Forbidden History - The Priory of Sion

Episode Date: December 31, 2024

Forbidden History undertakes an in-depth investigation on the mysterious secret society known as 'The Priory of Sion'. A society that traces its roots back to the 12th Century and is believed to protect incontrovertible, if heretical, information about the marriage of Jesus Christ. Cast List: Jean-Luc Chaumeil: Author & Researcher Andrew Gough: Writer, presenter and editor of The Heretic Magazine  Nicolas Haywood: Spokesperson, The Priory of Sion Chris Hodapp: Author & Researcher  Rob Howells: Author, The Priory of Scion  Alice Von Kannon: Author & Researcher Gino Sandri: Priory of Sion Member Lynn Picknett: Historian and researcher specialising in exposing historical conspiracies. She is also the co-author of several notable works Eric Meyers: Narrator Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the Forbidden History Podcast. This program is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. It contains mature adult themes. Listener discretion is advised. The Priory of Sion is said to be a powerful, shadowy secret society, which is believed to protect a profoundly ancient sacred treasure. A treasure which they claim would bring the Vatican and all Christianity to its knees if it was revealed. The society came to the attention of the world in Dan Brom,

Brown's bestseller, The Da Vinci Code, and many believe it does exist. Prior to signer definitely will, and they definitely still exist. I'm aware of at least nine current members of the Order. I believe there are many more. It's possibly a handful of people, but it is a front for other organisations. They are a society with secrets, some secret ritual, some with an esoteric base that goes back with 50. back 15th, 16th century some of it.

But who are its members? And if it's real, what's its purpose? Its purpose really is to, as always been, to oversee the evolution of man. It's been about nothing else. The priory claim that they can trace their history back over a thousand years. It's an ancient organization that goes back

to the time of the Crusades, led by thought leaders called Grandmasters, people like Da Vinci. Isaac Newton. They also say they protect a great sacred treasure. The treasure is either the body of Jesus, possibly the body of Mary, or that it's documents, that it's evidence,

that it's gospels, that give evidence that the actual historic events were different to what we've got in the Bible. And we meet a man who claims to be a member of the society today. The Priory of Sion first came to the attention of the public in the late 70s through the publication of a best-selling novel, Holy Blood, Holy Grail, which created a huge controversy around the world by claiming that Jesus did not die on the cross, but survived to marry and raise a family with Mary Magdalene. The authors went on to claim

that their descendants formed a holy bloodline which exists today, and which the church in Rome still wants to stamp out. And if that wasn't enough, they also claimed that that a secret society, the Priory of Sion, is sworn to protect the bloodline and its secrets. But what's the truth behind these incredible ideas? Is it all just a clever hoax? And if so, who's behind it and why? In 1982, Michael Bejan, Richard Lee, and Henry Lincoln wrote a book called Holy Blood, Holy Grail.

And they based their research on an earlier French book. that had been published that talked about an organization called the Priory of Zion. And in the book, it talks about how Mary Magdalene had fled the Holy Land and had a child by Jesus. And from that child descended the Marevinian line of French kings. One of the purposes of the Priory of Zion, one of the reasons it exists, is to protect secrets. There's information, religious, spiritual information, that can only be let out at certain times in history, because society has to be ready for it. So it would be deemed heretical or explosive or shocking.

According to the book Holy Blood, Holy Grail, one of the secrets that the Priory of Sion Keep is hard and definitive evidence of the marriage of Jesus to marry Magdalene. Evidence that would threaten accepted religious dogma and under the pre-aigneurialism undermine over a thousand years of Christian belief. It's possible there's truth to the story that Mary Magdalene was pregnant with Christ's child. There's some question about Christ being married and it was not mentioned in the Bible because it was unusual for a Jewish man in his 30s in those days to not be married. Mary Magdalene was present at the foot of the cross.

