3 Great Thrillers

by Churton, Alex; Churton, Toby; Locke, John; Lustbader, Eric van; van Lustbader, Eric

  Sometimes Shiva was depicted covered entirely in serpents. The word ‘semen’ came readily to Ashe’s mind – the elixir of life scattered the world over. And he was often represented by a phallus: the Shiva-lingam. He was the father of the nations, and his colours were white, black, red and yellow. He was the patron deity of esotericists, occultists, the creator and saviour of spiritual man.

  Where did all this fit into his investigation? Or was the investigation supposed to fit into all of this? Ashe stared at the words surrounding him. If Crayke already knew how all this tied together, why was he wasting Ashe’s time?

  The phone rang.

  ‘I want to speak to—’

  ‘Laila!’

  ‘Of course it’s Laila, Tobbi. I’m in Cairo, with relatives. What of the Baba Sheykh – and my brother?’

  ‘Your Baba Sheykh was probably in Istanbul in March. Perhaps with a doctor.’

  ‘Sinàn is a doctor.’

  ‘That helps. Any idea why they were in Istanbul?’

  A pause. Laila seemed uncomfortable with the question.

  ‘Laila, are you there?’

  ‘I think I know. It was about Freemasonry and our faith. Baba wanted the world to know about us. But they cannot be in Istanbul now.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘There is a Yezidi community in Germany. Near Giessen. Baba and my brother have visited recently. I think they are in Germany still, Tobbi. And in great danger.’

  ‘Was anyone trying to hurt your brother and Baba Sheykh in Istanbul?’

  ‘I cannot say. Please look after yourself. Please find them!’

  ‘Laila, you know I’ll do everything I can. But you need to tell me more about the Baba Sheykh so I can understand what danger he might face.’

  The line crackled for a few seconds and Laila’s voice emerged once more.

  ‘The Baba Sheykh is like one of your saints. Like them, he is sworn to follow a path. He is Ekhityare Mergehe.’

  ‘Which means?’

  ‘It means “Old Man of the Sanctuary”. “Baba” means “Father”, Toby. He is father of the sheykhs. He must belong to the Fekhr el-Dîn branch of the Shemsani – the oldest clan of Yezidi sheykhs. The Baba Shekyh may not marry anyone except a member of this clan – and his son follows him. This is always the tradition. God be with you, Tobbi.’

  Into the void of incomprehension crept a single word. Rising from within Ashe’s brain, it spread itself over his consciousness like the tail of a glorious mythical bird.

  The word was ENDOGAMY.

  Endogamy. The Shemsani sheykhs were endogamous. That was the key Ashe had been waiting for: the key to understanding Crayke’s long quest.

  73

  Oxford

  Having temporarily swapped his desert fatigues for dark, worn tweeds and a moss-green tie, Crayke puffed on his glowing pipe. Beneath a halo of brown-grey cloud, his taut face and gnarled throat blended with the grained panels behind them. Even the hairless dome of his head had an oaken feel, like a barrel of mysterious rum or the rounded knob of a curious, graven wand.

  With Crayke occupying one of its nooks, The Eagle and Child pub on St Giles had the air of its pre-war glory days, when C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien and Charles Williams would convene there for beer and talk of the fictional and the mystical.

  ‘Endogamy, sir.’

  ‘Marriage restricted to within a family or clan. A formal means of genetic reincarnation. Find the subject especially interesting, Ashe?’

  ‘I do, sir.’

  Crayke closed his eyes. His mind seemed to be ascending to the smoke-cloud above.

  ‘I’m not asleep, Ashe. I am visualising what you are going to say to me. You are going to refer to the pharaohs, how they preferred to marry inside their family, notwithstanding some attendant misfortunes in the form of simpletons. You are going to say something about the protection of a certain race. A certain race of human beings.’

  Ashe shook his head. ‘How the hell do you do that?’

  ‘It’s a gift, in the first instance. Then one can work on it – train it, if you will. Please continue the discourse – and do stop to drink occasionally. There’s nothing worse than coming to the end of a point, only to find one’s glass is still full. A pint per point is a sound rule of thumb.’

  ‘Have you ever read The Three Steles of Seth?’

  Crayke’s eyes cracked open. ‘Promising title.’

  ‘It’s a book that was discovered in Upper Egypt.’

