INTERVIEW WITH BEN HAMMOTT

- RSE Guest Speaker - Part 1

By Louise SaintOnge for MastersConnection LLC© 2009 All Rights Reserved

Who doesn’t love a good mystery? Hidden clues, caves, scrolls, a tomb, lost treasures, a demon, mysterious deaths, sacred geometry, a grisly murder, secret societies.

Photo Credit: Stephany Ray©

The mystery centers around a little hilltop village in southwest France, called Rennes-le-Chateau; Berenger Saunière, the village priest in the late 1800’s; and a tiny church dedicated to Mary Magdalene.

The story goes that while doing essential repairs to the church, Saunière suddenly came into great wealth which changed him, the little church, and subsequently set off a smoldering fire of speculation and theories about what he found and the secret he was keeping that has lasted for over a century.

Decades of research and inquiry into that secret focus on whether Saunière had found the lost treasure of the Templars, or was being paid by the Vatican to keep what he found under wraps: that Jesus and Mary Magdalene had been married and had children, and that Jesus may not have died on the cross after all.

Unlike the researchers, historians and treasure hunters before him, Ben successfully decoded clues left by Saunière, which led him to hard evidence, relics, and the discovery of a tomb, yet to be excavated. His extraordinary film footage of the tomb drives a remarkable story that continues to unfold.

Ben Hammott is standing on the precipice of what could be the cover up of the centuries, a cover up that, if revealed, would shake to the core the fundamental beliefs espoused by Christianity, loosening its long standing stranglehold on humanity.

Ben’s amazing journey can be read in his book Lost Tomb of the Knights Templar. His website is a must visit
Ben's Website

Ben was a guest speaker at RSE In July. His talk and film footage were captivating, and I was fortunate to interview him the next morning. To my utter amazement he brought the relics he discovered, and without any pomp or specialness, handed them to me and said, “Here, go ahead, hold them.” The simple beauty of his gesture and holding these ancient artifacts took my breath away.

An Interview With Ben Hammott - PART 1 -    
July 23, 2009

Photo Credit: Stephany Ray©

Louise:  There is so much information on your web site Ben's Website It's like an archaeological, anthropological blog of sorts. You have articles, timelines, research, photos, links. It has been beautifully done and certainly the place where someone would go to learn a lot about what you have been doing. So I am not going to focus so much on the kinds of things that people will be able to find there. I am, and I think our readers are, interested in Ben the man, the person. Because in the movie you seem like the average Joe, uncovering all these amazing things. You also seemed incredibly reserved and even sort of straight-laced, but seeing you last night and reading an interview you did in February, you have a great sense of humor and a very light heart, so that must have contributed a lot to this, this journey of yours.

BEN: Yes, it did. Bruce [Bruce Burgess, director of the film Bloodline] wanted to make a serious film, because of the nature of the content. He didn't want to show that humorous side of my personality. He wanted it to be serious and all that, you know, so you're not the first person to say it. I have headed out for interviews, and they've said the same thing, "I was expecting a scary bloke, you know, very serious, but you're completely opposite. That's just the way I am, and if you've read my book, you'll see, I am a humorous guy, you know.

Louise: Well, we just got the book, so I haven't read it. That is something I am certainly looking forward to. I'm curious what your first impressions are of RSE, Ramtha’s School of Enlightenment.

BEN: I think it's a unique place. I think it is so relaxing. I know of no other place like it. Immediately here, you know, you come through the gates, it’s like a calm, it’s a calming effect here. I went into The Tank® yesterday!

Louise: I heard you went in The Tank®! So tell me what was that like for you?
You are the first guest speaker to ever do that - did someone ask you to do it, did you just say "Hey, let me try," or was it offered to you?

BEN: Well, they were showing me around, and they took me out onto the top of The Tank®, so I could see down, and I wish I hadn't, because at first I said "Yeah, I'll give it a go”, but after seeing it, I wasn't so keen. There are all these ladders, and you’re blindfolded. And how some of these people get up there, you know? They had some older people and, they wouldn't do it if they weren't blindfolded. But blindfolded they would do it. I like trying new things.

