A Dark Muse: A History of the Occult by Gary Lachman Read Free Book Online Page B

resembles the machinations of Weishaupt. Sentiments of tolerance, egalitarianism, universal brotherhood, and what we today would call multiculturalism - all part of the Illuminati platform - are evident throughout the book. Other `evidence' is the fact that Potocki set his adventure in Spain. With his formidable erudition, Potocki may have been aware of earlier, Spanish Illuminist sects, like the Alumbrados, or `Illuminated Ones', who began in Guadalajara in the early 1500s. The Alumbrados believed in an "illumination by the Holy Spirit" and persisted until the Inquisition suppressed them in 1623, accusing them, among other things, of practising sexual perversion. He may also have been aware of another sect of `Illuminated Ones', the Roshaniya, who flourished in Afghanistan also in the 1500s. Like Weishaupt's Illuminati, the Roshaniya aimed at gaining political control by upsetting the status quo; for some authorities, there is a possible connection between the Roshaniya and another Islamic secret society, the 11th century Assassins. Here Potocki's love of Islam would have forged a link.'

    All this is speculation. What's not in doubt are the genuine occult themes that appear throughout The Saragossa Manuscript. I can only mention some of these. The gallows that the young Alphonse finds himself under after his night of passion with Emina and Zubeida suggest the Tarot trump of the Hanged Man, a symbol of spiritual death and initiation. The weird adventures and tales within tales, in which Alphonse is unsure whether he is awake, dreaming or under the influence of hashish, is a reminder of the ambiguous nature of reality. They take place within the liminal space between sleep and consciousness, the hypnagogic realm of magic and the paranormal. Several well known occult figures appear: Apollonius of Tyana, Knorr von Rosenroth, and Simon Magus. Several `doublings' too: the Celestial Twins, invoked by the student kabbalist, suggest alchemical themes of integration as well as the esoteric notion of the doppelganger or astral body. Many of the doublings are of a sexual nature, suggesting strange erotic practices. Alphonse's encounter with Emina and Zubeida, whom he meets in a cellar, indicates the uncertain territory he is about to enter. These delightful but possibly dangerous twins are `subterraneans', creatures of the underworld. They are also devotees of a strange, foreign faith.

    One motif that Potocki shares with William Beckford, whose Vathek he would surely have known, is a stairway of 1,500 steps. In Beckford's Arabian nightmare, the steps lead upward, to the top of Caliph Vathek's hubristic tower. In Potocki, they lead down, into a cave and the underworld. Here Potocki alludes to the central secret society of European legend: the Rosicrucians. In Rosicrucian legend, Christian Rosenkruz, the mythical founder of the society, was buried in 1484, in a hidden tomb, after dying at the age of 106. In 1604, the tomb was said to have been discovered and, inside, his uncorrupted body lay in a seven-sided vault, lit by a powerful lamp. The Rosicrucians were hermeticists, kabbalists and alchemists; one of their tracts promise that anyone coming forth to join them would receive "more gold than both the Indies bring to the king of Spain." The gold they meant, however, was not the vulgar metal, but a more spiritual kind. The cave Alphonse finds himself in is illuminated by many lamps; there he finds a massive vein of gold and the tools necessary to extract the precious metal. Each day he digs out a quantity equal to his own weight. The gold he extracts is surely Rosicrucian, and the fact that Christian Rosenkruz received his occult wisdom in Damascus would be another enticement for the Islamophile Potocki.
    The count's mystical proclivities, however, did not save him from a macabre fate. The collapse of the Illuminati, suppressed in 1785, along with the entire Masonic project, filled Potocki, as well as many of his contemporaries, with