Eco: Foucalt's Pendulum (31 page)

People who meet on the
street...secretly dedicate themselves to operations of Black Magic,
they bind or seek to bind themselves to the Spirits of Darkness, to
satisfy their ambitions, their hates, their loves, to do¡Xin a
word¡XEvil.

¡XJ. K. Huysmans,
Preface to J. Bois, Le satanisme et la magie, 1895, pp.
VIII-IX

I had thought that
Project Hermes was the rough sketch of an idea, not a plan of
action. But I didn't yet know Signer Garamond. In the days that
followed, while I stayed late in libraries looking for
illustrations about metals, at Manutius they were already at
work.

Two months later in
Belbo's office, I found, hot off the press, an issue of The Italic
Parnassus, with a long article, "The Rebirth of Occultism," in
which the well-known Hermeticist Dr. Moebius¡XBelbo's new
pseudonym, and source of his first bonus from Project
Hermes¡Xtalked about the miraculous renaissance of the occult
sciences in the modern world and announced that Manutius intended
to move in this direction with its new series "Isis
Unveiled."

Meanwhile, Signer
Garamond had written letters to various reviews of Hermeticism,
astrology, tarot, UFOlogy, signing one name or another and
requesting information about the new series announced by Manutius.
Whereupon the editors of the reviews telephoned Manutius,
requesting information, and Signor Garamond acted mysterious,
saying he could not yet reveal the first ten titles, which were,
however, in the works. In this way theworld of the occultists,
stirred by constant drumming of the tomtoms, was now alerted to
Project Hermes.

"We disguise ourselves
as a flower," Signer Garamond said, having summoned us to his
office, "and the bees will come swarming.''

That wasn't all.
Garamond wanted to show us the flier (the depliant, he called it):
a simple affair, four pages, but on glossy paper. The first page
reproduced what was to be the uniform cover of the books in the
series: a kind of golden seal (the Pen-tacle of Solomon, Garamond
explained) on a black ground; the page was framed by interwoven
swastikas (but Asian swastikas, Garamond hastened to add, which
went in the direction of the sun, not the Nazi kind, which went
clockwise). At the top, where each volume's title would go, were
the words "There are more things in heaven and earth..." The flier
extolled the glories of Manutius in the service of culture, then
stated, with some catchy phrases, that the contemporary world
sought truths deeper and more luminous than those science could
provide: "From Egypt, from Chaldea, from Tibet, a forgotten
knowledge¡Xfor the spiritual rebirth of the West."

Belbo asked where the
flier would go, and Garamond smiled like the evil genius of the
rajah of Assam, as Belbo would have said. "From France I've ordered
a directory of all the secret societies in the world today. It
exists. Here it is. Editions Henry Veyrier, with addresses, postal
codes, phone numbers. Take a look at it, Belbo, and eliminate those
that don't apply, because I see it also includes the Jesuits, Opus
Dei, the Carbonari, and Rotary. Find all the ones with occult
tendencies. I've already underlined some."

He leafed through it.
"Here you are: the Absolutists (who believe in metamorphosis), the
Aetherius Society of California (telepathic relations with Mars),
the Astara of Lausanne (oath of absolute secrecy), Atalanteans in
Great Britain (search for lost happiness), Builders of the Adytum
in California (alchemy, cabala, astrology), Cercle E. B. of
Perpignan (dedicated to Hator, goddess of love and guardian of the
Mountain of the Dead), Cercle Eliphas Levi of Maule (I don't know
who this Levi is; perhaps that French anthropologist or whatever he
was), Knights of the Templar Alliance of Toulouse, Druidic College
of Gaul, Couvent Spiritualiste de Jericho, the Cosmic Church of
Truth in Florida, Traditionalist Seminar of Econe in Switzerland,
the Mormons (I read about them in a detective story, too, but maybe
they don't exist anymore), the Church of Mithra in London and
Brussels, the Church of Satan in Los Angeles, the United Lu-ciferan
Church of France, the Apostolic Rosicrucian Church in Brussels,
Children of Darkness and Green Order on the Ivory Coast (let's
forget that one; God knows what language they write in), Escuela
Hermetista Occidental of Montevideo, the National Institute of
Cabala in Manhattan, the Central Ohio Temple of Hermetic Science,
Tetra-Gnosis of Chicago, Ancient Brethren of the Rosie-Cross of
Saint Cyr-sur-Mer, Johannite Fraternity for the Templar
Resurrection in Kassel, International Fraternity of Isis in
Grenoble, Ancient Bavarian Illuminati of San Francisco, the
Sanctuary of Gnosis of Sherman Oaks, the Grail Foundation of
America, Sociedade do Graal do Brasil, Hermetic Brotherhood of
Luxor, Lectorium Rosicrucianum in Holland, the Grail Movement of
Strasbourg, Order of Anubis in New York, Temple of the Black
Pentacle in Manchester, Odinist Fellowship in Florida, the Order of
the Garter (even the Queen of England must be in that one), the
Order of the Vril (neo-Nazi Masons, no address), Militia Templi in
Montpellier, Sovereign Order of the Solar Temple in Monte Carlo,
Rosy Cross of Harlem (you understand? Even the blacks now), Wicca
(Luciferine association of Celtic obedience; they invoke the
seventy-two geni of the cabala)...Need I go on?"

