And I John saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.
Revelation 21.2
There are many themes running through the mythos of the Priory of Sion and the Rennes-le-Château mystery. Amid all the secrets and spiritual meanderings we stumble, time and again, across the same unspoken tradition, a concept that lurks in the shadows of Western civilization. We of the Western mindset are chained to certain religious ideas. Whatever our spiritual leanings, we were born into a ‘millennium mentality’, with its fixation on the ‘End Times’ and the promise of apocalypse.
Although not a Christian, like many in the West I was exposed to ideas from the Book of Revelation throughout my early life, via both education and cultural references. With the millennium looming large for my generation there was an unspoken expectation, even among the agnostics, that something would happen as the Gregorian calendar crept into the 21st century. We went about our daily lives ignoring the subtle expectation that quietly haunted our thoughts with images of destruction. The millennium passed. Nothing happened. Those sweeping the floor to earn a living in 1999 continued to sweep the floor in 2000 and beyond. As ever, any major change in circumstances arose from individuals taking responsibility for their lives instead of waiting for divine intervention.
Admittedly the ‘year 2000’ date does not come directly from scripture, but so many churches had capitalized on the millennium that they significantly added to the sense of expectation. Lifting headlines from the press about wars and climate change as signs and evidence, like the biblical prophets they cashed in on the spirit of the age with fluorescent posters demanding that we repent before it was too late. The posters have long since surrendered to the seasons or been covered by numerous new slogans attempting to bury the painful truth.
The Christian faiths have failed to make good on their promises so we can now turn our backs on the myth of the apocalypse. Unless, perhaps, it is left to others to make a revelation.
The Priory of Sion had previously made little or no reference to the apocalypse, although there are direct references to it in alchemy, Rosicrucianism and Freemasonry. We have also seen how the Templars attempted to create another element of the Book of Revelation with their designs for a ‘New Jerusalem’ based at Rennes-le-Château. We also know the Cathars held the Book of Revelation to be a key text. They believed that the Vatican was the ‘harlot’ of the apocalypse (see Edward Peters, ed., Heresy and Authority in Medieval Europe) and that the evil of the world would eventually be judged by fire.
In the depths of alchemy, the esoteric path that imbues the language and designs of the Priory of Sion, there is a strong millennialist tradition often called ‘chiliasm’. We also note that the red serpent of Sion’s call to the wise, Le Serpent Rouge, echoes the red dragon uncoiling from the pages of St John’s revelation.
More examples will follow as I make the case for the apocalyptic theme underpinning many of the traditions at work here. But first we must examine Sion’s opinion on the subject.
During one interview with Nic Haywood he revealed that Sion upholds a belief that the apocalypse is a very real event and that it will happen sometime soon:
‘Yes, there is an event that nobody will fail to recognize. We are as a race reaching a point of cessation of time itself, seasons merging. This cannot happen without the collapse of certain structures in nature; time will dissolve. The Qur’an speaks of the end of this cycle as commencing with stone-swept winds.’
The tradition of apocalyptic scripture has a long history in many religious movements. As well as the Christian Book of Revelation, Judaism and Islam have their own eschatology, or belief in the End Times.
Zoroastrianism, which dates from c 6000–4000 BCE, has a doctrine of 1,000-year periods that end with cataclysm and heresy. This continues until the final millennium, estimated to be around the year 2000, when good conquers evil in a final battle and a king is restored. The Zoroastrian sacred book, the Zend Avesta, also speaks of how Zoroaster’s seed will be dormant ‘in the lake’ for 3,000 years before awakening. The Zend Avesta is thought to be around 3,000 years old, so this ‘awakening of the seed’ would be due around now. This seed has ties to the bloodline and we will return to it later.
Zoroastrianism may have been the source of apocalyptic thinking in Judaism and Islam and also a major influence on Christianity, but the idea of the end of the world is not limited to the religious traditions originating in the Middle East. Buddhism and Hinduism also speak of cycles of creation and destruction, with Buddhism in particular predicting its own ‘second coming’ in the form of Maitreya, the Buddha of the future. The Maya are also well known for their calendar of cycles that spiral down toward a single date as are the Chinese. This rhythmic return appears in other myths, like the returning king of French tradition.
