When you read Umberto Eco’s Foucault’s Pendulum and saw the allusions to Francis Bacon’s New Atlantis, did you begin to suspect a Plan. Did you think that James was obviously sending you on a literary journey from one stepping stone to the next on the way to a predetermined destination? That would be a perfectly reasonable supposition…but it’s completely incorrect. These works were chosen completely independently from each other by people who didn’t even know of the other’s existence, let alone the other’s choice of book. Does this information bother you? Should it? Why? These are the sorts of questions one begins to ask oneself when you engage in a rabbit hole as large and as all consuming as Foucault’s Pendulum—a rabbit hole that contains all other rabbit holes. And that’s precisely how Eco would have wanted it…maybe. Find out more about this elaborate, meticulously researched, clockwork conspiracy yarn in this month’s edition of Film, Literature and the New World Order with special guest Tom-Oliver Regenauer of Regenauer.press.
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SHOW NOTES:
Foucault’s Pendulum by Umberto Eco
Self-Publishing – #SolutionsWatch
On the Ashes of Post-Modernism: A New Realism. A Conference with Umberto Eco
How FOUCAULT PENDULUM Works and Proves Earth is a Round SPINNING Sphere
A look inside the private library of Umberto Eco
Writer Umberto Eco: I Was Always Narrating | Louisiana Channel
ECO’S ECHOES: IRONIZING THE (POST)MODERN
Kubrick’s Eco’s Foucault’s Pendulum
NEXT MONTH: The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch by Philip K. Dick
Basically there are well-known societies and individuals who are on agendas of world control, reduced population, and creation of a species of slaves from those left over. Be it the New World Order, the Jewish quest, the Vatican Jesuits, etc., they are ALL in the same league just different teams and players.
Unless the people truly avoid a real awakening and activism it matters not any more who makes films, writes books, etc. we will be SOL. The capitalistic ways of the Internet has mostly created new “gurus” and such spinning their tales for profit as prophets of doom and gloom or saviors and providers of this and that.
Many even here at this great site seek to be the “smartest” cons in the prison.
Working together locally is the ONLY path to start on IMO. Certainly not any political party or religious path.
DO YOU THINK WE’RE GONNA LAST (song)
https://old.bitchute.com/video/Kykg3jVHnrU4/
Cut my left index finger preparing dinner Tuesday night. Got 3 stitches and won’t be able to play guitar for a month or so. Damn commies 🙂
I read up to halfway. When one of the guys disappeared.
I did not find any of the “conspiracies” interesting due to their vagueness.
The way the book-press scam worked was a bit depressing as well.
The real Foucault’s Pendulum had a large impact on society.
People could see with their own eyes how the earth was rotating.
Even without the mathematics.
People were smart enough at that time.
Related to “currents”
The Nazis worked with occult powers in several ways.
And they seemed to use it to influence people.
And this is related to energy lines, which are also places where churches and temples are built.
There are various types of lines, which is confusing.
I can perceive these energy lines for myself, and more such stuff.
Many of these lines are astral spaces, which work like a pathway for spirits.
Spirits are bits from a layer of consciousness.
And groups of spirits can influence people enormously. It is like many thoughts against one.
That is how churches or temples are able to brainwash people.
(And universities)
The astral space is like the traumatic remaining of a person’s life.
In the far past, deadly rituals were used to create these astral spaces.
This includes mass suicides combined with a prayer ritual.
The unchanging state of the astral space makes it seem holy.
Like an eternal prayer.
The consciousness of the spirits that are in the space give it its strength.
Other rituals used fear and terror.
These states of consciousness remain in the astral space.
So no wonder it was often used to manipulate the masses.
By almost every totalitarian system.
I think that the power of certain beliefs, like flat earth,
get their strength and irrationality from such astral spaces.
With addictive drugs, one can also encounter astral spaces in a different way.
The spirits will try to get you back. Without a living person, the astral space “is just dead”.
