22 July 1991. I visited the Saunière Museum where Celia Brooke received a surprise telephone call from Henry Lincoln's wife, who cried and cried on Celia's shoulder that the subject matter of Rennes-le-Château had taken over her husband's life, was ruining their marriage and wanted any guidance about what to do about it. Celia tried to console her by saying that “she herself was a daughter of a princess from an island in the ocean” (Celia was surprised and taken aback by the call). After the telephone call ended Celia gave a sympathetic smile about the whole situation and felt genuinely sorry for Lincoln's wife, because even according to those working at the Saunière Museum in Rennes-le-Château in 1991, Henry Lincoln was considered “way out”.

I remember “The Daily Star” newspaper once covered the subject matter of the “The Jesus Bloodline” and went to do on-the-spot research in the village of Rennes-le-Château; it included photographs of people like Marcel Captier and Pat Logan from La Val Dieu giving their reaction to it all, quoted by the newspaper as saying it was all “crazy nonsense without any proof”. That was the situation during the early 1990s.

It is now 2024. The situation has become vast. Too vast to even write a single book about the subject matter. So many books. So many cranks. So much belief in the “physical treasure of Rennes-le-Château buried in some cave somewhere” (existing in the real world, despite having found nothing in over 70 years).

The first thing that strikes you is that these people must have jobs, must keep houses, must do shopping and cooking for themselves – so they must have some semblance of logical and meaningful behaviour in their lives that goes side-by-side with their illogical reasoning. They certainly know how to build websites. The second thing that is striking is their willing belief in something that is absolute nonsense, because if you study the beginnings of the subject matter it is without any basis at all, and plenty of suggestion it all began as an air-drawn fabric.

Take for instance the book by Jean-Michel Jauly. He is a typical subjective author who writes everything in his own image. There is nothing about his book that offers objectivity or logical reasoning.

If you were to summarise all the believers it would be something like this: they are prepared to believe in anything and everything. And that's what you find in their books. The addiction to the irrational without any scholarship offered. The story of the “treasure of Rennes-le-Château” ultimately serves as some sort of safety valve that operates as escapism.

The True Believers KNOW what to avoid mentioning: The Carnets of Abbé Bérenger Saunière (his account books about his source of wealth) and the Monogram of The Virgin Mary found at the bottom of the statue of Our Lady of Lourdes in Rennes-le-Château.

I know of at least one husband who was given this ultimatum by his wife: “Either me or the treasure of Rennes-le-Château. Not both”.