The Dark Truth of the Templars
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The Knights Templar remain one of the most intriguing and fascinating parts of medieval history. They came and went, in historical terms, in the flash of an eye. From their formation in France in the early 12th century, to their time in the Holy Land, and their eventual outlawing and arrest in the early 14th century, they were only on the scene for 200 years. But who were they? What did they do?

And why are there still rumors that circle around them of weird rituals, satanic practices, and finding great treasures? While they were supposed to be fighting the Crusades, some of them would engage in things that were far from Christian, much more pagan. They worshiped

- The head of John the Baptist, you spit and urinate on the cross and you deny Christ is really bizarre. It's very dark. - There are immense rumors of their dark arts and their dark practices. For a religious order that was part of the Catholic Church that defended Christendom, that's extraordinary. - The Knights Templar were warrior monks. They were the most powerful organization in Europe. - They were corrupt, avaricious,

religious people that realized that there was an awful lot of treasure hidden somewhere in Jerusalem. The Knights Templar were on a relic quest. They're there to find treasure. By all accounts, they succeeded. - Jizor Castle in France, about two hours north of Paris. It was here that the whole Knights Templar story is said to have begun over 900 years ago.

According to the legend, a group of French knights gathered here in 1118 and split a large elm tree in half before they all made solemn vows to God to help pilgrims in the Holy Land. Now whether this was true or not, nobody knows. But we do know that around 20 knights did go to Jerusalem at the beginning of the 12th century to do just that. The order's full name was the Poor Fellow Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon.

and it was led by Hugh de Payens, a French nobleman from the Champagne region. Pilgrimage had started in the Middle Ages, had become popular. The First Crusade had taken parts of Jerusalem. But they were finding that the pilgrims were being robbed en route. So a small band of knights were formed and they were sent to the Holy Land to protect the pilgrims. When they arrived, they took up residence in what was thought to be the original Temple of Solomon. They were like a cross between three things.

First, they were the Navy SEALs or the SAS. They were crack elite troops of their age. Second, they were masters of finance. They were like the Goldman Sachs of the period. And third, they were a unique and committed religious group, like Opus Dei of lay people. So you bring those three together, and it's something that only the medieval world could have created. The extraordinary thing about the Templars is that they start off as this very, very small guard that's just there to protect pilgrims in the Holy Land. But what they then become

Over the years, this is incredible, almost the first kind of pan-national globalised corporation, if you like. I mean, it's the most extraordinary powerful institution. So the big question is, how do we go from that very small band of supposedly charitable knights to this enormous, unaccountable, incredibly wealthy globalised institution?

What we do know is that in return for protecting pilgrims, King Baldwin of Jerusalem agreed to give the Templars stables and accommodation at the Al-Aqsa Mosque, which lay right above the ruins of the Temple of Solomon. This remained the headquarters of the Knights Templar for the next 70 years, and their presence and power in the region grew very fast. But was this offer of protecting pilgrims just a front for a much more secret mission?

Some historians feel that it was, and that their real focus was searching the ruins of the Temple of Solomon for a great treasure or holy relic. They were supposedly there doing securities for pilgrims. That was their credibility. And I'm sure they did. They were knights. They were fighting then.

And I think they'd got two intentions. Yeah, we're supposedly doing it for free to protect all the pilgrims, but we could do with some payment. And it was hopefully lying somewhere underneath King Solomon's temple. - Why are they put up in places of very important sort of religious significance with a lot of relics that they can have access to? Why are they staying around the King Solomon's mines? Why are they?

Why are those areas so important? So were they there to kind of, you know, bring back things of note that actually didn't belong to them at all? And that's been one of the kind of core themes that's been around for a long time when you read about the Templars. The Knights Templar knew that Jerusalem was under siege for many, many centuries. And so what I think is that they found an inventory list. The Copper Scrolls tells you where all the gold is hidden.

But was there another list that tells you where all the relics are hidden? Ark of the Covenant is over there. Menorah is over there. They must have. It's a labyrinth of tunnels beneath where they are staying in Jerusalem. It would have taken them decades to find what they found. They must have found something that helped them do it quickly. Tony McMahon is an author of several successful novels on Knights Templar history, as well as the creator of a widely used Templar website,

He's long been fascinated with the stories about the Templars' dark side, their connections to the occult, and bizarre rituals. British investigative reporter Jamie Thexton went to meet him. How come these protectors of Christian values develop this reputation for

occult practices? I mean, the Templars were always a secret society and as time wore on, of course, there were people who left that secret society for one or other reason and they were eventually shopped by a couple of disgruntled ex-Templars who then made the accusations that have become famous to us of idolatry, of heresy, of sodomy, of illicit practices, of occult practices.

