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Introduction
by Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince
Revealing the truth behind extraterrestrial contact, military
intelligence and the mysteries of Ancient Egypt
The Stargate Conspiracy exposes the most
insidious, disturbing - and successful - mass manipulation of our
times. Designed to bring us, hearts, minds and souls under the total
control of the conspirators, this sinister programme has ruthlessly
exploited our Millennial craving for signs and wonders - even
hijacking the predicted return of the ancient gods. The
Conspiracy...
Its central focus is the belief that the gods of the ancient world
were extraterrestrials who created and civilized the human race,
that they’re back - and that, communicating through special chosen
ones, they are actively directing the way we think.
However, The Stargate Conspiracy reveals that this romantic and
exciting scenario was in fact the brainchild of the West’s most
powerful intellectual agencies. Designed to become a new religion
for the 21st century, its real purpose is political - to make us
easier to control. Centered on the search for lost secrets of the
pyramid builders, this extraordinary true story reveals the links
between US scientific intelligence agencies, Mars and
ancient Egypt.
For almost 50 years, like Frankenstein’s monster, this conspiracy
has been put together from cultish - but astonishingly powerful -
belief systems, culminating in the emergence of a new fundamentalism
that is gathering strength by feeding on Millennium fever.
Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince reveal the secret agenda that unites
apparently independent authors and researchers - including top names
with millions of readers worldwide - and which is targeted to all of
us. The Stargate Conspiracy reveals that even the genuine mysteries
of the gods themselves have been hijacked by powerful cabals - which
include top industrialists, politicians, scientists and intelligence
agencies such as MI5 and the CIA - in order to fulfill their secret
agenda. At the heart of this conspiracy is the belief that the
ancient Egyptian gods were - and are - extra terrestrial beings,
that certain key people are in contact with them, and that they are
about to return through the ‘stargate’ between our world and theirs.
-
Are we prepared for the imminent return of the gods?
-
And will we be
expected unquestioningly to accept the conspirators as our
spokesmen?
-
Or is this an exercise in mass manipulation designed to
make us support the conspirators?
As they calculatedly whip up
Millennium fever, triumphantly persuading us that they alone know
how to talk to the gods, this book serves as a serious warning to
mankind.
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The Main Points
Over the last few years, the public has come to accept specific
ideas about the ‘message’ of ancient Egypt, largely due to the works
of certain high-profile authors. But we demonstrate that many of the
principles of this ‘New Egyptology’ are not only based on
false-premises, but have also been used by others as part of a
secret long-term agenda. We reveal the shadowy presence of US
government agencies behind the current interest in the Giza plateau.
An essential part of this plot is the alleged link between ancient
Egypt and a lost civilization on Mars, based on the discovery of
supposedly artificial features on that planet. We show that this
view is seriously flawed, and that the intelligence agencies are
actively encouraging the promotion of a meaningful Egypt-Mars
connection.
We show that key people in the promotion of the ‘message’ of Egypt
and Mars are involved in a cultish cabal who believes they are in
direct contact with extraterrestrial intelligences from Sirius who
claim to be the gods of ancient Egypt. This group, which has existed
for almost fifty years, has included many famous names,
multimillionaires and cutting-edge scientists. It has also,
disturbingly, had a profound influence on the decision-making of
certain world leaders...
The Stargate Conspiracy reveals that this group was in fact
cynically and deliberately manipulated from the first by the CIA -
and that this programme is ongoing.
We trace the inspiration for the conspiracy back to the ideology of
certain extreme right-wing occult movements of the 19th and 20th
centuries.
We conclude that the conspirators are deliberately harnessing the
most profound and cherished beliefs of today’s society - from
fundamentalist Christianity and the ‘message’ of ancient
civilizations to the alien abduction scenario - to create a new,
more widely acceptable religion for the post-Millennial West. We
reveal that, underlying the apparently acceptable tenets of this
religion is an insidious right-wing ideology, the true danger
lurking inside the Trojan Horse of its New Age image. However, even
though the manipulators have abused and hijacked the ancient
Egyptian mysteries for their own ends, that does not mean that there
are no such mysteries.
We reveal the ground-breaking research that provides a plausible
answer to the most enduring questions about the ancient Egyptians’
achievements and beliefs - and, explosively, uncover the true nature
of the gods themselves...
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Press Release
Stargate Conspiracy Triggers Massive Censorship Row
A.O.L. ACTIONS CENSOR CRITICISM OF C.I.A.
The launch of a new book (July 17th) entitled
The Stargate
Conspiracy by Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince, and published by
Little Brown, has triggered a massive censorship row across the
Internet. The book exposes governmental plans to hijack Millennium
mysteries, through political interference or by manipulating belief
structures.
Evidence has come to light that AOL, the UK’s largest subscription
based Internet service, is through its actions assisting CIA designs
on introducing a new belief system and form of racist fundamentalism
for the New Age.
Despite connecting 8 million users across the UK and Europe, and
carrying over 55 million “Instant Messages” every day, AOL has
engineered a sudden and unexpected clampdown on Egypt News, an
independent electronic newsletter supplied free of charge to 600
voluntary subscribers. Having operated successfully and completely
unhindered since September 1997, Egypt News now defends itself
amidst accusations of ‘spamming’ - a term used to describe the
delivery of unsolicited mail across the Internet.
