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A MESSIANIC BLOODLINE? Continued from July 12th - MastersConnection Home Sweet Home Newsletter.... I have watched the program file on ABC’s Nightline Program from when the makers of the movie were interviewed. One of the parchments displayed on that program is riddled with errors in the use of the French language. For example it should read “LA resurrection” not “LE resurrection.” It should read “LA vere histoire,” not “LE vere histoire,” and of course there is no such word in French as ‘vere’ – it should be ‘vrai’ assuming the intention is to speak of a “true” history. “DES crucifixion” should be “DE LA crucifixion,” and this mistake is made twice.
This is not real French but at least at first sight appears to be a very amateurish attempt, probably by an English speaking person, to render into French the statement that Jesus did not die on the cross, but 22 days later. When Bruce Burgess is asked to translate the document on the program, and he reads another English text that is different from the French text that is being shown on the screen, which focuses on the fact that Jesus did not die on the cross but 22 days later, and that the church has tried to keep this hidden. The coins and other artifacts allegedly from the treasure trove that are produced to authenticate the find are genuine, but in the last analysis it has to be recognized that these are not unique items but ones that could probably be purchased without too much difficulty from a specialized dealer in antiquities.
Perhaps all of these issues can be answered satisfactorily and any ambiguities resolved so that message can go out with all clarity, and I’m sure we all want to see the truth of the situation revealed, nothing more. But for now unfortunately there remain serious doubts about the authenticity of those parchments on which the significance of the entire find hinges. I do believe these written clues or at least the ones I’ve seen, are faked. By that I mean they could hardly have come as is claimed, from Bérenger Saunière. In fact they are so badly faked that one most wonder if that was done with deliberate intent, and if so why? But of course if someone wanted to fake clues, it does not necessarily mean that what the clues are supposed to lead to is also a fake. The archeological investigation will solve that one. If the clues are faked but lead to a find that is not faked but genuine, other tantalizing questions begin to surface. Who laid these clues and why?
When I first saw the very basic mistakes in French in those documents, and more so the English idiom in which some of the French is couched, I began to wonder if the Bloodline people were being led up the garden path so that the rug could be pulled from under them right when their movie had reached the zenith of its fame? That would successfully bury, for a long time, the significance of Rennes-le-Chateau and what it might tell us about Jesus himself, and about Jesus and Mary Magdalene. Needless to say there is no shortage of powerful agencies who might have a vested interest in doing that. Or could the explanation be that a certain group wanted this information to come out now so that the tomb could be discovered and studied, and that building on the legend of Bérenger Saunière, they laid these clues? It is not too hard to find old paper or old ink if you have the right contacts. And could it be that that group was actually within one or some of the traditional religious structures, which structures, as Bishop Jack Spong said, are now experiencing serious difficulties, and may even be on their last legs? What could better be calculated to inject new life into such an aged structure than to now reveal that we, this enlightened group, were at the heart of this organization all the time, and knew all of this information, but could not let it out because people were not ready to hear it until now. Of course that would be tragic irony seeing that one of the main reasons why people might not be ready is precisely because of centuries of suppression by those very same organizations. But of course it could easily fuel another thousand years of life for such a beleaguered organization. As stated earlier, Rennes-le-Chateau is an ancient and mysterious place, and I give great weight to the fact that in May of each year at the little town of Les Saintes Maries de la Mer, the European gypsies come to celebrate the arrival there of Mary Magdalene and her daughter Sara Kali. She was known as ‘Egyptian Sarah’ because of her color (and it should be remembered that the princes of the David line were very dark complexioned). Sara is the European Gypsy Patron Saint and is also the “Black Madonna” revered in those regions to the present day. Rennes is one of the most intriguing historical sites on earth and did not need a link to Berenger Sauniere to make it mysterious or significant. Tales of the Magdalene in that region abound. Personally I have no doubt that she spent time in the region around Rennes-le-Chateau. THE FABLED WEALTH OF ABBE BÉRENGER SAUNIÈRE I believe Saunière may well have found something, but it could hardly have been the treasure of Queen Blanche of Castille. There are much more prosaic explanations for what wealth he may have had at one stage in his life than that. Unfortunately it appears that “trafficking in masses” was the major source of his funds.
