by Steven Sora
The Catholic Church, however, has no monopoly on secret societies. From the American Order of Rosicrucians to black magic occult groups like A. W. Waite’s Golden Dawn and Aleister Crowley’s Order of New Templars, there are also a wide range of goals. All boast secrets that are meant never to be revealed to the uninitiated and have goals that can affect politics. Many have ritualistic initiations. Such groups have always been both active and present in spiritual and governmental affairs. The Prieuré de Sion is just one more such “elite” group, with its own goals and its own history, real or contrived.
The Prieuré de Sion has played a very important role in the mystery of Oak Island. They were the secret core of the Templars, instrumental in bringing wealth and organization to this military order. But the religious wars that tore apart families and governments in Europe may also have served to divide the organization into two. The Sinclairs, once an all important family in the Prieuré, became the guardian family for the Templars. It is under the guardianship of the Scottish contingent that the treasure was brought to the new Scotland. And it would be a Sinclair who held the key to the treasure.
Epilogue
THE GRAIL TREASURE AND OAK ISLAND
The Sinclair family had the motive and the means to bring the treasure to North America. And they had the treasure itself. The acceptance of the runaway Templars and their treasure fleet by Robert the Bruce in the early fourteenth century meant that the wealth of the Paris temple found its way to Scotland. The temple, like its counterpart in Jerusalem, was the repository of all that the world’s first bank guarded, and more—the sacred relics of Christendom brought home by crusaders, the artifacts of first-century Jerusalem looted by Rome, and the sacred treasures held by the Cathari at Montsegur, including the sacred Grail, considered to be either the cup of the Last Supper or the genealogy of the sacred bloodline of Jesus.
All were put in the care of the Sinclairs, as was the role of hereditary protector of the Templars’ successor organization, the Freemasons. Acting in accord with their role, the family built an elaborate warren of caves and tunnels under and around their once proud fortress at Roslin. A century later, religious reformation turned the tide against the Sinclairs. The treasure, along with religious articles of Scotland newly in the care of the family, was moved to Nova Scotia. That treasure has never been found.
Today the Oak Island effort continues. Its construction was intricately planned to defy intruders and was carefully executed in an effort that took years. Modern intruders, armed with present-day science and millions of dollars, have so far found themselves to be outgunned by an older, if not ancient, science and the labors of fifteenth-century masons and miners.
A recent article in Macleans magazine described the latest partnership as raising money for the “final” assault, but such optimism has not proved warranted for two hundred years.1 The latest assault has taken the form of a large and deep shaft called Borehole 10X. The drillers believe it to be next to the original shaft. Until very recently, tourists could visit the island and hear the clanking of the machinery bringing up rock and dirt from almost two hundred feet underground. The current treasure hunters have become more scientific and are not using the dig and drill methods of the past, but the task is infinitely complicated by the numerous shafts that were dug, drilled, and flooded over the centuries. Worst of all, generations of treasure hunters reworking the ground have managed to obscure the location of the original Money Pit.
One company, called Underground Research, brought forth a plan to dig an enormous shaft, eighty feet in diameter, down two hundred feet into the ground. The plan would involve moving one million cubic feet of dirt and rock. A pump, working at eight thousand gallons per minute, would be required to remove the inevitable water flooding into the shaft. The best possible result of digging such a shaft would be the opportunity to look for side tunnels. The discovery and translation of a simple code found on the inscribed slab at ninety feet indicated that a treasure was located forty feet below. It may have been an invitation to dig just a little further, where the diggers would hit the booby trap that led to the disastrous flooding. It is very likely that the route to the vault lies in a side tunnel branching out from the ninety-foot area.
And what if the new supershaft fails? One writer wryly commented that the island itself might be the real treasure in terms of its value as coastal real estate. In recent years Nova Scotia’s land values have escalated; the entire island is now worth about four million dollars. While engineers and excavators are working to get to the bottom of the Money Pit, history may provide clues to get to the bottom of the mystery itself.
Jerusalem
Jerusalem provides the first stop. We know that the Holy City was built over a pagan site and that it eventually held great treasure. The pagan owners of the real estate that became the world’s most significant religious site had built a system of tunnels that provided water to the city without visibly exposing the source. This fact is recorded in the Bible and other sources. Later, an even more elaborate structure, the Temple of Solomon, was built there, only to be torn down and erected again. We know, too, that the temple was broken into and looted several times, significantly by the Romans, who in turn lost the treasure to the Visigoths, and also by the Templars.
The treasure trove of Solomon held enormous wealth, the result of the tribute from the surrounding countries and the rewards of a trading empire that for a brief time belonged to Israel. There was gold from Africa, silver from Spain, and religious articles deemed sacred by the Jewish nation, possibly including the Ark of the Covenant. These articles were concealed in a massive warren of vertical and horizontal shafts, camouflaged by whatever nature provided. Such passages protected both the city and the treasure, and we know that the knowledge of building such systems predated the builders of the temple. The Knights Templar, and their inner core, the Prieuré de Sion, knew that there was something to be found and spent years digging under Solomon’s stables. Just what was brought back remains uncertain.
