The Master Game

by Graham Hancock

  106 Peter Tompkins, The Magic of Obelisks, Harper & Row, New York, 1981, p. 36.

  107 The name Champs-Élysées, i.e. the Elysian Fields (a concept which originated in ancient Egypt as the Duat), for the main avenue/axis of Paris can be traced to the epoch of Louis XIV, towards the end of his reign (see Marc Gaillard, Les Belles Heures des Champs-Elysées, Editions Martelle, Paris, 1990, p. 11). This famous avenue is also known as the Axe Historique.

  108 Gaillard, op. cit., pp. 10 – 11.

  109 Marie-France Arnold, Paris: ses mythes d'hier à aujourd'hui, Editions Dervy, 1997; see map and preface. See also Jean Phaure, Introduction à la géographie sacrée de Paris: Barque d’Isis, Editions Du Borrego, Paris, 1985, pp. 20 – 21.

  110 Tinniswood, op. cit., p. 122.

  111 Ibid., pp. 125 – 6.

  112 Ibid., p. 137.

  113 London Gazette, 3 – 10 September 1666.

  114 (Julian) 20 September 1666 = (Gregorian) 30 September 1666 = (Hebrew) 1 Tishri 5427.

  115 Fraser, op. cit., p. 248.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN: CABAL

  1 There were a few others, too, who prepared plans, but these were far less significant; see Tinniswood, op. cit. p. 151; Richard Hooke, curator and fellow of the the Royal Society as well as professor of geometry at Gresham College presented plans (Tinniswood, op. cit., p. 77).

  2 Tinniswood, op. cit., p. 150.

  3 William of Tyre, A History of Deeds Done Beyond the Sea, Octagon Books, New York, 1986, vol. I, pp. 524 – 5.

  4 See the Koran, chapter XVII.

  5 See discussion in Graham Hancock, The Sign and Seal: A Quest for the Lost Ark of the Covenant, Heinemann, London, 1992, p. 379 – 80.

  6 Ibid., p. 385.

  7 For example, see Hancock, The Sign and the Seal, p. 389ff.

  8 Ibid., p. 94.

  9 Dan Bahat, Carta's Historical Atlas of Jerusalem, Carta, Jerusalem, 1986, p. 46.

  10 Ibid., pp. 46 – 7.

  11 Piers Paul Read, The Templars: The Dramatic History of the Knights Templar, The Most Powerful Military Order of the Crusades, Phoenix Press, Sheffield, p. 83.

  12 Ibid.

  13 Hancock, The Sign and the Seal, p. 93.

  14 John J. Robinson, Born in Blood: The Lost Secrets of Freemasonry, Century, London, 1989, p. 66.

  15 Hancock, The Sign and the Seal, p. 93.

  16 Oldenbourg, op. cit., p. 85.

  17 O’ Shea, op. cit., p. 29.

  18 Barber, op. cit., p. 61: ‘For Templars and Hospitallers, Languedoc was a major source of income and recruits … During the 1130s the Templars appointed a regional Master or bailli over Aragon, Toulouse, and Provence, to oversee the increasing number of preceptories they were establishing in the region.’

  19 Alain Demurger, Vie et mort de l'ordre du Temple, Editions du Seuil, Paris, 1989, pp. 152 – 8.

  20 The Templars had once before faced Saladin Once Saladin. This was when they had joined King Baldwin's forces in 1177 and launched a surprise attack directly against Saladin and his bodyguard at Montgisard near Ramlah. Saladin's army was spread out and thus could not defend themselves and were forced to retreated back to the south.

  21 Read, op. cit., p. xiii.

  22 Ibid., p. 160.

  23 An eyewitness account of this is given by Saladin's son, al-Afdal. It is quoted by Ibn al-Athir: ‘When the king of the Franks [Guy] was on the hill with that band, they made a formidable charge against the Muslims facing them, so that they drove them back to my father [Saladin]. I looked towards him and he was overcome by grief and his complexion pale. He took hold of his beard and advanced, crying out “Give the lie to the Devil!” The Muslims rallied, returned to the fight and climbed the hill. When I saw that the Franks withdrew, pursued by the Muslims, I shouted for joy, “We have beaten them!” But the Franks rallied and charged again like the first time and drove the Muslims back to my father. He acted as he had done on the first occasion and the Muslims turned upon the Franks and drove them back to the hill. I again shouted, “We have beaten them!” but my father rounded on me and said, “Be quiet! We have not beaten them until that tent [Guy's] falls.” As he was speaking to me, the tent fell. The sultan dismounted, prostrated himself in thanks to God Almighty and wept for joy.’

  24 An excerpt from a translation of Sahih al-Bukhari , 5, 58.227, reads: ‘I was brought by the Buraq, which is an animal white and long, larger than a donkey but smaller than a mule, which would place its hoof at a distance equal to the range of vision.’

