Ludibrium

Marcel Lefebvre, the founder of Catholic Traditionalism, has been linked with the Priory of Sion, and his ally, Msgr. Francois Ducaud-Bourget (1897 – 1984), who been made a chaplain of the Knights of Malta in 1946 and an honorary prelate in the time of Pope Pius XII,[1] was its last purported Grand Master.[2] The mythical Priory of Sion was created by Pierre Plantard as a synarchist framework for his claim of being Great Monarch prophesied by Notradamus, who was to lead a united Europe, as a United Empire of the End Times. Like purported Priory of Sion Grand Master Jean Cocteau, Plantard was associated with Action Française, the influential nationalist right-wing anti-Semitic and Catholic movement and journal whose objective was to restore an aristocratic state in France with the Dukes of Orléans at its head.[3]

As Plantard’s fellow fabricator Gérard de Sède, a French author associated with the Surrealist movement around André Breton, pointed out in Le Trésor maudit, quoting Breton, “The imaginary is something that tends to become true.”[4] After becoming a cause célèbre from the late 1960s to the 1980s, the mythical Priory of Sion was exposed as a ludibrium. Ludibrium, a word derived from Latin ludus meaning a plaything or a trivial game. Frances Yates noted that the term “ludibrium” was used frequently by Johann Valentin Andreae, most notably in his Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz, to suggest the Rosicrucian Order was fictitious, a comedy or a “joke.” According to Yates, “though the framers of the manifestos did not intend the story of Christian Rosencreutz to be taken as literally true, it might yet have been true in some other sense, might have been a divine comedy, or some allegorical presentation of a complex religious and philosophical movement having a direct bearing upon the times.”[5] According to Robert Anton Wilson:

The Priory Of Sion fascinates me, because it has all the appearances of being a real conspiracy, and yet if you look at the elements another way, it looks like a very complicated practical joke by a bunch of intellectual French aristocrats. And half of the time I believe it really is a practical joke by a bunch of intellectual French aristocrats. And then part of the time I think it is a real conspiracy.[6]

The Templar Order, established in 1804 by Fabré-Palaprat claiming himself last in line of the Grand Masters of the Templars, according to the Charter of Larmenius, explained Massimo Introvigne, “with dozens of other groups, ended in the great melting pot of occult orders operated by the strange bedfellows Joséphin Péladan and Papus.”[7] These orders evolved from the Martinist leader Papus, under whom were amalgamated a number of occult groups, including the Order of the Temple. The “regency” of the Order of the Temple was given by some surviving members to Josephin Péladan, who founded with Papus the Kabbalistic Order of the Rose-Cross (OKR+C), an organization particularly interested in sex magic.[8]

In Le secret des Troubdours (“The Secrets of the Trabdours”), Péladan was the first to identify the Cathar castle of Montsegur with Munsalväsche or Montsalvat, the Grail castle in Wolfram’s Parzival. This identification inspired a wider legend asserting that the Cathars possessed the Holy Grail. According to these stories, the Cathars guarded the Grail at Montsegur, and smuggled it out when the castle fell in 1244.[9] An early member of Péladan’s grail order was Émile Dantinne, who reorganized the order under the name of Ordre Rose+Croix Universelle when Péladan died in 1918. In 1934, Dantinne became one of the founders of FUDOSI, a federation of traditional Rosicrucian and Martinist orders, originating from Papus, Peladan, Stanislas de Guaita and the OKR+C. The leading societies involved in FUDOSI were Harvey Spencer Lewis’s AMORC and the Brotherhood Polaires, headed by Victor Blanchard, founder of the Ordre Martiniste et Synarchique (OMS), out of which emerged the Mouvement synarchique d'Empire (MSE), the synarchist conspirators behind the Vichy regime, headed by Aldous Huxley’s friend, Jean Coutrot.

In 1937, Paul Le Cour was to be an inspiration for Plantard’s Priory of Sion hoax through his involvement in the Hiéron du Val d’Or, the synarchist Catholic movement which campaigned for the return of a priest-king to rule France.[10] Also involved in Le Cour’s Atlantis association was alchemist Eugène Canseliet, who was also a member of the Brotherhood Polaires. According to Le Cour, Canseliet was none other than Fulcanelli, whose most well-known book is Le Mystère des Cathédrales (“The Mystery of the Cathedrals”), whicih aim to decipher the alchemical symbolism of several Templar constructions, such as Notre-Dame de Paris Cathedral, Amiens Cathedral, the Lallemant Hotel in Bourges, the Obelisk of Villeneuve-le-Comte.[11]

