Inventing Ancestors - Why Esotericists Gave Neo-Templars a Secret Past

Across two centuries of popular and initiatic literature, the Knights Templar, medieval and modern alike, have been assigned a remarkable succession of secret predecessors: Essenes, Gnostics, Druids, Egyptian priests. Where did this habit come from, and what need did it serve? The answer reveals as much about modern anxieties as about medieval history.

The Ordre d'Amus - Secret Precursor of the Templars or Modern Myth?

Among the more persistent legends circulating in popular Templar literature is the claim that a secret society called the Ordre d'Amus was founded in Toulouse as early as the ninth century, transmitting Egyptian wisdom from ancient Thebes to the heart of medieval Europe. Does any historical evidence actually support this claim?