She was there with the apostles. She was the first one that Christ revealed himself to when he rose from the dead. So there are many reasons why it's a popular theory popularized by Dan Brown that Mary Magdalene was married to Christ. I read Holy Blood, Holy Grail years before Dan Brown came out. And it was for many people an earth-shattering assertion that the marriage at Cana had been rewritten that it was Jesus' marriage, that it was Jesus' marriage to the Magdalene. These were all older ideas than most people thought.

A generation had passed since anyone had seen them. After the Holy Blood and the Holy Grail became a bestseller, the Briarie of Zion became this sort of sinister organization and people thought that what had been shared so far was just the tip of the iceberg. What else has been concealed down through the ages? Who else is a member? What do they really control? Are they controlling our governments today? In the early 1970s, a Frenchman claimed to be grand master of the Priory of Sion. His name was Pierre Plantard, and he agreed to be interviewed for the BBC in Paris.

Historian and author Andrew Goff had spent much of his adult life investigating the Priory of Sion and recently tracked down the location where the Plantard interview was filmed. Plontard only ever gave one interview. So back in the 70s, Henry Lincoln, co-author of the Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, interviewed him here in what was his flat. The thing is Plantard totally looked the part. He was a little nervous. He was distinguished. He was a gentleman of a certain age. He was wearing a fine suit. And he looked like the kind of guy you'd expect that grandmaster of the prior sign would look. like.

One of the most interesting aspects of Plantard's interview was his mention of an obscure village in southwestern France called Ren Les Chateauve. He said that it held a great secret, a treasure, but not necessarily a material one. Fascinating interview. I'll never forget the look on Plantard's face. Totally incredulous. Like, either I can't believe you figured it at a little. out. Or, I can't believe you've come to this conclusion. I never really meant for any of this

to be taken very seriously. It's the life of me. I don't know which I believe. The small southern French village of Renla Chateau has been at the heart of the priory of Cyan mystery for over 40 years. It's said that in the 1890s, the village priest became fabulously rich overnight after digging up a vast treasure. But what did he discover? Was it gold and coins or something much more important? Renlishteau is a small town in the French mountains that has some unique characteristics. A father named Sunier was in charge of a church there. Suddenly in the 1800s he started making lots of improvements to the church. Everybody wanted to where his money came from.

The rumor started that he had discovered buried treasure inside of the church. The mysteries of Renalachateau are three. Where did he get the money? What did he actually find? And why did he do with it what he did, which was the way that he's decorated church, is very unorthodox.

So those are the underlying mysteries of Wren. And they exist today. You can go and research. The possibilities of what Beringer-Sahenie found are almost endless. Did he find information about the whereabouts, the bodies of Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene? Did he find something as simple as treasure from the French Revolution? Did he find heretical information that the church would have been nervous about getting out into the public, such as Jesus Christ not being crucified?

The possibilities are really quite daunting. Prior to Zion are clear that there is or there were very important items at Renla Chateau. They certainly allude to there being a body, and the question is whose body? Because is it the body of Mary Magdalene? Is it the body of Jesus? Renla Chateau is an interesting little town in the south of France and the mountains that has some interesting characteristics. A local priest named Berringer Sonier was in charge of the local

parish and suddenly in the 1800s he started making massive changes to the church. The church was dedicated to Mary Magdalene, which was not that uncommon in the south of France. There was a cult known as the Black Madonna cult that basically venerated Mary Magdalene. So Sunnier started making improvements to the church and built a big house and built a big power and had suddenly come into a lot of money. And the question was where that money came from. Historian Andrew Goff has spent years investigating the Priory of Sion and the Renles Chateau mystery. He believes that the village priest, Berenge Saint-Sonneir, deliberately left clues to

what he discovered in the decoration of the church. So the church of St. Mary Magdalene, we walked in or greeted with. A devil. What's a devil doing greeting you in a Catholic church or any kind of church? Actually, it's not a devil. It's Asmodius, who is the keeper of Solomon's temple and treasure. Asmodaeus is known in mythology as the guardian of the great treasure of the temple of Solomon. And it's very unusual to find the statue at the entrance of a church. Did Sonnier place it here to signify that this church was a place that concealed a great treasure also? Some people believe that he left an enormous clue in one of the stations of the cross on the wall of the church.

