The colonel took another sip of water. He was hoarse. “And now we come to the third stage: the refuge. It’s Tibet.”
“Why Tibet?”
“Because, in the first place, Eschenbach tells us the Templars left Europe and took the Grail to India. Cradle of the Aryan race. The refuge is Agarttha. You gentlemen must have heard talk of Agarttha, seat of the King of the World, the underground city from which the Masters of the World control and direct the developments of human history. The Templars established one of their secret centers there, at the very source of their spirituality. You must be aware of the connection between the realm of Agarttha and the Synarchy…”
“Frankly, no.”
“All the better. There are secrets that kill. But let’s not digress. In any case, you know that Agarttha was founded six thousand years ago, at the beginning of the Kali Yuga era, in which we are still living. The task of the knightly orders has always been to maintain contact with Agarttha, the active link between the wisdom of the East and the wisdom of the West. And now it’s clear where the fourth meeting is to take place, in another druidic sanctuary, in a city of the Virgin: the cathedral of Chartres. From Provins, Chartres lies across the chief river of the Ile-de-France, the Seine.”
We were completely lost. “Wait a minute,” I said. “What does Chartres have to do with your Celts and Druids?”
“Where do you think the idea of the Virgin came from? The first virgins mentioned in Europe were the black virgins of the Celts. Once, as a young man, Saint Bernard was in the church of Saint Voirles, kneeling before the black virgin there, and she squeezed from her breast three drops of milk, which fell on the lips of the future founder of the Templars. That was why the romances of the Grail arose: to create a cover for the Crusades, which were meant to find the Grail. The Benedictines are the heirs of the Druids. Everybody knows that.”
“And where are these black virgins now?”
“They were destroyed by forces who wanted to corrupt the Nordic and Celtic traditions and transform them into a Mediterranean religion by inventing the myth of Mary of Nazareth. Or else those virgins were disguised, distorted, like so many other black madonnas still displayed to the fanaticism of the masses. But if you examine the images in the cathedrals as carefully as the great Fulcanelli did, you will find that this story is told quite clearly, and the ties between the Celtic virgins and the alchemist tradition, Templar in origin, are equally clear. The black virgin symbolizes the prime matter that seekers employ in their quest for the philosopher’s stone, which, as we have seen, is simply the Grail.
Where do you think Mahomet, another great Druid initiate, got the inspiration for the Black Stone of Mecca? Someone walled up the crypt in Chartres that leads to the underground site where the original pagan statue still stands, but if you look carefully, you can still make out a black virgin, Notre-Dame-du-Pilier, carved by an Odinian canon. In her right hand she holds the magic cylinder of the high priestesses of Odin, in her left the magic calendar that once depicted—I say ‘once,’ because these sculptures unfortunately were vandalized by orthodox canons—the sacred animals of Odinism: the dog, the eagle, the lion, the white bear, and the werewolf.
At the same time, none of the scholars of Gothic esoterica has overlooked in Chartres a statue of a woman holding the chalice, the Grail. Ah, gentlemen, if only it were possible not just to read Chartres cathedral according to the tourist guides—Roman, Catholic, and Apostolic—but to see it, really see it, with the eyes of Tradition! Then the true story told by that rock of Erik at Avalon would be known.”
“Which brings us to the Popelicans. Who were they?”
“The Cathars. ‘Popelican’—or ‘Popelicant’—was one of the names given to heretics. The Cathars of Provence had been destroyed, and I am not so naive as to imagine a meeting in the ruins of Montsegur, but the sect itself didn’t die. There’s a whole geography of hidden Catharism, which produced Dante as well as the dolce stil nuovo poets and the Fedeli d’Amore sect. The fifth meeting place is therefore somewhere in northern Italy or southern France.”
“And the last?”
“Ah, what is the most ancient, the most sacred, the most enduring of Celtic stones, the sanctuary of the sun-god, most favored observation point from which finally the reunited descendants of the Templars of Provins, having reached the end of their plan, can look upon the secrets hidden till then by the seven seals and at last discover how to exploit the immense power granted by their possession of the Holy Grail? Why, it’s in England! The magic circle of Stonehenge! Where else?”