In 1937, Plantard dropped out of high school and established with some of his friends the Union Française (“French Union”), a group inspired by the ideas of Eugène Deloncle, founder of the Cagoule.[12] Plantard’s endeavors resulted in the formation of the group Alpha Galates, a pseudo-chivalric order known to have been in existence as early as 1934.  An important member of Alpha Galates, George Monti was initiated into the Kabbalistic Order of the Rose-Croix (OKR+C) by Josephin Péladan, and then into Martinism by Papus. Monti was also connected to Leon Daudet, son of Alphonse Daudet, who together with Charles Maurras was the leader of Action Française.[13] Among the many societies Monti joined was the Holy Vehm, the German revival of the order of the same name.[14] Monti was then initiated into the OTO by Aleister Crowley. The two shared similar contacts with the superiors of several German lodges that had been involved with bringing the Nazi regime to power. Monti worked as a spy in World War I, then for the Nazis, British Intelligence as well as for the Second Bureau of the French Intelligence Service.[15]

Under the collaborationist Vichy regime, the group behind Plantard and Alpha Galates sought influence with the government. In 1940, Plantard wrote to Marshal Pétain, denouncing a vast Jewish-Masonic conspiracy. But he failed to receive any attention, other than entries in police files. In 1941, Plantard applied to create an organization called “French National Renewal” but was denied official permission. Finally, in 1942, Plantard and his superiors again sought public visibility, now openly using the name Alpha Galates and promoting a publication called Vaincre (“Conquer”).

Thanks to the support of the Ducaud-Bourget, Pierre Plantard, who was a reasonably effective student leader, managed to became the parish leader for the Catholic youth group Groupement Catholique de la Jeunesse. Around the same time, Plantard became friends with two well-known radio actors, Jacques Thereau and Suzanne Libre, as well as Jules-Joseph-Alfred Tillier (1896 – 1980), a respected employee of the Compagnie des Forges et Acièries de la Marine d’Homécourt and a friend of Paul Le Cour (1861 – 1954). Along with Plantard, Le Cour was also a participant in the masses organized by Father Ducaud-Bourget for a circle of right-wing intellectuals, including philosopher Louis Le Fur (1870 – 1943) and Orientalist Count Maurice de Moncharville (1860 – 1943).[16]

Plantard, Le Cour, Tillier and Savoire were all studying the French branch of Harvey Spencer Lewis’ AMORC, and were in touch with Jeanne Guesdon (1884 – 1955), the leading AMORC representative in France. Although Plantard himself was never a member of AMORC, he later became friend with Raymond Bernard, who will become AMORC’s leading figure in France in the 1970s before leaving the Rosicrucian organization.[17] All but two of the purported Grand Masters of the Priory of Sion are also found on lists of alleged “Imperators” and “distinguished members” of the Ancient Mystical Order Rosae Crucis (AMORC).

As a student, Plantard had been a follower of Eugene Deloncle, founder of right-wing terrorist gang the CSAR (Secret Committee for Revolutionary Action), a breakaway group of the Action Française, created by Jean Coutrot’s Synarchic Empire Movement (MSE).[19] Raymond Abellio (1907 – 1986), the pseudonym of French writer Georges Soulès, was also on the board of Le Cour’s Atlantis magazine and a member of Coutrot’s X-Crise, was also the leader of the Mouvement Social Révolutionnaire (MSR), which grew out of the Cagoule.[20] L’Oreal founder Eugène Schueller, who had funded the Cagoule, invited Abellio to join the MSR, who became its leader in 1942 after the assassination of Deloncle.[21] Abellio participated in Marcel Déat’s attempt of creating a unified Collaborationist party. In April and September 1943, he participated in the Days of the Mont-Dore, an assembly of collaborationist personalities under the patronage of Philippe Pétain. After the Liberation, Abellio was sentenced to 20 years imprisonment in absentia for Collaborationism, and escaped to Switzerland. He was pardoned in 1952 and went on to start a literary career.

“Abellio” is the name of a species of dying-god that was worshipped in southwest France.[22] Some scholars trace Abellio to the Gallic Apollo mentioned by Caesar, or to the Belis or Belenus mentioned by Tertullian and Herodian. In his attempt to connect the Grail legends to the Cathars, Otto Rahn identified the worship of Abellio in the Pyrenees with the Latinized form of Belenus-Apollo, which he equated with Lucifer.[23] “Raymond” was a name widely adopted by leaders of the Cathars, including Raymond VI of Toulouse, and Raymond-Roger Trencavel, which as Rahn had pointed out, was equated by Grail author Wolfram von Eschenbach with Percival.

According to Guy Patton, author of Masters of Deception, Abellio and his protégé French occult author Jean Parvulesco (1929 – 2010), were part of a network that tried to create a New Europe, ruled by a priest-king, whereby they exploited various modern myths, like the Priory of Sion, which they exploited to exert their influence and for money and power.[24] Abellio wanted to replace the famous Republican slogan, “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity,” with “Prayer, War, Work,” to represent a new society built on the synarchist principle of an absolute hierarchy led by a priest-king. He was also interested in the possibility of a secret numerical code in the Bible, a subject that he developed in La Bible, document chiffré in 1950, and later in Introduction à une théorie des nombres bibliques, in 1984. He proposed in particular that the number of the beast, 666, was the key number of life, a manifestation of the holy trinity.[25]

