The Second Messiah
Templars, The Turin Shroud, and the Great Secret of Freemasonry

Christopher Knight and Robert Lomas

Continuing with a theory espoused in their earlier work, The Hiram Key, the authors now suggest that the famous Shroud of Turin, thought for centuries to likely be the death image of Jesus Christ is actually that of the last Grand Master of the Knights Templar, Jacques deMolay (someone most historians have said was burned at the stake!) and that knowledge of this fact has been withheld by English freemasonry in a supposed service to a Christian agenda. The authors present no factual evidence for their claims and the Masonic researcher will wonder their charge is not in response to the cool reception their earlier work received from official Freemasonry. Casually tossing in phraseology which would give an anti-Mason a treasure trove of quotations to be used, the authors make reference to 'facts' such as the 'Masonic resurrection' in attempting to push their theory.

Using the still unproven assumption that the Knights Templars are the precursors to current Freemasonry (an unsupported claims they made in The Hiram Key), the authors go on to use such speculation as the claim that tarot cards were used to instruct members. Buttressing their argument with only the recent carbon-dating of the Shroud, the authors attempt to give further credibility to their theories by demeaning those who disagree with them. We'd opine that 'painstaking research' are not words they should attempt to use in describing this work and, in fact, nearly all of the major texts about the Shroud have been ignored in this work which both discredits the United Grand Lodge of England and produces a book clearly designed to attract the mass market buyer.

We recognize that some Masons will find this work of great interest and will quickly and thoroughly embrace this and any theory which will attempts to tie Freemasonry with ancient times and noble acts. Such conjecture, however, is not provable fact and cannot be stated as such.

Used copies of the book are easily had for a dollar. You may want to buy one and see if you think your money was well spent!

(Masonicinfo note: those who're interested in the Shroud will enjoy the excellent web site titled www.shroud.com created by the Official Documenting Photographer for the Shroud of Turin Research Project, Inc., (STURP), Not a mention of DeMolay as a 'likely suspect' appears on the site! You should also check www.shroud.org where there's some more material of interest.)