Arcadia Discussion Zone

Some of you may have noticed that BLL include a poem by a mysterious poet named Jehan l'Ascuiz at the beginning of most of their books.

They never identify who he is. (He's also in the HBHG dedications which would seem to suggest he's alive in the 20th century; seems odd since elsewhere they identify him as a long-dead 15th century Occitan poet.)

Paul Smith has a letter apparently written from Henry Lincoln to Douglas Carpenter. With attachments.

http://priory-of-sion.com/psp/ascuiz.html

Very strange (aside from once again there's no explanation why he currently has the letter) ... Lincoln claims they found "Ascuiz" work in the "hand" of Antoine Bigou, as an annotation to another book on French history. You tell me if the lettering here looks familiar.



The author of the text this was "annotated" to was
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippe_de_Dangeau

This is the poem that begins HBHG (with translation). Notice it's (supposedly) above.

Le jour du mi-ete tranquille
Brule au centre de l'estoile,
Ou miriotee la mare dedans
Son couer dore Nymphaea montre clair.
Nostres dames adorees
Dans l'heure fleurie
Dissoudent les ombres tenebreuses du temps.

Jehan l'Ascuiz

The calm midsummer day
burns in the center of the star
where shimmering within the pond
her golden Nymphaea's heart shows clearly
our adored lady
within the dawning hour
dissolving the obscure shadows of time.

[snip]

You'll notice a Jehan l'Ascuiz poem begins every book that Richard Leigh wrote with the other two; even some he collaborated on with Baigent only; but not in any solo books by Baigent or Lincoln.

Leigh seems to have been the "Ascuiz" enthusiast; this seems to lead many to think that he (who was also a poet) WAS "Ascuiz" (pseudo). That's certainly the opinion offered above.

Now, there seems to be someone claiming Jehan l'Ascuiz was quite real and definitely was an Occitan poet living in the 15th century. Not only that, but he was a companion of Joan of Arc, and apparently also the "Norman Leslie" of a Monk of Fife.

http://www.serreorg.com/jehanstory.html

According to everything we've been led to believe, Jehan, as his name suggests, was Occitan and was born in the Languedoc, near the actual town of Sigean and then brought to Scotland. . .

It appears that he was born in poverty and that his father died in his youth, but that his mother, for whom he wrote one of his most famous ballades, was still living when her son was thirty years old.

He was brought up in the Cistercian community of The Fontfroide Abbey in the heart of the Corbières by the Chanoine Jehan Nouvel, his « plus que père dont il prendroit le prénom en hommage ».

The name "Ascuiz" was stated by the sixteenth-century historian Claude Fauchet to be merely a common noun in the foothills of the Pyrenees.

"Professor Hugh Payne, son of John Payne (1842 - 1916) the english poet and translator of the Villon Society, Professor of Medieval French Literature at Rutgers University in New Jersey confirmed us before his retirement in 2004 that Jehan’s poetry was originally written in Occitan, or Langue d'Oc."
(So I guess it's not a pun on Hugh de Payns after all.)

But the poems we have are believed to be 17th century French translations from the original Occitan - Certain rumours, admittedly unconfirmed, suggest they may have been perpetrated by the young Racine.

Jehan's talent and genius can be found according to Professor Hugh Payne in the fact that “he synthesised the troubadour or trouveur forms of some two centuries before - The trobar clus, trobar clar and trobar ric - baked them together into a hitherto unprecedented poetic soufflé…. "

Jehan was a great innovator in terms of the themes of poetry and, through these themes, a great renovator of the forms. He understood perfectly the medieval courtly ideal, but he sometimes chose to write against the grain, reversing the values and celebrating the lowlifes, and constantly innovating in his diction and vocabulary.

[snip]

It is our belief according to our researches that Norman Leslie of Pitcullo – and Jehan L’Ascuiz are the same person.

Jehan (alias Norman Leslie) refers more than once to his unfinished Latin Chronicle - That work, usually known as "The Book of Pluscarden," has been edited by Felix Skene, in the series of "Historians of Scotland".

