The light was behind him. The Deacon sat down. The chair was large and very ornate. The legs had carvings that resembled the legs and paws of a lion. The ornate brow of the chair imparted the illusion of wings. His dreadlocks imparted the impression of a mature lion’s mane.
I thought to myself, the Deacon is a little girl who is scared of an enchanted trinket.
The Deacon continued. With his hands clenched over the arm rails of the chair, it was truly the image of the talking Sphinx.
“The scroll was not it.”
I thought.
What the—It is not it!
“B-A-B-Y-L-O-N,” he spelled.
“B-A-B-E-L-I-O-N,” he spelled.
What the—, I thought.
John Henry and Manta were paralyzed.
Then he began to address a fifth person in the room but there was no fifth person in the room.
“Balal means to confuse. Babel, if you wish, means the ‘The Gate of God’. That was where the first great city arose. After exponential millennia, a great city arose overnight from the desolate sands of a waterless dessert. Ur, it was called and it arose overnight. A metropolis constructed, erected, assembled without previous knowledge. And, that is it—where was the previous knowledge base?”
“It was outside ‘The Gate of God’.”
John Henry and Manta were now enslaved.
I thought, It was an old dead city.
The Deacon continued talking ever more directly at the person who was not there.
“Ur was not it.”
What the—, I thought.
“Outside the Gate of God, Ur, a great city, arose. A master builder’s mind was involved. But how was it possible to have such a complete knowledge on the first attempt? And, he built a city.”
The Deacon was preaching and John Henry, Manta, and the unobserved one were the congregation.
But, I did not concentrate on them.
That sounded familiar. I knew those words. Wait, wait, wait—that’s it! Is he crazy? I thought. He is not serious. He’s mad.
He cannot mean that is it. I looked at him to detect if there were any sign that would betray him. He was still. He was quiet. He was looking at the one who was not present.
Then he continued.
“He took it with him. When he left, he simply took it with him. He picked it up and came through the gate with it in his hand. It is as simple as that.”
Then I spoke. “You mean to tell me that you believe that? That he picked it up off the ground. It was bitten and he walked away with it. Is that what you are telling me? Is that what you really think? And, is that what caused the fate of those drowned dead men? Is that what you are saying? Is it? Is it?” I questioned him.
“What I am saying is that there are drowned men out there and some are dead because of it. It did not cause them to die but it caused some of them to drown,” the Deacon said.
He was certain, now, that I had knowledge. The population of the room was he and I.
“Men die. Some die out of the plan and design and die due to the fact that they try to force their life through their own desire. That is what happened to my buddy. He wanted it more than he wanted his own life,” the Deacon said.
“It did not rot,” I said.
“It came from the other side of ‘The Gate of God’ and it is incorruptible.”
I was now enslaved and paralyzed.
The Deacon continued.
“It was spirited from Ur and hidden away for three generations. It became meaningless but because it did not rot or show corruption from year to year it became a curiosity and was eventually sold for supplies in Egypt. The Egyptians—simple native people at the time—became in days an empire. It was traded for seed. From it the seed of Egypt came that allowed for an Empire. His name in English is Lion. And, it gave him wisdom and the title of the deed to earth. And, he claimed his deed and watered his field with the blood of many people. Being wise, he kept the secret of his wisdom but he kept it in plain sight. There it was in view but the wisdom of it was unknown except to him and he died not telling his heirs.
“It was there. It became nothing more than a royal relic.
“Then the wisest of all men realized what it was. Having read an ancient scroll he set out upon a quest to reclaim it for it was his ancestor that had first claimed it by right of ownership. It was in the possession of the Queen of Sheba and was just an artifact. In reverse, as the ancient ones from the east had traded it for seed grain to gain life, she would go east and trade it for his seed to gain life. She desired to be the fertile field of his wisdom.
“Being the only person with the wisdom of it he used it, he abused it, and he always kept it hidden in the foundation of his great temple under the empty place. It was secure in the empty place of the great foundation stone of the palace.
“The bargain with the Queen of Sheba was fair because she conceived and bore a son, his seed, from this most wise man, a king. She went west with his seed and it was again in the land of the original possessors.
“That was the secret of the Sphinx. It allowed for the wisdom of man or it allowed for the behavior of a beast. It never allowed for both. It allowed for a choice—good or evil. It did not allow for one to choose good and evil. Therefore the Sphinx sits in the sands pondering its predicament. The Lamassu has chosen—look upon its face. And, the Griffin with its wings tries to avoid a choice. They are stone. They are protohumanoid minds, after all.
“In 1899, Koldeway told Schliemann of his findings from the scroll. It was most unwise. Schliemann, wanting to keep it to himself, killed his half-brother Koldeway.
“Schliemann, although a murderer, was however no fool. He was intelligent and schooled and had done research for decades but his most useful, practical, functional, and valuable trait was that he was a Nazi. And, being a Nazi, he realized a lie when he was told or read one. The lie was the Holy Grail. As the acquisition of Austria and the invasion of Poland was based upon a lie, the Holy Grail was also.
“The Knights Templar were looking for it. Not the Holy Grail—they were looking for it and a cohort of knights found it.
“Knowing the authority, supremacy, and dominance that it could be utilized to achieve, the cohort sent out one band of three knights with the cover story of the Holy Grail; another band of three knights was sent out mysteriously in silence; and the last band of three knights simply walked out as common folk with it.
“Everyone was hunting for the Holy Grail of the first Knights, or perhaps the treasure map of the second group of knights, but the last knights who had it were obvious and with them it was hidden in plain sight. If you can recall, Richard went to the east with a red cross on his shield but came back to the west with a lion—a lion—on his shield.
“Looking at Richard on horseback, does not he have the appearance of a lamassu?
“The flames of the inquisition opened closed mouths and what had been a clandestine secret in a dark room was now an open actuality and became the thing of royal desire and royal craving. It was taken to the edge of the realm and then out of the realm and placed in a dark foundation. It was a place in secret and lost from sight. Herr Schliemann uncovered the secret of it and then unearthed it.”