Wishing all of you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! 

Another Secret Mission of The Templars: THE COMING OF THE PARACLETE, Part one

Yet another secret mission of the Templars was to 

prepare for the coming of the Paraclete. The original texts of 

the New Testament were written in Greek. ln the Greek text of 

the book of St. john, the word Parakletcs appears several times 

in Chapters XIV-XVI. This word has been translated into English 

as "Comforter." No single English word, however, conveys all 

the significance of the Greek Parakletos which has meanings 

relating to defender, helper, comforter and advocate. Some 

theologians prefer to use the anglicized word Paraclete. 

At the last Supper, after the Christ had revealed to 

his disciples that he would be betrayed and would not be with 

them physically for very long, he told them that he would be 

followed by the Paraclete, a manifestation of the Holy Spirit or 

the Spirit of Truth. Christ went on to give a number of hints 

about the nature of the Paraclete. He indicated six character- 

istics or functions: 

1) lt would be with the disciples, and in them (John 14:17). 

2) It would teach and recall the teachings of Christ (John 11:

26). 

3) lt would testify of the Christ (John 15:26). 

A) lt would make men aware of their errors, and of what is 

really meant by justice (John 16:8). 

5) lt would guide men into an authentic realization of what is 

truth (John 16:13). 

6) lt would prophesy (John 16:13). 

The Templars considered the Paraclete to be the 

manifestation of the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of Truth and 

Revelation. For them its coming would herald the completion of 

the cycle of a phase in the evolution of our planet, when the

Triune nature of the Divine will have been brought in through 

concrete manifestation -t he Father aspect through Melchisedek; 

the Son aspect through the Christ manifested in Jesus of Naza- 

reth; and the aspect of the Holy Spirit through the Paraclete. 

The Templars believed that they were given the mission of 

preparing men's minds for the coming of the Paraclete, so that 

one day they would be able to perceive truth directly without the 

intermediary of a spiritual teacher or master. Today it is 

believed that we are now entering, or have entered the Age of 

the Paraclete. Accordingly, men and women in our time will need 

to make less efforts to develop their spiritual intuition than their 

forebears in earlier cycles. The coinciding presence of the 

Paraclete and the currents of the Aquarian Age will ensure that 

our current cycle will be unique in the history of our planet. 

ATTRIBUTES OF THE PARACLETE Returning to the particular 

attributes of the Paraclete, the Cosmic vibrations which work 

through the aspect of the Divine which is called the Holy Spirit 

have begun to manifest. Not only will they accelerate the 

development of man's spiritual intuition if he makes the 

necessary efforts to purify his vehicles by living the Christ life, 

but the power of the Paraclete will dynamize the uncovering of 

truth in all areas of life. Already one can observe that many 

former secrets are being forced into the open, and the general 

public is becoming rapidly aware of many things, both spiritual 

and material, which have been hidden for centuries. 

THE MODERN TEMPLAR The modern Templar, like his 

predecessor in the Middle Ages, has a special responsibility to 

facilitate the unfolding of the Paraclete and to propagate the 

awareness of the new influences by the state of spirituality he 

radiates. He will not need to go about enquiring into hidden 

things. By his efforts to purify himself and open himself to the 

new influences he will automatically stimulate the realization of 

what truth is in the people around him. The law of cause and 

effect (or Karma) will guarantee that Templars of today will reap 

the harvest of seeds sown by the martyred warriors of the red 

cross some six hundred years ago.The Christ force, now accelerating the return to its 

Source, is facilitating the entry onto the scene of the Holy Spirit 

or Paraclete, which has the particular role of awakening in Man 

the realization of Truth. ln turn the action of the Paraclete will 

favour efforts by the Christ Consciousness to free itself from the 

restriction of matter. lf man plays his part, the action and 

reaction of these two positive forces will ensure that the program 

for the return of Cosmic Consciousness back to the Divine Creator, 

in the sense mentioned in these lectures, will be carried out on 

schedule. The French translation of the Paraclete (Gr. παράκλητος, Lat. paracletus  

advocate or helper) as "Consolateur" with the etymological meaning of "he who 

restores together" sums up this process well. lt suggests the 

coming together of the Godhead and its physical creation. 

THE SECRET MISSION OF THE TEMPLARS & The Arab World

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.  

MOSLEM BROTHERHOODS There is documentary evidence that 

despite the continuous state of military confrontation which 

existed between the Christian and Moslem armies in the Holy 

Land, there were very close contacts between the Templars and 

certain Moslem brotherhoods. It is known that the Templars 

signed secret treatises with the Islamic sect of the Ismailis, and 

it was demonstrated on several occasions during combat between 

Arab and Templar forces that certain ideals of chivalry were 

respected on both sides. 

