Copyright © 1998, Lee Perry. All rights reserved.

                                                                 Chapter Thirty-one

                                   The Shroud of Turin as Key to the Mind of the Bible-believer

If you are a devotee of murder mysteries, you know two things which will help you to unravel the mystery of the Shroud of Turin. First, you know that corpses do not bleed.¹ Second, to determine "who done it," you know we should learn who profits and who loses from "its" having been done.²

Pure scientists, that is, persons who are concerned only with science and have no regard for religion, neither profit nor lose whether the Shroud is genuine or not because pure scientists do not rely upon Christianity to answer either the mundane or the cosmic questions with which they are concerned.

Similarly, Christian true believers neither profit nor lose whether the Shroud is genuine or not because, as Professor Luke Timothy Johnson correctly observed, their faith is sustained by the "witness of the Holy Spirit" in their daily lives, rather than by the results of scientific testing.³ Another way Professor Johnson stated this is to say that religious truth and historical truth are two separate things, and that true Christian faith is not dependent upon what some historian or scientist discovered yesterday or might discover tomorrow.⁴

Views about the Shroud may be summarized succinctly as follows: "For believers no amount of proof is necessary. For nonbelievers, no amount of proof is sufficient."⁵

Why, then, does the Shroud continue to generate so much interest and debate, particularly after the Church authorized carbon-14 testing to determine its age, and after three independent testing laboratories, chosen by the Church, reported on Templar Day, October 13, 1988, that their tests were consistent with the Shroud's having originated during the Middle Ages rather than during the first century, C.E., or before?⁶

My answer: Because, although pure scientists never make a leap of faith no matter how long the "diving board," and although Christian true believers always make a leap of faith no matter how short the "diving board," the mass of Christian pewsitters nowadays will not make a leap of faith unless the "diving board" is long enough to satisfy their scientific skepticism. This is why the Church says that individual pewsitters may use the Shroud to reinforce their faith, although the Shroud is not to be worshiped, and possesses no special significance.⁷ On the one hand, the Church does not mind faith's being shored up by something which has no special significance. On the other hand, the Church almost always has expressed reservations about the Shroud's authenticity,⁸ and wisely has avoided a confrontation with pure science about the Shroud.

Most Christian pewsitters nowadays rely neither on science, alone, nor religion, alone, in their daily lives, but try, as best they can, to do a balancing act between science and religion, relying, alternatively, either on science or religion, or relying upon cognitive dissonance to keep science and religion separate and distinct, whenever their science comes into nose-to-nose conflict with their religion. These majority Christians are the doubters whom the Church fears most. If they quit the Church, the Church would collapse financially.

When the science of doubters raises doubt about their religion, the Church hopes that the specter of perpetual punishment by Christianity's Satan is sufficient to cause religion always to triumph. But, that is not always possible for rational people, and the Church knows it.

Shall science inquire as broadly and deeply as it wishes, or shall science's field of activities be bounded, limited, or constrained by religion? Shall people rely on science to answer their questions, insofar as science is able to provide answers at any given time, then rely on religion to answer any questions that science was unable to answer? What is the proper interface between science and religion? And, perhaps most important of all, who is fooling whom, if cognitive dissonance imposes itself between science and religion to resolve a science-versus-religion conflict?

Different Christians have different answers to those questions, a lack of uniformity which troubles Church leaders. Question: Whatever happened to the Body of Christ, i.e., the Church of but one mindset, which tolerated no discussion, much less debate, about its dogmas?⁹ Answer: First, universal public education. Now, the computer chip. The Church no longer is the source of all knowledge. If terrorism fails, the Church must compete in the marketplace of ideas with rational systems for attempting to perceive reality.

Unfortunately, when religion comes in the door, science often goes out the window. That is one of several problems about "scientific research" concerning the Shroud of Turin.¹⁰

If we simply were concerned about whether or not a particular cloth is the burial garment of a historical person who died during the first century, C.E., the three independent tests of 1988, conducted by consent of the Church, upon samples provided by the Church, probably would have resolved the question once and for all.¹¹ However, the Shroud quickly can become the centerpiece artifact during debates about whether there is a distinction between the Jesus of history and the visionary cosmic Christ of the Christian faith, a debate which Professor Luke Timothy Johnson wants all Christian pewsitters to believe is both immaterial and irrelevant to their faith. ¹² The problem is, that many Christian pewsitters do not agree with Professor Johnson,¹³ whose views, frankly speaking, border upon docetism.¹³ The Bible expressly says that Jesus was fully God and fully man,¹⁴ and Christian pewsitters who also are scientific skeptics consequently want to know what "scientists" have discovered about the Shroud.

