Arcadia Discussion Zone

Monstrelet described a typical early example of persecution in 1459:


"In this year, in the town of Arras and county ofArtois, arose, through a terrible and melancholy chance, an opinion called, I know not why, the Religion of Vaudoisie. This sect consisted, it is said, of certain persons, both men and women, who, under cloud of night, by the power of the devil, repaired to some solitary spot, amid woods and deserts, where the devil appeared before them in a human form–save that his visage is never perfectly visible to them–read to the assembly a book of his ordinances, informing them how he could be obeyed; distributed a very little money and a plentiful meal, which was concluded by a scene of general profligacy; after which each one of the party was conveyed home to her or his own habitation.
"On accusations of access to such acts of madness, several creditable persons of the town of Arras were seized and imprisoned along with some foolish women and persons of little consequence. These were so horribly tortured that some of them admitted the truth of the whole accusations, and said, besides, that they had seen and recognized in their nocturnal assembly many persons of rank, prelates, seigneurs, and governors of bailliages and cities, being such names as the examiners had suggested to the persons examined, while they constrained them by torture to impeach the persons to whom they belonged. Several of those who had been thus informed against were arrested, thrown into prison, and tortured for so long a time that they also were obliged to confess what was charged against them. After this those of mean condition were executed and inhumanly burnt, while the richer and more powerful of the accused ransomed themselves by sums of money, to avoid the punishment and the shame attending it. Many even of those also confessed being persuaded to take that course by the interrogators, who promised them indemnity for life and fortune. Some there were, of a truth, who suffered with marvellous patience and constancy the torments inflicted on them, and would confess nothing imputed to their charge; but they, too, had to give large sums to the judges, who exacted that such of them as, notwithstanding their mishandling, were still able to move, should banish themselves from that part of the country . . . [l]t ought not to be concealed that the whole accusation was a strategem of wicked men for their own covetous purposes, and in order, by these false accusations and forced confessions, to destroy the life, fame, and fortune of wealthy persons."
Those prisoners who found themselves condemned to death immediately shrieked aloud that they had been tricked; they were promised a light sentence, such as a pilgrimage, if they confessed as the inquisitors wanted.37

Witchcraft persecutions picked up momentum when inquisitors were seeking new victims to keep their organization going. In 1375 a French inquisitor lamented that all the rich heretics had been exterminated; there were none left whose wealth could support the Inquisition, and "it is a pity that so salutary an institution as ours should be so uncertain of its future." Then Pope John XXII empowered the Inquisition to prosecute anyone who worked magic, and "the Inquisition slowly and unevenly developed its concept of witchcraft."38 Soon the church was making sweeping claims, such as the claim that the entire population of Navarre consisted of witches.39

Battle of Arras (1917)
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For other battles with the same name, see Battle of Arras.
Battle of Arras
Part of the Western Front of the First World War

The Town Square, Arras, France. February, 1919.
Date 9 April to 16 May 1917
Location Near Arras, France
Result Indecisive; tactical British victory

Belligerents
United Kingdom

Canada

Australia

New Zealand

Newfoundland
German Empire
Commanders
Douglas Haig,
Edmund Allenby,
Hubert Gough,
Henry Horne Erich Ludendorff,
Ludwig von Falkenhausen,
Georg von der Marwitz
Strength
27 divisions in the assault 7 divisions in the line,
27 divisions in reserve
Casualties and losses
~160,000† ~120,000–130,000† (British estimates)
† Discussed in detail in Casualties, below
[hide]v • d • eWestern Front

Liège – Frontiers – 1st Marne – Antwerp – Race to the Sea – 1st Ypres – 1st Champagne – 2nd Ypres – 2nd Artois – 2nd Champagne – Loos – 3rd Artois – Verdun – Somme – Arras – 2nd Aisne – Messines – 3rd Ypres – Cambrai – Spring – Hundred Days

The Battle of Arras was a British offensive during the First World War. From 9 April to 16 May 1917, British, Canadian, New Zealand and Australian troops attacked German trenches near the French city of Arras on the Western Front.

For much of the war, the opposing armies on the Western Front were at a stalemate, with a continuous line of trenches stretching from the Belgian coast to the Swiss border.[1] In essence, the Allied objective from early 1915 was to break through the German defences into the open ground beyond and engage the numerically inferior German army in a war of movement.[2] The Arras offensive was conceived as part of a plan to bring about this result.[3] It was planned in conjunction with the French High Command, who were simultaneously embarking on a massive attack (the Nivelle Offensive) about eighty kilometres to the south.[3] The stated aim of this combined operation was to end the war in forty-eight hours.[4] At Arras, the immediate Allied objectives were more modest: to draw German troops away from the ground chosen for the French attack and to take the German-held high ground that dominated the plain of Douai.[3]

Initial efforts centred on a relatively broad-based assault between Vimy in the northwest and Bullecourt in the southeast. After considerable bombardment, Canadian troops advancing in the north were able to capture the strategically significant Vimy Ridge, and British divisions in the centre were also able to make significant gains. In the south, British and Australian forces were frustrated by the elastic defence and made only minimal gains. Following these initial successes, British forces engaged in a series of small-scale operations to consolidate the newly won positions. Although these battles were generally successful in achieving limited aims, these were gained at the price of relatively large numbers of casualties.[3]

When the battle officially ended on 16 May, British Empire troops had made significant advances, but had been unable to achieve a major breakthrough at any point.[3] Experimental tactics—for instance, the creeping barrage, the graze fuze, and counter-battery fire—had been battle-tested, particularly in the first phase, and had demonstrated that set-piece assaults against heavily fortified positions could be successful. This sector then reverted to the stalemate that typified most of the war on the Western Front.

