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Posted: 03-08-2001 22:44 Post subject: Rennes-Le-Chateau

Anyone any info.on the latest theory that the source of the priests wealth came from performing numerous private masses for wealthy landowners unbeknownest by and disallowed by his superiors?

Posted: 04-08-2001 20:28 Post subject:

This was the earliest theory as he was accused of this in his
lifetime by the Church. It was also the line taken in the BBC
debunking version.

So many of the writers have so loved to luxuriate in the mysteries
that they never formulate what the mysteries are. Take de Sède out
of the picture and we are left with the shadowy life of nineteenth-century
French Catholic priests and an air of Freemasonry.

The parchments, the Poussin and Teniers paintings and all that geometry
do not appear to predate the very dubious de Sède. Meanwhile the syncretic
school of mystification and book-mongering continues to proliferate wildly.

Don't get me wrong, I can look at hideous old church furnishings for hours
and I loved the Henry Lincoln programmes when I was a sprog.

An amateur online enthusiast for the mystery has claimed the wealth
came from Henri Boudet and was paid to the housekeeper.

Unfortunately the writer is such an enthusiast for the secret
parchments that he proposes three sets of them in the parish churches
of Saunière, Boudet and the murdered Gélis!

So at the top of this thread, would it be mean to ask contributors to define
what they think the mystery is before we dive into the florid stuff? Cool

Posted: 08-08-2001 19:57 Post subject:

Thanks for replying.Is the mystery based on the absolute proof ,discovered by Sauniere,that the entire basis upon which Christianity is based,is in fact a hoax?That the Crucifixtion was staged,that Jesus certainly lived but was no more the son of God thanI am,that he was a King and married and had children and the higher echelons in the church have known all along but the conspiracy keeps them together?For all the power and control and privilege and wealth it brings to those in the know.The big question remains,what exactly,did he find and how do we cut throught the deliberate misleads to get at the answer?

Posted: 09-08-2001 00:13 Post subject:

Hi Alan, yup, that is the big setting for the Rennes drama. And
congratulations for not mentioning the Knights Templar, oops,
now I have:eek:

But dissident versions of Christianity proliferated in the Middle
Ages and the Mary Magdalene-Jesus marriage notion was
known to theologians and heretics if not to the general run of
humanity. The South of France is rich in legends about Magdalene:
one version has her crossing the Mediterranean in a leaky boat
and regaining her virginity after years of repentance.

There is a very rich vein of material available for any author who
wants to stitch together a very literal reading of legends. It is
really a game of join of dots and very few readers of the Rennes
fantasies have much notion of the different weight we can give
to different sources and the way choices can be made between them.

As a general rule, however, we have to follow the mystery back
through the books. It is no use starting with the newest ones: like
Ripper Books they have their own readership now and anything
with Rennes in the title will sell a few copies. They have now become
very florid, linking the mystery with all the usual stuff from ley lines
to the New World Order.

Like milliions of others in the UK, I got my first heady taste of it
from the Henry Lincoln Chronicle programmes on BBC in the 70s. But
Lincoln was building on Gerard de Sède, an esoteric Freemason with
a curious agenda of putting the Merovingian bloodline back onto
the throne of France. The Prieure de Sion had some ancient existence
but left no traces on history for centuries and the suspicion must
be that de Sède resurrected it with an impressive list of celebrity
members, most of them safely dead. Names like Cocteau and Debussy
may seem plausible but the documented world of nineteenth century Parisian
occultism is fascinating enough without inventing things.

The parchments are not from Saunière but from de Sède and a
collaborator who fell out with him claimed to have faked them. The
code and paintings were likewise de Sède but I think the business
of drawing all those pentangles on Poussin and Teniers was a
contribution of Lincoln and Cornford. Now the mystery gets enriched, if that is
the word with all this secret geometry. Some of these diagrams on
pictures become quite surreal as they take leave of any of the
picture content. Beware especially of books which describe a complex
set of relationships but always keep in reserve a "key number" such
as 15. Because this is a key number it can be added or subtracted to
any angle or any sum at any time and suddenly voila! you get a "highly
significant result" but never reach the buried treasure. Well it leaves
the way open to a sequel anyway.

