Page Back to: ANCIENT WISDOM FOR NOW PAGE

-AWFN- Read Page (Thesis-2nd Quarter)
Full Circle The Mysteries Uncloaked Globe D —b

In Full Circle: The Mysteries Uncloaked I learned of the origin and purpose of existence. However, although I traced the development the Root-Races through Egyptian and Mesopotamian history, it was not until the second part of this thesis that I discovered how the Divine plan operated within historical periods.  Click to Read the Intro
Click (left below) on the SECTION to read it   -or-  Click (right below) on PDF File

We send a warm Thank-You to © US Games for allowing us the use of
The Rider-Waite Tarot Deck

 

Click to Hear Daniel's Lion by PNEUMA-YOD
Know Thyself Initiative

REGISTER NOW For The
Know Thyself Initiative

Become a -KTI- Member: 
Click for Membership Info.
...Thank You.

PLEASE Read THE KTI (left)
Information Before Visiting:

STAGE – REASON 

THE KNOW THYSELF INITIATIVE and ANCIENT WISDOM FOR NOW SCROLL Materials Act As One
Please use the surrounding icon-links for your convenience...Also:

AFWN References Link

(Thesis-2nd Quarter) FULL CIRCLE THE MYSTERIES UNCLOAKED GLOBE D —b
SECTION 7A 1300 C.E – 1450 C.E.

Root Race 5: sub-race 7 - Root Race 6: sub-race 4
Root Race 7: sub-race 1

AWFN8b-1

 

Because this is such a pivotal period in Globe D, this Section is crucial to understanding the process of the development of consciousness during the Middle-Ages. Consequently, I have divided this “upstepping” into two parts. Part one (A) consists of the 150 years that was the turning point for the Human Race, because of the establishment of the “Orders of the Quest.” Unfortunately, it was also the turning point for the “Shadow”, as “he” was able to engineer an event that would affect the “Light’s” representatives. The second part (B) relates the period and events surrounding the Renaissance from 1450 including the instigation of the Hapsburg Dynasty.

Although the last “upstepping” was completely enveloped in the violence of the “Crusades”, as stated the “Shadow” did not succeed in annihilating the “Light” altogether or even achieving “checkmate.” Unfortunately, the “Shadow” did succeed in inspiring the creation of an organization so heinous that its affect would last for several hundred years and almost derail the Divine plan. I know that sounds ridiculous that the “opposition” to God’s plan could even come close to undermining Him, but from our perspective (Linear time) it did. Even though this organization came about through the energy and consciousness manifested through the violence and terror created by the Crusades of the previous “upstepping” its affects would not be really devastating until this “upstepping.” In order to fully grasp the consequences of this organization, in part (A) I will address the affects. But first, let us discuss why the “Shadow” did not succeed in achieving “checkmate” and annihilating the “Light.”
There were several reasons, why the “Light” held on in such an atmosphere of violence and terror during the Crusades, but the most relevant was the physical manifestation of the “Order of Melchizedek”, into the “Orders of the Quest”. This became possible because of the physical grounding of The Mysteries into the great cathedrals of Europe. These magnificent buildings that were constructed under the influence of the Cistercian order and financed by the Knights Templar were the first examples of the influence of the “Orders of the Quest.” However, the actual builders were the Freemasons, which as we will see, were always involved in the struggle between the “Light” and the “Shadow.” But the Freemasons, although important because of their knowledge of The Mysteries and how to encode them into architecture, will not really come into the field of play, so to speak, until later in this “upstepping.” In this part of the “upstepping” the “Light” through their agents the “Orders of the Quest” affected the energy and consciousness through the use of sound, which was employed by the heirs to the Albigensians or Cathars, the Troubadours.

TROUBADOURS

The use of sound to facilitate the “Light” came about through the troubadours, which rose to prominence in Mediaeval Europe. The troubadours spread The Mysteries, through recitals (sound) which they hid in allegorical stories of Courtly Love. Whenever I thought of Mediaeval stories of “Courtly Love”, the tragic legend of King Arthur, Guinevere and Sir Lancelot at Camelot would come to mind. I learned that the reason the legend is so prominent in the mass consciousness is because it carried secret wisdom, because the legend of King Arthur and Camelot was intrinsically linked to Sir Galahad and Sir Percival and the Quest for the Holy Grail.
Having investigated the legend in The HIDDEN CHURCH of the HOLY GRAAL1 by Arthur Edward Waite I discovered the legend of the Holy Grail was the single most successful tool for spreading the wisdom of The Mysteries. Mr. Waite writes in the preface “It is only in its mystic sense that the Graal literature can repay study.”2 He sees three distinct interpretations of the “Graal literature”, which he identifies as “Romantic”, “Poetic”, and “Archælogical.”3 Nonetheless, although conceding that these categories are the “three points of view, outside all expert evidence, as regards the whole subject…”4, Mr. Waite suggests that “there is perhaps a fourth point of view.” 5
It is this “fourth point of view”, which demonstrates how the Graal Legend was used by the “Light” through the “Orders of the Quest” to disseminate The Mysteries. This is because the “fourth point of view” according to Mr. Waite “must be called spiritual.”6 He explains that people who hold this view “…regard religious doctrine, institute and ritual, as things typical or analogical…for them the Graal is an early recognition of the fact that doctrinal teachings are symbols and are no more meant for literal acceptance than any express fables.”7
I found it interesting that although both the Grail/Graal legend and the troubadours were operating in the same time and place, historians do not link the Grail legend with any known troubadours. So who were these mysterious singers/poets and story tellers? According to their entry on Wikipedia:

The troubadour school or tradition began in the eleventh century in Occitania, but it subsequently spread into Italy, Spain, and even Greece. Under the influence of the troubadours, related movements sprang up throughout Europe: the Minnesinger in Germany, trovadorismo in Galicia and Portugal, and that of the trouvères in northern France…
The texts of troubadour songs deal mainly with themes of chivalry and courtly love. Most were metaphysical, intellectual, and formulaic…
There have been three main styles of Occitan lyric poetry identified: the trobar leu (light), trobar ric (rich), and trobar clus (closed, hermetic).
The trobar clus regularly escapes modern scholarly interpretation. Words are commonly used metaphorically and symbolically and what a poem appears to be about on its surface is rarely what is intended by the poet or understood by audiences "in the know". The clus style was invented early by Marcabru but only favoured by a few masters thereafter. The trobar ric style is not as opaque as the clus; rather it employs a rich vocabulary, using many words, rare words, invented words, and unusual, colorful wordings…

The words in the excerpt of the entry that really jumped out at me were the reference to three separate styles used by the Troubadours. They were “trobar leu (light), trobar ric (rich), and trobar clus (closed hermetic).” The mention of “hermetic” reveals that the Troubadours were of the “Light”, but where did they come from? A clue to unveiling this group’s origins may be found in the etymology of their name. However, there appears to be several possible sources. I was not surprised to discover the obvious connections to Old French, Latin and Greek, but I was surprised to find an Arabic connection to the term troubadour. The entry for troubadour linked the name back to Islamic Spain, but it also connected the Cathars of Southern France:

There is a second, less traditional and less popular, theory as to the etymology of the word trobar…which seeks the troubadours' origins in Arabic Andalusian musical practices. According to them, the Arabic word tarrab, "to sing", is the root of trobar.
Some proponents of this theory argue, on cultural grounds, that both etymologies may well be correct, and that there may have been a conscious poetic exploitation of the phonological coincidence between trobar and the triliteral Arabic root TRB when sacred Sufi Islamic musical forms with a love theme were first exported from Al-Andalus to southern France …
Ezra Pound, in his Canto VIII, famously declared that William of Aquitaine "had brought the song up out of Spain / with the singers and veils..." referring to the troubadour song. In his study, Lévi-Provençal is said to have found four Arabo-Hispanic verses nearly or completely recopied in William's manuscript. According to historic sources, William VIII, the father of William, brought to Poitiers hundreds of Muslim prisoners. Trend admitted that the troubadours derived their sense of form and even the subject matter of their poetry from the Andalusian Muslims…
Troubadour poetry is a reflection of Cathar religious doctrine. While the theory is supported by the traditional and near-universal account of the decline of the troubadours coinciding with the suppression of Catharism during the Albigensian Crusade (first half of the thirteenth century), support for it has come in waves…

There were several excerpts from the entry, which identified the troubadours as members of the “Orders of the Quest”, but for this thesis’s purpose I will focus at this time on the theory of the troubadour’s connection to Spain. Earlier, I related that the “Light” succeeded for almost three hundred years during the “Golden Caliphate” in the “Cities of Light” of Spain. According to the entry “The troubadour tradition seems to have begun in western Aquitaine (Poitou and Saintonge) and Gascony.”
William of Aquitaine 1099 – 1137 is addressed above, but rather than an actual troubadour, his entry on Wikipedia describes William as a “patron” of the troubadours. One of the earliest “acknowledged” troubadours was Marcabru who was born in 1130 and died a mere twenty years later in 1150. According to the entry for the troubadours, they spread from Southern-France to Spain early in the 13th (1200s) century, but the entry also says that William of Aquitaine brought the “song up out of Spain.” In fact, the author relates that William discovered the troubadours from his Muslim prisoners from Al-Andalus (Iberian Peninsula). This is very interesting, because as reported Al-Andalus was the Arabic name for the region ruled by the “Golden Caliphate” of Spain. Marcabru was born in Gascony, which like Aquitaine is the south-western corner of France, bordering Spain.
Another link to the troubadours and Islamic Spain is the origin of chivalry. If we use logic it may also show us the link to the “Grail Legend.” This is because the main focus of the stories of “Courtly Love” and the Grail legend was to extol the virtue of chivalry. Curiously chivalry is traced to Mediaeval Spain, which the entry for “Chivalry” on Wikipedia explains:

The tradition of the chivalric "knight in shining armor" can be traced back to the Arabs, with notable pre-Islamic figures like the Bedouin knight Antar The Lion (580 CE). He is believed to be the model of this tradition. Charles Reginald Haines noted traits "such as loyalty, courtesy, munificence...is found in eminent degree among the Arabs." Medieval Spain, which he calls the "cradle of chivalry", could bear that pre-modern title, due to the direct impact of Arab civilization in al-Andalus. "Piety, courtesy, prowess in war, the gift of eloquence, the art of poetry, skill on horseback, dexterity with sword, lance, and bow" was expected of the elite Moorish knight. Richard Francis Burton, when characterizing this strain of thought in the writings of Europe as a whole, maintaining "were it not evident that the spiritualizing of sexuality by imagination is universal among the highest orders of mankind", he continues, "I should attribute the origins of love to the influences of the Arabs' poetry and chivalry upon European ideas rather than to medieval Christianity." The frequent clashes between the Christians and Muslims preceding the Christian Crusades leave no doubt that orders of the knighthood and the tradition of courtly love were transmitted into Europe by way of the Muslim occupation.

I found the above extract so astounding, because since childhood, in films and TV I was conditioned to see “Bedouins” as ruthless desert barbarians. I first began to suspect that was an incorrect assessment, when I investigated the Crusades. As stated, as a child it had felt wrong to sing the hymn “Onward Christian Soldiers” because it was directly opposed to Jesus’ teaching of “turn the other cheek” and “forgiveness.” Thankfully, the media has caught up with the historians and although they often still depict Muslims as bloodthirsty barbarians, they also portray other Muslims as they undoubtedly were, gracious, civilized and merciful men. Nonetheless, I am not concerned with who was the most barbaric during the Crusades, but whether the individuals concerned were influenced by the “Light” or the “Shadow.”
As a group, both the Muslim and the Christian Crusaders were tools for the “Shadow.” This is because; the energy of violence weakens the “Light”, as in Sophia having to leave the Earth during wartime. On the other hand the “Shadow” thrives on the lower emotions of fear, rage, and hatred and therefore always seeks to cause conflict and division. Having said that and despite the horrendous suffering perpetrated by both sides during the Crusades, as Melchizedek was of the active/masculine energy, “he” was able to influence a few individuals. The individuals influenced by Melchizedek were the nine knights that would form the core of the Knights Templar. This brings me back to my original query, were the troubadours involved in promoting the “Legend of the Holy Grail” in Mediaeval Europe?

GRAIL LEGEND

The legend of the Holy Grail is probably the most famous legend that has survived until modern times. There are several theories as to who was the first proponent of the legend so let us take a look at the contenders. There are three names associated with the Holy Grail legend: Chrétien de Troyes, Robert de Boron and Wolfram von Eschenbach.
According to historians, the earliest example of the legend appears in the writings of Chrétien de Troyes. De Troyes was a French poet and trouvère of the 12th century. Evidently, “between 1160 and 1172 he served at the court of his patroness Marie of France.” This lady was also the “Countess of Champagne” and the “daughter of Eleanor of Aquitaine.” The title of Chrétien’s version of the Grail legend, which is dated between “1180 and 1191”, was Perceval, le Conte du Graal (The Story of the Grail).
There are several details about Chrétien de Troyes’ version that interested me, not least the reference to him being a trouvère, which as shown above is another name for troubadour. The mention of his “patroness” being the daughter of Eleanor of Aquitaine further strengthens the connection. Apart from William of Aquitaine being the first recorded troubadour, Eleanor was the mother of Richard the Lionheart and Prince John; Prince John signed the Magna Carter. This relation also meant Marie was Richard and John’s sister. You may remember that these two rulers are infamous because of the legend of Robin Hood and his merry men, which has been portrayed numerous times in films and TV shows.
The second name associated with the legend of the Holy Grail is Robert de Boron, who was also a French poet of the 12th century. He is accredited with Christianizing the legend by introducing the source of the “grail cup” as that used at the “Last Supper” and later used by Joseph of Arimathea to catch a few drops of Jesus’ blood from the cross. It is also De Boron’s version of the “grail” legend that is the source of Joseph’s family purportedly bringing the “grail” to Glastonbury, the site of the secret land of Avalon of King Arthur’s fame.
The third writer associated with the “Quest for the Holy Grail” is Wolfram von Eschenbach. Apparently, according to his entry on Wikipedia, Wolfram von Eschenbach was a “German Knight”, who was in “born 1170 and died in 1220.” He was evidently, “regarded as one of the greatest epic poets of his time.” Moreover, “as a Minnesinger, he also wrote lyric poetry.” Despite this glowing accolade, “little is known of Wolfram’s life”. However, the entry does provide a curious statement concerning his most famous work Parzival:

Wolfram is best known today for his Parzival, sometimes regarded as the greatest of all German epics from that time. Based on Chrétien de Troyes' Perceval, le Conte du Graal, it is the first extant work in German to have as its subject the Holy Grail. In the poem, Wolfram expresses disdain for Chrétien's (unfinished) version of the tale, and states that his source was a poet from Provence called Kyot.

I was curious as to who this French poet named Kyot from Provence was. The first thing I discovered that he was known as Kyot the Provençal. The entry on Wikipedia has that “Wolfram may have been referring to the northern French poet Guiot de Provins…” Despite the general dismissal of Guiot de Provins identification with Kyot, I found it more than interesting to learn that Guiot de Provins, like Chrétien de Troyes was a “trouvère”, the French term for a troubadour. However, the information than Guiot was connected to Kyot and Von Eschenbach’s “Parzival” leads me to think that maybe there is some Truth in naming Guiot/Kyot as the source. The entry for Guiot describes him travelling “widely, visiting Germany, Greece, Constantinople (Istanbul, Turkey), and Jerusalem. The mention of Guiot/Kyot “visiting” Jerusalem suggests that he may have come into contact with the Knights Templar. Still, it is the mention of what Guiot/Kyot did later that sealed the connection as accurate for me. Apparently, he “joined a cloister as a Cluniac monk.” The Cluny order is a Benedictine order, which was founded by William (I) of Aquitaine. Remember, William is acknowledged as the first troubadour.
As fascinating a discovery as the above was, it was the source of Guit/Kyot’s account of Parzival that he gave to Wolfram that amazed me. It seems that Kyot acquired his inspiration by uncovering “…a neglected Arabic manuscript in Moorish Toledo, Spain.” According to Wolfram’s account “The manuscript was written by Flegetanis, a Muslim astronomer and a descendant of Solomon who had found the secrets of the Holy Grail written in the stars.”
The story continues with Kyot learning to read Arabic and being so enthralled with the story that he went in search of the “brotherhood that protected it.” After extensive searching throughout Europe, he discovered the “history of Parzival’s family in Anjou in Western France.
The connection with Islamic Spain and the Holy Grail explains something I had puzzled over for some time. That is the mention of the castration of the Grail king, by a Mohammedan knight. The late celebrated American philosopher Joseph Campbell was considered an expert on the “Grail legend.” In 2002 I watched an interview with Professor Campbell on PBS on the legend of the Holy Grail. One of the things that I found remarkable was the professor’s belief that the legend speaks of “neutral” angels bringing the grail cup to the Earth. Apparently the angels descended between good and evil, taking the “middle way.”
Professor Campbell stated that the grail represented “the fulfillment of the highest, spiritual potentialities of the human consciousness.” In Wolfram von Eschenbach’s account of the Grail King legend, the Grail King is a “lovely young man” who had not earned his position. One day, he (the Grail king) rides out of his castle and encounters a Mohammedan knight. Both men lower their lances and ride full tilt at each other. After they clash, the Mohammedan lies dead and the Grail King is castrated. Intriguingly Campbell tells us that written on the Mohammedan’s spearhead that castrated the king is the word “grail.”
Professor Campbell interpreted the story as meaning the Church’s emasculation of Nature. He saw the Mohammedan knight as representing a pagan or “nature man.” By the word grail being on his lance, the professor believed this symbolized that Nature intended Humanity to have the grail. In other words, spirituality is not separate from natural life but enmeshed within it.
I was struck by the professor’s reference to the “Mohammedan knight” being a man of nature. I felt it was important to remember that during the time the story was written, anyone who was not a Christian was considered a pagan. The second thing that jumped out was the detail of the spearhead with the word grail castrating the king. Professor Campbell had made a point of saying the king had not earned the position. I wondered was the Grail king’s castration an allegory for the king not maintaining a spiritual perspective towards nature. Even so, Craig and I learned that the legend of the “grail” carries a great deal more information than a mere warning to respect nature. In The True Philosophers’ Stone we wrote that Von Eschenbach was connected to the Philosophers’ Stone and the Ark of the Covenant:

“…Graham Hancock had made the connection between the Ark of the Covenant and the Holy Grail, in his book The Sign and the Seal.8
…Robert Simmons and Kathy Warner …in their book MOLDAVITE: Starborn Stone of Transformation9 cite that Wolfram von Eschenbach “described” the Grail “not as a cup, but as a stone of the purest kind...called LAPSIT EXILLAS’....” Simmons and Warner wonder if Wolfram meant “to write LAPIS LAPSUS EX CAELIS, the ‘stone fallen from heaven’?”10 Craig and Suzzan were amazed to learn that Simmons and Warner also discovered that Emma Jung’s The Grail Legend “equates the stone of the Grail to the Philosophers’ Stone.”11
Graham Hancock believes that the ark/grail “had contained ‘the root of all knowledge’. In addition...the golden lid of the sacred relic had been surmounted by two figures of cherubim. Could it therefore have been pure coincidence that, in Judaic lore, ‘the distinctive gift of the cherubim was (knowledge)’12”?
Hancock asks if the “quest for the ark might also have been a quest for wisdom?” He found it “equally significant” that when the Templars “were persecuted, tortured and put on trial in the early fourteenth century many of them confessed to worshipping a mysterious bearded head, the name of which was given as Baphomet.” Giving an interesting explanation, he relates that “Dr Hugh Schonfield, an expert on early Christianity... deciphered a secret code used in a number of the famous ‘Dead Sea Scrolls’-- a code that the Templars might easily have learned during their long residence in the Holy Land.” Evidently with some clever manipulation Dr. Schonfield demonstrated that the secret code “showed…the name Baphomet” could mean “…the Greek word Sophia. And the Greek word Sophia, in its turn meant nothing more nor less than ‘wisdom’.”13

Obviously, due to the prevalence of the lower emotions created by the Crusades, the predominant force in the region was the “Shadow.” Particularly, damaging energetically was the mass murder of the Gnostic Christian Albigensians, by the Catholic “Christian” Crusaders in 1244. Nonetheless, like the “Shadow” rushes to dim the “Light” in enlightened times; the “Light” equally rushes to shine the “Light” in dark ones. So can we find historical evidence of the “Light” during this spiritually dark period? The answer is found in the mysterious personage of Guglielma of Bohemia.

GUGLIELMA OF BOHEMIA

We find the distinct influence of the “Light” represented by Sophia during the 13th century in Milan, Italy. Her presence involved a Bohemian (Czechoslovakia) woman. The woman concerned is referred to as the Heretic Saint, Guglielma of Bohemia. I first heard of this woman while reading Dan Burnstein’s SECRETS OF THE CODE: THE UNAUTHORISED GUIDE TO THE MYSTERIES BEHIND THE DAVINCI CODE. He refers to her in commentating on Dan Brown’s previous book Angels and Demons. Coincidentally, when I began to research her, I came across a reference to Guglielma of Bohemia in an article entitled The Female Pope: The Mystery of Pope Joan. The authors of the article, Rosemary and Darroll Pardoe take on Guglielma of Bohemia was extremely enlightening as it concerns the Tarot.
Its main section is subtitled Pope Joan and the Tarot and the authors relate that “Around 1260, a pious and wealthy woman named Guglielma …arrived in Milan and quickly gained a following as a preacher.” The most surprising thing to me in the article was the information that Guglielma’s “body was entombed in the Cistercian house at Chiaravalle near Milan.” The Pope on the Vatican throne at the time was Pope Boniface (VIII), who reigned from 1244 to 1303 and evidently, Guglielma was thought to be an “incarnation of the Holy Spirit.”
Although Guglielma’s “followers” saw her as a means to overthrow the papacy and “install a young Milanese woman called Maifreda di Pirovano”, Guglielma’s connection to the Tarot demonstrates that she was a tool of the “Light.” The authors feel that the reason for the close alliance between Guglielma and Maifreda was the Visconti family. They relate that “It was this family which, two centuries later, commissioned several decks of Tarot cards.” The most relevant association between Guglielma and her followers the Guglielmites was the introduction of the female pope (High Priestess) into the Tarot deck. According to the authors, “the legend of Pope Joan was at the peak of its popularity in the middle of the fifteenth century when the Visconti-Sforza cards were made, so it remains quite likely that the woman was intended to be Joan herself.”
With regard to Guglielma of Bohemia’s connection to the Tarot, I found an interesting snippet of information from Rachel Pollack, the author of SEEKER THE TAROT UNVEILED.14 She informs us that:

“…nearly two hundred years before Tarot, a woman with the wonderful name of Guglielma of Bohemia started a mass religious movement…Guglielma preached that Christ would return in the year 1300 to initiate a new world where women would serve as popes. Guglielma herself died before the great date, so the movement chose a woman named Manfreda Visconti as their female pope…They burned Manfreda at the stake…One hundred and fifty years after Manfreda’s death, that first known Tarot deck appeared, painted as a wedding present for a marriage between two noble families. One of those families was named Visconti, the very same people whose ancestor died under the orders of a church that wanted no talk of female popes. In fact, the Visconti family seems to have commissioned several Tarot decks, two of which have come down to us. And in each one appears the image of a woman dressed as an abbess but wearing the triple crown of a pope (the card is called the Papess).”15

In response to the argument that the Tarot isn’t based on the Kabbalah, because “Christians did not even know about the Kabbalah until decades after the first Tarot decks”16, Ms. Pollack relates, “…our friends the Viscontis employed, among all the other people at their elegant court, a Jewish astrologer. And Jewish Astrology…has always involved an intensive study of the Kabbalah.”17
I had initially connected the Tarot with the mysterious group called “Gypsies” or Romanys. Moreover, in developing the “Hidden Codes of Life”, I had found that Astrology was irretrievably wound up with the Tarot. With that said, it was David A. Shugarts’ book SECRETS OF THE WIDOW’S SON THE MYSTERIES SURROUNDING THE SEQUEL TO THE DA VINCI CODE that gave me a different point of view on the origin of the Tarot. Acknowledging the accepted date of 1450 for the first printing of the Tarot, he proposes a much earlier date for their origins among the Gnostics. He relates:

“…there were known linkages of Tarot to Gnostic thought, as well as the Kabbalah and of course, to Astrological signs, which date back to the dawn of civilization…Tarot historians, talk of earlier hand-painted decks going back as far as 1200. If, however, the Gnostics and Hebrew Kabbalah are brought into the equation, then the origin really shifts back to about the fourth century AD…
…“goddess” worship can be found reflected in several cards of the Tarot. When the deck is one like the famous Visconti Sforza deck, The High Priestess clearly signals the legend of the female pope, not to mention the earlier Magdalene. There are interpretations of themes like reincarnation… Essentially, the Symbolism was a way to veil ideas…hide in plain sight.”18

Apart from the connection to the Tarot, another major point in the article on Pope Joan that veritably leapt from the page was the reference to Pope Boniface (VIII). That is because we had just been reading of him in Peter Partner’s book, The Knights Templar and their Myth. Amazingly he relates, “The most important politician to attract charges of demonic practices was Pope Boniface (VIII) (1294-1303). The latter part of his pontificate was spent in a ferocious quarrel with the French monarchy, pursued by the pope and by King Philip the Fair in a spirit of intense animosity.”19
If like me the head of The Christian Church being accused of “demonic practices” sounded outrageous then I should relate what Mr. Partner writes about Pope Boniface. He says that the pope possessed a, “…seal, carved with a lion and made when the sun stood in that part of the zodiac, which Pope Boniface VIII’s doctor, Arnau of Vilanova, supplied for the pope’s personal protection.”20
Amazingly, the French Politician Guillaume de Nogert who led the attack on the Knights Templar also conducted a vicious attack on Pope Boniface. The pope’s death did not bring any reprieve or escape from de Nogert’s venom. Mr. Partner explains, “…the French government built up a huge dossier against the dead pope, representing him as a heretic…a magician and the patron of sorcerers. The compilation of this dossier against Pope Boniface (VIII) was complete…by 1307, the year in which the Templars were arrested.”21 Again Guillaume de Nogert was at the forefront.

And so we come to the most devastating affect the “Shadow” had on the Divine plan in the 14th century. As I have continually said, the “Shadow” feeds off the lower thoughts and emotions of the Human Race and the presence of hatred, which had been engendered by the multiple massacres of the “Crusades”, strengthened the “Shadow” for more than two-hundred years. Consequently, “he” was able to “channel” that energy into “his” influencing the creation of the organization that would deal an almost fatal blow to the agents of the “Light.” The energy was particularly conducive to the “Shadow” at this time, because of the presence of the level of hatred that permeated the 14th century, which was the 3rd level and the most deadly spiritually.

THREE LEVELS OF HATRED

In the Know Thyself Initiative, Stage Reason Section 8-c we discussed that like there are three levels of Love, there are also three levels of hatred. Because the presence of “hatred” in the 14th century was so pivotal to the struggle between the “Light” and the “Shadow”, I will repeat what we wrote in the Initiative:

“Originally we had thought that hatred was 1 of the negative “emotions” of Sophia’s essence that we needed to transmute. However, we learned that “hatred” was a result of the insertion of the counterfeit spirit, and was the exact opposite to the Spirit or Love. With the additional information we realized this is what constituted the emergence of evil on the Physical Plane.

“In the sub-section of Conscience as Our Guide in Whence the Origin of Evil in LCD, we wrote that “all emotions including hatred could be transmuted”, but our more than 14-year journey has led us to deeper and deeper understanding. On the subject of hatred, we had a dilemma; the word hate is used in the New Testament multiple times by Jesus. If the word hatred is connected to evil, then how could we explain Jesus saying in Luke 14:26 “If any man come to me and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.”? Obviously Jesus did not mean “hate” in the way we understand it today. A clue to the context meant by the word “hate” that Jesus used is found in a few verses on in verse 33, which reads “…whosever he be of you forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple.” Webster’s Dictionary says of the word forsake, (1) “To give up (something held dear) renounce. (2) To leave altogether; abandon.” So in this context Jesus meant “hate” as in “abandon or give up”.

“Greater clarity came when we remembered the Greek language has 3 different words for Love, eros, philo, and agape. Deductive Reasoning suggests as there are 3 different words for love, there is probably more than 1 Greek word for the antithesis of love, hate. As we cannot speak Greek we are unable to verify this or not…Even so, whether or not there is more than 1 actual word in Greek for hate or hatred is not relevant to our theory, because we are dealing with the energy or frequency of the emotion. So let us work on the premise that our hypothesis is correct and there is more than one level or meaning for the English word hate. We will use hatred rather than hate, because hatred represents a consciousness or atmosphere.

“In our hypothesis the 1st level of hatred would be divided into 2 parts, with the 1st part being used in the same context as used in the Bible; renounce, or abandon.” The 2nd part could also come from the Bible. Only hatred in this context is more akin to intense dislike or abhorrence, as in the beatitudes in Matthew 5:44 where Jesus admonishes his followers to love their enemies and “bless them that curse you, do good to those that hate you, and pray for them that despitefully use you, and persecute you:”.

“The second level of hatred comes from Sophia’s emotion of Fear, which became the element Water. As we have seen some of the most hateful acts are perpetrated by individuals who hate a person for the color of their skin or religion. A common term for this behavior is Xenophobia. Webster’s defines a xenophobe (a person suffering from xenophobia) as “a person unduly fearful or contemptuous of that which is foreign, esp. of strangers or foreign peoples.” …

“In other words fear for the unknown can turn into hatred, which unfortunately often results in violence. The most devastating thing that perpetuates xenophobia is the lack of communication between individuals…As this level of hatred derives from a Spiritual emotion, it can be transmuted. People can overcome the 2nd level of hatred with knowledge and understanding.

“Although the 2nd level of hatred can result in some atrocious acts, it is not as devastating spiritually as the 3rd level of hatred. This is because the 3rd level interpretation of hatred is connected to Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. Hatred at this level, unlike the emotions of Sophia’s essence that is transmuted by working through the emotions of fear, ignorance, grief, and confusion with knowledge and understanding, is wholly alien to Spirituality.

“The 3rd level of hatred is the most devastating result of the insertion of the counterfeit spirit, because it involves revenge. This kind of hatred is best described by the adjective hateful, which is associated to the synonyms malicious, cruel, spiteful, and wicked or evil. Nonetheless, this level of hatred is most odious because of it’s subtly. Although hatred is not named as 1 of Sophia’s emotions that needs transmuting, hatred is associated with the emotion of Grief, which became the Element Air. This association of the 3rd level of hatred with Sophia’s emotion of Grief reveals the insidious nature of hatred. We said that 1 of the colors of the “spikes” produced from a Hitler rally, was black, and the color people wear when they are in mourning (grief) is black…

“Although the Element Air and the emotion of Grief can be transmuted, the hatred that can be engendered by grief cannot. This is because as we said the 3rd level of hatred is associated to Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. When we first read that the Gnostics believed “Grief” was the source of evil we were surprised, because it seemed so passive. People who are experiencing “grief” are usually barely functioning, so how could they perpetrate “evil”? The answer is that the loss often leads to the desire for revenge. This is the primary Reason for Jesus abolishing the law of “an eye for an eye”…

“When Ptolemaeus (a Valentinian teacher) said that the law of an eye for an eye “came from God”, he was referring to the Law of Karma or the Wheel of Necessity set up by The Creator/Demiurge to address the “watchers mistake.” Unfortunately the law of revenge or an “eye for an eye” is still practiced in parts of the world, namely Saudi Arabia. This perpetuates the energy, consciousness, and frequency of hatred.”

The “Shadow” used the presence of the 3rd level of hatred to influence the creation of an organization, which engendered so much fear, terror and hatred that “he” gorged himself, metaphorically speaking for centuries. I am sure you have realized the organization I am referring to was the infamous Inquisition. This heinous organization was what the “Shadow” used to continue generating the 3rd level of hatred. I wrote about the role of the Inquisition in the chapter Crusades to WWI in LCD. I related that the role of the inquisition first came to the fore “when Pope Gregory (IX) initiates a ‘papal inquisition’ to arrest and try heretics in 1231 C.E:

“Its initial purpose was to allow the captured “heretics” solitude in order to see the error of their ways. Nevertheless, when this failed to achieve the desired results, the prisoner was taken to the inquisitor where he or she was confronted with witnesses. For more than 20 years, torture was not used to persuade the prisoners to recant. However, this changed in 1252 C.E., when Pope Innocent IV authorized torture to be used in obtaining confessions.
Penalties varied from case to case. Anyone found guilty of heresy, that recanted their “error,” suffered anything from penance with prayer, to the seizure of their property and or imprisonment. Those unfortunate souls found guilty of heresy that refused to recant, were handed over to the state authorities to suffer the ultimate penalty, death.”

