AMONG other convictions formed in my common presence during my responsible, peculiarly composed life, there is one such also—an indubitable conviction—that always and everywhere on the earth, among people of every degree of development of understanding and of every form of manifestation of the factors which engender in their individuality all kinds of ideals, there is acquired the tendency, when beginning anything new, unfailingly to pronounce aloud or, if not aloud, at least mentally, that definite utterance understandable to every even quite illiterate person, which in different epochs has been formulated variously and in our day is formulated in the following words: “In the name of the Father and of the Son and in the name of the Holy Ghost, Amen.”

That is why I now, also, setting forth on this venture quite new for me, namely, authorship, begin by pronouncing this utterance and moreover pronounce it not only aloud, but even very distinctly and with a full, as the ancient Toulousites defined it, “wholly-manifested-intonation”—of course with that fullness which can arise in my entirety only from data already formed and thoroughly rooted in me for such a manifestation; data which are in general formed in the nature of man, by the way, during his preparatory age, and later, during his responsible life engender in him the ability for the manifestation of the nature and vivifyingness of such an intonation.

Having thus begun, I can now be quite at ease, and should even, according to the notions of religious morality existing among contemporary people, be beyond all doubt assured that everything further in this new venture of mine will now proceed, as is said, “like a pianola.”

In any case I have begun just thus, and as to how the rest will go I can only say meanwhile, as the blind man once expressed it, “we shall see.”

First and foremost, I shall place my own hand, moreover the right one, which—although at the moment it is slightly injured owing to the misfortune which recently befell me—is nevertheless really my own, and has never once failed me in all my life, on my heart, of course also my own—but on the inconstancy or constancy of this part of all my whole I do not find it necessary here to expatiate—and frankly confess that I myself have personally not the slightest wish to write, but attendant circumstances, quite independent of me, constrain me to do so—and whether these circumstances arose accidentally or were created intentionally by extraneous forces, I myself do not yet know. I know only that these circumstances bid me write not just anything “so-so,” as, for instance, something of the kind for reading oneself to sleep, but weighty and bulky tomes.

However that may be, I begin. …

But begin with what?

Oh, the devil! Will there indeed be repeated that same exceedingly unpleasant and highly strange sensation which it befell me to experience when about three weeks ago I was composing in my thoughts the scheme and sequence of the ideas destined by me for publication and did not know then how to begin either?

This sensation then experienced I might now formulate in words only thus: “the-fear-of-drowning-in-the-overflow-of-my-own-thoughts.”

To stop this undesirable sensation I might then still have had recourse to the aid of that maleficent property existing also in me, as in contemporary man, which has become inherent in all of us, and which enables us, without experiencing any remorse of conscience whatever, to put off anything we wish to do “till tomorrow.”

I could then have done this very easily because before beginning the actual writing, it was assumed that there was still lots of time; but this can now no longer be done, and I must, without fail, as is said, “even though I burst,” begin.

But with what indeed begin … ?

Hurrah! … Eureka!

Almost all the books I have happened to read in my life have begun with a preface.

So in this case I also must begin with something of the kind.

I say “of the kind,” because in general in the process of my life, from the moment I began to distinguish a boy from a girl, I have always done everything, absolutely everything, not as it is done by other, like myself, biped destroyers of Nature’s good. Therefore, in writing now I ought, and perhaps am even on principle already obliged, to begin not as any other writer would.

In any case, instead of the conventional preface I shall begin quite simply with a Warning.

Beginning with a Warning will be very judicious of me, if only because it will not contradict any of my principles, either organic, psychic, or even “willful,” and will at the same time be quite honest—of course, honest in the objective sense, because both I myself and all others who know me well, expect with indubitable certainty that owing to my writings there will entirely disappear in the majority of readers, immediately and not gradually, as must sooner or later, with time, occur to all people, all the “wealth” they have, which was either handed down to them by inheritance or obtained by their own labor, in the form of quieting notions evoking only naïve dreams, and also beautiful representations of their lives at present as well as of their prospects in the future.

Professional writers usually begin such introductions with an address to the reader, full of all kinds of bombastically magniloquent and so to say “honeyed” and “inflated” phrases.

Just in this alone I shall follow their example and also begin with such an address, but I shall try not to make it very “sugary” as they usually do, owing particularly to their evil wiseacring by which they titillate the sensibilities of the more or less normal reader.

Thus …

My dear, highly honored, strong-willed and of course very patient Sirs, and my much-esteemed, charming and impartial Ladies—forgive me, I have omitted the most important—and my in no wise hysterical Ladies!

I have the honor to inform you that although owing to circumstances that have arisen at one of the last stages of the process of my life, I am now about to write books, yet during the whole of my life I have never written not only not books or various what they are called “instructive articles,” but also not even a letter in which it has been unfailingly necessary to observe what is called “grammaticality,” and in consequence, although I am now about to become a professional writer, yet having had no practice at all either in respect of all the established professional rules and procedures or in respect of what is called the “bon ton literary language,” I am constrained to write not at all as ordinary “patented-writers” do, to the form of whose writings you have in all probability become as much accustomed as to your own smell.

In my opinion the trouble with you, in the present instance, is perhaps chiefly due to the fact that while still in childhood, there was implanted in you and has now become ideally well harmonized with your general psyche, an excellently working automatism for perceiving all kinds of new impressions, thanks to which “blessing” you have now, during your responsible life, no need of making any individual effort whatsoever.

Speaking frankly, I inwardly personally discern the center of my confession not in my lack of knowledge of all the rules and procedures of writers, but in my nonpossession of what I have called the “bon ton literary language,” infallibly required in contemporary life not only from writers but also from every ordinary mortal.

As regards the former, that is to say, my lack of knowledge of the different rules and procedures of writers, I am not greatly disturbed.

And I am not greatly disturbed on this account, because such “ignorance” has already now become in the life of people also in the order of things. Such a blessing arose and now flourishes everywhere on Earth thanks to that extraordinary new disease of which for the last twenty to thirty years, for some reason or other, especially the majority of those persons from among all the three sexes fall ill, who sleep with half-open eyes and whose faces are in every respect fertile soil for the growth of every kind of pimple.

This strange disease is manifested by this, that if the invalid is somewhat literate and his rent is paid for three months in advance, he (she or it) unfailingly begins to write either some “instructive article” or a whole book.

Well knowing about this new human disease and its epidemical spread on Earth, I, as you should understand, have the right to assume that you have acquired, as the learned “medicos” would say, “immunity” to it, and that you will therefore not be palpably indignant at my ignorance of the rules and procedures of writers.

This understanding of mine bids me inwardly to make the center of gravity of my warning my ignorance of the literary language.

In self-justification, and also perhaps to diminish the degree of the censure in your waking consciousness of my ignorance of this language indispensable for contemporary life, I consider it necessary to say, with a humble heart and cheeks flushed with shame, that although I too was taught this language in my childhood, and even though certain of my elders who prepared me for responsible life, constantly forced me “without sparing or economizing” any intimidatory means to “learn by rote” the host of various “nuances” which in their totality compose this contemporary “delight,” yet, unfortunately of course for you, of all that I then learned by rote, nothing stuck and nothing whatsoever has survived for my present activities as a writer.

And nothing stuck, as it was quite recently made clear to me, not through any fault of mine, nor through the fault of my former respected and nonrespected teachers, but this human labor was spent in vain owing to one unexpected and quite exceptional event which occurred at the moment of my appearance on God’s Earth, and which was—as a certain occultist well known in Europe explained to me after a very minute what is called “psycho-physico-astrological” investigation—that at that moment, through the hole made in the windowpane by our crazy lame goat, there poured the vibrations of sound which arose in the neighbor’s house from an Edison phonograph, and the midwife had in her mouth a lozenge saturated with cocaine of German make, and moreover not “Ersatz,” and was sucking this lozenge to these sounds without the proper enjoyment.

Besides from this event, rare in the everyday life of people, my present position also arose because later on in my preparatory and adult life—as, I must confess, I myself guessed after long reflections according to the method of the German professor, Herr Stumpsinschmausen—I always avoided instinctively as well as automatically and at times even consciously, that is, on principle, employing this language for intercourse with others. And from such a trifle, and perhaps not a trifle, I manifested thus again thanks to three data which were formed in my entirety during my preparatory age, about which data I intend to inform you a little later in this same first chapter of my writings.

However that may have been, yet the real fact, illuminated from every side like an American advertisement, and which fact cannot now be changed by any forces even with the knowledge of the experts in “monkey business,” is that although I, who have lately been considered by very many people as a rather good teacher of temple dances, have now become today a professional writer and will of course write a great deal—as it has been proper to me since childhood whenever “I do anything to do a great deal of it”—nevertheless, not having, as you see, the automatically acquired and automatically manifested practice necessary for this, I shall be constrained to write all I have thought out in ordinary simple everyday language established by life, without any literary manipulations and without any “grammarian wiseacrings.”

But the pot is not yet full! … For I have not yet decided the most important question of all—in which language to write.

Although I have begun to write in Russian, nevertheless, as the wisest of the wise, Mullah Nassr Eddin, would say, in that language you cannot go far.

(Mullah Nassr Eddin, or has he is also called, Hodja Nassr Eddin, is, it seems, little known in Europe and America, but he is very well known in all countries of the continent of Asia; this legendary personage corresponds to the American Uncle Sam or the German Till Eulenspiegel. Numerous tales popular in the East, akin to the wise sayings, some of long standing and others newly arisen, were ascribed and are still ascribed to this Nassr Eddin.)

The Russian language, it cannot be denied, is very good. I even like it, but … only for swapping anecdotes and for use in referring to someone’s parentage.

The Russian language is like the English, which language is also very good, but only for discussing in “smoking rooms,” while sitting on an easy chair with legs out-stretched on another, the topic of Australian frozen meat, or, sometimes, the Indian question.

Both these languages are like the dish which is called in Moscow “Solianka,” and into which everything goes except you and me, in fact everything you wish, and even the “after dinner Chesma” of Sheherazade.

It must also be said that owing to all kinds of accidentally and perhaps not accidentally formed conditions of my youth, I have had to learn, and moreover very seriously and of course always with self-compulsion, to speak, read, and write a great many languages, and to such a degree of fluency, that if in following this profession unexpectedly forced on me by Fate, I decided not to take advantage of the “automatism” which is acquired by practice, then I could perhaps write in any one of them.

But if I set out to use judiciously this automatically acquired automatism which has become easy from long practice, then I should have to write either in Russian or in Armenian, because the circumstances of my life during the last two or three decades have been such that I have had for intercourse with others to use, and consequently to have more practice in just these two languages and to acquire an automatism in respect to them.

O the dickens! … Even in such a case, one of the aspects of my peculiar psyche, unusual for the normal man, has now already begun to torment the whole of me.

And the chief reason for this unhappiness of mine in my almost already mellow age, results from the fact that since childhood there was implanted in my peculiar psyche, together with numerous other rubbish also unnecessary for contemporary life, such an inherency as always and in everything automatically enjoins the whole of me to act only according to popular wisdom.

In the present case, as always in similar as yet indefinite life cases, there immediately comes to my brain—which is for me, constructed unsuccessfully to the point of mockery, and is now as is said, “running through” it—that saying of popular wisdom which existed in the life of people of very ancient times, and which has been handed down to our day formulated in the following words: “every stick always has two ends.”

In trying first to understand the basic thought and real significance hidden in this strange verbal formulation, there must, in my opinion, first of all arise in the consciousness of every more or less sane-thinking man the supposition that, in the totality of ideas on which is based and from which must flow a sensible notion of this saying, lies the truth, cognized by people for centuries, which affirms that every cause occurring in the life of man, from whatever phenomenon it arises, as one of two opposite effects of other causes, is in its turn obligatorily molded also into two quite opposite effects, as for instance: if “something” obtained from two different causes engenders light, then it must inevitably engender a phenomenon opposite to it, that is to say, darkness; or a factor engendering in the organism of a living creature an impulse of palpable satisfaction also engenders without fail nonsatisfaction, of course also palpable, and so on and so forth, always and in everything.

Adopting in the same given instance this popular wisdom formed by centuries and expressed by a stick, which, as was said, indeed has two ends, one end of which is considered good and the other bad, then if I use the aforesaid automatism which was acquired in me thanks only to long practice, it will be for me personally of course very good, but according to this saying, there must result for the reader just the opposite; and what the opposite of good is, even every nonpossessor of haemorrhoids must very easily understand.

Briefly, if I exercise my privilege and take the good end of the stick, then the bad end must inevitably fall “on the reader’s head.”

This may indeed happen, because in Russian the so to say “niceties” of philosophical questions cannot be expressed, which questions I intend to touch upon in my writings also rather fully, whereas in Armenian, although this is possible, yet to the misfortune of all contemporary Armenians, the employment of this language for contemporary notions has now already become quite impracticable.

In order to alleviate the bitterness of my inner hurt owing to this, I must say that in my early youth, when I became interested in and was greatly taken up with philological questions, I preferred the Armenian language to all others I then spoke, even to my native language.

This language was then my favorite chiefly because it was original and had nothing in common with the neighboring or kindred languages.

As the learned “philologists” say, all of its tonalities were peculiar to it alone, and according to my understanding even then, it corresponded perfectly to the psyche of the people composing that nation.

But the change I have witnessed in that language during the last thirty or forty years has been such, that instead of an original independent language coming to us from the remote past, there has resulted and now exists one, which though also original and independent, yet represents, as might be said, a “kind of clownish potpourri of languages,” the totality of the consonances of which, falling on the ear of a more or less conscious and understanding listener, sounds just like the “tones” of Turkish, Persian, French, Kurd, and Russian words and still other “indigestible” and inarticulate noises.

Almost the same might be said about my native language, Greek, which I spoke in childhood and, as might be said, the “taste of the automatic associative power of which” I still retain. I could now, I dare say, express anything I wish in it, but to employ it for writing is for me impossible, for the simple and rather comical reason that someone must transcribe my writings and translate them into the other languages. And who can do this?

It could assuredly be said that even the best expert of modern Greek would understand simply nothing of what I should write in the native language I assimilated in childhood, because, my dear “compatriots,” as they might be called, being also inflamed with the wish at all costs to be like the representatives of contemporary civilization also in their conversation, have during these thirty of forty years treated my dear native language just as the Armenians, anxious to become Russian intelligentsia, have treated theirs.

That Greek language, the spirit and essence of which were transmitted to me by heredity, and the language now spoken by contemporary Greeks, are as much alike as, according to the expression of Mullah Nassr Eddin, “a nail is like a requiem.”

What is now to be done?

Ah … me! Never mind, esteemed buyer of my wiseacrings. If only there be plenty of French armagnac and “Khaizarian bastourma,” I shall find a way out of even this difficult situation.

I am an old hand at this.

In life, I have so often got into difficult situations and out of them, that this has become almost a matter of habit for me.

Meanwhile in the present case, I shall write partly in Russian and party in Armenian, the more readily because among those people always “hanging around” me there are several who “cerebrate” more or less easily in both these languages, and I meanwhile entertain the hope that they will be able to transcribe and translate from these languages fairly well for me.

In any case I again repeat—in order that you should well remember it, but not as you are in the habit of remembering other things and on the basis of which are accustomed to keeping your word of honor to others or to yourself—that no matter what language I shall use, always and in everything, I shall avoid what I have called the “bon ton literary language.”

In this respect, the extraordinarily curious fact and one even in the highest degree worthy of your love of knowledge, perhaps even higher than your usual conception, is that from my earliest childhood, that is to say, since the birth in me of the need to destroy birds’ nests, and to tease my friends’ sisters, there arose in my, as the ancient theosophists called it, “planetary body,” and moreover, why I don’t know, chiefly in the “right half,” an instinctively involuntary sensation, which right up to that period of my life when I became a teacher of dancing, was gradually formed into a definite feeling, and then, when thanks to this profession of mine I came into contact with many people of different “types,” there began to arise in me also the conviction with what is called my “mind,” that these languages are compiled by people, or rather “grammarians,” who are in respect of knowledge of the given language exactly similar to those biped animals whom the esteemed Mullah Nassr Eddin characterizes by the words: “All they can do is to wrangle with pigs about the quality of oranges.”

This kind of people among us who have been turned into, so to say, “moths” destroying the good prepared and left for us by our ancestors and by time, have not the slightest notion and have probably never even heard of the screamingly obvious fact that, during the preparatory age, there is acquired in the brain functioning of every creature, and of man also, a particular and definite property, the automatic actualization and manifestation of which the ancient Korkolans called the “law of association,” and that the process of the mentation of every creature, especially man, flows exclusively in accordance with this law.

In view of the fact that I have happened here accidentally to touch upon a question which has lately become one of my so to speak “hobbies,” namely, the process of human mentation, I consider it possible, without waiting for the corresponding place predetermined by me for the elucidation of this question, to state already now in this first chapter, at least something concerning that axiom which has accidentally become known to me, that on Earth in the past it has been usual in every century that every man, in whom there arises the boldness to attain the right to be considered by others and to consider himself a “conscious thinker,” should be informed while still in the early years of his responsible existence that man has in general two kinds of mentation: one kind, mentation by thought, in which words, always possessing a relative sense, are employed; and the other kind, which is proper to all animals as well as to man, which I would call “mentation by form.”

The second kind of mentation, that is, “mentation by form,” by which, strictly speaking, the exact sense of all writing must be also perceived, and after conscious confrontation with information already possessed, be assimilated, is formed in people in dependence upon the conditions of geographical locality, climate, time, and, in general, upon the whole environment in which the arising of the given man has proceeded and in which his existence has flowed up to manhood.

Accordingly, in the brains of people of different races and conditions dwelling in different geographical localities, there are formed about one and the same thing or even idea, a number of quite independent forms, which during functioning, that is to say, association, evoke in their being some sensation or other which subjectively conditions a definite picturing, and which picturing is expressed by this, that, or the other word, that serves only for its outer subjective expression.

That is why each word, for the same thing or idea, almost always acquires for people of different geographical locality and race a very definite and entirely different so to say “inner-content.”

In other words, if in the entirety of any man who has arisen and been formed in any locality, from the results of the specific local influences and impressions a certain “form” has been composed, and this form evokes in him by association the sensation of a definite “inner content,” and consequently of a definite picturing or notion for the expression of which he employs one or another word which has eventually become habitual, and as I have said, subjective to him, then the hearer of that word, in whose being, owing to different conditions of his arising and growth, there has been formed concerning the given word a form of a different “inner content,” will always perceive and of course infallibly understand that same word in quite another sense.

This fact, by the way, can with attentive and impartial observation be very clearly established when one is present at an exchange of opinions between persons belonging to two different races or who arose and were formed in different geographical localities.

And so, cheerful and swaggering candidate for a buyer of my wiseacrings, having warned you that I am going to write not as “professional writers” usually write but quite otherwise, I advise you, before embarking on the reading of my further expositions, to reflect seriously and only then to undertake it. If not, I am afraid for your hearing and other perceptive and also digestive organs which may be already so thoroughly automatized to the “literary language of the intelligentsia” existing in the present period of time on Earth, that the reading of these writings of mine might affect you very, very cacophonously, and from this you might loose your … you know what? … your appetite for your favorite dish and for your psychic specificness which particularly titillates your “inside” and which proceeds in you on seeing your neighbor, the brunette.

For such a possibility, ensuing from my language, or rather, strictly speaking, from the form of my mentation, I am, thanks to oft-repeated past experiences, already quite as convinced with my whole being as a “thoroughbred donkey” is convinced of the right and justice of his obstinacy.

Now that I have warned you of what is most important, I am already tranquil about everything further. Even if any misunderstanding should arise on account of my writings, you alone will be entirely to blame, and my conscience will be as clear as for instance … the ex-Kaiser Wilhelm’s.

In all probability you are now thinking that I am, of course, a young man with an auspicious exterior and, as some express it, a ‘suspicious interior,’ and that, as a novice in writing, I am evidently intentionally being eccentric in the hope of becoming famous and thereby rich.

If you indeed think so, then you are very, very mistaken.

First of all, I am not young; I have already lived so much that I have been in my life, as it is said, “not only through the mill but through all the grindstones”; and secondly, I am in general not writing so as to make a career for myself, or so as to plant myself, as is said, “firm-footedly,” thanks to this profession, which, I must add, in my opinion provides many openings to become a candidate d-i-r-e-c-t for “Hell”—assuming of course that such people can in general by their Being, perfect themselves even to that extent, for the reason that knowing nothing whatsoever themselves, they write all kinds of “claptrap” and thereby automatically acquiring authority, they become almost one of the chief factors, the totality of which steadily continues year by year, still further to diminish the, without this, already extremely diminished psyche of people.

And as regards my personal career, then thanks to all forces high and low and, if you like, even right and left, I have actualized it long ago, and have already long been standing on “firm-feet” and even maybe on very good feet, and I moreover am certain that their strength is sufficient for many more years, in spite of all my past, present, and future enemies.

Yes, I think you might as well be told also about an idea which has only just arisen in my mad-cap brain, and namely, specially to request the printer, to whom I shall give my first book, to print this first chapter of my writings in such a way that anybody may read it before cutting the pages of the book itself, whereupon, on learning that it is not written in the usual manner, that is to say, for helping to produce in one’s mentation, very smoothly and easily, exciting images and lulling reveries, he may, if he wishes, without wasting words with the bookseller, return it and get his money back, money perhaps earned by the sweat of his own brow.

I shall do this without fail, moreover, because I just now again remember the story of what happened to a Transcaucasian Kurd, which story I heard in my quite early youth and which in subsequent years, whenever I recalled it in corresponding cases, engendered in me an enduring and inextinguishable impulse of tenderness. I think it will be very useful for me, and also for you, if I relate this story to you somewhat in detail.

It will be useful chiefly because I have decided already to make the “salt,” or as contemporary pure-blooded Jewish businessmen would say, the “Tzimus” of this story, one of the basic principles of that new literary form which I intend to employ for the attainment of the aim I am now pursuing by means of this new profession of mine.

This Transcaucasian Kurd once set out from his village on some business or other to town, and there in the market he saw in a fruiterer’s shop a handsomely arranged display of all kinds of fruit.

In this display, he noticed one “fruit,” very beautiful in both color and form, and its appearance so took his fancy and he so longed to try it, that in spite of his having scarcely any money, he decided to buy without fail at least one of these gifts of Great Nature, and taste it.

Then, with intense eagerness, and with a courage not customary to him, he entered the shop and pointing with his horny finger to the “fruit” which had taken his fancy he asked the shopkeeper its price. The shopkeeper replied that a pound of the “fruit” would cost two cents.

Finding that the price was not at all high for what in his opinion was such a beautiful fruit, our Kurd decided to buy a whole pound.

Having finished his business in town, he set off again on foot for home the same day.

Walking at sunset over the hills and dales, and willy-nilly perceiving the exterior visibility of those enchanting parts of the bosom of Great Nature, the Common Mother, and involuntarily inhaling a pure air uncontaminated by the usual exhalations of industrial towns, our Kurd quite naturally suddenly felt a wish to gratify himself with some ordinary food also; so sitting down by the side of the road, he took from his provision bag some bread and the “fruit” he had bought which had looked so good to him, and leisurely began to eat.

But … horror of horrors! … very soon everything inside him began to burn. But in spite of this he kept on eating.

And this hapless biped creature of our planet kept on eating, thanks only to that particular human inherency which I mentioned at first, the principle of which I intended, when I decided to use it as the foundation of the new literary form I have created, to make, as it were, a “guiding beacon” leading me to one of my aims in view, and the sense and meaning of which moreover you will, I am sure, soon grasp—of course according to the degree of your comprehension—during the reading of any subsequent chapter of my writings, if, of course, you take the risk and read further, or, it may be that even at the end of this first chapter you will already “smell” something.

And so, just at the moment when our Kurd was overwhelmed by all the unusual sensations proceeding within him from this strange repast on the bosom of Nature, there came along the same road a fellow villager of his, one reputed by those who knew him to be very clever and experienced; and, seeing that the whole face of the Kurd was aflame, that his eyes were streaming with tears, and that in spite of this, as if intent upon the fulfillment of his most important duty, he was eating real “red pepper pods,” he said to him:

“What are you doing, you Jericho jackass? You’ll be burnt alive! Stop eating that extraordinary product, so unaccustomed for your nature.”

But our Kurd replied: “No, for nothing on Earth will I stop. Didn’t I pay my last two cents for them? Even if my soul departs from my body I shall still go on eating.”

Whereupon our resolute Kurd—it must of course be assumed that he was such—did not stop, but continued eating the “red pepper pods.”

After what you have just perceived, I hope there may already be arising in your mentation a corresponding mental association which should, as a result, effectuate in you, as it sometimes happens to contemporary people, that which you call, in general, understanding, and that in the present case you will understand just why I, well knowing and having many a time commiserated with this human inherency, the inevitable manifestation of which is that if anybody pays money for something, he is bound to use it to the end, was animated in the whole of my entirety with the idea, arisen in my mentation, to take every possible measure in order that you, as is said “my brother in appetite and in spirit”—in the event of your proving to be already accustomed to reading books, though of all kinds, yet nevertheless only those written exclusively in the aforesaid “language of the intelligentsia”—having already paid money for my writings and learning only afterwards that they are not written in the usual convenient and easily read language, should not be compelled as a consequence of the said human inherency, to read my writings through to the end at all costs, as our poor Transcaucasian Kurd was compelled to go on with his eating of what he had fancied for its appearance alone—that “not to be joked with” noble red pepper.

And so, for the purpose of avoiding any misunderstanding through this inherency, the data for which are formed in the entirety of contemporary man, thanks evidently to his frequenting of the cinema and thanks also to his never missing an opportunity of looking into the left eye of the other sex, I wish that this commencing chapter of mine should be printed in the said manner, so that everyone can read it through without cutting the pages of the book itself.

Otherwise the bookseller will, as is said, “cavil,” and will without fail again turn out to act in accordance with the basic principle of booksellers in general, formulated by them in the words: “You’ll be more of a simpleton than a fisherman if you let go of the fish which has swallowed the bait,” and will decline to take back a book whose pages you have cut. I have no doubt of this possibility; indeed, I fully expect such lack of conscience on the part of the booksellers.

And the data for the engendering of my certainty as to this lack of conscience on the part of these booksellers were completely formed in me, when, while I was a professional “Indian Fakir,” I needed, for the complete elucidation of a certain “ultraphilosophical” question also to become familiar, among other things, with the associative process for the manifestation of the automatically constructed psyche of contemporary booksellers and of their salesmen when palming off books on their buyers.

Knowing all this and having become, since the misfortune which befell me, habitually just and fastidious in the extreme, I cannot help repeating, or rather, I cannot help again warning you, and even imploringly advising you, before beginning to cut the pages of this first book of mine, to read through very attentively, and even more than once, this first chapter of my writings.

But in the event that notwithstanding this warning of mine, you should, nevertheless, wish to become acquainted with the further contents of my expositions, then there is already nothing else left for me to do but to wish you with all my “genuine soul” a very, very good appetite, and that you may “digest” all that you read, not only for your own health but for the health of all those near you.

I said “with my genuine soul” because recently living in Europe and coming in frequent contact with people who on every appropriate and inappropriate occasion are fond of taking in vain every sacred name which should belong only to man’s inner life, that is to say, with people who swear to no purpose, I being, as I have already confessed, a follower in general not only of the theoretical—as contemporary people have become—but also of the practical sayings of popular wisdom which have become fixed by the centuries, and therefore of the saying which in the present case corresponds to what is expressed by the words: “When you are in Rome do as Rome does,” decided, in order not to be out of harmony with the custom established here in Europe of swearing in ordinary conversation, and at the same time to act according to the commandment which was enunciated by the holy lips of Saint Moses “not to take the holy names in vain,” to make use of one of those examples of the “newly baked” fashionable languages of the present time, namely English, and so from then on, I began on necessary occasions to swear by my “English soul.”

The point is that in this fashionable language, the words “soul” and the bottom of your foot, also called “sole,” are pronounced and even written almost alike.

I do not know how it is with you, who are already partly candidate for a buyer of my writings, but my peculiar nature cannot, even with a great mental desire, avoid being indignant at the fact manifested by people of contemporary civilization, that the very highest in man, particularly beloved by our common father creator, can really be named, and indeed very often before even having made clear to oneself what it is, can be understood to be that which is the lowest and dirtiest in man.

Well, enough of “philologizing.” Let us return to the main task of this initial chapter, destined, among other things, on the one hand to stir up the drowsy thoughts in me as well as in the reader, and, on the other, to warn the reader about something.

And so, I have already composed in my head the plan and sequence of the intended expositions, but what form they will take on paper, I, speaking frankly, myself do not as yet know with my consciousness, but with my subconsciousness I already definitely feel that on the whole it will take the form of something which will be, so to say, “hot,” and will have an effect on the entirety of every reader such as the red pepper pods had on the poor Transcaucasian Kurd.

Now that you have become familiar with the story of our common countryman, the Transcaucasian Kurd, I already consider it my duty to make a confession and hence before continuing this first chapter, which is by way of an introduction to all my further predetermined writings, I wish to bring to the knowledge of what is called your “pure waking consciousness” the fact that in the writings following this chapter of warning I shall expound my thoughts intentionally in such sequence and with such “logical confrontation,” that the essence of certain real notions may of themselves automatically, so to say, go from this “waking consciousness”—which most people in their ignorance mistake for the real consciousness, but which I affirm and experimentally prove is the fictitious one—into what you call the subconscious, which ought to be in my opinion the real human consciousness, and there by themselves mechanically bring about that transformation which should in general proceed in the entirety of a man and give him, from his own conscious mentation, the results he ought to have, which are proper to man and not merely to single- or double-brained animals.

I decided to do this without fail so that this initial chapter of mine, predetermined as I have already said to awaken your consciousness, should fully justify its purpose, and reaching not only your, in my opinion, as yet only fictitious “consciousness,” but also your real consciousness, that is to say, what you call your subconscious, might, for the first time, compel you to reflect actively.

In the entirety of every man, irrespective of his heredity and education, there are formed two independent consciousness which in their functioning as well as in their manifestations have almost nothing in common. One consciousness is formed from the perception of all kinds of accidental, or on the part of others intentionally produced, mechanical impressions, among which must also be counted the “consonances” of various words which are indeed as is said empty; and the other consciousness is formed from the so to say, “already previously formed material results” transmitted to him by heredity, which have become blended with the corresponding parts of the entirety of a man, as well as from the data arising from his intentional evoking of the associative confrontations of these “materialized data” already in him.

The whole totality of the formation as well as the manifestation of this second human consciousness, which is none other than what is called the “subconscious,” and which is formed from the “materialized results” of heredity and the confrontations actualized by one’s own intentions, should in my opinion, formed by many years of my experimental elucidations during exceptionally favorably arranged conditions, predominate in the common presence of a man.

As a result of this conviction of mine which as yet doubtlessly seems to you the fruit of the fantasies of an afflicted mind, I cannot now, as you yourself see, disregard this second consciousness and, compelled by my essence, am obliged to construct the general exposition even of this first chapter of my writings, namely, the chapter which should be the preface for everything further, calculating that it should reach, and in the manner required for my aim “ruffle,” the perceptions accumulated in both these consciousness of yours.

Continuing my expositions with this calculation, I must first of all inform your fictitious consciousness that, thanks to three definite peculiar data which were crystallized in my entirety during various periods of my preparatory age, I am really unique in respect of the so to say “muddling and befuddling” of all the notions and convictions supposedly firmly fixed in the entirety of people with whom I come in contact.

Tut! Tut! Tut! … I already feel that in your “false”—but according to you “real”—consciousness, there are beginning to be agitated, like “blinded flies,” all the chief data transmitted to you by heredity from your uncle and mother, the totality of which data, always and in everything, at least engenders in you the impulse—nevertheless extremely good—of curiosity, as in the given case, to find out as quickly as possible why I, that is to say, a novice at writing, whose name has not even once been mentioned in the newspapers, have suddenly become so unique.

Never mind! I personally am very pleased with the arising of this curiosity even though only in your “false” consciousness, as I already know from experience that this impulse unworthy of man can sometimes even pass from this consciousness into one’s nature and become a worthy impulse—the impulse of the desire for knowledge, which, in its turn, assists the better perception and even the closer understanding of the essence of any object on which, as it sometimes happens, the attention of a contemporary man might be concentrated, and therefore I am even willing, with pleasure, to satisfy this curiosity which has arisen in you at the present moment.

Now listen and try to justify, and not to disappoint, my expectations. This original personality of mine, already “smelled out” by certain definite individuals from both choirs of the Judgement Seat Above, whence Objective justice proceeds, and also here on Earth, by as yet a very limited number of people, is based, as I already said, on three secondary specific data formed in me at different times during my preparatory age. The first of these data, from the very beginning of its arising, became as it were the chief directing lever of my entire wholeness, and the other two, the “vivifying-sources,” as it were, for the feeding and perfecting of this first datum.

The arising of this first datum proceeded when I was still only, as is said, a “chubby mite.” My dear now deceased grandmother was then still living and was a hundred and some years old.

When my grandmother—may she attain the kingdom of Heaven—was dying, my mother, as was then the custom, took me to her bedside, and as I kissed her right hand, my dear now deceased grandmother placed her dying left hand on my head and in a whisper, yet very distinctly, said:

“Eldest of my grandsons! Listen and always remember my strict injunction to you: In life never do as others do.”

Having said this, she gazed at the bridge of my nose and evidently noticing my perplexity and my obscure understanding of what she had said, added somewhat angrily and imposingly:

“Either do nothing—just go to school—or do something nobody else does.”

Whereupon she immediately, without hesitation, and with a perceptible impulse of disdain for all around her, and with commendable self-cognizance, gave up her soul directly into the hands of His Truthfulness, the Archangel Gabriel.

I think it will be interesting and even instructive to you to know that all this made so powerful an impression on me at that time that I suddenly became unable to endure anyone around me, and therefore, as soon as we left the room where the mortal “planetary body” of the cause of the cause of my arising lay, I very quietly, trying not to attract attention, stole away to the bin where during Lent the bran and potato skins for our “sanitarians,” that is to say, our pigs, were stored, and lay there, without food or drink, in a tempest of whirling and confused thoughts—of which, fortunately for me, I had then in my childish brain still only a very limited number—right until the return from the cemetery of my mother, whose weeping on finding me gone and after searching for me in vain, as it were “overwhelmed” me, I then immediately emerged from the bin and standing first of all on the edge, for some reason or other with outstretched hand, ran to her and clinging fast to her skirts, involuntarily began to stamp my feet and why, I don’t know, to imitate the braying of the donkey belonging to our neighbor, a bailiff.

Why this produced such a strong impression on me just then, and why I almost automatically manifested so strangely, I cannot until now make out; though during recent years, particularly on the days called “Shrovetide,” I pondered a good deal, trying chiefly to discover the reason for it.

I then had only the logical supposition that it was perhaps only because the room in which this sacred scene occurred, which was to have tremendous significance for the whole of my further life, was permeated through and through with the scent of a special incense brought from the monastery of “Old Athos” and very popular among followers of every shade of belief of the Christian religion. Whatever it may have been, this fact still now remains a bare fact.

During the days following this event, nothing particular happened in my general state, unless there might be connected with it the fact that during these days, I walked more often than usual with my feet in the air, that is to say, on my hands.

My first act, obviously in discordance with the manifestations of others, though truly without the participation not only of my consciousness but also of my subconsciousness, occurred on exactly the fortieth day after the death of my grandmother, when all our family, our relatives and all those by whom my dear grandmother, who was loved by everybody, had been held in esteem, gathered in the cemetery according to custom, to perform over her mortal remains, reposing in the grave, what is called the “requiem service,” when suddenly without any rhyme or reason, instead of observing what was conventional among people of all degrees of tangible and intangible morality and of all material positions, that is to say, instead of standing quietly as if overwhelmed, with an expression of grief on one’s face and even if possible with tears in one’s eyes, I started skipping round the grave as if dancing and sang:

“Let her with the saints repose,

Now that she’s turned up her toes,

Oi! oi! oi!

Let her with the saints repose,

Now that she’s turned up her toes.”

… and so on and so forth.

And just from this it began, that in my entirety a “something” arose which in respect of any kind of so to say “aping,” that is to say, imitating the ordinary automatized manifestations of those around me, always and in everything engendered what I should now call an “irresistible urge” to do things not as others do them.

At that age I committed acts such as the following.

If for example when learning to catch a ball with the right hand, my brother, sisters and neighbors’ children who came to play with us, threw the ball in the air, I, with the same aim in view, would first bounce the ball hard on the ground, and only when it rebounded would I, first doing a somersault, catch it, and then only with the thumb and middle finger of the left hand; or if all the other children slid down the hill head first, I tried to do it, and moreover each time better and better, as the children then called it, “backside-first”; or if we children were given various kinds of what are called “Abaranian pastries,” then all the other children, before putting them in their mouths, would first of all lick them, evidently to try their taste and to protract the pleasure, but … I would first sniff one on all sides and perhaps even put it to my ear and listen intently, and then though only almost unconsciously, yet nevertheless seriously, muttering to myself “so and so and so you must, do not eat until you bust,” and rhythmically humming correspondingly, I would only take one bite and without savoring it, would swallow it—and so on and so forth.

The first event during which there arose in me one of the two mentioned data which became the “vivifying sources” for the feeding and perfecting of the injunction of my deceased grandmother, occurred just at that age when I changed from a chubby mite into what is called a “young rascal” and had already begun to be, as is sometimes said, a “candidate for a young man of pleasing appearance and dubious content.”

And this event occurred under the following circumstances which were perhaps even specially combined by Fate itself.

With a number of young rascals like myself, I was once laying snares for pigeons on the roof of a neighbor’s house, when suddenly, one of the boys who was standing over me and watching me closely, said:

“I think the noose of the horsehair ought to be so arranged that the pigeon’s big toe never gets caught in it, because, as our zoology teacher recently explained to us, during movement it is just in that toe that the pigeon’s reserve strength is concentrated, and therefore if this big toe gets caught in the noose, the pigeon might of course easily break it.”

Another boy, leaning just opposite me, from whose mouth, by the way, whenever he spoke saliva always splashed abundantly in all directions, snapped at this remark of the first boy and delivered himself, with a copious quantity of saliva, of the following words:

“Shut your trap, you hopeless mongrel offshoot of the Hottentots! What an abortion you are, just like your teacher! Suppose it is true that the greatest physical force of the pigeon is concentrated in that big toe, then all the more, what we’ve got to do is to see that just that toe will be caught in the noose. Only then will there be any sense to our aim—that is to say, for catching these unfortunate pigeon creatures—in that brain-particularity proper to all possessors of that soft and slippery ‘something’ which consists in this, that when, thanks to other actions, from which its insignificant manifestability depends, there arises a periodic requisite law conformable what is called ‘change of presence,’ then this small so to say ‘law conformable confusion’ which should proceed for the animation of other acts in its general functioning, immediately enables the center of gravity of the whole functioning, in which this slippery ‘something’ plays a very small part, to pass temporarily from its usual place to another place, owing to which there often obtains in the whole of this general functioning, unexpected results ridiculous to the point of absurdity.”

He discharged the last words with such a shower of saliva that it was as if my face were exposed to the action of an “atomizer”—not of “Ersatz” production—invented by the Germans for dyeing material with aniline dyes.

This was more than I could endure, and without changing my squatting position, I flung myself at him, and my head, hitting him with full force in the pit of his stomach, immediately laid him out and made him as is said “lose consciousness”

I do not know and do not wish to know in what spirit the result will be formed in your mentation of the information about the extraordinary coincidence, in my opinion, of life circumstances, which I now intend to describe here, though for my mentation, this coincidence was excellent material for the assurance of the possibility of the fact that this event described by me, which occurred in my youth, proceeded not simply accidentally but was intentionally created by certain extraneous forces.

The point is that this dexterity was thoroughly taught me only a few days before this event by a Greek priest from Turkey, who, persecuted by Turks for his political convictions, had been compelled to flee from there, and having arrived in our town had been hired by my parents as a teacher for me of the modern Greek language.

I do not know on which data he based his political convictions and ideas, but I very well remember that in all the conversations of this Greek priest, even while explaining to me the difference between the words of exclamation in the ancient and in modern Greek, there were indeed always very clearly discernible his dreams of getting as soon as possible to the island of Crete and there manifesting himself as befits a true patriot.

Well, then, on beholding the effect of my skill, I was, I must confess, extremely frightened, because, knowing nothing of any such reaction from a blow in that place, I quite thought I had killed him.

At the moment I was experiencing this fear, another boy, the cousin of him who had become the first victim of my so to say “skill in self-defense,” seeing this, without a moment’s pause, and obviously overcome with a feeling called “consanguinity,” immediately leaped at me and with a full swing struck me in the face with his fist.

From this blow, I, as is said, “saw stars,” and at the same time my mouth became as full as if it had been stuffed with the food necessary for the artificial fattening of a thousand chickens.

After a little time when both these strange sensations had calmed down within me, I then actually discovered that some foreign substance was in my mouth, and when I pulled it out with my fingers, it turned out to be nothing less than a tooth of large dimensions and strange form.

Seeing me staring at this extraordinary tooth, all the boys swarmed around me and also began to stare at it with great curiosity and in a strange silence.

By this time the boy who had been laid out flat recovered and, picking himself up, also began to stare at my tooth with the other boys, as if nothing had happened to him.

This strange tooth had seven shoots and at the end of each of them there stood out in relief a drop of blood, and through each separate drop there shone clearly and definitely one of the seven aspects of the manifestation of the white ray.

After this silence, unusual for us “young rascals,” the usual hubbub broke out again, and in this hubbub it was decided to go immediately to the barber, a specialist in extracting teeth, and to ask him just why this tooth was like that.

So we all climbed down from the roof and went off to the barber’s. And I, as the “hero of the day,” stalked at the head of them all.

The barber, after a casual glance, said it was simply a “wisdom tooth” and that all those of the male sex have one like it, who until they first exclaim “papa” and “mamma” are fed on milk exclusively from their own mother, and who on first sight are able to distinguish among many other faces the face of their own father.

As a result of the whole totality of the effects of this happening, at which time my poor “wisdom tooth” became a complete sacrifice, not only did my consciousness begin, from that time on, constantly absorbing, in connection with everything, the very essence of the essence of my deceased grandmother’s behest—God bless her soul—but also in me at that time, because I did not go to a “qualified dentist” to have the cavity of this tooth of mine treated, which as a matter of fact I could not do because our home was too far from any contemporary center of culture, there began to ooze chronically from this cavity a “something” which—as it was only recently explained to me by a very famous meteorologist with whom I chanced to become, as is said, “bosom friends” owing to frequent meetings in the Parisian night restaurants of Montmartre—had the property of arousing an interest in, and a tendency to seek out the causes of the arising of every suspicious “actual fact”; and this property, not transmitted to my entirely by heredity, gradually and automatically led to my ultimately becoming a specialist in the investigation of every suspicious phenomenon which, as it so often happened, came my way.

This property newly formed in me after this event—when I, of course with the co-operation of our all-common master the merciless heropass, that is the “flow of time,” was transformed into the young man already depicted by me—became for me a real inextinguishable hearth, always burning, of consciousness.

The second of the mentioned vivifying factors, this time for the complete fusion of my dear grandmother’s injunction with all the data constituting my general individuality, was the totality of impressions received from information I chanced to acquire concerning the event which took place here among us on Earth, showing the origin of that “principle” which, as it turned out according to the elucidations of Mr. Alan Kardec during an “absolutely secret” spiritualistic seance, subsequently became everywhere among beings similar to ourselves, arising and existing on all the other planets of our Great Universe, one of the chief “life principles.”

The formulation in words of this new “all-universal principle of living” is as follows:

“If you go on a spree then go the whole hog including the postage.”

As this “principle,” now already universal, arose on that same planet on which you too arose and on which, moreover, you exist almost always on a bed of roses and frequently dance the fox trot, I consider I have no right to withhold from you the information known to me, elucidating certain details of the arising of just that universal principle.

Soon after the definite inculcation into my nature of the said new inherency, that is the unaccountable striving to elucidate the real reasons for the arising of all sorts of “actual facts,” on my first arrival in the heart of Russia, the city of Moscow, where, finding nothing else for the satisfaction of my psychic needs, I occupied myself with the investigation of Russian legends and sayings, I once happened—whether accidentally or as a result of some objective sequence according to law I do not know—to learn by the way the following:

Once upon a time a certain Russian, who in external appearance was to those around him a simple merchant, had to go from his provincial town on some business or other to this second capital of Russia, the city of Moscow, and his son, his favorite one—because he resembled only his mother—asked him to bring back a certain book.

When this great unconscious author of the “all-universal principle of living” arrived in Moscow, he together with a friend of his became—as was and still is usual there—“blind drunk” on genuine “Russian vodka.”

And when these two inhabitants of this most great contemporary grouping of biped breathing creatures had drunk the proper number of glasses of this “Russian blessing” and were discussing what is called “public education,” with which question it has long been customary always to begin one’s conversation, then our merchant suddenly remembered by association his dear son’s request, and decided to set off at once to a bookshop with his friend to buy the book.

In the shop, the merchant, looking through the book he had asked for and which the salesman handed him, asked its price.

The salesman replied that the book was sixty kopecks.

Noticing that the price marked on the cover of the book was only forty-five kopecks, our merchant first began pondering in a strange manner, in general unusual for Russians, and afterwards, making a certain movement with his shoulders, straightening himself up almost like a pillar and throwing out his chest like an officer of the guards, said after a little pause, very quietly but with an intonation in his voice expressing great authority:

“But it is marked here forty-five kopecks. Why do you ask sixty?”

Thereupon the salesman, making as is said the “oleaginous” face proper to all salesmen, replied that the book indeed cost only forty-five kopecks, but had to be sold at sixty because fifteen kopecks were added for postage.

After this reply to our Russian merchant who was perplexed by these two quite contradictory but obviously clearly reconcilable facts, it was visible that something began to proceed in him, and gazing up at the ceiling, he again pondered, this time like an English professor who has invented a capsule for castor oil, and then suddenly turned to his friend and delivered himself for the first time on Earth of the verbal formulation which, expressing in its essence an indubitable objective truth, has since assumed the character of a saying.

And he then put it to his friend as follows:

“Never mind, old fellow, we’ll take the book. Anyway we’re on a spree today, and ‘if you go on a spree then go the whole hog including the postage.'”

As for me, unfortunately doomed, while still living, to experience the delights of “Hell,” as soon as I had cognized all this, something very strange, that I have never experienced before or since, immediately began, and for a rather long time continued to proceed in me; it was as if all kinds of, as contemporary “Hivintzes” say, “competitive races” began to proceed in me between all the various-sourced associations and experiences usually occurring in me.

At the same time, in the whole region of my spine there began a strong almost unbearable itch, and a colic in the very center of my solar plexus, also unbearable, and all this, that is these dual, mutually stimulating sensations, after the lapse of some time suddenly were replaced by such a peaceful inner condition as I experienced in later life once only, when the ceremony of the great initiation into the Brotherhood of the “Originators of making butter from air” was performed over me; and later when “I,” that is, this “something-unknown” of mine, which in ancient times one crank—called by those around him, as we now also call such persons, a “learned man”—defined as a “relatively transferable arising, depending on the quality of the functioning of thought, feeling, and organic automatism,” and according to the definition of another also ancient and renowned learned man, the Arabian Mal-el-Lel, which definition by the way was in the course of time borrowed and repeated in a different way by a no less renowned and learned Greek, Xenophon, “the compound result of consciousness, subconsciousness, and instinct”; so when this same “I” in this condition turned my dazed attention inside myself, then firstly it very clearly constated that everything, even to each single word, elucidating this quotation that has become an “all-universal life principle” became transformed in me into some special cosmic substance, and merging with the data already crystallized in me long before from the behest of my deceased grandmother, changed these data into a “something” and this “something” flowing everywhere through my entirety settled forever in each atom composing this entirety of mine, and secondly, this my ill-fated “I” there and then definitely felt and, with an impulse of submission, became conscious of this, for me, sad fact, that already from that moment I should willy-nilly have to manifest myself always and in everything without exception, according to this inherency formed in me, not in accordance with the laws of heredity, nor even by the influence of surrounding circumstances, but arising in my entirety under the influence of three external accidental causes, having nothing in common, namely: thanks in the first place to the behest of a person who had become, without the slightest desire on my part, a passing cause of the cause of my arising; secondly, on account of a tooth of mine knocked out by some ragamuffin of a boy, mainly on account of somebody else’s “slobberiness”; and thirdly, thanks to the verbal formulation delivered in a drunken state by a person quite alien to me—some merchant of “Moscovite brand.”

If before my acquaintance with this “all-universal principle of living” I had actualized all manifestations differently from other biped animals similar to me, arising and vegetating with me on one and the same planet, then I did so automatically, and sometimes only half consciously, but after this event I began to do so consciously and moreover with an instinctive sensation of the two blended impulses of self-satisfaction and self-cognizance in correctly and honorably fulfilling my duty to Great Nature.

It must even be emphasized that although even before this event I already did everything not as others did, yet my manifestations were hardly thrust before the eyes of my fellow countrymen around me, but from the moment when the essence of this principle of living was assimilated in my nature, then on the one hand all my manifestations, those intentional for any aim and also those simply, as is said, “occurring out of sheer idleness,” acquired vivifyingness and began to assist in the formation of “corns” on the organs of perception of every creature similar to me without exception who directed his attention directly or indirectly toward my actions, and on the other hand, I myself began to carry out all these actions of mine in accordance with the injunctions of my deceased grandmother to the utmost possible limits; and the practice was automatically acquired in me on beginning anything new and also at any change, of course on a large scale, always to utter silently or aloud:

“If you go on a spree then go the whole hog including the postage.”

And now, for instance, in the present case also, since, owing to causes not dependent on me, but flowing from the strange and accidental circumstances of my life, I happen to be writing books, I am compelled to do this also in accordance with that same principle which has gradually become definite through various extraordinary combinations created by life itself, and which has blended with each atom of my entirety.

This psycho-organic principle of mine I shall this time begin to actualize not by following the practice of all writers, established from the remote past down to the present, of taking as the theme of their various writings the events which have supposedly taken place, or are taking place, on Earth, but shall take instead as the scale of events for my writings—the whole Universe. Thus in the present case also, “If you take then take!”—that is to say, “If you go on a spree then go the whole hog including the postage.”

Any writer can write within the scale of the Earth, but I am not any writer.

Can I confine myself merely to this, in the objective sense, “paltry Earth” of ours? To do this, that is to say, to take for my writings the same themes as in general other writers do, I must not, even if only because what our learned spirits affirm might suddenly indeed prove true; and my grandmother might learn of this; and do you understand what might happen to her, to my dear beloved grandmother? Would she not turn in her grave, not once, as is usually said, but—as I understand her, especially now when I can already quite “skillfully” enter into the position of another—she would turn so many times that she would almost be transformed into an “Irish weathercock.”

Please, reader, do not worry … I shall of course also write of the Earth, but with such an impartial attitude that this comparatively small planet itself and also everything on it shall correspond to that place which in fact it occupies and which, even according to your own sane logic arrived at, thanks of course to my guidance, it must occupy in our Great Universe.

I must, of course, also make the various what are called “heroes” of these writings of mine not such types as those which in general the writers of all ranks and epochs on Earth have drawn and exalted, that is to say, types such as any Tom, Dick, or Harry, who arise through a misunderstanding, and who fail to acquire during the process of their formation up to what is called “responsible life,” anything at all which it is proper for an arising in the image of God, that is to say a man, to have, and who progressively develop in themselves to their last breath only such various charms as for instance: “lasciviousness,” “slobberiness,” “amorousness,” “maliciousness,” “chickenheartedness,” “enviousness,” and similar vices unworthy of man.

I intend to introduce in my writings heroes of such type as everybody must, as is said, “willy-nilly” sense with his whole being as real, and about whom in every reader data must inevitably be crystallized for the notion that they are indeed “somebody” and not merely “just anybody.”

During the last weeks, while lying in bed, my body quite sick, I mentally drafted a summary of my future writings and thought out the form and sequence of their exposition, and I decided to make the chief hero of the first series of my writings … do you know whom? … the Great Beelzebub Himself—even in spite of the fact that this choice of mine might from the very beginning evoke in the mentation of most of my readers such mental associations as must engender in them all kinds of automatic contradictory impulses from the action of that totality of data infallibly formed in the psyche of people owing to all the established abnormal conditions of our external life, which data are in general crystallized in people owing to the famous what is called “religious morality” existing and rooted in their life, and in them, consequently, there must inevitably be formed data for an inexplicable hostility towards me personally.

But do you know what, reader?

In case you decide, despite this Warning, to risk continuing to familiarize yourself with my further writings, and you try to absorb them always with an impulse of impartiality and to understand the very essence of the questions I have decided to elucidate, and in view also of the particularity inherent in the human psyche, that there can be no opposition to the perception of good only exclusively when so to say a “contact of mutual frankness and confidence” is established, I now still wish to make a sincere confession to you about the associations arisen within me which as a result have precipitated in the corresponding sphere of my consciousness the data which have prompted the whole of my individuality to select as the chief hero for my writings just such an individual as is presented before your inner eyes by this same Mr. Beelzebub.

This I did, not without cunning. My cunning lies simply in the logical supposition that if I show him this attention he infallibly—as I already cannot doubt any more—has to show himself grateful and help me by all means in his command in my intended writings.

Although Mr. Beelzebub is made, as is said, “of a different grain,” yet, since He also can think, and, what is most important, has—as I long ago learned, thanks to the treatise of the famous Catholic monk, Brother Foolon—a curly tail, then I, being thoroughly convinced from experience that curls are never natural but can be obtained only from various intentional manipulations, conclude, according to the “sane-logic” of hieromancy formed in my consciousness from reading books, that Mr. Beelzebub also must possess a good share of vanity, and will therefore find it extremely inconvenient not to help one who is going to advertise His name.

It is not for nothing that our renowned and incomparable teacher, Mullah Nassr Eddin, frequently says:

“Without greasing the palm not only is it impossible to live anywhere tolerably but even to breathe.”

And another also terrestrial sage, who has become such, thanks to the crass stupidity of people, named Till Eulenspiegel, has expressed the same in the following words:

“If you don’t grease the wheels the cart won’t go.”

Knowing these and many other sayings of popular wisdom formed by centuries in the collective life of people, I have decided to “grease the palm” precisely of Mr. Beelzebub, who, as everyone understands, has possibilities and knowledge enough and to spare for everything.

Enough, old fellow! All joking even philosophical joking aside, you, it seems, thanks to all these deviations, have transgressed one of the chief principles elaborated in you and put in the basis of a system planned previously for introducing your dreams into life by means of such a new profession, which principle consists in this, always to remember and take into account the fact of the weakening of the functioning of the mentation of the contemporary reader and not to fatigue him with the perception of numerous ideas over a short time.

Moreover, when I asked one of the people always around me, who are “eager to enter Paradise without fail with their boots on,” to read aloud straight through all that I have written in this introductory chapter, what is called my “I”—of course, with the participation of all the definite data formed in my original psyche during my past years, which data gave me among other things understanding of the psyche of creatures of different type but similar to me—constated and cognized with certainty that in the entirety of every reader without exception there must inevitably, thanks to this first chapter alone, arise a “something” automatically engendering definite unfriendliness towards me personally.

To tell the truth, it is not this which is now chiefly worrying me, but the fact that at the end of this reading I also constated that in the sum total of everything expounded in this chapter, the whole of my entirety in which the aforesaid “I” plays a very small part, manifested itself quite contrary to one of the fundamental commandments of that All-Common Teacher whom I particularly esteem, Mullah Nassr Eddin, and which he formulated in the words: “Never poke your stick into a hornets’ nest.”

The agitation which pervaded the whole system affecting my feelings, and which resulted from cognizing that in the reader there must necessarily arise an unfriendly feeling towards me, at once quieted down as soon as I remembered the ancient Russian proverb which states: “There is no offence which with time will not blow over.”

But the agitation which arose in my system from realizing my negligence in obeying the commandment of Mullah Nassr Eddin, not only now seriously troubles me, but a very strange process, which began in both of my recently discovered “souls” and which assumed the form of an unusual itching immediately I understood this, began progressively to increase until it now evokes and produces an almost intolerable pain in the region a little below the right half of my already, without this, overexercised “solar plexus.”

Wait! Wait! … This process, it seems, is also ceasing, and in all the depths of my consciousness, and let us meanwhile say “even beneath my subconsciousness,” there already begins to arise everything requisite for the complete assurance that it will entirely cease, because I have remembered another fragment of life wisdom, the thought of which led my mentation to the reflection that if I indeed acted against the advice of the highly esteemed Mullah Nassr Eddin, I nevertheless acted without premeditation according to the principle of that extremely sympathetic—not so well known everywhere on earth, but never forgotten by all who have once met him—that precious jewel, Karapet of Tiflis.