It brings me back to the book.
The book tries to capture the irrationality by playing with it.
But that is in sharp contrast with my own goal of getting things clear.
67:
“groups of spirits can influence people enormously”
v:
How does that work?
Without a living person, the astral space “is just dead”
Not too sure how a mortal can make that claim?
to capture the irrationality by playing with it.
is another technique of arguing by nonargument,. its not just scorned women that wield conviction with zero context or logical, meaningful content. Thats what spawned the relativism that pushed gender dysphoria. The relativist would claim that north is where you feel it to be..
1- For simplicity I use the ancient yogi model of consciousness.
The consciousness that we experience is in a network of nadis (“prana” channels).
These nadis connect your consciousness to your body in a web-like network.
It is like a body for our soul.
We can see some of this network on cellular level. And it is self-regulating.
Our active consciousness experiences a focus, an identity, an experience,
by activating these nadis. So we can experience life.
Spirits are like bits of consciousness that are split off from the soul.
Usually via serious trauma.
They are disconnected from a body.
But these bits are still able to connect to the nadis of a living body.
And via the nadis they can influence living people.
These spirits can give thoughts and all kinds of feelings.
They usually connect with people that resonate with their previous life.
Depression and anxiety are common side-effects.
Excessive thinking, anger issues, etc.
As a child we are often exposed to these.
With more spirits around, it is harder to stay with yourself.
And our education system and religions makes us surrender to their influence.
2- I distinguish spirit spaces from other spaces of consciousness.
That is why I state, the astral space is empty and “dead”.
The astral space (as I define it) is the place of spirits and human distraction.
But there are other spaces, like “heaven” that
are alive and connected to light and source.
During Near Death Experiences (NDE) people can experience these places.
The ancient humans have built astral spaces to create their own “heavens”.
They tried to make it feel alive. by putting nature into it.
They captured the natural energies with suicide (and many other sacrifices),
some historians have reported about it.
Animal sacrifices are still very common.
The astral space can feel like heaven to some people, but is captured nature.
But like a sect, the astral pulls you in and it hides your soul-identity.
Some astral spaces are accessed via drugs or via violence.
Some spirits are more aware than others and can interact with people
visiting these astral spaces.
This is how shaman-traditions used to communicate with their fore-fathers.
This is unlike nature, where you can experience yourself alive with beauty
and peace around you.
So in my experience this is closer to a real heaven than any church.
3- Indeed. Irrationality is a tool of manipulation.
The covid scam was filled with irrational statements.
“It is not a genetic experiment when we approve it”
Logic and consistency is very important for keeping a clear mind.
And while I explore very vague topics, like consciousness, spirits and such,
I try to research it logically.
Because I can feel chi/prana via my hands,
I can also observe most of the things I write about.
Yet, many spiritual schools have embraced the relativism, by claiming
it is your own creation.
As if we all live in our own dream-world.
Which is very close to how the lost spirits may see their world.
hey mate thanks for the considered reply. I’m currently navigating a train wreck of needing to move house. so wont have time to sit and write for 2-3 weeks. if you still have no reply by then, I wont be offended by a “friendly reminder” to reply
vadoum
“….The real Foucault’s Pendulum had a large impact on society.
People could see with their own eyes how the earth was rotating.
Even without the mathematics.
People were smart enough at that time…..”
the number of people who actually think about such things is vanishingly small, it was that way when the Greeks were working out the size of the earth and its still a tiny fraction of people who think about anything beyond their day to lives.
The conceit of people who look beyond the surface is that it makes them better when in truth is that loosing touch with the fact that we belong either to God or to satan leaves us wrapped up in ourselves which (as a TV show once said) makes a
very small package. 🙂
Duck,
We certainly haven’t put an end to television yet ; especially if we give undeserved demigod status to the scientific elite midway carnival acts i.e. tv and social screen and Ai. The application severely affected life on a large planetary scale. The perpetuation of lies that depends on this acceptance is really quite remarkable. It manifests it’s deep rooted destruction in the casual comments you offer up.