So, I mean, at the milder end it was denouncing Christ. It was even said that the Grand Master had to denounce Christ at his induction as Grand Master. But then it gets racier and racier. So then we have accusations, for example, that there were illicit kisses, as they described it, in their initiation ceremonies for the knights, which was

kissing at the base of the spine, on the navel, on the mouth. Also that they worshipped a head, and that head was sometimes a cat's head, it was sometimes the head of John the Baptist, it was sometimes a three-faced head, it was sometimes a head in the sand, sometimes his head spoke to them. There were different variations on that. So there were a whole stream of very steamy accusations.

While they were supposed to be fighting the Crusades and very much embedded in this belief of Christianity, some of them would engage in things that were far from Christian, much more pagan. So whether it was worshipping various heads or kissing an inverted cross or, you know, it almost, when you read about some of the things that they did, it was sort of very masculine, almost like a,

a fraternity, you know? So there's a lot of, you know, men together, a lot of sort of pent up, you know, testosterone. So you can imagine in those moments where they're winding down, what it turns into is probably something far from the Christian message that they were trying to spread.

The rituals that we understand the Knights Templar did, especially their initiation ritual, is really bizarre. It's very dark. The initiate swears to become a slave to the Order. Robert Howells is an author and historian who spent years researching the truths and secrets of the Knights Templar and believes that they did have a dark side and many secrets to keep.

The Templars was an organization, were in the Holy Land for over 200 years, so they would have come into contact with other religions, other beliefs. They were definitely in touch with the assassins and other more mystical Eastern groups, not just the Orthodox groups, but far more occult groups. So there was this idea that they've picked up those rituals, those initiations, because they would have been in contact with those people. Howells believes that the Templars spent time with some of the occult religious groups they encountered in Jerusalem.

and participated in some of their darker non-Christian rituals, some of which influenced their own ceremonies. The Knights Templar were accused of worshipping a severed head, and one of the assassin rituals was to introduce an acolyte to a person who'd been buried up to their neck. The initiate would ask the question and the head would speak to them, and then they would be taken out of the room and the person in the ground would be lifted out and they would have their head severed.

and put on a plate, and this would then be shown to the person as they continued around their ritual to show that the head wasn't attached to the body.

When the Templars were in the East, I mean, what better place than to become acquainted with pre-Christian beliefs? And a lot of these beliefs and practices in the temples of the East would have been far more comfortable with celebrating the body, the naked body, even the sexual acts as part of their rituals. So I think when the Templars came back, who knows, that they incorporated some of these pagan rituals

beliefs, some of these pagan rituals into what they were doing. The rituals that the Templars were engaging in actually, because of their pagan origin, predated the Christianity that they were actually fighting for. So it's perhaps not as surprising or indeed as subversive as one may think because the things they were doing were perhaps more real to them than this newfound religion which they were supposed to be preaching, which was Christianity.

According to their accusers, the Knights Templar used to secretly meet to perform all manner of rituals and ceremonies. The implications are that far from being a Christian organization, they were in fact involved in the occult and maybe even devil worship. They were accused of worshipping a demonic figure called Baphomet, spitting and urinating on an upturned cross, and indulging in bizarre sexual practices.

And here at Jizor Castle, down in the crypt, is one site where they were accused of doing all that. They were required in an initiation to spit or trample or urinate on the cross. And also they were required to venerate a head, which took various forms, but mainly a bearded severed head. They did it

Because the inner circle, not your average knight and not your average member of the order, but the inner circle were not what you might call Christians at all.

It's probably true that the Templars did have a secret ritual whereby any new knight, when he joined, was asked to deny Christ and to spit on a crucifix or an image of Christ. Now for a religious order that was part of the Catholic Church that defended Christendom, that's extraordinary. And we don't see that anywhere else in the medieval period.

It's often said about the Templars that they have these initiation ceremonies that in themselves are incredibly anti-Christian and indeed are positively satanic. All sorts of profane, very, very diabolical practices that the Templars are meant to take part in.

