I really wish i had the luxury of absolute, unquestioning faith.
I do not and i am still searching.
I wrote this novel as part of my own spiritual quest.
I never imagined a novel could become so controversial.
I'm aware there are those out there,
more aware now that i've read the press in new hampshire
who disagree with me, who say awful things about me,
who make little pictures.
And i know that a lot of these people have published
long lists of my shortcomings, my errors, my inadequacies.
Sadly, i think many of these critics seem to have missed
the entire point of the novel.
That being this.
One simple undebatable truth.
Prior to 2,000 years ago,
we lived in a world of gods and goddesses.
Today we live in a world solely of gods.
Women in most cultures have been stripped of their spiritual power
and our male dominated philosophies of absolutism have a long history
of violence and bloodshed which continues to this day.
What i've finally come to accept is
that science and religion are partners.
They're simply two different languages attempting
to tell the same story.
Both are manifestations of man's quest to understand the divine.
While science dwells on the answers,
religion savors questions.
When i started researching the da vinci code,
i really was skeptical and i expected on some level
to disprove all of this history that's unearthed in the books.
And after three trips to paris and a lot of interviews,
i became a believer.
The da vinci code has brought together a lot of ideas
from alternative history books.
I think the first thing to remember about
dan brown's the da vinci code is that it's a novel.
You know, it's a page turner.
Allegedly or possibly it has you on the edge of your seat.
You want to know what happens to these people
and whether they find the thing and how amazing it all is.
But of course, we're terribly grateful to it really
because our book, 'the templar revelation'
which came out 7 years ago now
is mentioned as an authority in the book by name, by title
which is great because our book was taken off on the back of it
and our book is not a novel.
Our book represents a lot of very hard research into
some very profound subjects.
Unfortunately, dan brown doesn't seem to understand
some of the research, our research
which he repeats in the book.
But in a way, that's okay because he's handed it over to us.
People see the title of our book in his book
and buy us or look us up so that's great.
What dan brown's done very cleverly is bring together
some of those ideas and put them into a contemporary thriller.
So the one thing we can be sure about is that
the story that we're familiar with
if we brought up as questions is wrong.
So even if to bunk all the other alternatives,
what's left is still not, is still not
you can't say it's true, it's definitely wrong.
That's the reason all these alternative ideas are around.
Because we all start from the position that
what we've been told all this time is demonstrably wrong.
Let's try and find out what the truth is.
Dan brown's da vinci code is a publishing phenomenon.
Over 10 million copies sold and rising steadily.
This book can truly be called a worldwide best seller.
Never has a book raised so many contentious issues though.
On the one hand championed by so many people
and on the other hand vilified by others who think
this is blasphemy, heresy.
So what is the truth behind all this?
What is the mystery of the da vinci code?
Is there really a da vinci code?
My name is simon cox
and i'm author of 'cracking the da vinci code'.
I want to take you on a journey deep inside the novel.
I want to unravel some of the mysteries
and show you some of the historical facts behind the fiction.
In the critical early chapters of the da vinci code,
the louvre museum in paris features prominently
as a scene of much of the action.
It has been the murder site of jacques sauniere,
the meeting place for robert langdon and sophie neveu,
and due to the suspicions of the police chief bezu fache,
the starting point of the pursuit that eventually leads
to london and then scotland.
We certainly believe that there is real evidence beyond fiction
for several coverups.
One concerned with john the baptist and his real status.
And one concerned with ditto with mary magdalene
and her real status which actually affects the way
the church has treated all women for 2,000 years.
Well, the nature usually of orthodoxy is that
its capacity for change is limited.
Because it has painted itself into a corner.
It has locked itself up in a box
from which it is very very difficult to come out.
So you can see for instance in some relatively minor ways,
the present pope for instance tries to loosen up certain things.
He has allowed the fact that mary magdalene is very important.
He has called mary magdalene the apostle of the apostles.
He has disavowed the position of earlier popes that
mary magdalene was a prostitute and just a repentant sinner.
That was her principal function and things of that sort.
But the limitations that orthodoxy has come to impose upon itself
only allowing to change so much.
And after that, it can't really do it withoutjust cutting its own throat.
In the da vinci code, the body of jacques sauniere,
curator of the louvre is found in the grand gallery.
It is arranged in the image of leonardo's famous vitruvian man.
Most modern visitors of the grand gallery
hasten past the myriad collection of great masterpieces
lining the walls of this extraordinary space
in order to get to the wondrous mona lisa at the far end.
It is within the grand gallery that sophie and robert
are led to information on the back of leonardo's
renowned madonna of the rocks
where they find the key to the safety deposit box at
the zurich depository bank.
The madonna of the rocks is the name given to
two versions of a religions painting by leonardo da vinci
that portray the virgin mary sitting with the infant jesus
and john the baptist.
They are accompanied by an angel believed to be
the archangel uriel.
The composition is triangular with the virgin mary at its apex.
The earlier and more perplexing of the two versions
was commissioned for the church of san francesco grand in milan.
This painting features a rocky grotto with a
seated virgin mary at its center.
Beside her sit two infants, jesus and john the baptist.
While uriel kneels to her left slightly behind one of the babies.
The child believed to be jesus sits cross-legged and
slightly away from mary.
His right hand is raised in the gesture of blessing
aimed at the other child.
And above this, mary's downcast hand hovers over his head.
Beside this child, uriel points at the other child
sitting to mary's right.
This infant thought to be john the baptist
has his hands clasped together as if in prayer
while mary's right hand embraces his shoulder.
Looking at the painting objectively, it would be more probable
that the child praying is jesus and not john the baptist
as he sits closer to the virgin mary
as in fact being cuddled and protected by her.
It would then make sense for the other child
who sits further away from the virgin to be john the baptist
who is under the protection of the archangel
with whom he is associated.
This is the theory advanced by clive prince and lynn picknett
in their book, 'the templar revelation'.
It's very amusing to us that if you go into the
grand art galleries where they have leonardos on display and
people stand in front of them or sit in front of them
reverentially as if, you know,
if there were candles they would light them, too. You know, they see them as holy works
and perhaps they were in a way,
but certainly not holy christian works in the usual sense of the word.
There's a lot of savage, anti-christian work there.
A lot of savage satire...
including the madonna of the rocks which there is
a version in paris and in london.
