Rating: 
Summary: Holy Heresy, Batman!!
Review: First of all, this was a fascinating, eye-opening page-turner. The authors discuss a vast array of possibly connected puzzles and peculiarities ranging from the odd features in paintings of Leonardo Da Vinci, enigmatic New Testament characters, mysterious goings-on in the South of France, ancient Egyptian religion, stories of the Holy Grail and of course the murky origins of the Knights Templar. It's a lot of subject matter and although much of it has been written about before, these authors manage to insert some very original and insightful questions into the study of these mysteries.When I finished the book, I felt as if a great deal of information had been brought to light, but that a great deal more was still missing. I was mostly puzzled by the implication that hidden events from Biblical times were still so influential 1500 years later. Then, like finding a missing jigsaw puzzle piece on the floor, I came across a very strange book called "History: Fiction or Science" by a Russian mathemetician named Anatoly Fomenko. According to Fomenko, our accepted version of chronology is way off. Taken together with Templar Revelations, a picture finally begins to come into focus. If you enjoy the feeling of taking the "red pill" as regards the accepted version of Western history I highly recommend both of these books.
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing...
Review: I was very disappointed in this book. The research is at an amateur level and honestly this book is really poorly written. It was obviously not written to be a serious book on the subject which is what I wanted. It is one of those books that publishers like to sell when the controversy alone makes people buy the book even if the book itself is of poor quality. Sigh...yet another book to grab my dough. Will I never learn? I got sucked into this by the controversy, so if you looking for a serious book on the subject look elsewhere.
Rating: 
Summary: Hard going and confused
Review: I got this book cos I was researching information about the Templars. After the first few pages I'd had enough. Some books are well written and seem to invite you through them, seducing you as you go along - and some aren't and don't. This book doesn't. It's monumentally badly written which, I guess, is intentional. On one hand its an insult to an intelligent persons intelligence, but on the other its brilliantly confusing and uses plenty of "proof" (I use speech marks because I found myself asking time and time again "this is your idea of proof?") to give weak and lazy thinkers some really polemic fodder for throwing into conversations at dinner parties - which is probably who their target audience are. If you asked the two writers to defend their arguments one by one to a bright high school debating group they would be torn to shreds and their evidence thrown into question. This is a shame, cos they have collected so much information, done so much work, talked to so many people, and put together some really interesting ideas that they really shoot themselves in the foot by trying to be too "clever". Their ideas - about John the Baptist (I'm still not sure exactly what their point about him is) being the real Christ, and Jesus (who maybe didn't die after all) being some kind of Egyptian sun worshipper that preached a modified form of an Egyptian religion that is today called "Christianity", and that only a handful of members of weird and secretive religious orders (that worship Johns head) know this - are very interesting and could give you hours of fun checking them out on the internet. At worst, even if you did try and verify their ideas and found them to be "tenous at best" you will definitely have become much more knowledgeable than you were about the early Christian era, Christian relics, medieval history, secret societies and Egyptian religions. I know I have! So in a way this book has been an excellent teacher - even if I didnt actually learn anything from the book itself. Resuming... INHO the way the book is put together implies they had the (brilliant) controversial conspiracy theory idea first, then looked for evidence to back it up later - even if that meant generalizing, distorting and omitting anything inconvenient. If someone has a theory that holds water - and which they really and truly want people to accept and take seriously - then the best idea is to simplify it and communicate it to people. This book does exactly the opposite. But I'm sure anyone that pretends to understand it will impress all his or her friends with their in depth interpretation of Da Vinci's Last Supper. Until, that, is someone who actually looked at a colour picture of the painting (or saw it on the wall) rather than the totally illegible black and white thumbprint picture in the book gives another interpretation (...) My advice: borrow it if you just want to read it, or buy it second hand if you want to have it in your bookcase. At least that way it will look like you actually read it to the end. (...)
Rating:
Summary: horrendous!
Review: This book was perhaps the weakest "history" book I have ever purchases. The "research" was thoroughly disappointing (e.g. siting the "Passover Plot" as a credible source) and totally incomplete and inaccurate (e.g. failing to notice that "eli, eli...", as spoken by Christ on the cross, was a quote of Old Testament scripture).
The authors have let their anti-Christian bias completely compromise their research and results.