When I went in at first, and I was just bumping into people, it was such a new experience. You know, you're blind, you hit a wall, and then you suddenly find a way to go further, like through a tunnel, or a gap at the bottom. I think it's just great. It's a great achievement and you just go and go. And, by the time I came out, I thought I had been there an hour total. It was 4-1/2 hours I had been in there!

Louise: All right! That is fabulous! Congratulations! That in itself is a huge accomplishment. But if you told your colleagues and friends back home about being blindfolded in a labyrinth, they're going to say, "Gosh, what is Ben doing now!”

BEN: No, I'm glad I did it. It was quite an experience.

Louise: What was going on through your head while you were doing it? It requires incredible focus.

BEN: Yeah, they said that you have to blank your mind out and try and see with your mind rather than your eyes, and I don’t know whether I accomplished that, because I wasn't always successful. It might have been just luck, because I’m quite a lucky guy at finding things. But, yeah, I made my way quite a distance apparently,
I think it was very good. A unique experience.

Louise:Well, this kind of goes right into something you said in the movie, Bloodline BloodLine The Movie Website.
You said that when you were walking the landscape you got into the priest Bérenger Saunière's mind, and so this is very much like being blindfolded, isn't it? Can you make some correlations there?

BEN: Especially, with the bottles and that, and then finding the tomb for the first time, you know, it was sort of, you stand outside, and somehow there was a change, and I was sort of thinking, and I could see things more clear.

Rennes-le-Chateau

I'd go back in the church, and I noticed something I hadn't noticed before, and it is sort of a knowing process, and when we found the bottles. I'd go to a place, and I knew it was there, and I just couldn't find it.

So I'd go back to the clues, and then I'd see something that I had missed, and then I would go back, and it was narrowing it down all the time. You just try to think what would Saunière have done, and trying to work it out and get into it, and it's like when we went to the Magdala cave, the first one we were in. It was the big cave and we searched and all that, but as soon as Bruce [Burgess, director of the film Bloodline] took us to the little one, which was just aside of it, immediately I saw the entrance and walked to it, and I knew this was the place, and that's where we found the chest.

The more things I found with every other clue, it was easier to get around to how somebody was thinking, you know. I mean I found it quite amazing. It had never happened to me before.

Louise: Well, what is so interesting is what we learn in the school is how the mind works, correct? So when you start to take on a project like this, and you're tracking Saunière's steps, you then start downloading this information from Saunière. I don't know if anyone's talked to you about that, but it's fascinating how that actually works.

BEN: There are parallels to the things that are being taught here and some of the experiences I went through. It's like bits of your brain are opening up, pathways are being connected, and you get feedback from somewhere, you know, in your mind. It’s fantastic. I think she's [JZ Knight] done a very good job here.

Louise: It's just extraordinary how it continues to unfold so. I'm curious, have you been to the United States before?

BEN: No, this is my first time. This is my first talk as well, last night.

Louise: Wow!

BEN: They were a great crowd. They did make it easy.

Louise: It's a great crowd. Well, it's a crowd that is thirsty for knowledge and evolution, and really going beyond the box.

BEN: And about my humor. I didn't know how the Americans would take my humor, like in the book, but they loved it. That's so great.

Louise: I'm curious Ben, what piqued your interest initially, in pursuing this adventure? From the movie and from your web site, and from what you said last night, it sounded like you were reading about these things, and you said something about Henry Lincoln and his lost treasures of Jerusalem documentary, the BBC documentary back in 1971. But it wasn't way back then that you started out.
Tell us about that.

BEN: No, I had never seen the Lost Jerusalem documentary. When Henry Lincoln made the first three documentaries in the 70's, after a few years, after he had written, Holy Blood and the Holy Grail book, he made another documentary, which was like a mish-mash of all three together, and he released this documentary.