"Do all those really
exist?" Belbo asked.

"Those and more. To
work, gentlemen. Draw up a definitive list. Then we'll do our
mailing. Include all those foreigners; news travels fast among
them. One thing remains for us to do: we have to go around to the
right shops and talk not only with the booksellers but also with
the customers. Mention that such-and-such a series
exists."

Diotallevi objected that
we shouldn't expose ourselves in this way; we should find people to
do it for us. Garamond told him to find some, "provided they're
free."

"That's asking a lot,"
Belbo said when we were back in his office.

But the gods of the
underworld were protecting us. At that very moment Lorenza
Pellegrini came in, more solar than ever, making Belbo brighten.
She saw the fliers and was curious.

When she heard about the
project of the firm next door, she said: "Terrific! I have this
fantastic friend, an ex-Tupamaro from Uruguay, who works for a
magazine called Picatrix. He's always taking me to seances. There,
I met a fantastic ectoplasm; he asks for me now every time he
materializes!"

Belbo looked at Lorenza
as if to ask her something, then changed his mind. Perhaps he was
becoming accustomed to hearing about Lorenza's alarming friends and
had decided to worry only about the ones that threatened his
relationship with her (did they have a relationship?). In that
reference to Picatrix he saw the threat not of the colonel but of
the fantastic ex-Tupamaro. But Lorenza was now talking about
something else, telling us that she visited many of those little
shops that sold the kind of books Isis Unveiled wanted to
publish.

"That's a real trip, you
know," she was saying. "They tell all about medicinal herbs or list
instructions for making a ho-munculus, remember what Faust did with
Helen of Troy. Oh, Jacopo, let's! I'd love to have your homunculus,
and then we could keep it like a dachshund. It's easy, the book
says: you just have to collect a little human seed in a test tube.
That wouldn't be hard for you¡Xdon't blush, silly. Then you mix it
with hip-pomene, which is some liquid that is excreted¡Xno, not
excreted¡Xwhat's the word?"

"Secreted," Diotallevi
suggested.

"Really? Anyway,
pregnant mares make it. I realize that's a bit harder to get. If I
were a pregnant mare, I wouldn't like

Ceople coming to collect
my hippomene, especially strangers, ut I think you can buy it in
packages, like joss sticks. Then you put it all in a pot and let it
steep for forty days, and little by little you see a tiny form take
shape, a fetus thing, which in another two months becomes a dear
little homunculus, and he comes out and puts himself at your
service. And they never die. Imagine: they'll even put flowers on
your grave after you're dead!"

"What about the
customers in those bookshops?" "Fantastic people, people who talk
with angels, people who make gold, and professional sorcerers with
faces exactly like professional sorcerers..."

"What's the face of a
professional sorcerer like?" "An aquiline nose, Russian eyebrows,
piercing eyes. The hair is long, like painters in the old days, and
there's a beard, not thick, with bare patches between the chin and
the cheeks, and the mustache droops forward and falls in clumps
over their lips, but that's only natural, because their lips are
thin, poor things, and their teeth stick out. They shouldn't smile,
with those teeth, but they do, very sweetly, but the eyes¡XI said
they were piercing, didn't I?¡Xlook at you in an unsettling way."
"Facies hermetica," Diotallevi remarked. "Really? Well, you
understand, then. When somebody comes in and asks for a book, say,
of prayers against evil spirits, they immediately suggest the right
title to the bookseller, and, of course, it's always a title he
doesn't have in stock. But then, if you make friends and ask if the
book works, they smile again, indulgently, as if they were talking
to children, and they say that with this sort of thing you have to
be quite careful. They tell you about cases of devils that did
horrible things to friends of theirs, but when you get frightened,
they say that often it's only hysteria. In other words, you never
know whether they believe it or not. Sometimes the booksellers give
me sticks of incense as presents; once one of them gave me a little
ivory hand to ward off the evil eye."

"Then, if the occasion
arises," Belbo said to her, "while you're browsing in those places,
ask if they know anything about the new Manutius series, and show
them our flier."

Lorenza went off with a
dozen fliers. I guess she did a good job in the weeks that
followed, but, even so, I wouldn't have believed things could move
so fast. Within a few months, Si-gnora Grazia simply couldn't keep
up with the Diabolicals, as we had come to call the SFAs with
occult interests. And, by their very nature, they were
legion.

