Séance at Rennes-le-Château A clairvoyant, a researcher and a cinematographer embark on an extraordinary mission - a psychic quest across the heartland of Southern France to the mountaintop castles of the Cathars and the legendary village of Rennes-le-Château. World renowned as a centre for psychic activity and spiritual significance, this place has inspired countless books, internet sites and the recent feature film, Revelation.
What mysterious treasure lies buried at Rennes-le-Château, and how is this connected with Christianity and its founder? What were the secret teachings of the original Christians and why were they brutally suppressed by the Roman Church? What strange force draws hundreds of visitors each year to make the pilgrimage to this isolated spot?
To answer these questions we must look beyond the factual evidence, tuning in to supernatural dimensions to reveal the secrets of the dead. Hunting for clues in spectacular mountain and coastal landscapes across the South of France, we shall uncover the truth behind the legends. Along the way, we present startling new evidence for reincarnation, meeting people who recall living, and dying, at Rennes-le-Château!
The Priest's Treasure The tiny village of Rennes-le-Château, with its bizarrely decorated Church and Gothic Tower, is perched high up on a rocky outcrop with spectacular views over the Rhazès countryside towards Carcassonne to the North and the mountains of the Pyrenees to the south.
In 1885 Abbé Bérenger Saunière arrived at Rennes-le-Château only to discover the church was almost a complete ruin. To make matters worse his salary was a meagre 75 francs per month. Even in those days this was barely sufficient to live on. Mysteriously, he started to acquire large sums of money. He used this to decorate his church with strangely unchristian motifs. He mixed with occult circles in Paris, and died suddenly, after being denied last rites. His housekeeper, rumored to be his lover, had a stroke and carried the secret to her grave. What was the source of Sauniere's wealth? According to one theory, he discovered part of the fabled treasure of the Visigoths, who had occupied this area in the past when it had great strategic importance due to its commanding position.
Another theory holds that he acquired his wealth by illegally selling masses, and in fact it was on this charge that Saunière was temporarily suspended from his priestly duties by his bishop on 5 December 1911. The most extraordinary yet perhaps the most compelling theory was proposed in The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail. The authors of this bestselling book presented evidence linking the history of the area with that of early Christianity. They claimed that Jesus was married to Mary and that he escaped crucifixion and fathered a dynasty - the Merovingian line - onetime rulers in the South of France. The Church paid Saunière to suppress this evidence. Suddenly, the meandering history of Europe develops a dramatic, cohesive plot line: The persecution of the Cathars by the church, the collusion of Rome in the assassination of King Dagobert, the successful conspiracy of the Pope Clement V and Phillipe IV of France to suppress the powerful Templars - all were efforts to "eradicate it, Jesus' bloodline." For "it" constituted nothing less than a rival church with a more direct link to J.C.'s legacy than the Vatican could ever claim. A Holy War In the 13th Century 100,000 Cathars and folk of Languedoc were massacred by the Pope during the Albigensian Crusade (Albi=Cathar stronghold). Crusaders marched into Beziers, and with no difficulty, took the city and killed everyone in it - men, women, children and priests. The Pope's legatees were asked by the crusaders how they would know the heretics and received the now notorious reply, 'Kill them all. God will know his own." The armies of the Pope destroyed one of the most vibrant and progressive cultures of the middle ages. Why did the Church decide to conduct this "Holy War" against a peaceful and spiritual people? Perhaps the Church felt its own claim to divine authority was at stake. Could it be the Cathars possessed the secret of the true origin and teachings of Christianity, and were attempting to practise what Jesus actually taught? Secret Documents
Montsegur, a castle atop a mountain peak, was the last stronghold of the Cathars. As the Castle fell to the Pope's army, documents were smuggled out, and were perhaps taken to Rennes-le-Chateau. Legend has it that Abbé Bérenger Saunière discovered these documents and used them to obtain his wealth, possibly by blackmail. Whatever they contained, their secret was lost when Saunière died. Evidence for Reincarnation One of the most interesting aspects of Catharism is the hold it has on the modern mind. London's acclaimed clairvoyant and healer, Coral Temple, has worked with clients who have recalled past lives as Cathars. And this strange phenomenon has happened before. In the 1960s an English psychologist, Arthur Guirdham, researched the mental illness of some of his patients. He found that they had recurring dreams and visions centred around the fall of Montsegur in March 1244. They could recall details of past lives as Cathars in the Languedoc and they all told of their death at the hands of the Catholic army. Guirdham claimed that what he had found was a cell of people, who had reincarnated again and again. They had known each other as Cathars in 13th century