Ariadne thread of rennes!
In my testing pilgrimage I tried to clear my way using a sword through the tangled vegetation of the woods ... & in desperation of finding my way ... the parchments of this Friend were for me, the thread of Ariadne...
If you set out on a quest for the truth about the Rennes-le-Château Affair be warned - you face a long and arduous journey. It will require discipline and dedication. Your quest may take on a moral and spiritual significance, a pilgrimage if you will. Much can be learned on the journey in history, archaeology, esoterica, theology, palaeography, manuscripts, mathematics, puns and poetry. The harder the journey intellectually and physically, the tougher the obstacles on your path the more of an initiate researcher you will become.
You must endeavour to "... clear a path with a sword through .... the inextricable vegetation ..." as the poet asserted in Le Serpent Rouge. This path is a physical landscape as well as a mental landscape. Both are littered with intricate and complicated clues. You need to find them and 'solve' them even though they can change and/or become dead-ends at any time during your journey.
Metaphorically speaking the allusion to 'inextricable vegetation' in Le Serpent Rouge means that physically and mentally your journey will feel as if you are fighting your way through a densely wooded forest. The riddles and puzzles will overwhelm you & trap you like thorny plants do. The allusion drums it home - the mental and geographical landscape may be virtually impassable - like a fortress that has foiled one invader after another over hundreds of centuries! Information learned will remain difficult to unravel - like gnarled branches of trees - so involved and so intricate is the puzzle. You will need strength and resilience to disentangle yourself!
The poet continues - to get through this dense forest follow the Parchments. These are your Ariadne thread. It is these parchments designed by the Friend of the poet that are what we need. This is our 'ball of red thread' equivalent to that which Theseus was given to help him escape the Labyrinth! The poet reiterates; 'in desperation of finding my way again the parchments of this Friend were for me, the thread of Ariadne'.
It was Ariadne that gave Theseus a ball of red thread. Theseus unrolled it as he penetrated deep in to the labyrinth and he then rolled it back up in reverse which allowed him to find his way back out of the labyrinth.
Put the puzzle pieces/clues together in a logical way in order to arrive at the correct solution. Analyse what the puzzle pieces are, what exactly the Parchments are and what they encipher. Work out how to 'put them back together again'. You will need to take the plunge. The [re]searcher will need to ponder the problem using reasoning & study. It might require several different approaches but which one is best to solve the mystery? Will it be a "trial and error" approach or a puzzle-solving approach? For the puzzle-solvers among us we realise quickly that this is the real way forward. The trial-and-error approach works in Science but this approach is rarely concerned with how many solutions exist to a problem and can even assume only one correct solution. Puzzle solving however makes no such assumption and is capable of locating all possible solutions to a situation. The searcher initiate should follow the Parchment thread - it is these that are the guides that will help keep you on track. Use the clews [clues] in this Affair to create and maintain a record that tracks all the avenues available to explore and to solve. Then you can backtrack — reversing earlier decisions and trying alternatives if required. In this way you will cut through all the mystification and false trails deliberately laid to throw you off track. Just like that ball of red thread.
Once you adopt the correct approach and mind-set and if you make it through - according to our poet - you will have reached the residence of the Sleeping BEAUTY - the QUEEN of a past realm. Once there you will experience 'a sweet perfume rising towards you as it permeates the sepulchre"! You are inside a very important tomb! This past Queen, this female, this Sleeping Beauty with a sweet perfume - who is she? Literal or symbolic? This concealed and sacred knowledge about the Two Rennes is certainly not to be violated or tampered with!
You will do well to remember the admonishment given to us by Philippe de Chérisey, who is in fact our very own Ariadne. He wrote; "Dear Reader, to whom we tell everything, but who does not listen". There are clews/clues to be heard as well as 'read'! Remember the phonetic play on the word clew/clue - for this is also part of Ariadne's thread. It is the langue des oiseaux - that secret language of bird speak, the language of the initiates used by Boudet and Chérisey. Read HERE to 'see' this in action!
Chérisey tells us that "every precaution has been taken for thousands of years so that the treasure location is very obvious and very mundane at the same time, recognisable through a great number of landmarks, for which the reader will be thankful to us since we gave him the main ones". Chérisey includes those markers that have gone before but lead nowhere! Use intuition and intelligence to know which information is useful and which is not!
We therefore invite you to rediscover with a fresh eye the mystery of Rennes-le-Château!