The Bible is littered with apocalyptic insights and prophecies. I asked Nic if Sion’s understanding of the apocalypse is linked to biblical prophecy, and he replied: ‘Yes, to the Revelation of John the Divine.’
The main source of the apocalyptic theme in Western thought is the Apocalypse of St John the Divine, perhaps better known as the Book of Revelation. Attributed to the same St John who wrote the gospel, this book was held in high esteem by such luminaries among Sion’s associates as Sir Isaac Newton, who was fascinated by prophecies and visions of the future. It also features heavily in Freemasonry as part of the Rose+Croix rituals covered earlier.
The term ‘apocalypse’ is another word for ‘revelation’ and comes from the Greek word apokalyptein meaning ‘to uncover’ or ‘to reveal’. In biblical terms the ‘revelation’ is often either of God’s will or a prophecy of cataclysm and coming events. There are other apocalypses in the Bible, such as the visions of the prophets Ezekiel and Daniel in the Old Testament, which represent the apocalyptic traditions of Judaism. The Book of Revelation draws on these earlier biblical texts but its vision of the ‘End Times’ is unique in being a distinctly Christian apocalypse.
The Book of Revelation is the most outlandish text in the New Testament, for which reason it was the last book to be accepted as part of the Christian Bible. It is a visionary and highly symbolic journey through the past, the present and the future as predicted by St John. The future aspect of the text is what concerns us.
At the time St John was writing (believed to be c 90CE), many Christian groups expected that after 2,000 years Jesus would return and herald a new ‘Golden Age’, the Eden/Arcadia of which humankind was disinherited by Adam’s desire for knowledge. According to Revelation, the Golden Age would last for 1,000 years and then be followed by a period under the rule of Satan, the Anti-Christ. This would lead to a final battle in which Christ would return in a blaze of majesty to preside over the defeat of evil, the Last Judgment and, ultimately, the end of the world.
At the core of the Book of Revelation is the opening of the seven seals on a great book (Revelation chapters 6–8). The Lamb (Christ) takes the book from the right hand of God and opens the seals one by one, unleashing the chain of events that herald the final cataclysm. The imagery is fantastical and on the face of it describes events that would destroy much of the population of the earth and render a fair portion of the planet uninhabitable. But in among this vivid account there are clues that the descriptions may hold some hidden meanings.
The ritual of the 18th (Rose+Croix) Degree of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry (referred to in the Stations of the Cross at Rennes-le-Château by the boy in a tartan sash; see page 97) includes the enacting of the opening of the seven seals. The seven seals of the book of Revelation also appear in alchemy in a number of Rosicrucian documents (see Secret Symbols of the Rosicrucians of the 16th and 17th Centuries, published by AMORC), which also includes the ‘by this sign you will conquer’ motif on the earth, air, fire, water diagram that matches the water stoup in the church at Rennes-le-Château.
The author of the Bacstrom Manuscript of Rosicrucian initiation (see page 48) declares:
‘I will leave public affairs and arrangements to the Government of God, who will bring about the events foretold in the Revelation of St John, which are fast accomplishing.’
The opening of the seven seals reveals events that escalate toward a worldwide catastrophe. Here are a few examples and how they have been interpreted.
The first seal depicts the rise of a military leader, a man on a white horse who gains control of ten nations. He is described as being represented by two semi-precious stones, jasper and carnelian. The priests of ancient Israel wore breastplates during ceremonies that had 12 semi-precious stones embedded in them to represent the 12 tribes of Israel. Carnelian represented the tribe of Benjamin, to which Mary Magdalene belonged, and would therefore denote a link to this tribe. Historically this figure has been linked to Napoleon, who was famously depicted by Jacques-Louis David astride his rearing white horse.
On the opening of the first seal we witness four animals surrounding the throne. One Christian tradition holds that these creatures, which first appear in the Book of Ezekiel in the Old Testament, symbolize the four gospel authors. However, they can be traced back to Babylonian astrology, where they were signs of the zodiac.
The opening of the second and third seals brings visions of wars and famine that ravage the world. I asked Sion if a war could be contrived to suit an apocalyptic agenda. The response was a solemn ‘It wouldn’t be the first time’.
