Ariadne thread of rennes!
If you set out on a quest for the truth about the Rennes-le-Château Affair be warned - you will face a long and arduous journey. The author of the poem Le Serpent Rouge implied as much writing that such a quest would require discipline and dedication. It could take on a moral and spiritual significance for some, a pilgrimage if you will. It could even mirror the medieval quest for the Holy Grail or Philosopher's Stone. As one ancient philosopher - Fontanelle - said in respect of the quest for the Philosophers stone;
"It is true that one cannot find the philosopher's stone, but it is good to look for it. For in that search, there are beautiful secrets to discover....".
One might as well substitute 'philosophers stone' for 'mystery of Rennes-le-Château' and realise that it is good to look for the mystery of Rennes-le-Château for in that search, there are beautiful secrets to discover!
You must, on your quest, endeavour to "... clear a path with a sword through .... the inextricable vegetation of the woods ...", suggesting that the quest is within a physical landscape that needs to be conquered. But it is also a mental landscape. This is because the quest is littered with intricate complicated clues. You need to find a route through physical and mental landscape from start to finish - even though the routes you may take can change and/or become dead-ends!
These 'routes' in fact become your very own Ariadne Thread!
The poet relates that your thread will feel dense and complicated. He likens it to being in a constant fight to get through a densely wooded forest, and a veritable morass of clues, puns, difficult riddles and puzzles. These will trap you like thorny plants. This inextricable vegetation allusion drums it home - both landscapes become virtually impassable - like a fortress that has foiled one invader after another over hundreds of centuries!
Any journey made and information learned, will remain difficult to unravel like gnarled branch of the oldest of trees: so involved and so intricate your threads may become, you will find it almost too complicated to unravel. The poet describes the strength and resilience required of you to disentangle, stating you will never conquer, unless you are in possession of the Ariadne thread of Rennes!
This thread is of "trial and error", so which one to use? Differentiate between two approaches. For the scientific among you, the thread may indeed be trial and error; but the puzzle-solvers among you will realise quickly that this is the real thread we require. Trial-and-error approaches work in Science but are rarely concerned with how many solutions may exist to a problem and can even assume only one correct solution. Puzzle solving threads however make no such assumption and are capable of locating all possible solutions to a situation. Our poet confirms in Le Serpent Rouge that it is the parchments designed by his Friend that are the threads we need. Thus, for our purposes here, approach the Parchments like solving a puzzle! Put the puzzle pieces together in a logical way, in order to arrive at the correct solution. Analyse what the puzzle pieces are, what exactly the Parchments encipher and work out how to 'put them back together again'.
You will need to take the plunge. Do you accept that these famous Parchments are fake fake's - a term I first learned from Simon Miles - or do you dismiss them as total frauds. Analyse why you dismiss, analyse why you accept.
The [re]searcher will need to ponder the problem - using reasoning & study. Once you adopt the correct approach and mind-set and if you make it through - according to our poet - you will have reached the residence of the Sleeping BEAUTY - in whom he saw the QUEEN of a past realm. It is the same location the Friend of the poet was searching for also! Once there you will experience 'a sweet perfume rising towards you as it permeates the sepulchre"! You are inside a very important tomb! This concealed and sacred knowledge about Rennes is certainly not to be violated, criticised, or tampered with!
Like Theseus, the searcher should follow the Parchments as they are the guide that will help keep you on the right track. Use the clews to create and maintain a record that tracks all the avenues available to you to explore and to solve. Then you can backtrack — reversing earlier decisions and try alternatives. In this way you will cut through all the mystification and false trails deliberately laid to throw you off track. You will do well to remember the admonishment given to us by Philippe de Chérisey, our Ariadne. He wrote;
"Dear Reader, to whom we tell everything, but who does not listen".
There are clews/clues which point the way - but some may be heard as well as 'read'! Remember the phonetic play on the word clew/clue - for this is also part of Ariadne's thread. It is the langue des oiseaux - that secret language of bird speak, the language of the initiates used by Boudet and Chérisey!
