September 1, 2017 • 51 mins
For centuries scholars, church officials, historians and skeptics alike have argued back and forth about the evolution of Christianity, the life and deeds of Jesus Christ and more. For many one version of another of the official narrative is satisfactory -- to others, however, there may be much more to the story. Join the guys as they interview Tansy Baigent, the daughter of prolific Grail theorist and author Michael Baigent.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. M hello,
(00:24):
and welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Noel. They call me Ben. You are you?
And that makes this stuff they don't want you to know. So, guys,
how we feel it? Feeling good? Pretty good, feeling good,
a little um, a little I don't know, worried, trepidacious, Yeah,
feeling something just weighing on me because the research that
(00:47):
we've been doing for this episode we're about to record
it gets into the deep dark levels of your soul almost, yeah,
you know. Whenever we go into an examination of history,
what we find is that although history is often portrayed
as a concrete, inarguable thing, it's much more like a
(01:09):
conversation and at times an argument between narratives. You have
to mention the other to the saying about history is
written by the victors or whatever. So a lot of
revisionism going on, depending on, you know, the perspective that
you're looking at. And in the history of the exploration
of where we come from, you know, of the mysteries
(01:29):
that surround the origins of humanity, and it always brings
to mind one of my favorite William Faulkner quotes. Uh.
He said that the past isn't over, it isn't even past.
And I think we forget how often history in the
world we live in is a palamp sessed. A palamp
tessed is just the fancy word for a thing that
(01:52):
a lot of monasteries used to do when paper was
very expensive and rare, or they were using scrolls, they
would or vellum, I guess, instead of buying more paper
to write something. What they would do is they would
erase what was written earlier, and they would write over
it and fast forward several centuries. Historians and researchers found
(02:13):
out that it was possible to read the earlier copies,
the parts of history that had literally been overwritten through
the tactile clues, just the impressions that the earlier pens
or quills made on the physical paper. And a lot
of times when we look at history, we're exploring different
versions of history or arguments we're using in a in
(02:37):
a in a very strange way, we're using clues that
are like the indentations of those earlier stories on physical paper.
We're finding references that don't make sense. We're connecting dots
that have not been connected. And this is regardless of
how you feel about a specific case. This is one
of the most important parts of historical scholarship. So today
(03:02):
we are we're not just talking about history for frenzies. No, no, no,
Today we are diving into one of the I would say,
I would say, one of the most prominent, uh, one
of the most prominent conflicts in historical narratives. And we
are not doing it alone. We have with us today
(03:25):
a very important person that exists within the narrative that
we will be exploring, and I think the best thing
possibly to do is just to introduce her and then
let her tell us about herself. So let's do it.
So welcome to the show, Tansy Pagent. Thank you, Hi, welcome, welcome.
(03:48):
So tell us a little bit about yourself, Tansy. Why
are you here today? So I'm here today to talk
a little bit about what my father did, um what
he dedicated a lot of his life too, and that
was the exploration of history and looking for new ways
to view history, new ways to think about history. Rather
than just believing the perceived views of the massive. Yes.
(04:13):
In ninety two, U Tansy, your father Michael Begent wrote
a world changing book called Holy Blood, Holy Grail, and
earlier when you had reached out to us, this was
this was thrilling for us because this is a book
that even if people haven't read it or haven't heard
(04:35):
of it, people are probably very familiar with the idea.
Here we checked out a copy of the book and
this is if we're gonna let the badger out of
the bag here, already we've got more than one bag.
We've got We're we've got many badgers, right. Uh. This
(04:56):
book focuses on the an exploration of what the Holy
Grail in Biblical lore actually was, and it delves into
the early days of the Christian Church. It delves into
nothing less than the secret history of Christ. Yes, and
(05:17):
specifically whether or not Jesus actually died when he, you know,
historically died, at least what the texts say, and then
whether or not he actually had a bloodline that continued
on in France. I believe in the Maravingian line a
fascinating stuff. And Dancy, can you tell us a little
(05:41):
bit more more about it. Yeah, I mean to start, really,
you have to think about, you know what, what do
you believe? Do you think that a Jewish man would
have married, had children and attempted to gain the throne,
or would have been born to a virgin, walked on
order and risen from the dead. So I think when
you think about history, you have to think about these things.
(06:03):
The book begins basically with a priest called Sonia who
took residents of a church at rend the chateau, and
he discovered something which amassed him a great fortune, and
my father and two of his companions sought to find
out what the source of his treasure was. This led
him on a journey through history and the question that
(06:27):
I rose before or you know, what is your belief?
That stimulated this whole um, this whole journey. Really he
wanted to know the man behind Jesus, and in doing
that he looked at how we have translated some of
the early texts. And you have something called san Grael,
which people translated as the holy grail. But if you
(06:50):
move the g it becomes sang real, which is holy blood.
And that was something that my father did and explored
through that that actually Jesus could have had a child
and that that child existed and his bloodline existed throughout history. Yeah,
there's a there's a quotation in the book um that
that follows this where uh one thing one thing that
(07:14):
the authors do, as as you mentioned, Tans Michael wrote
this along with his colleagues Henry Lincoln and Richard Lee. Um.
They say, just as you said, that san gral, san
greal could translate to royal or holy blood. And the
authors say in in this book they say in itself
(07:34):
such wordplay might be provocative but hardly conclusive. Taken in
conjunction with the emphasis on genealogy and lineage, however, there's
not much room for doubt. And they go on to
explore some of the blood related lore surrounding the idea
of the Grail, the cup that caught uh Jesus's blood
(07:57):
right becoming becoming the Holy Grail. And one of the
arguments here is that instead this is, as as you said, Tansey,
a bloodline. And I really appreciate the point you're making
about the about the the actual belief system, which is
more likely, I mean, like for a man to have
married and sought some sort of influence and power or
(08:20):
for some of these more mystical interpretations. And again it's
about faith. It's about what which one you see as being,
you know, the most tied to your belief system, I suppose,
But it's interesting to explore both sides for sure. Um
So what when you talk about him, the idea of him,
you know, ascending to the throne or like having some
sort of bloodline, what what does that look like? What
(08:40):
would that actually functionally? What purpose would that serve? So
there is the thought that Jesus was from a sort
of Solomon and David Lyne, which were already entitled to
the to the King of Cheese and to that throne.
And so when he was thought of died or when
he lived on, the plan was to assert that bloodline
(09:01):
back onto the throne. So they had an entitlement to
that throne, and so his bloodline had an entitlement to
the throne, and the plan was to protect that bloodline.
And then you have these sort of secret societies that
come up throughout history that were potentially the quest with
the protection of this bloodline m HM. And the main
(09:26):
one discussed in at least one of the main ones
discussed in the book is UM a group known as
the Priory of Ssion, which is you know, how there
are questions as to whether or not this group actually
existed in the way that is outlined in the book. UM.
Can you talk a little bit about that and about
some of the kind of questions regarding some of this
(09:47):
history and whether we're looking at, you know, things that
have been gleaned from documents that were not entirely accurate,
or if this was more of a twentieth century creation.
You know, a lot of that kind of came up
after the book was published, and I know you're father
was working with information that was, you know, UM, seemed
to be accurate at the time. But where do you
kind of land on, you know, what what is and
(10:08):
isn't maybe entirely accurate in the book. The thing is
that at the time it resigned, he needed two and
my father was relying on the information that was available
to him then. But at the same time, he doesn't
just make an assumption based on one piece of evidence
or one, you know, one document. He takes a multitude
of documents and together creates this theory UM. And so
(10:28):
the Priory of Scion and the Order of Zion, they
came about, you know, whether or not that they existed
in the way that he described at the time. You know,
there was actually the amount of zion back in Jerusalem,
and there was a lot of links and coincidences that
make it seem plausible that there was some kind of
group Um. And whether or not, you know, the Dostrian
(10:51):
secrets has been more evidence has changed or documents have changed.
He didn't just rely on one aspect. And at the
same time, what he came up with was conjecture, there
isn't any you know, we don't have any solid proof
of really anything that far back. So you have to
just go on, you know, bits of information that you have,
tie it together and see whether what you come up
(11:12):
with makes sense and is a viable theory, which he
still believed and maintained at the end that it was
he finded then. And also, you know, had the belief
that Jesus didn't die on the cross Um and that
came through with later books that he came back to
speaking of there are so many novels that your father
wrote and about such a diverse topics. We're just looking
(11:35):
through some of them about um, I mean, going back
to a similar thing the Messianic legacy, the Temple and
the Lodge. When we get into freemasonry, which is something
will jump into here in a moment um, the Jesus Papers,
Dead Sea Scrolls, Deception, the Elixir in the Stone, which
is specifically about alchemy and magic, seems extremely interesting. But
(11:57):
you know, I have not read it for this interview,
but that is definitely on my list. Now, Um, there's
all racing towards Armageddon is another one that I really
want to talk about. Um, is it too Is it
too much to jump gears here? No? I was just
going to maybe say, what what about all of these topics,
these kind of like mystical pursuits fascinated your father so much?
(12:19):
I mean it seems like it wasn't obviously it is
a diverse set of topics, but they all do kind
of tie into this quest for the unknown and like,
you know, some of the same things that drive us
here on the show, I mean, growing up with them.
What what were your perceptions of what drove him to
these kind of like quests. I guess well, I think
what drove him to these quests was the pursuit of truth.
