Lure of the Arcane: The Literature of Cult and Conspiracy

245 Pages·2013·2.153 MB·English

by  Ziolkowski, Theodore

Lure of the Arcane
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Lure
of the
Arcane
The Literature of
Cult and Conspiracy
Theodore Ziolkowski
The Johns Hopkins University Press
Baltimore
© 2013 The Johns Hopkins University Press
All rights reserved. Published 2013
Printed in the United States of America on acid- free paper
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
The Johns Hopkins University Press
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Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Ziolkowski, Theodore.
Lure of the arcane : the literature of cult and conspiracy /
Theodore Ziolkowski.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN- 13: 978- 1- 4214- 0958- 0 (hardcover : acid- free paper)
ISBN- 13: 978- 1- 4214- 0959- 7 (electronic)
ISBN- 10: 1- 4214- 0958- 5 (hardcover : acid- free paper)
ISBN- 10: 1- 4214- 0959- 3 (electronic)
1. Conspiracy in literature. 2. Secret societies in literature.
3. Secrecy in literature. I. Title.
PN56.C675Z56 2013
809'.93355— dc23
2012041101
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For my wife
Yetta Goldstein Ziolkowski
to whom I have been bound for over sixty years
with cultlike devotion
and
in conspiratorial mystery
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Contents
Preface ix
Introduction 1
1 The Mystery Cults of Antiquity 11
2 The Order of Knights Templar in the Middle Ages 29
3 The Rosicrucians of the Post- Reformation 46
4 The Lodges of the Enlightenment 65
5 Secret Societies of Romantic Socialism 99
6 Modern Variations 132
7 Interlude: The Protocols of the Elders of Zion 159
8 The Playfulness of Postmodernism 178
Conclusion 195
Notes 201
Index 225
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Preface
This book can be seen in part, I suppose, as an attempt to rationalize and justify
my longtime practice at bedtime of reading mysteries or thrillers— books that
some of my academic colleagues have uncharitably called “trash” but that I pre-
fer to regard more tolerantly, along with such fans as W. H. Auden, T. S. Eliot,
Jorge Luis Borges, Friedrich Dürrenmatt, and Umberto Eco as literary sociology,
fi ctionalized politics, or aestheticized current events. Whether we share the cyn-
ical view or the loft ier one, it has long been clear to me that readers and audiences
for many centuries have been subject to the same proclivity for mystery, a sus-
ceptibility that accounts for the continuing popularity of many literary works
that we now regard as classics, from Euripides’ Bacchae to the present.
At the same time, the morning newspapers seemed to dwell increasingly dur-
ing the fi rst dec ade of the twenty- fi rst century on stories about conspiracies:
from plots by Al- Qaeda or the CIA to destroy buildings and airplanes to the
controversies surrounding the cults of Scientology or Opus Dei, from the schemes
of left - wing radicals to the counterplots of conservative extremists to undermine
the government. These conspiracies in turn and in an unending cycle inform the
conspiracy fi ction and fi lms that entertain many devotees.
My vague ruminations were catalyzed when my wife, Yetta, who has long pro-
vided the liveliest stimulation to my imagination, urged me to read George Sand’s
The Countess of Rudolstadt just at the moment when I was enjoying one of my