The Zoetron Revelation, novel by Jeanne Rejaunier

Chapter I

The Eternal City, wrapped around the S curve of the Tiber, was bathed this warm Shrove Tuesday afternoon in characteristic clear, transparent light, as the pre-lenten festival proclaimed in Mediterranean lands as Mardi Gras caught Roman celebrants joining in joyous outpouring of the pagan rites of spring.

Festivities having begun at daybreak, by now the narrow streets and great squares of Rome were jammed full with revelers in masques and colorful costume – cowboys and Indians, toreadors, troubadours, Chinamen and Turks, princes in velvet and satin, clowns in motley array.

It was with a sense of urgency that the civilian-clad American made his way through the elliptical boundaries of the baroque Piazza Navona, graced with the works of Bernini and Borromini – a site which in antiquity had been a stadium for horse racing, and in medieval times was flooded by popes to accommodate sailing vessels for their aquatic displays.

The weather, unusually balmy for February, was not unlike the Los Angeles mildness the American had left behind one month ago. In the interim, a special mission had taken him through the wintery capitals of New York and London, both in the grips of rain, snow and sleet. But Rome, with its muted tones of ocher, apricot, sienna, sandstone and salmon predominating against a Latio sky, Rome was magical – softness vibrating with life, as if opening its arms to envelop, its many-toned angelus ringing from every rooftop and ruin seeming to signify to the American the imminent coming-to-fruition of plans in preparation, and the colossal consequences of the mystery that was soon to be unveiled.

As he paused to gaze through the crowd to the terrace cafe of Tre Scalini, the American, sensing the shadows of Caesars and popes, felt himself part of a great historical panorama, knowing that in the events soon to culminate, he was a major catalyst. For inside of a short length of time, he and those grouped around him would bring to light something of monumental significance, a discovery that would alter the world's entire perception of the Christian drama that had begun over 2000 years ago.

Rome, or more precisely Vatican City, which held the secret, had protected it for over two millennia. Paul Connolly, one-time All-American football hero from Notre Dame, best-selling author and Jesuit priest manqué, was about to expose that secret, and the earth and its populace would never be the same.

Connolly halted, seeking from the crowd of costumed masses the face of his friend Simon Groves, crackerjack investigative reporter, whose varied background as the son of a British Army family had included growing up in Hong Kong, Malaysia and South Africa, an education at Cheltenham and Sandhurst, and whose subsequently earned credentials and reputation were now recognized the world over. Paul Connolly needed Simon Groves, needed to enlist his aid. They were old chums, having met at the time when Connolly's first book, published soon after his defection from the church, had become an international sensation. Now newly divorced and in the process of regrouping his personal life, Groves was about to settle into expatriation for the next few months. Little did he suspect the surprise Connolly was about to inject in his life. Groves' presence in Rome, as far as Paul was concerned, could not have come at a more fortuitous moment.

Paul had known Simon would arrive ahead of schedule, and sure enough, there he was, buried in his Times, luckily having managed to secure a table, which given the day's celebrations, was at a premium.

The two men embraced. Simon had changed little: the deep-set brown eyes were lively as before, the dark hair of his Black Irish forebears had not greyed, and he still affected rumpled, careless dress, together with a deceptive look of absentmindedness – misleading indeed, inasmuch as Groves was one of those assiduously methodical people in whose minds each detail was accurately catalogued, to be recalled at a moment's notice.

The waiter, pad in hand, hovered over them. "Dica pure -- che cosa volete?"

"Vorrei una spremuta di arrancio," Simon replied in clipped Italian, requesting a glass of orange juice.

"E Lei, Signore?"

"Un caffé, per favore," Paul ordered.

"Espresso o americano?"

"Espresso – nero, per piacere."

"Nero?" The waiter appeared nonplussed. Somehow, Italians never could get used to foreigners who preferred their espresso black.

"Con aqua calda a parte." Connolly remembered to demand the obligatory side pitcher of hot water to dilute the thick, muddy brew. He would have preferred percolated American coffee, but "American coffee" here meant tiny envelopes of powdery instant, tasting not unlike dishwater. A compromise of aqua calda a parte, then, was the most nearly acceptable solution, especially because he disliked milk.

After they had exhausted initial small talk, Paul was ready to raise the main topic. "Simon," he began," I want to tell you about something unusual – something very far-reaching."

"I'm all ears."

