Bloodline Critical Analysis
On various websites and forums, the authenticity of the research that is behind the upcoming documentary film Bloodline is seriously questioned. The film is centered around the discoveries of English researcher Ben Hammott. During the production of the film, Ben was assisted by Bill Kersey, author of Still spins the Spider of Rennes-le-Château and Sandy Hamblet, editor of the Rhedesium journal.
On this page you’ll find a summary of some of the more obvious issues of authenticity with the facts and artefacts that have been dished up to the general public so far:
The Bloodline Tomb in 1995
In 1995, English researcher Ben Hammott (an anagram for ‘The Tombman’ as he then liked to be called) accidentally dropped his video camera in a hole inside a cave near the French village of Rennes-le-Château. The camera got stuck in a shaft. He fished the camera back up with a piece of rope. Only later, when he viewed what the camera had filmed down the hole, all by itself, he noticed a white cloth with a red cross on it and concluded he had discovered a tomb. He never explained how, with the camera blocking the shaft and no light source inside the tomb how an image was visible on the camera at all.
As soon as he’d discovered what had happened he returned to the tomb to shoot some more video of it. That he managed in the end you can see in the second picture. The better footage of the discovery wasn’t picked up by any media which is quite odd since it was really an astonishing find, especially since there appeared to be a body inside. Ben Hammott: “Most people in the Rennes-le-Chateau circle, especially the French researchers, believed it was because I had something to hide, that I was up to no good, the tomb was just in my imagination. Looking back on it now, I in all honesty cannot blame them for thinking this way. Suddenly it is announced, on a far from professional web site, (I am cringing again) that a Templar Tomb has been discovered in France, even worse, by an Englishman.”
The entire story about how Hammott discovered the tomb was published in 2007 by Andrew Gough.
The Bloodline Tomb in 2007
In 2007, Hammott returned to the tomb. This contrary to the fact that earlier Hammott had claimed that he’d probably not be able to find the location back at all. This time he had been equipped with a professional camera on a rope by American film producer Bruce Burgess who became famous by landing a plane into Area 51. Burgess never entered the cave himself but stood guard outside while Hammott did his thing. This time, even better video footage was shot. A comparison of this video to the images from 1995 shows that some of the objects inside have moved and the cloth is folded differently even though the only access to the tomb is the narrow shaft. The most obvious change is how the round pot has moved a lot futher away from the chest in the top picture which was taken from a recent Bloodline videoclip (click the picture to enlarge it). Ben swears the tomb only has one access and he has never been into it. Since there is no big rock in the picture that could have fallen down from the ceiling to displace objects, the only conclusion can be that someone moved them.
In the old pictures it looks like the tomb is actually a scale model, lit from a lightsource inside the tomb since you don’t see the shadows move when the camera does. In the newer video footage the tomb feels more life size.
In the Bloodline movie it’s claimed this is the burial site of none other than Mary-Magdalene and that it is just one of three such sites in the area that lie in a triangle. Nowhere is it explained why the bride of Christ was laid to rest in such pity circumstances and why. That is apart from the obvious neglect of Jewish burial practices from the time of Jesus until the Middle-Ages.
French Archeological Authority
According to this Press Release the tomb has been reported to the French Archeological Authority of Montpellier (Direction Régionale des Affaires Culturelles, DRAC). On the Bloodline website, in the NEWS section, producer Bruce Burgess also claims that they are talking to French speleo’s of the DRAC to discuss a full-scale survey of the tomb. The man they quote is called Jean-Pierre Giraud. The RLC Research team called the man who is actually responsible for archeological discoveries in the region and to Jean-Pierre Giraud, the man Bloodline spoke to. What they told us is that Bruce Burgess and Ben Hammott showed Giraud a piece of film and asked if they would be interested to see the tomb in real life. Of course Jean-Pierre indicated that’s what DRAC is there for so yes they were. Bruce and Ben promised Giraud they would take him to the tomb and left. DRAC was later informed that the visit couldn’t take place because Ben was ill. Later it was stated to the RLC Research team that it wasn’t Ben but Ben’s son who was ill. DRAC, who would normally go to the site of an important discovery on the same day, did not create a dossier since no-one never saw the tomb or any photo or map of it. No word has been heard from Bruce or Ben since, strongly suggesting they only came in to get a quote they could use for the film, leaving DRAC embarrassed, angry and convinced this is a hoax.
