Mandaean Sect 
(Last updated on 07 Aug 2010 at 00:05 )

This religious sect believed that John the Baptist was the true messiah and that Jesus Christ perverted the teachings of John the Baptist.  They may have been connected to the Nazoreans who were thought to have been part of the Qumran community, whose scrolls were found in 1945. The Muslims forced the Mandaeans away from the Jordan River into Persia where remnants of the sect still exist. (See "Rule by Secrecy" page 306)

The Mandaeans, like the Essenes, believed that the souls of good people would go to a wonderful and peaceful land across the ocean when they died, a land the believed was marked by a star called 'Merica'.  Since it is likely the documents discovered by the Knights Templar were duplicates of those found in the Qumran community, the Knights Templar may have found a reference to the new lands as well as the name 'Merica'  (Copied from "Rule by Secrecy" page 306-7)