(12:40):
He always used to maintain that, you know, you always
need to ask questions, you always these lit for answers,
and you need to fear no one in your pursuit
of truth. And so I grew up being very open
to a variety of different ideas and not willing to
just take something at face value. He was also very
interested in experience, and so he gave me a copy
(13:02):
of the Hermetica you know when a few years ago,
and he just he was very interested in in the
whole you know, what, what actually made up existence? Um,
what was the truth of reality, and what was the
truth of sort of non reality, the things that we
can't see. And growing up with that and you know,
meditating from a young age was really interesting to me
(13:23):
and has has changed my life. He felt that, you know,
the most important thing was to know not to take
anything I guess at face by that if not to
just be led by what people tell you or what's
written in scriptures, and to actually experience with yourself. And
I think that that drove his pursuit in all of
different his different books, and they all have that sort
of the link to the mystery, the mystical and one
(13:47):
thing that I I really appreciate you mentioning the emphasis
on your father's pursuit and his emphasis on experiential learning
because he did travel widely, and when we're thinking about journeys,
this makes me think. You know, when I originally started
(14:08):
reading the book, I thought this is the culmination of
years of research and work. But in a very real way,
it was just the beginning of a journey for him.
Because this, uh, this book became internationally known and became
the subject of a lot of debate and controversy. So
(14:32):
I guess my my next question would be, Um, something
that I've been very curious about after the publication of
Holy Blood, Holy Grail, what was your what was your
father's journey in the public sphere like? Because he spoke
about the book. Uh, he made appearances, Um, he defended
things right, and I was hoping that you could tell
(14:55):
us in the audience a little bit more about the
journey that he took in the in the path the
publication of this book set him upon. So I guess
the publication of this book was his first sort of
real presence in the limelight, and being in that position,
he got a lot of I guess, inquiries and criticism,
and I think he had to very much sort of
(15:19):
change the way that he presented himself. But he was
always a very private man. He had had a very
difficult childhood, and so he wasn't averse to this sort
of controversy and the negativity that ensued coming out with
that sort of information. What it did, I think, you know,
they were all very taken aback by how successful and
popular the book was and became. That wasn't his initial idea.
(15:42):
They just you know, it's a five year project that
they released, and they had no idea that it would
be such a success. And I think what that did
was it you know, authenticated to him as a as
an author and a historian and a researcher, and that
led him into the realms of a lot of other
books and investigating things, and he was, you know, in
(16:02):
my head, he was very much real life, so Harrison
Ford character, Indiana Jones, Jones, you know, he in order
to do a lot of the research, you know, he
used to take us all around the world. We'd go
to Israel and Scotland and the graves and churches. And
it changed the way that he was in his life.
He was a photographer before then, and so too to
(16:24):
be in that realm of of writing books, of investigating,
of being in the public eye. You know, it changed
the way that he acted and he was, and it
made him more committed to pursuing the truth and the
ideas behind things and the research behind it. But he
was a very private man, he know, he did. He
kept himself very separate because he received a lot of
death threats. Your your father was a war photographer in Laos,
(16:48):
I believe, during the Vietnam War, and I wonder how
much that experience led him even further into this realm
of wanting to question the truth and or question what
is presented as truth. So during his time and now
he went to be a war photographer. But when he arrived,
the two men that he was supposed to meet had
(17:10):
been unfortunately blown up. So he took to photographing on
his own accord, and through that he saw some horrific sites,
and he was actually approached by the CIA, and they
what they were doing at the time was they were
taking and buying a lot of the photographs of all
photographers so that they couldn't be shown to the general public.
(17:32):
He refused to sell them, so he still has a
lot of these photographs and he also saw some things
that were absolutely sort of stricken off from history that
was said would never happen, and he saw those firsthands.
So I think that that realization that what you know
the public is fed is not necessarily what is actually happening,
(17:55):
And I think that led him into into his investigations
of Holy Blood and Holy Grail and all the others
that came over to No, No, that's that's that's interesting.
I kind of thought that's where you were heading when
you're what you were saying. They tried to buy the
photosop him, because even now you hear accounts like on
public radio of war photographers who you know, like they're
(18:17):
asked to turn their cameras off at certain times, you know,
and only photographed certain things. So you really do get
this skewed perspective of something as horrific as a war,
and when it's managed by the people in charge, you
really are it's it's a very easy way to be
led astray into thinking what people want you to think
rather than what is actually true. And so I could
totally see how that experience would lead him to really
(18:39):
want to take deep dives into stuff they don't want
you to know. Uh, and that's that's a that's a
very good point because although it was suppressed from the
public eye at the time, later evidence merge that shows
the US conducted, at least just the US without even
counting European powers, conducted extend cive illegal operations or black
(19:02):
ops allow where numerous minds still remain active land mines
and Cambodia and Myanmar or Burma. Uh this is not
These are not theories, and I feel like it's very
important to establish that for the listening audiences are proven facts.
The most made up thing about at least the US
(19:24):
is involvement in Vietnam was the Gulf of Tonkin incidents.
I think it's so cool and interesting that you kind
of cast your father in this light of this like
real life Indiana Jones character, because something that we're going
to get you next is his sort of embroilment, I
guess with Dan Brown and the Da Vinci Code books,
and that character is sort of cast in a similar light.
(19:45):
Uh So, I think we should talk a little bit
more about that after we take a quick break and
we're back. Before the break, Noel said something in a
series of phrases that I'm sure piqued the interest of
(20:08):
the audience members there, and that is the Da Vinci Code.
I guarantee you guys that somebody, several people probably were
listening to the beginning of this interview and going, huh,
that story sounds familiar, that idea of a secret bloodline
of Christ. Uh. And it is protected by some sort
(20:31):
of mystical, esoteric secret society. And for some reason Tom
Hanks is involved. Well, yeah, I mean he's he's a
really charming guy. He's a good looking man. He's evolved
in a lot of things. I think it's it's mostly
his affecting. He's just very generous, uh, with his personality.
I would I would have. I would have enjoyed The
(20:52):
Da Vinci Code as a film. I would have enjoyed
it more if it had been Tom Hanks's David S.
Pumpkins exploring it. If only, if only? But but we uh,
we we bring this up because this was one of
the biggest controversies. Correct Dan Brown published this book three.
I want to say that might not be correct, but
(21:14):
I think that is so. Decades later, Holy Blood, Holy
Grail is already out internationally known again. It's the subject
of no small amount of controversy, right, and it has
many proponents as many opponents. Dan Brown comes out with
the da Vinci Code and says, so people around the
world go, hey, you based that off of maybe not
(21:39):
quite plagiarized, but you based it off of Holy Blood
and Holy Grail, to which Dan Brown replied, no, uh,
not just Dan Brown the publisher. And it became a thing.
And so our our first question for this, after that
long introduction with this has said the scene, our first
(22:01):
question regarding this tansy is could you give us an
account of how this transpired and and what actually happened
with the arguments that Dan Brown and his publishers were making. Yeah. So, essentially,
Dan Brown promoted himself as a bit of a pseudo historian,
(22:22):
and a lot of people felt that he was the
one who had done all the research for his book. Essentially,
what he was saying is that he'd never really he'd
never read The Holy Brood and the Holy Grail, or
if he had, he'd only sor dabbled with it. What
transpired in court was that he had actually had the
book open at the time of writing the central parts
(22:42):
of his book. Lee t being is an anagram of
Lee and agent Um, so that character was sort of
based on the works I guess of the Holy Brood
and Holy Grail and bt thing takes the copy of
the book off the shelf. What my dad felt was
that this wasn't enough of an acknowledgment of his work
that he spent five years and you know, with others doing,
(23:03):
and that Dan Brown had taken hold of this information
and recast it and stated it as his own and
didn't essentially say that much of it had come from
the Holy Blood and Holy Grail. Gail Reebuck, who is
head a Rundom House, also was there and she, you know,
it was that she He was actually suing the publishers,
not Dan Brown himself. They were also his publishers and
(23:28):
essentially did everything that they could to bankrupt my father
throughout it by hiring QCs and essentially trying to make
him stop pursuing the case. The What would also came
through was the fact that actually Dan Brown didn't do
any of his own research. It all came from blithe
his wife. His wife did all of the research for
every one of his books. He didn't actually do any
(23:49):
of them. So the judge commented that he was basically
a passive observer in terms of the collection of that
historical material. He just created the story around it. But unfortunately,
because of a technical error that our lawyers made early
on in the case, that ended up being a substant
of issue in in why we lost. But you know,
(24:09):
the judges, especially in the course of appeal, held up
the book and said that the title is the Holy
Blood and the Holy Grail. It's quite clear that that
down Brown has copied, you know that that aspect of it.
And you know through that as well as we had
the judge who created his own Smithy code in the judgment,
and he has since been considered a very appallogy judge
(24:33):
and he's is his own bias to to pursue his
own names. So your father and Mr Lee then appealed
the judgment, right, yes, because of the fact that actually
the the original judge, Justice Peter Smith, in his judgment
it was very confused and he made a lot of
statements that suggested that my father was hiding money and
(24:56):
a lot of the reasoning behind his his judgment is
not actually based on on you know, the evidence in
the case. We also felt that Dan Brown lied from
the beginning of the case until the end, so he
continually said, I don't know, I don't remember, and he
didn't remember anything he'd done. Two years before, all of
his work and all of his research was destroyed in
(25:19):
a flood, so both of his computers were destroyed in
a flood. But my father, who wrote the book twenty
years before, could recount pretty much everything that came about
with writing the book. So we felt that the judge
wrongly allowed that, you know, the fact that Dan Brown
had sworn under oath and had lied under oath, and
(25:39):
felt that that was a big issue. The fact that
lithe Brown wouldn't appear was a big issue, and the
fact that we felt that it was quite clear that
Dan Brown had used a lot of information in the
Holy Blood the Holy Grail and hadn't correctly attributed it
to my father, And then that's why we took it
to the Court of appeal. And in the end, this
really did cost your father, your family um a lot
(26:02):
of money and I'm sure emotional distress. And you know
that I can't even imagine drawing something like that out.
