The Celtic Conspiracy

by Hansen, Thore D.

  Datanos nodded. “You’re right,” he said softly. “They are forcing people into the most abominable kind of spiritual slavery.”

  * * *

  Shane was both intrigued and skeptical, but before he could formulate his misgivings, MacClary picked up the thread again.

  “For more than two thousand years, people haven’t been able to determine their own lives and their own fate. How was it possible that rulers could, with clockwork certainty, make men go to war? My dear Adam, our Christian-influenced culture has created and maintained regimes that exploit nature and humankind alike. With faith, all things are possible, regardless if it’s right or wrong. Still, we have another choice and another chance, but only if we can turn back to the point where we chose the wrong path.”

  “But more and more people are turning away from the Church anyhow.”

  “That’s hardly the point,” Ryan said. “Look inside yourself, Shane. You know what’s going on.”

  Shane held up two hands to concede the point.

  “The Christian blessing, the embodied realization of the message of Jesus, originated and continues to originate from individual people,” Ronald added. “And these people had to and still must assert the good that they do, often in the face of opposition from the Vatican. These Christians drew their strength from precisely those Bible passages that are not of Christian but rather of Jewish origin. The commandment to love, for example. And, like Christianity itself, original sin is an invention of Paul. The persecuted pagans probably knew this. The only defense of original sin is based on circular logic. If death is a result of our sins, there must be sins if there is death. Sins, for which God’s punishment is death. Therefore, sin is transferred to all of Adam’s descendants because they were born mortal.

  “But enough of that. Human dignity and human rights exist in Christianity only for believers, because they’ve been given a kind of amnesty from God. Nulla salus extra ecclesiam—outside the Church there is no salvation. And who’s inside or outside, who belongs or not, that’s again decided by the Church. That’s why it’s no historic accident that the Christians didn’t view the pagans, those who haven’t been baptized, as people. As a result, they didn’t have to be treated as people. With the Enlightenment came human rights. Meanwhile, the interpretation of humankind standing tall before God had its roots in Judaism.”

  “And the interpretation that men are themselves godly and possess the godly potential for creation—that has roots in paganism,” said Ryan.

  MacClary nodded and then continued. “My father was so involved with this during his time as an archaeologist that I can’t escape his legacy. As you yourself said, Adam, this question is occupying more people in all corners of our beautiful planet.” Ronald looked at his watch. “It’s time for me to leave for my dinner engagement. I hope I haven’t bored you too much. I would love to invite you to dinner tomorrow evening, so we can continue this discussion.”

  Adam smiled. “I look forward to it.”

  RONALD MACCLARY’S HOUSE, DUBLIN – NIGHT

  As Ronald MacClary left his residence along with a group of unknown men, George Cassidy waited in a van parked just down the street. A former CIA agent, Cassidy had found employment with the Vatican secret service after his cover had been blown in a botched operation in Argentina. From that day, he’d vowed to never fail on a mission again, and he’d been able to keep that promise.

  Now that MacClary and the others were gone, Cassidy and his team entered the house, laden with equipment. He deployed his men quickly, instructing them on preferred locations for the bugs and cameras—the “eyes and ears of God,” as Cassidy liked to think of them—they’d been tasked with planting. As he moved to put a microphone in a bookcase, Cassidy’s eyes fell on a parchment scroll housed inside a glass cabinet. He knew very little Latin, but he could translate some of the words, enough to feel a frisson of unanticipated tension. He took a quick picture of the scroll and got back to work.

  “We have two minutes,” Cassidy whispered to the others. No more than ninety seconds later, they left the house as stealthily as they’d entered it. Heading back to the van, Cassidy tried Thomas Lambert on his phone. When there was no answer, he cursed under his breath and opened the door of the van, which was so packed with monitors and other transmission equipment that there was barely room to sit down.

  He uploaded the picture he’d taken of the scroll to one of the computers in the van so that he could compare the parchment to other examples and, even more important, get a reliable translation of the few lines he’d been able to photograph.

  “Scoot, could you get me a secure connection with the main computer in the archive?” he asked an associate.

  “I think so. Give me five minutes.”

  “OK. Just do what you can.”

  Cassidy stared out the windshield at the full moon that illuminated the entire street all too brightly for his comfort.

  “How far can the signal be transmitted?” Cassidy asked.

  “A good twelve miles.”

  “Then take us as far away as we can get.”

  The van drove off just as Cassidy was connecting with the computer in Rome. His queries didn’t return anything interesting, until the translation of the second line made him break out in a cold sweat.

  “The deadly testimony of Constantine...”

  Cassidy had long been aware of the potential sources of embarrassment to the Church, so he knew that there were virtually no verifiable artifacts from the period around the year 300. Unless this was an ingenious plagiarism or an elaborate hoax, MacClary was sitting on a discovery whose true importance he couldn’t possibly know.

  “Damn it, I need Salvoni!”

