Arcadia Discussion Zone

I have some questions for all you experts out there............

Why dont you appear to be interested in the Girona aspect of the RLC mystery? Its as if no one is giving it any serious considerations (apart from Andy)
Has anyone done any serious research on the French woman that the priest allegedly visited?
Has anyone done any research on Jose?
I keep reading about a Spanish connection on both Arcadia and Perillos websites........has anyone done any research into wether these people are the same ones that Patrice mentions in her book?
I am convinced that the mystery is not all about RLC and is all about the priest.
I have been to Girona and i love the place, i am convinced there is more to the story than what Patrice wrote in city of Secrets.
Am i the only one that thinks this???????

Cheers Roger,
glad to hear that.

I'm certainly interested, Tingra, but there's just not the material out there at the moment - in the sense of there being published material (in English) subsequent to Patrice Chaplin's book, for non-specialist, part-timers like me to get their teeth into. I'm sure there is a lot of research going on, and its encouraging to learn from Roger's posting that there may be as many as four books in the offing. So far, I've read no more than "City of Secrets", which I enjoyed very much (as much as anything because it was so well written - much of the RLC related writing isn't, with the best will in the world - and also because I was very taken with Patrice's biography), and Andrew's various follow-up blogs and articles. Although not an RLC expert by any stretch of the imagination, I got the strong impression during the reaction to the book, that this had almost come from nowhere, and taken the RLC community a little by suprise, which would account for the time lag in follow-up material. That said, I'm not as close to this subject as some, and so perhaps it was anticipated more than I realise.

I have recently purchased, but not yet read, an earlier book by Patrice Chaplin, called "Happy Hour", which I understand makes some reference to RLC related matters, so you may want to check this out, whilst other publications are awaited.

I agree with you, though. I'm sure there is more to this story, and I'm eagerly awaiting further developments.

Hi Richard
I have already read Happy Hour and I have to say that I was really disappointed with the book compared to City of Secrets, I realise that an author uses artistic licence when describing there subjects etc, but in these two books it is as if Patrice used her descriptions and conversations from Happy Hour and re deployed them in City of Secrets……if you read the book you will see where I am coming from and descriptions and conversations will sound familiar to you although they are regarding different people and places etc. To be honest it is as if she couldn’t be bothered to make up new conversations etc and by doing that I lost belief in City of Secrets. She uses the same description for the Spaniard (Jose in Happy Hour as she does for the priest in City of Secrets and the same goes for other people and and conversations. Having said that I am still convinced that there is more to Girona/Spain yet to be discovered and I am hoping that the other material that she didn’t use in her book will be published. I love Girona and spend many hours around the French woman’s garden and up and down all the narrow streets, I think it is a fascinating place and would love to know more about it .

Oh and i forgot to mention......in Happy Hour (jose AKA Luis or the Spaniard)is also a priest and is allegedly the grandson of Saunier!!!!!!
read it and you will see what i mean.

Thanks for that info, Tingra. I'm not sure if that makes me want to bump "Happy Hour" up a couple of notches on my book pile, or down! Probably up, because the connections will be interesting, and I do like Patrice Chaplin's writing style. I thought "City of Secrets" was very atmospheric, and really made the city come alive on the page.

To be honest, when I first heard about the book, I was a little dismayed at the prospect of having to absorb another aspect to the RLC affair - I was only just getting to grips with the whole Perillos / Lyon angle. "Not yet another location," I thought. It was like one more tentacle on the octopus. But then I read it, and apart from being really taken with the story of a teenage girl, so self-assured that she would travel around Spain at such a young age, and who was so bright, and so independent, I was fascinated by the connections to the wider mystery of RLC - the French woman, Quillan, Cocteau, a secret society, a portal on Canigou, etc. Interesting translation of SION as an acronym, as well. And then when I read some of the follow-up material on Arcadia, about the geometric relationship, for example, between the two towers (in RLC and Girona) and Canigou, it really got my mind buzzing.

I can't wait for someone to write another installment to this mystery. I definitely think there's a lot to Girona, and look forward to going there myself (one day).

I was very keen to read Happy Hour having heard how it augmented City of Secrets.

It is an interesting book in it's own right but the information pertaining to RLC is far more limited. I haved to say that overall it made me generally more sceptical about the information in City of Secrets insofar as there were elements which were either contradictory or missing. For example, much is made in COS of a visit Patrice made to RLC when she saw some sort of "ghost" in the Church. There was then a later visit to the Church with a Parisian Taxi driver. However, in HH only the later visit is discussed as if it was the first time she had been there.

