And that sizzling sound you hear is my brain frying.

Yesterday, I continued my week of books about the middle ages with a book that involved the Knights Templar, Rennes le Chateau, and Oak Island. I praised that book for being a fun read, that wove disparate topics together effectively, telling a story in a way that is fast-paced and consumable.

This is not that book.

This book is so badly put together, it’s painful. Here’s a typical sentence:

“Apart from the twenty-two cards of the Major Arcana in the Tarot it was in 598 B.C. that Solomon’s temple was destroyed: 5 + 9 + 8 = 22. July 22nd is the Feast of St. Mary Magdalen. Dagobert II was assassinated in 679: 6 + 7 +9 = 22. The unfortunate Jacques de Molay who was burnt at the stake was the twenty-second Grand Master of the Templars. The French transliteration of Christ’s cry from the cross – Elie, elie, lamah sabactani – contains 22 letters and is also the opening verse of Psalm 22. On January 22nd, 1917 (2 + 2 + 1 + 9 + 1 + 7 = 22), Berenger Sauniere died…

Just a strong of curious coincidences?”

I’m going to go with Yes. Especially since the authors warned me in the previous chapter that:

“The mind compares and contrasts; it creates shapes and patterns, then refers back to them.

This is not to say, of course, that there are no genuine external patterns – it is merely to suggest the need for a little caution and circumspection. […] Sadly, the mystery of Rennes-le-Chateau is not without its share of these blind alleys and wills-of-the-wisp.”

Of course, that was right before they followed the Paris Meridian through a church in Dunkirk, the Cathedral at Amiens, Campremy, St. Remy, Saint Denis, St. Suplice, Sion, Conques, Mazamet and a dozen other places – all tying back to the secrets of Rennes le Chateau – imagine!

I feel like I’m playing Knights Templar bingo. I can’t do it justice.

It’s not that includes so many different things; it’s that they don’t weave them together coherently.

This book has a special place on my shelves. When I am having trouble sleeping, I read a few pages, my brain shorts out, and I fall asleep.¹ For your sake, I’ve been trying to read it again this week and I am officially giving up and tonight I’m switching to the book I wrote about yesterday.

The things I do for this year’s passion project.

What else does this book include? A crazy cipher, based on the phrases, “Sauniere Sauniere” and “Tresor est a Rennes” anagrams, a chessboard layout and a knight’s moves. Alchemy. The Habsburgs. The Sinclairs and Oak Island (again). And Baigent, Leigh, and Lincoln, of Holy Blood, Holy Grail² fame.

That’s actually the funniest part of this book – the authors are quite dismissive of Baigent, Leigh, and Lincoln, wasting much ink tearing them down. There’s no beef like the beef between two conspiracy theorists playing in the same sandbox.

Perhaps your brain is stronger than mine and can handle this. I can generally handle books like this pretty well – I kind of dabble in books like this. And I remember the movie, Sign of the Wolf, fondly.³

But this one is beyond me.

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1. My collection also includes another book that I keep for this purpose, Moonwise by Greer Gilman. It’s probably out of print. It has a beautiful cover and a really interesting world, but characters I just could care less about, and a plot that lost me every time. I’ve never actually finished reading it, although I carried it with my on every business trip I went on for years and years until they invented eBooks. I guess I’ll never know what it was about or how they solved their problem. ↩︎
2. Also on my shelf. Not gonna write about it. Nope. ↩︎
3. Although it lacked Aliens. In fact, that was all it lacked. ↩︎