Eco: Foucalt's Pendulum

by eco umberto foucault

  Soapes is writing. I look over his shoulder. An incomprehensible message: "riverrun, past Eve and Adam's...." He hides the page, looks at me, sees me paler than a ghost, reads Death in my eyes. He whispers to me, "Rest. Never fear. I'll write for you."

  And so he is doing, mask behind a mask. I slowly fade, and he takes from me even the last light, that of obscurity.

  74

  Though his will be good, his spirit and his prophecies are illusions of the Devil...They are capable of deceiving many curious people and of causing great harm and scandal to the Church of Our Lord God.

  ¡XOpinion on Guillaume Postel sent to Ignatius Loyola by the Jesuit fathers Salmeron, Lhoost, and Ugoletto, May 10, 1545

  Belbo, detached, told us what he had concocted, but he didn't read his pages to us and eliminated all personal references. Indeed, he led us to believe that Abulafia had supplied him with the connections. The idea that Bacon was the author of the Rosicrucian manifestoes he had already come upon somewhere or other. But one thing in particular struck me: that Bacon was Viscount St. Albans.

  It buzzed in my head; it had something to do with my old thesis. I spent that night digging in my card file.

  "Gentlemen," I said to my accomplices with a certain solemnity the next morning, "we don't have to invent connections. They exist. When, in 1164, Saint Bernard launched the idea of a council at Troyes to legitimize the Templars, among those charged to organize everything was the prior of Saint Albans. Saint Alban was the first English martyr, who evangelized the British Isles. He lived in Verulamium, which became Bacon's property. He was a Celt and unquestionably a Druid initiate, like Saint Bernard."

  "That's not very much," Belbo said.

  "Wait. This prior of Saint Albans was abbot of Saint-Martin-des-Champs, the abbey where the Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers was later installed!"

  Belbo reacted. "My God!"

  "And that's not all," I said. "The Conservatoire was conceived as homage to Bacon. On 25 Brumaire of the year 111, the Convention authorized its Comite d'lnstruction Publique to have the complete works of Bacon printed. And on 18 Vendemiaire of the same year the same Convention had passed a law providing for the construction of a house of arts and trades that would reproduce the House of Solomon as described by Bacon in his New Atlantis, a place where all the inventions of mankind are collected."

  "And so?" Diotallevi asked.

  "The Pendulum is in the Conservatoire," Belbo said. And from Diotallevi's reaction I realized that Belbo had told him about Foucault's Pendulum.

  "Not so fast," I said. "The Pendulum was invented and installed only in the last century. We should skip it."

  "Skip it?" Belbo said. "Haven't you ever seen the Monad Hieroglyph of John Dee, the talisman that is supposed to concentrate all the wisdom of the universe? Doesn't it look like a pendulum?"

  [...]

  "All right," I said, "let's suppose a connection can be established. But how do we go from Saint Albans to the Pendulum?"

  I was to learn how in the space of a few days.

  "So then, the prior of Saint Albans is the abbot of Saint-Martin-des-Champs, which therefore becomes a Templar center. Bacon, through his property, establishes a contact with the Druid followers of Saint Albans. Now listen carefully: as Bacon is beginning his career in England, Guillaume Postel in France is ending his."

  An almost imperceptible twitch on Belbo's face. I recalled the dialog at Riccardo's show: Postel made Belbo think of the man who, in his mind, had robbed him of Lorenza. But it was the matter of an instant.

  "Postel studies Hebrew, tries to demonstrate that it's the common matrix of all languages, translates the Zohar and the Bahir, has contacts with the cabalists, broaches a plan for universal peace similar to that of the German Rosicrucian groups, tries to convince the king of France to form an alliance with the sultan, visits Greece, Syria, Asia Minor, studies Arabic¡X in a word, he retraces the itinerary of Christian Rosencreutz. And it is no accident that he signs some writings with the name of Rosispergius, ¡¥he who scatters dew.' Gassendi in his Examen Philosophiae Fluddanae says that Rosencreutz does not derive from rosa but from ros, dew. In one of his manuscripts he speaks of a secret to be guarded until the time is ripe, and he says: ¡¥That pearls may not be cast before swine.' Do you know where else this gospel quotation appears? On the title page of The Chemical Wedding. And Father Marin Mersenne, in denouncing the Rosicrucian Fludd, says he is made of the same stuif as atheus magnus Postel. Furthermore, it seems Dee and Postel met in 1550, but perhaps they didn't yet know that they were both grand masters of the Plan, scheduled to meet thirty years later, in 1584.