It can’t be helped … Now that this introductory chapter of mine has turned out to be so long, it will not matter if I lengthen it a little more to tell you also about this extremely sympathetic Karapet of Tiflis.

First of all I must state that twenty or twenty-five years ago, the Tiflis railway station had a “steam whistle.”

It was blown every morning to wake the railway workers and station hands, and as the Tiflis station stood on a hill, this whistle was heard almost all over the town and woke up not only the railway workers, but the inhabitants of the town of Tiflis itself.

The Tiflis local government, as I recall it, even entered into a correspondence with the railway authorities about the disturbance of the morning sleep of the peaceful citizens.

To release the steam into the whistle every morning was the job of this same Karapet who was employed in the station.

So when he would come in the morning to the rope with which he released the steam for the whistle, he would, before taking hold of the rope and pulling it, wave his hand in all directions and solemnly, like a Mohammedan mullah from a minaret, loudly cry:

“Your mother is a — , your father is a — , your grandfather is more than a — ; may your eyes, ears, nose, spleen, liver, corns …” and so on; in short, he pronounced in various keys all the curses he knew, and not until he had done so would he pull the rope.

When I heard about this Karapet and of this practice of his, I visited him one evening after the day’s work, with a small boordook of ‘Kakheteenian’ wine, and after performing this indispensable local solemn “toasting ritual,” I asked him, of course in a suitable form and also according to the local complex of “amenities” established for mutual relationship, why he did this.

Having emptied his glass at a draught and having once sung the famous Georgian song, “Little did we tipple,” inevitably sung when drinking, he leisurely began to answer as follows:

“As you drink wine not as people do today, that is to say, not merely for appearances but in fact honestly, then this already shows me that you do not wish to know about this practice of mine out of curiosity, like our engineers and technicians, but really owing to your desire for knowledge, and therefore I wish, and even consider it my duty, sincerely to confess to you the exact reason of these inner, so to say, ‘scrupulous considerations’ of mine, which led me to this, and which little by little instilled in me such a habit.”

He than related the following:

“Formerly I used to work in this station at night cleaning the steam boilers, but when this steam whistle was brought here, the stationmaster, evidently considering my age and incapacity for the heavy work I was doing, ordered me to occupy myself only with releasing the steam into the whistle, for which I had to arrive punctually every morning and evening.

“The first week of this new service, I once noticed that after performing this duty of mine, I felt for an hour or two vaguely ill at ease. But when this strange feeling, increasing day by day, ultimately became a definite instinctive uneasiness from which even my appetite for ‘Makhokh’ disappeared, I began from then on always to think and think in order to find out the cause of this. I thought about it all particularly intensely for some reason or other while going to and coming from my work, but however hard I tried I could make nothing whatsoever, even approximately, clear to myself.

“It thus continued for almost two years and, finally, when the calluses on my palms had become quite hard from the rope of the steam whistle, I quite accidentally and suddenly understood why I experienced this uneasiness.

“The shock for my correct understanding, as a result of which there was formed in me concerning this an unshakable conviction, was a certain exclamation I accidentally heard under the following, rather peculiar, circumstances.

“One morning when I had not had enough sleep, having spent the first half of the night at the christening of my neighbor’s ninth daughter and the other half in reading a very interesting and rare book I had by chance obtained and which was entitled Dreams and Witchcraft, as I was hurrying on my way to release the steam, I suddenly saw at the corner a barber-surgeon I knew, belonging to the local government service, who beckoned me to stop.

“The duty of this barber-surgeon friend of mine consisted in going at a certain time through the town accompanied by an assistant with a specially constructed carriage and seizing all the stray dogs whose collars were without the metal plates distributed by the local authorities on payment of the tax and taking these dogs to the municipal slaughterhouse where they were kept for two weeks at municipal expense, feeding on the slaughterhouse offal; if, on the expiration of this period, the owners of the dogs had not claimed them and paid the established tax, then these dogs were, with a certain solemnity, driven down a certain passageway which lead directly to a specially built oven.

“After a short time, from the other end of this famous salutary oven, there flowed, with a delightful gurgling sound, a definite quantity of pellucid and ideally clean fat to the profit of the fathers of our town for the manufacture of soap and also perhaps of something else, and, with a purling sound, no less delightful to the ear, there poured out also a fair quantity of very useful substance for fertilizing.

“This barber-surgeon friend of mine proceeded in the following simple and admirably skillful manner to catch the dogs.

“He somewhere obtained a large, old, and ordinary fishing net, which, during these peculiar excursions of his for the general human welfare through the slums of our town, he carried, arranged in a suitable manner on his strong shoulders, and when a dog without its ‘passport’ came within the sphere of his all-seeing and, for all the canine species, terrible eye, he without haste and with the softness of a panther, would steal up closely to it and seizing a favorable moment when the dog was interested and attracted by something it noticed, cast his net on it and quickly entangled it, and later, rolling up the carriage, he disentangled the dog in such a way that it found itself in the cage attached to the carriage.

“Just when my friend the barber-surgeon beckoned me to stop, he was aiming to throw his net, at the opportune moment, at his next victim, which at that moment was standing wagging his tail and looking at a bitch. My friend was just about to throw his net, when suddenly the bells of a neighboring church rang out, calling the people to early morning prayers. At such an unexpected ringing in the morning quiet, the dog took fright and springing aside flew off like a shot down the empty street at his full canine velocity.

“Then the barber-surgeon so infuriated by this that his hair, even beneath his armpits, stood on end, flung his net on the pavement and spitting over his left shoulder, loudly exclaimed:

“‘Oh, Hell! What a time to ring!’

“As soon as the exclamation of the barber-surgeon reached my reflecting apparatus, there began to swarm in it various thoughts which ultimately led, in my view, to the correct understanding of just why there proceeded in me the aforesaid instinctive uneasiness.

“The first moment after I had understood this there even arose a feeling of being offended at myself that such a simple and clear thought had not entered my head before.

“I sensed with the whole of my being that my effect on the general life could produce no other result than that process which had all along proceeded in me.

“And indeed, everyone awakened by the noise I make with the steam whistle, which disturbs his sweet morning slumbers, must without doubt curse me ‘by everything under the sun,’ just me, the cause of this hellish row, and thanks to this, there must of course certainly flow towards my person from all directions, vibrations of all kinds of malice.

“On that significant morning, when, after performing my duties, I, in customary mood of depression, was sitting in a neighboring ‘Dukhan’ and eating ‘Hachi’ with garlic, I, continuing to ponder, came to the conclusion that if I should curse beforehand all those to whom my service for the benefit of certain among them might seem disturbing, then, according to the explanation of the book I had read the night before, however much all those, as they might be called, ‘who lie in the sphere of idiocy,’ that is, between sleep and drowsiness, might curse me, it would have—as explained in that same book—no effect on me at all.

“And in fact, since I began to do so, I no longer feel the said instinctive uneasiness.”

Well, now, patient reader, I must really conclude this opening chapter. It has now only to be signed.

He who …

Stop! Misunderstanding formation! With a signature there must be no joking, otherwise the same will be done to you as once before in one of the empires of Central Europe, when you were made to pay ten years’ rent for a house you occupied only for three months, merely because you had set your hand to a paper undertaking to renew the contract for the house each year.

Of course after this and still other instances from life experience, I must in any case in respect of my own signature, be very, very careful.

Very well then.

He who in childhood was called “Tatakh”; in early youth “Darky”; later the “Black Greek”; in middle age, the “Tiger of Turkestan”; and now, not just anybody, but the genuine “Monsieur” or “Mister” Gurdjieff, or the nephew of “Prince Mukransky,” or finally, simply a “Teacher of Dancing.”

BEELZEBUB continued as follows:

“The cause of my first meeting with that three-centered being who subsequently became my essence-friend and by whom I saw the said experiments with the Omnipresent-Okidanokh, was as follows.

“That you may better represent to yourself the events of this tale of mine, you must first of all know that at the beginning of my exile to that solar system, certain corresponding essence-friends of mine who had not taken part in those events from which the causes of my exile had issued, performed concerning my personality that sacred process which exists in the Universe under the name of the ‘Sacred Vznooshlitzval,’ that is to say, concerning my personality there was implanted in the presences of those three-brained beings by means of another sacred process called ‘Askalnooazar,’ that which Objective Science defines by the notion, ‘Trust-another-like-yourself.’

“Well, then, just after my arrival in that solar system Ors, when I began visiting its various planets and first descended upon the surface of the planet Saturn, it turned out in connection with the aforesaid, that one of the beings who had undergone the sacred action of ‘Vnooshlitzval’ regarding my person, was what is called there the ‘Harahrahroohry’ of all the three-centered beings arising and existing on the planet Saturn.

“On the planet Saturn a being is called the ‘Harahrahroohry’ who is the sole chief over all the other beings on that planet.

“Similar being-chiefs exist also on all the other planets upon which three-brained beings breed; they are differently named on different planets; and on your planet Earth such a chief is called a ‘King.’

“The only difference is that while everywhere else, even on all the other planets of the same system, there is one such king for the whole of the given planet, on your peculiar planet Earth there is a separate king for every accidentally segregated group of these favorites of yours and sometimes even several.

“Well, then:

“When I first descended on the surface of the planet Saturn and mingled with the three-centered beings there, it chanced that I had occasion the next day to meet the Harahrahroohry himself of the planet Saturn; and during what is called our ‘Exchange-of-subjective-opinions’ he invited me to make his own ‘Harhoory,’ that is his own palace, the chief place of my existence during the whole of my sojourn on their planet.

“And this I did.

“So, my boy, when we were once talking simply according to the flow of what is called ‘being-associative-mentation,’ and happened to touch on the question, among other things, of the strange results actualized in the manifestations of the particularities of the Omnipresent-Okidanokh, the venerable Harahrahroohry of the planet Saturn first mentioned that one of his learned being-subjects, by name Harharkh, had recently devised for the elucidation of many of the previously unexplained properties of that cosmic substance, an exceedingly interesting appliance which he called a ‘Rhaharahr,’ the chief demonstrating part of which he called a ‘Hrhaharhtzaha.’

“And further, he offered to make if I wished, the necessary arrangements for showing me all these new inventions and for giving me every possible explanation of them.

“The result of it all was that the following day, escorted by one of that venerable Harahrahroohry’s court, I went to the place of existence of that Gornahoor Harharkh where I first saw those novel elucidatory experiments with the Omnipresent-Okidanokh.

“Gornahoor Harharkh, who afterwards, as I have already told you, became my essence-friend, was then considered one of the foremost scientists among the ordinary three-brained beings of the whole Universe, and all his constatations as well as the elucidatory apparatuses he had invented, were everywhere widespread, and other learned beings on the various planets were using them more and more.

“Here it will do no harm to remark that I also, thanks only to his learning, had later in my observatory on the planet Mars that Teskooano which, when it was finally established, enabled my sight to perceive, or as is said, ‘approach-the-visibility’ of remote cosmic concentrations, 7,000,285 times.

“Strictly speaking, it was owing to just this Teskooano that my observatory was afterwards considered one of the best constructions of its kind in the whole Universe; and, most important of all, it was by means of this Teskooano that I myself thereafter could, even while staying at home on the planet Mars, relatively easily see and observe the processes of the existence occurring on the surfaces of those parts of the other planets of that solar system which in accordance with what is called the ‘common-cosmic Harmonious-Movement’ could be perceived by being-sight at the given moment.

“When Gornahoor Harharkh was informed who we were and why we had come, he approached us and forthwith very amiably began his explanations.

“Before beginning his explanations I think it not inadvisable to warn you once and for all that all my conversations with various three-centered beings arising and existing on various planets of that system where I was obliged to exist for the ‘Sins of my youth’—as for instance in the present case, the conversations with this Gornahoor Harharkh which I am now about to relate to you while we travel on the space-ship Karnak—all proceeded in dialects still quite unknown to you, and sometimes even, by the way, in such dialects the consonances of which were quite ‘indigestible’ for perception by normal being-functions assigned for this purpose.

“And so, my boy, in view of all this, I shall not repeat these conversations word for word, but shall give you only their sense in our speech, continuing of course to employ those terms and ‘specific-names’ or rather those consonances produced by what are called ‘being-vocal-chords,’ which consonances are used by your favorites of the planet Earth and which have now become for you, owing to continued repetition during my tales about them, habitual and easily perceived.

“Yes … it must be noticed here that the word Gornahoor is used by the three-brained beings on the planet Saturn in courtesy; they utter it before the name of one whom they are addressing.

“It is the same with your favorites on the planet Earth. They also have added to the name of every person the word ‘Mister’ or sometimes a whole meaningless phrase expressing the notion for which our honorable Mullah Nassr Eddin has the following sentence:

“And namely he says:

“‘Nevertheless, there’s more reality in it than in the wiseacrings of an “expert” in monkey-business.’

“Well, then, my boy …

“When this subsequent essence-friend of mine, Gornahoor Harharkh, was informed of what was required of him, he invited us by a sign to approach one of the special appliances which he had made and which, as it later turned out, was named by him ‘Hrhaharhtzaha.’

‘When we were nearer the said special and very strange construction, he pointed to it with a particular feather of his right wing and said:

“‘This special appliance is the principal part of the whole of my new invention; and it is just in this that the results are revealed and shown of almost all the peculiarities of the Omnipresent-World-substance-Okidanokh.’

“And, pointing to all the other special appliances also present in the ‘Khrh,’ he added:

“‘I succeeded in obtaining extremely important elucidations concerning the omnipresent and everywhere penetrating Okidanokh, because thanks to all these separate special appliances of my invention, it became possible, first to obtain all three fundamental parts of the Omnipresent-Okidanokh from every kind of sur- and intraplanetary process and then artificially to blend them into a whole, and secondly, also artificially to disassociate them and elucidate the specific properties of each part separately in its manifestations.’

“Having said this, he again pointed to the Hrhaharhtzaha and added that by means of the elucidating apparatus, not only can any ordinary being clearly understand the details of the properties of the three absolutely independent parts—which in their manifestations have nothing in common—of the whole ‘Unique-Active-Element,’ the particularities of which are the chief cause of everything existing in the Universe, but also any ordinary being can become categorically convinced that no results of any kind normally obtained from the processes occurring through this Omnipresent World-substance can ever be perceived by beings or sensed by them; certain being-functions however can perceive only those results of the said processes which proceed for some reason or other abnormally, on account of causes coming from without and issuing either from conscious sources or from accidental mechanical results.

“The part of Gornahoor Harharkh’s new invention which he himself called the Hrhaharhtzaha and regarded as the most important, was in appearance very much like the ‘Tirzikiano’ or, as your favorites would say, a ‘huge-electric-lamp.’

“The interior of this special structure was rather like a smallish room with a door that could be hermetically closed.

“The walls of this original construction were made of a certain transparent material, the appearance of which reminded me of that which on your planet is called ‘glass.’

“As I learned later, the chief particularity of this said transparent material was that although by means of the organ of sight, beings could perceive through it the visibility of every kind of cosmic concentration, yet no rays of any kind, whatever the causes they may have arisen from, could pass through it, either from within out or from without in.

“As I looked at this part of this said astonishing being-invention, I could through its transparent walls clearly distinguish inside in the center, what seemed to be a table and two chairs; hanging above the table, what is called an ‘electric lamp’; and underneath it three ‘things’ exactly alike, each resembling the ‘Momonodooar.’

“On the table and by the side of it, stood or lay several different apparatuses and instruments unknown to me.

“Later it became clear that the said objects contained in this Hrhaharhtzaha, as well as everything we had later to put on, were made of special materials invented by this Gornahoor Harharkh.

“And as regards these materials also, I shall explain a little more in detail at the proper time in the course of my further explanations concerning Gornahoor Harharkh.

“Meanwhile bear in mind that in the enormous Khrh or workshop of Gornahoor Harharkh there were, besides the already mentioned Hrhaharhtzaha, several other large independent appliances, and, among them, two quite special what are called ‘Lifechakans’ which Gornahoor himself called ‘Krhrrhihirhi.’

“It is interesting to note that your favorites also have something like this ‘Lifechakan’ or ‘Krhrrhihirhi’; and they name such an apparatus a ‘dynamo.’

“There was also there, apart, another independent large appliance which as it afterwards appeared, was a ‘Soloohnorahoona’ of special construction, or as your favorites would say, a ‘pump-of-complex-construction-for-exhausting-atmosphere-to-the-point-of-absolute-vacuum.’

“While I was looking over all this with surprise, Gornahoor Harharkh himself approached the said pump of special construction and with his left wing moved one of its parts, owing to which a certain mechanism began to work in the pump. He then approached us again, and pointing with the same special feather of his right wing to the largest Lifechakan, or Krhrrhihirhi, or dynamo, further continued his explanations.

“He said, ‘By means of this special appliance, there are first “sucked-in” separately from the atmosphere or from any intra- or surplanetary formation, all the three independent parts of the Omnipresent-Active-Element-Okidanokh present in it, and only afterwards when in a certain way, these separate independent parts are artificially reblended in the Krhrrhihirhi into a single whole, does the Okidanokh, now in its usual state, flow and is it concentrated there, in that “container”‘—saying which, he again with the same special feather pointed to something very much like what is called a ‘generator.’

“‘And then from there,’ he said, ‘Okidanokh flows here into another Krhrrhihirhi or dynamo where it undergoes the process of Djartklom, and each of its separate parts is concentrated there in those other containers’—and this time he pointed to what resembled ‘accumulators’—‘and only then do I take from the secondary containers by means of various artificial appliances, each active part of Okidanokh separately for my elucidatory experiments.

“‘I shall first demonstrate to you,’ he continued, ‘one of the results which occur when, for some reason or other, one of the active parts of the Omnipresent-Okidanokh is absent during the process of their “striving-to-reblend” into a whole.

“‘At the present moment this special construction contains a space which is indeed an absolute vacuum; obtained it must be said, only owing firstly to the special construction of the suction pump and to the materials of special quality of which the instruments are made, which alone make experiments possible in an absolute vacuum; and secondly, to the properties and the strength of the material of which the walls of this part of my new invention are made.’

“Having said this, he pulled another lever and again continued:

“‘Owing to the pulling of this lever, that process has begun in this vacuum whereby in the separate parts of the Omnipresent-Okidanokh, there proceeds what is called the “striving-to-reblend-into-a-whole.”

“‘But since, intentionally by an “able-Reason”—in the present case myself—the participation of that third part of Okidanokh existing under the name of “Parijrahatnatioose” is artificially excluded from the said process, then this process proceeds there just now between only two of its parts, namely, between those two independent parts which science names “Anodnatious” and “Cathodnatious.” And in consequence, instead of the obligatory law-conformable results of the said process, that non-law-conformable result is now actualized which exist under the denomination of “the-result-of-the-process-of-the-reciprocal-destruction-of-two-opposite-forces,” or as ordinary beings express it, “the-cause-of-artificial-light.”

“‘The “striving-to-reblend-into-a-whole” of two active parts of the Omnipresent-Okidanokh, which is proceeding at the present moment there, in this vacuum, has a force, as calculated by objective science, of 3,040,000 what are called “volts” and this force is indicated by the needle of that special appliance there.’

“Pointing to a ‘something’ very much like the apparatus existing also on your planet and called there ‘voltmeter’ he said:

“‘One of the advantages of this new invention of mine for the demonstration of the given phenomenon is that in spite of the unusual power of the process of the “force-of-striving,” now proceeding there, the what are called “Salnichizinooarnian-momentum-vibrations” which most beings consider also to be “rays,” and which ought to be obtained and to issue from this process, do not issue out of the place of their arising, that is, out of this construction in which the particularities of the Omnipresent-Okidanokh are being elucidated.

“‘And in order that the beings who are outside of this part of my invention may nevertheless also have the possibility of elucidating the force of the given process, I intentionally made the composition of the material of the wall in one place such that it has the property of permitting the passage through it of the said “Salnichizinooarnian-momentum-vibrations” or “rays.”‘

“Having said this, he approached nearer to the Hrahaharhtzaha and pressed a certain button. The result was that the whole of the enormous Khrh or ‘workshop’ was suddenly so strongly lit up that our organs of sight temporarily ceased to function and only after a considerable time had passed could we with great difficulty raise our eyelids and look around.

“When we had recovered and Gornahoor Harharkh had pulled still another lever, which resulted in the whole surrounding space being restored to its former usual appearance, he first, with his customary angel-voice, again drew our attention to the ‘voltmeter,’ the needle of which constantly indicated the same figure, and then continued:

“‘You see that, although the process of the clash of two opposite component parts of the Omnipresent-Okidanokh, of the same power of “force-of-striving” still continues, and that the part of the surface of this construction which has the property of admitting the passage of the said “rays” is still open, yet, in spite of all this there is no longer the phenomenon which ordinary beings define by the phrase “the-causes-of-artificial-light.”

“‘And this phenomenon is no longer there, only because by my last pulling of a certain lever, I introduced into the process of the clash of two component parts of Okidanokh, a current of the third independent component part of Okidanokh, which began to blend proportionally with its other two parts, owing to which the result derived from this kind of blending of the three component parts of the Omnipresent-Okidanokh—unlike the process of the non-law-conformable blending of its two parts—cannot be perceived by beings with any of their being-functions.’

“After all these explanations of his, Gornahoor Harharkh then proposed that I should venture to enter with him that demonstrating part itself of his new invention, in order that I might become, there within, an eyewitness of many particular manifestations of the Omnipresent and everything-penetrating Active-Element.

“Of course, without thinking long about it, I immediately decided and gave him my consent.

“And I immediately decided, chiefly because I expected to obtain in my being unchangeable and imperishable ‘objective-essence-satisfaction.’

“When this future essence-friend of mine had my consent, he at once gave the necessary orders to one of his assistants.

“It appeared that for the actualization of what he proposed, various preparations had first to be made.

“First of all his assistants put on Gornahoor Harharkh and myself some special, very heavy suits, resembling those which your favorites call ‘diving suits’ but with many small heads of what are called ‘bolts’ projecting, and when these extremely peculiar suits had been put on us, his assistants screwed up the heads of these bolts in a certain order.

“On the inner side of these diving suits, at the ends of the bolts, there were, it appeared, special plates which pressed against parts of our planetary body in a certain way.

“It later also became quite clear to me that this was necessary, in order that there might not occur to our planetary bodies what is called ‘Taranooranura,’ or, as it might otherwise be said, in order that our planetary bodies should not fall to pieces as usually occurs to sur- and intraplanetary formations of every kind when they happen to come into an entirely atmosphereless space.

“In addition to these special suits, they placed on our heads a ‘something’ resembling what is called a ‘diver’s helmet,’ but with very complicated, what are called ‘connectors’ projecting from them.

“One of these connectors, which was called the ‘Harhrinhrarh,’ meaning ‘sustainer-of-the-pulsation,’ was something long, like a rubber tube. One end of it, by means of complicated appliances on the helmet itself, was hermetically attached to the corresponding place of the helmet for the breathing organs, while the other end, after we had already entered that strange Hrhaharhtzaha, was screwed to an apparatus there, which was connected in its turn with the space, the ‘presence’ of which corresponded to the second being-food.

“Between Gornahoor Harharkh and myself there was also a special connector, through which we could easily communicate with each other while we were inside the Hrhaharhtzaha, from which the atmosphere was pumped out to make a vacuum.

“One end of this connector also, by means of appliances that were on the helmets, was fitted in a certain way to what are called my organs of ‘hearing’ and ‘speech,’ and the other end was fitted to the same organs of Gornahoor Harharkh.

“Thus, by means of this connector between my subsequent essence-friend and myself, there was set up, as again your favorites would say, a peculiar ‘telephone.’

“Without this appliance we could not have communicated with each other in any way, chiefly because Gornahoor Harharkh was at that time still a being with a presence perfected only up to the state called the ‘Sacred Inkozarno’; and a being with such a presence not only cannot manifest himself in an absolutely empty space, but he cannot even exist in it, even though the products of all the three-being foods be artificially introduced into him in such a space.

“But the most ‘curious’ and, as it is said, the most ‘cunningly ingenious’ of all the connectors there for various purposes on those strange diving suits and helmets, was the connector created by that great scientist Gornahoor Harharkh to enable the ‘organ-of-sight’ or ordinary beings to perceive the visibility of all kinds of surrounding objects in an ‘absolutely-empty-space.’

“One end of this astonishing connector was fitted in a certain way, also by means of appliances on the helmets, to our temples, while the other end was joined to what is called the ‘Amskomoutator,’ which in its turn was joined in a certain way by means of what are called ‘wires’ to all the objects within the Hrhaharhtzaha as well as to those outside, namely, to those objects whose visibility was needed during the experiments.

“It is very interesting to notice here, that to each end of that appliance—a creation almost incredible for ordinary three-centered-being-Reason—two independent connectors, also of wire, were led, and through them, what are called special magnetic currents flowed from outside.

“As it was afterwards explained to me in detail, these connectors and the said special ‘magnetic-currents’ had, it seems, been created by that truly great scientist Gornahoor Harharkh in order that the presences of learned three-centered beings—even those not perfected to the Sacred Inkozarno—might, owing to one property of the ‘magnetic current’ be ‘reflected’ for their own essences and that, owing to another property of this current, the presence of the mentioned objects might also be ‘reflected,’ so that thereby the perception of the reality of the said objects might be actualized by their imperfect organs of being-sight in a vacuum containing none of these factors or those results of various cosmic concentrations which have received such vibrations, from the actualization of which alone the functioning of any being-organ whatsoever is possible.

“Having fitted upon us the said very heavy appliances for enabling beings to exist in a sphere not corresponding for them, the assistants of this, then still great all-universal scientist Gornahoor Harharkh, with the help again of special appliances, carried us into the Hrhaharhtzaha itself; and having screwed up all the free ends of the connectors projecting from us to the corresponding apparatuses in the Hrhaharhtzaha itself, went out and hermetically closed behind them the only way by which it was still possible, if at all, to have any communication with what is called the ‘Everything-representing-one-world.’

“When we were alone in the Hrhaharhtzaha itself, Gornahoor Harharkh, after turning one of what are called ‘switches’ there, said:

“‘The work of the “pump” has already begun, and soon it will have pumped out all the results here without exception of those cosmic processes whatever they may be, the totality of the results of which is the basis and significance, as well as the process itself, of the maintenance of the existence of everything existing in the whole of this “Everything-representing-one-world.”‘

“And he added in a half-sarcastic tone: ‘Soon we shall be absolutely isolated from everything existing and functioning in the whole of the Universe; but, on the other hand, owing firstly to my new invention, and secondly to the knowledge we have already attained for ourselves, we have not only now the possibility of returning to the said world, to become again a particle of all that exists, but also we shall soon be worthy to become nonparticipating eyewitnesses of certain of these World-laws, which for ordinary uninitiated three-centered beings are what they call “great-inscrutable-mysteries-of-Nature” but which in reality are only natural and very simple results “automatically-flowing-one-from-the-other.”‘

“While he was speaking, one could feel that this pump—another also very important part of the whole of his new invention—was perfectly actualizing the work assigned to it by this being with Reason.

“To enable you to represent to yourself and understand better the perfection of this part also of the whole of this new invention of Gornahoor Harharkh, I must not fail to tell you also about the following:

“Although I personally, as a three-brained being also, had had occasion many times before, owing to certain quite particular reasons, to be in atmosphereless spaces and had had to exist, sometimes for a long time, by means of the Sacred ‘Kreemboolazoomara’ alone; and although from frequent repetition, a habit had been acquired in my presence of moving from one sphere to another gradually and almost without feeling any inconvenience from the change in the presence of the ‘second-being-food’ occurring with the change of the presences of cosmic substances undergoing transformation and which are always around both large and small cosmic concentrations; and also, although the causes themselves of my arising and the subsequent process of my being-existence were arranged in an entirely special way, in consequence of which the various being-functions contained within my common presence had perforce gradually become also special, yet nevertheless, in spite of it all, the pumping out of the atmosphere by the said ‘pump’ then proceeded with such force that such sensations were impressed on the separate parts of the whole of my presence that even today I can very clearly experience the process of the flow of my state at that time and relate it to you almost in detail.

“This extremely strange state began in me shortly after Gornahoor Harharkh had spoken in a half-sarcastic tone about our imminent situation.

“In all my three ‘being-centers’—namely, in the three centers localized in the presence of every three-centered being, and which exist under the name of ‘Thinking,’ ‘Feeling,’ and ‘Moving’ centers—there began to be perceived separately and independently in each of them in a very strange and unusual way very definite impressions that there was taking place in the separate parts of my whole planetary body an independent process of the sacred ‘Rascooarno,’ and that the cosmic crystallizations which composed the presences of these parts were flowing ‘in vain.’

“At first, what is called my ‘initiative-of-constatation’ proceeded in the usual way, that is, according to what is called the ‘center-of-gravity-of-associative-experiencing,’ but later, when this initiative-of-constatation of everything proceeding in me gradually and almost imperceptibly became the function of my essence alone, the latter not only became the unique All-Embracing Initiator of the constating of everything proceeding in me, but also everything, without exception of that which newly proceeded, began to be perceived by and fixed in this essence of mine.

“From the moment that my essence began to perceive impressions directly and to constate independently that from what was proceeding, there was being entirely destroyed, as it were, in my common presence, firstly, the parts of my planetary body, and then, little by little, also the localizations of the ‘second’ and ‘third’ being-centers.

“At the same time, a constatation was definitely made that the functioning of these latter centers passed gradually to my ‘thinking-center’ and became proper to it, with the consequence that the ‘thinking-center’ with the increasing intensity of its functioning, became the ‘unique-powerful-perceiver’ of everything actualized outside of itself, and the autonomous initiator of the constating of everything proceeding in the whole of my presence as well as outside of it.

“While this strange and to my Reason then, still incomprehensible being-experiencing was proceeding in me, Gornahoor Harharkh himself was occupied in pulling some ‘levers’ and ‘switches,’ of which there were very many at the edges of the table where we were place.

“An incident which happened to Gornahoor Harharkh himself changed all this being-experiencing of mine, and in my common presence the usual ‘inner-being-experiencing’ was resumed.

“The following is what happened:

“Gornahoor Harharkh with all those unusual heavy appliances which had been put on him as well, suddenly found himself at a certain height above the chair and began to flounder, as our dear Mullah Nassr Eddin says ‘like-a-puppy-who-has-fallen-into-a-deep-pond.’

“As it afterwards proved, my friend Gornahoor Harharkh had made a mistake while pulling the mentioned levers and switches and had made certain parts of his planetary body more tense than was necessary. In consequence, his presence together with everything on him, had received a shock and also the momentum given by the shock, and owing to the ‘tempo’ proceeding in his presence from taking in the ‘second-being-food’ and to the absence of any resistance in that absolutely empty space, he began to drift, or, as I have already said, to flounder like a ‘puppy-who-has-fallen-into-a-deep-pond.'”

Having said this with a smile, Beelzebub became silent; a little later he made a very strange gesture with his left hand, and with an intonation not proper to his own voice, he continued:

“While I am gradually recalling and telling you about all this concerning the events of a period of my existence now long since past, the wish arises in me to make a sincere confession to you—just to you, one of my direct heirs who must inevitably represent the sum of all my deeds during the periods of the process of my past being-existence—and namely, I wish sincerely to confess to you that when my essence, with the participation of the parts of my presence, subject to it alone, had independently decided to take a personal part in those scientific elucidatory experiments with the demonstrating part of the new invention of Gornahoor Harharkh, and I had entered into this demonstrating part without the least compulsion from outside, yet, in spite of it all, my essence allowed to creep into my being and to be developed side by side with the said strange experiencings, a criminally egoistic anxiety for the safely of my personal existence.

“However, my boy, in order that you may not at this moment be too distressed, it is not superfluous to add that this happened in me then for the first and also the last time during all the periods of my being-existence.

“But perhaps it would be better for the present not to touch on questions that concern exclusively only our family.

“Let us rather return to the tale I have begun about the Omnipresent-Okidanokh and my essence-friend Gornahoor Harharkh, who was, by the way, at one time considered everywhere among ordinary three-brained beings as a ‘great-scientist,’ and is now, though he still continues to exist, not only considered not ‘great,’ but thanks to his own result, that is to say, to his own son, is what our dear Mullah Nassr Eddin would call a ‘has-been’ or, as he sometimes says in such cases, ‘He-is-already-sitting-in-an-old-American-galosh.’

“Well, then, while floundering, Gornahoor Harharkh, with great difficulty, and only by means of a special and very complicated maneuver which he made, finally managed to get his planetary body, burdened with the various unusually heavy appliances, down on to the chair again, and this time he fixed it all with the aid of special screws which were on the chair for that purpose; and when we were both more or less arranged and communication was possible between us by means of the said artificial-connectors, he first drew my attention to those apparatuses hanging over the table which I told you were very much like the Momonodooars.

“On close inspection all these were alike in appearance and served as three identical ‘sockets,’ from the ends of each of which, ‘carbon-candles’ projected, such as are usually to be found in the apparatuses which your favorites call ‘electric-arc-lamps.’

“Having drawn my attention to these three socket-like Momonodooars, he said:

“‘Each of these externally similar apparatuses has a direct connection with those secondary containers which I pointed out to you while we were still outside, and in which after the artificial Djartklom, each of the active parts of Okidanokh collects into a general mass.

“‘I have adapted these three independent apparatuses in such a way that there in this absolutely empty space, we can obtain from those secondary containers for the required experiment as much as we wish of every active part of Okidanokh in a pure state, and also we can at will change the force of the “striving-to-reblend-into-a-whole,” which is acquired in them and which is proper to them according to the degree of density of the concentration of the mass.

“‘And here within this absolutely empty space, I shall first of all show you that same non-law-conformable phenomenon which we recently observed while we were outside the place where it proceeded. And namely, I shall again demonstrate to you this World-phenomenon which occurs when, after a law-conformable Djartklom, the separate parts of the whole Okidanokh meet in a space outside of a law-conformable arising, and, without the participation of one part, “strive-to-reblend-into-a-whole.”‘

“Having said this, he first closed that part of the surface of the Hrhaharhtzaha, the composition of which had the property of allowing ‘rays’ to pass through it; then he pulled two switches and pressed a certain button, as a result of which the small plate lying on that table, composed of a certain special mastic, automatically moved toward the mentioned carbon-candles; and then having again drawn my attention to the Ammeter and the Voltmeter, he added:

“‘I have again admitted the influx of parts of the Okidanokh, namely the Anodnatious and the Cathodnatious of equal force of “striving-to-reblend.”‘

“When I looked at the Ammeter and the Voltmeter and indeed saw that their needles moved and stopped on the same figures I had noticed the first time we were still outside the Hrhaharhtzaha, I was greatly surprised, because in spite of the indications of the needles and the intimation of Gornahoor Harharkh himself, I had neither noticed nor sensed any change in the degree of my perception of the visibility of the surrounding objects.

“So, without waiting for his further explanations, I asked him:

“‘But why then is there no result from this non-law-conformable “striving-to-reblend-into-a-whole,” of the parts of the Okidanokh?’

“Before replying to this question, he turned off the only lamp, which worked from a special magnetic current. My astonishment increased still more, because in spite of the darkness which instantly ensued, it could clearly be seen through the walls of the Hrhaharhtzaha, that the needles of the Ammeter and Voltmeter still stood in their former places.

“Only after I had somehow got accustomed to such a surprising constatation, Gornahoor Harharkh said:

“‘I have already told you that the composition of the material of which the walls of this construction in which we are at this moment are made, possesses the property of not allowing any vibrations arising from any source whatsoever to pass through it, with the exception of certain vibrations arising from nearby concentrations; and these latter vibrations can be perceived by the organs of sight of three-brained beings, and even then of course, only of normal beings.

“‘Furthermore, according to the law called “Heteratogetar,” the “Salnichizinooarnian-momentum-vibrations” or “rays” acquire the property of acting on the organs of perception of beings only after they have passed a limit defined by science in the following formula: “the-result-of-the-manifestation-is-proportionate-to-the-force-of-striving-received-from-the-shock.”

“‘And so, as the given process of the clash of the two parts of the Okidanokh has the strength of great power, the result of the clash is manifested much further than the place of its arising.

“‘Now look!’

“Having said this, he pressed some other button, and suddenly the whole interior of the Hrhaharhtzaha was filled with the same blinding light which, as I have already told you, I experienced when I was outside the Hrhaharhtzaha .

“It appeared that the said light was obtained because by pressing this button, Gornahoor Harharkh had again opened that part of the wall of the Hrhaharhtzaha which had the property of permitting ‘rays’ to pass through it.

“As he explained further, the light was only a consequence of the result of the ‘striving-to-reblend-into-a-whole’ of the parts of Okidanokh proceeding in that absolutely empty space within the Hrhaharhtzaha and manifested owing to what is called ‘reflection’ from outside back to the place of its arising.

“After this he continued as follows:

“‘I shall now demonstrate to you how and by what combinations of the processes of Djartklom and of the striving-to-reblend-into-a-whole of the active parts of Okidanokh, there arise in planets from what are called the “minerals” which compose their interior presence, definite formations of varying densities, as for instance, “Mineraloids,” “gases,” “Metalloids,” “Metals,” and so on; how these latter are afterwards transformed owing to these same factors one into another; and how the vibrations flowing from these transformations constitute just that “totality-of-vibrations” which gives the planets themselves the possibility of stability in the process called the “Common-system-harmonious-movement.”

“‘For my proposed demonstrating, I must obtain as I always do, the necessary materials from outside, which my pupils will give me by means of appliances which I have prearranged.’

“It is interesting to remark that while he was speaking, he was at the same time tapping with his left foot on a certain ‘something,’ very much like what your favorites call the famous Morse transmission apparatus—famous be it said, of course, only on the planet Earth.

“And a little later there slowly ascended from the lower part of the Hrhaharhtzaha a small something like a box, also with transparent walls, within which, as it proved later, were certain minerals, metalloids, metals, and various gases in liquid and solid states.

“Then with the aid of various appliances which were at one side of the table, he first of all, with complicated manipulation, took out from the box some what is called ‘red copper’ and placed it on the mentioned plate, and then said:

“‘This metal is a definite planetary crystallization and is one of the densities required for the said stability in the process called the Common-system-harmonious-movement. It is a formation from preceding process of the action of the parts of the Omnipresent-Okidanokh; and at the present moment I wish to allow the subsequent transformation of this metal to proceed artificially and acceleratedly by means of the peculiarities of the same factors.

“‘I wish to aid artificially the evolution and involution of its elements towards a grater density, or, on the contrary, towards their transformation back to a primal state.

“‘To make the picture of the further elucidatory experiments clearer to you, I find I must first inform you, even if only briefly, of my first personal scientific deductions concerning the evidence of the causes and conditions owing to which there proceeds in the planets themselves the crystallizing of separate parts of the Okidanokh in these or the other said definite formations.

“‘Evidently first of all from any non-law-conformable Djartklom of the Omnipresent-Okidanokh which is in the presence of every planet, its separate parts are localized in the medium of that part of the presence of the planet, that is to say, in that mineral which was at the given moment in the place where the said non-law-conformable Djartklom occurred.

“‘And so if what is called the “vibration-of-the-density-of-the-elements-of-the-said-medium” has an “affinity-of-vibration” with the said active part of the Omnipresent-Okidanokh, then according to the World-law called “Symmetrical-entering,” this active part blends with the presence of the said medium and becomes an inseparable part of it. And from that moment, the given parts of the Omnipresent-Okidanokh begin, together with the said elements of the said medium, to represent the corresponding densities required in planets, that is to say, various kinds of metalloids or even metals, as for instance, the metal I have placed in this sphere, and in which there will proceed artificially at this moment, at my wish, the action of striving-to-reblend-into-a-whole of the parts of the Okidanokh, and which metal, as I have already said, exists under the name of red-copper.

“‘And further, having arisen in the planets in this way, the said various metalloids and metals then begin according to the common-universal-law called “Reciprocal-feeding-of-everything-existing”—as it is generally proper to arisings of every kind in which Okidanokh or any of its active parts participates—to radiate from their presences the results of their inner “Interchange-of-substances.” And as is proper to radiations of every kind issuing from sur- and intraplanetary formations that have acquired in their vibrations the property of Okidanokh or of its active parts, and which are in what is called the “center-of-gravity” of every such said formation, the radiations of these metalloids and metals possess properties almost similar to the properties of Okidanokh itself or of one or another of its active parts.

“‘When the said masses of different densities, that have thus arisen in planets under normal surrounding conditions, radiate from their common presences the vibrations required for the said World-law of Reciprocal-feeding-of-everything-existing, then, among these vibrations of various properties there is established owing to the fundamental World-law “Troemedekhfe” a reciprocally acting contact.

“‘And the result of this contact is the chief factor in the gradual change of the various densities in planets.

“‘My observations over many years have almost fully convinced me that it is owing only to the said contact and its results that there is actualized the “Stability-of-harmonious-equilibrium-of-planets.”

“‘This metal red-copper which I have placed in the sphere of my proposed artificial actualization of the action of the active parts of Okidanokh, has at this moment what is called a “specific-density,” reckoning from the unit of density of the sacred element Theomertmalogos of 444, that is to say, the atom of this metal was 444 times more dense, and as much less vivifying, than the atom of the sacred Theomertmalogos.

“‘Now see in what order its artificially accelerated transformations will proceed.’

“Having said this, he first fixed before my organ of sight the automatically moving Teskooano, and then turned on and off various switches in a certain sequence; and as I looked through the Teskooano he explained to me as follows:

“‘At this moment I admit the “influx” of all three parts of Okidanokh into the sphere containing this metal; and as all three parts have the same “density” and, hence, the same “force-of-striving,” they reblend into a whole in this sphere without changing anything in the presence of the metal; and the Omnipresent-Okidanokh thus obtained flows in its usual state through a special connection out of the of Hrhaharhtzaha and is reconcentrated in the first container which you have already seen.

“‘Now look!

“‘I deliberately increase the force-of-striving of only one of the active parts of the Okidanokh; for example, I increase the force called Cathodnatious. In consequence of this, you see that the elements composing the presence of that red copper begin to involve towards the quality of the substances that compose the ordinary presences of planets.’

“As he explained this, he at the same time turned on and off various switches in a certain sequence.

“Although, my boy, I then looked very attentively at everything proceeding, and everything I saw was impressed in my essence ‘Pestolnootiarly,’ that is, forever, yet nevertheless, not even with my best wish could I now describe to you in words a hundredth part of what then proceeded in that small fragment of a definite intraplanetary formation.

“And I will not try to put into words for you what I then saw, because I have just thought of a possibility of soon actually showing it all to you when you also can be an eyewitness of so strange and astonishing a cosmic process.

“But I will tell you meanwhile that there proceeded in that fragment of red copper something rather like those terrifying pictures which I occasionally observed among your favorites on the planet Earth through my Teskooano from Mars.

“I said ‘rather-like’ because what occasionally proceeded among your favorites had a visibility only possible of observation at its beginning, whereas in the fragment of red copper, the visibility was continuous until the final completion of transformation.

“A rough parallel can be drawn between the occasional proceedings on your planet and the proceedings then in that small fragment of copper, if you imagine yourself high up and looking down upon a large public square, where thousands of your favorites, seized with the most intense form of their chief psychosis, are destroying each other’s existence by all kinds of means invented by them themselves, and that in their places there immediately appear what are called their ‘corpses,’ which owing to the outrages done to them by the beings who are not yet destroyed, change color very perceptibly, as a result of which the general visibility of the surface of the said large square is gradually changed.

“Then, my boy, this subsequent essence-friend of mine, Gornahoor Harharkh, by means of switching on and off the influx of the three active parts of Okidanokh and changing their force-of-striving, also changed the density of the elements of the said metal and thereby transformed the red copper into all the other also definite intraplanetary metals of lower or higher degree of vivifyingness.

“And here, for the elucidation of the strangeness of the psyche of the three-brained beings who have taken your fancy, it is very important and interesting to note that while Gornahoor Harharkh was, with the aid of his new invention, artificially and deliberately producing the evolution and involution of the density and vivifyingness of the elements of red copper, I noticed very clearly that this metal was transformed once upon the said plate into just that same definite metal about which the sorry-savants of your planet have been wiseacring during nearly the whole of their arising and existing, in the hope of transforming other metals into this metal, and thus constantly leading astray their already sufficiently erring brethren.

“This metal is called there—‘gold.’

“Gold is no other than the metal we call ‘Prtzathalavr,’ the specific weight of which, reckoning from the element of the sacred Theomertmalogos, is 1439; that is to say, its element is three and a fraction times less vivifying than the element of the metal red copper.

“Why I suddenly decided not to try to explain to you in detail in words all that then took place in the fragment of the said red copper, in view of my suggestion of the possibility of soon actually showing you in definite intraplanetary formations the processes of various combinations of the manifestations of the active parts of Okidanokh, was because I suddenly remembered the All-Gracious promise given me by our All-Quarters-Maintainer, the Most Great Archcherub, Peshtvogner.

“And this all-gracious promise was given me, as soon as I returned from exile and had to present myself first of all to His All-Quarters-Maintainer, the Archcherub Peshtvogner, and prostrated myself to produce before him what is called the ‘Essence-Sacred-Aliamizoornakalu.’

“This I had to do on account of the same sins of my youth. And I was obliged to do so, because when I was pardoned by his uni-being endlessness, and allowed to return to my native land, certain Sacred Individuals decided to demand of me for any eventuality, to have performed over my essence, this sacred process in order that I might not manifest myself, as in the days of my youth, and that the same might not thereby occur again in the Reason of most individuals dwelling here at the center of the Great Universe.

“You probably do not know yet what the Sacred-Aliamizoornakalu over an essence means? I shall later explain it to you in detail but meanwhile I shall simply use the words of our dear Mullah Nassr Eddin who explains this process as ‘giving-one’s-word-of-honor-not-to-poke-one’s-nose-into-the-affairs-of-the-authorities.’

“In short, when I presented myself to His All-Quarters-Maintainer, he deigned to ask me, among other things, whether I had taken with me all the being-productions which had interested me and which I had collected from various planets of that solar system where I existed during my exile.

“I replied that I had taken almost everything, except those cumbersome apparatuses which my friend Gornahoor Harharkh had constructed for me on the planet Mars.

“He at once promised to give orders that everything I should indicate should be taken at the first opportunity on the next trip of the space-ship 'Omnipresent'.

“That is why, my boy, I hope that everything necessary will be brought to our planet Karatas so that when we return there, you will be able to see it all with your own eyes, and I shall be able to explain everything in detail, practically.

“And meanwhile, during our traveling here on the space-ship Karnak, I shall as I have already promised you, tell you in their order about my descents there to your planet, and also about the causes of what is called my ‘appearances-there-in-person.'”

BEELZEBUB began thus:

“I descended upon your planet Earth for the second time, only eleven of their centuries after my first descent there.

“Shortly after my first descent on to the surface of that planet, the second serious catastrophe occurred to it; but this catastrophe was local in character and did not threaten disaster on a large cosmic scale.

“During this second serious catastrophe to that planet, the continent Atlantis, which had been the largest continent and the chief place of the being-existence of the three-brained beings of that planet during the period of my first descent, was engulfed together with other large and small terra firmas within the planet with all the three-brained beings existing upon it, and also with almost all that they had attained and acquired during many of their preceding centuries.

“In their place there then emerged from within the planet, other terra firmas which formed other continents and islands, most of which still exist.

“It was just on the said continent of Atlantis that the city of Samlios was situated, where, do you remember, I once told you that young countryman of ours existed, on whose account my first ‘Descent-in-person’ took place.

“During the mentioned second great disaster to that planet, many of the three-brained beings who have taken your fancy, survived owing to many and various events, and their now already excessively multiplied posterity descended just from them.

“By the time of my second Descent-in-person, they had already multiplied so greatly that they were breeding again upon almost all the newly formed terra firmas.

“And as regards the question of just which causes, ensuing according to law, brought about this excessive multiplication of theirs, you will understand this also in the course of my further tales.

“You might as well, I think, notice here in connection with this terrestrial catastrophe, something about the three-brained beings of our own tribe; namely, why all the beings of our tribe, existing on that planet during the mentioned catastrophe escaped the inevitable what is called ‘Apocalyptic-end.’

“They escaped it for the following reasons:

“I told you once, in the course of our previous talks, that most of those beings of our tribe who had chosen this planet of yours as their place of existence, existed during my first descent chiefly on the continent of Atlantis.

“It appears that a year before the said catastrophe, our, as she is called ‘Party-Pythoness’ there, when prophesying, asked us all to leave the continent of Atlantis and migrate to another small continent not very far away, where we were to exist on that definite part of its surface she indicated.

“This small continent was then called ‘Grabontzi’ and the part the Pythoness indicated did indeed escape the terrifying perturbation which then occurred to all the other parts of the common presence of that ill-fated planet.

“In consequence of the said perturbation, this small continent Grabontzi, which exists until now under the name of ‘Africa,’ became much larger, because other terra firmas which emerged from the water spaces of the planet were added to it.

‘So, my boy, the Party-Pythoness there was able to warn those beings of our tribe who had been obliged to exist on that planet, and thereby to save them, as I have already told you, from the inevitable ‘Apocalyptic-fate,’ owing only to one special being-property which, by the way, can be acquired by beings only intentionally, by means of what is called being-Partkdolg-duty, about which I shall tell you later.

“I descended in person to the surface of that planet for the second time, for reasons that ensued from the following events.

“Once, while on the planet Mars, we received an etherogram from the center announcing the imminent reappearance there on the planet Mars of certain Most High Sacred Individuals; and indeed, within half a Martian year, a number of Archangels, Angels, Cherubim, and Seraphim did appear there, most of whom had been members of that Most Great Commission which had already appeared on our planet Mars during the first great catastrophe to that planet of yours.

“Among these Most High Sacred Individuals there was again His Conformity, the Angel—now already an Arch-angel—Looisos, of whom, do you remember, I recently told you that during the first great catastrophe to the planet Earth he had been one of the chief regulators in the matter of averting the consequences of that general cosmic misfortune.

“So, my boy! The day following this second appearance of the mentioned Sacred Individuals, His Conformity, escorted by one of the Seraphim, his second assistant, made His appearance at my house.

“After Te Deums with me, and after certain inquiries of mine concerning the Great Center, His Conformity then condescended to tell me, among other things, that after the collision of the comet Kondoor with the planet Earth, he, or other responsible cosmic Individuals, superintending the affairs of ‘Harmonious-World-Existence,’ had frequently descended to this solar system to observe the actualizing of those measures they had taken in order to avert the consequences of that general cosmic accident.

“‘And we descended,’ His Conformity continued, ‘because although we had then taken every possible measure and had assured everybody that everything would be quite all right, we ourselves were nevertheless not categorically convinced that no unexpectedness might occur there unforeseen.

“‘Our apprehensions were justified, although, “Thanks-to-Chance,” not in a serious form, that is to say, on a general cosmic scale, since this new catastrophe affected only the planet Earth itself.

“‘This second catastrophe to the planet Earth,’ continued His Conformity, ‘occurred owing to the following:

“‘When during the first disaster two considerable fragments had been separated from this planet, then for certain reasons, the what is called “center-of-gravity” of the whole of its presence had no time to shift immediately into a corresponding new place, with the result that right until the second catastrophe, this planet had existed with its “center-of-gravity” in a wrong position, owing to which its motion during that time was not “proportionately-harmonious” and there often occurred both within and upon it various commotions and considerable displacements.

“‘But it was recently, when the center-of-gravity of the planet finally shifted to its true center, that the said second catastrophe occurred.

“‘But now,’ added His Conformity with a shade of self-satisfaction, ‘the existence of this planet will be quite normal in respect of the common-cosmic harmony.

“‘This second catastrophe to the planet Earth has finally quite pacified and convinced us also that a catastrophe on a great scale cannot again occur on account of this planet.

“‘Not only has this planet itself now again acquired a normal movement in the general cosmic equilibrium, but its two detached fragments also, which, as I have already told you, are now called Moon and Anoolios, have also acquired a normal movement and have become, although small, yet independent “Kofensharnian,” that is, additional, planets of that solar system Ors.’

“Having thought a little, His Conformity then told me:

“‘Your Reverence, I have appeared to you just for the purpose of talking over the future welfare of the large fragment of that planet, which exists at the present time under the name of Moon.

“‘This fragment,’ His Conformity continued, ‘has not only become an independent planet, but there has now begun on it the process of the formation of an atmosphere, which is necessary for every planet and which serves for the actualization of the Most Great common-cosmic Trogoautoegocrat.

“‘And now, your Reverence, the regular process of the formation of the said atmosphere on this small, unforeseenly arisen planet, is being hindered by an undesirable circumstance caused by the three-brained beings arisen and existing on the planet Earth.

“‘And it is just about this that I have decided to apply to you, your Reverence, and to request you to consent to undertake in the Name of the uni-being creator, the task of trying to spare us the necessity of resorting to some extreme sacred process, unbecoming for three-centered beings, and to remove this undesirable phenomenon in some ordinary way through the “being-Reason” they have in their presences.’

“And in his further detailed explanations, His Conformity then said, among other things, that after the second catastrophe to the Earth, the biped three-brained beings who had accidentally survived, had again multiplied; that now, the whole process of their being-existence was concentrated on another, newly formed, also large continent called ‘Ashhark’; that three independent large groups had just been formed on this same large continent ‘Ashhark,’ the first of which existed in a locality then called ‘Tikliamish,’ the second in a place called ‘Maralpleicie,’ and the third in a still existing locality then called ‘Pearl-land’; and that in the general psyche of the beings belonging to all those three independent groups, certain peculiar ‘Havatvernoni’ had been formed, that is certain psychic strivings, the totality of the process of which common-cosmic strivings they themselves had named ‘Religion.’

“‘Although these Havatvernoni or Religions have nothing in common,’ continued His Conformity, ‘yet nevertheless in these particular religions of theirs there is very widely spread among the beings of all three groups the same custom called among them “Sacrificial-Offerings.”

“‘And this custom of theirs is based on the notion, which can be cognized only by their strange Reason alone, that if they destroy the existence of beings of other forms in honor of their gods and idols, then these imaginary gods and idols of theirs would find it very, very agreeable, and always and in everything unfailingly help and assist them in the actualization of all their fantastic and wild fancies.

“‘This custom is at present so widespread there, and the destruction of the existence of beings of various forms for this maleficent purpose has reached such dimensions, that there is already a surplus of the “Sacred Askokin” required from the planet Earth for its former parts, that is to say, a surplus of those vibrations which arise during the sacred process of “Rascooarno” of beings of every exterior form arising and existing on that planet from which the said sacred cosmic arising is required.

“‘For the normal formation of the atmosphere of the newly arisen planet Moon, the said surplus of the Sacred Askokin has already begun seriously to hinder the correct exchange of matters between the planet Moon itself and its atmosphere, and the apprehension has already arisen that its atmosphere may in consequence be formed incorrectly and later become an obstacle to the harmonious movement of the whole system Ors, and perhaps again give rise to factors menacing a catastrophe on a greater common-cosmic scale.

“‘So, your Reverence, my request to you, as I have already told you, is that you should consent, since you are in the habit of often visiting various planets of that solar system, to undertake the task of specially descending on the planet Earth, and of trying there on the spot to instill into the consciousness of these strange three-brained beings some idea of the senselessness of this notion of theirs.’

“Having said a few more words, His Conformity ascended and when He was fairly high up, added in a loud voice: ‘By this, your Reverence, you will be rendering a great service to our uni-being all-embracing endlessness.’

“After these Sacred Individuals had left the planet Mars, I decided to carry out the said task at all costs, and to be worthy, if only by this explicit aid to our unique-burden-bearing-endlessness, of becoming a particle, though an independent one, of everything existing in the Great Universe.

“So, my boy, imbued with this, I flew the next day on the same ship 'Occasion' for the second time to your planet Earth.

“This time our ship 'Occasion' alighted on the sea which was newly formed by the perturbation during the second great disaster to that planet of yours, and which was called there in that period of the flow of time, ‘Kolhidious.’

“This sea was situated on the northwest of that newly formed large continent Ashhark, which at that period was already the chief center of the existence of the three-brained beings there.

“The other shores of this sea were composed of those newly emerged terra firmas which had become joined to the continent Ashhark, and which all together were first called ‘Frianktzanarali’ and a little later ‘Kolhidshissi.’

“It must be remarked that this sea and also the mentioned terra firmas exist until now, but of course they now already have other names; for instance, the continent Ashhark is now called ‘Asia’; the sea ‘Kolhidious,’ the ‘Caspian Sea’; and all the Frianktzanarali together now exist under the name ‘Caucasus.’

“The 'Occasion' alighted on this sea Kolhidious or Caspian Sea because this sea was the most convenient for mooring our 'Occasion' as well as for my further travels.

“And it was very convenient for my further travels because from the East a large river flowed into it, which watered almost the whole country of Tikliamish, and on the banks of which stood the capital of that country, the city ‘Koorkalai.’

“As the greatest center of the existence of these favorites of yours was then the country Tikliamish, I decided to go there first.