[ The conceit of people who look beyond the surface is that it makes them better when in truth is that loosing touch with the fact that we belong either to God or to satan leaves us wrapped up in ourselves…]• And I can tell you with certainty, ” any client in the universe that decides to represent themselves before God has a fool for a client and a actor that played a lawyer on TV.
I’m just pointing out that binary and dialectics of the t v deception of reality is the lie. Made from whole cloth of deception, layer upon layer. Did you ever consider Duck that you can go from either or to on or off. Known and unknown. People get nervous about on or off decisions.They are liable. Liable to say the most ridiculous of things to lessen their liability. That’s not satan its self preservation, laziness, sloth and variegated at resolve.
I can see the wisdom of Nancy Reagan’s ” just say no”. She removed the forth wall and we saw into the box of hypocrisy. Man chooses to be evil . But never chooses paying the tab when caught.
These wankers that bleed us dry are crooks. Masters of deception and are hollowed out men and women . How else can you explain, ( just go down the list of agencies funded to serve and protect. posiwid .) They use their ” no” denying realities “yes” so why don’t you? Deny their existence till they just don’t exist. Uncomfortable ? If I could but turn one in the right direction the rest would follow… Hahaha that’s not how it works you say ?
Thanks to everyone for trying.
GBW
”….The application severely affected life on a large planetary scale. The…”
I will comment on the acronym POSIWID and how it appears to be misunderstood in a sec but first will point out that TV didn’t alter the fundamental nature of humanity, it just allowed the hacking if that nature. Before TV there was radio and newspaper that also just allowed the hacking of the underlying nature of people which is for most of them to accept the world as it’s presented to them regardless of how true that presentation was.
I can give examples, maybe I will in a moment but more importantly consider the chap who came up with POSIWID and what he actually studied and what he was actually saying……sure it CAN mean that schools exist to pay teachers and admin, or regulations exist to fund paper pushers but it ALSO means something more- A SYSTEM EXISTS BECAUSE IT CONTINUES TO EXIST.
If your body cells stop working the system that is you stops, to the materialist the ONLY reason a system exists is because it exists and does what it does.
With that in mind ask yourself why most people always have, and always will, not give a Fk about an idea like Fucaults pendulum? Or why they always have accepted lies from their rulers? Civilization is a system that depends on people being cogs in a machine and people depend on civilization existing for their lives…..so WHAT would MOST people have ever gained from questioning what the system that fed them???? Anyone who stops believing in the lies is literally a glitch in the system, questioning the lies is, to the system that their (and your ) very lives depend on a MALfunction.
Being that way has plenty of useful benefits but if the majority of people adopted that glitch the system would stop working and the people would die.
So again, the idea that the masses ever thought about anything higher then if the bread and circuses showed up is a critical error…..the author of the book apparently understood that
I just got a pdf of the book added to my collection, currently reading Iluminati Bloodline by Fritz Springmeier, then i’m going to go into the complete dead scrolls. I’m happy to be apart of the group.
when I say that I “kind of” read this book, I was patient for about three chapters, then started flipping around, which is not how a person is supposed to read this particular book.
With popular conspiracy in our contemporary time, if a person was exposed to theories 20 or 30 years ago, and have participated in communities throughout this entire time, the names, organizations, places and plots become familiar. So it’s easier to understand what a conspiracy *realist* may be talking about. Because all these pieces of foundation of understanding has already been laid out. Big blocks of the puzzle have already been snapped together, and it’s easier to understand what someone might be saying.
Conspiracy theories are harder to follow if you’re not already familiar with the dots being connected.
It’s kind of like walking into an advanced math class in the middle of the semester when you haven’t studied any of the terminology or symbols and then attempting to run some calculations. How are you supposed to know what any of this means?
Even if you do manage to run some numbers through a formula that results in an answer, would that answer have any significance or meaning to you if you had no context?
