Priory of Sion

There is a long standing local story about a Nazi U-Boat which apparently managed to enter the Clyde in the midst of World War 2. Many believe that the submarine may have carried Nazi language specialist Otto Rahn, often associated with the Third Reich’s search for biblical artefacts (and the inspiration for the bad guy with the glasses in Raiders of the Lost Ark).

At the time of the U-Boat’s mission, Rahn was believed to be involved in looking for the Holy Grail. It is theorised that Rahn may have been entering the Clyde in order to make his way across country to Rosslyn Chapel, a church built by the Knights Templar and frequently linked with the Grail. However, if Otto Rahn's intended destination was indeed the Templar Church at Rosslyn near Edinburgh, why come in from the opposite end of the country via the heavily defended Clyde? It is entirely possible that if Otto Rahn was on the mysterious U-Boat, he fully intended to start his investigations on the West Coast. Certainly, he need not go as far east as Rosslyn to look into the mysterious Knights Templar; the area surrounding the Clyde has more than it's fair share of Templar connections.

Here, on the northern edge of the Pyrenees some 110 years ago, a Catholic priest named Bérengier Saunière became unbelievably wealthy overnight, seemingly after discovering something of immense value or significance in his church. He is said to have spent lavishly redesigning the tiny hill-top structure, building a strange belvedere tower called Tour Magdala and constructing a guest house known as Villa Bethania. He is also reported to have started acting oddly, erasing inscriptions on tomb stones, carrying out nocturnal excavations in both the church and churchyard, and receiving visitors totally beyond his standing as a parish curé in a rural part of southern France.

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.