Eco: Foucalt's Pendulum by eco foucault (ebook smartphone .txt) 📕

read the several linessoftly as they appeared upon the frame; and where they found threeor four words together that might make part of a sentence, theydictated to the four remaining boys...

¡XJonathan Swift,Gulliver's Travels, III, 5

I believe that inembellishing his dream, Belbo returned once again to the idea oflost opportunity and his vow of renunciation, to his life's failureto seize¡Xif it ever existed¡Xthe Moment. The Plan began becauseBelbo had now resigned himself to creating private, fictitiousmoments.

I asked him for sometext or other, and he rummaged through the papers on his desk,where there was a heap of manuscripts perilously piled one on topof the other, with no concern for weight or size. He found the onehe was looking for and tried to slip it out, thus causing theothers to spill to the floor. Folders came open; pages escapedtheir flimsy containers.

"Couldn't you have movedthe top half first?" I asked. Wasting my breath: this was how healways did it.

He replied, as he alwaysdid: "Gudrun will pick them up this evening. She has to have amission in life; otherwise she loses her identity."

But this time I had apersonal stake in the safety of the manuscripts, because I was nowpart of the firm. "Gudrun won't be able to put them back together,"I said. "She'll put the wrong pages in the wrongfolders."

"If Diotallevi heardyou, he'd rejoice. A way of producing different books, eclectic,random books. It's part of the logic of theDiabolicals."

"But we'd find ourselvesin the situation of the cabalists: taking millennia to discover theright combination. You're simply using Gudrun in place of themonkey that spends an eternity at the typewriter. As far asevolution goes, we've made no progress. Unless there's some programin Abulafia to do this work."

Meanwhile Diotallevi hadcome in.

"Of course there is,"Belbo said, "and in theory you could have up to two thousandentries. All that's needed is the data and the desire. Take, forexample, poetry. The program asks you how many lines you want inthe poem, and you decide: ten, twenty, a hundred. Then the programrandomizes the line numbers. In other words, a new arrangement eachtime. With ten lines you can make thousands and thousands of randompoems. Yesterday I entered such lines as ¡¥And the linden treesquiver,"Thou sinister albatross,"The rubber plant is free,"I offerthee my life,' and so on. Here are some of my betterefforts."

I count the nights, thesistrum sounds....

Death, thyvictory,

Death, thyvictory....

The rubber plant isfree.

From the heart ofdawn

Thou sinisteralbatross.

(The rubber plant isfree...)

Death, thyvictory.

And the linden treesquiver,

I count the nights, thesistrum sounds,

The hoopoe awaitsme,

And the linden treesquiver.

"It's repetitive, yes,but repetitions can make poetic sense." "Interesting," Diotallevisaid. "This reconciles me to your machine. So if we fed it theentire Torah and told it¡Xwhat's the term?¡Xto randomize, it wouldperform some authentic temurah, recombining the verses of theBook?" "Yes, but it's a question of time. That would takecenturies." I said: "What if, instead, you fed it a few dozennotions taken from the works of the Diabolicals¡Xfor example, theTemplars fled to Scotland, or the Corpus Hermeticum arrived inFlorence in 1460¡Xand threw in a few connective phrases like ¡¥It'sobvious that' and ¡¥This proves that'? We might end up withsomething revelatory. Then we fill in the gaps, call therepetitions prophecies, and¡Xvoila¡Xa hitherto unpublished chapterof the history of magic, at the very least!" "An idea of genius,"Belbo said. "Let's start right away."

"No. It's seven o'clock.Tomorrow."

"I'm starting tonight.Help me, just for a minute. Pick up, say, twenty of those pages onthe floor, at random, glance at the first sentence of each, andthat will be an entry."

I bent over, picked up,and read: "Joseph of Arimathea carries the Grail intoFrance."

"Excellent...I'vewritten it. Go on."

"According to theTemplar Tradition, Godefroy de Bouillon founded the Grand Priory ofZion in Jerusalem."

And "Debussy was aRosicrucian."

"Excuse me," Diotallevisaid, "but you also have to include some neutral data¡Xfor example,the koala lives in Australia, or Papin invented the pressurecooker."

"Minnie Mouse isMickey's fiancee."

"We mustn't overdoit."

"No, we must overdo it.If we admit that in the whole universe there is even a single factthat does not reveal a mystery, then we violate hermeticthought."

"That's true. Minnie'sin. And, if you'll allow me, I'll add a fundamental axiom: TheTemplars have something to do with everything."

"That goes withoutsaying," Diotallevi agreed.

We went on for a while,but then it was really late. Belbo told us not to worry, he'dcontinue on his own. When Gudrun came in and told us she waslocking up, he said he'd be staying to do some work and asked herto pick up the papers on the floor. Gudrun made sounds that couldhave belonged either to Latin sine flexione or to Chermish but thatclearly expressed indignation and dismay, which demonstrated theuniversal kinship of all languages, descendants branched from asingle, Adamic root. She obeyed, randomizing better than anycomputer.

The next morning, Belbowas radiant. "It works," he said. "It works beyond anything wecould have hoped for." He handed us the printout.

The Templars havesomething to do with everything

What follows is nottrue

Jesus was crucifiedunder Pontius Pilate

The sage Omus foundedthe Rosy Cross in Egypt

There are cabalists inProvence

Who was married at thefeast of Cana?

Minnie Mouse is Mickey'sfiancee

It logically followsthat

If

The Druids veneratedblack virgins

Then

Simon Magus identifiesSophia as a prostitute of Tyre

Who was married at thefeast of Cana?

The Merovingiansproclaim themselves kings by divine right

The Templars havesomething to do with everything

"A bit obscure,"Diotallevi said.

"Because you don't seethe connections. And you don't give due importance to the questionthat recurs twice: Who was married at the feast of Cana?Repetitions are magic keys. Of course, I've compiled; but compilingthe truth is the initiate's right. Here is my interpretation: Jesuswas not crucified, and for that reason the Templars denied theCrucifix. The legend of Joseph of Arimathea covers a deeper truth:Jesus, not the Grail, landed in France, among the cabalists ofProvence. Jesus is the metaphor of the King of the World, the truefounder of the Rosicrucians. And who landed with Jesus? His wife.In the Gospels why aren't we told who was married at Cana? It wasthe wedding of Jesus, and it was a wedding that could not bediscussed, because the bride was a public sinner, Mary Magdalene.That's why, ever since, all the Illuminati from Simon Magus toPostel seek the principle of the eternal feminine in a brothel. AndJesus,