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"At the end of
seven hundred years, the laurel will be green
once more."
Anon. Troubadour,
13th Century
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HIGH ON A SACRED MOUNTAIN in Southern France, the whitened ruins of
Montségur are a reminder of the last actively visible gnostic
school
in the West, the Cathari.
Below Montségur lies a peaceful meadow, its name, "Field of the
Burned", the only indication of a grim event that took place there a
little over 700 years ago. In March, 1244, 205 Cathars
were burned
alive on the site, rather than renounce their creed. |
Cathar Stele at Montségur |
Who were these heirs to Montségur? Their name Cathari, means "pure"
in Greek. Branded heretics by the Church, little remains to speak of
them today, other than Inquisition records. Their writings were
destroyed along with their earthly bodies. Yet, in their time their
influence was enormous, networking with centers in Italy,
Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Switzerland and German. There is evidence as
well of a deep connection with Moslem Sufi communities in Spain and
the Middle East and with Jewish Kabbalist scholars living in
surrounding cities. The Grail legends, the Courts of Love, the
troubadours, all blossomed under the benign guidance of the gnostic
Cathari. The spirit of the land, then known as Oc, was that of
tolerance and personal liberty, most rare in any age.
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Detail Cathar Tomb
Descendant, France |
Much of their faith rested upon a form of Manicheaism brought to
Gaul in the 8th century by missionaries from Bulgaria and
Yugoslavia. The close affinity of Druidic teachings, the rallying of
the poor to resist Church and secular tyranny, and the appeal of an
elite strata of the faith to the aristocracy, made rich soil in
which the teachings could take root. Cathar doctrines,
proselytized
largely by readings of the Gospel according to John, provided a
highly workable alternative to the confusion and misery that existed.
Central to the Cathar creed is the concept of Duality, the
opposition of the material world to that of the spirit. For the
masses, this translated into a battle between good (Light or God)
and evil (Darkness or Satan). However, if we return to the source of
one of the many strands of which the Cathar faith is woven, we see
in early Zoroastrianism, the root of Manicheaism, a less encrusted
form of dualism. |
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Search for the Spirit
Roquefixade, France |
According to Zoroaster, the Supreme Being created
twin forces of reality and unreality. Reality and unreality are seen
as essential elements from which our world is created, not
polarizations of good and evil. Reality is represented by objective
meaning, and unreality is human subjectivity, which only becomes
negative when we are enmeshed and blinded by it.
Man, according to the Cathar creed, has three natures:
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the body,
which is the abode of the soul;
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the soul, which is the abode of the
spirit;
-
and the spirit, the divine spark.
Through a life dedicated
to ever increasing purity, the composite nature of man can undergo a
double death and transfiguration, so that the formed spirit, born of
the spark and nourished in the soul, will eventually separate,
returning to the Light. The rigorously ascetic discipline necessary
to achieve this state was available on the "Parfaits" (or "perfects"),
master adepts, and a lower grade of adepts. The masses, or "believers"
as they were called, were allowed to live fully in the ways of the
householder, and understood that they were in cycles of
reincarnation to be reborn on Earth.
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The outer appearance and practices of the Parfaits were simple.
They
worshipped in forests and on mountain tops, utilizing the strong tellurgic currents of the region. Their initiations were held in a
series of limestone caves, chiefly near the Pic de St. Barthalemy.
Renouncing worldly riches, they wore plain dark blue gowns,
ate vegetarian foods, and kept strict vows of chastity in
keeping with their belief that it was sacrilegious to
procreate.
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Pic d'Barthalemy |
They held to the
tenet that Christ was cosmic, (and so could not be crucified), that
suicide was sacred (suicide through voluntary starvation or fast,
the endura, was a personal right), and that the role of woman was equal to that of
man with the only stipulation being that a woman could not preach.
Marriage, baptism, and communion were not recognized as valid
rituals.
What set the Cathari apart from other gnostic sects was the ritual
of the The Consolamentum. This ceremony consisted of the Parfait
laying his hands upon the head of the literally dying or upon the
head of the believer who aspired to enter the community of the
Parfaits. A transmission of immense vivifying energy was said to
take place, inspiring to those who witnessed it. The ritual of the
The Consolamentum may have strongly contributed to the rapid spread
of Catharism. This energy transmission allowed the spirit to
continue its ascent towards the Light in safety, to evolve, or if
the recipient was on the threshold of death, to make the leap into
the cosmos. To not fear death was a crowning achievement. This
courage served the adepts well when they were ruthlessly hunted down.