Whilst AOL claims
to have responded as a result of a single complainant, Egypt News
vehemently defend themselves, saying that subscribers are able to
cancel their subscription without charge and at any time, adding
that AOL closed down the service by changing its password without
any form of consultation or investigation. In a statement, Chris Ogilvie-Herald, editor of Egypt News, asks,
“Does this not raise
serious questions concerning the freedom and transmission of
information?”
He adds:
“Despite our explanations that we were not
sending unsolicited mail, AOL expressed no interest in reviewing the
situation, reading the content of prior postings, acknowledge that
the service was of a non-commercial nature, nor recognize the fact
that it could not be termed unsolicited mail.”
A key clue into the reasoning behind AOL’s intransigence appears to
lie in the content of the offending Egypt News article. In less than
30 lines, this message describes the content of The Stargate
Conspiracy, a book by Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince which exposes a
long term plan to take advantage of the turn of the Millennium by
mixing established religious beliefs with ideas relating to ancient
Egypt, extraterrestrial contact, alien abductions and channelling.
Speaking on the unusual experiences of Egypt News, Clive Prince says
“It is interesting that our posting provoked it”.
The Stargate Conspiracy reveals that behind the plot are
intelligence agencies of more than one country, but led by the CIA
as part of the Pentagons psychological warfare and parapsychology
experiments. Involving the use of false prophets, ideas promoted by
famous authors, hallucinogenic drugs, hypnosis and electromagnetic
influence, the conspiracy has already influenced the decision making
of world leaders and has led one social scientist to state that the
project was “an elaborate psychological experiment sponsored by the
defense community”.
However, unexplained experiences have not been
restricted to email messaging. As part of the offending email,
subscribers to Egypt News were referred to the official website for
the book - a public forum for issues arising, debate and questions
to the authors known online as the Stargate Assembly. However this
website has experienced extremely erratic access patterns and an
extraordinary level of interest from Virginia, USA, headquarters of
the CIA. Within days of full details being posted, access rates for
information on the The Stargate Conspiracy inexplicably dropped by
at least 80%, whilst at the same time monitoring from Virginia
peaked at 69% of total traffic.
IS A.O.L. ASSISTING C.I.A. NETWORK?
Despite claiming to provide customers and businesses with “an
unprecedented array of new choices”, AOL’s action against Egypt News
appears to have acted against the terms of the Internet Content
Rating Association (ICRA), a group devoted to the protection of free
speech on the Internet, and of which AOL is a founder member.
Speaking on May 12, 1999, David Phillips of AOL Europe, confirmed
that the ICRA initiative was being taken to provide “concerned
citizens the tools to protect their children and communities while
ensuring the essential openness and freedom of the Internet.”
Chairman of the ICRA board, Jens Waltermann, added “It is not for us
or for governments to decide what is inappropriate.”
Further announcements made on June 10th and 17th, 1999, declared AOL
to be operating an alliance with both BSkyB and Verio Inc.
Targeting both Sky subscribers and web users via traditional forms
of direct mail and television advertising as well as by means of
banner advertisements designed to guarantee “millions of
impressions” across the Internet, AOL’s activities appears to
operate against their own anti-spamming principles as applied to
Egypt News.
If you thought that this issue does not affect you, the chances are
that it does now. Within such an operational framework, AOL have
recently announced intentions to provide free Internet services to
all schools in the UK, including adult education centers, most
recently announcing an agreement with the Scottish Borders Council
Education Department. And in a recent attempt to connect all of
Europe’s parliamentarians to the web, Andreas Schmidt, President and
Chief Executive Officer for AOL Europe said:
“All politicians,
regardless of country or party, should have the same opportunity to
access, explore and use online services in the same way as their
constituents”.
If AOL is indeed guilty of censorship, should the organization take
action against itself for operating in favor of the CIA, against
agreed ICRA principles, or for its own commercial ‘spamming’
otherwise known as advertising? What is the precise nature of AOL’s
involvement in politics and the education of our children? Is AOL
exerting self-defined ‘parental controls’ on the adult global
community? Whatever the case, AOL continues to claim ease of use,
convenience and unique content, whilst at the same time it clamps
down on a free newsletter promoting Egypt to an entirely voluntary
membership.
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Giza Millennium Celebrations Under Threat
by Lynn Picknett and Clive
Prince
According to reports in the Egyptian press, the Millennium ceremony
in which a golden capstone was to be placed on top of the Great
Pyramid, has been cancelled. This is because some sections of the
Egyptian government are now worried about the Masonic symbolism
involved. The meaning of this event for American Freemasons is
discussed in Chapter 7 of The Stargate Conspiracy. Briefly, to
American Freemasons the symbolic completion of the Pyramid heralds a
new age in which the USA and Freemasonry become dominant in world
affairs. There are also connections with
the
prophecies of Edgar Cayce.