France, and they had come together again in Southwest England. Guirdham was not a cranky new-ager, he was a respected psychologist, and he presented documentary proof from his research that amazed French historians with the accuracy of the detail. Reincarnation was one of the Cathars central doctrines. The Tomb Of Christ Where lie the bones of the founder of Christianity? Just to pose this question is to contradict a central tenet of the Roman Church - that Jesus was not a mortal man and that he rose from the dead after crucifixion. Yet despite the controversial nature of the claim, reports abound that somewhere in the South of France is the tomb of Jesus, and of his consort, Mary. In 1997 a team explored the codes found in documents and art connected with Rennes-le-Château, and claimed to have decrypted them. A $500,000 advance was reportedly paid by the publishers for the book which contains their solution, The Tomb of God. They concluded that the codes pointed to the location of Jesus' mortal remains, in a mountain near Rennes-le-Château. Another recent book, The Arcadian Cipher, claimed that famous artworks depicted the location of Jesus' tomb. Perhaps these claims are not as far fetched as they seem? Art as a coded Message Throughout the bloody history of the Church, heretics had good reason to keep their beliefs secret. Yet they had to be expressed in some form, and perhaps the best vehicle for this was Art. Using messages coded within Architecture and Paintings, the secret could be passed through the centuries. The Priory of Sion, a secret society connected with Rennes-le-Château, claimed an impressive lineage of grand masters including Leonardo da Vinci, Isaac Newton, Victor Hugo, and Jean Cocteau. Many of these celebrities were also mystics; Did they code heresies within their works? What was the truth that was too dangerous to utter in public? Jesus and the Goddess Perhaps the most blasphemous heresy was that which sought to elevate the role of women, or feminine deities, within the doctrine of the Church. Despite the fact that women were systematically expunged from the Bible and the doctrine of the Church, Madonnas have been revered by generations of pilgrims as far back as the pagan tribes of Western Europe and throughout the early days of Christianity. These Madonnas are said to be symbols of the goddess, Isis. They are also connected to both the Virgin Mary, supposed mother of Jesus, and to Mary Magdalene, a disciple or consort. In fact Mary is still worshipped in the South of France. Huge crowds attend the annual procession of her alleged skull, behind a golden mask in St Maximin, Provence, and the Church of Rennes-le-Château is dedicated to her. Did the Mary cult derive from Isis, and earlier? The Templar Revelation claims that Jesus and Mary travelled to France to preach an Egyptian ecstasy religion! Earth Mysteries Statues of the Madonna are thought to be involved with mysterious currents of energy (sometimes called telluric currents). Lines of telluric power have been plotted all over France and include one east-west line which runs directly through the Cap Ferrat area, with its 40 foot Black Virgin, thus connecting it with the Black Madonna in the church of Les Saintes Marie de la Mer in Provence. What does modern science have to say about these forces? And what further light can be shone on the phenomenon by psychic investigation? A Holy Place Broadcaster and Lecturer, Henry Lincoln, one of the original authors of Holy Blood, Holy Grail, has studied the evidence for many years. He believes the whole area of Rennes-le-Château is constructed using precise geometric principles. The evidence suggests these were applied by an advanced civilization, now vanished. New-agers, adventurers and Psychics visit the area in ever growing numbers. Reports of UFOs and other weird happenings abound. All agree "there is an energy here." The area is charged with a spiritual force whose message seems to have something in common with the esoteric branches of Islam, Buddhism and the New Age. It's a message that the Church has gone to great lengths to suppress. The Revelation In 2001 a team led by J. Meril from California and Professor Eisenman from the University of Long Beach started to investigate the area. Eisenman is a maverick scholar, who claims the Church suppressed revelations from the Dead Sea Scrolls revelations. He has been derided by fellow academics yet applauded by freethinkers and by Moslems who believe that Christ, who figures in the Koran, was an ordinary mortal human. Using echo detectors, the team located a crypt with two tombs beneath the church. Judging by the many layers of sediment which covered them, they estimated that the tombs were earlier than the 5th Century AD. A chest, possibly containing parchments, was located nearby. Plans are now afoot to conduct a full scale archaeological excavation from the outside of the building via the garden or by breaking through the ground floor of the church itself. In a word the objective of the researchers is to find traces of ancient civilization However the fans of the site are hoping for other evidence. La Dépêche du Midi, March 5, 2002 What lies buried deep beneath the tiny church? The fabled treasure of the Visigoths? Documents revealing the secret teachings of Jesus? The tomb of Jesus and Mary? Or something beyond the imagination? |
Coral Temple, psychic researcher
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