Eco: Foucalt's Pendulum (47 page)

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
historical 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 Sar 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.

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.

¡XRene Le Forestier, La
Franc-Mayonnerie Templiere et Occultiste, Paris, Aubier, 1970,
2

The next evening, we
invited Aglie to Pilade's. Though the bar's new customers had gone
back to jackets and ties, the presence of our guest, in blue
chalk-stripe suit and snow-white shirt, tie fastened with a gold
pin, caused eyebrows to be raised. Luckily, at six o'clock Pilade's
was fairly empty.

Aglie confused Pilade by
ordering a cognac by its brand name. Pilade had it, of course, but
the bottle had stood enthroned on the shelf behind the zinc
counter, untouched, for years.

Aglie studied the liquor
in his glass against the light, then warmed it with his hands,
displaying gold cuff links that were vaguely Egyptian in
style.

We showed him the list,
telling him we had compiled it from the manuscripts of the
Diabolicals.

"The fact that the
Templars were connected with the early lodges of the master masons
established during the construction of Solomon's Temple is
certain," he said. "And it is equally certain that these
associates, on occasion, recalled the murder of the Temple's
architect, Hiram, a sacrificial victim. The masons vowed to avenge
him. After their persecution then, many knights of the Temple must
have joined those artisan confraternities, fusing the myth of
avenging Hiram with the determination to avenge Jacques de Molay.
In the eighteenth century, in London, there were lodges of genuine
masons, and they were called operative lodges. Then, gradually,
some idle but thoroughly respectable gentlemen were determined to
join operative masonry, so it became symbolic, philosophical
masonry.

"In this atmosphere a
certain Desaguliers, popularizer of Newton, encouraged a Protestant
pastor, Anderson, to draft the constitutions of a lodge of Mason
brothers, deist in persuasion, and Anderson began speaking of the
Masonic confraternities as corporations dating back four thousand
years, to the founders of the Temple of Solomon. These are the
reasons for the Masonic masquerade: the apron, the trowel, the T
square. Masonry became fashionable, attracting the aristocracy with
the genealogical tables it hinted at, but it appealed even more to
the bourgeoisie, who now not only could hobnob with the nobles but
were actually permitted to wear a short sword. In the wretched
modern world at its birth, the nobles need a place where they can
come into contact with the new producers of capital, and the new
producers of capital are looking to be ennobled."

"But the Templars seem
to have emerged later."

"The one who first
established a direct relation with the Templars, Ramsay, I'd prefer
not to discuss. I suspect he was put up to it by the Jesuits. His
preaching led to the birth of the Scottish wing of
Masonry.''

"Scottish?"

"The Scottish rite was a
Franco-German invention. London Masonry had established three
degrees: apprentice, fellow craft, and master. Scottish Masonry
multiplied the degrees because doing so meant multiplying the
levels of initiation and secrecy. The French, congenitally foolish,
love secrecy..."

"But what was the
secret?"

"There was no secret,
obviously. But if there had been one¡X or if they had possessed
it¡Xits complexity would have justified the number of degrees of
initiation. Ramsay multiplied-the degrees to make others believe he
had a secret. You can imagine the thrill of those solid tradesmen
now at last able to become princes of vengeance..."

Aglie was prodigal with
Masonic gossip. And in the course of his talk, as was his custom,
he slipped gradually into first-person recollection.

"In those days, in
France, they were already writing couplets about the new fashion,
the Frimacons. The lodges, multiplying, attracted monsignors,
friars, barons, and shopkeepers, and the members of the royal
family became grand masters. The Templar Strict Observance of that
Hund character received Goethe, Lessing, Mozart, Voltaire. Lodges
sprang up among the military; in the regimental mess they plotted
to avenge Hiram and discussed the coming revolution. For others,
Masonry was a societe de plaisir, a club, a status symbol. You
could find a bit of everything there: Cagliostro, Mesmer, Casanova,
Baron d'Holbach, d'Alembert...Encyclopedists and alchemists,
libertines and hermetics. At the outbreak of the Revolution,
members of the same lodge found themselves on opposite sides, and
it seemed that the great brotherhood would never recover from this
crisis..."