Now of course, Patrice may have had very good reasons for leaving things out of HH - or she simply may have forgotten some minutae of her life (as we all do!) but it does leave COS looking somewhat embellised in places. Tingra has already spoken about Joses 'clear identification as a Catholic Priest in HH which changes to something far more ambiguous in COS - again explainable if she was not privy to certain information at the time of writing HH or had a different perspective on events.

By her own admission much of the information in COS has been fed to Patrice. The problem I think for the reader is determing what has been told to her and what she actually experienced.

Would be interesting to hear what others think about the two books in comparison.

City of Secrets…….Patrice Chaplin
I fell hook line and sinker for this book from the fist page and couldn’t put it down. I read the book while I was in Girona on a short break last year and the old quarter of the city is exactly like Patrice describes it ( I think I took a million photographs).
Girona is a really mysterious place and I found myself completely immersed in the story about the French woman and the priest and the RLC connection because I have been interested in it all for so long. Perhaps in hindsight I just wanted to believe it all and it was a lot easier to do that when you’re actually in the place where it was supposed to have happened.
Then I read HAPPY HOUR and my balloon burst……….
Happy Hour is supposed to be about Patrice’s life while living in a small town in the Pyrenees, and in the book she describes her first encounter with RLC and the story about the French Woman. Obviously in both of these books she has changed people’s names etc and I can understand why she had to do that, but what I can’t understand is why she had completely changed their characters also. In Happy Hour, Jose who is still the love of her life is a priest called Luis and has never been married or had kids, he says that he has never been to RLC and didn’t know the French woman. When she goes to RLC with the taxi driver neighbour (the only thing that is the same in COS) she describes a different experience and says it is the first time she has been there…….what happened to her bad experience years before with Jose????? Surely something as traumatic as that would have been mentioned.
Another thing that she has done that really blew it for me is copied quotes and descriptions etc from one book to another……..for example:

Here is her description of Luis in Happy Hour…..“He had an edgy charm. He was one person I met who was not confused and didn’t waste life. His voice could seduce just by its sound. Luis was seductive, sex and death were his influences; he understood them and seemed to carry them inside him. He was intuitive and sensitive as a weathervane, eyes beautiful and these days cold, he was sun on snow, nothing much in between. He said I prefer not to be in a fixed position, labelled. I’m more dangerous when they don’t own me”

Here is her description of Carreras (the enigmatic priest) in City of Secrets….”Carreras had an edgy charm. He was one person I met who was not confused and didn’t waste life. His voice could seduce just by the sound. He was certainly seductive, sex and death were his influences, and I thought he understood them and carried them inside him. He was intuitive and sensitive as a weathervane but cold. He was sun on snow, nothing much in between….I prefer not to be in a fixed position, labelled. I am more dangerous when they don’t own me”

There are lots more instances like that where she copies the exact description from one book to another but changes the person who is saying it or being described ( his mother and the hotel receptionist to name but a few)…..why? it makes no sense, she is a writer, an expert, surely I am not the only person that thinks this is a very strange thing to do when trying to give us (the readers) a believable account of her life.
City of Secrets would have been a more believable book if she didn’t do that and because of that I now doubt the whole story…….even the Butchers family member that gave her all the info and photographs in COS gave her a completely different story in Happy Hour and there was no mention at all about photographs etc.
I do realise that City of Secrets was commissioned and that she could only write and show certain things and it is up to the individual to believe either version of events, but at the same time when you listen to her interview on Rennesance radio and after reading Andy’s questing in Girona article I still feel that there is something tangible in the story somewhere and no doubt the truth will out eventually.

Tingra, Hi. And thanks for this. Sorry I am a bit late to the party on this thread.

So, I speak to Patrice several times a week and meet up with her frequently. Occasionally Filip Coppens joins us too, and we chat incessantly about Girona. I can tell you that Patrice’s next book is almost finished and although it is not about Girona, it does not stray too far from City of Secret themes, especially Portals, Perpignan and Dali! Patrice continues to visit Girona and has recently met with Jose.

Personally, I am coming to the end of the first phase of some extensive research with Ingrid, the Cabalist featured in City of Secrets. The first part of my 22,000 word opus ( ) will be live in a couple of week’s time. And it’s nothing to do with RLC, Girona or Oak Island - really; ). The rather large scale of it is why I have been slow of lae in producing new articles...The truth be known, I may have overdone it on this one but never mind .