First, there are stains on the front and back cloth panels of the Shroud which test consistently with iron oxide, a substance found in human blood as well as in ocher.¹⁵ Moreover, these stains are located on or near places on the Shroud's front and back humanform images, and are in sizes, shapes, and configurations which are consistent with biblical accounts of the various bloody wounds which Christ received before and during His Crucifixion. ¹⁶ Believers seem to be on a roll.

Then, science does one of its things which so often infuriates Christian true believers. It reminds true believers that corpses do not bleed,¹⁷ and that biblical accounts state, expressly, that after Christ was scratched (Koine: nyssein) by the attending Roman centurion, blood and water came forth from His body.¹⁸

Moreover, although the various blood-drawing injuries (scourging, nailing, crown-of-thorns, and lance scratching) happened, according to biblical accounts, at different times over a period of several hours,¹⁹ all of the stains on the Shroud are consistent with the iron-oxide-containing substance's having been in the same stage between liquid and solid when it made the various stains.²⁰ In fact, the stains, as they appear upon the Shroud, only could have been made with iron-oxide-containing substance of that medium consistency,²¹ which finding is consistent with Shroud Man's "wounds" having been inflicted over a briefer period than is consistent with biblical narratives, and consistent with his being enshrouded far sooner after those "injuries" than would be consistent with biblical verses. ²²

Those facts have led some people to believe that the Shroud is the genuine burial cloth of Christ, but that Christ was not dead at the time He was placed into the Shroud,²³ whereas those facts have led others to believe that the iron-oxide-containing stains were caused by ocher which was painted onto the Shroud after the other parts of the front and back body images were created by some other process. ²⁴

The Church was not happy (to say the least) about the "scientific" opinion that the man who had been enveloped in the shroud, whoever he was, was not dead at that time, because that conclusion would be consistent with the man's being resuscitated from a coma, rather than resurrected from the dead, an event which would mean, (1) if "Shroud man" was Christ, and (2) if truly-conservative Christians are correct about what Saint Paul meant, then Christianity is both wrong and without value.²⁵

On the other hand, the Church was not particularly distressed by testing which was consistent with the iron-oxide-containing substance's having been painted onto the Shroud, because that was consistent with what at least one Pope once had decreed, i.e., that a shroud, often presumed to be this shroud, should be exhibited, if at all, with a warning to the faithful to be wary of its provenance.²⁶ That Pope neither condemned that shroud, which often is presumed to be this shroud, as a fake, nor endorsed it as genuine; rather, he pinned upon it, figuratively speaking, the question mark that almost always has been attached to this shroud by the Church ever since.²⁷ We learned about the proliferation, during the Cult of Relics, of many "real" burial shrouds of Christ, and of other cloths, allegedly touched by Him, or related to Him in various ways.²⁸

We need to consider one of many conspiracy theories born of Shroud testing. The theory unfolds like this: The man buried in the Shroud was not dead, as evidenced by the nature of the iron-oxide-containing stains on the Shroud.²⁹ His not being dead is consistent with the biblical accounts that the centurion did not break Christ's legs, an act which would have caused Him to die quickly from asphyxiation,³⁰ and with the biblical report that Christ bled when scratched (Koine: nyssein) with the lance.³¹ So, to maintain the "truth" of the Resurrection, the Church wanted to silence all discussion about the Shroud.³² To do that, the Church directed its agents to furnish to the three laboratories, chosen by the Church, samples from a certain medieval shroud, rather than the Shroud of Turin, knowing that the test results would be consistent with the Church's original pronouncement about the shroud presumed to be the Shroud of Turin. ³³

I do not suggest that this theory either is correct or incorrect. Rather, I offer it to you as an example of how religious beliefs of the testers often affect the so-called "scientific" results of their tests. You can guess how Shroud believers characterized the Shroud disbelievers who contend that Bible narratives, and iron-oxide-containing stains on the Shroud, are consistent with resuscitation rather than with the Resurrection! Invectives flew.³⁴ Books and articles were written.³⁵ Religion came in the door, and science went out the window.³⁶

How were the two humanform images, as distinguished from the iron-oxide-containing stains, created?

