predawn world of shadow and low-laying fog. For a few brief moments, Rennes-le-Chateau looks not like some small village in the south of France, but rather like some mythical kingdom. In those few moments, it seems difficult to believe that Rennes-le-Chateau wasn’t built in this precise spot as part of some conscious design. And in fact, one of the prevailing rumors about this place is that it was.

Among the prevailing beliefs about this unusual village is its location has, since ancient times, been thought sacred for some reason. The village is placed atop one of five mountain peaks which form a perfect pentagram. Henry Lincoln has theorized that the existence of this “natural pentagram” is itself what has lead to the perception that the area was somehow holy, and that the five-pointed star (which recurs repeatedly in this mystery) was a sacred symbol to those who came here in ancient times. Assuming this to be the case, it is easy to see why these ancient men would have been in awe of this place. But the odds against such a formation occurring naturally are so mind-bogglingly astronomical that its very existence seems to constitute something beyond the bounds of mere coincidence. One is tempted to see this as the hand of God directly at work.⁵

Consider this: the formation of such a pentagram, it requires five overlapping angles (or triangles), each measuring 36 at their apex. For each such triangle, you need to have three mountaintops forming a figure whose precise measurements are 36by 72 by 72We imagine that someone surveying a map could easily find examples of triangles with such measurements scattered about. But to form a perfectly symmetrical pentagram requires five such triangles, all sharing identical measurements, and each sharing exactly the same placement in relation to one another. With each step of this equation, the overwhelming pattern of coincidences seems to be compounded exponentially. And too, at any point in this escalating spiral of coincidences, if even a single element of this equation failed to fit the prevailing pattern, the pentagram thus formed would not have materialized.

To this mindnumbing accumulation of coincidences we add one more. Authors Colin Wilson and Rand Flem-Ath have recently asserted that the pentagram at Rennes-le-Chateau points to the North Pole. Can this astounding fact be merely another coincidence - another interesting bit of happenstance to be added to the extensive lists of happy accidents thus catalogued? Are we indeed seeing the hand of God at work, or perhaps the hand of man? What is most interesting about the authors’ observation concerning the Rennes-le-Chateau pentagram is that, according to them, the pentagram points to the North Pole not as it exists today, but to the very location it occupied 10,000 years ago.

Wilson and Flem-Ath arrive at that date based upon geological evidence. They claim that the Earth’s axis can be shown to have shifted twice, each time resulting in a global cataclysm (such as the biblical Flood or the destruction of Atlantis.) Proof of this, he says, can be seen in the detailed examination of ancient lava flows. In brief, there exists in molten lava a metallic element, which, when examined on a microscopic level, gives an incidation of polar North (just as does the needle on a compass). Lava flows dated before 10,000 years ago indicate that the placement of the North Pole was once near Hudson Bay. And it is toward this position that the Rennes-le-Chateau pentagram points. This indicates to us that the seemingly “natural” pentagram formed by the landscape may not be natural at all; that beneath the mountains forming the symbol may be massive monuments - a series of ziggurats left behind by a race that lived there over one ten millenia in the past.

Though the mere suggestion of such an idea seems an utter flight of fancy, there are documented cases in fairly recent times that prove such a theory is not outrageous at all. For instance, the following account: A Spainish monk traveling in Mesoamerica once took note of what he thought was a strange-looking mountain. It seemed to possess an order and symmetry that gave it an altogether unnatural appearance. Despite its enormity, the monk could not shake the feeling that the mountain appeared to be man-made. Familiar with the structure of certain stepped pyramids in the area, the man developed a theory that this mountain concealed some sort of ancient structure which, over the years, had become covered with earth.

His idea was met with derision, because no local traditions indicated that anything but a moutain had ever stood on that spot. It had been a mountain for thousands of years. Not one to be so easily dissuaded, the monk began excavations of the site. After digging through twenty-six feet of dirt, he found that there was indeed a structure of some sort within the mountain. Further excavation revealed that it was, in fact, a stepped pyramid.