The Egyptian official behind the ceremony, the well-known Dr Zahi
Hawass, seems to be in the firing line for agreeing to this event. A
full report can be found on the Egyptnews subscription mailing list,
at Egyptnews@aol.com (to subscribe, send an email with
subscribe in the subject box). Egyptnews has also
posted comments by Robert Bauval on this development.
Robert Bauval discusses this ceremony at length in his latest book,
Secret Chamber: The Quest for the Hall of Records, and many readers
will be aware that he makes no secret of his personal belief that
this ceremony would trigger a New Age. He links it with the opening
of the Hall of Records, the fulfillment of Cayces prophecies
and the Second Coming of Jesus. Bauval is now very concerned about
the cancellation, and is taunting the Egyptian government by
claiming that, if the event fails to materialize, they will be the
laughing stock of the world. He says that the eyes of the world will
be fixed on that ceremony, and that millions of tourists have booked
to be there.
However, it is only in New Age circles and
among Bauval’s own fans - that the capstone ceremony is
awaited with such fervor. Bauval has, after all, been the major
in fact, the only - promoter of this event as a mystical
occasion. The other events at Giza that night most
importantly Jean-Michel Jarres concert and laser show are still going ahead. It should be a great show with or without
Edgar Cayce. The desperation with which Bauval has reacted to the
news of the cancellation seems to be due to his personal emotional
investment in the importance of this event.
But what does it mean to the non-Masonic world? Surely Jesus is not
waiting for a capstone to be replaced on the Pyramid? And as for
Edgar Cayce, it never fails to amaze us that he is ever taken
seriously as a prophet at all. We have researched his prophecies
thoroughly, and have yet to discover ONE that he got right. Perhaps
the fact that he was a very active Freemason accounts for his
popularity in certain quarters today.
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to Contents
The Sirius Lie
Extract of a Lecture for the Turn of the Millennium
by Filip Coppins
Scientists learn that
the Dogon do not possess secret knowledge
about
the star Sirius and its companions. What some consider to be
the best evidence for extraterrestrial beings coming from Sirius is
therefore dealt a devastating blow.
In 1976, two major books on extra-terrestrial visitation were
published:
Zecharia Sitchin’s The Twelfth Planet and
Robert
Temple's The Sirius Mystery. Of the two, the latter became by
far more famous and even attained the status of a semi-scientific
work, as many were impressed with the scientific-looking train of
logic of the book. Temple stated that the Dogon, a tribe in Africa,
possessed extraordinary knowledge on the star system Sirius, the
brightest star in the sky, the star which became the marker of an
important ancient Egyptian calendar, the star which according to
some is at the centre of beliefs held by the Freemasons, the star
which according to some is where the forefathers of the human race
might have come from.
Temple claimed that the Dogon possessed knowledge on Sirius B and
Sirius C, companion stars to Sirius that are, however, invisible to
the naked eye. How did the Dogon know about their existence? Temple
referred to legends of a mythical creature Oannes, who might have
been an extraterrestrial being descending on Earth from the stars,
to bring wisdom to our forefathers. In 1998, Temple republished the
book with the subtitle “new scientific evidence of alien contact
5,000 years ago”. The books glory came crashing down earlier
this summer, when Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince published
The Stargate Conspiracy.
That book stated that Temple had been highly
influenced in his thinking by his mentor, Arthur M. Young. Young was
a fervent believer in “the Council of Nine”, a group of channelled
entities that claim they are the nine creator gods of ancient Egypt.
“The Nine” are part of the UFO and New Age and many claim to be in
contact with them. “The Nine” also claim to be extraterrestrial
beings, from the star Sirius. In 1952, Young was one of the nine
people present during the “first contact” with the Council, where
contact was initiated by
Andrija Puharich, the man who brought the
Israeli spoon bender and presumed psychic Uri Geller to America.
It
was Young who gave Temple in 1965 a French article on the secret
star lore of the Dogon, an article written by Griaule and
Dieterlen.
In 1966, Temple, at the impressionable age of 21, became Secretary
of of Young’s Foundation for the Study of Consciousness. In
1967, Temple began work on what would eventually become The Sirius
Mystery. As Picknett and Prince have been able to show,
Temple's arguments are often based on erroneous readings of
encyclopedic entries and misrepresentations of ancient Egyptian
mythology.
They conclude that Temple very much wanted to please his
mentor. It is, however, a fact that the end result is indeed a book
that would have pleased Young and his beliefs in extraterrestrial
beings from Sirius very much, whether or not this was the intention
of Temple. Though Temple's work is now therefore definitely
challenged, the core of the mystery remained intact. At the centre
of this enigma is the work of Marcel Griaule and Germaine Dieterlen,
two French anthropologists, who wrote down the secret knowledge on
“Sirius B” and “Sirius C” in their book
The Pale Fox. But now, in
another recent publication,
Ancient Mysteries, by Peter James and
Nick Thorpe, this “mystery” is also uncloaked, as a hoax or a lie,
perpetrated by Griaule.
To recapitulate, Griaule was initiated in the secret mysteries of
the male Dogon, who allegedly told him the secrets of Sirius
invisible companions. Sirius (sigu tolo in their language) had two
star companions. This was revealed in an article that was published
by Griaule and Dieterlen in the French language in 1950.