[snip]

Norman Leslie is the autobiographical narrator of the book Monk of Fife, written by Scottish author Andrew Lang. However, most people believe the character ("Norman Leslie"), who is supposed to be one of Joan of Arc's companions, is a fictional invention!

Andrew Lang was a Scottish folklorist and anthropologist who lived from 1844 to 1912.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Lang

[snip]

and A Monk of Fife (1896) is a fictitious narrative purporting to be written by a young Scot in France in 1429-1431.

[snip]

Or is it? The author of this website seems to be indicating Lang's "Norman Leslie of Pitcullo" was not an invented character for a historical romance but the real "Jehan l'Ascuiz"! A Scot who dabbled in Occitan troubadour poetry?

The creators of this website call themselves "The Auld Alliance".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auld_Alliance

The Auld Alliance (French: Vieille Alliance, Norwegian: auld-alliansen) refers to a series of treaties, offensive and defensive in nature, between Scotland and France (until 1326 also Norway), aimed specifically against England. The first such agreement was signed in Paris on 23 October 1295 – subsequently ratified at Dunfermline the following February – during the reign of John Balliol and Philip the Fair. It was renewed on several subsequent occasions, and affected Franco-Scottish (and English) affairs until the Treaty of Edinburgh in 1560.

[snip]

I had trouble tracking down Hugh Payne before, maybe because he did retire in 2004. I searched through Rutgers' faculty database (around 2007 IIRC) and he didn't come up.

If he was the son of John Payne - well, he appears to be real.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Payne_(poet)

John Payne (1842 - 1916) was an English poet and translator, from Devon. Initially he pursued a legal career, and associated with Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Later he became involved with limited edition publishing, and the Villon Society.

[snip]

The Villon Society seems to have been a group dedicated to studying the poetry of Francois Villon. Looks like same time period as "Ascuiz".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/François_Villon

François Villon (in modern French, pronounced [fʁɑ̃swa vijɔ̃]; in fifteenth-century French, [frɑnswɛ viˈlɔn]) (c. 1431 – after 5 January 1463) was a French poet, thief, and vagabond. He is perhaps best known for his Testaments and his Ballade des Pendus, written while in prison. The question "Mais où sont les neiges d'antan?", taken from the Ballade des dames du temps jadis and translated by Dante Gabriel Rossetti as "Where are the snows of yesteryear?", is one of the most famous lines of translated secular poetry in the English-speaking world.

Villon's real surname has been a matter of dispute; he has been called François de Montcorbier and François Des Loges and other names, though in literature Villon is the sole name used. Villon was born in 1431, almost certainly in Paris. The singular poems called Testaments, which form his chief if not his only certain work, are largely autobiographical.
It appears that he was born in poverty and that his father died in his youth, but that his mother was still living when her son was thirty years old. The name "Villon" was stated by the sixteenth-century historian Claude Fauchet to be merely a common noun, signifying "cheat" or "rascal", but this seems to be a mistake. It is, however, certain that Villon was a person of loose life, and that he continued, throughout his recorded life, a reckless way of living common among the wilder youth of the University of Paris. It is possible that he derived his surname from his uncle, a close friend and benefactor named Guillaume de Villon, chaplain in the collegiate church of Saint-Benoît-le-Bestourne, and a professor of canon law, who took Villon into his house.

[snip]

In a 'faithful translation' of the works of Francois Rabelais by the Bibliophilist Society, Illustrated by Gustave Dore in "The Second Book Of Rabelais, Treating On The Heroic Deeds And Sayings Of The Good Pantagruel, Chapter XIV. How Panurge Related The Manner How He Escaped Out Of The Hands Of The Turks" Panurge telling that story is asked by one of his hearers about a said jeweled codpiece promised him if he accurately killed, his now grieving bashaw who had him captured and, he said, on spit, but who now wanted to die, because his house and possessions were burnt in a fire, answered his questioners, "And where are they? (the jewels). ""By St. John!" said Panurge,
"they are a good way hence, if they always keep going: but where is the last years snow? This is the greatest care that Villon the Parisian poet took..."". Rabelais mentions monsieur Villon several more times throughout his work(s).

