The Rose Conspiracy

by Craig Parshall

  There was silence in the room as Lamb paused dramatically.

  “Are you going to break the suspense here, Reverend?” Cutsworth said, chuckling.

  “Why, yes I am,” Lamb said with a smile. “But before I do, I am going to show you what I am talking about by taking you all back to the language of the poem that was copied down by Horace Langley. Notice the second line, the last two words.”

  “Golden tree?” Julia asked.

  “Right,” Lamb said. “Unlike Dr. Cutsworth, I don’t think this is a reference to gold, or money, or any kind of financial deposit of the Confederate rebels. No, not at all. Instead, I would refer you all to the name of a classic book that gives you the same clue—The Golden Bough, Sir James George Frazer’s famous study on the relationship between magic and religion and the mythical symbols of the world’s religions. Instead of the golden ‘bough’ of a tree, the Booth message talks of a ‘golden tree.’ But same idea. The writer of this note,” Lamb continued, “is talking about the most ‘magical’ tree, if you will, the most famous, the most powerful tree in the history of all religion.”

  Blackstone was starting to get the drift.

  So was Cutsworth, the scholar.

  “You don’t really mean—” Cutsworth started to say in a scoffing tone.

  But Lamb cut him off.

  “I told you I am going to take you through the actual text of this note,” he said, “to show you the proof. Now look at the words just before the phrase ‘golden tree.’ Do you see?”

  “Sir al ik’s—is that what you are referring to?” Cutsworth asked.

  “Precisely,” Lamb said. “The very phrase, Dr. Cutsworth, that you couldn’t interpret. Because you started with the wrong presupposition. You were looking at this from a nineteenth-century historical viewpoint based on traditional Civil War and post–Civil War data. As Confucius said, a thousand-mile journey begins with the first step. But in your case, Dr. Cutsworth, despite your considerable historical brilliance regarding nineteenth-century America, in your very first step you headed off in the wrong direction.”

  “And exactly what do you think that phrase means?” Cutsworth asked in considerable affront.

  “I believe the phrase ‘Sir al ik’ was meant to be read and interpreted,” Lamb said calmly, “by someone who understood the essence of alchemy, but who was also versatile and learned in other languages.”

  “Languages like what?” Blackstone asked.

  “Like Arabic,” Lamb explained. “Interesting thing…the ancient Arabs were very involved in alchemy. Which, of course, explains what that phrase means.”

  “Which is?” Julia asked.

  “It is a word puzzle,” Lamb said. “Take the first part, ‘Sir,’ which seems to be a title of an English lord at first blush. Very clever, I must admit. But it isn’t a title at all. It’s the last part of a word. Put it at the end of the phrase, and what do you get?”

  “Al ik sir,” Blackstone muttered. “The ‘al’ being a common prefix in Arabic.”

  “You’re absolutely right,” Lamb said, his voice mounting in excitement. “Now…what does that phrase—‘Al ik sir’—really mean?”

  “I think I see where you are going with this,” Blackstone said.

  “Aliksir is the anglicized version,” Lamb explained, “of the Arabic word that became the English word elixir.”

  “So what we are talking about,” Julia said slowly, putting the pieces together, “is an ‘elixir of the golden tree.’ Is that it?”

  “That is exactly it,” Lamb said.

  “But what golden tree?” Julia asked.

  “I presume he is referring to the ‘tree of life,’ ” Cutsworth interjected from the speakerphone in a lofty tone.

  “The tree mentioned in the Garden of Eden story in the book of Genesis,” Blackstone added, tapping his pen now on the conference table.

  “The Bible story of the tree of life, in the Garden of Eden, before the Fall of man into sin,” Lamb said, “has spawned countless myths and legends about a secret elixir of life supposedly derived from that tree. The secrets of that tree allegedly being passed down through the millennia, according to pagan occultists. There are countless writings of the Gnostic alchemists talking about trying to discover this supposed magical element.”

  There was a lull for a moment before Reverend Lamb spelled it out.

  “This note from Booth, copied down by Langley,” Lamb said, “is telling us about the belief that someone had actually found the location of a botanical remnant, some specimen of that tree. The substance that could extend human longevity indefinitely.” He glanced around the table at his audience.