First Bottle and Message
As early as 1996, Hammott turned up during a meeting of the Rennes Group. The Rennes Group is a periodical meeting of longtime English Rennes-le-Château researchers, organized by Guy Patton and Jonothon Boulter. During the meeting he showed and opened what he now calls ‘Bottle 1′. Inside was a parchment, or rather a not very old looking bit of paper that looked quite different than the pictures that are currently on Ben’s website of it.
There are a number of issues with this first piece of paper. For example that Bérenger Saunière, the priest of whom we have dozens of handwritten letters and a meticulously kept set of accounting books made a mistake in his own signature. He writes Sauniére instead of 
Saunière. A very uncharacteristic mistake, incomprehensible from a well-educated Frenchman. Furthermore, the priest who is well known for his beautiful cursive writing has reverted to a child-like type of print in red ink.
Typically, this signature with the faulty accent wasn’t among the ones that were shown to British handwriting expert Emma Bache when the Bloodline team went to see her to authenticate the messages. They did show it to French native and researcher of Rennes-le-Château, Antoine Captier who dismissed it immediately as fake.
There’s also mistakes in the Latin. Occultus for example is spelt as ‘Occulttus’. Apart from all these issues to do with the authenticity of the message, the paper it’s written on doesn’t look very old at all nor does the bottle.
According to Hammott, Bottle 1 was found near the Devil’s Armchair in Rennes-les-Bains. He projected the crouched statue of Asmodeus in Saunière’s church on the rock chair and dug where Asmodeus looked. There,
he says, he found an engraved stone, buried about 18 inches deep. In his own words: “After a depth of about eighteen or so inches I struck a rock. Lifting it out so I could continue my excavation, I was just about to discard it, when I noticed something on the stone’s surface as it caught the light. Brushing away some of the caked on dirt, I saw some markings that didn’t seem natural, so I called Sandy over for conformation. With the stone still dirty it wasn’t until we had washed it in the Circle spring that we could finally see the markings clearly and realised we had solved the first part of the puzzle.”
What Hammott doesn’t tell is that the entire area around the Devil’s Armchair is made up of solid rock with a thin layer of soil. The arrow on the engraved stone led Hammott to the location of the infamous Bottle 1. Mind you, both the stone and the bottle, he found in an area of a few square metres that has been trampled by hundreds of researchers who have investigated every inch of it and never found anything.
Again, by the time Hammott eventually published this information on his website in 2005, 9 years after the discovery, the ‘parchment’ had mysteriously changed.
2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th Bottle and Message
It took another 2 years before Hammott went on a search for even more bottles. He discovered no less than 3 perhaps even 4 more bottles with messages. Bottle 2 was found at the Source of the Magdalene, again near Rennes-les-Bains. Hammott describes his find here. As far as one can tell by the video clips from Bloodline, message two has issues as well. This time it’s in the French: it says “LA ROUTE QUE VOUS SUIVRE EST PLEINE DE DANGER” that’s not French, it’s English with French words. A Frenchman would never phrase this way. That’s apart from the more elementary grammatical problem that the right conjugation of ‘SUIVRE’ (to follow) would be ‘VOUS SUIVEZ’. Someone has not been paying attention in French classes very well here.
