Chapter 9
In This Chapter
● Tracking the Templars today
● Reviving their chivalric and religious ideals
● Making tenuous Templar connections
● Trading in Templar trademarks
Almost immediately after the excommunication of the Knights Templar, whispers of new organizations began to appear that either claimed a direct descent of the order, or became a haven for the fleeing knights. But as the centuries passed, the Templars occupied a unique place in mythology.
Their popularity was something of an enigma. On the one hand, they were admired for their skill in warfare, their devotion to Christ, their ingenuity in the creation of international banking, and their artistry in building. On the other hand, they had been excommunicated for heresy, distrusted for their secrecy, and damned for their less-than-Christian activities. And — go get a friend, as this will require a another hand — on the third hand, they gradually became the source of endless speculation over their supernatural connection to the occult, the unknown mysteries that they may have discovered within Solomon’s Temple, and no shortage of mind-blowing mystical manifestations heaped on them ever since.
The result over the centuries has been a gaggle of groups, from pseudomilitary orders at one end, to secret societies on the other, all claiming some kind of kinship with the Templars of old. And because of the wide range of activities and myths attributed to the Templars, that kinship can cover a lot of unusual ground.
During the 1800s in particular, the Templars became the subject of an incredibly far-flung romance with the chivalric qualities of protection, honor, faith, and decency. In addition, the 1800s was a period of widespread fascination with legends connected with the Templars — Solomon’s Temple, the Ark of the Covenant, and the Holy Grail.
In Chapter 8, we discuss the principal group most often identified with the Knights Templar — the Freemasons. In this chapter, we cover the less famous groups around the world that claim to be descended or derived from, inspired or spawned by, or otherwise related to the Templars, as well as a few that sound similar but aren’t. We also look at some of the ways that advertisers cashed in on Templar mania. And we finish up with a look at the huge popularity of the Templars in the 21st century and their appearance in games, books, comics, and movies.
Modern Templar Orders
During the 1800s, Freemasonry was just one of the literally hundreds of fraternal organizations that sprung up across the United States and around the world. Most of the “secret societies” that followed its success patterned themselves after Masonic lodges and ceremonies. They initiated candidates using solemn ceremonies that conferred different grades or degrees, and required their members to take oaths promising never to divulge their secrets. It wasn’t just eating-and-drinking clubs that were doing this stuff. Benevolent assistance groups that mostly existed to provide cheap insurance policies for their members, and even labor unions soon began dressing up their officers in fancy costumes, creating lavish and ever more convoluted rituals, and bestowing bilious and bloated titles of rank and honor upon each other.
The most common thread that ran though these groups was the title of knight. Chivalry was something that a railroad worker, coal miner, or plumber was unlikely to encounter in his daily life, and knights only existed in storybooks. But in their lodges, knighthood flourished. Swords tapped them on the shoulders and titles of rank and honor were bestowed left and right. And there were literally dozens of these groups, from the Knights of the Mystic Circle, the Knights of Pythias, and the Knights of Columbus, to the Knights of the Golden Circle and even the Knights of the Invisible Colored Kingdom.
Apart from the Masonic Knights Templar (see Chapter 8), several fraternal and esoteric groups aligned themselves with the Knights Templar, many of which survive today. They run the gamut from serious religious or chivalric organizations to temperance leagues and even doomsday cults. It is a testament to the power of the Templar mystique that so many groups have sought to identify in one way or another with them. More astonishing is why many religious, and especially Catholic, groups would align themselves with the memory of an order that was excommunicated for heresy.
Order Militia Crucifera Evangelica
Claiming origin in 1586 in Germany, the modern international organization known as the Order Militia Curcifera Evangelica (OMCE) was started in 1990, and has a strong esoteric element to its mission. It’s a nondenominational order and has strong ties to Rosicrucianism (see the nearby sidebar). This should be no surprise — it was founded by Gary L. Spenser, who was at one time the Grand Imperator of the Ancient Mystical Order Rosae Crucis, one of the largest Rosicrucian orders in the world. Open to both men and women, the OMCE has priories in the United States, Canada, Australia, Brazil, the Caribbean, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Norway, Greece, and Singapore. (Go to www.omcesite.org for more information.)
Rosicrucians
Any time you stick your toe in the water of fraternal and esoteric groups, the two that appear over and over again are the Freemasons and the Rosicrucians. We discuss the Freemasons in Chapter 8, but it's worth knowing about the Rosicrucians as well.
Esoteric comes from the Greek word esoterikos, meaning "inner," and Rosicrucianism is a legendary order dedicated to the study of the esoteric, or inner knowledge. The term itself comes from the symbol of a rose and cross, a longtime symbol of Christ.
