Brenac is a tiny village, much smaller than even Rennes le Château. It is situated at the top of a narrow valley close to the source of a stream running down to the Aude river. It is one of the points on the Mazerou pentacle. This would have been a one time a route to the south via the Plain du Sault. Since opening of the road through the Gorges Du Pierre de Lyse from Quillian it has become a sleepy backwater.

The Church

Despite it’s tiny size there are two churches in Brenac. This church is very old. It has no side chapels and therefore may have originally been a Cathar meeting house. There is an even older church, higher up on the edge of the village, but it did not take me long to establish the the point of David Williams’ Mazerou pentacle lay on the larger not the older church.

On entering the church the first impression is that it is “colourful”. The pale blue and white arches attract the eye.

The paintings on the roof

Before long,attention is drawn to the curious paintings on the roof. The highlighted section of the roof shows one location.

Seen in real life these illustrations are really creepy. All the more so because they are so differet to anything normally seen in a church. A man in a boat? Who? and what is that triangle above?

The Eye Of Providence

Could this be the Eye of Providence, the so called all seeing eye, which appears on the American dollar bill? This symbol has its origins in the worship of Horus in Egypt, perhaps 2000BC or even older, and is widely used in Freemasonry. What could it be doing here?

The Eye of Providence
(If that is what it is) does not appear just once it appears in every one of the paintings. Its identification is probably confirmed by the clouds in this painting in which a hand reaches down to grasp or touch a lamb. Early depictions of the Eye of Providence often included clouds.

Are they part of a code?

A chalice with a ring above it. This comes very close to the modern symbol for the female gender which could link back to the stories that sangreal, the holy grail was not a chalice at all but in fact the womb of Mary Magdelaine.

Then there is the bleeding dove hovering above the skull and crossbones. Both of these were Cathar symbols, the latter showing Cathars disdain for earthly matters and their willingness to give up everything; to die if necessary rather than give up their faith.

I think I am on surer ground in believing that this must be a depiction of the Ark of the Covenant, complete with the Cherubim on top. However something is wrong. The “carrying sticks” are in the background clearly detached from the ark. The Book of Exodus records however, that God instructed Moses never to remove the carrying sticks.

Of course something else is different, The all seeing eye is replaced by a circle or globe.

The Panels

All these paintings create a feeling of being in the presence of a great mystery. Then the decorations around the altar itself become apparent The all seeing eye now dominates, looking down on the whole scene.

The panels facing each other, at either side of the altar are particularly interesting. To me it was immediately clear that these were a numerological puzzle. I am cheerfully sceptical about numerology but a friend and colleague had become a convert and so I had had to listen to more informal lectures on the subject than I really wanted to hear. Here suddenly, in this church, in Brenac I desperately tried to remember everything I had been told. One of the key facts was that whether or not you find it possible to believe in the special properties of numbers, the principles were utilised in many cyphered messages.