“Here it might as well be remarked that although this large river then called ‘Oksoseria’ now still exists, yet it no longer flows into the present Caspian Sea, because after a minor planetary tremor at almost half way, it turned to the right and flowed into one of the hollows on the surface of the continent Ashhark, where it gradually formed a small sea, which still exists and is called the ‘Aral Sea’; but the old bed of the former half of that large river which is now called the ‘Amu Darya,’ can still be seen by close observation.

“During the period of this second descent of mine in person, the country Tikliamish was considered to be and indeed was the richest and most fertile of all the terra firmas of that planet good for ordinary being-existence.

“But when a third great catastrophe occurred to the ill-fated planet, this then most fertile country of the surface of your planet, along with other more or less fertile terra firmas, was covered by ‘Kashmanoon,’ or, as they say, by ‘Sands.’

“For long periods after this third catastrophe, this country Tikliamish was simply called ‘bare desert,’ and now, its parts have various names; its former principal part is called ‘Karakoon,’ that is, ‘Black-sands.’

“During these periods the second also quite independent group of three-brained beings of your planet also dwelt on that continent Ashhark, on that part which was then called the country Maralpleicie.

“Later when this second group also began to have a center point of their existence they called it the ‘city Gob’ and the whole country was for a long time called ‘Goblandia.’

“This locality also was afterwards covered by Kashmanoon and now the former principal part of this also once flourishing country is called simply ‘The Gobi Desert.’

“And as for the third group of the three-brained beings of that time of the planet Earth, this also quite independent group had the place of its existence on the southeastern side of the continent Ashhark, opposite to Tikliamish, quite on the other side of those abnormal projections of the continent Ashhark which also were formed during the second perturbation to this ill-fated planet.

“This region of the existence of this third group was then called, as I have already told you ‘Pearl-land.’

“Later the name of this locality also changed many times and the whole of this terra firma region of the surface of the planet Earth now exists under the name of ‘Hindustan’ or ‘India.’

“It must without fail be remarked, that at that period, that is during this second descent of mine in person on to the surface of your planet, there was present and already thoroughly crystallized in all these three-brained beings who have taken your fancy, belonging to the three enumerated independent groups, instead of that function called ‘the needful-striving-for-self-perfection,’ which should be in every three-brained being, also a ‘needful’ but very strange ‘striving’ that all the other beings of their planet should call and consider their country the ‘Center-of-Culture’ for the whole planet.

“This strange ‘needful-striving’ was then present in all the three-centered beings of your planet and was for each of them, as it were, the principal sense and aim of his existence. And in consequence, among the beings of these three independent groups at that period, bitter struggles, both material and psychic, were constantly proceeding for the attainment of the mentioned aim.

“Well, then, my boy.

“We then set off from the sea Kolhidious, or as it is now called, the Caspian Sea, on ‘Selchans,’ that is to say, on rafts of a special kind, up the river Oksoseria, or as it is now called, the Amu Darya. We sailed for fifteen terrestrial days and finally arrived at the capital of the beings of the first Asiatic group.

“On arriving there and after arranging the place of our permanent existence there, I first began visiting the ‘Kaltaani’ of the city Koorkalai, that is, those establishments there which on the continent Ashhark, were later called ‘Chaihana,’ ‘Ashhana,’ ‘Caravanseray,’ and so on, and which the contemporary beings there, especially those breeding on the continent called ‘Europe,’ call ‘Cafes,’ ‘Restaurants,’ ‘Clubs,’ ‘Dance Halls,’ ‘Meeting Places,’ and so on.

“I first began visiting these establishments of theirs, because there, on the planet Earth, at present just as formerly, nowhere can one observe and study the specific peculiarities of the psyche of the beings of the locality so well as in just such gathering places of theirs; and this was just what I needed to make clear to myself their real inner essence-attitude to their custom of sacrificial offerings and to enable me more readily and more easily to draw up a plan of action for the attainment of that aim for which I made this second sojourn of mine there in person.

“During my visits to the Kaltaani there, I met a number of beings, among whom was one I happened to meet rather often.

“This three-brained being there, whom I chanced to meet frequently, belonged to the profession of ‘priest’ and was called ‘Abdil.’

“As almost all my personal activities, my boy, during that second descent of mine were connected with the external circumstances of this priest Abdil and as I happened to have during this descent of mine a great deal of trouble on his account, I shall tell you more or less in detail about this three-brained being there; and moreover, you will at the same time understand from these tales about him, the results I then attained for the purpose of uprooting from the strange psyche of your favorites the need to destroy the existence of beings of other forms in order to ‘please’ and ‘appease’ their gods and revered idols.

“Although this terrestrial being, who afterwards became for me like one of my kinsmen, was not a priest of the highest rank, yet he was well versed in all the details of the teaching of the religion then dominant in the whole country Tikliamish; and he also knew the psyche of the followers of that religion, particularly, of course, the psyche of the beings belonging to his what is called ‘congregation’ for whom he was ‘priest.’

“Soon after we were on ‘good terms’ with each other, I discovered that in the Being of this priest Abdil—owing to very many external circumstances among which were also heredity and the conditions under which he had been prepared for a responsible being—the function called ‘conscience’ which ought to be present in every three-centered being, had not yet been quite atrophied in him, so that after he had cognized with his Reason certain cosmic truths I had explained to him, he immediately acquired in his presence towards the beings around him, similar to him, almost that attitude which should be in all normal three-brained beings of the whole Universe, that is to say, he became as it is also said there, ‘compassionate,’ and ‘sensitive’ towards the beings surrounding him.

“Before telling you more about this priest Abdil, I must make clear to your Reason, that there on the continent of Ashhark, the mentioned terrible custom of Sacrificial-Offerings was at that time, as it is said, at its ‘height,’ and the destruction of various weak one-brained and two-brained beings proceeded everywhere in incalculable numbers.

“At that period, if anybody had occasion in any house to appeal to one or another of their imaginary gods or fantastic ‘saints,’ they invariably promised that in the event of good fortune, they would destroy in honor of their gods and saints the existence of some being or other, or of several at once; and if by chance, good fortune befell them, then they carried out their promise with the utmost veneration, while, if it were otherwise, they increased their slaughter, in order eventually to win the favor of their said imaginary patron.

“With the same aim, these favorites of yours of that period even divided the beings of all other forms into ‘clean’ and ‘unclean.’

“‘Unclean,’ they called those forms of being, the destruction of whose existence was presumably not pleasing to their gods; and ‘clean,’ those beings, the destruction of whose existence was, presumably, extremely agreeable to those various imaginary idols whom they revered.

“These Sacrificial-Offerings were made not only in their own houses by private beings, but were also made by whole groups, and sometimes even in public. There even then existed special places for slaughterings of this kind which were situated mostly near buildings in memory of something or somebody, chiefly of saints—of course, of the saints they themselves had elevated to ‘sainthood.’

“Several such special public places, where the destruction of the beings of different exterior form was carried out, then existed in the country of Tikliamish; and among them was one most celebrated, situated on a small mountain from whence a certain thaumaturgist Aliman was supposed once upon a time to have been ‘taken-alive’ up to ‘some-Heaven-or-other.’

“In that place, as well as in other similar places, especially at definite times of the year, they destroyed an innumerable number of beings called ‘oxen,’ ‘sheep,’ ‘doves,’ and so on, and even beings similar to them themselves.

“In the latter case, the strong usually brought the less strong to be sacrificed; as for instance, a father brought his son, a husband his wife, an elder brother his younger brother, and so on. But, for the most part, ‘sacrifices’ were offered up of ‘slaves,’ who then as now were usually what are called ‘captives,’ that is to say, beings of a conquered community, which according to the law of what is called ‘Solioonensius,’ had at the given period—that is, at the period when their needful tendency to reciprocal destruction was more intensely manifested in their presences—a lesser significance in respect of this chief peculiarity of theirs.

“The custom of ‘pleasing-their-gods’ by destroying the existence of other beings is followed there, on your planet, until now, only not on the scale on which these abominations were practiced by your favorites at that time on the continent Ashhark.

“Well, then, my boy, during the early days of my sojourn in the town Koorkalai, I often talked on various subjects with this mentioned friend of mine, the priest Abdil, but, of course, I never spoke with him about such questions as might reveal my real nature.

“Like almost all the three-brained beings of your planet whom I met during all my descents, he also took me for a being of his own planet, but considered me very learned and an authority on the psyche of beings similar to himself.

“From our earliest meetings, whenever we chanced to speak about other beings similar to himself, his responsiveness and experiencings about them always touched me deeply. And when my Reason made it quite clear to me that the function of conscience, fundamental for three-centered beings, which had been transmitted to his presence by heredity, had not yet become quite atrophied in him, then there gradually began from that moment to arise in my presence and as a result to be crystallized, a ‘really-functioning-needful-striving’ towards him as towards a kinsman of my own nature.

“Thereafter, he also, according to the cosmic law ‘every-cause-gives-birth-to-its-corresponding-result,’ of course began to have towards me ‘Silnooyegordpana,’ or, as your favorites would say there, ‘a-feeling-of-trusting-another-like-yourself.’

“Well, then, my boy, no sooner was this clearly constated in my Reason, than the idea occurred to me to actualize through this first terrestrial friend of mine, the task for which this second descent of mine in person had been made.

“I therefore intentionally began to lead all our conversation towards the question of the custom of Sacrificial-Offerings.

“Although, my boy, considerable time has flowed since I talked with that terrestrial friend of mine, I could, perhaps, now recall word for word and repeat one of our talks we had at that time.

“I wish to recall and repeat just that talk of ours which was the last, and which served as the starting point of all the subsequent events, which though they brought the planetary existence of this terrestrial friend of mine to a painful end, brought him nevertheless to the beginning of the possibility of continuing the task of self-perfecting.

“This last talk took place in his house.

“I then explained to him frankly the utter stupidity and absurdity of this custom of Sacrificial-Offerings.

“I said to him as follows:

“‘Good.

“‘You have a religion, a faith in something. It is excellent to have faith in something, in whatever it might be, even if you don’t exactly know in whom or in what, nor can represent to yourself the significance and the possibilities of what you have faith in. To have faith, whether consciously or even quite unconsciously, is for every being very necessary and desirable.

“‘And it is desirable because owing to faith alone does there appear in a being, the intensity of being-self-consciousness necessary for every being, and also the valuation of personal Being as of a particle of Everything Existing in the Universe.

“‘But what has the existence of another being, which you destroy, to do with this, and, moreover, one whose existence you destroy in the name of its creator?

“‘Is not that “life” just the same as yours for the creator Who created you as well as this other being?

“‘Thanks to your psychic strength and cunning, that is to say, to those data, proper to you, with which our same common creator has endowed you for the perfecting of your Reason, you profit by the psychic weakness of other beings and destroy their existence.

“‘Do you understand, you unfortunate creature, what—in an objective sense—an indeed evil deed you commit by this?

“‘Firstly, by destroying the existence of other beings, you reduce for yourself the number of factors of that totality of results which alone can form the requisite conditions for the power of self-perfecting of beings similar to yourself; and secondly, you thereby definitely diminish or completely destroy the hopes of our common father creator in those possibilities which have been put into you as a three-brained being and upon whom he counts, as a help for him later.

“‘The obvious absurdity of such a terrible being-action is already clearly shown by your imagining that by destroying the existence of other beings, you do something pleasing just to that one who has intentionally created those beings also.

“‘Can it be that the thought has never even entered your head that if our common father creator has created that same life also, then he probably did so for some definite purpose?

“‘Think,’ I told him further, ‘think a little, not as you have been accustomed to think during the whole of your existence, like a “Khorassanian-donkey,” but think a little honestly and sincerely, as it is proper to think, for a being as you call yourself, “in-the-likeness-of-God.”

“‘When god created you and these beings whose existence you destroy, could our creator then have written on the foreheads of certain of his creatures, that they were to be destroyed in his honor and glory?

“‘If anyone, even an idiot from “Albion’s Isles,” were to think seriously and sincerely about it he would understand that this could never be.

“‘This was invented only by people who say they are “in-the-likeness-of-God,” and not by him, who created people and these other beings of different form whom they destroy, as they fancy, for his pleasure and satisfaction.

“‘For him there is no difference between the life of men and the life of beings of any other form.

“‘Man is life, and the beings of other exterior forms are life.

“‘It is most wisely foreseen by him that Nature should adapt the difference of exterior form of beings in accordance with those conditions and circumstances under which the process of existence of various forms of life are preordained to flow.

“‘Take yourself as an example; with your internal and external organs, could you go now and jump into the water and swim like a fish?

“‘Of course not, because you have neither the “gills,” “fins,” nor “tail” a fish has, that is, a life which is preordained to exist in such a sphere as “water.”

“‘If it occurred to you to go and jump into the water, you would instantly choke and drop to the bottom and become hors d’oeuvre for those same fishes, who, in that sphere, proper for them, would naturally be infinitely stronger than you.

“‘It is the same with the fishes themselves, could one of them now come to us, sit with us at this table and drink in our company the “Green tea” we are now drinking?

“‘Also, of course not! Because it has not the corresponding organs for manifestations of this kind.

“‘It was created for the water and its internal and also external organs are adapted for the manifestations required in the water. It can manifest itself effectively and successfully and fulfill the purpose of its existence, preordained by the creator, only in that sphere appropriate to it.

“‘In exactly the same way, your external and all your internal organs are also created by our common creator in a corresponding manner. You are given legs to walk; hands to prepare and take the necessary food; your nose and the organs connected with it are so adapted that you may take in and transform in yourself those World-substances by which there are coated in the three-brained beings similar to yourself both higher-being bodies, on one of which rests the hope of our common all-embracing creator for help in his needs, for the purpose of actualizations foreseen by him for the good of Everything Existing.

“‘In short, the corresponding principle is foreseen and given to Nature by our common creator, so that he might coat and adapt all your internal and external organs, in accordance with that sphere, in which the process of the existence of beings of such a brain-system as yours is preordained to flow.

“‘A very good example for the clarification of this is your “own-donkey” now standing tied up in your stable.

“‘Even as regards this own-donkey of yours, you abuse the possibilities given you by our common creator, since if this donkey is now compelled to stand unwillingly in your stable, it does so only because it is created two-brained; and this again is because such an organization of the whole of its presence is necessary for common-cosmic existence upon planets.

“‘And therefore, according to law, there is absent from the presence of your donkey the possibility of logical-mentation, and consequently, according to law, he must be what you call “senseless,” or “stupid.”

“‘Although you were created for the purpose of the common-cosmic existence on planets, and although you were created also as “a-field-of-hope” for the future expectations of our common all-gracious creator—that is to say, created with the possibilities of coating in your presence that “Higher-Sacred” for the possible arising of which the whole of our now existing World was just created—and in spite of the said possibilities given to you, that is to say, in spite of your having been created three-brained with possibilities of a logical mentation, yet you do not use this sacred property of yours for the purpose for which it was foreordained, but manifest it as “cunning” towards his other creations, as, for instance, towards your own-donkey.

“‘Apart from the possibilities present in you of consciously coating in your presence the mentioned Higher-Sacred, this donkey of yours is of the same value for the common-cosmic process and consequently for our common creator, as you yourself, since each of you is predestined for some definite purpose, and these distinct definite purposes, in their totality, actualize the sense of Everything Existing.’

“‘The difference between you and your own-donkey is merely in the form and quality of functioning of the internal and external organization of your common presences.

“‘For instance, you have only two legs, whereas the donkey has as many as four, any one of which, moreover, is infinitely stronger than yours.

“‘Can you, for instance, carry on those two weak legs of yours as much as that donkey can?

“‘Certainly not, because your legs are given you only for carrying yourself and the little that is necessary for the normal existence of a three-brained being as foreseen by Nature.

“‘Such a distribution of forces and strength, which at first sight appears unjust, on the part of our most just creator was made by Great Nature, simply because the surplus of cosmic substances foreseeingly given you by the creator and by Nature to use for the purpose of your personal self-perfecting, is not given to your donkey, but in place of this, Great Nature Herself transforms the same surplus of cosmic substances in your donkey’s presence for the power and strength of certain of its organs for its present existence only, but of course without the personal cognition of the donkey itself, thus enabling it to manifest the said power incomparably better than you.

“‘And these variously powered manifestations of beings of diverse forms actualize in their totality just those exterior conditions in which alone it is possible for those similar to you—that is, for three-brained beings—consciously to perfect the “germ-of-Reason” placed in their presences, to the necessary gradation of Pure Objective Reason.

“‘I repeat, all beings, of all brain systems, without exception, large and small, arising and existing on the Earth or within the Earth, in the air or beneath the waters, are all equally necessary for our common creator, for the common harmony of the existence of Everything Existing.

“‘And as all the enumerated forms of beings actualize all together the form of the process required by our creator for the existence of Everything Existing, the essence of all beings are to him equally valuable and dear.

“‘For our common creator all beings are only parts of the existence of a whole essence spiritualized by himself.

“‘But what do we see here now?

“‘One form of beings created by him, in whose presences he has placed all his hopes and expectations for the future welfare of Everything Existing, taking advantage of their superiorities lord it over other forms and destroy their existence right and left and, what is more, they do so presumably “in his name.”

“‘The whole terror of it is that although such phenomenal anti-god acts take place here in every house and on every square, nevertheless it never enters the head of any of these unfortunates that these beings whose existence I or we are now destroying, are equally dear to that one, who has created them, and that if he created these other forms of beings as well as ourselves, it must also have been for some purpose.’

“Having said all this to my friend, the priest Abdil, I said further:

“‘And what is most distressing is that every man who destroys the existence of other beings, in honor of his honored idols, does so with all his heart, and is convinced beyond all doubt that he is doing a “good” dead.

“‘I am quite sure that if any one of them should become aware that in destroying another’s existence he is not only committing an evil deed against the true god and every real Saint, but is even causing them, in their essences, sorrow and grief that there should exist in the great Universe “in-the-likeness-of-God” being-monsters who can manifest towards other creations of our common creator so consciencelessly and pitilessly; I repeat, if any one of them should become aware of this, then certainly not one among them could with all his heart ever again destroy the existence of beings of other forms for Sacrificial-Offerings.

“‘Then perhaps on the Earth also, would begin to exist the eighteenth personal commandment of our common creator which declared: “Love everything that breathes.”

“‘This offering to god of sacrifices by destroying the existence of his other creations is just as if somebody from the street should now break into your house and wantonly destroy all the “goods” there, which have taken you years to collect, and cost you years of labor and suffering.

“‘Think, but again think sincerely, and picture to yourself what I have just said, and then answer: Would you like it and thank the impudent thief who broke into your house?

“‘Certainly not!! A million times not!!!!

“‘On the contrary, your whole being would be indignant and would wish to punish this thief, and with every fibre of your psyche, you would try to find a means of revenge.

“‘In all probability, you would now reply that although it is indeed so … “I am, however, only a man …”

“‘That is true, you are only a man. It is good that god is god and is not so vindictive and evil as man.

“‘Certainly he will not punish you nor will he revenge himself upon you, as you would punish the mentioned robber who destroyed the property and goods it had taken you years to collect.

“‘It goes without saying, god forgives everything—this has even become a law in the World.

“‘But his creations—in this case people—must not abuse this All-Gracious and Everywhere-Penetrating Goodness of his; they must not only care for, but even maintain all he has created.

“‘But here on Earth, men have even divided beings of all other forms into the clean and the unclean.

“‘Tell me what guided them, when they made this division?

“‘Why, for instance, is a sheep clean, and a lion unclean? Are they both not equally beings?

“‘This also was invented by people. … And why have they invented it, and made this division? Simply because a sheep is a very weak being and moreover stupid, and they can do to it just what they like.

“‘But people call the lion unclean simply because they dare not do to it what they like.

“‘A lion is cleverer and, what is more, stronger than they.

“‘A lion will not only not allow itself to be destroyed, but will not even permit people to approach near. If any man should venture to approach near to it, then this “Mister Lion” would give him such a crack on the noddle that our valiant’s life would at once fly off to where “people from Albion’s Isles” have not yet been.

“‘I repeat … a lion is unclean simply because men are afraid of it; it is a hundred times higher and stronger than they; a sheep is clean merely because it is much weaker than they and again I repeat, much more stupid.

“‘Every being according to its nature and to the gradation of its Reason attained by its ancestors and transmitted by heredity, occupies its definite place among beings of other forms.

“‘A good example for clarifying what I have just said, is the difference between the already definitely crystallized presences of the psyche of your dog and of your cat.

“‘If you pet your dog a little and get it used to anything you please, it will become obedient and affectionate to the point of abasement.

“‘It will run after you and cut every sort of caper before you just to please you all the more.

“‘You can be familiar with it, you can beat it, you can hurt it; it will never turn on you, but will always humiliate itself still more before you.

“‘But try the same on your cat.

“‘What do you think? Will it respond to your indignities as your dog did, and cut the same humble capers for your amusement? Of course not. …

“‘Even if the cat is not strong enough to retaliate immediately, it will remember this attitude of yours toward it for a long time, and at some time or other will get its revenge.

“‘For instance, it is said that it has often happened that a cat has bitten the throat of a man while he was asleep. I can quite believe it, knowing what may have been the cat’s reasons for it.

“‘No, the cat will stand up for itself, it knows its own value, it is proud, and this is merely because it is a cat and its nature is on that gradation of Reason where according to the merits of its ancestors it just should be.

“‘In any case, no being, and no man, should be angry with a cat for this.

“‘Is it its fault that it is a cat and that owing to the merits of its ancestors, its presence occupies such a gradation of “consciousness-of-self?”

“‘It must neither be despised for this, nor beaten, nor ill-treated; on the contrary, one must give it its due, as one occupying a higher rung on the ladder of the evolution of “consciousness-of-self.”‘

“By the way, my dear boy, concerning the reciprocal relations of beings, a former famous prophet from the planet ‘Desagroanskrad,’ the great ‘Arhoonilo,’ now already the assistant to the chief investigator of the whole Universe in respect of the details of Objective Morality, once said:

“‘If by his Reason a being is higher than you, you must always bow down before him and try to imitate him in everything; but if he is lower than you, you must be just towards him, because you once occupied the same place according to the sacred Measure of the gradation of Reason of our creator and all-maintainer.’

“So, my dear boy, this last conversation with that Earth friend of mine produced such a strong impression on him, that for two days thereafter he did nothing but think and think.

“In short, the final outcome of it all was that this priest Abdil eventually began to cognize and sense concerning the custom of Sacrificial-Offerings almost as in reality he should have done.

“Several days after this conversation of ours, there occurred one of the two large religious festivals of the whole of Tikliamish, called ‘Zadik’; and in the temple where my friend Abdil was the chief priest, instead of delivering the usual sermon after the temple ceremony, he suddenly began speaking about Sacrificial-Offerings.

“I chanced to be also in that large temple that day and was one of those who heard his speech.

“Although the theme of his speech was unusual for such an occasion and for such a place, yet it shocked nobody, because he spoke unprecedentedly well and beautifully.

“Indeed, he spoke so well and so sincerely, and cited in his beautiful speech so many persuasive and illustrative examples, that as he spoke many of the beings of Koorkalai, there, even began sobbing bitterly.

“What he said produced so strong an impression on all his congregation that although his speech lasted till the next day instead of the customary half-hour or hour, nevertheless even when it was over, nobody wished to leave and all stood for a long time as if spellbound.

“Thereafter fragments from his speech began to be spread among those who had not personally heard it.

“It is interesting to notice, that it was the custom then, for priests to exist simply on the offerings of their parishioners, and this priest Abdil had also been in the habit of receiving from parishioners all kinds of food for his ordinary existence, as for instance, roast and boiled ‘corpses’ of beings of various exterior forms, such as ‘chickens,’ ‘sheep,’ ‘geese,’ and so on. But after this famous speech of his nobody brought him any of these customary offerings but brought or sent him only fruits, flowers, handiwork, and so on.

“The day following his speech, this Earth friend of mine at once became for all the citizens of the town Koorkalai what is called the ‘fashionable-priest,’ and not only was the temple where he officiated always crammed with beings of the town Koorkalai, but he was also pressed to speak in other temples.

“He delivered many such speeches concerning Sacrificial-Offerings, and each time the number of his admirers grew and grew, so that he soon became popular not only among the beings of the town Koorkalai, but also of the whole of Tikliamish.

“I do not know how it would all have ended if the whole priesthood, that is, men-beings of the same profession as my friend, had not become alarmed and anxious on account of his popularity, and had not opposed everything he preached.

“Evidently these colleagues of his were afraid, that if the custom of Sacrificial-Offerings were to disappear, their own excellent incomes would disappear also, and that their authority would first totter and finally crumble.

“Day by day the number of this priest Abdil’s enemies increased, and they spread new slanders and innuendoes about him in order to lower or destroy his popularity and significance.

“His colleagues began delivering addresses in their temples proving exactly the opposite of all that the priest Abdil had preached.

“At last it came to the point that the priesthood began to bribe various beings who had ‘Hasnamuss’ properties to plan and commit every kind of outrage upon this poor Abdil; and, indeed, these terrestrial nullities with the properties mentioned even tried on several occasions to destroy his existence by sprinkling poison on the various edible offerings brought to him.

“In spite of all this, the number of sincere admirers of his preaching daily increased.

“Finally, the whole corporation of the priesthood could stand it no longer; and on a sad day for my friend, a general ecumenical trial was held, which lasted four days.

“By the sentence of this general ecumenical council, not only was this Earth friend of mine completely excommunicated from the priesthood, but, at the same council, his colleagues also organized means for his further persecution.

“All this, of course, had little by little a strong effect on the psyche of the ordinary beings, so that even those around him who had formerly esteemed him also began gradually to avoid him and to repeat every kind of calumny about him. Even those who only a day before had sent him flowers and various other offerings and had almost worshiped him also soon became such bitter enemies of his, owing to the constant gossip, that it was as if he had not only injured them personally, but had slaughtered and butchered all their near and dear ones.

“Such is the psyche of the beings of that peculiar planet.

“In short, owing to his sincere good will to those around him, this good friend of mine endured a great deal. Even this would have been, perhaps, nothing, if the climax of unconscionableness on the part of the colleagues of my friend and the other terrestrial ‘God-like’ beings around him had not brought all this to an end; that is to say, they killed him.

“And this occurred in the following way:

“My friend had no relatives at all in the city Koorkalai, having been born in some distant place.

“And as for the hundreds of servants and other ordinary terrestrial nullities who had been around him owing to his former importance, they, by this time, had gradually left him, naturally because my friend was no longer important.

“Toward the end there remained with him only one very old being who had been with him quite a long time.

“To tell the truth, this old man had remained with him only on account of old age which, owing to abnormal being-existence most of the beings there reach; that is to say, on account of his complete uselessness for anything required under the conditions of being-existence there.

“He simply had no other place to go to, and that was why he did not desert my friend, but stayed with him even when he had lost his importance and was being persecuted.

“Going into my friend’s room one sad morning, this old man saw that he had been killed and that his planetary body had been hacked to pieces.

“Knowing that I was his friend, he at once ran to me to tell me about it.

“I have already told you, that I had begun to love him as one of my nearests. So when I learned about this terrible fact, there almost occurred in my whole presence a ‘Skinikoonartzino,’ that is to say, the connection between my separate being-centers was almost shattered.

“But during the day I feared that the same or other unconscionable beings might commit further outrages on my friend’s planetary body, so I decided at least to prevent the possible actualization of what I feared.

“I therefore immediately hired several suitable beings for a great sum of money and, unbeknown to anybody else, had his planetary body removed and temporarily placed in my Selchan, that is, on my raft which was moored not far away on the river Oksoseria, and which I had not disposed of because I had intended to sail on it from there to the sea Kolhidious to our ship 'Occasion'.

“This sad end of my friend’s existence did not prevent his preachings and persuasions about the cessation of Sacrificial-Offerings having a strong effect on many, even on a great many.

“And indeed, the quantity of slaughterings for Sacrificial-Offerings began very perceptibly to diminish and one could see that even if the custom were not abolished completely with time, it would at least be considerably mitigated.

“And for the time being, that was sufficient for me.

“As there was no reason for me to stay there any longer, I decided to return immediately to the sea Kolhidious and there to consider what to do further with the planetary body of my friend.

“When I arrived on our ship 'Occasion' I found an etherogram for me from Mars in which I was informed of the arrival there of another party of beings from the planet Karatas, and that speedy return there was desired.

“Thanks to this etherogram a very strange idea came into my head—namely, I thought that instead of disposing of the planetary body of my friend on the planet Earth, I might take it with me and give it to the presence of the planet Mars.

“I decided to carry out this idea of mine as I was afraid that my friend’s enemies who hated him might make a search for his planetary body, and if they had chanced to learn where it had been given to the presence of that planet, or, as your favorites say, ‘buried,’ then doubtless they would have found it and perpetrated some atrocity on it.

“And so, from the sea Kolhidious, I soon ascended on the ship 'Occasion' to the planet Mars, where our beings and several kind Martians, who had already learned of the events which had taken place on the planet Earth, paid due respect to the planetary body I had taken with me.

“They buried him with the ceremonies customary on the planet Mars, and over the spot they erected a corresponding construction.

“Anyhow, this was the first and surely will be the last what your favorites call ‘grave,’ for a being of the planet Earth on this so near yet so far and, for the terrestrial beings, quite inaccessible planet Mars.

“I learned afterwards that this story reached His All-Quarters-Maintainer, the Most Great Archangel ‘Setrenotzinarco,’ the All-Quarters-Maintainer of that part of the Universe to which that system Ors belongs, and that He manifested his pleasure by giving to whom it was proper, a command concerning the soul of this terrestrial friend of mine.

“On the planet Mars I was indeed expected by several beings of our tribe who had newly arrived from the planet Karatas. Among them, by the way, was also your grandmother who, according to the indications of the chief Zirlikners of the planet Karatas, had been assigned to me as the passive half for the continuation of my line.”

AFTER a brief pause Beelzebub continued to speak further as follows:

“This time I remained at home, that is, on the planet Mars, only a short while, just long enough to see and talk with those who had newly arrived, and to give certain directions of a common tribal character.

“Having disposed of the said affairs, I descended again to your planet with the intention of continuing the pursuit of my aim, that is, the uprooting among these strange three-centered beings of their terrifying custom of doing as it were Divine work, by destroying the existence of beings of other brain-systems.

“On this third descent of mine to the planet Earth our ship 'Occasion' did not alight on the sea Kolhidious, which is now called there Caspian Sea, but on the sea called at that period the ‘Sea of Beneficence.’

“We decided to alight on this sea, because I wished this time to go to the capital of the beings of the second group of the continent Ashhark, then named the City Gob, which was situated on the southeastern shore of that sea.

“At that time, the City Gob was already a large city, and was well known over the whole planet for its production of the best ‘fabrics’ and the best what are called ‘precious-ornaments.’

“The City Gob was situated on both banks of the mouth of a large river called the ‘Keria-chi’ which flowed into the Sea of Beneficence and which had its rise in the eastern heights of this country.

“Into this Sea of Beneficence, on its western side, another large river flowed called the ‘Naria-chi.’

“And it was in the valleys of these two large rivers that the beings of the second group of the continent Ashhark chiefly existed.

“If you wish, my dear boy, I shall also tell you a little of the history of the rise of this group of beings of the continent Ashhark,” Beelzebub said to Hassein.

“Yes, Grandfather, yes. I shall listen to you with great interest and much gratitude,” replied his grandson.

Then Beelzebub began:

“A long, long time before that period to which my present tale relates, namely, long before that second great catastrophe to that ill-fated planet, while the continent Atlantis was still existing and at the height of its splendor, one of the ordinary three-centered beings of that continent ‘invented’—as my latest detailed investigations and researches cleared up—that the powdered horn of a being of that particular exterior form, then called a ‘Pirmaral’ was very effective against what they call ‘diseases’ of every kind. His ‘invention’ was afterwards widely spread by various ‘freaks’ on your planet, and also there was gradually crystallized in the Reason of the ordinary beings there an illusory directing factor, from which, by the way, there is formed in the whole of the presence of each of your favorites, especially of the contemporary ones, the Reason of what is called their ‘waking-existence,’ which factor is the chief cause of the frequent change in convictions accumulated in them.

“Owing to just this factor, crystallized in the presences of the three-brained beings of your planet of that period, it became the rule that anyone, as they say, who ‘fell ill’ of some disease or other invariably had to be given this powdered horn to swallow.

“It is not without interest to remark that Pirmarals breed there at the present time also; but, since contemporary beings take them merely for one of the species of being they collectively call ‘deer,’ they have no special name for them.

“So, my boy, as the beings of the continent Atlantis destroyed very many beings of that form for the sake of these horns, they very soon became extinct.

“Then a number of beings of that continent, who had by this time already made a profession of hunting these beings, went hunting for them on other continents and islands.

“This hunting was very difficult, because for the capture of these Pirmarals a great many of these hunter-beings were required; so these professional hunters always took their whole families with them for assistance.

“Once several of these hunter families joined together and set off to hunt the Pirmarals on a very remote continent then called ‘Iranan,’ which later, after having been changed, owing to the second catastrophe, was called ‘the continent Ashhark.’

“This was the same continent your contemporary favorites now call ‘Asia.’

“For my further tales concerning these three-brained beings who have taken your fancy, it will be very useful for you, I think, if I emphasize here that on account of various disturbances during the second terrestrial catastrophe, several parts of the continent Iranan entered within the planet, and other terra firmas emerged in their place and attached themselves to this continent which in consequence became considerably changed and became in size almost what the continent Atlantis had been for the planet Earth before the catastrophe.

“Well, then, my boy, while this said group of hunters were once with their families pursuing a herd of these Pirmarals, they reached the shores of the water-space which was later called the Sea of Beneficence.

“Both the sea itself and its rich and fertile shores so greatly pleased this group of hunters that they did not wish to return to the continent Atlantis, and from that time on they remained to exist there, on those shores.

“That country was at that time indeed so excellent and so ‘Sooptaninalnian’ for ordinary being-existence, that no being who could think at all could help liking it.

“On that ‘terra firma’ part of the surface of your planet, not only did there exist at that period multitudes of two-brained beings of the said exterior form, namely, Pirmarals, but around this water-space were also multitudes of various kinds of ‘fruit trees,’ whose fruit then still served for your favorites as the principal product for their ‘first being-food.’

“There were then also so many of the one-brained and two-brained beings which your favorites call ‘birds,’ that when they flew in droves it became, as your favorites say, ‘quite dark.’

“The water-space situated in the middle of that country and then named the Sea of Beneficence, so abounded with fish, that they could almost be caught, as they also say, with one’s bare hands.

“As for the soil of the shores of the Sea of Beneficence and also of the valleys of the two large rivers flowing into it, any part of them could be adapted for growing anything you like.

“In short, both the climate of this country and everything else so delighted the hunters and their families, that none of them, as I have already said, had any desire to return to the continent Atlantis, and from that time on they remained there, and soon adapting themselves to everything, multiplied and existed, as is said, ‘on-a-bed-of-roses.’

“At this place in my tale I must tell you about an extraordinary coincidence which later had great consequences both for the first beings of this second group and for their descendants of most recent times.

“It seems that at the time when the said hunters from the continent Atlantis reached the Sea of Beneficence and decided to settle there, there was already existing on the shores of the same sea a being from the continent Atlantis who was at that time very important and who belonged to the sect of ‘Astrosovors’ and who was a member of a learned society, the like of which has never since appeared on that planet Earth and probably never will.

“This learned society then existed under the name of ‘Akhaldan.’

“And this member of the Akhaldans reached the shores of the Sea of Beneficence on account of the following:

“Just before the second great catastrophe those genuine learned beings then existing on the continent Atlantis, who had organized that truly great learned society there, somehow became aware that something very serious had to happen in nature, so they began to observe very carefully all the natural phenomena of their continent; but however hard they tried, they could in no way find out what precisely had to happen.

“A little later on and with the same aim, they sent some of their members to other continents and islands, in order, by means of these common observations, perhaps to be able to find out what was impending.

“The members sent were to observe not only Nature on the planet Earth, but also every kind of, as they then expressed themselves there, ‘heavenly phenomena.’

“One of these members, namely, the mentioned important being, had chosen the continent Iranan for his observations and having migrated there with his servants, had settled on the shores of the said water-space later called the Sea of Beneficence.

“It was just this same learned member of the society Akhaldan who once chanced to meet certain of the mentioned hunters on the shores of the said Sea of Beneficence, and having learned that they had also come from the continent Atlantis, was naturally very glad, and began to establish relations with them.

“And when, shortly afterwards, the continent Atlantis entered within the planet and this learned Akhaldan member had no longer any place to return to, he remained to exist with these hunters in that future Maralpleicie.

“A little later this group of hunters chose this learned being, as the cleverest, to be their chief, and still later … this member of the great society Akhaldan married the daughter named Rimala of one of the hunters, and afterwards shared fully in the lives of the founders of the beings of that second group of the continent Iranan, or, as it is called at the present time, ‘Asia.’

“A long time passed.

“The beings of this place on the planet Earth were also born and were again destroyed; and the general level of the psyche of this kind of Earth-beings was thereby changed, of course at times for the better, at times for the worse.

“Multiplying, these beings gradually spread over this country more and more widely, although always preferring the shores of the Sea of Beneficence and the valleys of those two large rivers which flowed into it.

“Only much later the center of their common existence was formed on the southeastern shore of the sea; and this place they called the city Gob. This city became the chief place of existence for the head of this second group of beings of the continent Ashhark, whom they called ‘king.’

“The duties of this king were here also hereditary and this inheritance began with the first chosen chief, who was the said learned member of the learned society Akhaldan.

“At the time to which the tale I began refers, the king for the beings of that second group was the grandson of his great grandson, and his name was ‘Konuzion.’

“My latest detailed investigations and researches showed that there had been actualized by that same King Konuzion exceedingly wise and most beneficent measures for uprooting a terrifying evil which had arisen among the beings who by the will of Fate had become his subjects. And he had actualized these said most wise and beneficent measures for the following reason:

“This same King Konuzion once constated that the beings of his community were becoming less and less capable of work, and that crimes, robberies, and violence and many other such things as had never occurred before were on the increase among them, or, if they had occurred had seemed to be quite exceptional phenomena.

“These constatations surprised and at the same time grieved King Konuzion, who after thinking deeply about it, decided to find out the causes of this sorrowful phenomenon.

“After long observations he finally cleared up for himself that the cause of the phenomenon was a new habit of the beings of his community, namely, their habit of chewing the seed of a plant then called ‘Gulgulian.’ This surplanetary formation also arises on the planet Earth at the present time, and those of your favorites who consider themselves ‘educated’ call it ‘Papaveroon,’ but the ordinary beings simply call it the ‘poppy.’

“Here it must without fail be noticed that the beings of Maralpleicie then only had a passion for chewing those seeds of the mentioned surplanetary formation which had without fail to be gathered at the time of what is called ‘ripeness.’

“In the course of his further close observations and impartial investigations King Konuzion clearly understood that these seeds contained a ‘something’ that could completely change for the time being, all the established habits of the psyche of those beings who introduced this something into themselves, with the result that they saw, understood, felt, sensed, and acted quite otherwise than they were previously accustomed to see, sense, act, and so on.

“For instance, a crow would appear to them to be a peacock; a trough of water, a sea; a harsh clatter, music; good will, enmity; insults, love; and so on and so forth.

“When King Konuzion became clearly convinced of all this, he immediately dispatched everywhere trusted and faithful subjects of his strictly to command in his name all beings of his community to cease chewing the seeds of the mentioned plant; he also arranged for the punishment and fine of those beings who should disobey this order.

“Thanks to these measures of his, the chewing of the said seeds seemed to diminish in the country of Maralpleicie; but after a very short time it was discovered that the number of those who chewed had only seemingly diminished; in reality, they were even more than before.

“Having understood this, the wise King Konuzion thereupon resolved to punish still more severely those who should continue chewing; and at the same time he strengthened the surveillance of his subjects and also the strictness of the enforcement of the punishment of the guilty.

“And he himself began going about everywhere in the city of Gob, personally examining the guilty and impressing them by various punishments, physical and moral.

“In spite of all this, however, the desired result was not obtained, as the number of those who chewed increased more and more in the city of Gob itself, and corresponding reports from other places in the territories subject to him also increased daily.

“It then became clear that the number of those who chewed had increased still more, because many of the three-brained beings who had never previously chewed, now began chewing merely out of what is called ‘curiosity,’ which is one of the peculiarities of the psyche of the three-brained beings of that planet which has taken your fancy, that is to say, curiosity to find out what effect those seeds had, the chewing of which was prohibited and punished by the king with such insistence and relentless severity.

“I must emphasize here, that though the said particularity of their psyche began to be crystallized in your favorites immediately after the loss of Atlantis, yet in none of the beings of former epochs did it function so blatantly as it does now in the contemporary three-brained beings there; they have more of it perhaps, than there are hairs on a ‘Toosook.’

“So, my boy …

“When the wise King Konuzion finally became quite convinced that it was not possible by the described measures to extirpate the passion for chewing the seeds of Gulgulian, and saw that the only result of his measures was the death of several who were punished, he abrogated all the measures he had previously taken and again began to think seriously about a search for some other real means for destroying this evil, lamentable for his community.

“As I learned much later—owing to a very ancient surviving monument—the great King Konuzion then returned to his chamber and for eighteen days neither ate nor drank but only very seriously thought and thought.

“It must in any case be noticed here, that those latest researches of mine showed that King Konuzion was then particularly anxious to find a means of uprooting this evil, because all the affairs of his community were going from bad to worse.

“The beings who were addicted to this passion almost ceased to work; the flow of what is called money into the communal treasury entirely ceased and the ultimate ruin of the community seemed to be inevitable.

“Finally the wise king decided to deal with this evil indirectly, namely, by playing on the weaknesses in the psyche of the beings of his community. With this aim he invented a very original ‘religious doctrine’ corresponding to the psyche of the beings of that time; and this invention of his he spread broadcast among all his subjects by every means at his disposal.

“In this religious doctrine it was said, among other things, that far from our continent Ashhark was a larger island where existed our ‘Mister God.’

“I must tell you that in those days not one of the ordinary beings knew that besides their planet Earth, other cosmic concentrations existed.

“The beings of the planet Earth of those days were even certain that the scarcely visible ‘white-points’ far away in space were nothing more than the pattern on the ‘veil’ of the ‘world,’ that is to say, just of their planet; as, in their notions then, the ‘whole-world’ consisted, as I have said, of their planet alone.

“They were also convinced that this veil was supported like a canopy on special pillars, the end of which rested on their planet.

“In that ingeniously original ‘religious doctrine’ of the wise King Konuzion it was said that Mister God had intentionally attached to our souls the organs and limbs we now have to protect us against our environment, and to enable us efficiently and profitably to serve both himself personally and the ‘souls’ already taken to that island of His.

“And when we die our soul is liberated from all these specially attached organs and limbs, it becomes what it should really be, and is then immediately taken just to this island of His, where our Mister God, in accordance with how our soul with its added parts has existed here on our continent Ashhark, assigns to it an appropriate place for its further existence.

“If the soul has fulfilled its duties honestly and conscientiously, Mister God leaves it, for its further existence, on His island; but the soul that here on the continent Ashhark has idled or discharged its duties indolently and negligently, that has in short, existed only for the gratification of the desires of the parts attached to it, or finally, that has not kept His commandments—such a soul our Mister God sends for its further existence to a neighboring island of smaller size.

“Here, on the continent Ashhark, exist many ‘spirits’ attendant upon Him, who walk among us in ‘caps-of-invisibility,’ thanks to which they can constantly watch us unnoticed, and either inform our Mister God of all our doings or report them to Him on the ‘Day-of-Judgment.’

“We cannot in any way conceal from them, either any of our doings, or any of our thoughts.

“It was still further said that just like our continent Ashhark, all the other continents and islands of the world had been created by our Mister God and now existed as I have said, only to serve Him and the deserving ‘souls’ already dwelling on His island.

“The continents and islands of the world are all places, as it were, for preparation, and storehouses for everything necessary for this island of His.

“That island on which Mister God Himself and the deserving souls exist is called ‘Paradise,’ and existence there is just ‘Roses, Roses.’

“All its rivers are of milk, their banks of honey; nobody needs to toil or work there; everything necessary for a happy, carefree, and blissful existence is there, because everything requisite is supplied there in superabundance from our own and the other continents and islands of the world.

“This island Paradise is full of young and lovely women, of all the peoples and races of the world; and each of them belongs for the asking to the ‘soul’ that desires her.

“In certain public squares of that superb island, mountains of various articles of adornment are always kept, from the most brilliant diamonds to the deepest turquoise; and every ‘soul’ can take anything he likes, also without the least hindrance.

“In other public squares of that beatific island are piled huge mountains of sweetmeats specially prepared with essence of ‘poppy’ and ‘hemp’; and every ‘soul’ may take as much as he pleases at any time of the day or night.

“There are no diseases there; and of course, none of those ‘lice’ or ‘flies’ that give us all no peace here, and blight our whole existence.

“The other, smaller island, to which our Mister God sends for their further existence the ‘souls’ whose temporary physical parts have been idle here and have not existed according to His commandments, is called ‘Hell.’

“All the rivers of this island are of burning pitch; the whole air stinks like a skunk at bay. Swarms of horrible beings blow police-whistles in every square; and all the ‘furniture,’ ‘carpets,’ ‘beds,’ and so on there, are made of fine needles with their points sticking out.

“One very salted cake is given once a day to every ‘soul’ on this island; and there is not a single drop of drinking water there. Many other things are also there of a kind that the beings of Earth not only would not like to encounter, but not even experience in thought.

“When I first came to the country of Maralpleicie, all the three-brained beings of that country were followers of a ‘religion’ based on the just-mentioned ingenious ‘religious-doctrine,’ and this ‘religion’ was then in full bloom.

“To the inventor himself of this ingenious ‘religious-doctrine,’ namely, the wise King Konuzion, the sacred ‘Rascooarno’ had occurred long before this time, that is to say, he had long previously ‘died.’

“But of course owing once again to the strangeness of the psyche of your favorites, his invention had taken such a strong hold there, that not a single being in the whole country of Maralpleicie then doubted the truth of its peculiar tenets.

“Here also in the city Gob, from the first day of my arrival, I began visiting the ‘Kaltaani,’ which were already called ‘Chaihana.’

“It must be noticed that although the custom of Sacrificial-Offerings was also flourishing at that period in the country of Maralpleicie, it was not on the large scale on which it had flourished in the country Tikliamish.

“There in the city Gob I began deliberately looking for a corresponding being, in order to make friends with him, as I had in the city Koorkalai.

“And indeed I soon found such a friend here also, but this time he was not a ‘priest’ by profession.

“My friend here turned out to be the proprietor of a large Chaihana; and although I became, as it is said there, on very good terms with him, nevertheless I never had that strange ‘tie’ with him which arose in my essence towards the priest Abdil in the city Koorkalai.

“Although I had already existed a whole month in the city Gob, I had neither decided upon nor undertaken anything practical for my aim. I simply wandered about the city Gob, visiting first the various Chaihana, and only later the Chaihana of my new friend there.

“During this time I became familiar with many of the manners and customs of this second group and also with the fine points of their religion; and at the end of the month I decided to attain my aim here also, through their religion.

“After serious pondering I found it necessary to add something to the ‘religious-doctrine’ existing there, and I counted on being able, like the wise King Konuzion, to spread this addition of mine effectively among them.

“Just then I invented that those spirits in ‘caps-of-invisibility’ who, as it was said in that great religion, watch our deeds and thoughts, in order to report them later to our Mister God, are none other than just the beings of other forms, which exist among us.

“It is just they who watch us and report everything to our Mister God.

“But we people not only fail to pay them their due honor and respect, but we even destroy their existences for our food as well as for our Sacrificial-Offerings.

“I particularly emphasized in my preaching that not only ought we not to destroy the existence of the beings of other forms in honor of Mister God, but that, on the contrary, we ought to try to win their favor and to beseech them at least not to report to Mister God those little evil acts of ours which we do involuntarily.

“And this addition of mine I began to spread by every possible means; of course, very cautiously.

“At first, I spread this invention of mine through my new friend there, the proprietor of the Chaihana.

“I must tell you that his Chaihana was almost the largest in the whole city Gob; and it was very famous for its reddish liquid, of which the beings of the planet Earth are very fond.

“So there were always a great many customers there, and it was open day and night.

“Not only did the inhabitants of the city itself go there, but also all the visitors from the whole of Maralpleicie.

“I soon became quite expert in talking with and persuading individual customers as well as all those present in the Chaihana.

“My new friend himself, the proprietor of the Chaihana believed my invention so firmly, that he didn’t know what to do with himself, for repentance for his past.

“He was in constant agitation and bitterly repented his previous disrespectful attitude and his treatment of the various beings of other forms.

“Becoming day by day a more ardent preacher of my invention, he thereby not only helped to spread it in his own Chaihana, but he even began of his own accord to visit other Chaihana in the city Gob, in order to spread the truth which had so agitated him.

“He preached in the market places, and several times made special visits to the holy places, of which there were then already many in the outskirts of the city Gob, and which had been established in honor or in memory of somebody or something.

“It is very interesting to remark here that the information that serves on the planet Earth for the rise of a holy place is usually due to certain Earth beings called ‘Liars.’

“This disease of ‘lying’ is also very widespread there.

“On the planet Earth people lie consciously and unconsciously.

“And they consciously lie there when they can obtain some personal material advantage by lying; and they unconsciously lie there when they fall ill with the disease called ‘Hysteria.’

“In addition to the proprietor of the Chaihana there in the city Gob, a number of other beings very soon began unconsciously to assist me, who, like the proprietor of the Chaihana, had meanwhile become ardent supporters of my invention; and all the beings of that second group of Asiatic beings were soon eagerly spreading this invention of mine and persuading each other of it as an indubitable ‘truth’ that had suddenly been revealed.

“The result of it all was that there in the country of Maralpleicie, not only were Sacrificial-Offerings indeed diminished, but they even began to treat the beings of other forms with unprecedented attention.

“Such comical farces very soon began there that though I myself was the author of the invention, I nevertheless found it very difficult to refrain from laughter.

“Such comical farces occurred as, for instance, the following: a highly respectable and wealthy merchant of the city Gob would be riding in the morning on his donkey to his own shop and on the way a motley crowd of beings would drag this respectable merchant off his donkey and thoroughly maul him because he had dared to ride on it; and then the crowd, bowing low, would escort the donkey on which the merchant had been riding, wherever it chose to go.

“Or, what is called a ‘woodcutter’ would be hauling wood to market with his own oxen from the forest to the town.

“A mob of citizens would drag him also off his cart and after mauling him, very gently unyoke the oxen and escort them wherever they wished to go.

“And if the cart were seen in a part of the city where it might hold up the traffic, the mob of citizens would themselves drag the cart to the market and leave it there to its fate.

“Thanks to this invention of mine various quite new customs were very soon created in the city Gob.

“As, for instance, the custom was established there of placing troughs in all the squares, public places, and at the crossroads of the town, where residents of the city Gob could in the morning throw their choicest morsels of food for dogs and other stray beings of various forms; and at sunrise, throw into the Sea of Beneficence every kind of food for the beings called ‘fishes.’

“But the most peculiar of all was the custom of paying attention to the voices of beings of various forms.

“As soon as they heard the voice of a being of any form, they immediately began to praise the names of their gods and to await their blessing.

“It might be the crowing of a cock, the barking of a dog, the mewing of a cat, the squealing of an ape, or so on. … It would always startle them.

“Here it is interesting to notice that for some reason or other they would always on these occasions raise their heads and look upwards, even though, according to the teaching of their religion, their god and his assistants were supposed to exist on the same level as themselves, and not where they directed their eyes and prayers.

“It was extremely interesting at these moments to watch their faces.

“Pardon me, your Right Reverence,” interrupted at that moment Beelzebub’s old devoted servant Ahoon, who had also been listening with great interest to his tales.

“Do you remember, your Right Reverence, how many times in that same city Gob we ourselves had to flop down in the streets during the cries of beings of different forms?”

To this remark, Beelzebub said:

“Certainly I remember, dear Ahoon. How could I forget such comical impressions?

‘You must know,” he then continued, turning to Hassein again, “that the beings of the planet Earth are inconceivably proud and touchy. If someone does not share their views or agree to do as they do, or criticizes their manifestations, they are, oh, very indignant and offended.

“If one had the power he would order whoever dared not to do as he did, or who criticized his conduct, to be shut up in the kind of room which is usually infested by innumerable what are called ‘rats’ and ‘lice.’

“And at times if the offended one had greater physical strength, and an important power-possessing being with whom he was not on very good terms was not watching him, he would simply maul the offender as the Russian Sidor once mauled his favorite goat.

“Very well knowing this aspect also of their strange psyche, I had no desire to offend them and to incur their wrath; furthermore, I was always profoundly aware that to outrage anybody’s religious feeling is contrary to all morality, so, when existing among them, I always tried to do as they did, in order not to be conspicuous and attract their attention.

“Here it does no harm to notice that owing to the existing abnormal conditions of ordinary existence there among your favorites, the three-brained beings of that strange planet Earth, especially during recent centuries, only those beings who manifest themselves, not as the majority of them do, but somehow or other, more absurdly, become noticed and consequently honored by the rest; and the more absurd their manifestations and the more stupid, mean, and insolent the ‘tricks’ they play, the more noticed and famous they become, and the greater is the number of the beings on the given continent and even on other continents who know them personally or at least by name.

“On the other hand, no honest being who does not manifest himself absurdly will ever become famous among other beings or even be simply noticed, however good-natured and sensible he may be in himself.

“And so, my boy, what our Ahoon so mischievously reminded me about concerned just that custom which developed there in the city Gob, of attaching significance to the voices of beings of various forms and particularly to the voice of what are called ‘donkeys,’ of which there were then, for some reason or other, a great many in the city Gob.

“The beings of all other forms of that planet also manifest themselves by voice, but at a definite time. For instance, the cock cries at midnight, an ape in the morning when it is hungry, and so on, but donkeys there bray whenever it enters their heads to do so, and in consequence you may hear the voice of that silly being there at any time of the day or night.

“So, my boy, it was established there in the city Gob that as soon as the sound of the voice of the donkey was heard, all who heard it had to flop down immediately and offer up prayers to their god and to their revered idols and I must add, these donkeys usually have a very loud voice by nature and their voices carry a long way.

“Well, then as we walked along the streets of the city Gob and saw the citizens flopping down at the braying of every donkey, we had to flop down likewise, so as not to be distinguished from the others; and it was just this comical custom, I see now, that tickled our old Ahoon so much.

“You noticed, my dear Hassein, with what venomous satisfaction our old man reminded me, after so many centuries, of that comical situation of mine.”

Having said this, Beelzebub, smiling, went on with the tale he had begun.

“It is needless to say,” he continued, “that there also, in this second center of culture of the three-brained beings of your planet, breeding there on the continent of Ashhark, the destruction of beings of other forms for Sacrificial-Offerings entirely ceased; and, if isolated instances occurred, the beings of that group themselves settled accounts with the offenders without compunction.

“Having thus become convinced that there also, among that second group of beings of the continent Ashhark, I had succeeded so easily in uprooting, for a long time, the custom of Sacrificial-Offerings, I decided to leave; but I had it in mind, in any event, to visit also the nearest large points where the beings of the same second group were breeding; and I chose for this purpose the region of the course of the river ‘Naria-Chi.’

“Soon after this decision, I sailed with Ahoon to the mouth of this river, and began to sail up against its current, having become persuaded that there had already passed from the beings of the city Gob to the beings of this group populating these large centers the same new customs and the same notions concerning Sacrificial-Offerings by the destruction of the existence of other beings.

“We finally arrived at a small town called ‘Arguenia’ which in those days was considered the most remote point of the country Maralpleicie.

“Here also there existed a fair number of beings of this second Asiatic group who were engaged chiefly in obtaining from Nature what is called ‘turquoise.’

“There in the small town of Arguenia I began, as usual, to visit their various Chaihana, and there also I continued my usual procedure.”

BEELZEBUB continued to speak as follows:

“Sitting in a Chaihana in this small town of Arguenia, I once overheard a conversation among several beings seated not far from me.

“They were talking and deciding when and how they should go by caravan to Pearl-land.

“Having listened to their conversation, I gathered that they intended to go there for the purpose of exchanging their ‘turquoises’ for what are called ‘pearls.’

“I must here, by the way, draw your attention also to the fact that your favorites of former as well as of contemporary epochs liked and still like to wear pearls and also the said turquoise, as well as many other what are called ‘precious-trinkets’ for the purpose, as they say, of ‘adorning’ their exteriors. But if you would like to know my opinion, they do so of course, instinctively, in order to offset, so to say, the ‘value-of-their-inner-insignificance.’

“At that period to which my present tale refers, the said pearls were very rare among the beings of the second Asiatic group and commanded a high price among them. But in the country Pearl-land there was at the same time a great number of these pearls, and there, on the contrary, they were very cheap, because pearls at that time were exclusively obtained only from the water-spaces surrounding that country.

