Transcription
Jesus never wrote anything. Excuse me, a rabbi, a learned man, he never wrote anything. This god-king of theirs is now all of a sudden illiterate? Oh, come on. What a, you know, what a bunch of wallies. Yeah, really. It's one after another.
Well, absolutely. And this is, this is the whole point. And, um, but if you've got this letter, if you have this letter, just think of the power that it gives you. And my thought then was, okay, is there any proof that they got this letter? And the answer is actually no, there isn't. But there's some, what should we say, certain coincidences that take place which suggests that all of a sudden the new rulers in Jerusalem have got something that no one else ever had.
Number one, the Patriarch of Jerusalem did not want to crown Baldwin the First as king. You know, if you remember, Godfrey of Bouillon, yeah, who was only ever, I wouldn't take it. No, he wouldn't take it. Right, because he said he only would take, um, Keeper of the Holy Sepulchre, Protector of the Holy Sepulchre. It's called something like that. And the church was absolutely against having a king of Jerusalem. Baldwin arrives, promises, has a private interview with the Patriarch, and the Patriarch comes up, "I will crown him tomorrow." Come on, what made him change his mind? Something, a document, maybe.
But even more important. [Music] In 1119, just after they had founded the Order of the Temple, a particular Pope was elected. He was called Callixtus the Second. And guess what? He's a little vulgar. You couldn't like this. You couldn't. Well done, Brown Mark. But, yeah, but I mean, you actually can't. It is almost, it's like, "Oh my God." So here we are saying that we're back in power, boys. And guess what? You're going to be Pope. Um, anyone disagree? No. There's this letter here. We've got. You better all shut up. Or all of Europe is Catholic, theoretically. Theoretically. Okay. So you've got most of Europe Catholic. You've got a major power base. Yeah, that's major land, money, income, you name it. Somebody gets over there. These are wonder guys. Get over there. Find a bit of paperwork which they can then bribe the most powerful organization on the planet. They've used that organization to get what they needed. Yep. We've been very clever. Usually, irony is incredible here. I mean, if you want a conspiracy theory, you know, just, it is. You couldn't write a conspiracy theory. It was even, I mean, from anywhere on the earth, this has come from you going after facts. It hasn't. You haven't. You didn't think about this before. I hadn't got a clue about it until you were just simply tracing genealogy. That's all I was doing. And all of this came to life. Yeah. I mean, I had to go and look for documents. I couldn't have done it without the internet. I have to say that because I can Google things in and find out where documents are. Yeah. Once you find out where those documents are, then you can go and look for them. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I've had very, very similar things. This is, this is where a lot of researchers need to remember is the internet is a great place, but there's an awful lot of stuff that's just made up on there too. Absolutely. Um, so you've got to go for the original documentation. I did the same thing with the Bond Cone where I went to university in Houston, actually found it. But if I hadn't had Google, I wouldn't have known where that piece of paper was. Absolutely. So, yeah, it's, it's very, very useful.
So after the break, we're going to get deeper into these god-king's boots because I know there's a lot more to talk about, especially with regard to the Knights Templar, um, which I know a lot of people that are watching will be interested in. So join us after the break. [Music] [Music]
Hello there. Welcome back to Gardner's World, where I'm joined by Professor Montgomery. We're talking about god-kings. Uh, before the break, we were talking about sources, really. And one of the, one of the amazing things that, that I've found since I've known you is, is the paperwork that you've got. I, I didn't, no idea some of that existed. And I know for a fact that there are certain people in Hollywood that would love to get their hands on certain pieces of paper that you've got. And there are various other authors which, um, ask you to use them and have used them in their own work, etc. I mean, what's, some of these sources that you've managed to find?
Well, one of the most important documents is called the Abdus Manuscript. Although its full title is "The True Acts of the Apostles." Whether that's differentiated from the other ones, but it was written by a guy called Abdus, who was the Judaeo-Christian bishop of Babylon. Um, and he, it says in the prologue to it that he was related to the Lord. Unfortunately, he doesn't say how he was related. I wish he did. Well, he taught my dreams. We're implying Jesus. You weren't playing Jesus.
What he does give, however, is the fact that Jesus had a twin brother called Judas, known as Judas Thomas. He had, does he get confused in the Bible as to be a separate person? Um, possibly. He certainly gets confused occasionally in the Acts of Thomas because in one of the places in the Acts of Thomas, he, um, Jesus actually has to turn around and say, "No, I am not my twin brother, Judas. I am Jesus." Right. So, very fine. Terrifying. That one. Okay.
Um, so he had a twin brother. He also had, um, a full brother called James, or Jacob. And then, of course, his father had a second wife called Hannah, and by her, he had Simon, known as Simon Hannanaeus, another Judas, or Judah, known as Zealotes, and a guy called Thaddeus. And so we have a perfectly normal Jewish family. They were all polygamous. So, you know, his grandfather had two wives, his father had two wives, he had two wives. And Jesus, of course, is a rabbi, supposedly. So he would have. Well, the fact of the matter is that if you look at Quran and Deuteronomy, it's almost the same. It actually says that certain people cannot be named or numbered amongst the people of Israel as adults unless they can prove that they are men. And the only way you could do that was by fathering a child. Yeah. So, um, because if you couldn't father a child, guess what? You were chucked out. Yeah. So, I mean, you know, there is no question in my mind. And the obvious document actually points certain things out about him anyway, doesn't it?
Yes, yes. It makes, it makes very clear that he was, you know, it actually says that that Joseph and Mary, um, created their children per column by way of the flesh. Well, then no virgin birth, and no, you know, um, resurrection or anything like that.
