[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

did so because it had been the instrument of bitter pain and anguish to Our Lord. Can this explanation
have been inserted to explain and justify a ceremony of kissing and beating, or of defiling the cross,
such as it was alleged that the Templars performed? The High History was written about 1220; it
seems to show that the then ceremony was old and had a legitimate explanation in the eyes of those
who took part in it. The writer was probably a Templar priest or someone who knew and approved of
their practices, and possibly wished to explain away any rumours which had been spread.
It has occurred to me the witches have a rite which involves kissing and then beating an object, with
the intention of charging it with power. It is not a cross and they do not speak or think of it as a cross;
but on reading this account it struck me that an observer at a little distance might easily mistake it for
one. It is rather cross-shaped. If the Templars used the old magic, they would be most likely to
perform this rite, and rumours might spread about.
The alleged Templar rite of defiling the cross only became known to the world during the persecution
and trial of 1307, ninety years after the High History was written. There are many traces of a fertility
cult in the Grail stories. The 'Hallows' themselves seem to be connected with such cults.
The Grail, the Cup or Chalice, is like the Celtic Cauldron. It restored the dead, and brought fertility
back to the land. The King, in the Mabinogion, gives Gawain a sword which each day drops blood.
There is a head and spear which drops blood in connection with a cauldron of fertility in the adventure
of Peredur, vaguely said to be connected with the murder of a relation of Peredur by witches at
Glaucesier.
A sword or dagger dropping blood (or wine) into a cauldron would have great meaning to witches,
and they have a head or skull tradition. Could the story be a hidden way of hinting that an ancestor of
Peredur had gone through the circle to Death and returned, and so Peredur himself was of the Witch
Blood and entitled to know the Mystery of the Cauldron? Most scholars agree that the bleeding spear
is phallic.
In the Merlin MS., Bibliotheque Nationale 337, there is a Grail procession which passes through a
wood singing: 'Honour and Glory and Power and everlasting joy to the Destroyer of Death.' Could not
that be a chant in praise of the goddess? Or could it be really to disguise a chant: 'Honour and Glory
and Power and everlasting joy to the destroyer of the fear of Death'? That is, to the givers of
Regeneration, Death and what lies beyond.
Jaffet, a knight from the south of France, deposed that at his reception he was shown a head or idol
and told: 'You must adore this as your saviour and the saviour of the Order of the Temple,' and he was
made to worship this head by kissing its feet and saying: 'Blessed be he who shall save my soul.'
Cettus, a knight received at Rome, gave a very similar account. A Templar of Florence said he was
told: 'Adore this head; this head is your god and your Mahomet,' and said that he worshipped it by
kissing its feet.
There seems to have been no questions asked as to how you can kiss a skull's feet. Can it perhaps be
explained by some rite resembling the following witch practice: in the old days it was said that 'when
the god was not present, he was represented by a skull and crossbones' ('Death and what lies beyond',
or 'paradise and regeneration'). Nowadays this is symbolised by the High Priestess, standing with her
arms crossed to represent the skull and crossbones.
The worshipper kisses her feet, saying a sort of prayer beginning, 'Blessed be ..." and the intention
following is that indicated by Jaffet and the others, the words not being exactly the same, as it is very
unlikely that they would be: probably he spoke in French, which was then translated into monkish
Latin and retranslated into English many years afterwards: doubtless the witch-words have also
changed. I remember a German witch saying to me on his first introduction to the English rites: 'But
this is pure poetry!' Now none of it rhymes, but it is beautiful, though very unequal, which I think
proves that someone poetically inclined rewrote much in the last two hundred years.
During this prayer to the High Priestess she opens out her arms to the Pentacle position. She then
represents the goddess, or regeneration, signifying that the prayer is granted. 'Thus she has been both
god and goddess, male and female, death and regeneration, one might say bi-sexual.' Now in Payne
Knight's illustrations of Baphomet, said to be the Templar god, he is shown as both male and female
or bisexual; sometimes a skull appears, sometimes the moon. Whether there is really any good proof
that these are the Templar gods I cannot say. All this may be mere coincidence.
No. 5 is the accusation of the Templars wearing cords or girdles, with which they used to bind their
skull-god. As we have seen, the Church similarly accused witches of wearing cords or girdles which
have a ritual meaning for them. For myself, I see nothing impossible in the Templars having used it as
a witch does.
The Templars were drawn from the small nobles, the classes who, while good soldiers and at times
giving largely to the Church, were often at loggerheads with her; and some at least of these classes
had a witch or fairy connection. When Christendom was vanquished by paganism, and the Crusaders,
after all their efforts, were thrown out of the Holy Land, there was naturally a period of
disheartenment throughout Christendom, a feeling that God and Christ had failed them. Through their
long association with the East the Templars may have become more tolerant and more broad-minded
than their stay-at-home countrymen, and some at least may, on their return to Europe, have been
tempted to go among the only people with whom they might talk freely, people with whom they
already had associations in their youth, and they may have attempted practices which, while sheer
heresy to a witch, were founded on her methods.
I think it may be far-fetched to suggest any connection between the Templars' alleged practice of
crossing their legs and the skull and bones, because many tombs of the period show knights with their
legs crossed, including some who were not Templars and who were never in the Holy Land. It could,
of course, simply mean the cross, but would it not be more reverent to do this with the arms? The god
Mithra is very often shown with two attendants with torches, who usually have their legs crossed. This
was very much a soldiers' cult, and so might appeal to the Templars and others; but I have not found
any other connections.
7 - The Witches and the Mysteries
I had always believed that witches belonged to an independent Stone Age cult whose rites were a
mixture of superstition and reality and had no connection with any other system. But during my short
stay in New Orleans, though I did not succeed in getting into Voodoo, I noticed some suspicious
resemblances which made me think that Voodoo was not solely African in origin but had been
compounded in America out of European witchcraft and African mythology; and when I visited the
Villa of the Mysteries at Pompeii I realised the great resemblance to the cult. Apparently these people
were using the witches' processes.
I know, of course, that ancient and modern writers have agreed that the Greek mysteries of Dionysus,
Zeus, Orpheus, Zagreus and Eleusis were similar; therefore since each mystery had different rites and
myths but was the same, this must mean that they had some inner secret. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

zanotowane.pl

doc.pisz.pl

pdf.pisz.pl

razem.keep.pl