Table of Contents
Also by Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince
TURIN SHROUD IN WHOSE IMAGE?
THE TEMPLAR REVELATION: SECRET GUARDIANS OF
THE TRUE IDENTITY OF CHRIST
Also by Lynn Pickinett
FLIGHTS OF FANCY? 100 YEARS OF PARANORMAL EXPERIENCES
THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE PARANORMAL (ED.)
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To our friend and colleague Philip Coppens, without whose untiring enthusiasm, support and generosity this book might never have seen the light of day.
Acknowledgements
This book would never have been possible without the contributions - in one form or another - of a great many people. We are indebted to all of them for sharing their expertise and research with us, and in some cases simply for taking the time to talk our ideas through. However, we are entirely responsible for the end result: we must stress that the conclusions of this book are not necessarily shared by the people named here.
We are especially grateful to Philip Coppens, Editor of Frontier magazine, for the extraordinary degree of support he has given us. Not only did he undertake research on our behalf, but he also put us in touch with some of the - often very elusive - key players in this story, and shared with us his own incisive and brilliant connections, which we would otherwise have missed.
Keith Prince, as usual, helped us enormously with his research, insights and unique view of life.
Craig Oakley was his customary supportive and intuitive self: thanks to him for many in-depth discussions and for help with the diagrams.
Simon Cox was generous in sharing his expertise on Egypt, especially in supplying us with invaluable research material on this and other subjects. He was also a delightful travelling companion who kept us out of trouble in Cairo.
We are, as always, grateful to our agent, Lavinia Trevor, for all her hard work on this project and for unflaggingly pursuing our best interests.
Thanks to Alan Samson at Little, Brown, and his colleagues Caroline North, Andrew Wille, Linda Silverman and Becky Shaw for their enthusiastic support of, and belief in, this book.
We are indebted to the following people for helping us with the material about Egypt in Chapters 1 and 2: Chris Ogilvie-Herald, whose knowledge of current events in Egypt and whose Egyptnews Internet list helped guide us through this often bewildering subject; Jacqueline Pegg of Quest Research, for providing us with invaluable material; Niklas Rasche, for many long discussions about the complex issues in this book; Andrew Collins, especially for the information about Edgar Cayce and Bimini; Rudolf Gantenbrink for his revelations; Ralph Elllis; David Elkington; Ian Lawton: Thomas Danley; Yuri Stoyanov and David Ritchie.
For the material on the Mars enigma in Chapter 3, we are grateful to Ananda Sirisena, Mark J. Carlotto and Stanley V. McDaniel for answering our queries. And thanks also to Nick Pope for supplying us with material on Mars and the extraterrestrial question in general, besides keeping an eye open for unusual titbits of useful information.
For helping to settle questions about astronomy, we are grateful to: Dr Martin Barstow, reader in Astrophysics at Leicester University; Dr Michael Perryman, of the European Space Agency; Dr Malcolm J. Coe of Southampton University. Thanks also to the Library of the Royal Astronomical Society.
For assistance with our research into the Council of Nine in Chapters 4 and 5 we would like to thank Dick Farley, for generously sharing his thoughts and experiences with us; Terry L. Milner, for allowing us to use his research into the strange career of Andrija Puharich; Ira Einhorn, for his insights into the key events of the 1970s; and Jack Sarfatti, for his very useful information. Also Palden Jenkins, David S. Percy and Kim Farmer of the Academy For Future Sciences for taking the time to answer our queries.
We would like to thank Rob Irving for his information about the Barbary Castle crop circle.
Georgina Bruni has given us much useful information in discussions stretching long into the night, and is unfailingly a delightful hostess.
For the material on the esoteric connections we are indebted to: Theo Paijmans, for the astonishing breadth of his knowledge and for being such charming company; Steve Wilson and Caroline Wise, for their knowledge, insight, wisdom and support not to mention their friendship and much revelry; Mark Bennett, for varied information, particularly in directing us to Christina Stoddards work; Dawn Zeffert; Gareth Medway.
We would like to thank Uri Geller for sparing the time to tell us about his work with SRI. Thanks too to Shipi Shtrang.
Dr Vanessa Hill helped us with some of the mathematical concepts, for which we are very grateful.
Jane Lyle, as always, was a fountain of knowledge especially about astrology - and a joy to be with. Thanks, Jane.
For assistance with the breakthrough shamanic material in the Epilogue, we are indebted to: Jeremy Narby, for discussing his ground-breaking hypothesis with us; Michael Carmichael, for the discussion about shamanism and the acquisition of knowledge; Dr Benny Shanon of Jerusalem University.
We would also like to thank the following people for their help in various ways, including support and encouragement, and just being there for us: Vida Adamoli; Marcus Allen; David Bell; Robert and Lindsey Brydon; Jim Cochrane; Susan Davies; Nic Davis; Christy Fearn; Geoff Gilbertson; Moira Hardcastle; Her-man Hegge; Robin Crookshank Hilton; Mick and Loraine Jones; Michle Kaczynski; Gopi Krishnadas; Sarah Litvinoff; Karine Esparseil Lpez and Samuel Lpez; Kevin McClure; Loren McLaughlin; John and Joy Millar; Jack Miller; Hugh Montgomery; Francesca Norton; Catherine Ormston; Steve Pear; Trevor Poots; Lily and David Prince; Stephen Prior; Magdy Radwan; Mary Saxe-Falstein; Paul Sieveking and Bob Rickard of Fortean Times; Gemma Smith; Nikki Stockley; Sheila and Eric Taylor; Salah El Din Mohamed Tawfik; Greg Taylor; Richard Taylor.
Finally, thanks to the staff of the British Library, the Science Reference and Information Service and the Newspaper Library.
Introduction
Strange though it may seem, this is not the book we originally set out to write. In a sense, we are very surprised and not a little shaken to have found ourselves on the rock-strewn path that led, ultimately, to The Stargate Conspiracy.
We had intended to write a follow-up to our 1997 book The Templar Revelation, which argued that Christianity was essentially an offshoot of the ancient Egyptian religion of Isis and Osiris meaning that our culture is not Judaeo-Christian at all, but Egypto-Christian. The implications were astonishingly far-reaching, but we also disclosed the most carefully hidden of all the secrets of the heretical Knights Templar in the most controversial revelation of the book namely, that they believed that John the Baptist was the true Messiah, and that Jesus was, to say the very least, his usurper.