Middle East & Israel Breaking News » Opinion » Op-Ed Contributors » Article


Aug 14, 2008 19:09 | Updated Aug 17, 2008 9:47
Digging out the truth?
By LELA GILBERT

My first introduction to Jerusalem in 2006 took place on Tisha Be'av, the fast commemorating the destruction of the First and Second Temples. I stood at the Western Wall, during that time of the Second War in Lebanon, watching thousands of Jewish faithful, from all different walks of life - women and men, soldiers and Hassidim, Sephardim and Ashkenazim - gathered in unity to remember and to mourn. It was like entering the very soul of Israel.


Gabriel Barkay. 'Temple denial is more serious and more dangerous than Holocaust denial.'
Photo: Ariel Jerozolimki
This Tisha Be'av caused me to reflect further on those lost Temples, particularly now that I have spent two years in the country, during which I had occasion to visit the Temple Mount. After passing through two security checks before entering, a different world appeared - one with no visible vestige of Judaism - on that ancient and holiest of Jewish sites.

Christianity hasn't fared any better. In fact, for Christians, the writing is on the wall - literally and figuratively - the wall inside the Dome of the Rock. In Arabic calligraphy dating from the seventh century, the text declares that God has no son; that Jesus was not resurrected (Islam also denies that he was crucified); that Jews and Christians, "the People of the Book," transgress by not embracing Muhammad's revelation; and that Allah's reckoning will come swiftly on those who do not believe.

Christians' attachment to the Temple Mount is based on Jesus's words and deeds as recorded in the Gospels.

It was strange enough for me to discover, therefore, that Jews and Christians are not permitted to read their scriptures or pray aloud there. But it wasn't until learning that during the 2000 Camp David negotiations, PLO chairman Yasser Arafat had denied that any Jewish Temple had ever existed on the Mount that I grasped the depth of the divergence from the Hebrew Scripture, New Testament and historical records that is out there, and not as fringe an idea as one might assume.

SIFTING THROUGH tons of rubble that had been illicitly dug up on the Temple Mount by the Muslim Wakf and stealthily dumped into a landfill, biblical archeologist Dr. Gabriel Barkay, professor at Bar-Ilan University, is in the midst of the project of a lifetime. I put the question of Temple denial to him.


"This denial of the historical, spiritual and archeological connections of the Jews to the Temple Mount is something new," he says. "There was always talk about the temple of Solomon in Jerusalem - called the 'praise of Jerusalem'- in Arabic literature, in Islamic literature. This new idea of Temple denial is due to the Arabic fear of Jewish aspirations connected to the Temple Mount. It is part of something I call the 'cultural intifada.'"

Barkay says the change took place in the 1990s: "In the Washington DC think tanks surrounding president Bill Clinton, it was understood that the Temple Mount was the crux of the problem of the Middle East conflict. These think tanks decided that if there could be 'split sovereignty' on the Temple Mount, then split sovereignty could also be achieved over the entire land of Palestine. So they suggested that in a future agreement, the Temple Mount would be split horizontally. That is to say that whatever is above ground, the part that includes the shrines of the Muslims, would be under Palestinian sovereignty. Whatever is underground, which would include the remnants of the Temple of the Jews, would be under Israeli sovereignty.

"It's a brilliant idea, an excellent idea, but totally idiotic from a practical point of view. You cannot have a building standing with its foundations in another country. You cannot have a building with the infrastructure and the plumbing in another country. And you cannot have sovereignty on the subground without having accessibility to the subground, because the accessibility is from above ground. The whole thing was stupid."

Barkay explains that the Temple Mount is honeycombed with more than 50 different cavities, holes, passageways and cisterns that are "filled with earth which is saturated with very valuable archeological materials. Enormous damage was done in these works which were carried out mainly from 1996 and onward. The idea that came from the circles surrounding Bill Clinton and leaked to the Wakf authorities is what generated the illicit building activities - I wouldn't call them excavations - but destructive work which was carried out brutally on the Temple Mount. The fear, the fear of anything representing a Jewish presence on the Temple Mount drove them mad."

PRIOR TO my own visits to the Mount, I had been warned not to carry a bible or "holy objects" with me, and to stay away from the Dome of the Rock shrine and the Aksa Mosque, into which non-Muslims are forbidden to go. Nor was I allowed to see a third edifice which I'd read about - the Marwani Mosque - a gigantic, subterranean building, located in the southeast corner of the Temple Mount Plaza. In 1996, the Wakf had reconfigured an underground structure, formerly known as "Solomon's Stables," into a mosque. Their contractors lowered the inside surface of the building by removing large quantities of priceless soil, rich in archeological evidence.

According to Barkay, the history they hauled away in dump trucks was not Muslim. "The building was never a mosque. It is actually more connected to traditions about Jesus. There are quite solid hints in the literature of the existence of an early Christian church there, marking the place where St. James was killed in the first century. The place is more Christian than Muslim."

In November 1999, the Wakf asked permission from the Israeli government to open an emergency exit leading from the Marwani Mosque.

"The prime minister at that time was Ehud Barak, and as usual he didn't consult with anybody else," Barkay recalls. "He gave them permission. But instead of an emergency exit, they created a main entrance to the building - a monumental entrance. For that entrance, they dug a pit 40 meters long and 12 meters deep. They did it with bulldozers in the most destructive manner possible, that of a bull in a china shop. The work on that place should have been done carefully, not with bulldozers. They removed 400 truckloads of earth."

For Barkay, sifting through those truckloads of material is essential, because it amounts to exploring a black hole in archeological history. Although Israel is one of the most excavated places in the world, explored continuously since the 1850s, the Temple Mount has been surveyed but never excavated. Therefore, ironically, the digging and removal of earth in the 1990s has provided a new opportunity.