And obviously your father was one to stick by his guns,
and I'm sure he felt very passionate about defending his work.
Obviously it wasn't necessarily about making a ton of money,
as it was kind of defending his name. Am I
characterizing that correctly? Yes, that's right. I mean he took
(26:25):
the case before the success of the DaVinci Code, so
he didn't realize the success that it would be. It was.
It was actually just to be awarded the necessary connection
to the Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, and the
fact that he had spent five years and with others
writing that book. That was why he pursued the case.
So regardless of whether somebody believes this uh, this account
(26:52):
or this exploration, regardless of whether somebody disagrees with the
idea is presented right by Michael Agent, there is an
arguable connection between the da Vinci Code and this book.
We have a quote that will read quickly here this is.
(27:15):
This is, in my opinion, the the heart of the
hypothesis summed up. Okay, Perhaps the Magdalen, that elusive woman
in the gospels, was in fact Jesus's wife. Perhaps their
union produced offspring. After the crucifixion, Perhaps the Magdalen, with
at least one child, was smuggled to Gaul where established
Jewish communities had already existed, and where in consequence she
(27:37):
might have found a refuge. Perhaps there was, in short,
a hereditary bloodline descended directly from Jesus. This is like,
there's no way to say that these are not connected.
It just seems very um. It seems implausible that an
author like Dan Brown, uh could have in a vacuum
(28:02):
written that kind of thing. One of the most compelling
things that came out of the ruling was the way
the judge viewed the work Holy Blood, Holy Grail. And
one of the reasons that it was said to not
be Dan Brown's work was not plagiarizing your father's was
because your father's work was like this historical work rather
(28:26):
than fiction. Yeah. So what they said essentially was that
you can't copyright historical facts, and even those facts that
have a shroud of creativity cannot be copyrighted. So they
felt that what my father had done was he'd taken fact,
he shrouded it in this creativity that then that shroud
(28:48):
could not be copyrighted. It actually reduced copyrighting laws to
basically things like imagery or completely unrelated sort of ideas
that were very sinal. It made it so that you
could quite easily copy someone else's work if it was
a sort of a general a general creation based on facts. Wow.
(29:11):
Just circling back a little bit about the controversial nature
of this work, whether you know, I mean, obviously making
it calling it nonfiction could potentially make it potentially more
controversial than having it be fiction. Um, but there are
there were issues of I think the Roman Catholic Church
banning the book in certain circles and you know, calling
for it to be protracted or in some way as
(29:35):
a work of historic history because basically it's it says,
it goes against their entire doctrine. You know that Jesus
Christ had a son and married, and it's a totally
different interpretation of the way they would have us see
that figure. I'm wondering that specifically, how how did that
manifest itself, this religious kind of zelotry coming at you
(29:58):
and your family when this book was published. So my
father received a lot of death threats when we were
growing up, and he felt he was hugely affected by
the strength of the aggression of the church. Really, they
couldn't coordinate, that, they couldn't blend these two ideas. They
couldn't see you know, Christ being this you know, real
(30:19):
historical figure that could have had a wife and child,
and you chose to purely adopt what they've they've taken
from their dogma and their doctrine. And so you know,
it was I think in a D three that Jesus
was proclaimed as this godlike figure in in in Constantinople. Actually,
(30:39):
if we go back in history, we you know, we
don't really have a full grasp of history. So what
is sort of nonfiction and fiction. You know, whether whether
what he's saying is is too or not, but it's
just about understanding why he's created it and where it's
come from. And I think what the Church failed to
see was that there could be a blend here that
(30:59):
you could still see this this character of Jesus and
you know, all his spiritual teachings and the importance of that,
but still see him as a man, whereas a lot
of a lot of these people just could not, They
could not accept it, and they felt that his work,
whether fiction or not, incited so much interest, and they
(31:20):
just retaliated against that to such a degree that I
don't think that my father was quite expecting it at
the time. Because again for him, it was you know,
it was conjecture. It was just a theory, and there's
not many theories that can create that much STU. So
we felt almost that they were taking maybe they were
taking a bit of truth from it, and that's why
they really pushed against it. I say this also isn't
(31:42):
the first example of this idea of Jesus having married
Mary Magdalene or having had a relationship with her. There's
you know, the Martin Scorsese film The Last Temptation of Christ,
which was based on a novel from the nineteen fifties
by a Greek author that sets out this scenario more
and kind of like a storytelling fashion, rather than trying
(32:02):
to claim that it's based on any kind of historical documents. Um,
did your father ever consider that work at all when
he was working on this, or you know, kind of
was I'm sure he was aware of it. But did
that play in any way into his interest into seeking
this out? I'm just wondering. Um, quite possibly he He
did a lot of research around and would have known
(32:23):
about all the different texts that were available. Um, he
he had He never he never said that his very
specifically to him or to his his colleagues, was that
Jesus had a wife. It was it was the bloodline
that came from them. Yeah, and he does he does
use very careful language in parts of the book when
(32:48):
we read the summation of that hypothesis. You know, he says,
perhaps there's indication, you know, at that point when when
the hypothesis is praised. Uh. He is not telling people
what to believe. He's putting these thoughts together and then
continuing an exploration. And Nol, I love that you bring
(33:09):
up that this they're older beliefs uh, evolving similar things,
because this goes back as far as um the century
when people were claiming that part of the Catharist belief
was that there was an earthly Jesus Christ who also
had a relationship with Mary Magdalen. But when we when
(33:34):
we talk about that, we also have to remember, you know,
this can seem controversial today in UH, but it wasn't
that long ago when people were literally being murdered for
saying anything slightly different from the official doctrine of the church.
I mean in in the span of human history. That's
(33:55):
like a that was me snapping my fingers. I forgot
people can't see us well. And and things like that
are still happening today. Um, not necessarily with the with
the Catholic Church or you know, Christian organizations, but they
are occurring today, that's true. And uh, we've talked a
little bit about the way the church reacted, but we
know that many people in academia also reacted adversely to this.
(34:20):
There were historians who said that, um, they had serious
problems with the book or they felt that it was uh,
they felt that it was not doing due diligence to
other things that they considered historical fact. Now, I do
want to say at the top here that, uh, Matt Nolan,
(34:44):
I are not historians unless you guys had a anybody
have a wild weekend. I mean I watched some great
courses every now and then. There we go, But we
we do wanna we do want to ask how how
did your father react to the academic country versy surrounding
this book or the criticisms that he received, so not
just the ideologically based death threats perhaps, but the the
(35:09):
secular conversations so from the academic community. Um, they what
essentially his book was considered because it wasn't non fiction
or fiction. The way that they had written it was
very different to how a lot of books have been written.
In you you had to do a sort of a
set structure in order for it to be a nonfiction,
(35:31):
or a set structure in order for it to be
a fiction. But what they wanted to do is they
wanted to create this this story that brought in fact
and their interpretation. And a lot of academics found that
um not their liking, and a lot of historians were
very critical of his work and the work of Bean Lincoln.
(35:53):
But the thing is that, you know, my father was
an incredible researcher. He was very intelligent. He was very
intellectual and one the most He is one of the
most intellectual men I have ever met, and most mystical.
And I haven't found another researcher who has gone to
the lengths but he went to in order to compile
(36:15):
the necessary work for all of his books. He would
go down caves, he would he spoke French, and would
read all sorts of documents. He investigated things to the
nth degree. And it's easy for a person to criticize work,
but to actually be the one to write it, to
be the one to research it, it takes a lot
of time and a lot of energy and a lot
(36:35):
of commitment. And what all he was doing was presenting
facts and an interpretation of potential interpretation of what they were.
He never tried to make anyone else believe what he found.
He said, it's up to everyone else to draw their
own conclusions. And that was his response as well to
these these other authorities who were trying to sort of
(36:56):
contest the work he did, and he just he stood
by that. I want to jump into something that we
kind of mentioned early on in this episode. Your father
was a member of a group that has experienced its
own controversies, and this is the Freemasons. Uh, the Order
(37:16):
of Freemasonry. He was, at least according to Masonry Today
dot com, he was a member of Lodge Economy number
seventy six in Winchester and uh he served as Grand
Officer in the United Grand Lodge of England. That sounds awesome.
I don't know what it means, but it sounds awesome.
And he also served as an editor of the Masonic
(37:38):
magazine Freemasonry Today. And if you there's a website that
exists for that for Freemasonry Today, and you can see
writing um by your father, and it's very very fascinating stuff.
Lots of esoteric um. I mean, I guess that's just
the nature of freemasonry, but lots of very high level
(37:59):
thinking about consciousness and about religion and the afterlife. And
I just wonder how much this world that your father
existed in influenced all the other things and then perhaps
even new Well. He was very interested in the esoteric,
and I think that that formulated his own journey in freemasonry.