  25 In the ‘chapter of the night journey’, Sura al Isra, in the Koran it is written: ‘Glory to (Allah) Who did take His servant for a Journey by night from the Sacred Mosque to the Farthest Mosque, whose precincts We did bless, – in order that We might show him some of Our Signs: for He is the One Who heareth and seeth (all things).’

  26 Heraclius had great vested interest in the Templars. He is the one who had travelled to London with the Grand Master of the Templars in 1184 – 5, to consecrate the Temple Round Church which still stands today in Temple Bar in the British capital.

  27 According to an eyewitness, a servant of Balian, the clergy organized a barefoot procession around the walls, emulating what the clergy on the First Crusade had done back in 1099 when they captured Jerusalem; women shrieked and cut off their children's hair after dipping them in basins of water. Such acts of penitence were meant to avert God's anger on the city. ‘… Our Lord did not deign to hear the prayers or noise that was made in the city. For the stench of adultery, of disgusting extravagance and of sin against nature would not let their prayers rise to God.’

  28 Hancock, The Sign and The Seal, p. 154.

  29 Demurger, op. cit., p. 322.

  30 Robinson, Born in Blood, pp. 142 – 3.

  31 Michael Baigent & Richard Leigh, The Temple and the Lodge, Arcade Publishing, New York, 1989, p. 91.

  32 Hancock, The Sign and The Seal, p. 167.

  33 For a full account, see Baigent & Leigh, The Temple and the Lodge.

  34 Hancock, The Sign and The Seal, p. 166.

  35 Andrew Sinclair, The Sword and the Grail, Crown Publishers, New York, 1992.

  36 Ibid., pp. 48 – 9.

  37 Ibid., plates section.

  38 Ibid., p. 108.

  39 Ibid., p. 75.

  40 See discussions in Ibid.

  41 Runciman, op. cit., p. 179.

  42 Gaetan Delaforge, The Templar Tradition, Threshold Books, Putney, VT, 1987, p. 71.

  43 See Albert Hourani, A History of the Arab Peoples, Faber & Faber, London, 1991, p. 184ff.

  44 Barber, op. cit., p. 61. Barber shows that the same alliance was also established between the Knights Hospitaller and the Languedoc nobles.

  45 Sinclair, op. cit., p. 76.

  46 Guirdham, op. cit., p. 90.

  47 Burl, op. cit., p. 38.

  48 Sinclair, op. cit., p. 26.

  49 Guirdham, op. cit., p. 89.

  50 Ibid., p. 90.

  51 Barber, op. cit., p. xiii.

  52 See Guirdham, op. cit., pp. 90 – 91.

  53 Ibid., p. 89.

  54 The report of Benjamin of Tudela, cited in Sumption, op. cit., p. 90.

  55 Ibid., p. 90; O’ Shea, op. cit., p. 20.

  56 Cited in Sumption, op. cit., p. 90.

  57 Geoffrey Wigoder (ed.), The Encyclopaedia of Judaism, The Jerusalem Publishing House, Jerusalem, 1989, pp. 512 – 13.

  58 Runciman, op. cit., pp. 6 – 7.

  59 Ibid.

  60 Ibid.

  61 And again see Ibid.; the early Christian Gnostics held the same view.

  62 Encyclopaedia of Judaism, pp. 740 – 41.

  63 Z’ev ben Shimon Halevi, Kabbalah: Tradition of Hidden Knowledge, Thames & Hudson, London, 1988, p. 5.

  64 An excellent article on the Sephiroth on the Web can be found at www.aril.org/Drob.htm.

  65 Halevi, op. cit., pp. 5 – 6.

  66 For a fuller discussion of mandalas see Hancock & Faiia, Heaven's Mirror, p. 122ff.

  67 For a
discussion see R. T. Prinke, ‘Early Symbolism of the Rosy Cross’, in The Hermetic Journal, no. 25, 1984, pp. 11 – 15.

  68 See Francis Bacon Research Trust at www.fbrt.org.uk.

  69 The printer was L. Lichfield of Oxford; Publishers were R. Young & E. Forrest; the engraving is by William Marshall, and the translation from Latin into English is by Rev. Gilbert Wats.

  70 Ibid.

  71 ‘The Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry containing Instructions in all the degrees’ approved by the Supreme Council of the 33rd Degree of the Southern Jurisdiction, 1801.