  * * *

  “As I said, I might be able to tell you a bit more about the meaning of your dreams,” Thomas said as Shane took a sip from his second pint. “I feel that there’s a strong bond between us, and I trust you. This is a trust borne out of instinct, and that instinct is the important thing, my friend. Instinct or intuition, or whatever you want to call it, that’s what we’ve lost. Intuition is knowledge, Adam, a knowledge that, if you’re truly aware of it, can be an inexhaustible source. It was this source of power and self-determination that the Christians and the Romans fought with every weapon at their disposal, because it threatened their power and would have meant humankind’s advancement to a higher level of consciousness. It was this source that they wanted to silence with the greatest manipulation ever constructed. And they’ve been mighty successful.”

  Shane’s discomfort must have been apparent on his face, because Thomas added, “Hey, don’t worry, it’s OK. Just find a way to accept what you’ve been looking for the whole time.”

  Thomas’s words just made things worse. Feeling helpless, Shane broke away. As he did, he noticed the barkeeper turning up the volume on the television. The president of the United States had just begun speaking.

  “Few people would have thought that someone like me would one day be making this speech, but it is critical that I do so now. Peace, ladies and gentlemen, has a cause and an effect. War has a cause and a horrible effect. For our own sake, we must put an end to the cause of war. As with every conflict, one side must surrender for peace to truly prevail.

  “That is why I have decided, only after intense debate within my own party and in Congress, that the United States shall forgive all debts owed by developing countries. In addition, the United States will ensure that these countries will never again be forced to sell their own raw materials at prices set by the international markets...”

  Shane could hardly believe what he was hearing, and he saw that Thomas and Deborah were as astounded as he was. Everyone in the entire pub was listening, transfixed by the words of this woman, announcing a sea change in American economic policy. A change that would send shockwaves through the international financial system.

  “My fellow Americans, I know the effect this decision will have on our economic system and on our current doctr
ine of growth. However, I am also certain that we will be able to limit the negative repercussions if other nations are ready to join us. We need a new world balance. We’ve known this for some time, long before the last financial crisis. Tomorrow’s wealth cannot have its foundation on the senseless materialism of today. Let’s not fool ourselves; our old reliance on growth is a cultural and economic mistake. We need to admit that here and now, and I say this as the leader of a nation that has in the past been one of the worst offenders.”

  “You see, Adam,” Thomas said, the shock at what he was hearing clear in his voice, “that’s what I mean. Consciousness is no isolated thing, it’s a collective energy, that, in the end, will simply and movingly contribute to survival, factually and spiritually. The universe in which you live is not only a material fact; it’s also a very spiritual one.”

  Shane tore his eyes from the television to look at Thomas. “I know, and the Druids were aware of this. It was a culture based on the interdependence of three factors: God, man, and nature.”

  “It was man’s task to convey the knowledge of the dying from other dimensions, and above all to protect the respect for nature as the mother of all things. With the disappearance of the European shamans, this spell was broken, only then allowing imperial Rome to exploit the earth with a religion that was alienated from nature. You understand, Adam, that if we want to end all of this, we have to show people, to prove to them what happened back then. And that includes those who are beginning to recognize the bigger picture. That’s why I trusted you from the beginning. I felt immediately that you have everything in you. You just can’t live it yet.”

  Entirely unbidden, a sob caught in Shane’s throat. He took a few seconds to gather himself. “Sorry, but this is all a bit much for me right now. I’ve been looking on helpless for years, seeing where things were headed, and I always come back to the same point: I just don’t see anyone listening.”

  Thomas shook his head vigorously. “It’s not about whether someone’s listening to you. If anything, it’s about whether they understand you. And that doesn’t start in the head, it starts in the heart. What the president just said is testimony to the return of understanding that is fed by the heart, by intuition.”

  “The difference between Ryan and you,” Deborah said, “is that he hasn’t pulled himself back into his shell. You need to act the same way.”

  Thomas became even more animated. “Right. And if you really know what I think you know, and are capable of what I think you are capable of, then you have an even greater responsibility.”

  “That’s an awful lot to swallow, Thomas. Answer me this: what’s really the difference between the Christians’ beliefs and the Celts’ or the Druids’? In the end, isn’t everyone just looking for God?”

  “The big difference has to do with the form and character of the pagan gods. The old culture’s way of life is manifested in their worship of nature and not in a god as the Christians have designed him. In the old culture, devotion, humility, and magic were a normal part of life. They are the mystical metaphors with which the pagans had access to the all-encompassing and permeating universe and its knowledge. They honored and used it for the common good.”

  “One thing is certain,” Deborah added. “If the Christians had shown more tolerance, if they hadn’t attacked people of different beliefs with such brutal psychological and physical violence, not only would the Celts and the Druids have survived, but also the culture of the Native Americans and the tribes of Africa and Australia.”

  Sadly, he’s right about that, thought Shane. The scope of this false teaching was enormous, and more people were beginning to be aware of it. The dawning of a new age that he felt within himself was spreading. Maybe Thomas was right. Maybe he could help.

  * * *

  VATICAN CITY – NIGHT

  Victor Salvoni walked through his office and looked out the wide-open balcony doors at the Sistine Chapel. It was a warm evening with a beautiful, starry sky. Salvoni sat down on a small bench in front of the door and let out a soft sigh. In Dublin, his men would have long since finished their work. Thinking about his discussion with Lambert, he realized that it couldn’t go on like this forever. One day, mistakes would be made that, in light of the Church’s diminishing importance in politics and society, couldn’t be covered up with the old methods.