So how did this, this document survive? Well, surely the Christian Church, the Catholic Church wouldn't have wanted that document around. Well, it survived amongst no hunger who happened to be, who happened to be a Habsburg Emperor, right? Right. And this is where the original, uh, manuscript finished up in the, in the, um, hands of the Habsburg imperial family. From there, it was copied in 15 something rather and printed for the first time. So a document which casts Jesus as an ordinary guy having kids and a twin is kept by all hunger dynasty people who then at the right time, that the time when it's okay to do so, or, you know, because that's that's that's just started turning forward. Exactly. It's about people are pinning things. Yes. It's about that time. Yeah. So there's a kind of new enlightenment coming up, theoretically. This is the, the most powerful Catholic monarch. You know, this is the imperial family. More Ireland.
Well, the fact of the matter is that the Popes used to think that they were terribly, terribly Catholic. But, um, one of the Habsburg Emperors did turn around and said, "Well, actually, I just regard the Pope as my private chaplain." [Laughter] Enough said. Yes. Take that one. Yeah. So they did definitely by that period see themselves extremely powerful. And they had them, I mean, thought it was extremely powerful anyway. I mean, when you read about that guy.
So these are people that see themselves as being incredibly powerful anyway. Absolutely. Playing some vast game all relating around this bloodline. Yes. Using the Jesus thing occasionally too. Well, I mean, one of the problems about, one of the problems, for example, about the Habsburgs is this damn lip, you know, the famous Habsburg lip. They call it your chin. Yeah. Guess what? Um, there's no longer traits in certain families in the Hungers because it got, it got, you know, they used to intermarry to such an extent. Yeah. That this is what happened. For example, one of the kings, one of the Bourbon kings, I think it was called, uh, one the Bewitched. It's called one birch, something with the witch, anyway. And, um, I mean, he was so into bread that he couldn't speak anymore. His tongue stuck out and he's, you know, I mean, he was just a complete mess.
This is our importance. It was though. Yes. To keep that blue. Yeah. But, you know, and, and one of the worst things was the marriage of uncles to nieces. I mean, that was, we just went on all the time. Just, you can't even contemplate that kind of nonsense. But getting back to ut, where we've got this plan in place. They, they've taken Jerusalem in the First Crusade. They've taken various other points as well, Antioch, Edessa. Yeah. Uh, and various points. Yeah. They've possibly got this text, yeah, which they've used to stitch one on the Pope. But, you know, this period, we've got rising this famous Knights Templar. Does, does this come into the history of it at all?
Well, yes and no. First and foremost, if you go and look at the internet, I point this out in my book, the so-called nine Knights. Right. The only person who actually mentions them was writing about 70 years later, I think. And he actually only mentions two, Hugues de Payens, which is usually translated as Hugh de Payens, and André de Montbard, translated as André de Montmartre. None of the others are ever mentioned anywhere in any document until much later. Until much later. However, if you have a look at the names of some of the others, and I'd have to actually look in my book there to pick out the names, at least one or two, possibly three, can be found as in the private bodyguard of either Baldwin the First or Baldwin the Second. Right. Both of whom started life as Counts of Edessa, both of whom became Kings of Jerusalem, and both of whom were Almong. So Almong.
What's the implication there? Well, as far as I'm concerned, I, I see the Knights Templar as being simply the person starting off as the personal bodyguard of the Kings of Jerusalem. Um, however, because certainly the Baldwins were in contact with the, for example, the Egyptian Fatimids, which would have been against, um, what a lot of the, we call it, peasant crusaders. Um, you know, we'd be checking against what they thought because they were all fervent Catholics, etc. Absolutely. Um, he probably wanted a very special bodyguard who could take personal messages for him with trust. Yes. Ones who could keep secret. One who could keep secrets. And so later on, we get all this concept of the Knights Templar keeping secrets. Absolutely. Yeah. And those secrets could possibly be, well, these texts that they were found in Edessa. Very possibly. Maybe they, for example, I mean, I don't think they went and dug themselves under the Temple. It would have been far below them to go around digging. But they might have had an army of laborers who, who did some digging there. And their job was to act as policemen. And anything that came that, "Right, I'll have that. Thank you very much." And, you know, put it in the box somewhere. Because the other thing that was very powerful, not just the bloodline stuff, another thing that's very powerful is relics. You know, Constantine's mother, she was, you know, famous. Yeah. Let me see what she found. She found the tree on which Jesus was, was supposed to, the cross on which Jesus died, except it was a living tree and it was green. So she cut it down and divided it to fall. Uh, the nails of the cross, um, the three wise men. And from then on, reliquary has been, you know. And we see it as stupid. We may walk into a church in Spain or somewhere and see a little reliquary box with a chicken bone in, saying, "This is the birth of someone." Yeah. Um, and we just can't laugh. You know, how ridiculous is that? Um, but we'd forget historically, at the period, how powerful that was. Mind manipulation. It still is. Yeah. It still is. Oh, it is though. Yes. So people don't really realize that in our nation, how powerful. Yeah.
I mean, one of the other interesting relics, which theoretically was in Edessa anyway, was became known as the Holy Mandylion. And it was supposed to be the face of Jesus on a cloth. Now, according to the documents that came out of Edessa, it wasn't. It was painted by the court painter from real life. Um, I suppose that it would, well, to me, it would make sense because it was painted on a sort of, um, cloth of some sort or other. They didn't have canvas, per se, in those days, I didn't think so. And it was painted on a cloth which presumably would have been then sort of stretched over some things that you painted. And that was a precious relic that they had. Now, in 300 and something, I can't remember the exact date, one of the Eastern Emperors supposedly robbed that and took it back to Constantinople. My question would be, would they be stupid enough to give out the original? Or were there a lot of copies made? And yes, sir, that's the original. There are, there are an awful lot of instances of the Mandylion. The, it's there. It's there. Exactly. So that would make complete sense that it's all over the place. That's the way I look at it. And therefore, if they also found that, that would have gone back to Jerusalem. And then would have probably, once Jerusalem was in the, was about to fall, it would have been taken out together with lots of other documents. And we know, for example, that I think it's in the year 1152, but I'd have to check on that, the exact date, there is an entry in the chancellery of Jerusalem which for a wooden box lined with oil silk, bound with arm, and with sailcloth covers, which suggests to me that this box was going to be transporting something very precious, something which could deteriorate. In other words, it wasn't gold or something of that sort, otherwise you wouldn't line it with oil silk. No. Right. And that was then transported to Europe. Because it would, the reason for having all this was presumably protected from the sea journey. So, but I've got 90 was in it. I don't know how many boxes there were. We don't know how big the box was, whether this size or that size or whatever. No idea. But there is this one description there which is interesting. Yes. It says, I mean, it's almost like the Shroud of Turin, you know, which did fall into certain family hands, didn't it?