[snip]

The most commonly featured motifs that can be found in Villon's poetry are "carpe diem", "ubi sunt", "memento mori" and "danse macabre".

In 1960, the Greek artist "NONDA" dedicated an entire one man art show to François Villon with the support of André Malraux. This took place under the arches of the Pont Neuf and was dominated by a gigantic ten-meter canvas entitled Hommage à Villon depicting the poet at a banquet table with his concubines. Sculptures, woodcuts and objects related to Villon were also displayed.[citation needed].

See also Ezra Pound's musical setting of Villon's Le Testament as a work of literary criticism concerning the relationship of words and music (in next category below, under Depictions).

[snip]

Elsewhere, Lincoln seems to have hinted that "Ascuiz" was a member of the Academie des Jeux Floraux.

http://www.answers.com/topic/jeux-floraux-acad-mie-des

Académie des Jeux Floraux (äkädāmē' dā jö flôrō') [Fr.,=academy of floral games], one of the oldest known literary societies. It was founded (c.1323) at Toulouse, France, by seven troubadours to uphold the traditions of courtly lyricism. It promulgated (c.1355) a code of poetry known as the laws of love. With the decay of troubadour tradition, its literary contest (established 1324 and held in modern times in Toulouse on May 3) began to change. In place of langue d'oc, French became, after 1539, the sole language of contributions. The society received its present title from Louis XIV in 1694. The group supported romanticism; 19th-century winners of its traditional golden flower included Chateaubriand and Hugo. In 1895, on the urging of Frédéric Mistral, langue d'oc was readmitted on a par with French in its contests.

[snip]

The patroness of the Floral Games (Jeux-Floraux) in Toulouse was the legendary "Dame Clemence Isaure". Clemence = Misericordia = Mercy.

http://lawsofsilence.blogspot.com/2007/ ... -left.html

In the history of Toulouse, the origin of the Floral Games appears inseparable from the mysterious memory of Dama Clemensa, considered the inspiration and benefactress of poets. In the last third of the 15th century, a scholar of the Renaissance, Guillaume Benoît, in a treatise on wills, refers to the bequests given to the city by the illustrious Lady Clémence, distributing gifts of silver flowers to inspire eloquence among the young.

Since 1527, an elegy to Clémence Isaure has been read annually for the feast of May 3rd. On the eve of the revolution, Florian's novel popularized the legend of Clémence Isaure in which the scholars of the romantic period wanted to discover an embodiment of the mystic poetry of the troubadours.

[snip]

The jury of the Floral Games proved its wisdom by rewarding a gold lily to a young Victor Hugo at 19 years old. Chateaubriand was also crowned. And of course there is poet François Fabre d'Églantine who has bequeathed to us the revolutionary calendar and “It rains, it rains, shepherdess…” (The second part of his name recalls the silver wild rose [eglantine] won in the Floral Plays and thus he was very proud!)

[snip]

The rose is associated with Mary in many contexts, especially as Queen of Heaven, and many miraculous appearances of Mary--such as the Virgen de Guadalupe, patron of Mexico--involve roses. The rose is also associated with Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus. St. Thérèse, having promised to send the faithful roses from Heaven, is called “the little flower” and her shrine at Lisieux is one of the most popular pilgrimage destinations in France. The church in Toulouse dedicated to Sainte Thérèse can be found on the rue Belle Paule, and that a statue of her features prominently in the nave of the church of the Daurade.

