Henry Lincoln: Part 2
[Note: where there are links in the text you can click and listen to audio snippets of Henry answering the questions.]
Henry Lincoln: Contemplating his answers.
9. Do you believe that the Priory of Sion is an ancient organisation or is it Pierre Plantard’s creation from 1956?
Both! There are people now who write books the Priory of Sion. They do not know anything about the Priory of Sion. They only know what they have been told; and that is totally unreliable! Plantard certainly was instrumental in creating an organisation and calling itself the Priory of Sion in 1956, and that’s the evidence for it being registered at Annemasse. But whether that was indeed a continuation of the historic Priory of Sion or was a pure invention, minted in the 50’s, is another matter. There certainly was an organisation, historically, in the remote past, which was either a Priory or an Order; it was something with the label Sion. When the Knights Templar were established they took their name because they were stationed in the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. At the time that Godfrey of Bouillon and the crusaders took Jerusalem, there was this mysterious conclave who offered the crown to Godfrey. Now who were these people with the right and authority to offer the crown to Godfrey? Anyway, this mysterious conclave, whoever they might been, seemed to have been the ones concerned with the establishment of a church which was known as the mother of all churches, which was built on Mount Sion in Jerusalem. And so as the Templars, because they were established on the Templar Mount, took the name Templars, it is not unreasonable that those who were established on Mount Sion took the name Sion. It’s possible that that conclave, whoever they were, were the same people who were the Order on Mount Sion at the time of the First Crusade. So yes, an historical organisation, but I have no proof that Plantard’s 1956 Priory is a direct link.
Have you been in contact with the Priory of Sion or anyone who claims to be representing the Priory of Sion since Plantard’s death?
No, and I have not been in touch with them for many, many years before, because I realised that they could in no way help me to understand the genuine discoveries which I found. I am not interested in the mystifications or treasure stories. I think I have already said this once. I am only interested in that which is demonstrable and provable and that is the geometry which we found. And that sounds dull and boring, but it is extremely important because it makes this place a holy place and it drags in what a lot of what people, I think especially the feminists and especially in America, get totally excited about the whole business of Mary Magdalene and her relationship with Jesus.
That was the case of answering another very simple question. Why is the church in Rennes-le-Château dedicated to Saint Mary Magdalene? I try when I work to ask all the questions I could think of and try to find the answers to all of them but that one did not seem to relate to anything in particular, but it was another one of the pieces of research.
And then I discovered that Mary Magdalene was looked on in the middle ages as the medium of the secret revelation; being the first to see the risen Christ. As medium of the secret of the revelation, she was given the symbol in the heavens of the planet of Venus, and Venus like all the other planets makes alignments with the earth and sun. And each planet makes a different number of alignments. Mercury makes 3, Mars makes 4. And each one makes a geometric figure which you can trance. Only one makes a regular figure, and that’s Venus. And she makes a perfect pentacle. Every 8 years Venus draws a 5-pointed star in the heavens. She is the only planet that makes a perfect geometric form. And when Professor Conford said to me look in the landscape, what I discovered in the landscape was the 5-pointed star laid out in the ground created by 5 natural mountain peaks. Therefore created by God, if you like. And so we have the 5-pointed star on the ground at Rennes-le-Château and the 5 pointed star in the heavens representing the goddess. As above, so below. We have the mirror on earth here, of the goddess in the heavens. Therefore it is a sacred place and must have been recognised as such in the remote past and that’s why this place is the centre of so much mystification.
10. In The Key to The Sacred Pattern you write about the centre of the natural pentagram. Having travelled there you discovered some interesting things. I believe you came across a cement pool with blood and some unusual goings on? Do you have any further insights as to what is at the centre of the pentagram?