In those days it was customary for pious people to give priests an offering of money for their support, for which the priest would offer mass for their intentions, or perhaps for the happy repose of their dear departed ones. Saunière’s account books are extant and Jean-Jacques Bedu in 1990 did an analysis of the trafficking in Masses from Saunière’s own records. (“Rennes-le-Chateau: autopsie d’une myth.”) Saunière had made a business of soliciting Mass offerings by placing small advertisments in magazines and newspapers, and by soliciting interested parties. The trafficking reached its height between 1900 and 1907. Bedu calculates that Saunière had received funds for the celebration of approximately 100,000 Masses, which obligation, at the rate of one Mass per day, I calculate would have taken him about 275 years to fulfill. In fact it was no secret. He was tried by the Diocese of Carcassonne for trafficking in Masses in 1910. Towards the end of his life he tried to make a living selling religious medals and rosaries to wounded soldiers stationed at Capaque les Bains – hardly the fate of a man who had found a fabulous treasure or who was being paid vast sums of money by the Church to prevent him revealing a secret that would destroy its power, presumably that he knew where the body of Jesus was buried. Most of the rumors of his fabulous wealth seem to be due to the media efforts of Noel Corbu, who purchased Saunière’s estate in 1946, and who wished to attract customers to a new restaurant he had opened on the property that was buried in the heart of a remote French countryside. A “Priory of Sion” had been registered by Plantard in 1956. In 1989 it was re-launched, but now its date of origin was given as 1681, not medieval, and it was directly related to the Rennes-le-Chateau saga. A different list of Grand Masters was provided, including Roger Pelat, who was shortly afterwards investigated for fraud. Plantard was called to testify under oath. Such matters of course can be subject to enormous pressures, but whether it was true or not, Plantard confessed during the investigation of Pelat that the Priory of Sion was an invention of his own. Whether or not there actually is a real organization called the Priory of Sion is of course quite an independent question from Plantard’s revelations. In 1969 Henry Lincoln read Le Tresor Maudit, and he went on to produce three documentaries for BBC 2 on the subject. In 1982 he joined with Michael Baigent and the late Richard Leigh to produce “Holy Blood, Holy Grail, and the book became an international best seller. SO WHERE DO WE STAND? But the documents from the brothers of Jesus give an entirely different priority to what Jesus was about. So one is led to ask whether the real magnificence of what Jesus was and did and what he taught would actually be far more confrontational to conventional religion than hypothetically finding his bones in a tomb besides his wife’s could ever be? Undoubtedly we need a much wider dissemination of information on what Jesus really was, rather than the pictures conventional thought has retailed for centuries, and no doubt controversies can sometimes serve that, but sometimes the controversy only makes the problem and enslavement worse.
Besides there is other information which has been hidden for a very long time, and perhaps it is time to look at those sources now more closely. We hear little if anything nowadays of the ancient sources that tell us he did not die on the cross, but was resuscitated. Indeed some go farther and say that he was never crucified at all, but was substituted for on the way to Calvary, as the Koran itself teaches. If he was never crucified there would of course be no need to rise from the dead. And if he was on the verge of accomplishing his mastery it would make perfect sense that the very powerful teachers he must have had would rescue him so that he could complete his course. And further still what admiration and gratitude we should have for the one who volunteered to substitute for him, Simon of Cyrene? What matters to us about Jesus is that he did ascend, and ascension is a very different thing indeed from resurrection and of infinitely greater significance. What matters for us about ourselves is that we set about accomplishing what that offers to us by way of hope. Bloodlines, dynasties and the epiphanies that were the inspiration of ancient legends may very well all be true, but true or not their focus is far indeed from the heart of the matter as to why we are here. Why then is it still so important to address a question such as whether Jesus was married? Because so much bad theology and even what the Christian churches themselves must acknowledge as downright heresy, lies at the foundation of most of the arguments against that proposition. If it is thought in certain quarters that it is tantamount to blasphemy to even raise what I called - in my previous article - the taboo question as to whether Jesus was married or not, you have to ask on what disastrous estimate of womanhood does such an opinion rest, and how could any credible program for human evolution in a religious setting ever hope to flourish in a system where such a belief held central sway? It begins to appear as the result of calm research, that the tradition that Jesus was celibate could not have come from an early apostolic tradition, but rose to prominence only after Christianity had started to compromise its teachings with pagan religious views that were hostile both to women and marriage. So did the elements that have come to define so much religion today in the minds of many people,, and which so many fundamentalists regard as the very touchstone of orthodoxy, actually come from a pagan influence rather than from the original source? Now, as they say, wouldn’t that be something!
But if in the unlikely circumstance, that apparently for the very best of reasons, insurmountable obstacles to the archeological investigation start to appear, or the investigation is endlessly deferred, or too many people die of sudden brain hemorrhages or cardiovascular problems, or all goes suddenly very quiet and we never hear more than a whisper about it again, then all bets are off, and the decision to make the movie now rather than after the investigation will have been thoroughly vindicated. The age old mysteries of Rennes-le-Chateau will just have had a new chapter added. Copyright, M. Ledwith 2008. ©2008 MastersConnection, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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If such discoveries were proven to be true at Rennes-le-Chateau, then undoubtedly they would break that ancient stranglehold which so many organizations have exercised over the fundamental beliefs of humanity for so long; but if that is all they want to do in this investigation, then the point has been missed, and all it would amount to is throwing out the baby with the bath water. 
I am delighted this movie was made, for like other elements in the same tradition such as Holy Blood, Holy Grail, The Da Vinci Code, and many others, they give a vocabulary for anyone to be able to speak about these ancient issues that are so important, and that still matter so much to us today.