In the basilica of the Daurade where the elegy to Clémence Isaure is read, the Black Madonna there is sumptuously adorned with lilies. The origin of Black Madonnas has been linked with the Song of Solomon 1:5 (“I am black, but comely”) as far back as St. Bernard. In the next chapter--2:1 and 2:2--we find the following: “I am the rose of Sharon, and the lily of the valleys” and “As the lily among thorns, so is my love among the daughters.” These erotic verses make the mix all that more interesting. Flowers are sexy. Just ask Georgia O'Keefe. Is it any wonder that Notre Dame de la Daurade presides over childbirth and is appealed to by those in a family way? There is eroticism in her chastity. Clémence Isaure and Notre Dame serve a similar function as the unattainable lady, untainted by yet forever an object of desire. One can attain the flower, if only.... It would appear significant in this context that the seven troubadours who founded the Games first convened in a monastery orchard, for the Black Madonnas are frequently associated with planted fields, trees and vegetation. A painting (c. 1893) in the Mairie of Toulouse has Clémence appearing to the troubadours in a sacred grove accompanied by three virginal muses. Although more pagan it its overt symbolism, there is something of an apparition of Mary in the depiction. To her right there is a statue of Pallas Athena; according to legend, when a lake was drained at the site of the Daurade basilica, a statue of Pallas Athena was found.

The prizes of the Floral Games are associated with a feminine ideals, just as the very games themselves were made possible by the generosity of another idealized woman. We have already noted that the prizes were attributed to Dame Clémence, Lady Clemency; no surprise then that it is to the Vierge Noire of the Daurade where the Academy brings these prizes to be blessed each May, when the elegy to Lady Clémence is read. One author points out that the Virgin Mary was the original spiritual benefactress of the Games and that Clémence Isaure became its earthly one, but over time she assumed the role of a Celestial Virgin. A bust (below, left) of Clémence from 1882 sits on a socle decorated with a lyre and with flowers and her clasp is decorated with a representation of the Virgin.

[snip]

According to Gérard de Sède, even skeptics of the day noted that "Lady Clemency" had been a title of the Virgin since the 14th century. He says some claimed that "Isaure" actually mean Isis Aurea: "Golden Isis." Placing her alleged grave under the Madonna in the Daurade--a Black Madonna whose name means "Golden"--thus evidences the purely symbolic nature of her name. Sède mentons that others connect Clémence with something brought back from Isauria, a region of Asia Minor, by the crusaders via Constantinople . The members of the company, he reminds us, were sworn to secrecy; it appears that Gay Science might in fact have been a secret doctrine kept hidden in symbols, perhaps Catharism.

[snip]

Were Jehan l'Ascuiz, Francois Villon, and Rabelais ... Goliards?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goliard

The Goliards were a group of clergy who wrote bibulous, satirical Latin poetry in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. They were mainly clerical students at the universities of France, Germany, Spain, Italy, and England who protested the growing contradictions within the Church, such as the failure of the Crusades and financial abuses, expressing themselves through song, poetry and performance.

The derivation of the word is uncertain. It may simply come from the Latin gula, gluttony. It was said by them to originate from a mythical "Bishop Golias", a mediæval Latin form of the name Goliath, the giant who fought King David in the Bible, suggestive of their posing as heavy drinking yet learned students who lampooned the ecclesiastical and political establishment. Many scholars believe it goes back to a letter between St. Bernard of Clairvaux and Pope Innocent II, in which he referred to Pierre Abélard as Goliath, thus creating a connection between Goliath and the student adherents of Abélard. Others support its derivation from gailliard, a "gay fellow".

[snip]

Grasset d'Orcet wrote a lot about the Goliards.

Poussin: the Goliard?

http://www.lecoindelenigme.com/gen-mecenes-15.htm

This grabbed my attention at the top.

Le Golem, façonné dans de l´argile, prit vie
quand Rabbi traça sur son front les lettres du mot
VÉRITÉ : Aleph-Mem-Tav

[snip]

http://www.historyguide.org/intellect/lecture4a.html

Throughout the central and high middle ages we can discern a literature which abounds in the frank enjoyment of life and its pleasures. The verse of the GOLIARDS is one such example. The troubadours and wandering scholars, of course, were roundly condemned by the stern St. Dominic and Pope Innocent III went on to lead a Holy Crusade to stamp out the Cathari as well as the Goliards. And although Thomas Aquinas was certainly no pagan and clearly no devotee of the Goliards, it is also clear that he embraced his own brand of humanism. Aquinas was no ascetic in the mold of Augustine. Citified intellectual that he was, he did not deny himself the pleasures of earthly existence. His entire philosophy was grounded in the supremacy of that most human of man's qualities -- Human Reason.