In light of this, we pose a simple question: Could not the mysterious pentagonal mountains of Rennes-le-Chateau conceal similar structures of some sort, equally massive and perhaps even more ancient? And if not, why not? The surface of the entire planet is strewn with countless examples of gigantic structures whose constructions defy explanation, and whose antiquity cannot be satisfactorily fixed or explained. If we could not physically see the pyramids of Egypt, and they existed only in legends or historical accounts, not a single soul alive today would concede the possibility that in ancient times anyone could have constructed monuments consisting of two and a half million gigantic blocks, each weighing many, many tons.

If such structures have existed in plain sight alongside mankind for thousands of years, could not similar monuments of even greater antiquity lie hidden, like the one discovered by the Spanish monk? Structures long predating the pyramids might naturally become obscured by the passage of time, especially considering that they may have fallen victim to a global cataclysm or two, like a flood or an ice age.⁶ Even the Sphynx, so well known to everyone, was for centuries completely buried in desert sands.

We submit that the idea of a pentagonal series of ziggurats buried beneath the mountains of Rennes-le-Chateau is actually an altogether straight-forward hypothesis, given what we know of sacred sites and the people who created them. Virtually all such sites reveal the use of astronomy and show extensive knowledge of geometry by their builders - especially Pythagorean geometry. The pentagram is perhaps the quintessential emblem of the secret Gnosis associated with Pythagoras, and this Gnosis was said to have been passed down from a forgotten antediluvian race. If someone indeed built a series of holy mountains in the shape of a pentagram at Rennes-le-Chateau, such people can perhaps only be described as a forgotten antediluvian race.

The notion that the pentagonal aspect of the landscape was created, rather than stumbled upon, by a race to whom the symbol was already sacred makes sense for that very reason. These people revered this symbol for very specific reasons, because it embodied secrets and principles central to their world-view. The odds of them creating monuments to reflect these secrets and principles seems a far more likely possibility, rather than them just happening to discover a series of hilltops that correspond to such principles in so exacting a way as to defy all odds. And too, the premise corresponds to existing models with which we are already familiar.

Of course, it need not be stressed that all of this is purely theoretical. Like so many aspects of the Rennes-le-Chateau mystery, one can only present a series of hypothetical possibilities. But that said, much of the accepted mythology surrounding the story is still relatively speculative. Many of the key tenets of the myth, owing to their antiquity, would be as impossible to disprove as to prove. Consequently, the most useful criteria to apply to many such theories is based on their inner logic, and the extent to which they conform to the existing facts known about the mystery.

As we have stated, the pentagram is an element that crops up in a number of different aspects of this mystery. This is one of the primary reasons for our suspicion that the symbolism contained in the very landscape could have been a result of a conscious design, and not mere accident. Consequently, a brief overview of the symbol and its central role in relation to the Grail saga is in order. That the people associated with the bloodline of the Grail knew about the placement of the pentagram in the landscape is hard to argue, although Henry Lincoln seems to think he may have been the first to discover it since ancient times, and that the Priory of Sion might have been ignorant of it until he pointed it out to them. But if the Priory was in any way a legitimate continuation of the same tradition which the Templars shared, then it seems unlikely that they would not have known. After all, the Templars constructed cathedrals across the face of Europe whose precise placements replicated the same pattern, sometimes on exactly the same scale.

In addition, numerous figures linked to the Priory of Sion produced paintings into which the pentagram was secretly encoded, such as Jean Cocteau and Rene d’Anjou (both purported Grand Masters of the Priory in their time.) And Lincoln was lead to the discovery of the pentagram of mountains by another painting, Nicolas Poussin’s The Shepherds of Arcadia, which also bore an encoded pentagram. Furthermore, the pentagam is encoded in the painting of Mary Magdalen featured on the altar of Sauniere’s church.⁷ And the church had at one time a weather vane bearing the symbol. At nearby Montsegur is the citadel of the Cathars, so often associated with the Grail. The place was called “the lighthouse of Catharism”, and at the time of the Albigensian crusade were are told that the structure of the fortress was in the shape of a pentagram. We could go on at length cataloguing other such examples which indicate the relationship between the five-pointed star and the Grail. The examples are numerous, and all reinforce the same pattern already demonstrated. So we shall proceed to the next logical phase of inquiry: Why was this symbol so important to them?