This is really interesting. The stations of the cross are generally standard, but there's some that are really peculiar, and this is one of them. So this is Christ being moved into or out of the tomb. What makes it peculiar is the fact that it appears to be a nighttime scene. It appears to be a nighttime scene because there's a moon in the upper left-hand corner. And by Jewish law, you can't have a burial at night. So it seems to be, researchers believe, calling attention to the fact that something is not quite right with the story about the burial and arguably the whole crucifixion of Jesus Christ.

The implication here is that if Christ is being moved at night, he's still alive. There's also a curious depiction of Mary Magdalene on the front of the altar inside the church. In the mural on the altar depicts Mary Magdalene in a cave that is clearly in the landscape of Rennes Chateau. You can see one of the local mountains from the cave. And there is a grave next to her. She is beside a grave with her fingers crossed, which is the classic. depiction of Mary Magdalene in art, so that identifies her. And there was a grave with a cross, made of wood with two live shoots growing from the cross. And this was thought to indicate that the tomb of Jesus was perhaps in the vicinity of Ranneschateau,

and that there were two descendants from their marriage, that there were two children. So this was one of the origins of the bloodline, the idea of the bloodline of Jesus. Curiously, Sonnier built a tower in his garden dedicated to Mary Magdalene, On its staircase inside is a small observation window which looks out across the valley to a burial site and some local cliffs. To what many believe locally was the burial place of Mary Magdalene after she came to France. The theory went that Mary Magdalene had left the Holy Land while she was pregnant with Joseph of Arimathea and settled in southern France. As a result, this cult grew up in the south of France with this fascination with the Mary Magdalene's story.

The fantastic thing about the mystery to run the chateau is there are so many theories. Did Sonnier find gold from the Visigoths who had sacked Rome after they sacked Jerusalem and all the temple of Solomon treasure is purportedly in this area and was looked after by the Cathars, who were also resident all around Renla Chateau. Or had he found or been told where he could find the body of Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene? Did he find proof that Jesus Christ was not crucified,

that he was swapped with religious zealots? There's a number of possible treasures at Renla Chateau, or that were put there for a time and then moved. The treasure is either the body of Jesus, possibly the body of Mary, or their children, so some kind of family tune relating to Jesus, or that it's documents, that it's evidence, that it's gospels, that give evidence that the actual historic events were different to what we've got in the Bible.

To me, that's more interesting and more important. Bodies are bodies, but actual documentation from the time is a far more interesting idea. Gino Sandry is a French artist and academic, who also claims to be a member of the Priory of Sion. For many years he worked as the right-hand man to Pierre Plantard, the former Grand Master of the Order. Today he lives in Paris, where he agreed to be interviewed.

As a member of the Priory of Sion, I was working with Pierre Plantard. I was General Secretary, therefore I was in charge of public relations and external communications. I was there at the interview with Henry Lincoln and Pierre Plantard. I helped Pierre Plantard prepare the interview to say the correct things to Henry. They talked about the treasure at Ren Les Chateau. People knew there were treasures at Ren.

There were a lot of treasure hunters looking for material treasures. The searches had found tombs. They had opened them and found. They had opened them and found certain things. But Pierre Plantard wanted to make it very clear that Ren is a place where there are many layers of treasure. By shining a spotlight on Ren Les Chateau, you attract the public's attention.