  With the number of people leaving the Church climbing at an alarming rate, and many distancing themselves inwardly, the pope had gotten carried away, and in addition to allowing the radical society of St. Pius X, he had also countenanced the statutes of the secret society “Opus Angelorum,” also known as “Work of the Angels.” The Church was bombed back into the Middle Ages. The Work of the Angels didn’t do anything partway: if there was even the slightest doubt about faith, they deemed it the work of the devil. Salvoni had been busier than he liked in the last several months, fending off media attempts to interview the victims of spiritual exercises or to ascribe responsibility to the sects for several suicides.

  He’d had to silence the victims of abuse from Catholic schools and seminaries in Germany and Ireland, either with money or by other means. Yet the sheer number of victims made it a hopeless battle. He had set up a broadly based covert action to destroy the traces left behind by the pope himself. But he had long known deep inside of himself that there was only one chance for the survival of Christianity: the return to the true message of Jesus of Nazareth. It had been a long time since the Vatican had anything in common with that.

  “One more year, Victor, just one more year, and then you can stop,” he swore, the moon shining on his melancholy face.

  The ringing of his cell phone interrupted his thoughts.

  “Salvoni,” he answered.

  “It’s Cassidy. We’ve taken care of everything as we discussed, but I found something you should look at. We must have overlooked it more than once, but it proves what Padre Morati feared: MacClary has access to controversial documents.”

  “What did you find, exactly?”

  “I sent you a picture that will explain everything, I think. We also observed three friends of MacClary who had a long discussion with him before we could get inside.”

  “OK. But for God’s sake, be careful, and calm down. It can’t be that bad.”

  “I’ll talk to you later.”

  Salvoni went inside again and opened up his mailbox. What he saw made his blood run cold. The document looked as if it might have come from the cave that Sean MacClary had found so many decades earlier. If this artifact had indeed come from that trove, then they really did need to fear what Padre Morati had always warned about.

  Now, everything depended on finding out what else Sean MacClary’s son and his friends knew. Salvoni knew he could depend on Cassidy in the coming days. Until then there was only one thing to do: wait, and try not to go crazy in the meantime.

  Let the flames of your smelting furnaces roast these gods! Make use of all the gifts of the temple and put them under your control. With the destruction of the temple, you will have taken one step closer to divine virtue.

  —Church Father Julius Firmicus Maternus

  ARBOUR HILL, DUBLIN – MARCH 15, EVENING

  Standing in MacClary’s house at his dinner invitation, Shane was feeling much better than he had for the past several days. He felt fantastic, actually. After so many difficult years, here he was finally surrounded by people who shared his interests and his questions, whom he could trust implicitly and with whom he could share his thoughts without reservation. It was only now becoming clear to him how much he had kept bottled up inside. But even that difficult time had, apparently, had a purpose. Without all the brooding and questioning, without all the battles and despair, he probably wouldn’t be here.

  MacClary brought his guests into the dining room where the diminutive housekeeper, Ms. Copendale, had just finished setting out their meal. As she left, MacClary told the group how in 1945 after the death of her husband, MacClary’s mother, Lisa, had hired
Ruth Copendale, then just fifteen years old, to watch her son when she had appointments outside the house or when visitors were there. When Lisa MacClary fell ill, far too young, with a then-unknown immune deficiency, Ruth took on responsibilities that went far above and beyond those of a housekeeper.

  The dining room was much too conservative for Shane’s taste, but it reflected a feeling of security. You could easily have seated twelve people around the table. The room was filled with tasteful pieces of teak furniture probably dating back to the previous century. The walls were paneled with precious wood, and small, ornamented wall sconces bathed the room in a yellowish light. Pictures decorated the walls, including the signed photograph of Ronald’s father in uniform.

  “I hope Ryan didn’t overwhelm you last night with his theories about early communist Druids,” remarked MacClary with a smile in Shane’s direction. Thomas glowered at the professor. Shane had had the feeling since the day before that there was a kind of love-hate relationship between Ryan and MacClary. Certainly they didn’t always share the same opinion, and their backgrounds couldn’t have been more different.

  MacClary seemed to notice Thomas’s irritation. “Thomas, you have to admit there might have been a far more pragmatic reason for getting rid of the Druids.”

  “Maybe, but the fact is that Celtic society was based on free accord and a moral order that had developed over more than a millennium. The Celtic people didn’t need a centralized government to remain a cohesive society. The Druids always considered property to be collective, for example. Rome, on the other hand, was intensely materialistic...”

  “And we shouldn’t forget that the Romans considered women solely objects of desire, servants, and breeding machines, while the Celts worshiped them as the source of God,” said Deborah.

  “Exactly,” Thomas continued. “And Rome could control both with their new divine business partners. The emperors were no longer dependent on the goodwill of numerous religious leaders. Now they were only dependent on the leaders of the Church, who were as easy to buy off as a prostitute...”