The Templar

THE TEMPLAR

Their permanence in the secret


Víctor Manuel Guzmán Villena

M:.M:.


A lot of ink has poured on the Templar's enigma, which they were careful to encourage the mystery around them. All, in a medieval world in which the marvellous and magical thing reigned, they assumed the evidence of some origins that even they seemed to base on the supernatural thing of the numerical secrets. After the first Crusade, nine French Knights decided to found an Order, among whose intentions, and as opposed to what happened with the crusaders, was not that of fighting systematically the Muslims. Did neither they attend poor and to sick, as to happen with the Knights of Saint John (later,Knights of Malta) or with the Hospitable ones, created in 1120, neither they remain circumscribed to a territorial ambiance of action –such is the latest case of the Teutonic Knights, founded toward 1198 in the territories of the Baltic one– but that of defending the Christians that journeyed to the Holy Places.

Hugues of Payns, who was really the initial promoter and his first Big Master, Geoffroy de Saint-Omer, Geoffroy Bisol, André de Montbard, Payen de Montdidier, Archambaud de Saint-Amand, Gondemar, Rossal and Hugues de Champagne they all settled in Jerusalem and founded the Order of the Knights of the Temple in 1118. Balduino II, who was reigning then in the city, allowed them to establish their headquarters in a room of his palace, placed close to the mosque of Al-Aqsa, The Unique, in the raised area once was the ancient Temple of Salomon and of that, for the above mentioned reason, they will take the name of Templar … Hundred ninety-six years of life for a powerful just as controversial organization, twenty-two Big Masters until 1314,year in which they disappear.

An unusual order, half religious and half warrior, that in few years converted in the richest community and powerful group of the church, and in alive mirror of the saint war that Rome was praising to convert the complete world to the Christian faith.

The duality was always a characteristic that defined to the Temple, and that turns out to be reflected graphically in the white and black, the pure thing and the impure thing, of their banner, the Beaucent (name that they were invoking on having entered combat) and other symbols, like emblems and shields. The duality was done patent in their reason to be (monastic order and military), their function (to pray and to fight) and their image (the "external" of monks soldiers that fight for freeing Palestine and the "internal", of collectors and administrators of their wealth). The Order has remained magnificently symbolized in the walls of theirs constructions. To this organization many historians attribute more or less the probable paternity to the Freemasonry.

The Temple was an order; that is to say, a collective subject to the fulfilment of their own rules and formed by a handful of followers to reach aims that had to remain secret beyond the strict nucleus of their leaders in the Holy Land, where they always conserved their place. These leaders, from their foundation, established the functions and duties of all members, so that the strict fulfillment of the Rule lead to reach the power objectives that form the existence of the majority of these groups.

The Temple Rule governed the life of their monks and every hour of their day. A discipline was formed in the fulfillment of the rite where was coding their group conscience and was encouraged the conviction of being an only one cell which life did not have any more importance in itself that collaborate to the progress of the superior unit of which it was part.

The devotion of every Templar was to the protective saints of the order; their meals the one that all their brothers were following in the convents; their clothes, which were corresponding to the granted authority grade: commander, knight, sergeant; their prayers,the same for all the members, without a space to express individual devotions; the entire loyalty to their Superiors who, for nature, were simultaneously spiritual mentors and military hierarchy. And all these prescripts had to be obeyed, like a representation offered to the exterior world of which the temple was only one monolithic body without individualities.

Symbols and Templar's secrets

The Templar were big teachers in the art of the cryptography, a secret alphabet that is supposed they were using in theirs mercantile deals and confidential documents. The letters of the alphabet were consisting of angles and ends and could be read by means of a medallion that some knights were carrying. Later, the builders used a similar system. Also they practised the alchemy and they had discovered the philosopher's stone. In numerous architectural details there are symbols that indicate alchemy practices. In this sense the secret rule of the Order to the Templar they were prohibited to work certain matters by philosopher science and these would not be undertaken more than in hidden and secret places.

The Bahomet, which was used like argument for the condemnation of the Templar, but nobody knows for sure what it meant, or its origin or its ritual function. It is said of a head or bust that it would have the androgynous form, and to the one that the brothers of the Order were venerating. Possibly the symbol was alluding to the alchemy hermetecism and it would represent the union of the sulfur and the philosophical mercury, considered like the elements male and female in the attainment of the big work. For the modern Templar it would be a question of an object to favor the meditation,a kind of cosmic mandala.

The esoteric tradition teaches that the number is in the beginning of the Being on the triple divine plan, natural and human. Three, the symbol of the mystery or the Trinity, it was the Templar number, and the triangle the basic geometric figure of their constructions. Three or nine are present in his rituals of initiation and in their daily performances. The symbolic numbers are recorded in all the Templar constructions. For example in the church of the Temple of Paris, the central house of the order. The basic rotunda of the constructions was generated by two equilateral triangles of opposite senses that they form a star of six ends that is related to the seal of Salomon and that today is the star of the State of Israel.

