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| ULI QUETZAPUGTL |
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| Wang Rong Rollin does the chicken thing |
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| MANUEL GUERRA DE LUNA C.M. MAYO ALEJANDRO ROSAS ROBLES November 18, 2014 |
Just back from ALTA, the American Literary Translators Association conference held this year in (brrr) Milwaukee, which had the theme "Politics & Translation." If you've been following this blog, you've already read reams about my latest book which is, indeed, about politics: Metaphysical Odyssey into the Mexican Revolution: Francisco I. Madero and His Secret Book, Spiritist Manual. |
| FRANCISCO I. MADERO President of Mexico 1911-1913 |
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| The first page of Madero's La sucesion presidencial en 1910 "To the heroes of our country; to the independent journalists; to the good Mexicans" |
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| Francisco I. Madero's secret book |
When we talk about a “successful book,” usually what we mean is one that has a brand-name publisher, enjoys prime shelf space in bookstores, and earns its author buckets of royalties. In other words, we talk about it as a commodity—or, if we’re a mite more sophisticated, a hybrid commodity / work of art / scholarship. I say “we” because I am writing and I presume you are reading this in a time and place where books are no longer banned by the government, their authors no longer casually imprisoned—or worse. Lulled by endless streams of made-for-the-movies thrillers and romances, we forget that, as Ray Bradbury put it, “A book is a loaded gun.”
Francisco I. Madero intended his Manual espírita to be a beam of light, to heal Mexico and the world with his consoling concepts of the nature and meaning of life. However, it is a book that stands on the shoulders of his first book that was, indeed, a loaded gun: La sucesión presidencial en 1910, published in the winter of 1909 when Don Porfirio Díaz, the dictator who had stolen the presidency in a coup d’état and ruled Mexico on and off for over thirty years, was about to celebrate his eightieth birthday and, as Mexico’s so-called “necessary man,” take for himself a seventh term.
Madero had no interest in the capitalist concept of a book’s success; he wanted La sucesión presidencial en 1910 in people’s hands, and as fast as possible, and for that he did not need bookstores, he needed a jump-start on Don Porfirio’s police. He paid for the printing himself (a first edition of 3,000, and later more) and, as he noted in a letter:
[T]he first precaution I took was to hand out 800 copies to members of the press and intellectuals throughout Mexico, so when the Government got wind of the book’s circulation, it would be too late to stop it. . .
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| The 1924 edition published by Casa Editorial Maucci in Barcelona |
First, I am not an academic angling for tenure, and as I have already published several books, as a writer and a translator I did not see much to gain by going to a traditional publisher, and in fact I had a lot to lose, mainly time and control;
Second, in English, alas (would that it were otherwise) books on Mexico are not particularly commercial, which makes me suspect that, whatever its merits may or may not be, mine would have taken a shoulder-saggingly long time to bring forth a contract I would have been willing to sign;
Third, for many readers, Spiritism is at once disturbing and beneath their notice. Let's say, all this concern with the Afterlife and communicating with the dead creeps them out, as would a book on, oh, alien abductions or crop circles. And I believe this explains why even many of the leading historians of the Mexican Revolution do not know about Madero's Spiritism, or know next to nothing about it. To give you an idea, one major textbook does not deign to mention it, while another textbook, also published by an important university press, blithely labels Madero an atheist, which is rather like calling the Pope of Rome a Protestant.
Last Thursday in Mexico's National Palace (Palacio Nacional), I had the great honor of introducing both the lecture series, Francisco I. Madero: Del espíritismo al Bhagavad-Gita y otras influencias esotéricas, [Francisco I. Madero: From Spiritism to the Bhagavad-Gita and Other Esoteric Influences] and its first speaker, Dr. Yolia Tortolero Cervantes, author of El espíritismo seduce a Francisco Madero. [Spiritism Seduces Francisco Madero.]  |
| DR. YOLIA TORTOLERO CERVANTES After her fascinating lecture about President Madero and Spiritism in Mexico's National Palace (The portrait is of President Benito Juárez) |
TEXT OF MY INTRODUCTION TO THE SERIES
Good afternoon. It is a great honor for me to give you all a very warm welcome to this lecture series, "Francisco I. Madero: From Spiritism to the Bhagavad-Gita and Other Esoteric Influences."
