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By Root 701 0

prove you have balls, spit on the crucifix, and let’s see if God strikes you dead. If you join this militia, you have to give yourself to your brothers heart and soul, so let them kiss your ass. An alternative thesis is that they were asked to deny Christ in order to see how they would behave if the Saracens got them. Which seems idiotic, because you don’t train someone to resist torture by making him do—even if only symbolically—what the torturer will ask of him. A third thesis: In the East the Templars had come into contact with Manichean heretics who despised the Cross, regarding it as the instrument of the Lord’s torture. The Manicheans also preached renunciation of the world and discouraged marriage and procreation. An old idea, common to many heresies in the early centuries of Christianity. It was later taken up by the Cathars—and in fact there’s a whole tradition claiming that the Templars were steeped in Catharism. And this would explain the sodomy—also only symbolic. Let’s assume the knights came into contact with Manichean heretics. Well, they weren’t exactlv intellectuals, so perhaps—partly out of naivete, partly out of snobbery and esprit de corps—they invented a personal ceremony to distinguish themselves from the other Crusaders. They performed various ritual acts of recognition, without bothering about their significance.”

“And that Baphomet business?”

“Many of the depositions do mention a figure Baffometi, but this may have been an error made by the first scribe, an error copied into all subsequent documents. Or the records may have been tampered with. In some cases there was talk of Mahomet (istud caput vester deus est, et vester Mahumet), which would suggest that the Templars had created a syncretic liturgy of their own. Some depositions say that they were also urged to call out ‘Yalla,’ which could be Allah. But the Moslems didn’t worship images of Mahomet, so where does the object come from? The depositions say that many people saw carved heads, but sometimes it was not just a head but a whole idol—wooden, with kinky hair, covered with gold, and always with a beard. It seems that investigators did find such heads and confronted the accused with them, but no trace of them remains. Everyone saw the heads, and no one saw them. Like the cat: some saw a gray cat, others a red cat, others still a black cat. Imagine being interrogated with a red-hot iron: Did you see a cat during the initiation? Well, why not a cat? A Templar farm, where stored grain had to be protected against mice, would be full of cats. The cat was not a common domestic animal in Europe back then. But in Egypt it was. Maybe the Templars kept cats in the house, though right-minded folk looked upon such animals with suspicion. Same thing with the heads of Baphomet. Maybe they were reliquaries in the shape of a head; not unknown at the time. Of course, some say Baphomet was an alchemic figure.”

“Alchemy always comes up,” Diotallevi said, nodding. “The Templars probably knew the secret of making gold.”

“Of course they did,” Belbo said. “It was simple enough. Attack a Saracen city, cut the throats of the women and children, and grab everything mat’s not nailed down. The truth is that this whole story is a great big mess.”

“Maybe the mess was in their heads. What did they care about doctrinal debates? History is full of little sects that make up then-own style, part swagger, part mysticism. The Templars themselves didn’t really understand what they were doing. On the other hand, there’s always the esoteric explanation: They knew exactly what they were doing, they were adepts of Oriental mysteries, and even the kiss on the ass had a ritual meaning.”

“Do explain to me, briefly, the ritual meaning of the kiss on the ass,” Diotallevi said.

“All right. Some modern esotericists maintain that the Templars were reviving certain Indian doctrines. The kiss on the ass serves to wake the serpent Kundalini, a cosmic force that dwells at the base of the spinal column, in the sexual glands. Once wakened, Kundalini rises to the pineal gland...”

“Descartes