Well, um, it, it is very possible that at some stage or other, one of the Kings of Jerusalem decided to give it to the Knights Templar, and from there it passed into the family of, I forget who, who owned it, and thereafter became the Shroud of Turin. I mean, it's a possibility, but I don't know. That is, that's that's speculation. Yeah. It's. Well, what isn't speculation is the work that you've done. The facts that you've uncovered. The, the incredible amount of textual evidence which are in all three of your books, and which I know that a lot of other researchers in this field use as a reference. Some of them attempt to use it. Um, one of them, only one, actually has ever seen any of the documents prior to, to my publishing that, anyway. And that was Michael Baigent. And he actually mentions this in one, one of his books. Um, others have, a lot of people use your books. Oh, yes. They use your books as references. Yes. Because you've done the hard work. So it's easy to go to your book. So, you know, that in itself is, is a work that's worthy because it's helping other people. Um, you've done a lot of legwork for them. So there's a lot of facts and things in there. How do people find out anymore about you? How would they contact you, for instance, for conferences and things?
Then they would go to www.nucleusagency.com. Okay. To my agent, and contact them. And they would do the, um. You're up for speaking. You do lectures. Um, and very good lectures as well, because you're a professional. So, um, that's, that's what's coming up soon. You've got a film coming out. I know that because we just made it. So if anybody wants to see any more, or less, there's a film out, probably now when you see this. It's called God Kings. And it will be available on Amazon and all those places. And that goes into very visual stuff. So thank you very much, you, for coming on the show. I'm honored, yet again, sir. Thank you very much. Thank you.
So, I, I do hope you've enjoyed that, and that you'll join me again on Gardner's World. And there are more information on gardenersworld.com if you want to find out about any of my guests. So, see you again soon. We've got a really special show. We've got the expert, Tim Wallace-Murphy, on with us. The expert in Templars, in what's known as the Rex Deus, which we're going to get into soon, in the Holy Grail, Freemasonry, symbolism, all manner of things. And people will know of, of Tim's work through the best-selling book that he had out with, um, Marilyn Hopkins, Roslyn. Superb book, really is. A read that everybody's got to get through. Um, not least of which was a man known as Dan Brown, who used this for his book, The Da Vinci Code, which I'm sure really did the book sales, pretty, you know, a lot of good. One of his latest books is "The Knights of the Holy Grail," which, um, he's just given me. So I'm looking forward to reading this. I'm sure it's a fascinating read. It's a lovely cover. But this again goes into the Templars. Um, so this is going to be fascinating. And of course, another one of his latest books, he just doesn't stop writing, it makes me mad, is "The Freemasons." This is really going to be interesting too, because I know that Tim knows an awful lot about the Freemasons from outside and inside. So this is good stuff. Tim, thank you very much for coming along.
It's a pleasure to be here again. And putting me in a humble situation of having this greatness arriving my chat show. I'm absolutely fascinated by one of your books, Rex Deus. You know, this is a Latin title. Can we explain to people what this really means?
Well, with pleasure. But before I do, I've got to refute one horrible accusation you've leveled at me of being an expert. X is usually the mark of somebody who is illiterate, and a spurt is an intermittent drip. So if you're accusing me of being an illiterate intermittent drip, I'll cop it. Please build it. The term expert in its common usage is one I detest. I'm a geriatric student. I've been following a particular path for over 37 years, and I'm fascinated by what I do, but I wouldn't claim expertise in the common sense. I know a little. I know enough to know where to look next, and that's all I need.
Now, you mentioned Rex Deus. Many years ago, I was giving a talk on about Rosslyn Chapel to a group of people in London. And afterwards, I was approached by somebody who claimed to be a direct descendant of Hugh de Payens, one of the co-founders of the Knights Templar, and also, he said, he was a descendant of the original high priesthood of the Temple in Jerusalem. I was fascinated by this idea, and I invited the man to dinner along with another colleague of mine who had a working knowledge of European and biblical history. And we put this man to the question for five and a half hours and tape-recorded the entire thing. And then I spent some six or seven years investigating, was there any validity to the story I'd been given?
Now, the story was very simple: that during the time of the Greek kings in Israel, the Temple had been defiled, and the original 24 high priestly families who were known as the Mamadot had moved from Jerusalem and left the Temple because of it being defiled, and had set up shop at a place called Qumran. And these people later became known to history as the Essenes. And two things I already knew about the Essenes: one was that John the Baptist was most certainly an Essene, and secondly, that Jesus, the man who was known to history as Jesus of Nazareth, in fact, should be more commonly called Jesus the Nazarene. And the Nazarenes were an offshoot of the Essenes. Nazareth, as such, didn't actually exist at the time of Jesus. So that's one of the many confessions brought out by the Church.
