Revelations of the Ruby Crystal

by Barbara Hand Clow

  Claudia locked her gaze onto Sarah’s green eyes as her wide-spectrum aura narrowed down to laser beams coming out of her slanted eyes. Sarah felt even more uneasy. “Do not worry, Sarah,” Claudia said warmly. “You are beyond fear of these things. When you came down into the place down below the Bernini altar with your ruby crystal, I was with you.”

  “What on earth are you talking about, Claudia?” Simon interrupted.

  “Just be quiet for a moment, Simon. Surely you are not afraid of anything I might say to Sarah?” Claudia turned back to Sarah. “When you played out the timeline of the most powerful sacred site in Rome—the vault under the Basilica—I watched the movie with you. I saw things unfold over tens of thousands of years until the Church took over a few thousand years ago. It was the vision I have sought my whole life. Because you opened this vision, I want to give you information about what goes on down there now.”

  Sarah looked over to where Simon stared at her with accusing eyes. She had never told him what she’d seen. In a determined voice, she said, “I did some psychic archaeology on my own a few weeks before our wedding and got some amazing information that Claudia obviously also got. I didn’t share this with you because just after I had the visions, your parents called from New York during the hurricane. Then travel and the wedding, more important things, took over.”

  Simon understood and visibly relaxed, so she turned back to face Claudia. “I know you saw what I saw, but how did you know it was me seeing the visions?”

  “I saw green eyes reflected on glass watching the visions with me. Your eyes,” Claudia said.

  “Can you tell us what goes on there now?” asked Sarah.

  Claudia nodded. “There are four altars to the directions that open into a large cave area beneath the Bernini altar. This central area was a necropolis that Constantine desecrated to construct the First Basilica in the fourth century. Recently the graves were excavated and rearranged by Vatican archaeologists who also closed off the four passages into the necropolis. This work was the first major change down there since Pope Julius II tore down Constantine’s basilica in 1506 to build the current one, the greatest destruction of a sacred site of all time. Julius tore down a thousand-year-old temple that was in constant Christian use! Some say Constantine is so furious he haunts the Vatican!

  “Somebody made the four caves accessible to the Basilica through tunnels from behind. Who knows how long those caves have been there? In the caves priests serve continual Masses—one every hour for twenty-four hours a day. These Masses focalize Roman Catholicism to generate papal power to run their mind-control programs. When Catholics go to Mass anywhere in the world, they plug into this sacrificial vortex. I discovered this system by accident down there many years ago when I stumbled onto a Jesuit serving a Mass in a cave. He told me this had been going on for more than a thousand years; nobody really knows how long. I’m sure both of you have heard rumors about things going on down there? Everybody has.”

  After her visions Sarah had thought these rumors must be true. But with Claudia’s confirmation she thought she and Simon might be able to delve even deeper into the mind-control of the Church. She looked over at Simon and his nod indicated their thoughts were aligned.

  “We Roman pagans must defuse this vortex because they’d take over our city if we didn’t. We do it by constantly mocking them, but much more goes on in secret.” She drew her body back, making herself very tall like a cobra and cleared her throat. Then she said proudly, “As a vestal whore, my ceremony was the Black Mass. Our cave temple is accessible through the back entrance of the Club Doria Pamphili, where Armando told me you had dinner together, Sarah.

  “You were wise to get away from him as quickly as you did because he is not what he seems to be. Now that I see you, I imagine he probably had big plans for you. He is a wizard, a high priest of the Black Mass, and I was one of his celebrants. This is shocking, I know, but for hundreds of years our cult has kept the Vatican at bay by transforming dry celibacy back into lust for the goddess. If it weren’t for us celebrating the sexual rites of the Earth God with the Goddess, the priests and the hierarchy could terminate human reproduction. Who wants to have children when the world is this way? Will people have children just so priests can rape them? If you’ve ever wondered why the Church is against birth control, now you have the answer: they need children for energy. These days others serve the Black Mass; I have not for more than ten years. I wouldn’t be telling you about this if it weren’t for the crisis in the Church and the urgency of the end times. The Vatican’s power is coming to an end because we are going back into balance, and repression and abuse will cease. You both have a big role to play in this.”