  ‘Ah yes. The so-called Nag Hammadi Library. Christian and non-Christian Gnostic writings. Most of them previously unknown before their discovery in 1945.’

  ‘The book was written by a group who called themselves “Sethians”.’

  ‘They might not have called themselves that, Ashe! Were they not known by their enemies as “Ophites”, or serpent worshippers? Fascinating things, snakes.’

  ‘They called themselves the “immoveable race”.’

  ‘Why was that, Ashe?’

  ‘Well, sir, they reckoned that an original divine knowledge was entrusted to Seth, Adam’s new son, born after Cain murdered Abel. Seth’s genetic line went on. It was preserved in Noah’s family – particularly in the case of Abraham. He had the secret knowledge of God.’

  ‘A fine tale. The Ark could be a kind of womb, couldn’t it? The preserver of a secret. Didn’t the Yezidis have a story about a leak in the Ark being blocked by the appearance of a serpent, coiling itself into the hole, and allowing the Ark to roll on to new heights? Mount Judi wasn’t it? In the kingdom of Ararat – or, more properly, Urartu.’

  ‘Are you sure you need me to—’

  ‘Don’t be so egotistical, man! We need one another’s minds! Go on!’

  Ashe drank deeply from his pint. ‘So the Sethians decided that Jesus was an incarnation of the original Seth. Seth was the progenitor of divine knowledge.’

  ‘Was not Seth also credited with knowledge of science?’

  ‘He was, sir, as were several other persons, gods or groups. They all seem to have had something to do with a special aristocratic tradition, which was later called “Aryan”.’

  ‘“Aryan” is Sanskrit for “high-born”, an aristocratic people. That’s all it means.’

  ‘Not to everyone, sir. Wasn’t Abraham an Aryan?’

  ‘You’ve been reading my notes, Ashe. Good. What did you learn?’

  ‘Abraham came from “Ur of the Chaldees”. That is, “Urartu”, the biblical Ararat, where Noah’s Ark rested in the Bible story.’

  ‘And what people did Abraham come from?’

  ‘Well, according to your work, sir, all that stuff about Abraham being a wandering shepherd is romantic rubbish.’

  ‘Certainly. Abraham was a Mithanni prince, around 1450 BC. I presume you read Flavio Barbiero’s paper on the subject? I included it with my notes.’

  ‘It’s a brilliant paper, sir. Barbiero shows that the Mithannis were “Aryans”. Abraham’s father, Tareh, had been at war with Pharaoh Thutmosis IV, and lost. So, as the royal son, Abraham was obliged to settle close to the Egyptian border in the south, the so-called “promised land”, as insurance against further rebellion. That explains Abraham having a private army, and why he – and especially his wife Sarai – had close relations with the pharaoh’s court. It explains how his descendants came to see themselves as being in captivity in Egypt – and why their faith was different.’

  ‘Right. They had a tradition that they came from special stock.’

  ‘And the family carried the old Mesopotamian stories with them. They took the stories into Egypt and out again. And Abraham probably worshipped a god whose equivalent in Egypt was Seth, the old god of sun and moon, of night and day, whose image was the extraordinary desert hare. This mighty Seth was later demoted by the Egyptians into a kind of wicked uncle, a usurping Richard III-type, because he’d been worshipped by hated foreigners. Later, Seth becomes a model for the Devil, and the desert hare’s ears were turned into horns.’

 
; ‘Good, Ashe. Go on.’

  ‘Well, you then get all these traditions where the Egyptian god of science, Thoth, the Graeco-Egyptian mastermind, Hermes, and the Hebrew Seth are all identified. Stories like the pillars of Seth preserving all the wisdom of the arts and sciences. You get that in old Freemasonry.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And I suppose it’s got something to do with the ancestors of the Yezidis.’

  ‘Only suppose, Ashe?’

  ‘Well, the Yezidis come from the same part of the world as Abraham and the later Chaldaeans who conquered Babylon from the north. From the Transcaucasus, around Lake Van and the borders of what is now Turkey, Iran and Georgian Armenia. And then there’s the fantastic snake at Lalish. The Sethian Gnostics called Jesus “the Great Seth”, and depicted him as a serpent.’

  ‘Why not? Jesus depicted himself that way. Gospel of John, Chapter 3: “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness so must the Son of Man be lifted up, That whosoever believes in him may have eternal life.”’