I am also saddened to report that Luis – ‘The Wolf’, from Chaplin's books, was run over by a car a couple of months ago and remains in a coma like state. Very sad. Great guy.

So ya, cheers for asking about Girona. I can confirm what Roger said – several others are nearing completion on their research on Girona related subjects, so I would say please continue to watch this space…

Cheers,

Andrew

Hi Andy, that all sound very interesting and i look forward to reading the new stuff you mentioned.......bring it on.
can i just ask you as you are in contact with Patrice, does she have any plans to do anything with the material she didnt use in SOS that she spoke about? As i recall she said that she had loads more letters/documents etc that she didnt use in the book for various undisclosed reasons......

It really is a shame about Luis, i assume it was an accident and the person responsible has been caught and prosecuted!!!!!!

Ya, so Patrice has loads of stuff.

For instance, she has only transcribed letters from Catalan to English that included the name Sauniere! All others remain un-read – including loads from the French Woman. I’ve seen them |o|. In fact, I met Patrice in her favourite tea room a few months back and she was having a Catalan friend of hers transcribe some more… So we will see. And then there are some amazing documents that she shouldn’t have but does and is not sure how to handle that. Her research assistant who helped obtain them, who was known well by the community, has totally disappeared – never to be heard from again.

And then there is the Cocteau film, which she intends to use to help launch City of Secrets in America, so hopefully we will see it soon.

Andrew

Oh, and Luis - it was a hit a run....

are you serious......is she officially a missing person?
or as us Geordies say....has she just legged it?
I wonder what happend to Lucia.....missing or dead!!!!!!
i can imagine that you have loads of stuff you would like to tell us about but arent able to.
To be continued, as they say.

Luis a hit and run!!!!!
Disapearing researchers!!!!!
Scarey stuff i think..........or am i just being paranoid????

Hehe. Not really : )

Patrice's former research assistant was a guy. But he's gone. Nobody knows where.

And for Lucia, well her real name is Gloria, and I must admit I have not gotton to the bottom of that one. She's protected pretty well from what I can tell... And still alive. Eco knows her - used to be in love with her, but he won't say either. And Patrice and Luis were both pretty cagey about Gloria. So I am not sure what to think about that one...What do you think?

Andrew

I think Gloria is a strange name for a Catalan/Spanish/French woman.
If she is still alive, why did Patrice make a big thing about her dying on the mountain and Jose bringing her down?
I mean what was the point of that?
How old will she be now? older than Patrice i think......and also in the book, she was the one that wanted the "information" (for want of a better word) to come out into the open.......could that be why she has vanished off the face of the earth as well?
When you spoke to Luis/wolf he told you that she was still alive and has ended up in a coma.
I THINK YOU SHOULD WATCH YOUR BACK.
I reckon you should get one of those tracking devices implanted under your skin and then if you disapear we can track you on google earth
All joking aside Andrew, this Girona thing is very very wierd.

what does Eco deny?

I know what you mean by symbollism etc in COS, but to me its as if she is saying " If i can divulge this much information, what more will i tell?"
The question is......who is she or THEY posing that question to?

I am looking forward to the work being published from the 4 authors you mentioned in an earlier post.......hopefully it will be in English!!!!
I am also facinated by the mysterious French woman and the research they have done will perhaps shed some light on her life before and after Girona.

" "

Hi Jake, i would love to see your Dali stuff but where is it????
As you can probably gather i am a technophobe and cant even figure out how to do the quote thing before my posting yet

Tingra,

Posted: 16 May 2008 12:04 pm Post subject: a different artistic approach...
To the artsy aficianados of the RLC enigma who love to dissect + analyze art, what do ya do with somebody who grew up next door to Girona?

This particular artist was in a class by himself, he could paint traditional portraits but his real claim to fame fused the bizarre with the candid while dealing with mundane themes, why he even has his own unique landscape to boot.

Here are some links to ponder.
http://www.dali-gallery.com/html/dali.php
http://www.dali-gallery.com/html/works/1981_16.htm
http://www.dali-gallery.com/html/works/1981_02.htm
http://www.dali-gallery.com/html/works/1981_06.htm
http://www.dali-gallery.com/html/works/1929_11.htm
http://www.dali-gallery.com/html/works/1934_68.htm
http://www.dali-gallery.com/html/works/1932_31.htm
http://www.dali-gallery.com/html/works/1934_26.htm
http://www.dali-gallery.com/html/works/1936_24.htm
http://www.dali-gallery.com/html/works/1946_01.htm
http://www.dali-gallery.com/html/works/1950_02.htm
http://www.dali-gallery.com/html/works/1952_01.htm
http://www.dali-gallery.com/html/works/1955_01.htm
http://www.dali-gallery.com/html/works/1962_12.htm
http://www.dali-gallery.com/html/works/1960_06.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candaulism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Madonna_of_Port_Lligat

Since the Catalan area shared a common history way back when its part of a timeline approach to see when + where the link got severed, if at all, since La Sanch is a common thread.