Read HERE to 'see' this in action!
Chérisey tells us that "every precaution has been taken for thousands of years so that the treasure location is very obvious and very mundane at the same time, recognisable through a great number of landmarks, for which the reader will be thankful to us since we gave him the main ones".
Chérisey includes those markers that have gone before but lead nowhere! Use intuition and intelligence to know which information is useful and which is not!
In 1618 Johann Valentin Andreae compared those contemporary Rosicrucians were playing in a world amphitheatre where no one or anything was being seen in their true light. He used the phrase "the ludibrium of the fictitious Rosicrucian Fraternity" when describing them. Historians have taken Andreae at his word and suggested that the Rosicrucians for him were a ludibrium, a dramatic allegory played out in a political domain rather than a literal joke!
An allegory is a “story, picture, or piece of art that uses symbols to convey a hidden or ulterior meaning, typically a moral or political one.” In its most simple and concise definition, an allegory is when a piece of visual or narrative media uses one thing to “stand in for” a different, hidden idea. It’s a little bit like an algebraic equation, like y = 2x, but in the form of art.
Did Plantard and Chérisey play out their allegory of the ludibrium of the fictitious Priory of Sion in the way Andreae meant? Was there more to the 'story' of Saunière and the events surrounding him? Has he yet to be seen in his 'true light'? Did Plantard et al adopt allegorical text and prose and other pieces of visual or narrative media to “stand in for” a different and hidden idea? This view would support the idea that the whole affair is not a 'hoax' even though Chérisey often claimed this. Plantard and Chérisey were not poking fun at us or playing a game, their ludibrium was not for scorn and derision at our expense. They were attempting to pass on knowledge & searching for more information themselves.
As for my part I am convinced that there is yet a material archaeological treasure in Rennes-le-Château or more precisely Rennes-les-Bains. Or even information that has yet to be revealed. Perhaps as Gérard de Sède claimed, an inexhaustible mine that has not given up its secrets. Or a mysterious buried tomb in a vast necropolis. Or perhaps a vast underground Temple waiting to be discovered. Or perhaps some other indispensable knowledge that - as Marie Dénarnaud said to Noël Corbu - could make one 'powerful'!
We therefore invite you to rediscover with a fresh eye the mystery of Rennes-le-Château!
"It is true that one cannot find the philosopher's stone, but it is good to look for it. For in that search, there are beautiful secrets to discover....".
One might as well substitute 'philosophers stone' for 'mystery of Rennes-le-Château' and realise that it is good to look for the mystery of Rennes-le-Château for in that search, there are beautiful secrets to discover!
You must, on your quest, endeavour to "... clear a path with a sword through .... the inextricable vegetation of the woods ...", suggesting that the quest is within a physical landscape that needs to be conquered. But it is also a mental landscape. This is because the quest is littered with intricate complicated clues. You need to find a route through physical and mental landscape from start to finish - even though the routes you may take can change and/or become dead-ends!
These 'routes' in fact become your very own Ariadne Thread!
The poet relates that your thread will feel dense and complicated. He likens it to being in a constant fight to get through a densely wooded forest, and a veritable morass of clues, puns, difficult riddles and puzzles. These will trap you like thorny plants. This inextricable vegetation allusion drums it home - both landscapes become virtually impassable - like a fortress that has foiled one invader after another over hundreds of centuries!
Any journey made and information learned, will remain difficult to unravel like gnarled branch of the oldest of trees: so involved and so intricate your threads may become, you will find it almost too complicated to unravel. The poet describes the strength and resilience required of you to disentangle, stating you will never conquer, unless you are in possession of the Ariadne thread of Rennes!
This thread is of "trial and error", so which one to use? Differentiate between two approaches. For the scientific among you, the thread may indeed be trial and error; but the puzzle-solvers among you will realise quickly that this is the real thread we require. Trial-and-error approaches work in Science but are rarely concerned with how many solutions may exist to a problem and can even assume only one correct solution. Puzzle solving threads however make no such assumption and are capable of locating all possible solutions to a situation. Our poet confirms in Le Serpent Rouge that it is the parchments designed by his Friend that are the threads we need. Thus, for our purposes here, approach the Parchments like solving a puzzle! Put the puzzle pieces together in a logical way, in order to arrive at the correct solution. Analyse what the puzzle pieces are, what exactly the Parchments encipher and work out how to 'put them back together again'.