“The mentioned conversation of the beings who sat near me in the Chaihana in the small town Arguenia then immediately interested me, because at that time I already had the intention of going to that same Pearl-land where the three-brained beings of the continent Ashhark of the third group bred.

“And the conversation I then heard at once evoked in my mentation an association to the effect that it might be better to go to the country Pearl-land directly from here with this large caravan of these beings, rather than return the same way to the Sea of Beneficence, and from there, by means of the same ship 'Occasion', to reach this country.

“Although this journey, which in those days was almost impossible for the beings of the Earth, would take us a good deal of time, yet I thought that the journey back to the Sea of Beneficence with its unforeseeable contingencies would perhaps not take much less time.

“This association then arose in my mentation chiefly because I had long before heard a great deal about the rare peculiarities of those parts of the nature of that peculiar planet through which the proposed route of the caravan lay, and in consequence, what is called a ‘being-love-of-knowledge’ which was already crystallized in me, having received a shock for functioning from all that had been overheard, immediately dictated to my common presence the need to be persuaded of everything personally, directly through my own perceptive organs.

“So, my boy, owing to what I have said, I intentionally sat with the conversing beings and joined in their deliberations.

“As a result of it all, we also were then included in the company of their caravan, and two days later we set off together with them.

“I and Ahoon then passed through indeed very unusual places, unusual even for the general nature of this peculiar planet, certain parts of which, by the way, only became so because before that period this ill-fated planet had already undergone two, what are called Transapalnian-perturbations, almost unprecedented in the Universe.

“From the first day we had to pass exclusively through a region of various ‘terra-firma-projections’ of unusual forms, which had conglomerations of all kinds of ‘intraplanetary minerals.’

“And only after a month’s travel, according to their time-calculation, did our caravan from Arguenia come to places where in the soil the possibility had not yet been quite destroyed of Nature’s forming surplanetary formations and creating corresponding conditions for the arising and existing of various one-brained and two-brained beings.

“After every kind of difficulty we at last, one rainy morning, on ascending a height, suddenly saw on the horizon the outline of a large water-space bordering the edges of the continent Ashhark, which was then called Pearl-land.

“And four days later we came to the chief point of the existence of the beings of that third group, then the city ‘Kaimon.’

“Having arranged there the place of our permanent existence, we did nothing during our first days there but stroll about the streets of the town, observing the specific manifestations of the beings of that third group in the process of their ordinary existence.

“It cannot be helped, my dear Hassein. Now that I have told you the history of the arising of the second group of the three-brained beings of the continent Ashhark, I must tell you also about the history of the arising of the third group.”

“You must indeed tell me, my dear and beloved Grandfather,” eagerly exclaimed Hassein; and, this time with great reverence, extending his hands upwards, he sincerely said:

“May my dear and kind Grandfather become worthy to be perfected to the degree of the sacred ‘Anklad’!”

Without saying anything to this, Beelzebub merely smiled and continued to relate as follows:

“The history of the arising of this third group of Asiatic beings begins only a little later than that period when the families of hunters for Pirmarals first came to the shores of the Sea of Beneficence from the continent Atlantis and, having settled there, founded the second group of Asiatic beings.

“It was just in those, for your contemporary favorites, infinitely remote days, that is, not long before the second Transapalnian perturbation occurred to this ill-fated planet, that there had already begun to be crystallized in the presences of the three-centered beings then of the continent Atlantis certain consequences of the properties of the organ Kundabuffer, on account of which the need—among other needs unbecoming to three-brained beings—began to arise in them to wear, as I have already told you, various trinkets as it were for their adornment, and also a kind of famous what is called ‘Talisman’ which they had invented.

“One of these trinkets, then on the continent Atlantis, just as now on the other continents of the planet Earth, was and is this same pearl.

“The said pearl is formed in one-brained beings which breed in the ‘Saliakooriap’ of your planet Earth, that is to say, in that part of it which is called ‘Hentralispana,’ or, as your favorites might express it, the blood of the planet, which is present in the common presence of every planet and which serves the actualizing of the process of the most Great common-cosmic Trogoautoegocrat; and there on your planet this part is called ‘water.’

“This one-brained being in which the said pearl is formed, used to breed in the ‘Saliakooriapnian,’ or water-areas, surrounding the continent Atlantis; but in consequence of the great demand for the said pearl and therefore of the great destruction of these one-brained ‘pearl-bearing beings,’ soon none were left near this continent. Thereupon, when those beings there who made the aim and sense of their existence the destruction of these pearl-bearing beings, that is to say, who destroyed their existence only in order to procure that part of their common presence called pearl merely for the gratification of their quite absurd egoism found no more of these said pearl-bearing beings in the water-area nearest to the continent Atlantis, they, that is, these ‘professionals,’ then began to look for them in other water-areas and gradually moved further and further away from their own continent.

“Once during these searches of theirs, owing to what are called ‘Saliakooriapnian-displacements,’ or as they say, prolonged ‘storms,’ their rafts came unexpectedly to a place where there proved to be a great number of these pearl-bearing beings; and the place itself was extremely convenient for their destruction.

“These water-areas where the destroyers of the pearl-bearing beings then chanced to come and where these beings bred in large numbers, were just those water-areas which surround the place then called Pearl-land and now called Hindustan or India.

“For the first days the aforementioned terrestrial professionals of that time who had chanced to arrive there did nothing but gratify to the full their inclinations, which had already become inherent to their presences in respect of the destruction of these one-brained beings of their planet; and it was only later, after they had also by chance found out that almost everything required for ordinary existence arose in abundance on the neighboring terra firma, that they decided never to return to Atlantis but to settle there for their permanent existence.

“A few of these destroyers of pearl-bearing beings then sailed to the continent Atlantis, and having exchanged their pearls for various articles which were still lacking in the new place, they returned, bringing with them their own families as well as the families of those who had remained.

“Later several of these first settlers of this—for the beings then of that time—‘new’ country, visited their native land from time to time for the purpose of exchanging pearls for articles required by them there; and each time they took back with them a further number of beings, either their relatives or their kinsmen or just laborers indispensable to their extensive work.

“So, my boy, from that time on, that part also of the surface of the planet Earth became known to all the three-brained beings there under the name of ‘Land-of-Beneficence.’

“In this way, before the second great catastrophe to the planet Earth, many beings of the continent Atlantis already existed on this part of the continent Ashhark also, and when that second catastrophe occurred to your planet, then many of the beings who chanced to be saved from the continent Atlantis, chiefly those who already had relatives and kinsmen in that Pearl-land also gradually collected there.

“Owing, as always, to their ‘fecundity,’ they gradually multiplies there and began to populate this part of the terra firma of their planet, more and more.

“At first they populated there in Pearl-land only two definite regions, namely, the regions around the mouths of the two large rivers which flowed from the interior of Pearl-land into the large water-space, just in those places near which many of the mentioned pearl-bearing beings bred.

“But when the population there greatly increased, they began to populate also the interior of that part of the continent Ashhark; but nevertheless their favorite regions continued to be the valleys of the two mentioned rivers.

“Well, then, my boy, when I first arrived in Pearl-land, I decided to attain my aim there also by means of the ‘Havatvernoni’ which existed there, that is, through their Religion.

“But it turned out that amongst the beings of this third group of the continent Ashhark, there were at that time several peculiar ‘Havatvernonis’ or ‘Religions’ all based on different, quite independent, what are called ‘religious-teachings,’ having nothing in common with each other.

“In view of this, I first began seriously studying these religious-teachings there, and having in the course of my studies constated that one of them, founded on the teaching of a genuine Messenger of our common endless creator, afterwards called Saint Buddha, had the most followers, I, on becoming acquainted with it, devoted most of my attention to its study.

“Before continuing to tell you about the three-brained beings breeding just on that part of the surface of the planet Earth, it is, I think, necessary to remark, even if briefly, that there existed and still exist, ever since the time when the practice of having peculiar being-Havatvernonis or Religions began to arise and exist among your favorites, two basic kinds of religious-teachings.

“One kind was invented by those three-brained beings there themselves, in whom, for some reason or other, there arises the functioning of a psyche proper to Hasnamusses; and the other kind of religious-teaching is founded there upon those detailed instructions which have been preached, as it were, by genuine Messengers from Above, who indeed are from time to time sent by certain nearest helpers of our common father, for the purpose of aiding the three-brained beings of your planet in destroying in their presences the crystallized consequences of the properties of the organ Kundabuffer.

“The religion which was then followed by most of the beings of the country Pearl-land and to become acquainted with which I then devoted my attention and about which I find it necessary to tell you a little, arose there in the following way:

“As I later learned, with the multiplication of the three-brained beings of that third group, many beings among them with the properties of Hasnamusses were formed into responsible beings; and when these latter began spreading ideas more maleficent than usual among the beings of that group, there was crystallized in the presences of the majority of the three-centered beings of the third group, that special psychic property, which, in its totality, already engendered a factor which greatly hindered the normal ‘exchange-of-substances’ actualized by the Most Great common-cosmic Trogoautoegocrat. Well, then, as soon as this lamentable result, also issuing from this planet, was noticed by certain Most Most Sacred Individuals, it was sanctioned that a corresponding Sacred Individual should be sent there, specially to that group of beings, for the more or less tolerable regulation of their being-existence in accordance with the existence of the whole of that solar system.

“It was just then that the aforementioned Sacred Individual was sent to them who, having been coated with the planetary body of a terrestrial being, was called, as I have said, Saint Buddha.

“The coating of the said Sacred Individual with a planetary body of a terrestrial three-brained being was actualized there several centuries before my first visit to the country Pearl-land.”

At this point in Beelzebub’s tales, Hassein turned to him and said:

“My dear Grandfather, during your tales you have already many times used the expression Hasnamuss. I have until now understood only from the intonation of your voice and from the consonance of the word itself, that by this expression you defined those three-brained beings whom you always set apart from others as if they deserved Objective-Contempt.’

“Be so kind as always and explain to me the real meaning and exact sense of this word.”

Whereupon Beelzebub, with a smile inherent to him, said as follows:

“Concerning the ‘typicality’ of the three-brained beings for whom I have adopted this verbal definition, I shall explain it to you at the proper time, but meanwhile know that this word designates every already ‘definitized’ common presence of a three-brained being, both those consisting only of the single planetary body as well as those whose higher being-bodies are already coated in them, and in which for some reason or other, data have not been crystallized for the Divine impulse of ‘Objective-Conscience.'”

Having said only this in defining the word Hasnamuss, Beelzebub continued to speak:

“During my detailed studies of the mentioned religious teaching I also clarified that after this Sacred Individual had become finally coated with the presence of a three-brained being there and had seriously pondered how to fulfill the task that had been laid upon him from Above, he decided to attain this by means of the enlightenment of their Reason.

“Here it must without fail be noticed that by that time there had already been crystallized in the presence of Saint Buddha, as the same detailed researches of mine had made clear, a very clear understanding that in the process of its abnormal formation, the Reason of the three-centered beings of the planet Earth results in a Reason called ‘instincto-terebelnian,’ that is, a Reason which functions only from corresponding shocks from without; yet in spite of this, Saint Buddha decided to carry out his task by means of this peculiar Reason of theirs, that is, this Reason peculiar to three-centered beings there; and therefore, he first of all began informing their peculiar Reason with objective truths of every kind.

“Saint Buddha first assembled many of the chiefs of that group and spoke to them as follows:

“‘Beings possessing presences similar to that of the all-creator himself!

“‘By certain all-enlightened and all-justly guiding most sacred final results of the actualization of everything existing in the Universe, my essence has been sent to you to serve as a helping factor in the striving of each of you to free yourselves from the consequences of those abnormal being-properties which in view of highly important common cosmic needs, were implanted in the presences of your ancestors, and, passing by heredity from generation to generation, have reached you also!’

“Saint Buddha spoke again about this a little more in detail but only to certain beings there initiated by him.

“This second time, as it turned out, he then expressed himself if the following words:

“‘Beings with presences for actualizing the hope of our common father!

“‘Almost at the beginning of the rise of your race, there occurred in the process of the normal existence of the whole of our solar system, an unforeseen accident which threatened serious consequences for everything existing.

“‘For the regulation of that common universal misfortune there was then required, among other measures, according to the explanations of certain Most High, Most Most Sacred Individuals, a certain change in the functioning of the common presences of your ancestors, namely, there was implanted into their presences a certain organ with special properties, owing to which everything external perceived by their whole presences and transformed for their own coating, was afterwards manifested, not in accordance with reality.

“‘A little later, when the normal existence of your solar system was stabilized and the necessity for certain intentionally created abnormal actualizations had passed, our most all-gracious common father did not fail to give the command immediately to annul certain artificial measures among which was the removal from the common presences of your ancestors of the now already superfluous organ Kundabuffer with all its special artificial properties; and this command was immediately executed by corresponding Sacred Individuals, who superintend such cosmic actualizations.

“‘After a considerable time had passed, it was suddenly revealed that although all the properties of the said organ had indeed been removed from the presences of your ancestors by the mentioned Most Sacred Individuals, yet nevertheless, a certain lawfully flowing cosmic result, existing under the name of “predisposition,” and arising in every more or less independent cosmic presence owing to the repeated action in it of any function, had not been foreseen and destroyed in their presences.

“‘And so, it turned out that owing to this predisposition which began to pass by heredity to the succeeding generations, the consequences of many of the properties of the organ Kundabuffer began gradually to be crystallized in their presences.

“‘No sooner was this lamentable fact which proceeded in the presences of the three-brained beings breeding on this planet Earth first made clear, than by All-Gracious sanction of our common father, a suitable Sacred Individual was immediately sent here, so that, being coated with a presence like your own and having become perfected by Objective Reason under the conditions already established here, he might better explain and show you the way of eradicating from your presences the already crystallized consequences of the properties of the organ Kundabuffer as well as your inherited predispositions to new crystallizations.

“‘During the period when the said Sacred Individual, coated with a presence like your own and who had already attained to the age of a responsible three-centered being similar to yourselves, directly guided the ordinary process of the being-existence of your ancestors, many of them did indeed completely free themselves from the consequences of the properties of the organ Kundabuffer and either thereby acquired Being personally for themselves or became normal sources for the arising of normal presences of succeeding beings similar to themselves.

“‘But in consequence of the fact that before the period of the said Sacred Individual’s appearance here, the duration of your existence had, owing to very many firmly fixed abnormal conditions of ordinary existence created by yourselves, already become abnormally short, and therefore the process of sacred Rascooarno had also very soon to occur to this Sacred Individual, that is to say, he also had, like you, to die prematurely, then after his death, the former conditions were gradually re-established there owing on the one hand to the established abnormal conditions of ordinary being-existence and, on the other hand, to that maleficent particularity in your psyche, called Wiseacring.

“‘Owing to this said particularity in your psyche, the beings here already of the second generation after the contemporaries of the mentioned Sacred Individual who had been sent from Above began gradually to change everything he had explained and indicated, and the whole of it was finally completely destroyed.

“‘Again and again the same was actualized by the Most Most High Common Cosmic Final Results, and each time the same fruitless results were obtained.

“‘In this present period of the flow of time, when the abnormal being existence of the three-brained beings of your planet, particularly of the beings arising and existing on that part of the surface of the Earth which is called Pearl-land, is already beginning seriously to hinder the normal harmonious existence of the whole of this solar system my essence is manifested among you from Above, in order that here on the spot, it may, together with your own essences find ways and means under the conditions already fixed here, of freeing your presences from the said consequences, now present in them, owing to the absence of foresight on the part of certain Most Saintly Final Cosmic Results.’

“After having said all this, Saint Buddha thereafter, just by means of talks with them, first cleared up for Himself and afterwards explained to them how the process of their existence must be conducted and the order in which their positive part should consciously guide the manifestations of their unconscious parts, so that the crystallized consequences of the properties of the organ Kundabuffer and also the inherited predisposition to them might gradually disappear from their common presences.

“As the same detailed researches of mine made clear to me—at that period when the inner psyche of the beings of that part of the surface of the Earth was guided by this genuine Messenger from Above, Saint Buddha—the said, for them very maleficent, consequences indeed again began gradually to disappear from the presences of many of them.

“But to the grief of every Individual with Pure Reason of any gradation whatsoever and to the misfortune of the three-brained beings of all succeeding generations who arise on that planet, the first succeeding generation of the contemporaries of this genuine Messenger from Above, Saint Buddha, also began, owing once again to that same particularity of their psyche, namely wiseacring—which until now is one of the chief results of the conditions of the ordinary being-existence abnormally established there—to wiseacre with all His indications and counsels, and this time to ‘superwiseacre’ so thoroughly that there reached the beings of the third and fourth generations nothing else but what our Honorable Mullah Nassr Eddin defines by the words:

“‘Only-information-about-its-specific-smell.’

“Little by little they so changed these indications and counsels of His that if their Saintly Author Himself should chance to appear there and for some reason or other should wish to make Himself acquainted with them, He would not be able even to suspect that these indications and counsels were made by Him Himself.

“Here I cannot refrain from expressing my essence-grief at that strange practice of these favorites of yours there, which in the course of many of their centuries during the process of their ordinary existence has gradually become, as it were, conformable to law.

“And in the given case also the same established and already fixed peculiar practice there served for the modification of all the true indications and exact counsels of Saint Buddha and for the creation thereby of yet another factor for a still greater dilution of their psyche.

“This already long established practice there consists in this, that a small, sometimes an almost trifling, cause is enough to bring about a change for the worse or even the complete destruction of any and every objectively good outer and inner previously established, what is called, ‘tempo-of-ordinary-existence.’

“Because, my boy, the clarification of certain details of the arising of such a trivial cause, which was in this instance a basis for the distortion of all the true explanations and exact indications also of this genuine Messenger from Above, Saint Buddha, may provide you with excellent material for a better sensing and understanding of the strangeness of the psyche of those three-brained beings who have taken your fancy, I shall tell you about this in as great detail as possible and shall explain to you just in what sequence the said practice then arose there which led to the following sad misunderstanding which began to exist there which is still manifested particularly clearly.

“I must inform you first of the two following facts:

“The first is this: that I cleared up this misunderstanding much later than the period to which my present tale refers; among other things I made it clear to myself only during the period of my sixth descent there when in connection with a question concerning the Saint Ashiata Shiemash, about whom I shall soon tell you in detail, it became necessary for me to find out about the activities of that genuine Messenger from Above, Saint Buddha.

“And the second fact is this: that unfortunately the basis of the lamentable misunderstanding was certain authentic words contained in one of the explanations of Saint Buddha, Himself.

“It turned out, indeed, that Saint Buddha Himself had in the course of His explanations to some of His closest initiates initiated by Himself, very definitely expressed Himself concerning the means of the possible destruction in their nature of the mentioned consequences of the properties of the organ Kundabuffer transmitted to them by heredity.

“He then, among other things, told them very definitely the following:

“‘One of the best means of rendering ineffective the predisposition present in your nature of the crystallization of the consequences of the properties of the organ Kundabuffer is “intentional-suffering”; and the greatest intentional-suffering can be obtained in your presences if you compel yourselves to be able to endure the “displeasing-manifestations-of-others-toward-yourselves.”‘

“This explanation of Saint Buddha together with other definite indications of His was spread by His nearest initiates among the ordinary beings there; and after the process of the sacred Rascooarno had occurred to Him, it also began to pass from generation to generation.

“So, my boy, when, as I have already told you, those three-centered beings there among the second and third generation of the contemporaries of Saint Buddha in whose psyche, already from the time of the loss of Atlantis, that peculiarity had been fixed, called the ‘organic-psychic need to wiseacre,’ began—unfortunately for the ordinary three-centered beings of that period and unfortunately also for the beings of all succeeding generations and even for those of the present time—to wiseacre and superwiseacre concerning those counsels of Saint Buddha, then as a result a very definite notion became fixed and also began to pass from generation to generation, that this same ‘endurance’ should without fail be produced in complete solitude.

“Here that strangeness of the psyche of your favorites then manifested itself just as it now manifests itself, by their not having considered and not considering the obvious fact—obvious, that is, to every more or less sane Reason—that the Divine Teacher, Saint Buddha, in advising them to employ that kind of ‘endurance,’ of course had in view that they should produce this ‘endurance’ while existing among other beings similar to themselves, and so that by frequently producing in their presences this sacred being-actualization toward the manifestations displeasing to them of other beings similar to themselves, there might thereby be evoked in them what are called those ‘Trentroodianos,’ or, as they themselves would say, those ‘psychic-chemical-results’ which, in general, in the presence of every three-centered being, form those sacred being-data, which actualize in the common presences of the three-centered beings, one of the three holy forces of the sacred being-Triamazikamno; and this holy force in beings always becomes affirming towards all the denying properties already present in them.

“So, my boy, from that time when the mentioned definite notion had begun to exist, your favorites began leaving those already established conditions of being-existence on account of which the predisposition to the crystallization of the consequences of the properties of the organ Kundabuffer had become intense in their presences, and in which conditions, as the Divine Teacher Buddha supposed, the said ‘endurance’ towards others’ ‘manifestations displeasing to oneself,’ could alone crystallize in their common presences that ‘Partkdolg-duty’ which in general is necessary for all three-centered beings.

“And so, for the purpose of this famous ‘suffering’ of theirs, many of the three-centered beings of that planet of yours, either singly or in groups, that is to say, with others who thought as they did, began from then on, to go away from amongst beings similar to themselves.

“They even organized special colonies for this purpose, where, although existing together, they nevertheless arranged everything so as to produce this ‘endurance’ of theirs in solitude.

“It was just then that their famous what are called ‘monasteries’ came into existence, which exist down to the present time and in which, as it were, certain of your contemporary favorites as they say, ‘save their souls.’

“When I first visited that Pearl-land, most of the three-brained beings there, as I have already said, were followers of that same religion which was based, as it were, on the exact counsels and indications of Saint Buddha Himself, and the faith of every one of these beings in this religion was unshakably firm.

“At the outset of my investigations into the doctrinal subtleties of that religion there, I had as yet come to no definite decision how exactly to utilize it to attain my aim; but when in the course of my investigations I clarified one very definite comprehension—proper to all the followers of that religion—which arose there again owing to a misunderstanding, from the words that had indeed been spoken by Saint Buddha Himself, I then at once decided how just to act there through this peculiar Havatvernoni or Religion of theirs.

“It transpired that in His explanations to them about cosmic truths, Saint Buddha had, among other things, told them also that in general the three-centered beings existing on various planets of our Great Universe—and of course the three-centered beings of the Earth also—were nothing else but part of that Most Great Greatness which is the All-Embracing of all that exists; and that the foundation of this Most Great Greatness is there Above, for the convenience of the embracing of the essence of everything existing.

“This Most Great Foundation of the All-Embracing of everything that exists, constantly emanates throughout the whole of the Universe and coats itself from its particles upon planets—in certain three-centered beings who attain in their common presences the capacity to have their own functioning of both fundamental cosmic laws of the sacred Heptaparaparshinokh and the sacred Triamazikamno—into a definite unit in which alone Objective Divine Reason acquires the possibility of becoming concentrated and fixed.

“And this has been foreseen and created in this manner by our common creator in order that when these certain parts of the Great All-Embracing, already spiritualized by Divine Reason, return and reblend with the great Prime Source of the All-Embracing, they should compose that Whole which in the hopes of our common endless uni-being may actualize the sense and the striving of all that exists in the whole of the Universe.

“Further, it seems Saint Buddha also told them:

“‘You, three-centered beings of the planet Earth, having the possibility of acquiring in yourselves both chief fundamental, universal, sacred laws, have the full possibility also of coating yourselves with this most sacred part of the Great All-Embracing of everything existing and of perfecting it by the required Divine Reason.

“‘And this Great All-Embracing of all that is embraced, is called “Holy Prana”.’

“This quite definite explanation of Saint Buddha was well understood by his contemporaries and many of them began, as I have already said, to strive with eagerness, first to absorb and to coat in their presences the particle of this Most Great Greatness and afterwards to ‘make-inherent’ to it Divine Objective Reason.

“But when the second and third generations of the contemporaries of Saint Buddha began wiseacring with His explanations of cosmic truths, they just wiseacred with their peculiar reason and fixed—for its transmission—a very definite notion to the effect that that same ‘Mister Prana’ already begins to be in them immediately upon their arising.

“Thanks to this misunderstanding, the beings of that period and of all subsequent generations including the contemporary, have imagined and still imagine, that without any being-Partkdolg-duty they are already parts of that Most Great Greatness, which Saint Buddha Himself had personally very definitely explained.

“So, my boy, as soon as I had made this misunderstanding clear to myself and had clearly constated that the beings of that country Pearl-land were all, without exception, convinced that they were already particles of Mister Prana himself, I then at once decided to use this misunderstanding, and there also to attain my aim through that religion of theirs.

“Before saying more about this it must without fail be noticed that concerning these same explanations of Saint Buddha’s, namely, that He had supposedly said that beings already have in themselves, at their arising, a particle of the Most Great Greatness, my personal detailed investigations quite clearly showed me that He never could possibly have said just that.

“And He could not have said it because, as the same detailed investigations of mine have cleared up to me, when Saint Buddha once happened to be among His devoted disciples in the locality ‘Senkoo-ori,’ He definitely said:

“‘If this most sacred Prana is crystallized in you, consciously or unconsciously on the part of your “I,” you must without fail bring the perfecting of the individual Reason of the totality of its most holy atoms to the required gradations; otherwise this most holy coating will, changing various exterior coatings, suffer and languish eternally.’

“Here it is interesting to notice that concerning this they were warned by still another Saint-Individual, also a genuine Messenger from Above, namely, the Saint Kirmininasha.

“And this Saint and genuine Messenger gave this warning to them in the following words:

“‘Blessed is he that hath a soul; blessed also is he that hath none; but grief and sorrow are to him that hath in himself the conception.’

“So, my boy, when I made this clear to myself there in Pearl-land, I at once decided to use this error of theirs for the accomplishment of my aim.

“There in Pearl-land also, just as in the city Gob, I first ‘invented-a-detailed-addition’ to the mentioned religious teaching, and afterwards by every possible means I began spreading this invention of mine.

“I began to spread there in Pearl-land that that “Most-Sacred-Prana’ about which Our Divine Teacher Saint Buddha had explained, is already present not only in people, but also in all the other beings that arise and exist on our planet Earth.

“A particle of that fundamental Most Great Great All-Embracing, namely, the Most-Sacred-Prana, has already from the very beginning settled in every form of being of every scale, breeding on the surface of the planet, in the water, and also in the atmosphere.

“I regret to have to say here, my boy, that I was then constrained more than once to emphasize that these words had been uttered by the very lips of Saint Buddha Himself.

“The several beings there with whom I had meanwhile established ‘friendly’ relations and whom without any discussion I first of all persuaded there of that invention, not only immediately fully believed it, but afterwards also very effectually helped me, of course unconsciously, in spreading this new invention of mine.

“Here also these friends of mine always and everywhere very zealously and passionately proved to other beings like themselves, that this was just so and could not possibly be otherwise.

“In short, there in Pearl-land, owing to this second invention of mine, the desired results were unexpectedly rapidly brought about.

“And there in Pearl-land, owing simply to my invention, your favorites so greatly changed their essence-relations towards the beings of other forms, that they not only ceased to destroy the existence of these beings for their famous Sacrificial-Offerings, but even began very sincerely with the whole of their being to regard these beings of other forms as beings like themselves.

“If only it had all continued like that, it would have been very good; but here as well, just as in the country Maralpleicie, they soon began, as is proper to them, to wiseacre and to manifest all kinds of comical aspects of their Havatvernoni.

“For instance, only a quarter of their year after the commencement of my preaching, you could see when strolling down the street of the city Kaimon, almost at every step, beings there walking on what are called ‘stilts.’

“And they walked on stilts in order not to risk crushing some insect or other, a ‘little being,’ as they thought, just like themselves.

“Many of them were afraid to drink water that had not been freshly taken from a spring or stream, because they thought that if the water had been a long time out of the spring or stream, ‘little-beings’ might have got into the water, and without seeing them, they might suddenly swallow these ‘poor-little-creatures-like-themselves.’

“Many of them took the precaution to wear what are called ‘veils,’ lest poor-little-beings-like-themselves in the air, might chance to enter mouths or noses, and so on and so forth.

“From that time on various societies began to arise there in Pearl-land, in the city of Kaimon and its outskirts, whose aim was to protect ‘defenseless’ beings of various forms, both those existing among them and those they called ‘wild.’

“Rules existed in all such societies prohibiting not only their destruction for Sacrificial-Offerings, but also the use of their planetary bodies for the ‘first-being-food.’

“E-h-h-h-hkh … my boy.

“Owing once again merely to the strangeness of their psyche, the intentional suffering and conscious labors of this Sacred Individual, Saint Buddha, who had been specially actualized for them with a planetary presence similar to theirs, have ever since hovered and still hover in vain; nor have they yet actualized any lawfully expected real results whatsoever, but have engendered and until now continue to engender only all kinds of ‘pseudo-teachings’ there, like those existing there in recent times under the names of ‘Occultism,’ ‘Theosophy,’ ‘Spiritualism,’ ‘Psycho-analysis,’ and so on, which before as now, are means only for the obscuring of their already, without this, obscured psyche.

“It is needless to say that from the truths indicated by Saint Buddha Himself, absolutely nothing has survived and reached beings of the present time.

“Half of one of the words, however, managed to reach even the contemporary beings of that unparalleled planet.

“And this half of a word reached them in the following way:

“Saint Buddha among other things explained to the beings of Pearl-land how and to what part of the body of their ancestors the said famous organ Kundabuffer had been attached.

“He told them that the Archangel Looisos had by a special means made this organ grow in their ancestors at the extremity of that brain which in them, just as in you, Nature has placed along their back in what is called the ‘spinal column.’

“Saint Buddha, as I also made clear, then also said that though the properties of this organ had been entirely destroyed in their ancestors, yet the material formation of this organ had remained at the lower extremities of this brain; and this material formation, being transmitted from generation to generation, had also reached them.

“‘This material formation,’ he said, ‘now has no significance whatever in you, and it can be completely destroyed in the course of time, if your being-existence proceeds as is becoming to three-centered beings.’

“It was just when they began wiseacring and inventing various forms of that famous ‘suffering’ of theirs that they also played their usual ‘tricks’ with this word.

“Namely, first of all, as the root of the second half of this word chanced to coincide with a word in the language of that time which meant ‘Reflection’ and as they had also invented a means for destroying this material formation rapidly, and not merely in the course of time as Saint Buddha had told them, they also wiseacred about this word according to the following rumination of their bob-tailed Reason. Of course, when this organ is in action, it ought to have in its name also the root of the word to ‘reflect’; now, since we are destroying even its material basis, the name must end with a word whose root means ‘former,’ and because ‘former’ in their current language was then pronounced ‘lina,’ they changed the second half of this word, and instead of ‘reflection,’ they stuck in the mentioned ‘lina,’ so that instead of the word Kundabuffer, they obtained the word ‘Kundalina.’

“Thus it was that a half of the word Kundabuffer survived, and being transmitted from generation to generation, finally reached your contemporary favorites also, accompanied, of course, by a thousand and one different explanations.

“Even the contemporary ‘learned beings’ also have a name made up of very abstruse Latin roots for that part of the spinal marrow.

“The whole of what is called ‘Indian-philosophy’ now existing there, is based also on this famous Kundalina, and about the word itself there exist thousands of various occult, secret, and revealed ‘sciences’ which explain nothing.

“And as regards the way in which the contemporary terrestrial learned beings of what are called the exact sciences define the significance of this part of the spinal marrow, that, my dear boy, is a profound secret.

“And it became a secret because several centuries ago, this ‘explanation’ suddenly for no reason whatever, entered the favorite mole of the famous ‘Scheherazade’ which that incomparable Arabian fantasist chanced to have on the right side of her adorable navel.

“And there this ‘learned-explanation’ remains perfectly preserved down to the present day.

“When I was quite convinced that I had succeeded so easily in the destruction, perhaps for a long time, of that terrible practice among the beings of that group there in Pearl-land, I decided to stay there no longer but to return to the Sea of Beneficence to our ship 'Occasion'.

“When we were quite ready to leave that Pearl-land, the intention suddenly arose in me not to return to the Sea of Beneficence by the way we had come, but by another way quite unusual in those days.

“Namely, I decided to return through the locality which was later called ‘Tibet.'”

BEELZEBUB continued thus:

“I descended for the fourth time to that planet Earth owing to the request of my essence-friend Gornahoor Harharkh.

“I must first of all tell you that after I had met this Gornahoor Harharkh and had become friendly with him, I always, during our ‘subjective exchange of opinions,’ whenever we again met, shared my impressions with him about the strange psyche of the three-centered beings of that planet of yours.

“And the result of these exchanges of opinion of ours concerning your favorites was that he finally also became so interested in them that he once even very seriously asked me to keep him always informed, even if only approximately, of my observations of them, and thereafter I sent to him, just as I did to your uncle Tooilan, copies of all my brief-notes concerning the strange particularities of their psyche.

“And how Gornahoor Harharkh came to be the cause of this descent of mine ensued from the following:

“I have already told you that after my third personal descent to your planet, I occasionally for a rest ascended to the planet Saturn to this friend of mine.

“When during these flights to him I had become convinced of his great learning, the idea once arose in me to invite him to descend on our ship 'Occasion' to the planet Mars, in order there, on the spot, to help me personally with his knowledge in the details of arranging my observatory which was just then being completed.

“Here I might as well emphasize the fact that if this observatory of mine afterwards became famous and indeed the best of all the constructions of its kind in the whole of the Universe, I am chiefly indebted to the learning of this same essence-friend of mine.

“Well, then, when I spoke to Gornahoor Harharkh about this, he, without thinking long about it, agreed, and together we immediately began to deliberate how to carry out our intention.

“The problem was that our route from the planet Saturn to the planet Mars would cross such cosmic spheres as did not correspond to the presence of Gornahoor Harharkh, a being who had as yet the possibilities only for an ordinary planetary existence.

“The result of our deliberations, then, was that on the following day his chief assistant began, under his direction, to arrange a special compartment in our ship 'Occasion' itself, and to furnish it with every kind of adaptation and apparatus for elaborating those substances of which the atmosphere of the planet Saturn consists, and to which Gornahoor Harharkh was adapted by Nature for existence.

“When all these preparations had been completed, we one Hrkh-hr-hoo later set out on our journey in the direction of the planet Mars and descended there at my house.

“And there, on the planet Mars, which had almost the same atmosphere as the planet Saturn, my essence-friend Gornahoor Harharkh, very soon became acclimatized and began to exist almost freely.

“It was just during his stay on Mars that he devised that Teskooano, or as your favorites call it, a ‘telescope,’ thanks chiefly to which, as I have already said, my observatory afterwards became particularly famous through the whole of the Universe.

“The Teskooano he constructed is indeed a marvel of being-Reason, as it increases the visibility of remote cosmic concentrations up to 7,285,000 times, during certain processes in cosmic substances proceeding in the atmospheres surrounding almost all cosmic concentrations, as well as during certain processes in the cosmic Etherokrilno of interspatial spheres.

“Thanks to this Teskooano I was sometimes fully able, while seated in my house on Mars, to observe almost everything that proceeded on those parts of the surface of other planets of this solar system, which in the process of what is called the general-system-movement, were at the given time within the sphere of vision of my observatory.

“Well then, my dear boy, while Gornahoor Harharkh was then staying with me as my guest and we were once together observing the existence of these favorites of yours, a certain fact which we happened to notice was the cause of a very serious exchange of opinions between us concerning the three-centered beings of that peculiar planet of yours.

“The result of this ‘exchange of opinions’ of ours was that I undertook to descend onto the surface of that planet and to bring back to the planet Saturn a certain number of the beings called there ‘apes,’ in order to carry out certain elucidating experiments with them concerning the fact we had noticed and which had then surprised us.”

At this point of Beelzebub’s tales, he was given a “Leitoochanbros,” that is, a special metal plate on which is recorded the text of an etherogram received from somewhere or other, the addressee having only to hold it to his perceptive hearing organ to hear everything communicated in it.

When Beelzebub had in this way heard the contents of the Leitoochanbros handed to him, he turned to his grandson and said:

“You see, my boy, what coincidences occur in our Great Universe.

“The contents of this etherogram concern just your favorites in connection with these terrestrial beings I have just mentioned, that is, these apes.

“It has been sent to me from the planet Mars, and among other things there is communicated in it that the three-centered beings of the planet Earth have again begun to revive what is called the ‘Ape question.’

“I must tell you first of all, that on account of a cause also ensuing from the abnormal being-existence there, there was long ago crystallized, and there is periodically intensified in its functioning in the presences of those strange three-brained beings arising and existing on the planet Earth, a strange factor which from time to time produces in their presences a ‘crescendo impulse,’ owing to which, during the periods of its action, they wish at all cost to find out whether they have descended from these apes or whether these apes have descended from them.

“Judging from the etherogram, this question is this time agitating chiefly those biped beings who breed there on the continent called America.

“Although this question always agitates them from time to time, yet every once in a while it becomes there for a long time, as they express it, ‘the burning question of the day.’

“I very well remember that this ‘agitation of mind’ concerning the origin of these apes occurred there among them for the first time when, as they also like to express it, their ‘center of culture’ was Tikliamish.

“The beginning of that ‘agitation of mind’ there was the wiseacring of a certain ‘learned being’ of new formation there named Menitkel.

“This Menitkel then became a learned being, firstly because his childless aunt was an excellent what is called matchmaker and mixed a great deal with power-possessing beings, and secondly, because when by age he was approaching the ‘threshold of the being’ of a responsible being, he received on his birthday a gift of a book entitled Manual of Bon Ton and Love Letter Writing. Being materially secure and therefore quite free, thanks to an inheritance left him by his uncle, a former pawnshop proprietor, he out of boredom compiled a massive and erudite work in which he ‘spun out,’ concerning the origin of these apes, an elaborate theory with every kind of ‘logical proof,’ but of course with such ‘logical proofs’ as could be perceived and crystallized only in the Reasons of those freaks who have taken your fancy.

“This Menitkel then ‘proved’ by his theory that these ‘fellow apes’ of theirs had descended neither more nor less than from what are called ‘people who became wild.’

“And the other terrestrial beings of that period, as it had already become proper to them, implicitly believed this ‘Auntie’s darling’ without any essence-criticism whatsoever, and from that time on, this question which had then agitated the strange Reason of your favorites, became a subject of discussion and fantasying, and existed right up to what is called the ‘seventh-in-turn great general planetary process of reciprocal destruction.’

“Thanks to this maleficent idea, there was even fixed in the instincts of most of these unfortunates at that period still another abnormal what is called ‘dictatory factor,’ which began to engender in their common presences the false feeling that these ape-beings were presumably ‘sacred’; and the abnormal factor engendering this sacrilegious impulse, also passing by inheritance from generation to generation, has reached the instincts of very many beings even of the present time.

“This false idea that arose and was fixed there owing to the said ‘pawnshop progeny’ existed during nearly two of their centuries, and became an inseparable part of the Reason of the majority of them; and only various events proceeding from the mentioned general planetary process effaced it until it ultimately completely disappeared from their common presences.

“But when what is called their ‘cultured existence’ was concentrated on the continent named Europe, and when the time of the maximum intense manifestation of the peculiar illness there named ‘to-wiseacre,’ had again come round—which illness by the way had already long before become subject to the fundamental cosmic law of Heptaparaparshinokh, according to which it had, in respect of intensity, also to function with a certain periodicity—then, to the grief of three-brained beings of the whole of the universe, that Ape question, namely the question of who is descended from whom, again arose, and having become crystallized, again became a part of the presence of the abnormal Reason of your favorites.

“The stimulus for the revival there of this Ape question was this time also a ‘learned’ being, and of course also ‘great,’ but now a ‘learned’ being of quite a ‘new formation’ named Darwin.

“And this ‘great’ learned being, basing his theory on that same logic of theirs began to ‘prove’ exactly the opposite of what Menitkel had said, namely, that it was they themselves who were descended from these Mister Apes.

“And as for the objective reality of the theories of both these ‘great’ terrestrial ‘learned beings,’ I am reminded of one of the wise sayings of our esteemed Mullah Nassr Eddin, namely:

“‘They were both very successful, though of course not without luck, in finding the authentic godmother of the incomparable Scheherazade on an old dunghill.’

“In any case you must know and bear in mind that for many centuries just this question among similar ephemeral questions has provided material for the kind of mentation which is considered among your favorites as the ‘highest manifestation of Reason.’

“These favorites of yours would in my opinion get quite a correct answer to this question which always excites them, that is the question how the apes arose, if they were able in the given case to apply one of these sayings again of our dear Mullah Nassr Eddin, who on many occasions used to say: ‘The cause of every misunderstanding must be sought only in woman.’

“If they had attempted the solution of this enigmatic question with that wisdom of his, then perhaps they would have finally discovered whence and how these countrymen of theirs had originated.

“As this question of the genealogy of these apes there, is indeed exceedingly abstruse and unusual, I shall inform your Reason about this also as far as possible from every aspect.

“In fact, neither have they descended from apes nor have apes descended from them, but … the cause of the origin of these apes is in this case, just as in every other misunderstanding there, also—their women.

“I must tell you first of all that the species of terrestrial ape-beings now arising there under several different exterior forms, never existed at all before the ‘second Transapalnian perturbation’; only afterwards did the genealogy of their species begin.

“The cause of the arising of this ‘misconceived’ being as well as the cause of all the other events more or less serious in an objective sense, which occur on the surface of that ill-fated planet, ensue from two sources, totally independent of each other.

“The first of them, as always, was the same lack of foresight on the part of certain Most High, Most Very Saintly Cosmic Individuals, and the second was, in the given case, also the same abnormal conditions of ordinary being-existence established by them themselves.

“The point is that when the second Transapalnian perturbation occurred to that ill-fated planet, then, besides its chief continent Atlantis, many other large and small terra firmas entered within the planet, and in their place, new terra firmas appeared on the surface of the planet.

“These displacements of the parts of the common presence of that ill-fated planet then continued for several days, with repeated planetary tremors and with such manifestations as could not fail to evoke terror in the consciousness and feelings of beings of every kind.

“During that same period many of your three-brained favorites who chanced to survive together with various one-brained and two-brained beings of other forms, unexpectedly struck upon other newly-formed terra firmas in entirely new places unfamiliar to them.

“It was just at this period that many of these strange Keschapmartnian three-brained beings of active and passive sex, or, as they say, ‘men’ and ‘women,’ were compelled to exist for some years there apart, that is to say, without the opposite sex.

“Before relating how this then further occurred, I must explain to you a little more in detail concerning that sacred substance which is the final result of the evolving transformations of every kind of being-food formed in the presence of every being without distinction of brain system.

“This sacred substance which arises in the presences of beings of every kind is almost everywhere called ‘Exioëhary’: but your favorites on the planet Earth call it ‘sperm.’

“Thanks to the All-Gracious foresight and command of our common father and creator and according to the actualization of Great Nature, this sacred substance arises in the presences of all beings without distinction of brain system and exterior coating, chiefly in order that by its means they might, consciously or automatically, fulfill that part of their being-duty which consists in the continuation of their species; but in the presences of three-brained beings it arises also in order that it might be consciously transformed in their common presences for coating their highest being-bodies for their own Being.

“Before the second Transapalnian perturbation there, which period of their planet the contemporary three-brained beings define by the words, ‘Before the loss of the continent Atlantis,’ when various consequences of the properties of the organ Kundabuffer had already begun to be crystallized in their presences, a being impulse began to be formed in them which later became predominant.

“This impulse is now called ‘pleasure’; and in order to satisfy it they had already begun to exist in a way unbecoming to three-centered beings, namely, most of them gradually began to remove this same sacred being-substance from themselves only for the satisfaction of the said impulse.

“Well, then, my boy. Owing to the fact that most of the three-brained beings of the planet Earth thereafter carried out the process of the removal from themselves of this sacred substance—which is constantly formed in them—not at certain periods normally established by Great Nature for beings in accordance with their organization, simply for the purpose of the continuation of their species, and also owing to the fact that most of them ceased to utilize this sacred substance consciously for coating their higher being bodies, the result was obtained that when they do not remove it from themselves by ways which had then already become mechanical, they naturally must experience a sensation called ‘Sirkliniamen,’ or as your favorites there would say, the state defined by the words ‘out of sorts,’ which state is invariably accompanied by what is called ‘mechanical suffering.’

“Remind me at some opportune moment about the said periods fixed by Nature for the normal process of the utilization of Exioëhary by beings of different brain systems for the purpose of the continuation of their species, and I shall explain it to you in detail.

“Well then, in consequence of the aforesaid, and because just like us they are also only Keschapmartnian beings, and the normal removal from their presences of this sacred substance which constantly and inevitably arises in them can proceed exclusively only with the opposite sex when they utilize it for the continuation of the species by means of the sacred process ‘Elmooarno’; and also because they were not in the habit of utilizing it for the purpose of coating their higher being-bodies; these chance surviving three-brained beings there—namely, those who had already been existing as it is not becoming for three-brained beings to exist, that is to say, when during several of their years they had existed without beings of the opposite sex—began to turn to various antinatural means for the removal from themselves of the sacred substance Exioëhary formed in them.

“The beings of the male sex then turned to the antinatural means called ‘Moordoorten’ and ‘Androperasty,’ or, as the contemporary beings would say, ‘onanism’ and ‘pederasty,’ and these antinatural means fully satisfied them.

“But for the three-brained beings of the passive sex, or, as they are called, ‘women,’ the said antinatural methods proved to be not sufficiently satisfying, and so the poor ‘women orphans’ of that time, being already then more cunning and inventive than the men there, began to seek out and accustom beings of other forms of the given place to be their ‘partners.’

“Well then, it was after these ‘partnerships’ that those kinds of beings also began to appear in our Great Universe who in themselves are, as our dear Mullah Nassr Eddin would say ‘neither one thing nor the other.’

“Concerning the possibility of this abnormal blending of two different kinds of Exioëries for the conception and arising of a new planetary body of a being, it is necessary to explain to you also the following.

“On the planet Earth, just as on other planets of our Universe where Keschapmartnian three-brained beings breed and exist, that is to say, those three-brained beings the formation of whose Exioëhary for the purpose of creating a new being must obligatorily proceed in the presences of two distinct independent sexes, the fundamental difference between the sacred Exioëries formed in the presences of the distinct and opposite sexes of Keschapmartnian beings, that is to say, in ‘men’ and ‘women,’ is, that in the Exioëhary formed in the presences of beings of the male sex, the localized sacred ‘affirming’ or ‘positive’ force of the sacred Triamazikamno participates; while for the completed formation of the Exioëhary in the presences of beings of the female sex, there participates the localized sacred ‘denying’ or ‘negative’ force of the same sacred law.

“And owing to the same All-Gracious foresight and command of our father of Everything Existing in the Great Universe, and according to the actualizations of Great Mother Nature, then in certain surrounding conditions and with the participation of the third separately localized holy force of the sacred Triamazikamno, namely, the holy force called ‘Reconciling,’ the blending of these two Exioëries arising in two distinct independent different beings just gives, owing to the process called ‘the process of the sacred Elmooarno’ which proceeds between those beings of opposite sex, the beginning for the arising of a new being.

“And the possibility in the given case of such an abnormal blending of two different kinds of Exioëhary then occurred owing only to a certain cosmic law called the ‘affinity of the number of the totality of vibrations’ which proceeded owing to the second Transapalnian perturbation to this ill-fated planet and which then still continued to act for its own common presence.

“Concerning this cosmic law just mentioned, it is now absolutely necessary to tell you that it arose and began to exist in the Universe after the fundamental sacred law of Triamazikamno was changed by our creator for the purpose of rendering the Heropass harmless, and after its previously totally independent holy parts had begun to be dependent upon forces coming from outside.

“You will understand this cosmic law also in all its aspects when, as I have already promised you, I shall explain to you in detail all the fundamental laws in general of World-creation and World-existence.

“Meanwhile know, concerning this question, that in general, everywhere on normally existing planets of our Great Universe, the Exioëhary formed in the presence of a three-brained being who has perceptive and transformative organs for localizing the holy affirming part of the sacred Triamazikamno, that is to say, a Keschapmartnian being of the male sex, can, owing to the just mentioned cosmic law, never be blended with the Exioëhary formed in the presence of a Keschapmartnian two-brained being of the opposite sex.

“At the same time, the Exioëhary formed in the three-brained Keschapmartnian being of the female sex can sometimes—in those cases when a special combination of the blending of cosmic forces is obtained and the mentioned law comes into effect—be completely blended under certain surrounding conditions with the Exioëhary formed in two-brained Keschapmartnian beings of the male sex, but only as the active factor in such an actualizing process of the fundamental sacred Triamazikamno.

“In short, during the said terrible years on this planet of yours, a result very rare in the Universe was obtained, that is to say, there was obtained the blending of the Exioëries of two Keschapmartnian beings of different brain systems of opposite sexes; and as a result, there arose the ancestors of these terrestrial ‘misconceived’ beings now called apes, who give your favorites no peace and who from time to time agitate their strange Reason.

“But when after the mentioned terrible period there on your planet, when the relatively normal process of ordinary existence was re-established and your favorites of different sexes again began to find each other and to exist together, then the continuation of the species of the ape-beings was thereafter actualized also among beings similar to themselves.

“And this continuation of their species by these abnormally arisen ape-beings there, could be further continued among themselves because the conception for the arising of the first of these abnormal beings had also proceeded owing to those same mentioned external conditions, thanks to which the presences of future Keschapmartnian beings of active or of passive sex are generally determined.

“The most interesting result of this already excessively abnormal manifestation of the three-brained beings of your planet is that there now exist a great many species of generations of ape-beings differing in exterior form, and each of these varied species bears a very definite resemblance to some form of a two-brained quadruped being still existing there.

“This came about because the blending of the Exioëhary of the Keschapmartnian three-brained beings there of the ‘female sex’ which served as a beginning for the arising of the ancestors of these apes, then proceeded with the active Exioëhary of those same varied quadruped beings existing there up to the present time.

“And indeed, my boy, when during the period of my last personal stay on the planet Earth, I chanced during my travels to meet with the said various independent species of apes, and when, by a habit which has become second nature, I also observed them, I constated very definitely that the whole of the inner functioning and what are called the ‘automatic posture’ of each separate species of these contemporary apes there, are exactly like those present in the whole of the presences of some normally arisen quadruped being there, and that even what are called their ‘facial features’ very definitely resemble those of the said quadrupeds; but on the other hand that what are called the ‘psychic features’ of all the separate species of these apes there are absolutely identical, even down to details, with those of the psyche of the three-brained beings there of the ‘female sex.’

At this point of his tales, Beelzebub made a long pause and looking at his favorite Hassein, with a smile which very clearly expressed a double meaning, he, continuing to smile, said:

“In the text of the etherogram which I have just received, it is further said that in order this time finally to settle who has descended from whom—whether they from the apes of the apes from them—these freaks, your favorites, have even decided to carry out ‘scientific experiments,’ and furthermore that several of them have already left for the continent of Africa where many of these apes breed, with the object of bringing back from there the number required for these ‘scientific investigations’ of theirs.

“To judge by this etherogram, the beings of the planet Earth who have taken your fancy are again, in their turn, up to their ‘extraordinary tricks.’

“From all I have learned about them during my observations, I foresee that this ‘scientific experiment’ will, of course, very greatly interest other of your favorites also, and will serve for a time as material to their strange Reason for endless discussions and talks.

“And all this will be quite in the order of things there.

“Concerning the ‘scientific experiment’ itself, which they propose to carry out with the apes taken back from Africa, I can with certainty say beforehand, that at any rate the first part of it will without any doubt, succeed ‘wonderfully well.’

“And it will succeed wonderfully well, because the apes themselves, as beings of what is called a ‘Terbelnian result,’ are already, owing to their nature, extremely fond of occupying themselves with ‘titillation’ and before the day is out, will no doubt participate in and greatly assist your favorites in this ‘scientific experiment’ of theirs.

“As for those beings there who are going to carry out this ‘scientific experiment,’ and as for any benefit from it for the other three-brained beings there, it can all be pictured to oneself if one remembers the profoundly wise saying of our same honorable Mullah Nassr Eddin, in which he says: ‘Happy is that father whose son is even busy with murder and robbery, for he himself will then have no time to get accustomed to occupy himself with “titillation.”‘

“Yes, my boy, it seems that I have not yet told you why and by whom, since I left the solar system Ors, I am kept informed by etherograms of the most important events which proceed on various planets of that system, and, of course, also about events proceeding on your planet Earth.

“You remember I told you, that my first descent in person upon the surface of that planet of yours took place on account of one of the young beings of our tribe, who then had no desire to stay there any longer but returned with us to the planet Mars, where he later became a very good chief over all the beings of our tribe existing on that planet, and who is now already the chief over all the beings in general of our tribe who for various reasons still exist on certain planets of that system Ors.

“Well then, my boy, when I left that system, I presented my famous observatory to him with everything in it, and in gratitude for this he promised to report every month, according to the time-calculation of the planet Mars, all the more important events occurring on the planets of that system.

“And now this chief keeps me very accurately informed of the most important events proceeding on all the planets on which there is a being-existence; and, knowing my great interest in the three-brained beings breeding on the planet Earth, he does his best, as I now see, to elucidate and send me information concerning all those manifestations of theirs which can give me now also the possibility of being constantly informed of the whole process of the ordinary existence of these three-brained beings, even though I find myself already inaccessibly remote even for their featherweight thoughts.

“That chief of our beings who remains there collects the various kinds of information he communicates concerning the three-brained beings of the planet Earth, either by means of his own observations of them through the great Teskooano which I left him, or from reports which, in their turn, are communicated to him by those three beings of our own tribe who chose to exist forever on the planet Earth, and all three of whom have at the present time on the continent of Europe different substantial independent undertakings indispensable for everyone existing there under the prevailing conditions.

“One of them has in one of the large cities, an ‘undertaker’s business’; the second, in another large city, has a bureau for what are called matchmaking and divorce; and the third is the proprietor of many offices founded by himself in various cities for what is called ‘money exchange.’

“However, my boy, owing to this etherogram, I have wandered a long way from my original tale.

“Let us go back to our former theme.

“Well, then, upon this the fourth flight of mine to the planet Earth, our ship 'Occasion' descended on to the sea called the ‘Red Sea.’

“And we descended upon this Sea because it washed the Eastern shores of that continent where I wished to go, namely, to that continent then called Grabontzi and now called Africa, on which those ape-beings I needed then bred more than on any other of the terra firma parts of the surface of that planet of yours; and also because this sea was at that period particularly convenient for the mooring of our ship 'Occasion'; but what was still more important was that on one of its sides that country was situated which was then called ‘Nilia’ and now is called Egypt, where those beings of our tribe then existed who wished to remain on that planet and with whose help I intended to collect the apes.

“Well, then, having descended upon the Red Sea, we sailed from the ship 'Occasion' on ‘Epodrenekhs’ to the shore; and afterwards, on camels we came to that town where our beings existed and which was then the capital of the future Egypt.

“This capital city was then called Thebes.

“On the very first day of my arrival in the city of Thebes, one of the beings of our tribe existing there told me among other things, in the course of our conversation, that the beings of the Earth of that locality had devised a new system for observing other cosmic concentrations from their planet, and that they were then constructing what was required in order to carry it into effect; and also, as everybody there said, that the convenience and possibilities of this new system were excellent and until then unparalleled on the Earth.

“And when he had related all he had himself seen with his own eyes, I immediately became greatly interested, because from his description of certain details of this new construction there, it seemed to me that these terrestrial beings had perhaps found a means of overcoming that inconvenience about which I myself had just previously been thinking a great deal while I was completing the construction of my observatory on the planet Mars.

“And so I decided to postpone for a while my first intention of immediately going further south on that continent to collect the apes I needed, and instead, to go first where the said construction was being made, in order on the spot to become personally acquainted with it from every aspect, and to find out all about it.

“Well then, the day following our arrival in the city Thebes, accompanied by one of the beings of our tribe who already had many friends there, and also by the chief constructor of the said construction, and of course by our Ahoon also, I went this time on what is called a ‘Choortetev’ down the tributary of that great river now called the ‘Nile.’

“Near where this river flowed into a large ‘Saliakooriapnian area’ those constructions were just being completed, one part of which then interested me.

“The district itself, where the work was being carried on both for this new, what they called ‘observatory,’ and for several other constructions for the welfare of their being existence, was then called ‘Avazlin’; a few years later it came to be called there ‘Caironana,’ and at the present time it is simply called the ‘outskirts of Cairo.’

“The mentioned constructions had been begun long before by one of what are called there ‘Pharaohs,’ the name by which the beings of that region called their kings; and at the time of my fourth flight to the Earth and my first visit to this place, the special constructions he had begun were already being completed by his grandson, also a Pharaoh.

“Although the observatory which interested me was not yet quite finished, nevertheless observations of the exterior visibility of cosmic concentrations could be made from it, and the results issuing from them and the reciprocal action of these results could be studied.

