"Signora Grazia, that gentleman's been waiting two hours. That's no way to treat an author! Show him in!" he shouted, to make himself heard as far as the reception room.
43
People who meet on the street...secretly dedicate themselves to operations of Black Magic, they bind or seek to bind themselves to the Spirits of Darkness, to satisfy their ambitions, their hates, their loves, to do¡Xin a word¡XEvil.
¡XJ. K. Huysmans, Preface to J. Bois, Le satanisme et la magie, 1895, pp. VIII-IX
I had thought that Project Hermes was the rough sketch of an idea, not a plan of action. But I didn't yet know Signer Garamond. In the days that followed, while I stayed late in libraries looking for illustrations about metals, at Manutius they were already at work.
Two months later in Belbo's office, I found, hot off the press, an issue of The Italic Parnassus, with a long article, "The Rebirth of Occultism," in which the well-known Hermeticist Dr. Moebius¡XBelbo's new pseudonym, and source of his first bonus from Project Hermes¡Xtalked about the miraculous renaissance of the occult sciences in the modern world and announced that Manutius intended to move in this direction with its new series "Isis Unveiled."
Meanwhile, Signer Garamond had written letters to various reviews of Hermeticism, astrology, tarot, UFOlogy, signing one name or another and requesting information about the new series announced by Manutius. Whereupon the editors of the reviews telephoned Manutius, requesting information, and Signor Garamond acted mysterious, saying he could not yet reveal the first ten titles, which were, however, in the works. In this way theworld of the occultists, stirred by constant drumming of the tomtoms, was now alerted to Project Hermes.
"We disguise ourselves as a flower," Signer Garamond said, having summoned us to his office, "and the bees will come swarming.''
That wasn't all. Garamond wanted to show us the flier (the depliant, he called it): a simple affair, four pages, but on glossy paper. The first page reproduced what was to be the uniform cover of the books in the series: a kind of golden seal (the Pen-tacle of Solomon, Garamond explained) on a black ground; the page was framed by interwoven swastikas (but Asian swastikas, Garamond hastened to add, which went in the direction of the sun, not the Nazi kind, which went clockwise). At the top, where each volume's title would go, were the words "There are more things in heaven and earth..." The flier extolled the glories of Manutius in the service of culture, then stated, with some catchy phrases, that the contemporary world sought truths deeper and more luminous than those science could provide: "From Egypt, from Chaldea, from Tibet, a forgotten knowledge¡Xfor the spiritual rebirth of the West."
Belbo asked where the flier would go, and Garamond smiled like the evil genius of the rajah of Assam, as Belbo would have said. "From France I've ordered a directory of all the secret societies in the world today. It exists. Here it is. Editions Henry Veyrier, with addresses, postal codes, phone numbers. Take a look at it, Belbo, and eliminate those that don't apply, because I see it also includes the Jesuits, Opus Dei, the Carbonari, and Rotary. Find all the ones with occult tendencies. I've already underlined some."
He leafed through it. "Here you are: the Absolutists (who believe in metamorphosis), the Aetherius Society of California (telepathic relations with Mars), the Astara of Lausanne (oath of absolute secrecy), Atalanteans in Great Britain (search for lost happiness), Builders of the Adytum in California (alchemy, cabala, astrology), Cercle E. B. of Perpignan (dedicated to Hator, goddess of love and guardian of the Mountain of the Dead), Cercle Eliphas Levi of Maule (I don't know who this Levi is; perhaps that French anthropologist or whatever he was), Knights of the Templar Alliance of Toulouse, Druidic College of Gaul, Couvent Spiritualiste de Jericho, the Cosmic Church of Truth in Florida, Traditionalist Seminar of Econe in Switzerland, the Mormons (I read about them in a detective story, too, but maybe they don't exist anymore), the Church of Mithra in London and Brussels, the Church of Satan in Los Angeles, the United Lu-ciferan Church of France, the Apostolic Rosicrucian Church in Brussels, Children of Darkness and Green Order on the Ivory Coast (let's forget that one; God knows what language they write in), Escuela Hermetista Occidental of Montevideo, the National Institute of Cabala in Manhattan, the Central Ohio Temple of Hermetic Science, Tetra-Gnosis of Chicago, Ancient Brethren of the Rosie-Cross of Saint Cyr-sur-Mer, Johannite Fraternity for the Templar Resurrection in Kassel, International Fraternity of Isis in Grenoble, Ancient Bavarian Illuminati of San Francisco, the Sanctuary of Gnosis of Sherman Oaks, the Grail Foundation of America, Sociedade do Graal do Brasil, Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor, Lectorium Rosicrucianum in Holland, the Grail Movement of Strasbourg, Order of Anubis in New York, Temple of the Black Pentacle in Manchester, Odinist Fellowship in Florida, the Order of the Garter (even the Queen of England must be in that one), the Order of the Vril (neo-Nazi Masons, no address), Militia Templi in Montpellier, Sovereign Order of the Solar Temple in Monte Carlo, Rosy Cross of Harlem (you understand? Even the blacks now), Wicca (Luciferine association of Celtic obedience; they invoke the seventy-two geni of the cabala)...Need I go on?"
