How strange they are, the manuscripts of this Friend, great traveller through the unknown.
Le Serpent Rouge
Many aspects of the mysteries of the Priory of Sion and Rennes-le-Château have revolved around parchments and other documents. Sion’s first line of contact with individuals is often to send them a document, until recently Le Serpent Rouge, for example (see Chapter 10).
It would seem that Sion’s ‘archives’ are hidden among existing libraries, some public but many in private collections, a dispersed model of security much like the system that Umberto Eco writes of in Foucault’s Pendulum. Without permission or the correct bibliographical details the archives are impossible to locate.
In recent years Sion has provided, promised and directed me to numerous works. Below is a list of the important Rennes-le-Château documents, and the items promised or sent to me.
During the 1960s the Priory of Sion made public a number of documents relating to Rennes-le-Château. These included parchments that were said to have belonged to Father Bérenger Saunière and the Dossiers Secrets (Secret Dossiers), a collection of cuttings and notes relating to the mystery. The manuscripts and other documentary items passed to me by Sion are listed below:
The two parchments first published in Gérard de Sède’s The Accursed Treasure of Rennes-le-Château and later in Baigent, Lincoln and Leigh’s The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail were said to have been discovered by Bérenger Saunière when he excavated the church at Rennes-le-Château.
Henry Lincoln discovered that there were codes hidden within the parchments and deciphered them. The encoded messages are:
‘To Dagobert II, King, and to Sion is this treasure and he is there dead.’
‘Shepherdess no temptation. Poussin and Teniers hold the key. Peace 681. By the cross and this horse of God. I conquer this demon guardian at midday. Blue apples.’
De Sède had already linked the parchments to Rennes-le-Château so the content of these manuscripts further acts as signposts to the mystery. They mention the Poussin and Teniers paintings explored in Chapter 16 and the Asmodeus statue from the church, while ‘blue apples’ is a Masonic term.
The ‘horse of God’ reference may be to the painting Heliodorus Expelled from the Temple by Delacroix which is situated in the Chapel of Angels in Saint-Sulpice church, Paris, as supported by Sion’s Serpent Rouge text.
The manuscripts circulated by de Sède were eventually discovered to be modern fabrications and many researchers quickly dismissed them out of hand. They were produced in support of Pierre Plantard’s mission in what was described to me as a ‘cottage industry’ outside Paris in the 1960s, but Sion maintains that they were based on authentic originals discovered by Saunière.
It is said that Saunière travelled to Saint-Sulpice to have the parchments decoded. This would have been done by Emile Hoffet, a leading member of the researchers based there. According to Sion,
‘It is likely that these four parchments were, in reality, handed over – traded if you will – for the whereabouts of another document by an inner circle of very powerful clerics at Saint-Sulpice: the group referred to as “Hoffet’s Workgroup”.’
Author Jean Markale claims that Hoffet had a secret library at Saint-Sulpice. This was confirmed by Sion as a small archive within the church library. I was granted access to this but the documents were removed before I could view them.
Sion sent me a copy of the Dossiers Secrets (Secret Dossiers) as a matter of historical reference. It should be noted that these and other documents that Sion sent are stamped with two Masonic (Grand Lodge Alpina) insignia that confirm that they were permitted for release and circulation. This is said to be standard policy for any document released outside of a Sion ‘campaign’ (of information) and has been in place since 1985 to prevent the circulation of inappropriate or doctored material.
When Pierre Plantard was tasked with gathering the scattered adepts of post-war Europe, one of his methods was to use the Bibliothèque Nationale de France in Paris as a ‘noticeboard’. The Dossiers Secrets was a file of news clippings and documents to or from which items could be added or removed. Of course, this required a ‘friend’ of Sion within the library to facilitate the storage and retrieval of uncatalogued material. I can confirm that such a person still exists today but I am not at liberty to reveal their identity.
The secret dossiers were not meant for the public and have caused a certain amount of confusion for researchers. As Sion puts it,
‘Les Dossiers Secrets were originally contrived as a noticeboard of sorts, but later became a vehicle for deliberate, purposeful mystification and also acted as both a public record and a means of verification.’