Now, my informant, Michael, who'd called me after this meeting in London, had given me an indication that the descendants of these 24 priestly families became later became known in European history as Rex Deus, but they were very, very secretive. They continued to marry in the traditional Canaanite manner of the Jews of biblical Israel. In other words, they only married other Cohanim. They only married people from the same group. And this became one of the keys in discovering who was who within these dynasties. And my colleague and a co-author at that time, Marilyn Hopkins, and myself set out to test to destruction the idea that such a family dynasty could have continued and could have risen to power as a result of many years of work. We discovered that not only was there some substantial reality behind this theory, but that some common form of belief had united these families to risk their lives, their properties, and their liberty, not once, but many times throughout European history. And that their most famous fruits by which they are known, although the origin of the Rex Deus theory wasn't known at the time, were in movements and initially and initiatives that they started. Those movements include the foundation of the Knights Templar, the writing and propagation of the Grail romances by Chrétien de Troyes and later by Wolfram von Eschenbach. They were very Cistercian. Yes and no. I'll explain that in a little moment. They were also instrumental in propagating the first set of Tarot cards, and the earliest complete set we have got are the Visconti set. Uh, there is another set in France called the Gringoire, now, which again was promulgated by members of the Rex Deus dynasties. And the Tarot cards, although they're used for all sorts of fortune-telling, and perhaps quite validly so, who am I to comment? They were also used as playing cards, but they're, they're actually flash cards. They're teaching boards, teaching heresy, a totally different form of belief system to the one, uh, promulgated by the Church. Makes a lot of sense. Uh, and then later, the same families were also instrumental in founding another controversial order, uh, called the Freemasons. Now, you drop the word Freemasonry into any conversation today, and stand by for fireworks. The conversation will reveal the prejudices of those around you. Uh, and depending on their religious perspective, they will be either pro or anti-Freemasonry. And it will be alleged by many that there is a worldwide conspiracy between the Jews and the Freemasons to run the world. And all I can say is, if that's the case, being both a Jew and a Freemason, how come I'm not Pope or head of state? I'm not even rich. Again, rather like the Templars, because very little factually is known outside the fraternity, it leaves room for speculation and accusation, which is spread like wildfire.
So in your books, you've actually uncovered evidence to prove that these families do have existed or have got a golden thread through? First, first of all, we found that the principle, the whole principle of a hereditary priesthood did not actually start in Israel. It started much earlier in ancient Egypt. And in one program you recorded with that wonderful colleague of mine, Dr. Robert Feather, he mentioned the name Akhenaten, was an Egyptian Pharaoh who was deposed for nearly wrecking the Egyptian economy, oddly for religious reasons. He instituted a form of monotheism. And Akhenaten, under another name, is actually far more widely known. And that other name is Moses. And if one wants to check on the validity of that particular insight, I would recommend the work by my colleague Ahmed Osman, "Moses, Pharaoh of Egypt." The argument as to whether Moses was a Pharaoh or an Israelite foundling has long since been settled by Egyptologists. They know he was a Pharaoh. And the only argument is to which Pharaoh was he? And my money is on Osman's choice, which is Akhenaten. So Aaron would have been one of Akhenaten's brothers. Brothers? Yes. Uh, and the principle of hereditary priesthood was already well established in Egypt. And just simply carried on. There weren't people of Israel known as the Israelites or the Hebrews at that time. And don't take my word for that. Check the words of Sigmund Freud, that great, uh, Jewish historian. He reckons that the word Hebrew didn't come into common usage until after the exile in Babylon, in about 650 BC. So the idea that the Israelites were a separate nation who were enslaved in Egypt, as regarded by most historians, as spurious nonsense. They were Egyptians who were displaced to what had been an Egyptian colony or satrap state called Canaan. There was no forcible occupation. And from that developed what we now know as the people of Israel and the religion of early Judaism. And early Judaism didn't start to take on anything remotely like its present form until after the exile in Babylon. And it was after that period that the 24 high priestly families started to attain major importance. And we were able to trace by, from our research, through tax records in Rome of the Roman Empire period, the whereabouts of many of these families after the Jewish revolt finished in AD 70 until the time of the fall of the Roman Empire.
Now, then there becomes a hell of a gap. From the time of the fall of the Roman Empire until the development of efficient bureaucracies in, in France, Northern Italy, and Spain, where we are looking at sort of the beginning of the 11th century, there are no independent ways of verifying family tradition. So, hand on heart, it is not possible to prove the validity of this theory that they were descended from the priesthood of the Temple of Jerusalem, unless there's some kind of genetic way through the DNA. DNA tests can prove the probability that it could be true, but again, it cannot prove an absolute fact. It shouldn't show a common ancestry at the right period. And there are among certain of the families, those tests are going on as we speak, certainly amongst the Sinclairs, who are part of that group. That's not right.
Fascinating. The conclusion that Marilyn and I came to in our first book on Rex Deus was that it is absolutely impossible of independent verification that this theory is true. But what was possible to verify was the Canaanite pattern of intermarriage between the families. The fact that these families, who often squabbled amongst themselves, would from time to time unite for seemingly implausible reasons and risk their lives, their property, and their freedom for common political ends. So they obviously had some form of common belief system driving them. And we suspect that that common belief system was the Rex Deus theory.
Now, according to our informant, the Rex Deus families would accurately practice the religion, the prevailing religion of their place and time, which in most cases would be Europe and Christianity. But inwardly continue with their own sacred belief system, which were very largely Gnostic, for a form of Gnostic Judaism. And it's perhaps instructive that after Rex Deus was published, we received a letter on very impressive headed note paper, saying, "Dear authors, it's a pity you didn't consult me before you rush so precipitously into print. We must talk, or better yet, meet." So I rang the author of this letter in some trepidation, because we had an incomplete story. We filled in the gaps for our own knowledge of medieval history. And after some chat and sort of getting to know each other a little, I said to him, I said, "Well, excuse me, sir, where did we go wrong?" And his answer was quite revealing. I said, "Oh, you didn't. It's just incomplete. The story is just incomplete. Do you want the rest?" "Of course I want the bloody rest." Uh, and the result of that investigation, that started when he started to disclose further information to me, and when I checked on its validity, was a book called "Custodians of Truth," which traces a continuous stream of Gnostic initiatory teaching from the times of ancient Egypt right up to and including the present day. It's still happening. And to me, that is what it's all about. And there are certain common themes running through this, which again, I think Dr. Feather has mentioned, that for the Freemasons, from the Knights Templar who preceded them, and for many of the hidden streams of spirit, heretical spirituality in medieval Europe, the important issues were not, "Jesus, the person of Jesus." It was the actual teaching process whereby John the Baptist taught Jesus, who in turn taught John the Divine. So the two jobs.