  The silence in the room was palpable. Simon and Sarah could barely breathe; they knew Claudia was telling the truth. Sarah was thinking, This is the clue I was looking for, the missing piece—the use of sex to get power.

  Simon’s investigative reporter took over. “I assume that the Jesuit who reported this to you demanded your silence, so we can’t have his name. But how did you run into him?”

  Claudia drained her glass of grappa. “He was serving a Mass in the East cave when I stumbled into it after attending a Black Mass and going out the wrong way. It is a labyrinth down there. He was in the Consecration, so I sat on a stone bench awaiting Communion and hoping he would tell me about the ceremony. He was so shocked to see me that he told me all about it. He was an American Jesuit, a Lakota Indian, visiting the Vatican. Maybe he told me because he himself was amazed by what goes on down there.”

  “Okay. Are there other men who play the role Armando plays, which I assume is a typical Black Mass—sexual intercourse with the goddess lying on the altar?” She nodded. “How big is this cult, this group? Is this the same thing as the ancient Greek hieros gamos—sacred marriage—which probably goes back thousands of years?”

  “There are always twelve priestesses and twelve priests in Rome. I’m happy I am done with it. Armando has told me he is done with it too. But I still believe in what I did,” she said to Simon in a strange pleading tone. “We had to neutralize the sacrificial energy generated by the constant global Masses. Perhaps knowing about this can help you better understand Armando, since getting involved with all this sexual energy when he was young may have screwed him up? Ritual combined with sex, sacred sex, is too much for most people. Meanwhile, priests have been doing rituals with innocent children for fifteen hundred years!”

  “Claudia, I do not judge you in any way,” Simon said. “But have children or adolescents been involved in your rituals?”

  “Never!” Claudia exclaimed in horror. “Our work was dedicated to using sex for energy based on conscious choices between mature adults. We believe this ritual has gone on for maybe ten or twenty thousand years or more because traces of it exist in many ancient sacred cultures. We believe the sacred marriage ceremony was created to avoid perversion. We think Christianity spawned the weird perversions we see now by substituting carnal pleasure with power abuse. You’ve probably heard children are abused in the confessional and the rectory, even that priests seduced their victims by inviting them to ‘private Masses?’” Claudia was really animated now, waving her empty grappa glass around as she spoke. “And it’s not just the children who are harmed. Repressing female sexuality causes perversion; when men and women are balanced, they don’t violate children or each other. You have been exposing this perversion, Simon. Maybe 2012 is the time of revelation?”

  Simon looked at both Sarah and Claudia. “What did you mean when you mentioned a ‘timeline’ under the Basilica?”

  Sarah felt guilty. She knew Simon didn’t like being the only one in the room who didn’t know something. “Simon, I will tell you all about it when we are alone.”

  Simon nodded. “Well then, I think that you’ve given us quite a lot to think about, Claudia. Do you want to meet again after we’ve had some time to digest all this?” It was late and they agreed they all had plenty to think about
before they met again.

  27

  December 2012

  Simon and Sarah’s first separation came barely a month after their wedding when he went to Jerusalem before Christmas to investigate tension between the three Semitic religions. Although he was annoyed at having to leave his new bride, the trip would give him the chance to revisit the Tomb of Mary Theotokos.

  “I wish you didn’t have to leave so soon,” Sarah said in a wistful voice the morning of his flight. “But you’ll be home for Christmas. We have to get used to separations at some point, so maybe this is a good thing for us. And I’ll have time to get a handle on my thesis. I’ve outlined it in detail, and now the fun starts—the writing. I do really need concentration time.”

  Simon waved goodbye as he climbed into a cab, and then she was alone. She cleansed the apartment by putting Simon’s things away and shutting his closet door. She rearranged books and decorative items. No breakfast or lunch because she’d put on a few pounds since the wedding. It was delightfully freeing not to have to prepare food or clean up afterward. Her thesis outline took over the kitchen table, and she moved the plants off the thick slate ledge to create a shelf for reference books. She poured herself a glass of water and prepared to dive in. She turned to Tertullian’s tractate on Marcion and G.R.S. Mead’s Fragments of a Faith Forgotten, a spiritual work on the Gnostics that included Marcion.

