- PROGRAMME -

Saturday, 15 November 2003

Doors open 9.15 AM



10.00 OPENING ADDRESS – with Andrew Collins

Conference organiser Andrew Collins greets speakers, guests and delegates in an opening address before disappearing off to present his own fringe talk in the Storrow Hall, situated downstairs.

10.10 LYNN PICKNETT – Mary Magdalene: The Most Important Woman in History

Historical researcher Lynn Picknett is most well known for her writing partnership with Clive Prince. Together they have penned some extraordinary books which challenge our views of conventional history. They include THE TURIN SHROUD: IN WHO’S IMAGE (1994), THE TEMPLAR REVELATION (1997) and, most recently, (with Stephen Prior) WAR OF THE WINDSORS (2003). Yet today Lynn is here to speak about the passion of her life – the Magdalene, whom she sees as the most important woman in history. In her lecture she explores Mary’s role not only as ‘apostle to the apostles’, but also as the Black Virgin and goddess of the Egyptian mysteries. Lynn is the author of the recently published MARY MAGDALENE: CHRISTIANITY’S HIDDEN GODDESS

10 minute break – a chance to peruse the bookstalls

11.10 MONTAGUE KEEN – The SCOLE Experiment: the Facts and Fiction

In 1993 something very strange began occurring in a remote seventeenth-century cottage in the village of Scole in Norfolk. Regular séances in the building’s blacked out cellar produced what some believe to have been the most remarkable paranormal happenings ever to be recorded in modern times. A dedicated group of sitters, which very often included psychic researchers as independent observers, witnessed a whole range of phenomena from the appearance of strange lights and mysterious objects to unbelievable photographic and audio-visual results, as well as poltergeist-type phenomena and alleged evidence of survival. Moreover, the group were able to repeat the results in other locations, some of them in foreign countries. The consequence of these claims was a book entitled THE SCOLE EXPERIMENT by Grant and Jane Solomon (1999) and a thorough scientific investigation by senior council members of the renowned Society for Psychical Research (SPR). The principal investigator on that team was Montague Keen who participated in séances on many occasions, and he is here today to give his own opinion of what exactly took place at Scole before the experiment was bizarrely terminated in 1998. An exhibition of the remarkable film strips created during these séances will accompany the presentation.

12.10 ROBERT BAUVAL – Talisman: The Hermetic Tradition from Ancient Egypt to the Modern World.

The religion, star-lore and philosophies of dynastic Egypt did not die with the fall of this once great empire. The Graeco-Roman world disseminated it into a corpus of literature attributed to Hermes, the Hellenic form of Thoth, Egyptian god of knowledge and writing. Known as Hermetica, it was taught in secret among the mystery schools of the Gnostic Christians, until finally it was carried by Arab philosophers and sages into Europe, where it was enthusiastically embraced by astrologers, cabbalists and alchemists who in turn introduced it to the greatest thinkers of the Italian renaissance. Like a flower coming into full bloom, the hidden principles of a stellar religion already several thousands of years’ old became the staple diet not only of the enlightened world of the Middle Ages, but also the Rosicrucians, Freemasons and neo-Templars. It is this underground strain which Robert Bauval, no stranger to the Questing Conference, unveils today.

13.10 Lunch – One Hour

Sandwiches and light refreshments are available downstairs. No food or drink in the hall, please.

14.10 CRICHTON MILLER – The Serpent and the Cross

In 1997 Crichton Miller discovered that the Celtic Cross, seen primarily as a religious symbol, is a mathematical measuring instrument allowing an observer, with sufficient knowledge, to find their geographical position anywhere in the world. Indeed, it was the first global navigation system! More significantly, it might well have been the method by which the pyramids were aligned to the stars and the oceans were crossed in prehistory. These findings led Crichton to conclude that the cross and its knowledge is older than the pyramids, and might well have derived from the skills of an even more ancient sea-going culture that crossed the Atlantic and other world oceans long before Christopher Columbus. In his lecture, Crichton tells the remarkable story of these strikingly original discoveries and demonstrates on stage the uses of the cross. Crichton is a navigator, inventor and the author of THE GOLDEN THREAD OF TIME (2000).

10 minute break

15.00 GRAHAM PHILLIPS – New Clues to the Lost Ark

At last year’s Questing Conference, historical writer Graham Phillips revealed his search for Mount Sinai, the Mountain of God, where Moses received the Ten Commandments from God himself. It was a trail which led away from the traditional setting of this holy place in the Southern Sinai to the mountain range surrounding the ancient rock city of Petra in Jordan, where both he and Andrew Collins independently identified Jebel el-Madbah as the most likely candidate for the sacred Mountain of God. Reviewing his very latest research, Graham reveals how this new location for Mount Sinai has unexpectedly thrown up staggering new leads concerning the final fate of the Ark of the Covenant, which the Biblical Apocrypha asserts was buried in a cave somewhere in the vicinity of Mount Pisgah, where Moses was said to have died and been buried.

