In 1995, my mother, Betty Dorsett Duke, gathered evidence to prove or disprove our family legend stating that the Old West, American outlaw Jesse James was our ancestor and that he didn’t die as the traditional, accepted version of history has claimed.
Author: Daniel Duke
See ‘Meet the Author‘ – Daniel Duke tells us more about his research and books.
Research also pointed towards a society known as the Knights of the Golden Circle or ‘K.G.C.’ which was a pro-Confederate organization founded in the mid-1850s with the goal of preserving slavery and creating an empire based on agriculture with labour provided by slaves.
The group is said to have included men such as Albert Pike, John Wilkes Booth (assassin of President Abraham Lincoln) and Jesse.
I have yet to see any evidence that Jesse or Albert Pike were members.
After the American Civil war was over, the Knights of the Golden Circle are said to have gone underground and began planning ways to fund a second Civil War.
In doing so, they are said to have been involved in burying vast sums of gold and silver and are said to have employed the use of a template which would be overlaid on a map and used to locate the treasures later, when needed.
This template is usually referred to as a K.G.C. treasure template.
Image: Alleged K.G.C. Treasure Template
Whilst researching any treasures associated with Jesse James and the K.G.C., I came across a story of a treasure that had been partially recovered by a man named ‘Doc’ Noss in a small mountain in New Mexico called Victorio Peak.
Some claim this treasure to have been placed there by the K.G.C. but further research into that revealed that it likely predated the K.G.C. by several centuries and it is believed by some to have been part of the treasures of Cibola, one of the legendary Seven Cities of Gold searched for by Spanish explorer Francisco Vasquez de Coronado.
This story has something to it as it was mentioned in the Watergate hearings in 1973 when “John Dean, the former lawyer for President Richard M. Nixon, mentioned that Attorney General John Mitchell had been asked to pull strings to allow some searchers to look for the gold.”
Additionally, this treasure hinted at possible connections with the Catholic church via Pope Pius III.
If the connection with Pope Pius III is true, it would date the treasure back to at least the 13th century and if the stories of Cibola have any truth to them, then that could date the treasure back to at least the 8th century.
Another treasure legend said to be connected with this story is the Bruton vault at Bruton Parish Church in Williamsburg, Virginia.
In researching the treasure legends of the Bruton vault, Marie Bauer Hall, wife of 33° Freemason, author, lecturer and scholar, Manly Palmer Hall discovered anagrams on several tombstones in the cemetery at Bruton Parish Church and discovered what others claimed did not exist.
She proved them wrong and went further in detailing more codes she had found not only on tombstones but also in books.
She connects Sir Francis Bacon to these and essentially paints him as the mastermind responsible for the Bruton vault and other amazing feats.
The contents of the vault are said to hold the answers to secrets which would be of great value to both the world in general and to Freemasons.
It seemed the treasures had more in common with Freemasonry and Rosicrucianism than the K.G.C.
I believe Francis Bacon’s New Atlantis, A Worke Unfinished was written not only as a means of expressing his desire for a free, democratic society and universal education but also as a call to action from like-minded souls.
The vehicles in which they chose to accomplish this great work may have been Freemasonry and other associated societies.
The current Bruton Parish Church in Williamsburg Virginia was built in 1715.
It is 1,715 miles from Victorio Peak, NM and it’s 1,715 feet from the Sir Christopher Wren building located on the campus of the College of William and Mary, founded in 1693 by charter from King William III and Queen Mary II of England.
The Christopher Wren building is the oldest college building still in use in America.
This is where Marie Bauer Hall discovered her findings.
I felt the above information warranted a closer look, especially that number 1,715.
It was around this time that I had learned of three more treasures which had been recovered and was shown where they had been buried.
These treasures, along with the others mentioned above, appeared to be connected with the treasure legends I had originally been searching for.
I used what was labelled the K.G.C. treasure template and discovered the correct scale to use.
Once I knew the dimensions of the template, I overlaid them on a map and found that not only did all of the treasures I had learned of, fit the template, but that these various treasures, buried in different parts of North America at different times in history, were connected.
In addition to the number 1,715 mentioned earlier, I drew a line from Victorio Peak to the large treasure near Georgetown, Texas that Ms. Callahan had shown us.
The measurement was 548 miles and the angle of this new line off of the line from Victorio Peak to Williamsburg, Virginia was 33 degrees. The number 33, Another coincidence? Perhaps.
Reading about Freemasonry and Albert Pike, Pike’s book Morals and Dogma makes frequent mention of Kabbalah.
After more research which led me into learning about Kabbalah and its various forms: Jewish Kabbalah, Christian Cabala and Occult Qabalah.
I had to wonder if the numbers involved could have some deeper meaning behind them?
I had learned that the surname ‘Bacon’ as in Francis Bacon, using the alphabet of his day; the Elizabethan alphabet, has a gematria value of 33 which is also the angle off the Victorio Peak, Bruton Parish Church line to Georgetown, Texas.
Furthermore, there are 33 degrees in Scottish Rite Freemasonry and the cover of Albert Pikes’ book is adorned with a double-headed eagle with the number 33 above it.
Author Gregory H. Peters writes that the double-headed eagle can be associated with the Tree of Life.
Image: Frontispiece of Portae Lucis showing Tree of Life (1516)
Image: Kabbalistic Tree of Life design with highlighted path
I began working with those numbers that kept showing up repeatedly.
The number 1,715 can be translated; when using Hebrew gematria, as ‘behold, the Tree of Life’.
The second number I had to work with was 548, the distance between Victorio Peak and the Georgetown site.
548 can be expressed as 4 x 137. The number 4 can be translated as meaning door and 137 is the gematria for the word Kabbalah.
Image: Tree of Life design within the Template
I believe this treasure has very little; if anything, to do with the K.G.C.
Not only does the evidence point to Freemasonry and Rosicrucianism, I found it went back even further.
From the discovery of a hidden map on the frontispiece of a 16th century manuscript written by a Jewish Converso by the name of Paolo Riccio titled Portae Lucis I believe the treasures can be traced through Christian cabbalists, Jewish Kabbalists and rabbi’s, alchemists and famous artists with connections going back to the Knights Templar.
Jesse James and the Lost Templar Treasure: Secret Diaries, Coded Maps, and the Knights of the Golden Circle by Daniel J. Duke, Destiny Books (2019)
Meet the Author
Daniel Duke, the great-great grandson of Jesse James, grew up surrounded by stories of lost outlaw treasures.
more….
Jesse James and the Lost Templar Treasure:
Secret Diaries, Coded Maps, and the Knights of the Golden Circle
An investigation into the lost treasures of Jesse James and the Freemasons and their connections to the Templars, Rosicrucians, and the Founding Fathers
• Explains how Jesse James used techniques involving sacred geometry, gematria, and esoteric symbols to hide his treasures and encode maps
• Provides instructions for using the encoding template employed by Jesse James and the Freemasons to hide and recover treasure and sacred relics
• Shows how the encoding template confirms the existence of treasures on Oak Island and Victorio Peak and can be traced to a 16th-century book containing a secret map of the New World and the “hooked X” of the Knights Templar
Jesse James left behind secret diaries and coded treasure maps. Working to decrypt these maps, Daniel J. Duke–the great-great-grandson of Jesse James–reveals hidden treasures yet to be recovered as well as connections between the infamous train robber and Freemasonry, the Knights Templar, the Founding Fathers, and Jewish mysticism.
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