Lintalee
Guest
|
 Posted: Mon Sep 08, 2008 4:51 pm Post subject: New Book Unveils the Cathar Joan of Arc |
 |
|
NEW BOOK UNVEILS THE CATHAR JOAN OF ARC
She was called “The Light of the World” and may have been the woman
secretly remembered as the High Priestess of the Tarot.
In 13th-century France, Esclarmonde de Foix was thought by some to be
the guardian of the Holy Grail. The popular viscountess abandoned her
life in the fabled troubadour courts Occitania to become the High
Priestess of the Cathars, a pacifist sect of heretical Christians
persecuted by the Vatican. In France today, she is still honored as
the Cathar Joan of Arc.
This year marks the anniversary of her rise to fame. Eight centuries
have passed since the Roman Catholic Church launched a war against
Esclarmonde and her followers. Yet the Cathars—from the Greek word for
“Pure Ones”—continue to fascinate us. Some consider them to be the
first Protestants. In The Da Vinci Code, they were suspected of
guarding the bloodline of Jesus and Mary Magdalene. During World War
II, the Nazis searched for a treasure reportedly hidden by the Cathars
before their demise.
According to a new book by Glen Craney, Esclarmonde and her Cathars
may indeed have possessed a secret that the Church wanted suppressed,
but one much more dangerous than a Jewish royal lineage.
The Fire and the Light: A Novel of the Cathars and the Lost Teachings
of Christ unfolds the Albigensian Crusade through the eyes of this
defiant Cathar priestess, who outraged Rome by publicly debating the
future St. Dominic and preaching against the Church’s corruption of
Christ’s teachings.
In 1208, Pope Innocent III retaliated against the Cathars with the
only official war of genocide ever waged against fellow Christians.
Forty years later, southern France lay in ruins and thousands were
dead.
Esclarmonde’s pacifist reformers made their last stand atop Montsegur,
a haunting temple fortress bordering the French Pyrenees. Today,
Montsegur and the crumbling Cathar castles draw thousands of visitors
and pilgrims each year.
“Glen Craney’s stunning new novel tells the real story behind the
mysterious heretics in The Da Vinci Code and the secrets they guarded
to their deaths,” says documentary producer David S. Martin.
The Fire and the Light is a sweeping epic of religious fanaticism,
troubadour romance, Templar intrigue, and esoteric mystery.
Visit www.thefireandthelight.com for more information.
The Fire and the Light: A Novel of the Cathars and the Lost Teachings
of Christ
ISBN 928-0-981-6484-7-7/$24.95 Hardcover/496 pages/September, 2008
release
Published by Brigid’s Fire Press and distributed by Baker & Taylor,
Ingram, and Greenleaf Book Group
Available online and in bookstores this week. |
|