[snip]

It was the Wandering Scholars or Goliards who used the vernacular instead of classical or even medieval or Carolingian Latin. The Goliards wrote free and joyous poetry -- they have a near immediate appeal to the modern reader because they stand outside the image of medieval piety and religious devotion. GOLIARDIC VERSE -- meant to be sung rather than simply read -- praises the pleasures of this world as well as despair over the uncertainties of life. The Goliards were also deeply critical of the "system" -- especially the privileged orders of the knights, bishops and professors. The wandering scholars were dissatisfied with their own age and so they reveled in a rather boisterous, drunken life -- they were Europe's first bohemians.

[snip]

http://www.mtholyoke.edu/courses/rschwa ... index.html

Bohemia is less a region of definite situation and boundaries than a state of mind, a memory of youth and of the glamour of youth...
-Arthur Barlett Maurice

John Payne may have lived, I don't know if he had a son named Hugh who went on to teach at Rutgers. BTW, my brother teaches economics at Rutgers.

He's proving quite elusive.

http://history.rutgers.edu/index.php?op ... Itemid=189

Ancient and Medieval European History

Thomas Figueira
Samantha Kelly
Jim Masschaele
Karl Morrison
Stephen Reinert
Sarolta Takacs
Paola Tartakoff

[snip]

Not there, and not on their "emeritus" list, either.

[snip]

"Whilst the non-fiction books generally presented their material in a serious vein, Leigh would allow his clever humour to show in subtle ways. Each of the books carried a dedication to Jehan l'Ascuiz, a mythical Occitan bard. Similarly, Leigh's official biographical information is intended to make us howl, in describing him as a member of the "Vancouver Foundation for Lycanthropic Children"."

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obitu ... 60861.html

No need to Google any further!

"Richard Leigh was born in New Jersey in 1943 to a British father and Austrian mother."

What were the names of their partners? Richard Leigh was never married.

I read your obit, Marcus, it was carried in lots of places. Yes, I for a long time thought "Ascuiz" was a fictive alter ego for Richard Leigh.

Who is this guy who is claiming otherwise? He goes by "Jehan Ascuiz" on facebook.

http://www.serreorg.com/join.html

Pierre Louis de Monclars Secretary-Treasurer

He also appears to operate these sites:

http://www.auldalliance.org/contactaa.html

Webmaster
Pierre Louis de Monclars

Would he be the one who put this orphan entry in Wikipedia?

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_de_Monclars

Thomas de Monclars, était l'un de compagnons d'armes de Jeanne d'Arc.

The character Jehan Lascuiz is mythical, that means not real... Unless you are trying to wind up people here...

Now, get out from behind the computer and enjoy the summer!



Hope that helps.

regards
Marcus

This Sufism thing pops up yet again. Apparently, the Spanish and southern France people were influenced by the Moors to a considerable degree. Here's a Rene d'Anjou painting featuring the Sufi symbol of the winged heart, so he was in on the Sufism too, or the Sufi symbol was also used by the Grail types without actually knowing its original source. They just took out the star and crescent which was blatantly Muslim and made it a symbol of the Grail Faithful. I wonder why d'Anjou frequently stuck a pillar in his paintings. What does that mean? With the apple tree in the background, maybe it's an Abelio symbol.

Re the uncial writing in the scans, they match that in the Shepherdess parchment but not the Dagobert one. You can tell by the formation of the letters M and U. He made the M with a short central line and he made the U like an upside down Omega. So now we know why the writing is different on the two parchments, one is real and one is a modern forgery.

I still tend to agree with you, Marcus, I'm just trying to figure out the agenda of these people claiming otherwise.

I guess there's only one way to find out, which is to email them: so I did.