  “Don’t you see?” Lamb cried out. “The location of a botanical element that could, when ingested, actually produce human immortality,” he concluded with a flourish.

  “What in the world does any of this have to do with the assassination of Abraham Lincoln?” Cutsworth yelled.

  “Oh, I will get to that,” Lamb said with a smile. “All in due time. Now, look at the last line—here is where the note is saying that the ‘key’ to the location of the elixir can be found. ‘Ashli’ is not a name of a person at all. Another clever ruse. Look at the phrase again—‘at Ashli plot reveals the key.’ First, the grammatical structure doesn’t make sense, at least at first. Until you realize, as I did, that it wasn’t saying that some ‘plot’ of ground belonging to a person named ‘Ashli’ was going to ‘reveal’ the location of the elixir. The use of the word ‘at’ seems out of place grammatically. Unless you conclude that the ‘plot’ mentioned was not a place but a person. Understood that way, then, that person, Mr. Plot, would ‘reveal’ the ‘key’ to the elixir ‘at’ a place called…Ashli.”

  “Who is Mr. Plot?” Blackstone asked.

  “We don’t discover that,” Lamb said, “until we first answer this—what is Ashli? And we can’t find that out until we separate ‘Ash’ from ‘li.’ Don’t you see?”

  More silence in the room.

  “Let me give you a hint,” Lamb said. “The ‘li’ is shorthand for the word ‘library.’ I’ll give you another hint—the library is a famous library in England—and the ‘Ash’ is shorthand for the founder of that library.”

  “The Ashmolean Library at Oxford,” Cutsworth blurted out.

  “Excellent, Dr. Cutsworth!” Lamb exclaimed. “Yes, the Library of Elias Ashmole.”

  “One of the founding members of the Royal Society in England?” Blackstone asked.

  “The same,” Lamb said. “But he was more than that—he was also a renowned English occultist, astrologer, and alchemist of the early sixteenth century. In fact, Ashmole was tutored by William Blackhouse, the famous alchemist and practitioner of the dark arts, who was dubbed the ‘elixir man’ because he was in constant pursuit of the ‘elixir of life.’ Now Elias Ashmole, his student, once penned a poem in Blackhouse’s honor, and in that poem he refers to the ‘leaves of Hermes’ tree,’ a direct expression of the belief that the leaves of an ancient tree contain the power of immortality.

  “Ashmole became one of the founding members of that branch of Freemasons known as the ‘Speculative’ Masons—those whose agenda embraced a worldview and a religious philosophy that borrowed, among other sources, from Egyptian paganism, the Jewish Old Testament, and Gnosticism. ‘Speculative’ Freemasonry blossomed under Elias Ashmole and his Gnostic compatriots, but all the while keeping a tight rein on who would be made privy to their ‘secret’ philosophical pursuits. This dark, occult strain of speculative Freemasonry has survived in the shadows for centuries, even up to this very day.”

  “Reverend Lamb,” Dr. Cutsworth bellowed, “you said you would explain that ‘plot’ reference—you’re still not explaining that.”

  “Oh, yes,” Lamb said, “the ‘plot’ connection. Of course. Well, it so happens that Elias Ashmole’s protégé was a sixteenth-century physician by the name of Dr. Robert Plot. He became the curator of the Ashmolean collection of museum oddities and the libra
rian of the first Ashmolean library at Oxford. Dr. Plot shared Ashmole’s belief in the ‘esoteric’ secrets of nature. He believed that man could deduce and extract the mysteries of the universe and obtain transcendent spiritual powers through deep investigations of the natural world. He obviously shared Ashmole’s penchant for the ‘ultimate’ pursuit of all—alchemy. Dr. Plot wrote extensively on these matters. And his writings are located in the Ashmolean library. This myth of the eternal ‘rose’ of immortality, the ‘philosopher’s stone’ of alchemy, the pursuit for the ‘elixir of life’ was so common in the early seventeenth century in England that Ben Jonson lampooned it in his famous satirical play The Alchemist, which debuted in…oh, let me see…what was the date?”