When I first began investigating the Middle-Ages, I was struck by the level of fear, terror and brutality present at that time. I questioned why the period immediately after the Crusades seemed to be even worse spiritually than during the wars. Of course, later when I understood the nature of energy and consciousness and its association to the 3rd level of hatred and the “Shadow”, I began to see the underlying reason. However, although the Inquisition was created during the 13th century, its most famous branch, the Spanish Inquisition would not emerge until the 15th century. So why was it such a successful tool for the “Shadow” in undermining the “Light” in the 14th century? The answer is in its ability to cause the corruption of a vital branch of the “Orders of the Quest”, by generating the 3rd level of hatred.
Although the Crusades would have generated pretty strong feelings from Muslims towards Christians, the level of hatred this generated was only the 2nd level. The 3rd level becomes manifested when the sense of revenge is “justified” to correct an injustice and I am sure I do not need to remind that there was no greater example of this than in the treatment of the Albigensians or Cathars. However, it was the injustice perpetrated on a physical manifestation of the “Orders of the Quest”, namely the Knights Templar that led to the mass infusion of the energy and consciousness of the 3rd level of hatred during the 14th century.
Earlier, I mentioned that the transfer of power from the Templars to the Freemasons was not without problems. This is because of what happened when the Grand Master Jacques de Molay was burnt at the stake

THE KNIGHTS TEMPLAR’S END

It is important to remember that at the height of the Templar power they were very effective tools of the “Light”; consequently they were a target for the “Shadow.” To that end “he” moved the French king Philip (IV), who was in debt to the Templars to attack the order. As a result king Philip, ironically called the “Fair” launched a surprise attack on the morning of Friday the 13th October 1307 and according to the entry for the Knights Templar on Wikipedia “simultaneously arrested” the Grand Master Jacques de Molay and “scores of other French Templars”, under charges of heresy and blasphemy, whereupon they were mercilessly tortured at the hands of the Inquisition. After hours of torture, the Inquisitionist were able to “extract false confessions of blasphemy.” Not content with annihilating French Templars, King Philip hounded Pope Clement (VII) until he “issued the papal bull Pastoralis Praeeminentiae on November 22, 1307, which instructed all Christian monarchs in Europe to arrest all Templars and seize their assets.”
Not surprisingly, after the torture stopped “many Templars recanted their confessions” and began to mount a defense to the false charges in the trials ordered by the Pope. Unfortunately, the “Shadow” caused this to fail, when he influenced king Philip to not only “block the attempt in 1310” , but also to use the forced false confessions “to have dozens of Templars burned at the stake in Paris.”
At this time, the order still existed, but the ruthlessness of Philip knew no bounds and he continued to hound Pope Clement “threatening military action unless the Pope complied with his wishes” and disbanded the Knights Templar order. Pope Clement eventually complied in 1312 at “the Council of Vienne.” In his papal bull Clement “turned over most Templar assets to the Hospitallers.”
Obviously, Philip’s actions generated intense hatred and because it was associated with a desire for revenge, it was the 3rd level of hatred that was being generated at the time. In normal circumstances, even this level of hatred would have eventually dissipated when the populace forgot. Unfortunately, this was far from normal circumstances. The Knights Templars were as I said members of the “Orders of the Quest”, which meant they were familiar with The Mysteries and knew how to affect energy and consciousness. However the most important affect of this dreadful miscarriage of justice was its corruption of representatives of the “Light”, the Templars.
We can detect the corruption in the record of the execution of the last Templar Grand Master, Jacques de Molay. The entry for the Knights Templars relates that like most of the Templar knights, he too recanted his false confession. De Molay’s courage influenced his “associate Geoffrey de Charney” the “Preceptor of Normandy” to also recant his confession and claim his innocence.” Alas their cries of innocence fell on deaf ears and their pleas were answered with them being “declared guilty of being relapsed heretics and …sentenced to burn alive at the stake in Paris on March 18, 1314.”
It is on the day of the execution that the corruption of the “Light’s” representatives occurs. According to the entry Jacques de Molay “remained defiant to the end” taunting his executioners by “asking to be tied in such a way that he could face the Notre Dame Cathedral and hold his hands together in prayer.” On the face of it, this request would be seen as a deeply religious man wanting to meet his maker facing God’s house. However, if we remember that Notre Dame Cathedral was built in order to ground The Mysteries into the stones, then his words, as he was burnt to death takes on a far greater importance. The account relates the legend that the Grand Master, “called out from the flames that both Pope Clement and King Philip would soon meet him before God.” The fact that within a year both Pope Clement and King Philip was dead speaks to the power of Jacques de Molay’s words.
There is absolutely no doubt that de Molay’s last words were a curse and that by facing Notre Dame Cathedral when he said them means he was invoking spiritual forces. As it was a dying declaration it carried even greater strength. Moreover, there were Templars in the crowd listening to their master’s last instructions. I say instructions deliberately, because make no mistake Jacques de Molay’s last words were instructions to his fellow Templars.
As for the remaining Templars, the entry relates that after the leaders were dead “the remaining Templars around Europe were arrested and tried under the Papal investigation (with virtually none convicted), absorbed into other military orders such as the Knights Hospitallers, or pensioned and allowed to live out their days peacefully.” However, there were some Templars which escaped “to other territories outside Papal control, such as excommunicated Scotland or to Switzerland.” Evidently a Templar chapter in Portugal “simply changed their name, from Knights Templar to Knights of Christ.”
While reading Manly P. Hall’s Orders Of The Quest, I found confirmation of my suspicion that Jacques de Molay invoked spiritual powers to enact revenge and the consequences of doing so. Nonetheless, what most interested me was Mr. Hall’s reference to Jacques de Molay forming the Freemasons. Let us start with the planned transfer from the Knights Templar to the Freemasons. According to Mr. Hall, Eliphas Levi related that while in prison, Jacques de Molay, the last Grand Master of the Templars, “…organized and instituted Occult Masonry.” Evidently, Levi wrote, “Within the walls of his prison he founded four Metropolitan Lodges-at Naples for the East, Edinburgh for the West, Stockholm for the North, and Paris for the South.”22
Checking my list of Gothic architecture, only Edinburgh and Paris have Gothic buildings. The mention of Stockholm is especially surprising because it appears that the first time it is mentioned in writing is 1252. This meant it is highly unlikely to have been considered a main center during the 13th (1200s) century. Naples makes more sense, because of its ancient history. However, a sure fire way to find freemasons is in the presence of Gothic architecture. So maybe if Jacques de Molay was naming the countries, he was also misdirecting the Catholic Inquisition as to where the lodges would be founded. Paris and Edinburgh were well-established cities with many Gothic buildings and so would be expected to hold freemasons. As for Italy and Sweden, I felt I needed to look to other cities within the countries. Returning to my list of Gothic cathedrals, I discovered that there were two Gothic cathedrals in Florence, Italy. Remembering that Florence is the capital of Tuscany, a stronghold of the Albigensians, I felt that Florence is far more likely a candidate for a Masonic Lodge than Naples. As for Sweden, Sweden has four Gothic cathedrals. Researching each one, I was led to the city of Skara and learned that it was one of the oldest cities in Sweden founded in 988 C.E.

To return to the problem of The Mysteries being handed over, it was in Manly P. Hall’s Orders Of The Quest that I learned of the consequences of using spiritual forces for revenge. Mr. Hall’s knowledge of the last day of Jacques de Molay is extensive. For example, he relates Jacques de Molay’s full dying declaration:

“France will remember our last moments. We die innocent. The decree that condemns us is an unjust decree, but in heaven there is an august tribunal, to which the weak never appeal in vain. To that tribunal, within forty days, I summon the Roman Pontiff. Oh! Philip, my king, I pardon thee in vain, for thy life is condemned at the tribunal of God. Within a year I await thee.”23

In respect to the Grand Master’s “curse” Mr. Hall informed us that the pope died from “…an obscure ailment…the 19th day of the following month…” The French king also fulfilled, Molay’s prophecy by dying within the year, “…in misery and great pain.” He adds “Most of the active persecutors of the Order perished by premature or violent deaths-events which caused widespread consternation.”24
Many people thought that the pope and king’s premature death was because of Jacques de Molay’s “curse.” Granting that as partly true, did the Grand Master of the Templars cause the death of his persecutors? The answer is both Yes and No. Jacques de Molay’s “curse” did not actually cause their deaths, but his words did. That is because; his followers that survived actualized the “curse” through the use of magic. Magic is neutral and is determined by the user’s intent.
The question that needs to be addressed here is, “Was Jacques de Molay aware of the consequences of his words?” I believe that he most probably was, so why did he “curse” them? Probably because of the awful way he died. Mr. Hall relayed that Jacques de Molay and Guy, the Grand Preceptor of the Temple were “…chained to posts, around which had been heaped a quantity of charcoal. The fuel had been arranged to burn slowly, so that the condemned men would suffer the maximum pain and distress.”25 This is a prime example of the influence of the “Shadow,” by working on the cruelty of the persecutors and the sense of outrage and injustice in Jacques de Molay, the energy succeeded in temporarily subverting the influence of the Melchizedek/Sophia energy.
Logically speaking, a man lashing out at his persecutors, while suffering unspeakably is quite understandable, maybe even expected, but in Jacques de Molay’s case it had serious consequences. As I said, there were problems in the Knight’s Templar handing “the baton” over to the Freemasons; this was as a direct result of de Molay’s curse. When the Grand Master of the “Orders of the Quest” invoked spiritual power to avenge the Templar’s deaths, he directly accessed the Astral Plane of the Tree of Life, which involved the negative side of the Sephirot or Qliphoth. To explain what I mean, I need to take you back to the transfer of the higher consciousness (Humanity) of the Life Principle from Globe C to Globe D. I think it will help if I recap how this was achieved. It was described in Spiritual Evolution: Part Two concerning my vision of evolution:

“The last Sephirot on the traditional Tree of Life, Malkuth means Kingdom. In the Hidden Codes of Life I had been shown that it represents Omega or the end of time. However, this time is not linear, it is eternal. It was then that I was reminded of the Gnostic concept of the Tripartition of Humanity, which I covered in the chapter Gnosis versus Orthodoxy in LCD. Furthermore, I understood I needed to incorporate the three aspects of the Higher Self and the three Greek terms for love, eros, philo and agape.
AWFN8b-2 “Contemplating on this, a few days later I had a vision in which I saw three trees appearing within the Malkuth Sephirot on the traditional Tree of Life, one black, one white and one gray. As I watched, the three trees merged and then dissolved into a six-pointed star. Then I zoomed into the star and emerged as the Life Principle through Daath and into the Chesed of another Tree of Life. I learned this was the Tree of Reason or the tree for the plane of Assiah, or active plane…
“Starting with stage one the three trees in Malkuth. I learned that my hypothetical game of Snakes and Ladders, which I mentioned in Part One of this thesis, takes place in Malkuth. (Note: to help me keep all the different trees in the right place and order, I was given a specific title for each tree. For instance, I was told that the three trees in Malkuth are white=Tree of Life/Light; black=Tree of Death/Darkness and gray=Tree of Knowledge.)
“I learned that the black Tree of Death/Darkness represented the Qliphoth, eros and the Gnostic term Hylic for the material portion of Humanity. The white Tree of Life/Light represented the Holy Sephirot, agape and the Gnostic term pneumatic for the spiritual portion of Humanity. Finally, the gray Tree of Knowledge represented philo and for the Gnostic term for the psychic portion of Humanity. This made sense, and I thought I understood until I was told that the Qliphoth represented both the black and gray trees, because the color gray is a mixture of black and white. I was told that the Qliphoth are a mixture of positive and negative energy, and could be seen as either black and white, or two sides of the same coin…
“In my vision, I appeared to travel inwards through the star, emerging into another Tree of Life, which as I said was the Assiah plane’s Tree of Life, or the Tree of Reason. I should clarify something, it is important to remember that we are moving inwards and so it is through Malkuth that we reach the Tree of Reason…

“Before we examine Craig’s diagram of the three trees and the six-pointed star, in Craig’s Energetic Perspective on Evolution he explained the symbol of the double cube. As was shown, the cube unfolded represents the traditional cross of the crucifixion, but the symbol represents so much more. In thinking about this, I wondered about the symbol of the double cube for Malkuth and then it dawned on me; the two dice we use in board games are two perfect cubes or a “double cube.” Moreover, Craig’s diagram of a cube unfolded made me think that the symbol of a double cube could also represent the male and female human beings as two unfolded cubes.

“But as I said, a deeper understanding began when I learned that my hypothetical board game of Snakes & Ladders took place within Malkuth. To recap: Stage one was the three trees in Malkuth, which merged together and dissolved into a six-pointed star. It wasn’t until Craig drew the diagram of stage one that I understood the purpose for the cube.
“As I said, the Qliphoth are not only associated with the hylics and eros, but are also connected to the psychics and philo. To reiterate, the Qliphoth represent the reverse side of the Holy Sephirot; consequently, they incorporate both black and white and are therefore also gray. From an evolutionary perspective, this integrates both The Magician or Self Conscious and The Empress or Individual Subconscious or the Tarot’s Lovers. This answered part of my earlier question, concerning the Qliphoth representing both the black and gray trees.
“According to Dion Fortune, the Qliphoth are “not independent principles, but are the unbalanced and destructive stations of the Sephirot.”26 She said they should be seen as the reverse side of a coin. The Qliphoth are created from the overflow from one Sephirot to another. For example, the overflow from Tiphareth to Netzach before the Life Principle or the descent of Power could move onto Hod would result in unbalanced love, which can become fanaticism. Nonetheless, it is only in the Active or material plane in Malkuth that the Qliphoth actually become manifest. Essentially, all the world’s myths about fighting a battle between good and evil are reflecting the two aspects of the Sephirot. A perfect example is the New Testament’s St John’s Revelation battle of Armageddon between the armies of Gog and Magog.27
“At the beginning of Part One of the thesis I said that a title for the Tarot was the ‘Devil’s tool.’ Now I think I can understand why it became taboo. When we consider that Dion Fortune’s organization was set up before the Second World War it is thought provoking to read her words on the danger of uninitiated magic. She wrote, ‘Whenever we make ourselves the channel of any pure force, that is to say any force which is single and undiluted by ulterior motives and secondary considerations, we find that there is a river in spate behind us-the stream of corresponding Sephirotic or Qliphothic forces that is finding a channel through us. It is this that gives the single-minded zealot his abnormal power.’28

“In regard to evil, Ms. Fortune had an interesting take on the subject. First she divided evil into positive and negative.29 My immediate response was can there be such a thing as positive evil? I learned that it all came down to replacing positive and negative with active and passive. Ms. Fortune defined positive evil as actively opposed to progress, whereas negative evil could be described as passively permitting anarchy. With respect to the Qliphoth both of these forces are involved. In other words, as I said, the Qliphoth represent the mixture of positive and negative.
“Throughout my investigation, I had consistently found a kind of dualistic struggle between two opposites. Because of this, I wondered why there are three trees connected in my vision. For example, as I said, Revelation is the epitome of dualism depicting the “battle” between light and darkness. I discussed earlier how there was a kind of battle going on inside the heart of the human being, between the Spirit and the counterfeit spirit, which was dualistic. When we read Dion Fortune’s book, I had seen another interpretation for the armies of Gog and Magog in Revelation in that as well as representing the Spirit and the counterfeit spirit, Gog and Magog could be seen as a metaphor for the two sides of the Sephirot. However, all of this was dualistic, which again raised the question of why three trees?
“The answer I received was that the three trees in my vision were relating a change in Humanity’s consciousness. As the “battle” between opposites has been fought metaphorically since the emergence of Homo Sapien sapiens. The Human Race on mass has reached the juncture in Spiritual Evolution to find conciliation between opposites…
Within the ‘Cube of Space’ or the sphere of Malkuth a person must find balance and equilibrium in order to become “centered” and move inwards to the next stage, the Tree of Reason in Assiah. To do that he or she must first unite all three trees, or integrate all three aspects of the consciousness to bring forth the star or the 1st aspect of the Higher Self. To how this is done, Dion Fortune left us the answer. She said that evil cannot be destroyed; it must be ‘harmonized.’30
“Before we move onto the next stage, I have to warn you of the dangers in trying to contact the Sephirot. Dion Fortune warned that when a person attempted to contact a Sephirot if they weren’t sufficiently purified he or she could contact its reverse side or Qliphoth instead…”

Although, the Life Principle’s consciousness was indirectly connected to both the Sephirot and the Qliphoth while in the “three trees in Malkuth”, the two thirds that succeeded in passing through the Door or Star-gate to Globe D, were immediately disconnected from them when they incarnated. However, as I related at the beginning the consciousness of Root-Race 4 was incorporated into Root-Race 6, which was both an advantage and disadvantage. The advantage was the understanding of the Divine Forces; the disadvantage was the access to the Astral Plane’s less desirable consciousness. That said, the consciousness of the “Light”, through the “Order of Melchizedek” or the “Orders of the Quest” who new The Mysteries and were involved in assisting the “Light” to awaken Humanity, are always connected to the Soul Plane for their guidance. These individuals understood the nature and application of the energy fields of Earth, which could be used to affect human consciousness. The rules of the “game”, which both sides have to abide by, were that no-one could use the knowledge to further their agenda. Up until the 14th century, both sides had complied with the rules. Nonetheless, when Jacques de Molay faced Notre Dame Cathedral, a building incorporating The Mysteries and built over an Energy Earth Star and spoke his curse, he unleashed a power that would reverberate for centuries after.

The main reason Jacques de Molay’s condemnation and call for revenge was so harmful, was because at the time the mystical side of Judaism, known as the Kabbalah had come into the consciousness of the world. As you know, the Kabbalah involves The Mysteries, but more importantly involves the Sephirotic powers. While the Kabbalah and Zohar were orally transmitted only the most highly trained and purified initiate was able to make direct contact with the Sephirot and therefore avoid being trapped by the reverse side of the Sephirot, the Qliphoth.

AWFN8b-3
There was also another condition at the time, which made de Molay’s curse even more potent; the Tree of Reason. Earlier, I said that the Tree of Reason had fully immersed in the Earth Plane at the start of Globe D, however, its full energetic structure did not completely form until this “upstepping” when in the 1400s the consciousness of Root-Race 5 merged into Root-Race 7. This was why the “Shadow” moved to corrupt the “agents” of the “Light” through “his” most effective tool the Inquisition. I will leave the discussion on how this insidious tool of the “Shadow” came into manifestation in part B of this “upstepping.” For now, I just want to add that the full manifestation of the Tree of Reason meant that Stage 3 of my vision also became a reality at this time, namely the 33rd Path leading through Daath to the Tree of Truth, which I will also discuss in part B.

Jacques de Molay’s curse led to devastating suffering, as within a year Europe was gripped in the jaws of a widespread seven-year famine, known as the Great Famine. However, within a few decades there was an out break of an epidemic that decimated Europe. Talking of Europe, by 1236 the city of Granada was the only area still controlled by Muslims; the rest of Spain was controlled by Christians. However, conquest was the furthest thing from either the Muslim or Christian rulers of the Iberian Peninsula during the mid-14th century. That is because they were all consumed with surviving an outbreak known as the “Black Death.”

 

BLACK DEATH

Following the premise of this thesis, one would naturally think that the outbreak of a plague such as the Black Death was instigated by the “Shadow”, but a very important Truth I discovered is that ALL instances of illnesses are never caused by either side. So what does cause such a thing as a devastating plague? The answer is natural selection. In every kingdom of Nature, disease acts as a kind of “culling.” Whenever the population of a certain species explodes, Nature instigates some kind of pest or predator to “cull” the population. The entry for Black Death on Wikipedia perfectly illustrates this point: “The Black Death was one of the deadliest pandemics in human history, peaking in Europe between 1348 and 1350. It is widely thought to have been caused by a bacterium named Yersinia pestis (Plague)…”
Amazingly, the Black Death outbreak in the 14th century “is estimated to have killed 30% to 60% of Europe’s population.” As a means to curb over population, the plague appears to have been extremely successful in that it may have reduced the world’s population by as much as one hundred million. When we consider that number today in light of the world’s population being over 6 Billion, it seems relatively small. However, in the 14th century the entire population of the world was estimated to have only been 450 million!
According to the entry, “The plague is thought to have returned every generation with varying virulence and mortalities until the 1700s. Appallingly, “during this period, more than 100 plague epidemics swept across Europe.” Although the entry mentions the “plague” returning every generation, the outbreak of the Black Death in 1348/1350 was the first plague in more than eight–hundred years. So why did the “plague” make over a hundred appearances in four hundred years after the outbreak in the 14th century? What changed?
The answer may be found in the weather, because “towards the end of the thirteenth century” a weather pattern known as “the Medieval Warm Period” came to an end. This caused the winters to be much more severe and led to smaller harvests. The entry reports that in “In the autumn of 1314, heavy rains began to fall, which led to several years of cold and wet winters. The already weak harvests of the north suffered and the seven-year famine ensued. The Great Famine was the worst in European history, reducing the population by at least ten percent…” If this was not bad enough, the rulers of Europe did not help and in many ways made the situation a lot worse. This is explained in the entry as an economic crisis:

Food shortages and skyrocketing prices were a fact of life for as much as a century before the plague. Wheat, oats, hay, and consequently livestock were all in short supply. Their scarcity resulted in malnutrition, which increases susceptibility to infections due to weakened immunity.
The European economy entered a vicious circle in which hunger and chronic, low-level debilitating disease reduced the productivity of laborers, and so the grain output was reduced, causing grain prices to increase. This situation was worsened when landowners and monarchs such as Edward III of England (r. 1327–1377) and Philip VI of France (r. 1328–1350), out of a fear that their comparatively high standard of living would decline, raised the fines and rents of their tenants. Standards of living then fell drastically, diets grew more limited, and Europeans as a whole experienced more health problems…
This was the economic and social situation in which the predictor of the coming disaster, a typhoid (contaminated water) epidemic, emerged. Many thousands died in populated urban centres, most significantly Ypres. In 1318 a pestilence of unknown origin, sometimes identified as anthrax, targeted the animals of Europe, notably sheep and cattle, further reducing the food supply and income of the peasantry

In considering that this is the period when the consciousness of the Human Race is getting ready for the emergence of the first sub-race of Root-Race 7 it is astounding that such despair was being generated in the region. Why did the weather change so drastically that it caused the Great Famine? I began to wonder if there was a connection between the emergence of a new Root-Race and Climate change.

IS CLIMATE-CHANGE A FACTOR IN SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION?

Although the World Soul was created from the lower emotions of the Human Race, I knew that it was not until The Christ and Sophia descended into the lower planes that the mass consciousness of the Earth could be affected. The time this became a factor was with the emergence of Root-Race 4 from Root-Race 2, which began in 15,120 B.C.E., and was completed by 10,500 B.C.E. According to climatologists this period was the change over from the Pleistocene Age to the present Age, the Holocene. Narrowing down the time as much as possible I found an age that began between 12,900 and 11,500 B.C.E called The Younger Dryas Age. Remembering that Root-Race 4 began emerging in 15,120 B.C.E. and completed its emergence in 10,500 B.C.E., is it a coincidence that the halfway point in the emergence process is 12,810 B.C.E.?
The entry for the Younger Dryas reports this period as a time of climate change. According to the entry “The Younger Dryas saw a rapid return to glacial conditions in the higher latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere between 12,900–11,500 years before present (BP) in sharp contrast to the warming of the preceding interstadial deglaciation.” Evidently, this climate change was sudden, “The transitions each occurred over a period of a decade or so.” The entry names evidence from ice cores and fossils to support the change in climate, but one statement made me think that I could be on the right track in thinking that changes in the weather might coincide with the emergence of a new Root-Race. “Nothing of the size, extent, or rapidity of this period of abrupt climate change has been experienced since.”
In 4,200 B.C.E., The Christ and Sophia incarnated as Osiris/Horus and Isis to prepare the Human Race for the transition of Root-Race 3 into Root-Race 5, which began in 3,600 B.C.E. and was completed in 2,250 B.C.E. It seems that a change in climate also occurred during the transition from Root-Race 3 to Root-Race 5 in Egypt. The entry for what is referred to as the “4.2 kiloyear BP (B.C.E.) aridification event” is described as “one of the most severe climatic events of the Holocene period in terms of impact on cultural upheaval.” This period is thought to have lasted for one hundred years and “is likely to have caused the collapse of the Old Kingdom in Egypt as well as the Akkadian Empire in Mesopotamia.” Although civilization was centered in the Middle East, the “4.2 kiloyear event” effect was extremely widespread. For instance, the entry relates that “A phase of intense aridity…is well recorded across North Africa, the Middle East, the Red Sea, the Arabian peninsula, the Indian subcontinent, and even midcontinental North America.”
Having connected climate change to the emergence of both Root-Races 4 and 5, I wondered if the same applied to the transition from Root-Race 4 to Root-Race 6. After spending several hours attempting to discover the Climate in 0.C.E., I found a clue in the entry cited above. It says, “The 22nd century BC drought also correlates with a cooling event in the North Atlantic, known as Bond event 3.” I had never heard of the “Bond Event” so I clicked on the link.
I learned that “Bond events are North Atlantic climate fluctuations”, which happen every “1,470 years throughout the Holocene.” Although, I could not definitively identify the transition from Root-Race 4 to Root-Race 6 as coinciding with a Bond event, I strongly suspected that it might be. Apparently, eight Bond events are identified and the closest to 0.C.E. is “450 to 900 AD”. Earlier I said Root-Race 6 did not complete its transfer to Globe D until the mid-point, i.e., sub-race 4, which occurred in this “upstepping.” If we take the dates 0 C.E. to 1300 C.E., then the mid-point of the emergence of Root-Race 6 is 650 C.E. Again is it a coincidence that the midpoint of the “eighth bond event” is 675 C.E., a mere twenty-five years off the mid-point of the emergence of Root-Race 6. Although this may appear to be a stretch, I felt there were just too many “coincidences” for me to dismiss my theory out of hand.
Nevertheless, if my theory was correct then my next question was, “What was the purpose of a disruptive climate change occurring at the time a new Root-Race emerges?” I found a possible reason in the result of the “4.2 kiloyear event”, the entry relates:

Famines, social disorder, and fragmentation during a period of approximately 40 years were followed by a phase of rehabilitation and restoration of order in various provinces. Egypt was eventually reunified within a new paradigm of kingship. The process of recovery depended on capable provincial administrators, the deployment of the idea of justice, irrigation projects, and an administrative reform.

Remembering that the purpose of incarnation is to Spiritually Evolve by transforming the lower emotions, we can see a possible upside of experiencing “famines and social disorder.” So often the Human Race has risen from great adversity into greater heights of civilization. Could the reason that “abrupt climate change” coinciding with the rise in consciousness of the transition to a higher level Root-Race be because it affords the opportunity for growth? The Life Principle is constantly being driven to evolve and it is sometimes difficult to evolve/change when everything is going well.
Accepting the above conclusion as a possible reason why “Nature” throws the Human Race a curve-ball, so to speak in a major “upstepping”, did this happen in 1300 when Root-Race 5 was transitioning into Root-Race 7? The answer is both Yes and No, because there were other causes for this extremely difficult period. This is evinced in the outbreak of the Black Death in 1348 and 1349, which killed sixty percent of the population of Europe. Of course, the climate change contributed to the outbreak because of the famine, “Europeans as a whole experienced more health problems”, but the severity was due to the presence of a dangerous emotion. That emotion was the powerful destructive force of hatred. Consequently, seen from an energetic and consciousness perspective the cause for such a catastrophe in the 14th century can be explained in the widespread presence of the emotion “hatred.”

IS DEATH RANDOM?

Considering that the first half of this “upstepping” saw “Great Famine” and the outbreak of the “Black Death”, I wondered if these catastrophic events were the result of Jacques de Molay’s curse. I was surprised to discover that the answer is both Yes and No. No, because the Grand Master’s curse did not unleash the change in weather or the disease, but Yes because both were used as a result of his curse.
Earlier, I said that neither the “Shadow” nor the “Light” was responsible for any form of illness or disease and that Nature used it as a means to slow population growth of a species. However, what I did not discuss was who or what determined which individuals lived and which died? For instance, although sixty percent of Europe perished in the outbreak of the plague in 1348/49, forty percent survived. This brings in the question of why do some people survive dreadful tragedies, while others die from slipping or tripping on a step? The answer is that the individuals’ soul is ready to leave. This is an important consideration to keep in mind and one that took a while for me to accept. That is, the absolute rule that NO ONE dies from natural causes (illness or natural disaster) of any kind until or unless they are ready to leave this Earth and there are never exceptions to the rule.
I will not go into the reasons here, but suffice to say the sixty percent that succumbed to famine and the Black Death in the 14th century at the soul level chose to die. This brings me to the second part of the answer to the question were the “catastrophic events” of the 14th century the “result of Jacques de Molay’s curse” being Yes. Because of the “curse”, the Sephirotic powers became available and the “Shadow” influenced “unpurified” individuals to attempt to contact them. As predicted, this resulted in multiple individuals connecting not to the Sephirot, but to their “shadow” side, the Qliphoth who were only too happy to assist their “masters” in achieving their desires through the use of magic. Because, de Molay’s “curse’ was connected to the 3rd level of hatred, or Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, the “Shadow” grew exponentially and the balance of power shifted drastically. At this time, the general population were engaged in the practice of magic for selfish reasons, which of course carried serious consequences. People were conjuring up “demons” to attack a neighbor who had slighted them and the strong were preying on the weak. As I reported “evil cannot be destroyed it must be ‘harmonized’.” Like all the lower emotions, they cannot be transmuted unless they are experienced. Consequently, on the soul level the collective consciousness knew that to dissipate the hatred unleashed into the consciousness, it had to be dissipated within themselves; hence the decision by the mass consciousness of Humanity to unleash a famine and the plague.
Of course, the “sacrifice” of so many lives did not completely remove all the energy and there were consequences that as I said, reverberated for many centuries. Nonetheless, the massive “die off” did prevent many souls from regressing and losing the knowledge they had gained. Moreover, it brought the balance back between the “Light” and the “Shadow”, which is seen in the Renaissance or “rebirth” that occurred in the 15th (1400s) century.

WHAT CAUSED JACQUES DE MOLAY’S ERROR?

With such a torrent of negative results released from Jacques de Molay’s curse, one might be tempted to condemn him and negate any good he may have done as the Grand Master of the “Orders of the Quest.” But that would be a mistake. In considering the Knights Templar’s last Grand Master’s actions, I thought about his courage to recant his “confession”, knowing his fate. De Molay would have been familiar with the barbaric practice of burning to death, because of the mass burning of more than two hundred Albigensians at Montsegur. These victims had demonstrated great courage in facing their death.
In the previous “upstepping”, I related that the Sufi mystic Al-Hallaj had faced a horrific death at the hands of his persecutors. I did not realize how horrific until I read the account of an eyewitness of the execution on his entry on Wikipedia:

Al-Hallaj … Like Christ, he gave his execution a redemptive significance, believing as he did that his death "was uniting his beloved God and His community of Muslims against himself and thereby bore witness in extremis to the … (the oneness) of both." … His death is described by Attar as a heroic act, as when they are taking him to court, a Sufi asks him: "What is love?" He answers: "You will see it today, tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow." They killed him that day, burned him the next day and threw his ashes to the wind the day after that. "This is love," Attar says. His legs were cut off; he smiled and said, "I used to walk the earth with these legs, now there's only one step to heaven, cut that if you can." And when his hands were cut off he paints his face with his own blood, when asked why, he says:"I have lost a lot of blood, and I know my face has turned yellow, I don't want to look pale-faced (as of fear)..."

The other famous martyr who was burnt alive that came to mind was Joan of Arc, who was burnt to death May 30th 1431. The eyewitness account of her execution on Wikipedia demonstrates that she showed great courage.

Eyewitnesses described the scene of the execution by burning on 30 May 1431. Tied to a tall pillar in the Vieux-Marche in Rouen, she asked two of the clergy, Fr Martin Ladvenu and Fr Isambart de la Pierre, to hold a crucifix before her. A peasant also constructed a small cross which she put in the front of her dress.

The question is why would these two cited martyrs be able to withstand the pain and not retaliate with curses? The answer lies in their unshakable faith at the time of their deaths. I remember watching a film of Joan of Arc’s execution that showed her holding the cross and looking skywards praying. I believe that in both Joan of Arc and Al-Hallaj’s case they were helped by the “Light” to withstand the pain. If we remember that solid matter is an illusion and the material world is a mental construct of the mass consciousness, then physical bodies are also a mental construct. I think Joan of Arc and Al-Hallaj’s faith enabled them to separate their consciousness from their bodies and so withstand the torture.
As for Jacques de Molay, as a holder of The Mysteries he would have known how to separate his consciousness from his body; thereby escaping the agony of being burnt alive, so why didn’t he? I suspect that he was overtaken by his anger at the hypocrisy and injustice of his trial. This lowered his vibration and let the “Shadow” in. Once in, the “Shadow” fanned de Molay’s anger into full blown hatred, which lowered his vibration even further. At this point the “Light” was powerless to help, because when a person’s heart is filled with hatred there is no place for Love. All the “Light” could do was watch as Jacques de Molay’s hatred and rage grew exponentially with his pain. This was how the “Shadow” was able to “suggest” a means that de Molay could gain his revenge, by using his knowledge to curse the evil-doers. Consequently, despite the devastating results of Jacques de Molay’s curse, I think he should be seen as a victim of the “Shadow” and not “his” accomplice. As I said, the curse led to serious repercussions not just in France, but throughout the world. Nonetheless, all was not lost for the “Orders of the Quest”, because before their demise the order of the Knights Templar had succeeded in anchoring The Mysteries in Stone throughout Europe.

