4. THE BOOK IN STONE

After a half-hour of looking at Jean Luc’s pictures of Egypt, at 12:55 I left his cottage for the short walk to the Church of Mary Magdalene and its re-opening at 1:00.

The walkway winds around a Garden of Calvary. Sauniere had visited the famous healing center at Lourdes (three hours away by car) in 1858 and was overwhelmed by the transfer of healing energy that took place there. He sought to bring that same experience to Rennes.

So, outside the Church he constructed a Calvary. Shaped like a tetrahedron or a triangle, in the center of the Calvary he placed a cross with a large orb at its top, from which shot golden rays. Of course, this unique orb is long gone.

Behind me I heard footsteps on the crunching stones. It was Jean Luc.

“I forgot to mention,” Jean Luc shouted. “Look at the twins when you get inside the church.”

Promptly at one o’clock the luckiest guy in the world finally appeared, he unlocked the door to the church for me without a word.

Anyone who attempts to read this ‘book in stone’ from cover to cover will suffer from a stop-the-church-I-want-to-get-off vertigo. It is intended to be skimmed, grazed, absorbed subliminally like a library, Jean Luc had told me.

“Turn on your antennas and feel the place, connect with it,” his voice suggested. I sent out my psychic satellites and followed the admonition, “look at the twins.”

My senses shifted to the front of the church to check out the paintings of Joseph and Mary, each on either side of the altar, each holding a twin boy.

“That’s strange,” I thought to myself of the twins.

Legend has it that Jesus had a twin brother, possibly Thomas (‘the twin’). Some think Leonardo da Vinci painted Jesus’ twin in his famous Last Supper painting. Da Vinci had been a past Grand Master of the Priory of Sion. I wondered if they had asked Sauniere to keep this ‘twin’ message alive here as well.

In their fascinating book The Templar Revelation,¹ Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince point out that central to the overall composition of da Vinci’s painting is the shape that Jesus and a mysterious woman make together --a giant, spread-eagled ‘M’. Is this woman Mary Magdalene?

My muse keeps wanting me to put the I or pillar together with the M, though I’m not sure why. ‘M’ is the astrological sign for Virgo, the Virgin, who was originally Isis. Is the M a reference to the Mystery School of Isis?

In the Hebrew alphabet the center letter is M. Mem stands for water, especially the water of the Mother. In the Irish language the Mem is called M-Vin. Vin in the prefix for vino, or wine. The M also represented the M-phalos or Omphalos, the concentrated Mother’s essence.² The Omphalos is also the navel-(s)tone, the Matrix, the Delphus (womb), the center of the Earth (where Jesus died on the exact spot where the Tree of Life once grew in the primordial garden).³

Did Leonardo place the ‘M’ there as a reference to his profound knowledge of the M-Isteries of the Blue Apples?

As I pondered this question, suddenly, I had a revelation. That’s not Joseph and Mary depicted at the front of the Church. That’s Jesus and Mary Magdalene and their twin children.

To my left was a statue of John the Baptist baptizing Jesus. Oddly, John is baptizing Jesus with a silvery cockleshell rather than by total immersion in water.

Consumer alert buzzers rang in my mind. And so too did a nursery rhyme:

“Mary, Mary quite contrary, How does your garden grow? Silver bells and cockle-shells, And pretty maids all in a row.”

The “pretty maids” are the Mer-Maids or Mari-Maids of lore, the half-human-half-fish wisdom beings of the Water-Mother Mari, whose singing made the music of the seven heavens.⁴

This scene is utterly bizarre!

• Why is John baptizing Jesus with a silver shell instead of total immersion in water?

• What is the silver shell?

• Could it have something to do with the forbidden healing wisdom of the white metal ‘antimony ’ the Fallen Angels taught humanity?

• Or, could it be palladium, the name of the Vestal’s Pillar of AMOR, which is also a silvery-white metal?

• Could this shell represent the magical quicksilver of the smiths or alchemists that turned lead (impure souls) into gold (pure souls)?

• Is John actually initiating Jesus in some form of secretive alchemical process which makes a garden (soul) grow?

My analytic mind took over. Jesus crouches in the same position as the Devil, but inverted. Jesus stares at the chessboard.

“Hmm,” I thought. Jesus and the Devil are mirror images of one another playing a game of chess. What’s up with that?
 

THE MOUNTAIN OF THE BEATITUDES
I took a few paces toward the front of the church to turn around to examine the beautiful mural on the back (west) wall. Jesus is depicted standing on a mountain-top. At his feet is a bag of corn.

This bag of corn holds interesting food for thought. The SION Parchment contains the two words ‘REDIS BLES’.⁵ One of the old names of Rennes-le-Chateau is ‘Redis’ and ‘bles’ is French for ‘corn’. It is also a French slang term for gold. Is this the proverbial bag of gold at the end of the rainbow?

The painting, called The Mountain of the Beatitudes (also known as Terrain Fleuri, “The Land of the Flowers”) a name which suggests a garden to me, shows the Mount of Beatitude where Jesus gave his famous Sermon on the Mount or his 8 spiritual blessings, the beatitudes.

Blessed are the poor in spirit; for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.
3. Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.

Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.
5. Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.
7. Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.
 

8 Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs’ is the kingdom of heaven.⁶

The Sermon on the Mount was said to have taken place at Lake Genesareth, a paradise. However, the painting in the church of Mary Magdalene unmistakably places this event on a cliff near Rennes.

Jesus stands on a hill covered with flowers. The exact location is at the top of hill at the apex of the pentagram isolated by Henry Lincoln.