The legend of the first Rosicrucians first appeared in three books published in the early 1600s in Germany: Fama_Fraternitatis (1614), Confessio Fraternitatis (1615), and Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz (1616). Without trying to get an argument started among true believers, we can tell you that the probable author of at least the last work — and probably all of them — was a German theologian named Johann Valentin Andreae. In it, the story of the order's mythical founder, Christian Rosenkreutz, is recounted. According to the legend, Rosenkreutz traveled the Middle East during the 1400s and studied esoteric knowledge under the tutelage of the greatest sages and mystics. He returned to Europe and founded the Rosicrucian Order to bring about the reformation of the world. The order was supposed to be limited to just eight members, who traveled the globe in search of knowledge and were supposed to return every year to share what they had found. According to the legend, the order disappeared, but it was reborn in the 1600s, not coincidentally with the publication of the three important books about them.
Rosicrucianism in its various incarnations incorporates alchemy, hermeticism, astrology, and spiritual healing, with a special fondness for ancient Egyptian teachings. The modern Rosicrucians use alchemy as a symbolic lesson for taking the baser aspects of man and, through spiritual alchemy, perfecting the soul, just as the ancient alchemists labored to turn base metals into gold.
It's a strange thing about esoteric societies: The vast majority of them have been riddled with breaks, schisms, lawsuits among the leaders, fights among the faithful, and a general clash of largish egos. The story of the Rosicrucians since about 1700 has been no exception. Over the years, there have been a wide variety of Rosicrucian groups, but the largest and best known is the Ancient Mystical Order Rosae Crucis (AMORC), founded in 1915 by Harvey Spencer Lewis. Its headquarters today are in Rosicrucian Park in San Jose, California, which is noted for its Egyptian Museum and planetarium.
Ordo Supremus Militaris Templi Hierosolymitani
This order’s name is taken from the Latin, and it means “Sovereign Military Order of the Temple of Jerusalem.” The particular group was founded in 1804 in Paris, and today is a nondenominational, Christian chivalric organization.
Ordo Supremus Militaris Templi Hierosolymitani (OSMTH) is one of the few modern Templar groups that, at least until recently, claimed a direct descent from the medieval knights, by way of the Larmenius Charter (see Chapter 7).
OSMTH long alleged that a continuous line of Grand Masters continued to meet in secret for four centuries. In 1705, in France, a group of noblemen elected Phillip duc d’Orleans as the new Grand Master of the order; he revived it publicly as a “secular order of chivalry.” Having Phillip as the head of the order lent it great prestige; he became the Regent of France and held this position until his death in 1723. During the French Revolution, the order’s then Grand Master, the Duke de Cosse Brissac, was executed, but the group reemerged in the 1800s and expanded between 1818 and 1841across France and into Great Britain, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, Sweden, Brazil, India, and the United States.
In 1940, during World War II (WWII), the control of the order was centered in Belgium. When the Nazis occupied the country, the order’s records were secretly sent to politically neutral Portugal. They were placed in the care of a Portuguese nobleman, Count Antonio Campello Pinto de Sousa Fontes. You can’t have a secret society very long before egos, schisms, and lawsuits get in the way, and this order is no exception. After the war, Fontes believed that the position of Grand Master had been transferred to him, but the surviving Belgian group disagreed. It wasn’t long before suits and countersuits started flying, especially when Fontes died. Normal protocol would have demanded an election of a new Grand Master, but Fontes simply willed the position to his son. That seems to have been the final straw for the various pre-WWII priories around the world.
The result has been a half-century of arguments and court decisions. In the United States, a flurry of incorporating and trademarking ensued, and the order is known as the Sovereign Military Order of the Temple of Jerusalem, Inc. (You can find out more about the order at http://us.osmth.org.)
A competing, pro-Fontes organization in the United States is the Ordo Pauperum Commilitum Christi et Templi Solomonis, Equis Templi (www.knighttemplar.org).
The problem is in the rest of the world, where the groups each call themselves the exact same name. The pro-Fontes group — known informally as the Loyalists or OSMTH-Regency — is on one side. On the other side is a larger group that officially reformed in 1995; the new OSMTH (www.osmth.org) is actually an umbrella organization of approximately 5,000 members, with associations located in Austria, Canada, England and Wales, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Norway, Scotland, Serbia, and the United States.
Ordo Novi Templi
In the years leading up to World War I (WWI), there was a fascination in Germany and Austria with Viking paganism, as anyone who has sat through all 16 hours of Richard Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen four-part opera trilogy can attest. Heroic tales of Germanic gods, dwarves, mythical creatures, cryptic runes (symbols), and magic rings didn’t start with Peter Jackson and the Lord of the Rings (or with J. R. R. Tolkien, for that matter) — Wagner is where Tolkien got the idea in the first place. And in turn, Wagner got it from the writings of Guido von List.
Between about 1890 and 1935, two Austrians garnered a huge interest in these Nordic legends with their writings: Guido von List and Jorg Lanz von Liebenfels. List himself was a follower of a Russian-born mystic, magician, and esoteric author, Madame Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, and her theories of theosophy, which blended a whole raft of Eastern philosophy, Hinduism, Buddhism, spiritualism, and mystical parlor tricks together with her own arrogant ideas about racial superiority.
