Mark Amaru Pinkham, a leader of a Knight Templar organization based in Scotland and Sedona, Arizona, has organized an international conference on Sri Lanka in February, 2008, that he hopes will promote more peace and understanding among the world's religions. Persons from all races, faiths and countries can attend and participate in this conference in Sri Lanka.
Sedona, AZ (PRWEB) September 17, 2007 -- Mr. Pinkham is currently inviting leaders from many of the world's religious sects to come together on the small island paradise to speak and share the links that unite their respective traditions. In some cases Pinkham even intends to investigate their common origins, which is one reason why he has chosen Sri Lanka, Islam's Garden of Eden and therefore the birthplace of all religion, as the site of the conference . Says Pinkham: "This conference represents the culmination of the work undertaken by the Knights Templar around the globe during much of the last one thousand years."
Historically, the Knights Templar is a sect of monastic knights founded in the Holy Land shortly after the First Crusade. It was ostensibly dissolved in the 14th century, but according to some modern Templars the sect has survived although it has split into various branches. The branch run by Mark Amaru Pinkham is The International Order of Gnostic Templars (IOGT), a division of the Scottish Knight Templars that was founded to preserve and revive the mystical rites and doctrines acquired by the original Templar Knights during their nearly 200 years in the Middle East. It diverges from other Templar orders by drawing its membership from all faiths and equally from both sexes. Pinkham helped found the IOGT with Ian Sinclair, a descendant of the Scottish Clan of Sinclairs, who now serves as the order's International Grand Prior. The Sinclairs have been intimately involved in the Knights Templars and their mysteries since the founding of the order and it is believed that many priceless documents and treasures taken out of the Holy Land by the Templars are currently hidden under Rosslyn Chapel, a small chapel twenty minutes from Edinburgh that was built by the Sinclairs in the 15th century.
According to Pinkham, the early Knights Templar attempted to unite the world's religions many hundreds of years ago, when, after returning to Europe from the Holy Land during the 12th-14th centuries, they amalagamated the rites they had learned in the MIddle East with those they had adopted through their Roman Catholic upbringing. The knights were eventually tortured and burned at the stake for heresy but their goal of a universal spiritual tradition survived and was later taken up by small bands of knights and secret societies spawned by the Knights Templar, including the Freemasons and Rosicrucians. Pinkham believes the Templars will have better luck at achieving their goal of a universal religion now, although he does not claim to want to synthesize all the religions into one. He maintains that his goal is simply to bring the religions together in understanding and peace by revealing their common links and origins. "We spend way too much time focusing on those elements that separate the religions than those that unite them," he states. "This tendency has drawn us apart and created enmity. Now we need to come together in peace and love before we cause any more destruction and death to each other and our planet."
So far, Pinkham has invited to his conference representatives from many of the world's most popular religions, including Islam, Buddhism, Judaism, HInduism and Christianity. He has also invited representatives from lesser known religious sects, such as the Maya of Central America and the Yezidis, a small religious sect of northern Iraq. Pinkham has lately become a representative for Yezidis living in the United States and currently seeks to bring awareness to the plight of the sect, which recently lost 400 members when four trucks driven by suicide bombers exploded in one of their villages in Iraq. Pinkham believes that this act of terrorism was motivated by an inaccurate understanding of the Yezidis and their religion and he hopes that his conference in Sri Lanka will help to clear up manyu of the misconceptions regarding some of the Yezidis' more enigmatic beliefs. Pinkham wants his conference to be a forum for healing between all religions.
Knight Templar Pinkham invites persons from all races, faiths and countries to attend and participate in his conference on Sri Lanka.
For more information on the conference contact http://www.gnostictemplars.org/SriLanka2008.html .
Mark Amaru Pinkham,
Sedona, Arizona USA
Tel: 928-284-1429
Email: gnostictemplars(@)aol.com
Website: www.GnosticTemplars.org
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