Wars are so common in recent world history that it would be difficult to use this as a measure of anything other than humanity’s idea of ‘business as usual’.
When the fourth seal is broken death is unleashed on one quarter of the world. In current terms, that would mean 1.5 billion people would ‘die’. This might be a symbolic death of some kind, such as a loss of faith in the major religions. This idea is given weight with the opening of the fifth seal, which describes the ‘dead’ receiving robes and being told to wait. As even theologians agree, the dead have no bodies and therefore nothing to hang their robes upon.
The opening of the sixth seal brings a vision of a cataclysmic event, with stars falling from the sky and a great earthquake. The sun is seen to turn black, which is a prevailing image in alchemy and represents the first stage of the alchemical process, nigredo or blackening. An example of the black sun can be seen in Jean Cocteau’s mural in the French Church in London.
The opening of the seventh seal heralds more destruction. Blood and hail rain from the skies, a third of the earth is burned and a third of sea life dies. A burning mountain is hurled into the sea. A blazing star called Wormwood falls from the sky, opening the abyss and producing black cloud that obscures a quarter of light from the sun. At the time of the Chernobyl disaster in 1986 it was pointed out that chernobyl means ‘wormwood’ in Russian, but the significance of this remains inconclusive. The seventh seal appears to describe the arrival of a comet or an asteroid, with the appearance of shooting stars heralding a major impact.
St John goes on to describe a plague of locusts coming out of the earth and attacking anyone who does not have the seal of God on their forehead. The locusts are described as each having a gold crown, a woman’s hair, a human face, a lion’s teeth, breastplates of iron and wings that sound like thunder. Their tails contain a sting. Some interpret the locusts as helicopters or fighter planes, the impact and poisoning of the sea and burning of the land as nuclear war. Terms such as ‘horses that breathe fire’ can easily be interpreted as tanks, which have replaced cavalry on the battlefield. But this is a modern view that fits our narrow timeframe of technology.
Until the arrival of a comet or another major cataclysm, it is difficult to pin these events on any specific point in history. Sion needs to be in possession of other information if they are to justify their expectation that the End Times, as described in Revelation, are imminent.
It is important to realize that Sion’s knowledge of the apocalypse is less significant than how they come to have it, as Nic Haywood says:
‘To Sion the method by which this information is known is more important than the event ... Gnosis, timing of events, signposts to watch, passed down.’
The bloodline could potentially provide two distinct sources of information.
The first would be an oral tradition, whereby past events of a cyclic nature – such as the return of a comet that affected the Earth’s eco-systems – were recorded and passed down through the bloodline. A good example is the biblical tale of the Deluge, as we find similar accounts in many myths and stories across the globe, which suggests that there is likely to be an underlying truth to it. If this event did take place it is possible that there were signs predicting its arrival and that these were recorded in a form such as ritual, to be passed down through noble families to allow them to prepare for and capitalize on further events in the future. Added to this I am aware that Sion takes a great interest in the capture and transmission of knowledge in early civilizations.
A second possibility is race memory, or as it is termed today, genetic memory. There may be a clue to this in the Serpent Rouge reference to the ‘blood that cries from the soil’ and its use of the labyrinth. The labyrinth in this context would act as a route back to the ‘source’, a path tracing the origin of the underground stream of knowledge. It would act as a tool for those who are equipped to access information beyond the constraints of linear time. The recurring notion of something dormant in the blood to be awakened at a specific time was covered earlier (see page 237) but the power afforded to those with true race memory would be immense. It would immediately elevate an individual above those of us to whom being born is like waking in the middle of the night without truly knowing what came before. It would provide the only clear perspective on the past.
Outside of the bloodline there are other means to future knowledge (beyond the popular tabloid horoscopes and various other gimmicks for divination) that retain some credibility. The most widespread form of prediction has historically been prophetic vision, be it from the Bible or relatively recent historical figures such as Nostradamus, whose utterances (such as ‘The first and last of his sons will shine again in France’) are ambiguous enough to fit many of the bloodline claims.