Everyone starts looking at Ren Le Chateau. There are lots of things that are coded in secret, because the whole thing about the Merovingian kings and its lineage, it's all just a legend. We wanted to make this public knowledge because hidden behind these legends are certain truths, certain secrets that we want to be known. One of the great mysteries of the Priory of Sion are the so-called secret dossier that appeared at the National Library in Paris in 1964. They purport to show not only the history of the organization, but most importantly,

a list of its grandmasters. One of the big pieces of evidence for the Priory of Zion was a series of documents that were found in the Bibliotech National in France, which is the National Archives there. And there was a list of grandmasters dating back from the time of the Knights Templar that included all sorts of famous people

like Leonardo da Vinci and Isaac Newton, Isaac Newton, Jean-Lercoctoe. It's a who's who list of history. It's got Da Vinci on it. It's got all these important figures. Artisans, painters, right the way through history. Back to the old families, the early heads of the Priory of Sion were listed as members of the Knights Templar,

the old nobility, like what would have been considered the bloodlines. There's something quite intriguing about it, because although they couldn't possibly have been grandmasters of the Priory of Sion, for various reasons, including the fact that prior to society didn't exist until 1956. They're not random names. Yes, they're famous names, but they all had something in common. They were all interested in esoteric subjects.

And it wasn't usually well known by the general public or even historians that Isaac Newton was an alchemist, or for that matter that Leonardo da Vinci was into esoteric stuff. I mean, that's fairly recent information. Whoever compiled the list, the list had inside information about esoteric matters and who had been interested in it over the centuries. If we believe the dossiers, then what it tells us is that the Briarizayan is an ancient organization that goes back to the time of the Crusades, led by thought leaders called Grandmasters.

And what they're doing is they're preserving an ancient order that is looking after a sacred bloodline going back to Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene and even before to the time of David. Although there's no record of who deposited the so-called secret dossier into the National Library in 1964, it's thought that Pierre Plantard was behind it in an attempt to legitimize the history of the society. What it was in reality was a set of documents planted by Plantard in the Bibliotech National, and then later on he discovered them and said, and said that there was a royal bloodline, the Merovingian bloodline,

that he could prove that that bloodline went back to Jesus Christ. If you were to prove that Jesus didn't die on the cross, for example, that would have a detrimental impact if it was released at the wrong time to the wrong people. So the way Zion works is at various periods of time, what they call circuits, they release information. So they almost go dormant over long periods of time,

sometimes hundreds of years, passing this information on through family bloodlines, aristocracy, and through secret societies, and sometimes through ritual. They will encode this information and pass it on to a time when society is prepared to understand it and to absorb it and to take it on. One of those who claims to be passing this information on is an Englishman called Nicholas Haywood, who claims to be a spokesperson for the Priory of Sion today, albeit in an unofficial capacity. He says they are a real organization, which is still very active today. Representing the underground stream of vital knowledge, vital to man, man's evolution,

man's past, for there have been many civilizations of man, far more than people think. And its purpose really is to, as always been, to over. the evolution of man. It's been about nothing else. Although, of course, it is esoteric, yes, in its nature. It is also mystical. It has to be because man's origins are mystical. Normally, members are not permitted to divulge their membership. In fact, it's normal for them to deny it, even to the point of being, even though it may cause them legal problems, it may cause some political problems, it may cause them bankruptcy, it may cause some all kinds of untowardous and risk, but that is part of the deal. Unless, of course,

you agree to act as a spokesman, then, obviously. I only know of two spokesmen for the prime reason. Who are there? I'd rather not say. I mean, I'm acting as one. But in terms of numbers, what would you say? I'm not permitted to tell you what they're That was one thing that was made plain to me. They are a society with secrets. Some secret ritual, some with an esoteric base that goes back 15th, 16th century, some of it. The point is often made that this goes back a long time.

It's a question of honor. And if a man can't be trusted to keep the secret of a handshake, or the secret of a ritual or an entrance password. How can he be trusted with anything else? That's not exactly a secret society. That's a society that has some secrets. Haywood confirmed that while they do protect a great secret at Ren Les Chateau, it is not the body of Jesus Christ.