"Wasn't there a conflict
between the Grand Orient and the Scottish lodge?"

"Only verbally. For
example: the lodge of the Neuf Soeurs welcomed Franklin, whose
goals, naturally, were secular; he was interested only in
supporting his American revolution...But at the same time, one of
its grand masters was the Comte de Milly, who was seeking the
elixir of longevity. Since he was an imbecile, in the course of his
experiments he poisoned himself and died. Or take Cagliostro: on
the one hand, he invented Egyptian rites; on the other, he was
implicated in the Affair of the Diamond Necklace, a scandal devised
by the rising bourgeoisie to discredit the ancien regime. And
Cagliostro was indeed involved! Just try to imagine the sort of
people one had to live with..."

"It must have been
hard," Belbo said, with comprehension.

"But who," I asked, "are
these barons von Hund who seek the Unknown
Superiors....?"

"New groups sprang up at
the time of the necklace farce, altogether different in nature. To
gain adepts, they identified themselves with the Masonic lodges,
but actually they were pursuing more mystical ends. It was at this
point that the debate about the Unknown Superiors took place. Hund,
unfortunately, wasn't a serious person. At first he led his adepts
to believe that the Unknown Superiors were the Stuarts. Then he
said that the aim of the order was to rescue the original
possessions of the Templars, and he scraped together funds from all
sides. Unsatisfied with the proceeds, he fell into the hands of a
man named Starck, who claimed to have learned the secret of making
gold from the authentic Unknown Superiors, who were in Petersburg.
Hund and Starck were surrounded by theosophists, cheap alchemists,
last-minute Rosicrucians. All together, they elected as grand
master a thoroughly upright man, the Duke of Brunswick. He
immediately realized that he was in the worst possible company. One
of the members of the Strict Observance, the landgrave of Hesse,
summoned the Comte de Saint-Germain, believing this gentleman could
produce gold for him. And why not? In those days the whims of the
mighty had to be indulged. But the landgrave also believed himself
to be Saint Peter. I assure you, gentlemen: once, when Lavater was
the landgrave's guest, he had a dreadful time with the Duchess of
Devonshire, who thought she was Mary Magdalene."

"But what about this
Willermoz and this Martinez Pasqualis, who founded one sect after
another?''

"Pasqualis was an old
pirate. He practiced theurgical operations in a secret chamber, and
angelic spirits appeared to him in the form of luminous trails and
hieroglyphic characters. Wilier- : moz took him seriously, because
he himself was an enthusiast, honest but naive. Fascinated by
alchemy, Willermoz dreamed of a Great Work to which the elect
should devote themselves: to discover the point of alliance of the
six noble metals through studying the measurements comprised in the
six letters of the original name of God, which Solomon had allowed
his elect to know."

"And then?"

"Willermoz founded many
orders and joined many lodges at the same time, as was the custom
in those days, always seeking the definitive revelation, always
fearing it was hidden elsewhere¡Xwhich indeed is the case. That is,
perhaps, the only truth...So he joined the Elus Cohen of Pasqualis.
But in ¡¥72 Pasqualis disappeared, sailed for Santo Domingo, and
left everything up in the air. Why did he leave? I suspect he came
into possession of a secret he didn't want to share. In any case,
re-quiescat; he disappeared on that dark continent, into
well-deserved darkness."

"And
Willermoz?"

"In that year we had all
been shaken by the death of Sweden-borg, a man who could have
taught many things to the ailing West, had the West listened to
him. But now the century began its headlong race toward
revolutionary madness, following the ambitions of the Third
Estate.It was then that Willermoz heard about Hund's rite of the
Strict Observance and was fascinated by it. He was told that a
Templar who reveals himself¡Xby founding a public association,
say¡Xis not a Templar. But the eighteenth century was an era of
great credulity. Willermoz ereated, with Hund, the various
alliances that appear on your list, until Hund was unmasked¡XI
mean, until they discovered he was the sort who runs off with the
cash box¡Xand the Duke of Brunswick expelled him from the
organization."

