• Traces the journey of Otto Rahn, the occultist and one-time SS member who sought the Holy Grail and traveled widely throughout Europe as a researcher until his mysterious death in 1939
• Explores the modern legacy of the officially heretical Christian sect known as the Cathars
• Follows the author's own investigations into the location of the Grail and Rahn's legacy, taking readers on a journey through occult Europe
Meticulously following controversial 20th-century occultist, historian, and partially Jewish SS member Otto Rahn's investigations into the Holy Grail and Catharism, author and filmmaker Richard Stanley enters into the occult world of Europe. On his quest, the author encounters esoteric traditions that have survived since the Crusades and the Inquisition, ultimately finding a new spiritual path in his own life. At Rahn's family home in the Black Forest of Germany, Stanley unearths a cache of maps, photographs, and unpublished manuscripts. His journey in pursuit of Rahn's legacy then takes him to Montségur, in southern France, a mystical stronghold and one-time home of the Cathars, the esoteric and Gnostic Christian sect that was decimated in the medieval Albigensian Crusade. There he sees the extraordinary summer solstice light phenomenon that reveals the mystical past of the fortress and encounters witnesses who insist Rahn is still alive.
Methodically visiting every site on Otto Rahn's esoteric path, from France to Iceland, the author untangles legend from truth as he looks at the connections between the Cathars, the Rosicrucians, Julius Evola, neo-Cathar and Freemason Déodat Roché, and the mystical bleeding stones known as Lapsit exillis. He also examines the prophecy of the return of Esclarmonde de Foix, the White Lady, medieval priestess of the Cathars who appeared to Rahn during his search for the Grail. Richard Stanley is a filmmaker and anthropologist whose films include Dust Devil, Hardware, and Color Out of Space. As a journalist and documentarian, he has covered events in Afghanistan, Rwanda, and Haiti. A frequent contributor to publications including Fortean Times and the Sauniére Society Journal, he lives in Occitanie, France. 1
Close Encounters with the Ancient World
In a distant land, unreachable by your strides, a castle
by the name of Mont Salvat exists.
Wolfram von Eschenbach
I first came to the remote Pyrenean settlement of Montségur and scaled the mountain overlooking the village in the dog days of the summer of '92. Britain's Channel Four television had recently broadcast a hit show entitled The Real Jurassic Park, concerning efforts to extract dinosaur DNA from amber and were looking at a potential follow-up, provisionally entitled The Real Raiders of the Lost Ark, for a similar child-friendly, early evening slot. They say the devil makes work for idle hands and when the religion department offered me a healthy advance to research the story I jumped at the chance, being shy of a few pence at the time.
My initial companions on this ill-advised venture were a young researcher and occasional contributor to Britain's leading paranormal journal The Fortean Times, Mike Dee, and my then partner, artist, and designer Cat Knightly.
Given the European war had been over for forty-seven years and I had no great faith in the stories that Adolf Hitler was secretly alive and living in Argentina or Antarctica, I had no reason to believe I might be putting Cat in danger by bringing her with me. None of us had the slightest inkling of the rabbit hole we were about to fall into or just how deep that hole would be, a black hole in consensus reality lined with jagged, inconvenient data that would tear apart everything I thought I knew about modern Europe and give me an unwanted insight into the dark forces that brood over our fragile civilization. Certainly the meridional sun shone brightly enough and the day was warm as we steered our rental car up the windin