MYSTERIES IN STONE

I mentioned earlier that the knights were connected to the Freemasons, because the Freemasons incorporated The Mysteries into the cathedrals of Europe that were financed by the Templars. However, the European continent was not the only site the Freemasons chose to encode The Mysteries in stone. One of the finest examples is the mysterious Rosslyn Chapel in Scotland that connects the Knights Templar to the Freemasons. But before we get to this fascinating chapel, it may help to examine the importance the trade of stonemasons had in the construction of the Gothic cathedrals of Europe and the British Isles. The entry for Gothic architecture on Wikipedia includes:

Originating in 12th century France and lasting into the 16th century, Gothic architecture was known during the period as “the French Style…”
Gothic architecture is most familiar as the architecture of many of the great cathedrals, abbeys and parish churches of Europe. It is also the architecture of many castles, palaces, town halls, guild halls, universities…
It is in the great churches and cathedrals and in a number of civic buildings that the Gothic style was expressed most powerfully, its characteristics lending themselves to appeal to the emotions…

Although the Knights Templar financed the building of the great Gothic cathedrals, it was the influence of the Benedictine order of Cistercians who were involved in the design of them that held special significance. This is because, we know from ancient records that most of the great cathedrals were built over ancient “pagan” temples or sacred sites and as stated, the Cistercians had learned the practice of using Earth Stars from the Irish monks. This almost implies that the Cistercians were members of the “Orders of the Quest.” However, although the Cistercians were involved with the “Orders of the Quest”, namely the Templars and the Freemasons in the construction of the cathedrals, they were not cognizant of the relevance of using Earth Stars in the citing of cathedrals in employing The Mysteries. As a Catholic order, The Cistercians were primarily interested in utilizing the Earth Stars to stir up religious fervor, in order to “inspire” the worshipers to donate as much as possible to the Church.
Nevertheless, unwittingly or not, the Cistercians were instrumental in facilitating The Mysteries being grounded in stone in the Gothic Cathedrals they had built. Earlier, I spoke of a list of Gothic architecture in respect to Jacques de Molay founding Masonic lodges. The list incorporating most of Europe is far too long to reprint here; consequently, I will highlight the most famous buildings to illustrate the importance of Gothic architecture:

Starting in Scotland, St. Mungo’s Cathedral in Edinburgh and St. Giles Cathedral in Glasgow, plus the most obvious Rosslyn Chapel. In Spain there are no less than ten Cathedrals listed; including the Cathedral of Seville, which is referred to as “the largest Gothic temple in the world.” England’s list of Gothic architecture is impressive; including Westminster Abbey in London, York Minster, Exeter Cathedral, Salisbury Cathedral and King’s College Chapel in Cambridge. As France was where the Gothic style originated, it has, not surprisingly some of the finest examples of the style. To name but a few; Chartres Cathedral, Notre Dame, Sainte Chapelle in Paris and Reims Cathedral; the site “where all the kings of France were crowned.” The Gothic style was used for cathedrals in Belgium, The Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Germany and Italy, however, Santa Maria sopra Minerva is the only Gothic church in Rome. Other European countries that have Gothic cathedrals are Finland, Austria, Czech Republic, Croatia, Poland, Slovakia, Estonia, Lithuania, and Russia.

Looking at the list, I realized that until recently, many of these magnificent buildings stood in countries where any form of worship was prohibited. What comfort those citizens must have taken in being able to gaze on these impressive structures. This is even more poignant when we remember that “the Gothic style” was designed “to appeal to the emotions…”
Having demonstrated how widespread the architecture was, I must explain why their builders the Freemasons are so important to my investigation. A chance remark at the end of David Stevenson’s book ORIGINS OF FREEMASONRY, Scotland’s Century 1590-171031revealed the relevance of stonemasons. He relates that Sir William Dugdale told John Aubrey that “…a Medieval (Middle Ages) pope had given a grant to a company of Italian architect freemasons to travel round Europe building churches. From these architects derived ‘The Fraternity of adopted-masons’ or freemasons, who recognised each other by secret signs and words.”32
It seems then that somewhere between 476 and 1500 C.E. a Catholic pope instigated the building of churches throughout Europe, which indicates that the “Light” was able to influence at least one pope. The Gothic cathedrals that were financed by the Knights Templar were built during the Middle-Ages, after 1100. I mentioned earlier that the Cistercians utilized the use of Earth Stars; consequently, I think it is safe to assume that many if not all the Gothic cathedrals were built over “Earth Stars.”

When Craig and I had visited Notre Dame in Paris, we stood outside the Western entrance staring up in awe at the magnificent building. At the time, I had no idea that the cathedral held a great many secrets of The Mysteries, let alone that it may be built over an Earth Star. Accepting that Gothic architecture is essentially The Mysteries engraved in stone, it is time to turn to the most explicit evidence of this technique, the famous Masonic building known as Rosslyn Chapel in Scotland.

ROSSLYN CHAPEL

Many believe that a few Knights Templars escaped the persecution of the French king by relocating to Scotland. The Davinci Code links the Templars to the Freemasons through the Scottish Rite Masons. As stated, the most famous building that connects the knights to Scotland is Rosslyn Chapel. An entry on Wikipedia relates:

The chapel, built 150 years after the dissolution of the Knights Templar, supposedly has many Templar symbols, such as the “Two riders on a single horse” that appear on the Seal of the Knights Templar. The layout of the chapel is cited as echoing the layout of the Temple of Solomon.
It is claimed that other carvings in the chapel reflect Masonic imagery, such as the way that hands are placed in various figures. One carving supposedly shows a blindfolded man being led forward with a noose around his neck -- similar to the way a candidate is prepared for the initiation ceremony of Freemasonry. However, the chapel was built in the 1400s, and the Freemasons were not officially founded until 1717 according to the official records of the United Grand Lodge of England.

Although I knew there was a connection between the Knights Templars and the Freemasons, because they were both members of the “Orders of the Quest”, it was difficult to find connections in traditional historical writings. I had almost despaired of ever finding a historical connection between the Knights Templar and Freemasonry, other than the mysterious Rosslyn Chapel. That is until I read about Professor David Stevenson’s The Origin of Freemasonry, Scotland’s Century 1590-1710 in David A. Shugarts book Secrets of the Widow’s Son. Mr. Shugarts relates that Professor Stevenson’s book “…describes the period of 1590 to 1710, when Freemasonry was incubating in Scotland.”33 Although this time concerns the next “upstepping”, I am including Professor Stevenson’s book in this “upstepping”, because it comes from the premise that Freemasonry began in Scotland. He relates that the masons had a legend where “…King Athelstan…loved masons…”34 I’d never heard of King Athelstan so I looked him up on Wikipedia. An entry has “According to William of Malmesbury, relics such as the Sword of Constantine (Emperor of Rome) and the Lance of Charlemagne (first Holy Roman Emperor) came to Athelstan, suggesting that he was in some way being associated with past great rulers.” The entry also connects Athelstan with Wales:

Athelstan (c. 895 – October 27, 939), called the Glorious, was the King of England from 924/925 to 939. He was the son of King Edward the Elder, and nephew of Æthelflæd of Mercia. Æthelstan's success in securing the submission of Constantine II, King of Scots, at the Treaty of Eamont Bridge in 927 … led to his claiming the title "king of all Britain". His reign is frequently overlooked, with much focus going to Alfred the Great before him, and Edmund after. However, his reign was of fundamental importance to political developments in the 10th century.
Athelstan’s reign marks a hiatus in sporadic unrest between the Anglo-Saxon and Welsh kingdoms…No battles between the English and the Welsh are recorded during Athelstan’s reign, but charters show Welsh kings attending his court, possibly coming with him on campaign…
Like those of his predecessors, Athelstan's court was in contact with the rest of Europe. His half-sisters married into European noble families. Ædgyth was married to future Holy Roman Emperor Otto, son of Henry I of Saxony…

Granting that Rosslyn Chapel reflects both Templar and Freemason symbology, does this prove that some of the Templars escaped to Scotland in the 14th (1300s) century? The Saint-Clair (the original name for the Sinclairs) family built Rosslyn Chapel, and David A. Shugarts informs us:

“Henri Sinclair accompanied Godefroi de Bouillon on the first Crusade in 1096…He became a Knight Templar when the order was founded in 1118. The family has been associated with the Templars ever since, with many of the generations serving as Templar knights in battle. Indeed they twice provided the Templars wit Grand Masters.”35 Later Mr. Shugarts relates, “…the Sinclair family figured very prominently in the history of Freemasonry. Masons, Templars, and Sinclairs are tightly interwoven through nine centuries of history.”36

The above reference to the Sinclair’s connection to the Knights Templar certainly makes a strong case for the French Templars escaping to Scotland the night before the order was disbanded. Nonetheless, as the Temple Church in London shows, the Templars were widely spread throughout Europe. Moreover, linking the Cathedrals of England and Wales to the Cistercians also connects the Templars to Great Britain.

Although Europe was pretty much the domain of the “Shadow” throughout the 14th century, the “Light” was not defeated completely. This was because when the world was flooded with suffering, the “Light” had a contingency plan that had been prepared in Globe C and was merely waiting to be activated in the right place.

THE BUDDHA’S PLAN FOR GLOBE D

I learned of this “contingency plan” of the “Light”, by researching the Dalai Lama, because to be honest I was not exactly clear as to the Dali Lama’s relationship to The Buddha. In the chapter The Voice in the Wilderness in LCD, I discussed The Buddha as an incarnation of the Universal Christ:

“Moving forward to about 566 B.C.E., we find a different India. The original Vedic religion has evolved into Brahmanism and the Hindu caste system has reared its ugly head. About to be born into this world is Siddhartha Gautama, who will be known to the world as The Buddha. One of my guides to understanding the Buddha and his teachings was Leo D. Lefebure and his book, The Buddha and the Christ: Explorations in Buddhist and Christian Dialogue.37 In it he explains that like all great teachers, Siddhartha’s conception and birth has a supernatural ring to it. The scene opens with the future Buddha disguising himself as a white elephant, “the symbol of wisdom, power, purity and goodness”38 and entering his mother Maya’s womb in a dream. Remembering that a thousand years earlier Vyasa had dictated the Mahabharata to his scribe Ganesha, the elephant god, I wondered if the legend was symbolically connecting The Buddha to Vyasa and Krishna.
Apparently, his birth is equally miraculous, with Maya giving birth in a garden with no pain and the infant proclaiming as soon as he is born “I am born for enlightenment for the good of the world; this is my last birth in the world of phenomena.”39 Despite this auspicious beginning, Lefebure informs us that Siddhartha will forget his mission, until he is awakened by the compassion aroused for the suffering of humanity. Although, Siddhartha had an extremely affluent life as a royal prince, he is distressed at the inequality of the caste system in the kingdom. Resolving to seek enlightenment, he makes the difficult decision to leave his wife and young children and give up his comfortable life. Then reminiscent of Jesus retreating to the wilderness after his baptism, Siddhartha goes to the forest in order to find the answers to humanity’s suffering. He first does this with asceticism, however, he carries this out with such severity that he almost dies. His experience gives him the revelation of the “middle way”, or nothing to excess. While Siddhartha is seeking enlightenment, he is tempted by Maya (illusion, not his mother) who tries to persuade him, by enticing him with the pleasures of life to renounce his quest. But just as Jesus resisted the temptation of worldly desires from “Satan,” Siddhartha gains the answers to his questions and defeats Maya (illusion).40
I noticed that the circumstances surrounding the birth of Siddhartha Buddha paralleled the birth of Jesus, more than any other figure of history. I have already addressed two of them, but there is an even stronger parallel with the third. This involves the prophecy concerning The Buddha’s expected birth. If I compared it to the narrative of the prophecy of Jesus’ birth, I found the two legends were identical. This is evinced by the fact that both Jesus’ and the Buddha’s births are marked astronomically by a Messianic star that will locate the birthplace of the special child.
So much for the resume of his life, what of The Buddha’s teaching? Apparently, his teaching can be summed up in his two main doctrines. “The four noble truths” and “The eightfold path.” The four noble truths are summed up briefly in World Scripture: A Comparative Anthology of Sacred Texts41 as (1) “All existence is suffering (dukkha): we must inevitably live with things we dislike and separate from things we like; (2) suffering is due to grasping for existence and craving (tanha) for the pleasures of sense and mind; (3) the cessation of suffering comes with giving up all craving and grasping; and (4) the practice that leads to the cessation of suffering is the Noble Eightfold Path.”42
To discover what this Noble Eightfold Path was I turned to Mr. Lefebure and his book The Buddha and the Christ: He explains that it is divided into “Three Learning’s: (1) ethical conduct (shila), which includes right speech, right action, and right livelihood; (2) mental discipline, which includes right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration; and (3) salvific insight (prajna), which includes right understanding and right thought.”43
Lefebure informs us that The Buddha also taught what is referred to as the Five Precepts. Sounding reminiscent of the Biblical commandments, these are; “(1) not to kill or injure life, (2) not to take what is not one’s own, (3) not to misuse the senses, especially not to engage in sexual misconduct, (4) not to speak falsely or slanderously, and (5) not to use intoxicants or drugs that harm one’s consciousness.”44
Putting all this together, the main thrust of The Buddha’s doctrine was the teaching of compassion for all and denial of self. In addition, the way to Nirvana (The state of perfect blessedness, achieved by the annihilation of the individual) was the surrendering of desire, which is achieved through the lessons learned in the many reincarnations it takes to discard attachment. Eventually after learning all the lessons, the soul no longer needs to incarnate and consequently the cycle of rebirth is over.
Remembering that the infant Buddha had announced that he would not incarnate again, I wondered if that purpose had been fulfilled. Considering the similarities of the teaching of love for all by Jesus more than 500 years later, I seriously doubt that the infant Buddha’s statement was fulfilled. An interesting legend has The Buddha, refusing to enter Nirvana until every other sentient (conscious) being has arrived there. I wondered if seeing the condition of the world during Roman times is what made the Christ decide to incarnate again.”

In writing the above, I had wondered why The Universal Christ incarnated just five-hundred years before He incarnated as Jesus of Nazareth. It was not until working on this thesis that I understood why. The main purpose for The Buddha’s incarnation was to seed the world with Compassion, which is the essence of Spirit. Consequently, while The Universal Christ was grounding The Mysteries into the Earth in the Middle-East, the disciples of His Brother, The Buddha were spreading Compassion throughout the East. They accomplished this by building monasteries and giant statues of The Buddha throughout the region.

THE SPREAD OF BUDDHISM

Although Buddhism began in India eventually supplanting the polytheistic religion of Brahmanism, it did not retain its supremacy on the sub-continent. Nonetheless, because of an Indian emperor, while Buddhism thrived in India it spread like wild-fire throughout South-East Asia. The entry for Buddhism on Wikipedia has:

Buddhism may have spread only slowly in India until the time of the Mauryan emperor Ashoka, who was a public supporter of the religion. The support of Aśoka and his descendants led to the construction of more stūpas (Buddhist religious memorials) and to efforts to spread Buddhism throughout the enlarged Maurya empire and even into neighboring lands—particularly to the Iranian-speaking regions of Afghanistan and Central Asia, beyond the Mauryas' northwest border, and to the island of Sri Lanka south of India. These two missions, in opposite directions, would ultimately lead, in the first case to the spread of Buddhism into China, and in the second case, to the emergence of Theravāda Buddhism and its spread from Sri Lanka to the coastal lands of Southeast Asia.
This period marks the first known spread of Buddhism beyond India. According to the edicts of Aśoka, emissaries were sent to various countries west of India in order to spread Buddhism (Dharma), particularly in eastern provinces of the neighboring Seleucid Empire, and even farther to the Hellenistic kingdoms of the Mediterranean…
The Theravada school spread south from India in the 3rd century BC, to Sri Lanka and Thailand and Burma and later also Indonesia. The Dharmagupta School spread (also in 3rd century BC) north to Kashmir, Gandhara and Bactria (Afghanistan). In the 2nd century AD, Mahayana Sutras spread from that general area to China, and then to Korea and Japan, and were translated into Chinese. During the Indian period of Esoteric Buddhism (from 8th century onwards), Buddhism spread from India to Tibet and Mongolia.
By the late Middle-Ages, Buddhism had become virtually extinct in India, and although it continued to exist in surrounding countries, its influence was no longer expanding. It is now again gaining strength in India and elsewhere. Estimates of the number of Buddhist followers by scholars range from 230 million to 500 million, with most around 350 million…
According to one analysis, Buddhism is the fourth-largest religion in the world behind Christianity, Islam and Hinduism. The monks' order (Sangha), which began during the lifetime of the Buddha, is among the oldest organizations on earth.

Nevertheless, the spread of Buddha’s teaching on the Four Noble Truths and the Eight-fold Path was only part of the reason for The Buddha’s incarnation. His enlightenment under the Boddhi Tree was done for not just His enlightenment and to teach others how to overcome suffering, but also to affect Globe C and later Globe D both energetically and consciously.
I did not really understand this until I was guided to watch a documentary on The Buddha narrated by Richard Gere and Blair Brown. The documentary covered the usual elements of The Buddha’s life, from His indulgent life as a royal prince to His near fatal stint as an ascetic. Nothing jumped out at me until they run an animated sequence of The Buddha’s experience under the Boddhi tree.
I knew that the legend related that as The Buddha sat meditating he was attacked by Maya and “his” demons trying to tempt The Buddha to give into His desires. The attack was depicted as quite brutal with Maya raining down arrows onto The Buddha. However, the “arrows” struck The Buddha as harmless flowers. As I watched, it suddenly dawned on me that the entire scene was taking place within The Buddha’s head while he was meditating and that Maya represented The Buddha confronting his false self or counterfeit spirit in order to reach His Spirit. The Buddha’s enlightenment came when he understood the illusion of self. Still, this only explains The Buddha’s enlightenment from His perspective and does not explain how His experience affected the world’s consciousness. That part of the answer was revealed through the Buddhist monks interviews.

THE BUDDHA’S ENLIGHTENMENT SEALED IN STONE

Following the animated sequence of The Buddha’s experience under the Boddhi tree, the documentary aired an interview with a young Buddhist monk. The monk related the message that The Buddha’s meditation led to His enlightenment is replicated in Buddhist monasteries everywhere. The monk explained that the meditator allows the emotions to surface without denying them and then dissipates them. This revealed to me that part of the reason for The Buddha’s incarnation was to teach Humanity how to transmute emotion, not just individually, but also for the Earth. Consequently, the thousands of Buddhist monasteries with their hundreds of thousands meditating monks are consistently transmuting the world’s emotions with their daily meditations.
Nonetheless, although teaching His followers how to transmute emotion while The Buddha was alive was extremely beneficial, it was not the full extent of The Buddha’s plan for Globe D. That part of the plan was put into action after His death by the way The Buddha’s disciples disposed of His remains. I knew that the giant Buddha statues throughout Asia were relevant, but I was not sure how. I found the answer from the entry on Wikipedia for Stupa, which I learned was the name for The Buddha’s memorials:

After the parinirvana of the Buddha, his remains were cremated and the ashes divided and buried under eight stupas with two further stupas encasing the urn and the embers. Little is known about these early stupas, particularly since it has not been possible to identify the original ten monuments…
In the third century BC, after his conversion to Buddhism, the emperor Ashoka had the original stupas opened and the remains distributed among the several thousand stupas he had built. Nevertheless, the stupas at the eight places associated with the life of the Buddha continued to be of particular importance. Accordingly, the importance of a stupa changed from being a funerary monument to being an object of veneration. As a consequence their appearance changed also. Stupas were built in Sri Lanka soon after King Devanampiyatissa converted to Buddhism; the first stupa to be built was the Thuparamaya…
They evolved into large hemispherical mounds with features such as the torana (gateway), the vedica (fence-like enclosure evolved from the Vedic villages), the harmika (a square platform with railings on top of the stupa), chattrayashti (the parasol or canopy) and a circumambulatory around the stupa…
The oldest known stupa is the Dhamek Stupa at Sarnath, India…According to Brahmi, kharoshti, Pali and Sanskrit edicts Ashoka the great founded 84,000 stupas all over the south of Asia.
The stupa evolved into the pagoda as Buddhism spread to other Asian countries…
"The shape of the stupa represents the Buddha, crowned and sitting in meditation posture on a lion throne. His crown is the top of the spire; his head is the square at the spire's base; his body is the vase shape; his legs are the four steps of the lower terrace; and the base is his throne."
Although not described in any Tibetan text on stupa symbolism, it has been assumed that the stupa represents the five purified elements:

  • The square base represents earth
  • The hemispherical dome/vase represents water
  • The conical spire represents fire
  • The upper lotus parasol and the crescent moon represents air
  • The sun and the dissolving point represents the element of space.

If the assessment of the Sanskrit edits are correct and Ashoka the Great did build 84,000 stupas then that would mean the energy of The Buddha was spread all over the South of Asia. As stated, Buddhism did not remain the primary religion in India. This was because; by 1207 C.E. India was under Islamic rulers. Nonetheless, Buddhism was well established elsewhere particularly in Tibet, which was crucial to The Buddha’s plan.

TIBET

As Tibet was crucial to The Buddha’s plan for Globe D in the 15th century, I knew that to ascertain Tibet’s part of the story I first needed to do a little research on the history of Tibet. I found the excerpts below from Tibet’s entry on Wikipedia:

Tibet…is a plateau region in Asia and a disputed territory, north of the Himalayas. It is home to the indigenous Tibetan people, and to some other ethnic groups such as Monpas and Lhobas, and is inhabited by considerable numbers of Han and Hui people. Tibet is the highest region on earth, with an average elevation of 4,900 metres (16,000ft). It is sometimes referred to as the roof of the world…
The general history of Tibet begins with the rule of Songtsän Gampo (604–650 CE) who united parts of the Yarlung River Valley and founded the Tibetan Empire. He also brought in many reforms and Tibetan power spread rapidly creating a large and powerful empire. In 640 he married Princess Wencheng, the niece of the powerful Chinese emperor Taizong of Tang China.
Under the next few Tibetan kings, Buddhism became established as the state religion and Tibetan power increased even further over large areas of Central Asia, while major inroads were made into Chinese territory, even reaching the Tang's capital Chang'an (modern Xi'an) in late 763. However, the Tibetan occupation of Chang'an only lasted for fifteen days, after which they were defeated by Tang and its ally, the Turkic Uyghur Khaganate.
Nanzhao (in Yunnan and neighbouring regions) remained under Tibetan control from 750 to 794, when they turned on their Tibetan overlords and helped the Chinese inflict a serious defeat on the Tibetans.
In 747, the hold of Tibet was loosened by the campaign of general Gao Xianzhi, who tried to re-open the direct communications between Central Asia and Kashmir. By 750 the Tibetans had lost almost all of their central Asian possessions to the Chinese. However, after Gao Xianzhi's defeat by the Arabs and Qarluqs at the Battle of Talas (751), Chinese influence decreased rapidly and Tibetan influence resumed. In 821/822 CE Tibet and China signed a peace treaty. A bilingual account of this treaty, including details of the borders between the two countries, is inscribed on a stone pillar which stands outside the Jokhang temple in Lhasa. Tibet continued as a Central Asian empire until the mid-9th century.
Mongolian prince Khuden conquered Tibet in the 1240s and made the Sakya Pandita the Mongolian viceroy for Central Tibet, though the eastern provinces of Kham and Amdo remained under direct Mongol rule. When Kublai Khan founded the Yuan Dynasty in 1271, Tibet became a part of it.
Between 1346 and 1354, Tai Situ Changchub Gyaltsen toppled the Sakya and founded the Phagmodrupa dynasty. The following 80 years saw the founding of the Gelugpa School (also known as Yellow Hats) by the disciples of Tsongkhapa Lobsang Dragpa, and the founding of the important Ganden, Drepung, and Sera monasteries near Lhasa.

Initially, because India was where The Buddha was enlightened and promulgated His teachings, I had wondered why the head of the Buddhist religion was in Tibet. Of course, when I learned that India had been invaded by Moslems in the early 13th (1200s) century, I understood. However, the main reason for choosing Tibet as the center of The Buddha’s teaching concerned Tibet being the highest occupied country in the world. But as Buddhism had reached Tibet in the 8th century, I wondered why it was not until the 15th century that Tibet was established as the center of Buddhism. It took some investigation, but I found the answer in the founding of the Yellow Hat sect by Tsongkhapa. The entry for his school on Wikipedia provided the deeper understanding:

The Gelug or Gelug-pa … also known as the Yellow Hat sect, is a school of Buddhism founded by Tsongkhapa (1357–1419), a philosopher and Tibetan religious leader. The first monastery he established was at Ganden, and to this day the Ganden Tripa is the nominal head of the school, though it’s most influential figure is the Dalai Lama.
…Tsongkhapa was an enthusiastic promoter of the … Mahayana principle of universal compassion as the fundamental spiritual orientation. He combined this with a strong emphasis on the cultivation of in-depth insight into the doctrine of emptiness as propounded by the Indian masters Nāgārjuna (2nd century) and Candrakīrti (7th century). Tsongkhapa said that these two aspects of the spiritual path, compassion and insight into wisdom, must be rooted in a wholehearted wish for liberation impelled by a genuine sense of renunciation. He called these the "Three Principal Aspects of the Path", and suggested that it is on the basis of these three that one must embark on the profound path of Vajrayāna Buddhism.
The central teachings of the Gelug School are the Stages of the Path … based on the teachings of the Indian master Atiśa (c. 11th century) and the systematic cultivation of the view of emptiness. This is combined with the yogas of highest yoga tantra deities…where the key focus is the realization of the indivisible union of bliss and emptiness…
Each Gelug monastery uses its own set of commentarial texts by different authors, known as monastic manuals... The teachings of Tsongkhapa are seen as a protection against misconceptions in Mahayana and Vajrayāna Buddhism. It is said that his followers take The Great Exposition of the Stages of the Path as their heart teaching.
The Gelug school has made ethics and monastic discipline of the vinaya as the central plank of spiritual practice. In particular, the need to pursue spiritual practice in a graded, sequential manner is emphasized…Lay people are usually not permitted to give initiations if there are teachers with monastic vows within close proximity. This discipline was laid down by Tsongkhapa as a mechanism to prevent Buddhist teachings from further degenerating…

IDENTIFYING THE LIGHT’S INFLUENCE IN TIBET

This brings me back to the Buddha’s plan for Globe D. Tsongkhapa’s teaching that the “two aspects of the spiritual path, compassion and insight into wisdom, must be rooted in a wholehearted wish for liberation impelled by a genuine sense of renunciation”, demonstrated the spiritual influence behind him. This was the “Light’s” way of preparing the ground for the implementation of The Buddha’s plan. In a nutshell, Melchizedek laid the foundation for the “Light” in Tibet by inspiring Tsongkhapa to establish a new school.
After establishing a new school, the next step was to bring the consciousness of The Buddha into the region, which is explained by the parameters for the Dalai Lamas. According to the entry for the first Dalai Lama that was also a pupil of Tsongkhapa’s:

Gendun Drup (1391–1474)…is considered retrospectively to be the first of the Dalai Lamas of Tibet, who are believed to be reincarnations of Chenresig (Sanskrit: Avalokiteshvara), the Bodhisattva of Compassion.
Gendun Drup was born in a cowshed in … near Sakya in the Tsang region of central Tibet…He was raised as a shepherd until the age of seven. His … name (according to the Tibetan Buddhist Resource Center, his personal name) was Pema Dorje …Later; he was placed in Nartang (Nar-thang) Monastery. In 1405, he took his novice vows from the abbot of Narthang…
When he was 20 years old, in about 1411, he received the name Gendun Drubpa upon taking the vows of a fully ordained monk, or Gelong, from the abbot of Narthang Monastery. Also at this age, he became a student of the great scholar and reformer Tsongkhapa (1357 – 1419), who some say was his uncle. Around this time he also became the first abbot of Ganden Monastery, founded by Tsongkhapa himself in 1409. By the middle of his life, Gendun Drup had become one of the most esteemed scholar-saints in the country.
Tradition states that Palden Lhamo, the female guardian spirit of the sacred lake, Lhamo La-tso, promised the First Dalai Lama in one of his visions "...that she would protect the reincarnation lineage of the Dalai Lamas." Since the time of the Second Dalai Lama Gendun Gyatso, who formalized the system, monks have gone to the lake to meditate when seeking visions with guidance on finding the next reincarnation…

Knowing that The Buddha was an incarnation of The Universal Christ, identifying who the Buddha of Compassion was that reincarnated in the Dalai Lamas presented me with a problem. I knew that The Christ was in the highest levels of the Soul Plane and would not come into the lower levels until the Fullness of Time, so at first I thought the Buddha of Compassion was Melchizedek and Sophia. Still, as the designation of the reincarnations was the Buddha of Compassion, I knew that it had to be an aspect of The Christ. Beginning to type in the title Buddha of compassion in the search on Wikipedia immediately brought up the Buddha of Mercy not Compassion. Because mercy is a synonym for compassion I decided to click on the link, it took me to the entry for Guan Yin. In the entry Guan Yin is:

Guanyin …is the bodhisattva associated with compassion as venerated by East Asian Buddhists, usually as a female. The name Guanyin is short for … which means "Observing the Sounds (or Cries) of the World".

From the above female designation, I realized the identity of the Buddha of Compassion was neither The Universal Christ nor Melchizedek. At first, I thought Guan Yin must be Sophia, but Sophia is associated with wisdom, not compassion. Meditating on my quandary I came to understand that the Buddha of Compassion is a combination of the soul of Prince Siddhartha who became The Buddha and the inspiration and guidance of the Divine Feminine aspect of The Universal Christ, The Holy Spirit. By choosing Tibet to be the center for the “Light”, the Dalai Lamas were in effect used as conduits to transmute the world’s lower emotions through the energy being generated by the thousands of stupas throughout the East. Consequently, while the West was degenerating in an orgy of violence and suffering, the teachings of The Buddha to overcome suffering were literally being used to mitigate the emotions by transmuting them.
An interesting snippet concerning the energy of the “Light” in Tibet, while visiting Machu Picchu in 2000 to do energetic work, our guide informed us that the Dalai Lama had visited the site the year before. Evidently, he had come to confirm that the energy had been transferred from the Eastern hemisphere to the West; in particular Machu Picchu. In His Holiness’ usual humble manner, He simply kicked the ground and said, “Yes. It’s here.” At the time neither Craig nor I or for that matter our guide had any idea what the Dalai Lama meant, but considering the discovery in this thesis, I do now.

Although the “Light” was successful in mitigating the consciousness and energy generated by the Crusades and Jacques de Molay’s curse, it could not stop the “Shadow” from attacking Buddhism. Unfortunately, like Christianity and Islam, the “Shadow” influenced some later Buddhists to corrupt The Buddha’s teaching. One of the ways was interpreting the highly mystical side of Buddhism, Tantricism.