Gabriel Barkay. 'Temple denial is more serious and more dangerous than Holocaust denial.'
Photo: Ariel Jerozolimki
"At least it enables us to look at the soil, though everything comes from a very disturbed context," Barkay says. "But we know it comes from the Temple Mount. And we have tens of thousands of finds."

These finds, that cover approximately 15,000 years, have altered the historic understanding of the area's history. Sponsored by the Ir David Foundation, volunteers working with Barkay have been sifting through the debris, and have found Stone Age flint implements. They have discovered pre-Israelite material, Bronze Age pottery, two Egyptian scarabs and several seals and seal impressions.

One very significant find, confirming the recorded history of the Temple's existence, is the fragment of a bulla, a clay lump with a seal impression upon it, which is about 2,600 years old and dates from the First Temple period. Its inscription bears part of official's name, Gealyahu son of Immer. The Immer family is recorded in the Bible. "In Jeremiah 20:1," Barkay says, "probably the brother of Gealyahu is mentioned, a priestly man named Pashur son of Immer. He is introduced as the man in charge of the Temple."

Findings from the time of Solomon's Temple up to the 20th century illuminate the raging conflicts of passing civilizations. "We have enormous quantities of war artifacts: We have lead slingshots of the Seleucid armies in the battles of Judah Maccabee. We have arrowheads of the army of Nebuchadnezzar, who destroyed the First Temple. We have arrowheads of the Hellenistic period. We have one arrowhead bearing distinguishing markings of having been shot by a catapult. Those machines were only used by the armies of Titus in 70 CE in the destruction of the Second Temple. We have stone slingshots; we have spearheads; and we have medieval arrowheads from the Crusader conquest of the Temple Mount. There are even bullets from both the Turkish army and the British army in World War I."

Other findings on the Temple Mount - jewelry, coins, pottery shards and architectural fragments - provide specific details of human life spanning several millennia. "We have material dating back to the 10th century BCE, the time of David and Solomon. We have material from the time of the kings of Judah. We have material in abundance from the early Christian period. This is very significant, because it is written in most history books that the churches moved to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher after it was built (it dates back to at least the fourth century), and that thereafter the Temple Mount was neglected and was a garbage heap. But now we have to build a new history, based on archeological evidence.


"We have fragments of capitals from church buildings. We have remnants of chancel screens that separated the presbytery from the nave of the church. We have several bronze weights for weighing gold coins from the Christian era. We have to rethink the role of the Temple Mount in the time of early Christianity. Was it a garbage heap? Or is that biased history? I think that history was ideological."

Barkay says that large quantities of animal bones have been found on the Mount. "Bones are very important. We have pig bones which had to have come from pagan or Christian times. We also have bones of foxes. And that is interesting, because in the Talmud we have a story about foxes which until recently I thought was a legend."

IN SPITE of these discoveries, Temple denial remains a growing phenomenon in Europe and America, particularly in leftist intellectual circles. It is supported by the reality that there are no visible remains of the temples of Jerusalem on the Temple Mount. Barkay contends that there were remains still visible in the 1960s and 1970s, which have either been removed or covered up by gardens.

"The Islamic Wakf says, 'We are not going to let you dig, but show us any remains of the Temple.' You cannot have it both ways. If you don't allow people to dig, then don't use this absence of remains as an argument.

"Temple denial is a very tragic harnessing of politics to change history. It is not a different interpretation of historical events or archeological evidence. This is something major. I think that Temple denial is more serious and more dangerous than Holocaust denial. Why? Because for the Holocaust there are still living witnesses. There are photographs; there are archives; there are the soldiers who released the prisoners; there are testimonies from the Nazis themselves. There were trials, a whole series of them, starting with Nuremberg. There are people who survived the Holocaust still among us. Concerning the Temple, there are no people among us who remember.

"Still, [to deny the Temples], you have to dismiss the evidence of Flavius Josephus; you have to dismiss the evidence of the Mishna and of the Talmud; and you have to dismiss the writings of Roman and Greek historians who mention the Temple of Jerusalem. And you have to dismiss The Bible. That is, I think, way too much."

The writer has authored or co-authored more than 60 books, primarily in the field of ecumenical Christian non-fiction. Her work includes the recently released biography Baroness Cox: Eyewitness to a Broken World and the award-winning Their Blood Cries Out, co-authored with Paul Marshall. She is also an Adjunct Fellow at the Center for Religious Freedom at the Hudson Institute.

While researching the Vaincre, the offical newsletter of the Alpha Gates (an offshoot of the Priory of Sion in the 1940s) upon reading Boyd Rice's The Vessel of God, my attention was drawn to the article THE EAST AND THE WEST by LE COMTE DE MONCHARVILLE:
THE EAST AND THE WEST

by

LE COMTE DE MONCHARVILLE


Professor of Law at the University of Strasbourg

(Chargé de Mission in Tibet)


III


Of these two Orders it is only the order of the Galatean Knights that interests us for the moment, as our present order is in fact nothing more than its direct continuation. I therefore thought it would be interesting to offer some explanatory notes here.

Less than 1 kilometre south of the 80-metre-high rocky spur that towers above the beach at Carolles, facing the promontory of Granville, the boulders of the Chaussey Isles and the rocky coast of Brittany, we find ourselves suddenly confronted with an arid ravine, with a twisting and turning course, and banks that are covered in the rubble of enormous stones.

More precisely, between the Roche du Sâr and the Chaine du Diable (which latter dominates the whole landscape with its astonishing aspect – that of a ruined megalith) there is a huge rampart of rocks that – so perfectly matched to the soil around them – lie in alignment with this ridge facing the sea.

Without going back to the far-off times when geological upheavals separated Great Britain from the Continent, let us say that only a thousand years ago the waves had still not covered our soil to form the present Gulf of St Malo, the Channel Islands were still attached to terra firma, and Normandy and the Armorican peninsula were separated only by the river Titus, which is in its turn is formed by our smaller Breton rivers: the Sée, Salune, Rance, Arguenon, etc.