We're going to have to get on that point there. You're going to have to join us again after the break, when we're going to get deeper into the teachings. What is the, what is it that they were really after? What were they really teaching and passing on to each other? Join us after the break. More from Tim Wallace-Murphy. [Music] [Music]
Hello and welcome back to Gardner's World. Um, today we've got Tim Wallace-Murphy with us, the, uh, I won't call him an expert, but the geriatric old man who looks into various mysteries. So before the break, we were talking about, uh, John the Baptist. And, um, it's particularly fascinating by the head of John the Baptist, which is really interesting concept when we're talking about the Templars. But you were talking about John the Baptist beforehand, so do continue, please.
Well, to refer back to my good friend and colleague, Robert Feather. Robert has, I've uncovered, I think, fairly compelling evidence that John the Baptist's grave is out or near Qumran. And of course, the corpse in the grave is headless. We all know the story about Salome and the beheading of John the Baptist. What a lot of people are not aware about is that there are at least three claimants to have held the head of John the Baptist. There is a relatively modern reliquary which was created after the French Revolution when the original one was destroyed. And this reliquary contains the alleged head of John the Baptist in Amiens Cathedral in Picardy in France. And Amiens Cathedral had burnt down in the fire at the end of the 12th century, and at the beginning, very beginning of the 13th century, was rebuilt to house the most precious relic of the Knights Templar, namely the reliquary containing the head of John the Baptist, which had been brought back from Constantinople after the siege of Constantinople by a gentleman called Jean de Sarto. And that reliquary and the head are still to be seen this to this day in the ambulatory surrounding the choir at Amiens Cathedral. And according to my good friend and colleague, uh, Geez, that head was consulted by means of necromancy by the Knights Templar. Now, you believe that or not, according to your own personal predisposition.
There is another alleged head of John the Baptist hidden somewhere in Scotland in the keeping of some unnamed but supposedly great and good family, about which, as I've never seen it and I don't know who's supposed to be its custodians, I haven't the faintest idea.
Then we have the famous painting at Temple Combe, which was discovered built into a ceiling in what had been an old Templar cottage in the, in the Templar village of Temple. And this painting now resides in the church of Temple Combe. The church at Temple Combe is not Templar at all. It's considerably later. But the painting is still there. And careful examination of that painting, which depending on one's perspective, is either allegedly the head of Jesus or the head of John the Baptist. But if you look at it very, very carefully, you'll find that it is utterly bloodless, white, and it's totally detached from any body, and it looks as though it's been violently hacked off somebody. But more importantly, in the background of that painting are distinct markings of the Fleur-de-lis, which have been part of the Rex Deus symbolism since the time of before Akhenaten, since the time of Thutmose IV. In the Fleur-de-lis has been a sign of the descending bloodline from the Pharaonic House, then later through the Royal House of David in Israel, and on to the Capetian Kings in France. It's now wrongly regarded as part of the French coat of arms, but in fact, it has a highly specific meaning of descent, and it's Gnostic in the extreme. Its origins in Egypt were because the lily was cultivated for its mood-altering qualities and was purely and solely the property of the Pharaonic Royal House because it was incredibly difficult to cultivate in that climate. And its first symbolic reference is on a freestanding pillar outside the Temple of Karnak that was erected by Thutmose IV. Previous Pharaohs had erected, as was traditional, a pair of obelisks flanking the pathway to the Temple. Thutmose IV broke with this and put up freestanding pillars of no architectural significance whatsoever, one of which is on the capital is carved a very stylized Fleur-de-lis. And those two pillars, incidentally, may be the reality that lies behind the story of the Pillars of Boaz and Jachin in Solomon's Temple, so fondly preserved by the Brotherhood of Freemasonry. Because despite the fact that Israel is the most heavily excavated country in the world, no undisputed Solomonic remains of any description have ever been found anywhere within it. So the so-called Second Temple, erected by Zerubbabel, may well have been the first one to be actually cited in Jerusalem. Uh, the argument then becomes a historical one: was the idea of Solomon's Temple, as described in the Bible, founded on a reality in some other country, or was it merely a mythical construct, a nice ideal that to which we should aim? And nobody's been able to settle that argument with any great sort of degree of clarity. But it is interesting that one of the people who had a founding touch in the creation of the Order of Freemasons, or William Sinclair, who built Rosslyn Chapel, has left us in a church which is regarded as the core church of worldwide Freemasonry, which celebrates Solomon's Temple, the only direct reference to the Temple in Jerusalem is oddly to the Second Temple, to Zerubbabel's Temple. So one thinks perhaps that the family traditions within Rex Deus had told him something that modern archaeology only discovered very recently. And this family tradition within, uh, the Rex Deus families is vitally important because that's how the Templars knew where to dig to find whatever it was they were looking for.
Now, the Copper Scroll was originally decoded by a wonderful man called John Allegro, who later fell out of favor with the academic world. Big type. But John had access to many of the sites described in the Copper Scroll and excavated several of them. And none of them did define any Temple treasure. But in a couple, he found Templar artifacts. In other words, somebody had been there before him. So the theory that amongst the things discovered under the Temple Mount may have been copies of the scrolls is plausible. It ain't proven, but it's plausible. There is some merit to it, but your guess is as good as mine on that.