Dossiers Secrets

In the 1960s, Plantard, who was living in a social housing block known as Sous-Cassan, registered the Priory of Sion as an “organisation for the defence of the rights and the freedom of affordable housing.”[26] Evidence presented in support of its historical existence was then forged and planted in various locations around France by Plantard and his accomplices.[27] The fraudulent history of the “Priory of Sion” and its false bloodline was created by utilizing the vast amount of esoteric documents publicly available in French libraries and by Plantard and his accomplices forging and planting others in various locations around France. For example, St.-Yves d’Alveydre’s papers were deposited in the Sorbonne in 1938 by the son of Papus, along with many of Papus’ own papers. An investigation by researcher Paul Smith has shown that some of the documents indicating a supposed bloodline and a Priory-inspired poem called Le serpent rouge (“The Red Dragon”) were printed on the same press.[28]

Plantard and his friend, Philippe de Chérisey, created and deposited a series of false documents, the most famous of which was entitled Dossiers Secrets d'Henri Lobineau (“The Secret Files of Henri Lobineau”), at the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris. Dossiers Secrets were a series of genealogies which appeared to substantiate the link with the extinct bloodline of the Merovingian kings. In La Race fabuleuse, Plantard’s crony Gérard de Sède further claimed that the Merovingians were extraterrestrials.

According to the Prieure’s own documents, in 1070, a group of monks from Calabria, Italy, led by one Prince Ursus, founded the Abbey of Orval in France near Stenay, in the Ardennes, a site which had been occupied since the Merovingian period. On their arrival in the Ardennes, the Calabrian monks obtained the patronage of Mathilde de Toscane, Duchess of Lorraine who was Godfroi de Bouillon’s aunt and, in effect, foster-mother. From Mathilde the monks received a tract of land at Orval, not far from Stenay, where Dagobert II had been assassinated some five hundred years earlier. According to de Sède, they included Peter the Hermit, who started the First Crusade, and who was purportedly Godfroi de Bouillon’s personal tutor. These were replaced in 1132 by Cistercians from the newly founded monastery of Tre Fontane. Their first abbot Constantine had been a disciple of St. Bernard of Clairvaux.

The authors of Holy Blood, Holy Grail note that the Hiéron du Val d’Or contains an anagram of the place-name “Orval.” Notably, the word “Orval” contains the syllables which in French mean “gold” and “valley.” According to de Sède, as is also repeated in popular legend, Nostradamus spent some time in Lorraine, after which he was supposedly “initiated” into some important secret. More specifically, Nostradamus is said to have been shown an ancient and arcane book Abbey of Orval from which he based all his subsequent prophecies.[29]

The Holy Blood Holy Grail further suggested that the aspirations of the Hiéron accord with the prophecy of Nostradamus about the “Great King” who would issue from Lorraine, since the Habsburgs essentially belonged to the House of Lorraine. According to the Dossiers Secrets, the Priory of Sion appears to have been behind two French anti-monarchical movements, the Compagnie du St.-Sacrament of the seventeenth century and the Fronde of the eighteenth, as well as the Hiéron du Val d’Or, as an attempt to make the Hapsburgs emperors of all Europe in the nineteenth century. The new empire would have been a reflection of Heaven on Earth, that specifically Hermetic Arcadian ideal.

During the same decade, Plantard commissioned de Chérisey to forge two medieval parchments that contained encrypted messages that referred to the Priory of Sion. They adapted the earlier false claims put forward by Noël Corbu that in 1891 a Catholic priest named Bérenger Saunière had supposedly discovered ancient parchments inside his church in Rennes-le-Château, in Languedoc in southern France, an area that had been associated with the Cathar heresy. Among Saunière’s best friend was Abbe Henri Boudet, who was a member of the Society of Arts and Sciences of Carcassonne, whose secretary was Jules Doinel, an associate of Papus, and who founded the French Gnostic Church, inspired by the ancient Gnostics and Cathars, and which evolved into the Église gnostique universelle, the official church of the Martinist Order. And Doinel’s circle also included the opera diva Emma Calvé (1858 – 1942), through whom Claude Debussy—a member of the OKR+C and another purported Grand Master of the Priory of Sion—met Sauniere.[30] Sauniere may have been associated with the Order of the Rose-Croix of the Temple and the Grail, founded by Joséphin Péladan. This association is the source of the incomplete information which the Priory of Sion has inherited about Rennes-le-Chateau through the Priory’s real founder, “Count Israel” George Monti.[31]

Plantard then enlisted the aid of de Sède to write L’Or de Rennes (“Rennes’ Gold”), a book based on his unpublished manuscript and forged parchments, alleging that Saunière had discovered a link to a hidden treasure. The entire area around Rennes-le-Château became the focus of numerous claims in the 1950s and 1960s, involving Blanche of Castile, the Merovingians, the Knights Templar, the Cathars, the treasures of the Temple of Solomon that included the Ark of the Covenant and the Menorah.