List salted in his own mix of worship of the old Norse god Wotan, along with tales of the magical effects of 1st-century German and Scandinavian inscriptions called runes (the swastika and the dual lightning-bolt symbol adopted by the Nazi SS are both examples of runes). List believed that a secret ancient Aryan priesthood had developed this esoteric knowledge.
He eventually amassed a large following of fans, and a Guido von List Society actually formed before WWI, with a fairly impressive membership list of prestigious and famous people. One of those fans was Adolf Josef Lanz, another Vienna student of the occult. Like List, Lanz had been born a Catholic, and he had even become a Cistercian monk for a while as a young man. In truth, Lanz remained captivated by the ritual and history of the Catholic Church, especially in its medieval days.
Lanz didn’t have much use for List’s Wotan worship and his fanciful mythology of Germany’s glorious past, but he was very interested in List’s theories about ancient, secret knowledge of runes, magic, racial purity, and esotericism. The difference was, Lanz didn’t need some silly nonsense about Viking gods. He knew exactly who those secret Aryan priests were: They were Knights Templar.
In 1907, Lanz founded the Ordo Novi Templi (Order of the New Temple), in the Castle Werfenstein, overlooking the Danube, flying a flag that included both the fleur-de-lis and the swastika, a rune symbolic of power, many years before it was adopted as the symbol of the Nazi Party. Lanz tinkered with List’s ideas and developed what he termed Ariosophy, which he applied to his new form of chivalric knighthood. This Aryan philosophy was a variation on Darwin’s survival of the fittest, applied to human beings; Lanz was especially contemptuous of Christian compassion for what he termed the “weak and inferior.” Lanz believed that a race could only wind up at the top of the heap of civilization if it dispensed with its underprivileged citizens and unsatisfactory racial types through arrest, abortion, sterilization, or starvation, while encouraging the breeding of an ever-improving “master race.” He promoted his theory in a magazine called Ostara, and it became popular throughout Germany and Austria.
The Ordo Novi Templi seemed to be more overtly directed to political ambitions than engaging in racial purity experiments. It supported the Serbian secret society, the Black Hand, a group made up of military officers who assassinated, among others, Archduke Ferdinand in 1914, the action that set off WWI. And it was a key supporter of the Austrian National Socialist Party in the 1930s. Curiously, when Adolph Hitler came to power, the Ordo Novi Templi was one of the first groups to be outlawed by the Nazis, in spite of its founder’s clearly like-minded theories and the order’s support of fascism. Even so, the Nazi Party didn’t mind heroic depictions of Hitler himself as a heroic crusading knight (see Figure 9-1). And Hitler’s head of the SS, Heinrich Himmler, had visions of the SS as an elite knightly order, like the Templars and the Teutonic Knights (see Chapter 15).
Figure 9-1: Hitler as a crusading knight. The Standard Bearer (Der Bannertrager), 1938, by Hubert Lanzinger.
Ordo Militia Templi
Formed in 1979, this order is headquartered in Siena, Italy, in a small complex of 12th-century Templar buildings collectively known as the Castle of the Magione. Originally, it was started as a program for Catholic Scouts, but it has developed into an adult organization, made up of several hundred members around the world. Ordo Militia Templi is a Roman Catholic lay order, whose purpose is to promote the Catholic faith by taking strict vows and following the spirit of Templar monastic knighthood.
They appear to be part of a “traditionalist” movement within the Catholic Church, and they celebrate the mass using the pre-Vatican II Latin liturgy. This order is open to both men and women, but be aware that their regimen is very demanding — in 2005, there were just four members in the United States. (The U.S. Web site of Ordo Militia Templi is at www.militiatempli.org.)
Chivalric Martinist Order
The Chivalric Martinist Order (http://interfaithinstitute.cqhost.net/ChivalricMartinistOrder.html) is a relatively new order, but its origins touch on a group of Gnostic (see Chapter 5) and esoteric studies collectively known as Martinism (see the “Martinism” sidebar in this chapter). This order initiates its candidates into a Christian knighthood whose philosophy comprises Christian, Gnostic, hermetic, and Rosicrucian beliefs. It is open to both men and women.
Order of the Solar Temple
The name of this group may ring a bell with you, and not a pleasant one. The modern group seems to have come from a 1984 schism (there’s that word again) from an earlier order formed in 1952 in France. Its principal founders were a jeweler and clockmaker named Joseph Di Mambro, and a homeopathic doctor named Luc Jouret.
Di Mambro and Jouret were living in Geneva, Switzerland, and both were students of esotericism. They convinced the members of the new order of the Solar Temple that they were both reincarnations of 14th-century Knights Templar. (Why does everyone who claims to be reincarnated say they’re former nobility? Don’t fifth-century shoe cobblers or 19th-century chimney sweeps ever get reincarnated?) Even better, they claimed that Di Mambro’s daughter Emmanuelle was the product of a virgin birth.