  "Now, Postel declares¡Xhear ye, hear ye¡Xthat, being a direct descendant of the oldest son of Noah, and since Noah is the founder of the Celtic race and therefore of the civilization of the Druids, the king of France is the only legitimate pretender to the title king of the world. That's right, he talks about the King of the World¡Xbut three centuries before d'Alveydre. We'll skip the fact that he falls in love with an old hag, Joanna, and considers her the divine Sophia; the man probably didn't have all his marbles. But powerful enemies he did have; they called him dog, execrable monster, cloaca of all heresies, a being possessed by a legion of demons. All the same, even with the Joanna scandal, the Inquisition doesn't consider him a heretic, only amens, a bit of a nut, let's say. The truth is, the Church doesn't dare destroy the man, because they know he's the spokesman of some fairly powerful group. I would point out to you, Diotallevi, that Postel travels also in the Orient and is a contemporary of Isaac Luria. Draw whatever conclusions you like. Well, in 1564, the year in which Dee writes his Monas Hieroglyphica, Postel retracts his heresies and retires to...guess where? The monastery of Saint-Martin-des-Champs! What's he waiting for? Obviously, he's waiting for 1584."

  "Obviously," Diotallevi said.

  I went on: "Are we agreed, then? Postel is grand master of the French group, awaiting the appointment with the English. But he dies in 1581, three years before it. Conclusions: first, the 1584 mishap took place because at that crucial moment a keen mind was missing, since Postel would have been able to figure out what was going on in the confusion of the calendars; second, Saint-Martin was a place where the Templars were safe, always at home, where the man responsible for the third meeting immured himself and waited. Saint-Martin-des-Champs was the Refuge!"

  "It all fits, like a mosaic."

  "Stick with me. At the time of the failed appointment Bacon is only twenty-three. But in 1621 he becomes Viscount St. Albans. What does he find in the ancestral possessions? A mystery. Note that this is the year he is accused of corruption and imprisoned for a while. He had unearthed something that caused fear in someone. In whom? This is when Bacon understood that Saint-Martin should be watched; he conceived the idea of putting his House of Solomon there, the laboratory in which, through experimental means, the secret could be discovered."

  "But," Diotallevi asked, "how do we find the link between Bacon's followers and the revolutionary groups of the late eighteenth century?"

  "Could Freemasonry be the answer?" Belbo said.

  "Splendid idea. Actually, Aglie suggested it to us that night at the castle."

  "We should reconstruct the events. What exactly was going on then in those circles?"

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  The only ones who elude....the eternal sleep....are those who in life are able to orient their mind toward the higher way. The initiates, the Adepts, are at the edge of that path. Having achieved memory, anamnesis, in the expression of Plutarch, they become free, they proceed without bonds. Crowned, they celebrate the "mysteries" and see on earth the throng of those who are not initiated and are not "pure," those who are crushed and pushing one another in the mud and in the darkness.

  ¡XJulius Evola, La tradizione ermetica, Rome, Edizioni Mediterranee, 1971, p. Ill

  Rashly I volunteered to do some quick research. I soon regretted it. I found myself in a morass of books, in which it was difficult to distinguish hist
orical fact from hermetic gossip, and reliable information from flights of fancy. Working like a machine for a week/1 drew up a bewildering list of sects, lodges, conventicles. I occasionally shuddered on encountering familiar names I didn't expect to come upon in such company, and there were chronological coincidences that I felt were curious enough to be noted down. I showed this document to my two accomplices.

  1645 London: Ashmole founds Invisible College, Rosicrucian in inspiration.

  1660 From the Invisible College is born the Royal Society; and from the Royal Society, as everyone knows, the Masons.

  1666 Paris: founding of Academic Royal des Sciences.

  1707 Birth of Claude-Louis de Saint-Germain, if he was really born.

  1717 Creation of the Great Lodge in London.

  1721 Anderson drafts the constitutions of English Masonry. Initiated in London, Peter the Great founds a lodge in Russia.

  1730 Montesquieu, passing through London, is initiated.

  1737 Ramsay asserts the Templar origin of Masonry. Origin of the Scottish rite, henceforth in conflict with the Great Lodge of London.

  1738 Frederick, then crown prince of Prussia, is initiated. Later he is patron of Encyclopedists.

  1740 Various lodges created in France around this year: Ecos-sais Fideles of Toulouse, Souverain ConseU Sublime, Mere Loge Ecossaise du Grand Globe Francais, College des Sublimes Princes du Royal Secret of Bordeaux, Cour des Souverains Commandeurs du Temple of Carcassonne, Philadelphes of Narbonne, Chapitre des Rose-Croix of Montpellier, Sublimes Elus de la Verite....