Holy Blood, Holy Grail

As noted by Massimo Introvigne, neither the Priory of Sion publications nor the Dossiers Secrets ever mentioned that the Merovingians were the descendants of Jesus and Mary Magdalene, and that this notion was later introduced based on esoteric theories by French Martinist leader Robert Ambelain (1907 – 1997) by English scriptwriter Henry Lincoln, who co-wrote The Holy Blood, Holy Grail with Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh. Ambelain was a member of Les Gens de Lettres and of the Association of French Language Writers “mer outre-mer,” and the author of 42 works (some of them under the pseudonym Aurifer, his name as “Unknown Superior” in the Martinist Order). Ambelain was interested in the works of Fulcanelli, which aimed to decipher the alchemical symbolism of several Templar constructions, such as Notre-Dame de Paris Cathedral, Amiens Cathedral, the Lallemant Hotel in Bourges, the Obelisk of Villeneuve-le-Comte. They inspired Ambelain write Dans l’ombre des cathedrals (“In the Shadow of the Cathedrals”), published in 1939.

Ambelain was the leader of several initiatic orders, which were closely linked with one another: the Martinist Order, the Rite of Memphis-Misraim, the Élus-Cohens, the Kabbalistic Order of the Rose+Cross, the Ecclesia Gnostica Apostolica and the Gnostic Catholic Apostolic Church, originally known as Église gnostique universelle, of the Martinist Order. A Freemason, Ambelain was initiated in 1939 in the Rite of Memphis-Misraïm by its then Grand Master, Constant Chevillon (1880 – 1944), successor to Charles Détre and Jean Bricaud, who founded Ordre Martiniste de Lyons after Papus’ death. Ambelain received the high grades of this rite from Georges Bogé de Lagrèze, a dignitary of Blanchard’s OMS, who left and joined the Traditional Martinist Order (OMT) of Augustin Chaboseau. It was in 1942 that Lagrèze and Camille Savoire, both members of the Grand Priory of the Gauls of the Rectified Scottish Rite, gave a patent to Ambelain to create the Martinist Order of the Élus-Cohens.[32] Ambelain also succeeded Bricaud as head of the Église Gnostique Universelle. In 1949, he ordained Hector-Francois Jean Maine, son of the founder of the Ordo Templi Orientis Antiqua (OTOA), who was succeeded by Michael Bertiaux, who was also head of the Choronzon Club.[33] From 1960 to 1985, Ambelain was the World Grand Master of the French Grand Lodge of the Rite of Memphis-Misraïm.

As reported by Introvigne, Plantard introduced Lincoln into the underworld of French occult organizations where he met Ambelain, who in 1970 had published Jésus ou Le mortel secret des templiers (“Jesus and the Mortal Secret of the Templears”), in which he put forward the claim that Jesus had a partner, althought legally married, which he identified as Salome. Lincoln merged Ambelain’s theory about the marriage of Jesus with that of the Merovingians suggested by Plantard, and further claimed that the Merovingians protected by the Priory of Sion, because they were the descendants of Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene.[34]

In 1969, Lincoln had read the paperback version of L’Or de Rennes and then between 1972–1979 produced three BBC Two Chronicle documentaries on the subject matter. Lincoln was also directed to the Dossiers Secrets, and teamed up with two other authors, and co-wrote the 1982 book The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail. The book claimed that Saunière possibly found evidence that Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene were married, and produced offspring that eventually became the Merovingian Dynasty. The Priory was also ostensibly responsible for the later creation of the Knights Templar, whose purpose was to protect this “sacred” bloodline, the “Holy Grail,” the sang real or “holy blood,” which had survived through the Merovingian monarchs and Sinclairs. The authors claimed that the Protocols of Zion did not represent a Jewish conspiracy, but the goals of the Priory of Sion to elevate a descendant of this bloodline as ruler of the world. The authors speculated that Saunière’s mysterious income could have originated from the Vatican “which might have been subjected to high-level political blackmail by both Sion and the Habsburgs.”[35]

The book was an international bestseller, inspiring Dan Brown’s best-selling novel The Da Vinci Code. According to Brown, the family have preserved rites of ritual sex magic over the centuries, which purportedly represent the true teachings of Jesus, but which have been mistakenly equated by the Catholic Church with the worship of Satan. The basis of Brown’s novel is the assertion that this bloodline is recognizable through their red hair, which was cryptically referred to in Da Vinci’s Last Supper, where an apostle seated to Jesus’ right was actually the Magdalene. For centuries, the Priory of Sion had protected her remains, which represented the true secret of the Holy Grail. Although Brown’s novel is fiction, it begins by stating two aspects as fact: the existence of the Priory of Sion and a Catholic order known as Opus Dei, which is characterized as the enemy of the bloodline conspiracy.

