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May 13, 2005
Friday the 13th Revealed
by Andrew A. Anissi
The mystique around Friday the 13th began back in 1307 when the then Grand Master of the Knights Templar, Jacques Demolay, having been invited to France by King Philip and Pope Clement V for a supposedly friendly convocation, was arrested and burned at the stake. The date of the arrest was Friday, October 13th, 1307, and Jacques Demolay was burned at the stake in 1314. Just before dying, Jacques told the Pope and the King that he would meet them in heaven within the next year, and by the end of 1314, both King Philip and Pope Clement V did, in fact, die.
The reason for the arrest was a charge of "heresy", because the Knights Templar, just like King Solomon, worshipped both a male and female divinity. I make the King Solomon reference because the Knights Templar, according to legend, built their headquarters on the ruins of King Solomon's Temple of Jerusalem back in 1099.
If you are not a history buff, let me point out that this was not too long after the First Crusade, at which time Europeans invaded and conquered Canaan from the Seljuk Turks who controlled most of the Near East at the time. On a side note (and from another side note), the First Crusade was very close to ending in failure for the Christians, when they were held under siege by the Turks at Antioch. But after the Christians starved within the city walls for weeks and finally decided to throw open the gates and fight back, the Turks were suddenly attacked by Arabs who helped the Crusaders win a decisive victory. The leader of the Crusade, a guy named Bohemond, decided to keep Antioch for himself and screw his comrades over, but the rest of the Crusaders went on to capture Jerusalem. The resulting Kingdom of Jerusalem didn't last very long, but Christians, Muslims, and Jews continue to kill each other around that same bit of land today, all for their precious "one god".
Posted by andrewanissi at May 13, 2005 11:45 PM