Customer Reviews

The Templar Papers: Ancient Mysteries, Secret Societies, and the Holy Grail

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is the 3rd book I have read on The Templars. The text is a hodge-podge of interesting facts and spectulations on The Knights Templar. The disorganization and disjointed style makes the information difficult to follow. There is entirely too much repetition and too many rhetorical questions in every chapter. There is virtually no chronologic order to the material. It would have been very helpful to the reader if the author provided a simple map to indicate the location of the many places, temples, churches etc. mentioned in the text. It was difficult to know without searching other references if the location of the place, incident, battle, or refuge referred to was in the Middle East(holy lands), France, SCotland or England!

In Chapter 6, one of the contributing authors(Defoe)gives a history of the Canadian Masonic Templars and later in the same chapter, R. Lomas, presents a brief history of Freemasonary. This was a bit perplexing and again, this underscores the disorganization of the text material.

Finally, given the problems that quickly become obvious to the reader, the editor must take some blame or responsibility for the poorly organized material of the text.

I checked this one out from the library and managed to read it, but just barely. It is almost a textbook example of poor editing (both in terms of copy-editing - making sure all the needed words were present and that the punctuation was correct, and in terms of content-editing - making sure that the authors had something coherent and interesting and on-topic to say). If you want to know about the Knights Templar, read almost any other book in print -- this one is a waste of your time.

I didn't get a feeling that the authors answered the questions set out on the jacket to any great satisfaction. I definitely prefer reading Karen Ralls, as a scholarly author, rather than the popular history authors presented here.

For Templar buffs, the accumulation of the different
perspectives of this collection of author's theories is worth the read.

As in all books, there are kernels of truth. In reading this,
I gleaned some new concepts of the history of the Knights Templar.
Bettye Johnson,author, Secrets of the Magdalene Scrolls.

The compiler of this book has to be commended for finding scholars with "more of the story"!! I was fascinated with the story of the "Roussillon Templars" as we have several of those ancestors including Alaric the Goth who brought the temple treasures of Jerusalem out of Rome and into that Visigoth territory around Roussillon. Nice to know that more details wiped out by the Inquisitions in that area is finally seeing the LIGHT OF DAY!! Researching the families who were especially persecuted does seem to help! The detail on Henry of Blois and his crucial connections with Glastonbury and Winchester 'developments' is also fascinating. Thanks to Karen Ralls and this compiler for helping us put this history together again!!! Let us hope we won't have to deny another "holocaust" again and can move forward in life respecting all peoples.

For the most part I thoroughly enjoyed the Templar Papers. Very informative, especially with some things I had not heard or read before. Being from many different authors, including the one who compiled the articles for the book, it had many different views and flavors. Only one of the authors irritated me with his wild speculations that, to my view and my understanding through other research, are quite unfounded, and I think he was trying to create some controversy. The only other thing that could have been better is the proofreading. Overall, the book made me want to take a trip to the UK to check out some of these things in person!

The fact that this author would even allude to the fact that Jesus and Mary were lover shows the lengths a person will go to get someone to buy the book. Because of this, readers should be aware that a lot of suppositions will be made by the author to tantalize but not educate. How can one trust what he/she is reading in this book? Only lovers of pure fiction will enjoy it because truth is lacking here.

This is a compilation of both sides of the story. More of the same. Since buying this book the Catholic church has found some 700 year old documents regarding Templar history. In due time, I'm sure there will be a book explaining the findings. I'd recommend waiting for that release.