After photography became popular during the nineteenth century, people began to contend that the front and back humanform images on the Shroud behave as if they were photographic images.³⁷

When, during the late nineteenth century, photographs first were made of the Shroud, the hearts of Shroud believers nearly leapt from their breasts because the fuzzy darker-on-lighter-background images on the Shroud became distinct lighter-on-darker-background images generated by the photographers. This occurred/occurs because of the reversal which happens during photography between positive and negative images.³⁸

After the Shroud first was photographed, Shroud believers asked how any mortal could have made a photographic image, either positive or negative, during the first century, C.E. The Shroud's humanform images, they concluded, had to have resulted from a miracle, i.e., the miracle of Christ's Resurrection.³⁹

Confusion has been generated about whether the humanform images on the Shroud, itself, as distinguished from images of it either on photographic negatives or slides, or on photographic prints, are positive or negative images.⁴⁰

In an effort to stay off the battlefield of that absurd war of words, I have chosen to refer to the images on the Shroud, itself, as "darker-on-lighter-background images," and the images usually seen in published reports and books as "lighter-on-darker-background images."⁴¹

Some writers illustrate both images, to show their readers the difference between what a person sees if he/she is privileged to be viewing the Shroud, itself, versus what one sees due to photographic reversal.⁴²

The photographic-reversal images (lighter-on-darker-background) often are used in publications and displays because they contain much sharper or more distinct details than the back and front humanform images on the Shroud, itself.⁴³

Lawyers tend to rely on the facts if the facts are on their side, and tend to rely on the law if the law is on their side. If neither the facts nor the law are on their side, some lawyers try to obfuscate. Some Shroud believers apparently have learned from lawyers how to play such rhetorical games in an effort to discredit their opponents, i.e., people like me, and to confuse the jury, i.e., you and other readers.

At this point in the Shroud game, the Shroud believers played their "hold card."⁴⁴ Because, when they played it, no scientist authoritatively had been able to explain how the humanform images had been created, the Shroud believers contended, once more, that the images obviously were created by a miracle.⁴⁵ Religion again had its foot in the door.

As this religious, rather than scientific, theory usually is stated, Christ's body gave off cosmic radiation at the moment of His Resurrection. No matter that all known forms of radiation could not create the image of Shroud Man. Shroud believers sought to trump the scientists by asserting that God can do anything, including suspend all laws of physics and chemistry, when He works miracles.⁴⁶

"Foul," cried the scientists!⁴⁷ If science tends to prove that the Shroud is genuine, then Shroud believers want to rely on science.⁴⁸ If science is consistent, instead, with the Shroud's not being genuine, then the Shroud believers want to rely on a miracle.⁴⁹ How can you reason with people like that? Of course you cannot, because when religion comes in the door, science goes out the window. Heads, I win. Tails, you lose. Moreover, as we have learned, nonbelievers have no right to debate. They simply must hush.⁵⁰

Consequently, in my opinion, many of the real scientists, figuratively speaking, took their toys and went home, leaving "scientific" testing of the Shroud to persons who, in my opinion, need a longer diving board before they are willing to make their leaps of faith. I contend that many of the remaining "scientific" Shroud testers primarily are trying to quell their personal doubts so as to quiet their fears of the bogus bogeyman. If, by chance, they also fool you, so much the better.

Then, an investigative reporter and a scientist, Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince, who immediately drew the fire of Christian soldiers, began to hear a rumor about who made the Shroud, and when and how it was made.⁵¹ Apparently, the rumor had circulated among the Jews of Europe since the Middle Ages that the Shroud was a creation of Leonardo da Vinci.⁵²

Remarkably, Leonardo's actual, surviving notes, in his own handwriting, include a discussion of the camera obscura, and about lenses and light physics.⁵³ Moreover, as an artist and sculptor to the rich and powerful, Leonardo had special permission from the Church to dissect cadavers, in order to study the human body, as his surviving notes prove so very graphically.⁵⁴ Moreover, as an alchemist and artist, Leonardo was familiar with chemicals which work, then are washed out, that can record, then can fix, a photographic image on cloth, which image is created by passing light, reflected from a sculpted bust, illuminated by sunlight, through the "lens" hole of a camera obscura.⁵⁵ You will recall that Leonardo also invented a hang glider, a chain-driven bicycle, and a submarine.⁵⁶

The investigative reporter and scientist took what Leonardo probably knew and tried it out. It worked.⁵⁷ They created a photographic image of the face of a sculpture, which photograph was consistent not only in clarity with the face of the man on the Shroud, but consistent, as well, with certain distortions visible on Shroud Man's face. ⁵⁸ When their camera obscura cut off the ears and hair of the sculpture they were photographing, as on the Shroud, they painted them in with photographic chemicals, then washed the chemicals out, thereby producing similar unnatural hair lines as on the Shroud. ⁵⁹ The laws of mathematical probability were closing in on the Shroud believers' "miracle."

The Turin Shroud's 99.9 percent probable date of origin, 1000-1500 C.E., according to the Church-authorized carbon-14 tests,⁶⁰ is consistent with Leonardo's life span and productive years, i.e., 1452-1519 C.E.⁶¹ However, to believe that Leonardo made the Turin Shroud, one must believe that the Turin Shroud is not the same shroud exhibited at Lirey in the 1350's, C.E., long before Leonardo was born.⁶² More about that problem later.