To prophesy is to know and to communicate a future event. This requires access to information beyond the present, which we perceive as part of linear time. This knowledge may arrive in many forms, such as flashes of insight, visions, dreams, journeys of active imagination, meditation, trance and mystical states. There can also be visitations in the form of guides and angels or through mediums, channels and diviners.
Historically prophecy was an integral part of religious life, with prophets believing or at least claiming that their messages come from a higher source such as God or other divine inspiration. More recent trends have seen these sources identified as spirit guides, angelic forces and even alien intelligences. Obviously the receiver may be mistaken in assuming that the source is speaking from an informed perspective, or at least with authority.
At first sight prophecy and prediction would appear to be the domain of cranks and the gullible, but as quantum science and transpersonal psychology begin to encroach into this area our view of time as a cord, along which events are strung like knots on a rope, begins to unravel. Like dreams and déjà vu another time is available here and now.
In and around the church of Mary Magdalene at Rennes-le-Château there are many references to visions. As we have seen, the inscription above the church door states ‘This place is terrible’, a quotation from the vision of Jacob on seeing the ladder with angels ascending and descending. In the garden stands a mock Visigothic pillar that has the Alpha and Omega suspended beneath the limbs of a cross as described in the Emperor Constantine’s vision of the cross. Constantine’s vision was accompanied by the phrase ‘By this sign you will conquer’, which is repeated above the water stoup within the church.
The garden of the church’s priest, Father Saunière, was consecrated to Our Lady of Lourdes after a vision of the Virgin Mary that appeared there in 1858, and her statue surmounts the Visigothic pillar. Saunière himself visited Lourdes on a number of occasions to partake of the healing waters so must have had some faith in these matters.
Saunière is quoted at one point as likening Rennes-le-Château to a second Lourdes, to which many people would flock. Just prior to his appointment a similar event had occurred at Pontmain in southern France on January 17, 1871. Witnesses claimed to have seen an apparition of the Virgin Mary hovering in the sky for three hours. The vision was approved by the Catholic Church and the site became a pilgrimage location.
The phenomenon of Virgin Mary apparitions has many links to our story. The apparitions are difficult to explain away as entirely imaginary, because Our Lady often appears to groups for prolonged periods of time. This does not mean that they can be taken at face value, however, as they remain unexplained and religious convictions may paint them with a Catholic veneer. It may be that these are somehow manifestations of the feminine archetype surfacing as group hallucinations.
The figures seen in these visitations seem predisposed to make prophecies. That they often choose to make them to a child in some lonely spot rather than to a Pope or another world leader has much in common with the problem of alleged UFO eyewitness accounts. But none of these concerns need devalue the quality of the information provided by the ‘vision’. Unlike most forms of prophecy, Virgin Mary visitations tend to be very specific in the information they impart.
The most famous prophecy, and the most pertinent to our enquiries are the words ascribed to the Virgin Mary apparition at Fatima in Portugal. In 1917 a figure described as ‘brighter than the sun’ appeared to three children in Fatima and imparted three secrets to them in the form of predictions. The visitations continued for six months drawing ever increasing crowds of witnesses. The first of the prophecies was an image of hell, of people trapped in fire among demons. The second prediction stated that although the First World War would end, if people did not mend their ways a second war would occur, far worse than the first. The accuracy of this prediction is of course a matter of history. The vision also asked that Russia be consecrated to the sacred heart and that this happened in 1952 is evidence that the Vatican takes these messages very seriously.
The third secret was only to be revealed by the Pope after 1960. One of the three children who witnessed the vision was Lúcia Santos, later Sister Lúcia (1907–2005). She recorded the secret and stated in her memoirs that it began with the words: ‘In Portugal, the dogma of the Faith will always be preserved.’ In the event the Vatican withheld the prophecy until the year 2000, when it released a version that has no such beginning and is clearly not the same message.
There are clues to the actual nature of the third secret. Sister Lúcia also wrote for a number of Catholic publications, referring enquirers to chapters 8 to 13 in the Book of Revelation. This covers everything from the opening of the seven seals to the rise of the red dragon. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, later Pope Benedict XVI, said in November 1984 that the third secret of Fatima dealt with the ‘End Times’. In the same year Ratzinger also stated in the Pauline Catholic magazine Jesus:
‘It adds nothing to what Christians must know respecting what is stated in the Book of Revelation.’