Little has been published about the rest of the bottles and the messages in them. Only that all three or four of them were discovered live on camera with a production team present. Bill Kersey, in an interview on Radio Rennessence in February, recounts how he was present at the discoveries and helped Ben to look in the right places…
Parchment shown on ABC’s Nightline
paragraph added to the article on 8th May
American television network ABC, showed one of the other parchments on it’s Nightline show. The 8 lines that are displayed are ridden with errors. No Frenchman, let alone Bérenger Saunière, a well-educated and erudite priest who wrote a staggering number of letters during his life in a meticulous and gracious French, would make any of the mistakes that are made in this ‘parchment’. It has systematic gender confusion all over the place. It’s LA résurrection, not LE. It’s LA vere histoire, not LE. That is, if VERE would be a French word which it isn’t. It’s l’histoire DE LA crucifixion. DES Crucifixion has a sad record for being wrong twice. It’s should be a singular and female, not plural and male. Need I go on? This is English with French words. I hope I’m allowed to quote a member of one of the Rennes-le-Château forums: It’s the hallmark of an English speaker (as are the erroneous use of the infinitive, etc.). The 8 lines on this piece of paper have little in common with the French language. This document is supposed to tell the most explosive secret in the history of Christianity: that Jesus never died on the cross but 22 days later. I can only conclude it is perhaps the worst forgery in the history of Christianity.
Bloodline BlogTalkRadio shows
added 9th May
In the BlogTalkRadio shows, hosted by the Bloodline producers, in a discussion with Lionel Fanthorpe, around 11 mins 40 secs in, Burgess recalls the discovery of the chest (from clues in the last bottle that was found), stating that Bill Kersey was dowsing for the location and “found the spot”. So we now learn that after being able to locate the bottles, Kersey was also instrumental in locating the chest – and that a technique that is only known to work to find water, somehow is able to work on esoteric treasures – at least in the Rennes-le-Château – too.
One person commented: “Let’s just say I felt a tad angry with Bruce and Lionel Fanthorpe’s comments. They seem to be suggesting one should not question the validity of Ben’s finds (which is ripe considering Bruce’s comment that he was suspicious of Ben at first). By the way, all the back-slapping made me feel nauseous.”
A Wooden Chest
At the end of 2006 Ben Hammott dug up a wooden chest from the Grotte du Fournet dite de la Madeleine (Burial Cave of the Magdalene), as it’s called by the local populace, close to Rennes-le-Château. It is unclear whether it was actually from this cave or the smaller cave with a triangular entrance some metres to the side of it. Both caves have been visted and dug in by countless researchers, notably Guy Gentil, Gérard Dutriat and Henri Buthion to name a few, yet Ben was the only one who managed to find a wooden chest, under just a couple of centimeters of earth as you can see in the video.
Inside the chest, which measures approximately 15 inches by 10 inches by 8 inches, where a small, conical pottery cup, a six inch high pottery jar, a cracked glass vial containing a rolled parchment, and a number of ancient coins.
It was immediately claimed that it might well concern the ‘wedding gifts’ of Mary Magdalene although there wasn’t a shred of supporting evidence. The box was smuggled out of the country to the British museum even though the French police actively and severely prosecutes anyone who smuggles archeological artefacts out of the country. This wouldn’t of course have been an issue if the chest had been smuggled into France to be only temporarily buried there.
Nicolas Haywood
In two of the videoclips, the Bloodline team put on the internet, interviews are shown with a certain Nicolas Haywood, who is presented as an insider with the very secretive Priory-of-Sion and thereupon goes on the record saying this secret must never come out. A sceptic might think that doing an interview about it with a notorious American film producer in front of a camera is perhaps not the best way to keep any secret. And so, after Bloodline, you’ll find yourself initiated in the age-old secret that all the claims from Holy Blood, Holy Grail and the Da Vinci Code are true: Mary-Magdalene and Jesus were married and had children. Moreover, they were all buried in the south of France. Their burial sites were discovered in the late 1800s by the priest of Rennes-le-Château, Bérenger Saunière, who left clues all over the region that have now been re-discovered by Ben Hammott.
If it looks and quacks like a duck..