“Those beings who were occupied with such observations and studies were called, at that period on the Earth, ‘Astrologers.’

“But when afterwards that psychic disease of theirs called wiseacring became finally fixed there, owing to which these specialists of theirs also ‘shrivelled and shrank’ and became specialists only in giving names to remote cosmic concentrations, they came to be called ‘Astronomers.’

“Inasmuch as the difference in significance and sense, in relation to surrounding beings, between those from among the three-brained beings who have taken your fancy who at that time were such professionals, and those who have now, as it were, the same occupation, might show you, so to say, ‘the obviousness of the steady deterioration of the degree of crystallization’ of data engendering the ‘sane logical mentation,’ which ought to be present in the common presences of your favorites as three-brained beings, I therefore find it necessary to explain to you and to help you to have an approximate understanding of this difference, which is also changing for the worse.

“At that period, these terrestrial three-brained beings, already of responsible age, whom the others named ‘Astrologers,’ besides making the said observations and investigations of various other cosmic concentrations for the purpose of a greater, as is said ‘detailizing,’ of that branch of general learning of which they were representatives, fulfilled several further definite essence obligations taken upon themselves towards surrounding beings similar to themselves.

“Among their fundamental definite obligations was that they also, like our Zerlikners, had to advise all the conjugal pairs in their what was then called ‘flock,’ according to the types of those pairs, about the time and form of the process of the sacred 'Elmooarno' for the purpose of a desirable and corresponding conception of their results, and when such results were actualized, or, as they themselves say, ‘newly born,’ they had to draw up their ‘Oblekioonerish’ which is the same as what your favorites call ‘horoscope’; and later either they themselves or their substitutes had—during the whole period of the formation of the newly born for responsible existence and for their subsequent responsible existence—to guide them and give corresponding indications on the basis of the said Oblekioonerish and also on the basis of the cosmic laws, constantly explained by them, flowing from the actions of the results of other large cosmic concentrations in general on the process of being existence of beings on all planets.

“These indications of theirs, and also their, so to say, ‘warning counsels’ consisted in the following:

“When a function became disharmonized or only began to be disharmonized in the presence of any being of their flock, then this being applied to the Astrologer of his district, who, on the basis of the said Oblekioonerish made by him, and on the basis of the changes expected, according to his calculations, in the processes proceeding in the atmosphere, flowing in their turn from the action of the other planets of their solar system, indicated just what he had to do to his planetary body, at which definite periods of the Krentonalnian movements of their planet—as for instance, in which direction to lie, how to breathe, what movements preferably to make, with which types to avoid relations, and many things of the same kind.

“In addition to all this, they assigned to the beings at the seventh year of their existence, likewise on the basis of these Oblekioonerishes, corresponding mates of the opposite sex for the purpose of fulfilling one of the chief being-duties, that is, continuation of the race, or as your favorites would say, they assigned them ‘husbands’ and ‘wives.’

“Justice must be done to your favorites of the period when these Astrologers existed among them; they then indeed very strictly carried out the indications of these Astrologers and made their conjugal unions exclusively only according to their indications.

“Therefore, at that period, in regard to their conjugal unions, they always corresponded according to their type, just as such pairs correspond everywhere on planets on which Keschapmartnian beings also breed.

“These ancient terrestrial Astrologers made these matches successfully because even if they were very far from the knowledge of many cosmic Trogoautoegocratic truths, yet they at least already very well knew the laws of the influence of different planets of their solar system on the beings breeding on their own planet, namely, the influence of these planets on a being at the moment of his conception, for further formation, as well as for his complete acquisition of the Being of a responsible being.

“Having, thanks to the information transmitted to them from generation to generation, a many-centuried practical knowledge, they already knew which types of the passive sex can correspond to which of the active sex.

“And owing to all this, the pairs matched according to their indications almost always turned out to be corresponding, and not as it proceeds there at the present time; and that is to say they are now united in conjugal pairs who nearly always do not correspond in type; in consequence of which during the continuation of the entire existence of these couples there, about half of their, as they say, ‘inner life’ is spent only on what our esteemed Mullah Nassr Eddin expresses in one of his sayings by the following words:

“‘What a good husband he is, or what a good wife she is, whose whole inner world is not busy with the constant “nagging of the other half.”‘

“In any case, my boy, if these Astrologers had continued to exist there, then surely, thanks to their further practicing, the existence of the beings of this unfortunate planet would by now have gradually become such that their family relations would at least have been a little like the existence of similar beings on other planets of our Great Universe.

“But all this which was beneficently established in the process of their existence they have also sent, like all their other good attainments, without even having had time to make good use of it, ‘to the gluttonous swine’ of our respected Mullah Nassr Eddin.

“And these ‘Astrologers’ of theirs, as usually happens there, also at first began gradually to ‘shrink’ and then entirely, as is said, ‘vanished.’

“After the total abolition among them of the duties of these Astrologers, other professionals in the same sphere appeared in their place, but this time from among the ‘learned beings of new formation,’ who also began to observe and study, as it were, the results issuing from various large cosmic concentrations and their influence on the existence of the beings of their planet; but as the ordinary beings around these professionals soon noticed that their ‘observations’ and ‘studies’ consisted merely in inventing names for various remote suns and planets meaning nothing to them, existing in milliards in the Universe, and in measuring, as it were, by a method known to them alone, and which constituted their professional secret, the distance between the cosmic points seen from their planets through their ‘child’s toys’ called by them ‘telescopes,’ they began to call them, as I have already told you, Astronomers.

“Now, my boy, that we have spoken also about these contemporary ‘ultra fantasists’ from among your favorites, we might as well, again imitating the form of mentation and the verbal exposition of our dear teacher Mullah Nassr Eddin, also ‘illuminatingly’ enlighten you about their significance, so esteemed by your favorites.

“First of all, you should know about that ordinary cosmic something actualized for these same terrestrial types, which is in general always actualized of itself for every cosmic unit and which serves for beings with Objective Reason as what is called an ‘issuing source’ for pondering about the explanation of the sense and meaning of any given cosmic result.

“This same something which serves as an issuing source for discovering the significance of these terrestrial contemporary types, is a wiseacring map named by them themselves—of course unconsciously—the ‘map inventory of the heavenly spaces.’

“There is no need for us to draw any other logical conclusion from this issuing source specially actualized for them; it will be sufficient merely to say that the name itself of this map of theirs shows that the designations made on it cannot in any way be other than entirely relative, because with the possibilities at their disposal—though they break their esteemed heads over devising names and calculating various kinds of measurements—they can see from the surface of their planet only those suns and planets which to their good fortune do not very quickly change the course of their falling in relation to their own planet and thus give them the possibility during a long period of time—of course long as compared with the brevity of their own existence—to observe them and, as they bombastically express themselves, ‘mark down their positions.’

“In any case, my boy, however worthless the results of the activities of these contemporary representatives of ‘learning’ among your favorites, please don’t be angry with them. If they do not bring any benefit at all to your favorites, they at least do not do them any great harm.

“After all they must be occupied with something.

“It is not for nothing that they wear spectacles of German origin and special smocks sewed in England.

“Let them! Let them be occupied with this! God bless them!

“Otherwise like most of the other freaks there who are occupied with, as they say there, ‘higher matters,’ they will busy themselves, out of boredom, ‘leading the struggle of five against one.’

“And it is known to all the beings who are occupied with these matters always radiate from themselves vibrations very harmful for beings around them similar to themselves.

“Well enough! Leave these contemporary ‘titillators’ in peace and let us continue our interrupted definite theme.

“In view of the fact, my boy, that this conscious ability expressed in the creation of such a construction unparalleled both before and after this period, of which I was then an eyewitness, was also the result of the attainments of the beings, members of the learned society Akhaldan, which was formed on the continent of Atlantis before the second great terrestrial catastrophe, I think it will be best, if, before continuing to explain to you further about the mentioned observatory and other constructions erected there for the welfare of being existence, I should tell you, even though briefly, about the history of the arising there of such an indeed great learned society consisting of ordinary three-brained beings, as this learned society Akhaldan then was on the continent of Atlantis.

“It is imperatively necessary to inform you of this because in the course of my further explanations concerning these three-brained beings of the planet Earth who have taken your fancy I shall in all probability have to refer more than once to that society of learned beings there.

“I must also tell you about the history of the arising and existence of that society there on the continent Atlantis, so that you may also know that if the three-brained beings there on your planet—thanks to their being-Partkdolg-duty, that is to say, thanks to their conscious labors and intentional sufferings—ever attain anything, then not only do they utilize these for the good of their own Being, but also a certain part of these attainments is transmitted as with us by inheritance and becomes the property of their direct descendants.

“You can perceive such a law-conformable result there from the fact that although towards the end of the existence of the continent Atlantis abnormal conditions of ordinary being-existence had already begun to be established and that after the second great catastrophe they deteriorated at such a rate that they soon finally ‘crushed’ all their ableness to manifest the possibilities proper to the presences of three-brained beings, nevertheless their ‘attainments of learning’ passed by inheritance, at least partly, even though mechanically, to their remote direct descendants.

I must first tell you that I learned about this history, thanks to what are called ‘Teleoghinooras’ which are at present in the atmosphere also of that planet Earth of yours.

“As you probably do not yet know exactly what a Teleoghinoora is, try to transubstantiate in the corresponding parts of your common presence the information concerning this cosmic actualization.

“A Teleoghinoora is a materialized idea or thought which after its arising exists almost eternally in the atmosphere of that planet on which it arises.

“Teleoghinooras can be formed from such a quality of being-contemplation as only those three-brained beings have and can actualize, who have coated their higher being bodies in their presences and who have brought the perfecting of the Reason of their higher being part up to the degree of the sacred ‘Martfotai.’

“And the sequential series of being-ideas, materialized in this way, concerning any given event, are called ‘Korkaptilnian thought tapes.’

“It seems that the said ‘Korkaptilnian thought tapes’ concerning the history of the arising of the learned society Akhaldan were, as I found out much later, deliberately fixed by a certain ‘Eternal Individual,’ Asoochilon, now a saint, who became coated in the common presence of a three-brained being named Tetetos who arose on your planet on the continent of Atlantis and who had existed there four centuries before the second great ‘Transapalnian perturbation.’

“These Korkaptilnian thought tapes are never destroyed as long as the given planet exists, which is in what is called the ‘tempo of movement of the prime arising’; and they are subject to none of those transformations from any cosmic causes whatsoever to which all other cosmic substances and cosmic crystallizations are periodically subject.

“And however long a time may have already passed, every three-brained being in whose presence there has been acquired the ability to enter into the being-state called ‘Soorptakalknian contemplation’ can perceive and cognize the texts of these Korkaptilnian thought tapes.

“And so, my boy, I myself learned about the details of the arising there of the society Akhaldan partly from the text of the just-mentioned Teleoghinoora and partly from many data which I learned much later, namely, when, having become interested also in this highly important factor there, I made my usual detailed investigations.

“According to the text of the mentioned Teleoghinoora and to data which I subsequently learned, it became clear and definitely known to me that this learned society Akhaldan which arose then on the continent Atlantis and which was composed of three-brained beings of the Earth, was formed 735 years before the ‘second Transapalnian perturbation’ there.

“It was founded on the initiative of a being there named Belcultassi, who was then able to bring the perfecting of his higher being part to the Being of a Saint ‘Eternal Individual’; and this higher part of his now already dwells on the holy planet Purgatory.

“My elucidation of all those inner and outer being impulses and manifestations which caused this Belcultassi then to found that truly great society of ordinary three-brained beings—a society which in its time was throughout the whole Universe called ‘envied for imitation’—showed that when this same later Saint Individual Belcultassi was once contemplating, according to the practice of every normal being, and his thoughts were by association concentrated on himself, that is to say, on the sense and aim of his existence, he suddenly sensed and cognized that the process of the functioning of the whole of him had until then proceeded not as it should have proceeded according to sane logic.

“This unexpected constatation shocked him so profoundly that thereafter he devoted the whole of himself exclusively to be able at any cost to unravel this and understand.

“First of all he decided to attain without delay such a ‘potency’ as would give him the strength and possibility to be quite sincere with himself, that is to say, to be able to conquer those impulses which had become habitual in the functioning of his common presence from the many heterogeneous associations arising and proceeding in him and which were started in him by all sorts of accidental shocks coming from outside and also engendered within him, namely, the impulses called ‘self-love,’ ‘pride,’ ‘vanity,’ and so on.

“And when, after incredible what are called ‘organic’ and ‘psychic’ efforts, he attained to this, he then without any mercy for these being-impulses which had become inherent in his presence, began to think and recall just when and what various being-impulses had arisen in his presence during the period preceding all this, and how he had consciously or unconsciously reacted to them.

“Analyzing himself in this manner, he began to recall just which impulses evoked which reaction in him, in his independently spiritualized parts, that is to say, in his body, in his feelings and in his thoughts, and the state of his essence when he reacted to anything more or less attentively, and how and when, in consequence of such reactions of his, he had manifested consciously with his “I” or had acted automatically under the direction of his instinct alone.

“And it was just then that this bearer of the later Saint Individual Belcultassi, recalling in this way all his former perceptions, experiencings, and manifestations, clearly constated in consequence, that his exterior manifestations did not at all correspond either to the perceptions or to the impulses definitely formed in him.

“Further, he then began to make similar sincere observations of the impressions coming from outside as well as those formed within himself, which were perceived by his common presence; and he made them all with the same exhaustive, conscious verifications of how these impressions were perceived by his separate spiritualized parts, how and on what occasions they were experienced by the whole of his presence and for what manifestations they became impulses.

“These exhaustive conscious observations and impartial constatations finally convinced Belcultassi that something proceeded in his own common presence not as it should have proceeded according to sane-being-logic.

“As it became clear to me during my subsequent detailed investigations, although Belcultassi had become indubitably convinced of the accuracy of his observations on himself, yet he doubted the correctness of his own sensations and understandings and also the normalness of his own psychic organization; and he therefore set himself the task of elucidating first of all, whether he was in general normal in sensing and understanding all this just in this way and not otherwise.

“To carry out this task of his, he decided to find out how the same would be sensed and cognized by others.

“With that aim he began inquiring among his friends and acquaintances to try to find out from them how they sensed it all and how they cognized their past and present perceptions and manifestations, doing this, of course, very discreetly, so as not to touch the aforementioned impulses inherent in them, namely, ‘self-love,’ ‘pride,’ and so on, which are unbecoming to three-brained beings.

“Thanks to these inquiries, Belcultassi gradually succeeded in evoking sincerity in his friends and acquaintances, and as a result it turned out that all of them sensed and saw in themselves everything just the same as he did.

“Now among these friends and acquaintances of Belcultassi, there were several earnest beings who were not yet entirely slaves to the action of the consequences of the properties of the organ Kundabuffer, and who, having penetrated to the gist of the matter also became very seriously interested in it and began to verify that which proceeded in themselves, and independently to observe those around them.

“Soon after, on the initiative of the same Belcultassi, they began to meet together from time to time, and to share their observations and new constatations.

“After prolonged verifications, observations, and impartial constatations, this entire group of terrestrial beings also became categorically convinced, just like Belcultassi himself, that they were not as they ought to be.

“Not long after, many others also having such presences joined that group of terrestrial beings.

“And later they founded that society which they named the ‘Society of Akhaldans.’

“By the word Akhaldan the following conception was then expressed:

“‘The striving to become aware of the sense and aim of the Being of beings.’

“From the very beginning of the foundation of this society, Belcultassi himself stood at its head, and the subsequent actions of the beings of this society proceeded under his general guidance.

“For many terrestrial years this society existed under the said name, and its member-beings were then called ‘Akhaldan sovors’; but later, when the members of this society, for purposes of a general character, were divided into a number of independent groups, the members belonging to different groups came to be called by different names.

“And this division of theirs into groups occurred for the following reason:

“When they had finally become convinced that there was something very undesirable in their presences and they had begun to seek means and possibilities of achieving its removal in order to become such as, according to sane logic, they ought to have been, corresponding to the sense and aim of their existence, the elucidation of which, whatever it might cost them, they made the basis of their task, and when they proceeded to actualize in practice this task previously decided upon by their Reason, it very soon became clear that it was imperatively necessary for its fulfillment to have in their Reason more detailed information of various special branches of knowledge.

“But as it proved impossible for each and every one of them to acquire the necessary special knowledge, they divided themselves for convenience into a number of groups so that each group might separately study one of these special branches of knowledge required for their common aim.

“Here, my boy, you should notice that genuine objective science just then arose and began to exist there for the first time, and developed normally up to the time of the second great catastrophe to their planet; also that the rate of the development of some of its separate branches then progressed at an indeed unprecedented tempo.

“And in consequence many great and small cosmic, what are called ‘objective truths’ gradually began at that period to become evident also to those three-brained beings who have taken your fancy.

“The learned members of this first and perhaps last great terrestrial learned society were then divided into seven independent groups, or as it is otherwise said, ‘sections,’ and each of these groups or sections received its definite designation.

“The members of the first group of the society Akhaldan were called ‘Akhaldanfokhsovors,’ which meant that the beings belonging to that section studied the presence of their own planet as well as the reciprocal action of its separate parts.

“The members of the second section were called ‘Akhaldanstrassovors’ and this meant that the beings belonging to that section studied what are called the radiations of all the other planets of their solar system and the reciprocal action of these radiations.

“The members of the third section were called “Akhaldanmetrosovors,’ which meant beings occupied with the study of that branch of knowledge similar to that branch of our general knowledge we call ‘Silkoornano,’ and which partly corresponded to what your contemporary favorites call ‘mathematics.’

“The members of the fourth group were called ‘Akhaldanpsychosovors,’ and by this name they then defined those members of the society Akhaldan who made their observations of the perceptions, experiencings, and manifestations of beings like themselves and verified their observations by statistics.

“The members of the fifth group were called ‘Akhaldanharnosovors,’ which meant that they were occupied with the study of that branch of knowledge which combined those two branches of contemporary science there which your favorites call ‘chemistry’ and ‘physics.’

“The members belonging to the sixth section were called ‘Akhaldanmistessovors,’ that is to say, beings who studied every kind of fact arising outside of themselves, those actualized consciously from without and also those arising spontaneously, and which of them, and in what cases, are erroneously perceived by beings.

“And as regards the members of the seventh and last group, they were called ‘Akhaldangezpoodjnisovors’; these members of the society Akhaldan devoted themselves to the study of those manifestations in the presences of the three-brained beings of their planet which proceeded in them not in consequence of various functionings issuing from different kinds of qualities of impulses engendered owing to data already present in them, but from cosmic actions coming from outside and not depending on them themselves.

“The three-brained beings of your planet who became members of this society actually did a great deal in respect of approaching objective knowledge which had never been done there before and which perhaps will never be repeated.

“And here it is impossible not to express regret and to repeat that to the most great misfortune of all terrestrial three-brained beings of all later epochs, it was just then—when after incredible being-labors by members of that great society the required tempo of work had already been established with regard to discernment, conscious on their part, and also with regard to their unconscious preparation for the welfare of their descendants—that, in the heat of it all, certain of them constated, as I have already told you, that something serious was to occur to their planet in the near future.

“For the purpose of discerning the character of the anticipated serious event, they dispersed over the whole planet and shortly afterwards, as I have already told you, the aforesaid ‘second Transapalnian perturbation’ occurred to that ill-fated planet of yours.

“Well then, my boy, when after this catastrophe, a number of the surviving beings, members of that great learned society, gradually came together again, they, no longer having their native country, first settled together with most of the other surviving beings in the center of the continent Grabontzi, but later, when they had, on the continent Grabontzi, ‘come to themselves’ a little after the ‘cataclysm not according to law,’ which had occurred, they decided jointly to try to re-establish, and perhaps to continue to actualize in practice, all those tasks which had formed the basis of their last society.

“As the manifestations of those abnormal conditions of being-existence of most of the three-brained beings there which had already been established before the catastrophe had by this time already begun to ‘boil’ furiously on the said part of the surface of the continent Grabontzi, these surviving members of the society Akhaldan looked for another place on the same continent for their permanent existence more suitable for this work of theirs which demanded complete separateness.

“Such a suitable place they found in the valley of the large river flowing on the north of the said continent and there indeed they all migrated together with their families to continue in isolation the attainment of the tasks set by their society.

“This entire region, through which the said large river flowed, they first named ‘Sakronakari.’

“But this name was afterwards several times changed and at the present time this region is called ‘Egypt,’ while the said large river, then called ‘Nipilhooatchi,’ is now, as I have already said, called the Nile.

“Soon after certain former members of the learned society Akhaldan had settled on this part of the surface of the planet Earth, all the beings of our tribe, who then existed on the surface of that planet which has taken your fancy, migrated to the same place.

“And the relations of our tribe with that part of your planet and also with the first migration there of the chance surviving former members of the society Akhaldan were as follows:

“I told you once that just before the ‘second Transapalnian perturbation’ our Party-Pythoness, while prophesying, insisted that all the beings of our tribe should, without delay, migrate for the continuation of their existence on that planet, to a definite part of the surface of that same continent now called Africa.

“This definite part of the surface of the continent which the Pythoness indicated, lay just at the source of the said large river Nipilhooatchi where the beings of our tribe existed all the time the said second Transapalnian perturbation lasted, as well as later when everything had gradually resumed its relatively normal state and when most of the surviving beings had then almost forgotten what had happened and had again formed—just as if nothing had occurred to them—one of their famous ‘centers of culture’ in the very center of that future Africa. And it was just when the former members of the society Akhaldan were searching for a suitable place for their permanent existence, that they chanced to meet a number of the beings of our tribe who advised them to migrate to the country further down the said river.

“Our acquaintanceship and our friendly relations with many of the former members of the society Akhaldan, had already begun on the continent Atlantis almost from the founding of that society.

“Do you remember I told you that when I descended to that planet for the first time and the beings of our tribe assembled in the city of Samlios with my participation in order together to find a way out of the difficult situation that had been created, those general meetings of ours were held in one of the sections of the principal cathedral of the society Akhaldan; and from that time on, good relations were established between many beings of our tribe and certain members of this Society?

“And there in that future Egypt whither both had migrated in the said way, the relations of the beings of our tribe with the authentic former members themselves who chanced to be saved and also with the descendants of other authentic members, remained uninterrupted and continued almost until the departure of our tribe from your planet.

“Although the hope of the few chance surviving members of the society Akhaldan that they would be able to resume the actualizing of the task of their society was not fulfilled, nevertheless, thanks to them alone, there still continued to be present in the presences of beings of several subsequent generations after the loss of Atlantis, the ‘instinctive conviction’ concerning the sense of what is called there ‘completed personal Being.’

“In addition, thanks to them, something of what had been attained by the Reason of the three-brained beings there also nevertheless survived when that Reason was still normal in them; and after a while this something began mechanically to be transmitted by inheritance from generation to generation and reached the beings of quite recent periods, even to several beings of contemporary times.

“Among those results of the learned attainments of the members of the society Akhaldan which were transmitted by inheritance, were also, without question, those ingenious and solid constructions which I saw being erected during this fourth descent of mine to your planet by the beings of whom I am just going to inform you, who were breeding on that part of the surface of the continent of the present Africa.

“Although the expectations that I had formed from all that our countrymen had told me concerning the mentioned new observatory there, before I had seen it with my own eyes, were not justified, nevertheless, the observatory itself and also the other constructions of the beings then of that region proved to be exceedingly ingenious and provided data for the enrichment of my common presence by a great deal of productive information for my consciousness.

“And in order that you may clearly represent to yourself and understand how these various constructions were then erected by the three-brained beings of this region for the welfare of their being existence, I think it will be enough if I explain to you in as great detail as possible, how the particularity of their ingenious practical invention was manifested in respect of their new observatory on account of which I had decided to visit that region.

“For this purpose I must first of all inform you of two facts connected with the change in the common presences of these three-brained beings who have taken your fancy.

“The first fact is that at the outset, while they were still existing normally, that is, as it is in general becoming to all three-brained beings to exist, and while they had what is called ‘Olooestesnokhnian sight’ they could also perceive, at a distance proper to be perceived by ordinary three-brained beings, the visibility of all great as well as small cosmic concentrations existing beyond them during every process of the Omnipresent-Okidanokh which proceeded in their atmosphere.

“In addition, those of them who were consciously perfected and had thereby brought the sensibility of the perception of their organ of sight—like three-brained beings everywhere else—up to what is called the ‘Olooessultratesnokhnian state,’ acquired the possibility of perceiving also the visibility of all these cosmic units situated at the same distance, which arise and have their further existence dependent upon the crystallizations localized directly from the sacred Theomertmalogos, that is to say, from the emanations of our most holy Sun Absolute.

“And later, when the same constant abnormal conditions of ordinary being-existence were finally established, as a consequence of which Great Nature was compelled, for reasons of which I have already once told you, among other limitations, also to degenerate the functioning of their organ of sight into what is called ‘Koritesnokhnian,’ that is to say, into the sight proper to the presences of one-brained and two-brained beings, then thereafter they were able to perceive the visibility of their great as well as their small concentrations situated beyond them only when the sacred process ‘Aieioiuoa’ proceeded in the Omnipresent Active Element Okidanokh in the atmosphere of their planet, or, as they themselves say—according to their understanding and their own perceptions—‘on dark nights.’

“And the second fact, by virtue of the same degeneration of their sight into Koritesnokhnian is based on that law common to all beings, namely, that the results obtained from every manifestation of the Omnipresent Okidanokh are perceived by the organs of sight only when in immediate contact with those vibrations which are formed in beings and which actualize the functioning of the being-organ-for-perceiving, at the given moment, the visibility of cosmic concentrations situated beyond them; that is to say, only when the said results of the manifestation of the Omnipresent-Okidanokh proceed up to the limit beyond which, according to the quality of the given organ for perceiving visibility, what is called the ‘momentum of the impulse’ dies down, or to put it otherwise, they perceive the visibility of objects only when almost next to them.

“But if these results take place beyond the mentioned limit, then this manifestation does not at all extend to those beings in whose presences there are organs for the perception of visibility, formed only by the results of the totality of ‘Itoklanoz.’

“Here it is very opportune to repeat one of the profound sayings, seldom used there, of our Mullah Nassr Eddin, which very neatly defines the given case, that is, this degree of the limitation of the perception of visibility of your contemporary favorites.

“This wise saying of his, seldom used there, consists of the following words:

“‘Show me the elephant the blind man has seen, and only then will I believe that you have really seen a fly.’

“Well then, my boy, thanks to that artificial adaption which I had then seen for the observation of other cosmic concentrations, and which was being constructed in that future Egypt on the initiative issuing from the Reasons of the remote descendants of the member beings of the learned society Akhaldan, any one of these unfortunate favorites of yours, in spite of the Koritesnokhnian sight which had long before become inherent to them, could nevertheless acquire the ability to perceive freely at any time, as they say, ‘of the day and night,’ the visibility of all those remote cosmic concentrations which in the process of the general ‘cosmic harmonious movement’ come within the sphere of the horizon of their observation.

“In order to overcome this limitation of their organ of the perception of visibility, they then invented the following:

“Their Teskooano or telescope, the construction of which, it must here be said, passed to them also from their remote ancestors, they did not fix on the surface of their planet, as was usually done there and is still done now—but they placed this Teskooano very deeply within the planet, and they carried out their observations of the cosmic concentrations found beyond the atmosphere of their planet, through specially bored, pipelike hollows.

“The observatory, I then saw, had five of these hollows.

“They began, in relation to the horizon, from different places of the surface of the planet occupied by the observatory, but they all met at a small underground common hollow which was something like a cave. From there, the specialists, then called Astrologers, made their observations for the purpose of studying, as I have already told you, the visible presences and results of the reciprocal action of other cosmic concentrations belonging to their own solar system as well as to other systems of the Great Universe.

“They made these observations of theirs through any one of the mentioned hollows which looked out in different directions on to their horizon, according to the given position of their planet relative to the cosmic concentration observed in the process of the ‘common cosmic harmonious movement.’

“I repeat, my boy, that although the chief peculiarity of the observatory constructed there by the three-brained beings of the future Egypt proved not to be new to me, since this principle had also been utilized in my observatory on Mars, with only this difference, that my seven long pipes were fixed not within the planet but on it, nevertheless all their innovations were so interesting in detail that, for any case that might arise, I even made, during my stay there, a detailed sketch of everything I saw, and later even used something of it for my own observatory.

“And as regards the other ‘constructions’ there, I shall perhaps tell you about them in detail sometime later, but meanwhile, I will only say that all these independent constructions which were then not quite finished were situated not far from the observatory itself, and were intended—as I elucidated during my inspection under the guidance of the constructor who accompanied us and who was a friend of one of our tribe—partly for the same purpose of observing other suns and planets of our Great Universe, and partly for determining and intentionally directing the course of the surrounding atmosphere in order to obtain the ‘climate’ desired.

“All these ‘constructions’ of theirs occupied a fairly large open space of that part of the said region, and were enclosed by a special lattice-work made of the plant then called there ‘Zalnakatar.’

“It is extremely interesting to notice here that they erected at the chief entrance of that huge enclosure a rather large—large of course in comparison with the size of their presences—stone statue called ‘Sphinx’ which strongly reminded me of the statue I saw on my first descent in person to your planet in the city of Samlios, just opposite the enormous building belonging to the learned society Akhaldan and which was then called the ‘chief cathedral of the society Akhaldan.’

“The statue I saw in the city of Samlios and which greatly interested me, was the emblem of this society and was called ‘Conscience.’

“It represented an allegorical being, each part of whose planetary body was composed of a part of the planetary body of some definite form of being existing there, but of the parts of those beings of other forms who, according to the crystallized notions of the three-brained beings there, had to perfection one or another being-function.

“The main mass of the planetary body of the said allegorical being was represented by the trunk of a being there of definite form, called ‘Bull.’

“This Bull trunk rested on the four legs of another being existing there, also of a definite form, called ‘Lion,’ and to that part of the Bull trunk called its ‘back’ two large wings were attached similar in appearance to those of a strong bird-being breeding there, called ‘Eagle.’

“And on the place where the head should be, there was fixed to the Bull trunk, by means of a piece of ‘amber,’ two breasts representing in themselves what are called ‘Breasts of a virgin.’

“When I became interested on the continent Atlantis in this strange allegorical image, and then enquired about its meaning, one of the learned members of the Great Society of men-beings explained it to me as follows:

“‘This allegorical figure is the emblem of the society Akhaldan and serves for all its members as a stimulus constantly to recall and awaken in them the corresponding impulses attributed to this allegorical figure.’

“Further he continued:

“‘Each part of this allegorical figure gives to every member of our society in all the three independently associating parts of his common presence, namely, in the body, in the thoughts, and in the feelings, a shock for corresponding associations for those separate cognizances which in their totality can alone give us the possibility of gradually getting rid of those undesirable factors present in everyone of us, both those transmitted to us by heredity as well as those acquired by ourselves personally, which gradually engender within us impulses undesirable for us, and as a consequence of which we are not as we might be.

“‘This emblem of ours constantly reminds and indicates to us that it is possible to attain freedom from what I have mentioned only if we compel our common presence always to think, feel, and act in corresponding circumstances according to that which is expressed is this emblem of ours.

“‘And this emblem of ours is understood by all of us, members of the society Akhaldan in the following way:

“‘The trunk of this allegorical being, represented by the trunk of a “Bull,” means that the factors crystallized in us and which engender in our presences the impulses maleficent for us, those we have inherited, as well as those we have personally acquired, can be regenerated only by indefatigable labors, namely, by those labors for which among the beings of our planet, the Bull is particularly fitted.

“‘That this trunk rests on the legs of a “lion” means that the said labors should be performed with that cognizance and feeling of courage and faith in one’s “might,” the property of which “might” is possessed among all the beings of the Earth in the highest degree by the possessor of these legs—the mighty lion.

“‘The wings of the strongest and the highest soaring of all birds, the Eagle, attached to the Bull trunk, constantly remind the members of our society, that during the said labors and with the mentioned inner psychic properties of self-respect, it is necessary to meditate continually on questions not related to the direct manifestations required for ordinary being-existence.

“‘And as regards the strange image of the head of our allegorical being, in the form of the “Breasts of a virgin,” this expresses that Love should predominate always and in everything during the inner and the outer functionings evoked by one’s consciousness, such a Love as can arise and be present only in the presences of concentrations formed in the lawful parts of every whole responsible being in whom the hopes of our common father are placed.

“‘And that the head is fixed to the trunk of the Bull with “amber” signifies that this Love should be strictly impartial, that is to say, completely separated from all the other functions proceeding in every whole responsible being.’

“In order, my boy, that the sense of this latter emblem put into the material called there amber, may become quite comprehensible to you, I must add that amber is one of those seven planetary formations, in the arising of which the Omnipresent Active Element Okidanokh takes part with all its three separate, independent, sacred parts, in equal proportion; and in the process of planetary actualization, these intraplanetary and surplanetary formations serve for what is called the ‘impeding’ of the independent flow of these three localized independent sacred parts.”

At this point in his tale, Beelzebub made a short pause, as if he were thinking about something, and afterwards continued thus:

“During my narration of what I then saw on a still surviving terra firma part of the surface of your planet among the three-brained beings there, certain of whom were the direct descendants of members of the truly great learned society Akhaldan there, the result of the manifestations of my being-Reason was that, owing to various associative recollections of all kinds of impressions of the perceptions of the visibility of the exterior environment of the said region, which have become fixed in my common presence, there have been gradually revived in me all the scenes and all the associative flow of thoughts of one of these being-experiencings of mine which occurred during my last stay there on my visit just to that same contemporary Egypt, when I once sat absorbed in thought at the foot of one of these constructions, which had chanced to survive from that period, and which is now called there ‘Pyramids.’

“It was just then, that in the general function of my Reason there was also associated among other things the following:

“Good! … If none of the benefits already formerly attained by the Reason of the beings of the continent Atlantis for ordinary being-existence has become the possession of the contemporary beings of this planet, then this might perhaps be logically explained simply because for cosmic reasons, not issuing at all from and not depending upon the three-brained beings there, that second great ‘cataclysm not according to law’ occurred, during which, not only that continent itself perished, but also everything which existed on it.

“But this Egypt!

“Was not its magnificence still quite recent?

“There is no denying it … owing to the third small catastrophe to that ill-fated planet, and also to the fifth, about which I shall speak later, this part also of its surface, it is true, suffered, having been covered with sands. … Nevertheless, the three-brained beings dwelling there did not perish, but were only scattered over various other parts of the same continent, and consequently, whatever new exterior conditions may have ensued, there should have survived in their presences, it would seem, the crystallized results of the perfected factors, transmitted to them by inheritance for normal ‘being-logical-mentation.’

“And so, my boy, being desirous after this distressful ‘Alstoozori’ of mine, or as your favorites would say ‘sorrowful reflections’ to clear up for myself the very essence of the cause also of this lamentable fact there, I understood at the end of my minute investigations, and became aware with all my being, that this abnormality there proceeds exclusively owing only to one remarkable aspect of the chief particularity of their strange psyche, namely, that particularity which has become completely crystallized and is an inseparable part of their common presences and which serves as a factor for the periodic arising in them of what is called the ‘urgent need to destroy everything outside of themselves.’

“The point is that when, during the apogee of the development of such a peculiarity—terrifying to every Reason—of the psyche of the three-brained beings, they began to manifest outside of themselves this phenomenal peculiarity of their common presences, that is to say, when they begin to carry out on some part of the surface of their planet the process of reciprocal destruction, then, at the same time, without any deliberate aim, and even without what is called ‘organic need,’ they also destroy everything which chances to come within the sphere of the perception of their organ of sight. During the periods of this ‘phenomenal psychopathic apogee,’ they destroy also all the objects in the given place and at the given time which these same beings themselves, between whom this terrifying process proceeds, have intentionally produced as well as the productions which have chanced to survive and to reach them from the beings of previous epochs.

“Well then, my boy, at the period of this fourth sojourn of mine in person on the surface of your planet, I first arrived in the country now called Egypt, and after having stayed there a few days among the remote descendants of the members of the great learned society Akhaldan, and becoming acquainted with certain surviving results of their ‘being-Partkdolg-duty’ for the welfare of their descendants, I afterwards, accompanied by two of our tribe, went to the southern countries of the same continent, and there, with the help of the local three-brained beings, caught the necessary number of ape-beings.

“Having accomplished this, I telepathically signalled to our ship 'Occasion' which descended to us, it must be said on the first, very dark night; and when we had loaded these ape-beings into that special section of the ship 'Occasion' which had been constructed for Gornahoor Harharkh under his directions, we at once reascended to the planet Mars; and three Martian days later, on the same ship and together with these apes, I ascended to the planet Saturn.

“Though we had previously decided to carry out the experiments with these apes only on the following year, when they would have become thoroughly acclimatized and orientated to existence under the new conditions, I ascended then to the planet Saturn so soon because at my last personal meeting with Gornahoor Harharkh, I had promised him to be present at his family solemnity which had soon to take place.

“And this family solemnity of Gornahoor Harharkh’s was that beings like himself around him were to consecrate the first heir produced by him.

“I promised to attend this family solemnity Krikhrakhri in order to undertake, regarding his recently arisen heir, what is called the ‘Alnatoorornian-being-duty.’

“Here it is interesting to remark that this kind of procedure for undertaking this being-duty, took place among the ancient three-brained beings of your planet also, and even reached your contemporary favorites, though these latter, just as in everything else, take only the external form of this serious and important procedure. The beings who undertake, as it were, these duties, are called by your contemporary favorites ‘godfathers’ and ‘godmothers.’

“The heir of Gornahoor Harharkh was then called Raoorkh.”

BEELZEBUB continued to relate as follows:

“After my fourth sojourn on the surface of the planet Earth many years again passed.

“During these years I of course, as before, sometimes attentively observed through my Teskooano the being-existence of these favorites of yours.

“During this time their number considerably increased and they had already populated almost all the large and small terra firma parts of the surface of this planet of yours; and of course there also continued to proceed among them their chief particularity, namely, from time to time they destroyed each other’s existence.

“During this time, that is to say, between my fourth and fifth visits, great changes occurred to the surface of your planet; many changes also occurred there in the concentrations of the places of settlement of these favorites of yours. For example, all those centers-of-culture of theirs on the continent Ashhark where I had been in person during my previous descents upon the Earth, namely, the countries of Tikliamish and Maralpleicie, had by the time of my fifth arrival there entirely ceased to exist.

“The cause of the destruction of these centers-of-culture of theirs and of the changes on the surface of this planet in general, was again a misfortune, the third for this ill-fated planet.

“This third misfortune was entirely of a local character and occurred because during several years there had proceeded in its atmosphere unprecedented what are called ‘accelerated-displacements-of-the-parts-of-the-atmosphere’; or, as your favorites there would say, ‘great winds.’

“The cause of these abnormal displacements or great winds at that time was once again those two fragments which had been separated from this planet of yours during the first great calamity, and which afterwards became independent small planets of this solar system, and are now called Moon and Anoolios.

“Strictly speaking, the main cause of this terrestrial misfortune was only the larger of these separated parts, namely, the Moon; the smaller fragment, Anoolios, played no part in it whatsoever.

“The accelerated-displacements in the Earth’s atmosphere resulted from the following:

“When the atmosphere on the small, accidentally arisen planet Moon had been finally formed, and the Moon, according to the already mentioned law of ‘Catching-up,’ continued to fall back upon its fundamental mass by the path already then established, and this newly arisen definite presence on the Moon had not yet acquired its own harmony within the common-system-harmony-of-movement, then the what is called ‘Osmooalnian-friction’ which was, so to say, not harmonized with the whole, evoked in the atmosphere of the Earth the mentioned accelerated-displacements or great winds.

“These unprecedented great winds then began, by the force of their currents, as it is said, to wear down the elevated ‘terra-firma-parts’ and to fill up the corresponding ‘depressions.’

“Such depressions were also the two countries of the continent Ashhark upon which the process of existence was chiefly concentrated of the second and third groups of beings of contemporary Asia, that is to say, the main parts of the countries Tikliamish and Maralpleicie.

“At the time sands also filled up certain parts of the country, Pearl-land, as well as that country in the middle of the continent Grabontzi, where, as I have already told you, there was formed, after the loss of Atlantis, what they called the leading ‘Center-of-Culture’ for all the three-brained beings there, a country which at that time was the most flourishing part of the surface of this planet of yours, and which is now the desert called ‘Sahara.’

“Bear in mind also, that during the abnormal winds of that time, besides the countries mentioned, several other smallish terra firma spaces of the surface of that hapless planet were also covered by sands.

“It is interesting to note here that your contemporary favorites have also by some means or other learned about the changes that then occurred in the places of the permanent existence of the three-centered beings, and having made a label for this as well, this time the ‘Great-transmigration-of-races,’ they stuck it on to what they call their ‘knowledge.’

“A number of the ‘learned’ there now puff and blow with all their might to find out why and how it all occurred, so that they can tell everybody else about it.

“Just now there are several theories about the matter there, which although they have nothing in common with each other and are each in an objective sense more absurd than the other, are nevertheless accepted there by what is called ‘official-knowledge.’

“But in fact, the real cause of the transmigration of the three-centered beings there was that as soon as the said abrasion began, the beings living on the continent Ashhark, fearing to be buried by the sands, began moving to other, more or less secure places. And these migrations of the three-brained beings there proceeded in the following order:

“Most of the three-brained beings populating Tikliamish moved to the south of the same continent Ashhark, to the country which was later called ‘Persia,’ and the rest moved north, and settled in those regions which were afterwards called ‘Kirkistcheri.’

“As for the beings populating the country Maralpleicie one part wandered eastward, while the rest, the major part, went towards the west.

“Having crossed the eastern heights, those who went east settled down on the shores of the large Saliakooriapnian spaces, and this country was later called ‘China.’

“And that part of the beings of Maralpleicie who sought safety by moving to the west, after wandering from place to place, ultimately reached the neighboring continent, later called ‘Europe,’ and the three-brained beings who then still existed in the middle of the continent Grabontzi dispersed over the whole of the surface.

“And so, my boy, this fifth descent of mine in person to your planet belongs to the period of the time after this said redistribution of the groups of the communities of these favorites of yours.

“And the causes of my descent there in person were the following events:

“I must first tell you, that the chief peculiarity of the psyche of your favorites, namely, the ‘periodic-need-to-destroy-the-existence-of-others-like-oneself,’ interested me more and more with every succeeding century of theirs, and side by side with it the irresistible desire increased in me to find out the exact causes of a particularity so phenomenal for three-brained beings.

“And so, my boy, in order to have more material for elucidating this question which interested me so intensely, I, in the interval between my fourth and fifth sojourn on the planet Earth, organized by observations through the Teskooano from the planet Mars of the existence of those peculiar three-brained beings in the following way:

“I deliberately kept under observation quite a number of their beings from among your favorites and during many of their years either I personally or somebody whom I commissioned observed them attentively, trying as much as possible not to miss anything, and to clear up from every aspect all the particularities in their manifestations during the processes of their ordinary existence.

“And I must confess, my boy, that when I happened to be quite free, I sometimes during whole ‘Sinonoums’ or, as your favorites there approximately define the corresponding flow of time, ‘hours,’ followed with great interest the movements of the said three-brained beings there under observation, and tried to explain to myself logically their what are called ‘psychic-experiencings.’

“And so, during these observations of mine from the planet Mars through my Teskooano, it once flashed upon me that the length of their existence was, century by century and even year by year, becoming shorter and shorter at a very definite and equally uniform rate, and this served as the beginning of my further quite serious study of the psyche of these three-brained beings who have taken your fancy.

“Of course when I first noticed this, I at once took into account not only the chief particularity of their psyche, that is their periodic reciprocal destruction, but also the innumerable what are called ‘illnesses’ which exist exclusively only on that planet, the majority of which, by the way, arose and continue to arise owing to the same abnormal external conditions of the ordinary being-existence established by them, which help to make it impossible to them to exist normally up to the sacred Rascooarno.

“When I first noticed this and began to recall my previous impression about it, each of the separate independent spiritualized parts of my whole presence became filled with the conviction, and my essence perceived the mentioned ‘flash,’ that in truth these three-brained beings of your planet had in the beginning existed according to their time calculation for about twelve centuries, and some of them, even, for about fifteen centuries.

“To be able more or less clearly to represent to yourself the rate at which the length of their existence declined during this time, it is enough for you to know that when I left this solar system for ever, the maximum length of their existence was already from seventy to ninety of their years.

“And latterly, if anybody should exist even as long as this, all the rest of the beings of that peculiar planet would already consider that he had existed quite ‘a good long time.’

“And if anybody happened to exist a little over a century he would be exhibited in their museums, and of course all the rest of the beings there would know about him because his photograph, and descriptions of the manner of his existence even to the enumeration of each of his movements, would continually be found in all their what are called ‘newspapers.’

“And so, my boy, since, at the time when I suddenly constated such a fact there, I had no special business on the planet Mars and it was quite impossible to try to probe this novel peculiarity by means of the Teskooano, I therefore decided to go there myself in order perhaps to clear up for myself there on the spot the causes of this also.

“Several Martian days after my decision, I again ascended there on the ship 'Occasion'.

“At the time of this fifth descent of mine in person to your planet, their ‘center-for-the-incoming-and-the-outgoing-results-of-the-perfecting-of-being-rumination’ or, as they themselves call it, their ‘Center-of-Culture’ was already the city of Babylon; so it was just there that I decided to go.

“This time our ship 'Occasion' alighted on what is called the ‘Persian Gulf’ because we had ascertained through the Teskooano before our flight that for our further traveling, that is to reach the town of Babylon, and also for the mooring of our ship 'Occasion' itself, the most convenient place would be that same Saliakooriapnian space of the surface of your planet now existing there under the name of the Persian Gulf.

“This water space was convenient for my further traveling because the large river, on the banks of which the city of Babylon stood, flowed into it, and we proposed to sail up the stream of this river to get there.

“During that period of the flow of time this ‘incomparably majestic’ Babylon was flourishing in every respect. It was a Center-of-Culture not only for the beings dwelling on the continent Ashhark, but also for all the beings of all those other large and small terra firmas which were adapted to the needs of ordinary being-existence on that planet.

“At the time of my first arrival there in this Center-of-Culture of theirs, they were just preparing that which was afterwards the principal cause of the acceleration of the rate of the degeneration of their ‘psychic-organization,’ especially in the sense of the atrophy in them of the instinctive functioning of those three fundamental factors which ought to exist in the presence of every three-brained being—namely, those factors which give rise to the being-impulses existing under the names of 'Faith,' 'Hope,' and 'Love.'

“These being-factors degenerating by heredity from generation to generation has brought it about that instead of a real being-psyche, such as should exist in the presence of every kind of three-brained being, there now already exists in the presences of your contemporary favorites, although a ‘real-psyche’ also, nevertheless one that can be very well defined by one of the wise sayings of our dear Mullah Nassr Eddin, which consists of the following words: ‘There is everything in it except the core or even the kernel.’

“It is absolutely necessary to relate to you in as great detail as possible what occurred during that period in Babylon, as all this information may be valuable material for you for a better elucidation and transubstantiation in your Reason of all the causes which together have finally given rise to that strange psyche of the three-centered beings which your contemporary favorites already have.

“I must first of all tell you that I obtained the information concerning the events of that time which I am about to relate chiefly from those three-centered beings there whom the other beings called ‘learned.’

“Before going any further, I must here dwell a little on just what kind of beings there on your planet the other beings call learned.

“The point is that, even before this fifth sojourn of mine there, that is to say before that period when Babylon, as I have told you, flourished in every respect, those beings who became learned and were regarded by others as learned were not such beings as become and are regarded as learned everywhere in the Universe, nor such as first became learned even on your planet, namely, such beings as acquire by their conscious labors and intentional sufferings the ability to contemplate the details of all that exists from the point of view of World-arising and World-existence, owing chiefly to which, they perfect their highest body to the corresponding gradation of the sacred measure of Objective Reason in order that they might later sense as much about cosmic truths as their higher being-body is perfected.

“But from the time of what is called the Tikliamish-civilization until now, those beings, especially the contemporary ones, chiefly became learned who ‘learned-by-rote’ as much as possible about every kind of vacuous information, such as old women love to relate about what was presumably said in olden times.

“Note, by the way, that for the definition of the importance of the learned there, our venerated Mullah Nassr Eddin also has a sentence expressed in the following words:

“‘Everybody talks as if our learned know that half a hundred is fifty.’

“There on your planet, the more of such information one of your favorites mechanically learns by rote, information he himself has never verified, and which moreover, he has never sensed, the more learned he is considered to be.

“And so, my boy, we reached the city of Babylon; there were indeed a great many learned beings there gathered from almost the whole of that planet of yours.

“As the causes of the gathering of these beings in the city of Babylon at that time are extremely interesting, I will tell you also about this a little more in detail.

“The point is, that most of the learned beings of the Earth had been then assembled there under compulsion by a most peculiar Persian king, under whose dominion at that period was also the city of Babylon.

“In order to understand thoroughly which fundamental aspect ensuing from the total results of the abnormally established conditions of ordinary being-existence there, gave rise to the said peculiarity of this Persian king, I must first enlighten you in respect of two facts which had become fixed long before.

“The first fact is that almost from the time of the loss of the continent Atlantis, there gradually began to be crystallized, and during later centuries became completely crystallized in the presence of every one of your favorites there, a particular ‘inherency’ thanks to which that being-sensation which is called ‘happiness-for-one’s-being’—which is experienced from time to time by every three-brained being from the satisfaction of his inner self-evaluation—appears in the presences of your favorites exclusively only when they acquire for their own possession a great deal of that popular metal there called ‘gold.’

“A greater misfortune for them arising from this particular ‘inherency’ in their common presences is that the mentioned sensation due to the possession of the said metal is strengthened by the beings around the possessor and also by beings who learn about it only by what is called ‘hearsay’ and have not themselves been convinced by personal corresponding perceptions; and it is, moreover, the established custom there never to consider through which kind of being-manifestations he becomes the possessor of a great quantity of this metal, and such a being there becomes for all those around him one who evokes in their presences the functioning of that crystallized consequence of the property of the organ Kundabuffer called ‘envy.’

“And the second fact is this, that when in the presences of your favorites their chief particularity functions ‘crescendently’ and, according to the established custom among their different communities, the process of the reciprocal destruction of each other’s existence proceeds, then afterwards, when this property, only maleficent for them themselves, has run its course, and they temporarily cease these processes of theirs, then the king of that community in which a greater number of subjects survive, receiving the title of conqueror, usually takes for himself everything belonging to the beings of the conquered community.

“Such a ‘king-conqueror’ there usually orders his subjects to take from the conquered all their lands, all the young beings of female sex present in the conquered community, and all the what is called ‘riches’ accumulated by them during centuries.

“And so, my boy, when the subjects of that said peculiar Persian king conquered the beings of another community, he ordered them not to take and even not to touch any of these, but to take with them as what are called ‘captives’ only the learned beings of this conquered community.

“Clearly to represent and to substantiate in yourself the understanding just why such a peculiar craze arose in the individuality of that Persian king and became proper only to him, you must know that at the period of the Tikliamish civilization, in the town called ‘Chiklaral’ a three-brained learned being by name Harnahoom—whose essence later became crystallized into what is called an ‘Eternal-Hasnamussian-individual’—invented that any old metal you like, abundant on the surface of that planet, could easily be turned into the rare metal ‘gold’ and all it was necessary to know for this was just one very small ‘secret.’

“This maleficent fiction of his became widely spread there, and having become crystallized in the presences of the beings of that time, and being transmitted by inheritance from generation to generation, began to pass to the beings of subsequent generations as a gradually formed definite maleficent fantastic science there, under the name of ‘alchemy,’ under the name, that is, of that great science which had indeed existed there during those epochs long past, when in the presences of their ancestors the consequences of the properties of the organ Kundabuffer had not yet been quite crystallized, and which branch of genuine knowledge might be necessary and indeed useful for the three-brained beings there even of contemporary times.

“And as at that period to which my tale relates, this Persian king needed for some or other of his undoubtedly Hasnamussian aims, a great deal of this metal, rare on the surface of the Earth, called ‘gold,’ and as the notion concerning this method that had been invented by the then existing ‘Hasnamussian-individual,’ Harnahoom, had also reached his presence, he was eager to get gold by so easy a means.

“When this Persian king had finally decided to get gold by ‘alchemy,’ he then and there for the first time cognized with the whole of his being that he did not as yet know that ‘little secret’ without which it was absolutely impossible to fulfill this desire of his. So he then pondered how to find out that ‘little secret.’

“The result of this pondering was that he became aware of the following:

“As the learned already have knowledge of every other kind of ‘mystery,’ then this mystery must also be known to one of them.

“Having finally arrived at such a conclusion, he, with an intensified functioning of ‘being-astonishment’ at why such a simple idea had never entered his head before, called several of his attendant subjects and ordered them to find out which of the learned beings of his capital, knew this mystery.

“When it was reported to him the following day that not a single one of the learned beings of the capital knew this mystery he ordered inquiries to be made also of all the learned present among the beings of the whole of his subject-community, and when after several days he again received the same negative reply, he once more began to ponder, and this time very seriously.

“His serious thinking first led his Reason to the understanding that, without any doubt, one or other of the learned beings of his community was aware of this ‘secret’ also, but since among beings of that clan, this strict keeping of a ‘professional’ mystery was very strongly developed, nobody, of course, was willing to reveal it.

“The result of his serious thinking was that he became aware that it was necessary not merely to question, but to examine the learned beings about this mystery.

“The same day, he gave appropriate instructions to his nearest corresponding assistants, and the latter already began to ‘examine,’ after the manner that had already long before been the way of power-possessing beings to examine ordinary beings.

“And when this peculiar Persian king became finally convinced that the learned beings of this community indeed knew nothing about this mystery, he began to look for learned beings in other communities to whom this mystery might be known.

“As the kings of the other communities were unwilling to offer their learned beings for ‘examination’ he decided forcibly to compel these unconquered kings to do so. And from that time on, at the head of numerous hordes in subjection to him, he began with their help to make what are called ‘military excursions.’

“This Persian king had many hordes in subjection to him because at that period, from the region of the surface of this planet of yours where that community was situated and over which he happened to be king, there had been intensified in the presences of the beings, even before this time, according to what is called the ‘foreseeing-adaptation’ of Great Nature, the what is called ‘birth rate’; and at the given period, there was being actualized that which was demanded for the common-cosmic Trogoautoegocratic process, that is to say, from this region of the surface of your planet there had to issue more of those vibrations arising from the destruction of being-existence.”

During this last explanation Hassein interrupted Beelzebub with the following words:

“Dear Grandfather, I do not understand why the issuing of the required vibrations for the purpose of the actualization of this most great cosmic process should depend on a definite region of the surface of the planet.”

To this question of his grandson, Beelzebub replied as follows:

“As before long I intend to make the special question of those terrifying processes of reciprocal destruction which they call ‘wars’ the theme of my tales concerning the three-brained beings of the planet Earth, it is better to defer this question of yours also until this special tale, because then, I think, you will understand it well.”

Having said this, Beelzebub again continued to relate about the Babylonian events.

“When the peculiar Persian king I mentioned began, thanks to the hordes in subjection to him, to conquer beings of other communities and to seize by force the learned among them, he assigned as a place for their congregation and existence the said city of Babylon, to which they were taken in order that this lord of half the then continent of Asia could thereafter freely examine them in the hope that one of them might perhaps happen to know the secret of turning cheap metal into the metal gold.

“With the same aim he even made at that time a special what is called ‘campaign’ into the country Egypt.

“He then made this special campaign there because the learned beings of all the continents of the planet were assembled there at that period, the opinion being widely spread there that more information for their various ‘sciences’ was to be obtained in this Egypt than anywhere else on the planet.

“This Persian king-conqueror then took from Egypt all the learned beings present there, both the native and those who had come from other communities; and among their number were then also several called ‘Egyptian priests,’ descendants of just those learned members of the society Akhaldan who had chanced to escape, and who had been the first to populate that country.

“When a little later a fresh craze arose in the presence of this peculiar Persian king, the craze for the process itself of the destruction of the existence of other beings similar to himself, and which supplanted the former craze, he forgot about the learned beings and they began to exist there freely in the city of Babylon awaiting his further directions.

“The learned beings collected in this way there in the city of Babylon from almost the whole of the planet used often to meet together and of course to discuss among themselves, as it is proper to the learned beings of the planet Earth, questions which were either immeasurably beyond their comprehension, or about which they could never elucidate anything useful whatsoever, either for themselves or for ordinary beings there.

“Well, it was just during these meetings and discussions that there arose among them, as it is in general proper to arise among learned beings there, what is called ‘a-burning-question-of-the-day,’ a question which in some way or other indeed interested them at that time to, as they say, ‘their very marrow.’

“The question which chanced to become the-burning-question-of-the-day so vitally touched the whole being of every one of them, that they even ‘climbed down’ from their what are called ‘pedestals’ and began discussing it not only with the learned like themselves, but also here, there and everywhere with anyone they chanced to come across.

