The Stargate Conspiracy

Introduction
by Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince

Revealing the truth behind extraterrestrial contact, military intelligence and the mysteries of Ancient Egypt

The Stargate Conspiracy exposes the most insidious, disturbing - and successful - mass manipulation of our times. Designed to bring us, hearts, minds and souls under the total control of the conspirators, this sinister programme has ruthlessly exploited our Millennial craving for signs and wonders - even hijacking the predicted return of the ancient gods. The Conspiracy...

Its central focus is the belief that the gods of the ancient world were extraterrestrials who created and civilized the human race, that they’re back - and that, communicating through special chosen ones, they are actively directing the way we think.

However, The Stargate Conspiracy reveals that this romantic and exciting scenario was in fact the brainchild of the West’s most powerful intellectual agencies. Designed to become a new religion for the 21st century, its real purpose is political - to make us easier to control. Centered on the search for lost secrets of the pyramid builders, this extraordinary true story reveals the links between US scientific intelligence agencies, Mars and ancient Egypt.

For almost 50 years, like Frankenstein’s monster, this conspiracy has been put together from cultish - but astonishingly powerful - belief systems, culminating in the emergence of a new fundamentalism that is gathering strength by feeding on Millennium fever.

Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince reveal the secret agenda that unites apparently independent authors and researchers - including top names with millions of readers worldwide - and which is targeted to all of us. The Stargate Conspiracy reveals that even the genuine mysteries of the gods themselves have been hijacked by powerful cabals - which include top industrialists, politicians, scientists and intelligence agencies such as MI5 and the CIA - in order to fulfill their secret agenda.

At the heart of this conspiracy is the belief that the ancient Egyptian gods were - and are - extra terrestrial beings, that certain key people are in contact with them, and that they are about to return through the ‘stargate’ between our world and theirs.

Are we prepared for the imminent return of the gods?

And will we be expected unquestioningly to accept the conspirators as our spokesmen?

Or is this an exercise in mass manipulation designed to make us support the conspirators?

As they calculatedly whip up Millennium fever, triumphantly persuading us that they alone know how to talk to the gods, this book serves as a serious warning to mankind.

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The Main Points

Over the last few years, the public has come to accept specific ideas about the ‘message’ of ancient Egypt, largely due to the works of certain high-profile authors. But we demonstrate that many of the principles of this ‘New Egyptology’ are not only based on false-premises, but have also been used by others as part of a secret long-term agenda. We reveal the shadowy presence of US government agencies behind the current interest in the Giza plateau.

An essential part of this plot is the alleged link between ancient Egypt and a lost civilization on Mars, based on the discovery of supposedly artificial features on that planet. We show that this view is seriously flawed, and that the intelligence agencies are actively encouraging the promotion of a meaningful Egypt-Mars connection.

We show that key people in the promotion of the ‘message’ of Egypt and Mars are involved in a cultish cabal who believes they are in direct contact with extraterrestrial intelligences from Sirius who claim to be the gods of ancient Egypt. This group, which has existed for almost fifty years, has included many famous names, multimillionaires and cutting-edge scientists. It has also, disturbingly, had a profound influence on the decision-making of certain world leaders...

The Stargate Conspiracy reveals that this group was in fact cynically and deliberately manipulated from the first by the CIA - and that this programme is ongoing.

We trace the inspiration for the conspiracy back to the ideology of certain extreme right-wing occult movements of the 19th and 20th centuries.

We conclude that the conspirators are deliberately harnessing the most profound and cherished beliefs of today’s society - from fundamentalist Christianity and the ‘message’ of ancient civilizations to the alien abduction scenario - to create a new, more widely acceptable religion for the post-Millennial West. We reveal that, underlying the apparently acceptable tenets of this religion is an insidious right-wing ideology, the true danger lurking inside the Trojan Horse of its New Age image. However, even though the manipulators have abused and hijacked the ancient Egyptian mysteries for their own ends, that does not mean that there are no such mysteries.

We reveal the ground-breaking research that provides a plausible answer to the most enduring questions about the ancient Egyptians’ achievements and beliefs - and, explosively, uncover the true nature of the gods themselves...

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Press Release
Stargate Conspiracy Triggers Massive Censorship Row

A.O.L. ACTIONS CENSOR CRITICISM OF C.I.A.

The launch of a new book (July 17th) entitled The Stargate Conspiracy by Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince, and published by Little Brown, has triggered a massive censorship row across the Internet. The book exposes governmental plans to hijack Millennium mysteries, through political interference or by manipulating belief structures.

Evidence has come to light that AOL, the UK’s largest subscription based Internet service, is through its actions assisting CIA designs on introducing a new belief system and form of racist fundamentalism for the New Age.