(38:23):
There's a lot of Freemasons who disregard a lot of
the ritual, a lot of the meaning behind behind the
ritual as well, and I think that his what he
wanted to do was pursue the esoteric aspects of it.
He anyone can join freemasonry, it doesn't you don't have
to be bound by religion. And so he found it
(38:44):
was an amazing melting pot of different people with diverse ideas.
This single belief in this I guess, in this, this other,
this other realm, or this oneness that combine that connects
all of us um. And that's something that he brought
through from his work and also from who he was
as a young as a young man, and the experiences
that he had, and he brought that into his into
(39:07):
freemason in his own way and tailored his role as
editor to incorporate a lot of that. And in my
own life he got test meditating from a young age.
He never ever told us to pursue any religion or
any type of spiritual belief. He would always assert that
there was many paths to the top of the mountain,
and we had our choice to pursue whicheveryone we wished.
(39:29):
I actually started as an atheist. I then became agnostic.
I had my own experiences, and that's when I spoke
to my father about where I could go from there,
and he introduced me to a lot of different religions.
I tried Sukism and Wiccan and Paganism until I realized
that actually I was my own guide and my own
path was still the top of amount and I didn't
have to be part of any religion. And so in
(39:51):
that way I did. I did find that connection to
the One and to and you know, he helped me
in that process, but he was no he was in
new way. Um A sort of full influence was that
he let me guide myself. Tansy are you are you
familiar with Pierre Plantard. He was a figure in kind
(40:11):
of French politics who was kind of like considered a
Hoaxter type and you know, sort of like believed in
certain mystical beliefs as well in a similar way to
your father. But is he's the one who kind of
claimed that he was responsible for sort of trumping up
some of the priory of siren stuff and um, you know,
kind of directly criticized Holy Blood Holy Grail when it
(40:34):
came out, saying that, you know, it was a work
of fiction, and he kind of discounted some of the
texts that it was based on and kind of said
that he the story basically, but he also has kind
of been debunked in many ways as well. And it's
just interesting, you know, he's someone who kind of prided
themselves on always you know, getting the last laugh. He
(40:56):
strikes me as that type, as I was just wondering
if you were familiar with that situation in his role
in any of this, because and also, like you talk
about your father being a Mason and kind of having
this mind and this fascination with the idea of mysticism
and not necessarily religion, but just more the idea of
what's beyond the veil, you know, in more of a
(41:19):
universal kind of sense, like with the Meditation. And one
of the criticisms I think that's been levied against him
about this book is that he maybe let some of
that stand in the way of seeing the facts. And
I'm just wondering how how you might respond to that.
That was one thing that this Pierre Plantard gentleman said
is that, you know, he might have allowed himself to
be taken for a ride because he wanted to believe.
(41:42):
And we run into this all the time on our show.
So Pierre Planta was relevant to the holy and the
Holy Grail, and I think that the work that he
did there, I think that there was links between between
that and what my father did. But my father also
had uge amount of other sources, and I think that
the overarching um idea that he came up with this
(42:06):
holy blood, holy Grail, this this holy blood that ran
through time, I don't think has a connection to the
mystical um in that sense. And so I don't think
that actually it did affect his work in that way
or clouded his judgment. I think he was seeing quite clearly,
and I don't think it even matters that, you know,
(42:27):
if Planta was discredited or in any way, I still
think that his theory stands up to scrutiny. And I
think again, you know, when you're dealing with historical information,
you just cannot be sure. So you just have to
find what seems right to you. And again, you know,
my father was never trying to tell people what to believe.
(42:47):
That was not his purpose. He was just presenting facts,
presenting his interpretation, and providing a theory. Whether you agree
with him or not, this is up to you. Well,
so your father was really focusing on that divine world.
The he called it many things, at least in interviews
that I've heard him speaking about it. It's the whatever
(43:10):
plane exists just beyond this physical one, where every human
being goes to upon death, and from from where every
person comes before they were born. Right. This um a
lot in throughout all these different religions. You have a
place called heaven or elysium, hades, the duot, there's you know,
(43:33):
pick a religion, there's in other world. Um. And so
I'm hearing that perhaps through meditation you personally get to
experience that at least in some part. Is that something
that anyone listening can can attempt. Absolutely. I'm a meditation
teacher and I always I try to not bring too
(43:55):
much of these deep spiritual ideas into my meditation classes,
but they come in naturally. I think that the actually
the purpose of meditating and being still you find a
deeper connection to each other and to yourself, and in
that place of stillness you can start to feel and
observe a different sense of reality. And whether you wish
(44:17):
to pursue that or not, I think meditation is an
incredible skill in tapping into that oneness and the connection
with us all. So we have several narrative threads going
on right now for this this interview, and we have
so much stuff to explore, and will be right back
after a word from our sponsor. I'd like to explore
(44:46):
something that we we mentioned earlier. Matt. I believe you
mentioned uh that Mr Pagent was a prolific author. So
we've explored Holy Blood, Holy Grail and the arguments within.
But as Matt mentioned earlier in the show, Michael Begent
(45:07):
did not write just one book. He was quite a
prolific author, and he wrote book that particularly interests me
and probably interests longtime listeners as well, Secret Germany Given,
which examines the occult practices of the Nazi Party in
the World War two era. Uh. He also wrote a
(45:28):
book that Matt, you were very interested in. Oh yes,
Nazis are always a hot topic on the show. And
all of those the beliefs and movements that went behind them,
especially magic, man UFOs and magic and Nazis. That's like
some of the most interesting things you can talk about,
all right. So another book I really was fascinated by
(45:51):
your father wrote was called Racing Towards Armageddon, And that's
not the full title, but that's, you know, the gist
of what it was getting into. And in this he
explores religious fundamentalism and that's not that's not relevant at
all today, was right, and especially the intertwining narratives of
the end times of all the various major religions, like
(46:11):
how how they believe the end of the world will
come about and everyone ascending, you know, either into their
version of heaven or everyone converting to their religion. And
I was listening to an interview with him, and man,
it sounded to me like he believed we're getting very
close to the end times. Are you seeing that at all. Yeah, Well,
(46:36):
what was quite interesting is that actually when he was
out in Israel, he's or a photographer who took photos
of these very big warehouses and when he asked the
photographer what was in them, he said, there are a
huge amount of arms owned by the Americans. Um. And
this was a place near on the Geddo, which is
where they say leave armged and will happen. And I
(46:56):
think his work through that book was talking about how
these fundamentalists are trying to pursue their own aims and
bring us towards the end of the world. And with
the amount of tragedies that have occurred recently with fundamentalists,
you know, pushing against the system constantly, you know, I
feel that there is a worry that the end is
(47:20):
is certainly closer than you would want. And what he
felt was that, you know, he said, is it is
it time perhaps for the religions of the book to
throw away the book and seek spiritual experience rather than
settling for near belief. And I think that's where he
he wanted to go. He felt that, you know, democracy
(47:40):
and the he felt that faith in people and who
he were as humans, he felt of that needed to
be stronger than these these archaic sort of beliefs that
guide people towards death and doom. Yeah, that's that's exactly
what we were talking about earlier, getting back to things
like the cabbala or classical miss deicism or suffism, where
(48:02):
it's all about that personal connection with the other side
rather than someone standing on a pulpit telling you how
it is. I don't know that that speaks to me
at least personally, Tansy. We want to thank you so
much for taking to the time to speak with us
today and to speak with our listeners as well. And
(48:24):
one thing that we like to end the show on
whenever we examine historical allegations or or any anything related
to the past, is we like to ask about the future.
So where do you see the future of research into
(48:47):
uh these sorts of theories going over the over the
next few years. Is this is this a done deal
or is there more to be discovered? So there was
a lot of work that he did in the course
of his career and knew a lot of very influential
people and people who were in positions of power, and
(49:07):
he found out a lot of information that is still
kept secret and hidden from the public. That's something that
I think eventually will come out and it would be
interesting to see how if it will be some nonfiction
thriller in some sort of exciting way. Who knows that
you're that you're going to write. Oh yes, very competent
(49:32):
at writing the books. We can't thank you enough for
joining us today. I was wonderful to speak with you
and about your father and all of these just fascinating
mystical things. And it sounds like there's still more out
there to be discovered. So this concludes today's episode, but
not our show. Matt, Noel and I will be returning
(49:56):
next week with more of the strangest, most bizarre stuff
they don't want you to know. But in the meantime,
if your question is how can I find you guys
before the next episode? Check us out on the internet.
We got ways, Yeah, we've got means. You can find
us on Twitter we're conspiracy stuff there and on Facebook.
(50:16):
Same deal. Hey, Tansy, how could people find you and
ask you questions if they're interested? So I run my
father's website, which is Michael agent dot com, So you
can contact me through that website. Yeah, I'll happily answer
any questions that you might have. Is there anything else
you're getting into that you want to tell people about. Yeah, so,
I'm actually at the moment in the process of writing
(50:37):
a book about the future of the environment. I did
a master's an international environmental law, and it's something that's
really interesting to me and also talks about a lot
of conspiracies in that in that world. Oh that's awesome,
scary to environmental conspiracies. I feel like that's it's gonna
make me really sad tansy. All right, well, met uh,
(50:58):
you know, gird yourself, get ready because we're going to
have to do an episode on that and the fact.