Pope John Paul II is also reported as commenting on the third secret:
‘If you read that the oceans will inundate continents, and millions of people will die suddenly in a few minutes, once this is known, then in reality it is not necessary to insist on the publication of this secret.’
We could dismiss this as scaremongering to attract people back to Catholicism and I would tend to agree, were it not for the fact that Dr Grant Beardmore, a theologian and former Catholic priest who had studied in the Vatican, once told me something of great significance.
According to Dr Beardmore, there was a great deal of interest in Rennes-le-Château within the Vatican. He claimed that this was in part due to a rumour that the third secret of Fatima related to the apocalypse, and mentioned Rennes-le-Château.
Dr Beardmore told me that the third secret was said to contain the following:
1. The actual date of the apocalypse. Apparently the Pope to whom this was passed on kept it a secret and took it with him to his grave.
2. The prediction that a plague of pandemic proportions would sweep the globe prior to this event.
3. The revelation that Rennes-le-Château is key to the apocalypse.
With regard to pandemics, AIDS is an example that we are all aware of, and the possibility of a swine flu or avian flu outbreak that could decimate the world’s population is all too real.
Dr Beardmore also warned me to be careful of what I said about the Vatican while in the Rennes-le-Château area. He said they have important work to do down there and should not be obstructed. It is public knowledge that the Vatican funded a ground radar scan of the church and its grounds in the mid-1990s.
I questioned my Priory of Sion contact, Nic Haywood, on the matter and asked: does the apocalypse relate to Rennes-le-Château? He replied: ‘In a way it is coded in Rennes-le-Château.’
The apocalypse has also been linked to Rennes-le-Château by authors such as David Wood and Elizabeth Van Buren. Each found their own route to this conclusion, Wood through geometry and cometary impact and Van Buren through alchemy and astrology.
The Sermon on the Mount scene within the church at Rennes-le-Château may have some relevance to this, as during the sermon (Matthew 24.37) Jesus foretells the coming of the end of the world: ‘But as the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.’
I asked Sion if they were using Rennes-le-Château as a way to warn people of a coming event. Their somewhat ambiguous response was: ‘We do not want to “get a message out”, as people will have enough to contend with.’
Author Elizabeth Van Buren has written an entire book of apocalyptic links, including the ‘cyclic cross of Hendaye’, a stone cross with cryptic inscriptions and carvings on it that stands in a churchyard of Hendaye in the southwest of France on the Spanish border. Van Buren puts forward the idea that Rennes-le-Château will act as a refuge from the apocalypse. Her work is wildly speculative as she ‘channels’ a fair amount of her information, but Sion concurs:
‘Rennes is a refuge, and certainly withstood it [a previous cataclysm] before, but it’s unlikely it was used as such at the time.’
Elizabeth Van Buren believes that the cross of Hendaye points to Rennes-le-Château. In his book The Mysteries of the Cathedrals, the alchemist Fulcanelli interpreted the cross as being both alchemical and apocalyptic, and he decodes the Latin inscription on it as stating: ‘All life takes refuge in a single space.’ Van Buren believes this ‘space’ to be at Rennes-le-Château. She interpreted the Latin to mean that there was a doorway at Rennes-le-Château that would allow people to escape the cataclysm by stepping out of time. The idea of this doorway was covered in the chapter on Emerging Themes (see page 129).
It became apparent during my research that Sion believes that at some earlier point in history the cataclysmic ‘event’ was expected but failed to materialize. Nic Haywood mentioned that the stone igloos, or capitales, on the hillside surrounding Rennes-le-Château (see page 109) were built for witnessing such an event.
This implies that whatever the ‘event’ is, it will be visual and will occur in the region in or around Rennes-le-Château, as that is what these structures face.