You will need to take the plunge. Do you accept that these famous Parchments are fake fake's - a term I first learned from Simon Miles - or do you dismiss them as total frauds. Analyse why you dismiss, analyse why you accept.
The [re]searcher will need to ponder the problem - using reasoning & study. Once you adopt the correct approach and mind-set and if you make it through - according to our poet - you will have reached the residence of the Sleeping BEAUTY - in whom he saw the QUEEN of a past realm. It is the same location the Friend of the poet was searching for also! Once there you will experience 'a sweet perfume rising towards you as it permeates the sepulchre"! You are inside a very important tomb! This concealed and sacred knowledge about Rennes is certainly not to be violated, criticised, or tampered with!
Like Theseus, the searcher should follow the Parchments as they are the guide that will help keep you on the right track. Use the clews to create and maintain a record that tracks all the avenues available to you to explore and to solve. Then you can backtrack — reversing earlier decisions and try alternatives. In this way you will cut through all the mystification and false trails deliberately laid to throw you off track. You will do well to remember the admonishment given to us by Philippe de Chérisey, our Ariadne. He wrote;
"Dear Reader, to whom we tell everything, but who does not listen".
There are clews/clues which point the way - but some may be heard as well as 'read'! Remember the phonetic play on the word clew/clue - for this is also part of Ariadne's thread. It is the langue des oiseaux - that secret language of bird speak, the language of the initiates used by Boudet and Chérisey!
Read HERE to 'see' this in action!
Chérisey tells us that "every precaution has been taken for thousands of years so that the treasure location is very obvious and very mundane at the same time, recognisable through a great number of landmarks, for which the reader will be thankful to us since we gave him the main ones".
Chérisey includes those markers that have gone before but lead nowhere! Use intuition and intelligence to know which information is useful and which is not!
In 1618 Johann Valentin Andreae compared those contemporary Rosicrucians were playing in a world amphitheatre where no one or anything was being seen in their true light. He used the phrase "the ludibrium of the fictitious Rosicrucian Fraternity" when describing them. Historians have taken Andreae at his word and suggested that the Rosicrucians for him were a ludibrium, a dramatic allegory played out in a political domain rather than a literal joke!
An allegory is a “story, picture, or piece of art that uses symbols to convey a hidden or ulterior meaning, typically a moral or political one.” In its most simple and concise definition, an allegory is when a piece of visual or narrative media uses one thing to “stand in for” a different, hidden idea. It’s a little bit like an algebraic equation, like y = 2x, but in the form of art.
Did Plantard and Chérisey play out their allegory of the ludibrium of the fictitious Priory of Sion in the way Andreae meant? Was there more to the 'story' of Saunière and the events surrounding him? Has he yet to be seen in his 'true light'? Did Plantard et al adopt allegorical text and prose and other pieces of visual or narrative media to “stand in for” a different and hidden idea? This view would support the idea that the whole affair is not a 'hoax' even though Chérisey often claimed this. Plantard and Chérisey were not poking fun at us or playing a game, their ludibrium was not for scorn and derision at our expense. They were attempting to pass on knowledge & searching for more information themselves.
As for my part I am convinced that there is yet a material archaeological treasure in Rennes-le-Château or more precisely Rennes-les-Bains. Or even information that has yet to be revealed. Perhaps as Gérard de Sède claimed, an inexhaustible mine that has not given up its secrets. Or a mysterious buried tomb in a vast necropolis. Or perhaps a vast underground Temple waiting to be discovered. Or perhaps some other indispensable knowledge that - as Marie Dénarnaud said to Noël Corbu - could make one 'powerful'!
We therefore invite you to rediscover with a fresh eye the mystery of Rennes-le-Château!