They did have initiation rites that were secret. And of course, once you have a secret initiation ceremony, that allows anybody with a relatively lurid imagination to just place that on there and go, "Well, I think that's what's happening."

I don't think that there was any form of cult or demon worship to do with them. They were good Christians, but I also believe that they were probably thieves and robbers as well. And when you could say some people, when they believed in God, all they needed to do was put an L in because really they believed in gold. The Templars were famously said to have traveled to Jerusalem at the beginning of the 12th century.

Officially, they were there to provide protection to traveling pilgrims. But as there were less than 20 of them at the time, that seems unlikely. So what were they there for? Well, the most popular theory is that they were there to look for treasure. Historian Ross Andrews has made a study of the Templars over the years and believes that they might well have had a secret plan.

The reason we think the Templars were actually digging into the Temple Mound was the fact that when the temples were excavated, they actually found Templar, not remains so much, but bits of broken spurs or bits of sort of shield or something like that, but that belonged to the Templars. So they were definitely in there at some point.

Talk about covert operations. The Knights Templar was said to go to Jerusalem to protect the pilgrims as they go into the Holy Land. Well, there's hundreds of pilgrims and only a handful of Knights Templar. But in return for this so-called favor, they're given a palace wing that's right on top of Solomon's Temple. And this is the real reason they're there. They're on a relic quest.

Was the Templars' claim of protecting pilgrims in the Holy Land just a cover story? How did the Templars become one of the richest groups in the world? Coming up when Forbidden History returns. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. Halloween is the spookiest time of year. A time where we get to have fun with what scares us.

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Visit BetterHelp.com slash ForbiddenUS today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash ForbiddenUS. The Knights Templar were one of the richest, most powerful, and most feared military organizations in medieval Europe.

For over 200 years, they acted both as an armed security force in the Holy Land, as well as commercial bankers and money lenders to kings and merchants across Europe. But they were also accused of being heretics and devil worshippers, who had actually gone to Jerusalem to find and capture a great treasure.

So the story is that nine knights offered their services to the Patriarch of Jerusalem for protecting pilgrims. They go to the Patriarch and they're given the Al-Aqsa Mosque. We don't hear anything more about them actually protecting pilgrims. What we do hear a lot more about them is digging tunnels under the Al-Aqsa Mosque looking for something. And there are hundreds of tunnels under the Al-Aqsa Mosque which they of course believed was the Temple of Solomon.

According to legend, Solomon had a multitude of treasures. A huge amount of gold, a huge amount of various different treasures, including things like the Ark of the Covenant, the Holy Grail, whatever that is. They possibly had hold of that. And there's a whole bunch of artifacts that had a kind of religious, magical property that they were looking for. These things, true or false, they of course believed in it in those days. They would have been worth

millions today. And if they found them, as some people believe they did, they could become very rich. Oh, and they did become very rich. Many historians believe that the Templars, under the authority of Pope Urban II at the time, were on a mission of extremely focused self-interest in the Holy Land. Their aim was to fill their pockets. From their arrival in Jerusalem in 1119,

To their departure from the Holy Land around the time of the fall of Acre in 1291, the Templars had become a political, military, and financial superpower. They became the most famous warriors, travelers, bankers, and landowners of their day, answerable only to the Pope, with no obligation to pay dues to any king, ruler, or diocese. It's estimated that by the end of the 13th century,

The Templars numbered 160,000, of whom 20,000 were knights. They were an undoubted superpower.

The Knights Templar were extremely wealthy. They created the first world bank. Where does this money come from? I submit to you it comes from what they found in Jerusalem. They probably found the gold that was listed in the copper scrolls for a start, but they also found other relics, maybe the Ark of the Covenant, maybe the menorah, other objects from Solomon's temple. That's where I think their money came from. They found what they were looking for, treasure. Gold, silver, which gave them

the start of the whole thing. They then became rich and they then started lending money. They also created the first cheques. So there was a chap leaving England, didn't take his money with him because he would probably be robbed on the way, so they'd issue him a cheque and he could actually, when he got to Jerusalem, he could then hand in his cheque for cash that they'd got and of course they charged him interest on it.

If in the meantime he died while he was in the Crusades, his land, his property, his castle even, may well have been held in security by the Templars and then they would have taken his land.