  “If I recall my Elizabethan literature, I believe that would have been the year of 1610,” Blackstone said. His uncle’s face lit up with a smile as Reverend Lamb nodded in agreement.

  Blackstone, who had been tracking Reverend Lamb’s lengthy exposé, now wanted to bring the lecture to an end.

  “So,” Blackstone said, “that brings us to something that you and I had talked about previously, Uncle. Something that may be an element of this criminal case—something mentioned by someone who may, or may not, be involved in the Smithsonian crimes—namely, the so-called ‘ultimate secret’ of the Freemasons…I need you to elaborate on that, if I may ask.”

  “Well, J.D.,” Lamb replied, “that is exactly what I have just shared with you. Take that poem Horace Langley wrote down and with my interpretation, you’ve got it right in front of you.”

  “Would you indulge us,” Julia said, “and just give us your deciphering of the Langley note, in a single overview? It might make it easier to follow.”

  “I would be delighted to,” Lamb replied. “Just pretend that the note says the following, and then you will have distilled its true meaning:

  To AP and the Knights of the Golden Circle,

  The Rose of 6 (that is, the flower from the tree of immortality),

  Which was first revealed in the Gospel of Mary (that is, the “secret” of alchemy),

  Can be located in the writing (that is, the “key”) of Dr. Plot in the Ashmolean Library.

  Dr. Cutsworth was the first one to break the silence.

  “I still see two glaring gaps in your presentation,” he said. “First, you haven’t explained why you think the ‘Rose of 6’ reference is a botanical reference to the Genesis tree.”

  “Oh, that’s simple,” Reverend Lamb responded. “Two reasons really. First, it makes perfect sense just looking at the sentence structure of the second line. Second, the ‘rose’ has been used by mystics and alchemists throughout the centuries as a symbol of immortality. It is also implicit in the name of a group called the Rosicrucians, who greatly influenced the early Gnostic, alchemical bent of the speculative Freemasons and were known as the followers of the ‘Rose’ cross.”

  Reverend Lamb stopped for a moment, trying to remember the point he was going to make. His index finger was poised in the air. But he had a perplexed look on his face for only an instant. Then, when he found the lost thought, he continued.

  “Yes, of course…so then, there is also a third possibility,” Lamb said. “It’s conceivable that the alchemists within the Freemasons really did believe that some blossom or leaf from the Genesis tree of life existed and that it had a reddish color, or roselike appearance.”

  “You haven’t explained the ‘6’ reference—it says the ‘rose of 6,’ ” Cutsworth shot back.

  “No, I haven’t explained that,” Lamb said candidly. “I haven’t come up with a suitable answer for that yet, I’m afraid. I do have one thought on that, though. You see, the Bible, in 2 Chronicles 3:17, gives names to the two main pillars of the Temple of Solomon—a temple which, by the way, figures prominently in the symbols and ceremonies…well, actually in the whole fabric of Freemasonry…in any event, the two pillars are called ‘Jachin’ and ‘Boaz.’ And the Masons use these names in their literature.

  “But like everything else, the Masons use names and symbols that, for them, also have deeper, hidden, secondary meanings. The actual ‘two pillars’ of Masonic philosophy, according to some of the oldest written records of the Masonic orders, are two ancient persons: Hermes, the originator of alchemy, and Pythagoras, one of the founders of geometry. All of this is my way of saying that, while the ‘rose’ has to do with alchemy, I think the ‘6’ reference has to do with some facet of natural geometry. By that I mean, some geometric feature found in the natural world.”

  “You also haven’t explained the ‘AP’ reference in the first line, Uncle,” Blackstone said. “Why don’t you give that a try?”

  Remembering his conversation with Senator Collings, Blackstone now had a vested interest in his uncle’s opinion on the Albert Pike issue. He was studying the Anglican scholar, waiting for his opinion.