I remember I had been working my way through the French Existentialists when Foucaults Pendulum came out to some fanfare. It was definitely well hyped and the line the “greatest philosopher of our age” sent me out to the bookshop. And that wasn’t in the singular, I several times saw him called a philosopher. Which is strange as neither of you used that category.
I know I read it, but can’t remember a thing about it except that it was indeed a difficult read. As were the other books of his that I read which were more in the philosophy camp. His only easy read was the Name of the Rose.
I have no interest in returning to Eco.
Name of the Rose was a pretty good book- I don’t think I ever made it all the way thru any other book he wrote.
Hmn
”…..That would be a perfectly reasonable supposition…but it’s completely incorrect….”
feed that into the Gematria Calculator and you get all kinda crazy stuff….what is Mr Corbett’s secret message?????? 😉
https://www.gematrix.org/?word=That+would+be+a+perfectly+reasonable+supposition…but+it’s+completely+incorrect
I read the book in my 20s and I remember how engrossed I was in it. Although back then I knew little of “conspiracies” etc. I did live behind the Iron Curtain and could relate to the feeling of “there is more to all that is happening, we live in a fake world” because that is how it was back then in socialist countries. Now that socialism has come to the West (call it globalism if you will, the commies also wanted to rule the world) more people are feeling nothing is what it seems.
This book, along with many others I read back then, satisfied a thirst for discovering the world, more ways of seeing it, other people’s experiences. Perhaps it is a book to be read by the young and seeking, written by an author who experienced that same thirst as he was writing it. No wonder he does not really point to an opinion or direction – when we are young we seek and we reject easy answers and mainstream narratives – it is what keeps a spirit and ming flexible and open, the constant curiosity, imagination and enjoyment of life.
I love what Regenauer said at the end – live life, find meaning, enjoy it, go out and do things that allow your potential and spirit to be shared with others!
Does anyone have a good translation of the Latin at the beginning of chapter 32?
Ultimately, the book reminds me of the Marshall McLuhan letter to Ezra Pound:
“Dear Pound,
Last year has been spent in going through the rituals of secret societies with fine comb. As I said before I’m in a bloody rage at the discovery that the arts and sciences are in the pocket of these societies. It doesn’t make me any happier that Joyce, Lewis, Eliot, yourself have used these rituals as a basis for art activity.
Monopolies of knowledge are intolerable
The use of the arts for sectarian warfare! ugh.
The use of the arts as a technique of salvation!
as a channel of supernatural grace!
The validity of the rituals is entirely in the cognitive order.
Art is imitation of the process of apprehension.
clarification of ” ” ”
Now that I know of the nature of the sectarian strife among the Societies I have no intention of participating in it any further, until I know a good deal more. To Hell with East and West.”
[https://archive.org/details/lettersofmarshal00mclu/page/235/mode/1up]
My book recommendation to you would have to be Mumbo Jumbo by Ishmael Reed
I read Foucault’s Pendulum in the 80’s, and re-read it a few weeks ago in about a week or so when I heard you talking about it… The difference is that I’ve been diving into many rabbit holes for a few years which changes everything. I appreciated it immensely, and enjoyed your podcast with Tom Oliver Regenauer immensely. Thank you both for this amazingly interesting analysis of the book and its Author, Umberto Eco.
I do agree with you about almost everything, the book is complex and much deeper than The Da Vinci Code. It is also very funny, I like Belbo and Casaubon’s sense of humour, and it is much much better that Dan Browne’s stunt at trying to entrap us.
“the Holy Blood Holy Grail” by M. Baigent, R. Leigh and H. Lincoln (both the 1982 and the 2006’s versions) are also very interesting. they digs into the Templars and Rennes le Chateau with the Abbe Sauniere, the presence of Mary and the Grail in France and many twists and turns about who is who and who did what in France, the UK and the Middle East.
