Six Questions with Andrew Gough: Editor of The Heretic Magazine

Dedicated to the pursuance of knowledge, and embracing the changing technology in order to best offer the methods for the sharing of ideas, Andrew Gough keeps himself busy.  I so appreciated Andrew’s taking of time to answer the following Six Questions.

Although I probably should have asked him about time management, because he seems to handle the clock so well, I didn’t.  I wanted to learn more about his passion for life and his goals of the future.  Delightfully, even though a question concerning time wasn’t asked, I feel his answers express a deep appreciation for the life we all have been given.  And so I have to wonder if that isn’t his time management plan; to value every moment.  Enjoy.

• Q1) By different means, such as the Arcadia website/forum and Rennes Group, you offer a generous service to others by providing a setting for people to gather and discuss various topics.  Your enthusiasm for the sharing of ideas is commendable and I am sure many are grateful for your commitment to Truth. Recently, you have expanded these platforms by introducing The Rennes Group Blog.  What was your incentive for doing so and has your vision for your website/forum changed at all?

Thank you. I am passionate about providing platforms for people to express their views. Many of us have known times in our lives when we felt that there was nobody else who shared our interest. It’s reaffirming to discover that there are, in fact, many others out there with interests just like ours, and often they are in our own back yard. 

Providing a platform such as the Arcadia Forum is not always easy. The topics discussed in the esoteric world are often contentious and, more often than not, people behave emotionally when expressing their views on these matters. I have made a decision not to participate in my own forum, or at least to do so sparingly. This is my policy, even when I am the target of criticism, which was recently (and still is) the case when I debunked the Ben Hammott hoax of Mary Magdalene and the Ark of the Covenant (which I write about in Volume One of The Heretic Magazine).  A forum is challenging to moderate at the best of times. While I believe in freedom of speech, there are laws about slander and misrepresentation that need to be respected. On Arcadia, my moderator is a highly-trained professional who, like me, is keen to provide this platform and to ensure that no individuals are aggrieved for stating their views.

With respect to The Rennes Group, my job as Chairman was to transform the group and to make it more accessible, while retaining the conversational and scholarly nature of our meetings. I am not sure how well I have succeeded, as most members are of the opinion that it did not need to change, but producing a journal of Rennes-le-Château related articles multiple times a year, in print, was not sustainable, especially in light of the influx of social media and the internet, where a plethora of research is made available on these subjects on a daily basis. Thus, we hope that the new Rennes Group blog, and website, will provide that broader platform for the research that this respected and rather serious-minded group has been carrying out for many years now.

• Q2)  As Editor, the launch of The Heretic Magazine must have been an exciting time for you. The many valued writers you have contributing to the magazine provide a wide range of fantastic topics for your readers to explore and learn from.  I think it’s great.  What do you like most about this method of presenting information?  Would you share more about this new adventure of yours; your inspiration, challenges, and hopes?

I am thrilled to be editor of my own magazine. I say ‘my own’, when in fact I am teamed with my very good friend, Mark Foster, and others, such as Beth Johnson, our amazing sub-editor. We have always wanted to work together on a project like this and so we are revelling in the opportunity. Mark is an amazing designer and esoteric researcher, writer and visionary in his own right, and his designs are commissioned for many websites, magazines and book covers. This makes Mark the perfect partner with whom to launch the first esoteric magazine designed for the digital age (iPad, Kindle, phone and PC).

The ethos for The Heretic Magazine is, ‘question the truth, but respect the facts’.  I feel that too many researchers take liberties with the facts, layering supposition after supposition on top of speculation in order to support their theories. Question the dogma – absolutely – but do not ignore the demonstrable evidence, for typically there is much useful and sound information available.

And of course the whole notion of Heresy is near and dear to my heart. After all, by definition, a heretic is someone who dares to tell his or her truth, without fear of consequence. In the past, heretics were persecuted for what they believed. Today, they are rewarded with a voice in our magazine. And so I look at the magazine as a conduit for our amazing writers to disseminate their research to a wider audience.  Our inaugural volume includes essays written by world-famous experts – as well as contributions from fresh, new voices – from the worlds of Alternative History, Lost Civilisations and Technologies, Mysteries and Conundrums, Rennes-le-Château, the Occult, Politics, Science and much more, including features from Robert Bauval, Robert Eisenman, Daniel Pinchbeck, John Major Jenkins, Tim Wallace-Murphy and others.

Our goal is not to drive profit, but to stimulate quality debate by sharing knowledge, not only with the magazine, but with events and an upcoming radio show.

• Q3) Your enthusiastic research into the bee may have you linked forever with it. You mentioned you are currently working on a book entitled, The Hidden Hive of History, which will reveal much of your expertise and fresh discoveries on the subject.  What would you say first brought your attention to the bee and what is it about the bee which continues to hold your passion? Additionally, when do you feel your book will be available?