Despite connecting 8 million users across the UK and Europe, and carrying over 55 million “Instant Messages” every day, AOL has engineered a sudden and unexpected clampdown on Egypt News, an independent electronic newsletter supplied free of charge to 600 voluntary subscribers. Having operated successfully and completely unhindered since September 1997, Egypt News now defends itself amidst accusations of ‘spamming’ - a term used to describe the delivery of unsolicited mail across the Internet.

Whilst AOL claims to have responded as a result of a single complainant, Egypt News vehemently defend themselves, saying that subscribers are able to cancel their subscription without charge and at any time, adding that AOL closed down the service by changing its password without any form of consultation or investigation. In a statement, Chris Ogilvie-Herald, editor of Egypt News, asks,

“Does this not raise serious questions concerning the freedom and transmission of information?”

He adds:

“Despite our explanations that we were not sending unsolicited mail, AOL expressed no interest in reviewing the situation, reading the content of prior postings, acknowledge that the service was of a non-commercial nature, nor recognize the fact that it could not be termed unsolicited mail.”

A key clue into the reasoning behind AOL’s intransigence appears to lie in the content of the offending Egypt News article. In less than 30 lines, this message describes the content of The Stargate Conspiracy, a book by Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince which exposes a long term plan to take advantage of the turn of the Millennium by mixing established religious beliefs with ideas relating to ancient Egypt, extraterrestrial contact, alien abductions and channelling. Speaking on the unusual experiences of Egypt News, Clive Prince says “It is interesting that our posting provoked it”.

The Stargate Conspiracy reveals that behind the plot are intelligence agencies of more than one country, but led by the CIA as part of the Pentagons psychological warfare and parapsychology experiments. Involving the use of false prophets, ideas promoted by famous authors, hallucinogenic drugs, hypnosis and electromagnetic influence, the conspiracy has already influenced the decision making of world leaders and has led one social scientist to state that the project was “an elaborate psychological experiment sponsored by the defense community”.

However, unexplained experiences have not been restricted to email messaging. As part of the offending email, subscribers to Egypt News were referred to the official website for the book - a public forum for issues arising, debate and questions to the authors known online as the Stargate Assembly. However this website has experienced extremely erratic access patterns and an extraordinary level of interest from Virginia, USA, headquarters of the CIA. Within days of full details being posted, access rates for information on the The Stargate Conspiracy inexplicably dropped by at least 80%, whilst at the same time monitoring from Virginia peaked at 69% of total traffic.

IS A.O.L. ASSISTING C.I.A. NETWORK?

Despite claiming to provide customers and businesses with “an unprecedented array of new choices”, AOL’s action against Egypt News appears to have acted against the terms of the Internet Content Rating Association (ICRA), a group devoted to the protection of free speech on the Internet, and of which AOL is a founder member.

Speaking on May 12, 1999, David Phillips of AOL Europe, confirmed that the ICRA initiative was being taken to provide “concerned citizens the tools to protect their children and communities while ensuring the essential openness and freedom of the Internet.” Chairman of the ICRA board, Jens Waltermann, added “It is not for us or for governments to decide what is inappropriate.”

Further announcements made on June 10th and 17th, 1999, declared AOL to be operating an alliance with both BSkyB and Verio Inc. Targeting both Sky subscribers and web users via traditional forms of direct mail and television advertising as well as by means of banner advertisements designed to guarantee “millions of impressions” across the Internet, AOL’s activities appears to operate against their own anti-spamming principles as applied to Egypt News.

If you thought that this issue does not affect you, the chances are that it does now. Within such an operational framework, AOL have recently announced intentions to provide free Internet services to all schools in the UK, including adult education centers, most recently announcing an agreement with the Scottish Borders Council Education Department. And in a recent attempt to connect all of Europe’s parliamentarians to the web, Andreas Schmidt, President and Chief Executive Officer for AOL Europe said:

“All politicians, regardless of country or party, should have the same opportunity to access, explore and use online services in the same way as their constituents”.

If AOL is indeed guilty of censorship, should the organization take action against itself for operating in favor of the CIA, against agreed ICRA principles, or for its own commercial ‘spamming’ otherwise known as advertising? What is the precise nature of AOL’s involvement in politics and the education of our children? Is AOL exerting self-defined ‘parental controls’ on the adult global community? Whatever the case, AOL continues to claim ease of use, convenience and unique content, whilst at the same time it clamps down on a free newsletter promoting Egypt to an entirely voluntary membership.

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Giza Millennium Celebrations Under Threat
by Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince

According to reports in the Egyptian press, the Millennium ceremony in which a golden capstone was to be placed on top of the Great Pyramid, has been cancelled. This is because some sections of the Egyptian government are now worried about the Masonic symbolism involved. The meaning of this event for American Freemasons is discussed in Chapter 7 of The Stargate Conspiracy. Briefly, to American Freemasons the symbolic completion of the Pyramid heralds a new age in which the USA and Freemasonry become dominant in world affairs. There are also connections with the prophecies of Edgar Cayce.