At Montségur, at Minerve, in the dungeons of
Carcasonne, it is told
that the Parfaits went willingly to their fate, helping others at
the same time achieve release without fear or pain.
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Entrance
Cave of Bethlehem |
The sacred caves of the Sabarthez cluster around the small resort
town of Ussat-Les-Bains and are known as 'doors to Catharism'. To
reach Bethlehem, the most important of the Cave Churches of Ornolac,
one must climb the steep Path of Initiation. The Cave of Bethlehem
may well have been the spiritual center of the Cathar world. For it
was here that the 'Pure' candidate underwent an initiation ceremony
that culminated in The Consolamentum.
Four aspects of the Cave were utilized in the ceremony:
- A square
niche in the wall in which stood the veiled Holy Grail
- A granite altar upon which the
Gospel of John lay.
- A pentagram hewn into the wall.
- Telluric currents
emanating from the rock walls and floor.
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Ritual Table
Cave of Bethlehem |
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The crusade against the Cathars began in earnest in 1209. It was one
thing for an obscure monk to take vows of poverty and chastity and
quite another for a whole people to loosen their ties to the
material world. The very foundations of the Church, and feudalism
were rocked by Cathar teachings. Practicing what they preached with
great humility, attacking the corruption of the Church clergy,
and
establishing prosperous, cooperative communities in the land of Oc
brought forth the full wrath of the outraged Church and Northern
nobility.
When the first rumblings of persecution were heard in 1204,
Montségur was rebuilt and fortified with a garrison. Originally the
ancient ruin was used by the Cathars as a meditation site. Now,
according to legend, it served an additional function as a refuge
for the sacred treasure of the Grail, the safekeeping of which was
allegedly part of the function of the Cathari. |
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Carcasonne |
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Monument to Cathars
Rocquecorbe, France |
Attacks on the South of France were led by the fanatic, Simon De Montfort. Whole towns loyal to
the Cathars were massacred in the
most brutal fashion. To experience the wildness of the countryside
is to understand the depths of De Montfort's obsession. Innumerable
men must have been lost as he plunged armies into deep, craggy
ravines and up forbidding mountainsides. De Montfort's vicious
attacks on Montségur during 1209 were successfully repulsed.
Montségur stood firm as a symbol of hope.
By 1215, the Council of Lateran established the dread Inquisition.
During the next 50 years the toll of those killed by this infamous
arm of the Church climbed to one million, more than in all of the
other crusades against heresies combined. |
Throughout these trials, Montségur quietly defied the Church,
standing as a bastion of faith. The murder of two Dominican
Inquisitors at Avignonet was the pretext for resuming attacks
against the fortress-temple. The brave Cathari and their supporters
resisted for six months.
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But, through an act of
treachery, the difficult mountain was scaled, and in march of 1244, Montségur
surrendered. Singing, 205 Cathars marched down the mountain and into
the large bonfires awaiting the. A memorial solar cross silently
testifies to their martyrdom.
Coins and sacred objects left behind by the Cathars were distributed
to the conquerors, but according to Inquisition records, the real
treasure vanished the night before the capitulation. Four Cathars
and the Cathars' treasure were said to have been let down the
steepest side of the mountain by ropes and disappeared. |
Cathar relic found at Montségur:
coin |
Speculation still exists about the nature of the treasure - sacred
books, the Grail Stone, or the Grail Cup? And where might it be
hidden? In one of the many limestone caves that surround Montségur?
In an abandoned, water-logged mine deep in the Ariage? Mute witness
to all, the ruin of Montségur does not reveal these secrets.
Patiently it waits in the brilliant sun for the last sign of the Cathars, the greening of the laurel.
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1.- The
Doctrine of the "Good Christians"
"Manichaeans appeared in Aquitaine, leading the
people astray. They denied baptism, the cross, and
all sound doctrine. They did not eat meat, as though
they were monks, and pretended to be celibate, but
among themselves they enjoyed every indulgence. They
were messengers of Antichrist, and caused many to
wander from the faith."