  No sources for Marcion’s original writings had ever been found, so the best point of access to his theology was Tertullian’s refutation, Contra Marcion. Previous scholars such as John Knox used it to extract Marcion’s thought. With Mead’s Fragments on top of Tertullian’s Contra Marcion, Sarah fell into intense concentration. Tertullian refuted anyone who said the Hebrew god was not the same god as the god of Jesus. Why? Tertullian said Marcion said there were two gods—one just and one good. Meanwhile, Mead notes that Marcion said one was a god of the law and the other a god of love. Marcion insisted the Jewish god was inherently destructive and inferior to the god of love revealed by Christ. Grafting Christ’s ideas onto Judaism—a limited creed of one small Semitic cult—was a grievous error that limited the universal glad tidings of Jesus.

  Her meditation complete, she began writing:

  The son of an early Christian bishop who probably knew Paul of Tarsus, Marcion was born around 70 CE at Sinope, the main port of Pontus on the Black Sea. He became a wealthy sea trader and a theologian. Contrary to Church dogma, Marcion was not a Gnostic; first and foremost he was an evangelist—an early devotee of Jesus. He believed Christianity must be a new religion divinely inspired by love and compassion, which was a threat to the newly forming Church of Peter in Rome because the Jewish god, Yahweh, was their god. The Petrine bishops excommunicated him around 144 CE, calling Marcion the first and greatest heretic. Original sources for his work have never been found, even though his church was more extensive than Peter’s church in the second century. Historians find references to Marcionite parishes as late as the sixth century, and there were lingering remains of the sect as late as the tenth century. Regardless, the Church succeeded in almost completely erasing Marcion from history.

  Ever since the Gnostic literature was found at Nag Hammadi in 1947, the Gnostics have been the best source on first-century beliefs about Yahweh, since discussions about the Hebrew god were central to their own theology. Many Gnostics said Yahweh was an invasive force that enticed humans to rape, murder, and sacrifice. Marcion, however, was not a Gnostic; he was an early evangelist! If he had been a Gnostic, Tertullian would certainly have castigated him about it in his refutation to Marcion’s lost tractate Antitheses. Instead, according to Mead, Marcion said Yahweh was the god of justice and law, while Jesus was a teacher of love and compassion. Marcion made the most important point: the old god must go for a new god to come.

  That’s the crux, she mused as the ruby ring on her finger got hot. It is time to rehash early Christian concepts of deity now that two thousand years have passed by. Human models of god transform as humans evolve; however, two thousand years ago we got stuck! She looked out the kitchen window, listening to dry leaves rattling around in the courtyard like old bones. Well, what do we have now from adoration of law? Corrupt courts and crammed jails, frozen Church dogma, control by the rich, and maniacs on legal drugs going on killing sprees using legal weapons. It’s one thing to honor justice and law, but when it’s deified, it is demonic! The truth is, Christianity is trapped in an atavistic demonic vortex. Marcion was right!

  She stopped to make a light supper and switch on BBC. Demonstrations against government control were raging in Spain and in Tahrir Square in Cairo. Regardless of what Simon wants to think, people are desperate; they are willing to die for freedom. They do act like it’s the end of the world! The phone rang. She expected Simon, but it was a female voice with a thick Italian accent. “Hello, Sarah! This is Claudia, and I hope you won’t mind I call you?”

  “Hello, Claudia. How nice of you to call.”

  “Can you and Simon come to visit so we can continue our explorations?”

  “I’d love to visit again with Simon, but he’s in Jerusalem for three weeks on assignment.”

  “Oh, darling, hmm, you are lonesome? Will you come to see me anyway?” Claudia asked in a buttery, persuasive voice.

  Sarah wasn’t sure she wanted to see Claudia without Simon, yet she sensed their discussion could accelerate her thesis. Since she saw my visions while I was having them, we might be able to access amazing things together. She also wondered if they might get further without Simon around. Despite the fact he had encouraged her psychic skills in the first place, Sarah felt he was slightly skeptical about them. Plus she was dying to talk to somebody about 2012 given what was in the news.