The Priory of Sion does not expect the event to entirely destroy life on earth but they seem convinced, in terms of Europe at least, that it will reduce the population dramatically. Excluding impact from a massive asteroid it is unlikely that any single natural event would render the earth completely devoid of life. There is an expectation that humankind will continue in some form. When I asked Nic about the nature of the event, he replied:
‘A deluge perhaps. Most climatologists and scientists are aware of the imminence of such events. The next sign is the speeding up of environmental change. This is not unique to the current history of the globe, it has happened many times.’
Knowledge can be passed down in the form of myths, as with the story of a great flood, which is recounted in many of the earliest myths from around the world.
For those who doubt the veracity of prediction or the accuracy of cultural memory, there is another route to knowledge of the future. Geology and archaeology should be clear as to what events have ravaged the earth in the past. If a cataclysmic event has occurred periodically in the earth’s history – such as a recurring glaciation or the near miss of a returning comet – these events would then be supported by physical evidence.
In its long and troubled history the earth has suffered major meteor impacts, floods, ice ages, and volcanic and seismic upheavals. Considering that the dust cloud from the eruption of the Mount St Helens volcano in 1980 took three years to dissipate, should a volcano of, for example, the magnitude of the Yellowstone Caldera erupt, much of the northern hemisphere would experience several years of winter, with too little sunlight for crops to grow. The much smaller eruption of Krakatoa in 1883 was heard 3,000 miles (5000km) away and led to what was described as a ‘year without sun’ causing crops to fail worldwide. It is hard to ignore the long history of cataclysm in the earth’s geological record when mass extinctions have committed entire species to the fossil record.
In conversation Nic Haywood once referred to the loss of life during the event as a ‘great cull’. This term can be found in the works of climate scientist James Lovelock. Lovelock’s view is also of a natural event exacerbated by humankind’s abuse of natural resources and subsequent pollution. His recent book The Revenge of Gaia explains future scenarios of massive ‘climate refugee’ migrations and wars caused by starvation and displacement.
Lovelock is often seen as on the fringe of science but the ‘sixth natural extinction’ or ‘Holocene extinction event’ is a term used by environmental scientists to describe the predicted effects of current global climate change on plant, animal and human life. This is predicted as a deluge that will occur within the next 30 years (see Six Degrees by Mark Lynas for an excellent summary of current research in this area).
If there is a place of refuge at Rennes-le-Château, why is it here in this region and not elsewhere? One possibility is that water is the key. If the event is driven by climate change then one possible scenario would be a deluge followed by a brief ice age. This is a natural cyclical event and the pollution we have caused since the industrial revolution is thought to have accelerated the process. A flooding then freezing of the land would be catastrophic. The region of the Languedoc has the highest water table in France and Rennes-les-Bains in particular has seven hot springs surfacing nearby. These springs penetrate down to the earth’s magma so are heated volcanically, and hence they would remain impervious to falling temperatures. But this is only one possibility.
If the environmental destruction caused by the onset of the next cycle of cataclysm were to begin with a worldwide deluge, it would not be the first time civilizations have survived this kind of event, as recorded in many of the oldest world myths. Should a safe location be known, would this information not come down to us through history in some encoded form?
The story of Noah has kept this idea in mind for generations but the figure of Noah has links to Sion in that each head of Sion is referred to as a Nautonnier or ‘Helmsman’. This term is taken from the Royal Arch of Freemasonry, and Nic confirms the connection with Noah: ‘The Royal Arch is sometimes known as the Royal Ark, thus we liken the Helmsman to Noah.’
The idea that the Rennes-le-Château region survived the last flood has caused some to speculate that Pech Cardou is the actual site where Noah’s ark came to rest. According to the document The Cave of Treasures, a sixth-century apocryphon, a mountain called ‘Cardo’, not Ararat, was the final resting place of Noah’s ark.
There also exists a certain amount of peripheral evidence for links between the biblical deluge and the Rennes-le-Château mystery. Father Saunière’s menagerie would seem to suggest a homage to the ark of Noah. The artist Poussin’s personal seal was of a man holding a model ark and Le Serpent Rouge makes mention of Noah standing impassively on the rocks opposite Pech Cardou.
