h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

That's a good entry! You have a gift for brevity that I can only aspire to. I see also that you have kept an unbiased tone throughout this piece, whioh I notice you do not do in some of your other pieces - I am not accusing you of anything, my entries suffer from the some zealous outbursts thst your 'Failure Of Christianity to stand up to reason' do! I think it's good that you have a passion for exposing the hypocrisies that we (as a people) have had to live under for the last two thousand years.

I am guessing that your balanced tone throughout this piece means that you take the Nag Hammadi library very seriously, which I also do. And, I see that we share at least one work of reference; 'The Templar Revelation' by Picknett & Prince. I thought that I was quite widely read until I picked that up, and it certainly forced my to reconsider the safe little theories that I had formulated for myself. I had not ascribed nearly as important a role in history to the Magdelene until I found this, and then I had to send my personal research off into new areas.

I don't know if you have come across the work of Laurence Gardner yet, but if you haven't, then the next time you are in a library you might like to look his work up. He claims to have access to private histories of many european Royal and noble families, and I think this shows in his work. He too is seeking to portray the Church as the sham that it is, but whereas you and I and our ilk do it with what I can only describe as an 'intellectual guerilla' style, he calmly lays out all the evidence for the reader knowing that there are very few conclusions that you can logically reach. Proving him wrong is like a challenge that you can't accept because there doesn't seem to be a hole that you can start picking away at. I find it's the same with, say, Graham Hancock.

What are your views on hermeticism? There are similarities between gnosticism and hermeticism. The major difference is, as you pointed out, Gnosticism is a battle between good and evil, whereas Hermeticism accepts that every coin has to has to have two sides to exist. Evil is evil, but it is necessary for the correct balance and harmony. It's a philosophy that appeals to me, which is why I would consider myself a hermeticist, on the occasions I need to label myself. Also, I have been lucky enough to read some of the translated poems that make up parts of the Corpus Hermeticum, and they are extremely beautiful. Reading them, and the style in which they are written, almost forces a mood of serenity onto the reader. Obviously the words can't be as powerful as, say, the original words in Egyptian written by / dictated by / inspired by Thoth /Hermes. For the Egyptians, hieroglyphs had power and magic redolent of the image that they portrayed, like a little piece of whatever the image was of was trapped within the hieroglyph.

See? I only wanted to say what a good piece I thought that was, and I've quite happily waffled on for hours! Let me have your views on Hermes and Hermeticism - I'd be most interested.

PS If you want to know the details of Gardner's works, titles and ISBNs etc., leave a note for that too.

My views on Hermeticism are in their infant stage, since I haven't ardently pursued the subject matter. My research into Christianity's roots turns up references to Mithraism, Hermeticism, Gnosticism, Mazdaism, cults of Osiris, Isis, Dionysis, Sol Invictus, and on and on... But apart from cursory research to find out what the authors were talking about, I haven't gotten into too much detail. Truth to tell, I haven't actually read those Nag Hammadi tractates which do not have a direct relevance to Christianity. But in studying those, I believe that the Gnostic church was the one Jesus originally intended, and the Catholic church is just the misinterpretations of a man who never met Jesus (Paul). Not that I'm going to become a devout Gnostic or anything, but if people are going to deify this guy, they might as well deify the right one. I was tempted to expound on all of this further, but that was not the mission of this article.

It was 'The Templar Revelation' and their frequent references to the Nag Hammadi collection that finally convinced me to buy my own copy, since I read that sort of thing with the same critical eye that I read religious material, so I felt I had to read the tractates for myself. When I had finished, Mary Magdalene's importance was so self-evident, I wondered how the rest of the world could be blind to it. Selective logic and ignorance, I guess.

As for the references, I do humbly beg for more detail. It is become somewhat of a chore sorting out the good bits in the massive religion section at the local bookstore, digging through reams of dogma to find reason. Your assistance could save me from setting the entire section afire in frustration.

Happy to help. In Birmingham, where my other half is at Uni, I spent about three hours one afternoon looking through seven floors and a basement before even finding the right section, and there were no books I really liked the look of then. So I ask Charlotte if there are any other decent bookshops in Birmingham city centre, and she says yes, but this is the smallest of three...