  1743 First public appearance of Comte de Saint-Germain. In Lyon, the degree of chevalier kadosch originates, its task being to vindicate Templars.

  1753 Willermoz founds lodge of Parfaite Amitie.

  1754 Martinez Pasqualis founds Temple of the Elus Cohen (perhaps in 1760).

  1756 Baron von Hund founds Templar Strict Observance, inspired, some say, by Frederick II of Prussia. For the first time there is talk of the Unknown Superiors. Some insinuate that the Unknown Superiors are Frederick and Voltaire.

  1758 Saint-Germain arrives in Paris and offers his services to the king as chemist, an expert in dyes. He spends time with Madame Pompadour.

  1759 Presumed formation of Conseil des Empereurs d'Orient et d'Occident, which three years later is said to have drawn up the Constitutions et Reglement de Bordeaux, from which Ancient and Accepted Scottish rite probably originates (though this does not appear officially until 1801).

  1760 Saint-Germain on ambiguous diplomatic mission in Holland. Forced to flee, arrested in London, released. Dom J. Pernety founds Illuminati of Avignon. Martinez Pasqualis founds Chevaliers Macons Elus de 1'Univers.

  1762 Saint-Germain in Russia.

  1763 Casanova meets Saint-Germain, as Surmont, in Belgium. Latter turns coin into gold. Willermoz founds Souverain Chapitre des Chevaliers de 1'Aigle Noire Rose-Croix.

  1768 Willermoz joins Pasqualis's Elus Cohen. Apocryphal publication in Jerusalem of Les plus secrets mysteres des hauls grades de la mafonnerie devoilee, ou le vrai Rose-Croix: it says that the lodge of the Rosicrucians is on Mount Heredon, sixty miles from Edinburgh. Pasqualis meets Louis Claude de Saint-Martin, later known as Le Philosophe Inconnu. Dom Pernety becomes librarian of king of Prussia.

  1771 The Due de Chartres, later known as Philippe-Egalite', becomes grand master of the Grand Orient (then, the Grand Orient de France) and tries to unify all the lodges. Scottish rite lodge resists.

  1772 Pasqualis leaves for Santo Domingo, and Willermoz and Saint-Martin establish Tribunal Souverain, which becomes Grand Loge Ecossaise.

  1774 Saint-Martin retires, to become Philosophe Inconnu, and as delegate of Templar Strict Observance goes to negotiate with Willermoz. A Scottish Directory of the Province of Auvergne is born. From this will be born the Rectified Scottish rite.

  1776 Saint-Germain, under the name Count Welldone, presents chemical plans to Frederick II. Societe des Phila-thetes is born, to unite all hermeticists. Lodge of the Neuf Soeurs has as members Guillotin and Cabanis, Voltaire and Franklin. Adam Weishaupt founds Illuminati of Bavaria. According to some, he is initiated by a Danish merchant, Kolmer, returning from Egypt, who is probably the mysterious Altotas, master of Cagliostro.

  1778 Saint-Germain, in Berlin, meets Dom Pernety. Willermoz founds Ordre des Chevaliers Bienfaisants de la Cite Sainte. Templar Strict Observance and Grand Orient agree to accept the Rectified Scottish rite.

  1782 Great conference of all the initiatory lodges at Wil-helmsbad.

  1783 Marquis Thome founds the Swedenborg rite.

  1784 Saint-Germain presumably dies while in the service of the landgrave of Hesse, for whom he is completing a factory for making dyes.

  1785 Cagliostro founds Memphis rite, which later becomes the Ancient and Primitive rite of Memphis-Misraim; it increases the number of high degrees to ninety. Scandal of the Affair of the Diamond Necklace, orchestrated by Cagliostro. Dumas describes it as Masonic plot to discredit the monarchy. The Dluminati of Bavaria are suppressed, suspected of revolutionary plotting.

  1786 Mirabeau is initiated by the Illuminati of Bavaria in Berlin. In London a Rosicrucian manifesto appears, attributed to Cagliostro. Mirabeau writes a letter to Cagliostro and to Lavater.

  1787 There are about seven hundred lodges in France. Weishaupt publishes his Nachtrag, which describes the structure of a secret organization in which each adherent knows only his immediate superior.

  1789 French Revolution begins. Crisis in the French lodges.

  1794 On 8 Vende'miaire, Deputy Gregoire presents to the Convention the project for a Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers. It is installed in Saint-Martin-des-Champs in 1799, by the Council of Five Hundred. The Duke of Brunswick urges lodges to dissolve because a poisonous subversive sect has now corrupted them all.