The Egyptian official behind the ceremony, the well-known Dr Zahi Hawass, seems to be in the firing line for agreeing to this event. A full report can be found on the Egyptnews subscription mailing list, at Egyptnews@aol.com (to subscribe, send an email with subscribe in the subject box). Egyptnews has also posted comments by Robert Bauval on this development.

Robert Bauval discusses this ceremony at length in his latest book, Secret Chamber: The Quest for the Hall of Records, and many readers will be aware that he makes no secret of his personal belief that this ceremony would trigger a New Age. He links it with the opening of the Hall of Records, the fulfillment of Cayces prophecies and the Second Coming of Jesus. Bauval is now very concerned about the cancellation, and is taunting the Egyptian government by claiming that, if the event fails to materialize, they will be the laughing stock of the world. He says that the eyes of the world will be fixed on that ceremony, and that millions of tourists have booked to be there.

However, it is only in New Age circles and among Bauval’s own fans - that the capstone ceremony is awaited with such fervor. Bauval has, after all, been the major in fact, the only - promoter of this event as a mystical occasion. The other events at Giza that night most importantly Jean-Michel Jarres concert and laser show are still going ahead. It should be a great show with or without Edgar Cayce. The desperation with which Bauval has reacted to the news of the cancellation seems to be due to his personal emotional investment in the importance of this event.

But what does it mean to the non-Masonic world? Surely Jesus is not waiting for a capstone to be replaced on the Pyramid? And as for Edgar Cayce, it never fails to amaze us that he is ever taken seriously as a prophet at all. We have researched his prophecies thoroughly, and have yet to discover ONE that he got right. Perhaps the fact that he was a very active Freemason accounts for his popularity in certain quarters today.

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The Sirius Lie
Extract of a Lecture for the Turn of the Millennium
by Filip Coppins

Scientists learn that the Dogon do not possess secret knowledge about the star Sirius and its companions. What some consider to be the best evidence for extraterrestrial beings coming from Sirius is therefore dealt a devastating blow.
In 1976, two major books on extra-terrestrial visitation were published:

Zecharia Sitchin’s The Twelfth Planet and Robert Temple's The Sirius Mystery. Of the two, the latter became by far more famous and even attained the status of a semi-scientific work, as many were impressed with the scientific-looking train of logic of the book. Temple stated that the Dogon, a tribe in Africa, possessed extraordinary knowledge on the star system Sirius, the brightest star in the sky, the star which became the marker of an important ancient Egyptian calendar, the star which according to some is at the centre of beliefs held by the Freemasons, the star which according to some is where the forefathers of the human race might have come from.

Temple claimed that the Dogon possessed knowledge on Sirius B and Sirius C, companion stars to Sirius that are, however, invisible to the naked eye. How did the Dogon know about their existence? Temple referred to legends of a mythical creature Oannes, who might have been an extraterrestrial being descending on Earth from the stars, to bring wisdom to our forefathers. In 1998, Temple republished the book with the subtitle “new scientific evidence of alien contact 5,000 years ago”. The books glory came crashing down earlier this summer, when Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince published The Stargate Conspiracy.

That book stated that Temple had been highly influenced in his thinking by his mentor, Arthur M. Young. Young was a fervent believer in “the Council of Nine”, a group of channelled entities that claim they are the nine creator gods of ancient Egypt. “The Nine” are part of the UFO and New Age and many claim to be in contact with them. “The Nine” also claim to be extraterrestrial beings, from the star Sirius. In 1952, Young was one of the nine people present during the “first contact” with the Council, where contact was initiated by Andrija Puharich, the man who brought the Israeli spoon bender and presumed psychic Uri Geller to America.

It was Young who gave Temple in 1965 a French article on the secret star lore of the Dogon, an article written by Griaule and Dieterlen. In 1966, Temple, at the impressionable age of 21, became Secretary of of Young’s Foundation for the Study of Consciousness. In 1967, Temple began work on what would eventually become The Sirius Mystery. As Picknett and Prince have been able to show, Temple's arguments are often based on erroneous readings of encyclopedic entries and misrepresentations of ancient Egyptian mythology.

They conclude that Temple very much wanted to please his mentor. It is, however, a fact that the end result is indeed a book that would have pleased Young and his beliefs in extraterrestrial beings from Sirius very much, whether or not this was the intention of Temple. Though Temple's work is now therefore definitely challenged, the core of the mystery remained intact. At the centre of this enigma is the work of Marcel Griaule and Germaine Dieterlen, two French anthropologists, who wrote down the secret knowledge on “Sirius B” and “Sirius C” in their book The Pale Fox. But now, in another recent publication, Ancient Mysteries, by Peter James and Nick Thorpe, this “mystery” is also uncloaked, as a hoax or a lie, perpetrated by Griaule.

To recapitulate, Griaule was initiated in the secret mysteries of the male Dogon, who allegedly told him the secrets of Sirius invisible companions. Sirius (sigu tolo in their language) had two star companions. This was revealed in an article that was published by Griaule and Dieterlen in the French language in 1950.