And of course that just snowballs for them in a very virtuous way to the point in which the Templars control 9,000 estates throughout Europe. And of course once you're controlling the amount of land you have an enormous income. That's what gives the Templars wealth and influence and it's not some secret discovery. One of the most famous Templar commanderies or headquarters outside Paris was hidden away off Fleet Street in London.

And the clue is in the name of its location: Temple. Today, a late 12th century church stands on the site of the Commandery, but it still contains stone effigies of some of the knights themselves. Templar historian and author Dominic Selwood agreed to show British investigative journalist Jamie Fexton inside the church.

There aren't that many Templar sites left in the world that you can still go and really experience what it must have been like to be a Templar. But we're standing in one of them. This is the Temple Church in the heart of London. And here in 1185, the Templars opened this building to the public. And they had the Patriarch of Jerusalem come and open it for them, which is why it's round, because it's supposed to symbolize the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, which is where all crusaders had to go when they first arrived in the Holy Land to say a prayer in the Holy Sepulchre.

discharge their pilgrimage vow. So here we still get a sense of that, and this is largely undamaged. The chancel that was built here was also built by the Templars, but this was in 1240, so a little bit later, because King Henry III wanted to be buried here. But in this round chapel, you still get a sense of what it meant to be a Templar in the medieval period. But you have to use your imagination

to recreate the stables, the castle, the dormitories, the refectories, the treasury, where they kept the treasury of the King of England, all of which would have been around here in this area we now call Temple in London. When they first started, they were the coolest organization for young men to join. To be Templar was just the most amazing thing. So all the rich young men were just queuing up to join and, of course, then handing over their money. One of the rules was

When you joined the Knights Templar, you had to give them all your money, all your possessions, all your property. So without really trying, they had all this wealth. It snowballed big time. A lot of people joined in and of course they became international bankers, industrialists. They had their own fleets. They had their own farms. They built huge cathedrals. They became probably some of the wealthiest people

in the world. I guess the big question is, did they find any treasure in Jerusalem? And if so, what was it? In terms of the Templars' treasure, one has to look at a real level and a symbolic level. Did they dig and find anything and bring it back and make themselves super wealthy? There's no evidence of that at all. All their wealth can be readily explained. There's lots of documentation, charters, bills of exchange. People have been through all this. We know where their wealth came from.

But symbolically did they bring something back? Yes, very definitely. They were born in the Holy Land and they brought back that different culture into Europe. And that was a culture that was more at ease with the East, that was more at ease with Islam. There are plenty of stories of them learning Arabic, having friends amongst the Islamic leaders. So that was something new for Europe and that is something they brought back. And to some people that could be seen as a treasure.

But there are some people who are convinced that the Templars brought back something more than just Arabic culture and knowledge. They believe that the Templars set out on a very focused mission to discover something important buried under Temple Mount in Jerusalem. But what? Some believe it was a great treasure of ancient relics, while others are sure it was the Ark of the Covenant itself.

The least fantastical theory is that they found relics and manuscripts which contain the secret traditions of both Judaism and ancient Egypt. And what they found completely changed their beliefs from Christianity to the more ancient Kabbalah. I think it's likely that they found earlier documents that were more accurate about Christianity. I don't think they completely went

Islamic or pagan, I think they remained a certain amount of Christianity, but a much more Gnostic version of Christianity, a much more mystical version. I think they may have come across alternative scriptures, alternative gospels, earlier gospels.

It's entirely likely that they were influenced by earlier forms of Christianity or by scientific Islam or by Judaism or by Sufism. There's a whole array of things that they may have been influenced by. We know at the time that people wrote about people who went out to Jerusalem going native. And so it's entirely possible that in a kind of an intellectual sense and a spiritual sense that the Templars went native and came back with ideas that were completely unpalatable to Western Europe.

One of the many rumors about the Templars' time in Jerusalem is that they found evidence that Jesus did not die on the cross. It's an incredible idea. These Christian knights discovering hard evidence that would disprove and undermine their faith. But was it possible?

The Quran states that Jesus didn't die on the cross. In the West, it's only just becoming an idea that maybe he didn't die on the cross. In the Bible, there's a certain amount of evidence that says, well, they didn't break his legs. He wasn't up there long enough to die. And he's walking around afterwards with physical wounds that Simon, that people are touching. So it may be that the Templars came back and thought,

the crucifixion didn't happen. And once you learn that, you can't unlearn it. So if they found earlier documents from Iraq and they were given rituals or information that had any kind of power, that did anything, it was more valuable to what they'd found in Christianity.

