The Knights Templar

This little book by James Burnes, great-nephew of Robert Burns, is the origin of the extremely powerful myths that form the backbone of the plot of some of the best-selling books of our times, including The Da Vinci Code, Foucault's Pendulum and The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail. Not to mention literally hundreds of recent spin-off books involving the Knights Templar. Furthermore an entire publishing and tourism industry has grown up around Rosslyn Chapel and the alleged secrets or treasure that it holds. James Burnes was not the first to assert that the Knights Templar had survived their dissolution by Phillipe the Fair and Pope Clement V. But he was the first to specify that their secrets and traditions had been handed down through specifically Scottish Freemasonry. All of the key physical locations in which the Da Vinci Code is set are featured in this book. James Burnes tells us that in a church in Paris he was shown secret charters that prove the continual existence of the Knights Templar. That precisely prefigures scenes in all the three books named above, and many others. The story of how James Burnes' brother Alexander discovered ancient masonic carvings in Afghanistan was copied by Kipling in The Man Who Would Be King. James, an obscure doctor, used this knowledge to catapult himself into riches and the company of Kings. It is an astonishing story.