I was clicking through the TV channels, and saw a picture of Henry Lincoln, and I stopped on that, and he was telling a story about Rennes-le-Chateau and all that, and I was immediately hooked- I saw the Tour Magdala, the tower Saunière built …

Louise: Had you been reading about the Rennes le Chateau mystery?

BEN: No

Louise: So this was back at the moment of "click!"

BEN: Yes. So that was it. I had a camper van; you call them RV's here. So I thought, great. It’d be a little vacation, something to do in the summer. But before then I bought the book Holy Blood and the Holy Grail and I was fascinated by it.

Louise: What year was that?

BEN: That was '97. So, the story just intrigued me, and there were these clues that were hidden in these churches, and there was a treasure to be found. It really piqued my interest, you know. Like a boy out on an adventure. I never expected to find anything, but to head out there and have a look at the church and that.

Berenger Saunière

We took a family holiday, and then I was to go off and do my own stuff. So I went out there, and as soon as I got to the church and saw the demon I thought that is a clue, this is important to the mystery. So I took loads of photos, and I'd been all around the area, taking pictures of everything, and, you know, tried to walk where Saunière walked. He didn't have a car, so I didn't go on the roads. I walked it. I’d go the way that Saunière did, and I kept doing that, and that was sort of I think, how I understood what he was about, and I knew his limitations, about how far he would walk in a day, you know, 2 days, and that. And it just progressed from there.

Louise: Awesome. And there wasn't anyone concerned about you taking photographs at the time? People come and do that anyway?

BEN: It was a tourist attraction by that time, so everybody was taking photos. When I first went there, the museum wasn't there [Saunière Museum]. It didn't become a museum until about 2000. It was just being done when I was there, and the Villa Bethnia was still a hotel. You could still go and stay there.

Louise: So then, you left there with photos. Where were you at in your mind at that time, excited, or just, "okay it was a great holiday?"

Photo Credit: Ben Hammott©

BEN: I actually got the feeling that there were certain things in the church that weren't exactly Christian, and maybe unique to Saunière, that he had placed there. And according to the story, he found something in 1891, and it was only after 1891 that all these strange art works, these unique art works appeared in the church. Before then, he just had a church that was normal. The Magdalene Grotto didn't appear until 1891, the Fleury Tableau, the demon statue
The Fleury Tableau, the Demon Statue

Louise: So there was a turning point in 1891.

BEN: Yes, this is when everything happened, and that was when the glass vial was found by the bell ringer Antoine Captier, (1833-1903), which we have now.

Louise: So then you went home to a normal life, whatever that is?

BEN: Yeah, I worked. I was a plasterer at the time, you know, and I used to run a paintball game. Do you know paintball?

Louise: Oh yes, yes!

BEN:Yes, I organized one of them, and in between that at night I'd come home and spread out a plan of the church, which I had bought, and a map, and I just started to match things up to things on the Fleury Tableau, or made connections to the Magdalene Grotto. I just went through it like that. I had four points and put these on the map. It was more than that. It was a bit of trial and error. It wasn't instant.
Then I had this cross, which matched details found in the church.

Well this is great, let's go there. And so my next trip in '99, I went with my brother, and that's when we found a cave, and then eventually the finding of the tomb.

Louise: This is what intrigues me. The movie, first of all, is so different than what we saw last night in your footage, and last night flushes out so much of what wasn't in the movie.

BEN: And the book will flush out even more...

Louise: About the movie itself. I went in with an open mind, because of what we learn here at RSE and the recommendation that JZ had made and such, but honestly was a bit skeptical by the end of the film. Not about the fundamental truth of its message, but more about the way it was presented, or certain parts that seemed to be a stretch. The way it was put together for a movie; it is always different than the actual events, usually more succinct, etc.

So last night, when you showed the detail of what it took to get that camera down the hole, and what it took when it fell, and how you were trying to get it out, and then going up the side of the mountains and rolling down with the rocks, and you realize, that Wow, you have really been at this, have done a great deal of work!

BEN: Yeah, for 5 years. In the movie, it comes out like it all happened on the same day.