There are more issues. Speculations were made about the death of Lord Patrick Lichfield, owner of the enigmatic Shugborough Hall, that upset many of his friends. Bruce Burgess, in the film, suggests his own life is in danger because of his investigations even though he worked on the project for over 4 years, giving any lunatic plenty of time to kill him well before the movie went into circulation.
Ben Hammott manages to do 6 or 7 very impressive discoveries in a very short time, 5 or 6 of them on camera with an American production team on his tail. Ben’s supporters state matter-of-factly that it is the sheer genius of the man that he managed to find what so many have searched for over 60 years and that there were of course also some trips on which he found nothing. They claim people are just jealous of Ben’s fenomenal success. Fact is that in 12 or so trips to France, he had a hit rate of 50% which is quite high for any treasure hunt I reckon.
On closer examination of the facts behind Ben’s discoveries it becomes apparent that the evidence and artefacts he brings to the table are unconvincing. There is clumsy mistakes in them, suggesting they are forgeries by someone without native command of the French langauge in the 19th century and too little knowlegde about the background of the true historical context of the Mystery of Rennes-le-Château.
The evidence in the movie is built up around dating of coins that could be bought or found anywhere, hairs said to be taken from the corpse and so on and so forth. Nowhere is there any proof that the artefacts are genuine or were there representatives from any authorities present that could easily have legitimized the claims.
Judging from the combined facts and established issues of authenticity with them it is a lot more likely that the discoveries of Ben Hammott are poorly made forgeries intended to fuel a sensational but badly substantiated story.
Let this not stop you from going to watch the film. What I have seen of it is well made. It’s suspenseful and has a great atmosphere of intrigue that many a Da Vinci Code fan will love. Burgess can tell a story allright.
Just don’t take it for fact.
Raven
©2007-2008 rlcresearch.com, all rights reserved, pictures copyright by Ben Hammott and Bruce Burgess
Rennessence News
June 26th, 2008 at 18:58
It seems that some of my answers have been put against the wrong questions, however, the excavation of the site, I am assured, will take place. The team are working 24/7 on the marketting of the Bloodline film and as they are only a small company, can only take on board so much at one time. Ben Hammott’s son is extremely ill at the moment and he cannot get away to France. I am hoping that a spring date may be announced, but that will up to the bloodline team and Ben. Obviously there will be a lot to organise prior to the actual dig and some provisional work has been done. It will be an enormous enterprise but I am hoping that providing the prep work is done properly a start next year is hopeful. Much more than that I cannot say. Individually if you require more info contact the Bloodline team.
Colin Taylor,by the way I do not tell lies!!
June 16th, 2008 at 00:24
Question:”Also could you tell when the excavation will start since it’s not on the published DRAC todo list.”
Colin: Your response.
“The British Museum and Professor Barkay of Jerusalam university have already been consulterd in respect of the Box and artifacs found therein. Hope this clears up one or two questions.”
Colin - You still didn’t answer the question(s). WHEN will the site be EXCAVATED???
Try again– this time truthfully…thanks
May 29th, 2008 at 14:48
Can somebody explain me how the bloodline team was able to get the hair from the body??
As we learnt, the small hole the camera felt in is kind of curved and you cannot see the cave from the “entrance” of that hole. So:
A. How to cut the shroud (it is cut as you can see on the pics; try once to cut a shroud at home which is not entirely fixed at least on top on both ends…impossible!!)through such a curved hole?
B. How to take the hair from the head or body over such a “curved hole”?
I hope that Ben/Bill has the patent rights on this stick device - it is magic and overcomes all physical rules….
