Their numbers would be renewed by co-option, so as to preserve the secrecy of techniques handed down from ancient times. Examples of the Nine Unknown Men making contact with the outer world are rare.

There was, however, the 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 aquired 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 occuring 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? 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.

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 story of the Nine Unknown Men was popularized for the first time in 1927 in a book by Talbot Mundy who for twenty-five years was a member of the British police force in India. His book is half-fiction, half scientific inquiry.

The Nine apparently employed a synthetic language, and each of them was in possession of a book that was constantly being rewritten and containing a detailed account of some science.

The first of these books is said to have been devoted to the technique of propaganda and psychological warfare.

"The most dangerous of all sciences," wrote Mundy, "is that of moulding mass opinion, because it would enable anyone to govern the whole world."

It must be remembered that Korzybski's "General Semantics" did not appear until 1937 and that it was not until the West had the experience of the last World War that the techniques of psychology of language, i.e., propaganda, could be formulated.

The first American college of semantics only came into being in 1950. In France almost the only book that at all well known is Serge Tchocotine's "Le Viol des Foules" which has had a considerable influence in intellectual polical circles, although it deals only superficially with the subject.

The second book was on physiology. It explained, among other things, how it is possible to kill a man by touching him, death being caused by a reversal of the nerve-impulse.

It is said that Judo is a result of "leakages" from this book.

The third volume was a study on microbiology, and dealt especially with protective colloids. The fourth was concerned with the transmutation of metals. There is a legend that in times of drought temples and religious relief organizations received large quanities of fine gold from a secret source.

The fifth volume contains a study of all means of communication, terrestial and extra-terrestial.

The sixth expounds the secrets of gravitation. The seventh contains the most exhaustive cosmogony known to humanity. The eighth deals with light.

The ninth volume, on sociology, gives the rules for the evolution of societies, and means of foretelling their decline. Connected with the Nine Unknown Men is the mystery of the waters of the Ganges.

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?

Jacolliot in his book advances the theory of sterilization by radiation, a hundred years before such a thing was thought to be possible. These radiations, he says, probably come from a secret temple hollowed out in the bed of the Ganges.

Avoiding all forms of religious, social or political agitations, deliberately and perfectly concealed from the public eye, the Nine were the incarnation of the ideal man of science, serenely aloof, but conscious of his moral obligations.

Having the power to mold the destiny of the human race, but refraining from its exercise, this secret society is the finest tribute imaginable to freedom of the most exalted kind.

Looking down from the watch-tower of their hidden glory, these Nine Unknown Men watched civilizations being born, destroyed and re-born again, tolerant rather than indifferent, and ready to come to the rescue -- but always observing that rule of silence that is the mark of human greatness.

Myth or reality?

A magnificent myth, in any case, and one that has issued from the depths of time -- a harbinger, maybe, of the future? Talbot Mundy wrote a book called "The Nine Unknown" based on the legend, here is a review of it:

"Perhaps the perfect balance between pulp high adventure and mystical novel was achieved in The Nine Unknown. (1923/1924), written and published right before the Tibetan opus Om.

"The novel is based on a persistant legend brought back to the west from the East, about the existence of nine unknown perfected men who watched over India, and guarded its secrets.

"In Mundy's novel there turns out to be nine unknown men who work for the good of mankind, and a dark shadowy nine who worship Kali and work to destroy the work of the others.

"JimGrim and his crew must try to sort out which is which if they are to survive. The novel was a favorite of Pauwels and Bergier, whose discussion of "the nine" was a prototype "open conspiracy" for planetary change in their influencial Morning of the Magicians.

"The use of Mundy's ideas in Pauwels and Bergier's book was probably was one of the prime reasons for the Mundy revival in the 1960s.

"The Nine Unknown remains my favorite of the JimGrim novels, and ranks at the very top of my picks of Mundy's works. It is truely unfortunate that the novel has remained out of print since the late 1960s."

Edited by RA for clarity.

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