Profoundly respected and internationally famous as Mexico's "Apostle of Democracy," Francisco I. Madero was the leader of the 1910 Revolution and President of the Republic from 1911 to 1913. During his life, and for decades after his assassination in 1913, Madero's Spiritism and other esoteric ideas have been the topic of gossip, of rumor. In particular, during his brief administration, his enemies used such gossip as a weapon of attack. Later, the subject became taboo.
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| The "Gita" also influenced Mohandas Gandhi |
This lecture series and the various works of the participants represent a parting of the waters, not only for the notable quality of the original research, but the fact that we are celebrating it the National Palace.I hasten to clarify that we are not necessarily celebrating esoteric ideas in themselves; we celebrate the memory of this honored figure in Mexican history and these historians' efforts to comprehend the nature of his esoteric ideas, their context, and their role-- a role that was fundamental in his private life and his political life.
As Enrique Krauze tells us in his seminal work of 1987, Francisco I. Madero: Místico de la libertad [Francisco I. Madero: Mystic of Liberty], "Politics does not displace Spiritism; it is born of it."
Allan Kardec
Chef du Spiritisme
This series offers lectures each Tuesday here at the same time, at 5 pm.
On November 11, we will hear from LUCRECIA INFANTE de about "Spirits, women and equality: Laureana Wright and Kardecian Spiritism in Mexico."
On November 18, we will hear from two experts on Madero and Spiritism, ALEJANDRO ROSAS ROBLES, who will talk about "The Revolution of the Spirits" and MANUEL GUERRA, on the lost Spiritist writings of Madero.
On November 25, we will hear from CARLOS FRANCISCO MARTINEZ MORENO on "Masonry, Spiritism and Hinduism: Interconnected Strands in Madero's Trio of Mystic Pillars."
And finally, on December 2, Yours Truly, C.M. MAYO, will talk about my book, Metaphysical Odyssey into the Mexican Revolution: Francisco I. Madero and His Secret Book, Spiritist Manual [Odisea metafísica hacia la Revolución Mexicana: Francisco I. Madero y su libro secreto, Manual espírita], and will will also hear from the Mexican novelist, IGNACIO SOLARES, about his work, Madero, el otro [Madero, the Other.].
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| The Kindle edition of Dr Tortolero's pathbreaking work |
Today [November 11, 2014], the opening of the series, is in the hands of the renowned Mexican historian, DR YOLIA TORTOLERO CERVANTES, with "Nine Readings About Francisco I. Madero and His Belief in Spiritism."
Her work, El espiritismo seduce a Francisco I. Madero [Spiritism Seduces Francisco I. Madero], lit the way for many other works, including mine.
I confess that it would have been impossible for me to see where to begin, never mind find my way out of the labyrinth of esoteric ideas in the life of Francisco Madero without this marvelous and deeply researched work as my guide. It is no exaggeration: it is not possible for anyone to find their footing in the history of Francisco Madero and the Revolution of 1910 without Dr. Tortolero's work.
A brief biography of Dr. Tortolero:
She received her doctorate from the Colegio de México in 1999 with a thesis about the influence of Spiritism on Francisco Ignacio Madero's political career (1873-1910), a work subsequently published by the National Fund for Culture and the Arts in 2001 (first edition); by the Senate of the Republic in 2002 (second edition), and an electronic edition in Kindle format in 2013. In 1999 she was Chief of Research in the Recinto de Homenaje a Benito Juárez [National Palace] and from 2000 - 2010 she worked in Mexico's National Archive, as Chief of the National Rgistry and as Director of Research and Archival Standards.
From 2011 - 2012 she worked in the Andrés Bello Catholic University in Caracas, Venezuela, as Professor in the Masters in the History of the Americas and the Masters in the History of Venezuela. Since January 2012 she has been visiting researcher in the Bolivarium Institute for Historical Research, in the Bolívar University in Caracas, where she has been researching the life of lawyer Joaquín Mosquera y Figueroa (1748-1830), who was Oidor de la Real Audiencia de México at the end of the 18th century and Visitador Regente de la Real Audiencia de Caracas from 1805 to 1809. Beginning in October 2014 she is a CONACYT post-doctoral fellow in the Masters in History interdisciplinary program in the University of Guanajuato.[NOTE: I hope to be able to link to the YouTube video of her talk soon.]
