The Seal (55 page)

He laid himself
down then and let the pain swell and the darkness overtake him.

Now, once again,
the old woman found that she was beyond the underground chapel and sitting
outside her shop.

Finally she
understood everything.

The sun was
slanting from out of that sky and onto the writer, who was looking at her with
concern. But St Michael was beyond the avenue of lime trees and he would not be
kept waiting.

‘Behold, the
pleasant and longed-for spring, it brings back joyfulness,’ the old woman said.
‘Violet flowers fill the meadows, the sun brightens everything, sadness is now
at an end –
déjà les chagrins se
dissipent
! ’ She put a hand to the other woman’s cheek. ‘You were right, my
Jourdain . . . courage is born of pain.’

Outwards and
beyond itself, her spirit saw St Michael raise his sword, and from above, a
resounding light full of tender love and warm detachment entered into her
spirit’s true humanity and made an imprint of Christ there. It struck life into
that inner sun which converts all darkness to light, all evil to goodness. It
was a fulfilment of what had begun so long ago, in the dim chamber of the great
pyramid lit by a flickering flame, in that icy sarcophagus of stone. It was the
sacramental marriage of his soul with the Spirit of God.

But now it was
not Isis welcoming her child Horus, with open arms . . . it was the Divine
Sophia, mother of all mothers welcoming the old woman’s redeemed soul.

‘Rest,’ she
said. ‘You have been on a long journey . . .’

Epilogue

The old woman’s
eyes closed then and the cards fell from her hands. Her head slumped to one
side and the sun moved gold over her face. I leant over her, worried now, and
tried to wake her, but she would not open her eyes.

I came back to
Lockenhaus a little over a year later to launch my book The Seal, on 13
October, seven hundred years after the arrest of the Order of Knights Templar
in France. In the Ritterhaus, the dining hall of the knights, I spoke of the
last hours of the Templars of Lockenhaus. I informed the guests that this hall
had been called ‘the Blood Hall’ because legend had it that the blood of the
Templars could not be washed from the flags for a hundred years. It was a
quaint anecdote, something to discuss while they consumed a feast fit for
‘robber barons’. Afterwards, while my guests were eating dessert and listening
to the virtuoso violinist Gideon Kremer, I excused myself for a moment and
ventured out to the snow-covered courtyard, descending the steps that led to
the underground chapel – where Etienne had faced his demons and met his
end.

I stood in the
dark nave of stone before the altar and thought of Etienne and the old woman. I
searched for the familiar symbols – the sun, the moon, the Vesica Pisces
and the twin spheres. I walked the sacred geometry, the fusion of hexagram and
pentagram built into the rectangle of the chapel. I followed the line of
an ‘S’
from end to end and came to the hole in the stone, I
took out a little key-ring torch and looked inside. I could see nothing in its
depths. I sat with my back to the wall and thought of the legends of Solomon’s
Seal
. It was known in Judaism, Christianity and Islam
– a signet ring on which the name of the ‘Most High God’ was engraved,
made of both brass and iron; the brass, related to Mercury, was used to command
good forces and the iron, related to Mars, could command evil. It seemed
strange to me that I had seen with my soul’s eye the source of these legends;
the symbols which had become the gateway to vast dimensions – both
terrible and wonderful.

I remembered
now, how I had not entirely understood the seal’s secret until I had come to
write the book’s epilogue. I realised that I had not fully grasped the seal’s
power, or why it had been so painstakingly guarded. In order to understand, I
had to return to Lockenhaus in my meditations and revisit Etienne’s experience.
Only then did a picture begin to emerge, like a whisper in my soul of what the
old woman could not have told me when she had been alive.

It showed me
this: that the seal’s secret was twofold.

What arose first
was the power it contained, through its symbols, to loosen the soul and allow
it entry into a sphere of forces kept hidden from human awareness since the
fall; the forces behind all living things, the four elements and all substance
and matter which they contain; the Tree of Life – the power of a living
god. These are not moral forces so they are neither good nor evil. However, as
Etienne had experienced, they hold an attraction for the darkness of egotism
– all the hidden tendencies and inclinations that lean towards wickedness.
Philip the Fair through his peculiar destiny had an intuition of this and
sought to use it for his own ends. Etienne, like his brothers, had experienced
this double,
whom
the Templars knew as Baphomet, in
their meditations and had built up the strength of will necessary to resist its
temptation.

After this
realisation the seal’s second power began to make itself known to me, a power
that went beyond the mere resistance of evil.

The old woman of
Puivert had told Etienne: ‘You are two things, two minds, and two wills . . .
to these be added a third, when the third comes it shall be the end of
something, but it shall bring an answer to the question you carry in your
heart.’ I knew now what she meant. Etienne had been an initate of Isis and a
warrior of Christ, but he had to wait for the experiences of these two lives to
mature in a third life as a woman before he could be shown the seal’s second
secret.

What had been
revealed to her? That there would come a time when all the wisdom in the soul
would be transformed through a sacramental marriage with the essence of Christ
– known in past times as Vishva Karmen, Rama, Krishna, Osiris, Apollo,
Mithras?

But King Solomon
was the ancestor of Jesus. He was destined to look to the advent of these times
as a distant reality. His task became clear to me, he had prepared the way for
the future by making known only the Layla – the dark power – of the
seal which he depicted in what has become known as Solomon’s Key. The Yom
aspect of the seal, the future potential, did not concern itself with power but
with love; a love so mighty and pure that it was capable of redeeming evil and
turning it towards the service of the good. This love, this product of the
marriage between man and God, he secreted in the words of his Song of Songs and
upon the seal’s ciphers, thereby making it only accessible to those who could
understand it.