In the interest of saving your reading time then, may I recommend the following as excellent reading:

'Genesis of the Grail Kings', Laurence Gardner, ISBN 0-593-04430-4
(Read my entry on Adam - Legend of the first man, this was my main source work for this entry)

'Bloodline of the Holy Grail', Laurence Gardner, ISBN 1-85230-870-2
(Concerned with Jesus bloodline)

'The Elixir and the Stone', Michael Baigent & Richard Leigh, ISBN 0-14-024793-9
(An excellent work on the subject of alchemy & hermeticism)

'Fingerprints of the Gods', Graham Hancock, ISBN 0-434-31336-X
(Is there a civilisation missing from the history books?)

'The Sign & The Seal', Graham Hancock, ISBN 0-7493-0186-4
(The search for, and the discovery of?, the Ark of The Covenant. For once, a book on this subject not religion by theoligical history's version of Norman Bates)

'From Atlantis to the Sphinx', Colin Wilson, ISBN 0-7535-0064-7
(An excellent introduction to differing theories on many different topics, such as the Sphinx & the pyramids, the origins of man, the mayans, studies of why man is a religious animal etc)

'Act of God', Graham Phillips, ISBN 0-330-35206-7
(Moses, Tutankhamun, and the myth of Atlantis)

'The Hiram Key', Christopher Knight & Robert Lomas, ISBN0-7126-8579-0
(Pharaohs, freemasons, and the discovery of the lost scrolls of Jesus)

'The Second Messiah', Christopher Knight & Robert Lomas, ISBN 0-7126-7719-4
(Templars, the Turin shroud, and the great secret of Freemasonry)

You are obviously well read enough to take what you need from these books and dismiss what you find unbelievable. The last book, for example, provides a theory for the Turin Shroud that is, to my mind, equally as plausible as the once proposed by Picknett & Prince. Some of Knight & Lomas' other conclusions require certain leaps of faith, but then what theory that we have discussed doesn't? I haven't looked but if there isn't already one, do you want to have a go at writing an entry concerned with Picknett & Prince's theory for the Shroud - interspersed, of course, with your own polemic - and by way of contrast I'll expound on Knight & Lomas' theory. That should start a decent debate going.

If any of the above titles catches your eye, let me know and I'll write a bit of a precee of it. It might save you forking out your dollarpounds on something that turns out to be less use than roadkill.

And if you ever get bored of controversy, can I just recommed one more book - save it for when you need a really good belly laugh.

'The Complete Reginald Perrin', David Nobbs, ISBN 0-413-63880-4
(Ever wanted to know how NOT to do such things as; have a midlife crisis; have an affair with your secretary; fake your own suicide; come back as your own long-lost best friend and marry your own widow... this book shows you how you should not do these things, and many, many more)

I'm afraid I'll have to leave the Turin Shroud article in your capable hands. While there is a bit of a summary of their findings in 'The Templar Revelation,' I have been unable to locate a copy of their work on the shroud.

A couple of the titles you mentioned were referenced in works I've read before, but I can't say for certain where and why. The Knight & Lomas works catch my eye, as does the Baigent & Leigh one (I've already read Holy Blood & Holy Grail, and its sequel). Especially "The Hiram Key," I know I've seen references to it in "Templar Revelation."

Further details...

"The Hiram Key" by C. Knight & R. Lomas, Century Books

Both of the authors are practicing Freemasons, and whilst discussing their masonic experiences it strikes them that a lot of the things that they have learnt from the point of inauguration don't make a whole lot of sense, and trying to work out what these ceremonies mean is the purpose of the book. Or at least, that's what they thought when they started out.

Whilst trying to explore the roots of masonry, they reason that the most likely source is the Templars. The evidence for this is well documented from other sources and is nigh on impossible to dispute (without actually being ultimately provable!) So they start to go back further, to the roots of Templarism, and that's when they begin to investigate the Jesus myth. They look at the parallels between his words and works, and ancient Egyptian teachings. There's a discussion of the bible and it's formation. There's a quick look at Sumer, before starting to concentrate on the events of Hiram Abiff, a figure of great importance to the Masons but without a concrete foundation in real history - until they find it. They look at the Essenes, at Qumran, and the writings and practices there that may or may not have become the Dead Sea Scrolls of the Nag Hammadi codices. And they end by hypothesising where else the scrolls of Jesus may be.

