Belbo reveals that Abulafia is starting to discover previously unseen connections in the Templar mystery, such as the suggestion that Francis Bacon became a patron of the Conservatoire de Arts et Métiers to house Foucault’s pendulum, along with the laboratory that would allow the Templars to determine the nature of their secret. From here they deduce the identity of the master of the French Templar group and realize that the Conservatoire is the refuge designated in the Templars’ plan. 

Casaubon compiles a timeline tracing the developments in Templar history from the 17th to 20th centuries, which includes the histories of their successors, like the Freemasons and the Rosicrucians. Diotallevi is confounded by this history and suggests consulting Agliè to explain the connections. To test the strength of their timeline against Agliè’s expertise of occult history, the editors agree to insert a fake secret society called Tres (an acronym for “Templi Resurgentes Equites Synarchici.”)

Agliè studies the timeline and verifies the connection between the Templars and Masonry, offering personal recollections to substantiate the facts. He also explains the other societies, like the Illuminati, as offshoots of the original tradition that the Masons tried to maintain. When Belbo comments that occultists are fickle, Agliè makes a distinction between occultists and esoterics: Occultists crave attention while esoterics, like the Templars, are devoted to learning secret knowledge. Before leaving, Agliè comments that the Tres are unfamiliar to him.

The editors realize that the splinter groups were all competing with each other and that Masonry was an attempt to reunite the different sects. Nevertheless, the competitiveness continued, which weakened the integrity of Masonry. They conclude that the original secret of the Templars remains hidden from their descendants. The editors can thus invent a plausible secret.

Casaubon turns his attention to Lia as her pregnancy comes to term. Lia asks him to help her count the intervals when she goes into labor. They joke over Casaubon’s experiences at the Rosicrucian castle ritual, contrasting its convoluted symbolism against the simple truths of Lia’s pregnancy.

On his way to work, Casaubon bumps into Salon, who shows him his intricate but convincing taxidermy workshop. Salon shows Casaubon a book in his library that suggests the influence of the underground world on the world above. The book also suggests that the Templars remain underground and that the Rosicrucians are a false offshoot of the order.

Salon explains that his preoccupation with the underground world comes from reading the anti-Semitic text Protocols of the Elders of Zion in his youth. He elaborates how every major landmark and civilization of antiquity bears some access point into the underground, where one can channel the energies of the earth, also called telluric currents. These explanations inspire new ideas for the Plan.

Casaubon learns that Lia’s water broke while he was speaking to Salon. He rushes to the hospital, where he meets his son, Giulio.

While caring for Lia in recovery, Casaubon reads more about telluric currents. Agliè provides a tautological explanation that the telluric currents refer to the movement of Kundalini, which is a symbol for telluric currents.

When he returns to work, Casaubon proposes that many ancient civilizations knew about the power of telluric currents. They built great structures to control these currents. The knowledge passed all the way down through Jesus Christ to the Templars during their interactions with the Muslim sects in Jerusalem.

Casaubon concludes that the Templars’ original secret can be the map of the control point for the Earth’s magnetic forces. These telluric currents enable the Templars to control the weather, reshape the geography of the world, and monopolize the Earth’s natural resources. Every element in the conspiracy is a metaphor for the control of telluric currents.

The editors are stumped over the question of why the Templars would need to divide their map to protect the secret. With Abulafia’s help, they incorporate Foucault’s pendulum into their answer and suggest that the pendulum is necessary to locate the control point on the map. They specify that the pendulum in Paris is the only one suited to discerning the control point’s location, and the other locations in the Templars’ plan are gathering points that would allow the different groups to join each other and converge in Jerusalem.

Casaubon adds that the Templars would need the right map to locate the control point under the pendulum. They reverse engineer a suitable map that would enable the pendulum to mark Jerusalem as the control point, and narrow the correct map down to one produced by the London Rosicrucians. This map features an unusual design from the point of view of the pendulum.

Casaubon finds sources from the 17th to 19th centuries supporting his theory that the secret involves telluric currents. He also realizes that Salon’s obsession with the underground world points to an attempt to locate the control point without using the map.

The Garamond editors develop the Plan over several days. Casaubon becomes so obsessed with finding new connections to the Templars that he neglects Lia and Giulio.

Belbo proposes that the world’s modern landmarks, like the Eiffel Tower and the Empire State Building, are more recent attempts to stumble upon the location of the control point.

Casaubon recognizes that he and his colleagues are getting dangerously close to believing their own fiction, although Casaubon’s family life provides him with a buffer from the act of seeking connections. Diotallevi, meanwhile, starts showing signs of illness, but the other two pay little attention to it as they continue developing the Plan around the rivals of Francis Bacon and his followers. In doing so, they manage to connect Marxism, atomic energy, and Sigmund Freud to the Templars.

The editors find a challenge in incorporating the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) into the Plan, considering how often the Jesuits overlap with the Rosicrucians in their sources. They find a source identifying a key Rosicrucian figure who had revealed the Templar plan to Ignatius of Loyola. To interrupt the plan, the Jesuits found a way to reconstruct the map through technology. They created a device that functioned like Abulafia, calculating permutations in an instant.

Rather than Rosicrucianism, the Jesuits invented the Scottish neo-Templars to counter the English Freemasons. Eventually, the Scottish neo-Templars became prominent in their own right, which compelled the Jesuits to oppose their own invention.

The editors discover a text that suggests that after Molay’s death, the Templars dedicated themselves to world conquest and hijacked Freemasonry to achieve their goal. This text provoked Napoleon into becoming involved with the Masons in the hopes of meeting the Templars’ secret directorate. He unites the European sects, but fails to achieve his goal because of opposition in Russia.

The Jerusalem Templars splintered into three groups that scattered among the neo-Templars, the English Freemasons, and the Russians. A rival sect called the Paulicians oppose the rise of the Russian faction, so they begin spreading anti-Semitic propaganda to discredit all three splinter groups and antagonize Napoleon.

The editors identify figures who could have spread the anti-Semitic propaganda to the Russian aristocracy.

The editors suggest that the propaganda material, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, can easily be denounced as a hoax because it purports to be centuries old but only references 19th-century issues. Belbo observes that the supposed Jewish plan to control the world almost entirely mirrors the Templars’ message from Provins.

The editors realize that whenever a sect wants to antagonize another group, they merely replicate the Provins plan and attribute it to their enemy, as the Jesuits had done so with the English Masons.

The editors trace more examples of the Templars’ plan being plagiarized and attributed between enemies throughout the 19th century. This leads to the conclusion that the Jewish people held the real Templar plan, since the Templar plan aligns perfectly with the plan that eventually appeared against the Jewish people in the Protocols.

A manuscript provides a real name for the Comte de Saint-Germain, Pierre Ivanovitch Rachkovsky, which bears a resemblance to Rakosky, the name of the man implicated in Ardenti’s disappearance. Rachkovsky is described as a Russian revolutionary who eventually collaborated with the police. While arresting a political opponent for his sponsor, Rachkovsky planted a new attribution for the Provins Plan among the opponent’s belongings, which implicated his sponsor in the creation of the Protocols. Thus, Rachkovsky betrayed his own sponsor.

The story reminds Belbo of a man from his youth named Remo, who claimed he was on both sides of the conflict between the Fascists and the partisans to impress women. Remo was eventually trapped by the Fascists and executed, which proved he was not a Fascist. Belbo concludes that sometimes death is the only way to prove one’s claim.