I have also recently come across a book from Alex Gleason’s 1893 version of “Is the Bible from Heaven and is the Earth a Globe” in which he explains through the Old Testament which transcribed our scientific concepts of time, explains the Solar and Lunar cycles, and then explains the mathematical calculations regarding its curvature which is denied by many constructions like the Suez Canal (among many), and convincingly concludes that the Earth is a Plane.
I’ve always been extremely interested in the Agreement signed by so many countries worldwide that denies access to the South Pole to… everyone. His book also contains testimonies of many sailors who explain that things are not at all the way they present it “up here”, and travelers who mention incredible inconsistencies regarding trips in the southern hemisphere.
https://img.discountmags.com/products/extras/books/9781987713718_0c9d262.jpg
Steve Falconer also made this Scamtartica (part 3) video based on Alex Gleason’s book that is very interesting indeed. He also explains the Solar and Lunar cycles and the eclipses described and drawn in Gleason’s book … It is worth a look.
Who knows, we are not allowed to go anywhere down there and who knows what happens to anyone that tried? There are so many nonsensical books about the subject that its interest is drowned into many whacky stories.
https://youtu.be/rwpNAmvUppU?si=pqIXjI6rbvHrqrQr
Thank you very much again,
I like Cindy’s idea, but I don’t have to do the extra work to make it happen. If I’m being honest, it would make it easy and it’s purely for selfish reasons.
James,
Now you need to tie it all together and read Shakespeare’s THE TEMPEST, as it relates to the “o brave new world” theme!
I argue that play might be the most Baconian leaning, if there is such a thing, and I’ve compared it to Goethe’s FAUST – the both of which are much different than Christopher Marlowe’s DR FAUSTUS.
Please watch my “Brave New World [Order]” video on my youtube channel, Apokalupsis Historia, as I discuss all the Shakespeare mentions in Huxley’s novel and how it relates to the plot, but would also be mega honored to share some of our Shakespeare Authorship Research, which goes beyond the usual suspects in a hopefully Corbettian fashion.
I like Marlowe Faust as a play….i am truly sorry I missed it at the Globe but here is a link to a production….i think they cut the horrifying post play jig from this video
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GaL0nyGqfZU&pp=ygUdZHIgZmF1c3R1cyBnbG9iZSB0aGVhdHJlIGZ1bGw%3D&ra=m
I haven’t read this book. I will now, sounds like something I would enjoy.
I, yes please, second the suggestion to have a dedicated space where the date and time of the upcoming monthly meeting can be referenced. Chasing the meeting link is more an inconvenience than proof of commitment!
You don’t have to apologize for having a agenda James, I know I would love your agenda much more than tRumps agenda
I am a busy person. I read daily until it became obvious that I wasn’t going to finish in time for the live stream. Then, I started listening to it. I wasn’t done listening to it by the time of the live stream. I just got done finishing it this morning, and listened to the discussion just now. I found the book to be written in a comic/funny way, and with the mysteries of Belbow and the Colonel being taken/murdered, and the secret societies mystery, I was pulled along with interest.
Concerning the first two livestreams, I didn’t attend because of the time of their schedules. I didn’t attend this time because I wasn’t done reading it, and didn’t want to listen to the discussion until I was done. Just because I was not involved in the livestream, doesn’t mean I am not interested, or not participating.
Please, keep up the good work.
Not sure if anyone else has mentioned this, but while most of the discussion seems to be about conspiracy theories, the occult, mysticism etc, there is also the story of the characters. To me, it seems that the main story is Belbo’s hero’s journey. Recounting his early years during WWII and his battle with his own fears and failures at every opportunity to prove his courage. Even in his later years he was always the loser when the woman of his dreams is so easily distracted by Aglie` and the art guy. Finally, when it really mattered, he real eye(sed) that he did have the conviction and courage to stand his ground and not give into fear. And ultimately paid the highest price. As opposed to Casaubon, who chose to run and not face the danger. On the secret society side, it didn’t matter how bizarre they made the story, the diabolicals believed it was all true anyway. As a result, he will lose everything that he valued including his wife and child. But, I’m basing this on skills gained in grade 10 English comprehension lol. I agree that the 1st 100 pages is a bit of a struggle, but very glad I read the book. Thanks James.