The forest of Jussy then extended across the entire expanse between the Chaussey Isles (Cho-Zech) and the mounts known as Saint-Michel (called at this time the mounts of the Dragon) and Tombelaine (Tom-Belen). This famous valley of Lude (Leuh) was the refuge of the Galatean Knights, who created there a fortified city where, for almost seven hundred years, Catholicism failed to vanquish them.

During this period they worked the But-Or (‘the Gold Mines’) and constructed below-ground the city of the Alpha, the biggest city in the world, and completed a monastery called the sanctuary of the Dragon on one of the Mounts of the Dragon.

Then, in the year 812, they suddenly disappeared. Some days later, amid a rumble of thunder, the sea covered the places where the last Atlanteans had lived.

From this time onward, only one of the mounts of the Dragon, towering above the waves, remained to provide evidence, through the existence of its sanctuary, of the activities of the Galatean Knights.

The Catholics then decided to attack it and to destroy this monastery, which seemed to present them with a considerable challenge. Led by a chief called Sant Michiel, they fought with tenacity for three years and finally, their victory assured, but with their chief engulfed by the shifting sands, they decided to name the island after its conqueror and call it Sant Michiel, which has since become Saint-Michel, which is where the legend of the 'Dragon being vanquished by Saint Michael' comes from.

Intruiged, I took some time to research the Mount Saint Michael in France to see if I could turn up anything. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10551a.htm contained alot of interesting information, especially the hints to an esoteric "Order of Michael" in relation to the building.

When reading http://www.fiu.edu/~mizrachs/poseur3.html , I learned that the architect Abbot Robert de Torigny was the first to utter the phrase "Et in Arcadia Ego", a very important phrase to the Priory of Sion mystery. It would seem Mt. Saint Michel is definently related to the mystery. The article also mentioned the existance of a "Saint Michael Ley Line" starting at St. Michael's Mount in Britian. I decided to look into this.
http://www.mysteriousbritain.co.uk/majo ... haels.html
says:

St Michaels Mount is thought to have been the site of a tin port in the late Iron Age, just before the Roman Invasion. The importance of the mount as a place of pilgrimage traditionally dates back to the 5th century, when a group of people had a vision of St Michael over the mount. The legend is somewhat garbled, and the vision has been attributed to various groups of people. It was this event that is supposed to have given the Mount its archangel dedication, although this may date to much later when the Benedictine monastary was founded. The Mount is also associated with St Keyne, who traditionally blessed a stone seat with the power to grant dominance in marriage, depending on who managed to sit on it first.

A Benedictine monastery was built here in 1135, which was a dependency of Mont St Michael in Brittany. This lasted until the dissolution of the Monasteries by Henry VIII in the 16th century. One interesting story suggests the bones of a giant man were discovered when the church was rebuilt in the 14th century, after an earthquake destroyed the original structure. The remains of the monastery were rebuilt into a castle, which was the home of the St Aubyn family from the 17th century, and is now owned by the National Trust.

It also turns out that St. Michael's Mount was associated with legends of giants and sunken civilizations:

St Michaels Mount was once known as Cara Cowze in Clowze, or, The hoar rock in the wood, which is seen by some as a folk memory of when the sea was much further back, and the area covered in woodland. The tradition was most probably passed on from written records when the mount was a monastic settlement linked with Mont St Michael in Brittany. St Michael's Mount is also not far from the legendary lost land of Lyonesse. () The Mount was also the legendary abode of the giants Cormoran and his wife Cormelian (). Jack the Giant killer eventually defeated Cormoran, after the giant terrorised the surrounding lands. .

The website says of the land of Lyonesse:

Beyond Land end stretching to the isles of Scilly, the lost land of Lyonnesse is reputed to lie. The land is said to have been engulfed by the sea over 900 years ago.

According to tradition the only survivor of the sinking was a man called Trevilian, who rode a white horse before the waves. The family crest shows the image of this white horse.

The story may be related to folk memory of dry land between Lands End and the Isles of Scilly. There is evidence to suggest that the sea levels were different within written records, Scilly was referred to as one island during the reign of Maximus in the Fourth Century AD. The land of Lyonnesse has also been linked into the legend of King Arthur.

Most interesting indeed!

I also found some info on the Leyline itself:

St Michael's Mount is also the starting point for the infamous St Michael's ley, a broad line linking the Mount, St Michael's Church Brentor, St Michael's Church Burrowbridge, St Michael's Church Othery, St Michael's Church, Glastonbury Tor and Stoke St Michael. Although too short a space to elaborate on, this can really only be seen as modern folklore.

The mention of Glastonbury Tor interested me, as its the suspected locale of Avalon, and the site legend reports that Joseph of Arimethea took the Holy Grail following the crucifixtion. Atop the Tor is St. Michael's Tower, an image of which can be seen here: http://www.sacredsites.com/europe/engla ... nbury.html

The earliest knowledge we have of the Tor come to us from legends. In prehistoric times the island peak was believed to be the home of Gwyn ap Nudd, the Lord of the spirit world of Annwn. Immortalized in folklore, Gwyn ap Nudd became a Fairy King and his realm of Annwn the mystic isle and sacred mount of Avalon. Long a holy place of pagan spirituality, the 170 meter tall hill shows extensive signs of being contoured by human hands in Neolithic times. These contours, indistinct after the passage of thousands of years, mark the course of a spiraling labyrinth, which encircles the hill from base to peak. Ancient myths and folk legends suggest that pilgrims to the sacred island would moor their boats upon the shore and, entering the great landscape labyrinth, begin their long ascent to the hilltop shrine. By following the intricate and winding route of the labyrinth, rather than ascending by a more direct line, a deep attunement with the Tor's concentrated terrestrial and celestial energies was achieved.


