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

the momentwhen the spirit of magic seized the helm of material progress.Lenin said Communism was socialism plus electricity. In a sense,Hitlerism was Guenonism plus armored divisions.

¡XPauwels and Bergier,Le matin des magiciens, Paris, Gallimard, 1960, 2, vii

Now Belbo had managed towork Hitler into the Plan. "It's all there, black on white. Thefounders of Nazism were involved in Teutonicneo-Templarism."

"An airtightcase."

"I'm not inventing,Casaubon, for once I'm not inventing!"

"Take it easy. When didwe ever invent anything? We've always started with objective data,with information in the public domain."

"This time, too. In 1912a Germanenorden group is formed, proposing the tenet of Aryansuperiority. In 1918 a certain Baron von Sebottendorf founds arelated group, the Thule Gesellschaft, a secret society, yetanother variation on the Templar Strict Observance, but with strongracist, pan-German, neo-Aryan tendencies. And in ¡¥33 Sebottendorfwrites that he had sown what Hitler reaped. Furthermore, it is inThule Gesellschaft circles that the hooked cross appears. And whowas among the first to join the Thule? Rudolf Hess, Hitler's evilgenius! Then Rosenberg! Then Hitler himself! And note that in hiscell in Spandau even today, as you've surely read in the papers,Hess studies the esoteric sciences. Sebottendorf in ¡¥24 writes apamphlet on alchemy, and remarks that the first experiments inatomic fission demonstrate the truths of the Great Work. He alsowrites a novel on the Ros-icrucians! Later he edits an astrologicalmagazine, Astrologische Rundschau, and Trevor-Roper tells us thatthe Nazi chiefs, Hitler first among them, never made a move withouthaving a horoscope cast. In 1943 a group of psychics is consultedto discover where Mussolini is being held prisoner. In other words,the whole Nazi leadership is connected with Teutonicneo-occultism."

Belbo seemed to have gotover the incident with Lorenza, and I built a fire under him to geton with his theory. "We can look at Hitler's power as arabble-rouser also from this point of view," I said. "Physically,he was a toad, he had a shrill voice. How could such a man whipcrowds into a frenzy? He must have possessed psychic powers.Perhaps, instructed by some Druid from his hometown, he knew how toestablish contact with the subterranean currents. Perhaps he was aliving valve, a biological menhir transmitting the currents to thefaithful in the Nuremberg stadium. For a while it worked for him;then his batteries ran down."

100

To All the World: Ideclare the earth is hollow and habitable within; containing anumber of solid, concentric spheres; one within the other, and thatit is open at the poles twelve or sixteen degrees.

¡XJ. Cleves Symmes ofOhio, late Captain of Infantry, April 10, 1818; quoted in Spraguede Camp and Ley, Lands Beyond, New York, Rinehart, 1952,

"Congratulations,Casaubon. In your innocence you hit upon the truth. Hitler's onegenuine obsession was the underground currents. He believed in thetheory of the hollow earth, Hohl-weltlehre."

"I'm leaving. I've gotgastritis," Diotallevi said.

"Wait. We're getting tothe best part. The earth is hollow: we don't live outside it, onthe convex crust, but inside, on the concave surface. What we thinkis the sky is actually a gaseous mask, with points of brilliantlight, which fills the interior of our globe. All astronomicalmeasurements have to be reinterpreted. The sky is not infinite:it's circumscribed. The sun, if it really exists, is no bigger thanit looks, a mere crumb having a diameter of thirty centimeters atthe center of the earth. The Greeks had already suspected asmuch."

"You made this up,"Diotallevi said wearily.

"I did not! Somebody hadthe idea at the beginning of the last century, an American, a mannamed Symmes. Then, at the end of the century, anotherAmerican¡Xname of Teed¡X revived the notion, supported byalchemistic experiments and a reading of Isaiah. After the FirstWorld War, the hollow-earth theory was perfected by a German¡XIforget his name¡Xwho founded the Hohlweltlehre movement. Hitler andhis cronies discovered that Hohlweltlehre corresponded exactly totheir principles, and they even, according to one report, misaimedsome of the V-ls because they calculated their trajectories on thebasis of a concave, not a convex, surface. Hitler at this point wasconvinced that the King of the World was himself and that the NaziGeneral Staff members were the Unknown Superiors. Where does theKing of the World live? Beneath; not above.

"This hypothesisinspired Hitler to change the whole direction of German researchtoward the concept of the final map, the interpretation of thePendulum! The six Templar groups had to be reassembled; everythinghad to be begun again from the beginning. Consider the logic ofHitler's conquests...First, Danzig, to have under his control theclassical places of the Teutonic group. Next he conquered Paris, toget his hands on the Pendulum and the Eiffel Tower, and hecontacted the syn-archic groups and put them into the Vichygovernment. Then he made sure of the neutrality¡Xin effect, thecooperation¡Xof the Portuguese group. His fourth objective was, ofcourse, England; but we know that wasn't easy. Meanwhile, with theAfrican campaigns, he tried to reach Palestine, but here again hefailed. Then he aimed at the dominion of the Paulician territories,by invading the Balkans and Russia.

"When Hitler hadfour-sixths of the Plan in his hands, he sent Hess on a secretmission to England to propose an alliance. The Baconians, however,refused. He had another idea: those who were holding the mostimportant part of the secret must be his eternal enemies the Jews.He didn't look for them in Jerusalem, where few were left. TheJerusalemite group's piece of the message wasn't in Palestineanyway; it was in the possession of a group of the Diaspora. And sothe Holocaust is explained."

"How isthat?"

"Just think for amoment. Suppose you wanted to commit genocide..."

"Excuse me," Diotallevisaid, "but this is going too far. My stomach hurts. I'm goinghome."

"Wait, damn it. When theTemplars were disemboweling the Saracens, you enjoyed yourself,because it was so long ago. Now you're being delicate, like a pettyintellectual. We're remaking history; we can't besqueamish."

We let him continue,subdued by his vehemence.

"The striking thingabout the genocide of the Jews is the lengthiness of theprocedures. First they're kept in camps and starved, then they'restripped naked, then the showers, then the scrupulous piling up ofthe corpses, and the sorting and storing of clothes, the listing ofpersonal effects...None of this makes sense if it was just aquestion of killing them. It makes sense if it was a question oflooking for