Invoke the forces of the
Tablet of Union by means of Supreme Ritual of Pentagram, with the
Active and Passive Spirit, with Eheieh and Agla. Return to the
Altar, and recite the following Enochian Spirit Invocation: Ol
Sonuf Vaorsag Goho lad Bait, Lonsh Calz Vonpho, Sobra Z-ol Ror I Ta
Nazps, od Graa Ta Malprg...Ds Hol-q Qaa Nothoa Zimz, Od Commah Ta
Nopbloh Zien...

¡XIsrael Regardie, the
Original Account of the Teachings, Rites and Ceremonies of the
Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, Ritual for Invisibility, St.
Paul, Llewellyn Publications, 1986, p. 423

We were lucky; our first
meeting was of the highest quality¡Xat least as far as our
initiation was concerned.

For the occasion the
trio was complete¡XBelbo, Diotallevi, and I¡Xand when our guest
came in, we almost let out a cry of satisfaction. He had the facies
hermetica described by Lorenza Pellegrini, and, what's more, he was
dressed in black.

He looked around
circumspectly, then introduced himself: Professor Camestres. At the
question "Professor of what?" he made a vague gesture as if urging
us to exercise greater discretion. "Forgive me," he said, "I don't
know whether you gentlemen are interested in the subject purely
from a professional, commercial standpoint, or whether you are
connected with any mystical group..."

We reassured him on that
point.

"Perhaps I am being
excessively cautious," he said, "but I do not wish to have anything
to do with a member of the OTO." Seeing our puzzlement, he added:
"Ordo Templi Orientis, the conventicle of the remaining self-styled
followers of Aleister Crowley...I see that you are not
connected...All the better: there will be no prejudices on your
side." He agreed to sit down. "Because, you understand, the work I
would now like to show you takes a courageous stand against
Crowley. All of us, myself included, are still faithful to the
revelations of the Liber AL vel legis, which, as you probably know,
was dictated to Crowley in Cairo in 1904 by a higher intelligence
named Aiwaz. This text is followed by the faithful of the OTO even
today. They draw on all four editions, the first of which preceded
by nine months the outbreak of the war in the Balkans, the second
by nine months the outbreak of the First World War, the third by
nine months the Sino-Japanese War, and the fourth by nine months
the massacres of the Spanish Civil War..."

I couldn't help crossing
my fingers. He noticed and said with a funereal smile, "I
understand your apprehension. What I am bringing you is the fifth
edition of that book. What, you ask, will happen in nine months'
time? Nothing, gentlemen, rest assured. Because what I am proposing
is an enlarged Liber legis, inasmuch as I have had the good fortune
to be visited not by a mere higher intelligence but by Al himself,
the supreme principle¡Xnamely, Hoor-paar-Kraat, who is the double
or the mystical twin of Ra-Hoor-Khuit. My sole concern, also to
ward off evil influences, is that my work be published before the
winter solstice."

"I think that could be
managed," Belbo said.

"I'm most pleased. The
book will cause a stir in the circles of initiates, because, as you
will understand, my mystical source is more serious and
authenticated than Crowley's. I don't know how Crowley could have
activated the Rituals of the Beast without bearing in mind the
Liturgy of the Sword. Only by unsheathing the sword can the nature
of Mahapralaya be understood, the Third Eye of Kundalini, in other
words. And also in his arith-mology, all based on the Number of the
Beast, he failed to consider the New Numbers: 93, 118, 444, 868,
and 1001.

"What do they mean?"
asked Diotallevi, suddenly all ears.

"Ah," said Professor
Camestres, "as was already stated in the first Liber legis, every
number is infinite and therefore there is no real
difference!"

"I understand," Belbo
said. "But don't you think all this will be a bit obscure for the
common reader?"

Camestres almost bounced
in his chair. "Why, it's absolutely indispensable. Anyone who
approached these secrets without the proper preparation would
plunge headlong into the Abyss! Even by making them public in a
veiled way, believe ine, I am running risks. I work within the
environment of the worship of the Beast, but more radically than
Crowley: you will see, in my pages on the congressus cum daemone,
the requirements for the furnishing of the temple and the carnal
union with the Scarlet Woman and the Beast she rides. Crowley
stopped at so-called carnal congress against nature, while I carry
the ritual beyond Evil as we conceive it. I touch the
inconceivable, the absolute purity of goety, the extreme threshold
of the Bas-Aumgn and the Sa-Ba-Ft..."

The only thing left for
Belbo to do was to sound out Ca-mestres's financial capability. He
did this with long, roundabout sentences, and finally it emerged
that, like Bramanti before him, the professor had no thought of
self-financing. Then the dismissal phase began, with a mild request
of could we keep the manuscript for a week, we would have a look at
it, and then we would see. But at this point Camestres clasped the
manuscript to his bosom, said he had never been treated with such
distrust, and went out, hinting that he had means, out of the
ordinary, to make us regret the insult we had given him.

But before long we had
dozens of manuscripts from eligible SFAs. A modicum of selectivity
was necessary, since these books were also meant to be sold.
Because it was impossible for us to read them all, we glanced at
the contents, the indexes, some of the text, then traded
discoveries.