No, Jesus' body was not brought back to Renélet at all. that's that I will tell you now Jesus' body was not brought back to ruin the shadow or its own bit wrong

The Prairie of Zion or Zion is a complete fabrication the idea that this was some interior group protecting the blood of Christ an absolute and complete fabrication

I believe that there have been secret societies and still are that preserve information that against current dogma of religion and politics is kept quiet. Maybe they preserve artifacts. Fine. That's to be expected.

I don't believe the Peraria Zion is one of those. I believe it was founded in 1956 by Pierre Plantard and his mates. When the book, Holy Blood, Holy Grail was released, it claimed that the priest of the village of Renle Chateau, Berengé-Sonneire, discovered some coated parchments at the end of the 19th century during renovations of his church, which alluded to their being a great and sacred treasure buried there. Artist and author, Jean-Luc Chomé, claims that a French aristocrat, Philippe de Chirisse, wrote and compiled these parchments alongside Pierre Plantard,

and that the whole Priory of Scion Affair was just an elaborate hoax. What's more, he claims to still still be a little bit of the same thing. have the original papers to prove it. This is the dictionary of Bible that used Cherisee to do the parchments of Rennes-le-Chateau. He claims that Descherese and Plantard lifted some text from an old reference book to create the coated parchments that were revealed to the world in Holy Blood Holy Grail. They then added certain key words to the text, including Sion, to make it say what they wanted. It is the beginning of the story.

If there are no parochence, there are no story. It's clear. According to Shomei, Pierre Plantard warned him not to go public with what he had seen, and therefore not reveal the huge hoax that they were hoping to pull off. He gave me this, and he said to him. And he said to me, say to me, don't publish that just 20 years after my death. Plantard was claiming to be descended from the Merovingian line of kings and that he was in fact in line to be the next king of France.

This is something that he desperately wanted. And he was using the dossiers that were. discovered in the Bibliotech National to back up his claim. Plantar and his colleagues built the Renlachateau mystery into their idea of creating the story of the Merivindian kings of France and their sacred bloodline. It was brilliantly done, you know, imposing one story on the other. The whole idea that you could fake a lineage and become a king as a result of it. You know, that's something I think would have worked

maybe 500 years ago in medieval days. It's not going to work in the 20th century. There's no way. It's amazing to me that they weren't laughed out of Paris, laughed out of France, when they tried in the first place. On closer inspection, the three

main figures behind the modern priory of Scion had a checkered past. So how much can we really believe them? Philippe de Chirisé was a disgraced and panelist aristocrat. Gerard de Ced was a struggling author, and Pierre Plantard was a convicted fraudster. There's a white elephant in this story. It's the fact that Plantard, DeSheresy, and DeSed, you know, their ambition to create this hoax should be applauded. It is amazing. It is a long

con. And I don't think they ever dreamed they would be as successful as they were. What were they trying to do? They were trying to write history, to rewrite it, to rewrite it, to create an expectancy about who should be the King of France. Clantard was a con man whose reputation went back for decades. He had a history of starting these organizations and claiming hundreds or thousands of members that never had more than one or two people. And in fact, the Priory of Zion was started in the 1950s as an organization to lobby for or better public housing and had nothing to do

with the line of Merivangian kings or the body of Christ or anything else. When you make a claim like you are the rightful heir to the throne of your country, or even if you insinuate that, guess what? You know, that's not gonna be welcomed very cordially. So the courts got involved and said, excuse me, you know, we have a system here, elections,

what are you trying to say, you should be king? Didn't go down well. And they took him to court. And as you might expect, he had to admit and did admit they made it all up. It was a fraud. If it was a huge hoax, there are still elements of the puzzle that don't quite add up. In 1963, French artist and former grand master of the Priory of Sion, Jean-Coptou, painted a mysterious mural in a church in London.

