by Sean Martin
A far more benign form of neo-Catharism is to be found in the work of the English psychiatrist Arthur Guirdham (1905–92). In the 1960s, a certain Mrs Smith, one of Guirdham’s patients, began telling him about her previous life as a Cathar in thirteenth-century Languedoc. Initially sceptical, Guirdham began to investigate her claims, and wrote to Jean Duvernoy, one of Catharism’s leading historians. Much to Guirdham’s surprise, Duvernoy corroborated the details of Mrs Smith’s story. The resultant book, The Cathars and Reincarnation (1970), details Guirdham’s further discoveries, including the possibility that he himself was a reincarnated Cathar. The story was continued in We Are One Another (1974) and The Lake and the Castle (1976). Guirdham’s The Great Heresy (1977) is a brief history of the movement, and included in its later chapters revelations dictated to him by disembodied Cathars, covering such topics as the healing power of crystals, the aura, the emanatory powers of touch and the true nature of alchemy. The Perfect, according to Guirdham, were well-versed in such things during their earthly existence.
The Persecuting Society
The Cathars emerged at a time of profound change in Europe. The historian R I Moore has argued that western society formed its institutions through the persecution of heretics and others in the thirteenth century.114 Furthermore, definitions of heresy played a large part in shaping the concept of witchcraft, which greatly aided the persecution and execution of thousands of innocent people – predominantly women – during the Witch Craze of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
It is perhaps the Cathars’ quest for an authentic spirituality that makes their story still relevant. Their belief that they – and not the Church – were the real Christians calls to mind Dostoyevsky’s parable of the Grand Inquisitor, in which Christ returns to earth, specifically Seville, during the height of the Spanish Inquisition. He is immediately arrested as a heretic, and questioned by the aged Grand Inquisitor. The old man prefers the safety and power the Church offers to Christ’s simple message. He tells Christ ‘If anyone has ever deserved our fires, it is Thou. To-morrow I shall burn Thee.’ He waits for Christ to respond: ‘“He saw that the Prisoner had listened intently all the time, looking gently in his face and evidently not wishing to reply. The old man longed for him to say something, however bitter and terrible. But He suddenly approached the old man in silence and softly kissed him on his bloodless aged lips. That was all his answer. The old man shuddered. His lips moved. He went to the door, opened it, and said to Him: ‘Go, and come no more... come not at all, never, never!’ And he let Him out into the dark alleys of the town. The Prisoner went away.”’115
The Cathars’ claim to be part of an authentic apostolic tradition dating back to the time of Christ cannot be proved, only inferred. The Catholic Church’s claim to descend from Peter is also historically unverifiable. Something that perhaps finds in the Cathars’ favour is one of the Dead Sea Scrolls, only made public for the first time in 1991. The end of the Damascus Document – The Foundations of Righteousness: An Excommunication Text – appears to show the excommunication of Paul from the Christian community.116 If this were indeed the case, then it would problematise the Catholic Church’s claim to be God’s vicars on earth, as most of the major forms of organised Christianity owe far more to the teachings of Paul than they do to those of Jesus. The Church obviously feels that publication of the text has not damaged its position, and in March 2000, Pope John Paul II issued an apology for the Crusades. Many felt that the statement did not go far enough in offering rapprochement to the Arab world. No mention was made of the Albigensian Crusade. It remains unlikely that the papacy will ever apologise for the genocide it committed against the Good Christians.
Perhaps the real Cathar treasure is to be found in their stress on simplicity, equality, non-violence, work and love. By not building churches, they necessarily brought divinity into the domestic sphere, suggesting that, for the Cathars, every moment of every day could be used to deepen one’s spiritual life. Maurice Magre’s belief that they were the Buddhists of Europe is arguably not too far wide of the mark. Given that the Church – both the Catholic Church and the religious right in America – seems to be as conservative and exclusive as it ever was, the Cathars’ message is perhaps as relevant now as it was in the Languedoc of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, as Simone Weil argued.
