Books about Freemasonry, Rosslyn Chapel etc.

The requests for information about books that cover Freemasonry, Rosslyn Chapel, the Knights Templar, the St. Clair family etc., etc. are numerous and frequent. One of the common questions the Rosslyn Templars are asked is whether or not the author of a particular book is a Freemason or not. Answering these questions has become repetitive and so to try and save time we have produced a list of the most popular books on the above mentioned subjects together with details of whether or not the author(s) are Freemasons. There are likely to be several books which have not been included in this list but we expect to add these in due course.

Book Title Author(s) Date Comment
       
The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh & Henry Lincoln 1982 Not Freemasons
The Temple and The Lodge Michael Baigent & Richard Leigh 1988 Not Freemasons
Born in Blood John J. Robinson 1989 Not a Freemason
The Sword and the Grail Andrew Sinclair 1993 Not a Freemason
An Illustrated Guide Book to Rosslyn Chapel Tim Wallace-Murphy 1993 Not a Freemason
Rosslyn - A History of the Guilds The Masons and the Rosy Cross Robert Brydon 1994 Not a Freemason
The Templar Legacy & The Masonic Inheritance within Rosslyn Chapel Tim Wallace-Murphy 1994 Not a Freemason
Bloodline of the Holy Grail Laurence Gardner 1996 Not a Freemason
The Hiram Key Christopher Knight & Robert Lomas 1996 Not Freemasons
The Templar Revelation Lynn Picknett & Clive Prince 1997 Not Freemasons
The Second Messiah Christopher Knight & Robert Lomas 1997 Not Freemasons
Rosslyn Chapel Earl of Rosslyn 1997 Not a Freemason
The Holy Grail Christopher Knight & Robert Lomas 1997 Not Freemasons
The Head of God Keith Laidler 1998 Not a Freemason
The Discovery of the Grail Andrew Sinclair 1998 Not a Freemason
The Forgotten Monarchy of Scotland HRH Prince Michael of Albany 1998 Not a Freemason
Blood on the Mountain Richard Andrews 1999 Not a Freemason
Rosslyn - Guardian of the Secrets of the Holy Grail Tim Wallace-Murphy & Marilyn Hopkins 1999 Not Freemasons
The Tutankhamun Prophecies Maurice Cotterell 1999 Not a Freemason
The Divine Deception Keith Laidler 2000 Not a Freemason
Web of Gold Guy Patton & Robin Mackness 2001 Not Freemasons
The Secret Scroll Andrew Sinclair 2001 Not a Freemason
The New Jerusalem - Rebuilding London Adrian Gilbert 2002 Not a Freemason
The Da Vinci Code Dan Brown 2003 Not a Freemason
The Rise and Fall of the Knights Templar Gordon Napier 2003 Not a Freemason
The story of Rosslyn Chapel and the true story behind the Da Vinci code Andrew Sinclair 2005 Not a Freemason
Rosslyn and the Grail Ian Robertson* and Mark Oxbrow 2005 One a Freemason, one not see below
The Shadow of Solomon - The Lost Secrets of Freemasonry Revealed Laurence Gardner 2005 Not a Freemason
Rosslyn Revealed Alan Butler 2006 Not a Freemason
The Secrets of Rosslyn Roddy Martine 2006 Not a Freemason
Cracking the Freemason’s Code
 Robert L. D. Cooper 2006 Freemason
The Rosslyn Hoax
 Robert L D Cooper 2006 Freemason

Stop Press

Please not that the co-author of Rosslyn and the Grail (see above) Ian Robertson* is a Scottish Freemasons (although his co-author is not). We were informed of this some time ago and apologise for the long delay in correcting this error. The book ‘Rosslyn and the Grail’ is highly recommended by the way and we shall post a review of the book on this site in the near future

About the above list

Preparing this list has been interesting. It is, for example, noticeable that the flood of popular books linking Freemasonry with the Knights Templar and Rosslyn Chapel commenced 1982 with the publication of The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail. Prior to then there had obviously been books about Rosslyn Chapel but they had not been of the ‘popular’ type. Up until The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail the material was not, dare we say, ’sensational’. Indeed Rosslyn Chapel was selling a ‘non-sensational’ guidebook (The Illustrated Guide to Rosslyn Chapel, Hawthornden &c.) until that time. It is almost as if something ’seismic’ happened around that time because that guidebook ceased to be available soon after The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail was published. This seems to have set the standard which all subsequent books on Rosslyn Chapel were expected to follow. Although initially off to a slow start (six years) the number of book of this genre exploded after the publication of The Temple and The Lodge in 1988 and today shows no sign of abating. Indeed The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail has metamorphosed into The Da Vinci Code published in 2003. Intriguingly, very intriguingly, none of these books (above) focusing as they do on Freemasonry and alleged connections with Rosslyn Chapel, are written by Freemasons! Interesting. (Except one - The Rosslyn Hoax? - Ed.)

Some of these book have already been reviewed on this site but many have not. Once we have had a chance to catch up we shall discuss the whole Rosslyn publishing ‘industry’ here at a later time.

This is a chronological account and so it may be, for example, that an author writing about Freemasonry did not become a Freemason until after his book was published. In that case this above list is correct in describing the Masonic status of the author(s) at the date of publication of their book(s).

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