Martinism
Louis-Claude de Saint-Martin was an 18th-century French mystic. Though in the United States his influences are largely unknown to anyone but the most dedicated student of obscure knowledge, Martinism pervades many esoteric societies across Europe, and is beginning to make inroads in the United States. It's important to our discussion here because several organizations claim both Templar and Martinist influences.
Born in 1743, Louis-Claude de Saint-Martin was a French nobleman. He was briefly imprisoned during the French Revolution but was released because local authorities wanted him to become a schoolteacher. This was during the period of the Age of Enlightenment, when the application of the scientific method was applied to virtually everything in the world, including religion. The Enlightenment philosophers turned away from the superstitions of the past, along with notions of astrology, alchemy, and mysticism. Saint-Martin disagreed with this approach, as most of his contemporary students of esotericism did. In many ways, the wave of interest in spiritualism, magic, and similar "mystic arts" that swept across the Western world in the 1800s and early 1900s was a reaction against the Enlightenment, with the implied message that not everything in the world could be explained scientifically.
Louis-Claude became a student of an 18th-century kabbalist named Joachim Martinez Pasquales, and later translated several obscure 17th-century works by a German mystic, Jacob BOhme, into French. Using them as inspiration, Saint-Martin developed his own philosophy about Life, the Universe, and Everything, called the Way of the Heart. Essentially, Bohme had theorized that in order to achieve a state of grace, man had to fall away from God and do battle with the demons and evil angels who caused the sins of the world. Only after spiritual victory over these evils could man again return to God's good graces. There is nothing new under the sun — the Gnostics and the Cathars got slaughtered by the Inquisition for these kinds of "heresies." The only difference was that the Protestant Reformation of the ensuing years had blunted the Catholic Church's monopoly on judging who was a heretic and who wasn't.
Saint-Martin's discussion circles became popular, and eventually more formalized as an organization called the Society of Friends. His writings were signed by the enigmatic name of the Unknown Philosopher. Saint-Martin objected to the prevailing custom of most esoteric societies of the period that prohibited women from joining, and he allowed female members to have equal membership status. After his death in 1803, similar societies began to spread, largely through the efforts of an enthusiastic supporter named Gerard Encausse (who went by the name of Papus), and there was much crossover between the usual suspects of esotericism: Rosicrucians, Freemasons, Gnostics, and these new Martinists. In 1888, Encausse formed a mystery school called the Ordere Martinist, and by 1900, there were chapters in a dozen countries, with hundreds of members.
WWI killed off the principal leaders of the order, and its central organization dissolved. Several splinter groups supported an attempt to restore the kings of France. Others became enamored with a strange movement called Synarchy, an attempt to rule European countries by means of secret societies. Sounding a lot like the modern kooky conspiracy theories of Lyndon LaRouche, Synarchie was promoted by an occult mystic named Alexandre Saint-Yves d'Alveydre, who claimed to get telepathic messages from Shangri-La, directing his actions for world takeover. A small clot of enthusiastic Martinists got excited at the prospects of taking over the governments of Europe, and formed the Ordre Martiniste Synarchie. Obviously, it didn't work, and Saint-Martin himself would have been somewhat appalled. In response, three of the surviving old guard from the late 1800s got together and formed the Ordre Martiniste Traditionale (Traditional Martinist Order), in an effort to restore the group to Saint-Martin's "Way of the Heart."
WWII all but destroyed Martinist societies in Europe, as the Nazis imprisoned or executed most members of so-called "secret societies" that they hadn't created themselves. The Traditional Martinist Order had made its way to the United States through Rosicrucian groups in the 1930s, and it survives today. The Internet has done much to spread Saint-Martin's philosophies, and new groups have appeared recently along with the traditional ones. They cover a broad range of philosophies and disciplines, with some incorporating Rosicrucian influences, some borrowing from the largely Memphis-Mizraim branch of Freemasonry that has been deemed irregular by the majority of the mainstream Masonic world, and some simply adhering strictly to Saint-Martin's philosophies.
The story was that Emmanuelle was, in fact, a “cosmic child,” who would lead the members of the Solar Temple to a secret planet in orbit around the star Sirius (better known as the “Dog Star”). But in order to get there, there was one small step that Solar Temple members would have to undergo: a cataclysmic death by fire at the end of the world.
The Solar Temple was a strange melange of Protestantism, Rosicrucianism, plagiarized Masonic rituals, UFO-ology, New Age silliness, and even a little homeopathic medicine tossed in for good measure. They ultimately aimed a little high for their goals — the ultimate reunification of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam to prepare for the second coming of Christ.
Unfortunately, the real goal seemed to be to lavishly line the pockets of Di Mambro and Jouret, who charged gobs of cash for initiation fees, regalia, robes, swords, medals, and of course, advancement to the higher levels of secret knowledge. The group moved to Quebec, Canada, and Di Mambro started investing in real estate around the world, amassing new “temples” to conduct services in luxurious vacation hotspots. Meanwhile back in Quebec, construction began on a massive, concrete-lined bunker to prepare for the coming End of the World festivities. Jouret began amassing a stockpile of weapons, just in case, insisting that, in The End, only Quebec would be saved from total destruction.
