It’s hard to know where to begin. You’ve sent me a flood of questions and I’ll do my best to deal with them as soon as possible. And my thanks for the many flattering messages of greeting. But :

It’s clear from many of you ... and from people I talk to at Rennes-le-Château ... that a large percentage of you are very out-of-date with developments in the Saunière Saga (or have only recently encountered it). There is more to this story than Holy Blood, Holy Grail and The da Vinci Code !

For those of you who haven’t yet encountered it, I suggest that you read my Key to the Sacred Pattern. It’s easier to read than many of the other books – (including my own) – and will fill you in on what has been going on since 1982. I’ve also written The Holy Place and The Templars’ Secret Island (the latter with Erling Haagensen).

If you want to know more about the story of Bérenger Saunière, then look for Rennes-le-Château, Saunière’s Secret by JEAN-LUC ROBIN. In my opinion, it’s the best of the books on the subject. But then, of course, I would say that ... Jean-Luc was a dear friend, which explains why I translated his book into English!

There is also my DVD – Henry Lincoln’s Guide to Rennes-le-Château, which fills in a lot more of the visual background – including many things which are no longer accessible, or are changed, or have simply disappeared.

And there is The Secret (sometimes titled Secret of the Templars) which is a 4 x 30 minute series which I made with ERLING HAAGENSEN for Danish Television. (This DVD is in English, but some versions may have Danish sub-titles).

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On that thought ... I’ve had more than one communication in foreign tongues. I understand English ... I speak French ... and struggle with German. If you want to be sure that I understand you properly, then please don’t test my linguistic abilities much beyond those languages.
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There have been numerous enquiries for my opinion of a film called Bloodline. It’s a nonsense, of course – though I gather that some people in the US of A seems to take it seriously. I shall be dealing with it at more length eventually, as I develop the site.

And, of course, there are constant requests seeking information on how to obtain copies of my three 1970’s BBC Chronicle films. The short answer is that you can’t – at least, not legally! Thereby hangs yet another ludicrous tale, which I shall expand upon eventually.

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Of apparent interest to a number of readers of Holy Blood, Holy Grail is the question: “How do three people write one book?” Well, of course, they don’t. Here’s a sort of explanation:

As I made clear in my brief Introduction to the book – (though I suspect that many readers don’t bother with Introductions! They should! Why do you think we poor writers waste our time on them?) – I had already made two films on the subject for the BBC and was buried in mounds of research, when I met Richard Leigh in 1975. He joined me to help with the work on my third film, The Shadow of the Templars.
Now, Richard hated leaving England and could only with great difficulty be prised away from London. I later managed to get him – kicking and screaming – to Paris on two occasions to talk with Pierre Plantard. (Richard had a reasonable command of French). Though he never, in his entire life, managed to set foot in Rennes-le-Château.
Richard, therefore, remained glued to his desk, while I cavorted about France interviewing people and looking for dusty tomes in equally dusty libraries.
It was Richard, by the way who, some time later, encountered Michael Baigent and brought him on board. Baigent proved to be a gifted researcher, though he understood no French.
The three of us would meet frequently to pool the fruits of our labours and to spend lengthy hours in discussing the material and developing the hypothesis which later became Holy Blood, Holy Grail. And so it was Richard who ‘put the words on the page’. (He had, for a number of years worked as a lecturer in universities on both sides of the Atlantic, which explains his love of such words as ‘epistemological’!)

My working life had been spent as a writer for television and thus my prose style was much more direct and less ‘wordy’ than was Richard’s, (which explains why my own books are so much shorter!)
Richard re-wrote any passages which the others of us produced as he wished, as he told me, to be able to say that “the prose was his” – with which I remain perfectly happy.
And so the book is by all three of us, though our contributions were more than somewhat different.