  72 William W. Westcott, Collectanea Hermetica, Part 1 – 10, ‘Sepher Yetzirah’, Samuel Weiser, York Beach, ME, 1988.

  73 Ibid.

  74 Lobingier, op. cit., p. 4.

  75 See Joscelyn Godwin, Athanasius Kircher, Phanes Press, Grand Rapids, MI, 1991, p. 56.

  76 Ibid., p. 61.

  77 Ibid., p. 13.

  78 Ibid.

  79 Ibid., p. 15.

  80 Ibid., p. 18.

  81 Yates, Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition, p. 418.

  82 Athanasius Kircher, Oedepius Aegyptiacus, Rome, 1652, p. 150; see also Yates, Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition, p. 418.

  83 Wren had replaced Seth Ward, who had been holding this Savilian Chair since 1649. Ward was an intimate friend of John Wilkins, and together they were to write a controversial book in support of ancient universities in 1654 while at Oxford. In 1660 Charles II fired both Wilkins and Ward from their posts, and replaced the latter with Christopher Wren. Ironically, in 1661 Seth Ward was to become bishop of Exeter and, in 1668, Wilkins became the bishop of Chester. These were indeed strange times.

  84 Peter Tompkins, The Secret of the Great Pyramid, Allen Lane, London, 1973, p. 30.

  85 John Greaves, Pyramidographia or a Description of the Pyramids in Aegypt, London, 1646.

  86 David Stevenson, The Origins of Freemasonry, Scotland Century 1590 – 1710, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1988.

  87 The Last Will and Testament of Sir Thomas Gresham, London, 1765.

  88 Lomas, op. cit., pp. 154 – 64.

  89 Hibbert, op. cit., pp. 179 – 86.

  90 Guirdham, op. cit., pp. 91 – 2.

  91 Cited in Yates, Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition, p. 394, footnote 1.

  92 The Knights Templar first arrived in England in 1130 on the invitation of King Henry I. Initially they established their preceptory in High Holborn in the north, between Chancellor's Lane and Faitour Lane. In 1161 they moved it a mile southward to the more favoured site close to the Thames. Hugh Clout (ed.), The Times History of London, Times Books, London, 1991, p. 50.

  93 David Lewer, The Temple Church London, Pitkin Pictorials, London, 1989, pp. 3 – 4.

  94 The Times History of London, p. 150.

  95 Felix Barker & Ralph Hyde, London as it Might have Been, John Murray, London, 1982, p. 22.

  96 This point was also highlighted in Adrian Gilbert, The New Jerusalem, Bantam Press, London, 2002, p. 211: ‘Wren changed the axis of St. Paul's so that it ran roughly 8° north-of-east … this put it directly in line with the old Temple Church …’

  97 Christopher Wren (son), Parentalia, or, Memoirs of the family of the Wrens, Farnborough, Hampshire, 1995.

  98 Steve Padget, ‘Wren's St. Paul's: Axis Mundi of the New Jerusalem’, paper read at Ball State University, Muncie, IN, 2000, p. 2.

  99 Ibid., p. 4.

  100 V. Hart, Art and Magic at the Court of the Stuarts, Routledge, London, 1994. See also V. Hart, St. Paul's Cathedral: Christopher Wren, Phaidon, London, 1995. Hart also added that ‘in reflecting this ‘Christianised’ cosmology, Hermes was pictured in the pavement of Siena Cathedral and in frescos painted by Pinturiccio for Pope Alexander VI in the Appartamento Borgia in the Vatican … the figure of Mercurius Trismegistus came to personify links between Christian magic and art in the Renaissance.’

  101 The Sephiroth invited the initiate to pass between two ‘pillars’ on the pathway towards the godhead. Interestingly, according to Jewish author Z. Halevi, we find the same idea of passing between two ‘pillars’ in the design of Solomon's Temple, where one had to pass between two pillars known as Boaz and Jachin on the path towards the divine presence. See Halevi, op. cit.

  102 Tinniswood, op. cit., pp. 150 – 2.

  103 This tendency to secrecy was to be also the case when Wren designed new St. Paul's. See Barker & Hyde, op. cit., p. 31.

  104 Tinniswood, op. cit., p. 150.

  105 Ibid.

  106 Barker & Hyde, op. cit., p. 23.

  107 Tinniswood, op. cit., p. 152. See also John Evelyn, London Revived, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1938, pp. 45 – 6.

  108 Selections from Revelation 21:1 – 22:14.

  109 Barker & Hyde, op. cit., p. 25.

  110 In Wren's scheme, according to Adrian Tinniswood, ‘the real pride of place went to the Exchange piazza with its radial vistas and its surrounding complex of commercial buildings. The absolutist ideology underlying the planning of Sixtine Rome, which Louis XIV and André Le Nôtre were currently putting to such good use in the laying out of Versailles, was here called into service to pay homage to mercantilism. Trade was to be the new religion.’ That the Royal Exchange was Thomas Gresham's brainchild, and that his own home had probably served as a Masonic lodge prior to becoming the home of the Royal Society may also have had something to do with the symbolism intended in Wren's scheme.