Adhémar of Chabannes (c. 1018)
In
"Catholics, Heretics and Heresy, by Gilles C. H.
Nullens...section 1.2, 'Introduction to the
Cathar Religion', he mentions four surviving Cathar
documents:
1.
A Latin manuscript "The Book of the Two
principles" kept in Florence is a translation
made in 1260 from a work by the Cathar Jean de
Lugio from Bergamo and written in 1230.
2. The Latin translation found in Prague in
1939 from an anonymous treaty written in Languedoc
at the beginning of the 13th century. The author
could be the Parfait Barthelemy of Carcassonne.
3. Latin Ritual of Florence
4. Occitan Ritual of Lyon"
Dennis Stallings (private correspondence)
The
Cathars "never refer to Mani,
the prophet of the Manichees and although they
shared certain characteristics of Manichaeism, the
heretics themselves thought of themselves not as
representatives of a new revelation, as the
Manichees did, but as true or good Christians. Their
chief source of doctrine was the New Testament,
holding particular attention to The Gospel of
John and the other three gospels. The word
'Cathar' comes the Greek word
katharos meaning 'unpolluted'..."
Tobias Churton, The Gnostics
"It
seems almost certain today that 'Cathars'
is more comparable to an insult and would mean 'cat
worshippers' or 'catists' which is supported by the
use of the adjective 'catier' by a Flemish
chronicler whose name escapes me at the moment and
would derive from the Low German ketter (cat); also
the German translation of the word 'heresy' is
die Ketzerel, same root. The heretics are, in
the iconography of the moralized Bibles of the XIth
century, almost always accompanied by cats, symbol
of evil for all of medieval Christendom."
Nicolas Gouzy of the Centre d'tudes Cathares
(Center of Cathar Studies)
(private E-mail communication to Dennis Stallings,
May
22, 1997
Catharism, Levitov, and the Voynich Manuscript
The
Cathars "called themselves Christians,
based their teaching on the parts of the Bible that
they recognized, notably the Gospels and the Acts,
clothed much of their doctrine in Christian garb,
and increasingly as time went on, some historians
now argue, drew closer to Christianity in their
attitudes and assumptions. But they differed from
Christians at a fundamental point: they believed not
in one God but in two....All their life and teaching
was derived from one premise of overwhelming
importance, that creation was a dual process: there
was a kingdom of good which was immaterial, and a
kingdom of evil - the material world - into which
their souls had fallen or been led captive, and to
which belonged their bodies, the prisons of the evil
god. In every material body a soul was immured, and
salvation consisted of escape from the flesh. The
procreation of the flesh, therefore, and the
consumption of its products, meat, milk, eggs, were
the perpetuation of the kingdom of evil, to be
avoided by those who aspired to good."
R. I.
Moore
The
Birth of Popular Heresy
"They
think that the devil went to heaven with his angels,
fought a battle against the Archangel
Michael and the angels of the good god, and carried
off a third of his subjects. Then he imprisoned them
in human bodies and in animals, changing them from
one body to another until they should all be led
back to heaven. Hence they call all these subjects
of God as they see them, 'the People of God',
'Souls', 'Sheep of Israel', and many other such
names."
"They
claim that the Son of God did not really
assume human nature from the Blessed Virgin, who was
an angel, but only the appearance of it. They say
that he did not truly eat or drink, suffer or die,
and was not buried or resurrected: all of this was
only in appearance, for we read in Luke, 'being [as
it was supposed] the son of Joseph'. They
interpret all Christ's miracles in the same way.
They say that Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses,
and all the ancient fathers and also John the
Baptist were enemies of God and servants of the
devil. The devil is the author of the whole of
the Old Testament, except for the books of Job,
the Psalms, Solomon, Wisdom, Ecclesiastes, Isaiah,
Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel and twelve of the
prophets, some of which they way were written in
Heaven - that is, before the fall of Jerusalem,
which they think was Heaven.
"They teach that this world will never come to an
end, that the Last Judgment has already been made,
and will not be made again, and that hell, eternal
fire and eternal punishment are in this world and
nowhere else."