In the 1930s, when their research occurred, Sirius B was known to have existed, even though it was only photographed in 1970. There was little if no possibility that the Dogon had learned this knowledge from Westerners that had visited them prior to Griaule and Dieterlen. Griaule and Dieterlen published their findings on the Sirius companions without any reference or comment on how extra-ordinary the Dogon knowledge was. It would be others, particularly Temple in the sixties and seventies, who would zoom in on that aspect.

To quote Ancient Mysteries:

“While Temple, following Griaule, assumes that to polo is the invisible star Sirius B, the Dogon themselves, as reported by Griaule, say something quite different.”

To quote the Dogon:

“When Digitaria (to polo) is close to Sirius, the latter becomes brighter; when it is at its most distant from Sirius, Digitaria gives off a twinkling effect, suggesting several stars to the observer.”

James and Thorpe wonder as anyone reading this should do whether to polo is therefore an ordinary star near Sirius, not an invisible companion, as Griaule and Temple suggest. The biggest challenge to Griaule, however, came from anthropologist Walter Van Beek. He points out that Griaule and Dieterlen stand alone in the world in their claims on the secrets of the Dogon. No other anthropologist supports their opinion or claims.

In 1991, Van Beek led a team of anthropologists who declared that they could find absolutely no trace of the detailed Sirius lore reported by the French anthropologists. James and Thorpe understate the problem when they say that “this is very worrying”.

Griaule had stated that about fifteen percent of the Dogon tribe knew about this secret knowledge, but Van Beek could, in a decade of research with the Dogon, find not a single trace of this knowledge. Van Beek was initially keen to find evidence for Griaules claims, but had to admit that there may have been a major problem with Griaules claims. Even more worrying is Griaules background. Though an anthropologist, Griaule was interested in astronomy, which he had studied in Paris.

As James and Thorpe point out, he took star maps along with him on his field trips as a way of prompting his informants to divulge their knowledge of the stars. Griaule himself was aware of the discovery of Sirius B and it is quite likely that he over interpreted the Dogon responses to his questions. In the 1920s, before Griaule went to the Dogon, there were also unconfirmed sightings of Sirius C. Was Griaule told by his informants what he wanted to believe? It seems, alas, that the truth is even worse, at least for Griaules reputation.

Van Beek actually spoke to the original informants of Griaule, who stated:

“though they do speak about sigu tolo [interpreted by Griaule as their name for Sirius], they disagree completely with each other as to which star is meant; for some, it is an invisible star that should rise to announce the sigu [festival], for another it is Venus that through a different position appears as sigu tolo. All agree, however, that they learned about the star from Griaule.”

So whatever knowledge they possessed, it was knowledge coming from Griaule, not knowledge native to the Dogon tribe. Van Beek also discovered that the Dogon are of course aware of the brightest star in the sky, which they do not, however, call sigu tolo, as Griaule claimed, but dana tolo.

To quote James and Thorpe:

“As for Sirius B, only Griaules informants had ever heard of it.”

With this, the Dogon mystery comes to a crashing halt. The Sirius Mystery influenced more than twenty years of thinking about our possible ancestry from “forefathers” who have come from the stars. In 1996, Temple was quick to point out the new speculation in scientific circles on the possible existence of Sirius C, which made the claims by Griaule even more spectacular and accurate.

But Temple was apparently not aware of Van Beeks recent research. With this new research of both Van Beek and the authors of Ancient Mysteries, we uncover how Griaule himself was responsible for the creation of a modern myth, which, in retrospect, has created such an industry and almost religious belief that the scope and intensity can hardly be fathomed. Nigel Appleby, in his withdrawn publication Hall of the Gods, which was, according to Appleby himself, tremendously influenced by Temple's book, Appleby spoke about how Temple believed that present-day authorities were apparently unwilling to set aside the blinkers of orthodoxy or were unable to admit the validity of anything that lies outside their field or offers a challenge to its status quo.

He further wondered whether there was also a modern arrogance that could not countenance the possible scientific superiority of earlier civilizations. It seems, alas, that Griaule, a scientist, wanted to give earlier civilizations more knowledge than they actually possessed. And various popular authors and readers have since been led into a modern mythology, the “Age of the Dark Sirius Companion”.

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The Rise of the Rough Beast
Adapted from a lecture by LYNN PICKNETT and CLIVE PRINCE

at the Saunière Society Symposium, Conway Hall, London

As we approach the Millennium, there is a growing sense of expectancy that some event, or revelation, will change the world forever. For fundamentalist Christians it is the Second Coming but you don’t have to be a fundamentalist Christian to share the belief that the world is soon going to change, and change radically.

