Posted on 11/29/2004 2:57:11 PM PST by blam
Bump and print for night-time reading. [ It will be a nice change from reading catalogues for the mad dash to order stuff for Christmas. :( ]
There are many histories, and tomorrow I'll try to get you a list (if I don't, please Freepmail me). You can draw your own conclusions.
My sense is that some members were perfectly orthodox, and others were not, particularly in France. Politics definitely intervened (French politics, the worst of the worst), and I think this has got to be taken into consideration, too. However, one of the real reasons that religious orders were suppressed in the past is simply that they had outlived their usefulness and their mission was going astray or going nowhere. I think this had a lot to do with the suppression of the Templars.
One of the things that makes me feel they may have been unorthodox, however, is their large contemporary following among the New Age fruits and nuts of this world. If orthodox Christians can recognize orthodoxy, then fruits and nuts can recognize heterodoxy, and they seem to have been doing it abundantly in the case of the Templars.
Very interesting, thanks!
Thanks - the English lodges are no doubt the origin of US lodges. Continental lodges seem to have been quite different, but this wouldn't have affected most American Masons, I imagine.
It's an interesting topic whatever conclusions are drawn from the speculation and historical discussions.
Did you ever see the campy film The Minion which starts with an archaeological Templar discovery under New York at the very beginning?
Bump for later read.
Oh hell, I couldn't care less about their "mysticism".......what has always impressed me about the Knights Templar was their reknown for kicking serious Muslim ass.
These guys were shock troops / Special Forces of their day. Amazing warriors. The Muslim forces feared them; outright scared s**tless of them. They were every bit the equal or better of any force they ever met in combat, and they usually fought while vastly outnumbered.
Some here can take their catty little potshots, but you're talking about one of the best fighting forces in world history.
He then said:"They have accepted my apologies on behalf of Catholic men who had erred but interestingly,none have paused to even wonder if their ancestors may have trangressed against us". I really got a hearty laugh out of that,the Pope so understates things. Obviously the reporter caught on but I never heard another word about it. However,I have not heard the Pope apologise to anyone since. i really thought he was attempting to get people and nations to examine their own consciences or national consciences but had no clue on how averse folks are to accepting responsibility for their own sins and crimes.
BTW,I always thought the Monica affair was dusted up and thrown out to bring the TV coverage of the Pope's visit to Cuba to a halt. The media was worried lest people start thinking seriously about religion and Catholicism. If you recall the whole thing broke the evening before the official visit began. All of the big newsmen were down in Cuba and had to get toodling back to D.C. that night. The Pope arrived but few cameras and no notable newspersons were there.
Something less drastic but similar happened when the Pope came to Denver.CBS,at least in Phoenix,was set to do a 20 minute segment on the Pope,just as it started it was interrupted and we got 20 minutes of a scene in a CChicago police station. They were showing people storming the front desk of a Chicago precinct house,supposedly because they had just learned that the body of Micheal Jordon's father had been found. He had been murdered in the south,strangest thing,never could understand it except in terms of providing an exuse not to cover the Pope.
The debates on the speculative literature, esoterica, and other apocryphal legends certainly have their fair share of interest.
I don't think any of the Templars survived. But what did survive - and what was a threat to church and state - was their knowledge of the lost teachings of Jesus. Their use of his teachings on alchemy, personal Christhood and the science of the spoken word resulted in their manifesting material and spiritual wealth that was the envy of the powers that were.
Unfortunately those teachings exist in very few places today in pure form. They have been watered down into New Age mumbo-jumbo or hijacked by Satanists, and is thus rejected as a result of the poisoned well strategy.
True, over time the Templars were infiltrated by corrupt men which was partly the cause of their persecution. But ever since Christ died his Teachings have been distorted or suppressed by those who did not want this teaching to get to the masses: That Christ was an example of what we could do, not the exception. He gave teachings on how to contact the divine source within and true soul liberation, which has nothing to do with orthodox docrines empahsizing sin, guilt and vicarious atonement. The Templars found these teachings and put them to use. Unfortunately, Westerners, myself included, do not have the self-discipline to use the lost teachings.
I am not so much interested in the history of their politics but moreso the esoteric spiritual means they used to achieve their wealth. Only akasha holds the true record of their political history.
I would be in favor of some sort of apology - if only to give some recognition to the group that has influenced western civiization more than any other as we know it, yet has been ignored by orthodox historians, precisely for the reasons above.
read later bump
Please FREEPMAIL me if you want on, off, or alter the "Gods, Graves, Glyphs" PING list --
Archaeology/Anthropology/Ancient Cultures/Artifacts/Antiquities, etc.
The GGG Digest -- Gods, Graves, Glyphs (alpha order)
What I described applies to most European lodges. Don't make the mistake of lumping them in with other groups like the imfamous P2 lodge or the Order of Orangemen. Believe me, there's a BIG difference.
can say that regional practice in that Cathar region during the 1st millenium established a special place for Mary Magdeline in local worship
St. Mary Magdalene was a very popular saint throughout Europe, not just in the south of France. There were no more chapels, churches or shrines dedicated in her honor in southern France than there were in Italy, England, Spain or Swabia.
And the Cathars rejected the cult of the saints entirely - one of the reasons why they were denounced as heretics and one of the reason why some modern Protestants like to pretend that the Cathars were somehow a proto-Protestant movement.
In point of fact, the Cathars believed that Jesus was a pure spirit, not a man, and that the physical world was evil - that all men are trapped in a prison of flesh by the devil. They believed that Jesus was a nonphysical apparition who came to point the way out of the physical world. To a Cathar, the concept of a Jesus who was a real man and who impregnated a real woman and trapped another spirit in a prison of flesh would be unthinkable.
And at least one local ruler believed himself to be "in the line of David." If memory serves, it was that regional leader who led the first Crusade to the Holy Land and became, for a while and with the support of the Templars, the "King of Jerusalem."
Which local ruler was that? Raymond IV the Count of Toulouse? Raymond IV was indeed the most prominent nobleman from southern France in the First Crusade and he helped conquer Jerusalem.
However, he was offered the crown as King of Jerusalem and he refused it. Baldwin I of Boulougne, from northwestern France, was the first King of Jerusalem.
The only primary source surviving that contains a detailed description of Raymond IV by one of his close associates and supporters makes no mention of any claim to be "of the line of David". If he truly believed this, wouldn't he have accepted the kingship of the City of David?
I think you're confusing Dan Brown's fictional novel with actual history.
In the collateral line, most likely.
"The chalice from the palace has the pellet with the poison
The flagon with the dragon has the brew that is true
or was it
The flagon with the dragon has the pellet with the poison
The chalice from the palace has the brew that is true
Choose wisely"
LOL Danny Kaye bump
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