Some extremely vulgar, but extremely savage satire on
the alleged virginity of mary the mother.
In the second version of the painting which now hangs
in the national gallery in london,
the figures are slightly larger and have been given halos.
The archangel uriel no longer points to the infant to the
virgin mary's right who now holds the cross of john the baptist.
This cross appears to have been added at a later date by
another painter and may not reflect leonardo da vinci's intention.
This revision in the second painting may have been made
to remove the ambiguity about the two infants.
The earlier version seems to reflect the templar tradition of
venerating john the baptist over jesus.
It is not surprising that the co-fraternity who commissioned
this painting rejected the earlier version
as it did not adequately depict their ideal of
the holy family sheltering in a cave in egypt
during their flight from herod.
In dan brown's novel, sophie neveu is led to
the first version of the madonna of the rocks
hanging in the louvre by an anagram left by her grandfather.
And it is behind this painting that she finds the key to
the safety deposit box.
Leonardo was no christian. In fact he hated...
judging by his paintings alone, if you look at them objectively,
he actually hated the holy family.
For example, whenever he painted himself in his paintings
and he was very keen to do this, he involved himself in his works.
He painted himself with his back to the holy family.
For example, in the adoration of the magi,
there's a young man in the bottom right hand corner
turned away like this. Quite vehemently.
And artists, historians generally accept that is leonardo himself.
And in the last supper,
st. Jude, who by the way is patron saint of lost causes so
that's quite amusing,
is at the end of the table with his back to the central figure of jesus.
In the adoration of the magi,
there's something very very interesting going on
which is key to all the secret, the real da vinci code.
Everyone loves a conspiracy
which is why dan brown included a reference to
leonardo's unfinished masterpiece, adoration of the magi.
Within the novel, brown recounts the story of how
a florence-based art diagnostician named maurizio ceracini
had discovered that under layers of grime and over painting
was a very composition of leonardo.
The uffizi gallery in florence was so embarrassed
by his findings that they banished the painting to a nearby warehouse.
Ceracini has become famous for his use of medical technology
to reveal the secrets of the old masters.
He has examined works by botticelli, caravaggio and raphael
as well as many other master painters.
His examination of the adoration of the magi
stirred a raging debate in the art world.
Ceracini came to some remarkable and controversial conclusions.
In his words, "none of the paint that we see on the adoration today
was put there by leonardo."
Ceracini believes that a much later hand clumsily applied
the layers of brown and orange paint that now adorn the canvas.
He points out that many of the painted features are
totally devoid of the finesse and quality of leonardo's hand,
especially in the depiction of human anatomy.
Supporting this theory is the discovery of
a wholly different scene beneath the existing work.
Ceracini suggests that leonardo wanted to portray
a world that was being reconstructed from ruins,
a reflection of the master's feelings at the beginning of the renaissance.
Which is a whole lot more shocking than anything
that dan brown put in his book.
In the adoration of the magi, you'll notice if you really look,
that the front part, the foreground of the painting,
the people adoring the madonna and the child
are all hideous, they look like the walking dead.
They've got sunken eyes and sunken cheeks and
they're clawing at the holy family
which is very strange.
Especially when you realize that there's another bunch
of worshippers, a second group beyond and above those.
Beyond the virgin mary.
And they appear to be worshipping the roots of a tree
or the tree itself.
And these people, these worshippers are
young and healthy and good looking.
And one of them standing next to the tree
is doing that which we came to understand refers
in leonardo's works to john the baptist.
And it's interesting because this tree is a carub tree
which in church tradition is a symbol of john the baptist.
So what you have is leonardo himself turned away from
the virgin and child,
the worshippers of the virgin and child looking like
nothing on earth, looking like something from hell,
and the worshippers of symbols connecting with john the baptist
being young and healthy.
And so one is apt to think leonardo had something about
john the baptist which he certainly did.
Judging from his other paintings.
Leonardo da vinci is like michelangelo and
all these great renaissance figures.
The people at that time were all subject already to the
revival of alternative spirituality largely by real or
cabalistic sources and
therefore they often probably at least secretly held
various positions and beliefs which were not consistent with
regular church orthodoxy.
Whether a johannine tradition, a john the baptist tradition
actually in some tangible forms or templar sources or things like that
may have survived to the point that each leonardo da vinci
is possible, but it's highly speculative.
Another interesting pair of paintings
because of the continuity of ideas between them
actually not painting, it's the famous cartoon
that's in london's national gallery,
but that painting that wasn't completed.
It turned into another one which was completed
which is the virgin and child with st. Anne.
And in that painting, it's basically the same that was seen
except infant john isn't there anymore.
He's been replaced by a lamb.
Now although jesus is often called the lamb of god,
because it was john the baptist who according to the gospels,
pointed out him out to behold the lamb of god,
the symbol is often also used of john.
And clearly is in this painting.
Incidentally, it was also...
the lamb of god to represent john was also something
that the knights templar used.
And so clearly in this painting, the lamb is supposed to
represent john the baptist.
And again, if you look at the way child jesus is
playing with the lamb, he's...
i mean the lamb isn't happy. It's being roughed up.
We used to have this joke that
it looks almost as if jesus is trying to pull the lamb's head off.
If you actually look at it, he's holding it by the ears
and does appear to be.
He's got a leg wrapped around the lamb's neck
again separating its head.
So you keep getting this separate head symbolism
connected with john the baptist for obvious reasons
as he died by beheading.
But this interaction between jesus and john
actually suggesting a struggle, a rivalry.
The last supper is considered to be leonardo's greatest masterpiece.
Having recently undergone extensive restoration,
this fresco is refectory of the santa maria della grazia, milan
poses many intriguing questions.
The central figure shows christ at the last supper
surrounded by his apostles.
This scene is the origin of the eucharist which
forms a central observance of the christian church's holy communion.
Note however, that in leonardo's painting there is
no central cup or chalice which would be required for this ritual.
Is leonardo hinting at a different meaning for the holy grail?
According to picknett and prince in their book,
the templar revelation', the figure to the right of christ,
our left as we view the painting, is a woman.
In his book, dan brown has leigh teabing explain
that this figure is none other than mary magdalene.
Within the last supper, leonardo has depicted
the moment when the apostles hear from jesus that
one of them will betray him.