The tradition has rescued to us the Order of the Temple big treasures, secret knowledge and other mysteries. Signs and symbols carved in the stone of the numerous constructions spread by our geography that they speak to us about the big enigma of the Christianity. The Ark of the Alliance, the Grail, wealth brought from Jerusalem and numerous relics supposedly belonging to Jesus Christ and whoever surrounded him. But the reality possibly is different. Perhaps they were the same knights those who were feeding their own legend to obtain the power that they hold. Two centuries of supremacy and a bloody end, in some cases

The Cathars



THE CATHARS

An eternity sense
Víctor Manuel Guzmán Villena

The Cathars appear in the West in the X century. At this time the heresies are denounced throughout of Europe. The majority of the times is described them like maniqueas. The Cathar term means pure. In 1017 they are in Orleans. After a judgement emitted by a council of bishops they were burned alive. In 1022 the fact is repeated in Toulouse. In 1030, in Italy, in the region of Asti a colony is found and suffered an equal fate. However, in spite of bonfires, the movement had extended as an oil spot, so that, in century XII it is in all Europe.

In agreement with the writer Mauricie Magre, who makes of the Buddhist initiation the main spiritual source of the Albigensian. It is possible to indicate that the Essenes like the Buddhists, professed the dualism of the world. They had three order of affiliates, with three degrees of initiation. They practised the sacred bath, like Brahmans and the Buddhists. They condemned the sacrifices, they abstained from meat and wine and practised an exemplary moral. Do not forget that the region of the Garona is an old druids part of earth, very wise men and with very height philosophy

They believed mainly in the migration of the souls and its reincarnation after the death. Reason why we know of them, is certain, in any case, that the Cathar doctrine is something more than a simple heresy. In many points it separates of the traditional Christianity and rejects all the dogmas of the catholic church.

The gnostic inspiration, which attributes to the man three natures: the body, the soul and the spirit, being the body the residence of the soul and this one the residence of the spirit, was gathered by the Albigensian. Opposite to the Roman Church, the Cathars continue and amplify the tradition maniquea, rejecting the sacraments, the cross, symbol of death and the ceremonies of the cult. At the same time they were despising the Ancient Testament, work of the Jews, they were showing and considering Jesus to be a purely spiritually being.

We can extract its great principles. Its base constitutes the dualism, that takes like text from reference the Gospel of John, considered like unique and the authentic one, which it emphasizes the eternal opposition between two principles: the good and the evil. Thus, in this world, there is an antagonism between the matter like the devil and the spirit described like God.

The Cathar's doctrine can be seen in Pythagoras, follower of the metempsychosis or reincarnation of the impure souls in men's new bodies. Also they rejected the dogmas, that is to say, Eucharist, the remission of the sins and the sacraments that seemed to them sacrileges: baptism, communion, marriage. Hostile to the impure matter, they condemned the marriage for the initiates, also they were prohibit to eat the delicacies cooked of meat.

This belief implies that the soul, to reach the perfection, must be purified of the material dirt and of the contact with the meat, as which they behaviour had an extremely hard discipline. The asceticism was for the good or perfect men, small minority of wise persons, only ones capable of receiving the lighting of the knowledge. They respected the nature in all manifestations, abstaining to kill no animal, the perfect ones always dressed black, with a tiara on its head. When their ceremonies had finished, they removed a leather roll that they kept on the chest, the gospel according to John and they read it aloud. The invested ones were abstaining from meat, eggs and from dairy products, and all animal products, practising a feeding purely vegetarian. They were professing an absolute chastity and were avoiding, therefore, any sexual commerce.

Since it is from the most ancient times, the men who wished to acquire the knowledge had to undergo the tests of the initiation; but these could not take place anywhere. They were necessary temples that were privileged places where the essence of the knowledge was concentrated into the hands of the teacher-wise people. But concerning their rites they were simple by reaction against the church that covered with gold and purple and were released of all spirit of superstition: they mainly constituted by prayers, signings and sermons, being inspired in the books of Manes and in the Gnostic's.

Cathars did not have predilection for places to practise their cult, the nature was offering them its forests and its meadows. They were practising a formula of public confession that they were calling “Apparellamentum:, but their principal rite was the famous "Consolamentum". It was given, both to a believer who wanted to join the community of the perfect ones, and to the moribund ones that wanted to reach a good death. This ceremony, very simple, was consisting of the fact that the perfect one was imposing the hands on the head of the consoled one, pronouncing certain words which content is ignored up to the actuality. It is possible to supposed that in the background of their ceremony, were secrets proceeding from the Gnostic and from the first Christians, which had as it bases the transmission of a vivifying and immense force, force that the perfect ones could try by means of the “baptism of the spirit”, of the sign of the purity made by the dyeing's. This invisible help was allowing to escape to the chain of renaissances and was allowing the access to the spiritual kingdom.

