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Steve and Anita St. Clair, Alan Bulter, and Janet and Scott Wolter pose along the swollen Seine River in Paris, France.
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The five-pointed star of Venus in the Rose Window at Eglise Saint Remi Chapel in Troyes, France. It was the Monotheistic Dualism ideology of the "Venus Families" of France that prompted them to found the Cistercian and Knights Templar orders.
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This life-size sculpture of the "Entombment of Christ" was ordered by Francois Jarradin, Commander of the Hospitallers, in 1531. After residing in the Knights Templar commandery at Reims until it was destroyed during the French Revolution in 1792, it was moved to St. Remi Cathedral in 1803. The close-up shows the still bleeding wound of Jesus after the crucifixion.
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One of several AVM's in stained glass in the Church at the Templar Commandery at Arville, France.
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Scott, Steve St. Clair and Alan Butler, pose for a photo inside the Church at the Templar Commandery at Arville, France. Is it a coincidence that a statue of Jesus is directly behind Steve?
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A kaleidoscope of "M" signs adorn Mary encircled with twelve angels in this painting hanging inside the Church at the Templar Commandery at Arville, France.
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The top line of the chevron, carved next to the hoax runic inscription with the Hooked X, after I cleaned the mud out that had been rubbed into the groove to cover up it's freshly made appearance. The mud covering up the hoaxer's handiwork can be clearly seen in lower angled line of the chevron.
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I nearly jumped out of my chair when I first saw the photos of the serpent-style runic inscription with the Hooked X at the top. My eyes could hardly believe what I was seeing. I thought then this is 'too good to be true' and as it turned out, it was. At the time, the inscription with the date of 1206 in Roman numbers, seemed to make a lot of sense. Regardless, despite the skepticism I had at the time, I knew I had to get out there as quickly as possible to examine it. I called Andy and Maria Awes at Committee Films and said, "I'm going out there ASAP. If you want to go with me, you better get things together quickly because I'm not waiting." To their credit, they juggled their busy shooting schedule and off we went. When we arrived at the site, because of how tight the shooting schedule was, I had to wait until lunch break to sneak off so I could examine the inscription carefully and uninterrupted off-camera. I had already noticed what looked like mud in the grooves, but it wasn't until I used my toothbrush and bottled water to clean the mud out, that the cold, dark cloud of reality hit me this carving was a deliberate hoax designed to try and trick me. Thinking about it a year and half later, I still get pissed off about it.
The trip to France with Janet, Steve St. Clair and his wife Anita, and Alan Butler, was truly a once-in-a-lifetime experience that turned out to be better than any of us could have imagined. We arrived early to visit locations we knew we wouldn't have time for with the crew while shooting, and discovered a number of things that furthered our Cistercian/Templar research immensely. We found so many new and interesting things that this planned single episode turned into the two-part adventure you just saw the beginning of. I hope the larger than normal number of photos I posted this week will spark questions from those who read this blog as I could have written several paragraphs about each one. I also hope this episode has opened the eyes of our viewers to some of the signs, symbols and tokens used by the Venus Families and their supporters, such as the five-pointed star, the "M" sign, AVM, the Fleur des les, the Cross of Lorraine, and the Hooked X, that are hidden in plain sight both in Europe and North America!