The trouble with doomsday cults is that, sooner or later, you have to put up or shut up. Humans are, by nature, impatient. And if you don’t produce an apocalyptic cataclysm that consumes the Earth’s vast majority of sinners and saves the small clot of the faithful in a timely manner, your members quickly get restless. Likewise, Solar Temple members began to walk away when the global ball of fire and the plans for their trip to Sirius both failed to materialize. The founders had to do something. And they did.
In October of 1994, Di Mambro announced that an infant born in the group’s Quebec compound was, in fact, the antichrist, and ordered it killed. The baby was stabbed repeatedly with a wooden stake. A few days later, Di Mambro and 12 followers reenacted the Last Supper, and what followed made headlines around the world. Solar Temple followers in Switzerland and Canada were found dead, victims of ritualistic mass murder-suicides. Fifteen inner-circle members (referred to as the “Awakened”) committed suicide with poison, 30 (the “Immortals”) were shot in the head or smothered, and another 8 (the “Traitors”) died in other various ways. Electronic timing devices set fire to the temple, so the members would undergo the much-promised cataclysmic death by fire. Shortly afterward, another 48 members were discovered in an underground Swiss Solar Temple and a French mountain chalet, dressed in ceremonial robes, and drugged or shot. Many had placed plastic garbage bags over their heads as a symbol of the ecological disaster that the Earth would find itself in once the virtuous Solar Temple members had departed for Sirius. In the coming years, several similar murder/suicide attempts by Solar Temple members were thwarted, all around the solar solstices and equinoxes. In all, 78 deaths were attributed to the cult between 1994 and 1997.
Step right up and be a Templar!
Templar Knighthood is now on sale — and easily purchased on your Visa or MasterCard — in the Hereditary Knights Templar of Britannia, a division of Charter Gallant & Company! Based in England, prices range from $150 to $10,000 to purchase titles like Sir, Knight, Lord, Baron, Viscount, Count, Marquis, or Earl, along with a wide assortment of rings, swords, and robes!
This group is run by a character named Gary Martin Beaver, who has become notorious in Britain for selling fake titles of nobility. It is only one of several companies that Beaver has started over the years, and he has a wide variety of impressive sounding titles: Lord Beaver of Newport; His Serene Excellency, the Magistral Prior of Notre Dame St. Mary of Magdalene; the Chevalier Baron de Richecourt, KGCNS, KtJ; the Marquis of Aulnois; and the Most Reverend Archbishop Gary, Hugues II.
The purchase of European titles has been a scam for centuries, and the Internet makes it that much simpler to perpetrate. The British Embassy in Washington, D.C., has become so weary with questions about bogus nobility titles that it has placed a warning on its Web site, stating: "The sale of British titles is prohibited by the Honours (Prevention of Abuses) Act, 1925," and that such titles are, in fact, meaningless. With very few exceptions, titles must be inherited or earned. And while plunking some lordly prefix or suffix to your name on a business card can certainly look spiffy, it won't snag you a special table in a restaurant, early boarding on a plane, or a Get Out of Jail Free card if you get caught driving like a jerk. True knights, lords, dukes, viscounts, and the rest do have a place in British and European society, but the establishments and institutions that deal with them on a daily basis are hip to the bogus nobility racket and are unimpressed by rubes with store-bought baronage. Bottom line: They're expensive and of little use, apart from trying to pick up gullible dates in Monte Carlo bars.
The group is believed to survive today with somewhere between 140 and 500 members. Its purported leader, a Swiss musician and conductor named Michael Tabachnik, has been arrested and tried several times for connections to a criminal organization. He was most recently acquitted in December 2006.
Ordo Templi Orientis
The Ordo Templi Orientis (translated as both “Order of the Oriental Templars” and “Order of the Temple of the East”) is another organization with its roots in pre-WWI Germany. The OTO exists today but has gone through several phases. Today it claims approximately 3,000 members in almost 60 countries, although the bulk of its membership is in the United States.
The OTO’s connection to the Knights Templars is tenuous at best — a few of its degrees are based on Masonic tales of the Templars, but the OTO is most definitely not associated with Freemasonry at all, and barely with the Templars. Nevertheless, the OTO is an enthusiastic group, and its founders were among some of the most influential promoters of esoteric, spiritualistic, and mystical movements beginning in the late 1800s. (You can find more information on the modern OTO at their Web site, www.oto-usa.org.)
Knights But Not Templars
Organizations that espouse chivalric ideals, or that claim descent from medieval chivalric orders, are not all derived from the Knights Templars. Many such groups exist around the world, and listing them all here would be impossible. We include a few just to differentiate between those that are Templar and those that sound or seem similar.
Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem
This Catholic order traces its origins to knights who kept constant vigil and protected the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem during the Crusades. First chartered in A.D. 1122, they are authorized by the Vatican, and they sponsor pilgrimages to the Holy Land, Rome, and other sacred sites.
The present order was resurrected in 1847 by Pope Pius IX, who authored the oath taken by its members to “reject modernism” and accept unconditionally all teachings of the Church. The order owns the Hotel Columbus (the former palace of Pope Julius II, the Palazzo dei Penitenzieri) in Rome, both as their headquarters and as a source of income. (You can find more information about them on their Web site, www.holysepulchre.net.)
Order of the Grail
This organization has undergone several name changes over the years.
Known variously as the Rosicrucian and Military Order of the Sacred Grail and its French name, Les Chevaliers de la Rose et de La Croix, the Order of the Grail is a Rosicrucian/Martinist order (see the “Martinism” sidebar, earlier in this chapter). Open to both men and women, the order promotes the study of esoteric Christian teachings, and promotes the traditional chivalric values of integrity, morality, and courage. Although its religious leanings are more to Gnostic and hermetic traditions, knights and dames of the order can be Roman Catholic, Orthodox, or Protestant. (For more information on the Order of the Grail, check out their Web site at www.orderofthegrail.org.)
Sovereign Military Order of Malta
The Knights Hospitaller (see Chapter 3) survived long after the Templars were disbanded. In fact, they exist today and can trace a direct line of descent back to their formation in A.D. 1087. Like the Templars, they were an order of warrior monks, charged with the duty of protecting pilgrims. And like the rest of the Christian forces during the Crusades, the Hospitallers were forced to withdraw from the Holy Land in the face of defeat. The Hospitallers were granted the property of the Templars after their excommunication and dissolution in 1312.
Retreat to Rhodes
When the Hospitallers retreated, they took up residence on the Greek island of Rhodes, after a brief stop at Cyprus, in 1309. Their first mission in Jerusalem had been the administration of a hospital, hence their name. After they moved to Cyprus, and then to Rhodes, their mission changed, along with their name. They became the Knights of Rhodes and turned far more militaristic. They were sovereign over the island and, thus, were something of a constant target for Barbary pirates and Islamic forces, who attacked them repeatedly over the next centuries.
Move to Malta
In 1522, the Sultan Suleiman (Arabic for Solomon) led an invasion of 200,000 troops against 7,000 defending Knights of Rhodes. The knights held off the siege in their walled city for six months, before finally surrendering. The few suvivors were allowed to retreat to Sicily, and in 1530, they were given the island of Malta by King Charles V of Spain. He hadn’t done them any big favor — Malta was a sitting duck between Libya and Sicily in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, alone, isolated, and nowhere near any helpful neighbors. Again the order changed its name, to the Knights of Malta.
The Ottoman Turks weren’t noted for their hospitality as far as Christian warrior monks were concerned. Sulieman in particular wasn’t exactly pleased that the Knights had simply changed their address. So he attacked the island and its new landlords in 1565. This time the Knights prevailed in the face of another huge force, in what was a humiliating defeat for the Ottomans. The Knights’ fortifications still stand today, and they ruled the island until Napoleon came along in 1798. Stopping off on his way to Egypt, Napoleon asked to make a pit stop at the island. When his ships were in the harbor, in a show of supremely bad manners, he blasted away at his astonished hosts. Worse, Napoleon looted the treasure of the Knights before sailing on to go plunder Egypt. The French occupied the island until a revolt in 1880, backed by England. It was an English protectorate until achieving independence in 1964.
The Hospitallers had vast holdings across Europe and into Russia, partially because the Church gave them so much Templar property. As a result, they were a force to be reckoned with. Unfortunately for the order, Protestantism began to chip away at their assets. King Henry VIII dissolved the order in England and confiscated their substantial property. As German and Scandinavian states converted to Protestantism, the Knights in those areas reconstituted themselves as a Protestant order. And the Knights briefly found a staunch ally in Russia in the late 1700s.
The order today
The Sovereign Military Order of Malta (or their proper name, the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of St. John of Jerusalem of Rhodes and of Malta) survives today as a modern Catholic order of knighthood. All officers of the order must be of noble birth. What makes them unusual is that, even though they no longer hold territory in Malta or anywhere else, the order considers itself to be sovereign, a legal term that sort of makes them a kingdom with no kingdom. The Knights own two buildings in Rome, and they are exempt from local laws, much like a foreign embassy. If you’re standing in either the Palazzo Malta or the Villa Malta, you’re technically on foreign soil. Today, the Knights largely engage in humanitarian and charitable work, and have “permanent observer status” within the United Nations, along with diplomatic relations with 93 countries. They maintain a close relationship with the Vatican, and the pope appoints representatives and clergy to the order. Priories in the United States are located in New York; Washington, D.C.; and San Francisco. There are more than 25 U.S. chapters with approximately 1,700 knights and dames of the order. There are more than 11,000 members worldwide. (You can find more information at their Web site, www.orderofmalta.org.)