I returned this book.
Rating:
Summary: OK, But There Are Better Books Out There On Similar Subjects
Review: Picknett and Prince make some points & raise some valid questions, but the book is somewhat disappointing. The best part of this book was their sight seeing "adventures". They tell us Jesus was a rival of John The Baptist, and a practitioner the Egyptian religion. That his message was altered by the church which hid the importance of Mary Magdalene in the church. The authors also make a point of how ignorant most Christians are about the origins of their own theology. They then ask us since Christianity emphasis's is on "faith" (belief with no proof), why should the existence of proof that Jesus survived the crucifixion, was married and had children make any difference? The book dances around the agenda of the Priory of Sion and the secret of Rennes le Chateau. They muse at times about these topics, but never deliver any answers. I did however read a book recently that didn't dance around its topics, and it gave me a lot of answers concerning religion. It also gave me a lot to think about. It dealt with such subjects as different religions, the Christ Consciousness, angels and the angel worshipping society we live in today, Hell and its different levels, and much more. It is called "The Book of Thomas," by Daniel Aber and Gabreael.
Rating: 
Summary: Another hard to read book by over used vocabulary Phds.
Review: Why do historial or scientific writers feel they have to use the biggest words they can find in their books? I'm an educated man and I had to stop at least twice every page to look up words in the dictionary. I don't feel like doing this for the entire book. Most of the heavy words could have easily been substituted with single word replacements. I can use a thesaurus to find the biggest word to use too... I just choice not to in my writtings so readers can enjoy and understand rather than trying to show them how educated and well versed I am. My overall review is that this book would have been much more enjoyable if egos didn't get in the way of the topic being illustrated.
Rating:
Summary: a mockery of research and scholasticism
Review: I began reading this book with open minded enthusiasim. I hoped that it would deepen my knowledge of the Cathars and Templars. What I found instead was startlingly poor research. At first, I kept rereading their quotes and data, because I felt that I must have missed something,
because the quotes and data do not support their inferences and conclusions. As a read along, I realized that the authors have collected quotes and have very loosely strung them together to support their theory. There are many factual errors in this book. They really do not understand what the Cathars were all about. Their beliefs developed from the teachings of Mani. The Templars that were founded by Hugh de Payens in 1119 on Christmas day and later endorsed by Bernard of Clairvaux in 1128, have nothing to do with the Priory of Sion. Degenerate offshoots that may have survived after the massacre could have evolved into many of these groups that claim lineage to the original, but these offshoots do not carry on the original intentions and purpose of the founding group.
A quote from the authors themselves summarizes this book: "Unfortunately, given the scant information available, it is impossible to do more than speculate." (pg. 344, 1997 edition)
Rating:
Summary: When did Jesus live? Revelations...
Review: Outstanding... It stirred my imagination and I felt very enthusiastic about it... until I found a book by a Russian mathematician Fomenko who, in his book "History: Fiction or Science" claims that the history we are taught in school, and that is considered as basic knowledge is... false, including the story of J.C., ! I really recommend reading the two to gain a better understanding of history and chronology.
Rating:
Summary: If you liked your junior history class
Review: I think this book rambles, it does not focus on a particular line of thinking. It sounded a little to much like a text book for my taste
Rating:
Summary: The problem with all this is obvious....
Review: This book makes the same basic error as every other one in the new sub-genres of conspiracy-minded Mason-bashing and anti-Christian neo-revisionism. It bases everything on random patterns in literature and/or art and then uses them to justify theories formed from extremely selective historical facts (And I'll not even mention the fallacy of looking for evidence to support conclusions they already hold, instead of properly forming the conclusions AFTER examining the evidence). At best, this could be considered a tawdry work of intellectual fallacy aimed at the lowest common denominator. At worst, it is a malicious attempt to breed paranoia and fear in the minds of those among us whose personal issues make them succeptible to conspiracy theories and such, all in an effort to make money off these poor unfortunates before the "Da Vinci" fad dies down again. You know what's both sad and funny? You can do this same kind of analysis on ANYTHING and find patterns to support ANY theory you want. It doesn't matter if the subject matter is the Holy Bible and Renaissance literature and art, or a collection of Charles Shulz's Peanuts strips.
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