In 1818, one of the most decorated orientalists in the Habsburg Empire announced that he had found physical evidence, carved on church walls and engraved on cups, coins, and coffers, that the Knights Templar practiced a secret religion marked by heresy, sodomy, idol worship, ritual abuse, and child sacrifice.
That was what made it so insidious. The charge landed on the closest thing medieval Europe had to a multinational bank: a military-religious order built on money, secrecy, sacred authority, and trust. Sound familiar?
I didn't go looking for this story. It came to me, through a private meeting with the anonymous translator of the only English edition of that evidence, a man who worked beside the late researcher Tracy Twyman and who had questions about her death. Her team believed the material was cursed. They had a name for what it did to them: the fog.
I just published the opening file of my investigation. The full piece is free to read below.