39. C. J. S. Thompson, The Lure and Romance of Alchemy, New York, 1990, Chapter XXII.
40. Dr Christopher McIntosh, Foreword to Churton, The Gnostic Philosophy, p. xii.
41. Ibid.
42. Clive Prince and I remain indebted to the insights of Abigail Nevill, who at the age of eleven, inspired us to really look at the Shroud image with a child's eye - and suddenly a great deal fell into place. See Picknett and Prince, pp. 136-7, 157, 235, 240, 242, 245, 252.
43. I am indebted to the research of Steve Wilson for this interesting fact.
44. Thanks to the computer wizardry of Andy Haveland-Robinson, who had no particular axe to grind and viewed our project with complete objectivity.
45. As Abigail Nevill asked when viewing the Shroud image in negative: `Why is his head too small? And why is it on wrong?'
46. The head at the back is thrown backwards, the hair falling away from the face. At the front the chin is level.
47. Actually the hair appears to have been lightly touched up or painted in using the light-sensitive chemicals that created the photograph. When Clive and Keith Prince discovered that the fish-eye effect renders the hair invisible, that's what they did.
48. Of course Leonardo had the strong sunlight of Italy if he cared to use it, although as this work was undoubtedly of the highest secrecy, he would have chosen to create the Shroud behind closed doors, probably in the Vatican (see note 28, above). We had no such possibilities, having only a garage in grey and unromantic Reading, Berkshire, for our experiments, and a strong UV light bulb or two.
49. See Picknett and Prince for instructions on how to recreate all the so-called `miraculous' characteristics of the Shroud using the simplest of methods. However, you do need an abundance of light - and time! We were the first researchers ever to publish details of our own Shroud recreation, although at roughly the same time Professor Nicholas Allen was completing his similar photographic work in South Africa.
50. For a time we were annoyed at the image of the lens appearing on our experimental `Shrouds' - until we checked with the image of the Turin Shroud and saw it in exactly the same spot! Then, of course, we were overjoyed.
51. Such as Maria Consolata Corti. See Picknett and Prince, pp. 161-3, 331.
52. In 1898 a lawyer from Turin, Secondo Pio, took the first photographs of the Shroud, which was being displayed as part of the celebrations to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the unification of Italy. Seeing the Shroud in negative was a true epiphany for Pio: previously a lukewarm Catholic, after seeing all the intricate detail of the horrific crucifixion leap into life, he abruptly became passionate about his religion. Unfortunately, like millions of others, he had been duped by possibly the world's greatest psychological conman. The Shroud of Turin is not testimony to the truth of the Christian faith, but quite the opposite.
53. Serge Bramly, Leonardo: The Artist and the Man, London, 1992, first published as Leonardo da Vinci, Paris, 1988, p. 445.
54. Although the image was clearly not created with paint, there is a small amount of pigment on the cloth, probably due to the custom of laying religious paintings on it to imbue them with extra holiness.
55. Giorgio Vasari, Lives of the Artists,1550. This is quoted at the beginning of Chapter Five of Picknett and Prince, `Faust's Italian Brother'.
56. See Picknett and Prince, The Templar Revelation, p. 198.
57. Paracelsus, De Natura Rerum, 1572, Book 3.
58. Ibid.
59. Gian Battista della Porta, Natural Magik, 1658, Second Book.
60. Ibid.
61. Paracelsus.
62. Andre Nataf, The Wordsworth Dictionary of the Occult, London, 1994, p. 161.
63. Ibid.
64. Lynn Thorndike, `A History of Magic and Experimental Science', New York, 1929, vol. VIII, p. 629, quoted in Clara Pinto-Correia's online essay `Homunculus: Historiographic Misunderstanding of Preformationist Terminology', www.zygote.swarthmore.edu/fert I b.html.
65. Ibid.
66. The robot was a result of Leonardo's studies in anatomy, which are described in the Codex Huygens.
67. See www.w3.impa.br/-jair/e65.html.
68. Ibid. This online article is sponsored by the Istituto e Museo di Storia delta Scienza, Florence, and The Science Museum, London.
69. Dee himself had what is believed to be the perfect astrological chart for an occultist, being born with the Sun in Cancer and his ascendant in Sagittarius.
70. Montague Summers indefensibly describes `the work of rehabilitation so nobly initiated by Queen Mary'. Summers, p. 22.
71. Nevertheless, Dee persuaded Queen Mary to establish a national library, bestowing on it 4000 of his own books. It would ultimately become the British Museum.
72. William Shakespeare, The Tempest, Act V, Scene 1, c.1608.
73. Elizabethan spelling was notoriously inconsistent, even for personal names.
74. See www.johndee.org/charlotte/Chapter6/6pl.html. This is extracted from a page from The Alchemy Website, www.levity.com/alchemy/kellystn.html.
75. This appeared in three parts from 1663 to 1678.
76. Their magic mirror can now be seen in the British Museum.
77. From the Fama Frateritatis, quoted in Churton, The Golden Builders, p. 99.
78. Ed. Meric Casaubon, A True & Faithful Relation of what passed for many years between Dr John Dee and some Spirits, London, 1657, quoted in ibid. Churton notes: `Casaubon took his material from Dee's diaries, chiefly from those of 1583-4'.
79. Churton, p. 100.
80. The important and stunning 1997 film, Photographing Fairies, starring Toby Stephens, Emily Woof and Frances Barber, and directed by Nick Willing, makes this point quite clear. The main character even fails to defend himself against an unwarranted charge of murder because fairyland calls so strongly to him. `Death is merely a change of state. The soul is a fresh expression of the self. The dead are not dust. They really are only a footfall away.'
81. Godfather of British esotericism, John Michell, believes that the gods are reluctant to give occult researchers money because it would make them 'slack'!
82. The Stone of the Philosophers, ascribed to Edward Kelley, which was included in the booklet Tractatus duo egregii, de Lapide Philosophorum, una cunt Theatro astonomniae terrestri, cum Figuris, in gratiam ftliorum Hermetis nunc primum in lucem editi, curante J. L. M. C. IJohanne Lange Medicin Candidato], Hamburg, 1676, translated by L. Roberts.
83. Some say 1595 or 1597.
84. Shakespeare, Epilogue.
85. I myself grew up in a seriously haunted house in the back streets of York. I was about sixteen before I realized that not everyone has a poltergeist! Since those far-off times I have researched and studied the paranormal and have concluded that although many people report ghosts etc out of a desire to cause a stir, or perhaps even to get rehoused by the local council, most have seen something or someone from another dimension. An underlying belief in the reality of intrusion from elsewhere underpins my The Mammoth Book of UFOs (2001), while the strange crossover between a belief in the paranormal and the intelligence agencies is the main theme of my book, co- authored with Clive Prince, The Stargate Conspiracy: Revealing the truth behind extraterrestrial contact, military intelligence and the mysteries of ancient Egypt (1999).
86. Although, interestingly, not all and not on all points. There are modern scholars who privately pursue alchemical, Gnostic and magical studies, but who for obvious reasons - mainly academic funding - would never go public.
87. Churton, The Golden Builders, p. 100.
