Nine Unknown Men
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (July 2006) |
The Nine Unknown Men are a legendary two millennia-old secret society reputedly founded by the Indian Emperor Asoka c. 270 BCE. According to the legend, upon his conversion to Buddhism after a massacre during one of his wars, the Emperor founded the society of the Nine to preserve and develop knowledge that would be dangerous to humanity if it fell into the wrong hands. Some versions of the story include an additional motivation for the Emperor to conceal scientific knowledge: remnants of the Rama Empire, an Indian version of Atlantis, which according to Hindu scripture was destroyed by advanced weaponry 15,000 years ago. The early appearance of the society in the fictional works of Louis Jacolliot and Talbot Mundy has led some to conclude that the legend is a modern fabrication.
Contents |
[edit] History
The secret society was first described in 19th century works by Louis Jacolliot, and in the 20th century by the fantasy writer and Theosophist Talbot Mundy. In 1960, Louis Pauwels and Jacques Bergier wrote about the Nine Unknown Men in their Morning of the Magicians. In their works, they claimed that the society occasionally revealed itself to wise outsiders such as Pope Sylvester II who was said to have received, among other things, training in supernatural powers and a robotic talking head from the group. In more recent times, according to this circle, the Nine assisted humanity by revealing the secret of the cholera vaccine.
Among conspiracy theorists the Nine Unknown is often cited as one of the oldest and most powerful secret societies in the world. Unusually for conspiracy theorists, the image of the group is largely though not entirely benign. Theosophists also believe the Nine to be a real organization that is working for the good of the world.
Some modern Indian scientists such as Jagdish Chandra Bose were said to believe in or even to be members of the Nine although documentation on this issue is predictably scant. Believers in the Nine also point to the mysterious iron pillar of Delhi, which they claim to have been constructed at a time before the technology to create it existed in common circulation. However, this is disputed by other scholars and researchers.[need more information]
[edit] The Nine Books
1. Propaganda and Psychological warfare is a concerted set of messages aimed at influencing the opinions or behavior of large numbers of people. Instead of impartially providing information, propaganda in its most basic sense presents information in order to influence its audience. It is the most dangerous of all sciences, as it is capable of moulding mass opinion. It would enable anyone to govern the whole world.
2. Physiology is the study of the mechanical, physical, and biochemical functions of living organisms. The book of The Nine included instructions on how to perform the "touch of death (death being caused by a reversal of the nerve-impulse)." One account has Judo being a product of material leaked from this book.
3. Microbiology, and, according to more recent speculation, Biotechnology. In some versions of the myth, the waters of the Ganges are purified with special microbes designed by the Nine and released into the river at a secret base in the Himalayas. Multitudes of pilgrims, suffering from the most appalling diseases, bathe in them without harming the healthy ones. The sacred waters purify everything. Their strange properties have been attributed to the fact that they contain bacteriophages. But why should these not be formed in the Bramaputra, the Amazon or the Seine?
4. Alchemy, including the transmutation of metals. In India, there is a persistent rumor that during times of drought or other natural disasters temples and religious organizations receive large quantities of gold from an unknown source. The mystery is further deepened with the fact that the sheer quantity of gold throughout the country in temples and with kings cannot be properly accounted for, seeing that India has few gold mines.
5. Communication, including communication with extraterrestrials.
6. Gravitation. Book 6 The Vaiminaka sastra is said to contain the instructions necessary to build a Vimana, sometimes referred to as the "ancient UFOs of India."
7. Cosmology, the capacity to travel at enormous speeds through spacetime fabric, and time-travel; including intra- and inter-universal trips.
8. Light, the capacity to increase and decrease the speed of light, to use it as a weapon by concentrating it in a certain direction etc.
9. Sociology, including rules concerning the evolution of societies and how to predict their downfall.
[edit] Suspected Members
Numerous figures who straddled the line between occultism and science fiction writing, most prominently (and apparently first) Louis Jacolliot, Talbot Mundy, and later Louis Pauwels and Jacques Bergier in their Morning of the Magicians, propagated the story of the Nine claiming that the society occasionally revealed itself to wise outsiders such as Pope Sylvester II who was said to have received, among other things, training in supernatural powers and a robotic talking head from the group. In more recent times, according to this circle, the Nine assisted humanity by revealing the secret of the Cholera vaccine.
Among conspiracy theorists the Nine Unknown is often cited as one of the oldest and most powerful secret societies in the world. Unusually for the conspiracy subculture, the image of the group is largely though not entirely benign. Theosophists also believe the Nine to be a real organization that is working for the good of the world.
