The idea that Jesus founded a dynasty first came to public attention with the publication of The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail by Baigent, Lincoln and Leigh. This is still the first place to start and a ‘rite of passage’ for anyone researching these areas.
The Priory of Sion, it seems, was a little bemused by the focus of The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail and the attention that it brought to the bloodline aspect of the mystery. As Nic Haywood affirmed:
‘I have never stated to you that Sion’s primary concern is the bloodline of Christ, merely that there is an extant line.’
Other authors have since looked more closely at the idea of the ‘Holy Matrimony’ of Jesus and Mary Magdalene. Margaret Starbird’s books go a long way in exploring the many aspects of the sacred union. Her evidence is drawn from many different historic sources and makes for a compelling argument.
The idea of a bloodline dating from Jesus to the present day is not a modern fabrication. Many of Europe’s old noble families, such as the Merovingians and the Hapsburgs, openly claimed such auspicious origins.
Apart from a window depicting the marriage of Jesus and Mary Magdalene, a second window in the church of St Martin in Limoux depicts Jesus presenting a boy to Mary Magdalene with the following inscription: ‘Woman, I give you a son.’
Mary was born of the tribe of Benjamin, which had at one point been exiled from Israel and prevented from marrying among the other Israelite tribes owing to the ‘Benjaminitic Crime’ (see page 205). By the time of Jesus this ruling had been overturned and if he married Mary Magdalene this would unite the two tribes of Judah and Benjamin as the king and queen of Israel.
The altar painting in the church of St Mary Magdalene in Rennes-le-Château depicts Mary kneeling by a grave marked by a branch that has two live shoots. In the background there are clear references to the local landscape. If we consider that the painting shows Mary at the grave of Jesus, the two live shoots would likely represent their living offspring. This idea that Mary and Jesus had two children forms the basis of the bloodline theory.
While in exile, some of the tribe of Benjamin are said to have migrated to the region of Greece called Arcadia, and the theme of Arcadia returns many times in the mystery. According to The Golden Legend the boat on which Mary travelled from Judea to Gaul sailed via Greece so it is possible that she rejoined her tribe briefly and perhaps placed a child in its care to hide it from further persecution.
In this context Poussin’s painting of the Arcadian shepherds (Et in Arcadia Ego) takes on a new level of meaning. Arcadia also happens to be the reputed place of origin of the Merovingian dynasty of Frankish kings (see page 248) and so it is not a great leap to see how a child of Jesus and Mary may have been the source of the new European dynasty. Sion confirms this:
‘Yes, the Merovingian blood royal is connected directly with the Davidic line. More correctly still, it is connected inextricably with the true “Benjaminitic Crime”.’
The Franks are said to have migrated west and entered Gaul no later than the third century. Their early chieftains rose in power and by the time of the Merovingians in the fifth century, following the collapse of Roman imperial authority, they had become kings of most of present-day France.
According to legend the Merovingians were said to be identifiable by the birthmark of a cross between their shoulders or over their heart, and The Golden Legend states that ‘Mary Magdalene set the sign of the cross on their shoulders’.
The Merovingian dynasty continued until the eighth century and was responsible for circulating a number of heresies concerning Christ, including that they themselves were descendants of his bloodline. This claim was also taken up by their successors, the Carolingians, and later by the Hapsburgs.
Our attention was brought to the Merovingians by the inclusion of their genealogy in Le Serpent Rouge booklet. The Merovingian dynasty is reproduced in an extended form that includes additional names not commonly accepted as part of their ancestry.
History records that the Merovingians died out with the murder of Dagobert II in the seventh century, but the story spread that his son Sigisbert was smuggled away to the Rennes-le-Château region to preserve the royal line that later joined with the Hapsburgs. A reference to this can be seen in the ninth Station of the Cross at Rennes-le-Château, where a Frankish warrior stands behind Jesus and holds aloft a red cape, symbol of the Hapsburgs.
The restoration of a royal dynasty to power is a myth that is found down the ages in many forms. Like the lost and returning king motif, this also echoes the Masonic story of the widow’s son and that of the child of Mary Magdalene and Jesus.
The evidence that Sigisbert survived and that the Merovingian bloodline continued in secret is said to exist in the form of a letter belonging to the families local to Rennes-le-Château. Le Serpent Rouge also directs us to the church of Saint-Sulpice in Paris, where there is a portrait of King Dagobert II on his deathbed. There are two boys in the painting, whereas Dagobert is said to have had only one heir. This illustrates the secret continuation of a royal line, hidden from view and protected by organizations such as Sion.