“The consequence was that an interest in this question gradually spread among all the ordinary three-brained beings then existing in Babylon, and by about the time we reached this city it had become the question-of-the-day for all the beings there.

“Not only did these learned themselves talk about and discuss this question, but similar conversations and fierce discussions proceeded like fury among the ordinary beings there also.

“It was talked about and discussed by the young and old, by men and women, and even by the Babylonian butchers. Exceedingly anxious were they, particularly the learned, to know about this question.

“Before our arrival there many of the beings existing in Babylon had ultimately even lost their reason on account of this question, and many were already candidates for losing theirs.

“This burning-question-of-the-day was that both the ‘sorry-learned’ and also the ordinary beings of the city of Babylon were very anxious to know whether they had a ‘soul.’

“Every possible kind of fantastic theory existed in Babylon upon this question; and more and more theories were being freshly cooked up; and every, as it is said there, ‘catchy theory’ had, of course, its followers.

“Although whole hosts of these various theories existed there, nevertheless they were one and all based upon only two, but two quite opposite assumptions.

“One of these was called the ‘atheistic’ and the other the ‘idealistic’ or ‘dualistic.’

“All the dualistic theories maintained the existence of the soul, and of course its ‘immortality,’ and every possible kind of ‘perturbation’ to it after the death of the being ‘man.’

“And all the atheistic theories maintained just the opposite.

“In short, my boy, when we arrived in the city of Babylon there was then proceeding what is called the ‘Building-of-the-Tower-of-Babel.'”

Having uttered these latter words, Beelzebub became a little thoughtful and then continued as follows:

“Now I wish to explain to you about the expression I just used, namely, the ‘Building-of-the-Tower-of-Babel.’ This expression is very often used on your planet by the contemporary three-brained beings there also.

“I wish to touch upon this expression frequently used there and to elucidate it to you chiefly because firstly I chanced to be a witness at that time of all the events which gave rise to it, and secondly because the history of the arising of this expression and its transubstantiation in the understanding of your contemporary favorites can very clearly and instructively elucidate to you that, thanks as always to the same abnormally established conditions of ordinary being-existence, no precise information of events there which have indeed occurred to beings of former epochs ever reach beings of later generations. And if, by chance, something like this expression does reach them, then the fantastic Reason of your favorites constructs a whole theory on the basis of just one expression such as this, with the result that those illusory ‘being-ego-plastikuri,’ or what they call ‘psychic-picturings’ increase and multiply in their presences owing to which there has arisen in the Universe the strange ‘unique-psyche’ of three-brained beings which every one of your favorites has.

“Well then, when we arrived in the city of Babylon, and I began mixing with various beings there and making my corresponding observations in order to elucidate the question which had interested me, then, because almost everywhere I ran across the said learned beings who had gathered and met there in great numbers, it so fell out that I began associating with them alone, and made my observations through them, and also through their individualities.

“Among the number of the learned beings whom I met for my mentioned aim, was also one named Hamolinadir who had also been brought there by compulsion from Egypt.

“Well, during these meetings of ours, almost the same relations were established between this terrestrial three-brained being Hamolinadir and myself as in general are established everywhere between three-brained beings who frequently meet.

“This Hamolinadir was one of those learned there in the common presence of whom the factors for the impulses of a three-brained being which had passed to him by heredity were not quite atrophied, and moreover it turned out that during his preparatory age the responsible beings around him had prepared him to be also more or less normally responsible.

“It is necessary to notice that many learned beings of this kind were then in the city of Babylon.

“Although this learned Hamolinadir had his arising and preparation for becoming a responsible being just there in the city of Babylon and descended from the race of beings there called ‘Assyrian,’ yet he became learned in Egypt where the highest school existing on Earth at that time was found, and which was called the ‘School of Materializing-Thought.’

“At the age he was when I first met him he already had his ‘I’—in respect of rationally directing what is called the ‘automatic-psychic-functioning’ of his common presence—at the maximum stability for three-centered beings of the planet Earth at that time, in consequence of which during what is called his ‘waking-passive-state’ he had very definitely expressed being-manifestations, as, for instance, those called ‘self-consciousness,’ ‘impartiality,’ ‘sincerity,’ ‘sensibility of perception,’ ‘alertness,’ and so forth.

“Soon after our arrival in Babylon, I began going with this Hamolinadir to various what are called ‘meetings’ of the mentioned learned beings, and listened to every kind of what they called ‘reports’ upon the very question which was then ‘the-question-of-the-day,’ and which was the cause of the ‘agitation-of-the-minds-of-the-whole-of-Babylon.’

“This friend of mine, Hamolinadir, was also very much excited about the said ‘burning question.’

“He was agitated and perplexed by the fact that both the already existing and the many newly appearing theories upon this question were all, in spite of their entirely contradictory proofs, equally convincing and equally plausible.

“He said that those theories in which it was proved that we have a soul were very logically and convincingly expounded; and, likewise, those theories in which quite the contrary was proved were expounded no less logically and convincingly.

“So that you may be able to put yourself in the place of that sympathetic Assyrian, I shall also explain to you that in general on your planet, then in the city of Babylon as well as at the present time, all the theories on such a question as they call it of ‘the beyond,’ or any other ‘elucidation-of-details’ of any definite ‘fact,’ are invented by those three-brained beings there in whom most of the consequences of the properties of the organ Kundabuffer are completely crystallized, in consequence of which there actively functions in their presence, that being-property, which they themselves call ‘cunning.’ Owing to this, they consciously—of course consciously only with the sort of reason which it has already become long ago proper for them alone to possess—and moreover, merely automatically, gradually acquire in their common presence, the capacity for ‘spotting’ the weakness of the psyche of the surrounding beings like themselves; and this capacity gradually forms in them data which enables them at times to sense and even to understand the peculiar logic of the beings around them, and according to these data, they invent and propound one of their ‘theories’ concerning this or that question; and because, as I have already told you, in most of the three-brained beings there, owing to the abnormal conditions of ordinary being-existence established there by them themselves, the being-function called ‘instinctively-to-sense-cosmic-truths’ gradually atrophies, then, if any one of them happens to devote himself to the detailed study of any one of these ‘theories,’ he is bound, whether he wishes or not, to be persuaded by it with the whole of his presence.

“Well, my boy, already seven of their months after our arrival in the city of Babylon I once went with this friend of mine there, Hamolinadir, to what is called a ‘general-learned-conference.’

“This ‘general-learned-conference’ had already been convened at that time by the learned beings previously brought there by force; and thus there were at this conference not only the learned forcibly assembled there by the mentioned Persian king who in the meantime had already got over his craze about the science of ‘alchemy,’ and forgotten all about it, but many other learned also from other communities who had voluntarily gathered as they then said ‘for-the-sake-of-science.’

“At this ‘general-learned-conference’ that day, the reporters spoke by lot.

“My friend, Hamolinadir, also had to report about some topic and therefore drew a lot; and it fell to him to speak fifth.

“The reporters who preceded him either reported upon new ‘theories’ they had invented or they criticized theories already existing and known to everybody.

“At last came the turn of this sympathetic Assyrian.

“He ascended what is called the ‘rostrum,’ and as he did so some attendants hung up a notice above it indicating on which subject the given reporter would speak.

“It was the custom at that time to do so.

“The notice announced that the reporter had taken as the theme of his report the ‘Instability-of-Human-Reason.’

“Thereupon, this terrestrial friend of mine first expatiated on the kind of structure which, in his opinion, the human ‘head-brain’ has, and in which cases and in what manner various impressions are perceived by the other brains of man, and how only after definite what is called ‘agreement’ between all the brains are the total results impressed on this head-brain.

“He spoke calmly at first, but the longer he spoke, the more agitated he became, until his voice rose to a shout, and shouting he began to criticize the Reason in man.

“And at the same time, he mercilessly criticized his own Reason.

“Still continuing to shout, he very logically and convincingly demonstrated the instability and fickleness of man’s Reason, and showed, in detail, how easy it is to prove and convince this Reason of anything you like.

“Although in the midst of the shouting of this terrestrial friend of mine, Hamolinadir, his sobbing could be heard, nevertheless, even while sobbing, he continued to shout. Further he said:

“‘To every man, and also of course to me, it’s quite easy to prove anything; all that is necessary to know is which shocks and which associations to arouse in the other human brains while one or other “truth” is being proved. It is very easily possible even to prove to man that our whole World and of course the people in it, are nothing but an illusion, and that the authenticity and reality of the World are only a “corn” and moreover the corn growing on the big toe of our left foot. Besides this corn, absolutely nothing exists in the World; everything only seems, and even then only to “psychopaths-squared.”’

“At this point in the speech of this sympathetic terrestrial three-brained being, an attendant offered him a bowl of water, and after he had eagerly drunk the water, he continued to speak, but now more calmly.

“He said further:

“‘Take myself as an example: I am not an ordinary learned man. I am known by all Babylon and by people of many other towns as an exceedingly learned and wise man.

“‘I finished the course of study higher than which has never yet existed on the Earth, and which it is almost impossible will ever exist again.

“‘But what then has this highest development given to my Reason in respect of that question which, already during one or two years, is driving all Babylonians insane?

“‘This Reason of mine which has received the highest development, has given me during this general dementia concerning the question of the soul nothing else but “five-Fridays-a-week.”

“‘During this time, I have very attentively and seriously followed all the old and new theories about the “soul” and there is not a single theory with the author of which I do not inwardly agree, since all of them are very logically and plausibly expounded, and such Reason as I have cannot but agree with their logic and plausibility.

“‘During this time I have even myself written a very lengthy work on this “question-of-the-beyond”; and many of those present here have surely become acquainted with my logical mentation and most probably there is not one of you here who does not envy this logical mentation of mine.

“‘Yet at the same time I now honestly declare to you all, that concerning this “question-of-the-beyond” I myself, with the whole of the knowledge that has been accumulated in me, am neither more nor less than just an “idiot-cubed.”

“‘There is now proceeding among us in the city of Babylon the general public “building-of-a-tower” by means of which to ascend to “Heaven” and there to see with our own eyes what goes on there.

“‘This tower is being built of bricks which outwardly all look alike, but which are made of quite different materials.

“‘Among these bricks are bricks of iron and wood and also of “dough” and even of “eider down.”

“‘Well then, at the present time, a stupendously enormous tower is being built of such bricks right in the center of Babylon, and every more or less conscious person must bear in mind that sooner or later this tower will certainly fall and crush not only all the people of Babylon, but also everything else that is there.

“‘As I personally still wish to live and have no desire to be crushed by this Babylonian tower, I shall therefore now immediately go away from here, and all of you, do as you please.’

“He uttered these last words while leaving, and ran off and since that time, I never saw that sympathetic Assyrian again.

“As I later learned, he left the city of Babylon the same day forever, and went to Nineveh and existed somewhere there to a ripe old age. I also ascertained that this Hamolinadir was never again occupied with ‘sciences’ and that he spent his existence only in planting ‘choongary’ which in contemporary language is called ‘maize.’

“Well, my boy, the speech of this Hamolinadir at first made such a deep impression upon the beings there that for almost a month they went about, as it is said there, ‘down-in-the-mouth.’

“And when they met each other, they could speak of nothing else but only of the various passages from this speech which they remembered and repeated.

“They repeated them so often that several of Hamolinadir’s phrases spread among the ordinary beings of Babylon and became sayings for ordinary daily existence.

“Some of his phrases reached even contemporary beings of the planet Earth, and among them there is also the phrase ‘The-Building-of-the-Tower-of-Babel.’

“Contemporary beings now already quite clearly picture to themselves that once upon a time a certain tower was built in this said city of Babylon to enable beings to ascend in their planetary bodies to ‘God Himself.’

“And the contemporary beings of the planet Earth also say and are quite persuaded that during the building of this ‘Babylonian tower’ a number of tongues were confused.

“In general there reached the contemporary beings of the planet Earth a great many of such isolated expressions, uttered or fixed by various sensible beings of former epochs concerning certain details of a complete understanding from the epoch when the Center-of-Culture was Babylon as well as from the other epochs; and your favorites of recent centuries, simply on the basis of these ‘scraps,’ have with their already quite ‘nonsensical’ Reason concocted such ‘cock-and-bull’ stories as our Arch-cunning Lucifer himself might envy.

“Among the many teachings then current in Babylon concerning the ‘question-of-the-beyond,’ two had a large number of adherents though these teachings had nothing in common.

“And it was precisely these two teachings which began to pass from generation to generation, and to confuse their ‘being-sane-mentation’ which had already been confused enough without them.

“Although, in the course of their transmission from generation to generation the details of both these teachings underwent change, nevertheless the fundamental ideas contained in them remained unchanged and have even reached down to contemporary times.

“One of these two teachings which then had many adherents in Babylon was just the ‘dualistic’ and the other, the ‘atheistic’; so that in one of them it was proved that in beings there is the soul, and in the other, quite the opposite, namely, that they have nothing of the kind.

“In the dualist or idealist teaching, it was said that within the coarse body of the being-man, there is a fine and invisible body, which is just the soul.

“This ‘fine body’ of man is immortal, that is to say, it is never destroyed.

“This fine body or soul, it was said further, must make a corresponding payment for every action of the ‘physical body’ whether voluntary or involuntary, and every man, already at birth, consists of these two bodies, namely, the physical body and the soul.

“Further it was said that as soon as a man is born, two invisible spirits immediately perch upon his shoulders.

“On his right shoulder sits a ‘spirit-of-good,’ called an ‘angel’ and on his left, a second spirit, a ‘spirit-of-evil’ called a ‘devil.’

“From the very first day these spirits—the spirit-of-good and the spirit-of-evil—record in their ‘note-books’ all the manifestations of the man, the spirit sitting on his right shoulder recording all those called his ‘good manifestations’ or ‘good deeds’ and the spirit sitting on his left shoulder, the ‘evil.’

“Among the duties of these two spirits is that of suggesting to and compelling a man to do more of those manifestations which are in their respective domains.

“The spirit on the right constantly strives to make the man refrain from doing those actions which are in the domain of the opposite spirit, and, perforce, more of those in his own domain.

“And the spirit on the left does the same, but vice versa.

“In this strange teaching it was further said that these two ‘spirit-rivals’ are always combating each other, and that each strives with might and main that the man should do more of those actions which are in his domain.

“When the man dies, these spirits leave his physical body on the Earth and take his soul to God who exists somewhere ‘up-in-Heaven.’

“There up-in-Heaven this God sits surrounded by his devoted archangels and angels, and suspended in front of him is a pair of scales.

“On each side of the scales, ‘spirits’ stand on duty. On the right, stand the spirits who are called ‘servants of Paradise’ and these are the angels; and on the left stand the ‘servants of Hell’ and these are the devils.

“The spirits which have sat on the man’s shoulder all his life bring his soul after death to God and God then takes from their hands the notebooks in which the notes have been recorded of all the man’s actions; and He places them on the ‘pans of the scales.’

“On the right pan He puts the notebook of the angel; and on the left pan the notebook of the devil, and, according to the pan which falls, God commands the spirits on duty standing on the given side to take this soul into their charge.

“In the charge of the spirits standing on duty on the right is just that place called Paradise.

“It is a place of indescribable beauty and splendiferousness. In that Paradise are magnificent fruits in abundance, and endless quantities of fragrant flowers and enchanting sounds of cherubic songs and seraphic music constantly echo in the air; and many other things were also enumerated whose outer reactions according to the perceptions and cognitions abnormally inherent in the three-brained beings of that strange planet are likely to evoke in them, as they say, ‘great-satisfaction,’ that is to say, the satisfaction of those needs formed in their common presences, which are criminal for three-centered beings to possess, and the totality of which have driven out from their presences everything, without exception, that was put into them by our common father and which it is imperative for every three-brained being to possess.

“In the charge of the spirits standing on duty on the left of the scales, who, according to this Babylonian teaching, are the devils, there is what is called Hell.

“Concerning Hell it was said that it is a place without vegetation, always unimaginably hot, and without a single drop of water.

“In that Hell sounds constantly echo of fearful ‘cacophony’ and infuriated offensive ‘abuse.’

“Everywhere there are instruments of every conceivable torture from the ‘rack’ and the ‘wheel’ to instruments for lacerating bodies and mechanically rubbing them with salt, and so on of the same kind.

“In the Babylonian idealistic teaching, it was minutely explained that in order that this soul should enter this Paradise, the man must constantly strive while on Earth to provide more material for the notebook of the spirit angel sitting on his right shoulder, otherwise there would be more material for the records of the spirit sitting on the left shoulder, in which case, such a man’s soul would inevitably go to this most awful Hell.”

Here Hassein could not restrain himself, and suddenly interrupted with the following words:

“And which of their manifestations do they consider good, and which bad?”

Beelzebub looked at his grandson with a very strange look and shaking his head, said as follows:

“Concerning this, which being-manifestations are there on your planet considered good and which bad—two independent understandings, having nothing in common with each other, have existed from the most ancient times up to the present period, having passed from generation to generation.

“The first of these understandings exists there and passes from one generation to another among such three-brained beings there as were those members of the society Akhaldan on the continent Atlantis, and such as those who, although of another kind, several centuries later after the Transapalnian perturbation acquired almost the same in the foundations of their common presences and who were called ‘initiates.’

“The first of these understandings exists there under the following formulation:

“Every action of man is good in the objective sense, if it is done according to his conscience, and every action is bad, if from it he later experiences ‘remorse.’

“And the second understanding arose there soon after the wise ‘invention’ of the Great King Konuzion, which invention, passing from generation to generation through ordinary beings there, gradually spread over almost the whole planet under the name of ‘morality.’

“Here it will be very interesting to notice a particularity of the morality which was grafted upon it at the very beginning of its arising and which ultimately became part and parcel of it.

“What this said particularity of terrestrial morality is, you can easily represent to yourself and understand if I tell you that both inwardly and outwardly, it acquired exactly that ‘unique property’ which belongs to the beings bearing the name ‘chameleon.’

“And the oddity and peculiarity of this said particularity of the morality there, especially of contemporary morality, is that its functioning automatically depends entirely on the moods of the local authorities, which moods in their turn depend also automatically on the state of the four sources of action existing there under the names of ‘mother-in-law,’ ‘digestion,’ ‘John Thomas,’ and ‘cash.’

“The second Babylonian teaching which then had many followers, and which, passing from generation to generation, also reached your contemporary favorites, was on the contrary one of the atheistic teachings of that period.

“In this teaching by the terrestrial Hasnamussian candidates of that time, it was stated that there is no God in the world, and moreover no soul in man, and hence that all those talks and discussions about the soul are nothing more than the deliriums of sick visionaries.

“It was further maintained that there exists in the World only one special law of mechanics, according to which everything that exists passes from one form into another; that is to say, the results which arise from certain preceding causes are gradually transformed and become causes for subsequent results.

“Man also is therefore only a consequence of some preceding cause and in his turn must, as a result, be a cause of certain consequences.

“Further, it was said that even what are called ‘super-natural phenomena’ really perceptible to most people, are all nothing but these same results ensuing from the mentioned special law of mechanics.

“The full comprehension of this law by the pure Reason depends on the gradual impartial, all-round acquaintance with its numerous details which can be revealed to a pure Reason in proportion to its development.

“But as regards the Reason of man, this is only the sum of all the impressions perceived by him, from which there gradually arise in him data for comparisons, deductions, and conclusions.

“As a result of all this, he obtains more information concerning all kinds of similarly repeated facts around him, which in the general organization of man are in their turn material for the formation of definite convictions in him. Thus, from all this there is formed in man—Reason, that is to say, his own subjective psyche.

“Whatever may have been said in these two teachings about the soul, and whatever maleficent means had been prepared by those learned beings assembled there from almost the whole planet for the gradual transformation of the Reason of their descendants into a veritable mill of nonsense, it would not have been, in the objective sense, totally calamitous; but the whole objective terror is concealed in the fact that there later resulted from these teachings a great evil, not only for their descendants alone, but maybe even for everything existing.

“The point is, that during the mentioned ‘agitation-of-minds’ of that time in the city of Babylon, these learned beings, owing to their collective wiseacrings acquired in their presences, in addition to all they already had, a further mass of new data for Hasnamussian manifestations, and when they dispersed and went home to their own countries, they began everywhere, of course unconsciously, to propagate like contagious bacilli all these notions which all together, ultimately, totally destroyed the last remnants and even the traces of all the results of the holy labors of the Very Saintly Ashiata Shiemash.

“The remnants, that is to say, of those holy ‘consciously-suffering-labors’ which he intentionally actualized for the purpose of creating, just for three-centered beings, such special external conditions of ordinary being-existence in which alone the maleficent consequences of the properties of the organ Kundabuffer could gradually disappear from their presences, so that in their place there could be gradually acquired those properties proper to the presence of every kind of three-brained being, whose whole presence is an exact similitude of everything in the Universe.

“Another result of the diverse wiseacrings by those learned beings of the Earth then in the city of Babylon concerning the question of the soul, was that soon after my fifth appearance in person on the surface of that planet of yours this, in its turn, Center-of-Culture of theirs, the incomparable and indeed magnificent Babylon, was also, as it is said there, swept away from the face of the Earth to its very foundations.

“Not only was the city of Babylon itself destroyed but everything also that had been acquired and accomplished by the beings who had, during many of their centuries, formerly existed there.

“In the name of Justice, I must now say that the prime initiative for the destruction of the holy labors of Ashiata Shiemash did not spring, however, from these learned of the Earth who were then assembled in the city of Babylon, but from the invention of a learned being very well known there, who also existed there on the continent Asia several centuries before these Babylonian events, namely, from the invention of a being named ‘Lentrohamsanin’ who, having coated his higher-being-part into a definite unit, and having perfected himself by Reason up to the required gradation of Objective Reason, also became one of those three hundred and thirteen Hasnamussian-Eternal-individuals who now exist on the small planet bearing the name of Retribution.

“About this Lentrohamsanin I shall also tell you, since the information concerning him will serve to elucidate for your understanding the strange psyche of those three-brained beings who exist on that peculiar remote planet.

“But I shall tell you about this Lentrohamsanin only when I have finished speaking about the Very Saintly Ashiata Shiemash, as the information relating to this now already Most Very Saintly Individual Ashiata Shiemash and his activities in connection with this planet of yours is most important and of the utmost value for your understanding of the peculiarities of the psyche of these three-brained beings who have taken your fancy and who breed on the planet Earth.”

BEELZEBUB continued to relate further as follows:

“My further researches and investigations also cleared up for me that after the Very Saintly Ashiata Shiemash had pondered on the mountain Veziniama and had formulated in his mind a definite plan for his further Most Saintly Activities, he did not again return to the city of Babylon but went straight to the capital city Djoolfapal of the country then called Kurlandtech, which was situated in the middle of the continent Asia.

“There he first of all established relations with the ‘brethren’ of the then existing brotherhood ‘Tchaftantouri’—a name signifying ‘To-be-or-not-to-be-at-all’—which had its quarters not far from that city.

“This said brotherhood was founded five of their years before the arrival there of the Very Saintly Ashiata Shiemash on the initiative of two genuine terrestrial initiates, who had become initiates according to the principles existing, as it was then said there, before the Ashiatan epoch.

“The name of one of these two terrestrial three-brained beings of that time, who had become genuine initiates there, was ‘Poundolero’ and of the other ‘Sensimiriniko.’

“I must remark by the way, that both of these two terrestrial genuine initiates of that time had already by then ‘coated’ in their common presences their higher being-parts to the gradation called ‘completion’ and hence they had time during their further existence to perfect these higher parts of theirs to the required gradation of Sacred Objective Reason, and now their perfected higher being-parts have even ‘become worthy’ to have and already now have the place of their further existence on the holy planet Purgatory.

“According to my latest investigations, when, in all the separate spiritualized parts of the common presences of these two three-brained beings of that period, Poundolero and Sensimiriniko, there arose and was continuously sensed the suspicion, which later became a conviction, that, owing to some obviously nonlawful causes ‘something-very-undesirable’ for them personally had been acquired and had begun to function in their general organization and that at the same time it was possible for this something-very-undesirable to be removed from themselves by means of their own data within themselves, they then sought several other beings like themselves who were striving for this same aim, in order together to try to achieve the removal from themselves of this said something-very-undesirable.

“And when they soon found beings responding to this aim amongst what are called the ‘monks’ of places called ‘monasteries’ of which there were already many of that period in the environs of the town Djoolfapal, they together with these monks chosen by them, founded the said ‘brotherhood.’

“And so, after arriving in the town Djoolfapal, the Very Saintly Ashiata Shiemash established corresponding relations with these brethren of the mentioned brotherhood who were working upon that abnormally proceeding functioning of their psyche which they themselves had constated, and he began enlightening their Reason by means of objectively true information, and guiding their being impulses in such a way that they could sense these truths without the participation either of the abnormally crystallized factors already within their presences, or of the factors which might newly arise from the results of the external perceptions they obtained from the abnormally established form of ordinary being-existence.

“While enlightening the brethren of the said brotherhood in the mentioned way and discussing his suppositions and intentions with them, the Very Saintly Ashiata Shiemash occupied himself at the same time in drawing up what are called the ‘rules,’ or, as it is also said there, ‘statutes,’ for this brotherhood, which he, in association with these brethren he initiated of the former brotherhood Tchaftantouri, founded in the town Djoolfapal and which later was called the brotherhood ‘Heechtvori,’ which signified ‘Only-he-will-be-called-and-will-become-the-Son-of-God-who-acquires-in-himself-Conscience.’

“Later, when, with the participation of these brethren of the former brotherhood Tchaftantouri, everything had been worked out and organized, the Very Saintly Ashiata Shiemash sent these same brethren to various places and commissioned them under his general guidance to spread the information that in the subconsciousness of people there are crystallized and are always present the data manifested from Above for engendering in them the Divine impulse of genuine conscience, and that only he who acquires the ‘ableness’ that the actions of these data participate in the functioning of that consciousness of theirs in which they pass their everyday existence, has in the objective sense the honest right to be called and really to be a genuine son of our common father creator of all that exists.

“These brethren then preached this objective truth at first chiefly among the monks of the mentioned monasteries—many of which, as I have already said, existed in the environs of the town itself.

“The result of these preachings of theirs was that they first of all selected thirty-five serious and well-prepared what are called ‘novices’ of this first brotherhood Heechtvori, which they founded in the city Djoolfapal.

“Thereafter, the Very Saintly Ashiata Shiemash, while continuing to enlighten the minds of the former brethren of the brotherhood Tchaftantouri, then began with the help of these brethren to enlighten the Reason of those thirty-five novices also.

“So it continued during the whole of one of their years; and only after this did some of them from among the brethren of the former brotherhood Tchaftantouri, and from among the thirty-five said novices, gradually prove worthy to become what are called ‘All-the-rights-possessing’ brethren of this first brotherhood Heechtvori.

“According to the statutes drawn up by the Very Saintly Ashiata Shiemash, any brother could become an All-the-rights-possessing brother of the brotherhood Heechtvori, only when in addition to the other also foreseen definite objective attainments, he could bring himself—in the sense of ‘ableness-of-conscious-direction-of-the-functioning-of-his-own-psyche’—to be able to know how to convince to perfection a hundred other beings and to prove to them that the impulse of being-objective-conscience exists in man, and secondly how it must be manifested in order that a man may respond to the real sense and aim of his existence, and moreover so to convince them that each of these others, in their turn, should acquire in themselves what is called the ‘Required-intensity-of-ableness,’ to be able to convince and persuade not less than a hundred others also.

It was those who became worthy to become such an All-the-rights-possessing brother of the brotherhood Heechtvori who were first called by the name of ‘priest.’

“For your complete elucidation concerning the Very Saintly Activities of Ashiata Shiemash, you must also know that afterwards, when all the results of the Very Saintly Labors of the Very Saintly Ashiata Shiemash were destroyed, both this word priest there and also the word initiate about which I have already told you, were used and still continue to be used by your favorites down to the present time in two quite different senses. In one sense this word priest was since then and now still is commonly used, but only in certain places and for unimportant separate groups of those professionals existing there whom everybody now calls there ‘confessors’ or ‘clergymen.’

“And in the other sense, those beings were called and are still called by this word priest who by their pious existence and by the merits of their acts performed for the good of those around them, stand out so much from the rank and file of the ordinary three-brained beings there, that whenever these ordinary beings there have occasion to remember them, there arises and proceeds in their presences the process called ‘gratitude.’

“Already during that same period while the Very Saintly Ashiata Shiemash was enlightening the Reason of the brethren of the former brotherhood Tchaftantouri as well as of the newly collected thirty-five novices, there began to spread, among ordinary beings of the city Djoolfapal and its environs, the true idea that in the common presences of men-beings all the data exist for the manifestation of the Divine impulse conscience, but that this Divine impulse does not take part in their general consciousness; and that it takes no part because, although their manifestations bring them certain what are called ‘quite-late-repaying-satisfactions’ and considerable material advantage, nevertheless they thereby gradually atrophy the data put into their presences by Nature for evoking in other beings around them without distinction of brain system the objective impulse of Divine-Love.

“This true information began to spread, thanks chiefly to the superlative wise provision of the Very Saintly Ashiata Shiemash which obliged everyone striving to become an All-the-rights-possessing brother of the brotherhood Heechtvori to attain, as I have already told you, in addition to all kinds of definite self-merits, the ‘ableness’ to know how to convince all the three separate spiritualized and associating parts of a further hundred three-brained beings there, concerning the Divine impulse conscience.

“When the organization of the first brotherhood Heechtvori in the city Djoolfapal had been more or less regulated and was so established that the further work could already be continued independently, by means only of the directions issuing from the Reason then present in the brotherhood, then the Very Saintly Ashiata Shiemash himself selected from among those who had become All-the-rights-possessing brothers of the brotherhood, those who had already sensed the said Divine impulse, consciously by their Reason and unconsciously by the feelings in their subconsciousness, and who had full confidence that by certain self-efforts this Divine being-impulse might become and forever remain an inseparable part of their ordinary consciousness. And those who had sensed and become aware of this Divine conscience, and who were called ‘first-degree initiates,’ he set apart, and he began to enlighten their Reason separately concerning these ‘objective truths,’ which before that time were still quite unknown to the three-brained beings.

“It was just these outstanding ‘first-degree-initiated-beings’ who were then called ‘Great Initiates.’

“Here it must be remarked that those principles of being of the initiated beings there, which were later on called there ‘Ashiata’s renewals,’ were then renewed by the Very Saintly Ashiata Shiemash.

“Well, then, it was to those same Great Initiates who were first set apart that the Very Saintly Ashiata Shiemash now already the Most Very Saintly, then among other things also elucidated in detail what this being-impulse ‘objective conscience’ is, and how factors arise for its manifestation in the presences of the three-brained beings.

“And concerning this he once said as follows:

“‘The factors for the being-impulse conscience arise in the presences of the three-brained beings from the localization of the particles of the “emanations-of-the-sorrow” of our omni-loving and long-suffering-endless-creator; that is why the source of the manifestation of genuine conscience in three-centered beings is sometimes called the representative of the creator.

“‘And this sorrow is formed in our all-maintaining common father from the struggle constantly proceeding in the Universe between joy and sorrow.’

“And he then also further said:

“‘In all three-brained beings of the whole of our Universe without exception, among whom are also we men, owing to the data crystallized in our common presences for engendering in us the Divine impulse of conscience, “the-whole-of-us” and the whole of our essence, are, and must be, already in our foundation, only suffering.

“‘And they must be suffering, because the completed actualizing of the manifestation of such a being-impulse in us can proceed only from the constant struggle of two quite opposite what are called “complexes-of-the-functioning” of those two sources which are of quite opposite origin, namely, between the processes of the functioning of our planetary body itself and the parallel functionings arising progressively from the coating and perfecting of our higher being-bodies within this planetary body of ours, which functionings in their totality actualize every kind of Reason in the three-centered beings.

“‘In consequence of this, every three-centered being of our Great Universe, and also we men existing on the Earth, must, owing to the presence in us also of the factors for engendering the Divine impulse of ‘Objective Conscience,’ always inevitably struggle with the arising and the proceeding within our common presences of two quite opposite functionings giving results always sensed by us either as ‘desires’ or as ‘nondesires.’

“‘And so, only he, who consciously assists the process of this inner struggle and consciously assists the “non-desires” to predominate over the desires, behaves just in accordance with the essence of our common father creator himself; whereas he who with his consciousness assists the contrary, only increases his sorrow.’

“Owing to all I have just said, my boy, at that period scarcely three years had passed when, on the one hand, all the ordinary beings of the town Djoolfapal and its environs and also of many other countries of the continent Asia, not only already knew that this Divine being-impulse of ‘genuine conscience’ was in them, and that it could take part in the functioning of their ordinary ‘waking consciousness,’ and that in all the brotherhoods of the great prophet Ashiata Shiemash all the initiates and priests elucidated and indicated how and what had to be done in order that such a Divine impulse should take part in the functioning of the mentioned ordinary waking consciousness, but furthermore, nearly everybody even began to strive and to exert himself to become priests of the brotherhood Heechtvori of which many brotherhoods were already founded during that period and functioned almost independently in many other countries of the continent Asia.

“And these almost independent brotherhoods arose there in the following order:

“When the common work of the brotherhood founded in the town Djoolfapal was finally established, the Very Saintly Ashiata Shiemash began sending the said great initiates with corresponding directions to other countries and towns of the continent Asia, in order to organize similar brotherhoods there also, while he himself remained in the town Djoolfapal from where he guided the activities of these helpers of his.

“However it might have been, my boy, it then so turned out that almost all of your favorites—those strange three-brained beings—also wished and began to strive with all their spiritualized being-parts to have in their ordinary waking-consciousness the Divine genuine objective conscience, and in consequence, most of the beings of Asia at that time began to work upon themselves under the guidance of initiates and priests of the brotherhood Heechtvori, in order to transfer into their ordinary consciousness the results of the data present in their subconsciousness for engendering the impulse of genuine Divine conscience, and in order to have the possibility, by this means, on the one hand of completely removing from themselves, perhaps forever, the maleficent consequences of the properties of the organ Kundabuffer, both those personally acquired and those passed to them by heredity and, on the other hand, of consciously taking part in diminishing the sorrow of our common endless father.

“Owing to all this, the question of conscience already began to predominate at that period during the ordinary process of being-existence both in the waking-consciousness state and in the ‘passive-instinctive’ state among your favorites particularly among those who existed on the continent Asia.

“Even those three-brained beings of that time in whose presences the taste of this Divine impulse had not yet been transubstantiated, but who had in their strange peculiar consciousness, proper to them alone, only empty information concerning this being-impulse which could be present in them as well, also exerted themselves to manifest in everything in accordance with this information.

“The total result, however, of everything I have mentioned, was that within ten terrestrial years there had disappeared of their own accord those two chief forms of ordinary being-existence abnormally established there, from which there chiefly flow and still continue to flow, most of the maleficent causes the totality of which engenders all kinds of trifling factors which prevent the establishment of conditions there for at least a normal outer being-existence for these unfortunate favorites of yours.

“And namely, firstly their division into numerous communities with various forms of organization for external and even internal existence, or as they themselves express it, ‘state-organizations,’ ceased to exist, and secondly in these said numerous communities there also disappeared equally, of their own accord, those various what are called ‘castes’ or ‘classes’ which had long before been established there.

“And in my opinion, as you also will surely understand eventually, it was precisely this second of the two mentioned chief abnormally established forms of ordinary being-existence, namely, the assigning of each other to different classes or castes that had specially become there the basis for the gradual crystallization in the common presences of these unfortunate favorites of yours, of that particular psychic property which, in the whole of the Universe, is inherent exclusively only in the presences of those three-brained beings.

“This exclusively particular property was formed in them soon after the second Transapalnian perturbation there, and, gradually undergoing development and becoming strengthened in them, was passed from generation to generation by heredity, until it has now already passed to the contemporary beings as a certain lawful and inseparable part of their general psyche and this particular property of their psyche is called by themselves ‘egoism.’

“Some time later, in its appropriate place, during my further tales concerning the three-brained beings existing on the planet Earth, I shall also explain to you in detail how thanks to those conditions of external being-existence which were established there, your favorites first began assigning each other to various castes, and how, thanks to subsequent similar abnormalities this same maleficent form of mutual relationship then established there, has continued even until now. But meanwhile, concerning this exceptionally particular property of their general psyche, namely, egoism, it is necessary for you to know that the cause of the possibility of the arising in their common presences of this particular property was that, owing always to the same abnormal conditions established from the very beginning after the said second Transapalnian-perturbation there, their general psyche had become dual.

“This became fully evident to me when, during the period of my last sojourn on the surface of this planet of yours, I became deeply interested in the mentioned Legominism concerning the deliberations of the Very Saintly Ashiata Shiemash entitled ‘The Terror-of-the-Situation.’ I began in the course of my further detailed researches and investigations relating to his subsequent Very Saintly Activities and their results, to investigate the causes in which way and why the crystallization of the mentioned factors obtained from the particles of the emanation of the Sorrow of our common father creator for the actualizing of the Divine being-impulse of objective conscience, proceeded in their presences, that is to say, just in their said subconsciousness, and thus avoided that final degeneration to which are subject all the data placed in them for engendering in their presences the being-impulses Faith, Love, and Hope, and I was convinced that this strange anomaly there fully justifies one of the numerous wise sentences of our highly esteemed, irreplaceable, and honorable Mullah Nassr Eddin which states:

“‘Every—real—happiness—for—man—can—arise—exclusively—only—from—some—unhappiness—also—real—which—he—has—already—experienced.’

“The mentioned duality of their general psyche proceeded because on the one hand various what are called ‘individual-initiatives’ began to issue from that localization arising in their presences, which is always predominant during their waking existence, and which localization is nothing else but only the result of the accidental perceptions of impressions coming from without, and engendered by their abnormal environment, which perceptions in totality are called by them their ‘consciousness’; and on the other hand, similar individual-initiatives also began to issue in them, as it is proper to them, from that normal localization existing in the presences of every kind of being and which they called their subconsciousness.

“And because the mentioned individual-initiatives issue from such different localizations during their waking-existence, each of them, during the process of his daily existence is as it were, divided into two independent personalities.

“Here it must be remarked that just this said duality was also the cause that there was gradually lost from their presences that impulse necessary to three-brained beings, which is called ‘Sincerity.’

“Later, the practice of deliberately destroying the just mentioned being-impulse called Sincerity even took root among them, and now, from the day of their arising, or, as they say, from the day of their ‘birth,’ the three-brained beings there are accustomed by their producers—or, as they say, ‘parents’—to an entirely contrary impulse, namely, ‘deceit.’

“To teach and to suggest to their children how to be insincere with others and deceitful in everything, has become so ingrained in the beings of the planet Earth of the present time, that it has even become their conception of their duty towards their children; and this kind of conduct towards their children they call by the famous word ‘education.’

“They ‘educate’ their children never to be able and never to dare to do as the ‘conscience’ present in them instinctively directs, but only that which is prescribed in the manual of ‘bon ton’ usually drawn up there just by various candidates for ‘Hasnamusses.’

“And of course when these children grow up and become responsible beings, they already automatically produce their manifestations and their acts; just as during their formation they were ‘taught,’ just as they were ‘suggested to,’ and just as they were ‘wound up’; in a word, just as they were ‘educated.’

“Thanks to all this, the conscience which might be in the consciousness of the beings of that planet is, from their earliest infancy, gradually ‘driven-back-within,’ so that by the time they are grown up the said conscience is already found only in what they call their subconsciousness.

“In consequence, the functioning of the mentioned data for engendering in their presences this said Divine impulse conscience, gradually ceased long ago to participate in that consciousness of theirs by means of which their waking-existence flows.

“That is why, my boy, the crystallization in their common presences of the Divine manifestation issuing from Above for the data of the arising of this sacred being-impulse in them, proceeds only in their subconsciousness—which has ceased to participate in the process of their ordinary, daily existence—and that is why these data have escaped that ‘degeneration’ to which all the other sacred being-impulses were subject, and which they also ought to have in their presences, namely, the impulses Faith, Love, and Hope.

“Furthermore, if, for some reason or other, the actions of the Divine data, crystallized in their presences for the said being-impulse, should now begin to manifest themselves in them from their subconsciousness and should strive to participate in the functioning of their abnormally formed ordinary ‘consciousness,’ then no sooner are they aware of it, than they at once take measures to avoid it, because it has already become impossible in the conditions already existing there for anyone to exist with the functioning in their presences of this Divine impulse of genuine objective conscience.

“From the time when the said egoism had become completely ‘inoculated’ in the presences of your favorites, this particular being-property became, in its turn, the fundamental contributory factor in the gradual crystallization in their general psyche of the data for the arising of still several other quite exclusively-particular being-impulses now existing there under the names of ‘cunning,’ ‘envy,’ ‘hate,’ ‘hypocrisy,’ ‘contempt,’ ‘haughtiness,’ ‘servility,’ ‘slyness,’ ‘ambition,’ ‘double-facedness,’ and so on and so forth.

“These exclusively particular properties of their psyche which I have just named, utterly unbecoming to three-brained beings, were already fully crystallized in the presences of most of your favorites, and were the inevitable attributes of the psyche of every one of them even before the period of the Very Saintly Ashiata Shiemash; but when there began to be fixed and to flow automatically in the process of their being-existence the new form of existence intentionally implanted in them by Ashiata Shiemash himself, then these strange properties, previously present in their psyche, entirely disappeared from the presences of most of the three-brained beings there. Later, however, when they themselves destroyed all the results of the Very Saintly Labors of this Essence-loving Ashiata Shiemash, these same psychic properties maleficent for themselves gradually again arose anew in all of them, and, for them the contemporary three-brained beings there, they are already the foundation of the whole of their essence.

“Well, then, my boy, when the data arose in the common presences of your favorites for engendering this ‘Unique-particular’ being-impulse egoism and when gradually evolving and giving rise to factors ensuing from it for other also particular but now secondary strange being-impulses, this said ‘Unique-property’ egoism usurped the place of the ‘Unique-All-Autocratic-Ruler’ in their general organization; then, not only every manifestation but even what is called the ‘desire-for-the-arising’ of such a Divine being-impulse became a hindrance to the actions of this ‘All-Autocratic-Ruler.’ And in consequence of this, when eventually your favorites had already, by force of necessity, both consciously and unconsciously, always and in everything, prevented it partaking in the functioning of that consciousness of theirs through the control of which it had become proper for them to actualize their waking-existence, the action of those Divine data were gradually, as it were, removed from the functioning of their ordinary ‘consciousness’ and participated only in the functioning of their said subconsciousness.

“And it was only after my detailed researches and investigations had made all the foregoing clear to me, that I understood why there arose and why there still exists that division of themselves there into various classes or castes which is particularly maleficent for them.

“My later detailed researches and investigations very definitely and clearly showed me that, in that consciousness of theirs, which they call their subconsciousness, even in the beings of the present time, the said data for the acquisition in their presences of this fundamental Divine impulse conscience does indeed still continue to be crystallized and, hence, to be present during the whole of their existence.

“And, that these data of this Divine being-impulse are still crystallized and their manifestations still continue to participate in the process of their being-existence, was, apart from the said investigations, further confirmed by the fact that I frequently had a good deal of difficulty on account if it, during the periods of my observation of them from the planet Mars.

“The point is, that, through my Teskooano from the planet Mars, I could freely observe without any difficulty whatsoever, the existence proceeding on the surfaces of the other planets of that solar system, but making my observations of the process of the existence proceeding on the surface of your planet was, owing to the special coloration of its atmosphere, a real misery.

“And this special coloration occurred, as I later ascertained, because there appeared from time to time, in the presence of this atmosphere, large quantities of those crystallizations which were frequently radiated from the presences of these favorites of yours, owing to that particular inner impulse which they themselves call ‘Remorse-of-Conscience.’

“And this proceeded because in those of them who chance to receive and experience some kind of what is called ‘shock-to-organic-shame,’ the associations proceeding from their previous impressions almost always become changed, calmed, and sometimes even for a time entirely cease in them, which associations as I have already told you, consist mostly of various kinds of what is called ‘rubbish.’

“In consequence, there is then automatically obtained, in these three-brained beings there, such a combination of functioning in their common presences as temporarily frees the data present in their subconsciousness for the manifestation of the Divine impulse conscience and for its participation in the functioning of their ordinary consciousness, with the result that this said Remorse-of-Conscience proceeds in them.

“And as this Remorse-of-Conscience gives rise to the mentioned particular crystallizations which issue from them with their other radiations, the result is that the totality of all these radiations occasionally gives the atmosphere of this planet of yours that particular coloration which hinders the being-organ of sight from penetrating freely through it.

“Here it is necessary to say, that these favorites of yours, particularly the contemporary ones, become ideally expert in not allowing this inner impulse of theirs, called Remorse-of-Conscience, to linger long in their common presences.

“No sooner do they begin to sense the beginning, or even only, so to say, the ‘prick’ of the arising of the functioning in them of such a being-impulse, than they immediately, as it is said ‘squash’ it, whereupon this impulse, not yet quite formed in them, at once calms down.

“For this ‘squashing’ of the beginning of any Remorse-of-Conscience in themselves, they have even invented some very efficient special means, which now exist there under the names of ‘alcoholism,’ ‘cocainism,’ ‘morphinism,’ ‘nicotinism,’ ‘onanism,’ ‘monkism,’ ‘Athenianism,’ and others with names also ending in ‘ism.’

“I repeat, my boy, at a suitable occasion I shall explain to you in detail also about those results issuing from the abnormally established conditions of ordinary existence there, which became factors for the arising and the permanent existence there of this for them maleficent assignment of themselves to various castes.

“I shall without fail explain this to you, because the information elucidating this abnormality there, may serve as very good data for your further logical comparisons for the purpose of better understanding the strangeness of the psyche of these three-brained beings who have taken your fancy.

“Meanwhile transubstantiate in yourself the following: when the mentioned particular psychic property of ‘egoism’ had been completely formed in the common presences of these favorites of yours, and, later, there had also been formed in them various other secondary impulses already mentioned by me which ensued and now still continue to ensue from it—and furthermore, in consequence of the total absence of the participation of the impulse of sacred conscience in their waking-consciousness—then these three-brained beings arising and existing on the planet Earth, both before the period of the Very Saintly Activities of Ashiata Shiemash and also since have always striven and still continue to strive to arrange their welfare during the process of their ordinary existence, exclusively for them themselves.

“And as in general, on none of the planets of our great Universe does there or can there exist enough of everything required for everybody’s equal external welfare, irrespective of what are called ‘objective-merits,’ the result there is that the prosperity of one is always built on the adversity of many.

“It is just this exclusive regard for their own personal welfare that has gradually crystallized in them the already quite particularly unprecedented and peculiar properties of their psyche which I cited, as for instance ‘cunning,’ ‘contempt,’ ‘hate,’ ‘servility,’ ‘lying,’ ‘flattery,’ and so on, which in their turn, on the one had are factors for an outer manifestation unbecoming to three-brained beings, and on the other hand are the cause of the gradual destruction of all those inner possibilities of theirs, placed in them by Great Nature, of becoming particles of the whole of the ‘Reasonable Whole.’

“Well then, my boy, at the time when the results of the Very Saintly Labors of the Essence-loving Ashiata Shiemash had already begun to blend with the processes of what is called their ‘inner’ and ‘outer’ being-existence, and when thanks to this, data for the Divine impulse conscience, surviving in their subconsciousness, gradually began to share in the functioning of their ‘waking-consciousness,’ then the being-existence both personal and reciprocal began to proceed on this planet also, almost as it does on the other planets of our great Universe on which three-brained beings exist.

“These favorites of yours also then began to have relations towards each other only as towards the manifestations varying in degree of a unique common creator and to pay respect to each other only according to the merits personally attained by means of ‘being-Partkdolg-duty,’ that is, by means of personal conscious labors and intentional sufferings.

“That is why, during that period, there ceased to exist there the said two chief maleficent forms of their ordinary existence, namely, their separate independent communities and the division of themselves in these communities into various castes or classes.

“At that time, also, there upon your planet, all the three-brained beings began to consider themselves and those like themselves merely as beings bearing in themselves particles of the emanation of the Sorrow of our common father creator.

“And all this then so happened because when the actions of the data of the Divine being-impulse began to participate in the functioning of their ordinary waking-consciousness, and the three-brained beings began manifesting themselves towards each other, solely in accordance with conscience, the consequence was that masters ceased to deprive their slaves of freedom, and various power-possessing beings of their own accord surrendered their unmerited rights, having become aware by conscience and sensing that they possessed and occupied these rights and positions not for the common welfare but only for the satisfaction of their various personal weaknesses, such for instance as ‘vanity,’ ‘self-love,’ ‘self-calming,’ and so on.

“Of course, at that period also, there continued to be all kinds of chiefs, directors and ‘adviser-specialists,’ who became such chiefly from difference of age and from what is called ‘essence-power,’ just as there are everywhere on all planets of the Universe on which there breed three-brained beings of varying degrees of self-perfecting, and they then became such, neither by hereditary right nor by election, as was the case before this blissful Ashiatian epoch and as again afterwards became and even till now continues to be the case.

“All these chiefs, directors and advisers then became such in accordance with the objective merits they personally acquired, and which could be really sensed by all the beings around them.

“And it proceeded in the following way:

“All the beings of this planet then began to work in order to have in their consciousness this Divine function of genuine conscience, and for this purpose, as everywhere in the Universe, they transubstantiated in themselves what are called the ‘being-obligolnian-strivings’ which consist of the following five, namely:

“The first striving: to have in their ordinary being-existence everything satisfying and really necessary for their planetary body.

“The second striving: to have a constant and unflagging instinctive need for self-perfection in the sense of being.

“The third: the conscious striving to know ever more and more concerning the laws of World-creation and World-maintenance.

“The fourth: the striving from the beginning of their existence to pay for their arising and their individuality as quickly as possible, in order afterwards to be free to lighten as much as possible the Sorrow of our common father.

“And the fifth: the striving always to assist the most rapid perfecting of other beings, both those similar to oneself and those of other forms, up to the degree of the sacred ‘Martfotai’ that is up to the degree of self-individuality.

“At this period when every terrestrial three-centered being existed and worked consciously upon himself in accordance with these five strivings, many of them thanks to this quickly arrived at results of objective attainments perceptible to others.

“Of course, these objective attainments then, as it is said, ‘attracted-the-attention’ of all around them, who thereupon made those who had attained stand out from their midst and paid them every kind of respect; they also strove with joy to merit the attention of these outstanding beings and to have for themselves their counsel and advice how they themselves could attain the same perfecting.

“And these outstanding beings of that period began in their turn to make the most attained among themselves stand out and this outstanding being thereby automatically became, without either hereditary or other right, the chief of them all, and recognizing him as chief, his directings were spread correspondingly, and this recognition included not only the separate neighboring parts of the surface of your planet, but also even the neighboring continents and islands.

“At that period the counsel and guidance and in general every word of these chiefs, became law for all the three-brained beings there, and were fulfilled by them with devotion and joy; not as it had proceeded there before the results obtained by the Very Saintly Labors of Ashiata Shiemash, nor as it again proceeded and still continues to proceed since they themselves destroyed the fruits of his Very Saintly Labors.

“That is to say, these strange three-brained beings, your favorites, now carry out the various commands and orders of their ‘chiefs’ and, as they are called ‘kings,’ only from fear of what are called ‘bayonets’ and ‘lousy cells,’ of which there are a great many at the disposition of these chiefs and kings.

“The results of the Very Saintly Labors of Ashiata Shiemash were then also very definitely reflected in respect of that terrible peculiarity of the manifestation of the psyche of your favorites, namely, in their ‘irresistible-urge-for-the-periodic-destruction-of-each-other’s-existence.’

“The process of reciprocal destruction established there and ensuing from that terrible particularity of their psyche entirely ceased on the continent Asia, and only proceeded occasionally on those large and small parts of the surface of that planet of yours, which were far from the continent Asia. And this continued there only because owing to their distance the influence of the initiates and priests could not reach and be transubstantiated in the presence of the beings breeding on these parts of the surface of your planet.

“But the most astonishing and significant result of the Very Saintly Labors of Ashiata Shiemash was that at that period not only did the duration of the existence of these unfortunates become a little more normal, that is to say, it began to increase, but also what they call the ‘death rate’ also diminished, and at the same time the number of their results manifested for the prolongation of their generation, that is, as they say, their ‘birth rate,’ diminished to at least a fifth.

“Thereby there was even practically demonstrated one of the cosmic laws, namely, what is called ‘the-law-of-the-equilibration-of-vibrations,’ that is of vibrations arising from the evolutions and involutions of the cosmic substances required for the Most Great Omnicosmic Trogoautoegocrat.

“The said decline in both their death rate and their birth rate proceeded because as they approximated to an existence normal for the three-centered beings, they also began to radiate from themselves vibrations responding more closely to the requirements of Great Nature, thanks to which, Nature needed less of those vibrations which are in general obtained from the destruction of the existence of beings.

“You will also understand well about this cosmic law ‘equilibration-of-vibrations’ when at the proper time I shall explain to you in detail, as I have already many times promised you, concerning all the general fundamental cosmic laws.

“It was just in this way, my boy, and in such a sequence that there in that period, thanks to the conscious labors of the Very Saintly Ashiata Shiemash, the said welfare unprecedented for your favorites was gradually created; but to the infinite sorrow of all more or less consciously thinking individuals of all gradations of Reason, shortly after the departure from this planet of the Very Saintly Ashiata Shiemash, these unfortunates themselves, after the manner that had become in general proper to them before, in respect of every good attainment of their ancestors, totally destroyed it all; and thus it was they destroyed and thus it was they swept away from the surface of their planet all that welfare, so that even the rumor has failed to reach contemporary beings there that once upon a time such bliss existed.

“In certain inscriptions which have survived from ancient times and have reached the contemporary beings of that planet, there is, however, some information that there once existed on their planet, what is called a special kind of ‘state-organization’ and that at the head of every such state were beings of the highest attainments.

“And on the basis of this information, the contemporary beings have invented just a mere name for this state-organization; they call it a ‘priest-organization’ and that is all.

“But what constituted this priest-organization, how and why it was? … is it not all the same to the contemporary beings of the planet Earth what ancient savages did!!! …”

YOU remember that I have already told you that the basis of the initiative for the arising there of the factors which became the causes of the final destruction of the still surviving remains of the beneficent results of the conscious labors of the Very Saintly Ashiata Shiemash for the subsequent generations of your favorites, did not issue from the learned beings who were then assembled from almost the whole of the surface of the Earth in the city of Babylon, but that these latter—as it had long before become proper to most of the terrestrial learned beings of new formation—were only like ‘contagious bacilli,’ the unconscious disseminators of every kind of then existing evil for their own and for subsequent generations.

“The basis for all the further great and small maleficent activities and unconscious maleficent manifestations of the learned beings of that time concerning the destruction of even the last remnants of the results, beneficent for the three-brained beings there, obtained from the very saintly conscious labors of the Essence-loving Ashiata Shiemash, were—as my later detailed researches concerning these further very saintly activities made clear to me—the ‘invention’ of a learned being, well known there in his time, also belonging to the number of learned beings of new formation and named Lentrohamsanin.

“As a result of his inner what is called ‘double-gravity-centered’ existence, the ‘highest being-part’ of the presence of this terrestrial three-brained being was coated and perfected up to the required gradation of Objective Reason, and later this ‘highest-being-part’ became, as I have once already told you, one of those three hundred and thirteen ‘highest being-bodies’ who are called ‘Eternal-Hasnamuss-individuals’ and who have the place of their further existence in the Universe on a small planet existing under the name of ‘Eternal-Retribution.’

“Now, strictly speaking, about this terrestrial three-brained being Lentrohamsanin, I would have to fulfill my promise and to explain to you in detail about the expression Hasnamuss, but I prefer to do so a little later in the proper place of the sequence in this tale.

“The mentioned maleficent ‘invention,’ or as they themselves, that is the contemporary terrestrial learned beings, name such an invention of a learned being there of ‘new formation,’ a ‘composition,’ or even a ‘creation,’ was actualized, as I have already told you, two or more centuries before the time when, during my fifth sojourn there, I first reached the city of Babylon, where partly by coercion and partly voluntarily, learned beings had been assembled from the surface of almost the whole of the planet.

“The maleficent composition of that learned being of former centuries reached the learned beings of the said Babylonian epoch by means of what is called a ‘Kashireitleer,’ on which this invention was engrossed by the said learned Lentrohamsanin himself.

“I find it very necessary to inform you a little more in detail about the history of the arising of this Lentrohamsanin and also how, owing to which accidental circumstances of his environment, he later became there a great learned being and authority for his contemporary beings of almost the whole surface of your planet.

“In addition to this history itself being very characteristic, it can also serve as a good elucidatory example of that practice which has long ago become firmly established in the process of the existence of these three-brained beings who have taken your fancy, the result of which is that several of them at first become so to say authorities for other learned beings of new formation and thereby later for all the unfortunate ordinary beings there.