The purpose they served was as a means to communicate between different factions. They included a copy of Le Serpent Rouge and this was used to attract the interest of people whom Sion considered to be aligned with their cause.
The content of the Dossiers evolved constantly as items were added and removed over time, and they are still updated as a matter of tradition, although they do not appear in any cataloguing system within the library.
Aside from the above I was also sent a number of other items including a bromide copy of the Teniers painting mentioned above. On loan from Sion and passed to me by Nicolas Haywood, this is the only known accurate copy to exist of the original, which has been in private hands for nearly 80 years. The bromide is included in the plates section of this book.
I also received several plates from an original manuscript of the Splendor Solis that belongs to Nic Haywood’s private collection of alchemical manuscripts. I have included Plate VIII as an example as it illustrates the quote ‘Deliver me out of the mire and let me not sink’ as referred to in both the church at Rennes-le-Château and Le Serpent Rouge.
Among the plates I received was Plate III, which shows a knight standing over a fountain where the light and dark fluid mix from two water sources. This can be found in the Rennes-le-Château landscape at the place where the rivers ‘White’ (Blanc) and ‘Salt’ (Sals) meet. Locally this place is known as ‘Le Bénitier’ or holy water stoup, such as the one held aloft by Asmodeus within Rennes-le-Château church. It is one example of how an initiation based on the alchemical process was built into the landscape and the church.
Sion sent me five designs for Tarot cards. They stated that artist and filmmaker Jean Cocteau either influenced the designs or possibly even devised them. Cocteau was said to be a member of Sion and the Hermit card included in the plates section shows the word ZION in the shape of a key hanging from the hermit’s necklace. The second card included is the Papesse (High Priestess), which features the alchemical axiom VITRIOL written between two lines at a single point perspective. A similar design can be seen on a publication called Vaincre, published by Pierre Plantard in 1946 advocating the creation of a United States of the West.
During the making of the Bloodline documentary Sion sent a letter to me and the producers dated 17th January 2006 that set out their intention to support the project. But what was really interesting was that it had a number of signatures and seals attached to it.
Signatures on Priory of Sion documents are not to be taken at face value for two reasons. It is my understanding that the order maintains a series of stamps of signatures allowing for the co-signing of documents in the absence, and even after the death, of certain key members. Also, the use of stamps does not require items to be in physical circulation – sent to and fro between signatories, with the attendant risks of going astray or falling into the ‘wrong hands’ – prior to official release. Stamps also mean that a number of variations of documents in terms of language can be produced and collated accordingly into a single item, depending on the recipient. These variant copies can then be ‘signed’ without the signatory needing to be present.
With this in mind I can make no claim that the signatures appended to the letter of intent were by the hand of those to whom they are attributed. The first signature is by Nicolas Haywood, using his old family name of St Aubyn, and has the stamp of the ‘Children of Isis’. I can find no record of this group but they may be linked to the alchemical lodges of European Freemasonry. It may be a subset of the Hermetic lodge of which Nic is a member but again this is not conclusive.
Alongside this is the signature of Thomas Plantard, son of Pierre Plantard and current Grand Master of the Priory of Sion, although his position is disputed. His signature and stamp appear to bear the words Ordre de Morges. Morges is a Swiss town where two European Masonic lodges, Lux in Tenebris (‘Light in the Dark’) and Saint-Jean du Léman (‘St John of Lake Geneva’), are based. But I cannot conclusively link Thomas Plantard to either.
Next is the signature of Raphael Sauvage, whom I believe to be the great-grandson of Gaston Sauvage, who was known to be part of the alchemist Fulcanelli’s inner circle. Raphael’s stamp appears like that of the Misraim-Memphis Masonic lodge that appears on many of Sion’s publicly released documents.
The final signature is unknown to me and also difficult to discern. It appears to be ‘A. Sewole’. Beneath Sewole’s signature is the stamp of the REAA, the Grand Orient de France Suprême Conseil Grand Collège du Rite Ecossais Ancien Accepté. This is a known Masonic order based in France.
