In 1988, Umberto Eco published Foucault’s Pendulum. Three editors at a Milan publishing house (Belbo, Diotallevi, and Casaubon) work on manuscripts by occultists called the Diabolicals. Bored, they generate a Diabolical book from random crank texts, connecting juxtapositions until a story unfolds.

They are professional skeptics who know the Plan is fabricated, yet a recursive mechanism traps them. Abulafia’s output is meaningless by construction, forcing readers to supply meaning. Playing knowingly, they build on past connections. Nonsense and interpretation intertwine until they merge. The resulting conspiracy is practically unfalsifiable, absorbing every fact or blaming tampering when facts fail.

Lia finds a mundane explanation: the core document is simply a merchant’s laundry list. But the editors are in too deep. Facts cannot break their grip. Diotallevi dies of cancer, seeing it as punishment for sinning against the Word. Belbo hangs from the pendulum’s wire, refusing to yield a secret that never existed.