Simon Groves more than anyone would understand. Eight years ago, over a convivial shared pint in a London pub, when Paul had poured his heart out, it had been Groves who had empathized with his anguish and grasped his surrender of soutane for secularism to be not an eschewing of faith, but rather the embracing of another, no less valid, means of searching for truth. How he had struggled, in the intervening years, to achieve the conviction that was now so imminent.

Paul said, "The story begins three years ago, as my father was dying." He paused, calling upon memory for words to convey complex thoughts. "When I left the priesthood, my parents, who had been so proud when I entered it, never once reproached me. Nevertheless, I found, as Dad was reaching the end, that neither one of them, nor anyone else in the family, for that matter, had really stopped thinking of me as a priest, and consequently, Dad didn't want anyone else to administer the last rites. Since his final wish was for a shared family communion, my five brothers, their wives and my mother gathered – making a total of twelve – plus myself."

"A symbolic number," Groves observed.

"In more ways than one, Simon," Paul returned, taking time to pour his espresso into the tiny blue-rimmed cup and to add to it an inch of hot water. "If I were to tell you exactly what transpired at this time, I could talk nonstop for 24 hours.

"Over and over in his last days, Dad had been speaking about what he called `presences' – he thought they were angels or saints – who had come to his bedside –which, I want you to know, wasn't brought on by drugs – Dad was totally lucid. He purposely refused to take medication."

"Go on." Groves was attentive.

"That final night, as the family was together and as I administered the sacraments – not having the right, according to the church, but feeling there was a far greater justification for it than rules could dictate – it became a true agape, a love feast, in which ritual took on enormous meaning and transported everyone present to a totally new dimension of understanding.

"Had I been the only one the experience happened to, it would be one thing, but all of us were affected. I think this was due both to the bond of a shared love, and also because we were in the presence of a great and vastly misunderstood power – the power of death – which, miraculously, none of us feared.

"When Dad finally passed, it was like one light going out, and another light, somewhere else in the universe, going on. His death was quiet, graceful and beautiful. The whole room and everyone in it were literally filled with light. That there's a link and continuity between life and death was crystal clear to each of us.

"I'm not asking you to pass judgment, Simon, to declare us either in denial or deluded by grief, or conversely, even having achieved Cosmic Consciousness or Samadhi or whatever you want to call it. I only want you to accept that I had a tremendous personal experience that convinced me, to use a trite phrase, of `higher energies.' After that, my goal became preserving the reality of the experience. I partaicularly didn't want to lose it because Dad had taken my hand, looked at me clearly and directly, and asked me to promise always to remember him in the light of that final shared miracle of his life. When he died in my arms, I remember thinking how alive he was in a totally other way, on another dimension, and yet still joined to us in a constant flow of energy and love. The authenticity of the experience was of incredible magnitude.

“Well, I had heard allusions to a secret teaching of Jesus, called the Transformation of Energies – "

An elaborate parade had begun to pass through the piazza, a procession of floats and stages mounted on wheels, on which characters posed in tableaux representing history and myth, made splendid with flags, banners, streamers and confetti, creating a gaudy mise-en-scène set to a tune of Giuseppe Verdi. The two men, competing with a band rendering the "Anvil Chorus" from Trovatore, now had to raise their voices.

"Transformation of Energies?" Simon repeated above the din.

Paul leaned closer to be heard. "If you read enough ancient texts, you'll find The Transformation of Energies is explicitly stated as being part of Jesus' teaching, reserved only for the inner circle of his disciples.

"As I began to explore this further, I started to grasp what we had experienced at the family eucharist and Dad's passing to be intimately connected with a kind of `transformation of energies.' And I became more and more obsessed with finding this lost teaching of Jesus – not simply for my own sake or for others who could benefit, but also out of memory of my father, whose faith had been like a pillar, and who on his deathbed had extracted this pledge from me besides. I wouldn't be true to a dream and a promise unless I accepted this challenge, impossible as it may sound."

"I understand, Paul," Simon said gravely, his eyes conveying the sympathy his voice, given the present necessity for shouting, could not. "Remember, nothing is impossible, if one believes sufficiently and has the willingness to go to the ends of the earth for it."

"I do and I have," Paul answered. "This is the singlemost important thing in the world to me."

"The hell with this spremuta," Simon exclaimed, pushing aside his fruit juice, "I need stronger stuff. Senta!" He caught the waiter to order a Birra Peroni, and then, unable to conceal growing excitement, turned once more to Paul. "And you say there’s an actual teaching on this Transformation of Energies attributed to Jesus? Tell me more."