TANTRIC BUDDHISM

From the beginning when I investigated The Buddha’s teaching, I was consistently uncomfortable with the Tantric aspect of the religion; especially as it was explained by New Agers. In seeking guidance, I was given to understand that delving in the practice of Tantricism today was dangerous as it could lead to a misunderstanding of The Buddha’s teaching. Having learned that Tsongkhapa promoted the teaching, I wondered why it was so dangerous. However, it seems that Tsongkhapa was aware of how this teaching could be corrupted in the words of the entry: “The teachings of Tsongkhapa are seen as a protection against misconceptions in Mahayana and Vajrayāna Buddhism.” Before I discuss my discoveries on the dangers of Tantric Buddhism, let us review what the conventional interpretation of the practice is from its entry on Wikipedia:

Vajrayāna …is also known as Tantric Buddhism…The period of Vajrayana Buddhism has been classified as the fifth or final period of Indian Buddhism…
Serious academic study of Vajrayana is still in its early stages, because of a number of problems that make research difficult: Although a large number of Tantric scriptures are extant, they have not been put into any kind of order. Because Vajrayana was influenced by Hinduism, further research into Hinduism is necessary and ritual as well as doctrine needs to be investigated.
The literature of Vajrayana is absent from the oldest Buddhist literature of the Pali Canon and the Agamas.
Vajrayana claims that its teachings were first expounded by the Buddha 16 years after his enlightenment. Historians have identified an early stage of Mantrayana beginning in the 4th century CE, and claim that assigning the teachings to the historical Buddha is 'patently absurd'. Only from 7th or the beginning of the 8th century CE, tantric techniques and approaches increasingly dominated Buddhist practice in India.
The first tantric (Vajrayana Buddhist) texts appeared in the 3rd century CE, and continued to appear until the 12th century CE.
Although the Vajrayana claims to be as ancient and authentic as any other Buddhist school, it evidently grew up gradually in an environment with previously existing texts…The basic position of Vajrayana is still the same as the early Buddhist position of not-self: there is nothing which is eternal. The changes that took place agreed with the changing society of medieval India: the presentation has changed, the techniques of the way to enlightenment have changed, the outward appearance of Buddhism came to be dominated by ritualism and the array of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas and gods and goddesses.
The tantric scriptures and its commentaries provide three strategies to discuss the theoretical nature of Vajrayana Buddhism: Vajrayana as a subset of Mahayana Buddhism
Vajrayana as a fruitional or advanced vehicle (where Mahayana is a prelude to Vajrayana) - Vajrayana as the sorcerer’s discipline.
According to this schema, Indian Mahayana revealed two vehicles… or methods for attaining enlightenment: the method of the perfections (Paramitayana) and the method of mantra (Mantrayana). The Paramitayana consists of the six or ten paramitas, of which the scriptures say that it takes three incalculable aeons to lead one to Buddhahood. The tantra literature, however, claims that the Mantrayana leads one to Buddhahood in one single life. According to the literature, the mantra is an easy path without the difficulties innate to the Paramitayana. Mantrayana is sometimes portrayed as a method for those of inferior abilities. However the practitioner of the mantra still has to adhere to the vows of the Bodhisattva.
When viewed as a subset of Mahayana, it is one of two paths of practice: the Sutrayana method of perfecting good qualities and the Vajrayāna method of taking the intended outcome of Buddhahood as the path. Vajrayana techniques are aimed at making it possible to experience Buddha-nature prior to full enlightenment. In order to transmit these experiences, a body of esoteric knowledge has been accumulated by Buddhist tantric yogis and is passed via lineages of transmission. In order to access this knowledge, the practitioner requires initiation from a skilled spiritual teacher or guru.
According to the Vajrayana theory, Vajrayana refers to one of the three routes to enlightenment, the other two being Hinayana and Mahayana. According to this view, there were three "turnings of the wheel of dharma":
In the first turning Shakyamuni Buddha taught the Four Noble Truths at Varanasi in the 5th century BC, which led to the founding of Buddhism and the later early Buddhist schools…The oldest scriptures, do not mention any further turnings other than this first turning.
The Mahayana tradition claims that there was a second turning in which the Perfection of Wisdom sutras were taught at Vulture's Peak, which led to the Mahayana schools. Generally, scholars conclude that the Mahayana scriptures (including the Perfection of Wisdom Sutras) were composed from the first century CE onwards.
According to the Vajrayana tradition, there was a third turning which took place …sixteen years after the Buddha's enlightenment. Scholars have strongly denied that Vajrayana appeared at that time, and placed it at a much later time. The first tantric (Vajrayana Buddhist) texts appeared in the 3rd century CE, and they continued to appear until the 12th century CE…
There are differing views as to where in the Indian sub-continent Vajrayana began. Some believe it originated in Bengal, now divided between the Republic of India and Bangladesh, with others claiming it began … Pakistan, or in South India…
The earliest texts appeared around the early 4th century. Nalanda University in eastern India became a center for the development of Vajrayana theory, although it is likely that the university followed, rather than led, the early Tantric movement. India would continue as the source of leading-edge Vajrayana practices up until the 11th century...
(Vajrayana) Buddhism had mostly died out in India by the 13th century, and tantric religions of Buddhism and Hinduism were also experiencing pressure from invading Islamic armies. By that time, the vast majority of the practices were also available in Tibet, where they were preserved until recently…
From the seventh century A.D. onwards, many popular religious elements of heterogeneous nature were incorporated into Mahayana Buddhism which finally resulted in the origin of Vajrayana, Kalachakrayana and Sahajayana Tantric Buddhism. Tantric Buddhism first developed in Uddiyana, a country which was divided into two kingdoms, Sambhala and Lankapuri.Sambhala has been identified with Sambalpur and Lankapuri with Suvarnapura (Sonepur)…
It was in the 9th/10th century A.D. that there appeared seven famous Tantric maidens at Patna (Patnagarh) region… These maidens are popularly known as… (Seven sisters)… They hailed from the so-called low castes of society and were followers of Lakshminkara. Because of their miraculous power and feats, they were later on deified and worshipped by the folk people.
A systematic analysis of the trend of religious development of the period under review, and circumstantial evidence, reveals that Chakra Sambara Tantricism of Tantric Buddhism gained popularity in the Gandhagiri region. The chief deity of Chakra Sambara Tantra is Buddha Sambara, the deity whose worship is still popular in China and Tibet. According to Sadhanamala, god Buddha Sambara is one-faced and two-armed. He appears terrible with his garment of tiger-skin, garland of heads, a string of skulls round the head, and three eyes…A number of texts relating to the procedures of worship of god Buddha Sambara have been composed…King Indrabhuti of Shambala (Sambalpur) composed the Chakra Sambara Stotra…and others. The philosopher-king Indrabhuti became the source and inspiration for the adherents of Tantric Buddhist cults in Western Orissa, including in the Gandhagiri region.
Indrabhuti and Lakshminkara, the two royal Buddhist Acharyas, attracted a mass of followers to their cults. In the 9th-10th century A.D., the worship and Sadhana of Buddha Sambara, the presiding deity of Chakra Sambara Tantra, gained popularity in the Gandhagiri region. In Gandhagiri which also contains a large number of caves and rock-shelters… the adherents of the cults used to live in seclusion and practice Kaya Sadhana or Yogic practices, along with worshipping god Buddha Sambara…
In 747 the Indian master Padmasambhava traveled from Afghanistan to bring Vajrayana Buddhism to Tibet and Bhutan, at the request of the king of Tibet. This was the original transmission which anchors the lineage of the Nyingma School. During the 11th century and early 12th century a second important transmission occurred with the lineages …giving rise to the other schools of Tibetan Buddhism, namely Kadam, Kagyu, Sakya, and Geluk (the school of the Dalai Lama).

I think the description of the “Buddha Sambara” as appearing “with his garment of tiger-skin, garland of heads, a string of skulls round the head, and three eyes…” perfectly illustrates how Tantricism can be corrupted. The description seems more appropriate for Maya, than The Buddha. However, what was particularly worrisome in the above excerpts was the mention of the cult worship of the god Buddha Sambara and the power exerted by the cult leaders. This clearly demonstrates the influence of the “Shadow.” To recap: “Indrabhuti and Lakshminkara, the two royal Buddhist Acharyas, attracted a mass of followers to their cults.”
Neither The Buddha nor any Divine being would be comfortable with being called a god. I had wondered where the god “Buddha Sambara” originated. I could not find an exact entry for the “god”, but I did find a brief entry on Wikipedia for a “god” called Sambara:

Sambara is a character in Hindu mythology, married to Māyāvati. He abducted the infant Pradyumna, son of Krishna and Rukmini, but Pradyumna escaped, and after eventually growing up, killed Sambara and married his wife. He was also a demon in the Vedas whose 99 fortresses were destroyed by Indra in the ecstasy of Soma while giving aid to Divodasa Athithigva. Indra finished off the demon in the hundredth.

KUNDALINI AND TANTRIC SEX

The above example of the corruption of the teachings of Tsongkhapa is only the tip of the iceberg, so to speak in the “Shadow’s” corruption of The Buddha’s teaching. An aspect that grew from the misunderstanding of Tantricism was the practice known as Tantric Sex. This “religious” practice concerns the awakening or the method for raising the Kundalini. The Kundalini according to its entry on Wikipedia is:

Kundalini can be awakened through the grace of a Siddha-Guru who awakens the kundalini Shakti of his discipline through shaktipat, or blessing. A Siddha Guru is a spiritual teacher, a master, whose identification with the supreme Self is uninterrupted. Like every form of energy one must also learn to understand spiritual energy. In order to be able to integrate this spiritual energy, careful purification and strengthening of the body and nervous system are required beforehand.
The Kundalini rises from muladhara chakra up a subtle channel at the base of the spine (called Sushumna), and from there to top of the head merging with the sahasrara, or crown chakra. When Kundalini Shakti is conceived as a goddess, then, when it rises to the head, it unites itself with the Supreme Being (Lord Shiva). Then the aspirant becomes engrossed in deep meditation and infinite bliss.
The awakening is not a physical occurrence but consists exclusively of a development in consciousness. Kundalini awakening brings increased perception of cosmic vibrations and radiant energy. Understanding of the connections and laws within the universe deepens…
The arousing of kundalini is said to be the one and only way of attaining Divine Wisdom. Self-Realization is said to be equivalent to Divine Wisdom or Gnosis or what amounts to the same thing: Self-Knowledge. The awakening of the Kundalini shows itself as "awakening of inner knowledge" and brings with itself pure joy, pure knowledge and pure love…
"According to the Yogis, there are two nerve currents in the spinal column, called Pingala and Ida, and a hollow canal called Sushumna running through the spinal cord. At the lower end of the hollow canal is what the Yogis call the "Lotus of the Kundalini". They describe it as triangular in form in which, in the symbolical language of the Yogis, there is a power called the Kundalini, coiled up. When that Kundalini awakes, it tries to force a passage through this hollow canal, and as it rises step by step, as it were, layer after layer of the mind becomes open and all the different visions and wonderful powers come to the Yogi. When it reaches the brain, the Yogi is perfectly detached from the body and mind; the soul finds itself free…Where the spinal cord ends in some of the lumbar vertebrae, a fine fiber issues downwards, and the canal runs up even within that fiber, only much finer. The canal is closed at the lower end, which is situated near what is called the sacral plexus, which, according to modern physiology, is triangular in form. The different plexuses that have their centres in the spinal canal can very well stand for the different "lotuses" of the Yogi."
Tantra is the worship of Shakti, the divine mother. Shakti is also referred to as Prakriti, or primordial nature. To ensure that nature (Prakriti) would always maintain the connection to the divine original consciousness (Purusha), the force of attraction developed as an aspect of Prakriti. The desire for union and the striving for expansion are "natural"; they are intrinsic impulses of nature… Shiva is the symbol for consciousness and the masculine principle, Shakti symbolizes the feminine principle. The meaning of Shiva and Shakti is sometimes misunderstood when they are looked upon as man and woman and their relation is regarded as sexual:
Kundalini is considered an interaction of the subtle body along with chakra energy centers and nadis channels. Each chakra is said to contain special characteristics and with proper training, moving Kundalini energy 'through' these chakras can help express or open these characteristics.
Sir John Woodroffe (pen name Arthur Avalon) was one of the first to bring the notion of Kundalini to the West. As High Court Judge in Calcutta, he became interested in Shaktism and Hindu Tantra. His translation of and commentary on two key texts was published as The Serpent Power. Woodroffe rendered Kundalini as "Serpent Power" for lack of a better term in the English language but "kundala" in Sanskrit means "coiled".

Coincidentally, while I was working on this thesis, we read P.D. Ouspensky’s –IN SEARCH OF the MIRACULOUS, FRAGMENTS OF AN UNKNOWN TEACHING.45 It was in this book that I gained a greater insight into why I had been steered away from Tantric Buddhism. The book contains teaching from a Russian mystic known only as “G” recounted by his pupil the author P.D. Ouspensky. Although I should state that as the book’s teachings were centered during WWI, obviously some of “G’s” information needs to be updated. With that said, I found some of “G’s” insights astounding, which was why I understood my reticence with the interpretation of Tantric Buddhism. My new understanding came with “G’s” comments on the Kundalini:

“In so-called ‘occult’ literature you have probably met with the expression ‘Kundalini,’ ‘the fire of Kundalini,’ or the ‘serpent of Kundalini’…used to designate some kind of strange force which is present in man and can be awakened…Sometimes it is connected with sex…that is with the idea of using sex energy for other purposes, with sex energy…In reality Kundalini is the power of imagination, the power of fantasy, which takes the place of a real function. When a man dreams instead of acting…it is the force of Kundalini acting in him…Kundalini is a force put into men in order to keep them in their present state…Kundalini is the force that keeps them in a hypnotic state.”46

Although “G” believes “Kundalini can be in anything”, because of this thesis, I am sure that the Kundalini “which takes the place of a real function” is none other than the counterfeit spirit. So if we are not supposed to awaken the Kundalini, then what is it we are meant to awaken? In other words, what did The Buddha awaken in His experience under the Boddhi tree?

THE TRUE FORCE WITHIN WE MUST RAISE

Once I learned that the Kundalini represented the counterfeit spirit of false self, I wanted to know which force within us we were supposed to awaken. Obviously, the true self is the Spirit or Spark of God, but that lies within our heart and does not need to be awakened and raised up the spine. Then I remembered the mystical practice of Hieros Gamos that was wrongly connected to physical sex. The true purpose of hieros gamos was to raise the sex-force to the head or mental level. I knew that this was a crucial part of the transformation of the ego and counterfeit spirit, but again I asked if not the Kundalini or the Spirit then what do we raise.
It was the mention that The Buddha experienced His past lives as an insect, an animal and a human being that unlocked the answer to what force we need to awaken. The documentary related that The Buddha’s enlightenment entailed His realizing that He had lived multiple lives, switching from each category several times. As I knew that Universal Law dictates that we cannot regress to lower kingdoms of Life, I knew that there was something I was missing. Suddenly it dawned on me that The Buddha was not just experiencing His past lives, but the entire existence of the Life-Principle. With this flash of insight, I was reminded of the name for the second or sacral chakra associated with the sex-force I reported in LCD. In the various systems the chakras are known by different names, but in LCD I reported the name of the second chakra as Prana, which translates as Life. I decided to look up the word on Wikipedia:

In Vedantic philosophy, prana is the notion of a vital, life-sustaining force of living beings and vital energy, comparable to the Chinese notion of Qi. Prana is a central concept in Ayurveda and Yoga where it is believed to flow through a network of fine subtle channels called nadis. It’s most subtle material form is the breath, but is also to be found in blood, and it’s most concentrated form is semen in men and vaginal fluid in women…
Prana was first expounded in the Upanishads, where it is part of the worldly, physical realm, sustaining the body and the mother of thought and thus also of the mind. Prana suffuses all living forms but is not itself the Atman or individual soul. In the Ayurveda, the Sun and sunshine are held to be a source of Prana.

Although the entry relates the Atman to the individual soul, I feel it is more appropriately associated to the Spirit. Nonetheless, the description of Prana as the “vital, life-sustaining force of living beings and vital energy” reveals the role it plays in organic life. However, the description that prana is “part of the worldly, physical realm, sustaining the body and the mother of thought and thus also of the mind” describes Prana’s action in the world. The identification of Prana as the force that needs to be awakened and raised within us is explained by the fact that Prana “suffuses all living forms.” The Universal Christ created the Life-Principle and infused it with His essence to develop with the consciousness through evolution. At the human level that essence is the Christ-consciousness that lies dormant within us until awakened.
Put even more simply, the Christ-consciousness within us is the ability to create life as in procreation. It is important to understand that the so-called sex-force is misleading, because it has nothing to do with physical arousal. It literally is the mysterious life-force that literally creates life through the union of the sperm and the ova.
The Buddha and The Christ through The Mysteries taught that in order to transform, an individual needed to temporarily convert his or her life-giving force in the form of the Christ-consciousness into a spiritually transforming force by awakening and raising the Christ-conscious up the spine to the mental level.

Returning to the time-line for this thesis, in the 15th century, Tibet was the one bright spot that mitigated the torrent of hatred and suffering released in the world. Because of its elevation as the highest point for human consciousness, it was able to affect the entire mass consciousness, by raising the vibrational level. It is important to remember that the Schumann Resonance exists between the Earth and the Ionosphere. This meant that because Tibet was focused on transmuting emotions and raising their vibrations, through the Schumann Resonance the rest of the world felt the affects. As stated, it was the instigation of the first Dalai Lama in Tibet that activated this final part of The Buddha’s plan for Globe D.

In part B of this “upstepping” I will return to the Iberian Peninsula to investigate how the 3rd level of hatred affected the region. In researching the history of Spain after the report of the Black Death devastating Spain in 1348 and 1349, nothing of any consequence is mentioned until 1469 when the Kingdom of Spain is formed with marriage of the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon, through Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand. As stated, the Iberian Peninsula was particularly hard hit during the 14th century and its Jewish population were targeted as a possible source of the plague, consequently the plight of the Jews under the Kingdom of Spain was very different from under the Islamic Empire.

(Thesis-2nd Quarter) FULL CIRCLE THE MYSTERIES UNCLOAKED GLOBE D —b
SECTION 7B 1450 C.E – 1558 C.E.

In the first part (A) of Section 7, I reported that the “Collective Soul” of the planet chose to sacrifice the incarnations of a large number of individuals through the Great Famine and Black Death of the 14th century. Although, this went a long way to dissipating the energy and consciousness of the lower emotions, it did not remove them altogether; nor did it stop the influence of the Qliphoth altogether. Apart from instigating The Buddha’s plan for Globe D in Tibet, the “Light” also tried to mitigate the Qliphoth’s influence in the West, by educating the population on the dangers of contacting astral entities. Unfortunately, the “Shadow” used the presence of the Qliphoth to generate even more fear and superstition, which led to fear of all magic practitioners, even the teachers for the “Light.”

By 1450 Europe was a very different place from when we left the Iberian Peninsula in the previous “upstepping.” Ferdinand (I) of Aragon was on the Spanish throne and in 1450, Ferdinand’s son Alfonso (V) of Aragon had taken over the reigns. Above, I related that the Knights Templar in Portugal changed their name to the Knights of Christ. According to the entry for the Knights of Christ on Wikipedia, the king of Portugal, King Denis “set about creating a new order for the displaced knights in his realm. He instituted the ‘Christi Militia’ under the patronage of Saint Benedict in 1317…”
This is particularly interesting, because the 15th century was the start of the “Age of Discovery” and the “discovery” was led by Portugal. I was surprised to learn that the Portuguese “discoverer” Prince Henry the Navigator was also Grand Master of the order of the Knights of Christ in 1420.
Considering the consequences of Jacques de Molay’s curse in France, I wondered about its affect on the Templars elsewhere in Europe. I did not have to wonder long, because after tracing the Portuguese order of Templars, which became the Knights of Christ to Prince Henry the Navigator, I could clearly see the corruption of the “Shadow” in the later actions of the order. Henry’s entry on Wikipedia epitomizes this when it relates:

The order was an important source of funds for Henry's ambitious plans…Henry also had other resources. When John I died, Henry's eldest brother, Duarte became head of the castles council, and granted Henry a "Royal Flush" of all profits from trading within the areas he discovered as well as the sole right to authorize expeditions beyond Cape Bojador…”

Nonetheless, it was the entry for the order, which revealed the identification of who influenced the Knights of Christ in Portugal. Not only did Henry receive “profits” from all “areas he discovered”, but in 1455 Pope Calixtus (III) “confirmed that Alfonso (V) extended his temporal jurisdiction by conceding the royal prerogative over three Episcopal nominations in areas ruled by the Order. In 1460, King Alfonso (V) granted the Knights of Christ a 5% levy on all merchandise from the new African lands...” In other words, the Portuguese and Spanish divided the world between them and to all intents and purposes the native inhabitants became slaves of the Empires.
Talking of Spain, in part (A) I said that the infamous Spanish Inquisition did not exist until the 15th century. To return to my discussion of the Inquisition in the Crusades to WWI in LCD:

“Although whenever the word Inquisition appeared, I immediately attached the adjective Spanish to it; my research had led to the interesting discovery that in fact there were several inquisitions throughout Europe. Its influence was stronger in some areas than others, with some dioceses barely availing themselves of the Inquisition services.
“Evidently, the Spanish Inquisition was a separate organization from the rest of Europe’s inquisitions. It originated about the time Spain forced out the Muslim invaders. In order to deal with the former Muslims and Jews, the Catholic rulers of the region asked Pope Sixtus IV for help with the heretics. Consequently, in 1478 C.E., the Pope authorized the infamous Spanish Inquisition. However, after hearing reports of the terrible cruelty perpetrated by the Spanish inquisitors, Pope Sixtus tried to restrict their power. His request was ignored because the Spanish kings were reluctant to relinquish the fearsome tool that was successfully keeping the populace loyal and obedient to them. Unable to change the situation, Pope Sixtus yielded to the Spanish ruler’s pressure and appointed a Grand Inquisitor with full autonomy. The first and most famous was the Dominican, Tomas de Torquemada, whose brutal rule caused the death of at least 2,000 people. His victims would first have to endure terrible torture before being burned alive at the stake.
“As the Inquisition’s power grew, so did their brutality. It seemed that they saw Satan and heresy everywhere. However, the most deadly aspect came when the Inquisition had turned its gaze on the so-called witch or sorceress. This happened, according to Mr. Nigg, when Pope Gregory IX published the order “that witches be indicted along with heretics.”47 Apparently, the first trial of a witch occurred near Trier somewhere in the decade between 1230 and 1240 C.E. “Pandora’s Box” had been opened. The results were that thousands of women would be tortured and burned at the stake during the next 5 centuries. Claiming that the Bible scripture “You shall not permit a sorceress to live,”48 proved that God Himself sanctioned the Church’s position on witches; the inquisitors mounted a merciless campaign against women.
“Instead of the Church fighting the “Devil,” Nigg saw the Inquisition’s treatment of so-called witches acting as the very tool of Satan itself. He asserted that Satan’s “servants were on the scene, but they were not the legion of the poor terrorized, tortured, and cremated witches. No—What an incredible case of mistaken identities! —His servants had entered the Inquisitors and Judges. They were the bewitched ones.”49 A very strong statement indeed, but I do believe there isn’t a sane person alive today who sees the work of God in burning people, alive.”

In the previous “upstepping”, I stated that the instigation of the position of Holy Roman Emperor would have repercussions that would last for more than a thousand years. Moreover, that the “Shadow” achieved this, by not only influencing, but at times “incarnating” in a family/dynasty that consolidated “his” power throughout Europe.

HAPSBURG DYNASTY

The family/dynasty the “Shadow” chose was the famous royal house of the Habsburgs or Hapsburgs in English. The entry for the Habsburgs dynasty on Wikipedia illustrates the hold this one family had on Christendom. But it was their orchestrating some of the most inhumane actions, which were the most devastating from a consciousness perspective. Just a glance at the many titles and roles the Hapsburgs held, is sufficient proof that this family was almost exclusively an agent of the “Shadow.”
Surprisingly, as I stated earlier, there was one member of the Hapsburg, who was a shining beacon for the “Light.” Still as he does not come onto the scene until the next “upstepping”, I will not discuss him at this time. However, I think it will be helpful to understand how the consciousness of Europe began to shift with the Hapsburgs by taking a brief look at the titles the family held:

The House of Habsburg …is best known as supplying all of the formally elected Holy Roman Emperors between 1452 and 1740, as well as rulers of Spain and the Austrian Empire. Originally from Switzerland, the dynasty first reigned in Austria, which they ruled for over six centuries, but a series of dynastic marriages brought Burgundy, Spain, Bohemia, Hungary and other territories into the inheritance. In the sixteenth century the senior Spanish and junior Austrian branches of the family separated…
Their principal roles were as:
German Kings (1273-1291, 1298-1308, 1314-1330, 1438-1740, 1745-1806), mostly also as
Holy Roman Emperors
Rulers of Austria (as Dukes 1282–1453, Archdukes)
Kings of Bohemia (1306–1307, 1437–1439, 1453–1457, 1526–1918),
Kings of Hungary (1437–1439, 1445–1457, 1526–1918),
Kings of Spain (1516–1700),
Kings of Portugal (1580–1640),
Kings of Galicia and Lodomeria (1772–1918), and
Grand Princes of Transylvania (1690–1867).
Other crowns held briefly by the House included:
King-consort of England (1554–1558)
Queens consort of Portugal and the Algarve (1518-1521, 1525-1557, and 1708-1750)
Emperor of Mexico (1864-1867)
Numerous other titles were attached to the crowns listed above.

The first member of the Hapsburg dynasty to be crowned Holy Roman Emperor was the king of Germany, Frederick (III) who was crowned in Rome by Pope Nicholas (V) in 1452. Frederick (III) was not known for his prowess in military campaigns, because according to his entry on Wikipedia he “did not manage to win a single conflict on the battlefield.” However, as the family/dynasty that represented the “Shadow”, Frederick was a master at using “more subtle” methods. For instance, “In the Siege of Neuss (1474-75), he could force Charles the Bold of Burgundy to give his daughter Mary of Burgundy as wife to Frederick’s son Maximilian.” This marriage of Germany to Burgundy resulted in the Hapsburg dynasty “rising to predominance in Europe” which may explain the family/dynasty’s motto “Let others wage wars, but you, happy Austria, shall marry.”
Although Frederick (III) was unsuccessful in military campaigns, he “outlived his opponents” and “ultimately prevailed in his conflicts” with Austria, Hungary and Bohemia. The entry sums up Frederick’s reign by saying “in some ways his policies were astonishingly successful.”

Earlier I reported that some scholars believe that some Knights Templars escaped to Scotland, because Scotland had been excommunicated from the Catholic Church. Moreover, I also reported that the mysterious Rosslyn Chapel holds many Templar symbols. Rosslyn Chapel was completed in 1400, so does it prove that some Templars escaped persecution in France and lived out their days in Scotland? To answer that question, I first needed to examine the consciousness and energy of 14th century Scotland.

SCOTLAND

One of the most famous Scotsman of the Middle-Ages was Robert the Bruce who was crowned King Robert (I) of Scotland in 1306. Robert’s reign was accented with constant battles to win Scottish Independence from the English. The entry for Scotland on Wikipedia relates that although Robert “proved that the Scots had won their kingdom” with their “Victory at The Battle of Bannockburn in 1314”, Scotland did not have Independence for another “14 years.” In fact the entry says that it was “the production of the world’s first documented declaration of independence the Declaration of Arbroath in 1320” that ultimately resulted in obtaining “legal recognition by the English.”
Like so many other fledgling kingdoms, once the ruler that won its independence dies, the heirs squabble over who inherits the kingdom. Scotland in the 14th century was no exception and as the entry relates “a civil war between the Bruce dynasty and their long-term Comyn-Balliol rivals lasted until the middle of the 14th century.” Nonetheless, it would be Robert (II) a grandson of Robert the Bruce that founded the most famous Scottish dynasty, the Stewart Dynasty.
Surprisingly, I learned the Stewarts originated from Brittany, France and were not Celts or even Picts, but Normans. This dynasty will play a huge role in the struggle between the “Shadow” and the “Light” in Great Britain, because as I said many times both sides utilized the “services” of a particular family/dynasty. It seems that during the Middle-Ages, the Stewarts represented the “Light” because when the Stewarts came to the throne in the late 14th century, “The country they ruled experienced greater prosperity from the end of the 14th century through the Scottish Renaissance to the Reformation.” England on the other hand was clearly influenced by the “Shadow” at the time, which is evinced by its reluctance to relinquish control of Scotland and continually wage war in an attempt to re-conquer their neighbor to the north.

From the information above and the evidence from Rosslyn Chapel, I would conclude that the Templars that escaped to Scotland in the 14th century and united with the Scottish Freemasons were not corrupted by the “Shadow.” I will get to the investigation of the heirs to the “Orders of the Quest” in Great Britain later, but for now, I am interested in who was ruling England when the Stewart Dynasty came to the throne of Scotland?
I had been a little surprised to learn that England was constantly at war with Scotland during the 14th century, because from 1337 England was embroiled in the Hundred Years War with France. If this was not enough, no sooner had the English left France with their tail between their legs, so to speak than did they became entangled in the War of the Roses in the homeland. According to the entry for England, the War of the Roses, which lasted from 1455 to 1487 was “a series of civil wars over possession of the throne between the House of Lancaster (whose heraldic symbol was the red rose) and the House of York (whose symbol was the white rose), each led by different branches of the descendants of Edward III.”
Like so many other times, military battles did not resolve the war; instead the war was ended through a marriage between the rival houses. The entry explains, “The end of these wars found the throne held by a male descendant of the female line of the House of Lancaster, married to the eldest daughter of the House of York:”
This “rose” marriage between the two houses of Lancaster and York resulted in the birth of the most influential royal dynasties of Mediaeval England. This dynasty originated in Wales and was formally known as Tewdr, which became known as the Tudor dynasty, which we will meet up with a little later. First I want to cross back over to southern Europe and check in with the events in Spain and Portugal during the 15th century.

KINGDOMS OF SPAIN AND PORTUGAL

In the 1469 as stated, Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand (II) united the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon through marriage. They quickly foiled the Portuguese’s Prince Henry the Navigator’s ambitions by conquering the Canary Islands in 1492. Unfortunately that same year the royal couple demonstrated they were clearly under the “Shadow’s” influence, because for the Jewish population living in the Iberian Peninsula, the year 1492 would live in infamy as the time they were given the choice of converting to Catholicism or exile. Not surprisingly the majority chose to leave Spain and fled to their ancestral home in Jerusalem. Shortly after the Jews were exiled, the Muslims of the region faced the same dilemma. So by the mid 15th century the Iberian Peninsula was completely Christian. Nevertheless, the year 1492 is most often connected to Christopher Columbus and his “discovery” of the “New World.”
In the 15th century the Christian rulers were not content with their respective corner of Creation and were consumed with wanderlust to find new lands. As stated, both Portugal and Spain headed west to the America’s, only as history has tragically recorded these “lands” had already been “discovered” thousands of years earlier by the Viracochas and Mayans. However, in the 15th century the Americas were ruled by their descendants, the Incas, Aztecs and Toltecs.