  ‘Eternal life, yes. Remind me of the background, sir.’

  ‘The Great Seth was doubtless quoting the Book of Numbers, Chapter 21, verses six to nine, at the time. God sent serpents to bite the children of Israel as punishment for blasphemy. The cure, following repentance, was for Moses to make a bronze serpent. The brazen serpent was raised high on a staff. It cured the sick that gazed upon it. Clearly a story with a story behind it.’

  ‘Which appears to have been lost.’

  ‘I wonder, Ashe. Does not the serpent represent wisdom? Think of the Garden of Eden. There is the story of the serpent who is wrapped round the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, whose fruit Eve mischievously did eat.’

  ‘With catastrophic consequences. In the Gnostic myths, the fruit offered by the serpent is gnosis, knowledge of the person’s divine identity: high or highest consciousness.’

  ‘Indeed, Ashe. And for this the serpent is condemned.’ Crayke inhaled pipe smoke, then blew his nose onto a red silk handkerchief. ‘Funny thing, the Bible. One minute the snake is condemned, the next he’s raised up as the source of a divine cure. The snake is ambivalent.’

  ‘Like the Egyptian Seth, sir. He’s ambivalent too. There’s a duality. Sun and moon – good and bad. He’s got a seriously dark side.’

  ‘Have you read the story of Adam in the Yezidi text, the Meshef Resh?’

  ‘Thought they had no written tradition, sir.’

  ‘Only two short texts have emerged, so far, Ashe. Read them as soon as possible. You’ll find transcripts in among my notes. According to the writer of the Meshef Resh, the “Black Book”, the Yezidis come from Adam through the line of Seth.’

  ‘Bloody hell!’

  ‘No, it’s a quite straightforward fact of their beliefs.’

  ‘But the implications—’

  ‘Are interesting, yes. In the Meshef Resh, the Yezidis’ god, or rather their angel, called Melek Tawus – sometimes called the Peacock Angel – visits Adam in Paradise. Lord Tawus teaches Adam he will have to learn to fend for himself. He will have to make his way in the world from his own ingenuity.’

  ‘Sounds up-to-date. Reminds me of the story of Nimrod and the Tower of Babel – an ancient Mesopotamian story, if I’m not mistaken.’

  ‘How so, Ashe?’

  ‘You remember the story: Nimrod tells Abraham’s ancestors they needn’t give thanks to God now they’re capable of doing mighty things for themselves. So they start building the Tower, the Tower of Babel. But the way the Bible tells it, Nimrod’s attitude is condemned.’

  ‘Interesting. Perhaps the Yezidi story has more to say to our times. Are they telling us why we need genius? Lord Tawus gives Adam a helpful kick up the backside. Not to punish him, but to encourage him to get out and learn what he can do. And should the sons of Adam just keep at it, they’ll come to work miracles.’

  ‘The beautiful big black serpent at Lalish! I’ve seen it. It must be—’

  Crayke put his finger to his lips. ‘Please! Don’t say too much – at least, that is, until I’ve brought you another pint of this happy intoxicant.’

  Outside, heavy rain flushed away summer’s accumulated grime. Ashe recalled distant student days; they had never been as good as this.

  ‘There! Drink deep, man. Deep.’

  Ashe drank; no better advice could he recall from a man of learning!

  ‘I sense you have an urge to speculate.’

  ‘Sir, could it be possible that once upon a time, as it were, there was a man… let’s call him Seth or Shiva, for the sake of argument.’

  ‘Which?’

  ‘OK. We’ll call him ProtoSeth. And ProtoSeth lived before there was recorded history. Because he, ProtoSeth, was the first to have the idea of recording it.’

  ‘A master spirit.’

  ‘Yes, a master spirit. And then he had an insight into nature. A marvellous image from his subconscious appeared to his mind’s eye.’

  ‘You are describing what is loosely called a vision.’

  ‘Let’s say this vision was the image long associated with Hermes or Mercury, and which, I suspect, is a true Sethian image. I refer of course to the caduceus.’

  ‘Two serpents entwined about a “tau” staff. Yes.’

  ‘I’m sure I’m not the first to detect a similarity between the caduceus of Hermes and the DNA double helix. The reconciliation of opposites into a higher unity.’

  ‘Are you saying ProtoSeth saw the double helix we associate with DNA?’

