Customer Reviews

Key to the Sacred Pattern: The Untold Story of Rennes-le-Chateau

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Even though this book is split into two sections, there are really three distinct parts.

In the first Henry Lincoln gives a "light" account of his adventures with Rennes-la-Chateau. For those who've read The Holy Blood & the Holy Grail it is fun to hear of his first trip to Rennes, or his first meetingwith Plantard.

The second part is a recounting of the "purely objective" parts of the mystery. It's all pentagons, but not as obsessive as THE TOMB OF GOD.

The third part is admitedly speculative. If you've read the "Affirmations" section of The Dilbert Future, it's like that. Saying that there is not satisfactory proof for the thesis, but that it is worth investigating, he describes the layout of Bornholm island, Brittany, and Norway. There are some weird coincidences, like the persistance of the name "Rennes" (or something similar) in all these locations, but nothing is proven.

The last ten pages, which are part of the third section, argues that the English system is ancient and based on the distance between the poles. It's weird, possible, and not proven.

If you've just heard about Rennes-la-Chateau this is not the book for you. If you've already read much of it, and want some less heavy information about it, The Key to the Sacred Patternis the book for you.

In a lot of ways this book is really Henry Lincoln responding to the BBC2 television programme "History of a Mystery" which did much to disprove not only his own book ("Holy Blood, Holy Grail") but the derivative work "Tomb of God." This is also Lincoln's way to distance himself (only slightly, however) from the Priory of Sion story (which has very much been proven to be a hoax) and stick more with the geometry aspects of the story (which were really investigated first by David Wood in 1985).

This book is basically just Henry Lincoln setting down the events of his creation of the BBC "Chronicle" programs in the 1970s that opened up the alleged mystery of Rennes-le-Chateau to the European community. He wants to show the path he took to allow people to see that he was not "duped" as he has often been accused of and that the path he followed was logical. To a certain extent, it probably was logical. However, what Lincoln fails to acknowledge in this book (and all his other books) is that Jean Luc-Chaumeil, who does get mention in "Sacred Pattern," basically "ratted out" Pierre Plantard and the alleged Priory of Sion. Chaumeil's work has shown that the Priory was nothing more than a hoax that was started up by Pierre Plantard, who really was in a group of the same name that was started in 1956 by Andre Bonhomme. Thus, Lincoln was "duped." As was Gerard de Sede before him. He fell for the hoax, realized it, and then tried to latch on to another element of the "mystery" that seemed to have more promise and did not involve a "secret society." Lincoln also never mentions the massive contributions to the "mystery" by Jacques Riviere, Pierre Jarnac, and Rene Descadeillas. (He does briefly mention Descadeillas but then dismisses him without any explanation.) He also does not mention that he was presented with evidence from Jean Luc-Chaumeil before the publication of "Holy Blood, Holy Grail" that showed the Priory of Sion was a hoax and that he ignored. Lincoln, in his more recent research, has only concentrated on the alleged geometric aspects of the so-called mystery and he has given up trying to promote the Priory of Sion. That is basically what this book is about: setting up his new element of mystery, the alleged odd geometry. (He also did this because his 1991 "The Holy Place" is largely out of print and thus many of his fans were not aware of the extent of his work in this regard.

All in all, this is a relatively okay book if you want to try to get a very chronological fashion of how certain events happened during the course of the research, which is important to determine the veracity of an independent researcher like Lincoln. However, there is absolutely nothing new in this book that you could not read in "The Holy Place" or in the books that were co-authored with Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh. I would definitely not recommend this book unless you feel you just have to read everything on the story or you feel you need a "blow-by-blow" account, as it were, of Lincoln's research pattern.

Did people whom we think of today as 'prehistoric' and even 'primitive' actually have a greater knowledge of mathematics, surveying and what are called 'correspondences' than we moderns? The 'sacred pattern' of the title is a bunch of circles, pentagons and hexagons and other symbolic figures which has been found writ at large - over some seven square miles - in the landscape of a small area of rural France. Henry Lincoln, infamous for his 'Holy Blood, Holy Grail' now takes us on a sensible, believable journey of discovery. This account is fascinating reading: it is not wooly New Age stuff; Lincoln sticks to the very remarkable facts of the landscape, and arouses an astonishing number of questions about our early ancestors.

There is a peculiar hostility to information coming from the "Grail publishing industry", that began with the English publication of Holy Blood, Holy Grail (1982). Peculiar because book authors like Lincoln provide much clearer and much more documented historical perspectives on European history in general than many one-dimensional "public consumption" historiographies you may have have been force-fed in a school somewhere which really think "they have it." Well, I have to tell you. Histories that ignore these issues will always have it all wrong.

Above, for example, I have noted screed "reviews" of the book, where certain things (without reviewers' bothering to enlighten us on data for their hotheaded pronouncements) on so called "confirmed hoax" of this thing, and the "lies" of the pentagonal frameworks. All those words without information is just fluff taking up reviewer space and taking up your mind.

I have to enlighten you. Read Lincoln, because he deserves to be credited for ten years before others (1991 the first publication of these issues I think in a more public form, than simply occult venues; 1997 for this book). By the way, what he describes as the "pentagonal geometry" links up with what others academically call "archaeoastronomy".