Explanations offered range from the absurdly simpistic to the sublimely lofty. At the most simple level, some people maintain that the Grail bloodline came from the stars, and therefore they adopted the five-pointed star as an emblem of their origins. Others maintain that Venus, “the Morning Star”, is sacred to the Grail family, and that the pentagram represents her, since the planet’s position in relation to the Earth forms a pentagram as it moves through its orbit - the only planet whose orbit creates a symmetrical geometric shape. Both explanations are interesting, but not altogether satisfactory. The Pythagorean explanation comes closer perhaps, derived from the pentagram’s relationship with a measurement considered magical to the ancients: the golden section.

Also known as “the Phi ratio”, the golden section is formed when a given length is divided into two portions, so that the first portion’s relationship to the second mittors te second portion’s relationship to the whole. Each line of the pentagram is defined by the Phi ratio, also known as the Fibonacci sequence, the basic growth pattern of nature. Expressed in whole numbers the sequence begins with 0 and 1, mimicking the creation of the universe, in which the whole of existence emerged as the undivided monad out of the unmanifested void. Then, another 1 is added, making 2, the next stage in the creation of the universe, in which the undivided monad split into the duality of two opposing aspects (such as light and dark, male and female). From there, the sequence continues, adding the next number to the previous number in the sequence to create the one following. 2+1 = 3, 3+2 = 5, 5+3 = 8, and 8+5 = 13. Thus the sequence goes: 0,1,1,2,3,5,8,13... This sequence could go on and on indefinitely. When the numbers are divided by one another to form ratios (1/1, 2/1, 3/2, 5/3, 8/5, 13/8), the results, graphed on an x/y axis, form an undulating wave that starts out large and flattens out at an exponential rate towards an asymptote (a place approached but never reached) of 1.6180339…, with an endless series of decimals at the end.

In what’s known as a “golden rectangle”, this ratio can be expressed by dividing the rectangle into one-third and two-thirds sections.⁸ Then you construct a larger golden rectangle around that, with the first golden rectangle constituting the smaller, one-third section of the larger golden triangle. Keep doing this for several steps. The whole of each rectangle, when divided by the larger, two-thirds section, will always equal the same ratio as the large part divided by the small part. After you have constructed a series of golden rectangles within golden rectangles, draw a line curving from the inside bottom corner of the larger section of the first rectangle to the upper left-hand corner of that box, then continue that through the larger section of the second rectangle, then the third rectangle, and on and on. This curved line will quickly develop into what is known as the Fibonacci spiral.

As we have explained, the Fibonacci sequence of numbers represent the growth pattern of all living things in nature: the growth pattern of the embryo as it becomes a fetus, then a baby, then a child, then an adult, and of a seed that becomes a seedling, then a plant. The horns of a ram, the spiraling bracts of a pine cone, the whirlpools in the ocean and the storms in the sky also contain this pattern. The golden spiral, sequence and ratio can be found in the visual color spectrum, and in the thirteen-note musical scale. The vibration of each note is the sum of the vibrations of the two notes previous. The structure of a piano keyboard reflects this, with eight white keys, representing whole tones, and five black keys, representing sharps and flats, arranged in groups of threes and two, for a total of thirteen notes in a full octave. This contains the Fibonacci sequence of 2, 3, 5, 8, and 13. The most pleasing pieces of music are those which take full advantage of the Fibonacci relationship, striking a familiar cord with the Fibonacci spiral shape of our own ears, while music that sounds “off” does exactly the opposite. The syntax of words in poetry, in which some combinations of words are more pleasing than others, undoubtedly follows the same principles.

The few people who comment upon the notion of the golden section refrain from saying why exactly it was seen as being so inherently magical to the ancients. But perhaps the retisence occurs simply because the idea that it embodies is difficult to convey in words alone. On the most basic level, the golden portion represents the principle of divine harmony, albeit presented in mathematical terminology. And, as applied to the pentagram, this principle becomes a kind of geometric expression of the principles which govern the universe, while containing within itself both a pattern on one scale, and the implicit suggestion of the identical pattern on a larger scale. This pattern could be reproduced infinitely in either direction (reduced or enlarged), and would still retain the same intrinsic character. While this idea is fairly abstract, its ramifications extend beyond the merely philosophical to principles which can be harnessed and applied in the real world.

