Richard Stanley is a film-maker, anthropologist and esoteric scholar. He has written and directed such feature films as Hardware and Dust Devil and a series of award winning documentaries.
In the summer of 1992 Stanley travelled to the remote Pyrenean village of Montsegur and scaled the mountain to the enigmatic ruins of the castle perched high on its summit.
There he was trapped by a freak electro-magnetic storm. The ordeal set in motion a chain of spiralling events that led Stanley on a twenty year quest to learn the truth about the castle and its secrets.
Fully illustrated with many beautiful and rare photographs this book tells the bizarre story of Otto Rahn, who believed the castle was key to a priceless treasure and was employed by the Nazi SS to find it, or die.
We learn about the mysterious cult of the Cathars, who were massacred there in the 13th Century, and their warrior priestess, Esclarmonde, the ‘Light of the World’, immortal guardian of the Holy Grail.
Untangling a web of clues and coincidences, wonders and terrors, Stanley is caught up in a saga that will shake your beliefs and challenge your concept of reality.