The painter captured in the followers' faces
different reactions to this terrible news.
Another feature of the painting that picknett and prince
highlight is the so-called disembodied hand
which can be seen holding a knife,
but in the restored version of the fresco
seem to belong to apostle peter.
The possible female figure is seen in close connection
to peter who seems to extend a menacing hand across her throat.
This possibly echoes peter's antagonism towards magdalene
as described in some of the gnostic gospels.
As mentioned in 'the templar revelation'
and 'the da vinci code',
the two central characters are wearing identical but
opposite code clothing of blue and red.
And their bodies leaning away from each other
form the letter 'm'.
On the other side of christ, is the figure of thomas
who is making what has come to be known as
the john gesture with his upraised finger.
Normally associated with john the baptist,
it is unknown why leonardo assigned it to thomas.
Scholars and academics generally agree that
the bearded figure with his back to jesus
is a self-portrait of leonardo as the disciple thaddeus.
It seems that within this very traditional and familiar scene,
leonardo has managed to embed symbolism, mystery
and intrigue in equal measures.
Many of the characters painted by leonardo da vinci
seem to have an ambiguous sexuality.
If we were to look at the character to the
right of christ in the last supper,
to the left as we look,
the so-called figure of mary magdalene
may well be seen as prince and picknett contest.
However, this character could just as easily be a male.
If we were to look at the characters and
john the baptist in leonardo's last painting
or the mona lisa, leonardo's most famous painting,
we would see here there was also ambiguous sexuality.
If one were to take the hair away from these characters,
for instance, sexual stereotypes play no part.
These characters are distinctly hermaphroditic.
And it's a possibility that leonardo tried to
put across this very theme within his paintings.
The idea of the conjoining of the male and female.
This very gnostic thought is something that many scholars
believe that leonardo was actually trying to get across.
It's quite interesting that one of the most
famous paintings in the world is leonardo's last supper
which is a wall painting.
I mean there's copies of it everywhere.
Bath mats and things like this.
But it's very very little known really
even by the so-called experts who are far too close to it
and far too far away from leonardo's esoteric roots
to really see what it's about and why he painted it.
Well of course the first reason that he painted it
was that he was commissioned to do so.
So he was doing it basically for a livelihood.
So that must be remembered.
But secondly, leonardo whenever he could,
imbued his works with heretical messages
for those with eyes to see basically.
He sailed very close to the wind considering
what happened to people who did things like this
and didn't get away with it.
But in his last supper famously now because of dan brown,
says she through gritted teeth,
is a woman sitting next to jesus
and not the young st. John.
It's kind of a blend because this character
does have a little beard but that's as far as it goes.
It's a token beard.
And for all we know, magdalene did have a beard.
But she is leaning away.
She/he is leaning away from jesus like this
and the shape that they make is a giant 'm' shape which
we thought is this clue to who this person really is?
Another clue perhaps is the fact that
jesus is wearing sort of a red dress, a robe
and a blue half cloak thrown over one shoulder.
And this character, we'll call her mary magdalene because
everybody knows that's the conclusion that we come to,
is wearing the opposite.
She's wearing a blue dress and a red cloak
and they seem to be almost literally joined at the hip
although she's leaning away.
And you wouldn't understand why if you just look at
the new testament, but in lots of
forbidden and heretical texts, it's spelled out
that they were lovers.
Not married which is dan brown's claim,
but lovers, it's a heavy emphasis on lovers.
Perhaps in a ritual, sacred sex sense, almost certainly,
but were they also in an ordinary sense lovers?
Who knows?
But in the last supper, there's lots of other things
which sort of show that people don't really look at it,
don't really see.
For example, there's a hand with a dagger in it.
It's being thrust at one of the disciple's stomachs
and i've heard actually an alleged world expert
on leonardo saying it's the hand of a certain disciple.
But i mean if you we have tried physically
to get him into that sort of position
and you'd have to be a contortionist.
And the big question is
why would you have to be a contortionist
if you're going to stick a dagger at somebody's stomach
but to us the interesting thing is and
it's just typical of the way people look at
the great holy works of art.
Virtually nobody notices the hand with the dagger.
They just block it out because they don't expect it to be there.
Other things in the last supper.
Leonardo painted himself as st. Jude,
the second disciple along from jesus' left.
And he has his back to jesus.
Another thing that's interesting is that
there is a disciple standing next to jesus doing that,
the john gesture, the john the baptist gesture,
closely in jesus' face.
Could this be a kind of remember john the baptist?
Who knows?
But certainly, in leonardo's works,
that always always refers to john the baptist
even if he is not physically present and of course he isn't
in the last supper.
It's interesting, too, that the character who very very
likely is mary magdelene has a hand cutting across her throat.
And the hand is st. Peter's.
And it's interesting that according to the forbidden books,
the lost gospels, some of which may have been
circulating in leonardo's time in the underground movements
and the secret societies and so on,
they make much of the fact that st. Peter and
mary magdalene were literally at each other's throats.
That basically peter hated her. He hated her power over jesus,
he hated the fact that she was jesus' favorite,
and not him which is interesting and he threatened her.
And in one of these books, mary magdalene says to jesus
that 'i am afraid of peter because he threatens me
and hates all my sex.
And so here in the painting, you have a clear...
in this giant 'm' shape which she forms in part
and peter is slightly also forming part of it,
he is threatening her actually, visibly.
Visually in this painting.
The last thing that i would like to point out about it
is that although this is this depicts the holy scene
where jesus instigates the sacrament,
the wine representing his blood and the bread representing his body
and yet there is no great chalice in front of him.
There's very little wine, in fact, on the whole table.
Could leonardo who we know from our research
absolutely hated the holy family, jesus and the holy family,
could he be saying this man never shed his blood for you
also although there is a lot of bread on the table,
very very little of it is broken.
Could he be saying that he never broke his body
on the cross for you?
That is a very radical position and i think really
the only people who i know hold that kind of position
are the mandeans who never were christians
even though they may have adopted euphemisms of
the christians of st. John in order to please the crusaders
and other christians, but they were never christians.
But i think within the more christianized varieties
of the esoteric tradition,
it's not so likely that they're going to come up and say that
jesus has usurped the messianic role of john,
but probably what they would say is, would be
there have been several messengers of light throughout history.