Most Venerable Order of St. John of Jerusalem
The Order of Malta was dissolved in England by King Henry VIII when he pitched the Catholics out of the country in a fit of pique over the Church’s objection to divorce. The Knights of Malta survived elsewhere, but they disappeared in England.
In 1826, a group of French noblemen were seeking mercenaries to fight for Greek independence from the Ottoman Empire. They were actually a branch of the surviving Order of Malta, and their motives for helping Greece was to seek a new homeland for the order in Rhodes, because Napoleon had pitched them off of Malta 30 years before. They formed an English branch of their order to raise money and men for the cause. But the Greeks managed to win their revolution without help from these new Knights. The English priory survived as little more than a club in London, with its headquarters in the Old Jerusalem Tavern in Clerkenwell, the area that had been the original London headquarters of the Knights Hospitaller in the 1100s.
Over the years, several attempts were made to jumpstart a new order based on the Knights of Malta, but without the Catholic connection. In keeping with the Knights Hospitallers’ original mission from the Holy Land, in 1877 they formed the St. John Ambulance Association. This was the period of the Industrial Revolution, and accidents were fast outpacing disease as the principal cause of death. The association took on the job of training the public in techniques of first aid and issuing certification to graduates of their classes. They published manuals on the subject and provided first-aid supplies, becoming successful enough in a short time to be able to build a new headquarters and storehouse at St. John’s Gate.
In 1882, the order established an eye hospital in Jerusalem, which still operates today. Five years later, they organized the St. John’s Ambulance Brigade in London. In 1888, the order was declared a Royal Order of Chivalry by Queen Victoria, and the reigning king or queen of England is considered to be the official head of the order.
The Catholic Order of Malta refused to recognize the Protestant English order until 1963, and they became part of an alliance that jointly recognized five Orders of St. John from around the world as the legitimate heirs to the traditions and titles of the original Knights Hospitaller born in the days of the Crusades. (You can find more information on the Most Venerable Order of St. John of Jerusalem at their Web site, www.orderofstjohn.org.)
Deutscher Orden (Teutonic Knights)
The Teutonic Knights (see Chapter 3) remained a strong military force long after the Crusades slipped into history. Until the 1500s, they held lands along the Baltic Sea in Prussia, Estonia, Latvia, and Poland. Eventually, the Teutonic States became the Duchy of Prussia, and Teutonic Knights were a force to be reckoned with up through the 1700s in wars between German states and the Ottoman Empire. Teutonic Knights were often called upon to serve as commanders for mercenary forces by Habsburg kings in Austria. The order was officially ordered dissolved by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1809, although the order continued to survive in Austria until 1923.
In 1929, the order was reorganized as a strictly religious group, but when the Nazis took control of Austria in 1938, the Knights again disappeared. That didn’t stop Hitler and his propaganda ministers from using images and legends of the old Teutonic Knights as inspiration for their new army of greater Germany, but the Nazis had no use for secret societies or any other sort of order that harkened back to an earlier time that they did not control — which meant that the Teutonic Knights were a terrific group to emulate, as long as no one really was one.
Nevertheless, the order once again remade itself after WWII ended, and, like the Knights of Malta, became a charitable, international organization, with a special concentration on clinics for German communities in foreign countries. After a financial crisis in 1990, the order was reduced to just 1,000 or so members, which includes 100 priests and 200 nuns. They are known today simply as the Deutscher Orden (German Order). (You can find more on them at their Web site, www.deutscher-orden.at.)
Order of Christ
The Order of Christ occupies a curious position in Templar lore and history; we discuss its origins in Chapter 5. Its origin in Portugal as the Templars with a different name on the door after their excommunication and dissolution is well known. Portugal’s King Denis had simply informed the pope that the Templar property in his kingdom had merely been on loan and that it really belonged to him. The Templars changed their name and went on, business as usual.
In the 1700s, the Order of Christ seemed to pass out of the control of the Portuguese monarchy and into the hands of the Vatican. The argument went that the Portuguese were given the right to bestow the order in the 1300s by papal decree, and what the pope giveth, he mayeth also taketh awayeth. Even today, the Portuguese dispute Rome’s control of the order; they went to far as to arrest anyone caught wearing the medals of the order who had not received them from the king.
Nevertheless, the Order of Christ is considered the supreme order of chivalry bestowed by the Catholic Church. It is seldom awarded (the last known instance was in 1987) and is reserved only for European heads of state who are Catholics. The last holder of the order died in 1997, and it is unclear whether the award will survive in the future.
Teetotaling Templars of Temperance
America’s great experiment with the prohibition of alcohol was not a rousing success, but it was a long time in the making. The temperance movement in the United States stretches back into the early 1800s, and for some reason, a few organizers believed the Templars were just the group to emulate. At the height of the original Templars’ power, there was an expression making the rounds concerning someone who was a slave to the grape as “drinking like a Templar.” So it is with no little irony that at least two teetotaling Templar groups popped up in the 19th century to carry the banner of temperance.