Lord of the Underworld Celtic myth knows Glastonbury Tor as the seat of Gwynn ap Nudd - Lord of the Underworld and the Faery Kingdom. Gwynn's fabulous palace within the Tor cannot be seen with human eyes; its walls and roof are those of illusion. Every May Day, Gwynn does battle with Gwyther, Lord of the Summerland, for the hand of the Maiden of Spring. With the coming of Christianity, so the hermit saint Collen walked into Gwynn's myth. Summoned to settle Gwynn's dispute with Gwyther, Collen decreed that on Doomsday their quarrel would be resolved. With a splash of holy water, the faery walls disappeared.

The mention of the underworld is interesting, as LE COMTE DE MONCHARVILLE continually mentioned underground cities, and it was there that I began my research into this St. Michael Ley. See http://www.thevesselofgod.com/themindofgod.html to read a thorough study of this.

Also at the Tor is the "Chalice Well", where one of the so called final resting places of the Holy Grail. This spot is marked by the Visca Pisces, an important occult symbol.

The Glastonbury Giants or Zodiac is a great landscape configuration, a circle 10 miles across. The 12 zodiac signs appear in their right order, formed by hills, outlined by roads and rivers. Katherine Maltwood who rediscovered this great circle in the 1930's claimed it as the original Round Table in Avalon with Arthur, Guinevere, Merlin and the Chief Knights still seated about it as the signs of the Zodiac and the seasons of the year. A great hound five miles long, the Girt Dog of Langport, guards this star temple. Several local legends and about 100 place-names, like Wagg on the Dog's tail, Earlake Moor on his ear, hint that these effigies were once well known. You will find Aries at Street, the Phoenix of Aquarius rises from Glastonbury Tor, and the circle continues around the Isle of Avalon.

The Glastonbury Zodiac, a marvelous example of geomantic earthwork, measures 10 miles across and can be viewed totally only from the air. Hedges, roads and woods were laid out to form a ring of the 12 signs of the zodiac in the Age of Taurus as a Temple of the Stars. With the passage of time, successive cultures have interpreted the form according to their own myths and symbols, so the Zodiac has also been seen as an illustration of King Arthur´s Round Table and the quest for the Holy Grail.

Parkwood in the center of the Zodiac represents the Pole Star, a point of stillness in the heavenly wheel. It remains today a virgin wood, like a sancturary to the soul.

It would seem that many of the spots on the St. Michael Ley are associated with myths of giants and lost civilization, underground cities, the Holy Grail, and the ancient interest in astronomy and the hermetic principle "As Above, So Below".

Masonic historian wrote that Saint Michael was originally the Sun God of Israel, (12 tribes of Israel, the 12 signs of the zodiac at glastonbury?), and that St. Michael could be equated with the sumerian god Marduk, who was commonly called "Lord of the Abyss". The abyss, of course, was a common reference to the realm of the underworld, which seems to pop up frequently within the sites along the Leyline.

I'm continuing to research the sites along the leyline to see if I can dig up more clues.

Regards, Beau Berger

A Benedictine Abbey, in the Diocese of Avranches, Normandy, France. It is unquestionably the finest example both of French medieval architecture and of a fortified abbey. The buildings of the monastery are piled round a conical mass of rock which rises abruptly out of the waters of the Atlantic to the height of 300 feet, on the summit of which stands the great church. This rock is nearly a mile from the shore, but in 1880 a causeway was built across the dangerous quicksand that occupies this space and is exposed at low water, so that there is now no danger in approaching the abbey. The monastery was founded about the year 708 by St. Aubert, Bishop of Avranches, and according to the legend, by direct command of the Archangel Michael himself, who appeared to the bishop in a dream on three separate occasions. About 966, Richard the Fearless, third Duke of Normandy, finding the community in a relaxed condition, installed Benedictines from Monte Cassino at Mont-St-Michel. A few years later, in 1017, Abbot Hildebert II began the colossal scheme of buildings all round the rock which should form a huge platform level with the summit, on which the abbey church might stand. In spite of the enormous difficulties involved in the design, difficulties increased by fire and the collapse of portions of the edifice, the great scheme was persevered in during five centuries and crowned by the completion of the flamboyant choir in 1520. Even among religious communities, such an instance of steadfast purpose and continuity of plan stands unrivalled; but the completion was only just in time. In 1523 the abbey was granted in commendam to Cardinal Le Veneur and the series of commendatory Abbots continued until 1622 when the abbey, its community reduced almost to the vanishing point, was united to the famous Congregation of St-Maur. At the French Revolution the Maurist monks were ejected and the splendid building became a prison for political offenders while, with unconscious irony, the name of the place was changed from Mont St-Michel to Mont Libre. In 1863 the prison was closed and for a few years the abbey was leased to the Bishop of Avranches, but in 1872 the French Government took it over as a national monument and undertook, none too soon, the task of restoration. The work has gone on almost continually ever since, and the restorers must be praised for the skill with which the great pile has been saved from ruin, and the good taste with which the whole has been done.