I think you are over dramatising! Things never look dramatic like that to me. What I found at the centre of the pentagram was that the exact geometric centre that was on a rough slope and it was not possible to stand up right. All I knew about a pentagram in those days was that it was used by magicians for conjuration of raising spirits or whatever. And if you wanted to use that pentagram, well I looked at aerial photographs, and the nearest flat useable piece of land was a triangular filed which appeared to have crop marks in it, which looked liked a large winged figure. So I came down and took a look at it. And there indeed, yes, I found a pool. It was not cement; it was stone, yes with a cement skim over it. It was fed by a natural spring. And it was concealed by trees. And its purpose well, anybody’s guess. When Roy Davies inquired to a local farmer, he happily accepted the explanation, ‘Oh I think the local women use it to wash their clothes’, which I have to say is extremely unlikely given that all the neighbouring farms have their own spring so why would they want to wander into the middle of nowhere to wash their own clothes?
Did you not find it in a very odd state on one particular visit, was it the 17th of January that you visited one year?
I was not there on the 17th of January. I came early in February for the first time, and I noticed when I was looking at it that I could see the base of the pool. In other words, I could see the cement floor. Now I knew from the pool in my own garden that you very quickly get a build up of mud in a pool in the open air. It seemed to me, immediately, that it had been cleaned. It was the only possible explanation I could come up with. There were no leafs or twigs after all sorts of howling gales. No debris or mud. That, I thought, was curious. I think the thing that you’re remembering, which is somewhat dramatised, like an association in your mind of blood thirstiness, was that I went on another occasion to look at it, when we were filming, to look at it and someone had tied a charred carcass of a goat to one of the trees.
That’s what I am thinking of!
I think it is just someone playing games. I do not see anything sinister in it all. I think it is just ludicrous.
11. Can we talk about some other games, because there is a lot of game playing in the Rennes-le-Château story, and I speak of Emma Calve and the stone that you found with the lover’s heart with her name on it. When you went back after having photographed it a few days earlier, it had been chiselled away. Who do you think was behind that?
How would I know? How does anybody know?
Hum.
Again, it is just silly games. It wasn’t a heart that necessarily had anything to do with Sauniere. It was a heart with an arrow through it. Underneath it was written E. Calve 1891. And my photograph exists as the only evidence that it was there. Yes it was chiselled out a couple of days later. I was being watched all the time because people thought I was looking for treasure! On the very first day when I filmed at the Poussin tomb, when we broke for lunch, whoever was watching us obviously thought well, they have been at it all morning and thought filming takes longer than taking a snapshot and when we came back someone had attempted to break into it. So yes, I was being watched all the time and people were thinking that I had been looking for treasure. I have not and never have been looking for treasure. Treasures, after all, are ultimately banal.
12. One of the other really interesting observations that you’ve made, I believe it was in 1991’s The Holy Place, is your discovery of the Great Camp, an area just a kilometre or two from Rennes-le-Château, and the stone huts that seem to defy category and dating; a fascinating observation. To your knowledge, has anything become of your initial observation?
The ludicrous thing so far has been that the academic world is so opposed to this that no one has simply lifted themselves up and done a serious investigation. It is beginning to happen now, but so far, nobody with the correct expertise has bothered to look at it. A lot of those huts are what many would claim them to be nothing more than structures that Shepard’s or farmers would use to store their bits of equipment, but no, there is much more to it than that. Because it is not just little beehive huts which are beautifully constructed, there are also double ramparts. There are enormous walls.
This is not just clearance of stones from a field. Roy Davies himself, when he first saw it, when I showed it to him, said he had never seen anything like it in his life since Mycenae. And we have to remember, I did not arbitrarily go there, I went to that place because the geometry led me to it. I don’t invent things and then try to suppose a story around them. The evidence leads me to certain things and in this case it was another 5 pointed star which was marked out in the landscape which was fixed on what is marked on the map as the Great Camp. So I thought it was worth looking at. But we do not know anything about it.
If those structures are truly ancient, could they be the remnants of Rheda, the romanticised ancient settlement that many believe existed in what is now modern day Rennes-le-Château?
If you want to think that? We have no evidence for that either. We don’t know. We really don’t know.
What is the evidence?
The geometry is very demonstrable.
Indeed it is.
Yet, how can we speculate on the people who are responsible for it?