"Do all those really exist?" Belbo asked.
"Those and more. To work, gentlemen. Draw up a definitive list. Then we'll do our mailing. Include all those foreigners; news travels fast among them. One thing remains for us to do: we have to go around to the right shops and talk not only with the booksellers but also with the customers. Mention that such-and-such a series exists."
Diotallevi objected that we shouldn't expose ourselves in this way; we should find people to do it for us. Garamond told him to find some, "provided they're free."
"That's asking a lot," Belbo said when we were back in his office.
But the gods of the underworld were protecting us. At that very moment Lorenza Pellegrini came in, more solar than ever, making Belbo brighten. She saw the fliers and was curious.
When she heard about the project of the firm next door, she said: "Terrific! I have this fantastic friend, an ex-Tupamaro from Uruguay, who works for a magazine called Picatrix. He's always taking me to seances. There, I met a fantastic ectoplasm; he asks for me now every time he materializes!"
Belbo looked at Lorenza as if to ask her something, then changed his mind. Perhaps he was becoming accustomed to hearing about Lorenza's alarming friends and had decided to worry only about the ones that threatened his relationship with her (did they have a relationship?). In that reference to Picatrix he saw the threat not of the colonel but of the fantastic ex-Tupamaro. But Lorenza was now talking about something else, telling us that she visited many of those little shops that sold the kind of books Isis Unveiled wanted to publish.
"That's a real trip, you know," she was saying. "They tell all about medicinal herbs or list instructions for making a ho-munculus, remember what Faust did with Helen of Troy. Oh, Jacopo, let's! I'd love to have your homunculus, and then we could keep it like a dachshund. It's easy, the book says: you just have to collect a little human seed in a test tube. That wouldn't be hard for you¡Xdon't blush, silly. Then you mix it with hip-pomene, which is some liquid that is excreted¡Xno, not excreted¡Xwhat's the word?"
"Secreted," Diotallevi suggested.
"Really? Anyway, pregnant mares make it. I realize that's a bit harder to get. If I were a pregnant mare, I wouldn't like
Ceople coming to collect my hippomene, especially strangers, ut I think you can buy it in packages, like joss sticks. Then you put it all in a pot and let it steep for forty days, and little by little you see a tiny form take shape, a fetus thing, which in another two months becomes a dear little homunculus, and he comes out and puts himself at your service. And they never die. Imagine: they'll even put flowers on your grave after you're dead!"
"What about the customers in those bookshops?" "Fantastic people, people who talk with angels, people who make gold, and professional sorcerers with faces exactly like professional sorcerers..."
"What's the face of a professional sorcerer like?" "An aquiline nose, Russian eyebrows, pier
cing eyes. The hair is long, like painters in the old days, and there's a beard, not thick, with bare patches between the chin and the cheeks, and the mustache droops forward and falls in clumps over their lips, but that's only natural, because their lips are thin, poor things, and their teeth stick out. They shouldn't smile, with those teeth, but they do, very sweetly, but the eyes¡XI said they were piercing, didn't I?¡Xlook at you in an unsettling way." "Facies hermetica," Diotallevi remarked. "Really? Well, you understand, then. When somebody comes in and asks for a book, say, of prayers against evil spirits, they immediately suggest the right title to the bookseller, and, of course, it's always a title he doesn't have in stock. But then, if you make friends and ask if the book works, they smile again, indulgently, as if they were talking to children, and they say that with this sort of thing you have to be quite careful. They tell you about cases of devils that did horrible things to friends of theirs, but when you get frightened, they say that often it's only hysteria. In other words, you never know whether they believe it or not. Sometimes the booksellers give me sticks of incense as presents; once one of them gave me a little ivory hand to ward off the evil eye."
