by Umberto Eco
"So no Templars tonight?"
"That was meant to be a metaphor, but no, no Templars tonight. Syncretism, however, is a very subtle process. Did you notice, outside, near the comidas de santo, a little iron statue, a sort of devil with a pitchfork, and with votive offerings at his feet? That's Exu, very powerful in the umbanda, but not in the candomblé. Still, the candomblé also honors him as a kind of degenerate Mercury. In the umbanda, they are possessed by Exu, but not here. However, he's treated affectionately. But you never can tell. You see that wall over there?" He was pointing at the polychrome statues of a naked Indio and an old black slave, seated, dressed in white, and smoking a pipe. "They are a caboclo and a preto velho, spirits of the departed. Very important in umbanda rites. What are they doing here? Receiving homage. They are not used, because the candomblé entertains relations only with the African orixas, but they are not cast out on that account."
"What do all these churches have in common, then?"
"Well, during the rite in all Afro-Brazilian cults the initiates go into a trance and are possessed by higher beings. In the candomblé these beings are the orixas; in the umbanda they are spirits of the departed."
"I forgot my own country and my own race," Amparo said. "My God, a bit of Europe and a bit of historical materialism, and I forgot everything, the stories I used to hear from my grandmother..."
"Historical materialism?" Agliè smiled. "Oh, yes, I believe I've heard of it. An apocalyptic cult that came out of the Trier region. Am I right?"
I squeezed Amparo's arm. "No pasaran, darling."
"God," she murmured.
Agliè watched our brief whispered dialogue in silence. "Infinite are the powers of syncretism, my dear. Shall I tell you a political version of this whole story? Legally, the slaves were freed in the nineteenth century, but all the archives of the slave trade were burned in an effort to wipe out the stigmata of slavery. Formally, slaves were free, but their past was gone. In the absence of any family identity, they tried to reconstruct a collective past. It was their way of opposing what you young people call the Establishment."
"But you just said those European sects were also part of it."
"My dear, purity is a luxury, and slaves take what they can get. But they have their revenge. By now they have captured more whites than you think. The original African cults possessed the weakness of all religions: they were local, ethnic, short-sighted. But when they met the myths of the conquerors, they reproduced an ancient miracle, breathing new life into the mystery cults that arose around the Mediterranean during the second and third centuries of our era, when Rome in decline was exposed to ferment that had originated in Persia, Egypt, and pre-Judaic Palestine....In the centuries of the late empire, Africa received the influences of all the religions of the Mediterranean and condensed them into a package. Europe was corrupted by Christianity as a state religion, but Africa preserved the treasures of knowledge, just as it had preserved and spread them in the days of the Egyptians, passing them on to the Greeks, who wreaked such great havoc with them."
28
There is a body that enfolds the whole of the world; imagine it in the form of a circle, for this is the form of the Whole.... Imagine now that under the circle of this body are the 36 decans, midway between the total circle and the circle of the zodiac, separating these two circles and, so to speak, delimiting the zodiac, transported along it with the planets.... The changing of kings, the rising up of cities, famine, plague, the tides of the sea, earthquakes: none of these takes place without the influence of the decans....
—Corpus Hermeticus, Stobacus, excerptum VI
"What treasures of knowledge?"
"Do you realize how great the second and third centuries after Christ were? Not because of the pomp of the empire in its sunset, but because of what was burgeoning in the Mediterranean basin then. In Rome, the Praetorians were slaughtering their emperors, but in the Mediterranean area, there flourished the epoch of Apuleius, the mysteries of Isis, and that great return to spirituality: Neoplatonism, gnosis. Blissful times, before the Christians seized power and began to put heretics to death. A splendid epoch, in which dwelled the nous, a time dazzled by ecstasies and peopled with presences, emanations, demons, and angelic hosts. The knowledge I am talking about is diffuse and disjointed; it is as ancient as the world itself, reaching back beyond Pythagoras, to the Brahmans of India, the Hebrews, the mages, the gymnosophists, and even the barbarians of the far north, the Druids of Gaul and the British Isles. The Greeks called the barbarians by that name because to overeducated Greek ears, their languages sounded like barking, and the Greeks therefore assumed that they were unable to express themselves. In fact, the barbarians knew much more than the Hellenes at the time, precisely because their language was impenetrable. Do you believe the people who will dance tonight know the meaning of all the chants and magic names they will utter? Fortunately, they do not, and each unknown name will be a kind of breathing exercise, a mystical vocalization.