The tradition of removing a bloodline child and placing it in the care of others to protect the lineage is seen in the early lives of both Moses and Joan of Arc. In literature and legend the same happened to King Arthur and was also common practice among the Celts, as seen in numerous Irish myths. Before the painting of Dagobert there is a statue of St Vincent de Paul holding two children and Le Serpent Rouge mentions the ‘Children of St Vincent’ as builders of the new Temple. St Vincent de Paul was responsible for the care and protection of orphans and in its way this too answers the question that echoes back to Mary Magdalene in ‘who will take care of the widow’s son?’, the child who would have instigated this royal lineage.
The bloodline continued as the Merovingians until 751, when they were succeeded as rulers of the Franks by a new dynasty, the Carolingians, named for their first ruler, Charles Martel. Martel’s son was Charlemagne, who ruled most of Western Europe and was crowned ‘Emperor of the Romans’ in 800. From Charlemagne the bloodline spread out into several medieval royal families of Europe, such as the Hapsburgs.
Another clue to this exists in the Rennes-le-Château mystery, for while Father Bérenger Saunière was incumbent priest of the church he opened a number of bank accounts with the Hapsburgs, the ruling imperial family of Austria-Hungary. Many believe that Saunière was paid by the Hapsburgs to pass on the secret documents he had discovered in the region. This would likely include the letter of evidence belonging to Countess Marie de Negri d’Ables and hidden by Saunière’s predecessor, Father Antoine Bigou (see page 72).
The Château Hautpoul at Rennes-le-Château was occupied by Marie de Negri (or de Nègre) d’Ables from the mid-18th century until her death on January 17, 1781. A decade later many nobles and priests were forced to flee France following the French Revolution of 1789. If the ‘secret’ of Rennes-le-Château was more than just documents and included an important location in the area, it would make sense that before Bigou himself left for Spain in 1792 he would have hidden any references to it, as well as any associated documents, somewhere within the church.
At this point in history the two strands of the secret are reunited: the heresies of the secret Christian teachings (see page 211) and of the bloodline come together. At the time, with the priesthood under threat, the Priory of Sion surfaced under the guise of the Rosicrucians to instigate and influence the array of manuscripts, books, carvings and inscriptions that would ensure the survival of the heresy. From this tradition the mystery of Rennes-le-Château was born.
Sion also brought with it the alchemical slant that permeates the entire mystery. The de Negri are said by Sion to have gained their name (‘of the Blacks’) by marrying outside their race as a re-enactment of an earlier event. This event is possibly the punishment visited upon the decimated tribe of Benjamin when no other tribes were permitted to provide them with wives (see page 205). There is also an alchemical image of the ‘White Queen’ marrying the ‘Ethiopian’ but this would seem too primordial, too archetypal an image to have stemmed solely from the French aristocracy.
Following Countess Marie’s death, the Marquis Paul-Urbain de Fleury inherited her residence, the Château Hautpoul at Rennes-le-Château, and his presence in the region is visible today in the churchyard at Rennes-les-Bains. He has two tombs with conflicting dates on them, one of which refers to the date January 17 and the other says that ‘Il est passé en faisant le bien’ – that is, he was a ‘good man’, the term used by both the Rosicrucians and by the Freemasons in their 18th (Rose+Croix) Degree, which originated in the region.
Further Masonic connotations are hard to ignore, for example the Seventh (Royal Arch) Degree contains references to lost documents and bloodlines. This ritual is an enactment of the discovery of a secret document beneath Solomon’s Temple as if by the Templars. The link here is that the Royal Arch rite would appear to be a vehicle for the idea of the bloodline, with its revelatory exclamation: ‘We are of the bloodline of David and princely tribe of Judah’. Le Serpent Rouge also refers to Fakhar ul-Islam, who was decapitated, supposedly while in possession of genealogies relating to the bloodline. Decapitation is a threat associated with revealing the secrets of this degree (see Walton Hannah’s Darkness Visible: A Christian Appraisal on Freemasonry).
At the present time it must be considered that bloodlines would seem to run everywhere, as by now any ancient family will have descendants scattered across the globe. Through all the legitimate and illegitimate offspring of Europe’s royal and noble families, countless numbers will have a speck of ‘blue blood’ coursing through their veins. However, in spite of this we are told that the bloodline has a purpose, an outcome caused by the ‘two purest bloods of the two tribes’ – Jesus and Mary Magdalene – joining to produce an heir.
