From: tyagi@houseofkaos.abyss.com (nigris (333)) Newsgroups: alt.magick.tyagi,alt.freemasonry,alt.magick,talk.religion.misc,alt.conspiracy,alt.history Subject: Templar History, Lineage Date: 23 Mar 1997 12:39:13 -0800 Message-ID: [Orig-To: thelema93-l@hollyfeld.org (Thelema93-Listserv); followups targetted] 49970228 AA1 Hail Satan! (a bit of adventure into Orderly history) E6 paulhume@lan2wan.com (Paul Hume): #> Templars: You asked about documentation on Templar survivors. The phrase #> in Gerald's post (I think - I have lost track of who said what) "escaped #> into Germany" is not quite accurate. The Order in France was thoroughly #> destroyed by Phillip, and doubtless some members managed to get out of #> the country - but we need to remember that the Templars were an #> international organization (one basis of that "banker" label people seem #> so fond of tossing around). Tim Maroney : # Is there some controversy as to whether Templars survived the suppression # of the Order? I'd thought the controversy lies less with the survival of the *people* and more with whether the ORDER survived. this gets into issues of what constitutes the beginning and ending of an Order, who has to survive such that an (esp. one centralized) Order may be 'legitimately' said to have had an uninterrupted lineage, etc. # The Order itself was suppressed but not condemned. It was not a crime # to have been a Templar and most of those who had been jailed before # were released -- some with pensions. The few dozen burned by Philip # were only the tiniest part of the Order. The vast majority went on # to live normal agrarian lives. however, what I hear/read more often (not being thoroughly studied in this subject, btw) is that this "tiniest part" was the *administration* of a fairly centralized structure. the 'Grand Master' of the entire Order (de Molay) and his Upper Echelon (whose titles are Seneschal, Marshal and Commanders of various sacred geographical regions) were those captured and presumably killed by King Philip IV (the Fair) of France in association with Pope Clement IV and his edict to the kings of Europe of 1307. #> Most of the nations of Christendom followed Innocent's dictum and purged #> the Templars. Pope Innocent? or Clement? # Perhaps we use different meanings of the word "purged". My understanding # from Malcolm Barber's books is that many nations did heed the papal # dictate to hold the Templars awaiting trial, but they did not have any # reason to continue to hold them after the Order was dissolved. I'm very curious about the diversity of description on this point. I have variously heard that the Templars were either all killed or run out of town after or during the dessication of the Order's admin, or that it was a moderate beheading which sprouted new roots elsewhere or underground, or that de Molay was substituted and survived the escapade so as to prove a healthy continuation of the fabled lineage. I had presumed that the truth lay somewhere in-between and have seen little to indicate that the Order as a whole survived the assault, modern varieties being related only 'in spirit', not through unbroken historical continuation. then again I haven't read any of the texts about which you and Paul are speaking, only spoken with a few Orderlies. ;> #> John Robinson (whose historical research is much better than Baigent #> and Leigh's.... # I would not believe one thing that John Robinson writes without # confirmation, .... #> Peter Partner (The Knights Templar and Their Myth, also in an edition #> called The Murdered Magicians), and John Robinson (Dungeon, Fire, #> and Sword, as well as his Masonic speculation, Born In Blood). # The two best current mainstream historical sources on the Templars are # both by Malcolm Barber, and both from Cambridge University Press. The # first is "The Trial of the Templars"; the second is "The New Knighthood". # again, I must caution all readers to shun John J. Robinson's inane books # on the subject. hmm, as I said, there does appear to be a lack of uniformity on this subject, at least in the popular forums. I respect both Paul's and Tim the Wizard's sources generally, and so am intrigued to see if they will be able to resolve this difference between them. do either of you have a review (as a popular source, not a thorough study) of the book _The Templar Tradition_, by Gaetan Delaforge? I found it an interesting read, regardless of how well founded it may be. the mystical underpinnings of the tradition he presents (which I presume is modern) strike me as worthy of mention, if somewhat in need of fleshing out. his contention as regards the survival of the Templars beyond the 1314 stake-burnings is followed by some other material I dug up from the KausHaus library (public, reference, by arrangement, San Jose, CA): Elsewhere in Europe [than in France], the Templars... went into decline.... In the British Isles there was much sympathy for the Templars, and in typically British fashion some sort of formula was initially worked out whereby the Templars were permitted to keep their property and allowed as private individuals to remain in the Catholic