Several Shroud believers desperately have tried to link the Shroud of Turin to other shrouds, burial cloths, and banner cloths of somewhat older, or much older ages, which other shrouds, cloths, and banners have played roles in Christ-myths appearing in and out of the Bible. ⁶³ Moreover, after the results of the Carbon-14 tests were released in 1988, some Shroud "scientists" immediately set out to prove that the tests' results were skewed by substances which had stuck to the Shroud through the years, or by a fire that earlier had scorched the Shroud, despite the fact that the mechanical and chemical cleaning processes used by the Shroud testers avoid such a skewing of data, and despite the fact that radioactive decomposition dates from the death of the flax plants rather than from the date or dates on which the Shroud was scorched or burned.⁶⁴ Christians again were seeking to deny or to obfuscate the obvious, i.e., that most carbon-14 dating is done on the charred remains of ancient campfires and fire-destroyed human habitations!

Remarkably, the Bible, itself, which should be the best evidence supporting truly-conservative Christian beliefs, says nothing about a shroud, cloth, or banner which bore/bears an image of Christ.⁶⁵ Shroud believers think, if they do not say: Damn all scientists who let their rational thinking get in the way of their Christian faith! They simply should hush!

Uncomfortable as it may be to Shroud believers, the Church once catalogued over forty purported burial shrouds of Christ during its investigation of the Cult of Relics, which we discussed earlier.⁶⁶ But the images on the other shrouds were painted,⁶⁷ whereas the image on the Shroud of Turin is either a "miracle," according to Shroud believers, or is a camera obscura photograph by a master artist/scientist, or is the result of another natural process, which we shall discuss later in this chapter.

"Why Leonardo?", a Shroud believer asked me while I was drafting this book. He quickly wished he had taken the advice of Church founding fathers, i.e., that he had not asked the question.⁶⁸

Recall, first, that Leonardo's actual notes, in his handwriting, still exist, explaining and illustrating the details of his scientific and artistic studies relative to camera obscura photography.⁶⁹ Second, look at the face on the Shroud and compare it to a picture of Leonardo. Many people now agree with another team of investigators, who offered substantial evidence that Leonardo, who had a feminine side to his personality whether or not he was a practicing homosexual, had used himself as the model for his Mona Lisa. ⁷⁰ Also, if you look at the disciple who is second from the right in Leonardo's Last Supper, you again see Leonardo, himself.⁷¹ In courts of law, motive and intention often are established by presenting evidence of a pattern or practice of doing similar or identical acts. Arguably, Leonardo used a bust of his face, and the body of a cadaver, as the objects of his camera obscura photograph known as the Shroud of Turin.

By the way, one feature of the Shroud which almost everyone notes when they view either the Shroud itself, or a photograph of the Shroud, is that the head and body of the humanform are not in proportion with each other, and there is a space between the two.⁷² Is that merely a technical problem which Leonardo arguably encountered while attempting to match a sculptured head with a body of a cadaver, or might Leonardo arguably have been sending someone a message? If so, what message?

Leonardo definitely had the skill and the opportunity, but did Leonardo have the motive to use a bust of his own face, and the body of a cadaver, to create what arguably might be the world's oldest known photograph--an image which many people still believe is a miraculous apparition of Jesus the Christ? Christ apparitions, as well as apparitions of His Mother, are frequent around the world, even here in the Protestant Bible Belt. Thousands of true believers came to Atlanta, Georgia, to see an apparition of Christ in a spaghetti advertisement on a billboard, and hundreds of thousands of the faithful have come to Conyers, Georgia, hoping to see Mother Mary appear from the hose bib of a badly-polluted ground-water well. Please read Hebrews 11:1, again.

My friend, the fundamentalist, walked rapidly away as I began to answer his question of "Why Leonardo?"

We learned, earlier, that Christianity never destroyed paganism in Europe. Now, we need to learn that the Roman form of Christianity, and its Protestant and Dissenter spawn, never destroyed some European manifestations of so-called Christian "heresies," i.e., non-orthodox sects or denominations of Christians.

Several non-orthodox sects or denominations of Christians still exist in Europe.⁷³ These alternative Christianities existed in secret until the Church lost its power to execute people for nonconformist beliefs. Nowadays, they often go public, apparently not only to tweak the noses of the Church's hierarchy and clergy, but also to test for possible public acceptance of their beliefs. Several seem to me to be organizations of what we earlier called "laughing boys and girls," whereas some of the more secretive ones have frowning soldiers or operatives who make threatening gestures and speak threatening words if an investigative reporter asks probing questions about their beliefs, practices, and ambitions.