Raineir Sacchoni (1250)
"The Cathars believed in
reincarnation and repudiated the tenet of
eternal damnation for sinners. A soul was obliged to
live many lifetimes in a human body until it
achieved salvation. If earthly bodies were evil, as
the Cathars taught, then God could not become
incarnate in a man. Therefore, according to
the Cathars, the Christian Christ was not
God, only an emissary of God; he became a man in
appearance only. To the Cathars, the sacraments that
the Catholic church claimed to confer divine grace
through material elements such as water, bread and
wine were inherently blasphemous. Marriage was also
condemned, as it led to the production of children
and so entrapped more spiritual souls in evil,
material bodies."
"Searching For A Cathar Feminism, 1100-1300"
"The first heresy: marriage. There are indeed
some among them to whom these words refer, who
denounce and condemn marriage, and promise eternal
damnation to those who remain in the married life
until death."
"The second heresy: avoiding meat."
"The third heresy: the creation of
flesh...that all flesh is made by the devil..."
"The fourth heresy: the baptism of
children...They maintain that baptism can be of no
value to the children who are baptized, because they
cannot seek baptism of their own volition, and
cannot make any profession of faith."
"The fifth heresy: baptism of water....Those
who join their sect are rebaptized in a secret way,
which they call baptism by fire and the Holy
Spirit."
"The sixth heresy: the souls of the dead.
They believe that at the hour of death the souls of
the dead pass either to eternal happiness or to
eternal damnation. They reject the view of the
Church Universal that there are punishments in
purgatory, in which the souls of certain of the
elect are searched for the sins of which they were
not fully cleansed by adequate penance in this
life."
"The seventh heresy: contempt for the mass.
They scorn and hold pointless masses celebrated in
churches."
"The eighth heresy: the body and blood of the
Lord. They believe that the body and blood of Christ
cannot be made by our consecration, or received by
us through communion."
"The ninth heresy: the humanity of the
Savior. He [a former member] tells me that they are
also in error about our Savior, believing that he
was not truly born of the Virgin, and did not truly
have human flesh, but a kind of simulated flesh;
that he did not rise from the dead, but simulated
death and resurrection."
"The tenth heresy: human souls. They say that
human souls are apostate spirits which were expelled
from heaven at the creation of the world; in human
bodies they can come to deserve salvation through
good works, but only if they belong to this sect."
Eckbert of Schönau (1163)
The Cathars "rejected baptism, the
cross as a symbol, individual confession, and all
religious ornamentation. Church services were simple
and could be held anywhere. They consisted of a
gospel reading, a brief sermon, a benediction, and
the Lord's Prayer. The Cathars' back-to-basics
approach to the liturgy anticipated the simplicity
of some of the later Protestant sects."
Ancient Wisdom and Secret Sects
"...One important Cathar symbol was
the dove. It represented for them then, as it does
for us today, the idea of 'peace' or, more
accurately the more subtle concept of 'grace', that
state of being in God's love. After the first
crusades, when the European Cathars in
the entourage of Godfroi de Bouillon
established some contact with the Sufi mystics of
Islam, the symbolism of the dove sometimes became
linked inconographically with the Islamic mystical
idea of baraka, with also means ' grace' and
with the idea that a person can be a 'vessel of
grace'....In some instance, the Cathar dove flying
with its wing outstretched was rendered in an
artistic motif very similar to the stylized ship
meaning baraka [bark] in Sufi calligraphy,
with the feathers of the dove and the oars of the
vessel alike representing the flight and freedom of
the soul."
Michael Bradley, Holy Grail Across the Atlantic
"In the Old Testament account of the Creation, the
spirit of God hovers like a bird above the primeval
sea, wafting with its wing-beat the breath of God
into the slime from which the world was made
(Genesis 1:2). So Pliny speaks of 'that
famous breath (spiritus) that generates the
universe by fluctuating to and fro as in a kind of
womb.' It is much the same imagery that portrays the
Holy Spirit fluttering down on the head of Jesus at
his baptism (Matthew 3:16), making him, too, a 'Bar-jona',
'Son of a Dove'."
