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

the message remained forthe colonel to interpret, and we were all eager to hear. It was nowsix o'clock. Six P.M., I thought: eighteen hours.

"All right," Belbo said."Thirty-six per century; step by step the knights prepare toconverge on the Stone. But what is this Stone?"

"Really, gentlemen! TheStone is, of course, the Grail."

20

The Middle Ages awaitedthe hero of the Graal and expected that the head of the Holy RomanEmpire would become an image and a manifestation of that "King ofthe World."...The invisible Emperor was to become also the visibleone, and the Middle Ages would be "middle" in the sense of"central"...the invisible, inviolable center, the sovereign whomust reawaken, the same hero, avenging and restoring. These are notfantasies of a dead, romantic past, but, rather, the simple truthfor those who, today, alone can legitimately call themselvesalive.

¡XJulius Evola, Ilmistero del Graal, Rome, Edizioni Mediterranee, 1983, Chapter 23and epilogue

"You mean the Grail alsocomes into this?" Belbo asked.

"Naturally. And I'm notthe only one who says so. You are educated men; there is no needfor me to go into the legend of the Grail. The Knights of the RoundTable, the mystical quest for this miraculous object, which somebelieve was the chalice in which the blood of Jesus was collected.The Grail taken to France by Joseph of Arimathea. Others say it isa stone that possesses mysterious powers. The Grail is oftendepicted as a dazzling light. It's a symbol representing power, asource of immense energy. It nourishes, heals wounds, blinds,strikes down...Some have thought of it as the philosopher's stoneof the alchemists, but even if that's so, what was thephilosopher's stone if not a symbol of some cosmic energy? Theliterature on the subject is endless, but you can easilydistinguish signs that are irrefutable. In Wolfram von Eschenbach'sParzival the Grail is said to be kept in a Templar castle! WasEschenbach an initiate? A foolhardy writer who revealed too much?But there is more. This Grail kept by the Templars is described asa stone fallen from the heavens: lapis exillis. It's not clearwhether the expression means ¡¥stone from heaven' (ex coelis) or¡¥stone from exile.' But in either case, it is something that comesfrom far away, and some suggest that it could have been ameteorite. As far as we're concerned, however, it is definitely astone. Whatever the Grail may have been, for the Templars it wasthe symbol of the objective, or end of the plan."

"Excuse me," I said,"but the document indicates that the knights' sixth meeting wouldbe held near or above a stone. It doesn't tell them to find thestone."

"Another subtleambiguity, another luminous mystical analogy! Yes, indeed: thesixth meeting is to be held near a stone, and we shall soon seewhere; but at that stone, where the transmission of the plan isfulfilled and the six seals opened, the knights will learn where tofind the Stone! It's like the pun in the New Testament: Thou artPeter and upon this rock...On the stone you shall find theStone."

"It's all quiteobvious," Belbo said. "Please go on. Casau-bon, stop interrupting.We're all eager to hear the rest."

"Well then," the colonelsaid, "the reference to the Grail made me think for a long timethat the treasure was a huge deposit of radioactive material,perhaps of extraterrestrial origin. Consider, for example, themysterious wound in the legend of King Amfortas. The account makeshim sound like a radiologist who has been dangerously exposed. Heis not to be touched. Why not? Imagine how excited the Templarsmust have been when they reached the shores of the Dead Sea, whosewaters, as you gentlemen surely know, are so dense that on them youfloat like a cork. It is a sea with curative powers. They couldhave discovered a deposit of radium or uranium in Palestine, adeposit they weren't in a position to exploit then andthere.

"The relationshipbetween the Grail, the Templars, and the Cathars was investigatedscientifically by a valiant German officer. I'm referring to OttoRahn, an SS Obersturmbannruhrer who devoted his life to rigorous,scholarly study of the European and Aryan nature of the Grail. Iwon't go into why and how he lost his life in 1939, but some insistthat...Well, how can I forget what happened to Ingolf ? In anycase, Rahn demonstrated a link between the Golden Fleece of theArgonauts and the Grail. It's obvious that there's a connectionbetween the Grail, the philosopher's stone, and the enormous powersource that Hitler's followers were seeking on the eve of the warand pursued to their last breath. In one version of the Argonauts'story, remember, they see a cup¡Xa cup, mind you¡Xfloating over theMountain of the World with the Tree of Light. When the Argonautsfind the Golden Fleece, their ship is magically borne into theMilky Way, in the austral sky, where the luminous nature of Godeternal is made manifest by the Southern Cross, the Triangle, andthe Altar. The triangle symbolizes the Holy Trinity, the cross thedivine Sacrifice of love, and the altar is the Table of the Supper,on which stood the Cup of the Resurrection. The Celtic and Aryanorigin of all these symbols is obvious."

The colonel seemedcaught in the same heroic ecstasy that had impelled hisObersturmunddrang, or whatever the hell that German was, to thesupreme sacrifice. Someone had to bring him down toearth.

"Where is all thisleading?" I asked.

"Signer Casaubon, can'tyou see it for yourself? The Grail has been called the LuciferianStone, which points to the figure of Baphomet. The Grail is a powersource, the Templars were the guardians of an energy secret, andthey drew up their plan accordingly. Where would the unknowncommanderies be established? Where, gentleman?" And the colonellooked at us with a conspiratorial air, as if we were all in theplot together. "I had a trail to follow, erroneous but useful. In1797, Charles Louis Cadet de Gassicourt, an author who must haveoverheard some secrets, wrote a book entitled Le tombeau de JacquesMalay ou le secret des conspirateurs a ceux qui veulent toutsavoir. By an interesting coincidence, his work turned up inIngolf's little library. He claims that Molay, before his death,set up four secret lodges: in Paris, Scotland, Stockholm, andNaples. These four lodges were to exterminate all monarchs anddestroy the power of die pope. Gassicourt was an