Perhaps the real Cathar treasure was indeed smuggled out of Montségur that night in March 1244. But it was not a cup or text: if the Cathars scaling down the mountain that night were Perfect, then they themselves were the real treasure, a reminder and example to everyone who has been moved by the Cathar story down the centuries: a reminder to stand defiant in the face of persecution; to do the work of the Good Christians, the work of Amor, not Roma; to become living icons.
Endnotes
Epigraphs:
‘Throughout human history…’ Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh, The Inquisition, p.148.
‘Bishop Fulk…’ Malcolm Lambert, The Cathars, p.138.
‘Salvation is better achieved…’ Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, Montaillou. Quoted in Baigent and Leigh, p.7.
1 Lambert, The Cathars, p.103.
2 The Waldensians, also known as the Poor Men of Lyons, followed lives of Apostolic poverty. They were denounced as heretics in the bull Ad abolendam issued by Pope Celestine III in 1184, a move that only served to radicalise them further.
3 2 Timothy 2:19: ‘The Lord knoweth them that are his.’ (Tyndale translation).
4 O’Shea, The Perfect Heresy, p.86.
5 Yuri Stoyanov, The Other God, p.2. The leading orientalist of his time, Hyde (1636–1703) was chief librarian at the Bodleian Library in Oxford. He coined the word ‘cuneiform’ and investigated the origins of chess.
6 Ugo Bianchi, Il Dualismo Religioso (Rome, 1958), quoted in Stoyanov, pp.4–5.
7 Mary Boyce, Zoroastrians: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices (Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1979), p.1.
8 Mary Boyce, p.29.
9 Another development during the Achaemenid era was an offshoot of Zoroastrianism, Zurvanism, which held that both Ohrmazd and Ahriman were the twin offspring of the god of time and destiny, Zurvan.
10 René Descartes (1596–1650) argued for an irreconcilable split between the mind and the body. He is widely seen as one of the founders of modern philosophy.
11 This suggests a possible Egyptian influence on Orphism. In some versions of the myth, it is Osiris who opposes Seth, not Horus, and in these, Seth first drowns Osiris and then dismembers the body; Osiris is later resurrected.
12 Originally, the word Satan – meaning ‘adversary’ in Hebrew – was titular, referring to any angel who happened to be acting in this capacity. See Elaine Pagels, The Origin of Satan, p.39. This leads to an interesting parallel, in that the word Christ is also titular (meaning the Annointed).
13 In Genesis, Eve was tempted by the Serpent, not Satan.
14 Indeed, Satan steps into God’s shoes in more ways than one: in earlier (in terms of writing) Old Testament literature, it is always God whom – in His wrath – is humanity’s adversary.
15 Some versions have it as seven years of famine.
16 See, for instance, Elaine Pagels, The Origin of Satan, p.42ff.
17 Quoted in Pagels, pp.60–61.
18 Matt 16.18: ‘And so I tell you, Peter: you are a rock, and on this rock foundation I will build my church.’
19 See, for instance, Robert Eisenman’s James the Brother of Jesus.
20 A N Wilson, Paul: The Mind of the Apostle, p.258.
21 Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh in The Dead Sea Scrolls Deception, p.266.
22 Thomas Jefferson, from a letter to W. Short published in The Great Thoughts by George Sildes (Ballantine Books, 1985) p.208.
23 The fact that Constantine’s mother, the Empress Helena of Constantinople (c.255–c.330), was already a devout Christian may have had some bearing on her son’s willingness to convert. She is credited with finding the True Cross, whose location
was revealed to her in a dream.
24 This clause was actually added at the Second Ecumenical Council – Nicaea being the first – in 381.
25 In fact, they were followers of the Roman presbyter Novatius, and were also known as Novatians.
26 At approximately the same time, other forms of non-dualist heresy – such as Pelagianism, which denied Original Sin – were quashed, in addition to other forms of Christianity that diverged from Rome, such as the Celtic and Nestorian churches. A case could be made for the former being the original form of Christianity in Europe, while the latter – despite persecution – persists to this day.