"From all I've read and gathered from dialog with knowledgeable spiritual seekers and scholars in many countries, the Transformation of Energies has an intimate connection both with the Transfiguration, when it was impressed upon Jesus, and with the Last Supper, when he gave the teaching to his disciples. As you know, there was in the charisms of early Christianity a force, which existed until about the 4th century, which has long since been lost, until what we now possess is a mere shadow of the original – almost a hallucination of Christ. A very vital ingredient in the system is lacking, that of how to achieve – for want of a better word – `perfection' or Consciousness – what Jesus spoke about in `overcoming the world.'"

"Absolutely!" Simon, echoing Paul's words, agreed. "When we look at the New Testament as a compilation, with all the alterations and shifts in emphasis it's undergone – the deletions, additions, Hellenizations, and rewrites that were done to make it acceptable to Rome, when we face the fact that `truth' was arrived at by a majority vote at the councils, that it was the bishops, a number of them illiterate, who decided what they wanted to decree us, it certainly does give one pause to consider."

"The New Testament is a fragment of a larger whole," Paul concurred. "Our inheritance is exoteric Pauline Christianity, whereas beyond that there's the mesoteric, or gnostic tradition, some of which has come down to us. But still beyond that is what we're really after – the esoteric, which Jesus gave only to the very few, alluded to, incidentally, in both Matthew and Mark."

"I've always contended," Simon said, "that our formal world religions come close to being useless today – no offense intended, Paul. But I can’t help believing what we really need is less theology and more truth."

With the band having moved on, talk was now less strained. Paul said, "I'm convinced there are just two ways we can achieve the transformation in ourselves that Jesus said is required: either by grace or by method. The former can't be sought; it happens if you're lucky enough. It's the latter, the method, that's a real possibility, but for this we urgently need the lost teachings. One final thing, Simon – I'm positive the whole key, plus a cosmic answer to the age-old question of the reason for life on earth – lies right here in Rome, hidden away for centuries – at the Vatican!"

"What makes you so sure?"

"Given several hours, I could build a solid point-by-point case citing specifics." Paul consulted his watch. "We can do that, if you like, when both of us have the time. For the present, suffice it to say numerous written sources refer in no uncertain terms to this inner lost teaching of Jesus. Both in tradition as in scholarship in all languages, you'll find stated that the custodian of this esoteric knowledge is none other than the Church of Rome. If you wonder why nothing has been done about it, just ponder for a moment both the effects of history and the ongoing nature of Vatican bureaucracy."

Groves, his expression grown thoughtful, considered. "The Vatican as repository of lost wisdom," he said. "I recall Lord Acton believed as much, that he maintained the secret of accurate history lay in the Vatican Archives. Acton contended there had been a definite systematic conspiracy in the manipulation of facts – remember, it was also Acton who stated, `Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely,' perhaps having in mind the very personalities of the Church of Rome who've sequestered this truth from the masses."

"Exactly,"

"However," Simon hastened to add, "agreeing with the premise is one thing, while the crux, it seems to me, would be recovery. I don't mean to sound discouraging, Paul, but have you considered the odds – to say nothing of possible danger here?"

"Dangerous, maybe so, but certainly worth any risk. The odds of recovery? Simon, you yourself just told me nothing is impossible!"

"I don't deny Jesus taught a good deal more than is recorded in the Bible, but to entertain the idea of finding what could amount to a 2000 plus year-old papyrus – "

"It wouldn't necessarily be that," Paul explained. "It could be a reprint from the Renaissance, for example, long suppressed. You know how in the 1500's they had a rage for reissuing all the ancient books they could lay their hands on – besides which, this wouldn't have to be a single entity but might be in bits and sections we'd piece together. Simon," Paul became increasingly persuasive, "the Vatican itself has gone on record as saying they have piles of stuff in their archives that have never been read! We can’t know what esoterica could turn up, once we begin looking. As they'll tell you at the Vatican Library, bisogna pescare – one has to go fishing."

Simon's Peroni had arrived. Gently he blew on the white foam and lifted his glass. "Go on, Paul, I'm truly fascinated. Tell me, now that you know what it is you want and where you expect to find it, how do you propose to go about it? Is there a program in place, or are we to plot this exercise from scratch?"

Paul, noting with pleasure the interjection into the conversation of the first person plural, said, "We have a semi-developed plan that will need some refining, and," he smiled at Groves, "help from an expert."

"Aha! I knew if I sat here long enough, my role would begin to materialize."