Okay down, and if none of that social media stuff
is your bag, you can totally just send us an
email with questions, concerns, comments, ideas for episodes, death threats. No,
maybe not, don't do that. Send them to conspiracy at
how stuff works dot com.
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. M hello,
(00:24):
and welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Noel. They call me Ben. You are you?
And that makes this stuff they don't want you to know. So, guys,
how we feel it? Feeling good? Pretty good, feeling good,
a little um, a little I don't know, worried, trepidacious, Yeah,
feeling something just weighing on me because the research that
(00:47):
we've been doing for this episode we're about to record
it gets into the deep dark levels of your soul almost, yeah,
you know. Whenever we go into an examination of history,
what we find is that although history is often portrayed
as a concrete, inarguable thing, it's much more like a
(01:09):
conversation and at times an argument between narratives. You have
to mention the other to the saying about history is
written by the victors or whatever. So a lot of
revisionism going on, depending on, you know, the perspective that
you're looking at. And in the history of the exploration
of where we come from, you know, of the mysteries
(01:29):
that surround the origins of humanity, and it always brings
to mind one of my favorite William Faulkner quotes. Uh.
He said that the past isn't over, it isn't even past.
And I think we forget how often history in the
world we live in is a palamp sessed. A palamp
tessed is just the fancy word for a thing that
(01:52):
a lot of monasteries used to do when paper was
very expensive and rare, or they were using scrolls, they
would or vellum, I guess, instead of buying more paper
to write something. What they would do is they would
erase what was written earlier, and they would write over
it and fast forward several centuries. Historians and researchers found
(02:13):
out that it was possible to read the earlier copies,
the parts of history that had literally been overwritten through
the tactile clues, just the impressions that the earlier pens
or quills made on the physical paper. And a lot
of times when we look at history, we're exploring different
versions of history or arguments we're using in a in
(02:37):
a in a very strange way, we're using clues that
are like the indentations of those earlier stories on physical paper.
We're finding references that don't make sense. We're connecting dots
that have not been connected. And this is regardless of
how you feel about a specific case. This is one
of the most important parts of historical scholarship. So today
(03:02):
we are we're not just talking about history for frenzies. No, no, no,
Today we are diving into one of the I would say,
I would say, one of the most prominent, uh, one
of the most prominent conflicts in historical narratives. And we
are not doing it alone. We have with us today
(03:25):
a very important person that exists within the narrative that
we will be exploring, and I think the best thing
possibly to do is just to introduce her and then
let her tell us about herself. So let's do it.
So welcome to the show, Tansy Pagent. Thank you, Hi, welcome, welcome.
(03:48):
So tell us a little bit about yourself, Tansy. Why
are you here today? So I'm here today to talk
a little bit about what my father did, um what
he dedicated a lot of his life too, and that
was the exploration of history and looking for new ways
to view history, new ways to think about history. Rather
than just believing the perceived views of the massive. Yes.
(04:13):
In ninety two, U Tansy, your father Michael Begent wrote
a world changing book called Holy Blood, Holy Grail, and
earlier when you had reached out to us, this was
this was thrilling for us because this is a book
that even if people haven't read it or haven't heard
(04:35):
of it, people are probably very familiar with the idea.
Here we checked out a copy of the book and
this is if we're gonna let the badger out of
the bag here, already we've got more than one bag.
We've got We're we've got many badgers, right. Uh. This
(04:56):
book focuses on the an exploration of what the Holy
Grail in Biblical lore actually was, and it delves into
the early days of the Christian Church. It delves into
nothing less than the secret history of Christ. Yes, and
(05:17):
specifically whether or not Jesus actually died when he, you know,
historically died, at least what the texts say, and then
whether or not he actually had a bloodline that continued
on in France. I believe in the Maravingian line a
fascinating stuff. And Dancy, can you tell us a little
(05:41):
bit more more about it. Yeah, I mean to start, really,
you have to think about, you know what, what do
you believe? Do you think that a Jewish man would
have married, had children and attempted to gain the throne,
or would have been born to a virgin, walked on
order and risen from the dead. So I think when
you think about history, you have to think about these things.
(06:03):
The book begins basically with a priest called Sonia who
took residents of a church at rend the chateau, and
he discovered something which amassed him a great fortune, and
my father and two of his companions sought to find
out what the source of his treasure was. This led
him on a journey through history and the question that
(06:27):
I rose before or you know, what is your belief?
That stimulated this whole um, this whole journey. Really he
wanted to know the man behind Jesus, and in doing
that he looked at how we have translated some of
the early texts. And you have something called san Grael,
which people translated as the holy grail. But if you
(06:50):
move the g it becomes sang real, which is holy blood.
And that was something that my father did and explored
through that that actually Jesus could have had a child
and that that child existed and his bloodline existed throughout history. Yeah,
there's a there's a quotation in the book um that
that follows this where uh one thing one thing that
(07:14):
the authors do, as as you mentioned, Tans Michael wrote
this along with his colleagues Henry Lincoln and Richard Lee. Um.
They say, just as you said, that san gral, san
greal could translate to royal or holy blood. And the
authors say in in this book they say in itself
(07:34):
such wordplay might be provocative but hardly conclusive. Taken in
conjunction with the emphasis on genealogy and lineage, however, there's
not much room for doubt. And they go on to
explore some of the blood related lore surrounding the idea
of the Grail, the cup that caught uh Jesus's blood
(07:57):
right becoming becoming the Holy Grail. And one of the
arguments here is that instead this is, as as you said, Tansey,
a bloodline. And I really appreciate the point you're making
about the about the the actual belief system, which is
more likely, I mean, like for a man to have
married and sought some sort of influence and power or
(08:20):
for some of these more mystical interpretations. And again it's
about faith. It's about what which one you see as being,
you know, the most tied to your belief system, I suppose,
But it's interesting to explore both sides for sure. Um
So what when you talk about him, the idea of him,
you know, ascending to the throne or like having some
sort of bloodline, what what does that look like? What
(08:40):
would that actually functionally? What purpose would that serve? So
there is the thought that Jesus was from a sort
of Solomon and David Lyne, which were already entitled to
the to the King of Cheese and to that throne.
And so when he was thought of died or when
he lived on, the plan was to assert that bloodline
(09:01):
back onto the throne. So they had an entitlement to
that throne, and so his bloodline had an entitlement to
the throne, and the plan was to protect that bloodline.
And then you have these sort of secret societies that
come up throughout history that were potentially the quest with
the protection of this bloodline m HM. And the main
(09:26):
one discussed in at least one of the main ones
discussed in the book is UM a group known as
the Priory of Ssion, which is you know, how there
are questions as to whether or not this group actually
existed in the way that is outlined in the book. UM.
Can you talk a little bit about that and about
some of the kind of questions regarding some of this
(09:47):
history and whether we're looking at, you know, things that
have been gleaned from documents that were not entirely accurate,
or if this was more of a twentieth century creation.
You know, a lot of that kind of came up
after the book was published, and I know you're father
was working with information that was, you know, UM, seemed
to be accurate at the time. But where do you
kind of land on, you know, what what is and
(10:08):
isn't maybe entirely accurate in the book. The thing is
that at the time it resigned, he needed two and
my father was relying on the information that was available
to him then. But at the same time, he doesn't
just make an assumption based on one piece of evidence
or one, you know, one document. He takes a multitude
of documents and together creates this theory UM. And so
(10:28):
the Priory of Scion and the Order of Zion, they
came about, you know, whether or not that they existed
in the way that he described at the time. You know,
there was actually the amount of zion back in Jerusalem,
and there was a lot of links and coincidences that
make it seem plausible that there was some kind of
group Um. And whether or not, you know, the Dostrian
(10:51):
secrets has been more evidence has changed or documents have changed.
He didn't just rely on one aspect. And at the
same time, what he came up with was conjecture, there
isn't any you know, we don't have any solid proof
of really anything that far back. So you have to
just go on, you know, bits of information that you have,
tie it together and see whether what you come up
(11:12):
with makes sense and is a viable theory, which he
still believed and maintained at the end that it was
he finded then. And also, you know, had the belief
that Jesus didn't die on the cross Um and that
came through with later books that he came back to
speaking of there are so many novels that your father
wrote and about such a diverse topics. We're just looking
(11:35):
through some of them about um, I mean, going back
to a similar thing the Messianic legacy, the Temple and
the Lodge. When we get into freemasonry, which is something
will jump into here in a moment um, the Jesus Papers,
Dead Sea Scrolls, Deception, the Elixir in the Stone, which
is specifically about alchemy and magic, seems extremely interesting. But
(11:57):
you know, I have not read it for this interview,
but that is definitely on my list. Now, Um, there's
all racing towards Armageddon is another one that I really
want to talk about. Um, is it too Is it
too much to jump gears here? No? I was just
going to maybe say, what what about all of these topics,
these kind of like mystical pursuits fascinated your father so much?
(12:19):
I mean it seems like it wasn't obviously it is
a diverse set of topics, but they all do kind
of tie into this quest for the unknown and like,
you know, some of the same things that drive us
here on the show, I mean, growing up with them.
What what were your perceptions of what drove him to
these kind of like quests. I guess well, I think
what drove him to these quests was the pursuit of truth.