Well it’s obvious Eco writes in a distinct style. His narrative style is attractive to me. Wallace , Lovecraft, Garcia, even Castanada had great narratives with mind altering comparisons . They make poor reporters but exquisite Philosophers. Prophetic observations of the frail occulted reality. I’m not familiar with semiotic. Hard work speaking in symbols and abstractions. That may be also why I have said Bacon English is so exciting, especially when it sizzles.
“The implication was that ordinary people were perhaps too stupid to understand the novel.”
How is that possible if they are literate? This is not the first time James has introduced us to Eco.
“{“I gained control of my nerves, my imagination. I had to play this ironically, as I had been playing it until a few days before, not letting myself become involved. I was in a museum and had to be dramatically clever and clearheaded.““} How can this be misunderstood?. It’s the weakest example but the one most easily understood “. Unlike say ” But the fact is that it doesn’t take long for the experience of the Numinous to unhinge the mind.”
This is some modern philosophy. Layered in the cake is a narrative im going after, no turning back now. I must see what he is talking about. Reality unseen and occulted but definable and explained. . Chapter 5 thru 120 await.
The thinly veiled argument , one for Sherlock Holmes is to assemble reality from parts and observations of pieces to construct a truth from seemingly unrelated fragments. 911 for example has many parts that don’t line up as a reality. The evidence, the spinning sphere can be directly assembled from other avenues. Arriving at Truth. Truth and reality made whole from a pile of disassociated forces, laws and mechanics can be proved here. Like the earth is a spinning sphere. The Towers came tumbling down, but not like They say, today the earth is flat and it don’t spin.
Thanks for showing us James. Might as well lay some Foucault’s Pendulum on the steps of the 25th Anniversary of the* crime of the century.
*.Covid may be a close second. Neither one got any pushback; just kickbacks.
That was a most entertaining book. A real page turner with gymnastics for your brain. Comedy and tragedy with heroic redemption and wisdom , courage and cowards. Everything seems to be connected. From the earliest memory as a child too the most recent revelation of the next moment . It would make a better opera ; if it doesn’t already exists in the Opera Universe than a movie ? The book even mentions Gilead, but no birds. It really has it all. The plot… decisions of the group are made and the consequences will come with a high price. They got too smart for their own good. Something on the lines of MickeyMouse and the Sorcerer Apprentice. There are always consequences.
I learned something new . How the Italian narrative flows and I Too had a thought of ; What are we missing from the translation? How would the story go in Italian? With more emotion I’m sure.
Very nice!!!
Love it w this book review route🥰🥰
You may have an alternate career in sales, James. You’ve convinced me, man. Today, I am going to physically walk to a physical bookstore to buy a physical edition of Foucault’s Pendulum. I got through G.I. Gurjieff’s three volumes of ‘Beelzebub’s Tales To His Grandson’ and his ‘Meetings With Remarkable Men,’ so I’m pretty sure I can get through Foucault’s Pendulum.
I’ll send you my copy
Does anyone know when the livestream for the three stigmata of palmer eldritch is to be held? Thanks.
yacht,
All I know is what James Corbett wrote in the second paragraph:
“In the meantime, Corbett Report members are encouraged to read The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch by Philip K. Dick in preparation for the next edition of Film, Literature and the New World Order at the end of the month.”