  “That I am relatively sure of,” Reverend Lamb said confidently. “It refers to Albert Pike, Civil War Confederate officer, Gnostic philosopher, and an internationally renowned commander of the Freemasons. He also prided himself on knowing multiple languages—that goes to the Arabic style of the ‘al—ik—sir’ reference—or ‘Sir al ik’ phrase, as the Booth diary coyly writes it. Pike would have been able to transliterate that phrase easily. If you read his life’s work, a huge volume titled Morals and Dogma, you see Pike speaking explicitly on alchemy. Now, Dr. Cutsworth, you asked what all this had to do with John Wilkes Booth. Well, there was possibility he was a Freemason himself. So were many in the Knights of the Golden Circle. It seems to me that they must have been part of a small band who were interested not only in overthrowing the Lincoln administration, but also in establishing a permanent ruling elite—those possessed of the ‘secret’ wisdom of the Gnostics, but also who wanted to possess the key to immortality to ensure the permanence of their power.”

  At that point Blackstone cast a glance over at his uncle that was easy to read. Reverend Lamb was getting the clear message that his interpretation of the Langley note was losing ground quickly. Though he didn’t understand why.

  “J.D.,” Reverend Lamb said to his nephew in an urgent voice. “This is not pride of scholarship talking. I don’t want you to accept my version of this note because it will advance my reputation or line my pockets—instead, I want you to believe it for the simple fact that it is true. When you study the ceremonies and symbols of Freemasonry, as I have, you see this secret pursuit of immortality. In the initiation ritual the new member is hooded and bound, like a criminal heretic being readied for execution. A noose is placed around his neck. He is symbolically placed in a coffin. But then, suddenly, he is magically spared from death.

  “Then there’s the fact that the third degree of Masonry, which is the degree that holds the other Masonic degrees together, is called the resurrection degree. And the use of biblical acacia plants in the arcana of the Masons is a clear substantiation of everything I’ve told you, because the acacia leaf is used by the Freemasons as a symbol of immortality.

  “In the writings of the Freemason philosophers, it’s there to read. When you even go back to the very basis of the Masonic myth—the life and mythic death of ‘Hiram’—the ‘first Freemason,’ so to speak, according to Masonic thought—you see that according to Masonic myth this master builder of the Israelite’s Temple of Solomon supposedly possessed secrets from Egypt. In the Masonic legend, when he refused to divulge those secrets, he was murdered. But then, as the myth goes, there is the clear implication that he was resuscitated from death! On that note, it is essential we realize that, according to some of the old manuscripts of the legend, a sprig of the acacia tree had been placed on his grave. It’s all there, folks, if you just have eyes to see.”

  Reverend Lamb took a deep breath and cast a glance over the faces of Blackstone and Julia, and then fixed his gaze on the speakerphone, where, on the other end, Dr. Cutsworth was listening in silence.

  “As a Christian scholar,” Lamb said, wrapping up his
conclusions, “I see all of this as the sad obsession with ‘secret’ knowledge and the discovery of the key to the infinite extension of earthly life. Which is so tragic when you realize that eternal life, that gracious gift of God, is available to everyone who puts their faith in Jesus Christ—without the necessity of hidden ceremonies, without the occult practices of the alchemist, and without the ‘secret’ searches of the Gnostics for some special knowledge that belongs just to the esoteric elite.

  “Jesus said if you seek Him you will find Him. I often wonder to myself why this marvelous gift of eternal life through Christ is often the last option of people rather than the first. Which is precisely the danger of Gnosticism, Theosophy, and the mystic religion of the speculative Freemasons—because they all lead spiritually undiscerning folks into an endless hall of mirrors rather than the simple way of Christ—which leads you first to the cross and then to the empty tomb.”

  Once more, the room was silent.

  “Can’t you see?” Lamb exclaimed, his voice now passionate. “The apostle Peter commands us to beware—just read it yourselves, in the New Testament, in his second epistle, chapter two, verse one—‘But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will also be false teachers among you, who will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing swift destruction upon themselves.’ There it is—in Peter’s own words, as inspired by the Spirit of God.”

  After another moment of silence, Blackstone finally spoke up to his uncle and to Dr. Cutsworth.

  “I can only use one of you two gentlemen in this case,” he said. “There isn’t room in my criminal defense strategy for two different theories what the Langley note really means. And so, keeping that in mind, gentlemen…I am now ready to decide.”