Republican Pharaoh

Eugène Deloncle, the founder of the Cagoule, was closely acquainted with François Plantard, brother of Pierre Plantard, and whose niece married French President and Cagoule member François Mitterrand’s brother, Robert.[36] Mitterrand’s connection to the occult was popularized in Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code, where the glass pyramid he had constructed at the Louvre, becomes the purported burial place of the Holy Grail. The pyramid is constructed of exactly 666 panes of glass, and is also mirrored by a pyramid below ground, resembling the star of David, which is a symbolic representation of the Hermetic dictum of “as above, so below,” mentioned in the Emerald Tablet, being the microcosm and macrocosm. The lower portion represented a three-dimensional ‘shadow’ of a hyperdimensional cube that he called a “porte cosmique,” or cosmic portal.

The pyramid was part of a Pharaonic undertaking, known as the “Grand Projects of François Mitterrand.” It was an architectural program to provide modern monuments in Paris, the city of monuments, symbolizing France’s role in art, politics and economy at the end of the twentieth century. The grandiose plan cost the Government of France 15.7 billion francs. His monuments’ esoteric symbolism is acknowledged even by mainstream writers, such as Marie Delarue in her 1999 study tellingly entitled, A Republican Pharaoh. She refers to the Parisian buildings as “a journey for initiates,” noting that they “seem to relate more to personal destiny and François Mitterrand’s pronounced taste for hermeticism and the Sacred Science, than to the politics of socialist governments.”[37] But his personal favorite is the 1989 Monument to the “Rights of Man and the Citizen” in the Parc du Champs-de-Mars, in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower. Modeled on an Egyptian funerary temple and aligned to the Sun on the summer solstice, it is covered in esoteric symbolism, much of it obviously Masonic. After Mitterrand’s death his staff revealed that he often visited it at night, silently meditating.[38]

Mitterrand, whose interest in esoteric matters is explored in Nicolas Bonnal’s Mitterrand, the Great Initiate, employed astrologers—even for major foreign policy decisions—and believed in reincarnation, and was interested in UFOs.[39] The esoteric symbolism of the many monuments Mitterrand had constructed is acknowledged even by mainstream writers, such as Marie Delarue in her 1999 study tellingly entitled, A Republican Pharaoh. She refers to the Parisian buildings as “a journey for initiates,” noting that they “seem to relate more to personal destiny and François Mitterrand’s pronounced taste for hermeticism and the Sacred Science, than to the politics of socialist governments.”[40]

Mitterrand’s connection to the occult was popularized in Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code, where the glass pyramid he had constructed at the Louvre becomes the purported burial place of the Holy Grail. Brown asserts that Mitterrand was a high initiate, privy to the secrets of the Priory of Sion, and that he hid these remains below the glass pyramid in the Louvre museum in Paris. According to Brown, following Mitterrand’s explicit demand, the pyramid had been constructed of exactly 666 panes of glass. As Dominique Stezepfandt explained in François Mitterrand, Grand Architecte de l’Univers, “the pyramid is dedicated to a power described as the Beast in the Book of Revelation… The entire structure is based on the number 6.”[41]

After his hoax was exposed, Pierre Plantard tried to salvage his reputation by claiming that the Priory of Sion had actually been founded in 1681 at Rennes-le-Château, and was focused more on harnessing the paranormal power of magical ley lines and sunrise lines, than installing a Merovingian pretender on the restored throne of France. In 1990, Plantard again revised his assertions, claiming he was only descended from a cadet branch of the line of Dagobert II, while arguing that the direct descendant was really Otto von Habsburg.[42]

Opus Dei

Otto von Habsburg was also Opus Dei’s candidate as monarch to rule over a united Catholic Europe.[43] The relationship between Opus Dei and the SMOM was established in the summer of 1976 when Knight of Malta King Juan Carlos of Spain selected Opus Dei member Adolfo Suarez to be the chief of the Spanish government after the fascist dictator Francisco Franco died.[44] At the death in 1936 of Alfonso Carlos (1849 –1936, the Carlist claimant to the throne of Spain under the name Alfonso Carlos I, most Carlists supported Otto von Habsburg’s uncle, Prince Xavier of Bourbon-Parma (1889 – 1977), whom Alfonso Carlos had named as regent of the Carlist Communion. A fringe movement of Carlists supported Alfonso XIII (1886 – 1941), the exiled constitutional king of Spain, who was the senior male descendant of King Charles IV of Spain.

