Eco: Foucalt's Pendulum by eco foucault (important books to read .txt) 📗

If you jointhis militia, you have to give yourself to your brothers heart andsoul, so let them kiss your ass. An alternative thesis is that theywere asked to deny Christ in order to see how they would behave ifthe Saracens got them. Which seems idiotic, because you don't trainsomeone to resist torture by making him do¡Xeven if onlysymbolically¡Xwhat the torturer will ask of him. A third thesis: Inthe East the Templars had come into contact with Manichean hereticswho despised the Cross, regarding it as the instrument of theLord's torture. The Manicheans also preached renunciation of theworld and discouraged marriage and procreation. An old idea, commonto many heresies in the early centuries of Christianity. It waslater taken up by the Cathars¡Xand in fact there's a wholetradition claiming that the Templars were steeped in Catharism. Andthis would explain the sodomy¡Xalso only symbolic. Let's assume theknights came into contact with Manichean heretics. Well, theyweren't exactlv intellectuals, so perhaps¡Xpartly out of naivete,partly out of snobbery and esprit de corps¡Xthey invented apersonal ceremony to distinguish themselves from the otherCrusaders. They performed various ritual acts of recognition,without bothering about their significance."

"And that Baphometbusiness?"

"Many of the depositionsdo mention a figure Baffometi, but this may have been an error madeby the first scribe, an error copied into all subsequent documents.Or the records may have been tampered with. In some cases there wastalk of Mahomet (istud caput vester deus est, et vester Mahumet),which would suggest that the Templars had created a syncreticliturgy of their own. Some depositions say that they were alsourged to call out ¡¥Yalla,' which could be Allah. But the Moslemsdidn't worship images of Mahomet, so where does the object comefrom? The depositions say that many people saw carved heads, butsometimes it was not just a head but a whole idol¡Xwooden, withkinky hair, covered with gold, and always with a beard. It seemsthat investigators did find such heads and confronted the accusedwith them, but no trace of them remains. Everyone saw the heads,and no one saw them. Like the cat: some saw a gray cat, others ared cat, others still a black cat. Imagine being interrogated witha red-hot iron: Did you see a cat during the initiation? Well, whynot a cat? A Templar farm, where stored grain had to be protectedagainst mice, would be full of cats. The cat was not a commondomestic animal in Europe back then. But in Egypt it was. Maybe theTemplars kept cats in the house, though right-minded folk lookedupon such animals with suspicion. Same thing with the heads ofBaphomet. Maybe they were reliquaries in the shape of a head; notunknown at the time. Of course, some say Baphomet was an alchemicfigure."

"Alchemy always comesup," Diotallevi said, nodding. "The Templars probably knew thesecret of making gold."

"Of course they did,"Belbo said. "It was simple enough. Attack a Saracen city, cut thethroats of the women and children, and grab everything mat's notnailed down. The truth is that this whole story is a great bigmess."

"Maybe the mess was intheir heads. What did they care about doctrinal debates? History isfull of little sects that make up then-own style, part swagger,part mysticism. The Templars themselves didn't really understandwhat they were doing. On the other hand, there's always theesoteric explanation: They knew exactly what they were doing, theywere adepts of Oriental mysteries, and even the kiss on the ass hada ritual meaning."

"Do explain to me,briefly, the ritual meaning of the kiss on the ass," Diotallevisaid.

"All right. Some modernesotericists maintain that the Templars were reviving certainIndian doctrines. The kiss on the ass serves to wake the serpentKundalini, a cosmic force that dwells at the base of the spinalcolumn, in the sexual glands. Once wakened, Kundalini rises to thepineal gland..."

"Descartes's pinealgland?"

"I think it's the sameone. A third eye is then supposed to open up in the brow, the eyethat lets you see directly into time and space. This is why peopleare still seeking the secret of the Templars."

"Philip the Fair shouldhave burned the modern esotericists instead of those poorbastards."

"Yes, except that themodern esotericists don't have two pennies to rubtogether."

"Now you see the kind ofstories we have to listen to!" Belbo concluded. "At least Iunderstand why so many of my lunatics are obsessed with theseTemplars."

"It's a little like whatyou were saying the other day. The whole thing is a twistedsyllogism. Act like a lunatic and you will be inscrutable forever.Abracadabra, Manel Tekel Phares, Pape Satan Pape Satan Aleppe, levierge le vivace et le bel au-jourd'hui. Whenever a poet orpreacher, chief or wizard spouts gibberish, the human race spendscenturies deciphering the message. The Templars' mental confusionmakes them indecipherable. That's why so many people veneratethem."

"A positivistexplanation," Diotallevi said.

"Yes," I agreed, "maybeI am a positivist. A little surgery on the pineal gland might haveturned the Templars into Hospitalers; normal people, in otherwords. War somehow damages the cerebral circuitry. Maybe it's thesound of the cannon, or the Greek fire. Look at ourgenerals."

It was one o'clock.Diotallevi, drunk on tonic water, was clearly unsteady. We all saidgood night. I had enjoyed myself. So had they. We didn't yet knowthat we had begun to play with fire¡XGreek fire, the kind thatburns and destroys.

15

Erard de Siverey said tome: "My lord, if you think that neither I nor my heirs will incurreproach for it, I will go and fetch you help from the Comted'Anjou, whom I see in the fields over there." I said to him: "Mydear man, it seems to me you would win great honor for yourself ifyou went for help to save our lives. Your own, by the way, is alsoin great danger."

¡XJoinville, Histoire deSaint Louis, 46, 226

After that evening ofthe Templars, I had only fleeting conversations with Belbo atPilade's, where I went less and less often because I was working onmy thesis.

One day there was a bigmarch against fascist conspiracies. It was to start at theuniversity, and all the left-wing intellectuals had been invited totake part. Magnificent, police presence, but apparently the tacitunderstanding was to let things take their course. Typical of thosedays: the demonstration had no permit, but if nothing serioushappened, the police would just watch, making