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Response to Paul Smith

Response from Robert Richardson to Paul Smith's "The Robert Richardson Hoax" (January 6, 2005)

Unfortunately, Paul Smith seems less than capable of tolerating a point of view or conclusions different from his. This is unfortunate because it reflects poorly on the effort he has expended to reveal the reality of the Priory of Sion and detracts from the effectiveness of the efforts of anyone else who is trying to bring the truth to light. Neither the work of Paul Smith, myself, nor any other researcher is about one person claiming sole or exclusive credit for exposing this fraud. It is about providing sources to counterbalance the gross and deliberate disinformation intentionally created to mislead the public in order to attain the personal, political and financial goals of various individuals, authors, publishers, and filmmakers. Paul Smith's efforts have been concentrated in bringing more attention on obscure documents which are available in the public domain and on private correspondence relating to the individuals most prominently engaged in originating this fraud, while my efforts have been focused on intentionally using information readily available to anyone to explain how the Priory of Sion fraud was constructed and the intellectual roots providing the motivations for why this fraud was constructed. In both cases, we are using information which could have been secured by authors of popular and misleading books (and movies) had they made the effort or been diligent in their research. My most recent article, which has upset Mr. Smith, is intended to explore a narrow and extremist religious mindset which furnished a foundation for the point of view in the fraudulent documents created in the Priory of Sion affair. I believe it is important to understand why this point of view exists and appears in this affair and the article is concentrated on that.

The following are comments on some points Mr. Smith asserts in his most recent criticism. The following headings are not Mr. Smith's words, but they summarize his rambling rants:

I. Book profits are the only reason why this fraud exists

Several years ago Gerard de Sede stated in an interview that he had worked with Plantard and Cherisey to write books starring the Priory of Sion for a profit. Cherisey admitted a number of years ago he had fabricated documents related to the Priory fraud. This is not new information. It has been known for some time to researchers. Seeking wealth is not the only motivation for the actions of Mr. Plantard. Mr. Plantard never became wealthy. (He could have, if he sold Priory membership cards to the readership of Holy Blood, Holy Grail.) Were there other reasons which could have kept him involved in promoting the Priory fraud? Why are there people claiming to be Priory spokespersons involved in promoting it today, several years after his death? Have they some other motivation than 15 minutes of very questionable fame? There is value in exploring these questions and the article which has upset Paul Smith attempts to explore them.

II. Plantard's delusions are excluded from the article

Plantard had been promoting himself as the Merovingian pretender to the throne of France since the 1950's, around the time the Priory of Sion name first appeared. I have written specifically about this promotion in the 1950's several years ago. It is omitted from the new article because the new article is designed to explore the seeds which later appeared in Plantard & Company's activities. The late Mr. Plantard did not wake up one morning as - poof! - an occult genie and Merovingian worldruler. The ideas came from somewhere. Where? Why? What are the roots? These are the subjects of the new article. Because Mr. Plantard's delusion's are not the subject of the article, they are not covered in it.

III. Rennes-le-Château is not important and Mr. Smith doesn't like what I wrote about it elsewhere

There are several distinct aspects to this entire fraud which have been run together to manufacture the Priory of Sion fraud and which are separate stories in their own right. One is the Priory of Sion fraud. Another is the story of the priests in the Rennes-le-Château from 1790 to 1917. A third is the story of this area from 1100 to 1790. The last is the story of this area in pre-Christian times. All is this is presented by Priory of Sion devotees as one continuous affair. It is not, and each aspect needs to be examined separately. To date, none of the books about this area have done it. If the crypt is ever explored and the tomb, which Abbé Saunière notes in his journal as having found, is reopened, we will find that Rennes-le-Château is an ancient Celtic religious site. Very old Catholic churches, including Chartres Cathedral, are built atop the religious sites of the older faiths they replaced. None of this is addressed in the new article, but Mr. Smith is troubled by a different article dealing with it.

IV. The "one lone nut" theory

According to Holy Blood, Holy Grail, The DaVinci Code and countless other sources (including his own fantasies), Mr. Plantard was the leader of an invisible and omnipotent army secretly controlling world events. According to Paul Smith, Mr. Plantard was one lone nut who, from the age of 17 on, did everything by himself - writing, printing, distributing, fabricating, financing, falsifying, embezzling, organizing youth groups, depositing false documents in libraries, and somehow finding the time to have read enough superficial esoterica that he faked it well enough to fool a number of authors because, you see, he was after all just crazy and never slept and did this all around the clock except when he got tossed in jail because, well, he did some other things, too. (No wonder he never got anywhere in life - the poor man had no time to do anything else.)

I have some trouble with the "one lone nut" theory.

Anything is possible, but not everything is probable. If it were just the 1960's onward version of the Priory of Sion, I might be able to stretch to try to buy it, but even then would be very reluctant and curious about the sources where Plantard and Company got the information they used to fabricate the fraud, and what, if anything, else motivated their actions. But stretching back to age 17? When he grew up in a two-room apartment where he lived with his mother who supported him on a minor pension until he was 30? I can see him as a stooge and front man for others who let him do the grunt work and set him up for the police. In case the police or German occupation authorities took a dislike to their activities, I could even buy them putting his name on every article (which I have difficulty believing a 17 year old wrote, pasted up, printed, and paid for in occupied France on his mother's small pension). But all this by his precious little self? The man must have been an unsung prodigy.

V. The Mr. Plantard is the best source of information contention

Mr. Smith selectively uses Mr. Plantard, and various documents which Mr. Plantard may or may not have created, as a source to confirm his assertions and discards Mr. Plantard's claims and comments when they don't fit the "one lone nut" theory. Similarly, when Mr. Plantard's successors have claimed that Camile Savoire etc. were members of the Priory of Sion, which happens to support a hypothesis different from Mr. Smith's, he discards their claims. It is rather difficult for me to follow the logic of Paul Smith's contention that Plantard did everything alone because his documents and publications prove he did and that settles it but Plantard was nuts so we shouldn't believe him when he says in his documents that he was head of a supersecret society running the world and descended from Jesus and maybe from people from other planets, too, but it's OK to believe that he did it all alone.

I am sorry, but I just can't diagram the logic.

As you can see from Paul Smith's comments and the above, debate on this affair is really quite counterproductive to efforts to expose its real nature. It is important to instead spend the time trying to peel back layers revealing what has been behind this affair, rather than to argue about it. When the movie version of The DaVinci Code appears, that effort will prove helpful to people confused and deluded by Hollywood's desire to turn this fraud into cash regardless of the cost to the truth.

[Followed by More Robert Richardson Hoaxes by Paul Smith]


 

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