It is also possible that the notion of a ‘sacred mountain’ was attached to Pech Cardou. Once a location becomes viewed as important or sacred it tends to be subject to a certain amount of mythologizing and Rennes-le-Château is itself an excellent example of this. Cardou may be a symbolic Ararat, singled out by myths and stories to transmit the location through history, to keep it in the minds of people. The Paris Meridian, for example, passes through Cardou, denoting it as a place where time and space are linked. But more importantly, it was the place chosen by the Knights Templar to fulfil the prophecy of the New Jerusalem in Revelation 21.2: ‘I saw the Holy City, the New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God.’
The landscape of Rennes-le-Château would appear to have been modified to represent the New Jerusalem from at least the time of the Templars. There are place names and locations that mirror old Jerusalem and it has been used to re-enact the route of Jesus as he laboured under the cross on the Via Dolorosa. This journey is also the central theme of the Rose+Croix degree. These threads converge to give weight to the idea that the New Jerusalem was in fact contrived and constructed in the Languedoc, and that it may have been based upon a far earlier tradition dating back to the time of the arrival of Mary Magdalene in this region.
The underground structure said to be at the heart of this landscape (see page 183) acts as both a tomb and a temple, and there is also a strong apocalyptic resonance to this as it has 12 gates that are open at different times. This was foretold in the Book of Revelation (21.10–13):
‘And he carried me away in the Spirit to a mountain great and high, and showed me the Holy City, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God.... It had a great, high wall with twelve gates and with twelve angels at the gates. On the gates were written the names of the twelve tribes of Israel.’
This idea is supported by Sion, who affirms that the temple is linked to revelation and the apocalypse. The entrances are four sets of three, the 12 entrances to the underground temple. There is a perfect symmetry and geometric importance to the design, which is explored in depth in John Michell’s City of Revelation.
Contemporaneous with the Templars, the Cathars of the Languedoc were symbolized by the Toulouse cross, originating with the medieval counts of Toulouse and seen on the regional flag. The design is of an equal-armed cross with three gold spheres on each branch. The spheres are interpreted by French researcher Gérard Thome as representing the 12 gates of the New Jerusalem.
The presence of relics in the underground temple, and the uncovering of a tomb that includes the body of Mary Magdalene, and possibly also of Jesus, may set the stage for the next development, as set out in Revelation 21.9–10:
‘Come hither, I will shew thee the bride, the Lamb’s wife. And he carried me away in the spirit to a great and high mountain, and shewed me that great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God.’
The Lamb is a title always associated with Jesus and as this passage illustrates, not only is there a ‘bride’ of Jesus to be revealed but this is linked to the New Jerusalem. If we accept that a New Jerusalem is located in the vicinity of Rennes-le-Château and that the body of Mary Magdalene, thought to be the bride of Jesus, is buried there, we have a very accurate, albeit contrived, enactment of this part of Revelation.
With a New Jerusalem rising from the receding floodwaters, the stage will be set for the Second Coming, the final act of St John’s prophecy: the return of a priest-king who is universally accepted as ruler and will be expected to lead humankind toward a new golden age.
As reincarnation is not part of Catholic doctrine and divine intervention seems unlikely, the only real option for a Second Coming would be through hereditary means. If Jesus had a bride then there may well also have been children, as explained to me by Sion and covered in the chapter on Mary Magdalene. From these children would descend the modern-day bloodline families, into which the priest-king – heir to the holy family of Jesus – would be born.
The timing of this would be crucial.
Sion, we must remember, chose to go public in the spiritual vacuum created by the Second World War. As church attendance declined and the faith of millions was challenged by the death and destruction of a world war, Sion began to disseminate the alternative ideas of Jesus as a husband and father.
An event such as an apocalypse would further diminish the hold of organized religions on people’s spiritual lives. As a natural disaster would not discriminate between church, mosque, synagogue or temple, but would destroy everything in its path, it will be hard for anyone to consider themselves the ‘chosen ones’. The many religions that currently hide behind elaborate and complex structures of dogma that have eclipsed such simple questions as ‘Who are we?’ and ‘Why are we here?’ will be swept aside as they fail to protect their followers from the indiscriminate power that is nature.
