Comments on: Rat Scabies and the Holy Grail

Rat Scabies and the Holy Grail

huskerdont — Fri, 16 Sep 2005 12:11:41 -0800

Rat Scabies and the Holy Grail. Best known as the drummer for 1970s punk band The Damned, Rat Scabies grew up with a father interested in the mysteries of the French town of Rennes-le-Château, which may or may not contain the Holy Grail and in the enigmatic priest Berenger Sauniere. Conspiracy theories surrounding the town first popped up in the 1970s book Holy Blood, Holy Grail and gained a certain amount of infamy in recent years from The DaVinci Code. Upon striking up a friendship with his neighbor, journalist Christopher Dawes, Scabies discovered common interests in conspiracy theories and all things paranormal and a shared hatred of the DaVinci Code. Now the pair wrote a book about their alcohol-sodden quest for the Holy Grail that asks the question: What happens when an ex-punk rocker goes looking for the Holy Grail?

By: reality

reality — Fri, 16 Sep 2005 12:25:25 -0800

What happens when an ex-punk rocker goes looking for the Holy Grail? He pukes in it?

By: blastrid

blastrid — Fri, 16 Sep 2005 12:26:48 -0800

Danny Carey and Tool have been recently fascinated about this place too. In fact his website has a big walk-through of the castle. For some reason those grand end-all Conspiracies have more draw than your everyday "Prescott Bush worked for the Nazis" or "Area-51 has Aliens" conspiracies... But I must admit I'm a sucker either way.

By: Floach

Floach — Fri, 16 Sep 2005 12:30:49 -0800

Rat Scabies and the Holy Grail Bar none, my favorite story title I've seen so far on MeFi. And I'm with reality. What else good would a grail be? :)

By: OmieWise

OmieWise — Fri, 16 Sep 2005 12:34:31 -0800

Ok, this is seriously awesome (and I mean that in every sense I can think of). Thanks!

By: shoepal

shoepal — Fri, 16 Sep 2005 12:38:37 -0800

huskerdont, your username totally rules. Welcome!

By: geoff.

geoff. — Fri, 16 Sep 2005 12:41:51 -0800

I'm so cool, I was totally into this back when Gabriel Knight 3: Blood of the Scared, Blood of the Damned came out (awesome game). I thought the whole mystery was really interesting until I came across this which reduces it all to just a few scandals within the church that involved paying for masses. This wasn't some huge wealth the priest managed to conjure up either.

By: papercake

papercake — Fri, 16 Sep 2005 12:42:37 -0800

Please everyone run out and buy the book. I work for the publishing company that put it out and want a Christmas Bonus. Thanks.

By: jokeefe

jokeefe — Fri, 16 Sep 2005 12:59:05 -0800

It's just the grail-shaped beacon.

By: Turtles all the way down

Turtles all the way down — Fri, 16 Sep 2005 12:59:36 -0800

Haven't RTFA but I thought the legend was that the Grail was in the possessions of the Knights Templar in...I want to say England but something makes me say...Malta?

By: safetyfork

safetyfork — Fri, 16 Sep 2005 13:01:26 -0800

Ha. I love it!

By: geoff.

geoff. — Fri, 16 Sep 2005 13:09:22 -0800

Turtles all the way down, the thinking is that the Knights of Templar (as in the knights of temple of Solomon) found the Holy Grail during excavations of Jerusalem during one of the crusades. Depending who you talk to this was the actual grail or evidence that Jesus had offspring (and thus making the Pope's position needless, why not put one of Jesus' kids up there?). Then through blackmail and church coverup the Templar's became exceedingly rich and powerful to the point where the church then killed them all (I think it was Friday the 13th to boot). Legend also has it that they turned into the Priory of Sion who secretly kept the Holy Grail a secret and had every major European rennaisance figure in its membership. This is more or less proven to be a fraud by Pierre (the guy who planted a list of Sion members in some French library). To my knowledge that beyond this documnt there exists no further "proof" of the Priory of Sion. The real story is much more benign and a classic medieval power struggle. The Knights of Templar guarded and taxed roads leading to Jerusalem, getting quickly rich in the process. They also had something akin to an ATM (you give us your money in Rome, when you come to Jerusalem we'll give you whatever you deposited in Rome). This allowed them to buy a lot of land and become big and wealth. A few kings (France and Italy I believe) were lent loans by the Priory they didn't want to repay so they had all Priory members, in typical dark age fashion, say they were sucking off Satan and then burned them all at the stake. Oh and some guy in France years later got rich and tried to deflect attention by being vague about how it happened and erecting all these weird looking things around his church.

By: Divine_Wino

Divine_Wino — Fri, 16 Sep 2005 13:13:52 -0800

This is so awesome that I just kind of bounced up and down in my chair a little. geoff: Of course that is just what a member of the Priory of Sion would want us to think. {!!Will no one help the widows son!!}

By: scratch

scratch — Fri, 16 Sep 2005 13:21:18 -0800

Neat neat neat! /someone had to

By: Turtles all the way down

Turtles all the way down — Fri, 16 Sep 2005 13:23:37 -0800

Geoff: fascinating--thank you! Oh and some guy in France years later got rich and tried to deflect attention by being vague about how it happened and erecting all these weird looking things around his church. And, even better, now I understand the story completely!

By: dersins

dersins — Fri, 16 Sep 2005 13:28:16 -0800

Best. Username. Ever.

By: sourbrew

sourbrew — Fri, 16 Sep 2005 13:29:27 -0800

I saw this on boingboing like a month ago, and i ordered the book on amazon.... still waiting on that shit to ship, although i ordered some brigitte bardot films too....

By: mwhybark

mwhybark — Fri, 16 Sep 2005 15:58:25 -0800

great summary, geoff.

By: Spanner Nic

Spanner Nic — Sat, 17 Sep 2005 16:17:24 -0800

Industrial experimenter Boyd Rice also went on the trail of the Grail there, recording a radio program called 'Rennes-le-Chateau' widely available on your friendly neighborhood P2P server. Very interesting, though much less well-spirited than Rat Scabies', being a Satanist and all. Also, I can't recommend Foucault's Pendulum enough for a really, really learned and entertaining read about the occult mysteries of Old Europe. Umberto Eco is the fruit of many descendants of Jesus having babies together and should be made pope immediately.

By: Vidiot

Vidiot — Sun, 18 Sep 2005 10:05:48 -0800

Second the recommendation of Foucault's Pendulum if you want to read a really good book about this stuff. But I can't support him for pope until he repudiates The Island of the Day Before.