"The age of the Antonines ... The world was full of marvelous correspondences, subtle resemblances; the only way to penetrate them—and to be penetrated by them—was through dreams, oracles, magic, which allow us to act on nature and her forces, moving like with like. Knowledge is elusive and volatile; it escapes measurement. That's why the conquering god of that era was Hermes, inventor of all trickery, god of crossroads and thieves. He was also the creator of writing, which is the art of evasion and dissimulation and a navigation that carries us to the end of all boundaries, where everything dissolves into the horizon, where cranes lift stones from the ground and weapons transform life into death, and water pumps make heavy matter float, and philosophy deludes and deceives.... And do you know where Hermes is today? Right here. You passed him when you came through the door. ' I 'hey call him Exu, messenger of the gods, go-between, trader, who is ignorant of the difference between good and evil."
He looked at us with amused distrust. "You believe that I am as hasty in distributing gods as Hermes is in distributing merchandise. But look at this book, which I bought this morning in a little shop in Pelourinho. Magic and mystery of Saint Cyprian, recipes for spells to win love or cause your enemy's death, invocations to the angels and to the Virgin. Popular literature for these mystics whose skin is black. But this is Saint Cyprian of Antioch, about whom there is an immense literature dating from the silver age. His parents wanted him to learn all there was to know about the earth—land, sea, and air—so they sent him to the most distant realms, that he might acquire all mysteries, including the generation and corruption of herbs and the virtues of plants and of animals: the secrets not of natural history but of occult science, those buried in the depths of distant and archaic traditions. At Delphi, Cyprian dedicated himself to Apollo and to the dramaturgy of the serpent; he studied the mysteries of Mithra; on Mount Olympus at fifteen, guided by fifteen hierophants, he attended the rites that summon the Prince of This World, in order to master his intrigues; in Argos he was initiated into the mysteries of Hera; in Phrygia he learned hepatoscopic fortunetelling. At last there was nothing left of land, sea, or air that he did not know, no ghost, no object, no artifice of any kind, not even the art of altering writing through sorcery. In the underground temples of Memphis he had learned how demons communicate with earthly things and places, what they loathe and love, how they dwell in darkness and how they mount resistance in certain domains, how they are able to possess souls and bodies, the feats of higher knowledge they can perform, of memory, terror, and illusion, and the art of causing turmoil in the earth, influencing underground currents.... Then, alas, he was converted, but something of his knowledge remained and was passed on, and we find it here, in the mouths and minds of these ragged people you call idolaters. My lovely friend, a little while ago you looked at me as if I were a ci-devant. Who among us is living in the past? You, who would bestow the horrors of the toiling industrial age upon this country, or I, who wish that our poor Europe might recover the naturalness and faith
of these children of slaves?"
"Jesus," Amparo said in a nasty hiss. "You know as well as I do that it's just another way of keeping them quiet...."
"Not quiet. Capable of expectation. Without a sense of expectation, there can be no paradise; isn't that what you Europeans have taught us?"
"I'm a European?"
"The important thing is not skin color but faith in Tradition. Granted, these children of slaves pay a price in returning a sense of expectation to a West paralyzed by well-being; perhaps they even suffer, but still they know the language of the spirits of nature, of the air, the waters, and the winds...."
"You people are exploiting us again."
"Again?"
"Yes. You should have learned your lesson in '89, Count. We get fed up, and then..." Smiling like an angel, she drew her beautiful hand straight across her throat. For me, even Amparo's teeth aroused desire.