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Another frequent enquiry concerns the famous “parchments” supposedly found by Saunière and now often described as “fake”. This matter is not quite so simple as it seems. (What is there ever simple in this story?)
The ‘fake’ idea seems to have originated with someone called Jean-Luc Chaumeil - (a character well known to me) - who is now often wheeled out, especially by the BBC, as some sort of ‘expert’.
Beware!
The statement that the documents are ‘fake’ – especially when uttered by someone who supposedly “knows” – is enough to make many people accept what’s been said, with its implication that the documents are of no value and should therefore be ignored.
But I have a simple mind and love to ask simple questions. And here I ask simply: “They are fake ... what?” The statement is meaningless. The documents exist. I ask again: “They are fake what?” It matters not if they were composed in the Dark Ages, or were concocted last week. They exist and merit careful examination. Even those who dismiss them agree that they contain ciphered messages.
It should not be forgotten that when I was originally working on them back in 1971, I sought the advice of cipher experts at British Intelligence HQ in Cheltenham. I was told by the code-breaker who examined them that the lengthier of the two messages – (Bergère, pas de tentation ... etc) – was “one of the most complex ciphers he had ever seen”. It would, he said, have taken months of work to prepare and was utterly unbreakable without the key. It was no light-hearted game.
“Whoever gave you the decipherment must have had access to the key”. When I told him of my sceptical approach to Gérard de Sède’s statement that they had been broken by the French Army Cipher Department, using computers, he agreed with me and said that the code “was not a valid problem for a computer”.
(Anyone wishing for the exact mechanics of the cipher should consult my book, The Holy Place).
However, as The Holy Place also explains, the parchments conceal something of much more importance than complex secret codes.

So why do Chaumeil and others now wish you to think that they are “fake”?
This is yet another jollity which I shall be dealing with later ...

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I must say that I am astonished to see how many of you have already found me here - and in so short a time.
 
From all of you who have made contact, I must beg a further indulgence. I shall endeavour to respond to you as soon as possible either individually or on this blog. But not today. This evening I am giving a talk at L’Eveché in Alet-les-Bains.
 
A Bientôt,

For the past thirty-plus years, my work has attracted a great deal of public attention. However, I am by nature a private individual. Like all, I hope, normal people, I cherish that privacy as well as my space for thought, reflection and writing.

But the world, I’m afraid, is filled with obsessive ‘nut-cases’, some of whom seem prepared to go to enormous lengths to track down people such as myself. On one particularly un-amusing occasion, a person appeared, with suitcase, intent on moving in. I have also, more than once, had to change my (ex-directory) telephone number.

I am sure that most sane and sensible people realise that the Rennes-le-Château story attracts more than its fair share of such cranks and crack-pots and that my life would become intolerable did not I attempt to build some sort of protective fence.

But these are not the only reasons for my reclusiveness. Over the years, much has happened upon which I might have wished to comment, or provide an explanation. To express an opinion ... to deny or inform.
As I begin to fill in some of those missing details on this site, those reasons will become – I hope - more clear and more understandable.

Those people who have met me in person know full well that I am always ready to respond, openly and honestly ... quite often jokily ... to any questions hurled at my head. Quite simply, I have nothing to hide. As for the jokes ... well ... I take the work seriously, but I don’t see why I need to be over-serious about myself. So:
Rather than produce a long and meandering ‘stream-of-consciousness’ waffle, I shall, for now, divide this Site into various sections, each of which will deal with some or other aspect of what, over the years, I have learned is of interest to so many of you.
Quite often, I expect to copy some or other fragment from the Net in order to put it right. But ... I promise you ... I shall invent nothing. Neither shall I lie nor fantasise.

However ... ... ...
All of us, as we grow older, learn that memories can sometimes become fogged or unreliable. I don’t doubt that I shall be just as guilty of such failings as would anybody else.

I do, though, have a precious archive of documents, photographs and recordings of interviews with various key people in the saga, etc – some of which I intend to share with you. And of course, there are my films which show Rennes-le-Château - and other places - (as well as myself), changing through the decades.

I’m quite sure that a great deal of this material is going to prove both instructive and - I hope - entertaining.

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