Eco: Foucalt's Pendulum eco foucault (highly illogical behavior txt) 📖

electricity hypothesis, it would explain the muchvaunted curse of Tutankhamen. And how were the Egyptians able tolift the blocks of the pyramids? Can you lift boulders withelectric shocks, can you make them fly with nuclear fission? No,the Egyptians found a way to eliminate the force of gravity; theypossessed the secret of levitation. Another form of energy...It isknown that the Chaldean priests operated sacred machines by soundsalone, and the priests of Karnak and Thebes could open the doors ofa temple with only their voice¡Xand what else could be the origin,if you think about it, of the legend of Open Sesame?"

"So?" Belboasked.

"Now here's the point,my friend. Electricity, radioactivity, atomic energy¡Xthe trueinitiate knows that these are metaphors, masks, conventional lies,or, at most, pathetic surrogates, for an ancestral, forgottenforce, a force the initiate seeks and one day will know. We shouldspeak perhaps"¡Xhe hesitated a moment¡X "of telluriccurrents."

"What?" one of us asked,I forget who.

Aglie seemeddisappointed. "You see? I was beginning to hope that among yourprospective authors one had appeared who could tell me somethingmore interesting. But it grows late. Very well, my friends, ourpact is made; the rest was just the rambling of an elderlyscholar.''

As he held out his handto us, the butler entered and murmured something in his ear. "Ah,the sweet friend," Aglie said, "I had forgotten. Ask her to wait amoment...No, not in the living room, in the Turkishsalon."

The sweet friend musthave been familiar with the house, because she was already on thethreshold of the study, and without even looking at us, in thegathering shadows of the day at its end, she proceeded confidentlyto Aglie, patted his cheek, and said: "Simon, you're not going tomake me wait outside, are you?" It was LorenzaPellegrini.

Aglie moved asideslightly, kissed her hand, and said, gesturing at us: "My sweetSophia, you know you are always welcome, as you illuminate everyhouse you enter. I was merely saying good-bye to theseguests."

Lorenza turned, saw us,and made a cheerful wave of greeting¡XI don't believe I ever sawher discomposed or embarrassed. "Oh, how nice," she said; "you alsoknow my friend! Hello, Jacopo."

Belbo turned pale. Wesaid good-bye. Aglie expressed pleasure that we knew each other. "Iconsider our mutual acquaintance to be one of the most genuinecreatures I ever had the good fortune to know. In her freshness sheincarnates¡Xallow an old man of learning this fancy¡Xthe Sophia,exiled on this earth. But, my sweet Sophia, I haven't had time tolet you know: the promised evening has been postponed for a fewweeks. I'm so sorry.''

"It doesn't matter,"Lorenza said. "I'll wait. Are you going to the bar?" she askedus¡Xor, rather, commanded us. "Good. I'll stay here for a half houror so. Simon's giving me one of his elixirs. You should try them.But he says they're only for the elect. Then I'll joinyou."

Aglie smiled with theair of an indulgent uncle; he had her take a seat, then accompaniedus to the door.

Out in the street again,we headed for Pilade's, in my car. Belbo was silent. We didn't talkall the way there. But at the bar, the spell had to bebroken.

"I hope I haven'tdelivered you into the hands of a lunatic," I said.

"No," Belbo said. "Theman is keen, subtle. It's just that he lives in a world differentfrom ours." Then he added grimly: "Or almost."

49

The Traditio Templipostulates, independently, the tradition of a templar knighthood, aspiritual knighthood of initiates...

¡XHenry Corbin, Templeet contemplation, Paris, Flammarion, 1980

"I believe I've got yourAgile figured out, Casaubon," Diotal-levi said, having ordered asparkling white wine from Pilade, making all of us fear for hismoral health. "He's a scholar, curious about the secret sciences,suspicious of dilettantes, of those who learn by ear. Yet, as weourselves learned today, by our eavesdropping, he may scorn thembut he listens to them, he may criticize them but he doesn'tdissociate himself from them."

"Signer or Count orMargrave Aglie, or whatever the hell he is, said something veryrevealing today," Belbo added. "He used the expression ¡¥spiritualknighthood.' He feels joined to them by a bond of spiritualknighthood. I think I understand him."

"Joined, in what sense?"we asked.

Belbo was now on histhird martini (whiskey in the evening, he claimed, because it wascalming and induced reverie; martinis in the afternoon, becausethey stimulated and fortified). He began talking about hischildhood in ***, as he had already done once with me.

"It was between 1943 and1945, that is, the period of transition from Fascism to democracyand then to the dictatorship of the Salo republic, with thepartisan war going on in the mountains. At the beginning of thisstory I was eleven, and staying in my uncle Carlo's house. Myfamily normally lived in the city, but in 1943 the air raids wereincreasing and my mother had decided to evacuate.

"Uncle Carlo and AuntCaterina lived in ***. Uncle Carlo came from a farming family andhad inherited the *** house, with some land, which was cultivatedby a tenant farmer named Adeline Canepa. The tenant planted,harvested the grain, made the wine, and gave half of everything tothe owner. A tense situation, obviously: the tenant consideredhimself exploited, and so did the owner, who received only half theproduce of his land.

The landowners hated thetenants and the tenants hated the landowners. But in Uncle Carlo'scase they lived side by side.

"In 1914 Uncle Carlo hadenlisted in the Alpine troops. A bluff Piedmontese, all duty andFatherland, he became a lieutenant, then a captain. One day, in abattle on the Carso, he found himself beside an idiot soldier wholet a grenade explode in his hands¡Xwhy else call them handgrenades? Uncle Carlo was about to be thrown into a common gravewhen an orderly realized he was still alive. They took him to afield hospital, removed the eye that was hanging out of its socket,cut off one arm, and, according to Aunt Caterina, they also put ametal plate in his head, because he had lost some of his skull. Inother words, a masterpiece of surgery on the one hand and a hero onthe other. Silver medal, cavalier of the Crown of Italy, and afterthe war a good steady job in public administration. Uncle Carloended up head of the tax office in ***, where, after inheriting thefamily property,