This vast group of buildings has been the subject of several important monographs. Speaking generally, the monastic buildings consist of three main stories. Of these, the two lower take the form of vast irregular rings completely enclosing the natural rock, which forms a core to the whole edifice. The third story rests partly on the two lower stories and partly on the apex of the rock which is found immediately beneath the pavement of the church. The most remarkable part of all is the mass of buildings known as "la merveille" (the marvel) on the north side of the rock facing the ocean. This vast structure, half military, half monastic, is built wholly of granite quarried on the mainland, and was entirely constructed between the years 1203 and 1228. Its foundations are one hundred and sixty feet above the sea level, and it consists of three stories of which two are vaulted. The lowest contains the almonry and cellar; above these come the refectory and "hall of the knights", on which again rest the dormitory and the cloister. The last named building, which is perhaps the finest gem of all, has a double arcade so planned that the columns in one row are opposite the centre of the arches in the other--a unique arrangement of wonderful beauty. The church is cruciform with a Norman nave which was formerly seven bays in length, but the three western bays were destroyed in 1776. The central tower has lately been restored and crowned with a copper-covered spire surmounted by a gilded statue of St. Michael by M. Frémiet. The choir is apsidal and has a chevet of chapels with a crypt or lower church beneath.

The position of the abbey rendered it of the highest strategic importance especially during the wars with England, and both it and the little town that had grown up at the foot of the rock on the land side, were enclosed by strong fortifications during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. So impregnable was the rock made in this way that, although frequently attacked by superior forces, it was never captured. The abbot was also commandant of the place by appointment of the King of France, and he was empowered to bestow feoffs on the nobles of the province who bound themselves in return to guard the abbey in time of war. In 1469 King Louis XI founded the Order of St. Michael, and held the first chapter of its knights in the "salle des chevaliers." It is said that the cockle shell, horn, and staff, which became the recognized insignia of a pilgrim from the thirteenth century onwards, take their origin from Mont-St-Michel. The staff was used to test the path across the treacherous quicksand, the horn served to summon aid should tide or fog surprise the pilgrim; while the cockle shell was fixed in the hat as a souvenir to show that the pilgrim had accomplished his journey in safety. The abbey bore as its arms a cockle shell and fleurs-de-lis with the significant motto "Tremor immensi Oceani".

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?apage=2&cid=1218710365298&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

Temple denial doesn't strike me as the issue.

PRIOR TO my own visits to the Mount, I had been warned not to carry a bible or "holy objects" with me, and to stay away from the Dome of the Rock shrine and the Aksa Mosque, into which non-Muslims are forbidden to go. Nor was I allowed to see a third edifice which I'd read about - the Marwani Mosque - a gigantic, subterranean building, located in the southeast corner of the Temple Mount Plaza. In 1996, the Wakf had reconfigured an underground structure, formerly known as "Solomon's Stables," into a mosque. Their contractors lowered the inside surface of the building by removing large quantities of priceless soil, rich in archeological evidence.

Well I hear many arguments about the Visigoth treasure theories

but I'm in Noel Corbu's camp

Blanche Castile and her treasure

Noel Corbu
Between 12th and 14 January 1956, the local newspaper, La Dépêche du Midi serialised an interview with Corbu and his brother Charles in which it was claimed that Father Saunière had discovered the treasure of Blanche of Castile the wife of Louis VIII and the regent of the future Saint Louis. Noël Corbu claimed that Abbé Bérenger Saunière had in 1892 discovered whilst renovating his church parchments "inscribed in a mixture of French and Latin, in which at first glance could be discerned passages from the Gospels".[2] It has been noted by critics that Saunière began renovating his church in 1886, not 1892,[3] and that "there was no evidence that these parchments had ever existed".[4]

French Television later made a documentary in 1961 casting Corbu as Father Saunière.[5]

Noël Corbu's account of the discovery of the parchments by Father Saunière was later quoted in the document Un Trésor Mérovingien à Rennes-le-Château (1966) attributed to "Antoine L'Ermite",[6] that for "stylistic reasons suggest that this was written by Pierre Plantard and/or Philippe de Chérisey".[7


Noël Corbu sold the estate in 1964 to Henri Buthion (1924-2002), before being killed in a car accident in 1968.

Noël Corbu's daughter Claire Corbu with her husband Antoine Captier in 1985 published L'Héritage de l’Abbé Saunière that reproduced some of the important archive documents relating to Bérenger Saunière, and in May 1989 opened the Saunière Museum in the village of Rennes-le-Château.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noel_Corbu

So anybody in the Noel Corbu camp
let's start giving some arguments
the "throwing down the gauntlet"

The fact remains that Ossendowski linked Agarttha to the question of immortality. In his view: "The deep caverns are lit by a distictive luminescence that permits the growth of grains and plants, and gives people long and disease-free lives." And if we can trust the legends, the entrances to Agarttha are not only to be found in Asia. Mont-Saint-Michel and Broceliande Forest have also been suggested as likely spots where passages to this underground realm might be found.

p.212-215


RENNES-LE CHATEAU: ONE ENTRANCE TO THE HOLLOW EARTH

...

But where does Rennes -le-Chateau fit in here? There are in fact several connections to the Rennes affair. Boudet defined Rennes-les-Bains as an island of Isis, which is the very name a Rosicrucian manuscript gives to a region of Shambala. There also seems to have bee an connection between the Grail and Rennes-and between the Grail and the hollow earth. One of the first known texts concerning the Grail dates from the tenth century. In this work, its author, Nomme Menius, spoke af a war against an unbreechable underground fortress where miracles took place. We can recall that the Grail was also connected to the elixir of immortality and thus forms part of the equation.