Jerusalem, of course, fell to Islam. The once sacred temple is now equally sacred, but it does not rest in Christian or Jewish hands. It is sacred to Islam. The area is now called the Kaaba. The Kaaba is forty feet wide, thirty-five feet long, and fifty feet high. Although it is claimed that Abraham built the Kaaba, this is unlikely in light of the fact that the temple has been destroyed and rebuilt. At that site, of course, there will be no excavation or invading treasure hunters—it would not be permitted. In place of Hebrew or Christian icons, the “Black Stone” is protected in this most holy Muslim precinct. Like the Holy Grail, which Wolfram’s Parzival described as a stone that fell from heaven, the Black Stone, eight inches in diameter, is the most important relic in Islam, believed to have been brought to Abraham by Hagar, Sarah’s handmaiden. Ironically, the Black Stone once figured in goddess worship, and priests in that pre-Islamic faith were known by a name reminiscent of the Templars—as Sons of the Old Woman. Any treasure hunting here would be bound to cause an international incident.
The Vale of God
The south of France is the second stop. The Rennes-le-Chateau area was the capital of the Visigoths, who had taken the treasure of Solomon from Rome. Coincidentally or otherwise, this area is the scene of pre-Christian architecture on (at least) an equally massive scale. Here, a second huge underground and above-ground complex exists. This complex is both massive and invisible.2 Above the ground there are five mountaintop structures that form a gigantic pentagram. Rennes-le-Chateau is one such peak. The Templar site of Bezu is another. The ancestral Blanchefort home is a third, and two other points of reference, Serre de Lanzet and La Soulane, complete the pentagram. The measurements are exact, and they correspond to the movements of the planet Venus over an eight-year period The goddess Venus, known by many names, is also Isis. Her planet makes a five-pointed pattern every eight years (remember that the numbers five and eight signify fifty-eight in Templar numerology).
It is possible that the Celtic Te
ctosages, or a pre-Celtic people who built the five points of the Rennes-le-Chateau pentagram and the tunnels underground, were part of the same wave of peoples who came via the Mediterranean Sea from 1800 B.C. to 1200 B.C. The Philistines, as the Bible calls them, were the Peleset according to Egyptian records. Such “Sea Peoples” might have been responsible for monument building all along the European coastline. The important point is not so much who built the sites but whether there is a connection relating to secret knowledge being passed down through time—knowledge that might provide a clue to these structures.
Henry Lincoln, one of the three authors of Holy Blood, Holy Grail, went his separate way to delve deeper into the mystery, and it is his belief that the pentagram points to the little village of Arques in Normandy. This may have great significance relative to the message “And in Arcadia I am.” At Arques there is a chateau that was constructed over the ruins of a seventh-century fortress. Author David Wood believes position of Arques on the map holds the clue to understanding the geometry of the pentagram.3
In the center of the five-pointed star is the “womb” of the penta-gram, a circle surrounded by another circle. The geographic location marked on the map of France is Le Cercle, should the significance be missed. Flowing through the womb is the Sals River. Sal in Sumerian means “womb.” Directly in the center of the star and its womb is an ancient mine, certainly a place where a treasure could once have been concealed. The authors of Holy Blood, Holy Grail say that at one time German miners had been brought to the area and were not allowed to have any commerce with the locals. Were they searching for a treasure? The gold once mined in the area was recorded as having been mined out. Another possible location for a former treasure site exists. The site is a man-made pool that is the entrance to an underground tunnel system. The pool is located at a place called Lavaldieu, the “Vale of God,” which remains on the map today, an area within the pentagram and in which the buried treasure is reputed to be hidden.
Were the builders of the ancient tunnel system of Rennes-le-Chateau and the Temple of Solomon aware of each other? It is very possible that they were either contemporaries or that this special knowledge of architecture—”sacred” special geometry—was inherited and passed on to modern builders. The concept of combining what nature has provided with the architectural talents of humankind is evident in both the sacred city of Jerusalem and the region surrounding Rennes-le-Chateau. This second treasure site, Rennes-le-Chateau, fell to the armies of a new Rome, the Roman Catholic Church. The “Good Christians,” as the Cathari called themselves, were nearly exterminated. Toulouse and Carcassonne were rebuilt after the genocidal onslaught, but Montsegur is a deserted shell save for the New Age tourists and the odd neo-Cathar who occasionally makes a solitary pilgrimage. Rennes-le-Chateau itself is a mecca for tourists, among them, modern occultists, sun worshipers, neo-Nazis, aging hippies, and self-styled Druids. The cottage industry catering to the New Age that is burgeoning here includes a bookstore (the Arcadia Center) run by a descendant of the eighth president of the United States—Elizabeth van Buren.4 Treasure seekers have dug in secret, destroyed tombs, and created a nuisance for those who are not profiting from the new popularity of the region as a tourist site.
Roslin
Our third stop is the third place where the same architecture exists, complete with underground tunnels. While the chapel at Roslin was not built in ancient times, it is truly a “holy place” if one is a Mason. It, too, combines the benefits of what nature created and humankind built upon. Roslin, like Jerusalem, was not concealed but existed in plain sight. Both were very important places in their realms. And both would be subject to significant attention. All three places used tunnels, water systems, and man-made edifices to provide a repository for protected secrets and wealth. All three would suffer the effects of assault by changing times and political powers. Roslin was the last to fall.