We know that one of the ways people in the past tried to harness the power of the pentagram was through the use of ritual magic. It was believed that a person standing in the center of a large pentagram could channel its energy so as to alter the world in accordance with their will. We could probably discuss at length whether or not the pentagram itself actually possessed inherent power that could be tapped into, but that is not germaine to the subject at hand. If the traditional use of the pentagram in the realm of the occult was its intended function at Rennes-le-Chateau, we may be faced with one of the world’s largest “ritual chambers” in the form of the area’s five-pointed peaks.

For as long as anyone can remember, Rennes-le-Chateau has been considered a sacred place. Well before the birth of Berenger Sauniere, and even before the advent of the Templars, this place was seen as holy. If our hypotheses are correct, this longstanding reputation could be far more ancient than anyone has yet speculated. Whatever Sauniere found at Rennes-le-Chateau made him believe that the town would one day become the center of world religion: the new Zion. Could it be possible that this same place was in fact at one time the center of world religion. Rennes-le-Chateau has long been seen as a place where the secrets of the past dwell, waiting to be uncovered. And perhaps there is a good deal more waiting to be uncovered than first meets the eye.

If we are correct, Rennes-le-Chateau may constitute proof that a civilization 10,000 years old was conversant with the Pythagorean notion of sacred geometry that we currently trace back no later than 600 AD. The idea that the Pythagoreans merely preserved the secret wisdom of the ancients could be something more than mere myth or legend. And the seeming progress or evolution of mankind may instead constitute devolution: a descent from a Golden Age into a wasteland. Indeed, the further we delved into this notion, the likely this idea seemed to become.

The Holy Land and the Gate of God

Initially, the thought that Rennes-le-Chateau was a “new Jerusalem” or “new Zion” seemed altogether far-fetched. What could have prompted Berenger Sauniere to view his modest country village in such grandiose terms? Our search for possible answers to that question would prove to be lengthy, and would yield wildly unexpected results. After months of testing various theories, we still had only speculation. Then one day, while examining a twelth century map of Jerusalem, the answer simply appeared to us. We noted what seemed to be an uncanny similarity between the geometric layout of the holy city and that of Sauniere’s domain at Rennes-le-Chateau. To be sure, the similarities weren’t precisely identical, but were so incredibly close in their general outlines that any casual observer would certainly take note of them. It appeared that the layout of Rennes-le-Chateau was patterned after that of the Holy Land. The most striking aspect of the similarities between the two was the placement of Sauniere’s church: it occupied the same point on the map as did the Temple of Solomon. Could Sauniere have believed that he was, on a purely symbolic level, rebuilding the Temple of Solomon?

Before we could even begin to speculate on what this might mean, much more research was necessary. We needed to examine more maps of both locales, from various periods in history. But we found one more startling detail in the twelth century map of Jerusalem that lead us to believe we were on the right track: the existence of what appears to be a gigantic pentagram superimposed over the city. Going with the assumption that these two places (Rennes-le-Chateau and Jerusalem) were intended to mirror one another, we naturally searched for any signs of pentagonal geometry evident in the Jerusalem map, and almost instantaneously it was found. It appeared in the shape of two roads situated towards the top of the map which formed an inverted “V” shape. Using a ruler, we extended the line indicated by one of the roads, and it eventually intersected with an ediface called “The Zion Gate.” Extending the line intended by the adjoining road the same distance resulted in the shape of the well-known figure central to the formation of a pentagram: the golden triangle.

That the Zion gate forms one point of the Jerusalem pentagram seems especially significant, for gates are a potent symbol, and one which has gone unnoticed by most researchers of the Rennes-le-Chateau mystery. The quote that Sauniere chose to inscribe above the entrance to his church proclaims that it is the “Gateway to Heaven”, and amongst the most prominent symbols employed at his domain, albeit perhaps the most subtle, are the many odd gates. There are gates made of coral, and gates decorated with deathheads, Templar crosses, hourglasses with demonic wings, etc. Asmodeus stands just inside the entry of the church, yet another gateway bedecked with odd imagery. As we have noted elsewhere, the full text of the inscription above the church entry relates to Jacob’s proclamation, upon awakening from his strange dream of the ladder, that “This is the House of God and the Gateway to Heaven.” As it happens, this is the exact translation of the place-name “Babylon.” The empire ruled by that city was at one time the very center of the ancient world, and following the Sumerian epoch, it dominated the stage of world history for nearly two millenia starting around 2000 BC. The city of Babylon itself was dominated by the Tower of Babel, now known by scholars to have been a massive, seven-stepped ziggurat, and not the round spiraling structure depicted in medieval religious paintings. Its foundation still exists and can be plainly seen in aerial photographs of the region.