"Simon, how perceptive you are," Paul laughed. He had known, of course, Groves would be intrigued. "All right, this brings me to the Zoetron – from the Greek `life' – Society, the group I founded three years ago to ferret out lost truth. We're a small bunch, united in our belief that over the centuries truth has been suppressed for political reasons. We began doing investigations which led us to the certainty of our suspicions being justified. The more we studied and learned, the surer we were that there was something even greater than our original conjecture.

"Fortunately, we've acquired a billionaire backer, Charles Hawley, an eccentric but dedicated American entrepreneur – who will cover us financially when necessary. One of our associates is a very fine scholar in ancient tongues. Rosemary Miller, who's on a dissertational grant from Berkeley, is working right now in the Vatican Secret Archives. We were lucky, since the Archives, as you may know, are strictly controlled, only some 500 researchers being permitted each year, and standards of selection are rigorous.

"Dorette, the lady I love, has been in London, Paris, Rouen, and Marseilles for the past three weeks, burrowing in the Bibliothèque Nationale and other places. A friend of hers, Richard Baum, a cultured, intellectual, European-born retired engineer, will be arriving from California in a few days. Richard, incidentally, looks amazingly like the pope! It's quite uncanny. Henry Schwartz, Princeton graduate and student of Gurdjieff, is on his way here from New York. We also have a former CIA man in Lugano, Walter Sandler, whom I've met only once, who says he's ready when we need him. Simon, I want you to join us."

It was the witching hour, sunset. Rome was bathed in oyster-white light, and the ponetino, the gentle west wind, had begun to drift in from the Tirrenian, enveloping the two men in softness.

Paul said, "Rosemary is our lifeline into the Secret Archives, and the rest of us are pooling our resources to come up with a workable plan how to proceed."

"Your Jesuit training should come in handy there. I recall you know Latin, Greek, Aramaic and Hebrew. And the others?"

"Henry knows Latin, as does Richard, who in addition is fluent in several modern languages. Dorette has only French, but makes up with it in enthusiasm. Wait till you meet her, Simon – she's very special."

"I can see that," Groves observed, noting the unmistakable glow that had come over Connolly with the mere mention of his inamorata. Returning to the main subject, he said, "Paul, the Vatican comprises a large area, some 109 acres, if I recall. It sounds like this could well be the proverbial hunt for a needle in a haystack. Where would you even begin?"

"We already have specific explorable locations." From his pocket, Connolly took out a map of Vatican City and pointed. "Here are the Secret Archives – behind the basilica, right near the Apostolic Palace – and here's Vatican Library, at a right angle – our two current search areas. I'm sure you're aware the Holy See has one of the finest libraries in the world, bar none; in fact, for certain subjects it's unsurpassed."

"You'd actually expect something like this to turn up in their library?" Simon was astonished at the seeming ingenuousness of the notion.

"As I said, there's a ton of material that's never been read, at least in the past four centuries since the inauguration of the present system. We intend to remedy that; in fact, a good deal of stuff has already been pinpointed, microfilmed, translated and analyzed, and we're keeping at the job. It's a long, arduous process, sifting through much that's tedious. But every so often we're rewarded with a major breakthrough. At any rate, this is the process we've undergone over the past three years in other libraries, all of which have pointed us to Rome. As we piece it all together, everything becomes grist for the mill and enlarges our perspective. We've made inroads with some of the foreign colleges at the Vatican, where students have been helpful. At the same time, we're doing this low-key, you understand. We don’t want to draw attention to ourselves."

"I should expect not."

"After we've covered all bases at the Library and Secret Archives, there are other accessible areas to be explored. In tracking down paper, the trail leads back and forth between many official channels – Gregorian University, Pontifical Biblical Institute, the Maronite College – all, incidentally, under the jurisdiction of the Jesuits – to the Lateran, Castel Sant'Angelo, and so forth."

"After those sources have been exhausted, then what?"

Paul lowered his voice. "Penetration, if necessary, into the inner recesses of the Vatican – the Apostolic Palace itself."

Simon whistled softly. "How?"

"We have a game plan. If, as, and when the time comes, we'll work out the strategy in detail."

"I can foresee your CIA man enters here. But tell me, Paul, where do I come in?"

Paul took a last sip of his espresso. He said, "Your chief function, Simon, will be publicizing this – because we intend to make it the greatest media blitz of the century, and our backer's totally behind that goal. Hawley's an offbeat oddball, but he's with us all the way, no half measures.

"It's important for us to work with a world class journalist like you, someone with connections in the media, who’s also someone we can trust, a person of integrity who brings to the project a cultural background and perspective of history, in order to present things properly.

