The Daily Grail

December 16, 2001 12:08 AM

The Daily Grail has evolved into the memepool for anyone interested in Fortean phenomena. It also has a useful penchant for weird but true science - I check it a lot simply for these odd links. The obsession with Rennes-le-Chateau goes with the territory. The other one with ananova is less easy to explain.
posted by thatwhichfalls (9 comments total)

Great links!
posted by UrbanFigaro at 12:43 AM on December 16, 2001

That's very cool. I now know that you can be eaten by and whale and survive.
posted by RobertLoch at 1:38 AM on December 16, 2001

There was a pretty thorough debunking of the whole Rennes-le-Chateau/Priory of Sion mythology published in the final issue of Gnosis magazine. Well worth searching out a copy if you've ever wasted any money (like I have) on those crappy Michael Baigent paperbacks claiming that Christ's tomb is located beneath Rennes.
posted by MrBaliHai at 6:23 AM on December 16, 2001

More news from the edge in Whitley Stieber's Unknown Country.
posted by ferris at 6:40 AM on December 16, 2001

I think the text of the Priory of Sion debunking is here. Or at least an article with the same title by an author with the same name.

(I haven't read it yet, but fully intend to when I've posted this.)

I've only read Holy Blood, Holy Grail, but wouldn't consider it to be a waste of money, as long as you don't actually believe it (much like Carlos Casteneda). More fun than UFO abduction stories anyway - there's only so many rednecks with probes up their arses one can take.

I was reading some of those Rennes links earlier on - interesting stuff about the intertwining of Royalist and Religious sympathies. I don't find it that much of a leap to consider the possibility that there might be a bunch of sour old anti-republicans who believe they are divinely descended from Jesus. I hope that's suitably different from my actually thinking they might be.
posted by Grangousier at 7:44 AM on December 16, 2001

I've only read Holy Blood, Holy Grail, but wouldn't consider it to be a waste of money

One's mileage may vary of course, but unfortunately, many people do believe those books. As someone who's done a fair amount of freelance journalism and also has an amateur interest in early apocryphal religious texts, I've got a hard spot for people like Baigent and Lee who foist poorly researched, sensationalist, pseudo-historical piffle like this on an unsuspecting public. They started with the premise that the Priory of Sion was real, and then manipulated the entire series of books to support that view, facts be damned.
posted by MrBaliHai at 10:33 AM on December 16, 2001

True, but as I think Umberto Eco pointed out in Foucault's Pendulum, they did put all the most prominent bollocks together in the same place, which was a sort of service to the credulous. There are almost certainly better books to be found on (my favourite bits) Sauniere, the Cathars and the Templars. The thing I liked about HB&HG was that it served as an introduction to all three. Colin Wilson's book The Occult does much the same thing, but far better, though not as way out. The Jesus and Merovingian stuff goes on a bit. The PoS stuff I found rather dull, certainly less interesting than the truth (which I'll take to be that Gnosis article, for the sake of argument). So for me, the distillation of Sauniere and Cathar romantic myths were worth the price of admission alone.

Actually, The Cathars and Reincarnation is a better book on that benighted people, and that's prime bollocks. I've read other bits and pieces here and there (including an online article that I've mislaid, on why the Cathars are so attractive to fringe groups and the insane from hippies to nazis). Any recommendations?

I'm a fan of Ken Campbell rather than a genuine seeker after occult truths if that helps explain anything.
posted by Grangousier at 11:52 AM on December 16, 2001

And what do you think of Frances Yates?
posted by Grangousier at 11:59 AM on December 16, 2001

The PoS stuff I found rather dull, certainly less interesting than the truth

It's true, the whole right/left Kulturkampf of post-Sedan France is quite bizarre and convoluted. Secret wars of the intellectuals! Very interesting.
posted by rodii at 12:02 PM on December 16, 2001