By their own admission they are amateur historians, and at times it shows. But on the other hand, there are some interesting nuggets hidden away. Like the naming of America, wrongly attributed to Amerrigo Vespucci. They show how the Templars knew of a land in the west, a rich and bountiful land underneath a star they knew as L'Amerika. And they ask how a chapel at Rosslyn, Scotland, could have been built in the 1420's and contain carvings of plants indiginous to the North American continent, when conventional knowledge says America was discovered in 1492. And there is also a useful explanation of some of the iconology used, such as the fish symbol and the triple tau.

I've read a lot of books, and I've read books far far worse than this (Maurice Cotterell, for example - best lay off the laudanum!), especially considering this is their first book. They've certainly out some effort into it. I liked it anyway, enough to keep my eyes peeled for the sequel and buy it the week it came out...


"The Second Messiah", by the same authors, Century Books

It's a sequel without actually following on. It starts off at the cruxifiction, when Jesus' true followers were driven underground. The book traces their dispersal, and the wait that they endured before they could re-enter the holy city. Eventually, the Templars did enter the city - where the spiritual descendants of Jesus amongst them?

They introduce the reader to Jaques de Molay, the last Grand Master of the Templars. He, as you probably know, suffered massively at the hands of Philip le Bel and his inquisition, before eventually being burned. He cursed his tormentors to join him within a year, which they all did. They introduce the notion of the Shroud of Turin being the sheet in which Molay was wrapped, still alive, after his torture. There's a very graphic section, including diagrams, of how Templars were tortured. Did you know how effective three big nails and a door are? Try nailing somone to a door, arms in an L shape , and then slamming the door!

The last thing that the Church leaders need at the time is an alternative icon. It's bad enough that Molay's death threat has been seen to be carried out, and the Templars were popular amongst the French population. If a relic were to surface that cast a supernatural light on Molay posthumously, the Church would have a problem. So when such a relic - the item that we now know as the Turin Shroud - starts being exhibited just a few years after Molay's death, you can see the Church's predicament. And you have to admit, there are very few mentions in history of anything that could be the Shroud before, ooh, 1311. And the date of Molay's death?

There's a scientific appendix, with photos, of the process they propose created the shroud. They have carbon dating data on their side. I have to admit I'm a historian and not a scientist so I cannot vouch for the validity. Also, we are introduced to the concept of the Rex Deus dynasty.

Other evidence notwithstanding - and I confess I'm not up to date with Shroud research - I still find their hypothesis more plausible than any other I have seen. I never believed it was Jesus' bedclothes, and I don't think it's a clever forgery.

There's more discussion on the Templars, on Christ's true intentions, on where he aquired his beliefs from, and plenty more on Freemasonry. Once again, recommended.


"The Elixir and the Stone", Baigent & Leigh, Penguin Non-fiction

It's not like the other books by them, I have to start by saying that. I feel like there's stuff in this book that they are trying to get off their chests. Part two is concerned with modern day stuff, so I've only read that part once, but that's the part that's a touch long winded and hypothetical.

The first part of the book is concerned with Alchemy and Hermeticism, and in a genre where any works are few and far between, this for me is THE book. Laurence Gardner writes some good stuff on the subject in one of his books, but this is the best stuff I've found so far. It explained to me the feelings I was having in my own head about religion that I couldn't explain to anyone else, and then gave them a name. On a personal and a scholarly level, I really like this book, if only for the first part - which does constitute the vast majority of the book anyway.

Thanks for the info. I'll take the list down to my bookstore, and those they don't have in stock, I'll order all in one shot.

On that first book, don't you find it odd that so many of these studies start out completely off the subject? Baigent, Lincoln, and Leigh got there from investigating an old treasure myth. Prince and Picknett got there from studying da Vinci's art. And now we have an innocent query into masonic rituals that wanders into the roots of Christianity. There's a Dirk Gently quality to all the scholarly research into this field. Perhaps that's why I'm drawn to it.

