Another candidate for the gnostic heresy at the heart of the Templars is that they - or the inner circle - were Johannites. Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln, discussing the Templars' alleged worship of the head-shaped Baphomet idol, write: ... "recent speculation had linked the head, at least tentatively, with the severed head of John the Baptist; and certain writers have suggested that the Templars were 'infected' with the Johannite or Mandaean heresy - which denounced Jesus as a 'false prophet' and acknowledged John as the true Messiah. In the course of their activities in the Middle East the Templars undoubtedly established contact with Johannite sects, and the possibility of Johannite tendencies in the Order is not altogether unlikely. But one cannot say that such tendencies obtained for the Order as a whole nor that they were a matter of official policy." ...
One of the suggested origins of the name 'Baphomet' is that it derives from 'Baptist' or 'baptism'. Indeed, some of the Templar knights told the Inquisition that the head-idol was the head of John the Baptist. This idea was taken up by Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince, who argue in The Templar Revelation (1997) that Johannitism was the great secret of the Templars. Johannites - as the above quote shows - consider that John the Baptist was the 'true Christ' and the Jesus was a usurper of his role and authority. They are still represented today by a people known as the Mandaeans - the world's only surviving gnostic religion - who were, until the Gulf War, largely confined to the southern marshes of Iraq and Iran, having migrated into that area many centuries ago. When they were first encountered by Christian missionaries in the 18th century, they were named 'St John's Christians', although this is a radical misnomer. In fact, the Mandaeans regard Jesus as a false prophet who took over John's rightful position and, in their words, perverted his religion.
The Mandaeans do not worship John the Baptist in the way that Christians worship Jesus, but venerate him as one of the great teachers or prophets of their religion. One of their sacred books is the Book of John, and baptism forms an important part of all their rituals, which are carried out in pools that they call 'Jordans'. They also use a system of ritual handshakes and grips. The consensus among historians and ethnographers who have studied the Mandaeans is that they did originate in Palestine at around the time of Jesus and John the Baptist, and that they slowly migrated eastwards and southwards over centuries, meeting persecution virtually everywhere they went, first by Christians, later by Moslems. However, it is acknowledged that, in the past - even into the Middle Ages - the Mandaeans were much more widespread and that Mandaean communities still existed in the Middle East at the time of the Crusades. It is therefore entirely possible that Europeans - and more particularly the Templars - came into contact with them. Picknett and Prince go further, making a link between the Mandaeans and the 'church' founded by John the Baptist - the existence of which is, astonishingly, acknowledged in the Acts of the Apostles. It is assumed that the religion founded by John was either suppressed by or absorbed into the early Christian Church. However, Picknett and Prince argue that it did, in fact, survive, and that it has come down to us in the form of the Mandaeans. In relation to the Mandaeans' hostility towards Jesus, Picknett and Prince point out that many New Testament scholars now believe that, despite the impression given in the Gospels, Jesus and John the Baptist were actually rivals.
From 2010-05-06 at "Guardians of the Holy Grail", host Mark Amaru Pinkham, http://www.gnostictemplars.org/guardians.html
Lynn Picknett, Clive Prince - The Templar Revelation. Secret Guardians of the True Identity of Christ
Lynn Picknett, Clive Prince - The Masks Of Christ. Behind the Lies and Cover-ups about the Man Believed to be God
Andrew Philip Smith - John the Baptist and the Last Gnostics: The Secret History of the Mandaeans
E.S. Drower - Secret Adam: A Study of Nasoraean Gnosis
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