Juan Carlos is the grandson of Alfonso XIII, the last king of Spain, before the abolition of the monarchy in 1931 and the subsequent declaration of the Second Spanish Republic. Although Franco took over the government of Spain after his victory in the Spanish Civil War in 1939. In 1947, Spain’s status as a monarchy was affirmed and a law was passed allowing Franco to choose his successor. In 1961, Franco had offered Otto von Habsburg the crown of Spain, but he declined on account of the Habsburg dynasty’s long absence from the Spanish throne, and recommended Juan Carlos, which Franco did eight years later, with Juan Carlos succeeding as King of Spain on Franco’s death in 1975.[45]

Juan Carlos married Queen Sofía of Denmark, who is also related to Prince Philip. Sophia’s parents were second cousins as great-grandchildren of Christian IX of Denmark and Danish Queen Louise of Hesse-Kassel (1817 – 1898), of the Landgraves of Hesse-Kassel, who had been intimately connected with the Rothschilds and the Rosicrucians.[46] Louise’s grandfather was Prince Frederick of Hesse-Kassel (1747 – 1837), whose brother Prince Charles of Hesse-Kassel was a friend of Comte St. Germain and a member of the Illuminati and Grand Master of the Asiatic Brethren, the first to use the swastika as their symbol.[47]

Juan Carlos’ mother is Victoria Eugenie Julia Ena von Battenberg, whose mother was another of Queen Victoria’s daughters, Beatrice, who married Henry Maurice of Battenberg, the brother of Louis, and knight of the Garter. Juan Carlos is descended on his mother’s side from Antoine d’Orleans, the grandson of Philip “Egalite” d’Orleans. According to genealogical research of Jamie Allen, Juan Carlos is the great-grandson of Alphonzo XII King of Spain (1857 – 1885), whose suspected real father was Enrique Puigmoltó y Mayans (1827 – 1900), may possibly have been a descendant of Sabbetai Zevi.[48]

Juan Carlos is the grandson of Alfonso XIII, the last king of Spain before the abolition of the monarchy in 1931 and the subsequent declaration of the Second Spanish Republic. Franco took over the government of Spain after his victory in the Spanish Civil War in 1939, but in 1947 Spain’s status as a monarchy was affirmed and a law was passed allowing him to choose a successor. Juan Carlos’s father Juan, who had renounced his claims to the throne in 1941, was seen by Franco to be too liberal.[49] In 1969, Juan was bypassed in favor of Juan Carlos as Franco’s successor as head of state, and was given the new title of Prince of Spain, instead of the traditional Prince of Asturias. Juan Carlos swore loyalty to Franco’s Movimiento Nacional, which he publicly supported Franco’s regime until 1975, when Franco died and Juan Carlos officially became King of Spain.

Like his grandfather, and great-grandfather before him, Juan Carlos was a member of the Order of the Garter. A worldwide Order of the Golden Fleece continues to exist, now structured with two major divisions, the Spanish and the Austrian, in 1953, Austria recognized the Order as a Hapsburg institution, while Juan Carlos was the recognized head of the Spanish Order.[50] Juan Carlos also restored the Order of Santiago as a civil association. As the Order of Santiago was part of the Spanish Crown it was suppressed in 1873 when Spain declared itself a republic for the first time. After the fall of this republic, the order was re-established though as a nobiliary institute. The order was once more suppressed following the proclamation of the second republic in 1931, which was followed by the Spanish Civil War and the Franco dictatorship.

As Grand Master of the Spanish branch of the Oder of the Golden Fleece, Juan Carlos has introduced a number of controversial innovations. Against its tradition as a Catholic Order, he made non-Catholics members: Constantin of Greece, a Schismatic; five Protestants, including Elizabeth of England, Carl Gustaf of Sweden, Beatrix of the Netherlands, Margaret of Denmark, and Harald of Norway; two Buddhists, Akihito of Japan and Bhumidol of Thailand. In 2007, he made a King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia a member.[51]

Juan Carlos was also a member of the 1001 Club, founded in 1971 by Anton Rupert, Prince Philip, and ex-SS officer and Bilderberg Group founder Prince Bernhard, to cover the administrative and fundraising aspects of the World Wildlife Federation (WWF), established in 1948 by Bernhard and Julian Huxley. The list sordid characters associated with the 1001 Club have included Mobutu Sese Seko, Nelson Bunker Hunt, J. Peter Grace, Paul Mellon, John M. Olin, Clint Richardson’s son John D. Murchison, Peter Munk, Permindex-founder Louis Mortimer Bloomfield, and Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan.[52] Also a member was Francesca von Habsburg, also known as Francesca Thyssen-Bornemisza, former wife of Otto von Habsburg’s son, Karl von Habsburg, current Grand Master of the Order of the Golden Fleece. Francesca is the daughter of Baron Hans Heinrich von Thyssen-Bornemisza, of the powerful Thyssen family, and his third wife, fashion model Fiona Frances Elaine Campbell-Walter, descendant of the Campbell baronets. Baron Hans Heinrich was the son of a German father and a Hungarian and English American mother related to Daniel M. Frost and John Kerry.[53] Baron Hans Heinrich’s second marriage was Anglo-Indian fashion model Nina Sheila Dyer, who later married and divorced Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan and committed suicide in 1965. Sadruddin was the founder of the Aga Khan Rural Support Program (AKRSP), which is affiliated with the 1001 Club.[54] Sadruddin’s brother, Prince Aly Khan, was a friend of James Madole, founder of the National Renaissance Party, and belonged together to some unspecified occult fraternity based on the Theosophy of Blavatsky.[55]

[1] H. J. A. Sire. The Knights of Malta, (Yale University Press, 1994), p. 277.