I mean, this story is endless, and it goes in so many different directions. But getting back to things we do know, you know, you've just been talking about the head of John the Baptist. We do know from the Bible that that supposedly occurred. Yeah. This, we certainly know that the Templars held John in high esteem, amongst other orders as well, it has to be said. Um, you know, the Knights of St. John, for instance. And so why, why is it so important to worship a head? And why John?
I don't think they were worshiping it in the sense of believing it was divine. I think they revered it, which is a different thing. Okay. Uh, because what they were celebrating was not an individual. They'd seen what could happen with the veneration of an individual taken to absurd lengths through the Church and the deification of Jesus, which of course is species nonsense from start to finish. What they were venerating was a process. A process of transmission of sacred teaching. It's called initiation. It was an inherent part of the Egyptian tradition. It is a part of the tradition of most of the native peoples of this world. It was celebrated in Persia, and it celebrated again within Freemasonry. And within most of the mystics. This is the thing that, uh, Islam and our Sufi brotherhood term the Barakah. That's right. It's the passing on of sacred knowledge and sacred practices leading to sacred knowledge from master to pupil down through the ages by using a form of ritual and stylized teaching so that the teaching is passed on in exact replication from one generation to another.
Well, there's something about this is very Egyptian, isn't it? Because, you know, an Egyptian hieroglyph is a very, this depth to it. It doesn't just mean what it states to you. There are many reasons to it. And, and, you know, according to some Egyptian, um, Egyptologists I've spoken to, they, they even almost think that the Egyptians were having a laugh sometimes when they placed a lot of hidden symbolism behind things. But the, the point being that that what they were doing was passing on much more information in a different way to just ordinary words.
Well, it had to be in a different way because there are so many things, once you get involved in the mystical path, irrespective of your point of entry, very soon you come to issues which are incapable of being transmitted in words. Yeah. This is why when I wrote "Cracking the Symbol Code," I made a plea to my readers: don't take my word for the explanations of symbols, because symbols are not there to be explained. They're actually there to be, I only explain them to intrigue you, the reader, so you will go and experience them for yourself. And your experience of one particular symbol in one site will be very different from mine. And if you go back to the same place six months or a year later, the second or the third time, it will be different yet again. It has a means of communication which is totally transcendental.
It kind of unlocks your mind, isn't it? It's, but it's more than mind. Yes. It's absolutely. It depends what you want to call mind. Yeah. But you want to get, getting back to, to what it is that it was unlocking. And we get back again to this word mystical. Can we explain to people what it really means? Because it's a word that people use, you know, them in pop, in the pop world. I mean, you know, mystic. What does it really mean?
Of course, in relation to what we're talking about, pop in many cases, ephemeral drops which passes. But it's also a vehicle for modern-day poetry and communication. And the principal purpose of a poet is to keep the sense of the mystical alive and well and transmittable and meaningful to people of new generations and new cultures. And that is what part of the pop world does. Kind of troubadour. Yes. Exactly. It's exactly that.
Ah, I've been talking to somebody over the last few days on Aries, touching on this. And the amount of times that I, as a professional wordsmith, cannot find words to frame an idea or a concept. And I don't have to. In many cases, I can think it and be picked up by my partner. It is beyond thought. It is beyond words. But there is a purpose to it. And the Sufi tradition, which you have mentioned so many times with such great respect, they say, "Go home and polish your hearts free it of impurities, free it of malice, free it of envy, so that you can reflect love." Yes. Unconditional love. It is the answer to being loved. It is the answer to being attacked. You reflect love. Uh, it's about service. A very good friend of mine called Ellen Aviva was doing a PhD thesis on the effects of pilgrimage, the transformative effects of pilgrimage. And she was doing this at a time when, by her own admission, she was an agnostic. She didn't know what to believe or whether to believe. And at one stage, she met a limping pilgrim. And she said, "Are you on the pilgrimage to Santiago?" And he said, "No, I'm on a much older pilgrimage that uses the same route, the pilgrimage to the stars." And she had a moment of insight and realized that beneath every valid spiritual path, there is truly only the one. Yeah. And then many years later, she realized the real profundity of what she said when she became a Sufi. And the one is defined as the indivisible, almighty God that is behind the whole thing, and that is within each one of us. And it is uncovering our ability to communicate with the divine within ourselves, and to serve other people with love. That is the essence of the mystical experience.
They're a heretic. Yes. I'm a heretic. Depending on how much time you've get. I could waffle on my spirituality and ways that were both appalling. The kind of point I, I'm making is, you know, we talk about the Templars and the possible knowledge of the hypnosis and the mystical experience, you know, the knowledge that comes from the mystical experience. Their connection to Islam, to me, is fascinating. Because having read in-depth, you know, Islamic works, I see a lot of Gnosis in there in Islamic works, which, which we failed to see today because of the junk that were thrown out on the TV most of the time. Do you see the same thing?
Yes, but there was, there was Gnosticism, although it was absurd as a heresy, it ran like a river underground throughout European history, particularly in the medieval period. Let's clear away one fallacy. The Templars were not the only Gnostics in the business. Most of the people we now call the medieval mystics, people like Hildegard von Bingen, Mechthild of Magdeburg, Meister Eckhart, our own Julian of Norwich, were all Gnostics. Uh, and suffered very serious abundance by the Catholics when they were safely dead. Rather like Thomas Aquinas. I mean, the great Thomist philosopher, he's revered as a saint, yet he was condemned for heresy. And who, he became speechless as a psychological result of that. As time changed, yes. Not really. The Church has not changed much. I mean, the present Pope, Pope Benedict the umpteenth of whatever his title is, he used to be known as God's Rottweiler. He exclaimed when he was head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, better known as the Inquisition, he excommunicated more theologians in 20 odd years than his predecessors had done in three centuries. What's changed? No, not a lot. Not a lot. Uh, luckily, the important things never change. The power of love, the power of caring for people, the qualities of compassion, the humility to admit, "I don't know it all. I have to seek and find." This is why they're, they're unchanging. And this is fine. I would totally agree entirely.