“The details concerning the conditions of the arising and subsequent formation of this Lentrohamsanin into a responsible being chanced to become clear to me, by the way, during my investigations of which aspects of the strange psyche of your favorites were the basis for the gradual change and ultimately also for the total destruction of all those beneficent special forms and customs in the process of their being-existence, which had been introduced and firmly fixed in this process by the ideally foreseeing Reason of our now Omnicosmic Most Very Saintly Ashiata Shiemash during the period of his self-preparation to be that which he now is for the whole of the Universe.

“It was then that I learned that this Lentrohamsanin arose, or, as it is said there, ‘was born,’ on the continent Asia, in the capital of Nievia, the town Kronbookhon.

“The conception of his arising resulted from the blending of two heterogeneous Exioëries formed in two already elderly three-brained Keschapmartnian beings there.

“His ‘producers’ or, as it is said there, his ‘parents,’ having chosen as the place for their permanent existence the capital of Nievia, moved there three terrestrial years before the arising of that later Universal Hasnamuss.

“For his elderly and very rich parents he was what is called a ‘first-born,’ for although the blending of their Exioëries had been many times actualized between them before him, yet, as I found out, they, being deeply engaged in the business of acquiring riches and not wishing to have any hindrance for this, had recourse at each actualizing of this sacred blending to what is called ‘Toosy,’ or, as your contemporary favorites express themselves, ‘abortion.’

“Towards the end of his activities in acquiring riches, ‘the-source-of-the-active-principle-of-his-origin,’ or, as it is said there, his father, had several of his own what are called ‘caravans’ and he also owned special ‘caravansaries’ for the exchange of goods in various cities of this same Nievia.

“And ‘the-source-of-the-passive-principle-of-his-origin,’ that is, his mother, was at first of the profession of what is called ‘Toosidji,’ but later, on a small mountain, she organized what is called a ‘Holy-place’ and published broadcast among other beings information concerning its supposed special significance, namely, that beings of the female sex, without children would, on visiting this place, acquire the possibility of having them.

“When this couple, in what is called ‘the-decline-of-their-years’ had already become very rich, they moved to the capital city Kronbookhon in order to exist there, but only for their own pleasure.

“But soon they felt that without a real ‘result’ or as they say there ‘in-childlessness,’ there cannot be full pleasure, and from that time on, without sparing what is called ‘money,’ they took every kind of measure to obtain such a result.

“With this end in view, they visited various Holy-places existing there for that purpose, of course with the exception of their own ‘Holy-mountain,’ and resorted to every kind of what are called ‘medical means’ which purported to assist the blending of heterogeneous Exioëries; and when eventually by chance such a blending was actualized, then there indeed arose, after a certain time, just that long-awaited result of theirs, later called Lentrohamsanin.

“From the very first day of his arising, the parents were, as it is said, completely wrapped up in what they described as their ‘God-sent-result’ or son; and they spent vast sums on his pleasures and on what was called his ‘education.’

“To give their son the very best ‘upbringing’ and ‘education’ the Earth could provide, became for them, as it is said there, their ‘Ideal.’

“With this aim, they hired for him various what are called ‘tutors’ and ‘teachers,’ both from among those existing in the country Nievia and from various distant lands.

“These latter, that is, these foreign ‘tutors’ and ‘teachers,’ they then invited chiefly from the country which at the present time is called ‘Egypt.’

“Already by the time this terrestrial what is called ‘Papa’s-and-Mama’s-darling’ was approaching the age of a responsible being, he was, as it is said there, very well ‘instructed’ and ‘educated,’ that is he had in his presence a great deal of data for all kinds of being ‘egoplastikoori,’ consisting, as it is usual there according to the abnormally established conditions of their existence, of various fantastic and dubious information; and later, when he became a responsible being he manifested himself automatically through all kinds of corresponding accidental shocks.

“When this later great learned being there reached the age of a responsible being, and although he had indeed a great deal of information or, as it is called there, ‘knowledge,’ nevertheless, he had absolutely no Being in regard to this information or knowledge which he had acquired.

“Well, when the said Mama’s-and-Papa’s-darling became a learned being there of new formation, then because on the one hand there was no Being whatsoever in his presence, and on the other hand because there had already by this time been thoroughly crystallized in him those consequences of the properties of the organ Kundabuffer which exist there under the names of ‘vanity,’ ‘self-love,’ ‘swagger,’ and so forth, the ambition arose in him to become a famous learned being not only among the beings of Nievia, but also over the whole of the surface of their planet.

“So, with all his presence he dreamed and ruminated how he could attain this.

“For many days he then thought seriously, and finally he decided first of all to invent a theory upon a topic which nobody before him had ever touched upon; and secondly, to inscribe this ‘invention’ of his upon such a Kashireitleer as nobody had ever before inscribed or would ever be able to in the future either.

“And from that day, he made preparations for the actualizing of that decision of his.

“With the help of his many slaves he first prepared a Kashireitleer such as had never before existed.

“At that period of the flow of time on the planet Earth, the Kashireitleers were generally made from one or another part of the hide of a quadruped being call there ‘buffalo,’ but Lentrohamsanin made his Kashireitleer from a hundred buffalo hides joined together.

“These Kashireitleers were replaced there later by what is called ‘parchment.’

“Well, when this unprecedented Kashireitleer was ready, the subsequently great Lentrohamsanin inscribed upon it his invention concerning a topic which, indeed, it had occurred to nobody to discuss before, and for which, in truth, there was no reason why it should have been.

“Namely, in those wiseacrings of his, he then criticized in every way the existing order of collective existence.

“This Kashireitleer began thus:

“‘Man’s greatest happiness consists in not being dependent on any other personality whatsoever, and in being free from the influence of any other person, whoever he may be!’

“Some other time, I will explain to you how your favorites, the strange three-brained beings there on the planet Earth, in general understand freedom.

“This subsequently Universal Hasnamuss inscribed further as follows:

“‘Undeniably, life under the present state-organization is now far better for us than it used to be before; but where then is that real freedom of ours upon which our happiness must depend?

“‘Don’t we work and labor as much now as during all other former state-organizations?

“‘Haven’t we to labor and sweat to get the barley indispensable to us to live and not to starve to death like chained dogs?

“‘Our chiefs, guides, and counselors are always telling us about some other sort of world, supposedly so much better than here among us on the Earth, and where life is in every respect beatific for the souls of those men who have lived worthily here on the Earth.

“‘Don’t we live here now “worthily?”

“‘Don’t we always labor and sweat for our daily bread?

“‘If all that our chiefs and counselors tell us is true and their own way of living here on the Earth really corresponds to what is required of their souls for the other world, then of course God ought, and even must, in this world also, give more possibilities to them than to us ordinary mortals.

“‘If all that our chiefs and counselors tell and try to make us believe is really true, let them prove it to us, ordinary mortals, by facts.

“‘Let them prove it to us, for instance, that they can at least change a pinch of the common sand, in which, thanks to our sweat, our daily bread arises, into bread.

“‘If our present chiefs and counselors do this, then I myself will be the first to run and kneel and kiss their feet.

“‘But meanwhile, as this is not so, we ourselves must struggle and we ourselves must strive hard for our real happiness and for our real freedom and also to free ourselves from the need of having to sweat.

“‘It is true that for eight months of the year we now have no trouble in obtaining our daily bread; but then, how we must labor those four summer months and exhaust ourselves getting the barley we need!

“‘Only he who sows and mows that barley knows the hard labor required.

“‘True, for eight months we are free, but only from physical labors, and for this, our consciousness, namely, our dearest and highest part, must remain day and night in slavery to these illusory ideas which are always being dinned into us by our chiefs and counselors.

“‘No, enough! We ourselves, without our present chiefs and counselors who have become such without our consent, must strive for our real freedom and our real happiness.

“‘And we can only obtain real freedom and real happiness if we all act as one, that is to say, all for one and one for all. But for this, we must first destroy all that is old.

“‘And we must do so to make room for the new life we shall ourselves create that will give us real freedom and real happiness.

“‘Down with dependence on others!

“‘We ourselves will be masters of our own circumstances and no longer they, who rule our lives and do so without our knowledge and without our consent.

“‘Our lives must be governed and guided by those whom we ourselves shall elect from our midst, that is by men only from amongst those who themselves struggle for our daily barley.

“‘And we must elect these governors and counselors on the basis of equal rights, without distinction of sex or age, by universal, direct, equal, and open ballot.’

“Thus ended the said famous Kashireitleer.

“When this subsequent Universal Hasnamuss, Lentrohamsanin, had finished inscribing this Kashireitleer, indeed unprecedented there, he arranged an enormous and costly banquet to which he invited all the learned beings from all Nievia, taking upon himself all their traveling expenses; and at the end of this banquet, he showed them his Kashireitleer.

“When the learned beings then gathered at that free feast from almost the whole of Nievia saw that indeed unprecedented Kashireitleer, they were at first so astounded that they became, as it is said there, as if ‘petrified’ and only after a considerable time did they gradually begin looking at each other with dumfounded glances, and exchanging opinions in whispers.

“Chiefly they asked one another how was it possible that not a single learned being nor a single ordinary being had known or guessed that there in their own country such a learned being with such knowledge existed.

“Suddenly one of them, namely, the oldest among them who enjoyed the greatest reputation, jumped up on the table like a boy, and in a loud voice and with the intonation which had already long before become proper to the learned beings there of new formation, and which has also reached the contemporary learned beings, uttered the following:

“‘Listen, and all of you be aware that we, the representatives of terrestrial beings assembled here who have, thanks to our great learning already attained independent individuality, have the happiness to be the first to behold with our own eyes the creation of a Messiah of Divine consciousness sent from Above to reveal World-truths to us.’

“Thereupon began that usual maleficent what is called ‘mutual inflation,’ which had already long been practiced among the learned beings of new formation and chiefly on account of which no true knowledge which has chanced to reach them ever evolves there as it does everywhere else in the Universe, even merely from the passage of time itself; but, on the contrary, even the knowledge once already attained there is destroyed, and its possessors always become shallower and shallower.

“And the rest of the learned beings then began shouting and pushing each other in order to get near Lentrohamsanin; and addressing him as their ‘long-awaited-Messiah’ they conveyed to him by their admiring glances what are called their ‘high-titillation.’

“The most interesting thing about it all is that the reason why all the other learned beings were so greatly amazed and so freely gave vent to what are called their ‘learned snivellings’ lay in a certain extremely strange conviction which had been formed in the psyche of your favorites, thanks as always to the same abnormally established conditions of ordinary existence, that if anybody becomes a follower of an already well-known and important being, he thereby seems to be to all other beings almost as well known and important himself.

“So it was on the strength of his being very rich, and what is more important, already very famous, that all the other learned beings of that time, of the country Nievia, immediately manifested themselves approvingly towards this Lentrohamsanin.

“Well then, my dear boy, when after the said banquet, the learned beings of Nievia returned home, they immediately began firstly to speak among their neighbors and later more and more widely, here, there and everywhere, about that unprecedented Kashireitleer itself, and, secondly, already foaming at the mouth, to persuade and convince everybody of the truth of those ‘revelations’ which that great Lentrohamsanin had inscribed on this Kashireitleer.

“The result of it all was that the ordinary beings of the town Kronbookhon as well as of other parts of the country Nievia talked among themselves of nothing but these ‘revelations.’

“And gradually, as it also usually happens there, almost everywhere beings became divided into two mutually opposing parties, one of which favored the ‘invention’ of the subsequent Universal Hasnamuss, and the other, the already existing and well-fixed forms of being-existence.

“Thus it continued during almost a whole terrestrial year, during which time the ranks of the contending parties increased everywhere and towards each other there grew one of their particular properties called ‘hate,’ the result of which was that one sorrowful day in the town of Kronbookhon itself, there suddenly began among the beings, who had become followers of one or the other of the two said mutually opposite currents, their process of what is called ‘civil war,’

“‘Civil war’ is the same as ‘war’; the difference is only that in ordinary war, beings of one community destroy the beings of another community, while in a civil war the process of reciprocal destruction proceeds among beings of one and the same community, as, for example, brother annihilates brother; father, son; uncle, nephew, and so on.

“At the outset, during the four days that the horrible process was at its height in Kronbookhon, and the attention of the other beings of the country of all Nievia was concentrated on it, everything was still relatively quiet in the other towns, but here and there, small, what are called ‘skirmishes’ occasionally took place. When at the end of the fourth day, those who were for the ‘invention’ of Lentrohamsanin, that is for the learned beings, were victorious in Kronbookhon, then, from that time on, the same process also began at all the large and small points of the whole surface of Nievia.

“That widespread terrifying process continued until there appeared ‘hordes’ of learned beings who, as it is said, ‘feeling-firm-ground-beneath-their-feet’ compelled all the surviving beings to accept the ideas of Lentrohamsanin and immediately destroyed everything, and from then on, all the three-brained beings of Nievia became followers of the ‘invention’ of Lentrohamsanin and soon after, in that community, there was established a special what is called ‘Republic.’

“A little later, the community Nievia, being at that period great and what is called ‘powerful,’ began, as it also usually happens there, ‘making war’ on the neighboring communities for the purpose of imposing upon them also her new form of state-organization.

“From that time on, my boy, on the largest continent of your planet, the processes of reciprocal destruction among these strange three-brained beings began to proceed as before; and at the same time, there were gradually changed and finally destroyed those various beneficent forms of their ordinary existence which had already been fixed thanks to the ideally foreseeing Reason of our now Most Very Saintly Ashiata Shiemash.

“Thereupon there again began to be formed on the surface of your planet—only to be destroyed anew and to give place to others—numerous separate distinct communities with every kind of ‘form-of-inner-state-organization.’

“Although the direct effect of that maleficent invention of the now Universal Hasnamuss Lentrohamsanin was that among your favorites the practice was revived of existing in separate distinct communities and they again resumed their periodic reciprocal destruction, yet within many of these newly arisen independent communities on the continent Asia, beings still continued to conform in their ordinary existence to many of the unprecedently wisely foreseen usages of the Very Saintly Ashiata Shiemash for their ordinary being-existence, which usages had already been inseparably fused into their automatically flowing process of daily existence.

“And those to blame for the final destruction of these said usages and customs that still remained in certain communities, were those learned beings who were then assembled in the city of Babylon.

“And they were then to blame in this respect owing to the following:

“When owing to that famous question of the Beyond, they organized the ‘general-planetary-conference’ of all the learned beings there, there happened to be also among the learned beings who went to Babylon on their own accord, the great-grandson of Lentrohamsanin himself, who had also become a learned being.

“And he took with him, there to the city of Babylon, an exact copy of the mentioned Kashireitleer, but made on papyrus, the original of which had been inscribed by his great-grandfather and which he had obtained by inheritance, and at the very height of the ‘frenzy’ concerning the ‘question-of-the-soul’ during one of the last big general meetings of the learned beings, he read aloud the contents of that maleficent ‘invention’ of his great-grandfather’s; whereupon, it occurred—as it had also become proper to the ‘sorry-learned-beings’ of this planet, thanks to their strange Reason—that from one question which interested them, they at once passed to quite another, namely, from the question ‘of-the-soul’ to the question of what is called ‘politics.’

“Thereupon in the city of Babylon, meetings and discussions again began everywhere concerning the various kinds of already existing state-organizations and those which in their opinion ought to be formed.

“As the basis of all their discussions they took, of course, the ‘truths’ indicated in the invention of Lentrohamsanin, this time expounded on what is called a papyrus that had been taken there by his great-grandson, and a copy of which almost every learned being who was then in Babylon carried in his pocket.

“For several months they discussed and argued, and as a result, they this time ‘split’ into parties; that is to say all the learned beings then in the city of Babylon split into two independent what are called ‘sections,’ under the following names:

“The first: ‘Section of Neomothists.’

“The second: ‘Section of Paleomothists.’

“Each of these sections of learned beings soon had its adherents from among the ordinary beings in the city of Babylon; and once again things would certainly have ended also with a civil war if the Persian king, hearing of it all, had not immediately ‘cracked’ them on their ‘learned noddles.’

“A number of these learned beings were executed by him, others were imprisoned with lice, and still others were despatched to places, where even now, as Mullah Nassr Eddin would say, ‘French champagne’ could not be taken. Only a few of those who were clearly shown to have been occupied with all this, only because, as it is said there, they were ‘mad,’ were permitted to return to their own countries, and those among them who had taken no part whatever in ‘political-questions’ were not only also given full liberty to return to their native land, but by the order of the mentioned Persian king, their return to their native land was even accompanied with every kind of honor.

“Well then, my boy, those Babylonian learned beings who, owing to various reasons survived and were scattered everywhere over the surface of almost the whole of the planet, continued by momentum their wiseacring the basis of which, they made—of course, not consciously but simply mechanically—those two leading questions which had arisen and which had been the ‘questions-of-the-day’ during the said Babylonian events, namely, the famous questions concerning the ‘soul’ of men and the ‘inner-communal-organization.’

“The result of these wiseacrings of theirs was that over the whole continent of Asia civil wars again broke out in various communities, and the processes of mass reciprocal-destruction between different communities.

“The destruction which thus proceeded of the remnants of the results of the conscious labors of the Very Saintly Ashiata Shiemash, continued on the continent of Asia for about a century and a half; yet, in spite of this, in some places there were preserved and even by momentum were still carried out certain forms that had been created by Ashiata Shiemash for their beneficent being-existence.

“But when the three-brained beings there, who arose and existed on the neighboring continent, now called Europe, then began taking part in the Asiatic wars, and when ‘hordes’ with the arch-vainglorious Greek called ‘Alexander-of-Macedonia’ at their head, were dispatched thence and passed almost everywhere over the continent of Asia, they made, as it is said, a ‘clean sweep’ from the surface of that ill-fated planet of everything that had been established and had still been preserved and carried out; so clean a sweep, that it left not even the trace of the memory that there could once have existed on the surface of their planet such a ‘bliss,’ specially and intentionally created for their existence by such a Reason, whose possessor is now one of our seven most very saintly Omnicosmic individuals, without whose participation even our uni-being common father does not allow himself to actualize anything.

“And now, my boy, after my tale about this Lentrohamsanin—thanks to which you obtained to a certain degree, a conspective account of the consequences for subsequent generations ensuing from the activities of such a typical representative of Eternal-Hasnamuss-individuals from among the three-brained beings of the planet Earth—it will now be quite opportune to explain to you, as I promised, a little more in detail about the significance of the word Hasnamuss.

“In general, those independent individuals are called and defined by the word Hasnamuss in whom, among what are called ‘Individual-impulses,’ a certain ‘something’ arises, which participates in what is called the ‘completed formation’ of independent individualities in the common presences of three-brained beings both of the highest possible coating as well as of those who consist only of the planetary body alone.

“This ‘something’ in these separate cosmic individuals arises and blends in the process of the transformation of substances in them with the crystallizations resulting from the action of the entire ‘spectrum’ of certain what are called ‘Naloo-osnian-impulses.’

“This ‘Naloo-osnian-spectrum-of-impulses’ consists, on the basis of that chief cosmic law, the sacred Heptaparaparshinokh, according to the source of its essence in respect of the ‘perception-of-engenderings’ and the ‘resulting-manifestations,’ of seven heterogeneous aspects.

“If these separate aspects of the entire ‘spectrum’ of Naloo-osnian-impulses are described according to the notions of your favorites and expressed in their language, they might then be defined as follows:

1. Every kind of depravity, conscious as well as unconscious
2. The feeling of self-satisfaction from leading others astray
3. The irresistible inclination to destroy the existence of other breathing creatures
4. The urge to become free from the necessity of actualizing the being-efforts demanded by Nature
5. The attempt by every kind of artificiality to conceal from others what in their opinion are one’s physical defects
6. The calm self-contentment in the use of what is not personally deserved
7. The striving to be not what one is.

“This certain ‘something’ which arises in the presences of definite individuals owing to the enumerated Naloo-osnian-impulses, besides being the cause of what are called ‘serious-retributive-suffering-consequences’ for these individuals themselves, also has the particularity, that as soon as the action of what is called ‘intense-effort’ ceases in one of these individuals, the radiations proper to one or other of the aspects of the manifestations of this ‘something’ have a greater effect on those around him and become a factor for engendering the same in them.

“In the common presence of every kind of three-brained being, there can arise during the process of his planetary existence, four kinds of independent Hasnamuss-individuals.

“The first kind of Hasnamuss-individual is a three-brained being who while acquiring in his common presence that something, still consists only of his planetary body and who, during the process of his sacred Rascooarno is subject to the corresponding consequences of the presence in him of the properties of this something and is thus destroyed forever such as he is.

“The second kind of Hasnamuss-individual is that Kesdjan body of a three-brained being which is coated in his common presence with the participation of that same something and which, acquiring—as is proper to such a cosmic arising—the property of ‘Toorinoorino,’ that is, nondecomposition in any sphere of that planet on which he arose, has to exist, by being formed again and again in a certain way, such as he is, until this certain something will have been eliminated from him.

“The third kind of Hasnamuss-individual is the highest being-body or soul, during the coating of which in the common presence of a three-brained being this something arises and participates; and he also acquires the property of Toorinoorino, but this time proper to this highest being-body; that is to say, this arising is no longer subject to decomposition not only in the spheres of that planet on which he had his arising, but also in all other spheres of the Great Universe.

“The fourth kind of Hasnamuss-individual is similar to the third, but with this difference, that the Hasnamuss of the third kind has the possibility of at some time succeeding in becoming so to say ‘cleansed’ from this something, whereas for this fourth kind such a possibility is lost forever.

“That is why this fourth kind of Hasnamuss is called an ‘Eternal-Hasnamuss-individual.’

“For these four kinds of Hasnamuss-individuals, owing to their having in their presences this something, the mentioned retributive-suffering-consequences are various and correspond both to the nature of each kind as well as to what is called ‘objective-responsibilities’ ensuing from the primordial providence and hopes and expectations of our common father concerning these cosmic actualizations.

“For the Hasnamuss of the first kind, namely, when this something is acquired by a being still consisting only of just a planetary body alone, the decomposition of this planetary body of his does not proceed according to the general rule, that is to say, the cessation of the functioning in his organism of every kind of sensed-impulses does not proceed simultaneously with the approach of the ‘sacred Rascooarno,’ that is, death.

“But the process of the sacred Rascooarno begins in him still during his planetary existence and proceeds in parts, that is, one by one there gradually cease to participate in his common presence, the functioning of one or other of his separate independent spiritualized ‘localizations’—or, as your favorites would say there, in such a being, first of all, one of his brains with all its appertaining functions dies; later on, the second one dies, and only then does the final death of the being approach.

“In addition to this, after the final death, the ‘disintegration-of-all-the-active-elements’ of which the given planetary body was formed, proceeds firstly much more slowly than usual, and secondly, with the inextinguishable action—only lessened in proportion to the volatilization of the active elements—of the mentioned ‘sensed-impulses’ he had during life.

“For the second kind of Hasnamuss-individual, that is, when the Kesdjan-body of a three-brained being becomes such, the corresponding consequences are that such an indeed unfortunate arising, freed from the planetary body of a three-brained being, on the one hand not having the possibility of perfecting himself independently of and without a planetary coating, does not succeed in eliminating from his presence this maleficent something even not always acquired by his own fault, which something is always and with everything in the Universe an obstacle for the correct flowing of the common cosmic Trogoautoegocratic process; on the other hand, owing to the property in him of Toorinoorino, that is, not being subject to decomposition in any sphere of that solar system in which he is formed, he must inevitably be again coated in a planetary body and in most cases with the exterior form of a being of one- or two-brained system; and in view of the brevity in general of the duration of beings of these planetary forms and also not having time to adapt himself to a single exterior form, he must constantly begin all over again in the form of another being of the planet with the full uncertainty as to the result of his coating.

“And as regards the third kind of Hasnamuss-individual, namely, when the highest being-body of a three-brained being becomes such, and when this certain something participates in his coating in such a quality that he never loses the possibility of freeing himself from it, the matter is still more terrible, chiefly because he—as a higher cosmic arising, who according to the foreseeing first-sourced-principle-of-everything-existing was predetermined to serve the aim of helping the government of the whole increasing World, and on whom from the moment of the completion of his formation, even when he was not yet perfected in Reason, was placed the responsibility for every subjective voluntary as well as involuntary manifestation—has the possibility to succeed in eliminating from his presence this something, exclusively only by the action of the results of intentionally actualized Partkdolg-duty, that is to say of ‘conscious-labors-and-intentional-sufferings.’

“Hence such a higher being-body must inevitably always suffer correspondingly, having already acquired the gradation of what is called the ‘degree-of-cognition-of-one’s-own-individuality,’ until this certain something is entirely eradicated from his common presence.

“As a place for the suffering existence of such a high order of Hasnamuss-individuals, the higher-sacred-individuals have intentionally allotted, from the totality of the large cosmic concentrations, four planets, disharmonized in their subjective functioning, situated in various most remote corners of our Great Universe.

“One of these four disharmonized planets called ‘Eternal-Retribution’ is specially prepared for the ‘Eternal-Hasnamuss-individuals’ and the other three for those ‘Higher being-bodies’ of Hasnamusses in whose common presences there is still the possibility of ‘at some time or other’ eliminating from themselves the mentioned maleficent something.

“The three small planets exist under the names of:

1. 'Remorse-of-conscience'
2. 'Repentance'
3. 'Self-Reproach.'

“Here it is interesting to notice that from among all the ‘highest being-bodies’ which have been coated and perfected in every kind of exterior form of three-brained-beings there have, so far, reached the planet ‘Retribution’ from the whole Universe, only three hundred and thirteen, two of whom had their arising on your planet and one of these is the ‘highest being-body’ of this Lentrohamsanin.

“On that planet Retribution, these Eternal-Hasnamuss-individuals must constantly endure those incredible sufferings called ‘Inkiranoodel’ which are like the sufferings called Remorse-of-Conscience but only much more painful.

“The chief torture of the state of these ‘highest being-bodies’ is that they must always experience these terrifying sufferings fully conscious of the utter hopelessness of their cessation.

ACCORDING to the associative flow of my tales concerning the three-brained beings breeding on the planet Earth who have taken your fancy, I must now, my boy, without fail explain to you a little more about those two powerful communities there named ‘Greeks’ and ‘Romans,’ who made a ‘clean sweep’ from the surface of that ill-fated planet of even the memory of the results obtained from the Most Saintly Labors of the Essence-loving Ashiata Shiemash.

“I must tell you first of all that at that period when on the surface of your planet, on the continent of Asia, there was actualized from Above within the presence of a three-brained being, the already definitized sacred conception of our now Omnicosmic Very Saintly Ashiata Shiemash, and later also, during the periods of His Very Saintly Activities and the subsequent gradual destruction by your favorites of all the results obtained from them; there also existed on the neighboring continent, then already called Europe, great numbers of those strange three-brained beings who have taken your fancy, and who had already long before grouped themselves into various independent communities.

“Among the number of those independent communities, there were during those periods, owing to those cosmic laws which I have once mentioned to you, those two large and, as they say there, ‘most powerful’ communities, that is to say, well organized and possessing more means for the processes of reciprocal destruction, the Greeks and Romans.

“And about these, from the point of view of your contemporary favorites, ‘very-ancient’ communities, I must furthermore not fail to explain to you and possibly in detail, because not only did they then, as I have already said, make a clean sweep from the face of that unfortunate planet of the last results beneficial for all the three-brained beings of all subsequent epochs, and even of all traces of the memory of the Very Saintly Labors of the Essence-loving Ashiata Shiemash, but they were also the cause that real ‘nonsense’ already proceeds in the Reasons of the contemporary favorites of yours, and that there is completely atrophied in them that ‘fundamental-being-impulse’ which is the main lever of objective morality, and which is called ‘organic shame.’

“A closer acquaintance with these big groupings of your favorites and with various forms of ‘bliss’ prepared by them and which have passed to the beings of later epochs, will give you a good idea and enable you to understand exactly how separate independent communities are formed there, and also how a given community, having become powerful quite independently of the beings themselves, takes advantage of the fact and sets about destroying everything already attained by the other ‘less powerful’ communities, and forces upon them their own ‘new inventions,’ in most cases sincerely imagining that they truly are just what the others need.

“I must warn you, my boy, that my story of the history of their arising and of everything later connected with those ancient communities called Greeks and Romans is not based on the results of my personal investigations; no, I shall only give you the information about them which I got from one of those beings of our tribe who wished to remain to exist forever on that planet of yours.

“The circumstances were these: in descending to the planet Earth for the sixth and last time, I proposed to attain, at any cost, the final elucidation to myself of all the genuine causes why the psyche of those three-brained beings, which should be like the psyche of the rest of the three-brained beings of our Great Universe, had, on that planet become so exceptionally strange.

“And having during my investigations repeatedly constated that a fundamental cause of the various abnormalities of the general psyche of the contemporary beings was what is called ‘civilization’ sown by those two large groups of beings called Greeks and Romans, I was obliged to inquire into certain details about them also.

“But as I was fully occupied at that time with my researches concerning the activities of the Very Saintly Ashiata Shiemash, I commissioned the elucidation of the history of the arising of these two independent groupings of your favorites—in respect of what is called, their ‘subjective-being-Being’—to that same being of our tribe who as I have already told you, still carries on an ‘undertaker’s business’ in a large city on the continent of Europe down to the present time.

“From the investigations of this countryman of ours, it seems that long ago before the period to which my tale about the majestic city of Babylon referred, namely, at the time when the process of the existence of those strange beings was proceeding mainly on the continent Asia alone, and when their chief center of culture was Tikliamish, there were on that said continent of Europe, which is now the chief place of existence of your favorites, as yet no definitely organized communities.

“There then chiefly existed on that continent two-brained and one-brained beings called ‘wild quadrupeds’ and ‘reptiles,’ but of your favorites, the biped beings, there were then on that continent only a number of small groups, almost as ‘wild’ as the ‘quadrupeds’ themselves.

“The occupation of these small groups of biped beings was merely the destruction of the ‘quadruped’ and ‘reptile’ beings, and occasionally also of each other.

“And the numbers of your favorites on that continent Europe only increased when emigrants from Maralpleicie, wandering from one place to another, finally arrived and settled there.

“Towards the close of that period there migrated from Tikliamish to that continent Europe a number of beings of the first Asiatic Group who followed two quite distinct occupations: namely, some of them were engaged in various marine occupations, and others in what are called there ‘cattle raising’ and ‘sheep farming.’

“The cattle-raising families populated chiefly the southern shores of the continent, because those parts were at that time very convenient for the maintenance and grazing of such quadruped beings.

“And that group of terrestrial beings was then called ‘Latinaki,’ a word that signified ‘shepherds.’

“At first these shepherds existed with their families and flocks scattered in different places; but later on their numbers gradually increased, partly from the immigration of beings from the continent Asia having the same occupation as themselves, and partly because they were becoming more and more prolific, owing to the fact that the Nature of the planet Earth was beginning to adapt Herself to the deteriorating quality of the vibrations She demanded that had to be formed from their radiations, by substituting those vibrations which are now obtained only from the process of their sacred Rascooarno, or as they say ‘from-their-death.’

“And thus when, thanks to all this, their numbers had considerably increased and external conditions demanded frequent relations between separate families, they formed their first common place, and this common place they called ‘Rimk.’

“It was from that group of Asiatic shepherds that the later famous Romans originated; their name having been taken from the name of their first common place Rimk.

“Those Asiatic beings who were engaged in ‘marine occupations,’ namely, in fishing and in gathering sponges, coral, and seaweed, emigrated with their families for the convenience of their profession and settled either on the western shores of their own continent Ashhark, on the southeastern shores of the continent Europe, or on the islands of the straits which still divide the continents Asia and Europe.

“The beings of those newly formed groups of three-brained terrestrial beings were then called ‘Hellenaki,’ a word that meant ‘fishermen.’

“The number of the beings, of that group also, gradually increased owing to the same causes already mentioned respecting the group of shepherds.

“The name of the beings of this second group changed many times and finally they came to be called ‘Greeks.’

“And so, my dear boy, the beings of these two groups were one of the chief causes that the Reasons of the contemporary favorites of yours have become mechanical, and that the data for engendering the impulse of being-shame have become completely atrophied in them.

“The Greeks were the cause why the Reason of the three-brained beings there began gradually to degenerate and ultimately became so degenerate that among contemporary beings it is already as our dear Mullah Nassr Eddin says, ‘a-real-mill-for-nonsense.’

“And the Romans were the cause why as a result of successive changes, those factors are never crystallized in the presences of the contemporary three-brained beings there, which in other three-brained beings engender the impulse called ‘instinctive shame’; that is to say, the being impulse that maintains what are called ‘morals’ and ‘objective morality.’

“Thus it was that those two communities arose there, which afterwards, as it often happens there, became very solid and powerful for a definite period. And the history of their further maleficent ‘prepared inheritance’ for the beings of subsequent generations is as follows:

“According to the investigations of our mentioned countryman, it seems that the earliest ancestors of the beings of the community, which was later called ‘Greece,’ were often obliged, on account of the frequent storms at sea which hindered them in their marine occupations, to seek refuge during the rains and winds, in sheltered places, where out of boredom, they played various ‘games’ which they invented for their distraction.

“As it later became clear, these ancient fishermen amused themselves at first with such games as children now play there—but children, it must be remarked, who have not yet started contemporary schooling—because the children there who do go to school have so much homework to do, consisting chiefly of learning by rote the ‘poetry’ which various candidate Hasnamusses have composed there, that the poor children never have time to play any games.

“Briefly, these poor bored fishermen played at first the ordinary children’s games already established there long before; but afterwards when one of them invented a new game called ‘pouring-from-the-empty-into-the-void,’ they were all so pleased with it that thereafter they amused themselves with that alone.

“This game consisted in formulating some question always about some ‘fiddle-faddle’ or other, that is to say, a question about some deliberate piece of absurdity, and the one to whom the question was addressed had to give as plausible an answer as possible.

“Well, it was just this same game that became the cause of all that happened later.

“It turned out that among those ancient bored fishermen, there were several so ‘bright’ and ‘ingenious’ that they became expert in inventing, according to the principle of that peculiar ‘game,’ very long explanations.

“And when one of them discovered how to make what was afterwards called ‘parchment’ from the skin of the fish called ‘shark,’ then some of these skillful fellows, just to ‘swagger’ before their companions, even began inscribing these long explanations of theirs on these fishskins, employing those conventional signs which had been invented earlier, for another game called ‘mousetrap.’

“Still a little later, when these bored fishermen had already given place to their descendants, both these inscribed fishskins and the craze for the said peculiar ‘game’ passed on to the latter by inheritance; and these various new inventions, both their own and their ancestors,’ they called first by the very high-sounding name ‘science.’

“And from then on, as the craze for ‘cooking up’ these sciences passed from generation to generation, the beings of that group, whose ancestors had been simple Asiatic fishermen, became ‘specialists’ in inventing all kinds of sciences as these.

“These sciences, moreover, also passed from generation to generation and a number of them have reached the contemporary beings of that planet almost unchanged.

“And hence it is that almost a half of what are called the ‘egoplastikoori’ arising in the Reason of the contemporary beings of that ill-fated planet, from which what is called a ‘being-world-outlook’ is in general formed in beings, are crystallized just from the ‘truths’ invented there by these bored fishermen and their subsequent generations.

“Concerning the ancient shepherds who later formed the great powerful community called ‘Rome,’ their ancestors also were often forced, on account of bad weather, to put their flocks into sheltered places, and to pass the time together somehow or other.

“Being together, they had ‘various talks.’ But when everything had been talked out and they felt bored, then one of them suggested that as a relief they should take up the pastime which they called for the first time ‘cinque-contra-uno’ (five-against-one), an occupation which has been preserved down to the present time, under the same name, among their descendants who continue to arise and exist there.

“So long as only the beings of the male sex then engaged in that occupation, everything went ‘quietly and peacefully,’ but when a little later their ‘passive halves,’ that is to say their women, also joined in, who, immediately appreciating it, soon became addicted to it, they then gradually attained in these ‘occupations’ such ‘finesses,’ that even if our All-universal Arch-cunning Lucifer should rack his honorable brains, he could not even invent a tithe of the ‘turns’ these erstwhile shepherds then invented and ‘prepared’ for the beings of the succeeding generations of that ill-fated planet.

“And so, my boy, when both these independent groupings of terrestrial three-brained beings multiplied and began acquiring every variety of those effective ‘means,’ namely, the means of reciprocal destruction, whose acquisition is the usual aim of all communities there during all periods of their existence, they then began carrying out these ‘processes’ with other independent communities there—for the most part, of course, with the less powerful communities, and occasionally among themselves.

“Here it is extremely interesting to notice that when periods of peace occurred between these two communities there—communities of almost equal strength in respect of the possession of efficient means for the processes of reciprocal destruction—the beings of both groups whose places of existence were adjacent often came into contact and had friendly relations with each other, with the result that little by little they picked up from each other those specialties which had first been invented by their ancestors and which had become proper to them. In other words, the result of the frequent contact of the beings of those two communities was that the Greek beings, borrowing from the Roman beings all the finesses of sexual ‘turns,’ began arranging their what are called ‘Athenian nights,’ while the Roman beings, having learned from the Greek beings how to cook up ‘sciences,’ composed their later very famous what is called ‘Roman law.’

“A great deal of time has passed since then. The inventors of both those kinds of being-manifestation have already long been destroyed, and their descendants who chanced to become ‘powerful’ have been destroyed also. And now … the contemporary three-brained beings of that planet spend, even with emotion, more than half their existence and being-energy, acquired somehow or other in absorbing and actualizing unconsciously and sometimes even consciously those two ideals, the initiators of whose arising were the said bored Asiatic fishermen and shepherds.

“Well then, my boy, later on, it seems, when both these groupings of your favorites acquired many of the said efficient means for the successful destruction of the existence of beings like themselves, and when they had become quite expert in persuading, or by potency of their means compelling beings of other countries to exchange their inner convictions for those ideals invented by their ancestors, then, as I have said, they first conquered the neighboring communities situated on the continent Europe, and afterwards, for the same purpose, with the help of the hordes they collected during that period, turned towards the continent Asia.

“And there already on the continent Asia, they began spreading that maleficent influence of theirs, first among beings populating the western shores of that continent—in whom, as I have already said, being-impulses for a more or less normal being-existence had been implanted during centuries—and afterwards, they gradually began advancing into the interior.

“This advance of theirs into the interior of the continent Asia proceeded very successfully, and their ranks were constantly being increased, chiefly because the learned beings who had been in Babylon then continued everywhere on the continent Asia to infect the Reasons of beings with their Hasnamussian political ideas.

“And they were also helped very much by the fact that there were still preserved in the instincts of the Asiatic beings the results of the influences of the initiates and priests, disciples of the Very Saintly Ashiata Shiemash, who in their preachings had inculcated among other things, one of the chief commandments of Ashiata Shiemash which declared:

“‘Do not kill another even when your own life is in danger.’

“Profiting by all this, these former fishermen and shepherds were very easily able to advance, destroying on the way all those who declined to worship the ‘gods’ they themselves had finally acquired, that is to say, their fantastic ‘science’ and their phenomenal depravity.

“At first these ‘sowers-of-evil’ for all the three-brained beings there of all the succeeding generations, arising on the continent Europe, and especially the Greeks, moving into the interior of the continent Asia, acted if slowly nevertheless effectively.

“But when some time later there appeared and stood at the head of what is called an ‘army’ that completely formed Arch-Vainglorious Greek, the future Hasnamuss, Alexander of Macedonia, then from that time on, there began to proceed that clean sweep of the last remnants of the results of the very saintly intentional labors of our now Common Cosmic Most Very Saintly Ashiata Shiemash, and again there was resumed, as it is said, the ‘old-old-story.’

“Although every time the place of the center of culture of your favorites, those strange three-brained beings, has been changed, and what is called a new ‘civilization’ has arisen, and each new civilization has brought for the beings of succeeding epochs something both new and maleficent, nevertheless, not one of these numerous civilizations has ever prepared so much evil for the beings of later epochs, including of course the contemporary epoch, as that famous ‘Greco-Roman civilization.’

“Without mentioning the large number of other minor psychic features, unbecoming to be possessed by three-brained beings and now existing in the presences of your favorites, that civilization is mainly to blame for the complete disappearance from the presences of the three-brained beings of succeeding generations, and especially of the contemporary beings, of the possibility for crystallizing the data for ‘sane-logical-mentation’ and for engendering the impulse of ‘being-self-shame.’

“Namely, the ‘ancient-Greek-fantastic-sciences’ caused complete atrophy of the former, and the ‘ancient-Roman-depravity,’ of the latter.

“In the early period of that Greco-Roman civilization, the said maleficent impulses, which have now become being-impulses, namely, the ‘passion-for-inventing-fantastic-sciences’ and the ‘passion-for-depravity,’ were inherent in the Greek and Roman beings alone; and later, when, as I have already said, the beings of both these communities chanced to acquire the said strength and began coming into contact with and influencing the beings of other communities, the beings of many other communities of your unfortunate favorites gradually began to be infected by these peculiar and unnatural being-impulses.

“This took place, on the one hand, as I have already said, owing to the constant influence of both these communities, and, on the other hand, owing to that peculiarity of their psyche—common to all the three-brained beings of that planet, and already well fixed in it before this—which is called there ‘imitation.’

“And thus, little by little, these ‘inventions’ of those two ancient communities have brought it about that already, at the present time, the psyche of your favorites—shaky enough already before then—has now become so unhinged in all of them, without exception, that both their ‘world outlook’ and the whole ordering of their daily existence, rest and proceed exclusively on the basis of those two said inventions of the beings of that Greco-Roman civilization, namely, on the basis of fantasying, and of ‘striving-for-sexual-gratification.’

“Here it is very interesting to notice that although, as I have already told you, thanks to the inheritance from the ancient Romans, ‘organic-self-shame’—proper to the three-brained beings—has gradually and entirely disappeared from the presences of your favorites, nevertheless there has arisen in them in its place something rather like it. In the presences of your contemporary favorites there is as much as you like of this pseudo being-impulse which they also call ‘shame,’ but the data for engendering it, just as of all others, are quite singular.

“This being-impulse arises in their presences only when they do something which under their abnormally established conditions of ordinary being-existence is not acceptable to be done before others.

“But if nobody sees what they do, then nothing they do—even if in their own consciousness and their own feelings it should be undesirable—engenders any such impulse in them.

“The ‘bliss’ prepared there by the ancient Romans has in recent times already so penetrated the nature of your favorites breeding on all the continents of that ill-fated planet, that it is even difficult to say which beings of which contemporary communities have inherited most from these ‘obliging’ Romans.

“But as regards the inheritance passed down from the ancient Greeks, namely, the passion for inventing various fantastic sciences, this has not become inherent to all the three-brained beings of contemporary times equally, but it has passed down only to certain beings arising among the beings of all the contemporary large and small communities breeding on all the terra firma parts of the surface of that peculiar planet.

“Proportionately, this passion, namely, ‘to-invent-fantastic-sciences,’ has passed down from the ancient Greeks mainly to the beings of the contemporary community existing there under the name of ‘Germany.’

“The beings of that contemporary Germany can be boldly called the ‘direct-heirs-of-the-ancient-Greek-civilization’; and they can be so called, because at the present time it is just they, who chiefly bring every kind of new science and invention into contemporary civilization.

“Unfortunately, my boy, the beings of that contemporary community Germany have in many respects, as it is said, surpassed the beings of ancient Greece.

“Thanks to the sciences invented by the ancient Greeks, only the being-mentation of other beings was spoiled and still continues to be spoiled.

“But in addition to this, the contemporary beings of that community Germany have become very skillful also in inventing those sciences, thanks to which the said specific disease there of wiseacring has been very widely spread among other of your favorites; and during the process of this disease in them, many of them semiconsciously or even quite automatically chance to notice some small detail of the common cosmic process which actualizes Everything Existing, and afterwards, informing others of it, they together use it for some of their, as they are called, new inventions, thereby adding to the number of those ‘new means,’ of which during the last two of their centuries so many have accumulated there, that their total effect has now already become, what is called, the ‘resultant-decomposing-force,’ in contradistinction to what is called the ‘resultant-creative-force’ of Nature.

“And indeed, my boy, owing merely to the sciences invented by the beings of the contemporary Germany, other three-brained beings of your planet belonging both to that same community and to other communities have now acquired the possibility of inventing, and now they almost every day invent here and there, some such new invention or new means and, employing them in the process of their existence, have now already brought it about that poor Nature there—already enfeebled without this through no fault of her own—is scarcely able to actualize what are called her ‘evolutionary’ and ‘involutionary’ processes.

“For your clear representation and better understanding, how these contemporary direct heirs have surpassed their ‘legators,’ I must now explain to you also about certain widely used means existing there at the present time, which owe their existence exclusively to these ‘Nature-helping’ direct heirs of ancient Greece.

“I will explain to you certain of these means there, now existing and in use everywhere, which have been invented by the beings of that contemporary community Germany.

“I should like first to emphasize, by the way, one very odd phenomenon, namely, that these contemporary ‘substitutes’ for the ancient Greeks give names to their said maleficent inventions, names which for some reason or other all end in ‘ine.’

“As examples of the very many particularly maleficent inventions of those German beings, let us take just those five what are called ‘chemical substances,’ now existing there under the names of (1) satkaine, (2) aniline, (3) cocaine, (4) atropine and (5) alisarine, which chemical substances are used there at the present time by the beings of all the continents and islands as our dear Mullah Nassr Eddin says: ‘Even-without-any-economizing.’

“The first of the enumerated means, specially invented by the German beings, namely, ‘satkaine,’ is nothing else but ‘Samookoorooazar,’ that is to say, one of those seven what are called ‘neutralizing gases’ which arise and are always present in the common presence of each planet and which take part in the ‘completed crystallization’ of every definite surplanetary and interplanetary formation, and which in separate states are always and everywhere what are called ‘indiscriminate-destroyers-of-the-already-arisen.’

“About this German invention, I once also learned there among other things, that when one of the beings of that community, for reasons I recently described, happened to obtain this gas from some ‘surplanetary’ and ‘interplanetary’ definite formations, and noticed in the said way its particularity, and told several others about it, then, owing to the fact that there was then proceeding in the presences of the beings of their community, consequently in them themselves, what is called ‘the-most-intense-experiencing’ of the chief particularity of the psyche of the three-brained beings of your planet, namely, ‘the-urgent-need-to-destroy-the-existence-of-others-like-themselves’—and indeed, the beings of that community were then fully absorbed in their process of reciprocal destruction with the beings of neighboring communities—these others thereupon at once ‘enthusiastically’ decided to devote themselves entirely to finding means to employ the special property of that gas for the speedy mass destruction of the existence of the beings of other communities.

“Having begun their practical researches with this aim in view, one of them soon discovered that if this gas is concentrated in a pure state in such a way that it could be freely liberated in any given space at any given time it could easily be employed for the mentioned aim.

“That was sufficient, and from then on, this gas, artificially isolated from the general harmony of the actualization of Everything Existing, began to be liberated in a certain way into space by all the other ordinary beings of that community during the processes of reciprocal destruction, just when and just where the greatest number of beings of other, as they are called ‘hostile’ communities were grouped.

“When this isolated particularly poisonous cosmic-substance is intentionally liberated into the atmosphere under the said conditions, and when striving to reblend with other corresponding cosmic substances it happens to enter the planetary bodies of three-brained beings nearby, it instantly and completely destroys their existence, or, at best, permanently injures the functioning of one or other part of their common presence.

“The second of the chemical substances I enumerated, namely, ‘aniline,’ is that chemical coloring substance, by means of which most of those surplanetary formations can be dyed from which the three-brained beings there make all kinds of objects they need in the process of their ordinary being-existence.

“Although thanks to that invention your favorites can now dye any object any color, yet, what the lastingness of the existence of these objects becomes—ah, just there lies their famous Bismarck’s ‘pet cat.’

“Before that maleficent aniline existed, the objects produced by your favorites for their ordinary existence, such, for instance, as what are called ‘carpets,’ ‘pictures,’ and various articles of wool, wood, and skin, were dyed with simple vegetable dyes, which they had learned during centuries how to obtain, and these just-enumerated objects would formerly last from five to ten or even fifteen of their centuries.

“But now, thanks merely to the aniline, or to dyes of other names into which this same aniline enters as the basis, there remains of the objects dyed with new colors at most, after about thirty years, only perhaps the memory of them.

“I must also say that the beings of the contemporary community Germany have been the cause not only that thanks to this maleficent aniline the productions of all the contemporary beings of this planet are quickly destroyed, but also that productions from ancient times have almost ceased to exist on that ill-fated planet.

“This latter occurred because for various Hasnamussian purposes and for their famous, as they call them, ‘scientific aims,’ they collected the surviving ancient productions from all countries and, not knowing how to preserve ancient objects, they only hastened their speedy destruction.

“But they used and still use those ‘antiques’ they collected as ‘models’ for ‘cheap goods’ which are everywhere known on that ill-fated planet by the name of ‘Ersatz.’

“As for the third of the enumerated chemical substances they invented, namely, ‘cocaine,’ that chemical substance is not only also of great assistance to Nature in more rapidly decomposing the planetary formations—in this instance, their own planetary bodies—but this chemical means has an effect on the psyche of the contemporary beings of the planet Earth surprisingly similar to that which the famous organ Kundabuffer had on the psyche of their ancestors.

“When their ancestors had that invention in themselves of the Great Angel Looisos, then, thanks to this organ, they were always exactly in the same state as the contemporary beings are when they introduce into themselves this German invention called cocaine.

“I must warn you, my boy, that even if the action of that German invention is similar to the action of the famous organ Kundabuffer, it happened without any conscious intention on the part of the contemporary beings of the community Germany; they became colleagues of the Great Angel Looisos only by chance.

“At the present time almost all the beings who become genuine representatives of contemporary civilization very meticulously and with the greatest delight and tenderness introduce into themselves this ‘blessing’ of contemporary civilization, of course, always to the glory, as our dear Mullah Nassr Eddin says, of the ‘cloven-hoofed.’

“The fourth of the enumerated chemical substances, namely, ‘atropine,’ is also everywhere there in great demand at the present time for a great variety of purposes; but its most common use is for a certain exceedingly strange purpose.

“It seems that thanks to the same abnormally established conditions there of ordinary being-existence, their organ of sight has acquired the property of regarding the faces of others as good and pleasing only when they have dark eyes.

“And when this chemical substance, called atropine, is in a certain way introduced into the eyes of beings the pupils become dilated and darker; and, because of this, most of them introduce this atropine into their eyes, in order that their faces may appear good and pleasing to others.

“And truly, my dear boy, those terrestrial beings who introduce this ‘German blessing’ into their eyes do have very ‘dark eyes’ until they are forty-five.

“I said until forty-five, because so far there has never been a case there when a being using this means could see and still continue its use after the age of forty-five.

“‘Alisarine,’ the fifth and last of the enumerated inventions, is also widespread everywhere.

“And that ‘blessing’ of contemporary civilization is used there chiefly by what are called ‘confectioners’ and other specialists who prepare for the other beings of that planet most ‘tasty’ articles for their first food.

“The confectioners and other professionals there who prepare the said tasty articles for the first food of the rest of your favorites use this same German ‘sure-fire’ composition, alisarine, of course unconsciously, for that purpose which has there already finally become the ideal for the whole of the contemporary civilization, which purpose is expressed in the language of our honored Mullah Nassr Eddin in the following words: ‘As-long-as-everything-looks-fine-and-dandy-to-me-what-does-it-matter-if-the-grass-doesn’t-grow.’

“Anyhow, my boy, those contemporary substitutes for the beings of ancient Greece are already now a great help to poor Nature—though only in the process of decomposition—with all their practical attainments based on the ‘sciences’ they have themselves invented. It is not for nothing that our dear Mullah Nassr Eddin has the following wise expression: ‘Better-pull-ten-hairs-a-day-out-of-your-mother’s-head-than-not-help-Nature.’

“Strictly speaking, the capacity to cook up ‘fantastic sciences’ and to devise new methods for ordinary being-existence there, did not pass from the ancient Greeks to the beings of that contemporary Germany alone; the same capacity was perhaps no less also inherited by the beings of another contemporary community, also an independent one, and also in her turn enjoying dominion.

“That other contemporary community of your favorites is called ‘England.’

“There has even passed from ancient Greece to the beings of that second contemporary community England, and directly to them alone, one of their most maleficent inventions which the beings of that contemporary community have most thoroughly adopted and now actualize in practice.

“This particular maleficent invention of theirs the ancient Greeks called ‘Diapharon,’ and the contemporary beings call ‘sport.’

“About this contemporary sport there I shall explain to you in as much detail as possible at the end of my tale; but you must meanwhile know, that though the beings of that community England also now invent large quantities of the various new objects required by your favorites in the process of their ordinary being-existence, nevertheless they do not invent chemical substances like the beings of the contemporary community Germany, no … they invent chiefly what are called ‘metalwares.’

“Especially in recent times, they have become expert in inventing and in distributing to the beings existing over the whole of the surface of your planet, vast quantities of every kind of metalwares called there locks, razors, mousetraps, revolvers, scythes, machine guns, saucepans, hinges, guns, penknives, cartridges, pens, mines, needles, and many other things of the same kind.

“And ever since the beings of this contemporary community started inventing these practical objects, the ordinary existence of the three-brained beings of your planet has been, just as our dear Mullah Nassr Eddin says, ‘not-life-but-free-jam.’

“The beings of that contemporary community have been the benefactors of the other contemporary beings of your planet, offering them, as they say there, ‘philanthropic aid,’ especially as regards their first being-duty, namely, the duty of carrying out from time to time the process of ‘reciprocal destruction.’

“Thanks to them, the discharge of that being-duty of theirs has gradually become for your contemporary favorites, the ‘merest trifle.’

“In the absence of those inventions it used to be exceedingly arduous for these poor favorites of yours to fulfill that being-duty, because they were formerly forced to spend a good deal of sweat for it.

“But thanks to the adaptations of every kind invented by those contemporary beings, it is now as again our esteemed Mullah Nassr Eddin says, ‘just roses, roses.’

“The contemporary beings now scarcely need to make any effort whatsoever in order to destroy completely the existence of beings like themselves.

“Sometimes sitting quietly in what they call their ‘smoking rooms’ they can destroy, just as a pastime, as it were, tens and sometimes even hundreds of others like themselves.

“I might as well now, I think, tell you a little also about the still existing direct descendants of the beings of the mentioned Greek-Roman civilizations.

“The descendants of the beings of the once ‘great’ and ‘powerful’ community Greece there, still continue to exist and also to have their own independent community, but for the other independent communities there, they have at the present time scarcely any significance whatever.

“They already no longer do as their ancestors did there, who were supreme specialists in cooking up all kinds of ‘fantastic sciences’; for if a contemporary Greek cooked up a new science, the beings of the other communities of the present time would not pay it the smallest attention.

“And they would pay no attention to it, chiefly because that community has not at the present time enough of what are called ‘guns’ and ‘ships,’ to be for the other contemporary beings there what is called an ‘authority.’

“But though the descendants of the former great Greeks, namely, the Greeks of the present time, have lost the trick of being what is called an ‘imagined-authority’ for other three-brained beings there, they have now perfectly adapted themselves there on almost all the continents and islands to keeping what are called ‘shops,’ where without any haste, slowly and gently, they trade in what are called ‘sponges,’ ‘halva,’ ‘Rahat-Lokoum,’ ‘Turkish delight,’ etc., and sometimes ‘Persian-dried-fruit,’ never forgetting the dried fish called ‘Kefal.’

“And as for the descendants of the famous Romans, although they too continue to arise and exist, they no longer even bear the name of their ancestors, though they still call the chief place of their community by the name ‘Rome.’

“The contemporary beings of the community formed by the descendants of those former shepherds, afterwards the great Romans, are called by the other beings there ‘Italians.’

“Except for that specific being-impulse which the ancient Roman beings were the first on that planet to crystallize in their presences, and which subsequently spread gradually to all the other three-brained beings of that planet, scarcely anything else had passed by inheritance from their ancestors to these beings called Italians.

“The beings of that contemporary community Italy exists at the present time very quietly and peacefully, doing nothing more than unostentatiously inventing ever new forms of their harmless and very innocent what is called ‘macaroni.’

“Nevertheless, there had passed to certain beings of that contemporary Italy, by heredity from their ancestors, one special and very peculiar ‘property’ called ‘giving-pleasure-to-others.’

“Only they manifest this inherited need, that is to say this ‘giving-pleasure’ not towards beings there like themselves, but to beings of other forms.

“It must in fairness be stated that the said special property passed to beings of various parts of contemporary Italy not from the great Romans alone; this inherited property became more ‘naturalized’ by their ancestors of considerably later epochs, namely, at the time when they began spreading, among other beings both of their own community and of the neighboring weaker communities, the doctrines, already changed for their egoistic purposes, of a certain genuine ‘sacred-Messenger-from-Above.’