The one thing that many of these expectations have in common is the sense that the past is catching up with us that the transformation of our future will, in some way, be connected the ancient past. Ancient sites around the world are the focus of Millennium Fever but none more so than those of Egypt, and particularly the Giza Plateau. Many believe that some revelation connected with the Great Pyramid, or with the Sphinx, will be the trigger for a New Age.

Such expectancy, such hope, such belief is very, very potent. It is wide open for exploitation not just for financial gain, but for those who want to try to change the way we think. And that is what Lynn and I believe is happening. Our book, The Stargate Conspiracy, describes a 50-year-long plot to create, and then exploit, expectations about ancient Egypt as part of what amounts to a programme of social engineering. It is a very high-level plot that, essentially, aims to hijack the very real mysteries of ancient Egypt in order to push other quasi-religious and even political ideas. Instrumental in this plot are the psychological warfare units of intelligence agencies.

At the centre of the conspiracy is the manipulation of beliefs about the origins and history of human civilization, in particular of beliefs about the existence of an advanced civilization in the ancient past and its influence on the earliest known historical civilizations, primarily that of Egypt.

But the conspiracy uses ideas and concepts that have been around for quite a long time in the occult world. Our book explores the origins of those ideas, and shows how in recent years, they been pushed at the mainstream public. In brief, ideas about the origins and history of human civilization that were developed in occult circles in the 19th century are now being promoted to the public as if they have been confirmed by recent research.

The important point is that these ideas were originally developed to support specific systems of belief or doctrines - and some of those doctrines were, to say the least, highly questionable and often downright dangerous.

In the last few years we have seen a wave of new books about ancient Egypt that have captured the imaginations of millions of readers worldwide. The best-known names in this Alternative Egypt field are Graham Hancock, Robert Bauval, and John Anthony West, and their works have been instrumental in arousing public interest in the very real mysteries of ancient Egypt.

To be clear about this point, we are NOT saying that Hancock, Bauval and West are conscious participants in the conspiracy. But their IDEAS are certainly being used and have been to an extent shaped by the conspirators.

This article looks at one specific example of the way that 19th-century occult ideas have influenced recent developments in the Alternative Egypt field.

The story begins with the Sphinx. Everybody will be familiar with the controversy surrounding claims that the Sphinx is far older than mainstream Egyptologists believe (which is about 4,500 years, ie it dates from around 2500 BC). This claim was made in 1990 as a result of a study of the erosion of the Sphinx and the walls of its enclosure. The instigator of this research was the maverick alternative Egyptologist John Anthony West.

In the 1970s, West had become interested in the work of R.A. Schwaller de Lubicz (1887-1961), the occult philosopher who, in the 1940s and 50s, wrote several books in French about the religion of ancient Egypt. Schwaller de Lubiczs ideas have had enormous influence on alternative and New Age ideas about Egypt.

Schwaller de Lubicz believed that the Sphinx was carved by visitors from Atlantis, and that it predated the ancient Egyptian civilization by many thousands of years. He observed that the erosion on the Sphinx's body and the walls of the enclosure appears to be the result of exposure to water, rather than wind-blown sand, and argued that it had been caused by a great flood the flood that destroyed Atlantis. John Anthony West agreed with this, and hoped to prove it scientifically.

In 1990, West managed to interest an American geologist, Robert Schoch, in the problem. Schoch made a study of the Sphinx and concluded that the erosion was due to water to centuries of exposure to rainfall. He pinpointed a period of extremely wet weather between 7000 and 5000 BC as being responsible. If he is right this would make the Sphinx at least 2,500 years older than it is supposed to be, which would mean a radical rethink about conventional ideas about the origins of the ancient Egyptian civilization.

Most of you will be familiar with this, and many will accept the re-dating. However, Schochs work, and his conclusions, are still very controversial and the subject of debate. The recent book by Ian Lawton and Chris Ogilvie-Herald, Giza: The Truth, deals with this controversy in some detail, and presents evidence that raises serious questions about Schochs conclusions. However, the most relevant point to us is that, even if Schoch is right, his dates 7000-5000 BC are the oldest allowed by his data. However, West (and following him Graham Hancock) has presented Schochs work as if it really supports a much, much earlier date.

Most significantly, West uses Schochs work unashamedly as evidence that the Sphinx dates from at least 10000 BC, or perhaps even earlier. Ironically, after having brought in an expert to confirm his ideas, he then disregards Schochs expertise when it suits him. West states that in his opinion there hasn’t been sufficient rainfall in Egypt in the period given by Schoch to account for the erosion. He states that you really have to go back before 10000 BC to find a wet enough climate in Egypt to account for the weathering on this type and scale.

Hancock has followed him writing that during the 11th millennium BC in Egypt it rained and rained and rained.

This sounds very authoritative. But when we checked these claims, we found that, according to all the available sources on the climate of ancient Egypt, there simply was no wet period in the 11th Millennium BC. So why are Hancock and West so keen to have us believe in that date? What does a difference of 3,500 years make, when even pushing the Sphinx back to 5000 BC would radically transform our ideas about the ancient Egyptian culture?