Summer in Miami offers monsoons or extreme heat. I'm more comfortable here.

And usually doing other work at the same time.

I think they were all - and still are - having a bit of fun, just like Plantard, de Sede (surrealist poet) and de Cherisey (surrealist and Oulipian) did when they came up with the idea of a secret society back in in 50's...

Unfortunately the joke got outta control, so that now we have people here arguing about the finer points of what is all just a modern "myth" in the making...

Thanks
Marcus

Well, lots of questions.

1. That letter is neither to or by Paul Smith, so why does he have it? (That's why I doubt if it's real.)

2. Assuming it's real, and assuming Henry Lincoln then wrote that to Douglas Carpenter, and assuming Marcus is correct that Jehan l'Ascuiz WAS Richard Leigh or an imaginary construct of the BLL trio, why is Lincoln bullshitting poor Mr. Carpenter?

3. We both agree the lettering they include in their attachments resembles that of the "parchments". Lincoln seems to be saying they "believe" it's Bigou's. Would make sense if one accepts (as most people now don't, of course) that Bigou wrote the parchments. So Bigou was writing down the poems of 15th century Occitan poets in the margins of 18th century books in the same uncial lettering he was using for his coded parchments .... why exactly?

4. I actually agree with Agent Smith for once that "Hugh Payne" sounds a lot like "Hugues de Payns" and may indeed be Henry having a little bit of fun. He sure doesn't turn up in any of my searches of Rutgers faculty.

Then along come these guys saying he was the son of John Payne ... well, he was real, only question is did he have a son named Hugh who carried on his love of medieval literature?

Anyway, like I said, waiting to hear back from them.

He's not...

If the letter is real, then he's mythmaking, he's having fun and hoping that others will enjoy the ride too...

Why would someone make up such a bizarre story? Why use a name so obviously like a well known Templar? Nobody would be that dumb. The only conclusion is that it was a real name. It does occur that people have similar names by pure chance you know.

It's obviously a real publication and the writing is on there. Maybe Bigou wrote so much in uncial that he got to like it and it became natural so he used it for anything other than business purposes. Look how he started writing it in a normal upright orientation on the page and then decided to cross it out and redo it sideways because he screwed up the d in the word du. Why would a faker do that? Doesn't make sense for him to screw up his otherwise very nice "forgery" and still use it. Does anyone have an authentic sample of Bigou's initials to compare?

How did PS get the letter and the scans, very simple, by using the name Douglas Carpenter. That's why he didn't say how he got it.

Damnit, JB, that's the freaking heart of the mess for me.

If I could have figured it out, I would have given up on this crap a long, long time ago.

There's so much weird faking and game-playing going on in this whole scenario. Everyone pulling everybody else's leg.

But for me it's like the crop circles: why? Why are they doing this? What's the point? Why bother?

It's the same damn thing that intrigues me about the May Day Mystery and Neurocam.

I think Marcus is right. It's all a joke. But what kind?

This kind?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludibrium

Ludibrium is a word derived from Latin ludus (plural ludi), meaning a plaything or a trivial game. In Latin ludibrium denotes an object of fun, and at the same time, of scorn and derision, and it also denotes a capricious game itself: e.g., ludibria ventis (Virgil), "the playthings of the winds", ludibrium pelagis (Lucretius), "the plaything of the waves"; Ludibrio me adhuc habuisti (Plautus), "Until now you have been toying with me."

The term "ludibrium" was used frequently by Johann Valentin Andreae (1587 - 1654) in phrases like "the ludibrium of the fictitious Rosicrucian Fraternity" when describing the Rosicrucian Order, most notably in his Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz, published anonymously in 1616, of which Andreae subsequently claimed to be the author and which has been taken seriously, as virtually a third of the Rosicrucian Manifestos.[1] However, in his Peregrini in Patria errores (1618) Andreae compares the world to an amphitheatre where no one is seen in their true light. This conception of the Rosicrucian world as theater was popularized by the French Situationist Guy Debord in Society of the Spectacle (1967).
Paul Arnold translated Andreae's usage as farce,[2] but this conception has been contested by Frances Yates (Yate 1999), who suggests that Andreae's use of the term implies more nearly some sort of "Divine Comedy", a dramatic allegory played in the political domain during the tumult which preceded the Thirty Years' War in Germany.

