posted 01-30-2006 01:56 AM           

Finally, regardless of facts to the contrary, revisionist historians and conspiracy theorists have and will continue to claim that the Knights Templar stored secret knowledge, linking them to the Rosicrucians, the Cathars, the Priory of Sion, King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, the Hermetics, the Ebionites, the Rex Deus, lost relics or gospels of James the Just, Mary Magdalene or Jesus (such as a "Judas Testament"), King Solomon, Moses, and, ultimately, Hiram Abif and the mysteries of ancient Egypt. This, in turn, has contributed to the Knights Templar having several influences on popular culture, most of them quite inaccurate.

Excerpt taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knights_Templar

posted 01-30-2006 02:42 PM            

If you want to read a nice fictional roman, in the style of the Da Vinci code, but then good, you should read "the rule of four"

Synopsis rule of four
Tom Sullivan, about to graduate from Princeton, is haunted by the violent death of his father, an academic who devoted his life to one of the rarest, most complex books in the world. Coded in seven languages, the Hypnerotomachia Poliophili, an intricate mathematical mystery and a tale of love and arcane brutality, has baffled scholars since 1499. Tom's friend Paul is similarly obsessed and when a long-lost diary surfaces they finally seem to make a breakthrough. Only hours later, a fellow researcher is murdered and the two friends suddenly find themselves in great danger. Working desperately to expose the book's secret, they slowly uncover a Renaissance tale of passion and blood, a hidden crypt and a secret worth dying to protect...
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0099451956/qid=1138649920/sr=2-1/ref=sr_2_3_1/026-1929287-4870012

And out of the subject other good books are:

Shadow of the wind by Carloz Ruiz Zafon

- well good is maybe not the right word, it is brilliant -
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0753820250/qid=1138650031/sr=2-1/ref=sr_2_3_1/026-1929287-4870012

and the noble house by James Clavell