And then I want to get more into the, the Gnostic side of this as well, after the, after the next break, which is coming up. And I also want to touch on things like the Grail, because you, you write an awful lot about the Grail. So, you know, it's something that I've written on too, so I'm fascinated about the Grail. So after the break, we're going to get into the Grail and some more Gnostic wisdom with Tim Wallace-Murphy. [Music] [Music]
Hello and welcome back to Gardner's World. Before the break, we were talking to my wonderful guest today, Tim Wallace-Murphy, about a thing called Gnosis, the mystical experience, and the fact that these things have seemed to be a golden thread through time, right back into Egypt, even. So, Tim, could you explain to people really what this Gnosis is, this, this Gnostic experience?
Gnosis is usually defined as a form of sacred knowledge. I prefer to modify that a little. It is the product of a spiritual path, a quest for understanding, a quest to serve, a quest to get closer to the divine that is within us all. You cannot separate out Gnosis, spirituality, and the Grail quest. For example, they are all descriptions of exactly the same process. And the trouble with it is that people think they know what the Grail quest is all about. They think they know what spirituality is, and they only know a surface meaning which has been fed to them.
By the church to keep them quiet. I had a friend who some years ago started to recover from a serious illness as a result of following a spiritual path, and he was a bit of an agnostic. And he had problems about this, and he went to his teacher and said, "I'm a lapsed Baptist. Uh, I don't want to know about religion and hypocrisy of taking the Bible down on Sunday and screwing everybody from Monday to Saturday. What's the difference between spirituality and religion?" And his teacher refused to answer him. I said, "You want to go and ask an expert." Back to that dreadful word again. And he recommended one, a Jesuit priest called Ed Darling. And much to this man's intense hurry, he found himself known in front of not merely a Catholic priest, but a Jesuit priest. And he said, "Father, what's the difference between religion and spirituality?" And the priest looked at him with a compassion and pity all sort of mixed up together, said, "Well, son, to explain this, I've got to tell you a little story. You see, religion, spirituality is the fresh spring water of God's love for all of creation, which arises naturally near the top of the mountain, and under God's wonderful gift of gravity, trickles down the mountainside and sustains and refreshes and strengthens everything it touches. Now, religion, that's something else entirely. That's the well-intentioned, man-made plumbing which tries to make the water go uphill where it shouldn't go, and will usually whistle it past your house without the benefit of the tap. And being man-made, of course, it always pollutes the water. If you have any doubts, my son, go back to the spring."
Now, this is what every heretic, every true spiritual seeker has been doing for years. A Muslim friend of mine, a Sufi master, defines spirituality somewhat differently. He says, "Spirituality is a river that descended to earth through Adam, may God grant him peace. It was refreshed by the great prophets Abraham, Moses, Elisha, and Jesus, may God grant them peace, by the great prophet Muhammad, may his name be blessed, may God grant him peace. It is a river that knows no boundaries in space or culture or time. But yet, sadly, but understandably, every race, every creed, every culture claims it for its own. But my friends, it is always the same river. And the nature of the spiritual experience is to bathe in that river and learn to access that interior way of knowing, that new way of thinking that we all possess as part of our inherent birthright. That is the whole point of the Grail search."
The church in the medieval days said that outside the church there is no salvation. You must come to God through us. And even if you live the life of a plaster saint, because of the taint of original sin, you're going to fry in hellfire for all eternity. And they try to equate that weird concept with the idea of a loving God. I can't square that circle. Other people can. I can't. But that meant you had to go to church. You had to do it that way. Spirituality is about following the advice of Jesus the Nazarene. "Do not pray out loud in the synagogue like a hypocrite. Go to a quiet room and close the door and talk to your heavenly Father." And talking to our heavenly Father in the appropriate way, with humility and dedication and love, you start to get the answers. Surprise, surprise. Prayer is the asking. Meditation is the listening, the receiving, the knowledge, the receiving, the instruction, the receiving, the guidance. And if you have any doubts about the validity of this, question me by all means, but go back to the source. Did he not say, "Seek and you shall find"? Not, "And it shall be opened." Not here.
Joe Campbell defined the Grail search as a quest for spiritual enlightenment. He said, "Why should any medieval knight go out and seek a relic, however holy, when all he has to do is go to church and through the miracle of transubstantiation, partake directly of the blood and body of Christ?" It's a search for enlightenment. My first collaborator, Trevor Ravenscroft, wrote perhaps his most important book, "The Cup of Destiny," which is an explanation of the coded guide within Wolfram von Eschenbach's "Parzival," the pathway of initiation. It's all about that. And if you look at, for example, the recorded sayings of the Native American people of the 19th century, and you look at the writings of the medieval Christian mystics, you can swap the names around. They're saying the same thing. They're using different phrases, but they've the same insights because it's human. More importantly, they're accessing the same divine, same source. Absolutely. And that source is within us all. Yeah. And it's accessible. And the name of the game is to search for that. And more and more people are engaged on this search. In the last 30 or 40 years, what has been a trickle of interest is turning into a tidal wave of curiosity. And it's transcends cultural barriers. It's got nothing to do with race or creed, as it has for a long time. Yes. And it's the same search. And it's not surprising people come to the same answer.