There have been several messiahs notjust the only begotten son.
And one of them was john.
And then jesus was there in a different way.
And that not so much perhaps jesus himself, but his followers
eclipsed the importance of john and said he was a forerunner
who wasn't worthy to loosen the shoes of the
one who came thereafter and so forth.
And made a minor figure out of him and that
that is where the injustice and the wrongful position came in.
But such people would then probably also say that
there will be others.
Maybe soon, maybe not soon, we don't know when,
but that the coming of messianic messengers from above
is an ongoing process in history.
And that of course in the orthodox mind
takes the glory away from jesus.
Because he's supposed to be the only one.
It's actually an application of the monotheistic principle.
One god, one law, one way.
In the da vinci code, the characters
robert langdon, sophie neveu and leigh teabing
visit temple church in london.
Located between fleet street and the river thames,
temple church is a 12th century structure
which is still used today as a place of worship.
It was built by the knights templar on a site in london
originally established for their order as a place of assembly
by their first grand master hugh de payens.
The church consists of two separate sections.
The building is formed by an area known as the round church
and the adjoining rectangular section known as the chancel.
The round church is based on the design of
jerusalem's church of the holy sepulchre.
In keeping with the knights templar traditions,
the round church was consecrated in 1185 on february 10 by
heraclius, the patriarch of jerusalem.
It is also speculated that henry ii, the king of england
was present at the ceremony.
It is in this round part of the church that some of the most
interesting figures of the building are found.
As stated in the da vinci code, the church is known for
the marble effigies of nine knights arranged on the central floor.
The characters in the novel have come to look for
a knight a pope interred.
A clue which they hope will lead them to
the location of the holy grail.
The knights templar are mentioned throughout
the da vinci code in association with either
the holy grail or their possible discovery of
the so-called treasure of temple of jerusalem.
A religious military order was formed in 1118
when a knight of champagne, hugh de payens
and his eight crusading companions bound to a vow
taken before king baldwin of jerusalem
to protect pilgrims traveling in the holy land.
They specifically asked to be headquartered on the
temple mount which they renamed the templum domini.
They wound up spending more time excavating beneath the temple
than they did escorting pilgrims.
The church rewarded their battle service by
excusing normal ecclesiastical taxes which
allowed the templars to expand their membership
and become fantastically wealthy and powerful.
Besides enormous land holdings and a vast navy,
they were europe's first international bankers.
The order also gained the reputation of being
obsessed with secret rituals
which allowed their enemies to trump up heretical charges
when a move was finally made against them by
france's king philip iv who envied their wealth
and feared their military power.
The king was supported in this effort by
pope clement v who had been convinced that
the templars were bent on the destruction of the church.
On friday, october 13, 1307, a substantial number of the
knights templar in france were arrested.
It is thought that the acts that follow those arrests
including confessions forced via torture, rigged trials and
executions led to the popular conviction that
friday the 13th is unlucky.
A superstition many people still maintain.
Despite these official efforts to wipe the order and
its official dissolution by the pope,
it is thought that surviving members of the order
escaped by sea with much of their fable treasure
including early church artifacts and travelled to scotland.
Moving now into the chancellor's temple church,
this is part of the building which replaced the earlier choir
and was constructed when king henry iii
expressed the wish to be buried there.
Despite his admiration for the temple, however, it was discovered
after his death that his will had been altered
which explains his burial in westminster abbey.
Temple church had seen many historic episodes enfold
in its walls from the negotiations that led to the magna carta,
the abolition of the knights templar and a refurbishment
of christopher wren to a german bombing raid in 1941
which set the roof on fire necessitating extensive restoration
which was completed in 1954.
It is the tomb of sir isaac newton that robert langdon and
sophie neveu are drawn to.
There they find the final clue that leads them to
a showdown with leigh teabing.
In dan brown's the da vinci code,
robert langdon and sophie neveu come to rosslyn chapel
looking for the holy grail
and to try and discover the secrets behind it.
Rosslyn has actually been associated with the holy grail
for a long time, not necessarily as a bloodline of christ,
but as a place where the physical cup,
cup of christ, is thought to have been brought and hidden.
There are many connections between rosslyn and the grail.
Edinburgh, the capital of scotland, is a city
with a long history of many legends of its own.
It is a few miles south of here that robert langdon and
sophie neveu travel to rosslyn towards the end of their quest
to solve the riddles designed by her murdered grandfather.
Rosslyn chapel founded in 1446 by earl william sinclair
is now protected by a steel structure
which provides a platform for viewing the church.
It remains unfinished however.
Upon the death of its founder in 1484,
his son added a roof but did not fully complete his father's vision.
If you wander into roslin glen,
you can look up at the ruins of the castle.
This is a haunted place
where knights had ridden by in full suits of armor
while damsels cast their admiring glances
down from the battlement.
And it still is a magical place.
If you walk around the inside of rosslyn chapel,
you'll find there are knights there riding on horses.
There are unicorns and camels.
There are over 150 green men in rosslyn.
And if you actually follow them around,
you see young children as green men
through huge heads to skulls.
You actually have dead green men in rosslyn.
And these symbols have been around for hundreds of years.
They're thought to be pagan survivals that have been
brought into christianity.
But they symbolize more than anything else
the life and nature, the seasons,
the seasons of a person's life as well.
And at rosslyn, you have a sense in the chapel
of it being alive, every inch of the chapel is covered
in leaves and flowers.
So you can actually imagine that you've walked
from the glen, from its trees into the chapel.
And it was known as the chapel amidst the woods
for many hundreds of years.
So it feels a little bit more alive than most places of worship.
Inside the chapel, the stone work is remarkable
for its variety of animals, plants, angels and demons,
all carved with enormous care and skill.
Every surface is richly decorated including
the barrel vaulted ceiling 40 feet above visitors' heads.
The panels are carved with roses, lilies and 5-pointed stars.
Rosslyn chapel fell into disuse after the reformation
and in 1592, the altars were destroyed
in order to avoid a threatened excommunication.
In 1862, however, the church rededicated following restoration.
Now, thanks to ongoing preservation, we are able to
appreciate the quality of work represented here.
Prince henry sinclair, grandfather of the founder william,
is said to have visited north america on a voyage in 1398,
about a hundred years before columbus presumed discovery.