In the 1930s, when their research occurred, Sirius B was known to
have existed, even though it was only photographed in 1970. There
was little if no possibility that the Dogon had learned this
knowledge from Westerners that had visited them prior to Griaule and
Dieterlen. Griaule and Dieterlen published their findings on the
Sirius companions without any reference or comment on how
extra-ordinary the Dogon knowledge was. It would be others,
particularly Temple in the sixties and seventies, who would zoom in
on that aspect.
To quote Ancient Mysteries:
“While Temple, following Griaule, assumes that
to polo is the invisible star Sirius B, the Dogon themselves, as reported by Griaule, say something quite
different.”
To quote the Dogon:
“When Digitaria (to polo) is close
to Sirius, the latter becomes brighter; when it is at its most
distant from Sirius, Digitaria gives off a twinkling effect,
suggesting several stars to the observer.”
James and Thorpe wonder
as anyone reading this should do whether to polo is
therefore an ordinary star near Sirius, not an invisible companion,
as Griaule and Temple suggest. The biggest challenge to Griaule,
however, came from anthropologist Walter Van Beek. He points out
that Griaule and Dieterlen stand alone in the world in their claims
on the secrets of the Dogon. No other anthropologist supports their
opinion or claims.
In 1991, Van Beek led a team of anthropologists who declared that
they could find absolutely no trace of the detailed Sirius lore
reported by the French anthropologists. James and Thorpe understate
the problem when they say that “this is very worrying”.
Griaule had stated that about fifteen percent of the Dogon tribe
knew about this secret knowledge, but Van Beek could, in a decade of
research with the Dogon, find not a single trace of this knowledge.
Van Beek was initially keen to find evidence for Griaules
claims, but had to admit that there may have been a major problem
with Griaules claims. Even more worrying is Griaules
background. Though an anthropologist, Griaule was interested in
astronomy, which he had studied in Paris.
As James and Thorpe point
out, he took star maps along with him on his field trips as a way of
prompting his informants to divulge their knowledge of the stars. Griaule himself was aware of the discovery of
Sirius B and it is
quite likely that he over interpreted the Dogon responses to his
questions. In the 1920s, before Griaule went to the Dogon, there
were also unconfirmed sightings of Sirius C. Was Griaule told by his
informants what he wanted to believe? It seems, alas, that the truth
is even worse, at least for Griaules reputation.
Van Beek actually spoke to the original informants of Griaule, who
stated:
“though they do speak about sigu tolo [interpreted by Griaule as
their name for Sirius], they disagree completely with each other as
to which star is meant; for some, it is an invisible star that
should rise to announce the sigu [festival], for another it is Venus
that through a different position appears as sigu tolo. All agree,
however, that they learned about the star from Griaule.”
So whatever knowledge they possessed, it was knowledge coming from
Griaule, not knowledge native to the Dogon tribe. Van Beek also
discovered that the Dogon are of course aware of the brightest star
in the sky, which they do not, however, call sigu tolo, as Griaule
claimed, but dana tolo.
To quote James and Thorpe:
“As for Sirius B,
only Griaules informants had ever heard of it.”
With this, the Dogon mystery comes to a crashing halt.
The Sirius
Mystery influenced more than twenty years of thinking about our
possible ancestry from “forefathers” who have come from the stars.
In 1996, Temple was quick to point out the new speculation in
scientific circles on the possible existence of Sirius C, which made
the claims by Griaule even more spectacular and accurate.
But Temple
was apparently not aware of Van Beeks recent research. With
this new research of both Van Beek and the authors of Ancient
Mysteries, we uncover how Griaule himself was responsible for the
creation of a modern myth, which, in retrospect, has created such an
industry and almost religious belief that the scope and intensity
can hardly be fathomed. Nigel Appleby, in his withdrawn publication
Hall of the Gods, which was, according to Appleby himself,
tremendously influenced by Temple's book, Appleby spoke about
how Temple believed that present-day authorities were apparently
unwilling to set aside the blinkers of orthodoxy or were unable to
admit the validity of anything that lies outside their field or
offers a challenge to its status quo.
He further wondered whether
there was also a modern arrogance that could not countenance the
possible scientific superiority of earlier civilizations. It seems,
alas, that Griaule, a scientist, wanted to give earlier
civilizations more knowledge than they actually possessed. And
various popular authors and readers have since been led into a
modern mythology, the “Age of the Dark Sirius Companion”.
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to Contents
The Rise of the Rough Beast
Adapted from a lecture by LYNN PICKNETT and CLIVE PRINCE
at the Saunière Society Symposium,
Conway Hall, London
As we approach the Millennium, there is
a growing sense of expectancy that some event, or revelation, will
change the world forever. For fundamentalist Christians it is
the
Second Coming but you don’t have to be a
fundamentalist Christian to share the belief that the world is soon
going to change, and change radically.