Louise: Do you have a math background, or sacred geometry background, to map this all out and follow these clues?

BEN: No, I have a very basic education. I used to play truant, you know, hooky?

Louise: Oh, truant, you were a truant.

Photo Credit: Stephany Ray©

BEN: Yeah, all the time. I had to work with dad and things like that rather than school – I mean, at 15 I had a job in a factory working. But yet, the upbringing, you know, my dad was really strict. He would take his belt off, you know, bend me over pillows, and hit me and all that, and he threw me out when I was 16, out of the house, because I wouldn’t become a Mormon.

He was a Mormon, and he wanted it for the whole family, and I said, “no, I'm not interested. Look Dad, I’m really not interested. I could go and be baptized but it wouldn’t mean anything.” It is only that I would do the lessons and all that. So he said “you get baptized or you get out”, and I didn't want to be baptized. So he pushed me out the door, and that was it. But this has sort of made me who I am. I had to fend for myself, you know.

I have 'street cred' (street wise) then, you know. I can survive … They say your upbringing makes you. It did me. I'm not very good at mathematics or, I mean, if you read the book you'll see the grammar mistakes and all that, but that is part of me, you know. If it was all pristine, that wouldn't have been me.

Louise: There is a simplicity and a humbleness that is always beautiful in works like this. Beautiful. So, in 1999 you went with your brother, and you found the cave with the cross …

BEN: And then my van broke down, so that we had to get a hotel, and that's when I played the footage of the film for the first time.

Louise: What was going on in your mind when you saw that footage?

BEN: I couldn't work out what was it, you know, because I only had a small tv at the time, in the room, and I said, "What is that?" “Oh, my God, it's a body! There's a cross!” Then I saw the shape of the face in the material you know. And my brother was staying in another room, which was a couple of floors above me. So I just ran out, and I forgot I was only in my boxers. I just started running through this hotel with just my boxers on, and so I said, “Mate, come have a look at this, come on” … And I didn't tell him what it was. I wanted him to experience it how I experienced it. And then he watched it, and we sort of looked at each other, and I'm getting goose bumps now just thinking about it. “It’s a tomb! It’s a tomb!” We were in the right place. We were just too high up. It was below us.

Louise: In Henry Lincoln’s documentary of Rennes-le-Chateau, were they talking about a tomb, or were they talking about artifacts? What was the mystery that when Saunière found out about it in 1891, things changed from there. Was it artifacts that he was hiding?

BEN: Saunière seemed to be hiding lots of stuff. He went into the crypt and seemed to find some jewelry, and some coffins, and some old parchments, and then he found the vial in the chest. This was just sort of digging underneath the church.

He then found a slab, started digging in there, which led him to another slab, one that got him into the crypt, and then the vial; the vial and the little map on it, and there was an X on the map. One of them was a chest, which was in the churchyard, and we know he was digging in the churchyard, because he was caught doing it, and he was told to stop.

So then he found something in this chest which led him to find this tomb, and any treasures in there that he may have took out.

Louise: So the tomb was a known thing.

BEN: Yeah. He wrote in his diary in 1891, that he had found a tomb.

Louise: Okay. That's what I didn't quite make the connection on.

BEN: I didn't explain it. I'm not a very good …

Louise: No, no, no, that's not it at all. What it is, is that there are so many pieces going on, and you are talking about fact and speculation. Okay, so then, you showed the film to your brother, and you were running around in your boxers, and then what?

BEN: Well, we were a few hours away from the ferry so we couldn't come back at that time. So I went home, and then there were some family problems; me and my wife weren’t gettin’ along and we said “Look, we need to sort this out. I won’t go away this year. I’ll leave it till next year, We’ll try and work on this.” Cuz we didn’t want to split up.

And then we had a bloke turn up at my home. I think it was a bloke from Rennes-le-Chateau. After the car broke down, my brakes were cut, and we think it was him that done it, we had been talking to him.

Louise: Oh, the brakes were cut in your van. That was in '99, when you went with your brother, and that was at the village.