Gnostic Christians have gone public. They meet openly, and are delighted if you attend their services and meetings and ask questions about their beliefs and practices.⁷⁴ Gnostic literature is available in most book stores, and on the World Wide Web or Internet.⁷⁵ My first book describes the Cathars and other Gnostics in detail.⁷⁶ Those details will not be repeated here, except to say that Cathars believe in birth control to limit their numbers⁷⁷ and, as they always have, Cathars admit women as priests and treat women, quite generally, more equally than any other Christian denomination or cult.⁷⁸ Cathars often are vegetarians. Being a vegetarian could get you burned at the stake as a Cathar while the Church Militant still had power to kill those who did not accept the Church's dogmas.⁷⁹

By express permission of a sura of the Koran,⁸⁰ Saint John Christians (also known as Mandaeans or Nazoraeans) have existed openly in Arab countries, particularly in Iraq.⁸¹ Many still speak Aramaic, the language of the Jesus of history.⁸² Essentially, they believe that John rather than Jesus was the Messiah, and have their own religious books to back up their claim--just as the four canonized Gospels back the contrary claim of Roman Christians and their Protestant and Dissenter spawn. ⁸³ John 19:19 does not say, in Koine Greek, Jesus of "Nazareth." It says Jesus the Nazoraean, that is, Jesus of James' and John's sect.⁸⁴ That is another of those biblical admissions against interest which I take to be as close to the truth about the Jesus of history as we ever will come. It is highly probable, in my opinion, that some, if not a substantial number of, the Grail-tale authors were "closet" Saint John Christians. They write as if they at least were sympathizers.

Saint John Christians still keep their heads low in their foxholes in Europe, except that, like another group of heretics we shall discuss, they openly have displayed their symbols in mainline Christian cathedrals and churches across Europe for hundreds of years.⁸⁵ Because such "heretical" symbols sailed right past the masses of pewsitters, who lacked spiritually-attuned eyes and ears to perceive them, they did not harm either the solidarity between pewsitters or the Church's uniformity of exoteric dogmas. But they doubtless provided many smiles and chuckles to the artists who created them and to the rich and powerful adepts who commissioned the artists. The New Testament puts into the mouth of the cosmic Christ of faith this difference of knowledge between Christian insiders and common pewsitters. ⁸⁶

Is it merely a coincidence that the Roman Catholic church in Turin, where the Shroud is displayed, is dedicated to Saint John the Baptist?⁸⁷ Is it also coincidental that the manform on the Shroud appears to have been beheaded? Shroud man's head and body apparently are separate from each other.⁸⁸ Nowhere does the New Testament imply, much less explicitly state, that Jesus the Christ was beheaded, although the Bible explicitly states that John was executed by beheading.⁸⁹ I could ask you hundreds of similar questions, but we lack space. Read my first book and the books in my bibliography, if you are interested.

American tourists in Europe often are shocked to see black-faced Madonnas in European cathedrals and churches.⁹⁰ The Great Goddess in Her avatar of the Egyptian Isis was/is black rather than white.⁹¹ Her cult never has been destroyed in Europe, across which land mass it extended widely because, for one reason, Coptic Christianity often, as in Ireland, preceded both Celtic and Roman Christianity.⁹² Another reason why Isis-worship has survived is that her cult spread widely from Rome across Europe, and successfully went underground during the Inquisitions by pretending devotion to Mary.⁹³

When tourists are around, Isis customarily is worshipped as Mary. Otherwise, She is worshipped openly as the Queen of Heaven.⁹⁴ Recall that Adamnan, the biographer of Saint Columba, the founder of Celtic Christianity, told a story about a wondrous cloak of many colors which an angel allowed Columba's mother to wear, briefly, before it was taken from her and flew into the air, where it expanded to fill the entire sky. ⁹⁵ Readers of my first book realize the same myth was/is told of Isis, Queen of Heaven.⁹⁶ Images of Isis and Horus provided the inspiration for later images of Mary and Jesus.⁹⁷ Unless you really know your symbolism, they can be hard to tell apart.

The Christian Cult of Mary Magdalene also exists widely across Europe, where many churches and cathedrals ostensibly dedicated to Mary, the Mother of Jesus, actually are dedicated to Mary Magdalene.⁹⁸ The Magdalene is regarded as the wife of the historic Jesus who, as the Koran says, did not die on the cross,⁹⁹ and who came to France to live out His life with Mary and His children by Mary.¹⁰⁰ These Christians believe that thousands of Europeans are direct, lineal descendants of Jesus and Mary.¹⁰¹

Laugh, if you wish. But be careful where, and in front of whom, you laugh. Some of these Christians have political and economic intentions and aspirations.¹⁰² Which is to say that not only a present power structure, but a power-structure "want-to-be," can be dangerous to your health. All power structures want to pen you up, instead of allowing you to run free.