Ironically, the more I read on gnosticism and hermeticism, the closer it matches my own interpretations as a child. I wasn't going to church with any kind of regularity, but I believed in God with that wide-eyed innocence of youth. The beliefs I had were formed somewhat independantly because of this, and it sometimes shocks me how close to hermetic thought I once was.

That's a good point. I think that the other place that new ideas are formed from is that group of people derided as crackpots. I appreciate that the majority of crackpot ideas are exactly that - I don't expect that you are waiting for aliens to bring Elvis back - but one idea that sounds completely crazy only has to appeal to one person with perseverence, and before you know it you have a supporter and then a movement. Before, those people had to find a person with a printing press willing to risk derision, but now you and I can be derided as crackpots simply by spending ten minutes in front of our PCs. Isn't technology great?

I mean, if the people who first barracked Galileo for postulating that the Earth might be round discovered that not only was he right, but that the surface of this sphere could move over the core, rather tlike the peel of an orange might come loose from the fruit inside, imagine their reaction! And yet we know this now to be true. This was only discovered this century, and again it was described as bunkum, until Albert Einstein said that he had considered it and thought it almost certain that this happened, and was probably responsible for anomolous archeological findings such as fossilised plants dug up in Antarctica, where plants cannot grow.

Once again I am waffling. I only came online to say that I forgot one book from my list. It's rather fitting that we make these points and then discuss this book. It's called 'The Head of God', by Keith Laidler. It is ostensibly a discussion about the lost treasure of the Templars, which he proposes is some form of revered severed or disembodied head. But when the author looks at the cult of worshipping a head, he moves off into many other areas - the point you made. And whilst discussing this, he makes some very 'interesting' - substitute 'controversial' if you wish - points, but he does so with an assertiveness that's very persuasive. I do look for conviction in an author's writing, I feel it's an indication that the author truly believes and is not merely rehashing someone else's ideas.

For instance, I was aware of, and if pushed would admit that I probably subscribe to, the theory that that Moses was born into Egyptian royalty and was the figure that we know as Amenhotep IV, later to become Ahkenaten, first of the Armana kings. What I did not know is that there is a tradition, similar to that of The Magdelene moving to France, of one of Ahkenaten's daughters marrying a chap called Gaythelos, and eventually moving to Spain seeking sanctuary with a number of supporters. (After all, her dad had tried to replace Egypt's panopoly with his own brand of Aten inspired monotheism). Gaythelos' son eventually had to lead the remnants of this group away from Spain because of hostility from the locals. They settled "on an island to the north and west of Spain" and to them un-named, at least by the rest of the world. Gaythelos son was named Hiber. Suppposedly, we get Gaels and Gaelic from Gaythelos. In latin, this new-found island was named Hibernia. Translated to English, we get Iberland, and thence to Iverland, and as we now know it, Ireland. The author hypothesises that we also reach Scotland after these settlers named a new land after their mother, Scotia.

As he says, it's so implausible it's likely to be true. Many historians have tried to claim, especially through the dark ages, a link to Jesus and his Church, to make their land seem more worthy. However, this link traces a descendancy to Egyptians, and outcast Egyptians at that. Making it up seems pointless, it makes their ancestry sacriligious to the Christian church, being of non-christian lineage.

The point that I think I'm trying to make is that this is an interesting book because it contains lots of little gems like this, which I am sure you will find interesting, even if you find them ultimately unbelievable!

Made the trip to the bookstore, picked up The Hiram Key, and ordered the other Knight & Lomas. Unfortunately, neither store (I ended up going to both of the "incredibly huge bookstore" chains) had any idea that Elixir and the Stone or that Laidler book had ever been in existence.

On a side note, I am currently founding the Anti-Christ's Support Network, if you'd like to sign up, and I'd like to link your articles on it.

Ah-ha! Discovered this note after already begging for humble acceptance into said society, and expressing a curious prediliction for chicken kebab. Please feel free to link to the articles in question. The first in what I perceive to be a series of discussions on the Turin Shroud is already under way, but not yet posted. I imagine that individually they may be a bit weighty and cumbersome, so I thought if I split them down into single theory discussions they'd be easier to swallow. One or two involve some scientific discussion, which I confess is not my forte. How is your grasp of chemistry and physics?