  ‘Well…’

  ‘This is not the kind of thing, Ashe, you should be heard muttering at High Table. You might be considered eccentric.’

  ‘Then it’s lucky we’re not at High Table.’

  ‘But we shall be presently. There’s someone I want you to meet. And I shall be your guest as well. Is not Toby Ashe a member of Brasenose College? And is not today the day when Sir Moses Beerbohm becomes an honorary fellow of that establishment? A grand ceremony at the Sheldonian Theatre on Broad Street – winding up even as we speak – swiftly followed by lunch in hall at Brasenose. Drink up!’

  74

  Crayke and Ashe reached for their coats and hurried out into St Giles. The rain had stopped and as they crossed into Broad Street, the stone glowed like amber in the sun.

  Crayke paused to relight his pipe. ‘It’s good to be a peripatetic philosopher again. You’ve no idea how being stuck behind a desk can stunt your growth! So, what’s next, Ashe, eh?’

  ‘OK. Now let’s imagine our original Aryan, our ProtoSeth. He’s woken up to something no one else has ever seen. What he’s got is an image for the origin of life and the universe. He’s got some kind of intuitive knowledge of what we now call DNA. He doesn’t understand it from the outside – the chemistry of it – as we now do. He understands the “sour milk sea” of Creation from the inside – as an expression of a mind.’

  ‘He sees a pearl: the mind expressing itself in matter through chemistry.’

  ‘Right. ProtoSeth has entered into one of the mysteries of life, maybe the mystery of life. He sees that creation and destruction are one complementary process; they belong together like day and night. The contradictory world of Creation points to a higher, invisible level. And it’s the beginning of architecture!’

  Crayke marvelled at Ashe’s intuitive leaps. ‘Architecture?’

  ‘Yes. This power comes from beyond the stars. So the first proper architectural works are the columns and towers, the geometry of elevation, the high erections that link the whole life of mankind to the higher universe. These weren’t just buildings, they were rockets! And what does the Bible suggest? Tall buildings are an affront to God! After Babel is destroyed, different languages come into being, different races emerge and divide – as a punishment for building with excessive pride, or too much high consciousness!’

  ‘Hmm… Hubris is rarely the intelligent option.’

  ‘Well, that’s the moral applied to the story, sir, that the builders
tempted God’s wrath because they were building under their own initiative. Anyhow, if we use the Babel story as an image, rather than a morality play, we can see it’s saying that the seed has been dispersed. Isn’t it interesting, sir, that Babel – Babylon – was linked in the minds of the writers of Genesis to the Chaldaeans, the people who ruled Babylon when the Judaean aristocracy were imprisoned there? Maybe the Jewish exiles didn’t realise the Chaldaeans, with their magical astrology, were their own long-lost cousins, the remains of the Mithanni aristocracy.’

  ‘Fascinating, Ashe.’

  ‘When unenlightened minds see great buildings, they have two impulses. One: worship the totem. Two—’

  ‘Fly aeroplanes into them. I get it, Ashe. You’re talking about the fear of Seth.’

  ‘Great phrase, sir. “Fear of Seth”. The “Fear of Seth” has dominated our culture. It dominates all of us.’

  ‘Very true. Very true.’ For a few seconds, Crayke’s mind tripped into the ether. Then he smiled and turned to Ashe: ‘So what about our man? Where’s old ProtoSeth?’

  ‘ProtoSeth believes the genetic line that has preserved the divine knowledge, or high consciousness, must be kept inviolate, so that the Aryan, or high-born consciousness, might serve as a leaven to raise the world.’

  ‘Or subdue it, Ashe. ProtoSeth may have been less idealistic than you imagine! Maybe he, or his descendants, didn’t want to “turn us on”.’

  ‘Benevolent or not, he or his followers form a tight aristocracy, a militia.’

  ‘To what end?’

  ‘As I say, they believe they must raise the original race, which has been scattered in the world.’

  ‘You’re doing it again. Most people hearing you now, Toby, would think this was some kind of Nazi race theory.’

  ‘Well, the Nazis twisted the whole Aryan thing. Completely perverted the idea. Sick minds make sick ideas. Even if we imagine Aryans as some kind of super tribe, “the Germans” certainly weren’t their representatives! Anyhow, Hitler’s so-called Aryan gods were treated like sheep, not men.’