Given the pentagonal geometry evident in the Holy Land, and the ancient nature of this symbolism, we wondered whether or not similar indications could be found in a map of Babylon. Almost immediately, we were able to locate a large triangular shape jutting across the very center of the map. It was defined on one side by a long boulevard named after the sun-god Shamash, which spanned the distance between the gates on either side of the city. It was defined on the other side by a road leading into the city, which in turn cut a line through key temples and points of intersection on the map. This second angle seemed to be the basis for a grid upon which the geometry of the east side of the city was oriented, and most of the key points that defined the layout of Babylon’s streets, temples and so forth could be found to conform to a series of lines parallel to it.

Many readers will scoff at the notion that people in such ancient times could possibly have possessed such knowledge of (or even concern for) sacred geometry, yet mountains of evidence exist (no pun intended) which demonstrably prove that they did. All the remaining ziggurats, pyramids, and monolithic structures of the ancients reveal an incredibly advanced knowledge of both geometry and astronomy. It can be shown that the ancients indeed understood these things, and that they undoubtably had a very central importance to these people’s cultures.

Because sacred geometry has been little understood, it is often dismissed as pure occultism. Yet its truly “occult” nature resides less in the realm of the supernatural than in the more genuine, original meaning of the term: “hidden.” Sacred geometry represents a tangible manifestation of the hidden principle that both underlies and pervades all of life and nature. That principle can be seen most vividly in the golden ratio, demonstrated in such forms as the the golden rectangle, the golden triangle, the golden spiral, and the pentagram. All of these figures share the same elemental relationship to one another, and all are founded upon the same instrinsic principle - a principle that was found to embody the workings of nature so strikingly, the ancients deemed its representation to be synonymous with the fingerprint of God.

Pentagonal geometry is not merely a variety of geometry based upon a principle, but rather an emanation of that principle, which can itself be found abundantly in nature. Cut open an apple crosswise, and in its center you will find seeds forming a perfect pentagram. Peel back the topmost leaves of a cabbage, and you’ll find find five leaves revealing pentagonal geomatry. Cut the same cabbage crosswise, and you’ll see a series of golden spirals contained within the growth pattern. Pentagonal geometry is one of the predominant schematics of life, including man himself. In fact the pentagram was used in Renaissance Europe as an emblem of man and the cosmos, of the microcosm and macrocosm each contained within one another. This should suffice to give at least some small indication of what the pentagram really signified to the people who used it, and why they thought it sacred. They considered it an emmanation of the mind of God, and believed that by more fully grasping the primordial principles it embodied, they could come into accord with the mind of God.

The ancients must have recognized in this geometry an example of divine harmony, and sought to embody this ideal in their art, music, and architecture. The most recognizable attempt to make this notion manifest can be seen in the gothic cathedrals that began to sprout up across Europe during the twelth century. The construction of these cathedrals has been linked to the Knights Templar, and were clearly built upon principles of sacred geometry. Inside and out we see the presence of the defining golden ratio, and of the pentagram. It has even been demonstrated (by Henry Lincoln and others) that many of the cathedrals erected were placed so as to form gigantic pentagrams across the face of the landscape, sometimes miles long. Some of them even link up to, or overlap with, the pentagram at Rennes-le-Chateau. This demonstreates that the creators of the cathedrals may have not only have known of the existence of the Rennes-le-Chateau configuration, but were consciously trying to replicate it.

The cathedrals were (and many still are) spectacular. They were like nothing ever seen before in Europe, and were built on a scale never before attempted by Europeans. This has lead some observers to posit a rather perplexing question: Why did this stunning new form of architecture appear so suddenly in the twelth century? If people possessed the knowledge and the means to create such structures already, why had no one ever done it before? Or, if they hadn’t previously possessed the knowledge necessary to create buildings on such a grand scale, where and how did they suddenly acquire it? Remember, the Knights Templar formed at the very end of the eleventh century, as a holy militia of only nine men, whose job it was to protect pilgrims en route to the Holy Land. A relatively short while later this same order was purportedly involved in creating giant gothic cathedrals across Europe. What is wrong with this picture?