My theory is that Jesus is standing at the source of wealth of M-Istery associated with Rennes. Thoughts of what I might find there raced through my mind.

That’s when the lights of the Church went out again.

On my way out the door of the Church my focus shifted to the ugly ‘devil’ with the green robe standing at the doorway. He too was smaller than I imagined, only about four-foot tall. He is staring at the black and white tile paving on the floor of the church (similar to the checkerboard floors found in masonic temples.)

When Sauniere was alive it had 64 squares, laid out like a chess-board and oriented on the four points of the compass. At one time, this ‘doorman’ in the green robe held a burning torch in his right hand.

Putting a statue of the Devil in a church would pretty much be a career killer for most priests. Sauniere really shot himself in the foot when he put this guy here. When word leaked out about what Sauniere had done here, there was rampant speculation in the neighborhood that perhaps he was in cahoots with the Devil.

As I walked past him, all I could think was that I’ll bet he has some stories to tell.

The tour books will tell you he is thought to be the nature god Pan. Check most any common fear-based Christian source and you will learn that this Green Man is the Devil. His story is to be avoided at all costs. Lucifer, Pan, Osiris and Asmodeous (builder of Solomon’s Temple according to Judaic legend) are a few of his names.

The Devil is grimacing like he’s carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders (like Atlas, for whom Atlantis was named). Actually, it is a holy water stoup with four angels atop it. Looking to the four directions, these angels stand on the inscription “By this sign (the Enclosed Sun Cross) you will conquer him.” This “Enclosed Sun Cross” is the Mark of Cain and the Rosis-Crucis, the Rose Cross of Light.

The word “him” (le), say Rennes investigators, was added to this ancient phrase to obtain a sentence which contains 22 letters. What is so special about making sure it had 22 letters? I’m not entirely certain, however:

• 22 is the number of letters in the Hebrew alphabet (which ends with T or Tau, the cross).

• 22 is the number of chapters in the Book of Revelation.

• 22 is the number of the Major Arcana in the Egyptian tarot.

• 22 is the number of letters in the original Celtic alphabet.

• 22 is the number of steps leading up to the terrace on top of the Tour Magdala.

• 22 is the number of the crenellations on the Tour Magdala.

• 22 is two times 11 or two elevens facing each other, 11:11.

• 22:22 is the chapter and verse in the Book of Numbers that tells the story of Balaam taking his ass where God warned him not to go. As a result, “God’s anger was kindled… and the angel of the Lord stood in the way for an adversary (a satan) against him.” The name Baalam is used in the Talmud as a synonym for Jesus.

• 22 is the number of letters in the French transliteration of Jesus’ cry from the Cross --Elie, elie, lamah sabactani --“My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?” ⁷ That cry is better known as ‘eleleu, eleleu’ or ‘Halleluia’, the battle cry of Pan, which was supposed to cause ‘panic’ in his enemies.

• 22 is the number of the Psalm whose first verse begins with this cry. That psalm also mentions the ‘casting of lots’ for Jesus’ clothes.

• 22 is the measure of the circumference of the circle when the diameter is 7. This proportion is known as pi, a decimal figure that no one has yet been able to work out because it goes on into infinity, as 22/7 does.

• 22 is the day of January on which Berenger Sauniere died. This devil’s presence here makes this Church the holy of holies of the Devil. Is he the final figure of evil?

Somehow I doubt it. However, he (or it) does appear to be responsible for delivering cosmic knowledge, perhaps even the directions to Never, Never land. In Biblical and Jewish stories he is called Midrashim. He guarded the treasure of King Solomon that was hidden in a ‘cave’.

Was Sauniere’s placement of this devil at the entrance to the Church of Mary Magdalene suggesting the treasure of the Temple of Solomon is here?

Another name for this devil is Phanes-Eros.⁸ In myth, he pierced the veil of space-time and burst forth from the Cosmic Egg.

As in the depiction on the next page, he is depicted as cloven-hoofed like Pan and wrapped in a serpent. He holds a lightning bolt in one hand the Rod of Miracles in another. He emerges from within a sea shell from which are bursting flames. On his chest is a lion mask.

Also known as Phanes or Aion, he is the ‘Lord of Ages’, and ‘the Shining One’.

Actually, Pan or Phanes deserves a closer look. Born with legs, horns and a beard of a goat, Pan was said to have been so ugly that his mother abandoned him after birth in the mountain forests. That is why he is, above all, the god of woods and pastures.

In the Roman cult of Mithras Chnoubis was called cosmocrator, and is depicted as Phanes.⁹ His name means “revealer.”¹⁰

Phanes
 

Pan also is thought to have been the priest king of Atlantis, which the Mayans called Tula. Thule is another name for Tula and derives from the Greek word Tolas meaning black earth,¹¹ another name for Egypt. It is said Pan haunted the groves of Arcadia (Atlantis/Tula), amusing himself by playing a flute and inducing terror and panic in travelers without apparent cause (the origins of the word ‘panic’ come from Pan).

Pan means ‘everything’ the ‘All’.¹² Strangely, early Christian texts describe Mary Magdalene as ‘the woman who knew the All’.¹³ Perhaps this is not so strange after all once we realize Jesus was sometimes called Jesus Ben Panther, or Jesus son of Pan-ther.¹⁴ This name is believed by M-Istics to be a play on the Greek words pan and theos, meaning ‘All the gods’.

In the next chapter we will take a closer look at the Mary and the secrets of the All.

Back to Contents