(12:40):
He always used to maintain that, you know, you always
need to ask questions, you always these lit for answers,
and you need to fear no one in your pursuit
of truth. And so I grew up being very open
to a variety of different ideas and not willing to
just take something at face value. He was also very
interested in experience, and so he gave me a copy
(13:02):
of the Hermetica you know when a few years ago,
and he just he was very interested in in the
whole you know, what, what actually made up existence? Um,
what was the truth of reality, and what was the
truth of sort of non reality, the things that we
can't see. And growing up with that and you know,
meditating from a young age was really interesting to me
(13:23):
and has has changed my life. He felt that, you know,
the most important thing was to know not to take
anything I guess at face by that if not to
just be led by what people tell you or what's
written in scriptures, and to actually experience with yourself. And
I think that that drove his pursuit in all of
different his different books, and they all have that sort
of the link to the mystery, the mystical and one
(13:47):
thing that I I really appreciate you mentioning the emphasis
on your father's pursuit and his emphasis on experiential learning
because he did travel widely, and when we're thinking about journeys,
this makes me think. You know, when I originally started
(14:08):
reading the book, I thought this is the culmination of
years of research and work. But in a very real way,
it was just the beginning of a journey for him.
Because this, uh, this book became internationally known and became
the subject of a lot of debate and controversy. So
(14:32):
I guess my my next question would be, Um, something
that I've been very curious about after the publication of
Holy Blood, Holy Grail, what was your what was your
father's journey in the public sphere like? Because he spoke
about the book. Uh, he made appearances, Um, he defended
things right, and I was hoping that you could tell
(14:55):
us in the audience a little bit more about the
journey that he took in the in the path the
publication of this book set him upon. So I guess
the publication of this book was his first sort of
real presence in the limelight, and being in that position,
he got a lot of I guess, inquiries and criticism,
and I think he had to very much sort of
(15:19):
change the way that he presented himself. But he was
always a very private man. He had had a very
difficult childhood, and so he wasn't averse to this sort
of controversy and the negativity that ensued coming out with
that sort of information. What it did, I think, you know,
they were all very taken aback by how successful and
popular the book was and became. That wasn't his initial idea.
(15:42):
They just you know, it's a five year project that
they released, and they had no idea that it would
be such a success. And I think what that did
was it you know, authenticated to him as a as
an author and a historian and a researcher, and that
led him into the realms of a lot of other
books and investigating things, and he was, you know, in
(16:02):
my head, he was very much real life, so Harrison
Ford character, Indiana Jones, Jones, you know, he in order
to do a lot of the research, you know, he
used to take us all around the world. We'd go
to Israel and Scotland and the graves and churches. And
it changed the way that he was in his life.
He was a photographer before then, and so too to
(16:24):
be in that realm of of writing books, of investigating,
of being in the public eye. You know, it changed
the way that he acted and he was, and it
made him more committed to pursuing the truth and the
ideas behind things and the research behind it. But he
was a very private man, he know, he did. He
kept himself very separate because he received a lot of
death threats. Your your father was a war photographer in Laos,
(16:48):
I believe, during the Vietnam War, and I wonder how
much that experience led him even further into this realm
of wanting to question the truth and or question what
is presented as truth. So during his time and now
he went to be a war photographer. But when he arrived,
the two men that he was supposed to meet had
(17:10):
been unfortunately blown up. So he took to photographing on
his own accord, and through that he saw some horrific sites,
and he was actually approached by the CIA, and they
what they were doing at the time was they were
taking and buying a lot of the photographs of all
photographers so that they couldn't be shown to the general public.
(17:32):
He refused to sell them, so he still has a
lot of these photographs and he also saw some things
that were absolutely sort of stricken off from history that
was said would never happen, and he saw those firsthands.
So I think that that realization that what you know
the public is fed is not necessarily what is actually happening,
(17:55):
And I think that led him into into his investigations
of Holy Blood and Holy Grail and all the others
that came over to No, No, that's that's that's interesting.
I kind of thought that's where you were heading when
you're what you were saying. They tried to buy the
photosop him, because even now you hear accounts like on
public radio of war photographers who you know, like they're
(18:17):
asked to turn their cameras off at certain times, you know,
and only photographed certain things. So you really do get
this skewed perspective of something as horrific as a war,
and when it's managed by the people in charge, you
really are it's it's a very easy way to be
led astray into thinking what people want you to think
rather than what is actually true. And so I could
totally see how that experience would lead him to really
(18:39):
want to take deep dives into stuff they don't want
you to know. Uh, and that's that's a that's a
very good point because although it was suppressed from the
public eye at the time, later evidence merge that shows
the US conducted, at least just the US without even
counting European powers, conducted extend cive illegal operations or black
(19:02):
ops allow where numerous minds still remain active land mines
and Cambodia and Myanmar or Burma. Uh this is not
These are not theories, and I feel like it's very
important to establish that for the listening audiences are proven facts.
The most made up thing about at least the US
(19:24):
is involvement in Vietnam was the Gulf of Tonkin incidents.
I think it's so cool and interesting that you kind
of cast your father in this light of this like
real life Indiana Jones character, because something that we're going
to get you next is his sort of embroilment, I
guess with Dan Brown and the Da Vinci Code books,
and that character is sort of cast in a similar light.
(19:45):
Uh So, I think we should talk a little bit
more about that after we take a quick break and
we're back. Before the break, Noel said something in a
series of phrases that I'm sure piqued the interest of
(20:08):
the audience members there, and that is the Da Vinci Code.
I guarantee you guys that somebody, several people probably were
listening to the beginning of this interview and going, huh,
that story sounds familiar, that idea of a secret bloodline
of Christ. Uh. And it is protected by some sort
(20:31):
of mystical, esoteric secret society. And for some reason Tom
Hanks is involved. Well, yeah, I mean he's he's a
really charming guy. He's a good looking man. He's evolved
in a lot of things. I think it's it's mostly
his affecting. He's just very generous, uh, with his personality.
I would I would have. I would have enjoyed The
(20:52):
Da Vinci Code as a film. I would have enjoyed
it more if it had been Tom Hanks's David S.
Pumpkins exploring it. If only, if only? But but we uh,
we we bring this up because this was one of
the biggest controversies. Correct Dan Brown published this book three.
I want to say that might not be correct, but
(21:14):
I think that is so. Decades later, Holy Blood, Holy
Grail is already out internationally known again. It's the subject
of no small amount of controversy, right, and it has
many proponents as many opponents. Dan Brown comes out with
the da Vinci Code and says, so people around the
world go, hey, you based that off of maybe not
(21:39):
quite plagiarized, but you based it off of Holy Blood
and Holy Grail, to which Dan Brown replied, no, uh,
not just Dan Brown the publisher. And it became a thing.
And so our our first question for this, after that
long introduction with this has said the scene, our first
(22:01):
question regarding this tansy is could you give us an
account of how this transpired and and what actually happened
with the arguments that Dan Brown and his publishers were making. Yeah. So, essentially,
Dan Brown promoted himself as a bit of a pseudo historian,
(22:22):
and a lot of people felt that he was the
one who had done all the research for his book. Essentially,
what he was saying is that he'd never really he'd
never read The Holy Brood and the Holy Grail, or
if he had, he'd only sor dabbled with it. What
transpired in court was that he had actually had the
book open at the time of writing the central parts
(22:42):
of his book. Lee t being is an anagram of
Lee and agent Um, so that character was sort of
based on the works I guess of the Holy Brood
and Holy Grail and bt thing takes the copy of
the book off the shelf. What my dad felt was
that this wasn't enough of an acknowledgment of his work
that he spent five years and you know, with others doing,
(23:03):
and that Dan Brown had taken hold of this information
and recast it and stated it as his own and
didn't essentially say that much of it had come from
the Holy Blood and Holy Grail. Gail Reebuck, who is
head a Rundom House, also was there and she, you know,
it was that she He was actually suing the publishers,
not Dan Brown himself. They were also his publishers and
(23:28):
essentially did everything that they could to bankrupt my father
throughout it by hiring QCs and essentially trying to make
him stop pursuing the case. The What would also came
through was the fact that actually Dan Brown didn't do
any of his own research. It all came from blithe
his wife. His wife did all of the research for
every one of his books. He didn't actually do any
(23:49):
of them. So the judge commented that he was basically
a passive observer in terms of the collection of that
historical material. He just created the story around it. But unfortunately,
because of a technical error that our lawyers made early
on in the case, that ended up being a substant
of issue in in why we lost. But you know,
(24:09):
the judges, especially in the course of appeal, held up
the book and said that the title is the Holy
Blood and the Holy Grail. It's quite clear that that
down Brown has copied, you know that that aspect of it.
And you know through that as well as we had
the judge who created his own Smithy code in the judgment,
and he has since been considered a very appallogy judge
(24:33):
and he's is his own bias to to pursue his
own names. So your father and Mr Lee then appealed
the judgment, right, yes, because of the fact that actually
the the original judge, Justice Peter Smith, in his judgment
it was very confused and he made a lot of
statements that suggested that my father was hiding money and
(24:56):
a lot of the reasoning behind his his judgment is
not actually based on on you know, the evidence in
the case. We also felt that Dan Brown lied from
the beginning of the case until the end, so he
continually said, I don't know, I don't remember, and he
didn't remember anything he'd done. Two years before, all of
his work and all of his research was destroyed in
(25:19):
a flood, so both of his computers were destroyed in
a flood. But my father, who wrote the book twenty
years before, could recount pretty much everything that came about
with writing the book. So we felt that the judge
wrongly allowed that, you know, the fact that Dan Brown
had sworn under oath and had lied under oath, and
(25:39):
felt that that was a big issue. The fact that
lithe Brown wouldn't appear was a big issue, and the
fact that we felt that it was quite clear that
Dan Brown had used a lot of information in the
Holy Blood the Holy Grail and hadn't correctly attributed it
to my father, And then that's why we took it
to the Court of appeal. And in the end, this
really did cost your father, your family um a lot
(26:02):
of money and I'm sure emotional distress. And you know
that I can't even imagine drawing something like that out.
