dove and the oars of the vessel alike representing the flight and freedom of the soul.” [5]
Orthodox Christianity could not allow these ancient esoteric truths to be spread abroad as it had built its power base upon the literalism’s of the Bible and so they persecuted the Cathars and burnt them out of sight. However it does seem that these Cathars did hold the secret of the Temple of Solomon. They were the ‘perfecti’ who protected the esoteric wisdom of the Ark, for they were the Western version of the Eastern Sufi who themselves protected the ba-ra-ka. The only ‘vessel’ that they spirited away from their ill-fated Montsegur was the vessel of grace – knowledge.
In essence the term baraka is an original term for Ark and is thought by many to be derived from the ancient Egyptian b’arque or boat. The Sufi’s have often been said to have originated or at the very least to have origins in Egypt, and so having some knowledge of Sufism I embarked upon a journey into the term, knowing full-well that what lay before me was an often contradictory and argumentative subject matter. I had spent many hours listening to a Sufi master and I often recall his methods – which to many would seem offensive, but to me were esoteric teachings. I once asked him where my path might lay and he replied that the only path I had no longer existed. This path of course was the one behind me, for the path in front had not yet been made. He told me that if I concentrated on my only path I would stumble and fall over and I quickly worked out that this was because I would always be looking behind me, whilst trying to walk forward. There is only now, between yesterday and tomorrow – again, it was the place between.