Local numerologist says Oak Island mystery wrapped in writings

by ANGIE ZINCK

The Lunenburg Progress Enterprise – February 6, 2007

LUNENBURG — For one local woman, the key to the Oak Island mystery comes down to basic addition. Lunenburg’s Linda Barkhouse recently received high honours in parapsychology courses from Ontario’s Stratford Institute. After she finished her course, she got to thinking about Oak Island, home of the longest-running treasure hunt in recorded history. Ms Barkhouse grew up “a run through the woods” away from the famous island and remembers the history of the hunt well. “I can still hear the cling, cling of the machines,” she says of the treasure-hunting operations. Although she was always interested in the mystery while growing up, Ms Barkhouse says the Restall tragedy weighed heavily on her mind. The Restall tragedy is the death of Bob Restall, who began his search for the Oak Island treasure on October 15, 1959. His work ended in tragedy on August 17, 1965, when Mr. Restall, his son Bobby, and workers Karl Graeser and Cyril Hiltz died in a shallow pit searching for the island’s answers. “I blocked it all out the day those people were killed,” she says of her interest in the island.

Now more than 40 years later, Ms Barkhouse is once again enthralled with Oak Island, although this time she is going at it with a scientific approach. “I used my numerology knowledge,” she says. According to the Google on-line dictionary, numerology is defined as “the study of the mysterious and hidden meaning of numbers and their relevance to our society and existence.” For her part, Ms Barkhouse explains she has used the possible William Shakespeare connection to crack the Oak Island mystery. Since the 19th century, there has been an unfounded belief that Sir Francis Bacon is actually the author of the famous plays attributed to William Shakespeare. Among the many theories of what may lie beneath Oak Island, proof of the Shakespeare/Bacon connection is one of them. Although she’s not sure who actually penned them, Ms Barkhouse believes the key to Oak Island lies in Shakespeare’s sonnets. “I think I got it,” she says. Essentially, Ms Barkhouse looked at Sonnets 52 and 25 for her research. She looked for matching words or phrases and gave each of the letters in such pairs their numerological value. Once that work was done, she used numbers one through 26 for the basic English alphabet and each letter had an increasing number from A to Z. Through this work she says she was able to uncover basic words such as “oak,” “ton,” and “treasure.” The word “treasure” appeared twice, once she used the number code. Ms Barkhouse says she has lots more work to do and she is currently looking to find others who share her passion for numerology. She believes the island’s treasure will ultimately be revealed if the sonnets were to be completely number coded. “That is the key,” she says from her Lunenburg home. “I think it’s a true-tolife explanation.” For now, Ms Barkhouse says she’ll continue to work on her theory as the hunt continues on Oak Island by long-time treasure hunter Dan Blankenship and his new partners, the Michigan Group.