Firstly (as has often been pointed out), the notion that nine men could function as an effective militia seems difficult to believe. Even if all nine men were on active duty from dawn until sunset, seven days a week, they could only effectively police a somewhat limited area, and presumably the area of the highest risk for pilgrims would have been out on the open road, well removed from Old Jerusalem, where the Templars were stationed. While it is certainly possible that they were trying to perform the function they claimed for themselves, it doesn’t seem altogether probable. A far more fascinating and likely possibility is a theory posited by a number of Templar scholars: that the order went to Jerusalem with the express intent of recovering a sacred treasure. According to the theory, the Templars, who had been headquartered in the stables next to the site of Solomon’s Temple, spent their time secretly excavating beneath the Temple Mount. There are legends of secret chambers and underground labyrinths beneath Solomon’s Temple - legends that may have already been ancient at that time, and many of which have already been borne out by archeology. It is assumed that they in fact did discover some such hidden chamber, and that it indeed contained a treasure of some sort, because in a relatively short time, the order’s wealth increased enormously.

Though many agree that they must have found something, the nature of the treasure has been disputed. Some theorize that it could have been a holy relic, such as the Ark of the Covenant. Others, that it was a king’s ransom in gold. Some say that it was simply a secret of monumental importance. Such assertions, exciting as they might be are (of course) pure speculation. Yet it remains likely that they did go looking for something specific, and that they found it. In fact, they may have possessed insider knowldege of exactly what lay hidden there.

Remember, the founders of the Knights Templar are reputed to have been direct descendants of King Solomon. And as we know, Godfroi de Bouillon, co-founder of the Templars and the Order of Sion, would later become the effective king of Jerusalem himself. Assuming that some secret legacy belonging to the Grail bloodline actually lay hidden beneath the Temple Mount, what figure might constitute a more likely inheritor of that secret than Godfroi de Bouillon? He could have known both the location of the treasure, and something specific of its nature. He could have concocted the whole scenario about protecting pilgrims to the Holy Land as a cover story. (As we discussed previously, the same families were involved in instigating the Crusades to capture the Holy Land in the first place, and may have had the same ulterior motive.) These secrets had been passed down from generation to generation, in expectation of the day in which some of these descendants would be in the right position to reclaim it. This is precisely where de Boullion found himself at the end of the eleventh century.

The Original Master Mason

One of the occult legends of Freemasonry states that the first Master Masons were King Solomon, Hiram of Tyre, and Hiram Abiff, and that they used a secret knowledge of geometry to construct the wondrous Temple of Solomon. According to this legend, Hiram Abiff was killed for not revealing this secret, the knowledge of which ultimately ended up with the Masons. Remember, the Masons are widely believed to be the inheritors of the secret doctrine of the Knights Templar. Could part of what the Templars sought in Jerusalem be that same secret knowledge which Hiram Abiff supposedly took his grave with him? If so, it would explain a lot. Keep in mind that it was shortly after the Templar excursion to Jerusalem that gothic cathedrals began to appear across Europe - buildings the likes of which had never been seen, and which completely embodied the ideals of sacred geometry. If the secrets of Hiram Abiff were indeed part of what the Templars found beneath the Temple Mount, it would explain why Hiram assumes such a prominent role in the lore of Masonry, and why the Temple of Solomon plays such a central part in the symbolism of both the Templars and the Masons.

In an alternate version of Masonic legend, it is said that King Nimrod, the architect of the Tower of Babel, was the first Master Mason. Albert Mackey’s 1898 book The History of Freemasonry tells us that Nimrod “was distinguished for his architectural works”, and that it was he who first organized stonebuilders, giving them laws and a constitution. Mackey also say that “modern discoveries of the cuneiform inscriptions show that Masonic legendists had... obtained a far more correct idea of the true character of Nimrod than that which had hitherto been entertained, founded on the brief allusion to him in Genesis and the disparaging account of him in the Antiquities of Josephus.” According to the source Mackey is citing, “Masonry... was founded in Babylon, from whence it spread to the rest of the world.”