Sion tells us that according to their timeline a marriage between the Hapsburgs and another noble family, possibly the house of Lorraine, was meant to happen at the end of the 19th century but did not occur. It was further delayed by the two world wars, the first of which was sparked by the assassination of the Hapsburg heir and his wife.
In the case of the Hapsburgs and the house of Lorraine, there was a trend of claiming descent through Jesus and back to Abraham, or even Adam. Historically the Hapsburgs can be traced back to the Frankish kings so that may account for this genealogical tradition being upheld. Descendants of the Hapsburgs and Lorraines are still very much extant today in various parts of Europe.
When we look upon a coat of arms we take for granted that the symbols representing the different threads of ancestry somehow confer something of status upon those bearing the arms. The symbols on banners and shields and their attendant names that come down through the ages may have no more glorious an origin than our own. Indeed, many of us may be related to nobility through some long forgotten or illegitimate coupling.
Historically, royalty has attained the highest of power over others but was there ever a king or queen truly worthy of this privileged position, deserving the power they held? A monarch like Solomon perhaps: both wise and spiritual.
The tradition that is being upheld by the idea of the bloodline is that the Israelite dynasties were, as scripture claims, appointed by God and born to be priest-kings and the chosen leaders of nations; the idea that Jesus and the other disciples had families and descendants and that some of these migrated to the West to found the royal families of Europe.
Standing back and considering the issue objectively, we discover that kingship counts for nothing if it is merely a position of ruling and succession. Any despot who seizes power in a tribe and pronounces himself king would be different in title only to the rest of the tribe. The king’s descendants would succeed to the throne and eventually adopt the pretence of being somehow elevated in nature above the rest of humanity.
On the face of it, modern European royalty is generally bereft of real political power. It exists primarily owing to tradition, funded by its inherited lands and other wealth and also by taxation. It performs little or no service to humanity and deserves no more respect than you or I.
But before we take to the streets we must look deeper into the notion of kingship. It would be unjust to sacrifice that which we do not fully understand.
The pre-Christian bloodline has been covered previously, quoting the lists of Jesus’ descendants in the gospels (see Chapter 14). It should be clear from these lists that not everyone was thought to have descended from Adam or we would all be kings. What the bloodline seems to imply is that Adam and his descendants are in some way different.
Before we get too carried away with the romance of such an idea we must be aware that some of the traditions surrounding the bloodline have the potential to be used to justify racism. Modern genetic testing proves that we all include a mix of either African or Middle Eastern ancestry. Anyone who sees the bloodline as some herald of racial purity would be laughed out of any scientific establishment. And any attempt to claim sovereignty on grounds of race or heredity is to be ignorant of all that may be important about the bloodline.
Likewise to entertain the notion that any of the Twelve Tribes of the Old Testament managed to stay ‘pure’ is counter-evolutionary and actually genetically unsound. In any tribe that remains exclusive the number of hereditary diseases grows exponentially over time. Porphyria, for example, is a hereditary enzyme deficiency present in the British royal family and is believed to have been responsible for the ‘madness’ of King George III. Limiting the gene pool leads not to a ‘purer’ species but to an increase in genetic defects that would eventually ensure that group’s extinction. Rather more sensibly, the tribal demarcations in place among the Israelites seem to have denoted certain religious roles or practices than actual physical origins. The elitist view of kingship is entirely undone when we understand that the purpose of a king or queen is to be in the service of their people. To be given the honourable power to rule one must administer it not from ego but as service guided by wisdom.
Sion makes it clear that the esoteric aspects of the bloodline are just as important as any real notion of a family line. There are many traditions of kings and lost bloodlines that mirror this story, but these are more than just a means to keep the story in the public eye.
The bloodline has families but also includes followers, who have subscribed to an ideal throughout history. It carries a body of knowledge down through the ages that works on a number of levels. This is what Sion refers to as the ‘underground stream’ (see Introduction). Before we immerse ourselves entirely in this we must stay for a moment with the bloodline and examine the myth of divine kingship failing and returning to rule again.