The treasure hidden in the underground warrens of Roslin was certainly that entrusted to the Templars, along with the relics of the Catholic Church in Scotland. Did it include the Visigothic hoard from Jerusalem? We are less certain. The Templars were, oddly, more loyal to the Cathar cause than to the Roman Church. This was the only documented instance that the order opposed the pope, perhaps the result of the Blanchefort family’s being Cathar or at least having Cathar sympathies. It could also be that the Templar religious beliefs tended to be of an Arian nature and thus similar to Cathar beliefs.
That same family had a Visigothic heritage. Two treasures might have been protected by the Blancheforts—the one that the Cathari took from Montsegur and the other left behind by the Visigoths. At least part of this treasure might have been under the protection of the Templars. Saunière may have found gold and silver, but no record exists of any sudden appearance of historic religious articles during or shortly after Saunière’s life. At least the sacred part of the treasure may have been taken aboard the Templar fleet that left from La Rochelle hundreds of years earlier.
Roslin, too, fell to invaders. Today the masters are gone, the Sinclairs having lost their direct descending male line and their castle. Modern-day treasure hunters comb the ruins of the castle and the chapel in the hope of finding the Templar treasure, the icons of Catholic Scotland, the relics of ancient saints, and the Holy Grail. A house was built over five stories of collapsed ruins in the seventeenth century, making excavation a tough job. Recently, however, a subsidence in the ground revealed a secret buried circular stairway.5 The discoverers hoped that the Templar treasure would be at the bottom, but Roslin gave away no such secret.
The castle also hints at secret places waiting to be found, but so far these treasure troves have proved elusive. An ancient dining hall with a now exposed chimney lies over fifteen chambers and dungeons that were used to store food for the inevitable siege. Andrew Sinclair, biographer of his distant ancestors, says that the food was hauled up by a rope, in a contraption that might be the world’s first dumbwaiter. The chapel itself contains the burial vaults of twenty Sinclair knights in full regalia, which is what makes this such a sacred site in Scotland to the inheritors of the Templar mantle, the Freemasons. In August of 1991 the Knights Templar, a Masonic organization from Nova Scotia, made the pilgrimage across the Atlantic to consecrate the tombs of their fellow knights, who were martyred in their cause. Carved into the stone of the tomb is the Holy Grail and a sword. Another tomb was identified as that of the William Sinclair who had fought at Bannockburn and died in the Crusades. Most of the chapel’s odd fifteenth-century depictions are gone, but the legends of Roslin remain alive.
One legend is of a white lady who will someday be summoned by a trumpet note and reveal the way to the secret treasure. But the most valuable secret in the chapel may be the confirmation of the Sinclair’s voyage to America. Among the other effigies in stone is the very distinct depiction of Native American corn carved into the archways. Other American vegetation is depicted as well. The treasure, if any remains, is more likely in the hidden passageways that were formerly reached from the chapel. Like Solomon’s temple or the underground passageways through rock found in Languedoc, Roslin’s underground complex was massive. But there has been little in the way of rewards for treasure seekers there. The treasure that Roslin once held had been moved again.
Oak Island
Our fourth stop then is Nova Scotia. There is no record of sacred articles being taken from Roslin when it was attacked and destroyed by anti-Catholic mobs. If the relics from Solomon’s temple, a “Holy Grail” of the Cathari, or even the more mundane, more modern artifacts of the Scottish Catholic Church had been found by a mob, it would not have remained a secret. Nor is there any record of a mob recovering wealth in coin, currency, or gold bullion. The treasures from Jerusalem, from Montsegur, and from the Templar treasury in Paris and the religious relics of the Sinclairs are all unrecovered.
The guardian family, the Sinclairs of Scotland, discovered and explored Nova Scotia long before anyone took an interest. They
had the motive to create a hiding place and the means and opportunity to bring the needed workers and supplies. The family never revealed the location of its new land to anyone and, more significantly, kept the secret knowledge limited to only a handful of the family. This may have ensured that Oak Island would remain a secret. It may also have been the reason the Sinclairs could never claim the island or their treasure. The guardian died before passing on the secret. At some point the last Sinclair may have envisioned a new Roslin, a new ancestral home complete with a new chapel in their residence in a new Scotland. But it was not to be. Death on a battlefield, in a prison cell, on an unrecorded sea voyage probably took the last guardian before such a secret could be handed down to the next Sinclair.
Nova Scotia (New Scotland) provided refuge for the Sinclairs and their allied families, the fourth holy place, Arcadia. Oak Island became the needed repository for the sacred treasure. Nova Scotia itself could not be kept secret, but Oak Island was—until three young people stumbled upon the site. Who holds the key to the secret of Oak Island? A late grand master of the Prieuré de Sion, Victor Hugo, spent most of his life writing and rewriting his Légende des Siècles. In this work he tells the reader that only one man knows where the treasure is hidden. Was the secret passed down through the Sinclair family? Or was the secret lost to an untimely death?
