Eco: Foucalt's Pendulum (36 page)

Unable to control
destinies on earth openly because governments would resist, this
mystic alliance can act only through secret societies...These,
gradually created as the need for them arises, are divided into
distinct groups, groups seemingly in opposition, sometimes
advocating the most contradictory policies in religion, politics,
economics, and literature; but they are all connected, all directed
by the invisible center that hides its power as it thus seeks to
move all the scepters of the earth.

¡XJ. M. Hoene-Wronski,
quoted by P. Sedir, Histoire et doctrine des Rose-Croix,
Bibliotheque des Hermetistes, Paris, 1910

One day I saw Signor
Salon at the door of his laboratory. Suddenly, for no reason, I
expected him to hoot like an owl. He greeted me as if I were an old
friend and asked how things were going at work. I made a
noncommittal gesture, smiled at him, and hurried on.

I was struck again by
the thought of Agarttha. Saint-Yves's ideas, as Aglie had explained
them, might be fascinating to a Diabolical¡Xbut certainly not
alarming. And yet in Salon's words and in his face, when we met in
Munich, there had been alarm.

So, as I went out, I
decided to drop in at the library and look for La Mission de I'lnde
en Europe.

There was the usual mob
in the catalog room and at the call desk. With some shoving I got
hold of the drawer I needed, found the call number, filled out a
slip, and handed it to the clerk. He informed me that the book had
been checked out¡X and, as usual in libraries, he seemed to enjoy
giving me this news. But at that very moment a voice behind me
said, "Actually, it is available. I just returned it." I looked
around and saw Inspector De Angelis.

And he recognized
me¡Xtoo quickly, I thought, since I had seen him in circumstances
that for me were exceptional, whereas he had met me in the course
of a routine inquiry. Also, in the Ardenti days I had had a wispy
beard and longer hair. What a sharp eye!

Had he been keeping me
under surveillance since my return to Italy? Or was he simply good
at faces? Policemen had to master the science of observation,
memorize features, names...

"Signor Casaubon! We're
reading the same books!"

I held out my hand."
"It's Dr. Casaubon now. Has been for a while. Maybe I'll take the
police entrance exam, as you advised me that morning. Then I'll be
able to get the books first."

"All you have to do is
be here first," he said. "But the book's returned now, and you can
collect it. Let me buy you a coffee meanwhile."

The invitation made me
uncomfortable, but I couldn't say no. We sat in a neighborhood
cafe. He asked me how I happened to be interested in the mission of
India, and I was tempted to ask him how he happened to be
interested in it, but I decided first to deflect his suspicion. I
told him that in my spare time I was continuing my study of the
Templars. According to Eschen-bach, the Templars left Europe and
went to India, some believe to the kingdom of Agarttha. Now it was
his turn. "But tell me," I asked, "why did you take out the
book?"

"Oh, you know how these
things go," he replied. "Ever since you suggested that book on the
Templars to me, I've been reading up on the subject. I don't have
to tell you that after the Templars, the next logical step is
Agarttha." Touche. Then he said: "I was joking. I took the book
because..." He hesitated. "The fact is, when I'm off duty, I like
to browse in libraries. It keeps me from turning into a robot, a
mechanical cop. You could probably express the idea more
elegantly...But tell me about yourself."

I gave a performance: an
autobiographical summary, down to the wonderful adventure of
metals.

He asked me: "In that
publishing firm, and in the one next door, aren't you doing books
on the occult sciences?"

How did he know about
Manutius? From information gathered years before, when he was
keeping an eye on Belbo? Or was he still on the Ardenti
case?

"With characters like
Colonel Ardenti turning up constantly at Garamond, and with
Manutius there to handle them," I said, "Signer Garamond decided
that was rich soil, worth tilling. If you look for such types, you
can find them by the carload."

"But Ardenti
disappeared. I hope the others don't."

"They haven't yet,
though I almost wish they would. However, satisfy my curiosity,
Inspector. I imagine in your job people disappear, or worse, every
day. Do you devote so much time to all of them?"