Partly this is to fit the pronouncements of the American psychic Edgar Cayce (1877-1945), who said that the Sphinx and Pyramids were built by survivors from Atlantis in 10500 BC. But it also fits the view of history used to justify another, very specific and in our view very alarming - form of occult philosophy. To understand this we have to go back to 19th century France, and a political-occult ideology called Synarchy. In Britain, Synarchy is not widely known even among those interested in esoteric movements and secret societies.

This is very surprising, as Synarchy and its founder have been extraordinarily influential. Synarchy was founded in the early 1870s by Joseph Alexander Saint-Yves d’Alveydre (1824-1909). This was a period in which many new political ideas were taking hold. Like many of a conservative mind, Saint-Yves was alarmed by the rise of Anarchy, and he developed Synarchy specifically in order to counter it. Whereas Anarchy believes that the state should have no authority over the life and behavior of an individual, Synarchy took quite the opposite view. In other words, the more control the state has over the individual the better. This, as you can imagine, was an idea held an attraction for many.

Essentially, Synarchy advocates government by secret society or, in its own terms, by an elite of enlightened initiates who rule from behind the scenes. It therefore doesn’t matter which political party holds power in a state or even what political system that state has. Synarchists would step in and take control of the key state institutions. St-Yves identified three key pillars of society that, once under the control of his elite, would allow them to rule without the population even being aware of their existence. These were the political and social institutions, the economic institutions and the religious institutions.

Although Synarchy can therefore rule in any kind of state, for obvious reasons it finds itself more at home among totalitarian regimes (power is held by less people, and the ruling regime doesn’t change as often as in a democracy). It has therefore always attracted a greater following from the right. Synarchy is totally opposed to ideas of democracy and social equality, as it believes that some people i.e. Synarchists are natural leaders.

However, Synarchy as devised by St-Yves was not a purely political movement. St-Yves was active in the esoteric world of 19th century Europe he was, for example, a friend of key figures such as Victor Hugo and Lord Bulwer-Lytton - and so incorporated specific mystical and occult ideas into his system.

St-Yves believed in the existence of spiritually superior beings that could be contacted telepathically. His elite would be made up of people who were in communication with them. He himself claimed that he was in touch with these beings, and that they actually gave him the principles of Synarchy.

Saint-Yves drew upon many esoteric systems, from both East and West, in developing his ideas. For example, he regarded the medieval Knights Templar as the ultimate Synarchists of their day after all, they exerted control over the political, financial and religious life of medieval Europe, his three pillars of society.

Consequently, Saint-Yves incorporated ideas from the many neo-Templar societies that were flourishing in his day. In particular, he borrowed from a Templarist Masonic society, the Strict Templar Observance, the concept of Unknown Superiors a group who directed the order but whose identity remained unknown to the members. However, he expanded this concept and made his unknown superiors spiritually advanced beings that lived in a remote part of Tibet.

Although Saint-Yves himself is hardly known in this country, he was incredibly influential in the development of 19th century occultism. For example, he was the person who introduced the concept of Agartha, the mysterious underworld realm peopled by initiates hidden somewhere in Tibet, The Masters with whom he claimed to be in contact lived there.

Saint-Yves’s doctrines included ideas about the evolution and history of the human race that were, at the time, novel, but which have since become commonplace in Esoteric and New Age circles. Central to his reconstruction of history was Atlantis as an advanced, global civilization. He believed that the Sphinx was not built by the ancient Egyptians, but was created by the Atlanteans many thousands of years before the rise of Egypt.

Saint-Yves placed the end of Atlantis at around 12000 BC. St Yves also promoted the idea of root races a succession of dominant races each allocated a period of supremacy, but each destined to be supplanted by the next, superior race. It should come as no surprise to learn that the current dominant race is the white Aryans. It must be stressed that it is impossible to separate Saint-Yves's version of history from his political ideology. The history is used to justify the ideology and vice versa.

Also, his version of history was the result of revealed information it lacked any historical or archaeological proof. For his followers, accepting these ideas was a simple act of faith. All these ideas have become, of course, part and parcel of subsequent occult beliefs, mainly because they were taken up, embellished and popularized by Madame Blavatsky (1831-1891), that larger-than-life Russian magus some call her a charlatan whose love affair with the mysteries of the East led to her founding the Theosophical movement.

These concepts were, in turn, incorporated into the teachings of Alice A. Bailey (1880-1949), which have had a huge influence over the beliefs of the New Age and on the development of the Stargate Conspiracy. But perhaps more significantly as far as this article is concerned is that some of Saint-Yves specific ideas appear in the psychic readings of Edgar Cayce. For example, Saint-Yves, in his reconstruction of history, describes a great Celtic warrior named Ram, who conquered the degenerate black races in 7700 BC.