My interest in the veneration of the sacred honey bee came about entirely by chance. I had travelled to Girona to study with a cabalist, who had worked with Jean Cocteau and Salvador Dali. The cabalist, named Ingrid, was introduced to me by Patrice Chaplin, who featured the seer and teacher in her book, City of Secrets. I was staying at Ingrid’s home in the forest, on the Catalan coast, when we sat down for breakfast on my first day of study and were immediately visited by a huge honey bee. Our conversation soon turned from the Rennes-le-Château parchments, which I was there to study, to the lost tradition of bee veneration.

Over the years we studied together on many occasions. Sadly, Ingrid passed on a couple of years ago, but I have continued my research and am currently writing a book about the sacred tradition of bee veneration, a tradition that has existed for over 100 million years.  I call it The Hidden Hive of History: The Forgotten God of the Ancients. This is the tale about a god, who lived amongst the dinosaurs and who was venerated in every epoch. It is the story of the real lost symbol and a sacred tradition that predates all others. Those that embraced the honey bees’ many life-affirming attributes flourished. Those who did not perished.  The bee was known to the Mayans as the ‘saviour god’, although most ancient cultures venerated it as a goddess equal to, if not more revered than, the Mother Goddess. The Egyptians named their kings after it and modelled their kingdom on its image. The Greeks believed their leaders were kissed on the lips by the god at birth and dedicated their most sacred temple and Oracle in its honour. The founding forefathers of the United States of America obsessed over it and named an entire region of the country in its honour.

The book reveals new insights into Atlantis, the fabled labyrinth of Knossos, the Sphinx, as well as the genesis of religion, politics, Freemasonry, the Illuminati, and the mysterious seafarers whose hallucinogenic concoctions enabled them to become the drug lords of the ancient world, and rulers of souls in the afterlife.

I hope to have the book out in 2013. I lecture about it constantly and am putting more and more pieces together as I go. It’s an epic story.

• Q4) What are your thoughts about Rennes-le-Château today?  Obviously, that question may at first seem huge, since an over-abundant number of books have been written on the place, mystery, and people surrounding the many enigmas.  But what I am asking more so is; in a few sentences, what thought does the word Rennes-le-Château produce in you?  For some it may stir a belief in the Sacred Feminine; while for others it brings to mind man’s powerful ability to imagine.  Still, others, the name creates intrigue and the need to look for answers. What is significant about Rennes-le-Château for you?

For me, the mystery of Rennes-le-Château brings together the sublime historical trail of biblical patriarchs, their relics and heretical secrets of the ages, with an extraordinary collection of French priests, whose lives appear to have been transformed, if not terminated (i.e. murdered), as a result of the discovery of a great heretical treasure. The mystery of Rennes-le-Château has no scholarly prerequisites, which is why so many different sorts of people gravitate to it, but that is also part of the problem. The genre is full of frauds and tricksters bent on manipulating the symbolism to reinforce their own theories about what the priest may have found. In fact, Rennes-le-Château is home to the greatest archaeology hoax of the past 100 years and, again, I had a thing or two to do with exposing it; I write about this in Volume One of The Heretic Magazine in an article called, ‘History of a Hoax: The Hole, The Mole and The Man With No Soul’.

• Q5) Your endeavors inspire others to question. Quoted on your website is the phrase, “Arcadia is a state of mind”.  It would seem you feel a person finds this ‘state of mind’ by actively exploring and questioning the unknown. Would that be correct?  What do you feel holds people back from pursuing this Truth?  And do you feel you have found or caught a glimpse of Arcadia?

I truly believe that Arcadia is a state of mind; a feeling of contentment and a belief that all aspects of one’s life are in harmony with the universe. Many have sought this state. Some epochs have found it and enabled it to flourish, or so they would have us believe. I feel I have caught a glimpse of it from time to time; fleeting moments and even years, periods in my life when the simplest form of happiness resonated with the meaning of existence.  

• Q6) The previous questions shed light on the many projects you have going.  Is there something you haven’t done, or haven’t yet had time to explore, that you would like to?

Well, for a start I want to finish The Hidden Hive of History. That said, there is a reason, I suspect, why it’s not yet finished. Perhaps there is more that I am meant to uncover. I would also like to present a documentary about the lost tradition of bee veneration, starting in Turkey, then progressing to Egypt, Crete and Greece.

Additionally, I have acted in a couple of films, but would love the opportunity to act in a proper, well-produced movie.

I’d also like to see more people become heretics; in their own way and time of course. 

Thank-you Andrew for your wonderful responses.  I was especially intrigued by your thoughts about Arcadia.  With having an interest on learning how to best encourage the seeking of Truth, wondering what may hold people back, and wanting to know if we all may be able to catch a glimpse of this state of being, I have asked about experiencing ‘Arcadia’ before.  I was amazed at the similarity of your answer with Michael Green’s.  He too felt the state of contentment was fleeting.  He said, “The experience of transcendence is something so completely discontinuous.” I can’t help but recognize a slice of wisdom being freely given.  You inspire each of us to become aware these moments of harmony exist, and the need for us to reach out and grab them.  Thanks again.

The sites, The Heretic Magazine, The Rennes Group, and Arcadia highlight not only the fantastic work of Andrew Gough, but of others as well.  I feel they illustrate Andrew’s respect for open communication and his esteem for Truth.  They are sure to offer insight and discovery to all.