BEN: Yes, that was at the village, yes. It was a bloke we had met in the restaurant and we told him that we had found this cave, and were following clues. And he sort of got insistent asking where is it? What church clues did we use to find it? And we think it was him. I got back home, and there was a knock at the door, and there was a bloke saying "Can you tell me where the tomb is?" and I asked, “Well, who are you?” He didn’t say and I slammed the door. He could only have been sent by this bloke from Rennes-le-Chateau.

We had to park the van when it broke down at the local camp site, because it was being picked up the following day, and it had been broken into. But nothing had been taken except the film from the camera. I had my documents in there with my address on, so he obviously had my address and this is when we decided to move, just in case things turned nasty.

Louise: So it started getting scary.

BEN: Yeah, just a bit. I heard, because Henry [Lincoln] mentioned it, that there are some shady characters involved in it, and there have been a few unexplained deaths. So, yeah, let's just move, you know, it's time. Make a fresh start. And anyway, it was a couple years before I could get back …to Rennes …

Louise: Was it always on your mind?

BEN: Oh my. I hadn't stopped working on it, you know. It was constantly, even when I was working, I was thinking… I've got this tomb, I've got to get back, got to get back. But, anyway, we got back. I had made up a camera support, because it was in a big shaft, the hole. I knew I couldn't lower the camera, even on a bit of string. It wouldn't go down, you know, so I screwed a piece of wood together with hinges so that it would bend, and I fixed the camera on the end, and I fed this down, and I could film the tomb. And I had a bit of string on the end and I could move the camera back and forth, limited movement, but I got some good footage.

Louise: How far down was that?

BEN: It was about 2 meters, 6-8 feet. When l was finished filming I sealed the hole up to protect it so that no one else could find it, because now I've found it, I didn't want anyone else to find it. So I filled it up with expanding foam that builders use, rocks, and then loads of dirt, and then I smoothed it all out so there were no footprints or anything. This is what I did every time I went there. I smoothed all the footprints out so it was not seen.

Louise: Well, how obvious is it? I mean, if people are swarming around the landscape there.

Photo Credit: Ben Hammott© Detail From the Fleury Tableau

BEN: You could be standing in front of it, and you wouldn't see the entrance.
There's a big bush in front of it, a big thick bush, just like in the right side of the Fleury Tableau. There's a man staring at the bush.

Louise: But when you were there, weren't people there watching people doing things?

BEN: No, it's in the middle of nowhere. You could be there a week and not see anyone, except in the hunting season. That’s when you can't go there.

Louise: I see. I thought it was a little closer. When did Burgess come into the picture, the director of the film, Bloodline.

BEN: He came in in 2006. I was first contacted by Rene [Barnett, Producer of Bloodline]. It's on my web site. But eventually I met Bruce, and we had a talk and that, and he realized I was genuine. I showed him my research, how involved it really is, and he did start to believe. Then we went out to Rennes-le-Chateau. After we found the first clue at the Devil's Armchair, we found the first bottle. This was pre-Bruce. And we went out there to follow the clues from the second part of the message. When we went out there, I told Bruce we were going and he sent their camera man out to meet us there, and that's how that began. And then I met Bruce.

Louise: Okay, so, if I'm confused, I would imagine other people are confused, and that is, you found the tomb, but that was before the bottles?

BEN: Yes.

Louise: So the bottles were codes to tell you what the significance of the tomb was, then?

BEN: That’s what it seemed to be, yeah, you sort of summed it up there. It seems to, because there’s one thing the messages mentioned, a crucified person, and this is why I went to the hands [as you saw] in the tomb footage, to see if there were any signs of crucifixion. I don’t know what I was expecting to see, nails sticking out or something..   (laughter)

…and there didn't seem to be any signs of crucifixion. But the slab of marble which the corpse is laying on seems to be rose marble which is quarried nearby, and at this quarry there is a big block missing which seemed to be about the size in the tomb. Anyway, we think this could be a hollow sarcophagus, and it could have a lid on it, and there could be another body inside.