[2] Massimo Introvigne. “The Da Vinci Code FAQ, or Will the Real Priory of Sion Please Stand Up?” CESNUR; Pierre Jarnac, Les Mystères de Rennes-le-Château, Mélanges Sulfureux (CERT, 1994).

[3] Alexandre Adler. Sociétés secrètes : de Léonard de Vinci à Rennes-le-Château, (Paris: Bernard Grasset, 2007), p. 27-28; Stéphane Piolenc. “Pour un compromis… royaliste!” L’Action française 2000, no 2815, April 21 to May 4 2011, p. 13.

[4] Gerard de Sede. The Accursed Treasure of Rennes-le-Chateau. Trans., Bill Kersey (DEK Publishing, 2001)

[5] Yates. The Rosicrucian Enlightenment, p. 68.

[6]Robert Anton Wilson. “Mary Mary Quite Contrary.” Retrieved from http://www.rawilsonfans.com/articles/mary.htm

[7] Massimo Introvigne. “Ordeal by Fire: The Tragedy of the Solar Temple.” In The Order of the Solar Temple: The Temple of Death (ed.) James R. Lewis (Ashgate, 2006), p. 22.

[8] Massimo Introvigne. “Ordeal by Fire: The Tragedy of the Solar Temple.” In The Order of the Solar Temple: The Temple of Death (ed.) James R. Lewis (Ashgate, 2006), p. 23.

[9] Juliette Wood. The Holy Grail: History and Legend (University of Wales Press, 2012), p. 74–76.

[10] Philip Coppens. “Raymond Abellio: a modern Cathar?” PhilipCoppens.com.

[11] Patrick Rivière. Fulcanelli: His True Identity Revealed (Red Pill Press, Ltd, 2006), p. 84.

[12] Massimo Introvigne. “Beyond The Da Vinci Code: History and Myth of the Priory of Sion.” CESNUR 2005 International Conference (June 2-5, 2005 – Palermo, Sicily).

[13] Alexandre Adler. Sociétés secrètes : de Léonard de Vinci à Rennes-le-Château, (Paris: Bernard Grasset, 2007), p. 27-28; Stéphane Piolenc. “Pour un compromis… royaliste!” L’Action française 2000, no 2815, April 21 to May 4 2011, p. 13.

[14] Lynn Picknett & Clive Prince. The Templar Revelation: Secret Guardians of the True Identity of Christ (New York: Touchstone, 1997), p. 237.

[15] Guy Patton. Masters of Deception: murder intrigue in the world of occult politics (Amsterdam: Frontier Publishing, 2009), p. 124.

[16] Massimo Introvigne. “Beyond The Da Vinci Code: History and Myth of the Priory of Sion.” CESNUR 2005 International Conference (June 2-5, 2005 – Palermo, Sicily).

[17] Ibid.

[18] Massimo Introvigne. “Beyond The Da Vinci Code: History and Myth of the Priory of Sion.” CESNUR 2005 International Conference (June 2-5, 2005 – Palermo, Sicily).

[19] Rémi Kauffer. “La Cagoule tombe le masque” Historia, n°108, July 1, 2007.

[20] Philip Coppens. “Raymond Abellio: a modern Cathar?” PhilipCoppens.com.

[21] Stephan Chalandon & Philip Coppens. “French Visions for a New Europe.” The Occidental Quarterly (December 7, 2009).

[22] Lorena Stookey. Thematic Guide to World Mythology (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2004), p. 107.

[23] Otto Rahn. Crusade Against the Grail: The Struggle between the Cathars, the Templars, and the Church of Rome (Simon and Schuster, 2006); Otto Rahn. Lucifer’s Court: A Heretic’s Journey in Search of the Light Bringers (Simon and Schuster, 2008).

[24] Chalandon & Coppens. “French Visions for a New Europe.”

[25] Raymond Abellio. “Le rugby et la maîtrise du temps,” Cahiers Raymond Abellio (November 1983), p. 75-76.

[26] “Les Archives du Prieuré de Sion.” Le Charivari, N°18, 1973. Containing a transcript of the 1956 Statutes of the Priory of Sion.

[27] The History of a Mystery, BBC 2, transmitted on 17 September 1996.

[28] Robert Richardson. “The Priory of Sion Hoax.” Gnosis: A Journal of the Western Inner Traditions (Spring 1999) no. 51.

[29] Baigent, Lincoln & Leigh The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail (Jonathan Cape, 1982), pp. 364-365, and p. 15.

[30] Ibid, p. 38.

[31] Robert Richardson. “The Priory of Sion Hoax.” Gnosis: A Journal of the Western Inner Traditions (Spring 1999) no. 51.