Sorry, all given explanations of the bloodline team sound like “scout romantic” to me…
May 29th, 2008 at 05:15
Dear Raven,
After reviewing the first frame of discovery that Ben shot, I have changed my opinion of the light source. I now believe that the light source was likely from a built-in camera light. There are many models of small cameras that have this feature and the light is very weak on any subject past a few feet away, which would explain the dimness of the first grab. I could always e-mail Ben and ask him, but that would be pointless if he really is pulling a hoax. Ben does say that he used a bright external twin bulb video light for the second shot. I will send you a frame grab that clearly shows the effect of a built -in light as seen on the edges of the rock opening (different than the one that is seen on your site). It can also be seen here: http://www.andrewgough.co.uk/tomb.html
Bentonpix
May 28th, 2008 at 09:04
Dear Colin,
Welcome here and thank you for your comments. Can you tell when the agreement with DRAC was signed? It’s odd that they told us they don’t have a dossier on it.
Also could you tell when the excavation will start since it’s not on the published DRAC todo list.
Take care | Raven
May 27th, 2008 at 18:28
With reference to any possible future excavation I can confirm to any person wondering that the excavation will be dealt with in a very profession manner under the supervision of fully trained and experieced Archaeologists, Pathologist, Scientists and forensic scene specialists, ie myself.
The team are aware of the possible importance of this discovery and are aware that all eyes will be trained on them. They are also aware that integrity of the find must be maintained to ensure that any science subsequently extracted is ‘proven’.
The British Museum and Professor Barkay of Jerusalam university have already been consulterd in respect of the Box and artifacs found therein. Hope this clears up one or two questions.
May 27th, 2008 at 18:21
Time will tell if this is all a hoax. I, like most people (but not all unfortunately), only want to see the truth revealed. I can only look at the evidence presented and examine each issue raised and either agree that the issue raised is valid and airtight or that it is not strong enough beyond a reasonable doubt. Which is what led me to my first comments in that I saw credible photographic evidence that would explain the items being moved between the second tomb shots and the third shots.
If one looks at ALL the photographic evidence that is available, not just the two before and after frames that are used in this web site. Then the suggestion that “the only conclusion can be that someone moved them.” Is a very big jump in assumption and doesn’t take into account the natural forces at play during a major rock fall that can easily be seen in the photograph called “Rock Fall” which is near the bottom of the “Third Filming” tomb section of Ben’s site: http://www.benhammott.com/tomb.html This photo shows the area to the left of the shrouded body which formerly contained a large wooden cross, chests, scrolls and cups. It now shows a broken cross and very large rocks on the ground that purportedly crushed everything beneath them. An event that had enough energy to break the cross and bury many other artifacts, could have certainly displaced the items in question. This area cannot be seen in the two photographic examples presented on this site as “evidence” that someone must have moved the objects.
Based on ALL the photographic evidence available, I would still have to say that this puts reasonable doubt in THIS particular issue.
With regards to the issue of how, with the camera stuck in the shaft and no light source inside the tomb how an image was visible on the camera at all?
Ben never said that his camera got stuck in the shaft. He says: “I placed the camera in the passage as far as I could without entering the spiders’ home. I had the hooked stick ready to push it along the passage, so I lent in and pressed the record button, suddenly the video camera disappeared, literally. It was gone.
Crawling forward, I looked where the camera had been and saw a hole. It was small, only slightly larger that the camera, of which there was no sign. The small shaft did not go straight down but twisted at an angel about a meter away from the top. Holding the torch, I poked my arm into the hole and only by poking my head in also could I just see the back of my video camera.”
From his account the camera never got “stuck” in the shaft as stated in this issue (which would have blocked light coming in from behind the camera), it apparently fell from the shaft into a hole of sorts. As the camera fell into this hole it would have unblocked the shaft behind it, thus allowing any light available, either from his torch or daylight to enter the tomb.
Again, based on the evidence available, I would have to say that this puts reasonable doubt in this particular issue as well.
Lastly, your comment that “Ben Hammott’s discoveries are badly made forgeries” Is simply not the case. The Bloodline producers contacted Dr. Gabriel Barkay, one of today’s foremost Biblical archaeologists and had him examine the artifacts from the chest and he determined that they were indeed genuine items from Jerusalem that dated to the 1st century A.D. I suppose he could be mistaken, but I got the sense that he really knew what he was talking about. The paper that was found in the small glass bottle was carbon dated to have been created in the 1400’s hundreds.