But there was
always the danger that it would fall into the possession of unworthy men, whose
knowledge was gained by spiritually unlawful means. I could scarcely
contemplate what it would have yielded in the hands of the avaricious Philip
the Fair, or the egocentric Clement V.

Jacques de Molay
and Etienne had fulfilled their task of preventing this feminine mystery from
falling into profane hands. The old woman had also fulfilled hers – she
had waited for me, to rouse it from its sleep.

You see . . .
she knew that the future had arrived, that the world was stumbling blindly upon
what Etienne had so carefully guarded and put to rest.

I thought of how
we meddle with the forces of creation and destruction in the name of science.
What would be the spiritual consequences of crossing the threshold that
separates us from these forces in a way that is not conscious? Moreover, what
of the conscious striving for these secrets? I had learnt in my research for
The Seal of a shadowy world of occult brotherhoods in whose circles ancient,
decadent, rituals are resurrected in order to gain access to these forces;
rituals of blood, that I discovered did not differ so much from those used by
the Mexican priests of Taotl at their killing stones or from Philip the Fair’s
use of torture and death at the stake. This brought something else to mind,
Etienne’s skull dagger – had it not come from a land beyond the scope of
maps? Perhaps Etienne had been destined to use it to redeem an aspect of that
evil?

There is of
course so much in the old woman’s story that will only be understood in time. I
had experienced it in a way that others will only read about. All I can do is
leave them to decide the truth of what I have written for
themselves
.

I got up now and
dusted off my clothes, thinking back to some days before when I was sitting in
the warmth of the Heiling cafe in the little village square. There I learnt
that the advent of the book had caused the people of the village to be taken by
nostalgia. It seems they have nurtured a new memory of the old woman and
stories about her have grown like the cobwebs over the door to her shop. She
was the old woman who could make dung smell sweet and knew how to speak with
ghosts and walk with angels; the woman who could heal fatal boils and could
bring dead children back to life. She could advise farmers on how to discourage
the growth of weeds and the best way to make the mixture that went into the cow
horns to fertilise the soil. She knew the mystery of what lay behind light
things and dark things; she understood the motions of the planets, could explain
gravity, knew the names of the stars and could tell which way north was without
a compass, just from smelling the air.

She was the
woman who read the Tarot, shouted ‘Beauseant’ and ‘Iron Awaken’, and told
stories of Philip the Fair and Pope Clement V.

I left the
underground chapel and walked past the relics of the Order. Leftover remnants,
lifeless carcasses neatly displayed behind glass. I took myself through another
route to the weapon room and through it to the castle parapet. I knew that soon
I would have to return to the Ritterhaus and the world that awaited me. The
sound of ‘Tabula Rasa’ played on violins and cellos floated over the dying day,
resting quiet and white-laden and lit by a setting sun.

It had been
Etienne’s habit to stand each day near nightfall upon the edges of the world,
it had not been mine, and yet from this parapet I had seen Jerusalem!

Tennyson’s
‘Ulysses’ came to mind then and I realised that in it there was something of
Etienne’s last speech to the men in the round room before the onslaught.

We are not now that strength which in the old days
moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are; one equal temper of heroic
hearts, made weak by time and fate, but strong in will to strive, to seek, to
find and not to yield
.

As I prepared to
leave I looked up and above me flew a hawk.

Its eye ranged
the sky . . . its gaze was unblinking, open, shut, perfect.

A book like this
is written with the help of many people. I am grateful for the tireless work in
editing, advice and moral support given to me by my husband, Jim, who has stood
by me and believed in me through the writing of both Temple of the Grail and The
Seal. Thanks go also to my two beautiful children, Jason and Amelia, for their
patience and just for being. I am grateful for the support and inspiration of
my mother Rita de Cassia – a mystic in the most exalted sense of the
word. I hold a debt of gratitude to the wonderful work of Malcolm Barber, who
has gathered together an abundance of accurate and logical information on the
Templars and has made it accessible to those of us in the English-speaking
world. I am grateful to Dr Ehart Zauner and Andreas Wolfing for sharing their
knowledge of the Templars of Lockenhaus. Thanks also to all the modern-day
Templars who have helped me on this journey – servus! – I extend to
you my warmest thanks and greetings. Credit and appreciation must go to Richard
Hogan and all the staff at The Next Chapter Books for giving a self-published
writer a chance – I will always remember it. To my dear friend David
Wansbrough, a spiritual man and a gifted writer, for his advice and support. To
dear Brigitta Gallaher for her conscientious and speedy translation of German
texts. To Angeliki and Spyros Koulias – for reading, listening and
sharing much information on Cyprus.
To Jock Murray for
last-minute information and support.
Gratitude goes out to the residents
of Lockenhaus, in particular Janina Schrott, caretaker of the castle, who gave
me unimpeded access to all areas and answered my many questions, and to
Elizabeth Heiling, of Lockenhaus village, who was kind enough to help me with
my enquiries. I make a gesture of thanks to the now deceased Anton Keller, for
renovating Lockenhaus castle, and to Gideon Kremer, the violin virtuoso, whose
wonderful yearly concerts at Lockenhaus have enlivened it. His music inspired
me a great deal while writing The Seal. I would also like to thank all those
who have read the book prior to publication, especially my dearest friend
Simone Selby, who inspired me to bring the old woman to deeper light; Gilbert
van Kerckhoven, who gave the book his expertise and undivided attention; and
Jennifer Joanne May, an intuitive and insightful reader. Last but not least I
must thank my extraordinary copy editor, Julia Stiles, without whom so much
would have been left unsaid; and to all those who read this book with
enthusiasm, Maktub!