"How dramatic!" Agliè said, taking his snuffbox from his pocket and stroking it with his fingers. "So you've recognized me. But it wasn't the slaves who made heads roll in '89; it was the upstanding bourgeoisie, whom you should hate. Besides, the Comte de Saint-Germain has seen many a head roll in all his centuries, and many a head reattached. But wait, here comes the màe-de-santo, the ialorixá."
Our meeting with the abbess of the terreiro was calm, cordial, civilized, and rich in folklore. She was a big black woman with a dazzling smile. At first you would have said she was a housewife, but when we began talking, I understood how women like this could rule the cultural life of Salvador.
"Are the orixas people or forces?" I asked her. The mãe-de-santo answered that they were forces, obviously: water, wind, leaves, rainbows. But how did she prevent ordinary people from seeing them as warriors, women, saints of the Catholic Church? "Do you yourselves not also worship a cosmic force in the form of virgins?" she replied. The important thing is to venerate the force. The aspect of the force must fit each man's ability to comprehend.
She invited us to visit the chapels in the garden before the rite began. In the garden were the houses of the orixas. A swarm of black girls in Bahian dress was cheerfully gathered there, making the final preparations.
The houses of the orixas were arranged around the garden like the chapels of a sacred mount. Outside each one was displayed the image of the corresponding saint. Inside, the garish colors of flowers clashed with those of the statues and the just-cooked foods offered to the gods. White for Oxalá, blue and pink for Yemanjá, red and white for Xangõ, yellow and gold for Ogun ... Initiates kneeled and kissed the threshold, touching themselves on the forehead and behind the ear.
"But is Yemanjá Our Lady of the Conception or not?" I asked. "Is Xangõ Saint Jerome or not?"
"Don't ask embarrassing questions," Agliè advised. "It's even more complicated in an umbanda. Saint Anthony and saints Cosmas and Damian are part of the Oxalá line. Sirens, water nymphs, caboclas of the sea and the rivers, sailors, and guiding stars are part of the Yemanjá line. The line of the Orient includes Hindus, doctors, scientists, Arabs and Moroccans, Japanese, Chinese, Mongols, Egyptians, Aztecs, Incas, Caribs, and Romans. To the Oxossi line belong the sun, the moon, the caboclo of waterfalls, and the caboclo of the blacks. In the Ogun line we come upon Ogun Beira-Mar, Rompe-Mato, Iara, Megé, Narueé ... In other words, it all depends."
"Jesus," Amparo said again.
"Oxalá, you mean," I murmured to her, my lips brushing her ear. "Calm down. No pasarán."
The ialorixá showed us a series of masks that some acolytes were bringing into the temple. These were big straw dominoes, or hoods, which the mediums would put on as they went into a trance, falling prey to the divinity. This was a form of modesty, she explained. In some terreiros the chosen danced with their faces bare, letting onlookers see their passion. But the initiates should be shielded, respected, removed from the curiosity of the profane or anyone who cannot understand the inner jubilation and grace. That was the custom in this terreiro, she said, and that was why outsiders were not readily admitted. Maybe someday, she remarked, who knows? We might well meet again.
But she didn't want us to leave without sampling some of the comidas de santo—not from the corbeils, which had to remain intact until the end of the rite, but from her own kitchen. She took us to the back of the terreiro, where there was a multicolored banquet of manioc, pimento, coco, amendoim, gengibre, moqueca de siri-mole, vatapá, efó, caruru, black beans with farofa, amid a languid odor of African spices, sweet and strong tropical flavors, which we tasted dutifully, knowing that we were sharing the food of the ancient Sudanese gods. And rightly so, the ialorixá told us, because each of us, whether he knew it or not, was the child of an orixá, and often it was possible to tell which one. I boldly asked whose son I was. The ialorixá demurred at first, saying she couldn't be sure, but then she agreed to examine the palm of my hand. She looked into my eyes and said: "You are a son of Oxalá."
I was proud. Amparo, now relaxed, suggested we find out whose son Aglié was, but he said he preferred not to know.
When we were home again, Amparo said to me: "Did you see his hand? Instead of the life line, he has a series of broken lines. Like a stream that comes to a stone, parts, and flows together again a meter farther on. The line of a man who must have died many times."
"World champion of the metempsychosis relay."