QUETZALCOATL

One of the most surprising things I came across in my studies of the Yucatan Peninsula was that both the Aztecs and the mysterious Toltecs claimed to have a god called Quetzalcoatl. This presented me with a dilemma; how could a god of wisdom and peace have taught such a bloodthirsty nation as the Aztecs? Even without the exaggeration of the Spanish chroniclers, there is no doubt that the Aztecs and probably the Toltecs engaged in human sacrifice. Unfortunately, the practice was not just confined to North America; the Inca’s of South America also appeared to have abandoned the teaching of the Viracochas. As stated all incarnations of The Christ stressed the need to abolish all forms of blood sacrifice. So what went wrong? Obviously, the influence of the “Shadow” had reached the Americas. Starting in the North American continent I will relate what I wrote in the chapter Rumors of gods in LCD. The chapter investigates the many legends of mysterious Christ-like teachers throughout the world. I discovered that there were several names of Christ-like teachers in Mexico, but the most prevalent was Quetzalcoatl:

“In Mexico, I met the Aztecs and their Deity Quetzalcoatl. Quetzalcoatl, like Bolivia’s Thunupa, sounds strikingly similar to Peru’s Viracocha. Quetzalcoatl, Hancock informs us, was also white and bearded. He was believed to have sailed to Mexico across the sea, from the East. At Chichen-Itza, (Northern Yucatan) we find a temple to him as Kukulkan. This is evident as both Quetzalcoatl and Kukulkan mean plumed or feathered serpent. The Aztecs of Mexico, according to Hancock, practiced human sacrifice, as a chilling idol at Chichen-Itza attests. Across the idol’s stomach, lies a plate ready to receive the fresh human hearts from the sacrificial altar behind it. However, tradition says that when Quetzalcoatl lived among them there were no human sacrifices. He was known as a god of peace.50
“Hancock tells us, that certain myths set out in ancient Mayan religious texts known as the books of Chilam Balam, for instance, reported that “The first inhabitants of the Yucatan were the people of the serpent.” They came from the East in boats across with their leader Itzamana, (another name for Quetzalcoatl) serpent of the east, a healer who could cure by the laying on of hands and who revived the dead. Another tradition states Kukulkan arrived with 19 “companions”. Five of these companions were referred to in the legends as gods of “fish”, “agriculture” and “thunder,” and they were reported as setting up a “wise” legal system. After 10 years of guiding the population emulating Viracocha, Kukulkan and his companions sailed off into the eastern horizon.51
“Hancock postulates that Quetzalcoatl/Kukulkan rather than being one individual, is most probably several people. He explains that the “gods” Quetzalcoatl, Kukulkan, and Itzamana were all “explicitly portrayed” in several Mesoamerican legends with “attendants” or “assistants.”52
Talking of “attendants” or “assistants,” Hancock points out that there are strange statues of stone heads in La Venta Mexico. These heads, which have distinctive Negroid characteristics, have been attributed to the Olmecs, who predate the Aztecs. The Olmecs seemed to have appeared around 1500 B.C.E. This date is given due to carbon dating. However, as stone cannot be dated, Hancock contends they could be a lot older. He cites the fact that archaeologists with the most sophisticated equipment have been unable to show one “sign” of the “developmental phase of Olmec society.” In other words, the archaeological evidence seems to say that the Olmecs just appeared one day out of nowhere. Tradition says no Negroid races came to the New World before slavery in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Then who were the models for the huge Negroid heads? 53
“The legend of Quetzalcoatl tells us that, Tezcatilpoca, a malevolent god whose name meant, “smoking mirror,” had brought the benevolent rule of the Plumed Serpent to an end. This ruler’s cult demanded human sacrifice.54 Hancock relates that a near cosmic struggle between the forces of light and darkness took place in ancient Mexico. Unfortunately, the forces of darkness prevailed. As this all seemed to relate to historical events, my question was how long ago did this struggle take place? My answer once again came from Hancock’s Fingerprints of the Gods. He reports that very few monuments in Mexico are believed to be older than 2,000 years.55 However, a great ziggurat of Quetzalcoatl in Cholula challenges this assumption. It was discovered that the present ziggurat was built over a far older structure.56
“A pyramid discovered near Mexico City strengthened this hypothesis of an older civilization existing beneath the monuments. Hancock explains that the pyramid had been partly excavated from a “mantle of lava” during the 1920’s. However, when geologists had been asked to determine when the eruption had occurred, they upset the proverbial applecart by announcing that the eruption had occurred “at least 2,000 years ago.”57

Prior to the start of the Common Era, Quetzalcoatl would have carried either The Christ’s or Melchizedek’s consciousness, but after 0 C.E., any manifestation of Quetzalcoatl would be solely as Melchizedek. I mentioned earlier that the Mayan king Pacal Votan was an incarnation of Melchizedek in the Yucatan Peninsula, but I had been unable to find any personage of the Aztecs that demonstrates the influence of the “Light.” Nonetheless, before we designate the Aztecs as agents of the “Shadow” let us take a moment to view some excerpts of the conventional history of this colorful “tribe” that dominated Mexico in the Aztec’s entry on Wikipedia:

AZTECS

The true origin of the Aztecs is uncertain. According to their legends, the Aztecs’ place of origin was Aztlán. It is generally thought that Aztlán was somewhere to the north of the Valley of Mexico; some experts have placed it as far north as Southwestern United States…
The main deity in the Mexica religion was the sun god and war god, Huitzilopochtli. He directed the Mexicas to found a city on the site where they would see an eagle, devouring … a snake… perched on a fruit bearing nopal cactus…Legend has it that this is the site on which the Mexicas built their capital city of Tenochtitlán. Tenochtitlán was built on an island in the middle of Lake Texcoco where modern-day Mexico City is located. This legendary vision is pictured on the Coat of Arms of Mexico.
According to their own history, when the Mexicas arrived in the Anahuac valley around Lake Texcoco, they were considered by the other groups as the least civilized of all …
In Aztec religion, Quetzalcoatl was a god and was thought to be the leader and most vicious of gods, thought to come back and take back the empire. The feathered serpent god was connected by the planet Venus. Today Quetzalcoatl is the most well-known Aztec deity, and is often thought to have been the principal Aztec god. In reality, Quetzalcoatl was just one god in a pantheon of gods, not considered superior to the others. The Aztec turned him into a symbol of dying and resurrection and a patron of priests. When the Aztecs adopted the culture of the Toltecs, they made twin gods of Tezcatlipoca and Quetzalcoatl, opposite and equal; Quetzalcoatl was also called White Tezcatlipoca, to contrast him to the black Tezcatlipoca. Together, they created the world; Tezcatlipoca lost his foot in that process. Though white was the color symbol of Quetzalcoatl, it does not mean Quetzalcoatl was white…
To the Aztecs death was instrumental in the perpetuation of creation and gods and humans alike had the responsibility of sacrificing themselves in order to allow life to continue. …Human sacrifice among the Aztecs and in Mesoamerica in general must be seen in this context (that) - sacrifice and death is necessary for the continued existence of the world. Likewise each part of life had one or more deities associated with it and these had to be paid their dues in order to achieve success. Gods were paid with offerings sacrifice - often offerings of food, flowers, effigies, animals. But the larger the thing required from the God the larger the sacrifice had to be, and for the most important rites one would offer one’s own blood, a human life or even a God’s life…
Another significant Mexica deity was the earth mother goddess Tonantzin. It was her shrine in the northern section of today’s Mexico City which was later transformed into the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe, a central icon in Mexican Catholic belief, and dances of pre-Hispanic origins are still performed there to this day. This was an incarnation of Coatlicoe, the goddess of the snake skirt and mother of Huitzilopochtli.

There are several clues in the excerpts above as to which side influenced the Aztecs, but the most telling concerns the Aztecs designation of Quetzalcoatl as the “most vicious of gods.” Obviously, the Aztec’s Quetzalcoatl was not the same as the Christ-like teacher of Palenque. So who was the Quetzalcoatl of the Aztecs? The excerpt above relates that the main deity in the “Mexica religion was the sun god and war god, Huitzilopochtli.” As stated, it was this god that “directed the Mexicas to found a city on the site where they would see an eagle, devouring … a snake…” If we remember that the eagle was a symbol of the Roman Empire, which was founded by the World Soul, before “he” was purified, we can see that this “vision” can help us in determining the spiritual influence of the Aztecs.
Quetzalcoatl was active in the region for several hundred years before the Common Era and the shift to Globe D. It is important to remember that all the ancient buildings of Globe C were built under the guidance of the “Light” and represented The Mysteries in stone. Consequently, as the ancient sites carried the knowledge of the Christ-like teachers or Serpents of Wisdom they were transported to Globe D to act as a base of operations, so to speak for future incarnations of the teachers as members of the “Orders of the Quest.”
The main “base” in Mexico was the massive complex, known as Teotihuacan. This complex of temples and pyramids is the epitome of the heavens reflected on earth, because the pyramids and temple buildings seem to be accurately laid out to represent the celestial orbs of the Solar System. In confirmation of this assertion, there are mounds unexcavated north of this ancient site that are placed at the correct distance to represent the outer planets Uranus, Neptune and Pluto.
Although this impressive complex has been inhabited and used by multiple cultures, some of the “Light” and some of the “Shadow”, Teotihuacan’s purpose was never thwarted. This is because; the pyramids and the massive depictions of Quetzalcoatl remain as a silent testimony to the ancients’ knowledge of astronomy/astrology and architecture and despite the actions of some of its inhabitants always held the consciousness of the “Light.”
It was for this reason that the Aztec’s “deity” directed them not to Teotihuacan but to Lake Texcoco, where on an island in the middle of the lake, the vision of an eagle devouring a snake was fulfilled. Archetypally, this represented the “Shadow” (eagle) overcoming or devouring the “Light” (snake/serpent of wisdom). This was enforced when the city Tenochtitlán, which was built on the site became the arena for the Aztec’s to make blood sacrifice’s in the name of Quetzalcoatl. Of course the Aztecs were not making blood sacrifices to Quetzalcoatl, so which deity was “benefiting” from the sacrifice. I say “benefiting” deliberately, because as we shall see, the blood of a victim is used by entities to move between the Astral Plane and the Earth Plane. But first, I need to identify exactly who the Aztecs were sacrificing to. The excerpt above provides the answer when it speaks of the twin Quetzalcoatls. The excerpt related the Aztecs “made twin gods of Tezcatlipoca and Quetzalcoatl...” As reported, in the Yucatan Peninsula Tezcatlipoca was known by the Quiche-Maya as the “Smoking mirror” and was the enemy of Quetzalcoatl. Consequently, the deity the Aztec’s were sacrificing to was the god Tezcatlipoca, the “Shadow.”
To reiterate, when the Aztecs started sacrificing to Tezcatlipoca as Quetzalcoatl, the sacrifices enforced the overcoming of the “Light”, because the blood from the sacrifices facilitated spiritual entities that were working for the “Shadow” to physically enter this plane. If this sounds a little out there, the ancients left us a warning of the danger of blood sacrifices in the Emerald Tablets of Thoth. We reported the warning in The True Philosophers’ Stone:

“…the Emerald Tablets of Thoth the Atlantean58 translated and interpreted by Doreal…the tablets’ author was Thoth, sometimes known as Hermes…
The only word to describe them is “esoteric” which means “hidden,” for instance a passage in tablet VIII has information about the mode “evil” uses to infiltrate this plane of existence. It reads “Far in the past before Atlantis existed, men there were who delved into darkness, using dark Magic, calling up beings from the great deep below us. Forth came they into this cycle. Formless were they of another vibration, existing unseen by the children of earthmen. Only through blood could they have formed being. Only through man could they live in the world.”59
These “beings” had been vanquished by “Masters” to the underworld from where they had come from. However, a number still lingered between the layers, hiding in invisible realms, unseen and “unknown to man.” During the Atlantean era, these “beings” existed mostly as specters. Nonetheless, there were times when these “specters” appeared as human beings. The tablet warns humanity that this was merely an illusion as the “beings” were really “Serpent-headed.” They succeeded in gaining power by using sorcery to kill the rulers of the “kingdoms” and take their place as human-looking kings.”

The Aztec’s capital, Tenochtitlán was built in 1325 on an island in the middle of Lake Texcoco where modern-day Mexico City is located. Consequently, although the “Light” was instrumental in guiding Humanity in the Americas for thousands of years in Globe C, just before the emergence of the first sub-race of Root-Race 7 that would transform the consciousness on Globe D, the region fell under the influence of the “Shadow;” but what of the Yucatan Peninsula and the civilization of the Mayans?
The answer to what happened in Palenque depicts the strategy of the “Light” throughout the two-thousand years of Globe D. Earlier; I related that both “sides” were aware that the final “battleground” metaphorically speaking of course, was the future United States of America. When, the energy and consciousness shifted in the 14th century, the “Light” appeared to desert the region, by influencing the Mayans to abandon their cities in the Yucatan to the jungle.
Although this may appear defeatist, it really is not. This strategy preserved the sites for future discovery, where representatives of the “Light” could use the knowledge in uncovering the true brilliance of the Mayan civilization. Nonetheless, the rediscovery of Palenque did not take place for more than seven hundred years and in this “upstepping” I want to take a brief trip to the descendents of the Mayan culture in South America, known as the Inca. Before the rise of the Incan empire, the Viracochas taught civilization. According to the Incas entry on Wikipedia:

INCAS

The Inca people began as a tribe in the Cuzco area around the 12th century. Under the leadership of Manco Capac, they formed the small city-state of Cuzco…
In 1438 they began a far-reaching expansion under the command of Sapa Inca (paramount leader) Pachacuti, whose name literally meant “world-shaker”. During his reign, he and his son brought much of the Andes mountains (roughly modern Peru and Ecuador) under Inca control.
Capacocha was the Inca practice of human sacrifice, mainly using children. Sacrifices were made during or after important events, such as the death of the Sapa Inca or during a famine. Children were chosen or offered to the Sapa Inca for this occasion. It is believed that the children used had to be physically perfect because this would be the best the Inca could give their gods. The children were adorned in fine clothing and jewelry and were then escorted to Cuzco to meet the emperor where a feast was held in their honor. Then, high priests took the victims to high mountain tops where they would sacrifice the children either by strangulation, a blow to the head or by burying the child alive. The Spanish missionaries had often written about this practice but until recently there had been no archaeological evidence.

Like the evidence of the Aztecs shows the influence of the “Shadow” in their practice of human sacrifice, the descendants of the South American Mayans also appear to be contaminated with the “Shadow.” Blood carries the consciousness of the soul and is the singular most potent material substance that can be used in spiritual or rather magical practices, which is why all incarnations of The Christ stressed the need to abolish all forms of blood sacrifice. So again I ask, “What went wrong?” Why would the descendants of the Maya or Mayans go against such an unequivocal prohibition?

Putting that question aside for the time being, I need to address the birth of the 5th largest religion in the world today, Sikhism. This religion was born in the sub-continent of India at the end of the 15th century after Buddhism had lost its appeal and Hinduism was regaining popularity. It was also the period that the Muslims were poised to take over control of the country. Sikhism’s entry on Wikipedia provides the details. I have selected the most pertinent excerpts from the entry:

SIKHISM

Sikhism is a monotheistic religion founded in fifteenth century Punjab on the teachings of Guru Nanak Dev and ten successive Sikh Gurus (the last one being the sacred text Guru Granth Sahib). It is the fifth-largest organized religion in the world…
…The essence of Sikh teaching is summed up by Nanak in these words: "Realisation of Truth is higher than all else. Higher still is truthful living". Sikh teaching emphasizes the principle of equality of all humans and rejects discrimination on the basis of caste, creed, and gender. Sikh principles do not attach any importance to asceticism as a means to attain salvation, but stresses on the need of leading life as a householder.
…The beginning of the first composition of Sikh scripture is the figure "1"—signifying the universality of God. It states that God is omnipresent and infinite…Sikhs believe that before creation, all that existed was God and Its hukam (will or order). When God willed, the entire cosmos was created. From these beginnings, God nurtured "enticement and attachment" to māyā, or the human perception of reality.
Nanak (1469–1538), the founder of Sikhism, was born in the village …now called Nankana Sahib (in present-day Pakistan…As a boy, Nanak was fascinated by religion, and his desire to explore the mysteries of life eventually led him to leave home and take missionary journeys.
…One day, he declared: "There is no Hindu, there is no Muslim"… It was from this moment that Nanak would begin to spread the teachings of what was then the beginning of Sikhism. Although the exact account of his itinerary is disputed, he is widely acknowledged to have made four major journeys, spanning thousands of miles, the first tour being east towards Bengal and Assam, the second south towards Tamil Nadu, the third north towards Kashmir, Ladakh, and Tibet, and the final tour west towards Baghdad and Mecca.
While a full understanding of God is beyond human beings, Nanak described God as not wholly unknowable. God is omnipresent … in all creation and visible everywhere to the spiritually awakened. Nanak stressed that God must be seen from "the inward eye", or the "heart", of a human being: devotees must meditate to progress towards enlightenment. Guru Nanak Dev emphasized the revelation through meditation, as its rigorous application permits the existence of communication between God and human beings…
Nanak's teachings are founded not on a final destination of heaven or hell, but on a spiritual union with God which results in salvation. The chief obstacles to the attainment of salvation are social conflicts and an attachment to worldly pursuits, which commit men and women to an endless cycle of birth—a concept known as reincarnation.
Māyā—defined as illusion or "unreality"—is one of the core deviations from the pursuit of God and salvation: people are distracted from devotion by worldly attractions which give only illusive satisfaction. However, Nanak emphasised māyā as not a reference to the unreality of the world, but of its values. In Sikhism, the influences of ego, anger, greed, attachment, and lust—known as the Five Evils—are believed to be particularly pernicious. The fate of people vulnerable to the Five Evils is separation from God, and the situation may be remedied only after intensive and relentless devotion.
Nanak described God's revelation—the path to salvation—with terms such as nām (the divine Name) and śabad (the divine Word) to emphasise the totality of the revelation. Nanak designated the word guru (meaning teacher) as the voice of God and the source and guide for knowledge and salvation. Salvation can be reached only through rigorous and disciplined devotion to God…He stressed that devotion must take place through the heart, with the spirit and the soul.
…The verbal repetition of the name of God or a sacred syllable is an established practice in religious traditions in India, but Nanak's interpretation emphasized inward, personal observance. Nanak's ideal is the total exposure of one's being to the divine Name and a total conforming to Dharma or the "Divine Order". Nanak described the result of the disciplined application … as a "growing towards and into God" through a gradual process of five stages. The last of these is … (The Realm of Truth)—the final union of the spirit with God.
Nanak stressed …that a Sikh should balance work, worship, and charity, and should defend the rights of all creatures, and in particular, fellow human beings. They are encouraged to have (an)…optimistic, view of life. Sikh teachings also stress the concept of sharing—…through the distribution of free food at Sikh gurdwaras … giving charitable donations, and working for the good of the community and others (sēvā).
…The traditions and philosophy of Sikhism were established by ten specific gurus from 1499 to 1708. Each guru added to and reinforced the message taught by the previous, resulting in the creation of the Sikh religion. Nanak was the first guru and appointed a disciple as successor. Gobind Singh was the final guru in human form. Before his death, Gobind Singh decreed that the Gurū Granth Sāhib would be the final and perpetual guru of the Sikhs. The Sikhs believe that the spirit of Nanak was passed from one guru to the next, “just as the light of one lamp, which lights another and does not diminish ", and is also mentioned in their holy book.
After Nanak's passing, the most important phase in the development of Sikhism came with the third successor, Amar Das. Nanak's teachings emphasised the pursuit of salvation; Amar Das began building a cohesive community of followers with initiatives such as sanctioning distinctive ceremonies for birth, marriage, and death. Amar Das also established the manji (comparable to a diocese) system of clerical supervision.
Amar Das's successor and son-in-law Ram Das founded the city of Amritsar, which is home of the Harimandir Sahib and regarded widely as the holiest city for all Sikhs. When Ram Das's youngest son Arjan succeeded him, the line of male gurus from the Sodhi Khatri family was established: all succeeding gurus were direct descendants of this line. Guru Arjan Sahib was captured by Mughal authorities who were suspicious and hostile to the religious order he was developing. His persecution and death inspired his successors to promote a military and political organization of Sikh communities to defend themselves against the attacks of Mughal forces.

Considering the polytheistic nature of Hinduism, to see a monotheistic religion arising out of the seat of Hinduism was a little surprising. However, the populace had been prepared by The Buddha’s teaching and Nanak’s emphasis on self-responsibility for “salvation” appealed to many former Buddhists. Moreover, the fact that Nanak advocated unity rather than division demonstrates that Sikhism was in line with the “Light” and contained a valuable part of the knowledge required to transform. I learned that together with Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, Sikhism added a new dimension to spirituality. I will return to this amazing revelation later, but for now I wish to return to Europe and examine how the previous century had affected the energy and consciousness.

As stated, in the 15th century the Albigensian “Crusade” and the wholesale slaughter of women through immolation at the stake; not-to-mention the annihilation of the Templars had taken place on the European continent. All of these events were indicative of the absence of the passive/feminine energy; meaning there was an imbalance of the active/masculine consciousness.
This imbalance had occurred before in the centuries following the death of the followers of Jesus. To recap: By the middle of the 2nd century all the witnesses to Jesus’ teachings had died and as I said, apart from a brief sojourn in Alexandria during the 5th century and Ireland in the 6th century, Sophia remained in the Archetypal Plane until the 9th century. This left only the active or masculine energy of the Melchizedek line in the world. As stated, when Jesus The Christ left, the “prince of this world” entered the earth plane. This meant there was an overabundance of the masculine/active energy in the world. Consequently, while Sophia was away, so to speak, the “boys” got out of control.

With all the violence and cruelty in the Middle-Ages in the Western hemisphere, one could be forgiven for asking where God was in the face of such apparent evil, but of course the answer is nowhere. The vibration of Love cannot exist in an atmosphere of fear and hatred. Unfortunately, apart from their energetic work in the East, the Divine forces were powerless to help during this testing time in the West and had to wait for the human race to spiritually evolve out of this time. In essence, The “Light” was waiting for a “rebirth”, which history has named the Renaissance.

7TH ROOT-RACE AND THE RENAISSANCE

As the Life-Principle approached the time of the emergence of the first sub-race of Root-Race 7, the “Light” was also preparing to make a huge move. That move was the infiltration of the “Light” in Italy during the 15th and 16th centuries through the “Orders of the Quest.” There were multiple members that incarnated at this time, but three of the greatest born at this time, were Leonardo Da Vinci, born 1452; Michelangelo, born 1475 and Nostradamus, born 1503.
Considering, the devastating events that occurred in Europe during the 14th century, I was surprised to discover the “Light” relocating to the “heart” of the “Shadow’s” realm. However, although the “Light” arrived in Italy, it was not Rome. The family/dynasty name most associated with the Renaissance is the Medici’s, who were from the regional capital of Tuscany, Florence. But it was the link between the bankers of the 13th and 14th centuries and the Knights Templars that showed how the “Light” infiltrated Italy.

MEDICI BANKERS

During the 13th century, the Knights Templars were considered the wealthiest bankers of Christendom. On the website “The Medici Family” I found a very informative article that describes how the Florentine family became known as the wealthiest bankers in Italy, but first let’s review what is known about the Knights Templars as bankers.

It seems that throughout history, treasure-hunters have searched for what is known as the “Templar gold”, because even though the Templars were said to be extremely wealthy, very little of their money was found in the raid of 1307. This of course led to the rumors that the Templars had hidden their vast wealth in some remote location. However, I think there may be a more logical explanation, as I think the Medici bankers were the heirs to the Knights Templars banking empire. According to an on entry on Wikipedia for the History of Banking: “The Templars’ wide flung, large land holdings across Europe also emerged in the 1100-1300 time frame as the beginning of Europe-wide banking, as their practice was to take in local currency, for which a demand note would be given that would be good at any of their castles across Europe, allowing movement of money without the usual risk of robbery while traveling.”
The description sounds an awful lot like the banking system of today, but the most relevant point is that the Templars’ initiated a “Europe-wide banking” system. One would think that Italy would be included in “Europe-wide” and this can explain the “missing” Templar “gold.” The entry for the History of Banking on Wikipedia encapsulates how finances worked in the Middle-Ages. Ironically, the “Papal bankers were the most successful of the Western world, though often goods taken in pawn were substituted for interest…When Pope John (XXII) (born Jacques d’Euse (1249 - 1334) was crowned in Lyon in 1316, he set up residency in Avignon.” Pope John moved his residency from Rome to France because of the conflict between the Holy Roman Emperor and the Papacy known as the Investiture Controversy, which we discussed in the previous “upstepping.”
Philip the Fair, the king of France “expelled” the Jewish population from France in 1306, the year before he arrested the Knights Templar. According to the entry, “In 1311” King Philip also “expelled Italian bankers and collected their outstanding credit.” However, the banking system did not become French, because by 1327, “Avignon had 43 branches of Italian banking houses.” A series of bankruptcies and defaults on loans led to the “growth of Italian banking in France”, which in turn led to “the start of the Lombard moneychangers in Europe, who moved from city to city along the busy pilgrim routes important for trade…”
Things started changing at the start of the 15th century when according to the entry “political forces turned against the methods of the Italian free enterprise bankers.” This was evidently Europe-wide, as the entry relates:

In 1401, King Martin I of Aragon expelled them. In 1403, Henry IV of England prohibited them from taking profits in any way in his kingdom. In 1409, Flanders imprisoned and then expelled Genoese bankers. In 1410, all Italian merchants were expelled from Paris. In 1401, the Bank of Barcelona was founded. In 1407, the Bank of Saint George was founded in Genoa. This bank dominated business in the Mediterranean. In 1403 charging interest on loans was ruled legal in Florence despite the traditional Christian prohibition of usury. Italian banks such as the Lombards, who had agents in the main economic centres of Europe, had been making charges for loans. The lawyer and theologian Lorenzo di Antonio Ridolfi won a case which legalised interest payments by the Florentine government.

You may wonder why the “Light” would be interested in the financial system of Europe and at first sight it would appear to be more in line with the “Shadow’s” agenda. Nevertheless, the struggle between the “Light” and “Shadow” is not so clear cut. For instance, the development of a wealthy banking family can be used by both sides. Obviously, the practice of “usury” was instigated by the “Shadow.” (Interesting when we consider the exorbitant rates of “interest” charged today, still I will leave that discussion until later.)
The “Light” used the banking system to promote the patronage of the arts, which was instigated by representatives of the “Orders of the Quest.” Moreover, the instigation of “paper money” necessitated an efficient way of producing large quantities of printed paper, which in turn led to Johannes Gutenberg, an agent of the “Light” inventing what some people have said was the most important invention of the second millennium, the “mechanical printing press.” This invention will be further refined by one of the most important members of the “Orders of the Quest” of the Renaissance Leonardo Davinci. We will discuss this remarkable figure a little later. As for Gutenberg, we will see the role Gutenberg played as an instrument of the “Light” in the next “upstepping”, but for now let me return to my theory of the Medici bankers being the heirs to the Knights Templars in Italy.
It is at this point I need to remind you that all descendants of the Knights Templar were contaminated with Jacques de Molay’s curse and as such we see a mixture of influence in the families and sects in which The Mysteries were passed down. The strongest proponent of the “Light’s agenda in the Medici family was Cosimo the elder. The website’s article on The Medici Family says of Cosimo:

Cosimo de Medici, or Cosimo the Elder, was born in 1389. Growing up, Cosimo had the best education available in 14th century Florence, and grew up with a sense of respect for classical knowledge and ideals. He became a humanist…When Giovanni died of natural causes in 1429; Cosimo took over the helm of the family enterprises. In 1433, Cosimo moved to the outskirts of Tuscany, letting matters cool off in the partisan battles. But Rinaldo degli Albizzi was still nervous. He arranged for the arrest and detention of Cosimo, and eventually, his banishment to Venice. Popular unrest in Florence led to a new Signory, and Cosimo was brought back to Florence and given vast power. He continued to build that power, however. He consolidated all power in his hands in dealings with the rest of Italy and finance. Under the rule of humanism, Florence increased both its wealth and its cultural prestige. Among the most lasting impacts of Cosimo's reign are his large library (including a large classical collection) and his patronage of artists such as Donatello and Fra Angelico…

Although Cosimo the elder was a “patron” of the arts, he did not act as patron to the most famous Florentine artists. That title went to the Medici ruler known as Lorenzo the Magnificent and this is where we see the mixture of influence. Lorenzo represented the “Light” through his love of art, but he represented the “Shadow” through his tyranny and hedonism. However, in Florence the influence of the “Light” prevailed because by Lorenzo’s patronization of the arts, he “presided over Florence’s Golden Age.” As a result, “Such noted artists as Boticelli and Michelangelo flourished during this height of the Renaissance.” This is how the “Light” was able to use the Knights Templars wealth to “their” advantage, by inspiring one of the inheritors of the knight’s wealth to support the Renaissance artists, who were also members of the “Orders of the Quest.”.

Above I said that the Medici banks were “heirs to the Knights Templar”, but I learned that although their wealth was utilized by the “Light” to finance and support the masters of the Renaissance, Italy was not where the bulk of their money went. I believe a possible location for the main Templar wealth is found in an investigation to the mysterious Star Families.

STAR FAMILIES

I found the information of the possible location for the Knights Templar “gold” in a remarkable book called and Solomon’s Power Brokers: The Secrets of Freemasonry, The Church, and The Illuminati60 by Christopher Knight and Alan Butler. In the book the authors propose that a secret society known as the “Star Families” have been quietly continuing King Solomon’s agenda through families and secret societies. Having determined that King Solomon was an incarnation of Melchizedek that founded the “Order of Melchizedek”, which became in Globe D the “Orders of the Quest”, I was sure that their information had value.
Ostensibly, Mr. Knight and Mr. Butler track the line through bloodlines from the Essenes to the Knights Templar. Like most Templar investigators the authors connect the knights to Rosslyn Chapel, but what interested me the most was their connecting the Templars to a different region in France than the usual Languedoc and the Cathars. However, before I get to their well-thought-out theory, I will relate what the authors say about the Star Families agenda:

“The evidence indicates that the Star Family agenda was…creating a world where people loved God under any name they chose, and behaved in a manner that was in tune with the spirit of the Shekinah. This meant a well-ordered and prosperous society, free from poverty, depravity, or ill will of any kind. And to achieve this meant first of all putting in place a political structure.”61

(Note: The “Shekinah” according to its entry on Wikipedia, “is held by some to represent the feminine attributes of the presence of God (Shekinah being a feminine word in Hebrew), based especially on readings of the Talmud.)

The above quote showed me that the book’s “Star Families” or a least a large percentage of them, were most probably representatives of the “Light.” Consequently, the author’s theory was worth consideration. I will not discuss how the “Star Families” descended from King Solomon, but begin my investigation in 12th (1100s) century France in the Champagne region and the yearly fairs. According to the authors, from the 1100s merchants had travelled to Champagne to take part in the “trade fairs.” Naturally, trade necessitated the exchange of money, which in turn created a draw for thieves bent on stealing from the merchants. This may have been how the Templars first became involved in banking, protecting the money of the merchants at the Champagne fairs.
The connection between the Star Families and the Templars is found in the family of Hughes de Payens, because the Hughes family was “a prominent Star Family.” The authors explain that when the Count of Champagne Hughes de Payens joined the Templars in 1125, renouncing his title and position, as he had “no sons”, his nephew Theobald took over the title as Theobald II. This was only the first powerful appointment the nephews of Count Hughes de Payens achieved. “Another nephew Henry, count of Blois…became the bishop of Winchester”,62 who was influential in inspiring the red-cross on a white background for England’s flag. I had never really thought about it, but that is exactly what the flag of England is.63
Nonetheless, it was Theobald II that took the Champagne Fairs and “transformed” them from a “small-scale” country fair into a renowned market place for Europe. The authors stress how important a role Theobald II had in 12th century Europe, when they say” It is no exaggeration to say that Theobald’s decisions…had a tremendous bearing on the eventual development of Western Europe.”64 Because I had never heard of the Champagne Fairs, I decided to look them up on Wikipedia, where I found the excerpts below:

The Champagne fairs were an annual cycle of trading fairs held in towns in the Champagne and Brie regions of France in the Middle Ages. From their origins in local agricultural and stock fairs, the Champagne fairs became an important engine in the reviving economic history of medieval Europe, "veritable nerve centers" serving as a premier market for textiles, leather, fur, and spices. At their height, in the late twelfth and the thirteenth century, the fairs linked the cloth-producing cities of the Low Countries with the Italian dyeing and exporting centers, with Genoa in the lead. The fairs, which were already well-organized at the start of the century, were one of the earliest manifestations of a linked European economy, a characteristic of the High Middle Ages. From the later twelfth century the fairs, conveniently sited on ancient land routes and largely self-regulated through the development of the Lex mercatoria, the "merchant law", dominated the commercial and banking relations operating at the frontier region between the north and the Mediterranean.
The towns in which the six fairs of the annual circuit were held had some features in common, but none that would have inexorably drawn the commerce of the fairs… The self-interest and the political will of the Counts of Champagne was the over-riding factor.
The series of six fairs, each lasting more than six weeks, were spaced through the year's calendar…Each fair began with the entrée of eight days during which merchants set up, followed by the days allotted for the cloth fair, the days of the leather fair, and the days for the sale of spices and other things sold by weight…In the last four-day period of the fairs, accounts were settled.
In actual practice, arrivals and departures were more flexible and efficient, relying on flexibly formed and dissolved partnerships, which freed the "silent" partners from actually undertaking the arduous journey on each occasion, delegated agents … who could receive payment and undertake contracts, and factors, integrated with communications and transportation, and the extensive use of credit instruments in the trade.
The towns provided huge warehouses, still to be seen at Provins. Furs and skins traveled in both directions, from Spain, Sicily, and North Africa in the south via Marseilles…and other skins from the north. From the north also came woolens and linen cloth. From the south came silk, pepper and other spices, drugs, coinage and the new concepts of credit and bookkeeping… Even after trade routes had shifted away from the north-south axis that depended on the Champagne commodities fairs, the fairs continued to function as an international clearing house for paper debts and credits, as they had built up a system of commercial law, regulated by private judges separate from the feudal social order and the requirements of scrupulously maintaining a "good name", prior to the third=-party enforcement of legal codes by the nation-state…
The fairs were also important in the spread and exchange of cultural influences—the first appearance of Gothic architecture in Italy was the result of merchants from Siena rebuilding their houses in the Northern style. The phrase "not to know your Champagne fairs" meant not knowing what everyone else did.
It was in the interest of the Count of Champagne, virtually independent of his nominal suzerain, the King of France, to extend the liberties and prerogatives of the towns, which were founded in the increased security of the feudal settlement following the feudal disorders of the tenth century. The predominance of the Champagne fairs over those of other cities has been attributed to the personal role of the Counts in guaranteeing the security and property rights of merchants and trading organisations attending the fairs and in ensuring that contracts signed at the fairs would be honoured throughout Western Christendom. The counts provided the fairs with a police force, the "Guards of the Fair", who heard complaints and enforced contracts, excluding defaulters from future participation; weights and measures were strictly regulated…The Counts' concern for protection of this profitable trade extended beyond their borders…Eventually even the king became involved; in 1209 Philip Augustus granted safe conduct within France to merchants traveling to and from the Champagne fairs, increasing their international importance.
Traditional historians have dated the decline of the Champagne fairs to the conquest of Champagne by Philip the Bold in 1273. In 1285 Champagne became an integral part of France… Around the same time, a series of wars in Italy, most significantly the conflicts between the Guelphs and Ghibellines, disrupted the overland trade routes that connected the Italian cities with France, and Genoese and Venetian merchants opened up direct sea trade with Flanders, diminishing the importance of the fairs.