Church. But eventually many of them suffered as their French brothers had done. In Portugal King Dinis refused to persecute the Templars but avoided a confrontation with the papacy by creating a new order and integrating the Templars into it. In March 1319 Pope John XXII authorized the founding of the Order of Christ, the name given to the new Order. The headquarters of the Order of Christ was established in Tomar in 1356. The last true Grand Master of the Order was Don Lopo Dias de Sousa. After him the sons of the king administered the Order.... The Order of Christ became a secular order in 1789, and its last chaplains left Tomar in 1834. The Order still exists today but bestows purely honorary titles. In Spain the tradition of warrior monks found its expression through the Order of the Knights Templar and four national orders: the Orders of Calatrava, Santiago, Alcantara and Montesa. The national orders were not controlled by the international Templar hierachy. They were, however, with the exception of the Order of Santiago, linked with the Cistercian Rule of Citeaux in one way or another. Santiago was given a Rule directly by Rome. The Order of Calatrava was the first military order established in Spain. It observed the monastic Rule of Citeaux and was accepted as an Order in 1164 by Pope Alexander III, but only in November 1187, after much effort by the Spanish, was it conformed as a Cistercian branch.... The last Grand Master of the Order, Don Garcia Lopez de Padilla, died in 1482. The Order was taken over by the crown in 1485, and deteriorated gradually after first limiting membership only to candidates of noble origin and then, in 1540, authorized knights to marry. The remainder of the history of the Order is more or less the history of all the orders in Spain. On 25 July 1835 the Spanish Government suppressed the monasteries. Around the middle of the nineteenth century a Concordat was signed between Rome and the ruling Spanish sovereign which decreed that all the military orders should be grouped in one territory within the province of Ciudad Real. This arrangement was abolished under the Second Republic. In 1939 the orders were allowed to revive but only as purely formal institutions with the right to confer honorary titles. After the Order of the Knights Templar was abolished, King Jaime II of Aragon resisted the handing over of the property of the military orders to the then Hospitallers. When John XXII succeeded Clement V, he agreed to the solution of creating a new Order in Spain. Thus the Order of Montesa was founded in June 1317, under the first Grand Master Guillen de Eril. A certain number of Knights Templar, as well as those belonging to the national orders, survived by attaching themselves to the new Order. Like the Order of Christ in Portugal, the Order of Montesa was considered to be the legitimate successor of the Temple Tradition and until it was tampered with by royalty, it remained linked to the Cistercian Rule through its close relationship with what survived of the Order of Calatrava. Certain specialists in the history of the Templars claim they have reason to believe that the secret documents and relics of the Templars were spirited away for safekeeping before they could be seized by Philip the Fair. It is said, for example, that the treasure of the Templars was hidden in the Castle of Arginy by Jacques de Molay's nephew, Philippe, Comte de Beaujeu. Many books have been written advancing various theories as to the hiding places of these treasures. Fortune hunters of all kinds have sought these objects, but so far no one seems to have found them. As to the question of what happened to the Order in France after the death of Jacques de Molay, the situation has never been clarified. There have been claims that while in prison, de Molay passed on his succession in due form, with orders to perpetuate the Tradition in secret while awaiting friendlier times. This has led to the belief that both Freemasonry and the Rosicrucian tradition were infiltrated early in their history by secret Templars. Those who support this view point to the existence of a degree in Masonry called the Degree of the Knights Templar. In more recent times the mother of the modern Western esoteric tradition -- the Order of the Golden Dawn -- is also said to have had Templar origins. _The Templar Tradition in the Age of Aquarius_, by Gaetan Delaforge, Threshold Books, 1987; pp. 57-9. __________________________________________________________ other sources I find indicate the following (some concernign the legend rather than the history): Masonic scholars have long sought to learn the origin and development of Masonry; many have seen in the Knights Templar, numerous parallels to suggest this Order practised the Masonry of the Middle Ages. The Knights Templar were ordered to disband and relinquish all their possessions by Pope Clement V in 1307. Many were imprisoned in France and executed or tortured at the order of Philip the Fair. These impoverished and persecuted Knights sought refuge in other countries, joining acceptable orders or changing their name. In the *Legenda* we read the story that in Scotland they found protection and joined the army of King Robert Bruce. Since the Templars' assistance was vital to the victory of Bruce over Edward II of England, this legend tells us Bruce created the Order of Saint Andrew of Scotland, thereby subsuming the Templars into the Scottish system of knighthood. ---------------------------------- _Bridge to Light_, by Rex R. Hutchens, 32' K.'