The one thing that many of these expectations have in common is the
sense that the past is catching up with us that the
transformation of our future will, in some way, be connected the
ancient past. Ancient sites around the world are the focus of
Millennium Fever but none more so than those of Egypt, and
particularly the Giza Plateau. Many believe that some revelation
connected with the Great Pyramid, or with the Sphinx, will be the
trigger for a New Age.
Such expectancy, such hope, such belief is very, very potent. It is
wide open for exploitation not just for financial gain, but
for those who want to try to change the way we think. And that is
what Lynn and I believe is happening. Our book, The Stargate
Conspiracy, describes a 50-year-long plot to create, and then
exploit, expectations about ancient Egypt as part of what amounts to
a programme of social engineering. It is a very high-level plot
that, essentially, aims to hijack the very real mysteries of ancient
Egypt in order to push other quasi-religious and even political
ideas. Instrumental in this plot are the psychological warfare units
of intelligence agencies.
At the centre of the conspiracy is the manipulation of beliefs about
the origins and history of human civilization, in particular of
beliefs about the existence of an advanced civilization in the
ancient past and its influence on the earliest known historical
civilizations, primarily that of Egypt.
But the conspiracy uses ideas and concepts that have been around for
quite a long time in the occult world. Our book explores the origins
of those ideas, and shows how in recent years, they been pushed at
the mainstream public. In brief, ideas about the origins and history
of human civilization that were developed in occult circles in the
19th century are now being promoted to the public as if they have
been confirmed by recent research.
The important point is that these ideas were originally developed to
support specific systems of belief or doctrines - and some of those
doctrines were, to say the least, highly questionable and often
downright dangerous.
In the last few years we have seen a wave of new books about ancient
Egypt that have captured the imaginations of millions of readers
worldwide. The best-known names in this Alternative
Egypt field are Graham Hancock, Robert Bauval, and
John
Anthony West, and their works have been instrumental in arousing
public interest in the very real mysteries of
ancient Egypt.
To be clear about this point, we are NOT saying that Hancock, Bauval
and West are conscious participants in the conspiracy. But their
IDEAS are certainly being used and have been to an extent
shaped by the conspirators.
This article looks at one specific example of the way that
19th-century occult ideas have influenced recent developments in the
Alternative Egypt field.
The story begins with
the Sphinx. Everybody will be familiar with
the controversy surrounding claims that the Sphinx is far older than
mainstream Egyptologists believe (which is about 4,500 years, ie it
dates from around 2500 BC). This claim was made in 1990 as a result
of a study of the erosion of the Sphinx and the walls of its
enclosure. The instigator of this research was the maverick
alternative Egyptologist John Anthony West.
In the 1970s, West had
become interested in the work of R.A. Schwaller de Lubicz
(1887-1961), the occult philosopher who, in the 1940s and 50s, wrote
several books in French about the religion of ancient Egypt.
Schwaller de Lubiczs ideas have had enormous influence on
alternative and New Age ideas about Egypt.
Schwaller de Lubicz believed that the Sphinx was carved by visitors
from Atlantis, and that it predated the ancient Egyptian
civilization by many thousands of years. He observed that the
erosion on the Sphinx's body and the walls of the enclosure
appears to be the result of exposure to water, rather than
wind-blown sand, and argued that it had been caused by a great flood the flood that destroyed
Atlantis. John Anthony West agreed
with this, and hoped to prove it scientifically.
In 1990, West managed to interest an American geologist, Robert Schoch, in the problem. Schoch made a study of the Sphinx and
concluded that the erosion was due to water to centuries of
exposure to rainfall. He pinpointed a period of extremely wet
weather between 7000 and 5000 BC as being responsible. If he is
right this would make the Sphinx at least 2,500 years older than it
is supposed to be, which would mean a radical rethink about
conventional ideas about the origins of the ancient Egyptian
civilization.
Most of you will be familiar with this, and many will accept the
re-dating. However, Schochs work, and his conclusions, are
still very controversial and the subject of debate. The recent book
by Ian Lawton and Chris Ogilvie-Herald,
Giza: The Truth, deals with
this controversy in some detail, and presents evidence that raises
serious questions about Schochs conclusions. However, the
most relevant point to us is that, even if Schoch is right, his
dates 7000-5000 BC are the oldest allowed by his
data. However, West (and following him Graham Hancock) has presented
Schochs work as if it really supports a much, much earlier
date.
Most significantly, West uses Schochs work unashamedly
as evidence that the Sphinx dates from at least 10000 BC, or perhaps
even earlier. Ironically, after having brought in an expert to
confirm his ideas, he then disregards Schochs expertise when
it suits him. West states that in his opinion there hasn’t
been sufficient rainfall in Egypt in the period given by Schoch to
account for the erosion. He states that you really have to go back
before 10000 BC to find a wet enough climate in Egypt to account for
the weathering on this type and scale.
Hancock has followed him writing that during the 11th
millennium BC in Egypt it rained and rained and
rained.
This sounds very authoritative. But when we checked these claims, we
found that, according to all the available sources on the climate of
ancient Egypt, there simply was no wet period in the 11th Millennium
BC. So why are Hancock and West so keen to have us believe in that
date? What does a difference of 3,500 years make, when even pushing
the Sphinx back to 5000 BC would radically transform our ideas about
the ancient Egyptian culture?