Having ascertained the historical record for the Champagne Fairs of the 12th and 13th centuries, I want to mention two points of interest Mr. Knight and Mr. Butler relate. The first concerns the origin of the English unit of weight the pound. The authors inform us that the 16 ounce pound is a “very ancient unit”, which most likely originated from the scrolls beneath the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem found by the nine Knight Templars or as they call them “the Star Families.”65
The second point of interest the authors make concerns the main textile traded at the Champagne Fairs. They state that what was “absolutely pivotal to the ultimate success of the Champagne Fairs, was woolen cloth.” Apparently, this “wool” was transported from “Flanders”, modern day Belgium and the authors believed it was “wool” that “was the engine of the international trade that drove the Fairs.”66
Something I found particularly interesting was that the Champagne Fairs were connected to the Troubadours. Earlier, I related that Chrétien de Troyes, “between 1160 and 1172 served at the court of his patroness Marie of France,” who was also the “Countess of Champagne” and the “daughter of Eleanor of Aquitaine.”
Curiously, I learned from Mr. Knight and Mr. Butler that before the Champagne Fairs were established in Flanders. The Star Families had prepared the ground through the order of Cistercians, who apart from being concerned with spreading Christianity were also successful businessmen. Their business was in livestock, specifically wool from their herds of sheep. Evidently during the 13th (1200s) century in the north of England the Cistercians were thriving as shepherds of more than one flock. The authors relate the Cistercians “raised sheep” not for consumption, but for their wool and that the enterprise was supported by the Templars.67
The decline of the Champagne Fairs occurring two decades before the arrest of Jacques de Molay in Paris brings me to the most amazing information in the aforementioned book. In discussing the downfall of the Knights Templars on October 13th 1307, the authors ask is it reasonable to suggest that the “sudden” arrest was not a complete surprise to the Grand Master. After all the Templars were widespread throughout Europe and had allies in every branch of government and citizenry. What interested me was the reference in the book to the Templars bases in the “Alps.” Citing Alan Butler and Templar historian Stephen Dafoe, the book suggests that “Unknown to King Philip, a sizeable proportion of the Templars in France had quietly slipped away to base that the Templars already maintained in the Alps, well away from the influence of the French king.”68
Authors, Knight and Butler offer convincing evidence to back up this supposition. Starting with the fact that a year after Jacques de Molay was burnt at the stake, “three small Alpine States…jointly declared their independence” from the Hapsburg Empire. They point out that these three states became “cantons” in the Republic of Switzerland, which in the 14th century was known as the Swiss Confederation and “Europe’s oldest democratic state.”69
Obviously, the Hapsburg Empire did not take this rebellion well and immediately moved to stop this show of independence and sent an army of 3,000 to 5,000 men, led by Duke Leopold I of Austria. The entry on Wikipedia for the Battle of Mortgarten relates the amazing outcome when Leopold met the rebels:

Leopold of Austria, led an army of 3000 to 5000 men— about one third of them knights on horseback— to crush the rebellious confederates, planning a surprise attack from south via Lake Aegeri and the Morgarten pass and counting on a complete victory over the rebellious peasants.
The Confederates of Schwyz— supported by the Confederates of Uri, who feared for their autonomy, but not supported by the Confederates of Unterwalden— expected the army in the west near the village of Arth, where they had erected fortifications. A historically plausible legend tells of the Knight of Huenenberg who shot an arrow into the camp of the Confederates with the attached message "watch out on St. Otmar's day at the Morgarten".
The Confederates prepared a road-block and an ambush at a point between Lake Aegeri and Morgarten pass where the small path led between the steep slope and a swamp. When about 1500 men attacked from above with rocks, logs and halberds, the knights had no room to defend themselves and suffered a crushing defeat, while the foot soldiers in the rear fled…

The authors, Knight and Butler also picked up on the mysterious knight that warned the rebels and asks about the strange coincidence of the Swiss flag being a white cross on a red background being the reversal of the Knights Templar insignia.70 As relevant as the possibility of Templars taking part in the fight for Switzerland’s independence is, it was the connection to banking that sealed it for me. They point out that “private bankers existed in Switzerland before the 15th century, at which time the Florentine ruler Cosimo de Medici set up a banking house in Basle.”71 They also remind us that the “private bankers” of Switzerland “appeared from nowhere in the 14th century.” In conclusion, the authors sum up this evidence as possibly “further proof that escaping French Templars sought refuge in the Alps, where they continued to do what they had been doing for the previous two centuries.”72 There is just one more piece of evidence I wish to cite from this amazing book for now, which concerns the Switzerland textile industry. Evidently, apart from being the “financial heart” of Europe Switzerland was “one of the first” to set up a substantial and lucrative “textile industry.” Curiously, this “industry” blossomed at the beginning “of the 14th century.” Although the “industry” dealt in linen, its main focus was “centered on wool – which of course was always one of the chief concerns of both the Cistercians and the Templars.”73
And so we have come full circle back to the acknowledged heir to Europe’s banking system in the 14th century, the Medici Bankers. Mr. Knight and Mr. Butler do not identify the de Medici’s as a Star Family, but nonetheless because they furthered the agenda of the “Light” by promoting the Renaissance artists, such as Michelangelo I believe they were at least influenced by the “Light.” Speaking of Michelangelo, it is to that remarkable artist that I now turn.

MICHELANGELO

I said the “Light’s” agenda prevailed in Florence with Lorenzo, because of his support of the great artists Michelangelo and Boticelli. Michelangelo and Boticelli were both members of the “Orders of the Quest.” I should make it clear again that when I speak of the “Orders of the Quest”, I am not referring to an actual order, such as a religious or philosophical order that has literal meetings, but rather a “spiritual” group of individuals, which are spiritually guided and inspired to fulfill the “Light’s” agenda.
The great Renaissance artists fulfilled the “Light’s” agenda with the creation of some of the most beautiful art in the world. If you are wondering how the creation of beautiful art fulfills the “Light’s” agenda, then consider how you “feel” when you gaze upon beautiful art, such as Michelangelo’s statue of David or Boticelli’s “Birth of Venus.” That feeling of pure joy literally alters your brain waves and directly connects you with your higher spiritual nature enabling you to transmute the lower emotions. However, as effective as Michelangelo’s David was in stirring the emotions, it pales in comparison to his master piece, the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. The entry for Michelangelo on Wikipedia relates that Michelangelo was “originally commissioned to paint the 12 Apostles against a starry sky, but lobbied for a different and more complex scheme, representing creation, the Downfall of Man and the Promise of Salvation through the prophets and Genealogy of Christ.”

This may sound incredible, but I had forgotten what I had written above about the power of art, when almost a year later we were reading P.D. Ouspensky –IN SEARCH OF the MIRACULOUS, FRAGMENTS OF AN UNKNOWN TEACHING. We had almost finished the book and were reading about the difference between objective art and subjective art. The mystic “G” says that:

“The difference between objective art and subjective art is that in objective art the artist really does ‘create,’ that is…he puts into his work whatever ideas and feelings he wants to put into it. And the action of this work upon men is absolutely definite, they will…receive the same ideas and the same feelings that the artist wanted to transmit to them…In subjective art everything is accidental. The artist…does not create; with him ‘it creates itself.’ This means that he is in the power of ideas, thoughts, and moods…over which he has no control.”74

Considering that Michelangelo was a member of the “Orders of the Quest” it is curious to read “The work is part of a larger scheme of decoration within the chapel which represents much of the doctrine of the Catholic Church.” The magnificent ceiling, which incorporates “over 300 figures”, portrays “nine episodes from the Book of Genesis.” Nonetheless, there was a curious mention of a figure in the ceiling that I was unfamiliar with. That figure was the “Cumaean Sibyl.” As I was unfamiliar with the name, I clicked on the link and discovered the Cumaean Sibyl was linked to a curious ancient Roman legend, which led me to the entry for the Sibylline Books:

SIBYLLINE BOOKS

The Cumaean Sibyl offered to Tarquinius nine books of these prophecies; and as the king declined to purchase them, owing to the exorbitant price she demanded, she burned three and offered the remaining six to Tarquinius at the same stiff price, which he again refused, whereupon she burned three more and repeated her offer. Tarquinius then relented and purchased the last three at the full original price and had them preserved in a vault beneath the Capitoline temple of Jupiter. The story is alluded to … by Origen.

Apparently, the Sibylline Books eventually “were entrusted to the care of…fifteen” people who were “usually ex-consuls or ex-praetors.” These ex-officials were appointed as guardians of the books “for life, and were exempt from all other public duties.” The main duty they had was “the responsibility of keeping the books in safety and secrecy”, until the “Senate” ordered them to “consult the Sibylline Books in order to discover…the religious observances necessary to avert extraordinary calamities and to expiate ominous prodigies (comets and earthquakes, plague and the like)…”
It seems that these guardians of the Sibylline Books were involved in “superintending” the worship of certain deities. These gods and goddesses “which had been introduced by the Sibylline Books” were “Apollo”, the “Great Mother Cybele or Magna Mater” and the goddess of agriculture “Ceres.” The author of the entry believes that “one important effect of the Sibylline Books was their influence on applying Greek cult practice and Greek conceptions of deities to indigenous Roman religion, which was already indirectly influenced through Etruscan religion.” The introduction of these gods and goddesses amounted to “a syncretic amalgamation of national deities with the corresponding deities of Greece, and a general modification of the Roman religion…”
When the “Temple of Jupiter…burned in 83 BC”, the Sibylline Books were lost.” Evidently, in order to “replace them”, The Roman Senate sent envoys in 76 BC” to collect “similar oracular sayings” from “Ilium, Erythrae, and Samos, Sicily and Africa.” The new “collection” of Sibylline Books was brought to the “restored temple, together with similar sayings of native origin” where the “priests…sorted them, retaining only those that appeared true to them (Tacitus, Annales, VI, 12).” The new collection of Sibylline Books remained intact until 405 C.E., when “General Flavius Stilicho again burned” them, because the books were being “used to attack his government.” Apparently, “Some genuine Sibylline verses are preserved in the Book of Marvels or Memorabilia of Phlegon of Tralles (2nd century AD). These represent an oracle, or a combination of two oracles, of seventy hexameters in all. They report the birth of an androgyne, and prescribe a long list of rituals and offerings to the gods.”
The question that begs to be asked is why the Catholic Church would permit a figure that would connect back to the pagan gods and goddesses to be included in the Sistine Chapel. The answer is they did not know they were. This is because; Michelangelo was inspired to paint the Cumaean Sibyl in order to infuse the ceiling in the Vatican with the “Light”.
Recently, another proposal has been put forth that Michelangelo deliberately encoded secret messages into the Sistine Chapel ceiling. An article by Malcolm Moore entitled “Michelangelo ‘hid secret code in Sistine Chapel’” published June 20th 2008 in Rome provides some thought-provoking information. Mr. Moore’s article concerns a book The Sistine Secrets: Unlocking the Codes in Michelangelo's Defiant Masterpiece, by Rabbi Benjamin Blech, an associate professor of Talmud at Yeshiva University in New York and Roy Doliner, a tour guide at the Vatican. The book contends that the ceiling is “made up of mystical Jewish symbols and insults aimed at the pope.” Mr. Moore writes:

“The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, which the renaissance artist worked on for four years in the early 16th century, is actually a "bridge" between the Roman Catholic Church and the Jewish faith…
Scanning through the arrangement of figures on the vast 14,000 square foot ceiling, the authors have found shapes that correspond to Hebrew letters.
For example, the book states, the figures of David and Goliath form the shape of the letter gimel, which symbolises g'vurah, (Geburah) or strength, in the mystical Kabbalah tradition.
Kabbalah is a set of ancient esoteric teachings which are meant to decode the inner meaning of the Tanakh, or Hebrew Bible, and to explain the reasons for Jewish religious observances.
On the opposite wall, the scene showing Judith and her handmaiden carrying the head of the Assyrian general Holofernes is in the shape of the Hebrew letter chet, (Cheth) which represents chesed, or the characteristics of "loving kindness".
"There are so many layers of meaning on meaning, and most of it is from the Jewish tradition," said Mr Doliner on an American television programme.
Rabbi Blech added that all the figures in the nine scenes on the ceiling are Jews.
"He emphasises only Old Testament figures in the entire ceiling, and what he was trying to say was: Why have we ignored our true roots?" he said.
The book adds that the tree of life in the fresco is not, as usually thought, an apple tree, but instead a fig tree according to ancient Jewish tradition.
The authors believe the entire Sistine Chapel, which they say is built to the same proportions as the Holy Temple in Jerusalem, is a "lost mystical message of universal love" which was intended to be decoded.
The authors believe Michelangelo picked up his knowledge of Judaism while at the court of Lorenzo de Medici in Florence.
In addition, they say there are several attacks on Pope Julius II, who commissioned the work, embedded in the painting.
Disgusted with papal corruption, they think Michelangelo painted the prophet Zechariah in the pope's likeness.
Behind him, one angel is "making an extremely obscene hand gesture at the back of his head."
Critics of the new book point out that there is no record in Michelangelo's extensive and well-preserved writings of any secret code in the ceiling.
Dr Arnold Nesselrath, a curator at the Vatican museums said there was no way that Michelangelo could have painted any of the ceiling without the pope's express consent…
The two authors are not the first to have "seen" a secret Michelangelo code.
In 1950, a Venezuelan diplomat named Joaquin Diaz Gonzalez wrote a pamphlet arguing that an outline of the face of Dante, the poet, was hidden in the arrangement of the figures in the Last Judgement. He also "saw" a giant depiction of Jesus on the cross.
In 1990, Frank Meshberger argued in the Journal of the American Medical Association that the central panel, showing God and Adam reaching out to touch each other was in the shape of a brain and spinal cord.
In 2000, Dr Garabed Eknoyan saw the shape of a kidney in the painting, while in 2005 two Brazilian doctors found hidden body parts throughout, including a bronchial tube hidden in the tree trunk in the panel showing Eve's Creation.

As Michelangelo is no longer around to ask whether the author’s of The Sistine Secrets: Unlocking the Codes in Michelangelo's Defiant Masterpiece theory is correct, we will never definitively know. However, after watching a documentary on the theory (Sorry cannot remember which station ran it); I was shocked by one particular scene.
The scene is apparently of the “Creator’s” back or hind parts shown disappearing behind a sphere. However, Michelangelo painted the figure naked, so that the figure appears to “moon” us. If we follow the theory proposed in Sistine Secrets, this could be interpreted as the artist’s way of rebellion against the Church. But if we consider that Michelangelo was a member of the “Orders of the Quest”, could there be another reason? Let us reflect on the deeper message of showing the “Creator” in such a disrespectful way. Gazing on the figure makes one think how utterly ridiculous to think of the Creator of the Universe in such a way, which is exactly the point. Michelangelo was not insulting either God or the Church, but pointing out the absurdity of applying a human body to God. During the Renaissance, this would not have had an impact, as the ancient knowledge of the Divine Realm consisting of consciousness and energies and not anthropomorphic gods and goddesses was forgotten.
Nonetheless, today, some people gazing on the figure will wonder why Michelangelo painted such a ridiculous scene and begin thinking of the nature of God. Some people have observed that the scene of the Creation of Adam forms the same outline as the Brain and Spinal column. I agree with them, as this again shows that Michelangelo wanted to leave us a visual testimony to make us think.
All it takes is a moment of questioning for the Spirit to open your mind to God and allow Him to guide you to the Truth. This is the main reason the “Shadow” worked so hard on corrupting the early Church, with the creation of the Inquisition. Still we will leave that heinous institution alone for now and turn to whom some would say is the most famous Renaissance man, Leonardo DaVinci.

LEONARDO DAVINCI

If I was following the time-line exactly, DaVinci would have been the first figure of the Renaissance I examined because he was born in 1452. Like Boticelli and Michelangelo, DaVinci was also born in Florence and was sponsored by Lorenzo the Magnificent. Moreover, DaVinci was as gifted an artist as his fellow Florentine contemporaries. Nonetheless, apart from being a great artist, Leonardo was also a great innovator. Even today, people marvel over his extremely detailed drawings and sketches, but it was his ability to record sacred knowledge into many of his paintings that unveils him as a member of the “Orders of the Quest.” I will address three of his most famous paintings: The Madonna of the Rocks (both versions), The unfinished Adoration of the Magi and the extremely contentious wall mural of the Last Supper.
The two different versions of the Madonna or Virgin of the Rocks have caused great debate, because the version in the Louvre seems to show a toddler John the Baptist blessing the infant Jesus. Traditionally, this is supposed to be a painting of Jesus and his mother meeting up with John the Baptist and the Archangel Uriel on the flight to Egypt. In the version in the London Tate Gallery, the infant Jesus holds a crucifix and is supposedly bestowing on his cousin the authority to baptize him later. In the Louvre version the crucifix is not present and the child with the angel appears to blessing Jesus. This would not be hard to understand if Leonardo knew of the Mazdeans.
Leonardo’s apparent preference for John the Baptist is seen again in his unfinished Adoration of the Magi. In Dan Burnstein’s Secrets of the Code, there is a description of a scientific analysis carried out by Maurizio Seracini:

“…Seracini’s painstaking, four-year-long technical study wrapped up in 2005…His ultimate findings are fascinating…Some of Leonardo’s first ideas, Seracini discovered, never appeared on the surface. Hidden underneath the pigment is the suggestion of a pagan or Egyptian temple…”75

Later on, in the Secret’s of the Code, Mr. Burnstein reproduces a critique from Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince the authors of THE TEMPLAR REVELATION, Secret Guardians of the True Identity of Christ76 What they have to say about Da Vinci and John the Baptist is very interesting:

“In over a decade of research, we have found time after time, evidence that wherever he could, Leonardo Da Vinci elevated John the Baptist over Jesus…Certainly we know that the inner circle of the Templars maintained an enormous…reverence for the Baptist, which is reflected in many more of Leonardo’s works. The last thing he ever did, for his own benefit entirely and not as any commission, was his darkly strange St. John the Baptist, which-together with the Mona Lisa-adorned the walls of his death chamber…And his only surviving sculpture, a joint work with Giovanni Francesco Rustici ( a…alchemist and necromancer), is of John the Baptist…Leonardo always managed to sneak in some Baptist symbolism such as the carob tree-a traditional association with John-in his unfinished Adoration of the Magi (ca. 1481), which is being worshipped by bright, healthy young people, while the holy family is being clawed at by hideous ancient figures…And the young man standing radiantly close to the roots of the John’s carob tree is making …the John gesture-raising the right forefinger heavenward. Leonardo’s sculpture is also making this gesture, as is his last painting, St. John the Baptist….”77

Ms. Picknett and Mr. Prince interpret Leonardo’s obsession with John the Baptist as evidence for him being anti-Jesus, but I think there is a far deeper message Leonardo wanted to convey. As far as I know all the paintings that show either John the Baptist or Jesus as antagonistic to one another, depict them both as children. If Leonardo was a member of the “Orders of the Quest” then is it not possible that he was saying the infancy stories about John and Jesus are wrong? Taking into consideration the Mazdean teachings, could not Leonardo have wanted to relay that Jesus and John were not the same age and that John the Baptist began his ministry decades before Jesus? However, his famous painting of the Last Supper portrayed a far more important message about transformation.
It is important to keep in mind that the philosophy of the Renaissance was Hermeticism, which was epitomized by the science of alchemy. Outwardly the goal of the alchemist was to turn base metals into gold, but that was a metaphor for the alchemist purifying himself and transforming. He accomplished this through the union of the masculine-active with the feminine-passive within him. Despite the debate over who is sitting on Jesus’ left in the painting of the Last Supper, by making the figure feminine, Leonardo was relaying the need to unite the masculine and the feminine. Bernard Hamilton, one of the people Dan Burnstein interviewed about The Davinci Code made a remark about Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man and the figure of St. John in the Last Supper as being “epicene.”78
Neither Craig nor I had heard the term before, so we looked it up. The dictionary says, (1) “designating a noun, as in Latin or Greek, having only one grammatical form to denote an individual of either sex. (2) Belonging to one sex but having characteristics of the other, or neither…” I cannot think of a more appropriate term for a spiritual hermaphrodite.
One other example of Leonardo's use of the “epicene” was in probably his most famous work, the Mona Lisa. Leonardo’s legacy was to leave us guessing over this masterpiece, even to this very day. Experts have said that Leonardo used his own portrait to create the apparent androgyny. Another theory I heard on a documentary about Leonardo’s work (Sorry I can’t remember the title) has art experts relate that the figure's shoulders are asymmetrical, making her appear unbalanced.
The obvious skill of both Michelangelo and Leonardo to encode secret information, which I strongly suspect were of the Ancient Mysteries was made possible through the patronage of the Medicis using the Knights Templars wealth. As members of the “Orders of the Quest” they knew that their work would last for centuries and would be pivotal in helping to awaken the Human Race at the Fullness of Time.
If both Michelangelo and Leonardo Da Vinci were skilled in encoding secret messages in their work, the third member of the “Orders of the Quest” was positively a master at it. Of course I am speaking of Michel de Nostradamus. There is one distinct difference between Nostradamus and the other members of the “Orders of the Quest” and that is Nostradamus was not born in Florence. In fact he was not born in Italy at all, but in the small town of Saint-Remy in Provence, Southern France.

NOSTRADAMUS

We will come across Nostradamus in several “upsteppings”, simply because his influence stretches all the way to the present era. Nostradamus’s adult life was dominated by the Black Death. After losing his wife and children in 1534 to the plague, he dedicated his life to discovering ways to defeat the illness. His practice of burning not only the bodies of those who succumbed to the plague, but also burning all their belongings was an effective method in preventing the plague’s spread.
Although Nostradamus became respected in his home town of Salon for his knowledge of medicine, his fame came later when he began forecasting the future in a series of yearly almanacs. I will not discuss the traditional interpretations of his 1000 Quatrains in his Centuries, because scholars have argued over their accuracy since his death in 1566. However, I do want to briefly address Nostradamus’ connection to the Knights Templar. An interesting documentary on the History Channel in 2008 related that behind Nostradamus’ home in Salon was a church associated with the Templars.
The church called Saint Michael of the Revelation was apparently built by the Knights Templar. On the documentary the narrator focused on the strange symbols on the doors of the church. These symbols looked decidedly “pagan” as they portrayed at the top of the door an image of Ophiuchus. Without getting into the relevance of Ophiuchus at this time, I will repeat what was related in Section 9-a, from an article we found on the web by Ian Ridpath relating a Greek myth about Ophiuchus that the Greeks identified with their Greek god of medicine Asclepius:

…Asclepius was the son of Apollo and Coronis…The story goes that Coronis two-timed Apollo by sleeping with a mortal, Ischys, while she was pregnant by Apollo…
…In a rage of jealousy, Apollo shot Coronis with an arrow. Rather than see his child perish with her, Apollo snatched the unborn baby from its mother’s womb…and took the infant to Chiron…

Chiron raised Asclepius as his own son, teaching him the arts of healing and hunting. Asclepius became so skilled in medicine that not only could he save lives; he could also raise the dead. On one occasion in Crete, Glaucus, the young son of King Minos, fell into jar of honey and drowned while at play. As Asclepius contemplated the body of Glaucus, a snake slithered towards it. He killed the snake with his staff; then another snake came along with a herb in its mouth and placed it on the body of the dead snake, which magically returned to life. Asclepius took the same herb and laid it on the body of Glaucus, who too was magically resurrected…

Someone else supposedly resurrected by Asclepius was Hippolytus, son of Theseus, who died when he was thrown from his chariot…Reaching for his healing herbs, Asclepius touched the youth’s chest three times, uttering healing words, and Hippolytus raised his head.

Hades, god of the Underworld, began to realize that the flow of dead souls into his domain would soon dry up if this technique became widely known. He complained to his brother god Zeus who struck down Asclepius with a thunderbolt. Apollo was outraged at this harsh treatment of his son and retaliated by killing the three Cyclopes who forged Zeus’ thunderbolts. To mollify Apollo, Zeus made Asclepius immortal (in the circumstances he could hardly bring him back to life again) and set him among the stars as the constellation Ophiuchus.

As Nostradamus was a member of the “orders of the Quest”, I was not surprised to find a connection between him and the Knights Templar. I was however, surprised to discover that the French seer may also have known both Michelangelo and Leonardo DaVinci. I learned of this possibility in the highly controversial book NOSTRADAMUS: the Lost Manuscript - The Code That Unlocks the Secrets of the Master Prophet79 by Ottavio Cesare Ramotti.
Before I discuss this amazing book, I need to state that one of the foremost Nostradamus scholars, John Hogue disputes the authenticity of the book. As I believe Mr. Hogue carries the consciousness of Nostradamus this presented me with quite a dilemma. Why would a reincarnation of Nostradamus dispute his own work?
Having objectively read Mr. Ramotti’s book and studied the images as we have reported we saw a strong connection between Plate 66 and our experience on April 4th 1994 in Jerusalem. After many hours of contemplation on my quandary, I came back to the fact that before incarnation the soul has a complete memory wipe and is born with a clean slate. Nostradamus had chosen to return at this time to help with Spiritual Evolution. Like all of us alive at this time, he fell under the influence of both the “Shadow” and the “Light” and has to choose whose inspiration to follow. Obviously, as I wrote in LCD when John Hogue recognized the name Nostradamus as a child, he was being influenced by the “Light” to study and bring credibility to the quatrains. Unfortunately, because of his importance to the plan, the “Shadow” was relentless in “his” attacks to make him quit. The constant challenge to his integrity has made him determined to defend his position and extensive knowledge of Nostradamus.
Nonetheless, as we have repeatedly said, in the sixteen years since we were called, Craig and I have had to completely review our beliefs, to the extent that we have learned that almost everything we thought to be true was not. It is kind-of like the character Neo in The Matrix suddenly waking up to realize that his entire world is an illusion.
As for Mr. Ramotti’s book, like everything else we read, we read it with an open mind, with absolutely no preconceived ideas. What struck us most is his use of a stone in Turin that Nostradamus visited to decode the quatrains. The naysayers of the book state that Mr. Ramotti creates his own interpretation with his code and that may be true. But consider this; he uses the same method on each quatrain, which yields legible text. If the code was purely fictitious then it would be impossible for him to obtain every time a coherent explanation of the quatrain. There is something else to consider when reading NOSTRADAMUS: the Lost Manuscript and that is the relevance of the prophecies to this time.

Anyway, it is up to each individual to make up their own mind, for Craig and I there is just too many coincidences between Mr. Ramotti’s book and our mission for us to dismiss it as fraudulent. And that is the crux of the matter; it is of no consequence whether or not the interpretation is from a genuine code created by Nostradamus, what is of consequence is the value of the information obtained by the code. To illustrate this Mr. Ramotti explains the “Technical Limits of Reading Hidden Text” by associating it with the subconscious. Conceding that the “processing of the quatrains can be accomplished in a completely technical way” he suggests that “These calculations may derive from the subconscious without being transcendental precognitions.”80 Further on Mr. Ramotti insightfully connects the interpretation of the quatrains through the computer code to accessing a type of “universal Information.” He relates, “I imagine an interchange of universal information with Jungian-type archetypes, intelligent, collective, and impersonal.” This method of obtaining information he equates to a computer being “perfectly intelligent”, but without a conscience. Moreover, Mr. Ramotti thinks the “universal archetype of the Nostradamus-wave can be used literally to obtain atemporal knowledge…”81
One of the most interesting points Mr. Ramotti makes concerns the validity of information obtained from the subconscious. He relates that “According to the Cabalists, all languages are valid because they all derive from the original sacred language: in the beginning there was the Word, and the Word was with God. There has always been a long controversy between psychology and spiritualism as to whether so-called paranormal phenomena are psychological by nature or attributable to external entities that possess a separate existence.” Mr. Ramotti likens the “controversy” to the “dispute that took place in the world of physics, concerning whether light was made up of particles or waves.” This “controversy” was reconciled when physicists discovered that light can appear as both particles and waves. He believes “The same may be true of extrasensory phenomena: the psychological and spiritual manifestations are interconnected.” Quoting a spiritual “guide” or “entity” he relates “‘If there were, on the part of the human creature, the liberty to act in full consciousness that creature would become consciousness itself, and therefore truth’. 82
The reason I have related Mr. Ramotti’s conception of how the code for the interpretation of the quatrains came about is because it correlates to the information in the Initiative. As to these “Jungian-type archetypes”, we gain a clue earlier when Mr. Ramotti describes the “Cabalistic Nature of the Stone of Turin.” Reminiscent of the Bible Code, he relates that the code could not be used until the invention of the computer and cites Nostradamus “occult euphemism” that the “computer still lay in the concavity of the Moon.” Nonetheless, Mr. Ramotti believed that spiritual intelligences assisted in the code. He wrote “With the aid of the ‘Zephirot’ (Sephiroth) the stone can be read in Italian by the following algorithm of the date 1-5-5-6 four times and 6-5-5-1 four times, for three turns. The blanks count as letters…A second message appears in the Seal of Solomon (the hexagram) by combining the same letters differently and reading them counterclockwise.”83
Leaving the deciphering of Nostradamus’ quatrains for now, I mentioned earlier that I learned from Mr. Ramotti’s book that Nostradamus knew Michelangelo and Leonardo DaVinci. He also made the association with these great men and Melchizedek:

“It is said that Nostradamus visited the Sistine Chapel while Michelangelo worked there—and it is possible that he provided some inspiration for the artist’s fantastic fresco of the Last Judgment. It seems Nostradamus also had some contact with Leonardo Da Vinci. This contemporaneity of universal geniuses can be no accident. It came about at the first unfurling of the epoch of modern man, laboriously emerging from the darkness of the Middle Ages. During the Renaissance an occult literature flourished that derived from ancient hermetic texts dating back, according to tradition, to Melchizedek, the priest of God, eternally living, who initiated Abraham in the esoteric teachings that gave rise to the Cabala.”84

One of the biggest questions I had was if Nostradamus was a famous prophet/seer (fortune-teller) in the 16th century, then how did he avoid the clutches of the Inquisition. The answer is that he had the protection of a powerful benefactress. That benefactress was Catherine de Medici. When I first investigated Nostradamus, I was surprised to find a member of the prominent Florentine Medici family in France, but I would soon learn that the Medici’s were not only in France, but also in Spain and England.

THE MEDICIS IN THE 16TH CENTURY

At the end of the 15th century the atmosphere in Italy changed in favor of the “Shadow”, which is seen in the son of Lorenzo the Magnificent, Piero de Lorenzo replacing his father as ruler of Florence. However, the “Shadow” dealt the Medici’s of Italy a devastating blow when “he” influenced conspirators to attempt the assassination of Lorenzo on Easter Sunday April 26th 1478. According to their entry on Wikipedia:

On Easter Sunday, April 26, 1478, in an incident called the Pazzi Conspiracy, a group including members of the Pazzi family, backed by the Archbishop of Pisa and his patron Pope Sixtus IV attacked Lorenzo and his co-ruler brother Giuliano in the cathedral of Florence.

Although the assassins “stabbed” Lorenzo he managed to escape. Unfortunately, Giuliano, Lorenzo’s brother and co-ruler was not so lucky and died from his wounds. The entry relates that “The conspiracy was brutally put down, with measures including the lynching of the archbishop and the death of the entire Pazzi family.” Unfortunately, the death of the archbishop behind the assassination was not the end, because Pope Sixtus (IV) was not cowed by the “punishment” of his “supporters.” Consequently:

The Medici and Florence suffered from the wrath of the Pope. He seized all the Medici assets he could find, excommunicated Lorenzo and the entire government of Florence, and ultimately put the city under interdict. Apparently an “interdict” is “an ecclesiastical penalty…A local interdict …would cause all the churches to be closed, and almost all the sacraments not to be allowed (i.e. preventing marriage, confession, anointing of the sick, and the Eucharist).

Nonetheless, this treatment did not cause Lorenzo to back down either and the Pope protected himself by making a “military alliance with King Ferdinand (I) of Naples, whose son, Alfonso, Duke of Calabria launched an invasion.” The alliance led to a stalemate between the warring factions and was only broken by the skilled diplomacy of Lorenzo.

As I said, something about the Medici family had always perplexed me. It seemed that there were aspects of the family that reflected the “Orders of the Quest”; as in Lorenzo the Magnificent supporting the arts, yet the actions of two Medicis that became Pope Leo (X) and Clement (VII) completely contradicted that assumption. Then I read about Johannes Trithemius in Secrets of the Widow’s Son.
Trithemius was a Benedictine abbot that wrote books on the black magic art of communing with angels and demons. David A. Shugarts informs us “…Johannes Trithemius …ran an abbey at Sponheim and later Wurzbürg, Germany. He lived from 1462 to 1516…Trithemius gives instruction in a system of communicating secrets through angels and demons…”85 He also informs us that one of the most influential members of the Catholic Church, Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa was a student of Trithemius.
Above I mentioned that at the end of the 15th century the atmosphere in Italy changed in favor of the “Shadow” through the actions of Pope Sixtus (IV) against Lorenzo and his brother Giuliano. As we move into the 16th century the Medici family in Italy became completely corrupted by the “Shadow” because two members of the family became popes. The article on The Medici Family on the web that I quoted earlier relates the situation at the start of the 16th century:

In December 1503, Piero de Medici drowned. His son Lorenzo was 12. Therefore his uncle, Cardinal Giovanni de Medici, was the head of the family. Under the steady approach of the Spanish army to the city of Florence, the pro-Medicean partisans skillfully encouraged by Giovanni, regained control of Florence in 1512. In the purge of the previous officials, Machiavelli was replaced by a Medicean. He then went to his country house in Percussina and wrote The Prince.
Cosimo I was the next truly important duke within the Medici family. Cosimo purged the House of Medici and the city of Florence from the foreign entanglements, and from the interference of his ministers, two areas of control which had been strong since the Savanarolan era. He became the 'Grand Duke' after conquest of the neighboring areas in 1569. Cosimo was not an extremely popular figure. While he brought Florence stability, he took away its freedom. The heirs of Cosimo lacked even his heavy-handed ability to promote stability and pursue business interests.