A post-apocalypse civilization will need a uniting leader, and having been simmering in the background for 2,000 years it is here that the bloodline will find its purpose. In the aftermath of the ‘great cull’, anarchy and a new Dark Age will consume the West unless a leader quickly takes the reins. According to the bloodline tradition, the once and future king will be born of a union between two noble families. At this point in time the likely candidates are the Hapsburgs and the House of Lorraine.
Into this space comes a new way of being, led by one who is both a spiritual and a political ruler, a priest-king, like the priest-kings, or Hyksos, of ancient Egypt of the Order of Melchizedek. It will be a return of the Christ figure that is understood and recognized by all. Sadly, he cannot last a thousand years, because his role demands that he be sacrificed, either symbolically or literally, like the pagan gods of yore. However, his rule and his impact on society should live on.
The idea of the return of a ‘Grand Monarch’ or national saviour is very much a part of French tradition, with its historic mysteries of the ‘survival’ of the Merovingians, Louis XVII and even Charles de Gaulle. It is also a common theme of French myths such as Perrault’s Sleeping Beauty, where the dormant kingdom is reawoken by a single gallant knight.
The myth of the returning king has also seeped into the religions and myths of other countries and cultures. In England for example, Arthur, ‘the once and future king’, is reputed to sleep beneath a hill with his knights, to awake when the nation is threatened. The Arthurian legends give us the image of the great sword Excalibur returning to the lake, where it remains hidden until a king appears that is fit to wield it. This echoes the idea of the seed of Zoroaster that lies dormant in a lake for 3,000 years, and the legend of Isis’ reassembly of all the parts of the dismembered Osiris – except for his penis, which Seth threw into the Nile, never to be found.
Like many of the subjects that we have covered, the apocalypse can work on more than one level. On a personal level the opening of the seven seals could be seen to correlate with the ‘opening’ or activation of the seven chakras, or energy centres, along the spine, which represents a process of ascent from the primal and purely physical at the base of the spine to the enlightened and purely spiritual at the highest chakra, the crown of the head. When the chakras are open, we attain a perfect balance of physical and spiritual. While this idea first came to Western attention through non-Christian disciplines of Indian origin, such as yoga and tantra, the fact remains that it has always been present and available as a phenomenon of human experience.
At another level the apocalypse symbolizes the downfall of the Church as Jesus is rediscovered as a personal experience: the freedom to be who you really are and the ability to communicate directly with God as the Gnostics have maintained over the centuries.
In the light of this, the need for the mediation of priests would quickly dissolve.
But with all I have seen and heard I must conclude that there is something more to the idea of apocalypse than just personal spiritual development. There are many clues to a widespread, physically destructive event of some magnitude in the near future.
The world as it is cannot go on indefinitely, as any geologist or climatologist will tell you. And history tells us that the world has been destroyed many times. It has withstood comet impacts such as the one that created the Yucatan Peninsula and the Woodleigh crater in Australia; cycles of ice ages; magnetic pole shifts; and great earthquakes and seismic upheavals. A coming event of similar magnitude is not a case of ‘if’ but merely ‘when’.
But even a flood, while devastating, will eventually recede.
Spirituality exists in every culture, at every stage of history, at every level of society. It is a constant, unlike scientific thinking, philosophical fashions and adopted ignorance. Spirituality has always fulfilled a need in the conscious development of humanity, so it will continue beyond the cataclysmic event. Sadly, it will take such a major event to bring about a widespread shift in consciousness. Should much of the world and its myriad of beliefs be swept into the sea, tragic though that would be, in the long term it may help to force humanity into a more balanced existence.
The universal shock caused by the destruction of a random third of life on earth being destroyed in a senseless cataclysmic event, as stated in the Book of Revelation, may help humanity come to realize that its gods are absent, or dead and lost to the world – or at least that its understanding of them has been distorted beyond repair.
In the aftermath perhaps there will be a shift in control from the will of established religions back to the will of the individual. The uncomfortable space of uncertainty and the pain of not belonging is a useful experience. It creates a space in us for the divine to occupy.
Ultimately, I think we have to let our gods die in order to rediscover them for ourselves. The final word on this subject belongs to Nic Haywood. During an informal discussion, when asked if he knew when the Event would happen, Nic declined to give an accurate date but stated:
‘It will happen within your lifetime.’