That the various strands of the bloodline survived in secret and will one day return to power is a theme we see again and again in history and mythology. There is a tradition in France for ‘lost kings’ that appears in such accounts as the legend of the possible survival of Louis XVII, who died in prison in 1795, aged ten. The story of his survival was so popular that even today there are those who claim to be his direct descendants and therefore rightful heirs to the French throne. The return of the lost king is a notion that can be found in the Egyptian myth of Osiris, the Second Coming of Christ, and even in that epic of modern mythology, The Lord of the Rings trilogy. A particularly famous example is that of Arthur. The medieval Arthurian legends speak of a ‘once and future king’ who will return one day to rule again, just as the Holy Grail is lost and periodically rediscovered. These courtly legends of chivalrous Arthurian knights are likely to have been influenced by the troubadours’ mythologizing of the crusading Templars. Sion told me that the legends include names of families that still exist in the Languedoc area. Some consider the castle of Montségur, to the west of Rennes-le-Château, to be synonymous with the castle of ‘Montsalvaat’ in Wolfram von Eschenbach’s Parzival, where the Holy Grail resides. Montségur was the last major Cathar stronghold to fall during the Albigensian Crusade and the Cathars have long been rumoured to have possessed the Grail in any of its many forms.
The authors of The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail interpreted the ‘Holy Grail’ to be Mary Magdalene, who continues the blood of Jesus through their children. But it also has an important spiritual aspect.
At the conclusion of the 19th (Grand Pontiff) Degree in the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry – the Freemasonry alluded to by the boy depicted in tartan in the church at Rennes-le-Château – the candidate is given the title ‘Priest after the Order of Melchizedek’. In the Bible, Melchizedek appears in Genesis as the king of Salem prior to the Deluge. He is mentioned again later in Psalms, after the Deluge, which supposedly wiped out all humankind save for Noah and his family. This causes some confusion for those who take Melchizedek to be an individual. This is because Melchizedek is not a name but a title, meaning ‘Teacher of Righteousness’, a term later used to describe Jesus. It is the title of a priest-king who returns many times to rule.
Priest-kings are believed to be divinely appointed rulers. Like the pharaohs of Egypt, they were seen as an incarnation of divinity in human form and Melchizedek was said to have no earthly parents. But what does this actually mean?
From the outset Sion has evaded all enquiries about the exact origins of the bloodline. I have attempted in a number of ways to get an answer to these questions: what is in the blood that makes it so important? Is it different from the blood of me and you? If so, how, and where did it come from?
According to the Bible, the first man created was Adam (a word that simply means ‘man’ in Hebrew). Sion affirms that ‘the bloodline existed long before Christ. It is from the house of David, back to Adam.’ Adam is seen as the perfect man, originally free from sin and self-consciousness before his fall from ignorance by eating from the tree of knowledge and expulsion from Eden. Eden maps psychologically onto the experience of being in the womb, the only time we live in a perfectly blissful state. The womb offers an attractive but unhealthy retreat from the suffering of being present in the world. Adam is our unborn self, to which some wish to regress. However a healthier intention is not to go back to Eden but to re-imagine a new version of Eden in the future, where bliss is not ignorance but enlightenment.
Even as an idea rather than literally a person, Adam was not a product of the Bible. The earliest known account of a god-made first man is that of Marduk, a god of the Babylonians, putting ‘flesh to bone’.
Merovech or Merovius, the legendary founder of the Merovingians, was said to be the son of a human mother and a sea deity. Henry Lincoln is credited with the idea that the half-man, half sea-being Merovech symbolized the offspring of Jesus and Mary Magdalene as the fish was an early symbol – pre-dating the cross – of Jesus, the ‘Fisher of Men’. (The Greek for fish, ichthus or ichthys, was held to stand for Iesous CHristos THeou Uios Soter – Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour’.) I personally do not hold with this interpretation but the image of the divine-human hybrid is compelling to some for other reasons.
Genesis 6.1–4 contains a reference to a race of giants called ‘Nephilim’. They are described as the result of the ‘sons of God’ mating with the daughters of men. The Nephilim also appear in a number of non-canonical texts such as the Book of Enoch and the Book of Jubilees, while the Bible also refers to ‘the giants, the sons of Anak, which come of the giants’ (Numbers 13.33).
The Babylonian equivalent of the Nephilim are the Ananaki, the fallen gods of royal blood. In Babylonian art these are always depicted as giants. This would imply, as argued by authors such as Zecharia Sitchin and Laurence Gardner, that the origin of the bloodline is extraterrestrial, or at least an as yet unidentified lost race. The claim that these beings are ‘giants’ is of particular interest. Sion’s Nic Haywood raised the idea of giants in conversation a number of times.
Giants are present in the myths and religions of many cultures, including those of the Celts in Europe, who credit them with shaping the landscape, for example. The presence of the Anak giants of the Old Testament seems to decline after the battle between David and Goliath. Indeed this event may have signalled their fall from power, or the episode could be seen as symbolic of a passing from the old blood to the new.