We tend to have a very uniform view of what Christianity means, but if you actually trace it back over all the different periods, there have been many different groups of people who called themselves Christians. In the early days, there were the Gnostics who had some very strange rites that we wouldn't think of as Christian today. And in the medieval period, of course, there were the Cathars at the same time as the Templars who again had another interpretation. So yes, the Templars were Christians and yes, they would have seen themselves as Christians, but there's no doubt that there were some elements of their practice which were not mainstream Christianity.

They may well have found something, some scrolls, some documents of some sort that actually disproves the whole of Christianity and actually proves that there is something bigger and greater that's been going on for thousands of years. And I'm afraid the church being the church, being totally money-minded, they didn't want this to come out. And so you had to shut up.

And they didn't shut up, so they had to be shut down. In the end, the Templars are confronted by King Philip of France, who owed them lots of money, which he borrowed. He brings all manner of wild charges against them, more than likely just to avoid paying his debts.

Philip of France tries to get money from the Templars and they deny him. And because he's the King of France, he says, "Right, I'm going to wind this order up. They're too powerful. They're denying me what I want." And, you know, he goes to the Pope and gets a papal bull issued that effectively will wind up the Templars. King Philip owed the Templars a phenomenal amount of money. And the best way he could get out of paying them back was to invent dreadful things about them and have them done away with.

He said that they were blasphemous, they were conducting homosexual acts, they were urinating on the cross, they were worshipping a pagan deity called Baphomet, and he had them done away with. King Philip eventually orders the arrest and imprisonment of all Knights Templar, and even personally interrogates 72 Templars himself.

Probably under excessive torture, the prisoners confessed to many of the charges the king brought against them. The day King Philip orders the arrest of all Knights Templar would live on in infamy. It was October, Friday the 13th, 1307.

The French king brought 127 different allegations against them and that included blasphemy, denying Christ, obscenity and homosexuality and idol worship. And it's the idol worship that people have seized on as being devil worship. Some of the knights did confess to having worshipped an idol in the form of a head or a

or a cat. If we believe the confessions, there's a huge amount that they're accused of, of doing weird rituals of worshipping the devil and sacrificing and weird sexual rituals that go on. Whether any of it's true, we're never ever going to know. When the Knights Templar are arrested in 1307, you ask yourself, who benefits? Well, those who owed them money, clearly the King of France, Rome, lots of people owed them money. But was there another reason?

They left Jerusalem so abruptly as though they found something incredible. Was there something more than just the material that they discovered? That's what I wonder. And is that what they were trying to suppress when they shut them down?

I think the thing that shocked people is the severity with which the king and his forces went after the Templars. Now, superficially, yes, it all comes down to King Philip's debts, he needed the money, etc. But you have to say on the scale that it happened, is there something else about the Templars? Is there something about their belief system, about their practices, about the threat that they posed to authority, to the church, and to the monarchy as well, to the medieval world?

Gisors Castle in France played an important role in the Knights Templar story. Not only was it where the whole order was created, it was also where the Grand Master, Jacques de Molay, was taken after he was arrested on October Friday the 13th, 1307, and it's still standing today.

What's remarkable is that the actual cell that held Jacques de Molay and the other Templar prisoners is still intact today within Gisors Castle. And local historian and guide Marie Gonçalves agreed to show British investigative journalist Jamie Thixton around. It seems because of an ancient text which tells us that Jacques de Molay was in Gisors before to go in Paris.

And what was Jacques de Molay accused of? Oh, there were a lot of charges. The principal was heresy. Gisors Castle plays a huge part in the story of the Templars.

And legend has it that all manner of black magic and debauchery took place in that castle. And there are supposedly etchings and pentagrams and witchcraft and Satanism going on in there. But the real reason that it plays a big part in their history is the fact that their grand master, the last grand master, Jacques de Molay, was imprisoned in that castle in a dark, dank dungeon, was tortured there, and was then burned to the stake.

Interestingly, some of the cells at Chizou Castle still have carvings on their walls, depicting all manner of religious, potentially heretical imagery.

Incredibly, there are these images on the cell walls that appear to be some intentional form of storytelling. You know, is this Jacques de Moray trying to say, "Here is the truth, here's the real story, here is what we knew, I'm about to die, so I'm going to preserve it for you here on these walls." We don't know. It's still there today. And that makes it a really fascinating element of the mystery.