Similarly, the melancholic Jacques in As You Like It (1599-1600) asserts that "All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players."
It has been suggested that Situationist International was a ludibrium devised by Asger Jorn. Like the Rosicrucians, the Situationist International was a very small group which nevertheless became notorious, even if only for a while. This conception can function as a technique whereby mental projections can be cast into the social imagination.

Robert Anton Wilson has suggested that the Priory of Sion is a modern ludibrium:
The Priory Of Sion fascinates me, because it has all the appearances of being a real conspiracy, and yet if you look at the elements another way, it looks like a very complicated practical joke by a bunch of intellectual French aristocrats. And half of the time I believe it really is a practical joke by a bunch of intellectual French aristocrats. And then part of the time I think it is a real conspiracy.[3]

[snip]

And then RAW turns around and writes shit like this.

http://fusionanomaly.net/surrealism.html

The surrealist movement was launched in 1923 - the year James Joyce, after making cryptic notes for several months, finally wrote the first three-page fragment of _Finnegan's Wake_, and the year Hitler was initiated in the Thule Society, and occult secret society with a paranoid dread of all other occult secret societies, which it claimed were run by Jews and Freemasons - anyway, that year, the First Surrealist Manifesto promised or threatened "total transformation of mind and all that resembles it." Among the founders was Raymond Roussel, former associate of Aleister Crowley and Father Sauniere in the Hermetic Brotherhood of Light, and among the later recruits was Jean Cocteau, who eventually became 23rd Grand Master of the Priory of Sion.
- Robert Anton Wilson - _Coincidance_ in _Semiotext[e] USA_

[snip]

There was a Hermetic Brotherhood of Light (Luxor). I have no idea if the people he names were members. The one person writing about them is a "Gnostic" bishop named T. Allen Greenfield and we have had some interesting, if bizarre, conversations.

Throwaway paragraph. Bullshit. What in there is proveable?

One weird thing, though.

I've pointed this out before. Cocteau's signature on the peedox has the little star next to it. That doesn't mean the signature is authentic. It does mean whoever put that little star there knows he used to do this. Did they know why?

I've read dozens of "priory" books and AFAICT I'm the first person to have noticed the connection.

He put a star on his forehead in the mural he did for Notre Dame de France. That appears in Henry Lincoln's book.

http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/bibli ... ios02a.htm



Also in there is a Black Sun (oh crap here we go) and a Blue Rose, which was BTW a symbol for the Symbolists in early Russia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_rose

The Blue Rose is a symbol for the imagination, because it is something that can exist only in the mind, not in nature. That's why it was such an important symbol for the Symbolists and Surrealists.

But back to that damned star.

RAYMOND ROUSSEL wrote a book (play) called Star in the Forehead (L'Etoile au Front) in 1925.

As I dug into Roussel's bio, I found out that Cocteau and Roussel were both friends of Guillaume Apollinaire, who had a star-shaped wound in his forehead from WW I.

Apollinaire was left with a battle wound on his temple after serving in WW I.



It left a star shaped wound in his forehead; Cocteau writes in one of his autobio works that that's what inspired him to start putting the star after his signature. Same reason that Roussel wrote Star in the Forehead, where he says the star symbolizes the genius (daemon) of creativity being hatched within the mind.

Both did it as an homage to Apollinaire, the founder of Surrealism.

I suspect you're quite right, here, JB. Given his history of using various pseudonyms.

I'm starting to feel like Diogenes here.

