Foucault's pendulum - Umberto Eco [206]
“And afterward?” I asked. “Was nothing patched together again?”
“What was there to patch—to use your word?...._ Three years later, an evangelical preacher who had joined the Illuminati of Bavaria, a certain Lanze, died in a wood, struck by lightning. Instructions of the order were found on him, the Bavarian government intervened, it was discovered that Weishaupt was plotting against the state, and the order was suppressed the following year. And further: Weishaupt’s writings were published, containing the alleged projects of the Illuminati, and for a whole century they discredited all French and German neo-Templarism...It’s possible that Weishaupt’s Illuminati were really on the side of Jacobin Masonry and had infiltrated the neo-Templar branch to destroy it. It was probably not by chance that this evil breed had attracted Mirabeau, the tribune of the Revolution, to its side. May I say something in confidence?”
“Please.”
“Men like me, interested in joining together again die fragments of a lost Tradition, are bewildered by an event like Wil-helmsbad. Some guessed and remained silent; some knew and lied. And then it was too late: first the revolutionary whirlwind, ! then the uproar of nineteenth-century occultism...Look I at your list: a festival of bad faith and credulity, petty spite, ! reciprocal excommunications, secrets that circulated on every I tongue. The theater of occultism.”
“Occultists seem fickle, wouldn’t you say?” Belbo remarked. “You must be able to distinguish occultism from esotericism. Esotericism is the search for a learning transmitted only through symbols, closed to the profane. The occultism that spread in the nineteenth century was the tip of the iceberg, the little that surfaced of the esoteric secret. The Templars were initiates, and the proof of that is that when subjected to torture, they died to save their secret. It is the strength with which they concealed it that makes us sure of their initiation, and that makes us yearn j to know what they knew. The occultist is an exhibitionist. As P61adan said, an initiatory secret revealed is of no use to anyone. Unfortunately, Peladan was not an initiate, but an occultist. The nineteenth century was the century of informers. Everybody rushed to publish the secrets of magic, theurgy, cabala, tarot. And perhaps they believed in it.”
Aglie continued looking over our list, with an occasional I snicker of commiseration. “Elena Petrovna. A good woman, at j heart, but she never said a thing that hadn’t already been written ; everywhere...Guaita, a drug-addict bibliomane. Papus: What a character!” Then he stopped abruptly. “Tres....Where does I this come from? Which manuscript?”
Good, I thought, he’s noticed the interpolation. I answered vaguely: “Well, we put together the list from so many texts. Most of them have already been returned. They were plain rubbish. Do you recall, Belbo, where this Tres comes from?” “I don’t think I do. Diotallevi?” “It was days ago...Is it important?” “Not at all,” Aglie said. “It’s just that I never heard of it before. You really can’t tell me who mentioned it?” We were terribly sorry, we didn’t remember. Aglie took his watch from his vest. “Heavens, I have another engagement. You gentlemen will forgive me.”
He left, and we stayed on, talking.
“It’s all clear now. The English Templars put forth the Masonic proposal in order to make all the initiates of Europe rally around the Baconian plan.”
“But the plan only half-succeeds. The idea of the Baconians is so fascinating that it produces results contrary to their expectations. The so-called Scottish line sees the new conventicle as a way to re-establish the succession, and it makes contact with