The Subscription Rooms, Stroud, 8 Feb 2005
The conference opened with Robert Bauval giving an illustrated talk about The Occult history of Paris and the Louvre Museum. He was followed by Peter Gandi who read a paper on the The Myth of the Goddess and the Magdalena, then by Tim Freke who spoke about The Jesus Myth. After the interval Adrian Gilbert gave an illustrated talk on The Legend of the Grail and the conference was closed by Robert who gave an illustrated talk entitled Freemasonry and the Sacred Feminine, subtitled Baldrick’s Cunning Plan, the opening of which is reproduced below.
Robert with Robert Bauval at the conference
It was certainly entertaining. It followed the well-established and much loved traditions of Baldrick's cunning plans, from the fictional Blackadder series. This particular cunning plan had vast ambition exceeded only by its incompetent implementation when faced with the reality of the world. All it lacked was turnips.
As with all Baldrick's cunning plans the idea was charmingly simple. Take a piece of acknowledged fiction and prove that it isn't fact, by setting up facts from the fiction and then showing them to be fictions not facts. On this basis Baldrick 'systematically demolished' the pillars supporting Dan Brown's thriller. Very wisely Dan Brown had nothing to do with this exercise in attempting to pull the wings off a butterfly to see what made it fly. Brown, superb story-teller that he is , works hard to blur the distinction between fact and fiction to draw his readers into an excitingly believable experience. And knows he is doing so.
However, Baldrick's quest, as a work of comedy, had much to commend it. It poked innocent fun at some aspects of Dan Brown's plot.
I'm sure Dan Brown, knows as well as I do, that the Grail Legends didn't originate until the twelfth century, so no surprises that Baldrick spotted this and 'demolished' that 'fact'.
His investigation of the hoax of the Priory of Sion, was less satisfactory as he didn't trace the joke back to Masonic writer A.E Waite, who originated the tradition of Secret Wardens of the Temple of Sion, in 1911. Baldrick preferred to show Pierre Plantard as an inspired surrealist rather than a creative plagiarist. Amusing but veering too much towards an excess of turnips.
Then Baldrick got to Freemasonry. He decided to investigate the role of the Kirkwall Scroll, a ancient Scottish Masonic Floorcloth, in the early history of Freemasonry. To do this he set up three 'facts' from the Da Vinci Code to be demolished. These were:
The Kirkwall Scroll is a 32 foot long and 8 foot wide floorcloth, made of sailcloth. It is rather like a painted carpet which is unrolled on the floor of a lodge-room during the ceremonies, for the initiates to walk on.
Here's the Coat of Arms of the Grand Lodge of the Antients
Here's the Third Panel of the Kirkwall Scroll.
Are these two images identical?
Is there perhaps some superficial similarity, but can you be sure that one did not inspire the other?
Did he really mean the Arms of the United Grand Lodge of England?
Should he really have argued the that Grand Lodge of the Antients could not predate the formation of the United Grand Lodge of England in 1813 since it has the UGLE Coat of Arms painted on it?
Has Baldrick been at the turnips again?
Or is he perhaps quoting English Masonic bigots George William Speth and William Reginald Day?
In 1925 Day claimed The Kirkwall Scroll contained the Arms of the Grand Lodge of the Antients. He quoted Speth’s 1897 article as his evidence.
Both were members of the highly bigoted QCC Lodge which has as its agenda to show Freemasonry started in England in 1717, rather than in Scotland prior to 1480 Neither of them were allowed to examine the Kirkwall Scroll. But then neither was Baldrick.Here's Panel 4 of the Kirkwall Scroll
I think this looks more like the Ark of Covenant surrounded by the tents of the Tribes at the site of the First and Holy Lodge. Perhaps I should eat more turnips
Here's the floorplan of Rosslyn Chapel, taken from The Hiram Key
It shows what Dan Brown calls 'the famous path worn into the chapel floor, the same path Dr Robert Langdon has seen the visitors walking earlier in the evening'
Another ingenious mix of fact and fiction as the shape is there, but to walk it is impossible, unless you can walk through stone pillars.