We cannot, except that they were human begins like ourselves and until somebody proves to the contrary I have no reason to believe they were anything other than normal human beings like ourselves. They have an expertise and they have a science that history tells us they did not possess. It’s been lost. Why? We have to remember that in the past, the sole repository of knowledge really was in the church. And it is only within the church that people were literate even, and again we have to remind ourselves that when Galileo, now we are getting modern, when Galileo said the earth went around the sun they showed him torcher instruments and made him deny it. This was dangerous knowledge. Why it was dangerous knowledge is very hard for us to tell. People say nowadays well so what, why hide it? But then, it was dangerous. Not dangerous now. And so one needs to know why it is still being concealed. Indeed. Why?
So, you feel it is impossible to speculate who is responsible who is responsible for the pentagrams?
I never speculate.
And you haven’t.
Other people do. I don’t. They take what I write and speculate then say that Lincoln believes this, that or the other. Rubbish!
Is there a book about the geometry that you have not written? Is there something that you would like to add that you have not had and opportunity to complete?
Well, I had begun to work with Erling Haagensen, we began to look at the simplification of the geometry. When we wrote The Templars Secret Island, where we presented the mathematical proofs, so that there would no longer be any argument about it, we presented what we called the Geometric Key but it was too complicated and there were some problems with it and we have now refined it and it is incredibly simple. We found that the underlying geometry is brilliant and very simple. You can learn to draw it up in 5 minutes and once you have done that you can relate it exactly to what, I suppose we could label them 'The Templars', but we do not know for sure who the were. When they were building churches in the 12th century they were using this expertise. And so yes, I intend to explore that a little bit more at some point, but whether I will or not I don’t know with this bloody pain that dogs me all the time.
How are you feeling?
Form the ankles up I’m fine, thank you! (laughter)
I know the feeling.
13. So what is your next work? You alluded to a relationship between Jerusalem, Rennes-le-Château and Bornholm and in “The Templars Secret Island”, are you going to expand upon that further?
Difficult, because it is hellishly complicated. This is one hell of a complicated story. There are so many layers to it. But yes, there is a link. Like groping in the dark.
14. Do you believe that the pentagonal geometry extends over a greater expanse, possibly across the globe? Is it a uniformed pattern?
Yes! Yes, I think we are bound to find more. This because, when they built the 12 century churches on Bornholm, 4 of them specifically were constructed as observatories. They were using a science for very precise measurements of the earth, and so I am fairly sure we are going to find it in other places and that its historical background will go much further back than we expect. It is not a 12th century phenomena, it goes back to megalithic times and probably even before that.
15. Were the Cathars aware of it?
Can’t tell. I have no evidence that the Cathars were aware of it. I didn’t think I had evidence that the Templars were aware of it, but because of what we discovered on Bornholm and its relationship with the Archbishop Eskil and the fact that Eskil was such a close friend of Bernard of Clairvaux, and they were planning together, then Bernard of Clairvaux must have been aware of it and consequently on that level the church, they were aware of it. But there is a lot of speculation, maybe some of the answers are at the Vatican. Maybe they are not. I don’t know. And again, I am very reluctant ever, to speculate.
16. Can I ask you to comment on the international sensation that the Da Vinci Code has caused, not dissimilar to the sensation that you caused with some of your books? How has the study of Rennes-le-Château changed since that phenomena?
Oh, well of course people are coming now and asking where is Mary Magdalene buried. Some maniacs have written a book saying that Jesus is buried near here. This is rubbish. This is absolutely…There is not the tiniest fragment of evidence for any of this. But yes, back to the Da Vinci Code phenomena, what had happened, because again, as we did 20 years ago – 25 years ago – touched a nerve, part of the zeitgeist, and of course now with the growth of feminism everybody gets very excited about Mary Magdalene and the suppression of the feminine by the church and so on and so on. But, when we wrote Holy Blood and Holy Grail 20 odd years ago, the reaction to it was just as strong as though it has never been heard of before. But in fact it was nothing new at all. The only thing original in our book was that the blood descent from Jesus and Mary Magdalene continued. 20 years pass and a new generation grows up, especially those who were too young to have read the Holy Blood and Holy Grail or who were not even born, and so a new story hits them as if it has never been said before. And every 20 years it comes back again as if it has never been said before. And it is nonsense to react in the way that is presently going on. Brown’s book is noting more than a sort of not very good thriller draped around just the simple idea about the blood descent from Jesus.
