My theory on the secret behind Rennes-le-Chateau, page 3

Okay, I'm going to start quoting some books in order to address some of the questions and/or issues raised that I couldn't adequately speak to due to memory issues:

The following lengthy passage is from Holy Blood, Holy Grail concerning Isaac Newton:

...In 1989-90 he became associated with John Locke and an elusive, enigmatic individual named Nicolas Ftio de Duillier. Descended from Genevan aristocracy, Fatio de Duillier seems to have wafted with cavalier insouciance through the Europe of his time. On occasion he appears to have worked as a spy, usually against Louis XIV of france. He also appears to have been on intimate terms with every important scientist of the age. And from the time of his appearance in England he was Newton's single closest friend. For at least the next decade their two names were inextricably linked.

In 1696 Newton became warden of the Royal Mint and was subsequently instrumental in fixing the gold standard. in 1703 he was elected president of the Royal Society. Around this time he also became friendly with a young french Protestant refugee named Jean Desaguliers, who was one of the Royal Society's two curators of experiments. In the years that followed Desaguliers became one of the leading figures in the astonishing proliferation of Freemasonry throughout Europe. He was associated with such leading Masonic figures as James Anderson, the Chavalier Ramsay, and Charles Radclyffe. And in 1731, as master of the Masonic lodge at The Hague, he presided over the initiation of the first European prince to become a member of "the craft." This prince was Fracois, duke of Lorraine - who after his marriage to Maria Theresa of Austria become Holy Roman Emperor.

There is no record of Newton himself having been a Freemason. At the same time, however, he was a member of a semi-Masonic institution, the Gentleman's Club of Spalding - which included such notables as Alexander Pope. Moreover, certain of his attitudes and works reflect interests shared by Masonic figures of the period. Like many Masonic authors, for example, he esteemed noah more than Moses as the ultimate source of esoteric wisdom. As early as 1689 he had embarked on what he considered one of his most important works, a study of ancient monarchies. This work, The Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended, attempted to establish the origins of cultures of antiquity. According to Newton ancient Judaism had been a repository of divine knowledge, which had subsequently been diluted, corrupted, and largely lost. Nevertheless, he believed that some of it had filtered down to Pythagoras, whose "music of the spheres" he regarded as a metaphor for the law of gravity. In his attempt to formulate a precise scientific methodology for dating events in both Scripture and classical myth, he employed Jason's events in both Scripture and classical myth, he employed Jason's quest for the Golden Fleece as a pivotal event; and like other Masonic and esoteric writers, he interpreted that quest as an alchemical metaphor. He also endeavored to discern Hermetic "correspondences" or correlations between music and architecture. And like many Masons he ascribed great significance to the configuration and dimensions of Solomon's temple. The dimensions and configuration of the temple he believed to conceal alchemical formulas; and he believed the ancient cermonies in the temple to have involved alchemical processes.

Such preoccupations on Newton's part were something of a revelation to us. Certainly they do not concur with his image as it is promulgated in our own centery - the image of the scientist who, once and for all, established the separation of natural philosophy from theology. In fact, however, Newton, more than any other scientist of his age, was steeped in Hermetic texts and, in his own attitudes, reflected Hermetic tradition. A deeply religious person, he was obsessed by the search for a divine unity and network of correspondences inherent in nature. This search led him into an exploration of sacred geometry and numerology - a study of the intrinsic properties of shape and number. By virtue of his association with Boyle, he was also a practicing alchemist - who in fact attirbuted a paramount importance to his alchemical work. In addition to personally annotated copies of the Rosicrucian manifestos, his library includd more than a hundred alchemical works. One of these, a volume by Nicolas Flamel, he had laboriously copied in his own hand. Newton's preoccupation with alchemy continued all his life. He maintained a voluminous and cryptic correspondence on the subject with Boyle, Locke, Fatio de Duillier, and others. One letter even has certain key words excised.

If Newton's scientific interests were less orthodox than we had at first imagined, so were his religious views. He was militantly, albeit quietly, hostile to the idea of the Trinity. He also repudiated the fashionable Deism of his time, which reduced the cosmos to a vast mechanical machine constructed by a celestial engineer. He questioned the divinity of Jesus and avidly collected all manuscripts pertaining to the issue. He doubted the complete authenticity of the New Testament, believing certain passages to be corruptions interpolated in the fifth century. He was deeply intrigued by som of the early Gnostic heresies and wrote a study of one of them.

Prompted by Fatio de Duillier, Newton also displayed a striking and surprising sympathy for the Camisards, or Prophets of Cevennes, who shortly after 1705 began appearing in Lond. So called because of their white tunics, the Camisards, like the CAthars before them, had arisen in the south of France. Like the Cathars they were vehemently apposed to Rome and stressed the supremacy of gnosis, or direct knowledge, over faith. Like the Cathars they queried Jesus' divinity. And like the Cathars they had been brutally suppressed by military force - in effect, an eighteenth-century Albigensian Crusade. Driven out of the Languedoc, the heretics found refuge in Geneva and London.

A few weeks before his death. Newton, aided by a few intimate friends, systematically burned numerous boxes of manuscripts and personal papers. With considerable surprise his contemporaries noted that he did not, on his deathbed, request last rites.

The previous has been taken from Holy Blood, Holy grail, Baigent, Leigh, Lincoln, Dell Publishing, New York, 1983, pp 429-431.

[edit on 10-28-2005 by Valhall]