Some modern Indian scientists such as Jagdish Chandra Bose, a pioneer in Radio and Microwave Optics and Vikram Sarabhai, the man behind the Indian space and missile defense programs, were said to believe in or even to be members of the Nine although documentation on this issue is predictably scant. Believers in the Nine also point to the mysterious Delhi iron pillar, which is said to have been constructed at a time before the technology.
Indian scientists are occasionally rumored to be members of the Nine Unknown Men, and from time to time, if a Westerner should visit India and then do something astounding, he is considered to have had their help (as was the case with Pope Sylvester II, and also Alexandre Emile John Yersin, who knew Louis Pasteur and Pierre Paul Emile Roux, who respectively created vaccines for rabies and diphtheria).
[edit] Pope Sylvester II
There is an extraordinary case of one of the most mysterious figures in Western history: the Pope Sylvester II, known also by the name of Gerbert d'Aurillac. Born in the Auvergne in 920 (d. 1003) Gerbert was a Benedictine monk, professor at the University of Rheims, Archbishop of Ravenna and Pope by the grace of Ortho III. He is supposed to have spent some time in Spain, after which a mysterious voyage brought him to India where he is reputed to have acquired various kinds of skills which stupified his entourage. For example, he possessed in his palace a bronze head which answered yes or no to questions put to it on politics or the general position of Christianity. According to Sylvester II this was a perfectly simple operation corresponding to a two-figure calculation, and was performed by an automaton similar to our modern binary machines. This "magic" head was destroyed when Sylvester died, and all the information it imparted carefully concealed. No doubt an authorized research worker would come across some interesting things in the Vatican Library.
In the cybernetics journal, "Computers and Automation" of October 1954, the following comment appeared: "We must suppose that he (Sylvester) was possessed of extraordinary knowledge and the most remarkable mechanical skill and inventiveness. This speaking head must have been fashioned 'under a certain conjunction of stars occurring at the exact moment when all the planets were starting on their courses.' Neither the past, nor the present nor the future entered into it, since this invention apparently far exceeded in its scope its rival, the perverse "mirror on the wall" of the Queen, the precursor of our modern electronic brain. Naturally it was widely asserted that Gerbert was only able to produce such a machine head because he was in league with the Devil and had sworn eternal allegiance to him." Had other Europeans any contact with the society of the Nine Unknown Men?
[edit] Louis Jacolliot
It was not until the nineteenth century that this mystery was referred to again in the works of the French writer Jacolliot. Jacolliot was French Consul at Calcutta under the Second Empire. He wrote some quite important prophetic works, comparable, if not superior to those of Jules Verne. He also left several books dealing with the great secrets of the human race. A great many occult writers, prophets and miracle-workers have borrowed from his writings which, completely neglected in France, are well known in Russia. Jacolliot states catagorically that the Soceity of Nine did actually exist. And, to make it all the more intriguing, he refers in the this connection to certain techniques, unimaginable in 1860, such as, for example, the liberation of energy, sterilization by radiation and psychological warfare.
[edit] Alexandre Emile John Yersin
Yersin, one of Pasteur and de Roux's closest collaborators, was entrusted, it seems, with certain biological secrets when he visited Madras in 1890, and following the instructions he received was able to prepare a serum against cholera and the plague. The Nine came to the rescue of the civilization from these deadly diseases which they knew if not kiboshed would bring the human race to extinction.
[edit] The Nine in popular culture
|
|
This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (June 2009) |
 |
This section may be confusing or unclear to readers. Please help clarify the article; suggestions may be found on the talk page. (June 2009) |
Fantasy writer and Theosophist Talbot Mundy titled of one his Jimgrim novels The Nine Unknown, propagating the story.
The society is mentioned several times in The Illuminatus! Trilogy and the bronze head is a resource card in the Illuminati card game.
The Nine Unknown are also mentioned in the Strugatsky Brothers' novel A Billion Years Before the End of the World as one of the possible forces behind the mysterious intervention in scientists' work.[vague]
Joe Pokaski and Aron Coleite cited the story of the Nine Unknown Men as an influence on the TV show Heroes in an interview. [1]
There is a reference[vague] to the Nine Unknown Men in the song "Putta Block" by The Fall.
The fantasy fiction[vague] Legend of the 9 paid a homage to the Nine by expanding the story context[vague] into a modern setting.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- The Nine Unknown Men of Ashoka
- Extract from the relevant section of the Morning of the Magicians
- Legend of the Nine Unknown Men
[edit] References
- ^ Weiland, Jonah. "Behind the Eclipse: "Heroes" Week 20", Comic Book Resources, April 30, 2007. Accessed May 7, 2007.
