Nexus - 0403 - New Times Magazine-pages

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The Treasure Trove of the Knights Templars The Treasure Trove the Knights Templars The Inquisition failed to eliminate the mysterious Knights Templars. The Order went ‘underground’ for centuries but has been reborn in recent decades. Will the secret Templar treasures, allegedly found below a castle in France, ever be revealed? persons were burnt to death: Jacques de Molay, the last Grand Master of the Order of the Knights Templars, then the world's most famous and wealthiest organisation; Geoffroi de Charney, the Order's Preceptor of Normandy; and a third person, whose iden- tity varies from author to author. It was the official end of 200 years of Western European history that was dominated by the Crusades to reclaim the Holy Land, the introduction of paper money, and the meteoric rise of a group of celibate warrior-monks. Hundreds of books detail the story of who the Templars were, how they gained both wealth and influence, and the circumstances that caused their downfall. In the end, though, certain things are left unexplained or unaddressed. In recent years, the mystery of the Templars has been a source of wealth for many international bestseller-writers, but some of their statements are outright lies, contradictions or misunderstandings of events. In any case, there are many enigmas concerning the Templars that probably won't ever be solved. But upon the horrible and burnt remains of these three people, a mystery began that has influenced history and society ever since. There are several unanswered questions at the centre of the Templar enigma. Was there an inner circle, with a specific teaching comprising esoteric ideas or a secret doctrine? What happened to the fabled Templar treasure for which so many people were tortured and killed? Did this treasure contain documents or other material that identifies the pos- sible secret doctrine of an inner group? Can that treasure be located and retrieved? Finally, the most intriguing question of all. Did the Order of the Knights Templars, and all that it stood for, disappear completely or did it continue as a secret ‘underground’ movement? The answers to these questions may well be lie within a small castle in the Rhone Valley. Moreover, the genesis of the current interest in the Templars can be found there as well. It seems evident that the last of the Templars had foreknowledge of their impending arrests. They also knew that putting up a fight would be futile. They realised their time had come, and probably started preparing for a secret survival of the Order, very much like the Germans tried to do at the end of the Second World War. One document that details the survival of the Knights Templars is the "Document Rubant", named after its author. Based on source material dated 11 April 1308, the ori- gins of this document have never been contested, though few, if any, historians and writ- ers on the subject credit it or know of its existence. This document is dated from the 18th century, before the enigma of the Templars became fashionable, and it seems very unlike- ly that it is a fake. If it were, it would definitely be the most unsuccessful fake ever. The document states that all the documents "taken by the researchers of Philip Le Bel were real fakes, produced a long time before, in case an uncontrollable or unforeseen attack on the Order would occur; a kind of fail-safe mechanism in place since the begin- ning of the Order." The document states that the goal of the Templar researches in the Holy Land was to access a "knowing" of a very high level. This knowledge, for Rubant, is the reason for the Order's existence. It was a quest that dictated the inner circle of the Order and largely influenced the Order's history; a carefully prepared initiation to under- stand a total and all-enveloping knowledge that is guarded by an Egyptian goddess who caresses that information behind her veil. Rubant states that "the Templars were definite- ly much more advanced than us, because of a secret knowledge they had gained in books. Te date was 18 March 1314. On a small island in the River Seine in Paris, three by André Douzet ©1997 Edited & expanded by Filip Coppens Frontier 2000 PO Box 372 8250 AJ Dronten, The Netherlands Fax: +31 321 318892 E-mail: fsffilco@glo.be Edited & expanded by Filip Coppens Frontier 2000 PO Box 372 8250 AJ Dronten, The Netherlands Fax: +31 321 318892 E-mail: fsffilco@glo.be APRIL - MAY 1997 NEXUS = 61 THE MYSTERY IN PERSPECTIVE by André Douzet ©1997