One, one thing that a lot of people in the world will think and will want to say, you know, in the literal world rather than this mystical world, we want to say, "If this teaching has been alive for so long and has been passed on through the Rex Dares family into the Templars and Freemasons, etc., why are the Freemasons therefore implicated in, unfortunately, so many revolutions and other unknown dealings? People being, you know, hung from bridges and all kinds of different things. Is this just a human element of the Freemasons?"
Well, first of all, you mentioned being hung from bridges. You're obviously thinking of Roberto Calvi, who was ritually killed in London. He was murdered. And he was murdered by people who purported to be Freemasons. In fact, they weren't Freemasons at all. When they connected to P2? It was P2, it was an illicit lodge which was recognized by no Grand Lodge within Italy. And it was a front for a combination of mafia financiers and Vatican bankers. And so who wanted the Pope, who wanted to investigate that matter in depth, died very suddenly and very mysteriously. And some claim he was murdered. And that investigation was a renegade Irishman known as Archbishop Marcinkus, who could possibly have a lot to offer in the way of explanations. But to claim that was part of Freemasonry is not true. However, Freemasonry, the role of leading Freemasons within revolutionary movements and liberation movements is a matter of record, of which I, for one, am extremely proud. Uh, for whatever one may think of modern American politics, their constitution is still a beacon of light for many people who are struggling to attain basic freedoms. And that constitution was very largely formed, not completely, but very largely formed by Freemasons. Uh, the unified, one of the many reasons the Papacy is still anti-Freemasonry is the unification of Italy was brought about, uh, by people, by Garibaldi, who was, of course, a leading Freemason. And Pius IX knew who to blame for his enforced exile in the Vatican, the truncated state of the Vatican. It was the Freemasons who put him there. Uh, prior to that, he had exerted a considerable degree of earthly power. Very similar things can be found in Spain, Portugal. Yes, very important. Most of the South American countries were liberated. Bolivar, for example, liberated. Being a different word to probably what a lot of conspiracy theorists would produce.
Well, one man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist. It depends on which side of the, uh, proper defense you're seeing. Because let's, let's get real. It's not about abstract theories. One of the reasons that sacred teaching has been ignored so long is people have been inculcated with the idea of ownership, the idea that capitalism is somehow essentially good, and that it is perfectly okay to exploit other people, and somehow you can reconcile that with the concept of "love thy neighbor as thyself." Now, some people can do this. I can't. I've tried. I'm sorry, I can't do it. You can see why some people would sort of take a step back and say, "Well, you know, this looks like the Freemasons have got a grand plan." They have a grand plan. It's a very simple one. It's the same, same grand plan, dare I say it, that Jesus has used, that the Maulana Jalaluddin Rumi used, which is to teach people how to live in harmony and love and brotherhood, not merely within the group of Sufis or Freemasons, but spread that through the communities in which you serve. What you do not hear about Freemasonry are the countless billions of dollars spent annually quietly on charities, on medical research, on homes for handicapped children, on homes for the elderly, providing life. Because it is not about saying, "What a good guy I am." It's about serving my community. Absolutely.
So they're following the, the, the, they're living in this. Yeah. We're talking about they are. Why the other stuff secret? Is that because of the, the massive power base of the Catholic Church, for instance? In the beginning. In the beginning, it may have been. So this is a kind of war. Was there, has there been a kind of war going off between the, the Gnostic, you know, we were talking earlier off-camera about the Celtic Church, for instance, who was certainly influenced heavily by this whole thing? You know, has there been a battle between this Gnostic and the Catholic Church for a long time? The battle has always been fought from the church's perspective. The secret teaching always tells you to to appear to conform and just keep the teaching alive. You reflect with love. You don't go into battle. You bide your time and you wait. And that time is now coming.
I remember having an interview with a very leading French mystic about eight years ago, a wonderful man called Fredericke Leonel. And Frederick, when we concluded the interview, which went for about four or five hours, I thanked him very profoundly. A wonderful man. God bless. And he said, "I've read your works. You're writing about things that are known to very few. And as a master, you have a sacred duty. You must continue." And the more I protested and said I was just a geriatric pupil, the more he just shook his head. He said, "There is not much time. You must continue." And things are gathering pace. I'm about as important as a grain of sand on a beach because there are hundreds of more people doing exactly what I'm doing. They're writing and talking about what fascinates them. Says the door on this ring. A quotation from the Holy Quran. It says, "Isn't God enough for you? What do I need ritual for? What do I need apart from sharpening myself up a little bit? What do I need ritual for? Is God is all. God is God. And it's my relationship with God and finding God within myself that is the key to the whole thing."
I'm a member of the 12-step recovery program, which teaches me that I can learn to tap into a deep inner resource that I have previously denied myself. What they're talking about there is spiritual transformation. It's the key to everything. It's what Jesus summed up in when he said, you know, somebody asked him once, he said, "What do I do? Must, what do I do to be saved?" He said, "On the Lord thy God with all thy heart and all thy light and love thy neighbor as thyself. Therein hangeth all the law and the prophets." It was not original. It was not something new. He was quoting a book that was 600 years old at the time he spoke. It's called the Book of Leviticus. It's part of standard Judaism. The whole idea of the Torah is how do I relate to the people about me, being my wife, my children, my servants, my masters, my slaves? It's regulating how do I behave. And ultimately, that is the real fruit of spirituality. How do I behave towards other people? This kind of answer is a big question, really, doesn't it? What were they fighting for? What were the Rex Dares? It wasn't just about keeping it within the family. It was keeping probably, you know, one of the greatest treasures that there is. And it's been absolutely fantastic having you on, Tim. Thank you so much for coming along. Bless you. It's been a pleasure. If anybody wants to know more about what Tim has written on, then there are lots of books. There is Roslyn. There is this brand new "The Freemasons" book, "The Knights of the Holy Grail." Um, not yet got a website up, but if people go to my website, Gardner's World, they'll find out a bit more on that. Thank you very much.
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