Such an assertion might seem utterly outrageous, were it not for the overwhelming body of evidence demonstrating that the Babylonians did indeed possess an advanced knowledge of geometry. It can be seen in the pentagram we discovered in the map of Babylon, a configuration difining a series of grids according to which the entire landscape of the city was constructed. At the dead center of the pentagram sits what was the city’s holiest sanctuary: the Temple of Marduk. Babylonian stellae have been discovered that are clearly constructed according to the principles of the golden ratio. A nearby tower, once mistaken for the Tower of Babel, was clearly meant to be a three-dimensional model of a golden spiral. Babylonians also demonstrated an advanced understanding of mathematics, as evidenced by their possession of the “Ninevah number”, to be discussed in the following chapter.

The idea that Nimrod may have been the first Master Mason finds support in the chronicles of the Sumerian king upon whom the Biblical figure is based. As mentioned previously, his Sumerian title was “Nimirrud”, and he was the second Sumerian deified king. He is documented as a builder of great cities, having constructed Mesopotamia’s first city, Erech, as well as many other well-known cities from the ancient world. We have already alluded to the fact that “Nimirrud” was merely a royal title, meaning, according to L.A. Waddell, “Lord of the Tree of Life.” His story becomes far more interesting when we learn that his real name was “Kan”, and that he is widely believed to be synonymous with the biblical Cain. Evidence in support of this notion is both abundant and convincing. The city of Erech has been said to have been called after Nimurrud’s son of the same name. What’s more, it is universally acknowledged to be synonymous with the biblical city of Enoch, built by Cain and named after his son. In Ginzberg’s Legends of the Jews, the author writes that Cain endeavored to “immortalize his name by means of monuments, and he became a builder of cities. The first of them he called “Enoch”, after his son, because it was at the birth of Enoch that he began to enjoy a measure of peace.” The text goes on to say that he also built six other cities. In legend, Nimirrud is credited with inventing the plough, and sculptures of the king depict him holding stalks of grain. As it so happens, in Hebrew, the name “Cain” actually means “grain.”

In the Bible, Cain is expelled from Eden and is virtually never heard from again. It seems likely that the authors of the Old Testament were well aware of the Cain/Nimrod connection, and purposely contrived to misrepresent the situation so as to expunge Cain from Jewish history. Could this also be the reason that the Tower of Babel which he erected is presented as an affront to God, rather than a marvel of engineering?

In Babylonian mythology, it is said that the god Marduk built the city of Erech/Enoch. Marduk is another name which is actually a title, and means “Son of the Sun.” This was a title applied to Cain many years after his death. When he no longer reigned as a deified king, he was worshipped as one of the primordial gods. Marduk is commonly depicted holding a trowel. Mythologists writing about Marduk have speculated that the trowel he is often shown holding is a representation of his association with agriculture, for he too is credited with teaching mankind the cultivation of grain. But it seems to us that the trowel he bears is in fact identical to that used by stonemasons, and used in the rituals of Freemasonry to this very day.

So, is it possible that Cain was really the first Master Mason? If we believe history, he seems to have devoted his life to the building of monuments, temples and even entire cities. The famous ziggurats of Babylon are recognized to be masterpieces of engineering and sacred geometry. They can be seen as architectural models of both the cosmos and the Self - stone monuments into which may be encoded the great secerts of the universe. Such structures were not to be seen again until the age of Europe’s gothic cathedrals.

The Prophet Returns

Now that we had established for ourselves the strong relationship between the Grail bloodline and the science of sacred geometry, we began to wonder what they had done recently to demonstrate the continuation of this tradition. Nobody builds monuments like they once did anymore, and monuments were, in the past, the bloodline’s trademark way of expressing the geometry they so revered. But there is one modern figure associated with the bloodline who used his artistic talents to create his own monuments, and who saw himself as continuing the traditions of the ancients: Jean Cocteau. As we shall see, his works are imbued with the same geometric principles found at Rennes-le-Chateau. They also reveal, to the initiated, some of the greatest secrets of the Priory of Sion – some of which may even be among the greatest secrets of the ages.