Some other links to ponder
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalan_language
http://www.orbilat.com/Languages/Catalan/Catalan.html

Dali attributes a strong influence on his work by Vermeer
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Woman_Holding_a_Balance
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Art_of_Painting
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Astron ... ainting%29

Some may ask, how does tie in with RLC enigma, well, in todays atavistic, relatavistic world everything eventually connects in tried + true eclectic fashion, just ask Roscoe + jb, they do it all the time.

The proximity to Girona's turbulent multicultural past put its mark on the surrounding area, just look at Gaudi's architecture and see his connect to Dali for instance. How many other mystical triggers inspired Dali who claimed to be Arabic at his core look at his take on Mohammed, its in dali-gallery.com.

For the gnostically inclined check out how Dali used Gala as his Madonna gestalt, his Magdalen gestalt, etc its all wide open to interp.

have fun,

jake.

I think there's room for intuitive reasoning, at the very least, even intuitive speculation, as long as it's intelligently articulated, and grounded within reasonable benchmarks of reality and common sense; and provided that those of us indulging in these occasional flights of fancy accept the essential flimsiness of such an approach, in the face of the educated academic rigour referred to.

But the mysteries under discussion are so multi-dimensional, multi-faceted, and multi-locational, that they seem to demand some degree of intuitive reasoning, and lateral thinking. The Girona intervention into the wider mystery of Rennes-le-Chateau being a case in point.

Reading your posts is a bit scary somtimes guys.........i feel as though i am intruding in some private academic union that i have no right to interupt!!!!!!!

The Girona mystery intrigues me because of the book City of Secrets and I have read the book a few times now, each time I read it I understand more and I understand less.
As Roger pointed out it is filled with symbolism etc and that aspect of it is also intriguing. The first time I read the book I perceived it as a love story and part autobiography but couldn’t understand why she mentioned certain things all the time (the stones for instance) and as I have pointed out earlier I read Happy Hour and my opinion changed.
When I compared these two books and realised that City of Secrets wasn’t an autobiography and I understood that Patrice was more or less told what she could include into her story, it all started to make sense. If I was to start quoting from the book all the paragraphs etc that I am talking about I would be here all night so suffice to say, there is more to this book than meets the eye. (Read it again from a different perspective and you will understand)
If I had not read City of Secrets I would have no knowledge of this forum or any of the things discussed on it and now that I have I am truly grateful. Because of the book I now know a bit about the Rosicrucian’s, Girona Jews, Kabala, knight’s templar, Perillos, RLC , secret societies, and the list goes on and on, a whole new world has opened up to me. I joined the forum to see if there was anyone else out there that felt the same way as I did about the book and wanted to know more about the people involved in the whole mystery and as a consequence of that I have learned a hell of a lot more than I bargained for.

I completely sympathise, Tingra. I can't work out how to insert pictures and links, which everyone else seems to do with great ease. It's like alchemy, or something!

I think the later point you make about Patrice being under some form of direction as to what she could include in her story, is very interesting. She's obviously been in receipt of certain items of information (and mis-information - re the dodgy photos of Sauniere in Girona) that somebody, or some thing, happens to want out in the public domain. For whatever reason.

In this respect, I do see some parallels with De Sede's "Accursed Treasure", based upon a dossier of material given to De Sede by Pierre Plantard. However, Patrice's book is much better written.

HOW DO YOU DO THAT QUOTE THING?????

Anyway....in COS, Jose tells Patrice " things are predicted which bring light to the whole business WORLDWIDE and it is even in the Cabbala message.
What better way to bring somthing to the attention of the whole world than by a book written by a well known author, the book is launching in America next month......doesnt get much bigger than that.

I have a question that is bugging me that somone might be able to answer.one of the letters in COS mentions somone called Guillem (p.248) and apparantly there is some suspision regarding him being the french womans brother.............I read somwhere about a Hapsburg in RLC using an assumed name ( i think it was on SP but could be wrong) does this person have the same name?