Oh for the glad careless rapture of 1975! The BBC were sufficiently
worried by the way their fairly highbrow Chronicle strand had been
used that they later made the debunking documentary of the mid
nineties. The wealth of Saunière had been grossly exaggerated and
some things, like a new road, turned out to have been built after his
death.

I am afraid, that like the similar exposé of Hancock, I found the
debunking all too persuasive. There are real mysteries at Rennes
including the murder of Gélis. Anyone with any academic reputation
however is likely to give the whole thing a wide berth.

I still like a good mystery, however, and egads! they have just discovered
a buried chest underneath Saunière's Magdala Tower.

http://www.rennes-discovery.com/news_announcement.htm

Yes I will be reading on but without holding my breath
Smile

Posted: 09-08-2001 01:36 Post subject: RLC

Sometime recently we met a local who said that Saunière inherited the money from his family (how he got the money is the main question). Apparently (he said) this is common knowledge in the area. The current mayor is said to be keen that village should benefit from the recent explosion of interest in this story.

The village is interesting and certainly very beautiful. You need to visit more than once - because your first visit will inevitably be coloured by everything that you've heard or read and by the strange and conspiratorial histoire. The decorative symbolism can be initially somewhat overwhelming.

The church is certainly strange - flamboyant perhaps. But, actually, no stranger than many churches in the region. Visit also, for example, the chapel at the Gorge Du Galamus which is dedicated to St Antoine (??) of pig and bell - ... who also features on the stations of the cross at RLC. And a visit to the Vatican is much stranger.

RLC is well worth visiting whatever. A beautiful place. Keep an open mind.

LABW

Last edited by rynner on 10-08-2001 22:31; edited 1 time in total

..but on the same day I discovered this thread I also found a local website which appears to suggest that an area of Falmouth where I used to live a few years ago was once called Mount Sion

http://www.seaviewinn.co.uk

(Enter the site, click Local Pictures. For some reason the page URL doesn't seem to work.)

Although I have delved a bit into local history, this was news to me.

Posted: 15-08-2001 14:45 Post subject: Sion - Psion !!!!!!!!!!!!

......There is also a Sion (Road or Street can't remember) in the centre of Padstow.........

Perhaps a result of Cornish-Bretagne links and ancient celtic christians ?? who knows ??

Posted: 16-08-2001 00:19 Post subject:

Posted: 12-12-2001 15:27 Post subject: There's a Grail in them thar hills...

As I may have mentioned elsewhere, reading _The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail_ as a teenager (the best time to read books like that) was something of a formative experience for me. Alas, I soon got into the field of actual history, and discovered that most of THBatHG was, sadly, b*llsh*t (but still a great read). As are most (all?) of the other theories put forward about Rennes-le-Chateau over the years.
So, my question is this: has anybody got any really good theories about just what the hell was going on in that corner of France at the turn of the century? Feel free to be creative. Amusing-if-unlikely theories welcome. Bonus points if your theory _doesn't_ include Jesus or the Knights Templar (who, frankly, are starting to bore me). Extra bonus points if you manage to incriminate well-loved (and probably blameless) figures from history/current affairs in any occult jiggery-pokery...

Posted: 12-12-2001 20:19 Post subject:

Some friends and I once ran an Ars Magica saga (a roleplaying game of Medeaval Fantasy) set in and around the area.

As alpha-games master I created most of the back story which involved the valley being a huge naturally formed ritual landscape (much like Stonehenge, the "Glastonbury Zodiac" and Avebury, to name but three in the UK). It was thus a highly magically charged place and a natural location for the players, Hermetic Magi, to set up their Covenant. The long term plane was to make the Covenant itself the source of the Rennes mystery but since the evidence seemed to stretch back prior to it's founding I gave the site it's own history involving the Order of Hermes itself and a series of events called the Schisim War, which saw the Order turn against itself and destroy one of the factions within it.

