l'enigme cathare, Paris, 1986, p. 66.
2. For a detailed background to the Cathars, see Markale; Yuri Stoyanov, The Hidden Tradition in Europe, London, 1994; Lynn Picknett, Mary Magdalene: Christianity's Hidden Goddess, London, 2003, and Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince, The Templar Revelation, London, 1997.
3. The Cathars only ate fish because they believed that fish procreated asexually.
4. Markale, p. 173.
5. Ibid., p. 176.
6. See Picknett, p. 184.
7. The reasoning behind this was that as God had given humanity dominion over all the animals, it was blasphemy not to reinforce that superiority by eating them. It is significant that to this day, among all the countries of Europe, it is the Catholic lands that have the worst reputation for animal welfare.
8. At Beziers, 20,000 townspeople willingly died at the hands of the Crusaders rather than renounce their belief that Jesus and the Magdalene were lovers. It is all the more remarkable because this is not a belief that would naturally appeal to Cathars and therefore is unlikely for them to have invented. Presumably they learnt it from a secret gospel similar to those found at Nag Hammadi in 1945.
9. Markale, p. 160.
10. See Picknett, pp. 91, 93-7, 196, 215-16, 221, 232-3 and de Voragine, pp. 153-5.
11. Montague Summers, The History of Witchcraft, London, 1926, p. 23.
12. Yuri Stoyanov, The Hidden Tradition in Europe, London, 1994, p. 189.
13. Ibid.
14. According to Jean Markale, Rahn was discovered faking some inscriptions and was duly punched on the nose by an outraged local historian!
15. It must be remembered that Rahn was a Nazi, although his earlier research in the Languedoc was relatively untouched by his later unpleasant ideology. His theses are included here in the spirit of Lucifer - i.e., fearlessly citing any interesting research no matter what its source rather than throw the politically correct baby out with the bathwater. After all, on certain points, he may have been correct!
16. Otto Rahn, Luzifers Hofgesind: Eine Reize zu den guten Geistern Europas, 1937, tranlated into the French as La Cour de Lucifer: Voyage au coeur de la plus haute spiritualite europeene, Paris, 1994. I am greatly indebted to Clive Prince for his hard work in translating key passages from the French for me.
17. For an in-depth examination of the history and beliefs of the Templars, see Picknett and Prince.
18. Of course as a Nazi, Rahn would have infinitely preferred a great religion to have Nordic or Germanic rather than Middle Eastern (Semitic) roots.
19. Rahn, p. 15 of the Introduction to the French edition by Arnaud d'Apremont, translated by Clive Prince.
20. Ibid.
21. Ibid.
22. For those who appreciate what may well simply be a coincidence - or perhaps a Cosmic Joke - `Anfortas' is an exact anagram of `For Satan'. Of course it would be considerably more impressive if in French.
23. Rahn, p. 18.
24. Ibid., p. 21.
25. Ibid., p. 22.
26. Ibid., p. 91.
27. For details, see Andrew Collins' haunting and important book 21st-Century Grail, London, 2004.
28. For the classic exposition of the theory that `sangreal' actually means `holy blood' see Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh and Henry Lincoln, The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, London, 1982. For the fictional version par excellence, there is, of course Dan Brown, The Da Vinci Code, New York, 2003.
29. Wolfram von Eschenbach, Parzival, London, 1980, pp. 232-3.
30. The Mabinogion, trans. Gwyn Jones and Thomas Jones, London, 1949, p. 192.
31. Ibid., p. 218.
32. Tobias Churton, The Golden Builders, Litchfield, 2002. See also Picknett, Appendix.
33. Wolfram, p. 240.
34. Ibid., p. 396.
35. Andrew Collins, 21st-Century Grail, London, 2004.
36. Father Philippe Devoucoux du Buysson, in Dieu est amour, no. 115 (May 1989), quoted in Picknett and Prince, p. 123.
37. Colin Wilson, The Occult, London, 1973, p. 272.
38. Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh, The Inquisition, London, 2000, p. xv.
39. Marie-Humbert Vicaire, Saint Dominic and His Times, trans. Kathleen Pond, London, 1964, p. 146. Quoted in Baigent and Leigh, p. 17.
40. Walter L. Wakefield, Heresy, Crusade and Inquisition in Southern France 1100-1250, London, 1974, p. 208.
41. Ibid., p. 212.
42. Baigent and Leigh, p. 19.
43. Wakefield, p. 216.
44. Baigent and Leigh, p. 25.
45. Wakefield, p. 224, quoted in Baigent and Leigh, p. 26.
46. Stoyanov, p. 178.
47. Baigent and Leigh, p. 28.
48. See Lynn Picknett, Clive Prince and Stephen Prior, Friendly Fire: The Secret War Between the Allies, Edinburgh, 2004, pp. 54-5, 56-61.
49. Summers, p. 20.
50. H.T.F. Rhodes, `Black Mass', Man, Myth and Magic, London, 1971, No. 10, pp. 274-8, quoted in Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince, The Templar Revelation: Secret Guardians of the True Identity of Christ, London, 1997, p. 86.
51. Barbara Walker, The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets, New York, 1983, p. 1079.
52. Ronald Pearsall, The Worm in the Bud, New York, 1969, p. 209, quoted in Walker, p. 643.
53. Vern L. Bulloch, The Subordinate Sex, Chicago, 1973, p. 176, quoted in ibid.
54. Revelation 22:2.
55. Joseph Campbell, The Mask of God: Creative Mythology, New York, 1970, p. 159.
56. Walker, p. 640.
57. Charlene Spretnak (ed.), The Politics of Women's Spirituality, New York, 1982, p. 269, quoted in ibid., p. 644.
58. Walker, p. 644.
59. Mary Daly, Beyond God the Father, Boston, 1973, p. 69.
60. Although a precise number can never be known, the total number of `witches', both male and female, who suffered and died at the hands of the Church has been drastically downgraded from estimates as high as 5 million to around 100,000. Yet given the relatively scanty population of Europe during that time, and the fact that whole villages were decimated and never recovered, it is still a large number. And it need hardly be said, even the revised figure is 100,000 too many.
61. Walker, p. 1079.
62. Barbara Rosen, Witchcraft, New York, 1972, pp. 296-7.
63. Walker, p. 170.
64. Antoinette Bourgignon, La Vie exterieure, Amsterdam, 1683, quoted in Summers, p. 71.
65. My notes at this point read incredulously: `Is he mad?' After a while, I gave up making similar comments. It would have taken up far too much time.
66. Summers, p. 71, references Delrio. Disquistiones magicae, 1. V. sect. 4. T. 2. `Non eadem est forma signi, aliquando est simile leporis uestigio, aliquando bufonis pedi, aliquando araneae, uel catello, uel gliri.'
67. Summers, p. 45.
68. Ibid., p. 226.
