My reading corner

Seventeen years ago the world-wide best-seller, The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail made a number of controversial speculations about a "Messianic lineage." Yet the authors could offer no real proof since their access to relevant source material was restricted. At last the truth can be told!

This extraordinary and controversial book, packed with intrigue, begins where others have ended. Sir Laurence Gardner has been granted privileged access to European Sovereign and Nobel archives, along with favored insight into chivalric and Church repositories. He proves for the first time that there is a royal heritage of the Messiah in the West, and documents the systematic and continuing suppression of records tracing the descendent of the sacred lineage by regimes down the centuries.

This unique book, lavishly illustrated in full-color throughout, gives detailed genealogical account of the authentic line of succession of the Blood Royal from the sons of Jesus and his brother James down to the present day.


Wel, not the most impressive on the subject, but you should know me by now, I won't miss a change to read a book about alternative believes!

In a remarkable achievement of historical detective work that is destined to become a classic, authors Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince delve into the mysterious world of the Freemasons, the Cathars, the Knights Templar, and the occult to discover the truth behind an underground religion with roots in the first century that survives even today. Chronicling their fascinating quest for truth through time and space, the authors reveal an astonishing new view of the real motives and character of the founder of Christianity, as well as the actual historical -- and revelatory -- roles of John the Baptist and Mary Magdalene. Painstakingly researched and thoroughly documented, The Templar Revelation presents a secret history, preserved through the centuries but encoded in works of art and even in the great Gothic cathedrals of Europe, whose final chapter could shatter the foundation of the Christian Church.

A real intriguing reading, I can't wait to read some other titles by them

   While conventional wisdom sees Mary Magdalene as a trollop-turned-saint, recent scholars and popular biographers (including evangelical funny lady Liz Curtis Higgs) have quite convincingly argued that there's no credible evidence that this close disciple of Jesus was ever a lady of the night. Revisionist history, though, takes a turn for the improbable with Mary Magdalene: Christianity's Hidden Goddess, Lynn Picknett's overly speculative account of Mary as the "secret" goddess of the New Testament and early church. Drawing on several Gnostic texts, Picknett offers both well-worn and new arguments about Mary, who Picknett claims Jesus designated as his true successor. Where some Gnostic texts suggest a sexual relationship between Mary and Jesus, Picknett sees full-blown sexual rituals as de rigueur in the esoteric early church, though they were later suppressed. And while some fanciful (and relatively late) church legends have Mary Magdalene fleeing to "France" after Jesus' resurrection, Picknett offers a detailed chapter claiming that this "French connection" was not legend but fact. This reformist take on the much-maligned Mary Magdalene is sometimes fascinating, but conjectural and prone to hasty theorizing.

Nevertheless, an intriguing and fascinating reading.

  I like misteries, and the real ones are far more fascinating than any novels.......

A review by Graham Lincoln: If I were only allowed to recommend One book, Rosslyn would-have been the book I chose to review! I opened it, while contemplating which book I would sit down with, and suddenly realized I'd read twenty pages! This one will be a timeless treasure and a perfect gift for the Mason or Templar-buff...but, you will be pleasantly surprised when you find substantial, historical discussion of Religions, Culture and myth vs. history. Rosslyn will cause many debates and many individual shifts in consciousness. This book is not for the easily-distressed fundamentalist. Of course, if you have not studied about religion, culture, society, et al...you will not understand this masterpiece of truth-seeking research, yet it may inspire you to Delve-Deeper. This work contains a concise chronology of the development of the religion of Christianity, with many references at the back of the book to continue your research, if you are inclined to seek the light. I found the writing style of this book to be very captivating and flowing, unlike some of the less-researched/more-embellished works on the market, which are not so articulately and poetically drafted. This book should be compared with the other important works of the genre, and I suggest looking-into the works of Graham Hancock. "Astrological Lore of All Ages," by Elbert Benjamine will be handy to have around, while reading this one, as well. Don't pass Rosslyn up...you'll regret it, later.

  What's about: Graham Phillips has written books on The Knights Templar, Atlantis, and Mary Magdalene. In this book, which is a U.S reissue of The Marian Conspiracy published in the U.K. in 2000, he approaches one of the more popular of current topics (the Holy Grail of Christianity) from a slightly different angle than most current authors. The current, popular, theory about the unorthodox interpretation of the meaning of the Grail is that it refers to the family Jesus - specifically his wife (Mary Magdalene) and any children he may have had. Mr. Phillips approaches from the opposite direction. He looks at the mother of Jesus as being "the container of the holy blood of Jesus," which she must have been, since he was born of her. One thing is special about this book, it's that each chapter concludes with a clearly written summary of the major points which have been addressed, thus making it easy to review what has gone before. Much of the basic material covered by this author will be familiar to those fairly conversant with early Christian history, although his interpretations and conclusions may seem fairly to quite unorthodox. There is no new information in here, but the background is laid out carefully and clearly. The gradual evolution of Mary from a simple wife and mother of the first century of the Common Era into a being only slightly less divine than her son is examined, dissected, and re-assembled. Accepting the premise that the Grail refers to the sacred bloodline of Jesus, and the author's assumption that his mother is the source of the legend (and not his wife, Mary Magdalene) leads the reader on a Grail Quest. While journeying through this quest, Mr. Phillips sidesteps the "normal" site of Avalon (Glastonbury). He looks further a field. He finds his journey leading him to the island of Anglesey, which may have been the site of sacred Druid site replaced by a chapel built (allegedly) by Joseph of Arimathea. Whether you accept these ideas or not, the story is fascinating and well-told. The conclusions of the author may or may not be acceptable, or palatable, to everyone (or even to the majority of readers), but they should be responsible for stimulating thought and discussion.  