27 Nina G. Garsoïan, The Paulicians, p.112ff, pp.186–231.
28 For a fuller treatment of this period, see Stoyanov, pp.139–58.
29 Stoyanov, p.170.
30 For possible heretical leanings in Gerbert, see Runciman, The Medieval Manichee, p.117. Gerbert was also suspected of having made an oracular head, of having learnt astrology and alchemy from the Moors and of founding a papal school of magic.
31 Stoyanov, p.185.
32 For a brief summary of the origins of the devil as a black man, see Lois Martin, The History of Witchcraft, p.18.
33 Lambert, p.13.
34 Cited in Lambert, p.14.
35 Eberwin of Steinfeld, Epistola ad S. Bernardum, quoted in Wakefield and Evans, Heresies of the High Middle Ages, pp.126–32.
36 Wakefield and Evans, pp.126–32.
37 Cited in Lambert, p.20. It is possible that what the Annals are recording is, in fact, the Cologne episode erroneously transposed to Bonn.
38 Lambert, p.21.
39 Good News Bible translation.
40 St Bernard of Clairvaux, Eighty-Six Sermons, ed. Eales, p.407, quoted in Lambert, p.40.
41 R I Moore, The Origins of European Dissent, p.113.
42 Alan of Lille, De fide Catholica, quoted in Lambert, p.43.
43 The Cathars did not reject the whole of the Old Testament, and continued to hold the Psalms, Job and the prophets in high regard.
44 Lavatorial anecdotes, Lambert p.29.
45 This memorable description of the Perfect comes from Fichtenau, quoted in Lambert, p.30.
46 Consolamentum ceremony, Wakefield and Evans, p.467.
47 ‘Publicans’ was one of the numerous names used at the time to denote dualist heretics. It probably derives from ‘popelican’. The jury is still out on whether the Publicans were Cathars. Even if they weren’t, the two groups certainly had much in common.
48 Some authorities, e.g., Malcolm Barber, believe the St Félix meeting took place a few years later, between 1174–77. Some believe it didn’t happen at all, although the weight of scholarly opinion is firmly on the side of its taking place. See O’Shea, p.272.
49 Lambert, pp.45–6.
50 Heinrich Fichtenau, Heretics and Scholars in the High Middle Ages 1000–1200, pp.152–3.
51 Lambert, p.34.
52 Bernard Hamilton, ‘Wisdom from the East’, in Heresy and Literacy, 1000–1530, ed. P. Biller and A. Hudson (Cambridge, 1994), pp.39–40.
53 C. Thouzellier, ‘Hérésie et croisade au XIIe siècle’, Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique, 49 (1954) pp.855–72, cited in Stoyanov p.191.
54 Lambert, p.33.
55 O’Shea, p.45.
56 O’Shea, p.51.
57 O’Shea, p.53.
58 The debates at Béziers and Carcassonne lasted 15 days apiece. The proceedings at Montréal were recorded by scribes, but their chronicles seem to have been lost during the Albigensian Crusade.
59 O’Shea, p.65.
60 The moment was witnessed by the ambassador of Navarre. Lambert, p.102.
61 It remains a possibility that Peter was killed by one of Raymond’s enemies in the south, hoping that the count of Toulouse would get the blame for the assassination. Alternatively, Peter could have even been killed by a Catholic agent hoping to provoke Innocent into action. If this was the case, then he certainly succeeded.
62 O’Shea, p.87.
63 English writer (fl.1200). It was while working as a clerk in the household of William of Champagne, cardinal archbishop of Rheims (d. 1202), that Gervase accused a young girl of heresy when she rejected his advances. For maintaining her dignity, she was burnt at the stake.
64 Cited in Lambert, p.103.
65 The scene is recorded in The Song of the Cathar Wars.
66 Barber, p.133. I am indebted to Barber for most of the information in this section.
67 Barber, p.133.
68 Barber, p.135.
69 Gaucelm (1204–c.1220) and his successor Guilhabert de Castres (c.1220–c.1241).
70 Barber, p.135.
71 The Song of the Cathar Wars, p.176.
72 Discussed in Claire Dutton, Aspects of the Institutional History of the Albigensian Crusades 1198–1229, PhD Dissertation, Royal Holloway and Bedford New College, University of London, 1993.