Starting with Dionysian worship, this elixir was replaced by wine. Rene Guenon[20] demonstrates how the Grail is linked to the "eucharistic" sacrifice of Melchizedek. He goes on to say: "The name of Melchizekek, or, more exactly, Melki-Tsedeq, is none other than the title used in Judeo-Christian tradition to denote the function of the king of the world." According to the Bible, Melki-Tsedeq, king of salem, had bread and wine brought forth with which he blessed Abraham. Melki-Tsedeq is both king and priest and his name means "king of justice." At the same time, he is also king of Salem and thus of peoace. Justice and peace, according to Rene Guenon, are the two fundamental aspects of the king of the world, and Salem would hide the Agarttha. (Salem is disguise for the name Agarttha.) [21]

Rene Guenon also speaks of a figure whom we already came across when looking at the Rennes-le-Chateau affair: Jacob. As everyone knows, Jacob had a dream in a place named Luz,[22]
which he called a new Bethel, the "house of the Lord." Of Luz, Guenon says: "It is said that the Angel of Death cannot enter this town or have any power there; and some claim that through a fairly singular but significant comparison, its location is near Alborj, which is also the abode of immortality for the Persians." Bethel-the House of God! We can recall the phrase appearing on the protal of the church of Mary Magdalene in Rennes-le-Chateau: Terribilis est locus iste,or "This place is terrible." In Genesis this text is followed by: "This is none other than the house of God and this is the gate of heaven:" [23 - a phrase spoken by Jacob in Bethel.[24] It is the fact that Asmodeus is the first thing you see at the church after reading the phrase from Jacob on the lintel of the church door. Guenon tells us that near Luz-Bethel there is an almond tree (called Luz in Hebrew) that is hollow at its base [25] It is through this hole that a person can enter an underground passage leading to the underground city. An old legend of the Razes region tells that underground tunnels lying deep below the castle of Rennes lead to caves where a troglodyte people have been living since the dawn of time. This race has no experience of the passing of time and the light of day and is there immortal.[26]

We may ask if the white queen that haunts all the local legends in this region that marries the white and black, Blanchefort and Roco Negro, is not simply the white goddess of ancient times, the one who ruled over the underground world, the goddess of the transition to elsewhere, the lady of the mists. It is quite instructive to refer to the names under which she has been worshipped: Albina (similar to the name of an ancient Visisgoth fortress located on the Rennes Plateau, which was Albedunum), and Cardea, for the romans who regarded her as the mistress of Janus and the queen of "hinges," cardoin Latin (similiar to Cardou, the name of the mountain overlooking the entrance of the cromlech of Rennes-les-Bains). Ovid said of Cardea: "her power is to open what is shut, to shut what is open." The white goddess has also been incorporated with Isis [27] by some, according to Lucius, but it is especially important to recall the nickname she was given: the Spider. #

this is all well and good, but it is not everthing. Now we must find the beginning of these tunnels buried deep beneath the arth that eventually reach the sovereign kingdom of the "master of the hollow hill," as he is known to the Celts. At this moment we can recall that the former name of the peoak of Bugarach, near Rennes-les-Bains, was Tauze Peak, with tauzemeaning "hollow." It is known that a vast network of subterranean galleries exists beneath this peak through which the water of the region's aquifers circulate. The existence of this hydrological system was demonstrated by the research of C. Chanel in Le seisme aquifere des pyrenees Orientales en octobre 1940, son rattachement aux eaux thermals de la region et au systeme orogenique du Canigou, 1941[The Aquiferic earthquake of the Eastern Pyrenees in October 1940,Its Connection to the Thermal Springs in the Region and the Orogenic System of the canigou].

It is now easy to understand why Jules Verne chose the Burgarach for the family name of the captain in Clovis Dardentor,which recalls the Bugarach that is the source of the Sals and Blanque rivers - once again an allusion to the colour of the White Queen and the White Island, which, according to legend, was the destination of Joseph of Arimathea carrying the grail. Of course, in order to reach it, tradition says that you must "cross the waters."

Andrew Thomas tells us that in Russia,[28] "among the Old Believers of Starovery, there is a strange story that declares that those who follow the path of the Tartar conquerors back to Mongolia wil find Belovodye, the land of white waters, where holy men live in seclusion far from the trupitudes of the world." We might say that Bugarach, at whose foot the Blanque River is born, is a kind of land of white waters. Andrew Thomas pursued this notion by citing Nicolas Roerich's report of this discussions with Old Believers of the Altai Mountains conderning access to this land. He writes: " After a hard journey, if you not become lost, you will find the salt water lakes. This passage is quite dangerous. You will then reach the mountains of Bogogorch. Here an even more perilous path awaits you."

Sel and Sals, Bogogorch and Bugarach: Certainly these simiarities are not mere coincidences. We are on the right trail, andit up the reader to follow it.

[20] Rene Guenon, Le Roi du Monde[The King of the World] (Paris: Gallimard, 1927).
[21] Solomon is also a name derived from Salem.
[22] Among other things, Luz designates an indestructible physical particle, symbolically depicted as an extremely hard bone, to which the soul remains connected after death and until resurrection.
[23] Genesis: "How dreadful is this place! This is none other than the house of god and this is the gate of heaven. And Jacob rese up early in the morning and took the stone that he had used for his pillow, and set it up for a pillar, and poured oil upon the top of it. And it seems it is not chance the, that Jesus was born in bethlehem, the "house of bread."
[24] In the church, near the door, the demon Asmodeus sits in the work of heaven. This guardian of the threshold can be seen as an allusion to the infernal world.
[25]In North American traditions, there is mention of a tree through which humans oprginally living inside the earth made their way to the surface. Julius Evola (in The Mystery of the grailand his idea of the imperial Gibeline) feels that the withered tree is associated witha depiction of residence of the king of the world and it will grow green again at the return f theis lost king. We cannot help but recall George's Sand's Novel Consuelo and the laurel tree of the Sabarthes that should grow green again as well as the legend of the lost king connected to the Great Monarch ath is a feature of the Rennes region. [This theme is also key to J.R.R. Tolkien's book The Return of the King. -Trans.]
[26] Louis Fedie, "Etude historique sur les Haut Razes" [Historic Study of the High Razes], in Memoires de la Societe des Arts et Sciences de Carcassonne [Records of the Society of Arts and Sciences of Carcassonne] (vol. 4, 1879-84).
[27] A statue of Isis was found in Rennes-les-Bains.
[28] Andrew Thomas, shambhala, oasis de lumiere [Shambhala, Oasis of Light] (Paris: Robert Laffont, 1976).