So somebody put that writing in those books and then the only person who ever was told about them was Lincoln and he didn't even follow up on them or publicize them in any way. That was a lot of effort for nothing. You would have expected them to "leak" them to others who would make more of a commotion over them after Lincoln failed to do so. This just doesn't look like something that someone would do this way. Just see if such a person ever lived at the address given. How hard would that be? In fact, why even provide an exact street address to be checked? The guy lived in Tenafly, New Jersey. Doesn't sound made up.

150 Newcomb Road, Tenafly, NJ, is a single family home.

That much I know.

http://www.trulia.com/homes/New_Jersey/ ... y-NJ-07670

It was sold in 1/30/09 and earlier in 6/21/1999.

At least it's not a park or an outhouse. I was almost expecting that.

No records on who bought it. Now or then.

BTW, there is an author "Hugh Payne" on BookFinder and he lives in New Jersey.

http://www.bookfinder.com/author/hugh-payne/

Alas, he didn't write much on medieval literature, but he did write

"Yo' Mama Is So..."

Seeker1 said:


Seeking out an honest man is a hard call in this enigma, as in any other, Seeker.

Regards to all

Wombat.

Here's a lovely example:

http://www.serreorg.com/poems.html

Loin de cette douce val du lys,
La vanité s'évanouit.
Entre Déité et l'Homme,
Toi, Bergère,
La voie dévoile.
Il vit les longues tresses rubigineuses,
Chanter à faire pitié.
Qui ne veux pas qu'on
Sache ameuter
Les jeunes au jeûne.

The first line is:

"Out Your Own Sweet Vale"

Does that remind us of something?!

Read and smile at the ingenuity of the gamesters...

That was quite a find, Marcus. And it wasn't written by Anna Seward in the 18th century. Online translation:

Far from this soft valley of the lily,
vanity disappears.
Between Deity and the Man,
You, Shepherdess,
the way reveals.
It saw the long rubiginous braids,
Chanter to make pity.
Who do not want that one
Can assemble
the young people to the fast.

Pretty much gibberish but clearly the source of the Seward poem. What a plagiarist, OMG.

The Shugborough Inscription?

I'm sorry. I gotta find out what these guys are up to.

The site mainly seems determined to prove that Joan of Arc had several Scottish companions in her entourage.

This seems to be part of some larger argument that France and Scotland have some deeper, almost mystical relationship, symbolized by the Auld Alliance.

Should have translated that word.

Rubiginous = reddish-brown or rust-colored

Long red hair. Who's that associated with?



Still waiting for a response from "serreorg".

BTW, one other thing popped into my head.

What kind of name for an organization is "Serre Org"?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolas_Bourbaki

Nicolas Bourbaki is the collective pseudonym under which a group of (mainly French) 20th-century mathematicians wrote a series of books presenting an exposition of modern advanced mathematics, beginning in 1935. With the goal of founding all of mathematics on set theory, the group strove for utmost rigour and generality, creating some new terminology and concepts along the way.

While Nicolas Bourbaki is an invented personage, the Bourbaki group is officially known as the Association des collaborateurs de Nicolas Bourbaki (Association of Collaborators of Nicolas Bourbaki), which has an office at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris.

[snip]

Other notable participants in later days were Laurent Schwartz, Jean-Pierre Serre, Alexander Grothendieck, Samuel Eilenberg, Serge Lang and Roger Godement.

[snip]

The name "Bourbaki" refers to a French general Charles Denis Bourbaki;[10] it was adopted by the group as a reference to a student anecdote about a hoax mathematical lecture, and also possibly to a statue. It was certainly a reference to Greek mathematics, Bourbaki being of Greek extraction. It is a valid reading to take the name as implying a transplantation of the tradition of Euclid to a France of the 1930s, with soured expectations.

[snip]

http://www.complete-review.com/reviews/ ... ompend.htm

The Oulipo is the best-known group, but the methods and approaches have also been adopted in other fields. (In fact, the Oulipo has direct precursor in the Bourbaki group, which tried to "perform an Oulipian rewriting of mathematics" (so Jacques Roubaud).) The off-shoots are discussed in the last sections of the Oulipo Compendium.

[snip]

Fark me silly.

Glad to see your back ole chap