  This is one of the best books I've read about the Cathars, the most complete and strict to the real history and facts. I've been always interested in this community, its links to the Templars and the Grail, and I really hope one day to visit the real spot, where the ruins of the fortress that saw their unbelievable defense, still keep their secrets.

The book: On March 16, 1244, after a year-long siege, more than two hundred Cathars were captured in their fortress stronghold of Montsegur in the Pyrenees and burned alive by troops of the Inquisition. While some Cathar enclaves survived into the next century, this was the death blow to a religion that had been a powerful symbol of Occitain sovereignty despite the designs of the French monarchy and the papacy. History has recorded that, on the night before the fall of the fortress, four high-ranking Cathar perfecti carried away a great treasure from Montsegur, a fact that led rebel Huguenots of the seventeenth century and members of Hitler's S.S. to believe that something of awesome spiritual power lay hidden somewhere near the ruins of the Cathar stronghold. Seeking to untangle the true from the false, Celtic and medieval scholar Jean Markale meticulously searches through the obscure history and dualist theology of the Cathars, tracing their roots to the ancient Zoroastrian religion of Persia. He examines what earned the Cathars -- who practiced vegetarianism, nonviolence, and tolerance -- the ruthless persecution of the Church and the state, and he explores both their place in medieval Occitain culture and their secret pact with the Knights Templar. Above all, Markale uses all available documentation to reveal the remarkable nature of the treasure spirited away by the Cathars on that fateful night in 1244.  Jean Markale's book is very dense-it is a book that will challenge any perceptions you might have about what you know about the late medieval period: philosophy, theology and collectively, the heresies that proliferated before the Protestant Reformation.  There is no dross in this book; seemingly every word, every sentence is a brick in the solid wall Markale is building. His is not a book to skip over and be assured that you will be able to pick up the substance pages-indeed paragraphs-later. It is a book to be savored. His first chapter is one of those wonderfully literary compositions where the reader is left wondering if he/she is reading a rich novel or a piece of historical research. In later chapters this trails off but initially it reads like a beatiful piece of literature.
 

  I've always been interested in alternative religions, and esoterical stuff. So, several years ago, I started to read books that tried to re-wrote the christian religion history. Some of them were really crap, some had a good base for their theory, some were really believable. This book is the one I liked the most.

What it's about: First published in 1982 to immediate international acclaim and controversy, Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh and Henry Lincoln's seminal book 'Holy Blood, Holy Grail' has spawned an international media industry and entirely new academic disciplines. Many of its themes have become part of conspiriology's substrate, including political secret societies, the Knights Templar and the search for fragments of an Alternative Christianity. 'Holy Blood, Holy Grail' is a powerful example of investigative journalism meme-spliced with religious conspiracy theory, a 'fictive arcanum' whose provocative thesis continues to undermine the Catholic Church's institutional reading of Judeo-Christian history. Its trash literature veneer has introduced memes that have led readers to subsequently study the scholarly work of Robert Eisenman, Barbara Thiering and the Dead Sea Scrolls researchers that reveal the suppression of early schisms within Christianity. The book's central hypothesis - that Jesus survived the Crucifixion and together with Mary Magdalene founded a bloodline that later became the Merovingians in France (protected by the Knights Templar and later by the Freemasons) amounts to a stunning re-write of Western history. Banned in Catholic-dominated countries including the Phillipines, the book remains an incendiary example of why culture-jamming official 'grand-narratives' is the frontline of new information wars. In 1885, the Abbe Berenger Sauniere discovered a collection of parchments beneath a church in Rennes-le-Chateau. One of the complex ciphers and codes read: 'To Dagobert II King And To Sion Belongs This Treasure And He Is There Dead.' Sauniere quickly became part of the Parisian esoteric underground and extracted a fortune from the Church, which was spent on unusual interior designs that prominently featured unusually dark interpretations of Christ's crucifixion. The solutions to this enigma involve a twilight world where modern intelligence agencies, a 'fake' secret society (the Prieure du Notre Dame du Sion) and the royal family claims of the House of David. Historical analysis covers Pythagorean and Egyptian sacred geometry and mathematics (symptomatic of post-industrial society hyper-specialization); the hidden cultural legacies of the Cathars and the Knights Templar; mythopoeic themes in Nicolas Poussin's painting 'Et In Arcadia Ego' and anything from Satanic Bloodlines and Richard Hoagland's 'Face On Mars' to Chaos Theory and DNA phylogenetic memories. Embarking on the 'Holy Blood, Holy Grail' mystery means exploring where Pop Culture and the Sacred intersect in an infinite regressing nest of quantum combinations. The original book spawned several television documentaries and brought contemporary occult subcultures into the mainstream (even influencing conspiracy theorists like Robert Anton Wilson), foreshadowing the impact of the 'X-Files' television series with a combination of foreboding and wonder that entranced audiences worldwide. If many early conspiriologists feel that armchair conspiracy theorizing has become too popular and too mainstream, then the 'Holy Blood, Holy Grail' phenomena may be seen in retrospect as the critical turning point where a Culture exploded beyond previous thresholds and began to devour itself.