Among the rich selections of carvings among the chapel is maize,
a plant common in the new world, but unknown in europe at that time.
Over the decade after that, there have been a dozen books
looking at rosslyn and have been coming up with
all sorts of strange and mysterious kind of theories
as to why the chapel was constructed in the first place,
what the carvings mean
and what might be hidden beneath rosslyn.
The carver story is linked to a particular highly decorated pillar
known as the apprentice pillar.
According to legend, while the master mason was traveling
to rome for instruction on how to complete the work,
a young apprentice created this amazing piece of carved stone.
Upon his return, the jealous master is said to have
murdered the apprentice.
From its foundation, rosslyn and its evocative beauty
have compelled visitors to speculate on the meaning of
what they see around them and
to contemplate on both our heavenly and earthly fates.
This is the end of the medieval age.
It's the beginning of the renaissance.
And what we actually have at rosslyn is
the peak of the medieval age.
We have all of the symbolism and all of the characters.
It's almost like a condensed version of the middle ages.
Enthusiasts and scholars have long sought to decipher
some meaning from the hundreds of carved cubes
lining the ceiling arches.
There is even a prize for the first person to unravel the mystery.
There certainly are hundreds upon hundreds of cubes
in the arches at the far end.
Each one of these cubes on each of its surfaces
has a different design carved into it.
And there are a lot of different theories as to
what these actually might be.
Some people think that they,
if you could actually decode these symbols on these cubes,
you'd almost have a map and you could actually find a place
and that's where the treasure is.
Some people think that it's music.
There are different medieval instruments being held
by angels at the end of a lot of these arches.
So maybe this is a score to some medieval song.
And if you played the song, then miraculously,
the vaults would open up and the treasure would be brought out.
Nobody knows and
it's highly unlikely that anyone will ever work it out.
As mark oxbrow discussed, the chapel is linked in
popular myth with the order of the knights templar
and mystery surrounds the possible contents of
the vaults or other chambers beneath the structure.
In the last three years, authors have speculated that
the rosslyn treasure may be the arc of the covenant,
may be other pieces of the treasure from jerusalem,
may be the knights templar treasure which was
taken from france allegedly, on boats from la rochelle.
It may be the embalmed head of jesus.
It's been speculated that there are papyruses,
other parchments which actually have the
lost gospels of jesus christ.
There is a to z of theories as to what the treasure at rosslyn is.
Possible items among this room of hidden treasure
are the arc of the covenant, the stone of destiny
and the head of christ or templar wreath preserved
for the clutches of french king philip iv.
Dan brown tells us that rosslyn chapel was
built by the knights templar.
He tells us that there is a six-pointed star, the star of david
or solomon's seal trodden into the floor worned out over ages.
Neither of these are facts.
There is no star worned out into the floor.
Actually i don't think there's any six-pointed stars
in any part of rosslyn.
There are an awful lot of five-pointed stars.
The pentacle is an ongoing symbol throughout the whole chapel.
Also the connections with the knights templar are entirely false.
There was obviously a presence of knights templar
around the roslin area.
Although as mark oxbrow states,
it seems that the knights templar had nothing directly to do
with the building of rosslyn chapel.
This is still in contention by many researchers and authors even today.
Just down the road from roslin is the village of
as it was called, today known as temple.
And it is here that the local knights templar
had a headquarters and base.
Indeed, legend states that the knights templar may well have
actually taken part in the battle of bannockburn arriving
on the side of the scots and possibly turning the tide of war.
Though again, researchers and authors dispute these claims.
Whatever, the knights templar appear to play an important role
and a major part in the story of the area of roslin and rosslyn chapel.
Well, first of all, we...
we can assume with a good deal of probability
that quite a few people at that time who went to the holy land,
were already at least to some degree dissatisfied
with the existing orthodox paradigm of the christian religion.
In fact, some of them probably went on the crusade
precisely because they wanted to discover something other.
They went there because they felt maybe if we go to the
geographical location where all of this really happened,
maybe we will discover the true christianity.
It was not, christianity was not a very exciting religion
in the middle ages.
And so i think quite a few people who went there were
ready for an alternative view.
And it would seem that probably some of the
templars did receive a transmission of that sort.
In 1309, the knights templar were brought to trial at
holyrood in edinburgh.
And among dozens of locals from the lothians and
across southern scotland,
they testified that the templars were bad christians.
That they didn't give money to the poor.
That they would do anything to get extra land for the order.
And if the templars had been good christians,
then they would have never lost the holy land.
When the accusations then subsequently in the 1300's
were made against the templars that they had
secretly practiced certain heresies,
among some of these accusations, we definitely find elements that
could very well have been derived from mandean or related sources.
So i think it's very very likely that the templars
absorbed certain teachings and
perhaps certain ceremonial practices from the mandeans
which they brought back to europe and which
they kept in a circle obviously
because it was dangerous to do otherwise and
eventually they were found out.
And when there were additional reasons
why the king of france and the pope wanted to do away
with the templars, then these were used as an excuse.
See their heretics as well.
In the novel, brown makes much of the secret organization
casting them in a benevolent and friendly light.
But do they really exist?
The jury is still out on that one.
Many researchers have written many many hundreds of
thousands of words on this shady organization.
But there's nothing concrete.
There's no real evidence that any of those people
supposedly grand masters of priory of sion, people like
victor hugo, leonardo da vinci himself, jean cocteau...
there's no real evidence whatsoever that relates
them to this organization.
Sir isaac newton was supposed to have been a head,
a grand master, but again we have no evidence whatsoever.
It seems more likely that the priory of sion
as we know it today, this modern shady organization
was real but had an invented past.
His secret society which certainly exists.
He didn't make it up.
Sinclair as a name does appear in the
priory of sion documents.
But these documents were only written in the 20th century
and this is a fictional list of people.
Clearly, there's a lot of real names on that list
of grand masters, but the sinclairs that they talk about,
marie and so on and catherine, these people do not exist.
There is absolutely nothing about these people
in the historical record.
So they've made them up.
For everything that i consider to be reputable material,
the very name of the priory of sion was only
invented by plantard and his handful of followers in the 1950s.
They didn't even use that term earlier.
