"A bitter thing, a lamentable thing, a thing horrible to think of and terrible to hear, a detestable crime, an execrable evil deed, an abominable work, a detestable disgrace, a thing wholly inhuman, foreign to all humanity, has, thanks to the reports of several persons worthy of faith, reached our ears, not without striking us with great astonishment and causing us to tremble with violent horror, and, as we consider its gravity an immense pain rises in us, all the more cruelly because there is no doubt that the enormity of the crime overflows to the point of being an offence to the divine majesty, a shame for humanity, a pernicious example of evil and a universal scandal."

So begins the secret orders of king Philip the Fair to his seneschals for the arrest of the Knights Templar within his territories on October 13, 1307.

The arrest of the Templars by King Philip on this day 699 years ago was the beginning of the end for the warrior monks that had reached the pinnacle of power in Christendom. Templar knights, sergeants, administrators and priests were arrested simultaneously across the country, though many escaped with the Templar fleet and Temple treasure, both having disappeared without a trace to history the night before, or simply melted away into the population. After a little Inquisitional torture, confessions came quickly confirming the most sordid acts of heresy, desecration of the cross, certain sexual acts and worship of a mysterious head known as "Baphomet". The Templars were toast.

Several Templar and Masonic historians have put forth the theory that the superstition of Friday the 13th's association as being an unlucky day can trace its origins to the arrests of the Templars:

"And so it was at dawn of the following day, Friday the Thirteenth in October of 1307, that almost every Templar knight, priest, sergeant, and servant in France was arrested and put in chains. The arresting party at the Paris Temple was led by the king's chancellor in person, probably to assure admittance. The date was ever after regarded as an ominous time, but although for the rest of the world it might have become an amusing superstition, for the Knights Templar that Friday the Thirteenth was the unluckiest day of that or any other year. Their torture began the same day."

— Dungeon, Fire and Sword:
The Knights Templar in the Crusades,
John J. Robinson

"When [Jacques] de Molay retired that night, there was no way he could have known that just before the dawn of the next day an event would occur of such shattering dimensions that the date, Friday the Thirteenth, would live for centuries in the minds of millions as the unluckiest day of the year."

— Born in Blood:
The Lost Secrets of Freemasonry,
John J. Robinson

"[The Knights Templar], it must be remembered, was, with the sole exception of the Papacy, the most important, most powerful, most prestigious, most apparently unshakable institution of its age. At the time of [King] Philippe's attack, it was nearly two centuries old and regarded as one of the central pillars of Western Christendom. For most of it contemporaries, it seemed as immutable, as durable, as permanent as the Church herself. That such an edifice should be so summarily demolished rocked the foundation upon which rested the assumptions and beliefs of the epoch. Thus, for example, Dante, in the 'The Divine Comedy', expresses his shock and his sympathy for the persecuted 'White Mantles'. Indeed, the superstition which holds Friday the 13th to be a day of misfortune is believed to stem from Philippe's initial raids on Friday, 13 October 1307."

— The Temple and the Lodge,
Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh

"Eventually, after the Templars were driven from the Holy Land, they set up their headquarters in France. But by 1306, Philip IV of France (Philip the Fair) grew fearful of them and sought to destroy them, hoping also to confiscate their treasures. On Friday the thirteenth of October, 1307, Philip had all the Templars in France — save thirteen &mdash arrested. This is said to be the origin of the superstition that bad luck falls on every Friday-the-thirteenth."

— New World Order:
The Ancient Plan of Secret Societies,
William T. Still

Now people with paraskavedekatriaphobia don't have to have an irrational fear of the date. The can have a rational fear of it.

Knights Templar | Freemasonry | History | Friday the 13th
Superstitions | Philip IV | France | FACTs | Grouchogandhi

Delivered unto you by Grouchogandhi precisely at 8:04:00 PM