Hope you find 'The Hiram Key' useful, although I profess to being surprised the others are not available. If you want, I can check the bookstore where I bought my 'Elixir...' from and see if they have any stock. I can always give you the details, or pick up a copy and ship it on to you. I have a twelve year old daughter, and it also happens to be her favourite book shop, so we can easily pass an afternoon on a father-daughter expedition and pick a copy up and forward it on to you. If you want to do that, email me at [email protected] rather than put your address in public.

As the only other person I know that's read the Hiram Key and is in a position to speak with some conviction on the matters therein, I just wondered what you thought of it. Did you have any luck finding the others?

I've been reading an interesting little piece on Mithraism, as well as a shallow-yet-entertaining dragon novel, sinc we discussed this. I have only recently turned my full attention to the Hiram Key. I will refrain from conversation on it until I have completed it, at which time I will be more than open to discussion.

Sadly. I have not met further success in finding those others. That is, however, entirely my fault, as I have not yet tried to find them online. So don't abandon hope yet.

Finished the book. I managed to glean a few new nuggets for my Failure of Christianity article, the most obvious ripoff being the "Jesus Barabbas" argument, which is quite compelling.

Quite frankly, I am excited about the prospect of a dig under Rosslyn Chapel. The whole argument surrounding the Templars just fits too well with the known facts. It is a fact that the Templars discovered something under the Herod's temple, and the Copper Scroll states quite clearly what that should have been. I've always suspected that the Holy Grail was in fact secret scrolls, on the basis that the Templars had a completely different theology than the rest of the world, and it had to come from somewhere. The story of the construction of Rosslyn and their suppositions of how that created Freemasonry is also too fitting to take lightly. I'd long wondered how a military order somehow transformed itself into a quasi-masons guild. And the best part of all of this is that it is easy to prove or disprove...simply remove the keystone, and see if a passage lies beneath. Failing that, a full archaeological dig can be performed to access the galleries underneath. The scrolls found at Qumran and Nag Hammadi have already greatly advanced our knowledge of the first century, and we can only imagine the new insights another such discovery would yield.

And yet I've never been fully convinced that the Grail ever existed at all. One of the problems that I have always had with it has been its virtual none-appearance in history between the last supper / crucifixtion episode, and it's reappearance during the dark ages. It's a problem I've always had with the Turin Shroud, to be honest, as I've mentioned in the piece I wrote.

One of my other favourite authors, Graham Hancock, advanced the hypothesis that the grail has only ever been a symbol for the bloodline of Jesus, and it would appear to be gathering fans. I mean, he may not have first dreamed it up, but certainly I first discovered in his book 'The Sign and The Seal', although this book is primarily concerned with the Ark of The Covenant (which I'm sure the Ethiopians are hoarding at Axum). I may well write about that soon, but at the moment I'm trying to work out what the next logical step in my Pyramids work should be. Also, I had to stop and make an argument for the legalisation of brothels, and cover the history of insanity as legal defence.

What's next on your reading list?

The other Knight and Lomas book, if it ever shows up at my bookstore. I placed the order about three weeks ago.

When I mentioned the Holy Grail, what I was really referring to is the myth of something holy and powerful discovered by the Templars when they dug out Herod's temple. The whole "cup of Jesus" myth is, in my opinion, either a carefully engineered cover story the Templars invented, or a directionless conjecture on the part of people who knew only hints and rumors of what was found there. And, as I said, I've always suspected it was scrolls, while everyone else assumed it was the treasures of the temple, including the mythical cup. Perhaps they also got away with some of the treasure, and it's more than a likelihood if they found a copy of the Copper Scroll, but I've always found it odd that that treasure has never surfaced in the modern world. It should have certain traits which would make it identifiably ancient and Hebrew, and someone ought to have spotted it. So either the Templars kept it, they melted it down (highly unlikely, as they would have considered the cache as holy relics), or they turned them over to the Church, which keeps them hidden, and rewarded the knights for them with all that property and stuff.