But sorry I forgot, Baldrick cannot tell the difference between facts and fictions and insists on treating Dan Brown's romp of a thriller as if it is a textbook.
I have to agree with Baldrick that this is not the plan shown on the Kirkwall Scroll.
But then only Baldrick seemed to believe it was Rosslyn in the first place.
So does this 'prove' that Rosslyn's floorplan is not a copy of the floorplan of Herod's Temple?.
Let's compare the floorplan of Herod's Temple with the floorplan of Rosslyn..(Image Taken from The Hiram Key)
Now that's a much better fit, if you leave the Kirkwall Scoll out of the argument. Is that why Baldrick put it in, I wonder?
Now this is a remarkable claim. The age of the centre section of the Kirkwall Scroll, which is much older than the outer sections has been measured as 1464 CE. The upper and lower error limits, so Baldrick claims must be 764 CE to 2154 CE . In other words it is quite possible that it might not yet have been painted and we may have to wait another 149 years for it to appear.
Wait a minute though! Baldrick showed an image of the Scroll which he accepted to be real,and I saw it myself over five years ago, and the paint was dry then. Hence the upper limit cannot possibly be 700 years, unless it fell through a time-hole. It couldn't be that Baldrick's witness made a slip of the tongue, substituting 700 years for the real value of 70 years, which makes the centre section of the Kirkwall Scroll date from between 1394 CE and 1534 CE. Surely Baldrick with his vast experience of archeology by JCB and skill in turning a small fragment of china into an eight foot amphora complete with laquered design, would have spotted such an simple slip?
Such a value would have not fitted into Baldrick's cunning plan to expose Dan Brown as a writer of fiction, so he choose not to correct it and just used that innocent slip of a tongue to prove his case that, Rosslyn had nothing to do with anything and its whole role in the orgins of Freemasonry is a pile of turnips. Surely the good Baldrick has not sold out to Opus Dei? He is not about to don alibino makeup and a monk's robe is he?
Satisfied that he had mixed sufficent lurid fictions into the so-called 'Dan Brown facts' he had set up to 'demolish', Baldrick, moved smoothly, or rather greasily, into a new role as expert best-selling thriller writer. [It was as funnily, unbelievable as his plus or minus 700 years error range on the radio-carbon date, but that just shows what a superb comedian Tony Robinson is when he plays Baldrick to the hilt.] In his new persona, he proceeeded to tell his audience 'that the Da Vinci Code wasn't even well written.'
Would that I had the talent to write as badly as Dan Brown and sell as widely!
As a piece of comedy satire. The Real Da Vinci Code, was extremely amusing. It showed Baldrick at his magnificent bumbling best and Tony Robinson was superb in that role, dashing hither and thither, babbling to all and sundry and even echoing snatches of Benny Hill with the occasional speeded up movements. All in all a splendid blend of fact and fiction.
But if Channel Four expects anybody to judge it as a serious documentary, in their own words, 'it wasn't even well-written'.To the sound of a great wave of laughter Robert, then moved on to discuss the role of the Sacred Feminine in Freeamasonry. He began by quoting from Chapter 105 of the Da Vinci Code.
Marie Chauvel says to Dr Robert Langdon. 'We are beginning to sense the need to restore the sacred feminine… You are writing a manuscript about the symbols of the sacred feminine, are you not? When Dr Langdon says he is, she adds ‘Finish it Dr Langdon, sing her song the world needs modern troubadours.’
Robert went on to outline how the symbols of the sacred feminine underpin the initition rituals of Freemasonry and using the tracing boards of Martin and Trevor Jackson, he went on to demonstrate this to the audience.
But if you want to find out what was covered in that section of the talk you will need to read Turning The Hiram Key. It might well be the book that Marie Chauvel encouraged Dr Robert Langdon to write, under the pen-name of Dr Robert Lomas.