This Sion design (see page 38) is said by Nic Haywood to be of ‘little literary merit’ but of ‘geo-mathematical and esoteric relevance’. The design is a geometrical image with two arrows passing through the centre, flanked by the letters alpha and omega. This closely resembles the badge of the Order of the Secret Monitor (OSM), a well established Masonic lodge under the United Grand Lodge of England. There are variations to the design but in sending it to me Sion are clearly indicating a link between the two orders. Like the Rosicrucians, the OSM have been known to claim that their order can be traced back to ancient Egypt.
The badge of the Secret Monitor consists of arrows within a six-pointed star and often contains the letters D and J and is surmounted by a crown. The badge represents the friendship between David and King Saul’s son Jonathan in the Old Testament (Samuel 1). Their covenant of love and friendship mirrors the Masonic ideal of brotherly love.
The alchemist Sigismund Bacstrom was initiated into the Rosicrucians by the Comte de Chazal in 1794 (see page 51). The Bacstrom seal is a small image that contains an eagle, and a serpent looking down on a toad. The first two elements are key to Le Serpent Rouge, whereas the toad generally signifies base qualities to be redeemed. These creatures also signify the three main phases of alchemy: black toad = nigredo (blackening); white eagle = albedo (whitening); serpent or dragon = red tincture/Philosopher’s Stone.
Nic also submitted a copy of his essay on the esoteric nature of fire, which is the most thorough explanation I have ever seen. Among Sigismund Bacstrom’s letters is a note stating that if he should meet another claiming to be a Rosicrucian he would challenge them to explain the esoteric nature of fire. Nic’s essay is ample evidence of his qualification as a member. It was not included here for reasons of space but it is available on my website (http://www.robhowells.co.uk).
A copy of a hand-drawn map of the graveyard at Rennes-le-Château with a key to who is buried where was sent to me as the book was going to press. I am aware that it is an immensely important item to researchers but I have chosen not to include it in this book, because unfortunately the cemetery has been subject to vandalism by treasure hunters and amateur archaeologists for a number of years. The map in no way indicates any need to excavate the area but relates to a reference in Le Serpent Rouge and I hope to expand on this at a later date.
This is a selection of pages from a self-published work by mathematician Patricia Villiers-Stuart. It includes a geometrical analysis of Poussin’s Et in Arcadia Ego (The Shepherds of Arcadia) linked to the Golden Section and the geometry of occultist Dr John Dee. Dee was an influence on the Rosicrucian grades circulating in Paris in the 19th century. The ‘words of power’ conveyed by Rosicrucian masters to initiates were drawn from Dee’s writings.
The geometry overlaid on the Poussin canvas contains a circle segmented into 12 parts. The same geometrical design is overlaid on a map of the area near Rennes-le-Château and centres on the place called L’Homme Mort (The Dead Man). The 12 segments of a circle are symbolic of both the rose (as in cathedral rose windows) and the ‘Rose Line’ that passes close to this area.
There are said to be two pages missing from this work that were to be sent at a later date but as yet they have not arrived.
It may be of interest to researchers that there are a number of other items that Sion was due to send me but remain outstanding. These include photographs of two documents said to date from the 14th and 17th centuries. The latter is a ‘palimpsest’, that is, it is written over a much older document that has had the words partially erased. This is by design and it is likely that the two texts interact in some way. I have seen a small photo of this manuscript so I know that it does at least exist in some form.
Sion also mentioned notes and diagrams by a former archaeologist and member of Sion, some of which are said to be in code. These would provide guidance on the cave systems close to Rennes-le-Château, such as where specific underground locations and hidden entrances can be found in the area to the east of the village. It is unlikely that I would have published these if they had come into my possession but they could be used to support the hypothesis of underground tombs and temples (see Chapter 11).
Finally, I should note that Sion aso directed me to seek out the Chinon Parchment in the Vatican Secret Archive (see Chapters 2 and 8), and alchemical texts such as the Splendor Solis and the Book of the Holy Trinity (see Chapter 17).