The giants also appear in our story in other ways. There is an old legend from the region of Rennes-le-Château that concerns a cave filled with sleeping giants waiting to be awoken.
Giants may well deserve much further research than is possible in this short space, but their presence in so many myths and cultures makes them difficult to discount completely. And while giants provide a difficult supposition to accept, the idea that they are extraterrestrial in origin requires an even greater suspension of disbelief.
The various theories of ‘alien intervention’ in human development draw on many sources in order to glamorize the humble process of our evolution. Some authors and researchers are willing to put their necks and reputations on the line and state what seems absurd. William Gray in Sangreal Sodality claims that the blood of the bloodline is important because it is alien. Laurence Gardner in Genesis of the Grail Kings proposes the same notion.
A good starting point for these claims is of course the Bible. As stated above, in Genesis we read that ‘the sons of God came down and took the daughters of men to be their wives’. These brides produced strange offspring with ‘shining faces’. This has been interpreted by some to mean that the DNA of humanity was hybridized.
The major flaw in this theory is that it is not possible for different species to interbreed, so any genetic influence via breeding would have to come from other humans. The blood need only be of a species that was seen as alien in the broader sense of foreign to the biblical region. The ‘shining faces’ in Genesis are more likely to indicate the influence of relatively paler-skinned Europeans, who were establishing trade routes with these cultures. These ‘sons of God’ who came down from the sky did so at a time when mountains were considered by many ancient cultures to be where the gods resided.
Rather than some extraterrestrial input, therefore, it would seem that some other aspect of the blood is being brought to our attention. Perhaps a more symbolic or mythic quality is being communicated.
Looking at the rulers of Europe’s principal historical dynasties we rarely find them to be particularly enlightened individuals. So why is the blood in these families so special? As Sion tells us: ‘The blood has properties.’
There is a tradition that comes down to us from pre-Christian times that might indicate something of importance in the blood. In c1200 BCE Persian Zoroastrianism was one of the most popular religions in the Middle East. It was a dualist faith with elements (such as the virgin birth of its quasi-mythical founder, Zoroaster) that would clearly influence Christian mythology over a millennium later. In the Zoroastrian sacred book, the Zend Avesta, Zoroaster states that his seed would remain dormant ‘in the lake’ for 3,000 years and then return in the form of a saviour. This is clearly echoed 1,000 years later by Christ, who promised to return after a further 2,000 years. In addition, Genesis 28.14 states:
‘Thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and thou shalt spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south: and in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed.’
This ‘seed’ is important and can be found described in similar fashion in Egyptian mythology. Osiris is murdered by Seth, who dismembers him into 16 parts and scatters them throughout Egypt. Isis, Osiris’ wife, travels the land to recover the pieces but according to one version of the myth she only finds 15 of them. The phallus of Osiris is absent, having been thrown into the Nile and lost (or devoured by a fish). Isis rebuilds Osiris, and breathes new life into him, but his phallus remains absent. Here again we have the image of the seed lost in the lake. This was one of the most important aspects of Egyptian mythology, as seen in the proliferation of obelisks. The obelisk represents the phallus of Osiris and it is interesting to note that there are Egyptian obelisks in both Saint-Sulpice and the Vatican.
Obelisks are akin to the pagan standing stones of Europe and both have a common source. The pagan version is a general symbol of masculine fertility, like the maypole with its streamers, around which people would dance to herald the arrival of spring. It is the rebirth stage of the cycle of death and resurrection. We can see now why the Roman Catholic Church co-opted such an image, knowing that at the same time it was adopting the idea of the returning messiah.
Another biblical version of the ‘seed in the lake’ story can be seen in the account of the Deluge, when Noah is instructed to build an ark ‘to keep their seed alive’ (Genesis 7.3). Both this and Egyptian flood myths hark back to the flood myth of Babylonia, where the counterpart of Noah is given this command: ‘Bring into the ship the seed of life of everything.’ (Epic of Gilgamesh, XI.27.)
A further instance of this symbolism can also be found in the Arthurian legends. The ‘Lady of the Lake’ raises Arthur’s sword, Excalibur, from the water to help establish the nobility of the ‘once and future king’. King Arthur receives Excalibur and returns it to the lake once the wasteland of his kingdom is healed.
Interestingly, in Wolfram von Eschenbach’s Parzival, the narrator cites his source as ‘Kyot’, and claims that he in turn received the story from ‘Flegetanis’, an astrologer and descendant of King Solomon. Flegetanis, Wolfram claimed, had seen the name of the Grail in the stars.