How the items got in the chest and what, if any real historical significance there is surrounding them is certainly up for question and debate.
Could Ben Hammott still be pulling a hoax? Sure he could, but with regard these particular issues raised, I my opinion, they are just not strong enough to convict him alone.
I intend to take a closer look at the other issues raised at a later time. But for now, I need to get some real work done! This mystery/ treasure stuff is great fun, but very distracting!
Bentonpix
May 27th, 2008 at 18:18
I have been involved with this project and it’s originators for some time. Almost from the first discovery people have called it a hoax without knowing anything about it, simply because they do not want to believe it.
At first, it is true, I had an open mind on the subject, after 30 years as a policeman I have learnt not to accept anything at face value. However, I cannot detect the lie here after many conversations with all concerned. Even Bruce Burgess, the Director/writer/presenter still has an open mind as to what may or may not have been found. His answer is the common sense one. ‘We do not know, let us treat this as a beginning’. The video footage of the mummified corpse in the tomb in clearly not a fake, and niether, I believe is the rest of it. It may be a Templar burial or something of more religious importance. If it is the tomb of Sauniere then there must have been something else, other than the body, to convince him to renounce his faith completely and possibly commit murder to keep the secret safe. Let’s hope it is still there. How about some benefit of the doubt until the tomb is excavated. The French Government Department DRAC are taking the matter seriously and have signed agreements with the Bloodline team relating to the supervision of the excavation, Some hoax!
Be patient! all will be revealed in due course, one way or the other.
May 26th, 2008 at 06:25
Dear Bentonpix,
Since you posted the exact same message in both Bloodline topics I deleted one.
If you want to believe, you might want to stop trying to find evidence.
About your comment: one can speculate about what a man would do to create a hoax or not. I don’t subscribe to your view that Ben is careful. The video in which he scrapes a pickaxe over the lid over what he says is a 100 hundred years old chest containing the wedding gifts of Mary-Magdalene, contradicts that view.
About the roof collapse: Have a good look at the pictures. There’s no big rocks lying about in the 2nd tomb pic and the ceiling is not high enough for a rock to completely crash into small pieces on impact.
After this week’s detailed and (watch out: personal opinion ahead!) balanced reviews by biblical archeologist Gordon Franz and the guys at Cadre, there’s now an even more overwhelming amount of evidence that Ben Hammott’s discoveries are badly made forgeries and so are his claims. Nice guy, poor craftsman. Great movie, ugly motives.
Take care | Raven
May 26th, 2008 at 05:42
Thanks for your through examination of the movie Bloodline and for revealing many apparent discrepancies.
The issue raised that many items have been moved in the tomb when comparing the older footage with the newer scenes is addressed by Ben Hammott in his web site description regarding the third filming of the tomb:
“The first thing I noticed was there had been a rock fall, but luckily the rocks had missed the body and though it had shifted slightly, it looked okay.
The wooden cross now lies broken amongst the rocks. The parchments and objects around the base of the cross, seen clearly on the second film images, have now no doubt been destroyed, crushed beneath the rocks. I had always thought the Tomb roof may be unstable and seeing this, I knew I had been correct.”
Certainly a rock fall strong enough to break what appears to be a relatively heavy wooden cross, would be strong enough to shift other objects in this small confined space. If the now broken wooden cross was at the epicenter of this fall, then all the boxes that have moved, including the book on top of one, have all moved in a direction consistent with the direction of energy that would have been released with this rock fall.
And if there wasn’t a real rock fall, why would a hoaxster destroy the wooden cross, one of his coolest and most effective props? Inattention to small details is one thing when staging a hoax, but completely destroying the cross and moving other items around a significant amount seems downright reckless and counterproductive if believability is the goal.
