Everything seemed normal on October 13, 2005 when I returned home from work and opened the mailbox to find a thin brown package. I had been anxiously awaiting the arrival of this package for over a month. Although I did not know it at the time, I was about to embark on a journey that would change everything I thought I knew about God, Jesus, the Bible, America, and a legendary treasure protected by the Templar Knights.

On that fateful fall day, I received my pre-ordered copy of ‘Maranatha – Et In Arcadia Ego,’ an innocent looking little book, published by an anonymous author in England. The book offered a prize of one million pounds sterling to the first person who could decode the secret contained within the book and submit the answer by an unknown method, which was to be revealed to those who found the secret. It did not take long to realize that I was in way over my head and that there would be no turning back. I had started a quest to find the real Holy Grail and it would change my life and my relationship with God in ways I could not have imagined, even if I had tried.

There was nothing about my childhood or early adult years would have given cause for anyone to think that I would one day be writing about possibly discovering the world’s greatest treasure. Up until the last waning days of 2005, I would have scoffed at any suggestion that I should undertake the task of sharing the Holy Grail with anyone, or that I would even look for it.

You see, I hated history. It was my least favorite subject in school, and on more than one occasion, I told my teachers and parents that there was no point to learning history. After all, I was not planning a career digging in the dirt or teaching others to memorize what I thought were useless facts and dates about things that happened before I was even born. In my eyes, history was history and there was absolutely nothing about it that would ever change or impact my future, so why waste all that energy learning about the past? To all those history teachers who were undoubtedly frustrated at my lack of interest in the subject, and who so valiantly tried to get me to learn, I apologize. I was wrong. History is not only important, but it can have very real and direct impacts on what happens today or tomorrow. In fact, history is not even fixed. The possibility that history could be wrong had never entered my mind before this journey began. What may be perceived as accurate historical information one day, can change completely when we least expect it.

Aside from hating history, I loved math and science. Through the lens of a simple equation, the world appeared to have order and structure. Unlike history, math and science eliminated emotion from the equation. Perhaps my kinship with numbers and dislike of history stemmed from the early shy nature of my personality. I could escape from the complexities of social interaction by immersing myself in the world of numbers. In numbers I found a true friendship because they never changed, and I did not have to try to figure out what motivated people or risk being rejected. If I structured the equation correctly in math or science, the outcome was a known entity, unlike history and societal interactions. In many ways, the complex equations of calculus were easier than trying to think of something to say in a social environment or to make a public speech. Ultimately, my affinity for numbers would enable me to discover the secrets of The Holy Grail.

As a child, I would daydream like most kids my age. I would at times get so lost in the world inside my head that a bomb could have gone off in class without me noticing it. My grades were usually good, except for history of course, which honestly bored me to death. Not surprisingly, my imagination would tend to take off in history class where I imagined myself involved in all sorts of adventures, which ironically involved history. Some of my favorite adventures were hunting for pirate treasures or even finding the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. When I wasn’t chasing down pirates, one might have found me on the way to the moon or undertaking the assignments of a master spy.

These early childhood adventures would stay with me throughout my adult life. The early interest in hunting for treasure was always in the back of my mind, but without the resources to pursue the dream, I began to participate in armchair treasure hunts. What started as a hobby, a nice distraction from the stresses of daily life, my participation in commercialized treasure hunts would prove to be the starting point for a most amazing adventure. For many years, a favorite pastime was attempting to break codes hidden in published books. Authors would hide secret messages in publications that offered prizes ranging in value from a few hundred dollars to over a million dollars. For the most part, I just enjoyed the challenge of trying to solve the puzzle or break the code. I came close to winning a few times, but never actually succeeded.

In the latter half of 2005, an advertisement for a new hunt caught my eye. The hunt was titled ‘Maranatha – Et In Arcadia Ego’. The author of the book, who was anonymous at the time of publication, claimed that he and his team had actually found the real Holy Grail and that they were going to release it to the world in a series of two treasure hunts. The first book would involve finding something called ‘The Key’ and the second would reveal how to use The Key to unlock the real treasure of The Holy Grail. The author stated that the information discovered by the team was damaging and that it was unsuitable for publication, thus the reason for using an encrypted treasure hunt. Their stated objective was to engage more people in the hunt and prepare the world for the eventual release of the information. I was intrigued by the claims, but the prize was what really convinced me to try the hunt. Frankly, I did not expect very much from the book. I assumed it was just another author making some outlandish claims in order to sell books and make a profit, but the modest price of the book and the prospect of an interesting diversion convinced me to give it a shot.

