Therefore this ideology is a compilation — “a meta-goulash of various ideologies,” mainly “radical” and “anarchic” (destructive of society), especially developed and applied to concrete socio-political and economic conditions.
HERBERT MEIER. THE HISTORY OF A LIE
We live in a time of mystification, a time of disorientation caused by the loss of a center and by desacralization. Such a time is ripe for the appearance of false messiahs, a flood of no less false spirituality and the flourishing of fake mystics. Deceit often takes on the illusion of truth. Christian Rosenkreuz comes to mind who, in his leisure, composed the fantastic tale of the company of the Rose Cross. Readers of that nebulous, syncretistic prose — without the author’s knowledge — founded an order and played their part in the all-encompassing disorder and moral chaos that is shaking the very foundations of European civilization.
In recent times, the legend of the Evangelical Bicyclists of the Rose Cross has been circulating among the “esotericians.” This mystification, a simple mishmash of the mystification that came before it, has found champions, unfortunately, even among authors of pristine reputation. This is one more proof in support of the thesis that no one — if one leaves the solid ground of science and the credibility of the experimental method — is immune to error. And the error, in this particular case, is more than obvious. Already at first sight we notice the almost naïve diversity in the documents of the so-called Bicyclists; they are nothing more than a heap of completely contradictory concepts forcibly connected into a vague theory. What a fabulous mixture: iconoclasm, theology, psychoanalysis, scholastics, astrology, mechanics, dubious poetry, falsified biographies, misrepresented history, and unconvincing, obviously construed, symbolism. With near certainty it can be claimed that such a fraternity, such a gathering of people, does not exist in reality. It is more likely that the fama birotarorium is the product of a few liars with too much time on their hands.
Before we denounce and unmask the sources and documents, let us look at the goals of these infamous Bicyclists. The sect, or so it is claimed, originated in a secret society of blacksmiths from Antioch, scattered about the world with aim of spreading a secret from one generation to the next, a secret which can be reduced to approximately this: there are two kinds of craftsmen, masons and blacksmiths; the first are sons of the earth, in collusion with the Devil. These Archaitektones (as they call them) have one single goaclass="underline" to build a tower that will reach into Heaven. Their first attempt, the construction of the Tower of Babylon, was foiled, but the fraternity of masons did not give up on its plans. The first tower was only a prototype of the final, perfect, upside-down tower that is to be built beneath the earth as a system sufficient in itself — a complete city. On the other hand, the blacksmiths of Antioch, as sons of fire, are the guardians of the ancient Covenant between God and man; they are the sons of Heaven. Supposedly the task of these preservers of the tradition of the Antioch blacksmiths, the Evangelical Bicyclists, is indeed to change the direction of history and to thwart the plans of the masons. In Tatlin’s plan for the monument of the 2nd International, the Bicyclists purportedly recognized the sign of the last days and, after centuries of silence, decided to discretely publish their teachings. From the existing “documents” it turns out that the Bicyclists are battling against the intentions of the architects with the synergy of the dead, living and future brothers (sic!). To make the farce even greater, they do so by having the dead members (since they observe time integrally from their otherworldly position) teach the unborn how to have an influence on events. Living members, the earthly camp of the brotherhood, only exist so that the unbroken thread will have a material basis. Otherwise, everything would just be an illusion. Which, in fact, it is. At the same time, this also explains the this-worldly passivity of the Evangelical Bicyclists. The central place in the Bicyclists mysticism is certainly the plan to outsmart the architects by having the Bicyclists themselves do the planning for the ultimate tower; they are to slip the apparently completed plans of the structure to the architects, and after being built the structure will destroy itself at a given time.
How utterly charming!
Let us now look at the documents of the Evangelical Bicyclists. First is the Basel Parchment, a charter of undetermined age, a collection of absolute nonsense in which certain interpreters find hidden material. Even if the parchment is authentic, it says nothing. The text is not even worthwhile citing. We can comfortably say that it is the most commonplace of farces.
The second document is A TALE OF MY KINGDOM, the authorship of which is ascribed to a certain King Charles the Hideous. Historical sources make no mention of such a king. Not a single mention. To be honest, Charles the Hideous himself in the TALE announces his disappearance from the historical scene together with his fictitious kingdom. We can perhaps recognize the hand of the falsifiers who, knowing that they are deceiving everyone, are preparing an exit strategy for themselves using purely literary devices. In any case, the third supposed document, THE DIABOLICAL TWO-WHEELER, attributed to the majordomo of King Hideous, is reprinted completely from the novel The Cyclist Conspiracy by a little known author, published by “Prosveta Publishers,” although the champions of the Evangelical Bicyclists have launched the thesis that the writer is the one who reproduced the majordomo’s text.
The entire ruse would not be worthy of mention if it did not also contain a series of political implications wrapped in a thin veil of mystery. The Evangelical Bicyclists, whether they exist or not, consider themselves to be legitimate subjects of the Eastern Roman Empire, Byzantium, and they do not recognize any of the states that have appeared on the territory that Byzantium once occupied. It is not far from reason to suppose that the Evangelical Bicyclists could easily be a creation of a department for political propaganda of one of the great powers, for whom the existing state of peace is not agreeable. In any case, it is a morbid legend that is threatening to become fashionable, a testimony to the fact the phantoms of superstition are still raging the world of people, that vagueness and secrecy are still popular and that they persistently, but with ever less success, attempt to stand in the way of the scientific and technological progress of humankind.
Christian Science Monitor
ÇULABA ÇULABI. HOW I BECAME A MEMBER OF THE ORDER OF LITTLE BROTHERS OF THE EVANGELICAL BICYCLISTS OF THE ROSE CROSS (THE HISTORY OF TIMEPIECES)
I must admit: that morning when I was arrested, I actually did strike my mother. Because she did not wake me up on time. The night before I had left her a message to wake me up at eight, she woke me up at nine and so I was late to an important meeting. I got up and, angrily, gave her a slap. Almost a symbolic one. This comes as a kind of confession. Does my conscience bother me? Yes, but my conscience bothers me whenever I do anything; for example when I cross the street or smell a flower. So, I slapped my mother and quickly experienced all the things that a slap can get a man into, a slap that is, like everything else anyway, perhaps just fiction. Not even half an hour passed and I was already arrested and standing in the police station in front of the shocked policemen who simply could not believe that I had raised my hand against a parent. The very nature of those men’s jobs is to raise their hand against people who are not related to them in any way whatsoever, and they — oh, the hypocrisy! — were shocked because I gave my mother a gentle slap. I am of the opinion that a man should occasionally beat his mother, if for no other reason than the fact that she gave birth to him — bang! — cut the umbilical cord, and shoved him into the world, where he is constantly attempting to return to the safety of the uterus by pushing his penis into women’s vulvae, vainly attempting to widen the entrance, to slip back inside, to escape from the face of the planet, committing the deadly sin of promiscuity.