He looked at me with
amusement. "What makes you think I'm still devoting time to Colonel
Ardenti?"

All right, he was
gambling, had raised the ante, and it was up to me now to call his
bluff if I had the courage, make him show his cards. What was there
to lose? "Come, Inspector," I said, "you know everything about
Garamond and Manutius, and you were looking for a book on
Agarttha..."

"You mean Ardenti spoke
to you about Agarttha?"

Touche again. Yes,
Ardenti had spoken to us about Agarttha, too, as far as I could
remember. But I parried: "No, only about the Templars."

"I see," he said. Then
he added: "You mustn't think we follow a case until it's solved.
That only happens on television. Being a cop is like being a
dentist: a patient comes in, you give him a little of the old
drill, prescribe something, he comes back in two weeks, and in the
meantime you deal with a hundred other patients. A case like the
colonel's can remain in the active file maybe for ten years, and
then, while you're in the middle of a different case, taking some
confession, there's a hint, a clue, and, wham!, a short circuit in
the brain, you get an idea¡Xor else you don't, and that's
it."

"And what did you find
recently that brought on a short circuit?"

"An indiscreet question,
don't you think? But there are no mysteries, believe me. The
colonel came up again by chance. We were keeping an eye on a
character, for quite different reasons, and found he was spending
time at the Picatrix Club. You've heard of it?..."

"I know the magazine,
not the club. What goes on there?"

"Nothing, nothing at
all. People a bit loony, maybe, but well behaved. Then I remembered
that Ardenti used to go there¡Xa cop's talent consists entirely of
remembering things, a name, a face, even after ten years have gone
by. And so I began wondering what was happening at Garamond. That's
all."

"What does the Picatrix
Club have to do with your political squad?"

"Perhaps it's the
impertinence of a clear conscience, but you seem tremendously
curious."

"You're the one who
invited me for coffee."

"True, and both of us
are off duty. See here: if you look at the world in a certain way,
everything is connected to everything else." A nice hermetic
philosopheme, I thought. He immediately added: "I'm not saying that
those people are connected with politics, but...There was a time
when we went looking for the Red Brigades in squats and the Black
Brigades in martial arts clubs; nowadays the opposite could be
true. We live in a strange world. My job, I assure you, was easier
ten years ago. Today, even among ideologies, there's no
consistency. There are times when I think of switching to
narcotics. There, at least you can rely on a heroin pusher to push
heroin."

There was a pause¡Xhe
was hesitating, I think. Then, from his pocket, he produced a
notebook the size of a missal. "Look, Casaubon, you see some
strange people as part of your job. You go to the library and look
up even stranger books. Help me. What do you know about
synarchy?"

"Now you're embarrassing
me. Almost nothing. I heard it mentioned in connection with
Saint-Yves; that's all."

"What are they saying
about it, around?"

"If they're saying
anything, I haven't heard. To be frank, it sounds like fascism to
me."

"Actually, many of its
theses were picked up by Action Francaise. If that were the whole
story, I'd be okay. I find a group that talks about synarchy and I
can give it a political color. But in my reading, I've learned that
in 1929 a certain Vivian Postel du Mas and Jeanne Canudo founded a
group called Polaris, which was inspired by the myth of the King of
the World. They proposed a synarchic project: social service
opposed to capitalist profit, the elimination of the class struggle
through cooperatives...It sounds like a kind of Fabian socialism, a
libertarian and communitarian movement. Note that both Polaris and
the Irish Fabians were accused of being involved in a syn-archic
plot led by the Jews. And who accused them? The Revue
Internationale des societes secretes, which talks about a
Jewish-Masonic-Bolshevik plot. Many of its contributors belonged to
a secret right-wing organization called La Sapiniere. And they say
that all these revolutionary groups are only the front for a
diabolical plot hatched by an occultist cenacle. Now you'll say:
All right, Saint-Yves ended up inspiring reformist groups, but
these ! days the right lumps everything together and sees it all as
a demo-pluto-social-Judaic conspiracy. Mussolini did the same
thing. But why accuse them of being controlled by an occultist
cenacle? According to the little I know¡Xtake Picatrix, for
example¡Xthose occultism people couldn't care less about the
workers' movement." "So it seems also to me, O Socrates. So?"
"Thanks for the Socrates. But now we're coming to the good part.
The more I read on the subject, the more I get confused. In the
forties various self-styled synarchic groups sprang up; they talked
about a new European order led by a government of wise men, above
party lines. And where did these groups meet? In Vichy
collaborationist circles. Then, you say, we got it wrong; synarchy
is right-wing. But hold on! Having read this far, I begin to see
that there is one theme that finds them all in agreement: Synarchy
exists and secretly rules the world. But here comes the ¡¥but'..."
"But?"