There were of course the famous contacts between the 

Templars and the Fraternity of the Assassins, a secret fraternity 

and offshoot of the lsmailis founded around 1090 by Hassan 

Sabah. The head of the Fraternity was known as Sheikh-el-jebel, 

or "the Old Man of the Mountains." Certain historians have 

argued that the real meaning of the title was "the wise man or 

sage of the Kabalah or Tradition." 

THE ASSASSlNS  

Although opinions differ as to the real 

nature of the Assassins, there is general agreement that the 

Fraternity taught a secret doctrine which was transmitted only to 

the initiated. There must certainly have been some connection 

between the Assassins and Sufism. lt also appears that the 

organization of the Fraternity and its religious codes and 

regulations greatly resembled those of the Templars. 

The old belief that the Assassins were a fraternity of 

drugged murderers (the Arabic word hashishvln meaning partaker 

of "hashish," the local marijuana) may have been greatly ex- 

aggerated during the period of the Crusades when anything 

pertaining to lslam was given an unsavoury reputation in Western 

Europe. Unfortunately ·the word assassin was adopted in some 

European languages with the meaning it has today, although it 

may well have derived from the Arabic word "assas," meaning 

foundation. 

THE DRUZE A brief diversion concerning the fraternity 

known as the Druze might be in order here. This group is found 

in Lebanon, Syria and lsrael today. Certain authors have 

suggested that some of the teachings of the Druze might be of 

Templar origin, and members of the fraternity do talk of their 

co-religionists in Europe, especially in Scotland! Contacts 

between the sect and the Knights Templar could easily have 

occurred during the period of Templar presence in the Holy Land, 

although this view may have arisen because Druze teachings are 

a mixture of judaism, Christianity and Islam, and include 

elements of Gnosticism. Within this amalgram is a secret oral 

tradition said to be practiced by an inner group whose initiates 

are known as Akkals or Okkals, and who possess seven secret 

books of teachings accessible until recently only to the "pure". 

Four volumes believed to contain these books have now been 

published in Arabic, not long after Druze villages in Lebanon 

were taken over by Phalangist Christians. No denial of the 

books' authenticity has been issued by the Druze sect, an 

omission which is significant by itself. 

lt is also believed that there were contacts with those 

Moslems who had settled as conquerors in Spain. Although there 

is no direct relationship to the story of the Templars, it is 

nevertheless interesting to note that the man considered to be the 

greatest mystic in the history of lslam, Ibn Al'Arabi, was born 

in Murcia, Andalucia. He first studied law in Seville, moved to 

the Middle East where he was initiated into Sufism in 1194. and 

died in Damascus in 1240 after an extraordinary spiritual career. 

THE SUFI TRADITION The flowerings of the Sufi tradition 

was also conterminous with the rise of the Templars. Although 

Sufism had already existed from the early phases of Islam, it 

was only around the tenth_ or eleventh century AD that it was 

institutionalized. The most important Sufi brotherhoods were 

founded between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries, but the 

golden age of Sufism was the twelfth century. It is therefore 

probable that given their mission the Templars would have been 

busy obtaining information during this period of spiritual ferment 

in Islam.  

UNIFICATION OF THE TRADITION You know of the transmission 

of the Tradition to Abraham by Melchisedek. This heritage was 

subsequently diverted into three main currents of Christianity, 

Islam and judaism. It was the task of Saint Bernard and the 

Templars to try to bring them together again. 

The Templars did not succeed in outwardly reuniting 

these currents. They did however manage to maintain the contact 

with Islam and to integrate certain teachings, as just mentioned. 

Through the Essenes and the Kabalists, elements were also trans- 

planted from Judaism, fall of which were to vitalize the spirit- 

uality of the Western peoples for the centuries which followed. 

Another secret mission of the Templars was to strive for the 

Return of the Christ. Their terminology for this objective was 

the "Return of the Christ in Solar Glory." This is the priority 

mission of the Temple today. One additional point can be 

appropriately made at this time: It concerns the puzzlement of 

historians as to why the Templars, with all their wealth and 

power, so meekly and passively accepted the destruction of the 

Order by Philip the Fair. The Templar tradition indicates that 

the main officers of the Order believed that one day the Order, 

like Christ, would have to sacrifice itself physically in order to 

facilitate the return of the Christ in victu; This could explain 

their courage in battle and why many of them accepted death and 

the decline of their Order during the period of the persecutions 

without physically defending themselves. 

Times have changed. In the present cycle, the modern Templar  

is not expected to sacrifice himself at the stake as did Grand Master  

Jacques de Molay on that cold October dayin I3ll..  

The Templar of today will rather be expected to 

sacrifice the selfish aspects of his nature so that the spirit of 

the Universal Christ shall manifest in him in victu: To describe 

this in alchemical language: man needs to master the cross of the 

four elements in order to achieve the awakening of Cosmic Unity 

and Consciousness in his being.