I wove a tale involving the valley as a prize, they had to fight infernal forces inspiring the Albanesian Crusade as a blood sacrifice to turn the region over Demonic control; the Church seeking to use it go enforce the power of God; the Fey, denizins of the realm of Arcadia, wanting to use it to regain the power they lost with the fall of Paganism and the Mages wanting it because everyone else did. The lost hermetic faction had been trying to keep the existance of the site, its powers and the others like it that existed elsewhere, from falling into anybody'd hands and with their loss there had come a free-for-all power-grab.

Admittedly I did have Templars but they had, historcally, been in the region during the period which the saga had commenced and one player had a character who was a Templar and went on a Grail Quest, but he left for the Holy Land and thus left the "true Grail" (the valley) behind... so it goes on...

Niles "Terribils Est Locus Ist" Calder

Last edited by Guest on 12-12-2001 21:50; edited 1 time in total

Friend of mine used to play that Ars Magica. Never really got into roleplaying games myself, sometimes wish I had.
I like the "sacred landscape" idea, implying as it does that the whole Rennes-le-Chateau mystery goes back to neolithic times (or earlier - Altantis, anyone? Actually, I think somebody called David Wood wrote a book saying just that, although I seem to remember that it was one of the more ridiculous Rennes theories, made Lincoln, Baigent et al look like Oxford professors by comparison). Ditto the Albigensian crusade as "cover" for mystical projects. Not that people have ever _needed_ "infernal forces" to get them to do things like that to their fellow (wo)man. More's the pity. "Kill them all; God will know his own".
As my title for the thread suggests, on an aesthetic level I'm not inclined to tolerate any Rennes theory that doesn't at least touch on the Grail romances, which fascinate me. Full of images and symbols that you _almost_ think you understand. Maybe I'm just easily impressed, but I actually find some of the Grail imagery a little disturbing for some reason, like the procession with the bloody spear, the severed head etc., which are all apprently different aspects of the Grail itself...
You're right, by the way; it's bloody difficult to come up with a Rennes-le-Chateau theory that doesn't include the Templars in some way. I'll succeed one of these days, though...

Good God - I've just stopped being a "Grey" and become a "Yeti". What does that mean?

Posted: 12-12-2001 22:46 Post subject:

Alright, we are moving into the arena of the utterly bizarre and un-backup-able now. But I have a story to tell, then you can all mock...

My sister has had a history of retro-precognitive dreams. OK, that sounds garbage, I'll explain; the best example I can think of is the time that she had a dream about an odd jewel. She painted it from memory and two weeks later, it was on the news as having turned up in a Saxon hoard or somesuch. You get the picture.

Anyway, one day she tells me that she's had a very vivid and disturbing dream about a priest who lives in a town near a mountain and who gets up to no good. She describes him and says that there's some kind of nasty statue in his church. Sound familiar?

Don't get excited though, there was no big revelation. All she could tell me was that he was performing some kind of odd ritual involving another man who had a bone mask very tightly bound (perhaps even sewn) onto his face.

Naturally, I showed her a photo of Sauniere and she was aghast. But then it ain't exactly uncontaminated evidence, is it? I'm not making any claims here, you understand. I just thought it might pique someone's interest...

Posted: 13-12-2001 00:50 Post subject: ET IN ARCADIA EGO

That confuses me. 'And in Arcadia, me'? Strange way to word it.
Should it not have been 'ET EGO IN ARCADIA SUM'? But, as you say,it may well be an anagram.
Anyway, Dan, you got any pet theories regarding this?
I think this and Oak Island are very interesting, but I guess I would...

Posted: 13-12-2001 12:44 Post subject:

you guys should try reading 'le serpent rouge'

Posted: 13-12-2001 15:16 Post subject: Re: ET IN ARCADIA EGO