West End. In it seemed to be real clues which support the Priory's claims that Jesus didn't die on the cross. Author and historian Lynn Pickett agrees. This is not the straightforward biblical story quite clearly. For a start, you assume that it's Jesus who is being crucified, but actually there's no proof because all you see is the man who is being crucified from, basically from the knees down. Allegedly the Priory of Zion, believed that Jesus did not die on the cross and that there was a surrogate killed in his place. I mean, I don't believe the crucifixion was the fix is in, and we're going to pretend he's dead, make him fulfill the prophecies and bring him back. I think that idea is upsetting and insulting to

too many people. The Priory of Zion is not such an upsetting, insulting idea. It's just kooky. The final verdict on the Priory of Sion and its machinations. Was it just a clever hoax? Or were there kernels of truth amid all the fantasy? Truth, which would hold the power to threaten and undermine our modern understanding of Christianity. Coming up when forbidden history returns. The Priory of Sion is one of history's great enigmas. But how real is it?

Are they an ancient group, as they claim, who are sworn? to protect a great secret? The survival of Jesus Christ after the crucifixion and his marriage to marry Magdalene? Or is it a clever modern hoax created by Pierre Plantard and his friends back in the 1960s? Most historians say that there is simply no credible evidence for the existence of the priory or their claims, and it lives on in the minds of conspiracy theorists. But there is a growing acceptance that the truth about Jesus and his life could well have been distorted and changed down through the centuries, and that we are moving towards a time when an altogether different and possibly more human figure might emerge as the leader of Christianity for a new millennium.

The aim of the Priory of Ceyon is to further mankind. It is always to further mankind for its betterment. And that may mean breaking a lot of religious dogma, a lot of society mindsets, a lot of nationalism, a lot of things like that that restrict people and to hold them back. So there'd be various opportunities in history where if the right information is released, enough people will recognise it and will feel internally that it's closer to the truth than what they're being told. The thing about the prairie is it's a bit like a mugpipe.

in the sense that it picks bits of myths and legends and puts them all together to make this mystifying, but extraordinarily enticing and romantic story that just draws people in. I don't think there's very much that you could find that would change the essential beliefs of Christianity. I really don't. I don't think the discovery that Jesus might have been married

upset people as much as you might have I don't think it would have changed too many people's faith. Christianity is too deeply ingrained in what we believe. I don't believe the Priory of Zion is real. There may be people who claim to be members today, but I don't think there's an organization around anymore. There's too much evidence that Plantard was planting all this stuff and making up these wild stories

that I just don't believe that there's anything to them. We don't know for sure that there's a priory of Zion or not. They come out in public a little bit, they lift the veil for a week or two, give us a quote, and they run away and hide. So I'd like a little bit of coming forth. I'd like a little bit of validation that they exist. Everything to do with the priory is like a kaleidoscope, you know.

You shift it and you shift it and you see little bits that might seem to go together and then you shift it again and oh you think oh it's cool come together and then it starts moving again you know into fragments because no one explanation ever works on any part of the Priory of Scion mystery. Prior to sign have existed for a long time but they've used different names and that's why they're so hard to trace and easy for people to say they don't exist and it's a way of protecting information through history You create an underground stream of information that you pass through different groups, and then at various points in history it's brought back together and it's released.

Peace at a time. It's possible that what's claimed to be the core secret of the Priory of Zion is in fact true, that Jesus married Mary Magdalene and then fled with her to France to avoid further trouble with the authorities in Jerusalem. It's also possible that they remain buried there. there, maybe in Ren la Chateau, and that the evidence to prove these facts has been kept and concealed down through the centuries. And that was probably the Priory's greatest trick, to fuse history and conspiracy theory

so seamlessly that there would be kernels of truth in their story, allowing people to make a leap of faith towards believing their version of events. And in the incredible success of Holy Blood, Holy Grail and the Diviniscences. the Da Vinci Code, the Priory of Science story was catapulted into millions of homes across the planet, and a modern urban legend was born.