Ben Hammott appears to be far more careful than to deliberately or even by accident, damage the cross and rearrange other items if he is pulling a hoax. On this one, my call goes to Ben Hammott. On the other hand… Ben could have created a real rock fall to cover his tracks, so there would be a natural and convenient answer as to why the objects had moved. But then wouldn’t it have been easier to just not move them in the first place? What’s the point in moving them once set up? He’s not a stupid man. Or perhaps Ben Hammott is being duped and someone else staged the tomb for Ben to find?
Where ’s that truth machine when you need it?
May 20th, 2008 at 08:34
Hi Tony,
I have been following the story of the Knights Templar through Rumor Mill News. There seems to be two takes on the KP,Mevroginians,Rosicrucians, and Free Masons. One is good and the other is dark. For instance Leo Zagami an Italian speaks of them as the dark illumiati. He says he is an ex-illuminati.
Thanks,
Joel
May 14th, 2008 at 07:02
The box office review is not ‘reasonable’. The reviewer bought into everything hook, line and sinker. He accepts without question every dubious claim put forward and is apparently intoxicated by the prospect of the Pope getting insomnia from a documentary that made 6200 dollars its opening weekend. If you look at the other reviews at http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/10009742-bloodline/ you will see that the consensus by far is that the documentary, while occasionally suspensful and well-told, is completely lacking in substance.
May 14th, 2008 at 06:14
I won’t
May 14th, 2008 at 00:12
Hi everyone,
Just saw this reasonable review of the film … on this basis i might go see it: http://www.rennesalchemist.com/news_menu.html
Has anyone here actually seen the film yet?
Thanks
May 12th, 2008 at 08:26
Hey Niriel,
The ‘new’ Coumesourde stone was allegedly reported to André Douzet by a group of researchers, allegedly (again) from Northen Spain. I have no idea who they are and next to nothing has been published about it aprt from André’s article, making it hard to say anything. I am not convinced even the original stone ever existed. Same applies to this new one. Time will tell.
Take care | Raven
May 7th, 2008 at 10:33
Great article !
I would love to find such an analysis about the ‘dalle de Coume Sourde’ which is claimed to have been re-discovered lately. Fishy story as well.
I think I’ll have quite a good (fun ?) time watching the movie. Only, there’s no way I pay for that… I shall find a solution :).
May 6th, 2008 at 04:59
It’s funny that everyone thinks it’s insane to believe in cover-ups’. I will leave you with this to think about long and hard……
** If powerful religious figures aren’t capable of devious acts, why leave certain parts of the canon out? Could it be that they only wanted people to read what they needed them to read? I believe this is a form of cover up.**
So I ask you, is it possible that the Catholic Church has the ability to hide things such as the fact that Jesus had a child?
While the Bible has many interestingly inspirational quotes like “If the blind lead the blind, both fall in the ditch,” it is just a form of hope and societal control.
Good luck to the open-minded and never stop believing in God.
May 5th, 2008 at 22:13
What I would like to see happen,is having members of the British Museum,The Louvre,and experts from several other top museums of Europe do a joint excavation of this tomb,to be able to authenticate what and who is buried there.The burial shroud,if a real Templar cloak or cloth looks very well perserved,though that could be do to conditions in the tomb.
Wondered for a moment if it could be a fake,the cloth i mean wrapped around the body.However I know little about climatic conditions in the area and certainly nothing about the caves there.
I don’t think it is the body of Mary magdalen.
As far as Jesus and Mary Magdalene being married, I doubt that.However Jesus did have a brother James,who was head of the Church in Jerusalem,and possibly sisters as well.I don’t recall the verse in the bible right now that mentions his mother,brothers and sisters.
Is it not possible that she could have been married to James or some other relative of Jesus? Not saying that’s so,but i doubt they have looked in that direction.
It would look bad if these things were fakes.
By the way,somewhere in India is said to be a tomb of Jesus.
