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The Holy Place: Discovering the Eighth Wonder of the Ancient World
From an author of Holy Blood, Holy Grail-the basis for The Da Vinci Code-comes further exploration of the secrets of Rennes-le-Chteau. In 1982, Henry Lincoln, with Michael Baigent & Richard Leigh, published Holy Blood, Holy Grail, which became an international bestseller. It investigated Rennes-le-Chteau, a small French town where, in the late 19th century, Berenger Saunire's discovery of a series of parchments led to a large treasure that challenged many traditional Xian beliefs-including the possibility that Jesus' bloodline still exists. The treasure's story moved back thru history to the Crusades, the origins of the Knights Templar & the Virgin Birth. Baigent & Leigh moved on. Lincoln continued to pursue the mysteries of Rennes-le-Chteau. Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code has reignited curiosity about this ancient town. In The Holy Place, Lincoln reveals thru further surveys, decoding & analysis that this area in SW France is the site of a vast megalithic Xian masterpiece-a place of great size & importance.
Preface
First encounters
The mystery of Rennes-le-Château
Whispers on the wind
Poussin holds the key
Here lies the noble M
Shepherds of Arcadia
The key turns
A new discovery
Fixed by and English mile
Temple alignments
Sauneìre's tower
A third pentagon
Enclosing circles
Signal from Esperaza
Quest for a basic design
Crossing the Paris meridian
The great camp
The reason why?
Appendices
Bibliography
Acknowledgments
Preface
First encounters
The mystery of Rennes-le-Château
Whispers on the wind
Poussin holds the key
Here lies the noble M
Shepherds of Arcadia
The key turns
A new discovery
Fixed by and English mile
Temple alignments
Sauneìre's tower
A third pentagon
Enclosing circles
Signal from Esperaza
Quest for a basic design
Crossing the Paris meridian
The great camp
The reason why?
Appendices
Bibliography
Acknowledgments
176 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1991
43 people are currently reading
204 people want to read
About the author
Henry Lincoln
36 books33 followersHenry Lincoln (born Henry Soskin, 1930) was an English author, television presenter, scriptwriter and former supporting actor. He co-wrote three Doctor Who multi-part serials in the 1960s, and —starting in the 1970s— authored a series of books and inspired documentaries for the British television channel BBC Two, on the alleged "mysteries" surrounding the French village of Rennes-le-Château. This launched a series of lectures, and in 1982, Lincoln co-wrote the pseudohistorical book The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, which became the inspiration for Dan Brown's 2003 best-selling novel, The Da Vinci Code.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
February 13, 2022
For me, this "mystery" began in the early 90s when I came across HOLY BLOOD, HOLY GRAIL and found the conclusions amazing. Did Jesus really survive the cross, to go on to father children to have the bloodline still survive to this day, hidden in plain sight? That was really something when I read it way back then. But continued examination of the thesis found several errors in the author's scholarship and serious abuses and artistic license with the New Testament and Jesus scholarship. It was George Sassoon (author of the MANNA MACHINE) who first informed me of the problem with HOLY BLOOD, HOLY GRAIL that forced me to look further. Ironically, Sassoon had his own artistic license with the Old Testament in contemplating his machine in the Ark of the Covenant that created human edible algae for the Israelites survival in the dessert. But I digress.
Despite my dismissal of the conclusions in HOLY BLOOD, HOLY GRAIL, I felt there indeed was a mystery yet to be discovered. There was something going on with Sauniere and Rennes-le-Chateau, even if it turned out the mystery was nothing more than the priest obtained his fortune through good old-fashioned fraud of selling masses (many never even delivered). So leaving the excessive baggage of Jesus, the Prior of Sion and all the baggage that came with HOLY BLOOD, HOLY GRAIL, and exploration of Rennes-le-Chateau itself is still a worthy puzzle. And this is where THE HOLY PLACE lives.
What are we to make of the church's alignments with surrounding mountains and other castles and churches in the area? Was there any purpose in this and what's the significance if so? By that, I mean, are the alignments Lincoln discusses in this book genuine or the all too often seeing importance in measurements where there is none? One only need look at the work of Charles Piazzi Smyth to see how you can draw up lines and points and geometry, making it look like there's purpose where there's really just coincidence.