Have we strayed away from the question of whether or not Leonardo da Vinci had not only the skill and the opportunity, but the motive to create the Shroud as a photograph of a crucified man whose body and head are separate? Not at all. Several recent writings, gathered together in the endnote after this sentence, provide sufficient evidence, which will not be repeated here, consistent with Leonardo's being a member of one of the most intellectual and most secretive of these underground, European "heretical" organizations. ¹⁰³ If so, the physicist Sir Isaac Newton, the chemist Sir Robert Boyle, and a long line of European artists, musicians, and politicians, arguably also were members and leaders of the Priory of Sion.¹⁰⁴ Either accept it from me, or read it for yourself, or reject it all without looking. In my opinion, Leonardo did have the motive, based alone upon his less-than-orthodox Christian beliefs. If, as has been suggested, a Pope of the Catholic Church paid Leonardo for the Shroud,¹⁰⁵ then his motivation would have been economic as well as spiritual.

Who are the Shroud believers trying to fool? Themselves, first and foremost, and you, too, if they can. That said, I must return to a distinction I almost always try to draw between fraud and faith. In my opinion, a writer who knowingly and intentionally writes a fiction for the express purpose of the writer's establishing mind control over his/her readers has committed a fraud. However, in my opinion, a writer who allows his/her hopes regarding things which cannot be seen to provide substance and evidence for those unseen things, is expressing his/her faith. Hebrews 11:1.

Scientists, as well as religionists, are subject to the "mode of knowing"¹⁰⁶ which we call faith. Remember the "cold fusion" fiasco of recent years? Scientists at several prestigious engineering colleges, including my alma mater, Georgia Tech, allowed their hope to replicate cold fusion in their laboratories to provide substance and evidence for cold fusion they actually had not seen occurring in their testing equipment. (Whether that hope was inspired by personal financial goals which were dependent upon their academic successes, and/or by their desires to become saviors of God's human, animal, vegetable, and mineral creations, is a side issue not here under consideration.) Cold fusion is the Holy Grail of energy researchers because, theoretically, it could provide sufficient energy for almost boundless development right up to the moment that Planet Earth gets "zapped" by some greater force in the universe.

You recall what happened. Those cold-fusion "Grail-questers" unintentionally had crossed the line between science and religion. The substance of, and evidence for, their hopes existed only within the realm of their faith, not their science. Cold fusion yet is to be accomplished and replicated. Similarly, the Shroud yet is to be proven by science to be the burial garment of the visionary, cosmic Christ of Church dogmas or of the actual Jesus of history.

However, you should judge for yourself whether or not Christopher Knight and Robert Lomas have presented sufficient scientific and historical evidence to convince you that the Shroud of Turin once temporarily enshrouded the Last Grand Master of the Knights Templar, Jacques de Molay.¹⁰⁷

The de Molay theory answers neatly several concerns I have with the Leonardo theory.

First, when I joined Demolay, the junior branch of Masonry, during my teenage years, seemingly eons ago, I was told that the Shroud of Turin was the shroud of the tortured Jacques de Molay rather than the shroud of the crucified Jesus. Remember that I was born and raised on the buckle of the Bible Belt in the southeastern United States. That representation has stuck with me because it was in such stark contrast with what I had learned in Sunday school.

Second, as a lawyer with a family-taught and undergraduate-college-reinforced background in science, I recognized several leaps of faith by Shroud researchers. These leaps of faith are intended to bridge gaps in the scientific evidence and, hence, to connect the Shroud of Turin with various earlier holy cloths related to biblical and extra-biblical stories about Jesus the Christ.¹⁰⁸ However, I had convinced myself that a sufficient case had been made to convince me that the shroud which appeared at Turin in 1578 was the identical shroud which had appeared then disappeared at Lirey during the 1350's.¹⁰⁹ Leonardo could not have created the Lirey Shroud because he was born in 1452 and died in 1519.¹¹⁰

Third, although the carbon-14 testing results which were announced in 1988 were consistent with a 99.9 percent probability that the Shroud of Turin should be dated within a range of years from 1000-1500 C.E., the more narrow 95 percent probability window was consistent with the years 1260-1390 C.E.,¹¹¹ which also excludes Leonardo, and requires an assertion, which is not backed with sufficient hard evidence to convince me, that Leonardo substituted the Turin Shroud for the Lirey Shroud during his productive years as an artist. ¹¹²

Fourth, I never had been able to satisfy myself that Bishop Henry of Poitiers deliberately and intentionally would have ordered the destruction (which never took place) of the Lirey Shroud¹¹³ if he believed it actually was the burial shroud of Jesus the Christ. Obviously, to me, Bishop Henry believed the Lirey Shroud was not the shroud of Jesus, either because it was a fake or because it was someone else's shroud. Could I have been told correctly that the Turin Shroud was the shroud of the Last Grand Master of the Knights Templar, Jacques de Molay?