  1798 Arrest of Cagliostro in Rome.

  1804 Announcement in Charleston of official foundation of Ancient and Accepted Scottish rite, with number of degrees increased to 33.

  1824 Document from court of Vienna to French government denounces secret associations like the Absolutes, the Independents, the Alta Vendita Carbonara.

  1835 The cabalist Oettinger claims to meet Saint-Germain in Paris.

  1846 Viennese writer Franz Graffer publishes account of a meeting of his brother with Saint-Germain between 1788 and 1790. Saint-Germain received his visitor while leafing through a book by Paracelsus.

  1865 Foundation of Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia (other sources give 1860, 1866, or 1867). Bulwer-Lytton, author of the Rosicrucian novel Zanoni, joins.

  1868 Bakunin founds International Alliance of Socialist Democracy, inspired, some say, by the Illuminati of Bavaria.

  1875 Elena Petrovna Blavatsky, with Henry Steel Olcott, founds Theosophical Society. Her Isis Unveiled appears. Baron Spedalieri proclaims himself a member of Grand Lodge of the Solitary Brothers of the Mountain, Prater Illuminatus of the Ancient and Restored Order of the Manicheans and of the Martinists.

  1877 Madame Blavatsky speaks of the theosophical role of Saint-Germain. Among his incarnations are Roger and Francis Bacon, Rosencreutz, Proclus, Saint Alban. Grand Orient of France eliminates invocation to the Great Architect of the Universe and proclaims absolute freedom of conscience. Breaks ties with Grand Lodge of England and becomes firmly secular and radical.

  1879 Foundation of Societas Rosicruciana in the USA.

  1880 Beginning of Saint-Yves d'Alveydre's activity. Leopold Engler reorganizes the Illuminati of Bavaria.

  1884 Leo XIII, with the encyclical Humanum Genus, condemns Freemasonry. Catholics desert it; rationalists flock to it.

  1888 Stanislas de Guaita founds Ordre Kabbalistique de la Rose-Croix. Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn founded in England, with eleven degrees, from neophyte to ipsissimus. Its imperator is McGregor Mathers, whose sister marries Bergson.

  1890 Joseph P61adan, called Josephin, leaves Guaita and founds the Rose-Croix Catholique du Temple et du Graal, proclaiming himself Sa
r Merodak. Conflict between Rosicrucians of Guaita's order and those of Peladan's is called the War of the Two Roses.

  1891 Papus publishes his Traite methodique de science oc-culte.

  1898 Aleister Crowley initiated into Golden Dawn. Later founds Order of Thelema.

  1907 From the Golden. Dawn is born the Stella Matutina, which Yeats joins.

  1909 In the United States, H. Spencer Lewis "reawakens" the Anticus Mysticus Ordo Rosae Crucis and in 1916, in a hotel, successfully transforms a piece of zinc into gold. Max Heindel founds the Rosicrucian Fellowship. At uncertain dates follow Lectorium Rosicrucianum, Freres Alnes de la Rose-Croix, Fraternitas Hermetica, Tern-plum Rosae-Crucis.

  1912 Annie Besant, disciple of Madame Blavatsky, founds, in London, Order of the Temple of the Rose-Cross.

  1918 Thule Society is born in Germany.

  1936 In France Le Grand Prieure des Gaules is born. In the "Cahiers de la fraternite polaire," Enrico Contardi-Rhodio tells of a visit from Comte de Saint-Germain.

  "What does all this mean?" Diotallevi said.

  "Don't ask me. You wanted data? Help yourself. This is all I know."

  "We'll have to consult Aglie. I doubt that even he knows all these organizations."

  "Want to bet? They're his daily bread. But we can put him to the test. Let's add a sect that doesn't exist. Founded recently."

  I recalled the curious question of De Angelis, whether I had ever heard of the Tres. And I said: "Tres."

  "What's that?" Belbo asked.

  "If it's an acrostic, there has to be a subtext," Diotallevi said. "Otherwise my rabbis would not have been able to use the no-tarikon. Let's see...Templi Resurgentes Equites Synarchici. That suit you?"

  We liked the name, and put it at the bottom of the list.

  "With all these conventicles, inventing one more was no mean trick,'' Diotallevi said in a sudden fit of vanity.

  76

  If it were then a matter of defining in one word the dominant characteristic of French Freemasonry in the eighteenth century, only one would do: dilettantism.