Partly this is to fit the pronouncements of the American psychic
Edgar Cayce (1877-1945), who said that the Sphinx and Pyramids were
built by survivors from Atlantis in 10500 BC. But it also fits the
view of history used to justify another, very specific and
in our view very alarming - form of occult philosophy. To understand
this we have to go back to 19th century France, and a
political-occult ideology called Synarchy. In Britain, Synarchy is
not widely known even among those interested in esoteric movements
and secret societies.
This is very surprising, as Synarchy and its
founder have been extraordinarily influential. Synarchy was founded
in the early 1870s by Joseph Alexander Saint-Yves d’Alveydre
(1824-1909). This was a period in which many new political ideas
were taking hold. Like many of a conservative mind, Saint-Yves was
alarmed by the rise of Anarchy, and he developed
Synarchy
specifically in order to counter it. Whereas Anarchy believes that
the state should have no authority over the life and behavior of an
individual, Synarchy took quite the opposite view. In other words,
the more control the state has over the individual the better. This,
as you can imagine, was an idea held an attraction for many.
Essentially, Synarchy advocates government by secret society or, in its own terms, by an elite of enlightened initiates who rule
from behind the scenes. It therefore doesn’t matter which
political party holds power in a state or even what
political system that state has. Synarchists would step in and take
control of the key state institutions. St-Yves identified three key
pillars of society that, once under the control of his elite, would
allow them to rule without the population even being aware of their
existence. These were the political and social institutions, the
economic institutions and the religious institutions.
Although Synarchy can therefore rule in any kind of state, for
obvious reasons it finds itself more at home among totalitarian
regimes (power is held by less people, and the ruling regime doesn’t
change as often as in a democracy). It has therefore always
attracted a greater following from the right. Synarchy is totally
opposed to ideas of democracy and social equality, as it believes
that some people i.e. Synarchists are natural leaders.
However, Synarchy as devised by St-Yves was not a purely political
movement. St-Yves was active in the esoteric world of 19th century
Europe he was, for example, a friend of key figures such as
Victor Hugo and Lord Bulwer-Lytton - and so incorporated specific
mystical and occult ideas into his system.
St-Yves believed in the existence of spiritually superior beings
that could be contacted telepathically. His elite would be made up
of people who were in communication with them. He himself claimed
that he was in touch with these beings, and that they actually gave
him the principles of Synarchy.
Saint-Yves drew upon many esoteric systems, from both East and West,
in developing his ideas. For example, he regarded the medieval
Knights Templar as the ultimate Synarchists of their day after all, they exerted control over the political, financial and
religious life of medieval Europe, his three pillars of society.
Consequently, Saint-Yves incorporated ideas from the many
neo-Templar societies that were flourishing in his day. In
particular, he borrowed from a Templarist Masonic society, the
Strict Templar Observance, the concept of Unknown Superiors a group who directed the order but whose identity remained unknown
to the members. However, he expanded this concept and made his unknown superiors spiritually advanced beings that
lived in a remote part of Tibet.
Although Saint-Yves himself is hardly known in this country, he was
incredibly influential in the development of 19th century occultism.
For example, he was the person who introduced the concept of Agartha,
the mysterious underworld realm peopled by initiates hidden
somewhere in Tibet, The Masters with whom he claimed to be in
contact lived there.
Saint-Yves’s doctrines included ideas
about the evolution and history of the human race that were, at the
time, novel, but which have since become commonplace in Esoteric and
New Age circles. Central to his reconstruction of history was
Atlantis as an advanced, global civilization. He believed that the
Sphinx was not built by the ancient Egyptians, but was created by
the Atlanteans many thousands of years before the rise of Egypt.
Saint-Yves placed the end of Atlantis at around 12000 BC. St Yves
also promoted the idea of root races a succession of
dominant races each allocated a period of supremacy, but each
destined to be supplanted by the next, superior race. It should come
as no surprise to learn that the current dominant race is the white
Aryans. It must be stressed that it is impossible to separate
Saint-Yves's version of history from his political ideology.
The history is used to justify the ideology and vice versa.
Also,
his version of history was the result of revealed
information it lacked any historical or archaeological
proof. For his followers, accepting these ideas was a simple act of
faith. All these ideas have become, of course, part and parcel of
subsequent occult beliefs, mainly because they were taken up,
embellished and popularized by Madame Blavatsky (1831-1891), that
larger-than-life Russian magus some call her a charlatan
whose love affair with the mysteries of the East led to her
founding the Theosophical movement.
These concepts were, in turn,
incorporated into the teachings of
Alice A. Bailey (1880-1949),
which have had a huge influence over the beliefs of the New Age
and on the development of the Stargate Conspiracy. But
perhaps more significantly as far as this article is concerned is
that some of Saint-Yves specific ideas appear in the psychic
readings of Edgar Cayce. For example, Saint-Yves, in his
reconstruction of history, describes a great Celtic warrior named
Ram, who conquered the degenerate black races in 7700
BC.
According the Saint-Yves, it was the superhero Ram who created
the first Synarchist Empire, which extended from Europe to India.