73 Joseph R. Strayer, The Albigensian Crusades, p.i.
74 Lambert, p.123.
75 This is an extraordinary admission for an orthodox apologist. Such claims were later made against such scholars as Cornelius Agrippa, and were widely associated with witchcraft.
76 Quotation of unknown provenance, presumably taken from an instruction manual for Inquisitors, cited in Barber, p.145.
77 Bernard Gui, Practica Inquisitionis, cited in Zoé Oldenbourg’s Massacre at Montségur, pp.307–8.
78 Lambert, p.160.
79 O’Shea, p.229.
80 Lambert, p.217.
81 Abels and Harrison, Medieval Studies, 41, p.223.
82 Lambert, p.226.
83 René Weis, The Yellow Cross, p.77.
84 Weis, p.77.
85 Weis, p.73.
86 Lambert, p.249. It should be noted that not all of Peter’s fellow Perfect agreed with him on the subjects of Mary and women. While James Autier agreed with his father on many things, William Autier believed Mary to be a real woman, while Bélibaste believed in Purgatory and a form of the Trinity, making him ironically quite close to Catholicism. Lambert, pp.252–5.
87 Guillemette Marty was so afraid that the Inquisitors would come and force her to eat during her endura that she tried killing herself by drinking poison, then by bleeding and was preparing to stab herself with a shoemaker’s sewing needle in the heart when the poison seems to have been finally effective. Weis, p.97.
88 René Weis notes that ‘the endura probably saved Bernard’s life by starving the fever.’ Weis, p.90.
89 Lambert, p.259. The Autier faithful almost certainly numbered more than 1,000, as several valuable Inquisition registers have not survived.
90 Barber, pp.196–7.
91 Philip d’Aylarac seems to have remained at large until 1312. See Weis, p.244.
92 O’Shea, p.241.
93 Dante wasn’t a Cathar, but he was certainly aware of them, and was sympathetic to the work of the Troubadours. See William Anderson’s Dante the Maker.
94 Barber, p.88.
95 The group were so-called after a certain brother Albanus, but whether he existed or not is still a matter for debate.
96 Barber, p.86.
97 John 1.3–4 (Tyndale translation).
98 Barber, p.202.
99 The Vindication of the Church of God, quoted by Lambert, p.223.
100 Lambert, p.289.
101 Lambert, p.291.
102 Syncretism had also been a feature of Montalionian Catharism, where villagers entertained magical beliefs as well as those of the Good Christians, such as Béatrice de Planisolles’ keeping of her children’s umbilical cords. Furthermore, the Black Death (1347–51) would have played a part in removing a number of those Perfect who still remained in the Alps.
103 Lambert, p.293.
104 The myth of an heretical Balkan antipope, a sort of Bogomil/Cathar Prester John, was enduring. The heretics arrested at Montforte in 1025 declared that there was an heretical antipope, while Jacob Bech confirmed to the Inquisition in 1387 t
hat the Cathars had their own pope, whom he called their Papa Major. Stoyanov, Hidden Tradition, pp.190–1.
105 For Bech’s confession, see Lambert, pp.294–5.
106 Lambert, p.299.
107 Lambert, p.307.
108 O’Shea, p.23.
109 Barber, pp.182–4.
110 The Grail myths have frequently been seen as the Christianisation of the Celtic myths of the Cauldron of Plenty, although the sudden explosion of Grail romances in the twelfth century seems to be linked to the Crusades and specifically the Knights Templar.
111 Another puzzle about Montségur is the reason for the two-week truce. Various theories suggest that it was to give the Cathars time to enact a sun-worship ceremony, or to celebrate Easter. Neither can be the case: sun-worship may have gone on in the area around Montségur, but it was probably Bronze Age at the latest, and certainly not during the Cathars’ era (although the sun was a symbol used in Manichaeism). The Easter argument likewise does not hold water: the Cathars did not celebrate Easter, and, furthermore, Easter in 1244 fell on 3 April, nearly three weeks after the truce expired.
112 Stoyanov, Hidden Tradition, pp.222–3.