"Then, if the occasion arises," Belbo said to her, "while you're browsing in those places, ask if they know anything about the new Manutius series, and show them our flier."
Lorenza went off with a dozen fliers. I guess she did a good job in the weeks that followed, but, even so, I wouldn't have believed things could move so fast. Within a few months, Si-gnora Grazia simply couldn't keep up with the Diabolicals, as we had come to call the SFAs with occult interests. And, by their very nature, they were legion.
44
Invoke the forces of the Tablet of Union by means of Supreme Ritual of Pentagram, with the Active and Passive Spirit, with Eheieh and Agla. Return to the Altar, and recite the following Enochian Spirit Invocation: Ol Sonuf Vaorsag Goho lad Bait, Lonsh Calz Vonpho, Sobra Z-ol Ror I Ta Nazps, od Graa Ta Malprg...Ds Hol-q Qaa Nothoa Zimz, Od Commah Ta Nopbloh Zien...
¡XIsrael Regardie, the Original Account of the Teachings, Rites and Ceremonies of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, Ritual for Invisibility, St. Paul, Llewellyn Publications, 1986, p. 423
We were lucky; our first meeting was of the highest quality¡Xat least as far as our initiation was concerned.
For the occasion the trio was complete¡XBelbo, Diotallevi, and I¡Xand when our guest came in, we almost let out a cry of satisfaction. He had the facies hermetica described by Lorenza Pellegrini, and, what's more, he was dressed in black.
He looked around circumspectly, then introduced himself: Professor Camestres. At the question "Professor of what?" he made a vague gesture as if urging us to exercise greater discretion. "Forgive me," he said, "I don't know whether you gentlemen are interested in the subject purely from a professional, commercial standpoint, or whether you are connected with any mystical group..."
We reassured him on that point.
"Perhaps I am being excessively cautious," he said, "but I do not wish to have anything to do with a member of the OTO." Seeing our puzzlement, he added: "Ordo Templi Orientis, the conventicle of the remaining self-styled followers of Aleister Crowley...I see that you are not connected...All the better: there will be no prejudices on your side." He agreed to sit down. "Because, you understand, the work I would now like to show you takes a courageous stand against Crowley. All of us, myself included, are still faithful to the revelations of the Liber AL vel legis, which, as you probably know, was dictated to Crowley in Cairo in 1904 by a higher intelligence named Aiwaz. This text is followed by the faithful of the OTO even today. They draw on all four editions, the first of which preceded by nine months the outbreak of the war in the Balkans, the second by nine months the outbreak of the First World War, the third by nine months the Sino-Japanese War, and the fourth by nine months the massacres of the Spanish Civil War..."
I couldn't help crossing my fingers. He noticed and said with a funereal smile, "I understand your apprehension. What I am bringing you is the fifth edition of that book. What, you ask, will happen in nine months' time? Nothing, gentlemen, rest assured. Because what I am proposing is an enlarged Liber legis, inasmuch as I have had the good fortune to be visited not by a mere higher intelligence but by Al himself, the supreme principle¡Xnamely, Hoor-paar-Kraat, who is the double or the mystical twin of Ra-Hoor-Khuit. My sole concern, also to ward off evil influences, is that my work be published before the winter solstice."
"I think that could be managed," Belbo said.
"I'm most pleased. The book will cause a stir in the circles of initiates, because, as you will understand, my mystical source is more serious and authenticated than Crowley's. I don't know how Crowley could have activated the Rituals of the Beast without bearing in mind the Liturgy of the Sword. Only by unsheathing the sword can the nature of Mahapralaya be understood, the Third Eye of Kundalini, in other words. And also in his arith-mology, all based on the Number of the Beast, he failed to consider the New Numbers: 93, 118, 444, 868, and 1001.
"What do they mean?" asked Diotallevi, suddenly all ears.
"Ah," said Professor Camestres, "as was already stated in the first Liber legis, every number is infinite and therefore there is no real difference!"
"I understand," Belbo said. "But don't you think all this will be a bit obscure for the common reader?"