This marked the beginning of the period of domination of the white
races over the black. Curiously, in a discussion about far distant
events, Edgar Cayce said that this was some years before the
entry of Ram into India. But Ram could only have found his
way into Cayce's writings via St Yves, who had, in fact,
invented Ram and all his works. Of course, the idea that the world
should be run by secret societies went down particularly well
with well, secret societies.
Consequently, many of them
adopted Synarchist principles. In fact, St-Yvess ideas
transformed the esoteric underground of Europe, particularly France.
Some of the greatest figures in subsequent occult history were
devotees of Saint-Yves, which is not surprising because occultists,
with their love of hierarchy, tend to be naturally totalitarian and
unegalitarian. For example, Papus (real name Gérard Encausse,
1865-1916) called Saint-Yves his intellectual master,
and when he died founded a society known as the Friends of
Saint-Yves to promote his work. Papus, of course, had an enormous
influence over the world of esoteric secret societies in the late
19th and early 20th centuries.
Another important movement that became closely associated with
Synarchy was Martinism. Although this predated St-Yves by several
decades, the principles of the two were very close St-Yves
was himself a member of the Martinist Order, so there was a lot of
cross-fertilization of ideas. This is interesting because in our
last book,
The Templar Revelation, we traced the connection between
the Martinist Order and other secret societies that make up a
network of groups, all ultimately descended from the Strict Templar
Observance, which includes
the Priory of Sion. It is now becoming
clear that an understanding of Synarchy can shed light on the
origins and activities of the modern Priory of Sion but
that's another story...
By the beginnings of the 20th century, the Martinist Orders and many others were firmly aligned with the ideology of Synarchy. In 1921 the Martinist and Synarchist Order was founded in
France. There were also explicitly Synarchist Masonic lodges formed
in France. However, Synarchy has not only had influence over the
occult world, but also over politics.
As we have seen, Synarchy outlined a specific programme for the
take-over of states. But Saint-Yves’s aims went much further
than that he wanted the whole of Europe to be governed by
Synarchy. Right from the start, an important part of the Synarchist
agenda was the creation of a United States of Europe, advocating the
removal of national boundaries, customs duties, and so on.
This continued to be a central objective of Synarchy. In fact, a
Synarchist document published in the 1930s refers to one of their
key aims as being the formation of a federal European
Union. It advocated a United States of Europe although it would be a Europe that, for economic reasons, would be
dominated by France and Germany.
As we saw earlier, Synarchy favors undemocratic and totalitarian
regimes they are, after all, easier to gain control of. And
there is a definite connection between Synarchist groups and the
origins of Fascism in Europe in the late 1910s and early 1920s.
An organization called the International Synarchist Movement was
created in response to the Russian Revolution of 1919. According to
French researchers, this was largely behind the rise of Fascism in
Italy and the creation of the Pan-European Movement in 1922.
As might be expected, Synarchy also had some influence on the
development of Nazi ideology, although Synarchists had reservations
about the Nazis emphasis on German nationalism and the Messianic
cult of Hitler. Synarchy continued to thrive in Saint-Yves’s
native France. Synarchist groups were behind a wave of right-wing
terrorist attacks in the 1920s and 30s. In the 1930s a Frenchman
named Viven Postel du Mas (of whom more later) wrote a notorious
document called the Synarchist Pact, which became their manifesto.
In 1932, a society called the Synarchist Empire Movement was founded
in France, which was described by one commentator as a secret
society with very specific and limited membership, following a
definite politico-economic programme. This was behind
right-wing terrorist groups such as the CSAR (Secret Committee for
Revolutionary Action) most of the CSARs members were
part of the Synarchist Empire Movement.
In 1941, in Vichy France, a
report by the police warned of a plot by Synarchists to take over
the government, which noted the close relationship between the
Synarchist movement and the Martinist Orders. In fact, during the
trial of Marshall Pétain, the President of the Vichy government, in
1945, questions were asked about his connection with the Synarchist
Pact.
The point is that Synarchy was taken very seriously by French
authorities in the 1930s and 40s. The term has entered the French
political vocabulary (although the French press often use the term
synarchy to refer to any political or economic
conspiracy, such as price-fixing cartels). After the War, Synarchy
adopted a lower profile, but it is still very active. In fact, in
recent years Synarchist groups have begun to act more openly both in
Europe and in Britain.
But what has all this has got to do with the Sphinx?
Of course, Saint-Yves wasn’t the only influential Synarchist.
Given the nature of Synarchy one would probably never know the names
of even the most powerful. But we do know quite a lot about one of
them: R.A. Schwaller de Lubicz.
It is curious that Schwaller de Lubicz has become the godfather of Alternative Egyptology even though few
have read his works first-hand. His ideas mostly come to us through
the books of Graham Hancock, Robert Bauval and, of course,
John
Anthony West, all of whom have expressed their admiration for this
scholar. They refer to him as a philosopher, or as a mathematician.
What is interesting to us, however, is that, although Schwaller de
Lubicz was those things, they never call him an occultist which he was.
