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

by Christianity as a state religion, but Africa preservedthe treasures of knowledge, just as it had preserved and spreadthem in the days of the Egyptians, passing them on to the Greeks,who wreaked such great havoc with them."

28

There is a body thatenfolds the whole of the world; imagine it in the form of a circle,for this is the form of the Whole...Imagine now that under thecircle of this body are the 36 decans, midway between the totalcircle and the circle of the zodiac, separating these two circlesand, so to speak, delimiting the zodiac, transported along it withthe planets...The changing of kings, the rising up of cities,famine, plague, the tides of the sea, earthquakes: none of thesetakes place without the influence of the decans¡K

¡XCorpus Hermeticus,Stobaeus, excerptum VI

"What treasures ofknowledge?"

"Do you realize howgreat the second and third centuries after Christ were? Not becauseof the pomp of the empire in its sunset, but because of what wasburgeoning in the Mediterranean basin then. In Rome, thePraetorians were slaughtering their emperors, but in theMediterranean area, there flourished the epoch of Apuleius, themysteries of Isis, and that great return to spirituality:Neoplatonism, gnosis. Blissful times, before the Christians seizedpower and began to put heretics to death. A splendid epoch, inwhich dwelled the nous, a time dazzled by ecstasies and peopledwith presences, emanations, demons, and angelic hosts. Theknowledge I am talking about is diffuse and disjointed; it is asancient as the world itself, reaching back beyond Pythagoras, tothe Brahmans of India, the Hebrews, the mages, the gymnosophists,and even the barbarians of the far north, the Druids of Gaul andthe British Isles. The Greeks called the barbarians by that namebecause to overeducated Greek ears, their languages sounded likebarking, and the Greeks therefore assumed that they were unable toexpress themselves. In fact, the barbarians knew much more than theHellenes at the time, precisely because their language wasimpenetrable. Do you believe the people who will dance tonight knowthe meaning of all the chants and magic names they will utter?Fortunately, they do not, and each unknown name will be a kind ofbreathing exercise, a mystical vocalization.

"The age of theAntonines...The world was full of mar-velous correspondences,subtle resemblances; the only way to penetrate them¡Xand to bepenetrated by them¡Xwas through dreams, oracles, magic, which allowus to act on nature and her forces, moving like with like.Knowledge is elusive and volatile; it escapes measurement. That'swhy the conquering god of that era was Hermes, inventor of alltrickery, god of crossroads and thieves. He was also the creator ofwriting, which is the art of evasion and dissimulation and anavigation that carries us to the end of all boundaries, whereeverything dissolves into the horizon, where cranes lift stonesfrom the ground and weapons transform life into death, and waterpumps make heavy matter float, and philosophy deludes anddeceives...And do you know where Hermes is today? Right here. Youpassed him when you came through the door. They call him Exu,messenger of the gods, go-between, trader, who is ignorant of thedifference between good and evil."

He looked at us withamused distrust. "You believe that I am as hasty in distributinggods as Hermes is in distributing merchandise. But look at thisbook, which I bought this morning in a little shop in Pelourinho.Magic and mystery of Saint Cyprian, recipes for spells to win loveor cause your enemy's death, invocations to the angels and to theVirgin. Popular literature for these mystics whose skin is black.But this is Saint Cyprian of Antioch, about whom there is animmense literature dating from the silver age. His parents wantedhim to learn all there was to know about the earth¡Xland, sea, andair¡Xso they sent him to the most distant realms, that he mightacquire all mysteries, including the generation and corruption ofherbs and the virtues of plants and of animals: the secrets not ofnatural history but of occult science, those buried in the depthsof distant and archaic traditions. At Delphi, Cyprian dedicatedhimself to Apollo and to the dramaturgy of the serpent; he studiedthe mysteries of Mithra; on Mount Olympus at fifteen, guided byfifteen hi-erophants, he attended the rites that summon the Princeof This World, in order to master his intrigues; in Argos he wasinitiated into the mysteries of Hera; in Phrygia he learnedhepatoscopic fortunetelling. At last there was nothing left ofland, sea, or air that he did not know, no ghost, no object, noartifice of any kind, not even the art of altering writing throughsorcery. In the underground temples of Memphis he had learned howdemons communicate with earthly things and places, what they loatheand love, how they dwell in darkness and how they mount resistancein certain domains, how they are able to possess souls and bodies,the feats of higher knowledge they can perform, of memory, terror,and illusion, and the art of causing turmoil in the earth,influencing underground currents...Then, alas, he was converted,but something of his knowledge remained and was passed on, and wefind it here, in the mouths and minds of these ragged people youcall idolaters. My lovely friend, a little while ago you looked atme as if I were a ci-devant. Who among us is living in the past?You, who would bestow the horrors of the toiling industrial ageupon this country, or I, who wish that our poor Europe mightrecover the naturalness and faith of these children ofslaves?"

"Jesus," Amparo said ina nasty hiss. "You know as well as I do that it's just another wayof keeping them quiet..."

"Not quite. Capable ofexpectation. Without a sense of expectation, there can be noparadise; isn't that what you Europeans have taught us?"

"I'm aEuropean?"

"The important thing isnot skin color but faith in Tradition. Granted, these children ofslaves pay a price in returning a sense of expectation to a Westparalyzed by well-being; perhaps they even suffer, but still theyknow the language of the spirits of nature, of the air, the waters,and the winds..."

"You people areexploiting us again."

"Again?"

"Yes. You should havelearned your lesson in ¡¥89, Count. We get fed up, and then..."Smiling like an angel, she drew her beautiful hand straight acrossher throat. For me, even Amparo's teeth aroused desire.

"How dramatic!" Agliesaid, taking his snuffbox from his pocket and stroking