Also they had for the aid to the dying procedures that science has lost for ever. Not fearing to the death, there were occasions in which certain perfect that they were going so far as to allow themselves to die by means of the Endura: “Their doctrine that was allowing like the druids, the suicide; nevertheless, it was required that one not should finish his life for the weariness of living, for fear or for pain, but in the state of perfect indifference of the matter”, this ritual could be make by a pair, that is to say to go to another life in the most ideal friendship, continued years of effort and intensive spirituality, wanted in accordance with them in another life also the real life.

To finish to theirs days, they were choosing between five types of death: poisoning themselves, allowing to die of famine, opening the veins, being thrown to an abyss or diving in the frozen water after an ardent bath, that was provoking a pulmonary congestion that was killing them. Some indications were allowing to suppose also that the Albigensian ones were choosing sometimes the death in group. The Cathars had a model life. Before the pursuits, they taught to the masses, preaching a gospel of purification and simplicity, lashing the corrupt customs of a part of the catholic clergy. The people was following these men dressed in black, who were living like saints, leaving the bad priests. The nobility attracted by the ideal of the Cathars was adhering to the new faith. The official church was weakening, with so much facility all that that was removed from the people. The Cathars were sharing the miseries of each one, exercising the medicine, taking care of the patients and taking “the good word”.

This immense movement was evident in the Alps, in the Rhine and the Netherlands, where the civil unions were rebelling against the bishops and the primitive church. In Italy, Dante's ideal was to see the emperor of Germany, Enrique of Luxembourg overthrowing the Pope and to restore another Christianity. Dante was the big pontiff of this Cathar sect and his Divine Comedy was written to exalt his faith towards the Cathar's Church and to chase the papacy, since he could not excuse it for the provenzal hecatomb.

The year 1163 the Council of Tours, the Pope Alejandro II, to instances of the bishops of the North of France dictated a resolution that was denouncing the progress of the “Cathar heresy”. In the third Council of Toulouse several prominent men of the nobility were excommunicated and the threat was outlined against the Cathars and theirs protectors. This was the first sign against the Albigensian ones, which according to Maurice Magre was the biggest milestone of the religious history of the men.

From 1207 the pontifical legacy tries to face misters southerners against the Albigensian ones, the Cathars they wanted to insure themselves a place where they should shelter in case of attack. Montségur, is the heart of the Pyrenees and it was chosen like high spiritual place. It was a citadel that was protecting the sacred mountain of the Tabor, Parnassus of the Romance countries, it was fortified and organized. It seemed to an ark, it could still, during half a century, defy the wave of blood and of crimes that was going to break loose and sink their culture and civilization.

Until 1220 more than one million persons is spent by the edge of the sword, that is to say more than the cost of the suppression of all the other heresies. The reason of the big Albigensian slaughter, the conceals cause, but the real cause, the fact had been that the secret of the sanctums, the ancient education of the mysteries so zealously kept in all the temples of the world for all the brotherhoods, had been revealed. It had been revealed and it had been understood that what was happening in this time still had not been seen in the history.

Nevertheless Montségur, temple of the catharism, was still getting up, like a challenge to the orthodoxy, with his inviolate walls. The murder of the inquiring Dominicans of Avignonet had to decide the siege and fall of the fortitude. Thetask began in the spring 1243, but, six months later, the siege had not progressed. The Cathas were benefiting from numerous informations of all the Countries in Europe, from Italy, the Sacred Germanic Empire included Constantinople. Finally Senecal of Carcasona, Hugues de Arcis that was directing the "crusade", could end the resistance to the treachery. A guide who knew the secret way led the armed group to the summit. From there, the capitulation of the fortitude was only a question of time. On the first of March, 1244 a truce was signed and on March 16 the citadel gave up. Two hundred Cathars, between them fifty prefects, who were refusing to abjure of theirs belief, preferred to die in the bonfire erected in a field, that its remembers, for the name of the sacrifice: "The Field dels cremants”.

As for the treasures, the historian Pierre Roger says that it was consisting of beautiful objects, coins and bars of gold and silver. But the real treasure of the Cathars, were preparations of the Cathar faith: books, manuscripts, secret educations, relics, religious objects and the Holy Grail, that it is a grial with the content of Jesus's blood, according to historians specializing in this one period of the history of the man, the same one that was extracted in the moments of the truce by four men who escaped of the citadel and undoubtedly concealed in one of the next numerous caves of Montségur. Therefore the word “treasure“ seems to hide another thing, some knowledge or information that inspired big antipathy and greed to Rome.

With passing of the times their philosophy is still alive and it offers to their followers a cosmogony, a conception and explanation of the universe, both material and universal that it attracts to numerous intellectual elites to which it leaves unsatisfied the comments of the gospels. They contribute an esoteric knowledge in opposition to the vulgar one or belief of the masses. The real doctrine is and it will be revealed to a limited number of chosen that have arisen after a long peregrination.