I pre-ordered the book about a month before its scheduled release on October 13, 2005. Once it arrived, I quickly opened the package to discover a thin red book of only about 80 pages. The first half was dedicated to some light background information about the so-called Key and its historical perspective. While interesting, the introductory portions of the book were very vague and offered little evidence of the author’s claims. The second half of the book was an oddly formatted pig-pen cipher, an old Masonic code, laid out in grids of letters with no punctuation or spaces, along with 7 unusual, if not disturbing, images. Scattered about on the images were 69 alchemical symbols for the sun, moon, and eight of the planets. It took a couple of days to decode the pig-pen characters, which seemed more like busy work that served little purpose. At this point, the hunt was underway, but there was little to go on. The decoded pig-pen text was almost as confusing as the encoded version.

For me, the first hint that there might really be something to what the author claimed could be found in the title of the book, ‘Maranatha – Et In Arcadia Ego.’ The word ‘Maranatha’ is found only once in the Bible. It is transliterated from the Greek language and roughly means ‘Come Lord’ or ‘Our Lord has come.’ Almost immediately this simple word appears to point directly at Jesus, the Bible, and possibly even the second coming of Jesus, but why would they choose to use this word for the title? Usually a great deal of thought goes into selecting just the right title for a book, so there had to be a very good reason why the author chose to use ‘Maranatha,’ but it would take time before I began to see the motivation behind the design of the title.

Eventually, a man by the name of Duncan Burden emerged to represent the Maranatha book. In interviews, it was revealed that the book was written by a team of researchers in England, not just one person. It was revealed that the team who made the discovery consisted of 9 members who were professors, priests, and Masonic researchers. The two priests were said to be Catholic and Baha’i. One pivotal piece of information about the team was revealed in one of the interviews. Mr. Burden said that at least two members of the team had recanted their faith based upon what they had learned about The Holy Grail. Yet, he also said their faith was now solid. A confusing paradox about the team and their faith began to emerge. How could anyone recant their faith, yet claim that the very same faith had somehow been solidified?

This single piece of information about the impact of the secret on the team was what led me to ultimately discover the same secret they had found. While it led me to the solution, I am not convinced that anyone on the team actually recanted their faith. Throughout the hunt, we were told to question everything because clues could be found anywhere. They told us to read the Bible, but NOT for religious reasons. The part about recanting their faith could have been a clue to get us to think in the right direction.

It was a very simple question, but the answer made all the difference. What was so powerful that it could convince someone with a strong personal faith, possibly even a priest, to recant his or her faith? A little thought about this question can lead to only one logical conclusion. There is nothing that would convince someone of a strong faith to recant, because any outside evidence contrary to the belief is quickly discounted by pointing to what the Bible has to say on the matter. There is nothing that could make a dedicated Christian recant, except for one thing, The Holy Bible. The Bible is the source and foundation for all that Christianity represents. To a true believer, nothing outside The Word of God has any bearing on their faith. If the team was being truthful and they really had discovered something so powerful that it could cause someone to recant, or even change what they believe, then whatever it was had to come from The Bible itself. There could be no other answer.

Raised as a Christian and holding a strong faith in God, what I was finding resulted in tremendous personal conflict. To turn my back on it, would be akin to denying Jesus. My heart was troubled, but there was no one to confide in, so I did the only thing I could do. I made the decision to let God guide me. As I prayed for God to show me what He wanted me to see, doors began to open and a strange sense of comfort began to take over. I knew deep in my heart that The Holy Grail was not something to be feared. Too many people have sacrificed far too much for this secret to be trivial. The Bible tells us to “ask and you will receive”, “seek and you will find.” What if it really is that simple?

To the disappointment of many searchers, the Maranatha team shut down the hunt without awarding the prize in early 2011. Duncan Burden said that they were cancelling the project and that they would not release the information about the Holy Grail, blaming economic conditions and an oath taken with one or more secret societies to never release the information. An obvious question should immediately spring to mind. If they had really taken an oath with one or more secret societies, possibly even the Freemasons, promising to never reveal the secrets, then why had they written the book in the first place? It makes no sense, unless they never intended to release the secrets at all. Why write a book if you never intend to reveal the answers? Why start the hunt and not finish it? Perhaps the purpose of the hunt was exactly as they had stated, to motivate people to start looking in the right way. They had done their part by telling us there was a secret. Finding it would be up to us.

Fortunately, during the five long years of the hunt, I had managed to learn enough about the real treasure, and how to find it, that the website you are now reading was born. “Chasing The Ark of God” is about a very real treasure hunt for The Holy Grail and the legend of a vast treasure protected by the Templar Knights. It is also about a search for the Truth of God.