"But on January 24,
1937, Dmitri Navachine, Mason and Martinist (I don't know what
Martinist means, but I think it's one of those sects), economic
adviser of the Front Populaire, after having been director of a
Moscow bank, was assassinated by the Organisation secrete d'action
revolutionnaire et nationale, better known as La Cagoule, financed
by Mussolini. It was said then that La Cagoule was guided by a
secret synarchy and that Navachine was killed because he had
discovered its mysteries. A document originating from left-wing
circles during the Occupation denounced a synarchic Pact of the
Empire, which was responsible for the French defeat, a pact that
was a manifestation of Portuguese-style fascism. But then it turned
out that the pact was drawn up by Du Mas and Canudo and contained
ideas they had published and publicized everywhere. Nothing secret
about it. But these ideas were revealed as secret, extremely
secret, in 1946 by one Husson, who denounced a revolutionary
synarchic pact of the left, as he wrote in his Synarchie, panorama
de 25 annees d'activite occulte, which he signed...wait, let me
find it...Geoffrey de Charnay." "Fine!" I said. "Charnay was a
companion of Molay, the grand master of the Templars. They died
together at the stake. Here we have a neo-Templar attacking
synarchy from the right. But synarchy is born at Agarttha, which is
the refuge of the Templars!"

"What did I tell you?
You see, you've given me an additional clue. Unfortunately, it only
increases the confusion. So, on the right, a synarchic pact of the
left is denounced as socialist and secret, though it's not really
secret; it's the same synarchic pact, as you saw, that was
denounced by the left. And now we come to new revelations: synarchy
is a Jesuit plot to undermine the Third Republic. A thesis
expounded by Roger Mennevee, leftist. To allow me to sleep nights,
my reading then tells me that in 1943 in certain Vichy military
circles¡XPetainist, yes, but anti-German¡Xdocuments circulated that
prove synarchy was a Nazi plot: Hitler was a Rosicrucian influenced
by the Masons, who now have moved from hatching a Judeo-Bolshevik
plot to making an imperial German one."

"So everything is
settled."

"If only that were all.
Yet another revelation: Synarchy is a plot of the international
technocrats. This was asserted in 1960 by one Villemarest, Le 14'
complot du 13 mai. The techno-synarchic plot wants to destabilize
governments and, to do it, provokes wars, backs coups d'etat,
foments schisms in political parties, promotes internecine
hatreds...Do you recognize these synarchists? "

"My God, it's the IMS,
the Imperialist Multinational State¡X what the Red Brigades were
talking about a few years ago!"

"The answer is correct.
And now what does Inspector De Angelis do if he finds a reference
to synarchy somewhere? He asks the advice of Dr. Casaubon, the
Templar expert."

"My answer: There exists
a secret society with branches throughout the world, and its plot
is to spread the rumor that a universal plot exists."

"You're joking, but
I¡X"

"I'm not joking. Come
and read the manuscripts that turn up at Manutius. But if you want
a more down-to-earth explanation, it's like the story of the man
with a bad stammer who complains that the radio station wouldn't
hire him as an announcer because he didn't carry- a party card. We
always have to blame our failures on somebody else, and
dictatorships always need an external enemy to bind their followers
together. As the man said, for every complex problem there's a
simple solution, and it's wrong."