Lov, I decided to repeat your post because it discusses I'm looking at the events that occurred in 1956.
I believe that while the operation started in Annemasse there was a larger operation that occurred which encompasses a serious of events over approx. 6 years.

Nicholaus Haywood mentions that it was the Monks at the abbey who were keeper of certain Sion artefacts
in the Priory of Sion dossiers

Then why did Tolkien rip off the folk lore of so many other countries just to have something to offer the UK'ies?

"On Fairy Stories" was written in 1938 as an Andrew Lang Lecture, and, as Tolkien notes in his introductory note to the essay, “was in shorter form delivered in the University of St. Andrews in 1938” (The Tolkien Reader pg 31).

Tolkien: Intelligence chiefs singled him and a 'cadre' of other intellectuals to work at Bletchley Park, the codebreaking centre in Buckinghamshire. Photo: AP Tolkien, one of his generation's most respected linguists, was ''earmarked'' to crack Nazi codes in the event that Germany declared war.

Intelligence chiefs singled him and a 'cadre' of other intellectuals to work at Bletchley Park, the codebreaking centre in Buckinghamshire.

Its staff - which included Alan Turing, the gay codebreaker - would later decipher the 'impenetrable' Enigma machines.

This saved Britain from German conquest by allowing the Navy to intercept and destroy Hitler's U-Boats.

According to previously unseen records, Tolkien trained with the top-secret Government Code and Cypher School (GCCS).

He spent three days at their London HQ in March 1939 - six months before the outbreak of the Second World War and just 18 months after the publication of his first book, The Hobbit.

But although he was ''keen'', Tolkien - a professor of English literature at Oxford University - declined a £500-a-year offer to become a full-time recruit.

The reasons behind his decision are not known.

But he went on to write the Lord of the Rings trilogy, one of the most popular and influential works in 20th-Century literature.

Tolkien's involvement with the war effort was revealed for the first time this week in a new exhibition at GCHQ, the new name for GCCS, the Government's spy base in Cheltenham, Glos.

The display includes a number of previously unseen exhibits relating to Bletchley Park's war preparations.

A GCHQ historian, who would not give his name for security reasons, said: ''JRR Tolkien is known the world over for his novels, but his involvement with the war effort may take a few people by surprise.

''While he didn't sign up as was probably intended, he did complete three days' training and was 'keen' to do more.

''Why he failed to join remains a mystery. There is no paperwork suggesting a motive, so we can only assume that he wanted to concentrate on his writing career.''

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, or 'JRR' Tolkien as he became known, was among a string of intellectuals singled out for service by the Foreign Office.

The GCCS began preparing for a second World War in the late 1930s, and knew the importance of establishing a codebreaking centre to defeat the German forces.

The director of GCCS, known only as 'Alastair G Denniston', drew up a list of 50 possible candidates ''earmarked for service'' in the event of war.

Denniston was given the names by dons at Britain's two leading universities, Oxford and Cambridge, whom had worked with the Government in the First World War.

Tolkien, a professor of Anglo Saxon at Oxford from 1925 to 1945, and professor of English Language and Literature from 1945 to 1959, was put forward.

In a letter to the Foreign Office dated 25 November 1938, Denniston says: ''I have been in touch with both universities and have established direct contact through dons who worked with us during the war, so that now we have a list of about 50 men earmarked for service under the Foreign Office in the event of war.

''I enclose a copy of this list so that you may know the type of men we intend to get.''

Tolkien and 12 others agreed to a ''tester'' day at GCCS HQ in London, where he was given training in Scandinavian languages and Spanish.

He visited the base for three consecutive days between March 27th and March 29th 1939 - six months before the war broke out.

A record of his training carries the word ''keen'' beside his name.

The GCHQ historian said: ''War was coming and the Government could see the complexity of the electronic encryption that would be used.

''The GCCS moved to Bletchley Park in August 1939 from London to avoid the expected bombing.

''They had been inviting people from universities to come for courses so that when they were needed there would a be a cadre of trained people.

''Alan Turing was one person and the list shows that he had three courses just on Enigma in January 1939, so they knew what sort of skills they needed.''

Those who passed the course, and agreed to sign-up, were offered an annual wage of £500 - the equivalent of around £50,000 today.

But Tolkien - who is assumed to have passed the course with flying colours - rejected the offer.

The historian joked: ''We simply don't know why he didn't join. Perhaps it was because we declared war on Germany and not Mordor.''

The exhibition opened in a museum at GCHQ HQ - dubbed the 'doughnut' because of its shape - this week and will remain on show for the next few months.

It also includes documents from the First World War, and a range of captured Enigma machines.

The exhibition is not open to everyone - the museum is strictly only open for GCHQ's 10,000 staff.

Chris Marshall, a GCHQ spokesman, said: ''The museum is important to give people a sense of the past and where they come from.

''It's about our past but also about where we go in the future.''

Tolkien died on 2 September 1973, aged 81.

OK Rain, how much of all Tolkien's ring bit for the glory of UK is actually UK'y?

The Silmarillion is a collection of tales by JRR Tolkien, edited and published after the author’s death by his son, Christopher Tolkien.

The Silmarillion chronicles the history of Tolkien’s created world, from the “Creation” to the events leading up the “The War of the Ring”, the events chronicled in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.

The tales are a collection of writings whose concepts date back to as early as 1914, when Tolkien’s appears to have written some of the early drafts of his “Middle-earth Mythologies”. It was a labor which, as his son and editor Christopher Tolkien stated in the forward, “throughout my father’s long life he never abandoned…nor ceased even in his last years to work on” (TS pg. vii).