10 minute break

15.40 Dr GREG LITTLE – Genetic Genesis: The Road Back to Atlantis and Mu

Dr Greg Little, from Memphis, Tennessee, is a nationally certified Psychologist who has worked in criminal justice in the United States since 1975. He is affiliated with Louisiana State University at Shreveport and is also one of the foremost authorities on the use of mtDNA research to trace the origins of world civilisation. We all know that behind the manufacture of our physical and mental structure is DNA, a life-code, or signature, which determines who we are and what we look like. However, what most people don’t realise is that we also contain foreign bodies, natural forms of bacteria, which have their own DNA, and this is known as mitochondrial DNA, or simply mtDNA. It is passed on from female to female, and different strains produce their own unique signatures and mutate in an easily recognisable fashion. This means that you can determine their point of origin and divide up the human race into individual strains designated by simple letters such as A, B, C, D, E, and X. Understanding the type of mtDNA present in indigenous peoples around the world provides us with important clues concerning their ethnic origins and the various migrations of their ancestors. mtDNA can be preserved in human remains for tens of thousands of years, meaning that individual strains can be traced to their point of origin through a succession of mutations. This is now producing incredible results which clearly show that certain strains of humanity originated in now lost lands in the Atlantic and Pacific, evidence for the first time that they once supported inhabited landmasses that no longer exist. Greg examines this staggering new evidence which throws new light on the former existence of lost civilisations such as Atlantis and Mu.

20 minute break

17.00 COLIN WILSON – Recollections of a World Most Strange

Colin Wilson was born in Leicester on 26 June 1931. He left Secondary Modern school at 16, intending to take a B.Sc. at night school. A brief period in the RAF followed, ending when it was deemed he had 'worked his ticket', following accusations that he was a homosexual. A short and unsuccessful marriage was followed by a period in Paris and a stint as a Soho bum sleeping on Hampstead Heath at night. Colin’s explosive opening literary work was THE OUTSIDER (1956), written when just 24 in the British Museum Reading Room. It became an overnight best-seller which caused him (illogically, he believes) to be labelled an 'Angry Young Man'. His second book RELIGION AND THE REBEL (1957) was slaughtered, and slights on his character by opponents led to him being hounded by the press. He thus retired at the end of 1957 to Cornwall with his second wife Joy, and has since made a living by writing over a hundred books on subjects ranging from criminology to the paranormal and psychology. Key books from Colin Wilson include THE OCCULT (1971), MYSTERIES (1978), POLTERGEIST: A STUDY IN DESTRUCTIVE HAUNTING (1981), FROM ATLANTIS AND THE SPHINX (1996), ALIEN DAWN (1999), and (with Rand Flem-ath) THE ATLANTIS BLUEPRINT (2000). At the present time Colin is trying to get his head round the principles behind Fermat's Last Theorem.

In his exclusive and partially reflective lecture for the Questing Conference, Colin will review a life searching for the answers to some of the world’s greatest mysteries, including the occult, mysteries, poltergeist, UFOs, Atlantis and the antiquity of the Sphinx, drawing from his own extensive experience in these fascinating fields of study. He will also recount the strange sequence of events which surrounded his co-writing of THE ATLANTIS BLUEPRINT with Canadian writer-researcher Rand Flem-ath, a matter reviewed in a new book to be entitled ATLANTIS SEQUEL.

Club Room Fringe Lectures in the Storrow Hall

10.10 Andrew Collins - Provides a rare view of some of the more remarkable psychic questing activities he has played a part in over the last year or so, and shows their relationship to the Tibetan Terma tradition of artefact retrieval; 11.10 Jack Gale - Delivers a talk on the occult history of Greenwich and outlines its connection with key characters in England’s War of the Roses; 12.10 Grant Stapleton – Reveals the very latest results of the mtDNA tests to determine the origin of the mysterious ‘Star Child’ skull from Mexico, which some now believe to be alien in origin.

Sunday, 16 Nov – City of Revelation – A London Walkabout with Adrian Gilbert

Following the Great Fire of London of 1666, during the reign of Charles II, the reconstruction of the razed city was placed in the hands of an elite group of free thinkers under the leadership of distinguished architect Sir Christopher Wren. Many of these individuals were members of the newly formed Royal Society, which possessed a strong Rosicrucian and Masonic background. This enormous opportunity allowed the group to put into action a long-held mystical plan to elevate London into the New Jerusalem, a city of Revelations, marked out to incorporate not only the capital’s already ancient sacred places, but also brand new sites of interest which conformed to a rigid ground plan.

Adrian will lead delegates around a tour of those sites which reflect the heart of mystical London, including the Tower of London, St Paul’s Cathedral, Nelson’s Column, the London Stone, the Monument, Trafalgar Square and the Templar Church. Further details to be provided on the day.

Please keep your tickets with you at all times - otherwise you will be refused entry!

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