Books about Freemasonry, Rosslyn Chapel etc.

The requests for information about books that cover Freemasonry, Rosslyn Chapel, the Knights Templar, the St. Clair family etc., etc. are numerous and frequent. One of the common questions the Rosslyn Templars are asked is whether or not the author of a particular book is a Freemason or not. Or, arguably more importantly, whether the authors are (were) Scottish Freemasons. This is due to the fact that Scottish Freemasonry is substantially different to that of other countries. Answering these questions has become repetitive and so to try and save time we have produced a list of the most popular books on the above mentioned subjects together with details of whether or not the author(s) are (Scottish) Freemasons. There are likely to be several books which have not been included in this list but we expect to add these in due course.

Stop Press

Please note that the co-author of Rosslyn and the Grail (see above) Ian Robertson* is a Scottish Freemason (although his co-author is not). We were informed of this some time ago and apologise for the long delay in correcting this error. The book ‘Rosslyn and the Grail’ is highly recommended by the way, and we hope to post a review of the book on this site in the near future

About the above list

Preparing this list has been interesting. It is, for example, noticeable that the flood of popular books linking Freemasonry with the Knights Templar and Rosslyn Chapel commenced 1982 with the publication of The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail. Prior to then there had obviously been books about Rosslyn Chapel but they had not been of the ‘popular’ type. Up until The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail the material was not, dare we say, ‘sensational’. Indeed Rosslyn Chapel was selling a ‘non-sensational’ guidebook (The Illustrated Guide to Rosslyn Chapel, Hawthornden &c.) until that time. It is almost as if something ‘seismic’ happened around that time because that guidebook ceased to be available soon after The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail was published. This seems to have set the standard which all subsequent books on Rosslyn Chapel were expected to follow. Although initially off to a slow start (six years) the number of book of this genre exploded after the publication of The Temple and The Lodge in 1988 and today shows no sign of abating. Indeed The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail has metamorphosed into The Da Vinci Code published in 2003. Intriguingly, very intriguingly, none of these books (above) focusing as they do on Freemasonry and alleged connections with Rosslyn Chapel, are written by Freemasons! Interesting. (Except one – The Rosslyn Hoax? – Ed.)

Some of these book have already been reviewed on this site but many have not. Once we have had a chance to catch up we shall discuss the whole Rosslyn publishing ‘industry’ here at a later time.

This is a chronological account and so it may be, for example, that an author writing about Freemasonry did not become a Freemason (or did not become a Scottish Freemason) until after his/her book was published. In that case this above list is correct in describing the Masonic status of the author(s) at the date of publication of their book(s). Where such examples are known with certainty that the author was not a Freemason, or not a Scottish Freemason at the time their work was published this is indicated by the use of an asterisk (*).