  “Sure, Claudia! I will get lonely, and we do have things to share. Is evening best for you since you work at your boutique? I need a few days to concentrate on my thesis, but knowing we will get together will give me the incentive to work harder. How about Thursday evening after 7? But just the two of us, okay?”

  Claudia frowned. I wonder if she thinks I’d spring Armando on her? I wouldn’t think of it! She replied, “That is perfect for me too, darling, and do take a cab please. It is dark at 7, and there are a few sketchy areas between your apartment and mine.”

  Sarah worked diligently until Thursday afternoon. She was very productive knowing Simon was busy in Jerusalem. When he called he told her how excited he was about his upcoming visit to the Tomb of Mary in a few days. She was so wrapped up in telling him about her progress on her thesis she forgot to mention her pending visit with Claudia.

  “Oh, hello, darling,” Claudia said as she swung the door wide and gave Sarah a forceful peck on each cheek. “Stunning, just stunning,” she said, admiring Sarah’s robin’s-egg-blue-and-taupe patterned tight pants and tan Ferragamo shoes. Turning her around to see the entire outfit, she said, “The way your black silk blouse flares slightly over your hips is gorgeous. Someday, darling, I will dress you; your figure is perfect for my lines.”

  Claudia’s perfume was divine, and Sarah asked if it was Noel du Nuit.

  “No, darling, it is an essential oil, rose oil. I love it.”

  “It’s my turn to admire you, Claudia. You have such a gorgeous body, and your face is so elegant and patrician. Are you from an old Roman family?”

  “Of course, we all are around here. Our task is how to avoid being decadent, as with our friend Armando. Will you mind if I mention him?”

  “Of course not. I’m a grownup.” But I will never tell you or anyone else what he did. But Claudia knew all about Armando’s seduction attempt; there were few secrets between Armando and Claudia.

  They sat down in the same intimate parlor. Sarah sat in the leather chair while Claudia relaxed on the loveseat and said, “Perhaps we should have some wine or grappa a bit later since we want to have clear heads?” Noting Sarah’s agreement, she plowed ahead. “You seem to be so happy, Sarah. I will never marry, so I can’t imagine how i
t is. Is it delightful to have a future you count on? Your engagement ring is exquisite. I looked at it carefully when you were here the last time. It is an extraordinary ruby, a very powerful stone?”

  “Yes, Claudia. Would you like to hold it and tune into it?”

  “Oh, my dear! Yes, I would! May I?” Sarah handed it to Claudia, who took it and cupped it in her hands. Her amber eyes sharpened as she gazed into it. Sarah took a moment to study her face. Claudia’s skin rippled with small twitches as she sucked in her cheeks and tilted her head down. Her jaw was long and elegant like the edge of a bass viol. Angular cheeks accentuated its curve framed by absolutely straight medium brown hair that turned slightly under, making a perfect edge. When she moved, this edge brushed the bottoms of her jaw dangling in line with large, gold hoop earrings.

  “Sarah, this stone is ancient, cut and polished more than twelve thousand years ago! This is a talisman, the third eye stone of an ancient Buddha later hidden away in Himalayan caves. It holds the ancient records of Earth in multidimensional planes. Where did Simon get it?”

  Sarah wasn’t sure how much she should say. But Claudia was describing many things she’d already found in the stone, so she decided to be forthcoming. “Simon’s great-grandmother on his father’s side obtained it in India during the late nineteenth century. That branch of his family is descended from the Jewish Kabbalist, Isaac Luria, and they think it came down from him. But the grandmother finding it in India does not square with this, since Luria lived a few hundred years before that. I also feel it is thousands of years old. Possibly there were family records that told his great-grandmother where to find it?”

  Claudia continued holding the stone, which heated her hand. “I see the face of a great magus, very old with a long beard and hair and wearing a coarse robe. I see him hold the stone, which takes him into other dimensions. It must be Isaac Luria!” When she spoke his name, the stone gave her an electric shock. “Oh my, it is Luria’s energy! Simon told me his father was part of the magian lineage. Those kinds of Jewish families keep records and old letters. They have ways of passing information down, so it would make sense the grandmother could have retrieved it for them. The question is what are you doing with it?” She handed the ring back to Sarah.