The tradition of using astrology to predict the coming of the Messiah appears in the gospel of Matthew as the ‘wise men from the East’ (Matthew 2.1) following a star to the birthplace of Jesus. The gospel calls them magi, a Greek term that meant ‘magicians’ in the sense of skilled practitioners of esoteric arts, especially astrology and divination from dreams. Owing to their supernatural wisdom they understand that the particular star they are following manifests Jesus’ royal status (Matthew 2.2).
The idea of something lying dormant may account for a marked lack of divinity in the actions of those kings and nobles who theoretically descended from Jesus in continuation of the bloodline. Perhaps there is a quality in the blood that must be awakened to achieve the ‘return’ of the priest-king of the line.
This is where the hypothesis wanders into strange territories. For the blood to have a different quality to normal human blood it must contain some other property. This is not necessarily ‘alien’ but might be a genetic defect of some kind, which can be triggered under conditions, rather like porphyry, a hereditary disease historically found in many of the British and other royal families which can be triggered by prolonged stress – such as George III underwent over the America war. His first bout of the illness – at the time described simply as ‘madness’ – was in 1781, when Britain faced defeat. If there is a tool for activating this genetic defect I would imagine it to be alchemy.
Alchemical literature is often illustrated with images of coats of arms and other heraldic devices, seemingly without explanation. Heraldry is central to bloodline symbolism as it can be used to identify family origins without the explicit need for a family tree. The figures on coats of arms act as instant reminders to those who know the source of the imagery they contain. Sion tells us: ‘The dove and the bear and our Holy Spirit are the ancient signs of the priestly line.’ Certainly the tradition of alchemy takes a great interest in how Isis ‘breathes’ life into Osiris and ‘raises’ him from the dead. Perrault’s Sleeping Beauty mirrors this myth with what appears to be a gender reversal, but resolves in a quest to awaken the feminine aspect of the male hero.
There are plenty of modern advocates for the bloodline who seem eager to align themselves with the priest-kings. An illicit trade in titles and fake genealogies sprang up in the 1990s, and ‘channellers’ and mediums began to report links to the bloodline from their ‘spirit guides’. It is possible that this urge to be linked to the bloodline is not entirely based on ego but may also have its roots in something termed ‘race memory’. Sometimes termed genetic memory, this is the idea that our genetic material contains imprints from previous states of being and that these can somehow seep into our living consciousness. It does seem entirely far-fetched but past- and sometimes future-life memory is a phenomenon accorded plenty of credence in the cultures of India and Tibet.
Race memory does not have to be tied to reincarnation but could also be an impression of consciousness on genetic matter. If this could be triggered in some manner such as through ritual, tantra or alchemy, the path through our genes would lead us, like a labyrinth, back to the source of the ‘underground stream.’ As Le Serpent Rouge puts it: ‘Would the voice of blood restore to me the image of an ancestral past?’
The ‘hidden’ quality of the bloodline might be lying dormant, like those giants in a cave beneath the French mountains or the absent aliens that Zechariah Sitchin expects to return to earth, riding his ‘12th planet’.
Depictions of giant humanoid beings tend to show them to be hairy, like the Sasquatch or the yeti. In Jungian psychology such images represent the primitive form of humans, archetypal images associated with primal feelings such as rage. They can appear in dreams as people covered in hair, and are symbolic of how we fear our own primal urges.
It also comes as no surprise how foetal-looking the image of aliens is in popular culture. The typical large eyes and head on small, underdeveloped and asexual bodies look remarkably like unborn babies. In this context the ‘alien abductee’s’ descriptions of floating sensations may stem from our time in the womb. These are regressive states but also necessary stages of experience in psychological and spiritual integration. The integration can clearly be seen in myths as the archetypal challenges that we all face throughout our lives.
In An Order Outside Time, Robert B Clarke argues that the ‘royal bloodline’ consists of those who have undergone individuation in the Jungian sense. He credits alchemy with influencing this tradition and being the lantern to guide humanity toward higher evolution.
Alchemy forms a central part of the body of knowledge passed down through the ages. Its ideals, and that of the bloodline, were encoded into art, literature, architecture and symbolism that were perfect vehicles for secret societies to disseminate information. Aside from being the highest forms of expression, the physical products of the creative arts are often valued and protected and therefore act as a permanent record, their message often hidden in plain view. These messages take many forms but are known collectively among adepts as the ‘underground stream’.