I think it's a recent invention which tries to legitimize itself
by making claims of being joined to other things in the past
and being really a link in a chain
of transmission which
it obviously is not.
The priory of sion mystery is inextricably liked up with
another mystery, another great french mystery
which is that of the village of rennes le chateau.
And most people get to know about the priory of sion
because of this mystery,
the mystery of this village in the south of france.
Where did the priest get his money from?
What seems evident from the area of rennes le chateau
and languedoc in general is that much was going on here.
We have the cathar heresy.
The cathars believing in a type of gnostic god,
inner self, inner truth.
We also have the knights templar ending up in this region
building many castles and fortifications.
We have the many churches dedicated to mary magdalene
and john the baptist.
And it seems that this area may hold a memory, an echo
of something far earlier, something much more important
and it's to this area we must look, i think,
for much more of an answer behind
some of these conundrums.
The origin of the story underpinning the da vinci code
can be traced back to a small village in the south of france.
The mystery of rennes le chateau has been
outlined over the years in hundreds of books.
It's a story of intrigue, politics, power and a tantalizing secret.
But above all, it's a story of fabled hidden treasure.
There has been a settlement in the area of
rennes le chateau for thousands of years.
The visigoths established a prosperous kingdom
in the 5th century extending into modern spain
until the franks led by clovis defeating them.
Importantly, according to the secret history maintained
by the priory of sion,
the descendants of jesus and mary magdalene
living in southern france had intermarried around this time
with franks descended from jews who migrated
to the area from germany and before that, greece.
This union was the basis of the merovingian royal lineage.
Its emblems were the fish, a symbol of jesus,
the lion of judah and the fleur-de-lis,
a symbol of french royalty.
The last merovingian king was deposed in 750,
but powerful descendants participated in the first crusade
in order to recover family histories from the holy land.
They also created the priory of sion and
its front organization, the knights templar.
The priory of sion have to an extent,
well, lynn and i think, in fact they hijacked
a genuine mystery because
they claim that, the dossiers secrets claim that the
priory of sion know all the answers to the rennes mystery
that they were behind it.
It was them that gave sauniere his money.
And for that reason, a lot of literature on the
rennes le chateau mystery has involved the priory of sion.
Centuries later, in 1781, parish priest antoine bigou
was appointed the guardian of the church at rennes le chateau.
He was also entrusted with a great secret by marie blanchefort,
surviving member of the local noble family which
went back many generations.
It said that he hid the documents in a visigoth pillar
that supported the church altar and also created
two additional monuments with cryptic writing on them.
In the late 1800s, the church at rennes le chateau
attained its greatest notoriety when parish priest
francois berenger sauniere discovered hidden documents within.
He took the material to church authorities and suddenly
became a wealthy and important man.
We think that although the mystery itself is genuine,
there's a real question about where he got his money from
and what kind of things sauniere was up to.
He seemed to be involved in some very...
unorthodox activities.
But the priory of sion seem to have rather say hijacked that.
They found this mystery which wasn't terribly well known
when they first started to bring it into the dossiers secret
in the early 60s.
And by linking themselves so closely with it
so almost all the literature that's come off to
all the researchers who are always trying to work out
you can't write about the rennes le chateau mystery
without also writing about the priory of sion.
And there may actually be nothing to do with each other.
There's hijacking of one mystery by another.
The information that was fed to the authors, i think
was largely sort of the matrix of french esotericism.
But doctored and slanted by pierre plantard
in the direction of the priory of sion .
So i think that is really where a lot of the material
really goes awry.
It is believed that his discovery was possibly
buried treasure from jerusalem or
the wealth of long dead merovingian king dagobert.
It may also have been material linking
the descendants of jesus and mary magdalene
to the areas merovingian royalty and their living heirs.
The very stuff that caused the 20-year crusade
against the cathars and may have played a role in
the subsequent repression of the knights templar.
Father sauniere used his new wealth to restore the church
at the rennes le chateau.
And unbeknownst to him, his name was happily used
by author dan brown for his character jack sauniere,
the grand master of the priory of sion
whose early murder sets the da vinci code in glorious motion.
And there's lots of interesting questions come out of that.
Did the people behind the dossiers secrets,
let's call them the priory of sion totally hijack something
or do they know something about the mystery,
were they involved in it,
but they've added their own bits to it to lead people
in the directions that they want to go?
I think the only thing that we can be really sure about
is that their version of what really happened back at
the turn of the 20th century with sauniere and his money,
their version doesn't stand up.
There are anomalies and errors in it,
that you can actually prove.
Well, certainly there is an underlying modicum of truth
in all of them, but that truth is considerably obscured
by i think a great deal of speculative and inventive material.
And it takes i think a person of a certain intuitive,
deeper intuitive perception to sort out this weed from the chaff.
The work on the church progressed.
The flagstone was broken and reportedly,
a treasure was found inside.
Possibly hidden for local nobles during the french revolution.
There was also a manuscript which was encoded and
makes reference to saint sulpice and the artist teniers
which was an anagram of the epithet on the
marquis de blanchefort's tombstone.
During further renovation, the altar was removed and
hidden documents discovered.
They needed to be translated by specialists and
after consulting the bishop of carcassonne,
sauniere visited paris and the church of saint sulpice.
Saint suplice is the famous parisian church where
the da vinci code's fearsome enforcer silas is
directed to look for a keystone at the bottom of the obelisk.
The church of saint sulpice was originally built in
the merovingian era within the boundaries of the
abbey of saint germaindes pres as a parish church for
the peasants living within its jurisdiction on the
left bank of paris.
The church is dedicated to saint sulpice,
the 6th century archbishop of bourge
whose feast day is january 17.
The priory of sion documents known as the dossiers secrets
claim that the church was actually built on the remains
of an earlier pagan temple of isis and that
a statue of isis was said to have been worshipped
of the virgin mary at saint germains until
it was destroyed in 1514.
The parish of saint germains grew in importance
due to the abbey's own church of saint germainsdes pres
which towers the peace of the true cross and
the tunic of st. Vincent.
Saint sulpice itself was continually rebuilt and
enlarged to serve a growing local population
which was also becoming wealthier.
Work on the current building intended to serve
the seminary of saint sulpice and to rival notre dame of paris
in both size and importance.
It began in 1646, but it immediately ran into
financial difficulties.