[32] Pierre Noël, “La Profession,” Renaissance traditionnelle, no 168, (October 2012). Retrieved from https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renaissance_traditionnelle

[33] Peter-Robert Koenig. “Ordo Templi Orientis Antiqua — A Gnostic Inflation.” Parareligion.ch Retrieved from http://www.parareligion.ch/sunrise/otoa.htm

[34] Massimo Introvigne. “Beyond The Da Vinci Code: History and Myth of the Priory of Sion.” CESNUR 2005 International Conference (Palermo, Sicily: June 2-5, 2005). Retrieved from https://www.cesnur.org/2005/pa_introvigne.htm

[35] Robert Richardson. “The Priory of Sion Hoax.” Gnosis: A Journal of the Western Inner Traditions (Spring 1999) no. 51.

[36] Stephan Chalandon & Philip Coppens. “Men of Mystery: Raymond Abellio & Jean Parvulesco – Their Vision of a New Europe.” New Dawn No. 111 (November-December 2008).

[37] André Ulmann & Henri Azeau. Synarchie et pouvoir (Julliard, 1968), p. 63

[38] “Synarchy: The Hidden Hand Behind the European Union,” New Dawn (March 15, 2012).

[39] Lynn Picknett & Clive Prince. “Synarchy: The Hidden Hand Behind the European Union,” New Dawn, (March 15, 2012).

[40] André Ulmann & Henri Azeau, Synarchie et pouvoir (Julliard, 1968), p. 63

[41] Robert B Durham. “2.109.3 Urban Legend of 666 panes.” Modern Folklore (Lulu.com, 2015). p. 252.

[42] Pierre Jarnac. “Le Cercle: Rennes-le-Château et le Prieuré de Sion,” (December 2007) Pégase, No 5 hors série, Le Prieuré de Sion - Les Archives de Pierre Plantard de Saint-Clair - Rennes-le-Chateau - Gisors - Stenay.

[43] Teacher. Rogue Agents.

[44] Paul David Collins. “The Deep Politics of God Revisited.” Conspiracy Archive (March 31, 2008).

[45] “Death of Otto von Hapsburg.” The House of Habsburg (September 7, 2011). Retrieved from http://www.hapsburgs.net/politics/death-of-otto-von-hapsburg/

[46] Markus Osterrieder. “From Synarchy to Shambhala: The Role of Political Occultism and Social Messianism in the Activities of Nicholas Roerich” Birgit Menzel, Michael Hagemeister and Bernice Glatzer Rosenthal, ed. The New Age of Russia: Occult and Esoteric Dimensions (Studies on Language and Culture in Central and Eastern Europe, Volume 17), p. 113 n. 42.

[47] G. van Rijnberk. Épisodes de la vie ésotérique, 1780-1824 : Extraits de la correspondance inédite de J. B. Willermoz, du prince Charles de Hesse-Cassel et de quelques-uns de leurs contemporains Broché – 1948 (Lyon: Derain, 1948); Novak. Jacob Frank, p. 61.

[48] “Enrique PUIG y Molto.” Retrieved from https://fabpedigree.com/s064/f018248.htm; by way of Berokia (Prince) of the DAVIDIC Dynasty, retrieved from https://fabpedigree.com/s024/f291978.htm

[49] “Those Apprentice Kings and Queens Who May – One Day – Ascend a Throne,” New York Times (November 14, 1971).

[50] Karen Ralls. The Templars and the Grail (Quest Books, 2012), p. 117.

[51] Hugh O’Reilly. “The King of Spain Dishonors the Golden Fleece Order.” Tradition in Action (2007). Retrieved from https://www.traditioninaction.org/History/A_009_GoldenFleece.htm

[52] Joel van der Reijden. “The 1001 Club: Bankers and Raw Materials Executives Striving for a Sustainable Future.” Institute for the Study of Globalization and Covert Politics (ISGP). Retrieved from https://isgp-studies.com/1001-club-of-the-wwf

[53] “The Ancestors of Senator John Forbes Kerry (b. 1943).” Retrieved from http://www.wargs.com/political/kerry.html

[54] Joel van der Reijden. “The 1001 Club: Bankers and Raw Materials Executives Striving for a Sustainable Future.” Institute for the Study of Globalization and Covert Politics (ISGP). Retrieved from https://isgp-studies.com/1001-club-of-the-wwf

[55] Tani Jantsang. “Did I Ever Meet Anton Lavey?” Renaissance88 (November 9. 2012). Retrieved from https://renaissance88.wordpress.com/2012/11/09/did-i-ever-meet-anton-lavey-tani-jantsang-relates-her-meeting-with-anton-lavey-2/

Volume Four

1. MK-Ultra

2. Council of Nine

3. Old Right

4. Novus Ordo Liberalism

5. In God We Trust

6. Fascist International

7. Red Scare

8. White Makes Right

9. JFK Assassination

10. The Civil Rights Movement

11. Golden Triangle

12. Crowleyanity

13. Counterculture

14. The summer of Love

15. The Esalen Institute

16. Ordo ab Discordia

17. Make Love, Not War

18. Chaos Magick

19. Nixon Years

20. Vatican II

21. Priory of Sion

22. Nouvelle Droite

23. Operation Gladio