Louise: Oh, so that's what you're thinking …

BEN: And the messages say that the shroud wasn’t intact, but in tatters, and as you can see in the video footage, when it was being cut there, it was intact.

Louise: But it's in tatters, now that you’ve been there!!!  (Laughter)

BEN: We were forced to do that, to see what was underneath. I mean even when I was doing that, I thought oh…

Louise: But you know, I just have to say, what is so beautiful about this is the simplicity of you and the passion that was driving you, and then the simple ways of putting the camera with duct tape on the end of chimney sweep poles and screwing them on, and then, what was that hook thing?

BEN: It was a hook, a part that had a blade on it on the inner part, so the idea was to try and pull the shroud off, but it wouldn't come. It must have been caught on rocks or something behind it..   (Laughter)

…and, so when I pulled it, the hooked blade it would cut, because with a normal blade, I couldn't do it. I’d have to press down and I’d be cutting the corpse or whatever it might be. The hook blade would cut it without damaging what was underneath.

Louise: They didn't show that in the Bloodline film, but in your footage last night, watching this incredible find, and then this thing at the end of a stick – just kinda cutting up this cross Templar shroud, it was really funny in a strange way. And then you took a hair sample using duct tape?    (Laughter)

BEN: What else could I do? I had to get it somehow.

Louise: Right! What else could you do! That's beautiful. When you saw the tomb at first then, were you thinking it was Jesus?

BEN: No. I thought it was a Templar Knight all along, which is why I went to the Temple church, in London where they have stone effigies of knights that looked similar to the shape I could see under the shroud, you know, and it had that shape of the head, and I said, “yeah it’s a Templar Knight, he might be in chain mail or something.” That was what I thought.

Louise: Okay. So up until the time when you started tattering the shroud, you were still thinking Templar Knights.

BEN: No, not completely. I had an inkling that it might be Jesus, because of the messages I found, and I was hoping it wasn't. I didn't want it to be Jesus. I wanted it to be a Templar Knight because that would still be an amazing find, and it would have been more acceptable for everyone. It wouldn't be so controversial...

Mary Magdalene Church Altar Painting
Photo of Mummified Hands from Inside the Tomb	Close-up From the Church Altar Painting

There is also the final message that mentioned a second face, and the messages say it’s got the true story that happened with the Knights Templar, so these could be the documents that were handed down by the Hautpoul family that were hidden, and Saunière has rehidden them again. We have searched the location we thought the messages said where it was buried. We dug many holes in there at night, because we didn’t have permission to dig, but no luck, we can't find it …

Louise: It's fascinating. So, it could be Mary Magdalene. There are a lot of people that have delved into the Rennes-le-Chateau mystery quite deeply. I was looking at, Andrew Gough’s Arcadia Site and all these interesting characters who have such an interest in this. What's the buzz amongst that group as far as what you have brought forth? I mean, they have all been speculating. You've got hard evidence of something.

BEN: Yeah. They think I've found a body, but they are very doubtful that it's Mary Magdalene. But some, I think, would like to be proved wrong on that. I think they would in a way, all like it to be Mary Magdalene. I mean, when it was first released, they did attack me, and there were lies said about me, but they have all practically apologized now on forums and that, so they have come around there. Because I figured once people meet me, and I tell my story, they realize, hey, yeah, why would he do this if it wasn't real, you know. I mean, there's a lot of, yeah it could be this, it could be that, but that’s all we’ve got.

I can only report what I've found. I'm not making things up. They're saying it's the body of Jesus, and I'm not saying it's the body of Jesus. I'm just reporting what I've found, and I think it's Mary Magdalene. Why would the corpse’s, fingers be like that if it’s not Mary Magdalene?

Louise: Would you consider yourself a religious person, a spiritual person?

BEN: Not at all. Not as much. I'm a bit more now than I was then.

