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During the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the region known as the Languedoc, spreading approximately southward from the Loire to the Pyrenees down into Arragon and eastward to the Rhone, became the most highly civilized area of Western Europe. Its fertile soil and pleasant climate provided the means for a leisurely life. The Rhone and the Garonne were notable routes of communication and the passage of many Crusaders on their way to the East gave an immense stimulus to trade. Above all the Moslem conquest of Spain had brought the influence of Arabic culture. The larger cities had schools of medicine, mathematics and astrology where Arabian scholarship was imparted. Jews were not debarred from public life and were highly respected as doctors and teachers. The Catholic Church no longer held the monopoly of knowledge; and were gradually losing their power hold in the Languedoc.

Conspiracy buffs have long been interested in the Nazis for their occult connections, and in recent years the south of France has garnered interest for a quite different supposed occult conspiracy, yet the two are rarely connected.
 In an interview with Peter Levenda, Dagobert’s Revenge Magazine hit on the figure of Otto Rahn, grail researcher, who, after having completed a book on the grail mysteries of south France for the Nazis mysteriously died in the Pyrenees. It was also pointed out that around the time that Otto Rahn, who was a skilled mountain climber, was in all probability killed by the Nazis, a figure by the name of Karl Maria-Wilgut, known as Weisthor, who was a mystic employed by the SS, was relieved of his duties and gradually retired from public life.
 In the article, the story was left as one of the many mysterious deaths surrounding whatever lies around Rennes-la-Chateau, but the truth of the matter can indeed be reconstructed, and gives some good insight into the forces at work in these two realms.

Otto Rahn (1904-1938), described as a gifted young author and historian, was one of this century's truly fascinating figures. Prior to his mysterious death, at age 35, he wrote two books about the Cathars of southern France: *Kreuzzug gegen den Gral* ("Crusade Against the Grail") and *Luzifers Hofgesinf* ("Lucifer's Court"). Legends continue to surround both his life and tragic death. While his books influenced such authors as Trevor Ravenscroft and Jean-Michel Angebert, they were never translated into English. In the 1982 best selling book *Holy Blood, Holy Grail*, Otto Rahn's name appears in a small but intriguing footnote. Otto Rahn believed that he had found the location of the Holy Grail Mountain, the Montsalvat of legend, in the Cathar mountain fortress of Montsegur in the French Pyrenees. He was, says Prof. Joscelyn Godwin, "largely responsible for the mythological complex that associated the Cathars and Montsegur with the Holy Grail and its Castle."
 Norma Lorre Goodrich in her own highly acclaimed work *The Holy Grail* pays tribute to Otto Rahn's "Crusade Against the Grail" describing it as "a wonderful book, a monument to this German idealist author, who died mysteriously during a descent in the Alps."

The Secret Glory< has been released as a part of Subversive Cinema's Dust Devil box-set.
The Secret Glory tells the story of Otto Rahn (1904-1939), who worked in Ahnenerbe (Ancestral Heritage Society), a Schutz-Staffel division in the Nazi Germany. Rahn was convinced he knew where to find the Holy Grail and after being nominated an SS officer, he finally had the resources to pursue it.
"What [Rahn] discovered remains as mysterious as the stories surrounding his untimely death in 1939, but with rare archival footage, old letters and photographs Stanley manages to conjure up the vision of a grand quest, which began in the 13th century and hasn't lost its alluring power until today." [Taken from the Oldenburg Film Festival website.]