May 5th, 2008 at 04:42
On the recent ABC Nightline interview, we catch a glimpse of the ‘parchment’ in which Sauniere confesses that the resurrection was a hoax: http://priory-of-sion.net/forum/download/file.php?id=273&mode=view
Notice it says “le vere histoire”…first of all, ‘histoire’ is a feminine noun. Second, ‘vere’ is not a French adjective, but a Latin one. ‘Resurrection’ is also a feminine noun, but on the parchment we read ‘le resurrection’.
May 4th, 2008 at 23:02
As to why people might engage in any false, large-scale production, there are several possible reasons:
- The obvious is to make money, and have their kind of fun while doing it. It may be little more than that.
- An ARG (Alternate Reality Game): see a good analysis at http://andrewgough.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1078
- The main instigators in this particular production, like Ben Hammott, may believe they’re providing a service, by putting the Holy Grail myth before the public in a new way, simply to provoke thought about the subject and its far-reaching implications for human purpose, motivation, etc. It’s been theorized that the Holy Grail legend has all along mainly been about instigating thought, emotion, etc., rather than dealing entirely in historical fact. Hammott may be working a much more massive angle on this, actually creating artifacts, etc. that really draw people in, more than mere discussion of these subjects. It’s gotten much more worldwide attention than yet another book on the subject would, so in that sense it’s succeeded.
- Hammott, etc. may be trying to remind people how doable (not always easy) it is to fake things like this, as a cautionary tale. I doubt this, but we’ll see.
- A conspiracist’s viewpoint (which I don’t necessarily share) might be that Hammott and a few others (don’t know about Burgess, but there’s a good chance he’s not in on it, even though he’s the filmmaker), are actually, by their apparent amateurishness and fakery, trying to discredit the very themes they’re covering, because there may be some truth to these themes–in other words, make it look like anyone who does in-depth investigation into these topics, is a faker, or incompetent, or engages in fantasy, in hopes of making the general public turn away from even valid investigation into these subjects. I doubt this possibility, but only they know for sure. It’s something that’s been done in the UFO investigation community, and elsewhere; intelligence agencies sometimes use approaches like this to throw people off the track of something that they don’t want people looking into (see the Paul Bennewitz case).
There’s lots of evidence that all of the events surrounding the subject of Rennes-le-Chateau’s possible role in the lives and death of Jesus and Mary, and their possible children, have prosaic explanations, but there’s a lot of evidence that there’s something more–more evidence than would be accounted for, than if the events, symbolism, buildings and their placement, etc. were all coincidence or run-of-the-mill. Maybe fakery in France on this subject began shortly after Jesus’s death, as a way of trying to make it seem there was a connection early on, to gain some political/religious advantage in the region. Myths aren’t supposed to be entirely factual, if factual at all–they’re meant to be something anyone can use, embellish, etc. for whatever purpose. Whatever the case, there’s lots of material for a good film. Maybe someday someone will make one that’s more careful with the facts than Bloodline, and still be informative and even entertaining.
May 2nd, 2008 at 17:56
How is it possible that people do this and others buy it. All in the name of money and 5 minutes of fame I suppose.
Well done!
May 2nd, 2008 at 12:58
Other strange things:
1. On some older pics of the wooden chest there was the well known “spider” on it (which as RLC symbol only was introduced by the late 60′ by Plantard)- which disappeared on the actual pictures as you can see on the two websites. Where has it gone?
2. On the pics of the tomb you are showing you can also see that the wooden chest on top of the body disappeared in one pic. Where has it gone? To the grotte du Fournet?
3. In a clip they open this “yellow” bottle with the key inside. Take a look at the cork..it is all white inside….you don’t have to be a wine drinker to understand that this cork is not older than max 10 years.
May 2nd, 2008 at 12:55
Thanks for your analysis, quite enlightening. I imagined from the outset that no-one could be as lucky as Ben Hammott, but felt perhaps the film producers were simply overstating their case for effect- it’s such a pity if they are perpetuating a fraud as I feel there is a mystery in RLC,(having been there several times in past 8/9 years), . If untrue this type of thing does serious damage to genuine research and discovery.
Keep up the good work
Best wishes
Tony