According the Saint-Yves, it was the superhero Ram who created the first Synarchist Empire, which extended from Europe to India. This marked the beginning of the period of domination of the white races over the black. Curiously, in a discussion about far distant events, Edgar Cayce said that this was some years before the entry of Ram into India. But Ram could only have found his way into Cayce's writings via St Yves, who had, in fact, invented Ram and all his works. Of course, the idea that the world should be run by secret societies went down particularly well with well, secret societies.

Consequently, many of them adopted Synarchist principles. In fact, St-Yvess ideas transformed the esoteric underground of Europe, particularly France. Some of the greatest figures in subsequent occult history were devotees of Saint-Yves, which is not surprising because occultists, with their love of hierarchy, tend to be naturally totalitarian and unegalitarian. For example, Papus (real name Gérard Encausse, 1865-1916) called Saint-Yves his intellectual master, and when he died founded a society known as the Friends of Saint-Yves to promote his work. Papus, of course, had an enormous influence over the world of esoteric secret societies in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Another important movement that became closely associated with Synarchy was Martinism. Although this predated St-Yves by several decades, the principles of the two were very close St-Yves was himself a member of the Martinist Order, so there was a lot of cross-fertilization of ideas. This is interesting because in our last book, The Templar Revelation, we traced the connection between the Martinist Order and other secret societies that make up a network of groups, all ultimately descended from the Strict Templar Observance, which includes the Priory of Sion. It is now becoming clear that an understanding of Synarchy can shed light on the origins and activities of the modern Priory of Sion but that's another story...

By the beginnings of the 20th century, the Martinist Orders and many others were firmly aligned with the ideology of Synarchy. In 1921 the Martinist and Synarchist Order was founded in France. There were also explicitly Synarchist Masonic lodges formed in France. However, Synarchy has not only had influence over the occult world, but also over politics.

As we have seen, Synarchy outlined a specific programme for the take-over of states. But Saint-Yves’s aims went much further than that he wanted the whole of Europe to be governed by Synarchy. Right from the start, an important part of the Synarchist agenda was the creation of a United States of Europe, advocating the removal of national boundaries, customs duties, and so on.

This continued to be a central objective of Synarchy. In fact, a Synarchist document published in the 1930s refers to one of their key aims as being the formation of a federal European Union. It advocated a United States of Europe although it would be a Europe that, for economic reasons, would be dominated by France and Germany.

As we saw earlier, Synarchy favors undemocratic and totalitarian regimes they are, after all, easier to gain control of. And there is a definite connection between Synarchist groups and the origins of Fascism in Europe in the late 1910s and early 1920s.

An organization called the International Synarchist Movement was created in response to the Russian Revolution of 1919. According to French researchers, this was largely behind the rise of Fascism in Italy and the creation of the Pan-European Movement in 1922.

As might be expected, Synarchy also had some influence on the development of Nazi ideology, although Synarchists had reservations about the Nazis emphasis on German nationalism and the Messianic cult of Hitler. Synarchy continued to thrive in Saint-Yves’s native France. Synarchist groups were behind a wave of right-wing terrorist attacks in the 1920s and 30s. In the 1930s a Frenchman named Viven Postel du Mas (of whom more later) wrote a notorious document called the Synarchist Pact, which became their manifesto.

In 1932, a society called the Synarchist Empire Movement was founded in France, which was described by one commentator as a secret society with very specific and limited membership, following a definite politico-economic programme. This was behind right-wing terrorist groups such as the CSAR (Secret Committee for Revolutionary Action) most of the CSARs members were part of the Synarchist Empire Movement.

In 1941, in Vichy France, a report by the police warned of a plot by Synarchists to take over the government, which noted the close relationship between the Synarchist movement and the Martinist Orders. In fact, during the trial of Marshall Pétain, the President of the Vichy government, in 1945, questions were asked about his connection with the Synarchist Pact.

The point is that Synarchy was taken very seriously by French authorities in the 1930s and 40s. The term has entered the French political vocabulary (although the French press often use the term synarchy to refer to any political or economic conspiracy, such as price-fixing cartels). After the War, Synarchy adopted a lower profile, but it is still very active. In fact, in recent years Synarchist groups have begun to act more openly both in Europe and in Britain.

But what has all this has got to do with the Sphinx?

Of course, Saint-Yves wasn’t the only influential Synarchist. Given the nature of Synarchy one would probably never know the names of even the most powerful. But we do know quite a lot about one of them: R.A. Schwaller de Lubicz.

It is curious that Schwaller de Lubicz has become the godfather of Alternative Egyptology even though few have read his works first-hand. His ideas mostly come to us through the books of Graham Hancock, Robert Bauval and, of course, John Anthony West, all of whom have expressed their admiration for this scholar. They refer to him as a philosopher, or as a mathematician. What is interesting to us, however, is that, although Schwaller de Lubicz was those things, they never call him an occultist which he was.

