The Patriarch of Glastumville, also called San Salvador, is a bald, sturdy, good-natured man over sixty who heads the gnostic temple of Glastumville (Bracketsville, on the Nueces River) and gave sanctuary to the Deep Ones despite the accusations against them.
Description
The dark-stone temple has an oculus like Rome’s Pantheon, angel images (one with a broken wing) and convent courtyards. His cult fuses Sol Invictus and Christ; its symbol combines sun and cross.
Doctrine
He preaches a dual world and Mani, the paraclete, who saw a twin, the Sísigos. The crucified one was not Mani but Satan/Sati; Mani also lived as Jesus-Ganesha and as Buddha. The wisdom line runs through Natalio, “the Born One”: Plotinus of the Enneads, who died and rose, and ends in theosophy and Madame Blavatsky. His order has auditori, who eat meat and love, and chaste vegetarian electi; he will not say which he is.
Relationships
He asks Erzebeth’s forgiveness for all the burned witches, yet calls hosting her and her scorpion “la embajada de Arimán” (“the embassy of Ahriman”), and notes that his first martyr, Plotinus, died from the sting of a scorpion-shaped being.
Role
He hosted the group for a week, mediated with customs officer Rennick and the U.S. Marshals, arranged their deputization as dragon hunters, introduced Big Bull and Stormy, and saved Erzebeth from the gallows (“one cannot be tried twice for the same crime”). He blames the unnatural cold, including the great blizzard of ‘88, on “the most powerful witch of all”.
Notes
Glastonbury is Avalon in terrestrial Arthurian tradition; the Antiterra version is gnostic rather than Roman. The Mani → Plotinus → Blavatsky line joins the Chronicler’s chain (Paulus → Blavatsky → Claudel).