STRANDS OF THE TEMPLAR TRADITION

Saint Bernard of Clairvaux considered it his personal 

mission to reunite the different strands of the spiritual tradition 

and to adapt this synthesis to the age in which he lived. He 

had access not only to teachings known to the early Church 

Fathers but, through family connections, he had also been 

trained in Druidic lore. He despatched his Knights Templar on 

secret missions to seek teachings which had been guarded for 

centuries in certain brotherhoods of the Islamic and 

Judeo—Egyptian traditions. 

The nine Knights sent by him to jerusalem could not 

seriously have been sent just to guard the pilgrims. What could 

such a small body of men achieve as a police force in hostile 

territory? The real task of the nine Knights in jerusalem was to 

carry out research in the area in order to obtain certain relics 

and manuscripts which contained the essence of the secret tra- 

ditions of judaism and ancient Egypt, some of which probably 

went back to before the days of Moses. 

There is no doubt` that the nine founding Knights 

fulfilled this particular mission and that the knowledge obtained 

from their finds was taught in the oral tradition of the Order of 

the Temple‘s secret circles. Hence the rumour that when the 

Templars were seized by King Philip certain relics were spirited 

away for safe keeping. 

THE TEMPLARS AND THE GRAIL The Templars are said to 

have had close contacts with the Troubadours, those wandering 

minstrels whose poetry and song entertained the courts and 

peoples of Europe with stories of noble deeds. Some of these 

were themselves secret Templars, as is said of Wolfram von 

Eschenbach, the man who popularized the Grail legends. One of 

these legends relates that Gamuret, a knight and father of 

Parsifal, had another son named Feirefiz by a Moslem woman. 

Feirefiz also reaches the Castle of the Grail but cannot see the 

Grail itself until he is baptized, to which he agrees in order to 

marry the Grail King's daughter, whom he loves. Feirefiz is 

then able to contemplate the Grail, around which appears a 

message advocating tolerance for other races and creeds. The 

marriage takes place and a 'son' is born, the legendary Prester 

John, future guardian of the Grail.

LINKS WITH THE ALCHEMISTS & KABALISM  

There were links between well known alchemists and the Templars. One of these 

was Raymund Lull, a respected Catalan monk born in 1232. Lull, 

as well as being an alchemist, was a member of a secret circle 

of the Order of the Knights Templar. It is known that Lull was 

present as an influential member of the Church at the abolition 

of the Order at the famous Council of Vienne. Lull did not 

attempt to intervene. Either he was privvy to knowledge that the 

Order had arrived at the end of its cycleior he had simply 

concluded that there was no more he could no to influence events. 

He had argued strenuously for the unification of the Templar 

and Hospitaller Orders in the hope of thus saving the Templars, 

but in vain - Grand Master Jacques de Molay remained firmly 

opposed to the merger. 

Links have also been traced between the Templars and 

Kabalism, the esoteric branch of judaism. Several writers have 

alluded to the contacts which existed between the Templar 

tradition in Spain and the famous Kabalistic schools of the 

Iberian peninsula.  

THE SECRET MISSIONS OF THE TEMPLARS 

In addition to the activities just related, the 

Templars were entrusted with a number of secret missions. One 

of these was to work for the linking of Christianity and Islam. 

The word Islam means "confident submission to God." 

Islam is the religion promulgated by the Prophet Mohammed, and 

someone who accepts Islam is a Moslem. Islam dates from the 

seventh century AD when Mohammed, a welI-to-do Arab merchant, 

received instructions in a vision to bring the message of the One 

God to the Arab world. Mohammed himself did not claim to have 

started a new religion, but is reported to have said that his 

task was merely to bring Ito his countrymen the message of mono- 

theism already declared by the patriarch Abraham and other 

prophets such as Moses and Jesus.   

(All EXCERPTS FROM ICES LIBERS)