“O basta là,” Belbo said. Only another child of Piedmont could have understood the spirit in which this expression of polite amazement was uttered. No equivalent in any other language or dialect (dis done, are you kidding?) can convey the apathy, the fatalism with which it expresses the firm conviction that the person to whom it is addressed is, irreparably, the product of a bumbling creator.
But the colonel wasn’t from Piedmont, and he seemed flattered by Belbo’s reaction.
“Yes indeed. Such is the plan, the ordonation, in its marvelous simplicity and coherence. And there’s something else. If you take a map of Europe and Asia and trace the development of the plan beginning with the castle in the north and moving from there to Jerusalem, from Jerusalem to Agarttha, from Agarttha to Chartres, from Chartres to the shores of the Mediterranean, and from there to Stonehenge, you will find that you have drawn a rune that looks more or less like this.”
“And?” Belbo asked.
“And the same rune, ideally, would connect the main centers of Templar esotericism: Amiens, Troyes—Saint Bernard’s domain at the edge of the Forêt d’Orient—Reims, Chartres, Rennes-le-Château, and Mont-Saint-Michel, a place of ancient druidic worship. The rune also recalls the constellation of the Virgin.”
“I dabble in astronomy,” Diotallevi said shyly. “The Virgin has a different shape, and I believe it contains eleven stars….”
The colonel smiled indulgently. “Gentlemen, gentlemen, you know as well as I do that everything depends on how you draw the lines. You can make a wain or a bear, whatever you like, and it’s hard to decide whether a given star is part of a given constellation or not. Take another look at the Virgin, make Spica the lowermost point corresponding to the Provençal coast, use only five stars, and you’ll see a striking resemblance between the two outlines.”
“You just have to decide which stars to omit,” Belbo said.
“Precisely,” the colonel agreed.
“Listen,” Belbo said, “how can you rule out the possibility that the meetings did take place as scheduled and that the knights are now hard at work?”
“Because I perceive no symptoms, and allow me to add, ‘unfortunately.’ No, the plan was definitely interrupted. And perhaps those who were to carry it to its conclusion no longer exist. The groups of the thirty-six may have been broken up by some worldwide catastrophe. But some other group of men with spirit, men with the right information, could perhaps pick up the thread of the plot. Whatever it is, that something is still there.
I’m looking for the right men. That’s why I want to publish the book: to encourage reactions. And at the same time, I’m trying to make contact with people who can help me look for the answer in the labyrinth of traditional learning. Just today I managed to meet the greatest expert on the subject. But he, alas, luminary that he is, couldn’t tell me anything, though he expressed great interest in my story and promised to write a preface….”
“Excuse me,” Belbo asked, “but wasn’t it unwise to confide your secret to this gentleman? You told us yourself about Ingolf’s misstep….”
“Please,” the colonel replied. “Ingolf was a bungler. The person I’m in contact with is a scholar above suspicion, a man who doesn’t venture hasty conclusions. Today, for instance, he asked me to wait a little longer before showing my work to a publisher, until I had resolved all the controversial points. I didn’t want to antagonize him, so I didn’t tell him I was coming here. But I’m sure you can understand how impatient I am, having come this far in my task. The gentleman … oh, to hell with discretion! I don’t want you to think I’m bragging idly. He is Rakosky.”
He paused for our reaction.
Belbo disappointed him. “Who?”
“Rakosky. The Rakosky! The authority on traditional studies, the former editor of Les Cahiers du Mystère!”
“Oh, that Rakosky,” Belbo said. “Yes, yes, of course…”
“Before writing the final version of my book, I’ll wait to hear this gentleman’s advice. But I wanted to move as quickly as possible, and if I could come to an agreement with your firm in the meantime … As I said, I am eager to stir up reactions, to collect new information…. There are people who surely know but won’t speak…. Around