John
M. Allegro
The
Sacred Mushroom and the Cross
2.- The Two Degrees and Sexual Morality
"Catharism had two classes, or degrees. Laity were
known as credentes, or believers. They
were not required to follow the rigid rules of
abstinence reserved for the elect perfecti or
bonhommes (good men), who formed the
hierarchy of the Cathar church."
Ancient Wisdom and Secret Sects
The "much larger group, the credentes
or the true believers, were subjected to no
restrictions of their lifestyle. Any vocation could
be followed. Unlike orthodox Christianity, Catharism
imposed no restrictions on eating or drinking. Most
significantly, the codes of sexual morality were
lax. The only crucial obligations for a Cathar were
to renounce all allegiance to the orthodox church,
and to undergo the consolamentum
before death."
"Searching For A Cathar Feminism, 1100-1300"
"The Bogomils and the Cathars
appear to differ from the earlier Marcionite
and Manichaean dualists in their teachings
on sexuality, at least for ordinary believers. Most
of the older dualists called for the strictest
asceticism - no meat or other animal foods, no wine,
and no sexual activity. Marriage was opposed
for several reasons. It is an attachment based on
the body and its sexual appetites....In addition,
marriage clearly promotes the bearing of children,
which implies bringing new spiritual beings under
the domination of fleshly bodies and so helping the
cause of Evil....Because normal heterosexual
intercourse is conducive to reproduction, it was
discouraged, and various alternative forms of sexual
activity encouraged in its place; the vulgar
expression 'bugger' is a corruption of 'Bulgar', the
name often given the Bogomils in the West because of
their Balkan origin. Although these medieval
Manichaeans did permit ordinary believers to live
self-indulgent, licentious lives, it was expected
that all Cathars would receive the ceremony of the
consolamentum before death and thus die
pure."
Harold O.J. Brown, Heresies
"While the Cathars thought childbearing a great sin,
they did not object to sexual motivations other than
reproduction. Coupling the indifference placed on
performance in the material world with the belief
that all bodily sins would be erased by the
consolamentum before death, Cathar society
virtually destroyed any orthodox restrictions on
sexual conduct. It is interesting to note that the
population of Occitania grew rapidly during the
years of the Cathar expansion."
"Searching For A Cathar Feminism, 1100-1300"
"Whether Cathar or Catholic, every married woman
could expect a fair amount of beating. As the man
possessed the initiative in the courtship, he later
on claimed the right to violence. The reaction to
Guillemette Clergue's black eye is indicative of
the sort of behavior expected from husbands. Through
some accident or infection, Guillemette had a
bad eye, and was traveling to find a cure. On the
way, she encountered the perfectus Prades
Tavernier, who assumed she had been beaten.
Later, in her testimony to Jacques Fournier,
Guillemette admitted to keeping her rapport with
Tavernier a secret from her husband for fear
of abuse, perhaps even death."
"Women could, however, be accepted among the
perfecti; it is widely speculated that this
was the main appeal of Catharism for women. The
perfecti were the ministers of the Cathar
faith, wandering in pairs through the
countryside to be with the credentes. Women
and men worked together to gain converts to the
faith and maintaining devotion. To be a perfecta
gave a woman a higher status than she could ever
attain in the Catholic church."
"Searching For A Cathar Feminism, 1100-1300"
"Anyone, man or woman, aspiring to join the
perfecti faced a probationary period lasting
at least two years. During that time, he or she gave
up all worldly goods, lived communally with other
perfecti, and abstained from partaking of meat
and wine. To avoid temptations of the flesh, an
initiate was denied all contact with the opposite
sex and vowed never to sleep naked."
Ancient Wisdom and Secret Sects
3.- The Consolamentum
"And he
[Satan] imagined in order to make man for his
service, and took the lime of the earth and made man
in his resemblance. And he ordered the angel of the
second heaven to enter in the body of lime; and he
took another part and made another body in the form
of woman, and he ordered the angel of the first
heaven to enter therein. The angels cried
exceedingly on seeing themselves covered in distinct
forms by this mortal envelopment."
The
Cathar Les Questions de Jean
"The author of the work goes on to recount how
Sathanas made Paradise for the purpose of
making the 'man' and 'woman' sin. He accomplished
his malicious purpose and so further held the
angelic souls in bondage. The rite of
consolamentum, the 'enspiriting' of the Cathar
effectively released the soul from the grip of the
devil's material bondage and united it with the
spirit of God, the Holy spirit, which until the rite
exists, as it were, in a dormant state attending the
delivery made possible by the love of Christ. The
perfectus could now, in all truth call God
'Father'."
