Cracking The Symbol Code The Heretical Message Within Church And Renaissance Art

Expanding on issues touched on in The Da Vinci Code, this thought-provoking study explores the real story of Christianity—a story told by men and women condemned by the traditional, orthodox church, and one long hidden in mysterious codes and symbols. In medieval times, dissenters believed the established church ruthlessly suppressed the truth about Jesus and his ministry. Branded as heretics and subject to torture and execution for their beliefs, the dissenters—including the Knights Templar, Freemasons, Cathars, and groups of scientists—devised an ingenious code to communicate with fellow sympathizers and preserve the truth. They concealed these complex symbols in art, artifacts, and architecture of the medieval world. Finally, this fascinating underground language is deciphered…revealing powerful messages meant as much for today’s truth seekers as for medieval minds.

A heretic in medieval times was anyone who dissented from the established Church's view, and to be branded a heretic invited torture and execution. This title presents an alternative Christian story told by those who were outlawed by the orthodox Church, and includes secret codes and symbolism.

A heretic in medieval times was anyone who dissented from the established Church's view, and to be branded a heretic invited torture and execution. Such dissenters included the Knights Templar, the Freemasons, the Cathars, and scientists of the day. Their mission was to safeguard the truth about Jesus Christ and his ministry, which they believed was revealed in certain early scriptures and had been rejected and suppressed ruthlessly in the name of the Church. They devised an ingenius and complex secret code for communicating with others of like minds and to preserve the truth for future generations. This code was concealed in symbols which they hid in the art, artefacts and architecture of the medieval world. Symbolism has always been used by man in his exploration of the world of the spirit, and Christian symbolism was prevalent throughout medieval religious art and architecture. It is a relatively recent discovery that there were deeper layers of meaning disguised within that symbolism: "heretical" ideas that were kept hidden from the prying eyes of a repressive hierarchy. Decoding this "hidden symbolism" is on two levels. There are certain keys, but there will always be an intuitive element to the understanding of the coded messages. This book is an inspiration to search out the secret messages that were meant for us and our descendants as much as for the artists' contemporaries.

Shattering the Christian Looking Glass dismembers the towering edifice of Catholic dogma. Short, highly readable, but immensely powerful, Shattering challenges the Church to defend its dogma and the Church's legitimacy.

“The best book about the secret tradition I’ve read for many years. Tim Wallace-Murphy writes with style, passion and truth. A magnificent achievement.” —Graham Hancock, New York Times–bestselling author of Fingerprints of the Gods From Egyptian mythology to Jewish mysticism, Rome and Greece to the druids and the gnostics, Tim Wallace-Murphy exposes a fascinating lineage of hidden mysteries and secret societies, continuing through the Templars, Rosicrucians, and Freemasons to our modern visionaries. This hidden stream of spirituality and that of sacred knowledge are inseparably entwined to form the single most important continuous strand in the entire Western esoteric tradition. This tradition exerted a seminal influence on the thinking of the builders of the great cathedrals/ leading teachers in ecclesiastical schools/ philosophers/ playwrights/ poets such as Shakespeare, Goethe, Blake, and W. B. Yeats/ and on artists and Renaissance giants such as Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo. It is also the root from which sprang alchemy and modern science. Now, as more people are looking to find information on the alternatives to dominant religions and dogmas that have told us what to think and how to behave, as faith has been questioned by religious scandals, economic meltdowns, and an increasingly sick planet Earth, Wallace-Murphy reveals the secrets of the masters, including invaluable spiritual insights into everyday life that have been hidden throughout the ages. He shows us who kept this spiritual tradition alive despite appalling persecution, so that we in the twenty-first century might benefit from its accumulated fruits and ennoble our lives. Hidden Wisdom will be of immense interest to readers of the number-one bestseller The Lost Symbol as it explains much of Dan Brown’s focus on the ancient mysteries.

A curious thing happened to Tim Wallace-Murphy and Marilyn Hopkins when they published Rex Deus, their first book on the bloodline of Christ: they were contacted by a man from the very lineage they were studying. And instead of denying the existence of the bloodline or berating them for revealing secrets, he actually confirmed that the Rex Deus lineage exists and even disclosed some of its fundamental secrets. The story of the Rex Deus families, direct descendents of Christ--who is believed to have survived the crucifixion?turns out to be much more extensive than the authors first thought. Instead of beginning during the time of Jesus, it stretches far back into antiquity, to the Egyptian Mystery Schools. Instead of being only a propagation of the holy bloodline, the Rex Deus families are also carriers of the secret teachings of Jesus. Custodians of Truth reveals the purpose and secrets of the Rex Deus lineage. Jesus was not only a holy man, but an adept of ancient knowledge, which informed his own teachings. This secret knowledge was suppressed by the Church in their voracious quest for power and influence in the secular world. These teachings have manifested throughout history in different forms--Gnostic philosophy around the time of Jesus, the Order of the Knights Templar, Freemasons, and the current resurgence of interest in New Age thought. Finally, the time is right for the hidden message of Jesus to be revealed--a message of tolerance, brotherhood, and respect for nature. The next chapter in the legend of the Holy Grail and the bloodline of Christ-from the best-selling authors of Rosslyn.

First published in 1976, Paul Johnson’s exceptional study of Christianity has been loved and widely hailed for its intensive research, writing, and magnitude—“a tour de force, one of the most ambitious surveys of the history of Christianity ever attempted and perhaps the most radical” (New York Review of Books). In a highly readable companion to books on faith and history, the scholar and author Johnson has illuminated the Christian world and its fascinating history in a way that no other has. Johnson takes off in the year AD 49 with his namesake the apostle Paul. Thus beginning an ambitious quest to paint the centuries since the founding of a little-known ‘Jesus Sect’, A History of Christianity explores to a great degree the evolution of the Western world. With an unbiased and overall optimistic tone, Johnson traces the fantastic scope of the consequent sects of Christianity and the people who followed them. Information drawn from extensive and varied sources from around the world makes this history as credible as it is reliable. Invaluable understanding of the framework of modern Christianity—and its trials and tribulations throughout history—has never before been contained in such a captivating work.