What did you think of the film?
I have not seen it?
I am interested and may go and see it to see how Ian McKellen plays me (laughter).
Which I am told he is supposed to be doing.
I like it. I can see you in that performance (laughter).
Were you surprised that Michael Bagient took Dan Brown to court?
No.
Do you think he really thought he could win?
I suppose so. I do not have any interest in it. Ah, No. (Pause)…. I can’t see the point.
Are you still in touch with Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh?
No.
Can I ask how you would characterise your relationship with them today?
It doesn’t exist.
Are you on good terms but just not actively keeping in touch or were things left…
No, we just have no contact.
Sure.
Well I hope and trust that the Da Vinci Code has only added to your legend.
Well it has attracted more people to the story, as those who are genuinely interested in the story ultimately get lead to the Holy Blood and Holy Grail. Um, and after all there are those who feel they have had a thriller. Pity it is not better.
17. In one word, the parchments that Sauniere allegedly discovered. Real or fraud?
What do you mean by fraud? There are two things to be said about them. There are some, particularly lead by the so called Rennes-le-Château expert Jean-Luc Chaumeil who says that these documents were contracted by Plantard and Philippe de Cherisey, and are fakes. What do you mean by fakes? They exist.
But are they ancient?
Does it matter? You see this again, people don’t seem to understand. It is not when they were created or how they were created. What do they say? What are they saying? Now, I asked Plantard and Cherisey to show me the originals and they said they would. What they brought for me to see, in fact on the following day, were not documents but photographs of the documents. Now those photographs are black and white glossy prints. And on them, there were blue ink marks that had been written onto the surface of the glossy print. These were all the little marks and various ticks and things that you see in the various parchments as they are now reproduced. When Mr Plantard said to me himself that they were fakes, for reasons of my own I was able to say to him, ‘no Mr Plantard’ – and he smiled broadly. And later said to me, ‘well of course they were based on very good originals’. The difference, what we now have between these and the originals themselves seems to be the addition of the blue marks, which are now no longer blue, but are just marks on the parchments, and also they are no longer in correct scale to each other, which may have some significance. Because we are told there are three documents. No sorry, there were three tubes sealed with four documents. So, it is possible that with two of them they were back to back to back. So if they were in direct scale to each other we might see something more. But, Chaumeil says they were fakes, and consequently the whole story ceases to exist. Sorry. I think from their reaction that Mr. Plantard and Cherisey did not know that the geometry was concealed in the parchments.
What is your feeling on de Cherisey’s Stone and Paper document, which describes how and why the documents were created, and that parchments were in fact, fakes?
I don’t think that they actually do that. He showed me himself a document in which he said ‘I am writing here an explanation of how the ciphers work and you will find it amusing’. But I never did get to see it, and then he died. So it matters not in the slightest whether they are modern concoctions or genuine old. If you are going to say, that because they are faked then the story disappears, then I have to say sorry, you better go look at Bornholm and the geometry that is here at Rennes-le-Château. It has nothing whatsoever to do with what is the real story that is hidden behind all this. It does not seem to relate to it and that is what people do not understand. There are of course those who cry not only that the parchments don’t exist but that the geometry does not exist. They say, ‘Oh, you can find this sort of thing anywhere’. And yes, in deed you can find geometric figures in the landscape anywhere and this is important for some of the people who will be listening to what you are doing.
So, Putman and Wood for instance, have recently published a book that says that there is no mystery and that the geometry occurs within the probability of chance.
Ya, I have had even a public debate, though most of it, the funniest part was left on the cutting room floor which I had with one of them in front of the cameras a few months ago.
That is a very important distinction.
Indeed it is.
Fantastic. Well Henry, I have taken an awful lot of your time.
My pleasure (laughing).
Is there anything else that you would like to tell the Arcadia audience, that you have not already elaborated on very eloquently?
Not really. I could, of course go on for days.
Great stuff. So first of all thank you for your time today and thank you on behalf of your public for the immense contribution that you have made to the study of Rennes-le-Château, a study that would not exist without your presence and contribution down through the years. Thanks ever so much.
Thank you for that.
Cheers!
Cheers!
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