Louise: Well, tell me how that has changed for you. Where did you start, and where are you now in your thinking about God and Jesus and …

BEN: There are these things that happened, like this, getting into somebody's head [Saunière], and fate. I never used to believe in any of that before, but suddenly things have happened which are hard to explain, you know. How did I find this? How did I see this? Why am I getting this feeling that this cave is the right one, or there's something here? I never had that in any other part of my life. Just in this. I don't know.

Now, I was after the treasure when it first started. But now I want knowledge. I want to know who this body is? How it got there? Why did someone consider it important to hide it? And was it the Templars that hid it, and did they mean to come back? And did the Hautpouls have the knowledge of it, because it seems that they were passing it through the family which ended up with Abbé Bigou, who hid it in the Church. Then Saunière came along and found it. It is just knowledge. Knowledge of that book. I want to see what that book is. That would be great. If we could just know what really happened, not what we have been told by the Vatican.

Louise: Well, that's really it. So, I know that DRAC (Direction Régionale des Affaires Culturelles) which is the kind of French legal body that you went to with Bruce [Burgess], and met with them to let them know about what you had found, and you have it well documented on your web site to the best that you can, in terms of revealing things. Where is that at now?

BEN: I can't say too much about that, because with Bruce, there are certain things I can't say. But what I can say is that there are so many things that have to be figured out. We have to have equipment, find somewhere to get the equipment. Will a track have to be built to get this equipment there? Where's the body going to go? If it is Mary Magdalene, who gets it? Does the Church get it?    (Laughter)

You know, all this stuff. We want to have assurances that I will be allowed in there.
I mean, I'm not going to go in there and start picking everything up. We want assurances that it will all be made public; that everything is documented on film, and the stuff goes on show to the public. How long do they think it will take? What about the conservation process? Just to sort that out could take years. But the information, we want it published.

Photo Credit: Stephany Ray©

Louise: So then, you and Bruce are intimately involved in this, and these are negotiations, and you won't reveal certain things unless you have assurances that certain things will be taken care of.

BEN: Yeah. We don't want a cover-up. We do not want a cover-up.

Louise: And that's only right, because it could be the Church takes it, the government, whatever, and manipulates it, changes the truth …

BEN: I mean it could turn out that there are documents in there that have never seen the light of day, since the Templars happened. It could tell what they [Templars] were doing at the Temple Mount, what they found, why they had become so powerful that they only answered to the Pope, which was unheard of before then! Kings couldn't tell them what to do! They didn't have to pay taxes or anything!

Louise: I didn't know that.

BEN: And it was only when they had been digging, for like nine years. I mean, they must have had a good reason to do that, because that must have been hard work, you know. Nine years tunneling. All of a sudden, they find what they find, or what they were after, go back to France, and within months they become this powerful Order that only answered to the Pope. They must have found something that the Church was worried about, something that would give them this power.

Louise: It's just such good stuff! Really gets the mind going. Incredible! What do you think the timeline is on these negotiations, the excavation…

BEN: Nothing can be revealed until after it’s been excavated. But we're talking within 6 months hopefully, if everything goes to plan.

Louise: So you are really far along in the process!

BEN: Yes.

Louise: Where's the Church in all of this right now. Where's the ole Pope in all this right now?

BEN: We are surprised that we haven't heard something from them. But I receive emails and I think, is this the Church? Are they trying to find out something? Certain questions are asked, you know, which make me believe that it is someone trying to find out more. But it could be anyone. But I’m surprised that they haven't come out. They did the little bit on the film, Bloodline, and saw one of the tapes.
I'm sure they are keeping an eye on things, you know.

I believe the Inquisition is still there and active, and groups that still suppress anything. But I think they have learned a lot from The DaVinci Code. If they hadn't come out and poo-poo'd it so much, you know, "Don't read this book." Well, that would make you want to read it! Let's go buy it!     (Laughter))

BEN: It became a best seller. So I think they learned their lesson a bit, and they are trying to take a back step and see what happens...

      ....TO BE CONTINUED NEXT WEEK....

Click Here For
Ben Hammott Interview Part 2

Photography by
Stephany Ray

Interview Transcribed by Eileen Messer
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