Camestres almost bounced in his chair. "Why, it's absolutely indispensable. Anyone who approached these secrets without the proper preparation would plunge headlong into the Abyss! Even by making them public in a veiled way, believe ine, I am running risks. I work within the environment of the worship of the Beast, but more radically than Crowley: you will see, in my pages on the congressus cum daemone, the requirements for the furnishing of the temple and the carnal union with the Scarlet Woman and the Beast she rides. Crowley stopped at so-called carnal congress against nature, while I carry the ritual beyond Evil as we conceive it. I touch the inconceivable, the absolute purity of goety, the extreme threshold of the Bas-Aumgn and the Sa-Ba-Ft..."
The only thing left for Belbo to do was to sound out Ca-mestres's financial capability. He did this with long, roundabout sentences, and finally it emerged that, like Bramanti before him, the professor had no thought of self-financing. Then the dismissal phase began, with a mild request of could we keep the manuscript for a week, we would have a look at it, and then we would see. But at this point Camestres clasped the manuscript to his bosom, said he had never been treated with such distrust, and went out, hinting that he had means, out of the ordinary, to make us regret the insult we had given him.
But before long we had dozens of manuscripts from eligible SFAs. A modicum of selectivity was necessary, since these books were also meant to be sold. Because it was impossible for us to read them all, we glanced at the contents, the indexes, some of the text, then traded discoveries.
45
And from this springs the extraordinary question: Did the Egyptians know about electricity?
¡XPeter Kolosimo, Terra senza tempo, Milan, Sugar, 1964, p. Ill
"I have a text on vanished civilizations and mysterious lands," Belbo said. "It seems that originally there existed, somewhere around Australia, a continent of Mu, and from there the great currents of migration spread out. One went to Avalon, one to the Caucasus and the source of the Indus; then there were the Celts, and the founders of Egyptian civilization, and finally the founders of Atlantis..."
"Old hat. If you're looking for books about Mu, I'll swamp your desk with them," I said.
"But this writer may pay. Besides, he has a beautiful chapter on Greek migrations into Yucatan, and tells about the bas-relief of a warrior at Chiche'n Itza who is the spit and image of a Roman legionary. Two peas in a pod..."
"All the helmets in the world have either plumes or horse tails," Diotallevi said. "That's not evidence."
"Not for you, but for him. He finds serpent worship in all civilizations and concludes that there is a common origin..."
<
br /> "Who hasn't worshiped the serpent?" Diotallevi said. "Except, of course, the Chosen People."
"They worshiped calves."
"Only in a moment of weakness. I'd reject this one, even if he pays. Celtism and Aryanism, Kaly-yuga, and decline of the West, and SS spirituality. I may be paranoid, but he sounds like a Nazi to me."
"For Garamond, that isn't necessarily a drawback."
"No, but there's a limit to everything. Here's a book about gnomes, undines, salamanders, elves, sylphs, fairies, but it, too, brings in the origins of Aryan civilization. The SS, apparently, are descended from the Seven Dwarfs."
"Not the Seven Dwarfs, the Nibelungs."
"The dwarfs it mentions are the Little People of Ireland. The bad guys are the fairies, but the Little People are good, just mischievous."
"Put it aside. What about you, Casaubon? What have you found?"
"A text on Christopher Columbus: it analyzes his signature and finds in it a reference to the pyramids. Columbus's real aim was to reconstruct the Temple of Jerusalem, since he was grand master of the Templars-in-exile. Being a Portuguese Jew and therefore an expert cabalist, he used talismanic spells to calm storms and overcome scurvy. I didn't look at any texts on the cabala, because I assumed Diotallevi was checking them."
"The Hebrew letters are all wrong, photocopied from dream books."
"Remember, we're choosing texts forlsis Unveiled. Let's steer clear of philology. If the Diabolicals like to take their Hebrew letters from dream books, let them do it. The problem I have is all the submissions on the Masons. Signor Garamond told me to be very careful there; he doesn't want to get mixed up in polemics among the various rites. But I wouldn't neglect this manuscript about Masonic symbolism in the grotto of Lourdes. Or this one about a mysterious gentleman, probably the Comte de Saint-Germain, an intimate friend of Franklin and Lafayette, who appeared at the moment of the creation of the flag of the United States. It explains the meaning of the stars very well, but becomes confused on the subject of the stripes."
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