There are all kinds of rumors that tend to circulate around the Knights Templar of their involvement in things like satanic worship and black magic and the occult. Do you think there's any truth in those rumors?

Do you think the King of France may have imprisoned the Knights Templars here at the castle?

Yes, like every prison in France, the castle of Gisèle had Templar prisoners, Jacques de Molay and others. Whether the Templars were heretics or not, one thing is certain: they were extremely wealthy. When King Philip had them arrested, he also ordered the confiscation of their wealth, properties and treasure.

When they threw open the doors of the Templar headquarters and at Xizhor's and the castles, all these places had crypts, they all had areas, but they found them empty. They found there's no money. It had all been moved, it had all been secreted away. So it had gone.

The accounts of the time is that the Templars actually managed to make a run for it with a lot of their wealth to the port of La Rochelle and their wealth was never seen again. When the king's men turned up at the Paris temple, the wealth that the king had seen on a previous occasion had simply vanished into thin air. And of course the stories go that that wealth was then taken to Britain, ultimately to Scotland and maybe on to the New World.

The Templars were a massive society and they were a secret society which meant they had sort of a finger in every pie in every court in every land. So when the order comes through to arrest them it's a distinct possibility they'd already heard about it and therefore if they had some treasure they could have squirreled it away somewhere hidden it in various different strongholds. So the Templar treasure was spread out all over the known world at the time it wasn't necessarily just in one place.

Because nothing was found, the conspiracy theorists will go, "Aha, but did you not know that there are all these fleets of Templars' ships that were escaping to islands and places all over the world with treasure?" These stories repeat themselves all the time. There's no truth to it at all. They were wound up, their estates and money were confiscated. End of. After 1307,

Many thousands of Templars avoid arrest and settle in Switzerland, as well as Scotland, Spain, and Portugal, perhaps taking much of their wealth and treasure with them. It's one of the most intriguing and fascinating stories in history. They came and went in just a couple of hundred years, leaving an indelible mark. In that time, they were said to have excavated for holy treasures under Temple Mount in Jerusalem.

used whatever they discovered to finance a huge banking setup across Europe, the first of its kind, and taken part in secret and possibly demonic ceremonies. So was the truth that they'd simply become too rich and powerful for their own good? Or was there more to their fall than meets the eye?

There are two equally plausible reasons why they were shut down. One, a lot of important people owed them money. Two, they had found relics and information that was heretical, i.e., not what the church was marching to. It was information that was threatening and information that they were using for their own spirituality. Maybe those rituals that look really dark weren't. Maybe that was their understanding of who the true God really was from these ancient texts they discovered.

There was something about the Templars. They posed a threat to the king. The king was frightened that they had the resources to maybe set up their own kingdom within France. And the church clearly had issues with the Templars. Was there something that the Templars knew? Was there something that they'd learned in Jerusalem that posed a threat to ecclesiastical authority? Whatever it was, they were wiped off the face of the earth in a very short period of time.

If you look at the Templars today, they've become something of a legend. The mythology, the glamour, I think, around them is something that has lasted far longer than their reign.

The Templars were incredibly important in history. They really are pretty much the source of all Western secret societies. The Freemasons, the Rosicrucians, the modern Templar orders, you can trace them all back to the Knights Templar. The first real swath of alternative history coming through from the Holy Land, from the Near East, coming into Europe, starting to permeate European ideals, European culture, art, everything. It all goes back to the Templars.

It all comes from them. The Knights Templar are a real enigma of history. They might have only lasted just over 200 years, but their presence is felt around the world today with hundreds of Templar societies, all proudly claiming their origins back to those original French knights who set off for the Holy Land. So what, if anything, did they find under Jerusalem all those years ago? Well, the fact is, no one knows for sure.

but they were said to have brought a small fortune in gold and treasures back to their various commanderies in Europe. It's ironic then that when the order went out on Friday the 13th, 1307, to arrest them all and take their goods and chattels, nothing was ever found.

In his bestseller, Foucault's Pendulum, the late writer and historian Umberto Eco wrote a fascinating postscript about the Knights Templar: "The Order has never ceased to exist, not for a moment. And if the name of the true Grand Master remains a mystery today, it is because the hour of the Order has not struck and the time is not right."