The Second Messiah, by Christopher Knight and Robert Lomas, Random House UK Ltd, London, 1997, is not available in the United States as I am writing this draft on January 2, 1998. I have been told that it later will be published in the United States. But it is not always the case that books published overseas later will be published in the United States. Despite our constitutional guarantees of religious belief and practice, the unholy trinity of power structures in the United States, i.e., religion, government, and commercial enterprise, keep much data out of the hands of Americans in order to retain control over our minds hence over our persons and purses.

The purpose of this writing is not to obviate the necessity of your reading The Second Messiah; rather, to give you a sufficient introduction to its speculations, evidence, and conclusions to convince you to find and to read a copy of it no matter what censorship and suppression obstacles you must overcome.

Dr. Robert Lomas is an electrical engineer and solid-state physicist,¹¹⁴ so he did testing of his own to complement the scientific studies of Dr. Alan Mills of the University of Leicester regarding two scientific phenomena known as "Volckringer Patterns," caused by a lactic-acid reaction, and the "Russel Effect," caused by a release of hydrogen peroxide.¹¹⁵ Knight & Lomas present evidence consistent with the surface-only yellowing of the linen fibrils of the Shroud of Turin through release of a free radical known as a "reactive oxygen intermediate."¹¹⁶ In lay terms, the theory asserts that the back and front images of Shroud Man, as distinguished from iron-oxide stains on the Shroud which are consistent with human blood, resulted from an extremely slow, chemical-induced scorching or oxidation process which required dry storage of the Shroud in a dark place, but with a good supply of oxygen, for a period of years, at which time the image reached maximum saturation and after which it will decline slowly in clarity.¹¹⁷ The back and front images of Shroud Man noticeably are slowly fading away, consistent with this theory.¹¹⁸

Most of us are familiar with this chemical process, in result if not in scientific name and terminology, having read an old book into which someone many years ago inserted a flower for pressing and drying. If we remove the dried remains of the pressed and dried flower, its sepia image remains imprinted on the facing pages. If we frame and display the image of the flower in natural or artificial light, the "self portrait" of the flower slowly fades away.

Knight & Lomas fill in with logical speculations the few lacunae in the well-known and not easily disputable history of the torture and execution of the last Grand Master of the Knights Templar after the Templar arrests on the day of infamy, October 13, 1307, which date gave us our "Friday the Thirteenth." ¹¹⁹ Filling in the blanks in known history is the legitimate function of historians. For instance, we know that General George Washington and his rag-tag colonial soldiers crossed the ice floes of the Delaware River and surprised and defeated a unit of Hessian soldiers during the American Revolution. We do not know what the general said during the river crossing, but under the doctrine of attribution about which we learned earlier in this book, we are free to speculate that if he said anything, it might have included admonitions to row silently as well as rapidly to avoid alerting the enemy.

Knight & Lomas suggest, consistent with the obvious flow of the iron-oxide-containing stains on the Shroud, that de Molay's torturers extended his right arm directly over his head, and nailed it to a door with a single nail through his wrist, so the entire weight of his body would be borne by that arm, then nailed his left arm out at roughly forty-five degrees from vertical and horizontal, and nailed his feet to the door with a third nail.¹²⁰ Shroud researchers have noticed that Shroud Man's right arm appears to have been dislocated at his shoulder, indicating a method of crucifixion consistent with the theory of Knight & Lomas but inconsistent with modern Christian iconography.¹²¹ Those tortures were inflicted after scourging Shroud Man severely and pressing down onto his head something sharp, consistent with a crown of thorns.¹²²

Knight & Lomas suggest that after extracting the confession which later was used against de Molay, his torturers took him down and placed him on his soft bed, enshrouded by the medieval cloth we know as the Shroud of Turin.¹²³ The image of Shroud Man is consistent with that disposition of a man in a coma but inconsistent with a corpse on a hard slab.¹²⁴ All Templar preceptories, like all modern Masonic Temples, kept/keep such a shroud available for initiation ceremonies.¹²⁵

Because de Molay stood accused of having denied that Jesus was God, and of having asserted that Jesus was, instead, a mere mortal, his Christian torturers had done to him at his place of residence a version of what they believed had been done to their Savior on Calvary.¹²⁶ But not to the point of death. We know from recorded history that Jacques de Molay recovered from his wounds, stood trial, was acquitted, then was put to death anyway by being slow-roasted over red-hot coals while the people of Paris watched his painful and heroic death. ¹²⁷