"Trust is crucial, since our writer needs to be in touch with us as early as possible, in order to get a feel for the total texture of what will eventually be the end result."

"You're very positive about this succeeding, aren't you?"

"I've never been more certain of anything in my life, Simon. It can't fail," Paul said.

Simon conceded, "It's just wild enough to work, quixotic as it may appear."

"Tradition, by the way, is emphatic about papers of consequential nature being in the Pope's own protection," Paul added, "and in the past, important texts have traveled right on the person of the pontiff himself, in order to ensure their safety. His Holiness has two private suites within the palace, you know, on separate floors, consisting of 19 and 22 rooms respectively; he also maintains three other residences: the Lateran Palace; Castel Gandolfo, his summer home; and a monastery outside Rome that's Vatican extraterritory.

"Remember, Simon, there are archives and there are archives, many within the walls of the Apostolic Palace itself, and some quite arcane. Remind me to tell you a story about the Secret of Fatima which will illustrate this. My God, what a formidable place that palace is! Some of the walls are 16 feet thick, with staircases built into them, full of secret closets and tunnels, constructed as far back as the year 848! Fascinating!

"We've been going over maps and floor plans, studying the Palace architectural history to glean a better idea – it's imperative we explore every single possibility, as you can imagine."

Eight years ago, Simon Groves had written about Paul Connolly that he seemed an heir of the Tuatha de Danann, that legendary race of Irish ancestors who were both gods and kings. He had also extolled the irrepressible leprechaun quality that poked through the aristocratic appearance of a face "whose romantic features best recalled extravagant poets of the 19th century." And he had extemporized Connolly with the classical description of the 16th century heretic, Michael Servetus, "another one who had embraced the Biblical saying, `You shall not follow a multitude,'" as being a "fiery spirit, like a salamander, living always in the presence of a flame."

Today these descriptions seemed even more apt. Paul Connolly was a rarity, a true leader. There were all too few men, Groves knew, with Connolly's idealism and dedication, his willingness to attempt the impossible. How many would even consider a scheme the likes of which Connolly had just outlined to him, let alone believe it could have the remotest chance of succeeding?

"What's the saying, Paul – `He who is not for me is against me?' Well, no one who knows you could possibly be against you, and I believe you could sell me on any idea, no matter how seemingly impractical. I think I can help in a number of ways. Conceivably my connections – press sources accredited to the Holy See, contacts at Vatican Radio, for instance – might enable us to keep or ear to the ground and pick up on the pontifical grapevine."

"Splendid!" Paul enthused. "We'll need every bit of help we can get. Simon, this is scarcely the impossible cause you initially jumped to the conclusion it was. Dorette calls it a 20th century Grail Quest, but it's supported by solid evidence that what we're after is a reality, and my contention is that if we leave no stone unturned we can't help but strike pay dirt. I couldn't rest easy otherwise – not simply for myself or for the memory of my father, but for the millions of spiritually hungry people who'll benefit immeasurably by what we're going to find.

"Christ himself may have summed up the Law and the Prophets in two sentences, and for some this may be enough, but not, I suspect for most – certainly not for you and me. On the other hand, Simon, are we to write off Christianity simply because people refuse to be Christian, or because the church has neglected to show us what a Christian is? I hope you realize that what we're involved in will begin another, totally new chapter in the spiritual development of civilization."

Simon was rapt. "Lord knows the need is there, now more than ever," he said. "This could not only blow the lid off the entire Judeo-Christian tradition, affecting not simply Catholics and Protestants, but Jews, Moslems, Buddhists, adherents to all the other religions as well, and it could also have a profound effect on atheists and agnostics – it could totally alter the world."

"You're right," Paul concurred. "As our backer, Charles Hawley, paraphrases Nietzsche's prediction for his Ecce Homo, `Within two years we'll have the entire earth in convulsions.' Ah, Simon, we've been through a lot together!" Paul, recalling old times, affectionately placed his arm around Groves' shoulder.

"I have to tell you, this is the most exciting thing I've heard, not simply in a long time, but beyond any doubt, in my entire life!" Simon was gleeful. "Seeing you never fails to bring the unexpected! As always, Paul, you're a breath of fresh air in my life." Groves was already laying plans. "You can rely on me to do everything in my power to help. Count me in, Paul – you couldn't pay me to stay away!"

"It will be everything you hope and more, I promise, Simon. Revolution – the beginning of a great epoch. We're on the ground floor of history."

"I've just one question, Paul: when do we begin?"