And obviously your father was one to stick by his guns,
and I'm sure he felt very passionate about defending his work.
Obviously it wasn't necessarily about making a ton of money,
as it was kind of defending his name. Am I
characterizing that correctly? Yes, that's right. I mean he took
(26:25):
the case before the success of the DaVinci Code, so
he didn't realize the success that it would be. It was.
It was actually just to be awarded the necessary connection
to the Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, and the
fact that he had spent five years and with others
writing that book. That was why he pursued the case.
So regardless of whether somebody believes this uh, this account
(26:52):
or this exploration, regardless of whether somebody disagrees with the
idea is presented right by Michael Agent, there is an
arguable connection between the da Vinci Code and this book.
We have a quote that will read quickly here this is.
(27:15):
This is, in my opinion, the the heart of the
hypothesis summed up. Okay, Perhaps the Magdalen, that elusive woman
in the gospels, was in fact Jesus's wife. Perhaps their
union produced offspring. After the crucifixion, Perhaps the Magdalen, with
at least one child, was smuggled to Gaul where established
Jewish communities had already existed, and where in consequence she
(27:37):
might have found a refuge. Perhaps there was, in short,
a hereditary bloodline descended directly from Jesus. This is like,
there's no way to say that these are not connected.
It just seems very um. It seems implausible that an
author like Dan Brown, uh could have in a vacuum
(28:02):
written that kind of thing. One of the most compelling
things that came out of the ruling was the way
the judge viewed the work Holy Blood, Holy Grail. And
one of the reasons that it was said to not
be Dan Brown's work was not plagiarizing your father's was
because your father's work was like this historical work rather
(28:26):
than fiction. Yeah. So what they said essentially was that
you can't copyright historical facts, and even those facts that
have a shroud of creativity cannot be copyrighted. So they
felt that what my father had done was he'd taken fact,
he shrouded it in this creativity that then that shroud
(28:48):
could not be copyrighted. It actually reduced copyrighting laws to
basically things like imagery or completely unrelated sort of ideas
that were very sinal. It made it so that you
could quite easily copy someone else's work if it was
a sort of a general a general creation based on facts. Wow.
(29:11):
Just circling back a little bit about the controversial nature
of this work, whether you know, I mean, obviously making
it calling it nonfiction could potentially make it potentially more
controversial than having it be fiction. Um, but there are
there were issues of I think the Roman Catholic Church
banning the book in certain circles and you know, calling
for it to be protracted or in some way as
(29:35):
a work of historic history because basically it's it says,
it goes against their entire doctrine. You know that Jesus
Christ had a son and married, and it's a totally
different interpretation of the way they would have us see
that figure. I'm wondering that specifically, how how did that
manifest itself, this religious kind of zelotry coming at you
(29:58):
and your family when this book was published. So my
father received a lot of death threats when we were
growing up, and he felt he was hugely affected by
the strength of the aggression of the church. Really, they
couldn't coordinate, that, they couldn't blend these two ideas. They
couldn't see you know, Christ being this you know, real
(30:19):
historical figure that could have had a wife and child,
and you chose to purely adopt what they've they've taken
from their dogma and their doctrine. And so you know,
it was I think in a D three that Jesus
was proclaimed as this godlike figure in in in Constantinople. Actually,
(30:39):
if we go back in history, we you know, we
don't really have a full grasp of history. So what
is sort of nonfiction and fiction. You know, whether whether
what he's saying is is too or not, but it's
just about understanding why he's created it and where it's
come from. And I think what the Church failed to
see was that there could be a blend here that
(30:59):
you could still see this this character of Jesus and
you know, all his spiritual teachings and the importance of that,
but still see him as a man, whereas a lot
of a lot of these people just could not, They
could not accept it, and they felt that his work,
whether fiction or not, incited so much interest, and they
(31:20):
just retaliated against that to such a degree that I
don't think that my father was quite expecting it at
the time. Because again for him, it was you know,
it was conjecture. It was just a theory, and there's
not many theories that can create that much STU. So
we felt almost that they were taking maybe they were
taking a bit of truth from it, and that's why
they really pushed against it. I say this also isn't
(31:42):
the first example of this idea of Jesus having married
Mary Magdalene or having had a relationship with her. There's
you know, the Martin Scorsese film The Last Temptation of Christ,
which was based on a novel from the nineteen fifties
by a Greek author that sets out this scenario more
and kind of like a storytelling fashion, rather than trying
(32:02):
to claim that it's based on any kind of historical documents. Um,
did your father ever consider that work at all when
he was working on this, or you know, kind of
was I'm sure he was aware of it. But did
that play in any way into his interest into seeking
this out? I'm just wondering. Um, quite possibly he He
did a lot of research around and would have known
(32:23):
about all the different texts that were available. Um, he
he had He never he never said that his very
specifically to him or to his his colleagues, was that
Jesus had a wife. It was it was the bloodline
that came from them. Yeah, and he does he does
use very careful language in parts of the book when
(32:48):
we read the summation of that hypothesis. You know, he says,
perhaps there's indication, you know, at that point when when
the hypothesis is praised. Uh. He is not telling people
what to believe. He's putting these thoughts together and then
continuing an exploration. And Nol, I love that you bring
(33:09):
up that this they're older beliefs uh, evolving similar things,
because this goes back as far as um the century
when people were claiming that part of the Catharist belief
was that there was an earthly Jesus Christ who also
had a relationship with Mary Magdalen. But when we when
(33:34):
we talk about that, we also have to remember, you know,
this can seem controversial today in UH, but it wasn't
that long ago when people were literally being murdered for
saying anything slightly different from the official doctrine of the church.
I mean in in the span of human history. That's
(33:55):
like a that was me snapping my fingers. I forgot
people can't see us well. And and things like that
are still happening today. Um, not necessarily with the with
the Catholic Church or you know, Christian organizations, but they
are occurring today, that's true. And uh, we've talked a
little bit about the way the church reacted, but we
know that many people in academia also reacted adversely to this.
(34:20):
There were historians who said that, um, they had serious
problems with the book or they felt that it was uh,
they felt that it was not doing due diligence to
other things that they considered historical fact. Now, I do
want to say at the top here that, uh, Matt Nolan,
(34:44):
I are not historians unless you guys had a anybody
have a wild weekend. I mean I watched some great
courses every now and then. There we go, But we
we do wanna we do want to ask how how
did your father react to the academic country versy surrounding
this book or the criticisms that he received, so not
just the ideologically based death threats perhaps, but the the
(35:09):
secular conversations so from the academic community. Um, they what
essentially his book was considered because it wasn't non fiction
or fiction. The way that they had written it was
very different to how a lot of books have been written.
In you you had to do a sort of a
set structure in order for it to be a nonfiction,
(35:31):
or a set structure in order for it to be
a fiction. But what they wanted to do is they
wanted to create this this story that brought in fact
and their interpretation. And a lot of academics found that
um not their liking, and a lot of historians were
very critical of his work and the work of Bean Lincoln.
(35:53):
But the thing is that, you know, my father was
an incredible researcher. He was very intelligent. He was very
intellectual and one the most He is one of the
most intellectual men I have ever met, and most mystical.
And I haven't found another researcher who has gone to
the lengths but he went to in order to compile
(36:15):
the necessary work for all of his books. He would
go down caves, he would he spoke French, and would
read all sorts of documents. He investigated things to the
nth degree. And it's easy for a person to criticize work,
but to actually be the one to write it, to
be the one to research it, it takes a lot
of time and a lot of energy and a lot
(36:35):
of commitment. And what all he was doing was presenting
facts and an interpretation of potential interpretation of what they were.
He never tried to make anyone else believe what he found.
He said, it's up to everyone else to draw their
own conclusions. And that was his response as well to
these these other authorities who were trying to sort of
(36:56):
contest the work he did, and he just he stood
by that. I want to jump into something that we
kind of mentioned early on in this episode. Your father
was a member of a group that has experienced its
own controversies, and this is the Freemasons. Uh, the Order
(37:16):
of Freemasonry. He was, at least according to Masonry Today
dot com, he was a member of Lodge Economy number
seventy six in Winchester and uh he served as Grand
Officer in the United Grand Lodge of England. That sounds awesome.
I don't know what it means, but it sounds awesome.
And he also served as an editor of the Masonic
(37:38):
magazine Freemasonry Today. And if you there's a website that
exists for that for Freemasonry Today, and you can see
writing um by your father, and it's very very fascinating stuff.
Lots of esoteric um. I mean, I guess that's just
the nature of freemasonry, but lots of very high level
(37:59):
thinking about consciousness and about religion and the afterlife. And
I just wonder how much this world that your father
existed in influenced all the other things and then perhaps
even new Well. He was very interested in the esoteric,
and I think that that formulated his own journey in freemasonry.
(38:23):
There's a lot of Freemasons who disregard a lot of
the ritual, a lot of the meaning behind behind the
ritual as well, and I think that his what he
wanted to do was pursue the esoteric aspects of it.