And the never call him a Synarchist which he was. We
personally find nothing intrinsically reprehensible about being an
occultist, but it is curious that this aspect of Schwaller de Lubiczs
life is seldom mentioned. But, given the facts, we don't find
it surprising that these authors gloss over his political ideology.
Born in Alsace-Lorraine in 1887, he was very active in the Parisian
occult scene in the 1910s. He was an alchemist, whose particular
claim to fame was that he was at one time believed to be the
mysterious Fulcanelli, author of the seminal book
The Mystery of the
Cathedrals. In fact, Schwaller de Lubicz was not Fulcanelli,
although he claimed with some justification that
Fulcanelli’s book was based on his own idea that the Gothic
cathedrals encoded alchemical symbolism.
A leading figure in the Paris Theosophical Society, he broke away to
form his own occult organization, which he called Les Veilleurs
the Watchers specifically in order to carry his
esoteric ideas into the political arena.
Perhaps it will come as no surprise to discover that he has been
described as a proto fascist. He even claims to have
designed the uniform for Hitler's SA
(Brownshirts). Although it is not certain that his
claim is true, Schwaller de Lubicz clearly had no problem with
people thinking that it was.
One of Schwaller de Lubicz's Watchers was Vivien Postel du Mas, the man who wrote
the Synarchist Pact of the 1930s.
Through du Mas, Schwaller de Lubicz had a particular influence on
Hitler's Deputy, the tormented and complex Rudolf Hess.
Schwaller de Lubicz was anti-Semitic and racist and, like
the Nazis, thought that women were inferior to men. For example, he
taught that women were intellectually incapable of understanding the
Hermetica. All this is important, because it is impossible to
separate Schwaller de Lubiczs political, Synarchist beliefs
from his work as an Egyptologist, the work that certain authors so
admire.
Schwaller de Lubicz settled in Egypt in 1938 and for the next 15
years studied the symbolism of the temples, particularly Luxor,
finding precisely what he was looking for, which was proof that the
ancient Egyptians were the ultimate examples of Synarchy, because
the were ruled by a group of initiates. This may be so, but then
prejudice and fanaticism blinded Schwaller de Lubicz to certain
facts about Egypt. For example, he claimed that there were no blacks
in Pre- and Early Dynastic Egypt, despite abundant archaeological
evidence to the contrary.
So this is the man who is so revered but
some of the most influential authors in the Alternative Egypt field.
John Anthony West has a particular reverence for him, and wrote a
book, Serpent in the Sky, presenting Schwaller de Lubiczs
ideas to a popular audience. Interestingly, it is mainly because of
his heroes beliefs that West came to believe that the Sphinx
was built by people from Atlantis and is much older than mainstream
Egyptologists think. Above all, he seized on Schochs work on
the water erosion of the Sphinx as evidence of the involvement of
Atlanteans.
It is important to realize that Schwaller de Lubicz believed in the
antiquity of the Sphinx because Saint-Yves did, and that West
believes it because Schwaller de Lubicz did. So there is a direct
line from Saint-Yves to us today.
But there are problems with West's claims about the Sphinx.
Not only does he over-ride Schoch's expertise when it comes to
dating, he also does not appear to realize that Schoch has proved
him just as wrong as conventional Egyptologists. Schwaller de Lubicz
and West believed that the erosion was caused by a flood, or series
of floods, whereas Schoch found that it was caused by centuries of
exposure to rain.
West and Hancock argue that the Sphinx was built by a lost
civilization, not by the ancient Egyptians. Where have we heard that
before? Saint-Yves was the person who single-handedly introduced the
idea of Atlantis as an ancient superpower and that they had
carved the Sphinx which was enthusiastically taken by many
occultists, such as Madame Blavatsky and, of course, Edgar Cayce.
So must of us, without knowing it, have been exposed to the
insidious and very scary beliefs of Saint-Yves in one form or
another. We may think that we can accept his and Schwaller de Lubiczs
historical ideas and reject the politics, but they simply
cant be disentangled. It was never intended that they should
be. If you accept one, you are tacitly swallowing the other.
The problem with this particular brand of Alternative Egyptology is
not so much its flawed nature, but what it whether
accidentally or deliberately opens us up to. History should
have told us that the most dangerous ideas are those that grab us
totally, hearts, minds and imaginations.
There are real, exciting mysteries about ancient Egypt. Mainstream
Egyptology does tend to be arrogant and dismissive of new ideas and
evidence. But it is precisely because the field is wide open that it
can
be abused. Lets not let our guard down because we crave signs
and
wonders. There are those who rely on us losing our critical
faculties as
soon as we hear the magic words ancient Egypt or lost civilization.
Whether its
the Vril Society or the Synarchists or the
National Socialist
Party or, indeed, what we call the Stargate Conspiracy it hides the
same terrifying agenda. As Sally Bowles said in Cabaret of the rise
of the
Nazi Party in Berlin: Its only politics what’s that got to do with
us?
People are wary of politics these days rightly so but they are not so wary of an appeal to the romantic, spiritual and
mystical. And therein lies the danger.
As W.B. Yeats so prophetically wrote in his The Second Coming:
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in the sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to a nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards
Bethlehem to be born?
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