Back on October, Friday, the 13th

I lit up a candle, looked up to the sky to see the half moon over the Shepherds’ Field. There was also Venus twinkling over Mount Herod. Tonight, I remember the Knights Templar.

Today is actually the first Friday Oct 13th of the 21st century. The same combination will occur again in the years 2017, 2023 and 2028. It has been 699 years since the Knights Templar were accused of heresy, pursued, tortured, butchered and put on trials. This lasted until the last known Grand Master Jacques de Molay was burnt at the stake on the 19th March 1314.

Philip IV the fair (le Bel) of France (1268 - 1314) and Clement V (1264 - 1314) were immediately responsible for October, Friday the 13th.
Philip IV was king of France at that time. He had loads of enemies in the Catholic Church. When he placed high taxes on the clergy, mounting to half of their annual income, he scored himself even more enmity from the Roman Catholic Church and caused the issuing of the Papal Bulls “Clericis Laicos” and “Unam Sanctam” by the Pope Boniface VIII. The Bulls forbade transactions of any property of the church to the crown and put the salvation of sins and supreme spiritual rule in the hands of a united church, headed by the pope, and therefore, gave powers to the church over the monarchy. However, in 1305, Bertrand de Goth became Pope Clement V. This pope seemed to have worked in the favour of the king, as he disregarded the two offensive-to-the-king Bulls by the previous pope.

Around the time of the appointment of the new pope, there was a plan of uniting all orders under one to be called the Knights of Jerusalem. The Grand Master of the order of Knights Templar was involved in the creation of the plan, but he disapproved of the product. The order of the Knights of Jerusalem in the final product was to be headed by the king of France who is to be called the Supreme Ruler Rex Bellator (or war king). In addition, the Supreme Ruler was always to be the king of France at any point. Philip IV proposed the plan for the order of the Knights of Jerusalem in Rome. However, the order never became to life.

The 200-old order of the Knights Templar had influential and financial powers over the church and kingdom. All what king Philip IV needed to totally and exclusively rule the kingdom were a collaborator pope and the Knights of Templar's wealth and influence.

When Philip IV was done with oppressing the Jews and the Flemish, he turned to the Knights Templar. Pope Clement V issued secret orders for the arrest and killing of the members of the order, to be active on the Friday, 13th of October 1307. Indeed, the Knights were arrested by Philip’s men on that day. King Philip IV only cared about the gains from oppressing and pursuing the Jews, Flemish, priests, and the Templar.

When the Grand Master was burnt on stake in 1314, he, from behind the flames, invited both the king and the pope to join him in death within the year. The Pope died on the 20th April and the King on the 29th of November, of the same year. This might enhance the myth that told a connection of the order to magic.
Indeed, the Templar had different believes to the Catholic Church. Yet, that does not make their believes evil.

It is worth mentioning here that some stories state that a number of Knights Templar escaped the capture and sailed to Scotland where they fought with Robert the Bruce in the battle to gain independence from England. The stories say that those Knights carried with them the most valuable of treasures - the Holy Grail.

I personally think that the pope Clement V had some bad sense of humour. I am convinced that he chose the date for the arrest of the Templar deliberately. This might explain;
- Friday comes from Frigg or Freya, the female goddess in some pagan believes and mythologies, or Venus for the Roman pagans. On the Friday, some pagans worshiped the goddess Venus, the goddess of love and light. The Templar had a great respect for Venus, who symbolises the female, the feminine side of man, the chalice, and the universal balance of energy.
- Number 13 was always associated with witches and witch-craft. A coven of witches is always of thirteen - some say it is of 12 witches joined by a Frigg, which is turned in Christianity into the devil to denounce witches and paganism. The number also corresponded to the number of lunar (menstrual) cycles in a year.

The strange thing about tonight was the moon. It was the witches’ moon! HALF FULL, HALF EMPTY, symbolising balance. What a coincidence, don’t you think?