This wider issue of archaeoastronomy (large geographic architectures of laylines, buried caches at such intersections, waybills, etc.), are instrumentally still being engineered as "late" as the U.S. Civil War to hide treasures, or they are found in the design of cities like Washington DC, or even the capital area of Israel.

There is an unbroken "occult geomancy-elite" tradition in European history that Lincoln stumbles upon. This is what it all connects to: a skien to how mainline European political history connects for quite some time with occult political history. For an English audience, Lincoln is one of the first to follow the trail of evidence. One should credit him for that.

Books I mentioned above I would share the titles for, for those willing to seek out the data for more examples of pentagonal (or other shaped) geometries as an ongoing occult marker system used by powerful political secret societies in European elite occult networks:

1. Key to the Sacred Pattern (1997)
2. The Secret Architecture of Our Nations Capital (1999)
3. The Knights Templar in the New World (1999, 2004)
4. The Templars' Secret Island (another co-authored Lincoln book, 2000, 2002)
5. Templar Gold (2001)
6. The Shadow of the Sentinel (2003)
7. The Lost Colony of the Templars (2004)

Without Lincoln's original research (as he was the one who connected and shared with Beigent and Leigh), perhaps the whole Holy Blood, Holy Grail "book industry" would still be only available in French. If at all. Moreover, the way it would be written about might still be limited to the realm of guesswork mythopoetry (along the lines like "stories of sea creature alien Atlaneans", etc.) instead of what we always have from teams that Lincoln is associated with: disciplined academic discussion, that gives the readers evidence while hardly demoting the drama of such discoveries either.

Thus, I salute Lincoln's ongoing work, and so should you. And because it is so thoroughly documented, paradoxically, is why a lot of disinformation gets peddled against such books. There are a lot of people and interests who want to keep citizens from knowing what actually goes on.

As always, read it for yourself and learn to mentally trash unattributed claims to authority (without evidence) in some reviewers above. After reading the above books as well, I would recommend it all the more because it does indicate an empirical pattern is seen elsewhere.

Welcome to your world. It requires patience to plumb. I'm glad Lincoln has the patience.

I don't know what "A reader from under and over my cap" is talking about - this book has nothing to do with alien snake creatures. It's about the peculiar landscape around Rennes-Le-Chateau, France, and the significance ancient people put on the area. Very interesting follow up to "Holy Blood, Holy Grail" and "Messianic Legacy" (and, I would assume, "The Holy Place", but I haven't read that one yet). There is quite a bit of mathematics in the final chapters, but is explained simply, so as not to deter readers with a fear of geometry. Read in 2 days !

I thought the book was "oversold" in a way. From reading the jacket it looked like the "answer" to the Berenger Sauniere mystery, to what on earth it was that turned this impoverished rural cure into a wealthy identity. Now, yes, I know we have the sacred geometry, but it's unfinished? Where's the follow-up on the trough near the grove of trees? Where's the follow-up on just what may have actually happened at the focal point of that pentagram? We don't see it. While the anecdotes are interesting, and tragi-comic in some cases, they almost appear out of place? In some parts I felt like I was reading "The Making of Holy Blood, Holy Grail"" (which I loved by the way).

After reading Andrews and Schellenberger's "The Tomb of God", Lincoln's books seems a little uncomplete. The author's merit is, without any doubt, to have risen the big question about Rennes le Château, with a series of documentaries and books.
After "The Holy Place", Lincoln embarks on a new adventure, recalling other interesting particulars which take the target out of Rennes le Château, leading the reader to North Europe and to Fibonacci and the Templars.
A little too much critic towards Andrews and Schellenberger (who, on their side, have the merit to provide useful information and to suggest further readings), in the first part Lincoln sounds a little too jealous of his own theories and unwilling to listen to other people's point of view. A little too fiction, so to speak. The only reference to "The Tomb of God" (which is not mentioned in the bibliography, indeed very small and not helpful)is really arrogant.
At any rate, the second part of this book is absolutely a must, something able to drag you attention to other interesting, fascinating aspect of human history.
recommended to those who think Rennes le Château is only one ring of the chain.

Do not waste your time, it is better to learn the facts in the telephone catalogue than read this book! This book was for me a BIG dissapointment! In 10 years people will laugh at the Lincoln "fantasy geometry" in the parchments. When the real solution is presented... Their are not any logical explanasions at all! Seriously no one can belive in the things presented in this highly speculative work. This are the kind of books that puts Rennes le Chateau in a very bad shape. If you buy this book you will keep up the New-Age picture that threat to destroy the genuine picture of Rennes. Lincoln has sold his soul. He joined a trend created by the people behind "Tomb of God" - the worst and most speculative book about Rennes ever written!

I have read about 10 books about Rennes, a place which I am personally very intressted in. I am well informed of about the authors argue but I do not simply find it logic.

If you did like "Tomb Of God", buy this book! You are a hopeless case.

Good Luck with your further studies of Rennes le Chateau. Sadly I can not recommend a straight good book about Rennes le Chateau. "THE HOLY BLOOD AND THE HOLY GRAIL" was OK.

- PANIS SAL -

it is that the seed of christ was in some way mixed by female descendant with a serpent, snake like, reptilian like alien. Thus arises the mergovians and their plan for a the establishing as country leaders the anti-kingdom of the serpent.