"No pasarán," Amparo said, laughing.
29
Simply because they change and hide their names, do not give their right age, and by their own admission go about without allowing themselves to be recognized, there is no logic that can deny that they necessarily must exist.
—Heinrich Neuhaus, Pia et ultimissima admonestatio de Fratribus Rosae-Crucis, nimirum: an sint? quales sint? unde nomen illud sibi asciverunt, Danzig, Schmidlin, 1618; French ed. 1623, p. 5.
Diotallevi used to say that Hesed was the Sefirah of grace and love, white fire, south wind. The other evening in the periscope, I thought that those last days with Amparo in Bahia belonged under that sign.
You remember so much while you wait for hours and hours in the darkness. I remembered especially one of the last evenings. We had walked through so many alleys and squares that our feet ached, and we went to bed early, but we didn't feel like sleeping. Amparo, huddled against the pillow in the fetal position, was pretending to read one of my little pamphlets on the umbanda, propping it on her knees. From time to time she would roll lazily onto her back, legs spread, the book balanced on her belly, listening to me read from the book on the Rosicrucians. I was trying to involve her in my discoveries. It was a mild evening; as Belbo, exhausted with literature, might have put it in one of his files, there was nought but a lovely sighing of the wind. We had splurged on a good hotel; there was a view of the sea from the window, and the still-lighted closet kitchen offered the comforting sight of the basket of tropical fruit we had bought at four that morning.
"It says that in 1614 an anonymous work appeared in Germany entitled Allgemeine und general Reformation, or General and common Reform of the entire Universe, followed by Fama Fraternitatis of the Honorable Confraternity of the Rosy-Cross, addressed to all learned Men and Sovereigns of Europe, together with a brief Reply by Herr Haselmeyer, who for this Reason was cast into Prison by the Jesuits and then placed in Irons on a Galley. Now printed and made known to all the sincere of Heart. Published in Cassel by Wilhelm Wessel."
"A little long, isn't it?"
"Apparently all titles were like that in the seventeenth century. Lina Wertmuller wrote them, too. Anyway, this was a satirical work, a fairy tale about a general reform of mankind, partly plagiarized from Traiano Boccalini's Ragguagli di Parnaso. But it contained a manifesto of about a dozen pages—the Fama Fraternitatis—which was republished separately a year later, at the same time as another manifesto, this one in Latin: Cunfessio fraternitatis Roseae Cruris, ad eruditos Europae. Both present the Confraternity of the Rosy Cross and talk about its founder, a mysterious C.R. Only later—and from other sou
rces—was it learned, or presumed, that C.R. was one Christian Rosencreutz."
"Why didn't they use the full name?"
"The whole thing's full of initials; they didn't use anybody's full name. They're all G.G.M.P.I.; one is called P.D., an affectionate nickname. Anyway, the pamphlet tells of the formative years of C.R., who first visited the Holy Sepulcher, then set off for Damascus, moved on to Egypt, and from there went to Fez, which must have been one of the sanctuaries of Moslem wisdom at the time. There, our Christian, who already knew Greek and Latin, learned Oriental languages, physics, mathematics, and the sciences of nature, accumulating all the millennial wisdom of the Arabs and Africans, as well as cabala and magic. He also translated a mysterious Liber M into Latin, and thus came to know all the secrets of the macrocosm and the microcosm. For two centuries, everything Oriental had been fashionable, especially if it was incomprehensible."
"They always go for that. Hungry? Frustrated? Exploited? Mystery cocktail coming up. Here..." She passed me a joint. "This is good stuff."
"See? You also seek to lose yourself."
"Except that I know it's only chemical. No mystery at all. It works even if you don't know Hebrew. Come here."
"Wait. Next Rosencreutz went to Spain, where he picked up more occult doctrines, claiming that he was drawing closer to the center of all knowledge. In the course of these travels—which for an intellectual of the time was a sort of total-wisdom trip—he realized that what was needed in Europe was an association that would guide rulers along the paths of wisdom and good."
"Very original. Well worth it, all that studying. I want some cold mamaia."