.C.'.C.'.H.'., The Supreme Council (Mother Council of the World) of the Inspectors General Knights Commander of the House of the Temple of Solomon of the Thirty-third and last degree of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry of the Southern Jurisdiction of the United States of America, 1988; commentary on the 28th', Council of Kadosh, p. 272. ___________________________________________________________ Legend tells us that the possessions of the Knights Templar, seized under the Papal Bull of 1312, which ultimately resulted in the death of Jacques de Molay, were distributed to the Knights of Rhodes, formerly Knights of St. John, who later became the Knights of Malta. Their acceptance of the Templar possessions generated hostility against the Knights of Malta. Ibid, p. 319. [most of this work is based on Pike's _Morals and Dogma, it seems; 333] __________________________ Finally, through the malice and greed of Philip the Fair of France and the weakness of Pope Clement V, the Templars were arrested in France on a single night in 1307. (Philip had established a precedent for this by similarly arresting every French Jew eight years before). The Pope, under Philip's direction, issued a European edict requiring all nations to arrest the Templars within their borders. The edict was ignored or cursorily complied to by several nations, notably Germany, Scotland, Spain and Portugal. However, the French, Italian and English Temples were destroyed, thousands of knights killed over the next seven years and the vast wealth of the Order confiscated by civil and religious authorities.... Templar survivors generally changed the name of the Order, joined fellow Orders like the Hospitallers, or went quietly underground. It is our contention that they continued to teach the doctrines and techniques they had learned and developed in the East -- the "secret teaching" of the Order. We further posit that this closely guarded teaching gave rise to the flourishing of the occult arts in Europe. ----------------------------------------------------- _An Introduction to the History of the O.T.O._, by Fr. Ad Veritatem IX', GSGOTO, 1985; as contained within Equinox III:10, edited by O.T.O. (H.Beta), Samuel Weiser, 1990; p. 91-2. _____________________________________________________ When, in November 1307, the pope ordered the kings of Europe to arrest every Templar in their territories, all except Denys of Portugal took the opportunity of plundering such wealth. Though the goods of the Templars were finally made over to the Hospitalers, precious little slipped out of the hands of the kings; and the Hospitalers were careful to refuse such possessions as might lead them into conflict with the secular power. Jacques de Molay, who, like Ridfort and the last Old Man of the Assassins, had runed his sect by ordering it to surrender and confess, ended by retracting his confessions and enying all the evil he had spoken of of his order. In 1314, when he was brought out onto the scaffold in front of Notres Dame to receive his sentence, he declared: "I confess that I am indeed guilty of the greatest infamy. But the infamy is that I have lied. I have lied in admitting the disgusting charges laid against my Order. I declare, and I must declare, that the Order is innocent. Its purity and saintliness have never been defiled. In truth, I had testified otherwise, but I did so from fear of horrible tortures." He was burned alive the following day. So ended the Templars, the victims of the greed of kings and their own pride and wealth. The Assassins, curiously enough, survive to this day in India as part of the Ismaili sect whose spiritual head is the Aga Khan. But the Templars have gone the way of all secret societies whose power seems to constitute a threat to the state. As a 14th-century poet asked: The brethren, the Masters of the Temple, Who were well-stocked and ample, With gold and silver and riches, Where are they? How have they done? They had such power once that none Dared take from them, none was so bold; Forever they bought and never sold.... Until they were sold to satisfy the greed of kings, in whom the state was sovereign and indivisible. ------------------------------------------------ 'The Assassins and the Knights Templar', by David Annan, as contained with _Secret Societies_, edited by Norman MacKenzie, Aldus Books, 1967; pp. 107-8. ________________________________________________________ please quote from the books you cite whom you think authoritative, and I'll add them all into an archived file at Hollyfeld. I've done this occasionally and there is quite a stash of Templar material to be found there (one or more of the above may even be duplicates). to be posted to Usenet. review and comment please.