Six architects struggled to complete it over
a period of 134 years.
The church contains works of many fine artists.
The chapel of the holy angels was decorated by eugene delacroix
who spent several years between 1855 and 1861
working on the commission.
It was the church of saint sulpice in paris that
berenger sauniere turned to try and get the legendary parchments
that he supposedly found in his church deciphered.
There is an interesting fact about saint sulpice.
Within the church is a gnomon.
This gnomon or obelisk-like instrument
stands against one of the walls in the church.
And on certain days of the year the sun shines through
an opposite window illuminating certain parts of the gnomon.
Beneath the gnomon stretching out in a long brass line along
the church floor is something known as the rose line.
The gnomon or sundial in the church of saint sulpice
almost exactly at the base of the obelisk that forms part of it
is hiding place of the keystone that silas is seeking.
He smashes a floor tile over a hollow spot only to discover
a biblical quote from job rather than the map he sought.
It was the pastor of saint sulpice, jean batisse
who was responsible for raising funds to build the gnomon in 1737.
The pastor wanted to establish the exact times of the equinoxes
so that he could calculate the date on which easter would fall each year.
The gnomon consists of a brass line that runs north south
set into the floor of the transept of the church.
A white marble obelisk with a brass line continuing
up the center bears the sign of capricorn.
The sun strikes it at the winter solstice on december 21.
The obelisk bears a royal inscription at its base
commemorating the purpose of the sun dial's construction.
Since the inscription contained the names of the king and
his ministers, it was defaced during the french revolution
and event which also saw their trials and executions.
In the chapel of st. John the baptist,
the sculptor lee simon has portrayed
the saint with his forefinger raised in what is known as
he john gesture.
That's really something that dan brown doesn't pick up on
in his book, not something that he built into his
fictional scenario.
He goes down the line of the great secret
that's being sought and being protected is
the bloodline of jesus and mary magdalene,
that they had children who settled in france and
a secret society called the priory of sion
has existed throughout the ages to protect the descendants
of that bloodline for whatever reason.
The way itjumps over into the priory of sion and
the whole children of mary magdalene matrix and so forth,
then it's in an entirely different realm again.
I look at magdalene as jesus' true successor
which sounds mad, everybody says no it's st. Peter.
No, according to the gnostic gospels, it was her.
And also there is a big question mark over her ethnicity.
I've traced a possible root,
nobody can be certain at this space and time,
but i've traced her possible roots to either egypt or ethiopia
in which case she was very likely a black woman.
Close to the village of rennes le chateau
is a small seaside town of sainte marie sur mer.
Sainte marie sur mer celebrates the name,
mary magdalene, but also saint marie sur mer
in one of the churches there in the little crypt
is a black madonna.
This black madonna is not of mary magdalene
or mary mother of god.
This unique black madonna is a black madonna
celebrating the life of saint sara.
Saint sara is not actually recognized by the
catholic church as a saint.
But the local gypsies of the camargue region
once a year in may celebrate the life and times of
this unknown saint.
Saint sara so legend will have us tell
came ashore in a boat with mary magdalene
and various other characters
fleeing the holy land after the death of christ.
Saint sara according to legend is either
the hand maiden of mary magdalene or
according to some, quite possibly the offspring of
mary magdalene.
And possibly the offspring of mary magdalene and
a union with her and the christ figure.
This black madonna is paraded once a year
through the streets of sainte marie sur mer,
taken to the ocean, bathed in the mediterranean
and paraded back to the church.
Mary magdalene was also a very important
figure in that alternative form of christianity.
Now whether a really specific and separate tradition
ever descended from her as such,
for this, we really have no evidence,
but certainly i think along with thomas and
probably philip and matthias, she stands as one of the
principal figures of the alternative or gnostic form
of christianity in earlier apostolic times.
My research has indicated that in fact she was very much
dioecious of the half,
but you wouldn't know this of course from the new testament.
But of course, matthew, mark, luke and john aren't the
only gospels in existence.
Although ask virtually any christian now and
they will say of course they are.
They are the only gospels, they are the gospels.
But there are we know at least five dozen other gospels.
The gnostic gospels, the forbidden books if you like.
When the church was put into its present form,
when the new testament was put into its present form
in the 4th century a.d.,
a lot of books that were around
thatjust as much claimed to be considerably authentic as
matthew, mark, luke and john were basically
voted out of what became the new testament.
And matthew, mark, luke and john were put in.
These other books were instantly overnight forbidden
and anybody who had one or knew of one
was on notice, basically got rid of them
or you yourself would end up on the flaming pile.
The public shall we say for a very long time
has been misled primarily by the christian church
into believing that from the very beginning,
from the time of jesus and peter and so forth,
there was one unified christian community or church.
And increasingly over the last couple of hundred years
or maybe even more
it has become evident that was not the case.
That there were sort of independent and
semi-independent christian communities of
various orientations spread all over as christianity grew
in the middle east and
they all had a reverence called jesus and his message in common.
But that there was no uniformity among them.
They were for the most part in friendly relations with each other
but they were not a unified organization.
That's not the way that sort of thing worked at that time.
And then beginning in the third century,
there came more and more people who wanted to impose
their particular orthodox vision on the rest.
So it was a gradual takeover by a particular party
beginning in the mostly beginning in the third century
and then contuining thereafter.
The more important secret is to do with these heretic
writings concerning john the baptist.
And it's actually something may have actually confused
readers of the da vinci code.
One of our decodings of leonardo's paintings which
is the virgin of the rocks,
the virgin that's in the louvre in paris
where we've decoded it into a very definite
johannite interpretation.
Johannite being this heresy which is centered on
john the baptist and him actually being superior,
regarded as superior even to jesus.
In some ways, he's regarded as the true christ.
Other than the mandeans, it's really hard to tell
how much or what component of the alternative tradition is john.
John the baptist tradition.
But there is certainly, probably some of it in there.
It was during the same visit that sauniere supposedly
acquired the reproductions of two paintings.
The first, les bergers d'arcadie by nicolas poussin.
It is thought to portray a tomb in the countryside
near rennes le chateau.
The second is david teniers the younger's
the temptation of anthony whose feast day of january 17
seems to play an important and recurrent role in the story.
Whatever secret artifacts and knowledge the
templars brought back from jerusalem
were hidden in the area of rennes le chateau and
fortified the beliefs of the local christian sect, the cathars
who were eventually destroyed by people in french-backed crusade
against their supposed heresy.
Of note, this is the only crusade the
knights templar refused to support.
When you look at alternative history books on things like
the knights templar, the holy grail or rennes le chateau,
you find that second resourcing is really the name of the game.
A lot of these researches simply quote one another,
they quote from one another's books, from one another's research
and the whole thing goes around in circles.
One of the important issues which i think
is not sufficiently considered by the writers
in the popular reign at the present time is
that in order to hold certain positions in spiritual matters,
one needs not necessarily to have received such teachings
from somebody else who received them from somebody else
who received them from somebody else.
In other words, a horizontal historical transmission
is not the only way to reach certain spiritual positions.
There is a vertical position in addition to that.
They may have received it as a result of their own inspiration.
So it's almost like there are two dimensions.
There is a horizontal dimension of history with its
transmissions and traditions and various convolutions and then
there is a vertical dimension which intersects that at
any time where people have their own inspiration.
And therefore, if there are similarities between positions,
that does not indicate necessarily a historical connection,
it may mean a singular inspiration as well.
But since our culture is so secular and
so materialistic even about spiritual things,
it doesn't really consider the vertical dimension.
It is always looking for a horizontal dimension.
And it's a mistake. They are both there.
They are like a cross when they come together.
So let's see, if leonardo had some...
if leonardo indeed had some johannine predilictions
and things of that sort, he could have come by these
in a number of ways some of which could have been
purely inspirational, some of it could have come from
hermetic and cabalistic literature and things of that sort,
any number of sources.
These ideas about the origins of christianity,
suppression of the feminine,
the idea that the church seemed to have been engaged
in coverup of information that they've always known to be true,
it's brought those ideas to a whole new audience.
Which is a good thing.
But naturally it's attracted a lot of criticism,
a lot of hostility from the from orthodoxy, from those
who defend the conventional teachings of christianity.
Are these two approaches or ideas, alternative christianity
possibly going back to john the baptist
to some degree and the rediscovery of the feminine,
are they possibly related to each other?
And if you ask me that question, i will say
most definitely so because there is plenty of evidence
implicit and explicit indicating that the
alternative christianity contained a really powerful
emphasis on the feminine, but of course,
not exclusively the feminine.
If we are looking for the new age, the goddess
which is basically just a rebaptized jehovah,
a ms. Jehovah, you know, then we are not going to
find that there, but we are going to find the feminine
both at the metaphysical level going clear up
to the divine and right down at the practical level
being held in a much higher regard and in a position of
equality and so forth and this was present in the...
you can see it is present in the alternative tradition.
You look at the 12th and 13th century, the cathars had
women and men in totally equal position
among their prefecture.
It was something that was totally unknown in europe
anywhere at that time.
Earlier on, the manicheans have women perfects as well.
Not as prominently as the cathars perhaps,
but they were still there. So it was always there.
When we see the attacks of irineos and these various
heresiology church fathers against the gnostics,
one of the big accusations
is that they have women teachers and they have
women leaders, women prophetesses and
women serve communion and women even baptize,
oh, my god, you know.
So you can see at the very basic level that the
alternative tradition had always a much greater
respect for the feminine.
So when the alternative tradition was repressed,
the feminine was also repressed.
The two were together.
Now when the alternative tradition is emerging again,
the feminine is also reemerging.
So there is a very close connection.
We think it's very interesting that the ones that have
come to light, that have been translated into english certainly
tell a very different story from the new testament about
jesus and his relationship with mary magdalene.
In the new testament, she's hardly mentioned by name.
Why should somebody like da vinci and all sorts of
other people have this thing about her,
believe that she was so important?
And of course there is no real reason from
the new testament, but if you look at some of these
other books, for example, the gospel of philip,
the gospel of thomas, the gospel of mary magdalene,
you begin to understand.
She is described as being jesus' apostle of the apostles.
Certainly the first heretics, quote heretics,
the believers in these books described her like that.
She wasn'tjust the first century equivalent of a
woman tugging along making the coffee for the men.
She was very important. She was rich.
She was independent.
She had no concept of being the little woman.
She was feisty, she was outspoken.
She actually according to one of these forbidden books
got jesus to change his teaching on a quite
central matter which is quite astonishing.
She also severely put the noses out ofjoint
of the male disciples, especially st. Peter
who hated her and he said in one of these books to jesus,
lord let mary leave us for women are not worthy of life
which is very interesting because this personal spat
between mary who was jesus' second right-hand man
if you like in quote and st. Peter seem to prefigure
what happened to their movements, you know,
her's became a sort of goddess worshipping,
intuitive, gnostic, fluid movement,
not a church with a capital 'c'.
And of course he founded the misogynist church of rome.
So it was prefigured by their personal relationship
which is to me particularly interesting, but also in
these forbidden books and gnostic gospels,
jesus is, the disciples go to jesus and say,
lord, why do you prefer her to us?
Why are you always kissing her on the mouth?
And you think, duh, why do you think?
But it's spelt out there. They had a relationship.
They weren't necessarily married and
i don't believe they were, but certainly they had
an intimate relationship. No wonder, these books
are not in the new testament,
but i think that everybody should know about them.
And the da vinci code helps people understand
there is more out there. There's hidden stuff.
The thinking behind this seems to be that
all these books that are offering an alternative version
of the origins of christianity and the christian story
and the way the christian church developed.
If we can debunk all of these alternatives they seem
to think then what's left is the conventional teaching.
So what is the da vinci code?
Well, on one level it's simply a novel.
Robert langdon comes along, solves the puzzle,
gets the girl, saves the world, easy.
But on the other level, it's something deeper.
Much much deeper.
And dan brown has opened a seam of research
and of thought that needed opening for a long time.
There is every bit of likelihood i think
that jesus himself thought and practiced
a whole number of doctrines and sacraments and things
of that sort which were not allowed to become
part of the orthodox chain.
So they just took a part.
The other part was left to the side
for which reason orthodox christianity was lacking
in wholeness for two thousand years.
I simply wrote a story that explores how and
why the shift might have occurred,
what it says about our past and more importantly,
what it says about our future.