Gerard Zucherro, Rosamonda
"Souls could only find release from this wandering
transmigration if they came to dwell in the body of
a Catharically 'perfect one' or 'good Christian'."
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Lynn Picknett & Clive Prince,
Turin
Shroud - In Whose Image? The Shocking Truth Unveiled
(1994)
"Through a ceremony called the consolamentum,
the laying on of hands, a Cathar was inducted into
the perfectus class. The ceremony not
only eradicated any previous sins, but swore the
Cathar to commit no more for the duration of their
lives."
"Searching For A Cathar Feminism, 1100-1300"
"They call the laying-on of hands the
consolamentum, spiritual baptism, or
baptisms of the Holy Spirit. Without it according to
them, mortal sin cannot be forgiven, and the Holy
Spirit cannot be conferred on anyone: it is given
only by them, through the consolamentum. On
this the Albaneses differ somewhat from the others.
They way that the hand contributes nothing (since
according to them it was created by the devil, as we
shall see), and it is only the Lord's Prayer said by
whoever performs the ceremony that is effective."
Ranier Sacchoni (1250)"
"Ordinary believers did not receive the
consolamentum until just before death,
when it was plain that the end was near. This
arrangement allowed ordinary believers to lead a
fairly agreeable life, not too strict from the moral
point of view, until the end approached. But once
they were hereticated [the ordinary people's term
for receiving the sacrament of the consolamentum],
all was changed. Then they had to embark (at least
in the late Catharism of the 1300s) on
a state of endura or total and
suicidal fasting. From that moment on there was
no escape, physically, though they were sure to save
their souls. They could touch neither women nor meat
in the period until death intervened, either through
natural causes or as a result of the endura."
Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, Montaillou,
The
Promised Land of Error
"Fifteen or seventeen years ago, said Brune
Pourcel, one dusk, at Easter, Guillaume Belot,
Raymond Benet (the son of Guillaume Benet)
and Rixende Julia, of Montaillou, brought
Na Roqua to my house in a bourras [a
rough piece of canvas]; she was gravely ill and had
just been hereticated. And they said to me:
'Do not give her anything to eat or drink. You
mustn't!'"
"That night, together with Rixende Julia and
Alazai"s Pellissier, I sat up with Na
Roqua. We kept on saying to her, 'Speak to us!
Say something!' "
"But she would not open her lips. I wanted to give
her some broth made of salt pork, but we could not
get her to open her mouth. When we tried to do so in
order to give her something to drink, she clenched
her lips. She remained like this for two days and
two nights. The third night, at dawn, she died.
While she was dying, two night birds commonly called
gavecas [owls] came on to the roof of my
house. They hooted and when I heard them I said:
'The devils have come to carry off the late Na
Roqua's soul!'"
Brune
Pourcel of Montaillou
as
recorded in the Inquisition Register of Jacques
Fournier
(Bishop of Pamiers in Ariège in the Comte' de Foix
from 1318 to 1325)
"There is no trace of ritual suicide or ritual
murder in the Catholic authors of violently
anti-heretical notices or treatises, like those of
Vaux de Cernay, Alain de Lille, Moneta de Cremone...
They would not have missed using this argument if it
had been true. Neither is ritual suicide attested by
the Southern [French] inquisition.
"One must await the first decade of the XIV century
to see the endura appear, very
precisely defined as a ritual fast associated with a
consolamentum in extremis or given in
precarious situations, around twenty cases for the
period 1300-1320. It was only...the last
Cathar perfecti, the most poorly initiated,
who actually tried to propose an expiatory fast to
someone newly consoled."
"In summation: it is not known with certainty
whether the endura was an ordinary
religious practice or not, but it is known that it
was not an institution, and that never, emphatically
never, did the Good Christians advise a ritual
suicide!"
M.
Nicolas Gouzy
Le
Centre d'Études Cathares
(private E-mail communication to Dennis Stallings,
Jan 6, 1997 -
Catharism, Levitov, and the Voynich Manuscript)
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