Foucault's pendulum - Umberto Eco [200]
“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?”
75
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.
—Julius 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