If the churches and castles were built to create a grand geometry, over great distances, only to be seen on a map, to what purpose? The same could be said about such things as the Nazca Lines and figures along with them. Lincoln is confident there is indeed purposeful alignments and spends the majority of the book proving it. To what purpose it was done is where Lincoln speculates and lets the reader know he's dealing in speculation as we just don't know why it was done. If Lincoln's work is right, someone some time ago, used the surrounding natural mountains to then build artificial structures to compliment them and form a "Holy Place", an area not unlike many other grand designs found around the world like the Mounds in the Americas, pyramids in Egypt, temples in Mexico, and so on.
Where I have to admit my limits comes in the math. Mathematics is not my strong spot, let alone surveying and mapping. So I'll have to accept Lincoln's measurements in this book and leave it to better informed to determine if he's seeing alignments that do or don't exist. To his credit, he mentions several times throughout the book cautions of just such problems with work like this and asks the reader to check and double check his work. In any case, if there is purposeful alignments, we need not speculate on ancient astronauts or Atlanteans (Lincoln agrees here) and note that people a long time ago were smart enough to have created such a holy place. What we seem to be constantly discovering is that human beings were smarter than we've given them credit for.
My reasoning for three stars is that the book is very math heavy and perhaps it has to be this way. But I found my eyes glossing over on many occasions and wondered if there was simply a better way to have delivered the information to the reader and put the math in an appendix instead. At any rate, if you want some more solid information on Rennes-le-Chateau than what Lincoln's prior work delivered, this book is it.
Despite my dismissal of the conclusions in HOLY BLOOD, HOLY GRAIL, I felt there indeed was a mystery yet to be discovered. There was something going on with Sauniere and Rennes-le-Chateau, even if it turned out the mystery was nothing more than the priest obtained his fortune through good old-fashioned fraud of selling masses (many never even delivered). So leaving the excessive baggage of Jesus, the Prior of Sion and all the baggage that came with HOLY BLOOD, HOLY GRAIL, and exploration of Rennes-le-Chateau itself is still a worthy puzzle. And this is where THE HOLY PLACE lives.
What are we to make of the church's alignments with surrounding mountains and other castles and churches in the area? Was there any purpose in this and what's the significance if so? By that, I mean, are the alignments Lincoln discusses in this book genuine or the all too often seeing importance in measurements where there is none? One only need look at the work of Charles Piazzi Smyth to see how you can draw up lines and points and geometry, making it look like there's purpose where there's really just coincidence.
If the churches and castles were built to create a grand geometry, over great distances, only to be seen on a map, to what purpose? The same could be said about such things as the Nazca Lines and figures along with them. Lincoln is confident there is indeed purposeful alignments and spends the majority of the book proving it. To what purpose it was done is where Lincoln speculates and lets the reader know he's dealing in speculation as we just don't know why it was done. If Lincoln's work is right, someone some time ago, used the surrounding natural mountains to then build artificial structures to compliment them and form a "Holy Place", an area not unlike many other grand designs found around the world like the Mounds in the Americas, pyramids in Egypt, temples in Mexico, and so on.
Where I have to admit my limits comes in the math. Mathematics is not my strong spot, let alone surveying and mapping. So I'll have to accept Lincoln's measurements in this book and leave it to better informed to determine if he's seeing alignments that do or don't exist. To his credit, he mentions several times throughout the book cautions of just such problems with work like this and asks the reader to check and double check his work. In any case, if there is purposeful alignments, we need not speculate on ancient astronauts or Atlanteans (Lincoln agrees here) and note that people a long time ago were smart enough to have created such a holy place. What we seem to be constantly discovering is that human beings were smarter than we've given them credit for.
My reasoning for three stars is that the book is very math heavy and perhaps it has to be this way. But I found my eyes glossing over on many occasions and wondered if there was simply a better way to have delivered the information to the reader and put the math in an appendix instead. At any rate, if you want some more solid information on Rennes-le-Chateau than what Lincoln's prior work delivered, this book is it.
July 9, 2019
This is a very disappointing book. It does talk some about Rennes-le-Chateau, the church, the things that are in the church and the priest who went from being very poor to being very rich but, in that part at least, there's nothing I haven't read elsewhere.
