Michael Baigent

This text presents a full history of the inquisition, beginning with St Dominic crossing the Pyrenees into Spain and the persecution of the villagers of South-West France that followed, right through to the holy index of forbidden books in the 20th century.

A nineteenth century French priest discovers something in his mountain village at the foot of The Pyrenees which enabled him to amass and spend a fortune of millions of pounds. The tale seems to begin with buried treasure and then turns into an unprecedented historical detective story - a modern Grail quest leading back through cryptically coded parchments, secret societies, the Knights Templar, the Cathar heretics of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries and a dynasty of obscure French kings deposed more than 1,300 years ago. The author's conclusions are persuasive at the core is not material riches but a secret - a secret of explosive and contraversialproportions, which radiates out from the little Pyrenees village to all the way to contemporary politics and the entire edifice of the Christian faith. It involves nothing less than the Holy Grail.

Coauthors of Holy Blood, Holy Grail Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh recount the events that led to the strange and sudden disappearance of the Knights Templar in the fourteenth century and their reappearance in the court of excommunicate Scottish king Robert the Bruce. Following the survival of certain unexpected Templar traditions, the authors document the evolution of a world-changing order through the birth of the Masonic lodge. They chart the history of Freemasonry through its medieval roots and into the modern era. The book posits that the orders contribution to the fostering of tolerance, progressive values, and cohesion in English society aided in preempting a French-style revolution in England; that Freemasonry was an essential keystone in the formation of the United States; and that America itself is an embodiment of the ideal Masonic Republic. This groundbreaking thread of analysis challenges the accepted traditions of Western history as it is currently taught. What is the true source of our most valued traditions? Twenty years since its original publication, The Temple and the Lodge remains a trenchant and essential edition to any collection of Western history.

Is the traditional, accepted view of the life of Christ in some way incomplete? Is it possible that Christ did not die on the cross? Is it possible Jesus was married, a father, and that his bloodline still exists? Is it possible that parchments found in the South of France a century ago reveal one of the best-kept secrets in Christendom? Is it possible that these parchments contain the very heart of the mystery of the Holy Grail?According to the authors of this extraordinary provocative, meticulously researched book, not only are these things possible - they are probably true! So revolutionary, so original, so convincing, that most faithful Christians will be moved; here is the book that has sparked worldwide controversy and promises to be the most talked about book of the decade.The author demonstrates the link between mysticism, occultism and the Freemasons and shows how they are cooperating, and have been for years, to produce the New World Order and its man, Antichrist.

What if everything you think you know about Jesus is wrong? In the sequel to "The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail", Michael Baigent reveals the truth and tackles controversial questions, such as whether or not Christ survived the crucifixion. Twenty years ago, Michael Baigent and his colleagues stunned the world with a controversial theory that Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene married and founded a holy bloodline. His bestselling book "The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail" (with co-authors Henry Lincoln and Richard Leigh) became an international publishing phenomenon and was one of the sources for Dan Brown''s novel "The Da Vinci Code". Now, with two additional decades of research behind him, Baigent''s "The Jesus Papers" presents explosive new evidence that challenges everything we know about the life and death of Jesus. Who could have aided and abetted Jesus and why? Where could Jesus have gone after the crucifixion? What is the truth behind the creation of the New Testament? Who is working to keep the truth buried and why?Taking us back to sites that over the last twenty years he has meticulously explored, studied, and in some instances excavated for the first time, Baigent provides a detailed account of his groundbreaking discoveries, including many never-before-seen photos.

What if everything you think you know about Jesus is wrong? In the sequel to The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail Michael Baigent reveals the truth and tackles controversial questions, such as whether or not Christ survived the crucifixion. Twenty years ago Michael Baigent and his colleagues stunned the world with a controversial theory that Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene married and founded a holy bloodline. His bestselling book The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail (with co-authors Henry Lincoln and Richard Leigh) became an international publishing phenomenon and was one of the sources for Dan Browns novel The Da Vinci Code. Now, with two additional decades of research behind him, Baigents The Jesus Papers presents explosive new evidence that challenges everything we know about the life and death of Jesus. Who could have aided and abetted Jesus and why? Where could Jesus have gone after the crucifixion? What is the truth behind the creation of the New Testament? Who is working to keep the truth buried and why? Taking us back to sites that over the last twenty years he has meticulously explored, studied, and in some instances excavated for the first time, Baigent provides a detailed account of his groundbreaking discoveries, including many never-before-seen photos.

Since the seventeenth century, science has been contending with philosophy, organised religion and the arts for domination over Western civilisation and society. By the middle of the twentieth century, the battle appeared to be won; scientific rationalism and scepticism were triumphant. Yet in the last few decades a strong and potent counter-current has emerged. One manifestation of this has been the so-called occult revival. In the Elixir and the Stone, Baigent and Leigh argue that this occult revival - and indeed the entire revolution in attitudes which has taken place recently - owes a profound debt to Hermeticism, a body of esoteric teaching which flourished in Alexandria two thousand years ago and which then went underground. The authors trace the history of this intriguing and all-encompassing philosophy - which has much in common with contemporary holistic thought - charting its origin in the Egyptian mysteries, and demonstrating how it continued to exercise enormous influence through the magicians and magi of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Many remarkable characters feature in the narrative, including the Franciscan friar Roger Bacon and the Elizabethan magus John Dee; prototype of Shakespeares Prospero in The Tempest, but he central figure that emerges is that of Faust himself - one of the defining myths of Western civilisation. The Elixir and the Stone is a remarkably rich and ambitious book that adds up to a little short of an alternative history of the intellectual world. Perhaps for the first time it puts into their true context those shadowy alchemists and magicians who have haunted the imaginations of people for centuries. Moreover it offers a way of looking at the world that is in one sense alternative, but, in another, deeply historical.

The Dead Sea Scrolls were found in caves 20 miles east of Jerusalem in 1947 and 1956. Now Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh, co-authors of The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, have succeeded in uncovering what has been described as the academic scandal par excellence of the twentieth century: the story of how and why up to 75 per cent of the eight hundred ancient Hebrew and Aramaic manuscripts, hidden for some nineteen centuries, have, until very recently, remained concealed from the rest of the world. Through interviews, historical analysis and a close study of both published and unpublished scroll material, the authors are able to reveal the true cause of the bitter struggle between scholars, for these documents disclose nothing less than a new account of the origins of Christianity and an alternative and highly significant version of the New Testament.

At thirty-seven, Colonel Count Claus von Stauffenberg, Chief of Staff of the Reich Reserve Army, was a charismatic figure destined for supreme command. The group of conspirators with whom he conceived the plot to kill Hitler in July 1944 was called Secret Germany. That was also the name of the esoteric circle in which Stauffenberg as a young man had been a disciple of the mystic anti-Nazi magus and poet Stefan George. What was it that motivated this extraordinary aristocratic soldier, with the looks of a Hollywood idol, who was said to be the only man to stare the Fuhrer down until he averted his eyes? For Stauffenberg, the bomb plot was not a political move but a moral and spiritual necessity. After forty-two serious attempts on Hitlers life in the previous twenty years, why did he too fail? Had he succeeded, some say he would have become the de Gaulle of Germany, saviour of the nation soul. Even in failure, there can be no doubt of Stauffenbergs heroism. He stands as atonement for the Third Reich and a resolution of the conflicting myths of German culture. In this remarkable investigation, his whole life explains a troubled past to the present generation of Europeans as few have done in recent history.

In this enthralling historical detective story, the authors of The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail trace the flight after 1309 of the Knights Templar from Europe to Scotland, where the Templar heritage was to take root, and would be perpetuated by a network of noble families. That heritage, and the Freemasonry that arose from it, became inseparable from the Stuart cause. The Temple and the Lodge charts the birth of Freemasonry through the survival of Templar traditions, through currents of European thought, through the mystery surrounding Rosslyn chapel, and through an elite cadre of aristocrats attached as personal bodyguards to the French king. Pursuing Freemasonry through the 17th and 18th Centuries, Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh reveal its contribution to the fostering of tolerance, progressive values, and cohesion in English society, which helped to pre-empt a French-style revolution. Even more dramatically, the influence of Freemasonry emerges as key facto in the formation of the United States of America as an embodiment of the ideal Masonic Republic.

A detailed study of the earliest forms of astrology in Mesopotamia and their far-reaching hermetic influences from the Renaissance to the present day Reveals the roots of modern astrology in the Babylonian science of omens, which was concerned not with individuals but with the state and king Explores Mesopotamian mythology as it relates to the planets and to astrology Traces the hermetic transmission of this knowledge over the centuries from Mesopotamia to Egypt to Renaissance ItalyAmong the many significant discoveries excavated from Assyrian king Ashurbanipals royal library in Nineveh were tablets documenting the development of Mesopotamian astrology, now recognized as the earliest astrological science.Drawing upon translations of the Nineveh library tablets as well as many other ancient sources, Michael Baigent reveals the roots of modern astrology in the Babylonian science of omens. He explains how astrology in the Babylonian and Assyrian empires was concerned not with individuals but with the king and the state. He shows that by the first dynasty of Babylon, around 1900 to 1600 BC, astrology had become a systematic discipline, the preserve of highly trained specialists intent upon interpreting omens from the movements of planets and stars. He explores Mesopotamian mythology as it relates to the planets and to astrology as well as to Mesopotamian religion, magic, and politics--for the mythology of Babylon and Assyria served the state and thus changed as the state changed. He shows how this ancient form of astrology uniquely represents both Sun and Moon as masculine entities and Saturn (Ninurta) as the principle of order imposed on chaos. He examines the connections between ancient astrology and the symbolism of Western religions, such as how the Greek or Templar cross may symbolize the Babylonian god Nabu, now known as Mercury.Tracing the hermetic transmission of this knowledge over the centuries from Mesopotamia to Egypt to Florence, Baigent reveals how the religious and magical aspects of early Babylonian cosmological speculation played a significant role in the Renaissance, influencing prominent figures such as Cosimo de Medici, Marsilio Ficino, and Botticelli.