I was intrigued by the part of the interview in which a set of
I loved the part of the discussion in which the Plan being cooked up by the book’s characters based on a strange text was interpreted by Causabon’s wife as just a banal laundry list. One person may have a completely different interpretation of the same data as another person. Let’s look at Foucault’s Pendulum. Many say that this proves the rotation of the earth. Looked at in another way, someone else may say that the pendulum really proves the rotation of the celestial sphere around a spherical earth. As Einstein said in his 1938 book “The Evolution of Physics: “The two sentences ‘the sun is at rest and the earth moves’ or ‘the sun moves and the earth is at rest’ would simply mean two different conventions concerning two different coordinate systems.” Ernst Mach said “Relatively, not considering the unknown and neglected medium of space, the motions of the universe are the same whether we adopt the Ptolemaic or the Copernican mode of view.” I have not read the whole book, but I suspect that Eco never says Foucault’s Pendulum proves the rotation of the earth. Even the pendulum is ambiguous in what it says to us.
Edward Casaubon is a character in George Eliot’s Middlemarch. He is an old cleric who is working on a book to explain all mythologies. He marries a young wife who becomes disappointed in the sterility of the marriage and also in the quality of Casaubon’s writing. Casaubon dies early. Casaubon’s will specifies a clause disinheriting her if she marries the man she has come to love.
Might be related, the name Casaubon is so unusual.
https://www.acampbell.org.uk/essays/skeptic/casaubon.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middlemarch
Unbekoming just posted a 30 Q&A Book Review on “Foucault’s Pendulum” instigated by your interview. The entire interview (Unbekoming’s) is behind a paywall, but I suppose one could start a trial subscription and Cancel before the free week ends. It may be helpful to listen/read this interview before embarking on the book.
https://open.substack.com/pub/unbekoming/p/foucaults-pendulum-1988?r=1f41yz&utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=post%20viewer
I happened to start another book for another book club – “Morals and Dogma” (over 800 pgs, not including the index, so will read this book at another time, still a way to go before I finish M&D (first 33 degrees of Freemasonry, for initiates).
It might be helpful to have a separate tab for the “Film, Literature and the New World Order series”. Although it was fun to navigate to the series, if I should miss the initial post regarding the new book/film choice or if I want to go back and check either the posts or comments, I could find everything under one tab.
So glad you started this series (again)! Partly as an alternative to so much online info.
I finished the book two weeks late to join the live stream, but I’ve caught up now. I really enjoyed both the book and the discussion. Agree with much that was said but will focus on my disagreements. The main one being I don’t think it is so hard to tell what perspective Eco is writing from. I thought it was reasonably clear that he was writing the novel as a warning away from conspiratorial thinking. Rather than steel-manning the argument against conspiratorial thinking, I think this was his steel-manning of conspiratorial thinking itself and still coming down against it. It starts with more of the steel-manning, but gets into more parody as it goes on. Most notably the part where not only did Francis Bacon not write Shakespeare (it was someone called Kelly), but in reality Shakespeare wrote Bacon! That was Blackadder-level comedy and genuinely funny.
Related to that, I don’t think Casaubon explicitly abandoned his family because Lia spoiled the plan with her plain explanations. I think Casaubon genuinely appreciated her efforts, but Lia’s attempt to rescue Casaubon from conspiratorial thinking was not enough. He got pulled back in in his attempt to rescue Belbo, and then at the end he has decided not to return to Lia because he’s certain that he is doomed to be found by the Diabolicals and doesn’t want to doom his family as well.
I think its really interesting that people can read Foucault’s Pendulum and come away inspired to investigate the Illuminati when it seems to me the author’s intention is steer people away from it.
I read Foucoults Pendulum When I was 15 (more than 30 years ago) and really liked it. After watching your Video, James I checked my local library for more books by Umberto Eco and found a book called “conspiracies”. I was really excited to read it and just got around to open it. Unfortunately Eco expresses a mainstream view about how conspiracies are always uncovered fast and that 9/11 can’t be a conspiracy, because somebody must habe talked.
Sad to read. I could only briefly browse through the book. It is too sad.
Yes, and I think its pretty clear that he intended Foucault’s Pendulum to be a warning against conspiratorial thinking. Albeit one that does a pretty good job of steel-manning a massive conspiracy theory.