And the never call him a Synarchist which he was. We personally find nothing intrinsically reprehensible about being an occultist, but it is curious that this aspect of Schwaller de Lubiczs life is seldom mentioned. But, given the facts, we don't find it surprising that these authors gloss over his political ideology. Born in Alsace-Lorraine in 1887, he was very active in the Parisian occult scene in the 1910s. He was an alchemist, whose particular claim to fame was that he was at one time believed to be the mysterious Fulcanelli, author of the seminal book The Mystery of the Cathedrals. In fact, Schwaller de Lubicz was not Fulcanelli, although he claimed with some justification that Fulcanelli’s book was based on his own idea that the Gothic cathedrals encoded alchemical symbolism.

A leading figure in the Paris Theosophical Society, he broke away to form his own occult organization, which he called Les Veilleurs the Watchers specifically in order to carry his esoteric ideas into the political arena.

Perhaps it will come as no surprise to discover that he has been described as a proto fascist. He even claims to have designed the uniform for Hitler's SA (Brownshirts). Although it is not certain that his claim is true, Schwaller de Lubicz clearly had no problem with people thinking that it was.

One of Schwaller de Lubicz's Watchers was Vivien Postel du Mas, the man who wrote the Synarchist Pact of the 1930s. Through du Mas, Schwaller de Lubicz had a particular influence on Hitler's Deputy, the tormented and complex Rudolf Hess.

Schwaller de Lubicz was anti-Semitic and racist and, like the Nazis, thought that women were inferior to men. For example, he taught that women were intellectually incapable of understanding the Hermetica. All this is important, because it is impossible to separate Schwaller de Lubiczs political, Synarchist beliefs from his work as an Egyptologist, the work that certain authors so admire.

Schwaller de Lubicz settled in Egypt in 1938 and for the next 15 years studied the symbolism of the temples, particularly Luxor, finding precisely what he was looking for, which was proof that the ancient Egyptians were the ultimate examples of Synarchy, because the were ruled by a group of initiates. This may be so, but then prejudice and fanaticism blinded Schwaller de Lubicz to certain facts about Egypt. For example, he claimed that there were no blacks in Pre- and Early Dynastic Egypt, despite abundant archaeological evidence to the contrary.

So this is the man who is so revered but some of the most influential authors in the Alternative Egypt field. John Anthony West has a particular reverence for him, and wrote a book, Serpent in the Sky, presenting Schwaller de Lubiczs ideas to a popular audience. Interestingly, it is mainly because of his heroes beliefs that West came to believe that the Sphinx was built by people from Atlantis and is much older than mainstream Egyptologists think. Above all, he seized on Schochs work on the water erosion of the Sphinx as evidence of the involvement of Atlanteans.

It is important to realize that Schwaller de Lubicz believed in the antiquity of the Sphinx because Saint-Yves did, and that West believes it because Schwaller de Lubicz did. So there is a direct line from Saint-Yves to us today.

But there are problems with West's claims about the Sphinx. Not only does he over-ride Schoch's expertise when it comes to dating, he also does not appear to realize that Schoch has proved him just as wrong as conventional Egyptologists. Schwaller de Lubicz and West believed that the erosion was caused by a flood, or series of floods, whereas Schoch found that it was caused by centuries of exposure to rain.

West and Hancock argue that the Sphinx was built by a lost civilization, not by the ancient Egyptians. Where have we heard that before? Saint-Yves was the person who single-handedly introduced the idea of Atlantis as an ancient superpower and that they had carved the Sphinx which was enthusiastically taken by many occultists, such as Madame Blavatsky and, of course, Edgar Cayce.

So must of us, without knowing it, have been exposed to the insidious and very scary beliefs of Saint-Yves in one form or another. We may think that we can accept his and Schwaller de Lubiczs historical ideas and reject the politics, but they simply cant be disentangled. It was never intended that they should be. If you accept one, you are tacitly swallowing the other.

The problem with this particular brand of Alternative Egyptology is not so much its flawed nature, but what it whether accidentally or deliberately opens us up to. History should have told us that the most dangerous ideas are those that grab us totally, hearts, minds and imaginations.

There are real, exciting mysteries about ancient Egypt. Mainstream Egyptology does tend to be arrogant and dismissive of new ideas and evidence. But it is precisely because the field is wide open that it can be abused. Lets not let our guard down because we crave signs and wonders. There are those who rely on us losing our critical faculties as soon as we hear the magic words ancient Egypt or lost civilization.

Whether its the Vril Society or the Synarchists or the National Socialist Party or, indeed, what we call the Stargate Conspiracy it hides the same terrifying agenda. As Sally Bowles said in Cabaret of the rise of the Nazi Party in Berlin: Its only politics what’s that got to do with us?

People are wary of politics these days rightly so but they are not so wary of an appeal to the romantic, spiritual and mystical. And therein lies the danger.

As W.B. Yeats so prophetically wrote in his The Second Coming:

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in the sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to a nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,

Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

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