Templars of Honor and Temperance
A group was formed in 1845 that would eventually be come to known as the Templars of Honor and Temperance to fight the scourge of alcohol. Actually created as a more ritually elaborate branch of an earlier group called the Sons of Temperance, they were organized in a manner similar to Freemason lodges, They initiated new candidates into the order using a ceremonial ritual, conferred a series of six degrees, wore Masonic-like collars and aprons, and had secret passwords and handshakes. They have not survived in modern times.
International Order of Good Templars
In 1851, an unrelated group was formed in Castor Hollow, New York, calling itself the Order of Good Templars. Like the Templars of Honor and Temperance (see the preceding section), they had a similar mission to battle the sale, use, and abuse of booze. Their name would seem to imply that they were distancing themselves from “bad Templars,” and they may very well have been reacting to post-meeting drinking parties of the Masonic Knights Templar. They also fashioned themselves after the Masonic lodges, required collars and aprons, and conferred three degrees on their members.
The Templar "Superfine Small Car"
It's a fair bet to say that when you think of the Knights Templar, you probably envision fearsome guys with swords and lances riding on powerful, snorting, majestic steeds, and not tooting around in 4-cylinder, wooden-spoked, open roadsters. But in 1917, that's just what appeared on the market in America.
Born in Lakewood, Ohio, just outside of Cleveland, the Templar Motors Company came into being. For reasons known only to its founders, they chose to name their upstart company after the order, and adopted the Maltese Cross (see Chapter 4) as their logo. WWI was raging in Europe, and the new car factory was almost immediately pressed into service manufacturing war munitions. Nevertheless, a few of the company's first cars rolled off the assembly line, and they were unlike other cars on the road at that time.
From the start, the Templars used an innovative 4-cylinder engine design that was more fuel-efficient than most cars of the day, and for the size of the engine, its 43-horsepower output was impressive (by comparison, the 1911 Model T Ford was rated at 22 horsepower. A modern-day Ford Escort manages about 110 horsepower, while a new Corvette cranks out almost 350 horsepower). It's overhead valve design inspired its name, the Templar Vitalic Top-Valve Motor.
Templar Motors offered a two-passenger roadster and four-and five-passenger touring cars, priced between $1,985 and $2,255, ($33,000 to $39,000 in 2007 dollars), at almost four times the price that Henry Ford was hawking Model Ts for.
The Templars were truly luxury cars, sporting 27 coats of paint, wooden-spoked wheels, an electric horn, an onboard tire pump, a searchlight, a clock, a locking ignition switch, a windshield wiper, a dashboard light, a complete set of tools, and a unique "neverleak" convertible top. The car also had a special outside compartment that housed a compass and Kodak camera. The company's advertising called it "The Superfine Small Car."
In 1920, a Templar Sportette driven by Erwin "Cannonball" Baker (who went on to be the first commissioner of NASCAR) set a series of speed records, including driving from New York to Los Angeles in 4 days, 5 hours, and 43 minutes.
The Templar cars were successful and became the #15 car company out of more than 40 operating in the United States at the time. Between 1917 and 1924, 6,000 Templars were sold by more than 160 dealers. Unfortunately, their history would be similar to the Knights who were their namesake. After a brief period of notable success, they ended — literally — in flames. Financial mismanagement and a catastrophic fire at their Lakewood plant finally killed off the company by 1924.
Templar Motors is not the only company to use the symbolism of the order. More than 1,900 businesses in the United States alone have the word Templar as part of their name. And the next time you're in the grocery, look for King Arthur Flour. Founded in 1790, it's the oldest flour company in the United States. Its label depicts a Templar knight, carrying a banner with a red cross.
Good Templars took a lifelong pledge to abstain from consuming or selling alcohol. Members were prohibited from any kind of activity that promoted the alcoholic-beverage business, including renting their property to purveyors of hooch, selling apples to anyone who might use them to make hard cider, or even delivering coal to a distillery.
The order quickly grew in popularity and was dedicated to the swelling temperance movement that was sweeping the United States. By 1865, there were 60,000 members. Just four years later, with the end of the Civil War, the membership swelled to more than 400,000, and they helped to form the independent Prohibition Party.
In the 1860s, the order spread to Britain, and by 1900, it had expanded worldwide. In the United States, they became especially popular within Scandinavian immigrant communities, and the order’s lodges became social centers for Swedes and Norwegians fresh off the boat.
The organization still exists today as the International Organization of Good Templars, and describes itself as the largest international nongovernmental organization working in the field of temperance. It dropped the Masonic-like ceremonies and regalia in the 1970s, apart from initiating new candidates. In spite of its American origin, it is headquartered today in Sweden, and has expanded its mission in more than 40 countries to fight substance abuse of all kinds. (You can find more information on the order at its Web site, www.iogt.org.)