  111 This idea was first proposed by Adrian Gilbert in op. cit., p. 205. Gilbert also observes that it may not have been accidental that the Daat sephirah was brought close to Gresham College, home of the Royal Society.

  112 Tinniswood, op. cit., p. 188.

  113 Ibid.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN: FROM SECRET SOCIETY TO SOCIETY WITH SECRETS

  1 Pick & Knight, op. cit., p. 68.

  2 Matthew 11:11.

  3 John 3:30.

  4 4 July is, of course, US Indepedence Day.

  5 Ibid., p. 69.

  6 Ibid.

  7 Ibid.

  8 Ridley, op. cit., p. 37

  9 Naudon, op. cit., p. 66.

  10 Ibid., pp. 69 – 70.

  11 Ibid., p. 72.

  12 Ridley, op. cit., p. 72.

  13 Lynn Picknett & Clive Prince, The Templar Revelation, Corgi Books, London, 1998, p. 481.

  14 Lobingier, op. cit., p. 32.

  15 Available at: http://www.gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k64393t.

  16 The prince never became king, but died from illness in 1712.

  17 Lobingier, op. cit., p. 35.

  18 See Eliane Brault (ed), Le Mystere du Chevalier Ramsay, Editions du Prisme, Paris, 1973, p. 81; also Transaction of the Qutuor Coronati Lodge, 1934, vol. XLVII, p. 77. For a very good account of Ramsay's life and Masonic career, see Lobingier, op. cit., pp. 32 – 49.

  19 Ridley, op. cit., p. 70.

  20 The full ‘Ramsay's Oration’ can be found in Albert G. Mackey & H. L. Haywood, Encyclopedia of Freemasonry, Kessinger Publishing, Kila, MT, 2003. See also Cyril N. Batham, ‘Ramsay's Oration: the Epernay and Grand Lodge Versions’, in Heredom: The Transactions of the Scottish Rite Research Society, vol. 1, 1992.

  21 The Chevalier Ramsay cited in Mackey & Haywood, op. cit., p. 831.

  22 Ibid., p. 832.

  23 Patigorsky, op. cit., p. 116 – 7.

  24 Mackey & Haywood, op. cit., p. 832.

  25 Pick & Knight, op. cit., p. 204.

  26 The Order of DeMolay declares itself to be ‘A young men's fraternal organization which was founded upon the basic principles of love of God, love of parents, and love of country. It tries to introduce these teachings to its members in various ways through the exercise of the seven cardinal virtues … Love of parents, Love of God, Courtesy, Comradeship, Fidelity, Cleanness, Patriotism. The name “DeMolay” comes from a 13th century French hero and martyr named Jacques De Molay, who was the last Grand Master of a order of chivalric knights known as the Knights Templar … Be between the age
s of 12 and 21, believe in a Supreme Being (God), be of good moral character, Petition a DeMolay. Local groups of DeMolays are called chapters and are sponsored by a group of Masons or Masonic lodges.’ In 1919, a Kansas City freemason named Frank S. Land, noticed a need for a young men's organization in the Kansas City area. After meeting with a local youth named Louis Lower, Land arranged a meeting with several other area youths at the Kansas City Scottish Rite building. With Land's guidance and the ambition of the young men, the Order of DeMolay was born. Almost instantaneously, the popularity of the new order grew and in no time at all, there were chapters in every state in the union and soon there were even chapters abroad. For over 75 years now, the Order of DeMolay has continued to teach it's member's the basic principles of life which will help prepare any young man for a good and clean manhood, and which will help them to develop a greater love and respect for their God, parents and country. In its history, the Order of DeMolay has boasted a strong membership and has long lists of successful and influential members.

  27 ‘What is Freemasonry?’, United Grand Lodge of England, text reproduced by the Lodge of Harmony, no. 1411 at www.harmony1411.cl/freemasonry.html.

  28 I Kings 5 – 6; II Chronicles 2 – 6.

  29 Sinclair, op. cit., p. 158.

  30 For a detailed critical appraisal of these rituals, see Lawrence, op. cit., pp. 92 – 107.

  31 Martin Short, Inside the Brotherhood, Grafton Books, London, 1989, p. 93.

  32 Lawrence, op. cit., pp. 51 – 61.

  33 Ibid.

  34 Humbert, op. cit., p. 117.

  35 Short, op. cit., p. 115.

  36 Ibid., p. 123.

  37 Stephen Knight, The Brotherhood, Grafton Books, London, 1985, pp. 236 – 9.

  38 Short, op. cit., p. 104.

  39 ‘Geometry wherefore I thinke that science most worthy that fyndeth all others’, cited in Pick & Knight, op. cit., p. 32.