The author talks about various clues left to whatever this treasure is/was but here's my problem with that. If Sauniere had found a treasure and used that to become rich then why would he leave clues to the treasure which he supposedly already found and used? Further, if there was any more treasure left then again why leave clues to it? Why let other people find something that he could still use? To me that just doesn't make any logical sense.
The main disappointment is how much of the book is devoted to the author's ideas that there are geometrical arrangements that are very important. Chapter after chapter is taken up with pentagons, straight line arrangements, miles, rods and a multitude of other things that might possibly be important to some major researcher into the topic but for the average reader it's all meaningless and takes up space that could have been taken up by background information on Sauniere, how people have searched for this treasure, what it could have been specifically and so on.
There are some appendices but they also deal mainly with the geometric possibilities.
The author talks about various clues left to whatever this treasure is/was but here's my problem with that. If Sauniere had found a treasure and used that to become rich then why would he leave clues to the treasure which he supposedly already found and used? Further, if there was any more treasure left then again why leave clues to it? Why let other people find something that he could still use? To me that just doesn't make any logical sense.
The main disappointment is how much of the book is devoted to the author's ideas that there are geometrical arrangements that are very important. Chapter after chapter is taken up with pentagons, straight line arrangements, miles, rods and a multitude of other things that might possibly be important to some major researcher into the topic but for the average reader it's all meaningless and takes up space that could have been taken up by background information on Sauniere, how people have searched for this treasure, what it could have been specifically and so on.
There are some appendices but they also deal mainly with the geometric possibilities.
October 31, 2022
As a mathematician, I do have one complaint about this book, on page 89, where certain numbers are derived.
This is where an "erudite Celtic Druid measures the earth, takes a quadrant thereof, and divides it into inches. [...] One 100,000th part of the quadrant is equal to 39,370 inches, of which the square root is 198.41874." The Druid then rounds this off to 198, and declares it the number of inches in a pole. (Thus, a pole is 198 inches.)
Something has been left out here, which is always left out when authors try to point out that (say) the Egyptians included the values of pi and phi in their pyramids. That thing is units.
If you take the square root of 198.41874 inches, the units are not inches, but square roots of inches. Thus, the length of 198 inches has NOTHING to do with the circumference of the Earth.
This is where an "erudite Celtic Druid measures the earth, takes a quadrant thereof, and divides it into inches. [...] One 100,000th part of the quadrant is equal to 39,370 inches, of which the square root is 198.41874." The Druid then rounds this off to 198, and declares it the number of inches in a pole. (Thus, a pole is 198 inches.)
Something has been left out here, which is always left out when authors try to point out that (say) the Egyptians included the values of pi and phi in their pyramids. That thing is units.
If you take the square root of 198.41874 inches, the units are not inches, but square roots of inches. Thus, the length of 198 inches has NOTHING to do with the circumference of the Earth.
June 24, 2023
I'm sure you'll find a lot of people who criticize, scoff, and counter what Lincoln has found, but there is still no concrete proof on any side to this mystery. What Lincoln lays out with deciphered engravings, natural landmarks and churches lining up on the map in geographical shapes (pentagons, circles), and links to famous painters and secret societies is very intriguing.
If you're interested in ancient civilizations/lost knowledge topics this is a fun read that opens you up to mysteries, thoughts on our past, and questions on the occult.
If you're interested in ancient civilizations/lost knowledge topics this is a fun read that opens you up to mysteries, thoughts on our past, and questions on the occult.
July 7, 2017
Phenomenal overview of the mystery of Rennes-le-Château! Outlines the codes, facts, and figures of the entire mystery in a clear and concise explanation. Anyone who wants to understand what all the fuss is about should start here.
May 28, 2025
I thought this book would be discussing the historical aspects of this church and what these documents presented. Instead he just tried to prove symbolic significance via geometry. I would have liked him to discuss facts more and extrapolate less.
October 10, 2011
كتاب مثير وملئ بالمعلومات ولكن شعرت ببعض الملل ربما لانه يتعمق بالتفاصيل
November 18, 2009
interesting; became a little confusing, loses steam towards end
April 24, 2017
Yes, it's got a touch of "Grail Hunter" about it, and yes, it depends a bit on secret geometric codes, but Henry Lincoln seems to test things carefully. There also seems to be a good basis as it turns out. Rennes-le-Chateau is a treasure and a treasure map at the same time and this book delivers a big mystery and believable solutions.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews