Further to Francesco Garufi’s interview with Mario Iannaccone – Here’s another amusing anecdote.

I went to Paris on 25 September 1982 to meet Jean-Luc Chaumeil, who joked to me about the nature of the origin of the 1956 Priory of Sion – I had written about this previously in a 1990s issue of “The Rennes Observer”. Of course, the members just didn’t want to take any notice because they were all dreaming about The Holy Grail.

Armand Defago, Pierre Plantard, André Bonhomme and Jean Deleaval were very unhappy with the state of their accommodations, a right mess. This was what Jean-Luc Chaumeil told me: “they all looked around where they lived and, being unhappy with everything – decided to form The Priory of Sion, a Tenancy Association!” They lived in Annemasse, in Sous-Cassan, a Housing Block that had been built in 1956. Chaumeil smiled as he told the story.

The choice of the name “Sion” was based on a popular local feature, a hill south of Annemasse in France, known as Mont Sion, where the founders intended to establish a forthcoming spiritual retreat centre. The accompanying title to the name was “Chevalerie d'Institutions et Règles Catholiques d'Union Indépendante et Traditionaliste” – this subtitle formed the acronym CIRCUIT and reads in English, “Chivalry of Catholic Rules and Institutions of Independent and Traditionalist Union”. Its newsletter was entitled “Circuit” and it described itself as Protectors of Low-Cost Housing. (Defense des Droits & De La Liberte des Foyers H.L.M.)

There were articles written devoted to improving the day-to-day quality of life where they lived in Annemasse, like for example the local bus route. Because Plantard had written articles about the esoteric in the past, he generally wrote about that. After 1956, the group fell asleep and, in its present form, went extinct.

The mythical origin of the Priory of Sion was founded sometime after 1961. The society of “Muppets” was to demonstrate to the world the extent of human gullibility that existed, to the amusement of their creators, Pierre Plantard and Philippe de Chérisey.

According to the obituary of Henry Lincoln in The Telegraph, dated 26 February 2022, it was stated that “Lincoln resented that he and his two co-authors may have been hoaxed by a French con artist posing as the head of the powerful Priéure de Sion (Priory of Sion), keepers of the secrets of the Knights Templar who protect the [Jesus] bloodline” – without mentioning that Plantard rebutted his book “The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail” on French Radio in February 1982 and that Plantard hated Henry Lincoln and his two co-authors publicly since 1990 in a revised version of the Priory of Sion, also denying any connection with the Knights Templar.