He anyone can join freemasonry, it doesn't you don't have
to be bound by religion. And so he found it
(38:44):
was an amazing melting pot of different people with diverse ideas.
This single belief in this I guess, in this, this other,
this other realm, or this oneness that combine that connects
all of us um. And that's something that he brought
through from his work and also from who he was
as a young as a young man, and the experiences
that he had, and he brought that into his into
(39:07):
freemason in his own way and tailored his role as
editor to incorporate a lot of that. And in my
own life he got test meditating from a young age.
He never ever told us to pursue any religion or
any type of spiritual belief. He would always assert that
there was many paths to the top of the mountain,
and we had our choice to pursue whicheveryone we wished.
(39:29):
I actually started as an atheist. I then became agnostic.
I had my own experiences, and that's when I spoke
to my father about where I could go from there,
and he introduced me to a lot of different religions.
I tried Sukism and Wiccan and Paganism until I realized
that actually I was my own guide and my own
path was still the top of amount and I didn't
have to be part of any religion. And so in
(39:51):
that way I did. I did find that connection to
the One and to and you know, he helped me
in that process, but he was no he was in
new way. Um A sort of full influence was that
he let me guide myself. Tansy are you are you
familiar with Pierre Plantard. He was a figure in kind
(40:11):
of French politics who was kind of like considered a
Hoaxter type and you know, sort of like believed in
certain mystical beliefs as well in a similar way to
your father. But is he's the one who kind of
claimed that he was responsible for sort of trumping up
some of the priory of siren stuff and um, you know,
kind of directly criticized Holy Blood Holy Grail when it
(40:34):
came out, saying that, you know, it was a work
of fiction, and he kind of discounted some of the
texts that it was based on and kind of said
that he the story basically, but he also has kind
of been debunked in many ways as well. And it's
just interesting, you know, he's someone who kind of prided
themselves on always you know, getting the last laugh. He
(40:56):
strikes me as that type, as I was just wondering
if you were familiar with that situation in his role
in any of this, because and also, like you talk
about your father being a Mason and kind of having
this mind and this fascination with the idea of mysticism
and not necessarily religion, but just more the idea of
what's beyond the veil, you know, in more of a
(41:19):
universal kind of sense, like with the Meditation. And one
of the criticisms I think that's been levied against him
about this book is that he maybe let some of
that stand in the way of seeing the facts. And
I'm just wondering how how you might respond to that.
That was one thing that this Pierre Plantard gentleman said
is that, you know, he might have allowed himself to
be taken for a ride because he wanted to believe.
(41:42):
And we run into this all the time on our show.
So Pierre Planta was relevant to the holy and the
Holy Grail, and I think that the work that he
did there, I think that there was links between between
that and what my father did. But my father also
had uge amount of other sources, and I think that
the overarching um idea that he came up with this
(42:06):
holy blood, holy Grail, this this holy blood that ran
through time, I don't think has a connection to the
mystical um in that sense. And so I don't think
that actually it did affect his work in that way
or clouded his judgment. I think he was seeing quite clearly,
and I don't think it even matters that, you know,
(42:27):
if Planta was discredited or in any way, I still
think that his theory stands up to scrutiny. And I
think again, you know, when you're dealing with historical information,
you just cannot be sure. So you just have to
find what seems right to you. And again, you know,
my father was never trying to tell people what to believe.
(42:47):
That was not his purpose. He was just presenting facts,
presenting his interpretation, and providing a theory. Whether you agree
with him or not, this is up to you. Well,
so your father was really focusing on that divine world.
The he called it many things, at least in interviews
that I've heard him speaking about it. It's the whatever
(43:10):
plane exists just beyond this physical one, where every human
being goes to upon death, and from from where every
person comes before they were born. Right. This um a
lot in throughout all these different religions. You have a
place called heaven or elysium, hades, the duot, there's you know,
(43:33):
pick a religion, there's in other world. Um. And so
I'm hearing that perhaps through meditation you personally get to
experience that at least in some part. Is that something
that anyone listening can can attempt. Absolutely. I'm a meditation
teacher and I always I try to not bring too
(43:55):
much of these deep spiritual ideas into my meditation classes,
but they come in naturally. I think that the actually
the purpose of meditating and being still you find a
deeper connection to each other and to yourself, and in
that place of stillness you can start to feel and
observe a different sense of reality. And whether you wish
(44:17):
to pursue that or not, I think meditation is an
incredible skill in tapping into that oneness and the connection
with us all. So we have several narrative threads going
on right now for this this interview, and we have
so much stuff to explore, and will be right back
after a word from our sponsor. I'd like to explore
(44:46):
something that we we mentioned earlier. Matt. I believe you
mentioned uh that Mr Pagent was a prolific author. So
we've explored Holy Blood, Holy Grail and the arguments within.
But as Matt mentioned earlier in the show, Michael Begent
(45:07):
did not write just one book. He was quite a
prolific author, and he wrote book that particularly interests me
and probably interests longtime listeners as well, Secret Germany Given,
which examines the occult practices of the Nazi Party in
the World War two era. Uh. He also wrote a
(45:28):
book that Matt, you were very interested in. Oh yes,
Nazis are always a hot topic on the show. And
all of those the beliefs and movements that went behind them,
especially magic, man UFOs and magic and Nazis. That's like
some of the most interesting things you can talk about,
all right. So another book I really was fascinated by
(45:51):
your father wrote was called Racing Towards Armageddon, And that's
not the full title, but that's, you know, the gist
of what it was getting into. And in this he
explores religious fundamentalism and that's not that's not relevant at
all today, was right, and especially the intertwining narratives of
the end times of all the various major religions, like
(46:11):
how how they believe the end of the world will
come about and everyone ascending, you know, either into their
version of heaven or everyone converting to their religion. And
I was listening to an interview with him, and man,
it sounded to me like he believed we're getting very
close to the end times. Are you seeing that at all. Yeah, Well,
(46:36):
what was quite interesting is that actually when he was
out in Israel, he's or a photographer who took photos
of these very big warehouses and when he asked the
photographer what was in them, he said, there are a
huge amount of arms owned by the Americans. Um. And
this was a place near on the Geddo, which is
where they say leave armged and will happen. And I
(46:56):
think his work through that book was talking about how
these fundamentalists are trying to pursue their own aims and
bring us towards the end of the world. And with
the amount of tragedies that have occurred recently with fundamentalists,
you know, pushing against the system constantly, you know, I
feel that there is a worry that the end is
(47:20):
is certainly closer than you would want. And what he
felt was that, you know, he said, is it is
it time perhaps for the religions of the book to
throw away the book and seek spiritual experience rather than
settling for near belief. And I think that's where he
he wanted to go. He felt that, you know, democracy
(47:40):
and the he felt that faith in people and who
he were as humans, he felt of that needed to
be stronger than these these archaic sort of beliefs that
guide people towards death and doom. Yeah, that's that's exactly
what we were talking about earlier, getting back to things
like the cabbala or classical miss deicism or suffism, where
(48:02):
it's all about that personal connection with the other side
rather than someone standing on a pulpit telling you how
it is. I don't know that that speaks to me
at least personally, Tansy. We want to thank you so
much for taking to the time to speak with us
today and to speak with our listeners as well. And
(48:24):
one thing that we like to end the show on
whenever we examine historical allegations or or any anything related
to the past, is we like to ask about the future.
So where do you see the future of research into
(48:47):
uh these sorts of theories going over the over the
next few years. Is this is this a done deal
or is there more to be discovered? So there was
a lot of work that he did in the course
of his career and knew a lot of very influential
people and people who were in positions of power, and
(49:07):
he found out a lot of information that is still
kept secret and hidden from the public. That's something that
I think eventually will come out and it would be
interesting to see how if it will be some nonfiction
thriller in some sort of exciting way. Who knows that
you're that you're going to write. Oh yes, very competent
(49:32):
at writing the books. We can't thank you enough for
joining us today. I was wonderful to speak with you
and about your father and all of these just fascinating
mystical things. And it sounds like there's still more out
there to be discovered. So this concludes today's episode, but
not our show. Matt, Noel and I will be returning
(49:56):
next week with more of the strangest, most bizarre stuff
they don't want you to know. But in the meantime,
if your question is how can I find you guys
before the next episode? Check us out on the internet.
We got ways, Yeah, we've got means. You can find
us on Twitter we're conspiracy stuff there and on Facebook.
(50:16):
Same deal. Hey, Tansy, how could people find you and
ask you questions if they're interested? So I run my
father's website, which is Michael agent dot com, So you
can contact me through that website. Yeah, I'll happily answer
any questions that you might have. Is there anything else
you're getting into that you want to tell people about. Yeah, so,
I'm actually at the moment in the process of writing
(50:37):
a book about the future of the environment. I did
a master's an international environmental law, and it's something that's
really interesting to me and also talks about a lot
of conspiracies in that in that world. Oh that's awesome,
scary to environmental conspiracies. I feel like that's it's gonna
make me really sad tansy. All right, well, met uh,
(50:58):
you know, gird yourself, get ready because we're going to
have to do an episode on that and the fact.
Okay down, and if none of that social media stuff
is your bag, you can totally just send us an
email with questions, concerns, comments, ideas for episodes, death threats. No,
maybe not, don't do that. Send them to conspiracy at
how stuff works dot com.
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Hosts And Creators
Matt Frederick
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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