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Henry Lincoln (b. 1930) is the most popular pseudonym of Henry Soskin, an English writer and actor. He cowrote several Doctor Who multi-part serials in the 1960s, and starting in the 1970s, created a series of books and BBC Two documentaries on the mystery of Rennes-le-Château. He is best-known for being one of the coauthors of the controversial 1982 pseudohistory bestseller The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, promoting the hypothesis that the true nature of the quest for the holy grail was that Jesus and Mary Magdalene had actually had a child together, and founded a bloodline which later married into a French royal dynasty, the Merovingians, and was all tied together by a (now proven to be fraudulent) society known as the Priory of Sion. This series of hypotheses was later used as a basis for Dan Brown's international bestselling novel The Da Vinci Code. Lincoln currently lives in the Cotswolds.
Early career
Lincoln was born in London in 1930, and studied acting at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts. Under his real name of Henry Soskin, he appeared as a bit part actor in 1960s television series such as The Avengers and The Champions, and then moved on to writing. He was the co-writer, with Mervyn Haisman, of three Doctor Who stories starring Patrick Troughton: The Abominable Snowmen, The Web of Fear and The Dominators.
Rennes-le-Château
In 1969, Lincoln visited a small village in southwestern France called Rennes-le-Château, and read Le Trésor Maudit de Rennes-le-Château (trans: The Accursed Treasure of Rennes Castle), a book about a hidden treasure involving mysterious Latin parchments which had allegedly been found by a priest within a pillar of a local church. Lincoln did considerable research about the parchments and treasure, writing multiple books presenting his theories about the area, as well as creating a series of three BBC Two documentaries in the 1970s. He has also written and presented documentaries on other subjects such as The Man in the Iron Mask, Nostradamus, and The Curse of the Pharoahs.
The alleged parchments (originals were never located) contained an encoded message which involved a series of raised letters throughout one of the Latin texts, spelling out a message in modern French: "A Dagobert II Roi et a Sion est ce tresor, et il est la mort." (trans: This treasure belongs to King Dagobert II and to Sion, and he is there dead.) Supposedly this referred to the last King of the Merovingian line, who had been assassinated without an heir in the 7th Century, thereby ending the dynasty. Later research, however, showed that the book had actually been written by Gérard de Sède, an associate of Pierre Plantard, as part of an elaborate hoax to promote a society known as the Priory of Sion.
In 1994, Lincoln wrote and presented the four-episode TV-series The Secret of the Templars which was produced and directed by Erling Haagensen, a like-minded Scandinavian conspiracy theorist. The series presents Lincoln's lifelong research on Rennes le Château, such as a link between the area and the painting Les Bergers d'Arcadie by 17th century painter Nicolas Poussin. In 2000, Lincoln collaborated with Haagensen to write The Templar's Secret Island, linking their mutual hypotheses about pentacles being observed in the placement of medieval churches around both Rennes and the Scandinavian island of Bornholm, leading them to speculate that the Knights Templar had built the churches on Bornholm in a specific pattern, to use them as a series of medieval astronomical observatories. Serious historians, however, have found nothing of merit in the hypotheses, and have pointed out several factors which make the ideas implausible (See the article on Bornholm for more information).
The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail
In the 1970s, while Lincoln was lecturing at a summer school, Lincoln met Richard Leigh, an American fiction writer. Leigh introduced him to Michael Baigent, a New Zealand photo-journalist who had been working on a project about the Knights Templar. The three discovered that they had a shared interest in pseudohistory, and took their Jesus bloodline theory on the road during the 1970s in a series of lectures prior to the publication of Holy Blood. Then they collaborated on the 1982 book, The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, which became a bestseller, and popularised the theory that Jesus had fathered a still extant and powerful bloodline (the true Holy Grail), ideas which were later used as the basis of the novel The Da Vinci Code.
In 2005, Baigent and Leigh launched a legal action against Brown on grounds of plagiarism. Brown was eventually cleared, in April 2006. Lincoln was not involved in these proceedings, reputedly because of illness, however in the Revealed documentary, The Man behind the Da Vinci Code, Lincoln revealed that he did not wish to take part in the proceedings because the ideas brought forth in Holy Blood were not even original themselves, and Brown's actions could only be described as, "a bit naughty". The first novel to use the theme of a Jesus bloodline was The Dreamer of the Vine in 1980, by Liz Greene (Richard Leigh's sister) – Liz Greene is not being sued for plagiarism.
Militi Templi Scotia
On November 8, 2003, Lincoln was given an Honorary Knighthood in the Militi Templi Scotia order, at Newbattle Abbey in Scotland, in recognition of his work in the fields of Sacred geometry and Templar history.* A description of the knighting ceremony can be found in Rat Scabies And The Holy Grail by Christopher Dawes, a gonzo-style book about the Rennes-le-Château mystery in which Lincoln appears as a central character.
Works
- Note: Lincoln is sometimes credited as Henry Soskin or Norman Ashby
- 1960s television series:
- Co-writer, with Mervyn Haisman, of three Doctor Who stories
- Co-writer, with Mervyn Haisman, of the Boris Karloff film, Curse of the Crimson Altar, 1968
- Three BBC2 documentaries about Rennes-le-Château, written and narrated by Henry Lincoln.
- 1982: The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail (with Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh)
- 1987: The Messianic Legacy (with Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh)
- 1991: The Holy Place: Discovering the Eighth Wonder of the Ancient World (or The Holy Place: Decoding the Mystery of Rennes-Le-Château or The Holy Place: Saunière and the Decoding of the Mystery of Rennes-le-Château)
- 1992: The Secret: 4-part documentary written and presented for Tv2 Danmark
- 2002: Key to the Sacred Pattern: The Untold Story of Rennes-le-Château
- 2002: The Templars' Secret Island: The Knights, The Priest and The Treasure (with Erling Haagensen)
References
- Erling Haagensen's Secret Knowledge
- biography at priory-of-sion.com
- 1997 Complaint by Lincoln to the Broadcasting Standards Commission, alleging that the documentary The History of a Mystery had used some of Lincoln's theories about Rennes-le-Château, but presented them in a misleading manner.
- "A brief history of time travel" - about the writing of the Doctor Who serial, "The Abominable Snowmen"
- "The Code War", February 24, 2006, The Scotsman
- Rennes le Chateau FAQ - Interview with Lincoln
1930 births | Conspiracy theorists | Doctor Who writers | English writers | Living people
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"Henry Lincoln"