We start off with some sunrise shots of the Mediterranean, and breakfast overlooking the ocean, and then we leave our hotel bound for Toulouse…but first some lightseeing (new word to replace sightseeing). We stop in Carcassonne, a restored medieval French town, complete with fortress and church. It was a Cathar stronghold for a while until the they were expelled and later massacred (they’re like Kenny in “South Park”—they die in every episode). Shops and restaurants now line the village streets and create a peaceful modern makeover, masking the history of violence here. We sure have it easy nowadays. In the church there’s a gorgeous unofficial concert by some Russians singing traditional Russian liturgical music.

In the afternoon we go to Rennes le Chateau, a small village with a quaint church and garden that were home to the mysterious Bérenger Saunière, a poor priest who discovered some odd documents in a vault under the church, had a spate of meetings with some very prominent people in the Catholic hierarchy, and suddenly became very wealthy. What he found and how the money came are mysteries that have spawned endless theories, some of them connected to Mary Magdalene (who features prominently in his church), Catharism, Da Vinci Code hypotheses, etc.

Our guide Corinne reviews some of the theories and how they correspond to oddities in the iconography relating to Mary Magdalene that are found in the church. Are they clues? Did Saunière have some important information about Mary or the early Christians that required him to be bought off?  Was Jesus married to Mary Magdalene? Did they have a  daughter named Sarah? Did the bloodline live on in French royalty, or hidden by groups like the Cathars? Did Mary Magdalene come to southern France with Sarah or with both Sarah and Jesus (who some say survived the crucifixion, or who continued in a resurrected body)? Was Sarah the dark-skinned “servant” who arrived with Mary Magdalene, and did this mean that Mary Magdalene was Egyptian? Is this the explanation for the “Black Madonnas” (possibly Mary Magdalene) that are found in southern Europe? Is the fact that the mother and child are dark-skinned mean that they are an Egyptian Mary Magdalene and her dark-skinned daughter, whose father was Jesus? Are the “Black Madonnas” connected to the legend (spread among the Cathars and many others) that Mary Magdalene was married to Jesus? Is that why the Cathars claimed to follow an earlier, purer teaching than other Christians?

Here’s what is really going on: Mary Magdalene was Egyptian (black) and Jesus was white, and Mary’s daughter Sarah was dark-skinned, and Jesus was the father. In a way Sarah actually was the first in a line of Jesus’ descendants who were the “Holy Grail” or “royal blood” as suggested in The Da Vinci Code, because the combination of the black and white races is the new master race ushered in by Jesus. The Nazis got it all wrong and were trying to suppress the next step in human evolution. It’s really the combination of the races, not a pure race, that is the master race, as evidenced by pioneer/geniuses like President Obama, Prince (who is half black and half white, and is the greatest musician in history, in addition to being the coolest person in the world), and me (I’m of Jewish origin, with a black girlfriend, one of the many uncanny ways in which my life has paralleled the life of Jesus). Encoded in the movie Purple Rain are the keys to a lot of these mysteries, including information on the new race and the bloodline of Jesus.

(There is one thing about all this that I can say is true in my experience: Rennes le Chateau has a soft, radiant light energy that’s very pleasant and relaxing. Could be Jesus or Mary Magdalene—or just some ordinary people praying or meditating.)

John does a beautiful mini-seminar in a garden where he talks about how we have to find the truth inside, no matter what the answers are to any of those questions. But if you want to tease your brain with these things, there’s a good scholarly introduction to research on some of the theories here:

http://www.academia.edu/2306538/The_Cathar_Mary_Magdalene_and_the_Sacred_Feminine_Pop_Culture_Legend_vs_Medieval_Doctrine

Click here to read all of the posts from the J-R Legacy Tour.