The mention of a “Spanish army” invading Florence brings me back to the Iberian Peninsula where the Jewish population had been expelled from the region. We left the region just before the two kingdoms of Castile and Aragon were united in 1469 with the marriage of Isabella (I) of Castile and Ferdinand (II) of Aragon. It is during their rule that the Iberian Peninsula became known as the Kingdom of Spain and with their sponsorship of Christopher Columbus’ expedition to the “New World” Spain quickly became an Empire.
Earlier I said that the Hapsburg family/Dynasty was used by the “Shadow” to promote “his” agenda, but that not all members were tools of the “Shadow.” I also addressed the fact that the Hapsburgs eventually infiltrated most of Europe including Spain. Consequently, it came as no surprise to learn from the entry for Spain that the Empire “reached its apogee during the reigns of the first two Spanish Habsburgs - Charles (I) (1516–1556) and Philip (II) (1556–1598).”
History has recorded the result of Spain becoming a world power, with the annihilation of all the indigenous culture from every country they conquered through the forcible conversion to Catholicism. However, it is the method these Catholic rulers employed in Spain to forcibly convert their citizens that shows the strongest evidence of the “Shadow”.

SPANISH INQUISITION

In 1478 Queen Isabella (I) of Castile and King Ferdinand (II) of Aragon sponsored the worst branch of the most heinous institution instigated by the “Shadow”, the Inquisition. (Note: the reason I give the full title for Isabella and Ferdinand is because throughout history there have been several kings named Ferdinand, one of them King Ferdinand (III) of Seville that ruled from 1217 to 1230 being named a saint.)

Above I discussed the devastating affect the Inquisition had on the “Orders of the Quest” in the 14th century, resulting in the curse uttered by Jacques de Molay. Nonetheless, whenever we hear the name Inquisition, the denominator Spanish automatically comes to the mind, which means this “Shadow’s” institution still has influence on the consciousness even today. Consequently, an investigation is called for, because its formation goes a long way to explain the atmosphere of terror generated for several hundred years.
Although, the Spanish Inquisition was intended to support Catholicism, unlike its earlier version that tortured the Templars, it was not directly under papal control. Instead this particular branch of the Inquisition, according to the entry for the Spanish Inquisition on Wikipedia was under “direct control of the Spanish Monarchy” and as such became a tool that the Spanish monarchs could use as and when they saw fit.
I was interested to learn from the entry that “The Spanish Inquisition was created by a multi-religious nature of Spanish society following the reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula from the Moors (Muslims)… However, the reconquest did not result in the full expulsion of Muslims from Spain, but instead yielded a multi-religious society made up of Catholics, Jews and Muslims.” Evidently, at first after the reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula the multi-religions lived together peaceably, but as people converted there became a distinction between the original Catholics and the new converts, known as “conversos” or “New Christians.” These new converts were accused of “practicing …a new mixture” of Judaism and Christianity. This became known as “Crypto-Judaism” and caught the attention of the inquisitors. The entry relates “Alonso de Hojeda, a Dominican from Seville,” approached Queen Isabella during her visit to “Seville” in 1477 and 1478, and was able to “convince her” that the new converts were not practicing orthodox Catholicism.
The infamous Spanish Grand Inquisitor, the Dominican Tomás de Torquemada together with the “monarchs” and the “Archbishop of Seville” requested a report to confirm the accusations. The report induced “The monarchs” to set loose the Inquisition in Castile to root out the “false converts.” In seeking the Pope’s approval, “At first the request was turned down for a number of reasons. One reason was that they had requested the Spanish Inquisition to be under the control of the monarchs of Spain.” Nonetheless, King Ferdinand “pressured Sixtus (IV) by threatening to withdraw military support at a time when the Turks were threatening Catholic Europe. On November 1, 1478, Pope Sixtus (IV) published the bill”, which granted permission for the Spanish Inquisition to be “established in the Kingdom of Castile”. The bull also “gave the monarchs exclusive authority to name the inquisitors.”
Wikipedia’s entry relates that initially, the Inquisitions only operated in the “dioceses of Seville and Cordoba.” Sounding almost benign, the entry states that “The first auto de fe was celebrated in Seville on February 6, 1481” Celebrate is a strange way to describe the “ritual of public penance of condemned heretics and apostates that took place” under the Spanish Inquisition. This is because although the term auto de fe translates as “act of faith”, it has come to be known as referring to a heretic “burning at the stake for heresy.” In fact, six people were burnt alive on that day. The instigator of the Spanish Inquisition Alonso de Hojeda, the Dominican from Seville that first brought the “heresy” to the attention of Queen Isabella presided over the “ceremony” and gave the sermon. This auto de fe in 1481 opened the flood-gates for the Spanish Inquisition, because “By 1492, tribunals existed in eight Castilian cities” including Córdoba and Toledo.
Although the former Kingdom of Castile was under the scrutiny of the Spanish Inquisition, the former Kingdom of Aragon was more resistant to the Inquisition moving into their region. King Ferdinand paid little attention to his “people’s” concerns and “simply resuscitated the old Pontifical Inquisition, submitting it to his direct control.” When Pope Sixtus (IV) learned of the Inquisition being established in Aragon, he issued “a new bull categorically prohibiting the Inquisition’s extension to Aragon.”
It is hard to see Pope Sixtus as being influenced by the “Shadow”, because the contents of the “bull” seemed more conducive to the agenda of the “Light.” The entry relates the contents, “the Pope unambiguously criticized the procedures of the Inquisitorial court.” The Pope’s main concern was the false “testimony of enemies, rivals, slaves and other low people” against “true and faithful” Christians. He saw the treatment of these individuals as “lapsed heretics” with imprisonment and torture as creating a “great danger to their souls, giving a pernicious example and causing scandal to many.”
Unfortunately, the Pope’s complaint fell on deaf ears and Ferdinand succeeded in having the bull suspended, and appointing “Tomás de Torquemada Inquisitor General of Aragón, Valencia and Catalonia.”
One more pope, Pope Innocent (VIII) in 1484 attempted to curb the power of the Spanish Inquisition, by permitting “appeals to Rome against the Inquisition.” Alas, this was also unsuccessful, because “Ferdinand in December 1484 and again in 1509 decreed death and confiscation for anyone trying to make use of such procedures without royal permission.”
The contest between King Ferdinand and Popes Sixtus and Innocent is a reflection of the struggle between the “Shadow” and the “Light.” As history has recorded, at this time the “Shadow” prevailed, because Ferdinand’s defiance of the pope’s bulls resulted in the Spanish Inquisition gaining such power that “the Inquisition became the only institution that held authority across all the realms of the Spanish monarchy, and, in all of them, a useful mechanism at the service of the crown.”
The Spanish Inquisition according to the entry “was extremely active between 1480 and 1530.” As this would encompass the rule of the two Hapsburg kings, Charles (I) (1516–1556) and Philip (II) (1556–1598) I saw the influence of the “Shadow.” Evidently, “Different sources give different estimates of the number of trials and executions in this period; Henry Kamen estimates about 2,000 executed, based on the documentation of the Autos de Fé, the great majority being conversos of Jewish origin.”
I will not get into the nature of the torture or the number of victims the Spanish Inquisition had, suffice to say it was several thousand. For those of you interested in learning more about the Spanish Inquisition, I would recommend the entry for them on Wikipedia, which is a thorough and intensive study on this heinous organization. At this time, I want to track the development of Kabbalism in the 15th and 16th centuries. As I said, any Jew that did not convert to Catholicism was expelled by 1492.

KABBALISTS RETURN TO THE HOLY LAND

I discussed the relocation of the Jewish population of Spain to Israel in the chapter The Crusades to WWI in LCD. Relating that:

“As most of the Jews that left Spain in 1492 were Kabbalists, a devout mystic group of Kabbalists set up a community in the village of Safed overlooking the Sea of Galilee. In the sixteenth century a leader called Moses Ben Jacob Cordovero, 1552 to 1570 C.E., had a remarkable student. His name was Isaac Ben Solomon Luria and it was through him that The Kabbalah would gain respect and prominence throughout the Jewish world.
“Luria was born in Jerusalem in 1534 C.E. After his father died, his mother had taken the young Luria to live with her rich brother in Egypt. Later, according to Daniel C. Matt in his book The Essential Kabbalah, he spent “a considerable time in seclusion on an island in the River Nile, near Cairo.”86 While living on the secluded island, he searched for spiritual truth by studying The Zohar and the writings of Cordovero, the most prominent Kabbalist of the time. Around 1569 C.E., Luria traveled to Safed to study with Cordovero.
“Matt believes that Luria’s impact on Kabbalism lay in “his saintly behavior, his occult powers, and his novel teachings,”87 and that he allegedly possessed divine inspiration. One of Luria’s “powers” was the uncanny knack of being able to trace the various incarnations of his disciples. Unfortunately, sometimes the brightest stars are also the briefest, as evinced by Luria’s premature death at the age of 38, the victim of an epidemic, which hit Safed in the summer of 1592 C.E. Like many great teachers before, most of what we know about Isaac Luria is derived from his disciples/students. As a result, we owe the recording of Luria’s teaching to his star pupil Hayyim Vital.”

RISE OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE

Soon after the Jewish population was forced to convert to Catholicism or face exile, the same fate faced the Muslims of Spain. However, the Muslims that chose exile had a choice of where to go, because an Islamic Empire had arisen in the east, which had grown from the ashes of the Byzantine Empire’s collapse.
During the Crusades Constantinople was sacked by Latin Crusaders, which as I have covered this episode in LCD, I will not repeat it here; suffice to say it was a time when the “Shadow’s influence held full sway. The relevance of the sacking of Constantinople was that according to the Wikipedia entry for the Byzantine Empire was the presence in Anatolia (Asia Minor or Modern Turkey) of the Sultanate of Rûm (Turkish for Rome). According to its entry, “In its final decades, the territory of the Seljuk Sultanate of Rûm saw the emergence of a number of small principalities or beyliks, among which that of the Osmanoğlu, known later as the Ottomans, rose to dominance.”
In 1453 the Ottoman Empire conquered Constantinople and ended the Christian rule of Asia Minor for all time. The “conquest…cemented the status of the Empire as the preeminent power in southeastern Europe and the eastern Mediterranean” and launched “a long period of conquest and expansion, extending its borders deep into Europe and North Africa.” As the Ottoman Empire “expanded” they met up with other “expanding” empires, namely the European empires. The entry relates how the Ottoman Empire was in competition with several Christian Empires during the 16th century:

Conquests on land were driven by the discipline and innovation of the Ottoman military; and on the sea, the Ottoman navy aided this expansion significantly. The navy also contested and protected key seagoing trade routes, in competition with the Italian city states in the Black Sea, Aegean and Mediterranean seas and the Portuguese in the Red Sea and Indian Ocean. The state also flourished economically thanks to its control of the major overland trade routes between Europe and Asia…
The Empire prospered under the rule of a line of committed and effective sultans. Sultan Selim I (1512–1520) dramatically expanded the Empire's eastern and southern frontiers by defeating Shah Ismail of Safavid Persia, in the Battle of Chaldiran. Selim I established Ottoman rule in Egypt, and created a naval presence on the Red Sea. After this Ottoman expansion, a competition started between the Portuguese Empire and the Ottoman Empire to become the dominant power in the region.

SULEIMAN THE MAGNIFICENT

The Ottoman Empire did not restrict its expansion to controlling the trade routes of the Mediterranean, in 1521 “Selim’s successor, Suleiman the Magnificent …conquered the southern and central parts of the Kingdom of Hungary and established Ottoman rule in the territory of present-day Hungary (except the western parts) and other Central European territories…”
When Suleiman turned his attention to the very heart of the Hapsburg dynasty in 1529, he aroused the Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand. Evidently, Suleiman had lain “siege to Vienna in 1529, but failed to take the city after the onset of winter forced his retreat.”
During the 16th century, the Ottoman Empire continued to grow, with the taking of “Transylvania, Wallachia and intermittently Moldavia”, which “became tributary principalities of the Ottoman Empire.” The empire also made inroads in the East when it “took Baghdad from the Persians in 1535.” With the conquest of Baghdad the Ottoman Empire now controlled “Mesopotamia and naval access to the Persian Gulf.” Suleiman the Magnificent is aptly named, because when his successor Selim (II) took over as Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, he ruled approximately fifteen million souls.
Because of the wars and conquests, I was not sure whose influence Suleiman was under, the “Light” or the “Shadow.” The fact that it was under his reign that both the Muslims and the Jews were safely evacuated “from Spain to the safety of Ottoman lands (particularly Salonica, Cyprus, and Constantinople) during the Spanish Inquisition”, goes a long way to demonstrate the tolerance of Suleiman. However, it is his entry describing Sulieman’s rule as the entry of the “Golden Age” that defines the main influence on Suleiman was of the “Light”:

Under Sulieman’s patronage, the Ottoman Empire entered the golden age of its cultural development. Hundreds of imperial artistic societies (called the Ehl-i Hiref, "Community of the Talented") were administered at the Imperial seat, the Topkapı Palace. After an apprenticeship, artists and craftsmen could advance in rank within their field and were paid commensurate wages in quarterly annual installments. Payroll registers that survive testify to the breadth of Suleiman's patronage of the arts, the earliest of documents dating from 1526 list 40 societies with over 600 members. The Ehl-i Hiref attracted the empire’s most talented artisans to the Sultan’s court, both from the Islamic world and recently conquered territories in Europe, resulting in a blend of Islamic, Turkish and European cultures. Artisans in service of the court included painters, book binders, furriers, jewelers and goldsmiths. Whereas previous rulers had been influenced by Persian culture (Suleiman's father, Selim I, wrote poetry in Persian), Suleiman's patronage of the arts had seen the Ottoman Empire assert its own artistic legacy…The literary historian E. J. W. Gibb observed that "at no time, even in Turkey, was greater encouragement given to poetry than during the reign of this Sultan"…
Suleiman also became renowned for sponsoring a series of monumental architectural developments within his empire. The Sultan sought to turn Istanbul into the center of Islamic civilization by a series of projects, including bridges, mosques, palaces and various charitable and social establishments…

In respect to Suleiman or (Süleyman) the Magnificent, I was amazed to learn that his wife was known as Hürrem Sultan. History has recorded she was “known to Europeans informally as simply Roxelana.” Evidently, Roxelana was born in the Ukraine to an “Orthodox priest.” The entry reports that “According to late-16th-century and early-17th-century sources”, she was “taken as a slave” by “Crimean Tatars” and eventually “to Istanbul” where she “was selected for Süleyman’s harem.”
In Islamic harems there is a kind of pecking order, with the Sultan’s “favorite concubine” ruling the harem. It seems that Roxelana caught the eye of the Sultan, which made the “favorite” who at the time was “Mahidevran (also called “Gul Bahar”, the Flower of Spring)” jealous, which resulted in a fight between the two women. Roxelana lost the fight and was “badly beaten.” Like something out of a romantic novel, when Süleyman discovered what had happened to Roxelana he “banished Mahidevran to the provincial capital of Manisa, together with her son, the heir apparent, Prince Mustafa.”
As in so many cases of representatives of the “Light”, the “Shadow” schemes to cause them to act in an unspiritual way. The most affective way for the “Shadow” to achieve his goal is to instill fear. In the case of Suleiman and Roxelana, “he” used the threat to the children of Roxelana. Consequently, when Roxelana became afraid that her son, Selim II’s succession may be challenged by his older half-brother Mustaffa, she persuaded Sulieman to have Mustafa “strangled.” Having said that on the whole, Roxelana’s considerable influence over her husband was more in line with the “Light’s” agenda. Her entry on Wikipedia explains Roxelana influenced among other things the slave trade:

Hürrem also may have acted as Süleyman's adviser on matters of state, and seems to have had an influence upon foreign affairs and international politics. Two of her letters to the Polish King Sigismund II Augustus have been preserved, and during her lifetime, the Ottoman Empire generally had peaceful relations with the Polish state. Some historians also believe that she may have intervened with her husband to control Crimean Tatar slave-raiding in her native land.
Aside from her political concerns, Hürrem engaged in several major works of public buildings, from Mecca to Jerusalem, perhaps modeling her charitable foundations in part after the caliph Harun al-Rashid's consort Zubaida. Among her first foundations were a mosque, two Koranic schools (madrassa), a fountain, and a women's hospital near the women's slave market (Avret Pazary) in Istanbul. She also commissioned a bath, the Haseki Hürrem Sultan Hamamı, to serve the community of worshipers in the nearby Hagia Sophia. In Jerusalem she established in 1552 the Hasseki Sultan Imaret, a public soup kitchen to feed the poor and the needy.

Although the 16th century saw the rise of the Islamic Ottoman Empire, the 16th century was most famous for the shake up of the Christian Church through the Reformation, instigated by Martin Luther. I reported on this extremely influential figure in the chapter The Crusades to WWI in LCD:

MARTIN LUTHER AND THE REFORMATION

“Apparently, while the exiled Jews struggled to start again in Palestine, in Germany an Augustinian monk was about to change the Church forever. Martin Luther was born in 1483 C.E. when the Renaissance was in full swing…It was also the time when the balance of power in Asia Minor was changing.
“The fall of Constantinople in the fifteenth century signaled two historical landmarks. First, it ended the Byzantine Empire and, second, it heralded the birth of the Turkish Ottoman Empire. The empire takes its name from the Arabian Prince Osman I, who founded a dynasty around 1300 C.E. Tragically; it was the conquests of the Ottoman Empire, which have led to the conflict in Kosovo in recent times. The animosity between the two sides, the Orthodox Serbians and the Muslim Bosnians, centers on a battle fought on June 13, 1389 C.E., at a place called “The field of blackbirds.” It was a fateful time for both sides, because both leaders, the Serbian Prince Lazar and the Turkish Sultan Murad I, were killed. This particular battle is believed by historians to have been instrumental in the fall of the Byzantine Empire…
“The Reformation started with Martin Luther posting 95 theses against indulgences on the door of Castlechurch, Wittenberg, Germany in 1517 C.E. Apparently Luther was angry with the Church for selling indulgences to Christians, which had become a regular practice of the Church. To explain: the Church, in order to raise money, would tell Christians they could literally “pay” penance for their “sins” reducing the time they needed to spend in Purgatory (the temporary place of punishment, for individuals who had committed other than “mortal” sins). Not only the living could benefit, the dead could also have their “sentence” in Purgatory reduced, through their loved ones buying indulgences from the Church…
“Luther came to see the Pope as the Anti-Christ and set about to destroy the hierarchy of the state Church. However, the most radical effect Luther had on the Church was over doctrine. He denied that the Mass was a repetition of the crucifixion, effectively nullifying the importance of the priest. But it was his assertion that the doctrine of transubstantiation was false that made Luther strike at the very heart of the priesthood. Obviously, the Church did not stand idly by while under Luther’s attack; like other “heretics” the Church excommunicated him in October 1520 C.E. Unperturbed, Luther simply burned the document of excommunication openly…
“After reading Luther’s vehement defense of his position, I was surprised to learn from Walter Nigg, in Heretics that Luther had joined the Church, “not out of love of God, but out of fear of the flames of hell…”88 It seems that Luther’s terror “drove him to such extremes of asceticism”89 that he fainted in his “monk’s cell in Erfurt.
“Evidently, he could not understand the seeming injustice of God. To Luther, no matter how saintly he lived, he felt a sinner in God’s eyes, and that nothing was good enough for this unjust God. Eventually, his fear and self-recrimination led to the hatred of the deity. Luther justified his feelings with the injustice of the curse of “original sin,” which in his eyes, made it impossible for humanity to redeem itself. Despite his anger and resentment of God, Luther still continued to search the scriptures.
“Nigg believes, Luther’s “sense of terror” and the spiritual battle he waged, threatened Luther’s sanity. Nevertheless, he cautions us not to make the judgment that Luther was suffering from a psychotic episode. Instead Nigg sees Luther’s experience as the result of a truly religious incident. He explains that Luther was overwhelmed by what he saw as the unreasonable demands of God on a human soul. Nigg also relates that Luther described that he “felt as if his bones had been burned to ashes.”90
This state of affairs continued for several years, until one day the light went on. In reading Romans, Luther finally understood that Paul had been referring to “merciful justice,” and that the gift of God was for us to live by faith.
After Luther was branded a heretic, Nigg informs us he looked at past “heretics” with new insight. This is evinced when Luther wrote: “unequivocally: ‘To burn heretics is against the will of the Holy Ghost.’ He also preached, “What wrathful folk have we been so long a time, we who have sought to compel the Turks by the sword, the heretics by the fire, the Jews by slaughter to come to the faith, and have uprooted the tares by violence, just as if we were folk who could reign over hearts and minds...They burn the true saints and are themselves heretics.”91
Martin Luther, like his patron Saint, Augustine advocated “A different touch” with heretics. Sadly, also like Augustine, Luther forgot his own teaching. The ordained minister Walter Nigg regretfully believes that Luther’s renunciation of the “different touch” for the traditional treatment, made him guiltier of blasphemy of the Holy Spirit than the Inquisitors. After all, he reasons, Luther had the enlightenment that the Inquisitors lacked. Reminding us that Luther had once been considered a heretic, he relates Luther’s own words “Everyone who hath the Gospel groweth too sure; thereby the spirit waxeth sluggish, careless, and slothful.”92
When, like Saint Augustine, Luther met “heretics” who did not respond to the “different touch” he copied the very actions he had so vehemently condemned. More and more he became an ecclesiastical churchman. There was no greater example of his abandonment of the “different touch” than in his dealing with the “peasant’s war.” It began in the Summer of 1524 C.E., in the region around the Black Forest. At first Luther tried to reason with the peasants, by appealing to the fact that they were fellow Christians.
However, Luther did not endear himself to the “peasants” when he informed them that inequality was a necessary aspect of the worldly kingdom. Believing that God instituted the inequality, Luther expected all Christians to accept their position in life. Unfortunately the “peasants” did not see things Luther’s way. Disheartened, and seeing that his “different touch” was failing, he urged the state to quell the rebellion by remembering that no-one was more dangerous than a “rebel.” Clearly, Luther had forgotten he had once been a rebel himself.”

With the Reformation, the Christian Church was changed forever. The Catholic Church existed with all its doctrines, but now there was another official Church, rapidly growing to equal the Catholics in numbers. The repercussions of the split would resound to this very day. For example, witness the terrorist war in Northern Ireland throughout the 20th century between the Catholic Irish Republican Army and the Protestant Orange Men. The Reformation would also act as a kind of springboard for other Christian sects to separate and form new Churches.”
Talking of different protestant sects, there was one protestant sect that was formed almost simultaneously in England to Martin Luther’s Reformation in Germany. However, the “Reformation” of the church in England was not driven by religious fervor, but the fervor of a king for a lady. The king was the infamous Henry (VIII) and the object of his desire was Anne Boleyn.

HENRY VIII AND HIS SIX WIVES

Henry (VIII) was the son of Henry the (VII), the founder of the House of Tudor, which as stated originated in Wales. Henry came to the throne of England on the 21st of April 1509 at the tender age of eighteen, but he became famous through his marital escapades in search of an heir. On the death of his older brother Arthur in 1502, according to the entry for Henry (VII) on Wikipedia “Henry (VII) renewed his efforts to seal a marital alliance between England and Spain, by offering Henry, Prince of Wales, in marriage to Prince Arthur's widow, Catherine of Aragon, the youngest surviving child of King Ferdinand (II) of Aragon and Queen Isabella (I) of Castile.”
This was the first of many times the legitimacy of his marriage would be challenged in Henry’s life-time. It seems that “In order for the new Prince of Wales to marry his brother’s widow, a dispensation from the Pope was normally required to overrule the impediment of affinity. Catherine swore that her marriage to Prince Arthur had not been consummated. Still, both the English and Spanish parties agreed that an additional papal dispensation of affinity would be prudent to remove all doubt regarding the legitimacy of the marriage.”
After obtaining a “dispensation in the form of a Papal bull” just “14 months” later Henry was engaged to be married to his brother’s widow.” It seems that Henry was none too pleased with the arrangement, because when his father “lost interest in a Spanish alliance”; Henry asserted “that his betrothal had been arranged without his consent.”
Anyway, as history proves, eventually the reluctant couple was wed and Catherine and Henry were crowned king and queen of England June 24th 1509. King Henry celebrated his nuptials by having his father’s (HenryVII) “two most unpopular ministers” arrested and “groundlessly charged with high treason” just two days after the wedding. The two men were executed a year later in 1510. The author of the entry believes this demonstrates “Henry's primary tactic for dealing with those who stood in his way.”

The figure of Henry (VIII) was one of those people that made it difficult to determine which influence he was under, the “Light” or the “Shadow”? This is because at times he was a ruthless despot, but then again “Henry was a Renaissance Man and…an accomplished musician, author, and poet.” All monarchs were obsessed with providing a male heir to succeed them, but Henry’s first child with Catherine was a girl. However, he was able to have a son with his mistress Bessie Blount in 1519, but because the child was illegitimate Henry could not openly claim him as his son. Constantly, trying to circumvent convention Henry had the boy, whose name was Fitzroy “made Duke of Richmond in June 1525 in what some thought was one step on the path to legitimatizing him. In 1533, Fitzroy married Mary Howard, Anne Boleyn’s first cousin, but died three years later without any successors. At the time of Fitzroy’s death the king was trying to pass a law that would allow his otherwise illegitimate son to become king.” The mention of Anne Boleyn brings me to Henry’s most famous second wife. But first I need to address her sister Mary Boleyn.

THE BOLEYN SISTERS AND HENRY VIII

In history class, the six wives of Henry (VIII) were covered extensively, but until recently I did not know that Anne Boleyn’s elder sister Mary was also involved with King Henry. I learned of Mary's connection to Henry (VIII) through the recent film The Other Boleyn Sister and was curious to its historical accuracy. Looking her up on Wikipedia I found the excerpts below from her entry:

Mary was probably born at the family seat in Blickling Hall, Norfolk …She was the daughter of a wealthy diplomat and courtier, Sir Thomas Boleyn and his wife, Lady Elizabeth Howard…most historians now accept her as the eldest child, placing the year of her birth as some time in 1499.
…Mary was kept in England for most of her childhood. She was sent abroad in 1514 when her father secured her a place as maid-of-honour to the King’s sister, Princess Mary, who was going to Paris to marry King Louis XII of France…Even when Queen Mary left France after she was widowed on 1 January 1515, Mary Boleyn remained, joining the court of Louis's successor, Francis I and his queen Claude.
Mary was joined in Paris by her father, Sir Thomas, and also her sister, Anne, who had been studying in the Netherlands for the last year. Mary supposedly embarked on several affairs, including one with King Francis himself…
She returned to England in 1519, where she was given the position of maid-of-honour to Catherine of Aragon, the wife of Henry VIII.
Soon after her return, Mary was married to William Carey, a wealthy and well-connected courtier, on 4 February 1520, and Henry VIII was a guest at the couple's wedding. At some point, Henry and Mary began an affair, and although the timing is unclear, some say it began in 1521…The affair is believed to have ended prior to the birth of Mary's second child, Henry Carey, in March 1526, and thought to last for five years. Her first child, Catherine was born in 1524…
Mary's sister, Anne, returned to England in January 1522, achieving considerable popularity at the royal court. The sisters are not thought to have been particularly close and they moved in different social circles...
Although Mary was alleged to have been more attractive than her sister, Anne seems to have been more ambitious and intelligent…By the middle of 1527, Henry was determined to marry her… A year later, when Mary's husband died …Henry granted Anne Boleyn the wardship of her nephew…
In 1532, when Anne accompanied Henry to Calais on a state visit to France, Mary was one of her companions…In 1534, Mary secretly married soldier William Stafford. Because Stafford was a commoner with a small income, most historians believe their union to have been a love match. When the marriage was discovered… the Boleyn family disowned her… and the couple was banished from the royal court…
Mary and her husband remained outcasts, living in retirement at Rochford Hall in Essex, which was owned by the Boleyns. After Anne’s execution, their mother retired from the royal court, dying in seclusion just two years later; her father, Thomas, died the following year. After the deaths of her parents, Mary inherited some property in Essex. She seems to have lived out the rest of her days in obscurity and relative comfort with her second husband. She died in her early forties, on 19 July 1543.

Turning to Mary Boleyn’s sister Anne, as history recorded after Queen Catherine continued to fail to give King Henry a male heir his eye turned toward the “charismatic young woman in the Queen’s entourage”, namely Anne. However, Anne refused to become Henry’s mistress. According to Henry VIII’s entry on Wikipedia she said “I beseech your highness most earnestly to desist, and to this my answer in good part. I would rather lose my life than my honesty.” With her refusal, Anne became irresistible to Henry and he determined to have her at any costs. The entry explains that “Eventually, Anne saw her opportunity in Henry’s infatuation and determined that she would only yield to his embraces as his acknowledged queen. It soon became the King’s absorbing desire to annul his marriage to Catherine.” At first Henry sought annulment of his marriage to Catherine from the Pope Clement (VII). His argument was:

The bull of Pope Julius II was obtained by false pretences; because Catherine’s brief marriage to the sickly Arthur had been consummated. Henry also petitioned, in the event of annulment, a dispensation to marry again to any woman even in the first degree of affinity, whether the affinity was contracted by lawful or unlawful connection. This clearly had reference to Anne.

After much intrigue “accurately related in Shakespeare’s play Henry (VIII), “Queen Catherine was banished from court and her old rooms were given to Anne.” Adding insults to injury, “Catherine was formally stripped of her title as queen”, and her “daughter, Lady Mary, was declared illegitimate, and Anne’s issue was declared next in the line of succession.”

THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND ESTABLISHED

Henry’s “annulment” of his marriage to Catherine laid the door open for Anne to be “crowned queen consort on 1 June 1533.” She gave birth to a daughter, Princess Elizabeth just three months later and it is this princess’ birth, which demonstrates Anne Boleyn being an instrument of the “Light.” With the legitimate crowning of Anne as Queen Consort “Parliament validated the marriage of Henry and Anne with the Act of Succession 1533.
Most notable in this declaration was a clause repudiating “any foreign authority, prince or potentate.” All adults in the Kingdom were required to acknowledge the Act’s provisions by oath and those who refused were subject to imprisonment for life. Any publisher or printer of any literature alleging that the marriage was invalid was automatically guilty of high treason and could be punished by death.”
The marriage of Henry and Anne led to the permanent “Separation from Rome.” This was cemented by the House of Commons who “prevented the Church from making any regulations without the king’s consent.” This action prompted Pope Clement to begin the process of excommunication. Clement declared the “decree of annulment to be invalid and the marriage with Anne null and papal nuncio was withdrawn from England and diplomatic relations with Rome were broken off.”
Unfazed, the House of Commons passed “several more laws”, the most relevant being “The Ecclesiastical Appointments Act 1534”, which decreed the election of “bishops”, was “nominated by the Sovereign.” If this was not defiance enough, the next three acts passed by Parliament sealed the deal so to speak. “The Act of Supremacy in 1534 declared that the King was ‘the only Supreme Head in Earth of the Church of England’ and the Treasons Act 1534 made it high treason, punishable by death, to refuse to acknowledge the King as such. In response to the excommunications, the Peter’s Pence Act was passed.” The act “reiterated that England had ‘no superior under God, but only your Grace’ and that Henry’s ‘imperial crown’ had been diminished by ‘the unreasonable and uncharitable usurpations and exactions’ of the Pope.”
As the movie title Anne of a Thousand Days portrays, the honeymoon between Henry and Anne did not last long. The entry relates that “As early as Christmas 1534, Henry was discussing with Cranmer and Cromwell the chances of leaving Anne without having to return to Catherine.” As usual, when Henry grew tired of his wife, his eyes wandered to other women. The next woman to catch King Henry’s fancy was one of Anne’s ladies in waiting, Jane Seymour. The entry records the king’s callousness towards his queen. “As Anne recovered from what would be her final miscarriage, Henry declared that his marriage had been the product of witchcraft. The King’s new mistress, Jane Seymour, was quickly moved into new quarters. This was followed by Anne’s brother, George Boleyn, being refused a prestigious court honour, the Order of the Garter, which was instead given to Jane Seymour’s brother.”
The sad brief tale of Anne Boleyn ended with her conviction of adultery, incest and High treason with five men. The additional charge of incest was included because one of the five men was her brother George. Naturally, these were bogus charges, but Henry was determined to free himself of Anne so that he could marry Jane Seymour. All five men were “condemned to death…and executed on 17 May 1536. Anne was beheaded by a sword instead of an axe two days later.
Foregoing all propriety, Henry “became engaged” the day after his wife’s execution and married Jane just “10 days later.” According to the entry Henry did not miss a beat in state affairs, annexing Wales so that England and Wales became one kingdom. The annexing of Wales was quickly “followed by the Act of Succession of 1536.” This act created the same situation for his daughter with Anne Boleyn, as the former Act of Succession of three years earlier created for his daughter with Catherine of Aragon. Now both princesses were “declared…illegitimate” and only his children with “Queen Jane” were legitimate heirs to the throne of England and Wales.

WILLIAM TYNDALE

His third marriage did not mellow Henry (VIII) and the same year as the execution of his second wife Anne Boleyn and his marriage to Jane Seymour, he sought revenge on a “Protestant Bible-translator” who had spoken out on the legitimacy of his divorce from Catherine in 1530. Doctor William Tyndale was a great agent of the “Light”, because he translated the Pentateuch (five books of Moses) and the New Testament from the Latin of the Catholic Vulgate into English. Nonetheless, when Dr. Tyndale criticized the king’s action, he incurred Henry’s wrath and “fled to Antwerp.” The entry for Henry (VIII) explains:

Doctor William Tyndale, had written The Practyse of Prelates, opposing Henry VIII's divorce with his first wife Catherine on the grounds that it wasn't scriptural. Thereafter, Tyndale fled to Antwerp, which was known for its gracious tolerance and where he carried on the work of the Reformation…

While in Europe Dr. Tyndale continued with his practice of “writing essays and books that were smuggled back over the Channel.” Nonetheless, despite Henry breaking ties with Rome and insulting Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand, he still had relations with the Holy Roman Emperor. Dr. Tyndale offended the Catholic Church, because his English translation changed some of the words. Consequently, Henry was able to persuade Holy Roman Emperor Charles (V) of Spain to have Dr. Tyndale extradited back to England.
Obviously, this was influenced by the “Shadow”, because the last thing “he” wanted was non clerical people reading the words of Jesus. The apparent derailing of Dr. Tyndale was facilitated through a member of the Hapsburg family/dynasty, who was also the grandson of Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand, the sponsors of the Spanish Inquisition.
Once in England, Henry had Dr. Tyndale “tried on a charge of heresy and summarily condemned to death.” The entry records that Tyndale was strangled at the stake before his body was burnt. Before his death, Tyndale uttered his last words, which unlike Jacques de Molay was not a curse, but a prayer: “Lord! Open the King of England’s eyes!”
I will discuss the energetic and conscious ramifications of William Tyndale a little later, but for now I wish to return to Henry’s third wife Jane Seymour, who in 1536 was now Queen of England. Henry did not have to wait long for Jane to provide him with an heir, because the next year, Queen Jane presented him with a “son, Prince Edward, the future Edward (VI).” In the 16th century childbirth was a risky business and many women did not survive childbirth. This was the case for Queen Jane, who after a difficult birth developed an infection and died shortly after.
Evidently, Henry mourned the death of Jane for a considerable time and his grief might explain why three years later in “In 1540, Henry sanctioned the destruction of shrines to saints.” Perhaps he was angry at God and wanted to lash out. Anyway, this action seems to have snapped him out of his grief, because he expressed a wish to remarry. His choice for his fourth wife was suggested by “Thomas Cromwell” who Henry had “promoted to 1st Earl of Essex.” According to the entry:

Cromwell urged Henry to marry “Anne, the sister of the Protestant Duke of Cleves, who was seen as an important ally in case of a Roman Catholic attack on England. After seeing a portrait of Anne, which he had commissioned, Henry assented to the marriage. However, when Anne arrived at court, Henry discovered that the artist’s expression of Anne was nothing like the real woman. To put it as delicately as possible, Anne of Cleves was plain. Henry was less diplomatic, referring to Anne as a “Flanders Mare.

Unable to get out of his betrothal to Anne, Henry and Anne were married “on 6 January 1540 …in Greenwich, London by Archbishop Thomas Cranmer.” After a disastrous wedding night according to the entry “Henry confided to Cromwell that he had not consummated the marriage…” Of course this was grounds to have the marriage annulled, and “The marriage was annulled on 9 July 1540, on the grounds of non-consummation and her pre-contract to Francis of Lorraine.”
Thomas Cromwell as the instigator of the marriage to Anne of Cleves was no longer trusted by King Henry and the king showed his displeasure by having him beheaded. It seems that for Henry executions and weddings go hand in hand, because the day that his former trusted advisor was beheaded in July 28th 1540, Henry married his fifth wife Catherine Howard, who was “Anne Boleyn’s first cousin and lady in waiting” when Anne was the queen. Recklessly, the young Queen Catherine “had an affair with the courtier, Thomas Culpeper.” Catherine also showed poor judgment when she “employed Francis Dereham, who was previously informally engaged to her and had an affair with her prior to her marriage, as her secretary.” Although Henry seems to have been quite enamored with his new wife, she was unpopular with Archbishop Thomas Cranmer. This was because he was “opposed to the powerful Roman Catholic Howard family.” Because of his animosity toward her, Cranmer “brought evidence of Queen Catherine’s activities to the king’s notice.”
Although reluctant to consider that Catherine had betrayed him, Henry consented to an investigation. Not surprisingly, when Catherine’s lovers were confronted, the queen’s betrayal was confirmed. The entry relates: “Catherine was executed on 13 February 1542”, having only been married for less than two years. Historians disagree over how old Catherine Howard was when she was executed, with the consensus being that she was “between 17 and 22” years of age.
It seems that King Henry was stirred by Queen Catherine’s execution to attack “England’s remaining monasteries”, because “that same year” what was left of Catholicism in England was “dissolved, and their property transferred to the Crown.” Henry did not stop with the dissolution of all the monasteries either, all “Abbots and priors lost their seats in the House of Lords; only archbishops and bishops came to comprise the ecclesiastical element of the body.”
The sixth and last wife of Henry (VIII) was the “wealthy widow Catherine Parr”, who he married a year after Catherine Howard’s execution in 1543. This Queen Catherine was no pushover, but she was no fool either. When she realized that her opinions on religious reform was angering Henry, she backed off and made “a show of submissiveness.” I think that this last wife of Henry was influenced by the “Light”, because she was instrumental in Henry “reconciling with his first two daughters, the Princess Mary and the Lady Elizabeth.” This is demonstrated when a year after their marriage, king Henry authorized an “Act of Parliament”, naming Princess Mary and Princess Elizabeth as heirs to the throne “after Edward, Prince of Wales.” However, the princesses “were still deemed illegitimate.” The reason was the “same act allowed Henry to determine further succession to the throne in his will.”
Even though Henry appeared to have mellowed some in reconciling with his daughters, historians deem his final years as “tyrannical.” The entry informs us that the “cruelty and egotism of Henry became more apparent as he advanced in years and his health began to fail.”
On balance, the reign of Henry (VIII) would have to be said as mainly under the influence of the “Shadow.” I conclude this, because he is “accredited” with executing 72,000 people during his thirty-eight year reign. Nonetheless, the “Light” was not wholly absent in England during his reign. The “Light” inspired Anne Boleyn to insist on being married to Henry before she would succumb to his advances. This is because, she was to bring forth a powerful monarch of the “Light” that would spiritually advance England before it colonized America. But before we discuss how the “Light” influenced England and how Princess Elizabeth came to the throne of England, I need to discuss the 16th century as the gateway for the first sub-race of Root-Race 7.


In this “upstepping”, as I said the Tree of Reason became fully manifested in the Earth Plane. I related in Spiritual Evolution part two that we gained a greater understanding for the designation “Tree of Reason” while watching the movie The Day After Tomorrow on TV:

“In the movie, the characters are gathering books in a library to burn to keep warm. When a librarian sits down clasping a large book to his chest, he is asked why he was holding on to the book. He replies that it is the Gutenberg Bible and that it represents the Age of Reason. To be honest, I didn’t have a clue when the Age of Reason was, so I researched it on the web and learned that although it is mostly associated from 1600 to 1699, it is also associated with the Renaissance – or from 1400 to 1599 and the Age of Enlightenment, which was from 1700 to 1799. Thinking about the Renaissance, I saw a six-pointed star and was reminded of the Astrological phenomenon called a Grand Sextile, which is the technical term for when six planets align to form a six-pointed star or a Star of David. Although this happens fairly regularly, and can be a visual confirmation of the existence of Divine forces, there are times when a Grand Sextile demarks a shift in consciousness. Such a time occurred during the Renaissance, which as well as a Grand Sextile observed an extremely rare conjunction of seven planets.”

I will cover the Astrological conjunctions a little later, but for now I wish to discuss the “shift in consciousness”, which occurred because, not only did Root-Race 5 evolve into Root-Race 7, but also the energetic and consciousness of the planet rose exponentially, because the consciousness entered the Alpha wavelength.

MAJOR CONJUNCTION AND RISE IN SCHUMMAN RESONANCE

As the Schumann Resonance is a scientific representation of Spiritual Evolution, I think it will help to review an explanation for the phenomena. To help understand the importance of this time, it may be beneficial to refer to the diagram below showing the shift into the Alpha wavelength.

AWFN8b-4The Renaissance created an atmosphere where anyone could receive inspiration, because the Alpha level (7-13 cycles per second) is present during dreaming and light meditation…” To recap: As the majority of “neurons” adapt to the Alpha wavelength, alpha waves rotate over the entire brain…it is during the Alpha wavelength that people tap into their “creativity,” which resides immediately beneath the waking consciousness.
The…alpha wavelength is the “gateway” or “entry point” to “deeper states of consciousness.” This wavelength is “the home of the window frequency known as the Schumann Resonance…
The Diagram was created by Craig to depict a vision I had in 2004, showing two depictions of the dramatic rise in Spiritual Evolution and consciousness during Globe D.

Because there was no way to measure the Schumann Resonance until the 20th century, there can be no definitive proof what level the Earth was in previous centuries. For instance, Gregg Braden, on his site tells us: “…the Schumann Resonance (or “heart beat” of Mother Earth) has been 7.8 cycles for thousands of years, but has been rising since 1980. Recent reports set the rate at over 11 cycles, and climbing.”
As shown, my vision appears to contradict Mr. Braden’s assessment on the resonance having remained at 7.8 cycles “for thousands of years”. However, I do believe that he is correct in his assessment of recent rapid climb in the Resonance, so why do I disagree with his previous statement? I believe that when we take into account all the factors involved, the data reflects a drastic change occurring during the Renaissance. Before we proceed with what changed consciously during the Renaissance, let us take a moment to consider the relevance of the Schumann Resonance.

I found an in depth article on the relevance of the Schumann Resonance on the website http://www.gurusingh.com/sound.html. The article also describes the Resonance in musical terms. I must state that the notes referred to in the article do not correlate with the notes in The Rabbi’s Tarot, which I associated to the Globes:

The planet Earth, like all celestial bodies, vibrates. The German research scientist W.O Schumann identified the dominant vibration in our Earth’s atmosphere in the mid-twentieth century. It’s now known as the Schumann Resonance with the rate of 7.83 hertz (cycles per second), a very low and inaudible C# tone. It’s important to note here that C# is the root tone of Eastern ragas (Sa) and the true middle tone of Western music. The actual significance of this Schumann Resonance on human health was only realized when we began traveling into outer space — beyond the ionosphere and beyond the Earth's vibration. In the early days of space travel, the Russian cosmonauts and the American astronauts were returning to Earth, disoriented, confused, nauseated and unable to focus. Russian and American scientists, through many experiments discovered that it was due to the absence of the Schumann Resonance in outer space. They found that the human body actually requires these sound waves in order to maintain balance, and the subsequent health and focus. Outfitting each spacecraft with a Schumann tone generator solved the problem. Human beings are literally vibrating at the harmonic fifth of the Planet Earth. From the evidence compiled by the human genome research we now know that the fundamental human DNA's wavelength is 351/702 nano-meters (billionths of a meter). This is an extremely high and inaudible G# tone. G# is the harmonic fifth of C#, the most perfect and healing harmony as Pythagoras stated 2600 years ago. This harmonic relationship between the Earth and our bodies must be maintained for optimum health. To maintain this requires that both the human body and the planet Earth be in their pure and unpolluted states. Some of the technology and all of the pollution in our modern world is blocking and disrupting these natural Schumann waves as well as distorting our human frequency. Society's physical and mental health is being threatened, particularly in our larger cities. This is why time spent in nature can be so refreshing and recharging.

In regard to the Schumann Resonance during the Renaissance, I learned that up until 1400 the Schumann Resonance was in the Theta level at 4-7 cycles per second. As the diagram above relates it rose after 1400, entering the Alpha brain wave cycle of 7-13 cycles per second. To recap what we reported earlier about the Theta level:

“Theta level occurs most often in sleep but are also dominant in the deepest state of mediation (body asleep/mind awake). The optimum level for deep thought is this realm of Theta. In Theta, the senses are withdrawn from the external world and focused on the mindscape, internally originating signals. Theta waves are associated with mystery, an elusive and extraordinary realm a person can explore. It is that twilight state which is normally only experienced fleetingly as an individual rises from the depths of delta upon waking, or drifting off to sleep. In theta a person is in a waking dream, vivid imagery flashes before the mind’s eye and they are receptive to information beyond their normal conscious awareness. Theta has also been identified as the gateway to learning and memory...and awakens intuition and other extrasensory perception skills.”

With the Schumann resonance being at the Theta level, only trained ascetics in meditation would be able to receive controlled communication from the Divine forces, accept in a dream. Could this have been why so many of the prophets gained direction through dreams?
I would have just accepted Mr. Braden’s statement that the Resonance has remained at 7.8 cycles for thousands of years, if I did not have the vision reproduced in diagram 2. However, the most important aspect to the rise in the Schumann Resonance was that it coincided with the start of the Age of Reason, which as I said, coincided with a major planetary alignment, known as a Grand Sextile, where the planets form a six-pointed star. What is more, in 1524 there was an even greater Astrological event, a “Great Conjunction…in Pisces”; including. Jupiter and Saturn. This was especially powerful, because it occurred in the Age of Pisces. From the chart below you can see that Mars, Venus, Saturn, the Sun and Mercury are in a line in the sign of Pisces, but the North Node, although in conjunction is in Aquarius. This makes six, of the Sacred Seven ancient planets involved in the conjunction, because the Moon isn’t involved. Nonetheless this was a very powerful conjunction. See below:

AWFN8b-5

Chart taken of the planetary conjunction in Pisces from the web site “Renaissance Astrology” and the web site’s address is www.renaissanceAstrology.com/Astrologyinrenaissancefour.html

In addition I was interested in how the astrologers of the Renaissance would interpret this astrological conjunction. Modern Astrology says that the tenth house represents a person’s career and reputation. It can also represent a parent. However, Renaissance astrologers had a completely different take on the houses of the chart. According to the website, they believed the 10th house represents:

…Kings, Princes, Dukes, Earls, Judges, prime Officers, Commanders in chief, whether in Armies or Towns; all sorts of Magistracy and Officers in Authority, Mothers, Honour, Preferment, Dignity, Office, Lawyers; the profession or Trade anyone useth; it signifies Kingdoms, Empires, Dukedoms, Countries…Its called the Medium coeli, or Mid-heaven, and is Feminine. Its cosignificators are Capricorn and Mars; either Jupiter or the Sun doe much Fortunate this House when they are posited therein, Saturn or South Node usually deny Honor, as to persons of quality, or but little esteem in the world to a vulgar person, not much joy in his Profession, Trade or Mystery, is a Mechanic.

AWFN8b-6The final thing I looked at was where the four extra planetary elements were located on the chart? The four modern elements of Astrology are Uranus—Uranus, Neptune—Neptune, Pluto—Pluto, and Chiron—Chiroln. Although these four planetary orbs wouldn’t be discovered for another 257, 318, 409, and 453 years respectively; because of the rise in the Schumann resonance their influence would still be relevant. During the Renaissance there was another particular interesting conjunction that lasted for eight years between 1391 and 1399. The planet Neptune—Neptune was in conjunction with Pluto—Pluto in Gemini—Gemini and was opposite Uranus— Uranus in Sagittarius— Sagittarius. This major alignment of the three outer planets signaled “the birth-point of the European Renaissance and age of exploration."

When I used my Astrological program, Solar Fire, I was amazed to see Neptune—Neptune in Pisces—Pisces and in conjunction with the Sun—Sun, Mercury—Mercury, Venus—Venus, Jupiter—Jupiter, and Saturn—Saturn. Moreover, Chiron—Chironwas in Aquarius—Aquarius and in conjunction with the Sun—Sun, Mercury—Mercury, and Neptune—Neptune. There were multiple square aspects between the Moon—Moon and Uranus—Uranus, which are both in the 12th house, the house that is traditionally ruled by Pisces—Pisces. See chart (left):


Chart of Modern Solar Fire chart, displaying all eleven Astrological elements

There is one more Astrological element that is relevant to the shift in consciousness during the 16th century. This event occurred a year after the great conjunction and was promoted by the occultist Trithemius. Although I mentioned him earlier in reference to communicating with angels, it was not until I read THE SECRET ARCHITECTURE OF OUR NATION’S CAPITAL: The Mason’s and the Building of Washington DC93 By David Ovason that I discovered his true relevance to this “upstepping.” Mr. Ovason relates that 1881 held particular significance because:

“Esotericists (of which there were many in the United States at that time) knew that this was the year which the great fifteenth century abbot and occultist, Trithemius von Nettesheim, had predicted would mark a fundamental turning point in history…Trithemius claimed that the era which had commenced in 1525, under the guidance of the Planetary Angel of the Moon, would come to an end in 1881.”94

TRITHEMIUS

After researching this enigmatic figure of the Renaissance, I came to the conclusion that he was a member of the “Orders of the Quest.” Using the ever helpful Wikipedia site, I learned that Johannes Trithemius who was born in 1462, “was born Johann Heidenberg.” The name Trithemius “is derived from his native town of Trittenheim on the Mosel in Germany.” There were two particular pieces of information in the entry that revealed Trithemius as an agent for the “Light.” The first was after being elected abbot at the Benedictine abbey of Sponheim in 1483 when he was only twenty-one, “He set out to transform the abbey from a poor, undisciplined and ruinous place into a centre of learning.” His efforts resulted in the library being increased four-fold from “around fifty items to more than two thousand.”
Evidently, Trithemius had a “reputation as a magician”, which brings me to the second piece of information that confirms he was a member of the “Orders of the Quest.” Trithemius was a great teacher, teaching probably the most famous alchemist in history, Paracelsus.
Even if I was unaware of the connection to alchemy through Paracelsus, I would have been alerted to Trithemius being an agent of the “Light”, simply because a century later his “most famous work…Steganographia” was considered a forbidden book by the Church and placed on the “Index Librorum Prohibitorum” in 1609, which roughly translates as forbidden books.
Today Trithemius is recognized for cryptography and stenography, rather than a teacher of magic. His book cited above is seen to contain a “formulae”, which are “cover texts for yet more cryptography content. The work has lent its name to the modern field of steganography.”
In looking up “Steganography” I discovered it is the “art and science of writing hidden messages.” It is important to remember that it was extremely dangerous for anyone to disagree with the Church in the Middle-Ages. Anyone caught promulgating a different doctrine, was condemned as a heretic and was burnt at the stake. Trithemius’ role was to invent a means for enlightened scholars and philosophers to communicate and share ideas with one another, thereby promoting the advancement of knowledge. The entry for Steganography relates how Trithemius achieved this:

The word steganography is of Greek origin and means ‘concealed writing’. The first recorded use of the term was in 1499 by Johannes Trithemius in his Steganographia, a treatise on cryptography and steganography disguised as a book on magic.

ANGEL OF THE MOON

Above I related that “Trithemius claimed that the era which had commenced in 1525, under the guidance of the Planetary Angel of the Moon, would come to an end in 1881.” This appeared to be cause for celebration, so why would the end of the era of the Planetary Angel of the Moon be a cause for celebration? It was very difficult to find any information on the “Angel of the Moon” and after an extensive search for the Angel of the Moon on the web all I could I discover was a brief reference to an archangel called Qaphsiel. However, in our many books on angels, including David Godwin’s, Godwin’s Cabalistic Encyclopedia: Complete Guidance to Both Practical and Esoteric Applications95, I did discover that one of the designations for the Archangel Gabriel was the Angel of the Moon.
Assigning Gabriel to the role of Planetary Angel of the Moon is problematic, because this archangel is associated with some of the most important religious events, such as revealing the Quran to Mohammed. I mentioned earlier my problem with the Archangel Gabriel, so I will not repeat it here. However, it is thought provoking that Trithemius considered the end of the era of the Planetary Angel of the Moon a cause for celebration. Remembering what was said earlier about gaining access to the Astral Plane; obviously as a member of the “Orders of the Quest” Trithemius new of the problem connecting to the Astral plane with the possibility of connecting with the reverse side of the Sephirot, the Qliphoth, not to mention the “Shadow.”
If you re-examine the Tree of Life, you will see the Sephirot Yesod is assigned to the Moon, which is in the Plane of Yetzirah or the Astral Plane. Because of the corruption caused by Jacques de Molay’s curse, the reverse side of the Sephirot, the Qliphoth came into play, so to speak. The result in the shift in consciousness, through the rise in Schumann Resonance enabled the Qliphoth and other spiritual entities in the Astral Plane direct contact with anyone who sought them out.

AWFN8b-7AWFN8b-8In Spiritual Evolution Part Two Craig demonstrated the difference in two versions of the Tree of Life; the one on the right as you look at the page represents the traditional Sephirot, whilst the one on the left with the reverse paths represents the Qliphoth.
I believe the main reason for Trithemius informing his fellow members of the “Orders of the Quest” that the era of the Planetary Angel of the Moon was about to begin, he was not warning of the rule of Gabriel, but that there would be access to the realm of the Moon.

Nonetheless, the era of the Angel of the Moon was not all bad, because there is always balance in the Soul Plane; consequently, although the shift in consciousness resulted in the increase of the practice of black magic, it also advanced the cause in spiritual knowledge. This was because of the presence of the “Light” in the Astral Plane. If you look at the Plane of Yetzirah in the Tree of Life, you will observe that apart from the Sephiroth Yesod, there are two other Sephirot in the plane, Hod and Netzach. Astrologically, these Sephiroth represent the planets Mercury and Venus, which as you know are also the planetary energies for Melchizedek and Sophia. What this means is that when the astrological and consciousness energies shifted in 1525, the “Orders of the Quest” had a clearer connection to Melchizedek and Sophia.
However, there was another aspect to this period we need to consider and that is the energetic affect of the emergence of Root-Race 7. With the emergence of the last Root-Race on Globe D, the next stage in my vision became manifested. That stage was the 33rd pathway through Daath from the Tree of Reason to the Tree of Truth. See below:

AWFN8b-9

There were several changes brought about by the shift in energy that occurred in 1525. The most important was the “Light” could influence people without them necessarily being aware of it. Putting it another way, because of the shift, the “Light” can work with many individuals, inspiring and guiding them; some for a propitious moment.
This change appeared to give the “Light” the advantage and in many ways it did, because although the “Shadow” had used this ability from the onset, “he” was limited by the sheer size of “his” consciousness. Let me explain, the Divine Forces are universal and therefore “huge” so to speak, but the “Shadow” as the “prince of this world” was and is created by the consciousness of the Human Race, which is contained to our Solar System and therefore finite.
Unfortunately, because of the different agendas between the “Light” and the “Shadow”, “he” still had the advantage, because “he” was “free” to contact and manipulate individuals into furthering “his” agenda. But because of the “Light’s” agenda of empowering the Human Race, by self development, most of the time “they” would not interfere.
Nonetheless, there was another change resulting in the consciousness shift of 1525. This was that Sophia and her partner What-has-been-Willed were able to fully incarnate as a normal man and woman again and begin there reconnection through multiple lives. Most of the incarnations were inauspicious, however, there was one distinct difference between their multiple reincarnations and other human souls, Sophia and her partner never switched gender. Normally, in order for a soul to reincarnate, the masculine and feminine principles divide and they can be born as either a man or woman. But as the purpose for Sophia and What-has-been-Willed incarnations were to reconnect as partners, they remained in their own spiritual principles, and incarnated together in every relationship a male and female can have with each other.
Melchizedek also began incarnating on Earth in order to help assist the “Light,” but his incarnations mainly involved the “Orders of the Quest.” Something I must say to qualify these statements concerning the physical incarnations of Divine beings. As I said above, their consciousnesses are “huge” and therefore it is only a minute portion that incarnates, the majority remains in the Soul Plane, guiding the representatives of the “Light”; including their individual incarnations. A good analogy of this is to think of the Earth representing the portion of the consciousness that incarnates and the entire Universe representing the rest that remains in the Soul Plane. This is why I have continually said that it is impossible to understand the spiritual workings of the Divine Plane.

Although Sophia did not incarnate as an important figure for the “Light”, there was an outstanding female representative of the “Light” in the 16th century, which the “Shadow” did everything to prevent fulfilling her incarnation’s purpose. The individual I am referring to was King Henry (VIII) and Anne Boleyn’s daughter Elizabeth.

PRINCESS ELIZABETH

Before we discuss Princess Elizabeth let us take a moment to catch up on the events after the death of her father king Henry (VIII). The entry on Wikipedia for Elizabeth reports that Henry “was buried … next to his wife Jane Seymour” and that his son Edward (VI) took the throne at only nine years of age in 1553. Obviously, a child that young could not rule the country, consequently his executors had control. According to the entry, Henry VIII’s last will and testament assigned “16 executors to serve on a council of regency until Edward reached the age of 18. The executors chose Edward Seymour, 1st Earl of Hertford, Jane Seymour’s elder brother, to be Lord Protector of the Realm.”
During “Edward’s” reign the Church of England was fully established, but there were still Catholic factions in England that hoped to place a Catholic monarch on the throne of England. The likeliest candidate for this was in the person of Princess Mary, the daughter of the Catholic Queen Catherine of Aragon. According to the entry for Edward (VI) “When Edward fell terminally ill in 1547, he and his Council drew up a ‘Devise for the Succession’ in an attempt to prevent a Catholic backlash against the Protestant Reformation.”
Evidently, the young king did not want either of his half-sisters to take the throne and proceeded to name “cousin Lady Jane Grey as his heir.” Edward never recovered from his illness and died in 1553, having only “reigned” for six years. Edward’s choice for successor, Lady Jane Grey’s reign never gained legitimacy and after just nine days, she was supplanted by The Catholic Queen Mary, who immediately set about rescinding “many of Edward’s Protestant reforms.”
As for Princess Elizabeth, earlier I said that the “Light” inspired Anne Boleyn to insist on marriage before “succumbing” to Henry VIII’s advances. The reason was to ensure the legitimacy of her daughter Princess Elizabeth. The entry reports that Anne’s coronation was different from other queen consort coronations: “Anne had been crowned with St. Edward’s crown, unlike any other queen consort, while carrying Elizabeth. Historian Alice Hunt has suggested that this was done because Anne’s pregnancy was visible at the moment of coronation and she was carrying an heir who was presumed to be male.”
As stated, after the death of her mother Elizabeth “was declared illegitimate and deprived of the title of princess”, but that she was reconciled to her father with the help of his sixth wife Queen Catherine Parr. According to her entry on Wikipedia, “Elizabeth’s first Lady Mistress, Lady Margaret Bryan, wrote that she was “as toward a child and as gentle of conditions as ever I knew any in my life.” Princess Elizabeth’s education was reportedly extensive, particularly after Blanche Parry became the “Chief Gentlewoman of the Privy Chamber” in 1565. Blanche must have been an accomplished teacher, because when “William Grindal became her tutor in 1544, Elizabeth could write English, Latin, and Italian. Under Grindal, a talented and skillful tutor, she also progressed in French and Greek.” All of these languages would serve her well in her future role as Queen of England. The entry sums up Elizabeth’s education in saying “By the time her formal education ended in 1550, she was the best educated woman of her generation.”
Although at the time when Lady Jane Grey was deposed as Queen and Mary “rode triumphantly into London”, Elizabeth was by her side, the entry relates this “show of solidarity between the sisters did not last long.” Almost immediately the Catholic Queen Mary “was determined to crush the Protestant faith in which Elizabeth had been educated.” To that end she decreed that everyone “attend Mass”, including her half-sister Elizabeth.
Above I mentioned that the “Shadow” did everything to prevent Elizabeth fulfilling her incarnation’s purpose. We see the “Shadow’s” influence in Queen Mary’s intention to unite England with Spain, by marrying “Prince Philip of Spain, the son of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V.” Nonetheless, the English populace was none to happy with the prospect of returning to Catholic domination and began to see Elizabeth as the savior of the Protestant Reformation in England.
The entry recounts that “In January and February 1554, uprisings broke out.” These “uprisings”, which were widespread in England and Wales, were “known as Wyatt’s rebellion.” Although the rebellion had wide support it still failed. Holding Elizabeth responsible for the rebellion, Mary summoned Elizabeth to the “court” to be “interrogated.” It seems that Elizabeth was unable to convince her half-sister of her innocence, because in March of 1554, Elizabeth was “imprisoned in the Tower of London, where Lady Jane Grey had been executed on 12 February to deter the rebels.”
Although two of Mary’s advisors, who were agents for the “Shadow” tried to persuade the queen to execute Elizabeth, other advisors and agents for the “Light” were able to convince her otherwise. The ironical thing was the argument that Mary would not be safe while Elizabeth lived brought by ambassador for Charles V, Simon Renard and the Chancellor Stephen Gardiner was correct. This was because, Elizabeth had wide public support as seen when she was transferred from the Tower of London to “Woodstock.” Evidently, “Crowds cheered her all along the way.”
After spending a year under house arrest at Woodstock, Elizabeth returned to the royal court “on 17 April 1555.” The reason she returned to the court was because Queen Mary claimed she was about to give birth and wanted Elizabeth present in case she did not survive the birth. However, it seems that Mary was not even pregnant. Once this became known, support for Mary’s reign evaporated and “Elizabeth’s succession seemed assured.”
Elizabeth’s claim was even supported by Mary’s former suitor, “Philip, who became King of Spain in 1556.” It seems that Philip’s support was pragmatic, because he preferred the throne of England being occupied by Elizabeth, rather than the “alternative, Mary I, Queen of Scots, who was betrothed to the Dauphin of France.” Anyway, Philip’s support was not needed because Elizabeth had the support of her half-sister Mary, who in 1558 recognized Elizabeth as her rightful heir. Just “Eleven days later, Elizabeth succeeded to the throne when Mary died at St. James’s Palace on 17 November 1558.”
And so Sophia and Melchizedek, working through the “Orders of the Quest” succeeded in infusing England and Wales with the “Light.” The 15th and 16th centuries in England were a game of cat and mouse between the forces of the “Shadow” and forces of the “Light.” It began with Henry VII taking the throne in 1485. As stated, Henry (VII) harbored a desire to unite Spain and England through the marriage of his son the Prince of Wales, Prince Arthur and the daughter of Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand, Princess Catherine of Aragon. After the death of Arthur Henry (VII) was unfazed, simply replacing Arthur as the groom, with his second son Henry.
On the face of it this does not appear as too Machiavellian, but in truth, making the daughter of Isabella and Ferdinand the wife of Henry VIII and Queen of England was a powerfully strategic move on the “Shadow’s” part. Catherine was thoroughly infused with the “Shadow”, because she had been exposed to the energies of Spain, which were contaminated by the energies of the Spanish Inquisition. As for Henry (VIII), he was a very weak character that was easily subverted. We see this in his actions with women. In fact it was this very weakness that allowed the “Light” to manipulate Henry into putting one the most powerful promulgators of the “Light” on the throne of England, Elizabeth. Henry was affected through Catherine by the energies of Spain; compare his actions with his father-in-law King Ferdinand. Both monarchs became the supreme power over religious authorities in their kingdoms; Ferdinand the Spanish Inquisition, and Henry the Supreme ruler of the Church of England. Nonetheless, the “Light” succeeded in subverting the “Shadow’s” agenda in England during the 16th century. Unfortunately, the “Shadow” retired to Europe so to speak to mount a counter-attack against the “Light.” I will examine “his” success or failure in the next “upstepping”, but first we will discuss the reign of Queen Elizabeth and how she advanced the agenda of the “Light” for not just England, but for the entire world.
Back to List at Top of Page

Back to Top

 

IDEA Foundation Home
Triple 7 Center Home
PNEUMA-YOD Home
Gongs Of Change Home

Living Knowledge Page

I.

D.

E.

A.