We also know from history that the family of a Templar first displayed at Lirey in 1357 the shroud we know as the Shroud of Turin.¹²⁸ That was some fifty years after Templar Day, i.e., Friday, October 13, 1307.¹²⁹ The temporary but powerful emissions from the body of a severely-tortured man would have had time to produce the image of Shroud Man through a process similar to the process by which the flower from your mother's bridal bouquet "photographed" itself in her scrapbook of memories. De Molay would not have needed to remain shrouded more than a few hours for the effect to begin. ¹³⁰

You are an excellent student! You understood the point of the foregoing summary of data. You recalled that the Church first ridicules anything presented in opposition to its dogmas. Failing at that, the Church then tries to destroy the opposing item and its presenters. Failing at that, the Church then adopts the item and Christianizes it.¹³¹

Knight & Lomas posit that when the family of Geoffrey de Charney took the Shroud from its safe storage sometime during the 1350's, they unexpectedly found it stained with the back and front images of Jacques de Molay.¹³² When widow Jeanne displayed the Shroud to make money for her personal support, Bishop Henry decreed that it be destroyed.¹³³ When Bishop Henry's men came to destroy the Shroud, widow Jeanne convinced them she already had destroyed it, whereas she really had secreted it away.¹³⁴

Later, when the Shroud was displayed again, the then-Bishop, Pierre d'Arcis, objected to its public display, but was silenced by the Pope, under penalty of excommunication,¹³⁵ because the Church had failed at ridicule and destruction of the Shroud but was succeeding at its Christianization. The shroud of the arch-heretic de Molay had become the Shroud of Jesus the Christ, who then was being portrayed in Christian iconography as a tall, fair-skinned, and handsome Greek macho-man, with a full beard, instead of as a short, dark, and stoop-shouldered Jew with a pointed beard.¹³⁶ Did you know that eastern-Church portrayals of Jesus are more authentic than those of Roman Catholicism and its Protestant and Dissenter spawn of denominations?¹³⁷ Did you know that we have a verbal description of the Jewish man Yeheshua ben Josef (Jesus) which is consistent with biblical narratives but inconsistent with western-Church iconography?¹³⁸ No wonder that reading about Christianity, in lieu of listening to and obeying your priest, once was considered to be a dangerous heresy!

As Knight & Lomas state, the "miraculous" Shroud of de Molay was a greater threat to Roman Catholicism than were all of the armies of the Saracens!¹³⁹ Had the Church not highjacked the Shroud, although warning almost always that it is not to be worshiped but can be used to increase faith, the Cult of de Molay easily could have eclipsed the Cult of Jesus the Christ in the minds and practices of highly-superstitious Medieval Europeans. ¹⁴⁰

Do I believe the scientific and historical data which Knight & Lomas present in support of their speculations? I certainly do not disbelieve it! And it appears much more probably correct, in my opinion, than the Leonardo theory, which I summarized but criticized. But science has not had its final say about the shroud exhibited at Turin. Neither has religion. You are the judge, if you claim the right to think for yourself instead of allowing someone else to think for you. My best advice to you is that you should read Knight & Lomas and make up your mind for yourself. That is what the historical Jesus would have wanted you to do,¹⁴¹ and what the Church opposes and fears most.¹⁴²

Amendment of 2007.  Copyright © Lee Perry.  June 6, 2007.

Every trial lawyer and trial judge should realize that a change in the evidence dictates that the possible verdict and judgment in the case to be decided may have to be changed before their entry of record.  Because the final verdict and judgment about the Shroud of Turin yet are to be entered, the book entitled The Turin Shroud, How da Vinci Fooled History, Picknett, Lynn & Clive Prince, Touchstone, New York, 2007, may change the opinion of my readers about what I have written above.  The authors Picknett and Prince have restated the evidence and conclusions from their earlier book about the Shroud, have added new evidence and conclusions, and have attacked the evidence and conclusions of Knight and Lomas, and of others.  Science, as well as law, advances through such confrontations.  The very last thing I would want you to do is to accept my opinions instead of reaching your own opinions based upon evidence now available to us.

Another problem which judges and jurors have in resolving cases based upon a consideration of all of the admissible and relevant evidence is avoiding the advantage a party gains by presenting his/her evidence and arguments last.  We are yet to hear the rebuttal from Knight and Lomas, and others, including an author who is of the opinion that the Shroud is a photograph by an unknown Moslem instead of by Leonardo.  Until I read all of that evidence, and those arguments, I must suspend my "final judgment" about how the Shroud was produced, by whom, and precisely when.  Of this I remain sure: The Shroud  resulted, during times Medieval, from natural process, ultimately explainable by science, instead of by a miracle of God.  It is not the burial shroud of the man known to English-speaking Christians as "Jesus," if, indeed, there ever was such a person, who died as alleged in the Bible.

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