Aglid cast another
glance at the list. "Ah, yes, Weishaupt. I nearly forgot. The
Illuminati of Bavaria: with a name like that, they attracted, at
the beginning, a number of generous minds. But Weishaupt was an
anarchist; today we'd call him a Communist, and if you gentlemen
only knew the things they raved about in that ambience¡Xcoups
d'etat, dethroning sovereigns, bloodbaths....Mind you, I admired
Weishaupt a great deal¡Xnot for his ideas, but for his extremely
clearheaded view of how a secret society should function. It's
possible to have a splendid organizational talent but quite
confused ideas.

"In short, the Duke of
Brunswick, seeing the confusion around him left by Hund, realized
that at this juncture there were three conflicting currents in the
German Masonic world: the sapiential-occultist camp, including some
Rosicrucians; the rationalist camp; and the anarchist-revolutionary
camp of the Illuminati of Bavaria. He proposed that the various
orders and rites meet at Wilhelmsbad for a ¡¥convent,' as they were
called then, an Estates-General, you might say. The following
questions had to be answered: Does the order truly originate from
an ancient society, and if so, which? Are there really Unknown
Superiors, keepers of the ancient Tradition, and if so, who are
they? What are the true aims of the order? Is the chief aim to
restore the order of the Templars? And so forth, including the
problem of whether the order should concern itself with the occult
sciences. Willermoz joined in, enthusiastic, hoping to find at last
the answers to the questions he had been asking himself all his
life...And here the de Maistre affair began."

"Which de Maistre?" I
asked. "Joseph or Xavier?"

"Joseph."

"The
reactionary?"

"If he was reactionary,
he wasn't reactionary enough. A curious man. Consider: this devout
son of the Catholic Church, just when the first popes were
beginning to issue bulls against Masonry, became a member of a
lodge, assuming the name Josephus a Floribus. He approached Masonry
in 1773, when a papal brief condemned the Jesuits. Of course it was
the Scottish lodges that de Maistre approached, since he was not a
bourgeois follower of the Enlightenment; he was an
Illuminate."

Aglie sipped his cognac.
From a cigarette case of almost white metal he took out some
cigarillos of an unusual shape. "A tobacconist in London makes them
for me," he said, "like the cigars you found at my house.
Please....They're excellent..."He spoke with his eyes lost in
memory.

"De Maistre...a man of
exquisite manners; to listen to him was a spiritual pleasure. He
gained great authority in occult circles. And yet, at Wilhelmsbad
he betrayed our expectations. He sent a letter to the duke, in
which he firmly renounced any Templar affiliation, abjured the
Unknown Superiors, and denied the utility of the esoteric sciences.
He rejected it all out of loyalty to the Catholic Church, but he
did so with the arguments of a bourgeois Encyclopedist. When the
duke read the letter to a small circle of intimates, no one wanted
to believe it. De Maistre now asserted that the order's aim was
nothing but spiritual regeneration and that the ceremonials and the
traditional rites served only to keep the mystical spirit alive. He
praised all the new Masonic symbols, but said that an image that
represented several things no longer represented anything.
Which¡Xyou'll forgive me¡Xruns counter to the whole hermetic
tradition, for the more ambiguous and elusive a symbol is, the more
it gains significance and power. Otherwise, what becomes of the
spirit of Hermes, god of a thousand faces?

"Apropos of the
Templars, de Maistre said that the order of the Temple had been
created by greed, and greed had destroyed it, and that was that.
The Savoyard could not forget, you see, that the order had been
destroyed with the consent of the pope. Never trust Catholic
legitimists, no matter how ardent their hermetic vocation. De
Maistre's dismissal of the Unknown Superiors was also laughable:
the proof that they do not exist is that we have no knowledge of
them. We could not have knowledge of them, of course, or they would
not be unknown. Odd, how a believer of such fiber could be
impermeable to the sense of mystery. Then de Maistre made his final
appeal: Let us return to the Gospels and abandon the follies of
Memphis. He was simply restating the millennial line of the
Church.