“At the present time the beings of various parts of contemporary Italy actualize this property of giving-pleasure-to-others in the following way:

“The existence of the quadruped beings called ‘sheep’ and ‘goats,’ whose planetary bodies they also use for their first food, they do not destroy all at once; but in order to give this ‘pleasure’ they do it ‘slowly’ and ‘gently’ over a period of many days; that is to say, one day they take off one leg, then a few days later, a second leg, and so on, for as long as the sheep or goat still breathes. And sheep and goats can breathe without the said parts of their common presence for a very long time because, in the main functions of the taking in of cosmic substances for the possibility of existing, these parts do not participate, though they do participate in the functions which actualize those impulses giving self-sensations.

“After what I have already said, there seems no need to say any more about the descendants of those Romans who were once so ‘menacing’ and so ‘great’ for the other communities there.

“Now let us talk about that particularly maleficent invention of the ancient Greeks, which is being actualized in practice at the present time by the beings of the contemporary community there, called England, and which invention they call ‘sport.’

“Not only have the beings of the contemporary community, England, namely, those beings who chiefly actualize during the process of their ordinary existence this particularly maleficent invention of the ancient Greeks, added, thanks to its maleficent consequences, one more sure-fire factor for shortening the duration of their existence—already trifling enough without that—but also, experiencing in their turn at the present time the greatness of their community, they are in consequence authorities for the other three-brained beings there; and, furthermore, because they have made the actualizing of the invention in practice their ideal and its spreading their aim, they, at the present time, by every possible means, strongly infect the beings of all other large and small communities of that ill-fated planet with that invention of theirs.

“The basis for that very serious misconception there was the disappearance from the common presences of those favorites of yours of the possibility of the crystallization in them of those factors which actualize ‘logical mentation’ in three-brained beings.

“And in consequence of the absence in them of this ‘logical mentation,’ all of them, almost without exception, merely because certain candidates for Hasnamuss there have asserted that they could obtain something ‘good’ for themselves by means of this sport—an assertion they believe with all their presence—have now, in the hope of attaining this same something, given themselves up entirely to that sport.

“None of these unfortunates know and probably never will reflect that not only is nothing good obtained by them from this maleficent sport of theirs, but they, as I have already told you, solely owing to this sport alone, still further shorten the duration of their existence which is already sufficiently trifling without this.

“So that you may better represent to yourself and understand why the duration of their existence is being still further diminished on account of this sport, it is now opportune to explain to you a little more in detail about what I have already promised you to explain, namely, the difference between the duration of being-existence according to the ‘Foolasnitamnian’ principle and according to the ‘Itoklanoz’ principle.

“You remember that when I explained to you how these favorites of yours define the ‘flow-of-time’ I said that when the organ Kundabuffer with all its properties was removed from their presences, and they began to have the same duration of existence as all normal three-brained beings arising everywhere in our Universe, that is, according to what is called the Foolasnitamnian principle, they also should then have existed without fail until their ‘second-being-body-Kesdjan’ had been completely coated in them and finally perfected by Reason up to the sacred ‘Ishmesh.’

“But later, when they began existing in a manner more and more unbecoming for three-brained beings and entirely ceased actualizing in their presences their ‘being-Partkdolg-duty,’ foreseen by Great Nature, by means of which alone it is possible for three-brained beings to acquire in their presences the data for coating their said higher-parts—and when, in consequence of all this, the quality of their radiations failed to respond to the demands of the Most Great common-cosmic Trogoautoegocratic process—then Great Nature was compelled, for the purpose of ‘equalizing-vibrations,’ gradually to actualize the duration of their existence according to the principle called Itoklanoz, that is the principle upon which in general is actualized the duration of existence of one-brained and two-brained beings who have not the same possibilities as the three-brained beings, and who are therefore unable to actualize in their presences, the said—foreseen by Nature—‘Partkdolg duty.’

“According to this principle, the duration of being-existence and also the whole of the contents of their common presences are in general acquired from the results arising from the following seven actualizations surrounding them, namely, from:

1. Heredity in general
2. Conditions and environment at the moment of conception
3. The combination of the radiations of all the planets of their solar system during their formation in the womb of their productress
4. The degree of being-manifestation of their producers during the period they are attaining the age of responsible being
5. The quality of being-existence similar to themselves around them
6. The quality of what are called the ‘Teleokrimalnichnian’ thought-waves formed in the atmosphere surrounding them also during their period of attaining the age of majority—that is, the sincerely manifested good wishes and actions on the part of what are called the ‘beings-of-the-same-blood,’ and finally,
7. The quality of what are called the being egoplastikoori of the given being himself, that is his being-efforts for the transubstantiation in himself of all the data for obtaining objective reason.

“The chief particularity of existence according to this principle Itoklanoz is that in the presences of beings existing according to it, dependent upon the enumerated seven exterior actualizations, there are crystallized in their ‘being-localizations’ which represent in beings the central places of the sources of actualization of all the separate independent parts of their common presence—or, as your favorites say, in their brains—what are called ‘Bobbin-kandelnosts,’ that is to say, something that gives in the given localizations or brains a definite quantity of possible associations or experiencings.

“And so, my boy, because these contemporary favorites of yours, these three-brained beings of the planet Earth, already arise only according to the principle Itoklanoz, therefore from the moment of conception up to the age of responsible being there are crystallized in their brains these Bobbin-kandelnosts with very definite possibilities of actualizing the processes of association.

“For the greater elucidation of this question and for your better understanding, and also not to waste time on explanations concerning the essence itself and also the forms of functioning of such definite cosmic realizations as these just-mentioned Bobbin-kandelnosts, which are lawfully crystallized in the localizations or brains of those beings who exist only on the basis of Itoklanoz, I intend to take as an elucidating example just those ‘Djamtesternokhi’ such as your favorites also have and which they call ‘mechanical watches.’

“As you already well know, although such Djamtesternokhi or mechanical watches are of different what are called ‘systems,’ yet they are all constructed on the same principle of ‘tension-or-pressure-of-the-unwinding-spring.’

“One system of Djamtesternokhi or mechanical watch contains a spring exactly calculated and arranged so that the length of the duration of its tension from unwinding may be sufficient for twenty-four hours; another system has a spring for a week, a third for a month, and so on.

“The Bobbin-kandelnost in the brains of beings existing only according to the principle Itoklanoz corresponds to the spring in mechanical watches of various systems.

“Just as the duration of the movement of mechanical watches depends upon the spring they contain, so the duration of the existence of beings depends exclusively on the Bobbin-kandelnosts formed in their brains during their arising and during the process of their further formation.

“Just as the spring of a watch has a winding of a definite duration, so these beings also can associate and experience only as much as the possibilities for experiencing put into them by Nature during the crystallization of those same Bobbin-Kandelnosts in their brains.

“They can associate and consequently exist just so much, and not a whit more nor less.

“As mechanical watches can act as long as the spring has what is called ‘the-tension-of-winding,’ so the beings in whose brains the said Bobbin-kandelnosts are crystallized can experience and consequently exist until these Bobbin-kandelnosts formed in their brains—owing to the mentioned seven external conditions—are used up.

“And so, my boy, as the results of Partkdolg-duty were no longer thereafter obtained in the presences of your favorites, and the duration of their existence began to depend exclusively on the results of the seven accidentally arranged external conditions I have just enumerated, then thanks to all this, the length of their existence, especially among the contemporary beings, has become very varied.

“At the present time, the duration of their existence may be from one of their minutes up to seventy or ninety of their years.

“And so, owing to all I have just said, however your favorites may exist, whatever measures they may adopt and even if, as they say, they should ‘put-themselves-in-a-glass-case,’ as soon as the contents of the Bobbin-kandelnosts crystallized in their brains are used up, one or another of their brains immediately ceases to function.

“The difference between mechanical watches and your contemporary favorites is only that in mechanical watches there is one spring, while your favorites have three of these independent Bobbin-kandelnosts.

“And these independent Bobbin-kandelnosts in all the three independent ‘localizations’ in three-brained beings, have the following names:

“The first: the Bobbin-kandelnost of the ‘thinking-center.’

“The second: the Bobbin-kandelnost of the ‘feeling-center.’

“The third: the Bobbin-kandelnost of the ‘moving-center.’

“Even that fact, which I have recently often repeated, namely, that the process of the sacred Rascooarno is actualized for these favorites of yours in thirds—or, as they themselves would say, they begin to ‘die-in-parts’—proceeds also from the fact that, arising and being formed only according to the principle Itoklanoz and existing nonharmoniously, they disproportionately use up the contents, namely, their Bobbin-kandelnosts of these three separate independent brains, and hence it is that such a horrible ‘dying’ as is not proper to three-brained beings frequently occurs to them.

“During my stay there among them, I personally very often constated their ‘dying-by-thirds.’

“This was possible because, although, in the presences of your favorites, especially the contemporary ones, the Bobbin-kandelnost of one of their brains may be entirely used up, nevertheless the beings themselves would sometimes continue to exist for quite a long time.

“For instance, it often happens there, that, owing to their specifically abnormal existence, the contents of one of the Bobbin-kandelnosts may be used up in one of them, and if it is of the moving-center, or as they themselves call it, the ‘spinal-brain,’ then although such a contemporary three-brained being there continues to ‘think’ and to ‘feel,’ yet he has already lost the possibility of intentionally directing the parts of his planetary body.

“Here it is interesting to notice that when one of your contemporary favorites already partially dies for good in this way, then their contemporary Zerlikners, or as they are called ‘physicians’ look upon such a death as most certainly a disease, and with every kind of wiseacring that has become proper to them, start treating it; and they give these supposed diseases every sort of name consonant with an ancient language utterly unknown to them, called ‘Latin.’

“The very widely spread diseases there with such names as the following: ‘hemiplegia,’ ‘paraplegia,’ ‘paralysis progressiva,’ ‘paralysis essentialis,’ ‘tabes dorsalis,’ ‘paralysis agitans,’ ‘sclerosis disseminata,’ and so on and so forth.

“Such deaths by thirds there on the planet Earth which has taken your fancy, have occurred particularly frequently during the last two centuries, and they occur to those of your favorites who, thanks either to their profession, or to one of their what are called ‘passions’ arising and acquired by the beings belonging to all large and small communities there, on account of the same abnormally arranged conditions of their ordinary being-existence, have during their being-existence lived through in a greater or smaller degree the contents of the Bobbin-kandelnost of one or another of their being-brains.

“For instance, a one-third death on account of the Bobbin-kandelnost of the moving-center or ‘spinal-brain’ often occurs there among those terrestrial beings who give themselves up to that occupation which the beings belonging to the contemporary community England now practice, thanks to the maleficent invention of the ancient Greeks, and which maleficent occupation they now call sport.

“The character of the pernicious consequences of that maleficent occupation there you will well understand when I tell you that during my stay among those favorites of yours I once prepared a special section of my statistics for elucidating to myself how long these three-brained beings there can exist, who become what are called ‘wrestlers’ by profession, and never once in those statistics of mine, did I notice that any of them had existed longer than forty-nine of their years.

“And a one-third death through the premature using up of the Bobbin-kandelnost of the feeling-center occurs for the most part among those terrestrial beings who become by profession what are called ‘representatives-of-Art.’

“Most of these terrestrial professionals, especially the contemporary ones, first fall ill with one or another form of what is called ‘psychopathy,’ and thanks to this, they later in their psychopathy intentionally learn, as they say, to ‘feel’; and thereafter repeatedly feeling these abnormal being-impulses, they gradually use up the contents of the Bobbin-kandelnost of their feeling-center, and thus disharmonizing the tempo of their own common presences bring themselves to that peculiar end which is not often met with even among them there.

“Here, by the way, it is very interesting also to notice that the one-third death through the feeling-center occurs among your favorites also thanks to one very peculiar form of ‘psychopathy,’ called there ‘altruism.’

“And concerning premature partial death through the Bobbin-kandelnost of the thinking center—the deaths of this kind among your favorites occur in recent times more and more frequently.

“This kind of death through the thinking-center occurs there chiefly among those favorites of yours who try to become or have already become scientists of new formation, and also among those who during the period of their existence fall ill with the craze for reading what are called ‘books’ and ‘newspapers.’

“The result among those three-brained beings there of reading superfluously and associating only by thoughts, is that the contents of the Bobbin-kandelnost of their thinking-center are exhausted before the contents of the Bobbin-kandelnosts of their other being-centers.

“And so, my boy, all these misfortunes, namely, the shortening of the duration of their existence and also many other consequences, maleficent for them themselves, occur to your favorites exclusively only because they have even until now not yet learned of the existence of the cosmic law called ‘Equalization-of-many-sourced-vibrations.’

“If only such an idea occurred to them and they were merely to perform their usual wiseacrings with it, perhaps then they would get to understand one very simple, as they call it, ‘secret.’

“I admit that somebody would be certain to understand this ‘secret’ because, in the first place it is simple and obvious, and secondly because they discovered it long ago and they even often employed it in what they call ‘practical use.’

“They even use this simple secret, to which I referred, for those mechanical-watches which we took for comparison as an elucidating example concerning the duration of their existence.

“In all the mechanical watches of various systems they use this said simple secret for regulating what is called the ‘tension’ of the said spring or the corresponding part of the general mechanism of the watch; and it is called, it seems, the ‘regulator.’

“By means of this regulator it is possible to make the mechanism of a watch, wound for instance for twenty-four hours, go a whole month, and on the contrary, thanks to this regulator, it is possible to make the same winding for twenty-four hours finish in five minutes.

“In the common presences of every being existing merely on the basis of Itoklanoz, ‘something’ similar to the regulator in a mechanical watch is present and is called ‘Iransamkeep’; this ‘something’ means: ‘not-to-give-oneself-up-to-those-of-one's-associations-resulting-from-the-functioning-of-only-one-or-another-of-one's-brains.’

“But even if they should understand such a simple secret it will be all just the same; they still would not make the necessary being-effort, quite accessible even to the contemporary beings and thanks to which, by the foresight of Nature, beings in general acquire the possibility of what is called ‘harmonious association,’ by virtue of which alone energy is created for active being-existence in the presence of every three-brained being and consequently in them themselves. But at the present time, this energy can be elaborated in the presences of your favorites only during their quite unconscious state, that is to say during what they call ‘sleep.’

“But in your favorites, specially in your contemporary favorites, who exist constantly passively under the direction of only one of the separate spiritualized parts of their common presence and thereby constantly manifest themselves entirely by their factors for negative properties also lawfully arisen in them, and hence, by negative manifestations, there proceeds in them that same disproportionate expenditure of the contents of their various Bobbin-kandelnosts, that is to say, the possibilities, placed in them by Nature according to law, of action by only one or only two of their brains, are always experienced, in consequence of which the contents of one or two of their Bobbin-kandelnosts are prematurely exhausted; whereupon just like those mechanical watches in which the winding is run down or the force of their regulators is weakened, they cease to act.

“Sometime later, I shall explain to you in detail not only why, when beings, existing only according to the principle Itoklanoz, exist by the direction of only one or two of their spiritualized sources, and not harmoniously, that is to say, with all three combined, and in agreement, that particular brain of theirs in which there were superfluous associations is prematurely used up in them and consequently dies during the period of its existence, but also why, owing to this, the other Bobbin-kandelnosts also are used up, even without their own action.

“But here you must also know that even on your planet, one still occasionally finds one of your favorites whose duration of planetary existence extends to five of their centuries.

“You will then understand very well, that in the case of certain of your favorites even of recent times, who, by some means or other, find out and correctly transubstantiate in their Reason concerning certain details of the law of association proceeding in the separate brains of beings, and also concerning the reciprocal action of these independent associations, and who exist more or less according to what I have said, the Bobbin-kandelnosts formed in their separate being-brains are not used up, as they are among the other beings there, but their common presence acquires the possibility of existing much longer than the other three-brained beings there.

“During my stay there for the last time, I myself personally met several of these terrestrial contemporary three-brained beings who were already two, three, and even about four of their centuries old. I met them mostly among a small ‘brotherhood’ of the three-brained beings there, composed of beings from almost all of their what are called ‘religions,’ and whose permanent place of existence was in the middle of the continent Asia.

“The beings of that brotherhood, it seems, partly elucidated for themselves the mentioned laws of association in being-brains, and in part such information reached them from ancient times through genuine initiates there.

“As for that same contemporary community, whose beings have become the chief victims of that particularly maleficent invention of the beings of the said ancient civilization, they not only now use it in the process of their own existence but they try to infect strongly the beings of all the other communities with the same evil. Moreover, owing to that maleficent sport of theirs, these unfortunates not only still further diminish the duration of their own existence—already trifling without this—but thanks to that action of theirs, they will, in my opinion, eventually entail for their community what quite recently occurred to a large community there named ‘Russia.’

“I thought about it during my stay there before my final departure from that planet.

“And I first began thinking about it when I learned that the power-possessing beings also of that no less great contemporary community were already utilizing that maleficent means of theirs, sport, for their own Hasnamussian aims, exactly as the power-possessing beings of the community Russia had, for their similar aims, utilized what is called ‘the-question-of-Russian-vodka.’

“Just as the power-possessing beings of the community Russia then tried, by every kind of artifice, to instill into the weak wills of the ordinary beings the necessity of the intensive use of the said ‘Russian vodka,’ so also the power-possessing beings of that community England are now already also maneuvering to intrigue the ordinary beings of their community with this same sport and to urge them to it by every means.

“The apprehensions which then arose in me are already, it seems, being justified.

“And I conclude this from the etherogram I recently received from the planet Mars, in which among other things, it was said, that though there are more than two and a half millions of what are called ‘unemployed-beings’ in that community England, yet the power-possessing beings there take no measures concerning this, but endeavor to spread still more widely among them that same famous sport of theirs.

“Just as in the large community Russia the contents of all what are called ‘newspapers’ and ‘magazines’ used to be always devoted to the question of Russian vodka, so now in that community England, more than half of the text of all their ‘evil-sowers’ is devoted to that famous sport.”

AT THIS place of his tales, Beelzebub became silent and turning suddenly to his old servant Ahoon, who was also sitting there listening to him with the same attention as his grandson Hassein, he said:

“And you, old man, are you also listening to me with the same interest as our Hassein? Weren’t you yourself personally with me everywhere on that planet Earth and didn’t you see with your own eyes and sense for yourself everything about what I am relating to Hassein?

“Instead of just sitting there openmouthed at my tales, you also tell our favorite something. … There is no getting out of it. We have got to tell him all we can about those strange three-brained beings, seeing that they have so intensely interested him.

“Surely you must have been interested in one aspect or another of these queer ducks; well, tell us something just about that aspect.”

When Beelzebub had finished speaking, Ahoon, having thought a while, replied:

“After your subtly psychological tales about all these ‘unintelligibles’ how can I intrude with my tales?”

And then, with an unusual seriousness and preserving the style and even entire expressions of Beelzebub himself, he continued:

“It is, of course. … How shall I put it? My essence even was often thrown out of balance by those strange three-brained beings, who with their ‘virtuoso-caperings’ nearly always used to supply an impetus for evoking the being-impulse of amazement in one or in another of my spiritualized parts.”

And then addressing Hassein, he said:

“All right, dear Hassein!

“I will not, like His Right Reverence, relate to you in detail about any particular oddity of the psyche of those three-brained beings of our Great Universe who have taken your fancy. No, I will only remind His Right Reverence of one factor, the cause of which arose during our fifth stay on the surface of that planet, and which, when we were there for the sixth and last time, had become the chief cause why, in every one of those favorites of yours, from the very first day of their arising until their formation as responsible beings, their ableness of normal being-mentation is step by step distorted and finally transformed almost into a ‘Kaltusara.'”

Thereupon, addressing Beelzebub himself, he, with a timid look and in a hesitant tone, continued to speak:

“Don’t blame me, your Right Reverence, for venturing to express to you the opinion which has just arisen in me, and which is the outcome of my reflexions on data already perhaps worn too thin for mind-conclusions.

“While relating to our dear Hassein about all the various reasons that have brought it about that the psyche of the contemporary three-brained beings of the planet Earth who have taken his fancy has become transformed, as you once deigned to express yourself, into a mill for grinding out nonsense, you scarcely even mentioned one factor, perhaps more important than the others, which, during recent centuries, has served as the basis for it.

“I intend to speak about that factor which has already become definitely maleficent for the contemporary beings and at the arising of the cause of which, you yourself were present, as I very well remember during our stay then in Babylon; I mean the factor they themselves call ‘art.’

“If you should consent in your wisdom to take up that question in detail, then, according to my understanding, our dear Hassein will have perhaps the choicest material for his better elucidation of all the abnormal strangenesses of the psyche of the three-brained beings, who in most recent times arise on that planet Earth which has interested him.”

Having said this and having with the tip of his tail wiped off the drops of sweat which had formed on his forehead, Ahoon became silent and adopted his usual attentive posture.

With an affectionate glance, Beelzebub looked at him and said:

“Thank you, old man, for reminding me of this. It is true that I have scarcely even mentioned that indeed harmful factor—created also by them themselves—for the final atrophy even of those data for their being-mentation which by chance have still survived.

“All the same, old man, though it’s true that I have not so far once referred to it, that does not mean that I have not considered it at all. Having still a good deal of time before us during the period of our traveling, I should in all probability, in the course of my subsequent tales to our common favorite Hassein, have remembered in its time about that of which you have reminded me.

“However, perhaps it will be very opportune to speak just now about this contemporary terrestrial art because, as you said, during our fifth stay there in person, I was really a witness of the events which gave rise to the causes of this contemporary evil there and which arose, thanks, as always, to the same learned beings there who assembled in the city of Babylon from almost the whole of the surface of that ill-fated planet.”

Having said this, Beelzebub then turned to Hassein and spoke as follows:

“This same already definite idea there, now existing there under the denomination art is, at the present time for those unhappy favorites of yours, one of those automatically acting data the totality of which of itself gradually, and though almost imperceptibly yet very surely, converts them—that is, beings having in their presences every possibility for becoming particles of a part of Divinity—merely into what is called ‘living flesh.’

“For an all-round enlightenment of the question about the famous contemporary terrestrial art, and for your clear understanding of how it all came about, you must first know about two facts that occurred in that same city Babylon during our fifth flight in person on to the surface of that planet of yours.

“The first is, how and why I then came to be a witness of the events which were the basis of the reasons for the existence among the contemporary three-brained beings of the planet Earth of that now definitely maleficent notion called art; and the second is which were the antecedent events that in their turn then served as the origin of the arisings of these reasons.

“Concerning the first, I must say that during our stay then in the city of Babylon, after the events I have already related which occurred among always the same learned terrestrial three-brained beings assembled there from almost the whole planet, that is to say, after they had split into several independent groups and were, as I have already told you, already absorbed in a question of what is called ‘politics,’ and as I intended at that time to leave Babylon and to continue my observations among the beings of the then already powerful community called Hellas, I decided without delay to learn their speech. From then on I chose to visit those places in the city of Babylon and meet those beings there, which would be of most use in my practical study of their speech.

“Once when I was walking in a certain street of the city of Babylon not far from our house, I saw on a large building which I had already many times passed, what is called an ‘Ookazemotra,’ or, as it is now called, on the Earth, a ‘signboard’ which had been just put up and which announced that a club for foreign learned beings, the ‘Adherents-of-Legominism,’ had been newly opened in that building. Over the door hung a notice to the effect that the enrollment of members of the club was still going on, and that all reports and scientific discussions would be conducted only in the local and Hellenic languages.

“This interested me very much, and I thought at once whether it would not be possible for me to make use of this newly opened club for my practice in the Hellenic speech.

“I then inquired of certain beings who were going in or coming out of that building, about the details concerning the club; and, when, thanks to the explanation of one learned being, with whom, as I chanced to find out, I was already acquainted, I had made it all more or less clear to myself, I then and there decided to become also a member of that club.

“Without thinking long about it, I entered the building and passing myself off as a foreign learned being, I requested, as an adherent of Legominism, to be enrolled as a member of the club; I managed to do this very easily, owing to that old acquaintance whom I had met by chance and who, like the others, took me for a learned being like himself.

“Well then, my boy, having thus become what is called a ‘full member’ of that club, I used afterwards to go there regularly and to talk there chiefly with those learned members who were familiar with the Hellenic speech which I needed.

“As regards the second fact, this proceeded from the following Babylonian events.

“It must be remarked that among the learned beings of the planet Earth who were then in Babylon and who were gathered there partly by coercion from almost the whole of the planet by the mentioned Persian king, and partly voluntarily on account of the already mentioned famous question of the ‘soul,’ there were several among the beings brought there by coercion who were not, like the majority, learned beings of ‘new formation,’ but who, with a sincerity proceeding from their separate spiritualized parts, strove for High Knowledge only with the aim of self-perfection.

“Owing to their genuine and sincere striving, to the corresponding manner of their existence and to their being-acts, these several terrestrial beings had already, even before their arrival in Babylon, been considered initiates of the first degree by those terrestrial three-brained beings worthy to become what are called ‘All-the-Rights-Possessing-Initiates-according-to-the-renewed-rules-of-the-Most-Saintly-Ashiata-Shiemash.’

“And thus, my boy, when I began going to the said club, it became quite clear to me, both from the conversations with them and from other data, that these several terrestrial learned beings who sincerely strove to perfect their Reason had from the beginning kept to themselves in the city of Babylon, and never mixed in any of those affairs with which the general mass of these Babylonian learned beings there of that time very soon became involved.

“These several learned beings kept themselves apart there, not only in the beginning when all the other learned beings who were then in the city of Babylon first opened a central place for their meetings in the very heart of the city, and when for their better mutual support both materially and morally, they founded there a central club for all the learned beings of the Earth; but also later on, when the whole body of learned beings were divided into three separate ‘sections’ and each section had its independent club in one or another part of the city of Babylon, they identified themselves with non of the said three sections.

“They existed in the suburbs of the city of Babylon and scarcely met any of the learned beings from the general mass; and it was only several days before my admittance among them as a member of this club, that they for the first time united for the purpose of organizing the club of the ‘Adherents-of-Legominism.’

“These learned beings about whom I am speaking had all without exception been taken to the city of Babylon by coercion and they were for the most part those learned beings who had been taken there by the Persian king from Egypt.

“As I later learned, this uniting of theirs had been brought about by two learned beings who were initiates of the first degree.

“One of these two initiated learned beings of the Earth who had his arising among, as they are called, the Moors, was named Kanil-El-Norkel. The other learned initiated being was named Pythagoras, and he arose from among, as they are called, the Hellenes, those Hellenes who were afterwards called Greeks.

“As it later became clear to me, these two learned beings happened to meet in the city of Babylon and during what is called their ‘Ooissapagaoomnian-exchange-of-opinions,’ that is to say during those conversations the theme of which was, which forms of being-existence of the beings can serve for the welfare of the beings of the future, they clearly constated that in the course of the change of generations of beings on the Earth a very undesirable and distressing phenomenon occurs, namely, that, during the processes of reciprocal destruction, that is during what are called ‘wars’ and ‘popular risings,’ a great number of initiated beings of all degrees are for some reason or other invariably destroyed, and, together with them, there are also destroyed forever very many Legominisms through which alone various information about former real events on the Earth is transmitted and continues to be transmitted from generation to generation.

“When the two mentioned sincere and honest learned beings of the Earth constated what they then called such a ‘distressing phenomenon,’ they deliberated a long time about it with the result that they decided to take advantage of the exceptional circumstance that so many learned beings were together in one city to confer collectively for the purpose of finding some means for averting at least this distressing phenomenon, which proceeded on the Earth owing to the abnormal conditions of the life of man.

“And it was just for this purpose that they organized that said club and called it the ‘Club-of-Adherents-of-Legominism.’

“So many like-thinking beings at once responded to their appeal, that two days after my own admission as a member of this club, the enrollment of new members already ceased.

“And on the day when new members ceased to be admitted, the number of those enrolled amounted to a hundred and thirty-nine learned beings; and it was with this number of members that the club existed until the said Persian king abandoned his former caprice connected with those terrestrial learned beings.

“As I learned after my enrollment as a member of that club, all the learned beings had arranged on the very first day of its opening a general meeting at which it was unanimously resolved to hold daily general meetings, when reports and discussions on the two following questions were to be made: namely, the measures to be taken by the members of the club on their return home for the collection of all the Legominisms existing in their native lands, and for placing them at the disposal of the learned members of this club which they had founded; and secondly, what was to be done in order that the Legominism might be transmitted to remote generations by some other means that only through initiates.

“Before my enrollment as a member of the club, a great variety of reports and discussions concerning these two mentioned questions had already proceeded at that general meeting of theirs; and on the day of my entry a great deal was said on the question how to obtain the participation in the main task of the club of initiated beings, of the followers of those so-called ‘Ways’ then called ‘Onandjiki,’ ‘Shamanists,’ ‘Buddhists,’ and so on.

“Well then, on the third day after my enrollment as a member of this club, there was uttered for the first time that word which has chanced to reach contemporary beings there and which has become on of the potent factors for the total atrophy of all the still surviving data for more or less normal logical being-mentation, namely, the word ‘art’ which was then used in a different sense and whose definition referred to quite a different idea and had quite another meaning.

“This word was uttered in the following circumstances:

“On the day when the word ‘art’ was used for the first time and its real idea and exact meaning were established among the other reporters, there stepped forward a Chaldean learned being, very well known in those times, named Aksharpanziar, who was then also a member of the club for Legominists.

“As the report of that already very aged Chaldean learned being, the great Aksharpanziar, was then the origin for all the further events connected with this same contemporary art there, I will try to recall his speech and repeat it to you as nearly as possible word for word.

“He then said as follows:

“‘The past and especially the last two centuries have shown us that during those inevitable psychoses of the masses, from which wars between states and various popular revolts within states always arise, many of the innocent victims of the popular bestiality are invariably those who, owing to their piety and conscious sacrifices, are worthy to be initiates and through whom various Legominisms containing information about all kinds of real events which have taken place in the past are transmitted to the conscious beings of succeeding generations.

“‘Just such pious men as these always become such innocent victims of the popular bestiality only because, in my opinion, being already free within and never wholly identifying themselves as all the rest do, with all the ordinary interests of those around them, they cannot, for that reason, participate either in the attractions, pleasures, and sentiments, or in the similarly clearly sincere manifestations of those around them.

“‘And in spite of the fact that in ordinary times they exist normally and in their relations which those around them are always well-wishing in both their inner and outer manifestations and thus acquire in normal periods of everyday life the respect and esteem of those around them, yet when the mass of ordinary people fall into the said psychosis and split into their usual two opposing camps, then these latter, in their state of bestialized reason during their fighting, begin to entertain morbid suspicions of just those who in normal times have always been unassuming and serious; and then, if it should happen that the attention of those under this psychosis should rest a little longer on these exceptional men, they no longer have any doubt whatever that these serious and outwardly always quiet men have undoubtedly also in normal times been nothing more nor less than the “spies” of their present enemies and foes.

“‘With their diseased Reasons these bestialized men categorically conclude that the previous seriousness and quietness of such men were nothing else but simply what are called “secrecy” and “duplicity.”

“‘And the result of the psychopathic conclusions of these bestialized men of one or the other hostile party is that without any remorse of conscience whatever they put these serious and quiet men to death.

“‘In my opinion what I have just said has most frequently been the cause why the Legominisms about events which really took place on the Earth have, in the course of their passage from generation to generation, also totally disappeared from the face of the Earth.

“‘Well then, my highly esteemed colleagues, if you wish to know my personal opinion, then I shall sincerely tell you with all my being that in spite of all I have told you about the transmission of true knowledge to distant generations through corresponding initiates by means of Legominisms, there is now nothing whatever to be done through these means.

“‘Let this means be continued as before, as it has been on the Earth from the dawn of centuries and as this form of transmission by initiates through their “ableness-to-be” was renewed by the great prophet Ashiata Shiemash.

“‘If we contemporary men desire at the present time to do something beneficent for men of future times, all we must do is just to add to this already existing means of transmission some new means or other, ensuing from the ways of our contemporary life on the Earth as well as from the many-centuried experience of former generations, in accordance with the information that has come down to us.

“‘I personally suggest that this transmission to future generations be made through the human what are called “Afalkalna,” that is through various productions of man’s hands which have entered into use in the daily life of the people, and also through the human “Soldjinoha,” that is through various procedures and ceremonies which have already been established for centuries in the social and family life of people and which automatically pass from generation to generation.

“‘Either these human Afalkalna themselves, and in particular those which are made of lasting materials, will survive and for various reasons will be handed down to men of distant generations, or copies of them will pass from generation to generation, thanks to the property which is rooted in the essence of man of giving out as one’s own, after having changed some minor detail, one or another of the productions of man which have reached them from long past epochs.

“‘In regard to the human Soldjinoha, as for instance various “mysteries,” “religious ceremonies,” “family-and-social-customs,” “religious-and-popular-dances,” and so on, then although they often change in their external form with the flow of time, yet the impulses engendered in man through them and the manifestations of man derived from them always remain the same; and thus by placing the various useful information and true knowledge we have already attained within the inner factors which engender these impulses and these useful manifestations, we can fully count on their reaching our very remote descendants, some of whom will decipher them and thereby enable all the rest to utilize them for their good.

“‘The question now is only this, by what means can such a transmission through the various human Afalkalna and Soldjinoha as I have described be actualized?

“‘I personally suggest that this be done through the Universal Law called the “Law of Sevenfoldness.”

“‘The Law of Sevenfoldness exists on the Earth and will exist forever and in everything.

“‘For instance, in accordance with this Law, there are in the white ray seven independent colors; in every definite sound there are seven different independent tones; in every state of man, seven different independent sensations; further, every definite form can be made up of only seven different dimensions; every weight remains at rest on the Earth only thanks to seven “reciprocal thrusts,” and so on.

“‘Well then, of the knowledge now existing which we have personally attained or which has reached us from times past, just that knowledge which we shall agree is useful for our remote descendants, must be indicated in some way or other in the said human Afalkalna and Soldjinoha, so that in the future it may be perceived by the pure Reason of man by means of this great Universal Law.

“‘I repeat that the Law of Sevenfoldness will exist on the Earth as long as the Universe exists, and it will be seen and understood by men in all times as long as human thought exists on the Earth, and it can therefore boldly be said that the knowledge indicated in this manner in the mentioned productions will exist also forever on the Earth.

“‘And as regards the method itself, that is to say, the mode of transmission through this Law, in my opinion, it can be actualized in the following way:

“‘In all the productions which we shall intentionally create on the basis of this Law for the purpose of transmitting to remote generations, we shall intentionally introduce certain also lawful inexactitudes, and in these lawful inexactitudes we shall place, by means available to us, the contents of some true knowledge or other which is already in the possession of men of the present time.

“‘In any case, for the interpretation itself, or, as may be said, for the “key” to those inexactitudes in that great Law, we shall further make in our productions something like a Legominism, and we shall secure its transmission from generation to generation through initiates of a special kind, whom we shall call initiates of art.

“‘And we shall call them so because the whole process of such a transmission of knowledge to remote generations through the Law of Sevenfoldness will not be natural but artificial.

“‘And so, my highly accomplished and impartial colleagues. …

“‘It must now be clear to you that if for some reason or another the information useful for our descendants concerning knowledge already attained by men about past events on the Earth fails to reach them through genuine initiates, then, thanks to these new means of transmission which I have suggested, men of future generations will always be able to reflect upon and make clear to themselves, if not everything now already existing, then at least those particular fragments of the common knowledge already existing on the Earth, which chance to reach them through these said productions of the hands of contemporary man as well as through those various existing ceremonies in which by means of this great Law of Sevenfoldness and with the help of these artificial indications of ours, we shall now put what we wish.’

“With these words the great Aksharpanziar then concluded his report.

“Considerable excitement and noisy discussion followed his speech among all the members of the club of the Adherents of Legominism, and the outcome of it was that they then and there unanimously decided to do as the great Aksharpanziar had suggested.

“A brief interval was then allowed for eating, after which they all assembled again, and the second general meeting of that day continued throughout the night.

“Well, the unanimous decision was then carried, to begin the following day making what are called ‘minia-images’—or, as the contemporary three-brained beings call them, ‘models’—of various productions; to try to work out the possible and most suitable means of indication, on the principles laid down by the great Aksharpanziar; and thereafter to bring these minia-images or models of theirs to the club for exhibition and exposition to the other members.

“Within the following two days many of them already began bringing the minia-images they had made and showing them with the appropriate explanations; and they also began demonstrating every variety of those acts which beings of that planet had before occasionally performed in the process of their ordinary existence and which they still manifest up till now.

“Among the number of the models they brought and the various being-manifestations they demonstrated were combinations of different colors, forms of various constructions and buildings, the playing on various musical instruments, the singing of every kind of melody, and also the exact representation of various experiencings foreign to them, and so on and so forth.

“Shortly after, for the sake of convenience, the members of the club divided themselves into a number of groups, and each seventh part—which they called a ‘day’—of that definite period of time which they called a ‘week’ they devoted to the demonstration and exposition of their productions in one particular branch of knowledge.

“Here it is interesting to notice that this definite period of the flow of time, namely, a week, has always been divided on your planet into seven days; and this division was even made by the beings of the continent Atlantis, who expressed in it that same Law of Sevenfoldness with which they were quite familiar.

“The days of the week were then on the continent Atlantis called as follows:

1. Adashsikra
2. Evosikra
3. Cevorksikra
4. Midosikra
5. Maikosikra
6. Lookosikra
7. Soniasikra

“These names were changed there many times and at present the beings there name the days of the week thus:

1. Monday
2. Tuesday
3. Wednesday
4. Thursday
5. Friday
6. Saturday
7. Sunday.

“Well then, as I have already told you, they then devoted each day of the week to the production of one or another specialty either of their hands, or of some other form of consciously designed being-manifestation.

“Namely, Mondays they devoted to the first group, and this day was called the ‘day-of-religious-and-civil-ceremonies.’

“Tuesdays were given over to the second group and was called the ‘day-of-architecture.’

“Wednesday was called the ‘day-of-painting.’

“Thursday, the ‘day-of-religious-and-popular-dances.’

“Friday, the ‘day-of-sculpture.’

“Saturday, the ‘day-of-the-mysteries,’ or, as it was also called, ‘the-day-of-the-theater.’

“Sunday, the ‘day-of-music-and-song.’

“On Mondays, namely, on the ‘day-of-religious-and-civil-ceremonies,’ the learned beings of the first group demonstrated various ceremonies in which the ‘fragments-of-knowledge’ that had been previously selected for transmission, were indicated by means of inexactitudes in the Law of Sevenfoldness, chiefly in the inexactitudes of the lawful movements of the participants in the given ceremonies.

“For instance, let us suppose that the leader of the given ceremony, the priest, or according to contemporaries, the clergyman, has to raise his arms towards Heaven.

“This posture of his infallibly demands, in accordance with the Law of Sevenfoldness, that his feet should normally be placed in a certain position; but these Babylonian learned beings intentionally put the feet of the said leader of the ceremony not as they should be placed in accordance with this Law, but otherwise.

“And in general it was just in all these ‘otherwises’ that the learned beings of that group indicated in the movements of the participants in the given religious ceremony, by a conventional what is called ‘alphabet,’ those ideas which they intended should be transmitted through these ceremonies to the men-beings of their remote descendants.

“On Tuesdays, namely, on the ‘day-of-architecture,’ the learned beings belonging to the second group brought various models for such proposed buildings and constructions as could endure a very long time.

“And in this case, they set up these buildings not exactly in accordance with the stability ensuing from the Law of Sevenfoldness, or as the beings there were mechanically already accustomed to do, but otherwise.

“For instance, the cupola of a certain construction had, according to all the data, to rest on four columns of a certain thickness and definite strength.

“But they placed this said cupola on only three columns; and the reciprocal thrust, or, as it is also expressed, the ‘reciprocal resistance,’ ensuing from the law of Sevenfoldness for supporting the surplanetary weight, they took not from the columns alone, but also from other unusual combinations ensuing from the same Law of Sevenfoldness with which the mass of the ordinary beings of that time were also already acquainted; that is to say, they took the required degree of resistance of the columns chiefly from the force of the weight of the cupola itself.

“Or still another example; a certain stone, according to all the data established there both mechanically from long-centuried practice and also thanks to the fully conscious calculations of certain beings with Reason there, ought infallibly to have its definite strength corresponding to a certain power of resistance; but they infallibly made and placed this cornerstone so that it did not correspond at all to the mentioned data; but the strength and power of resistance for the support of the superimposed weight required on the basis of the law of Sevenfoldness they took from the setting of the lower stones, which in their turn they did not lay according to the established custom, but again they based their calculations on the manner of laying the still lower stones, and so on.

“And it was just in these unusual combinations of the laying of stones, ensuing from the Law of Sevenfoldness, that they indicated, also by means of a conventional ‘alphabet,’ the contents of some or other useful information.

“This group of learned members of the club of the Adherents-of-Legominism further indicated what they wished in their minia-images or models of proposed constructions, by utilizing the law called ‘Daivibrizkar,’ that is the law of the action of the vibrations arising in the atmosphere of enclosed spaces.

“This law, which has utterly failed to reach the contemporary three-brained beings of that planet, was then quite familiar to the beings there, that is to say, they were already quite aware that the size and form of enclosed spaces and also the volume of air enclosed in them influence beings in particular ways.

“Utilizing this law, they indicated their various ideas in the following way:

“Let us suppose that according to the character and purpose of some building or other it is required that from the interiors of the given building, in accordance with the Law of Sevenfoldness and with the mechanical practice of centuries, definite sensations must be evoked in a certain lawful sequence.

“Then utilizing the law of Daivibrizkar they combined the interiors of this proposed building in such a way that the required sensations were evoked in the beings who entered them, not in the anticipated familiar lawful sequence but in some other order.

“And it was just in these deviations from the lawful sequence of sensations that they placed whatever they wished in a certain way.

“Wednesdays—the day-of-painting—were devoted to the combining of different colors.

“On those days the learned beings of the given group brought for demonstration every kind of object necessary for domestic use made of such colored materials as could last a very long time; namely, they brought ‘carpets,’ ‘fabrics,’ ‘chinkrooaries,’ that is drawings made in various colors on specially tanned leather capable of lasting many centuries and things of similar kind.

“By means of variegated colors of threads, various representations of the nature of their planet and various forms of beings also breeding there were drawn or embroidered on these productions.

“Before continuing to speak about in which way those terrestrial learned beings then indicated various fragments of knowledge in their combinations of various colors, one fact concerning what I am just relating must be noticed—a fact definitely distressing for those favorites of yours and which was also obtained in their presences on account of the same abnormal forms of their daily existence established by them themselves.

“First I wish to explain to you also about the gradual change for the worse in the quality of the formation in them of those ‘organs-of-perception’ which should be formed in the presence of every kind of being, and about the organ which in this case particularly interests us, the organ for the perception and distinguishing of what is called the ‘blending-of-gravity-center-vibrations,’ which reach their planet from the spaces of the Universe.

“I am speaking about what is called the ‘common-integral vibration of all sources of actualizing,’ namely, about that which the learned being Aksharpansiar, of whom I spoke, called the ‘white ray’ and about the perceptions of impressions from separate ‘blendings of gravity center vibrations’ which are distinguished by beings as separate what are called ‘tonalities-of-color.’

“You must know that at the very beginning of the arising and existence of the three-brained beings of the planet Earth, before the period when the organ Kundabuffer was introjected into them and later when this organ was totally removed from their presences and even after the second Transapalnian catastrophe there, almost up to the time of our third flight in person to the surface of that planet, the said organ was actualized in them with what is called a ‘sensibility-of-perception’ similar to that which is actualized in the common presences of all ordinary three-brained beings of the whole of our Great Universe.

“Formerly, at the periods mentioned, in all the three-brained beings arising on this planet, this organ was formed with the sensibility of perceiving the mentioned blendings of separate ‘gravity-center-vibrations-of-the-white-ray’ and of distinguishing one third of the quantity of the ‘tonalities-of-color’ of all the ‘tonalities’ obtained in the presences of the planets as well as in all other greater and smaller cosmic concentrations.

“Objective science has already accurately established that the number of separate interblendings of ‘gravity-center-vibrations-from-the-common-integral-vibration,’ namely’ the ‘tonalities-of-color,’ is exactly equal to one ‘Hooltanpanas,’ that is to say, according to the calculations of the terrestrial three-brained beings, of five million, seven hundred and sixty-four thousand eight hundred and one tonalities.

“Only a third of this total number of the blendings or tonalities, with the exception of the one tonality which is accessible only to the perception of our all-maintaining endlessness, that is to say, one million, nine hundred and twenty-one thousand and six hundred tonalities, perceived by the beings as ‘differences-of-color,’ can be perceived by all the ordinary beings on whatever planet of our Great Universe they arise.

“But if the three-brained beings complete the perfecting of their highest part, their perceiving organ of visibility thereby acquires the sensibility of what is called ‘Olooestesnokhnian sight,’ then they can already distinguish two-thirds of the total number of tonalities existing in the Universe, which number, according to terrestrial calculation, amounts to three million, eight hundred and forty-three thousand and two hundred differences of tonality of color.

“And only those three-brained beings who perfect their highest being-part to the state of what is called ‘Ishmesch,’ become able to perceive and distinguish all the mentioned number of blendings and tonalities with the exception of that One tonality which, as I have already told you, is accessible to the perception only of our all-maintaining creator.

“Although I intend to explain to you in detail in the future how and why in the presences of the ‘Insapalnian-cosmic-concentrations’ every kind of definite formation acquires the property, from evolving and involving processes, of producing various effects upon the mentioned organ of the beings, nevertheless I do not consider it superfluous to touch upon this question also now.

“It is necessary to say, first of all, that according to the completed result of the fundamental cosmic law of the holy Heptaparaparshinokh, that is, that cosmic law which was called by the three-brained beings of the planet Earth of the mentioned Babylonian period the Law of Sevenfoldness, the ‘common-integral-vibration’ like all the already ‘definitized’ cosmic formations is formed and consists of seven what are called ‘complexes-of-results’ or, as it is also sometimes said, of ‘seven-classes-of-vibrations’ of those cosmic sources, the arising and further action of each of which also arise and depend on seven others, which in their turn arise and depend on seven further ones, and so on right up to the first most holy ‘unique-seven-propertied-vibration’ issuing from the Most Holy Prime Source; and all together they compose the common-integral-vibration of all the sources of the actualizing of everything existing in the whole of the Universe, and thanks to the transformations of these latter they afterwards actualize in the presences of the cosmic ‘Insapalnian-concentrations’ the said number of the various ‘tonalities-of-color.’

“And as regards the details of the most holy ‘unique-seven-propertied-vibrations,’ you will understand them only when, as I have already many times promised you, I shall have explained to you in detail in its proper time all about the most great fundamental laws of World-creation and World-maintenance.

“And meanwhile concerning the given case you ought to know that when this said common-integral-vibration, that is, what the terrestrial three-brained beings call the ‘white ray,’ enters with its presence proper to it into the ‘spheres-of-the-possibilities’ for its transformation in the presence of an Insapalnian planet, then there proceeds also in it, just as in the case of every already ‘definitized’ cosmic arising possessing the possibility of still further actualization, that cosmic process called Djartklom, that is, it itself remains as a presence, but its essence, as it were, disintegrates and produces processes for evolution and involution by the separate ‘gravity-center-vibrations’ of its arising and these processes are actualized thus: one of the gravity-center-vibrations is derived from the others and is transformed into a third, and so on.

“During such transformations, this said ‘common-integral-vibration,’ that is the white ray, acts with its gravity-center-vibrations upon other ordinary processes proceeding nearby in intraplanetary and surplanetary arisings and decompositions, and, owing to ‘kindred-vibrations,’ its gravity-center-vibrations dependently upon and in accordance with the surrounding conditions blend and become a part of the whole common presence of these definite intraplanetary or surplanetary formations, in which the said processes proceed.

“Well then, my boy, during the periods of my descent in person to the planet Earth, I, at first without any conscious intention on the part of my Reason, and later already quite intentionally, noticed and finally definitely constated the progressive deterioration in all of them of this ‘being-organ’ also.

“Deteriorating century by century, the ‘sensibility-of-perception’ of that organ also—namely, the organ by means of which there chiefly proceeds for the presences of the three-brained beings what is called the ‘automatic-satiation-of-externals’ which is the basis for the possibility of natural self-perfecting—had reached such a point that at the time of our fifth stay there during the period called by the contemporary beings there the period of the ‘Greatness-of-Babylon,’ that organ of theirs could perceive and distinguish the blending of the gravity-center-vibrations of the white ray at most up to the third degree only of what are called its ‘seven-fold-strata,’ that is up to only 343 different ‘tonalities-of-color.’

“Here it is interesting to note that quite a number of the three-brained beings of the Babylonian epoch themselves already suspected the gradual deterioration of the sensibility of that organ of theirs, and certain of them even founded a new society in Babylon that started a peculiar ‘movement’ among the painters of that time.

“This peculiar movement of the painters of that time had the following program: ‘To-find-out-and-elucidate-the-Truth-only-through-the-tonalities-existing-between-white-and-black.’

“And they executed all their productions exclusively utilizing only the tonalities ensuing from black up to white.

“When I got to know of that particular movement of painting there in Babylon, its followers were already using for their productions about fifteen hundred very definite shades of what is called the ‘color gray.’

“This new movement in painting there, among the beings who were also striving to learn the truth at least in something, made what is called a ‘great stir’; and it was even the basis for the arising of another and still more peculiar ‘movement,’ this time among what are called the Babylonian ‘Nooxhomists,’ among just those beings of that time who studied and produced what are called new ‘combinations-of-concentrations-of-vibrations’ which act in a definite way on the sense of smell of the beings and which produce definite effects in their general psyche, that is to say, among those beings there who made it their aim to find the truth by means of smells.

“Certain beings who were then enthused by this founded, in imitation of the followers of the said branch of painters, a similar society and the motto of their new movement was: ‘To-search-the-truth-in-the-shades-of-smells-obtained-between-the-moment-of-the-action-of-cold-at-freezing-and-the-moment-of-the-action-at-warm-decomposition.’

“Like the painters, they also then found between these said two definite smells about seven hundred very definite shades, which they employed in their elucidating experiments.

“I do not know to what these two peculiar ‘movements’ then in Babylon would have led and where they would have ceased, if a newly appointed chief of the city, during the time we were there, had not begun prosecuting the followers of that second new ‘movement’ because with their already sufficiently keen sense of smell they had begun to notice and unwittingly to expose certain of his what are called ‘shady dealings,’ with the result that he used every possible means to suppress everything connected not only with that second new movement, but with the first as well.

“As regards that organ of theirs about which we began to speak, namely, the organ for the perception of the visibility of other cosmic arisings which were beyond them, the deterioration of its sensibility, continuing also after the Babylonian period, reached the point that during our last stay on the surface of this planet your favorites already had the possibility of perceiving and distinguishing, instead of the one million nine hundred and twenty-one thousand and six hundred ‘tonalities-of-color’ which they ought to have perceived and distinguished, only the result of the penultimate what is called ‘sevenfold-crystallization-of-the-white-ray; that is forty-nine tonalities, and even then only some of your favorites had that capacity, while the rest, perhaps the majority, were deprived of even this possibility.

“But what is most interesting in respect of this progressive deterioration of that most important part of their common presence is the sorry farce that results, namely, that those contemporary three-brained beings there who can still manage to distinguish the mentioned miserable fraction of the total number of tonalities—namely, merely forty-nine—look down with superior self-conceit and with an admixture of the impulse of pride upon those other beings who have lost the capacity to distinguish even this miserable number, as upon beings with abnormal deficiency in that said organ of theirs; and they call them diseased, afflicted by what is called ‘Daltonism.’

“The last seven blendings of the ‘gravity-center-vibrations-of-the-white-ray’ which, just as now among the contemporary beings there, they then had in Babylon have the following names:

1. Red
2. Orange
3. Yellow
4. Green
5. Blue
6. Indigo
7. Violet

“Now hear in just which way the learned beings then in Babylon belonging to the group of painters indicated various useful information and fragments of the knowledge they had attained, in the lawful inexactitudes of the great cosmic law then called the Law of Sevenfoldness, by means of the combinations of the mentioned seven independent definite colors and other secondary tonalities ensuing from them.

“In accordance with that definite property of the ‘common-integral-vibration,’ that is, of the white ray, during the process of its transformations about which I have just spoken and which was already then familiar to the Babylonian learned painters, one of its ‘gravity-center-vibrations’ or one of the separate colors of the white ray always ensues from another and is transformed into a third, as, for example, the orange color is obtained from the red, and further itself passes in its turn into yellow, and so on and so forth.

“So, whenever the Babylonian learned painters wove or embroidered with colored threads or colored their productions, they inserted the distinctions of the tonalities of the colors in the crosslines as well as in the horizontal lines and even in the intersecting lines of color, not in the lawful sequence in which this process really proceeds, in accordance with the Law of Sevenfoldness, but otherwise; and in these also lawful ‘otherwises,’ they placed the contents of some or other information or knowledge.

“On Thursdays, namely, the days which the learned beings of this group assigned for ‘sacred’ and ‘popular’ dances, there were demonstrated with the necessary explanations every possible form of religious and popular dances, either those already existing which they only modified, or quite new ones which they created.

“And in order that you should have a better idea and well understand in which way they indicated what they wished in these dances, you must know that the learned beings of this time had already long been aware that every posture and movement of every being in general, in accordance with the same Law of Sevenfoldness, always consists of seven what are called ‘mutually-balanced-tensions’ arising in seven independent parts of their whole, and that each of these seven parts in their turn consists of seven different what are called ‘lines-of-movement,’ and each line has seven what are called ‘points-of-dynamic-concentration’; and all this that I have just described, being repeated in the same way and in the same sequence but always on a diminishing scale, is actualized in the minutest sizes of the total bodies called ‘atoms.’

“And so, during their dances, in the movements lawful in their accordance with each other, these learned dancers inserted intentional inexactitudes, also lawful, and in a certain way indicated in them the information and knowledge which they wished to transmit.

“On Fridays, days devoted to sculpture, the learned beings belonging to this group brought and demonstrated what were then called minia-images or models, and which were made from the material there called ‘clay.’

“Those minia-images or models which they brought for exhibition and familiarization represented, as a rule, individual beings or various groups of beings either similar to them or of other beings of all kinds of exterior form breeding on their planet.

“Among these productions were also various what are called ‘allegorical beings’ which were represented with the head of one form of a being there, with the body of another, and with the limbs of a third, and so on.

“The learned beings belonging to this group indicated all that was requisite in the lawful inexactitudes allowed by them in connection with what was then called the ‘Law of Dimensions.’

“You must know that to all the three-brained beings of the Earth and also of course to the sculptors of that period, it was already known that, in accordance always with the same great Law of Sevenfoldness, the dimensions of any definite part of any whole being ensue from the seven dimensions of other of his secondary parts, which in their turn ensue from seven tertiary parts, and so on and so forth.

“According to this, each large or small part of the whole totality of the planetary body of a being has exactly proportionately increasing or diminishing dimensions in relation to his other parts.

“For a clear understanding of what I have just said, the face of any three-brained being can serve as a good example.

“The facial dimensions of every three-centered being in general and also the facial dimensions of the three-centered beings of the planet Earth who have taken your fancy, are the result of the dimensions of seven different fundamental parts of the whole of his body, and the dimension of each separate part of the face is the result of seven different dimensions of the whole face. For instance, the dimensions of the nose of any being are derived from the dimensions of the other parts of the face, and on this nose in its turn there are actualized seven definite what are called ‘surfaces’ and these surfaces also have seven lawful dimensions down to the said atom itself of this face of theirs, which as I have said is one of the seven independent dimensions composing the dimensions of the whole planetary body.

“In the deviations from these lawful dimensions, the learned sculptors among the members of the Adherents-of-Legominism then in the city of Babylon indicated all kinds of useful information and fragments of knowledge already known to them which they intended to transmit to the beings of remote generations.

“On Saturdays—the day-of-mysteries, or the day-of-the-theater—the demonstrations produced by learned members of this group were the most interesting, and, as it is said, the most ‘popular.’

“I personally preferred these Saturdays to all the other days of the week and tried not to miss one of them; and I preferred them because the demonstrations arranged on those days by the learned beings of that group frequently provided such spontaneous and sincere laughter among all the other terrestrial three-centered beings who were in the given section of the club, that I sometimes forgot among which three-centered beings I was, and that being-impulse manifested itself in me which is proper to arise only in one-natured beings like myself.

“At the outset the learned beings of that group demonstrated before the other members of the club various forms of being-experiencings and being-manifestations. Then, later, they collectively selected from all that was demonstrated, what corresponded to the various details of one or another already existing mystery, or of one newly created by themselves; and only after all this did they indicated in those being-experiencings and manifestations reproduced by them what they wished, by means of intentionally allowed deviations from the principles of the Law of Sevenfoldness.

“Here it is necessary to notice that although in former epochs mysteries occasionally containing many instructive notions chanced to reach some of their generations mechanically and sometimes passed from generation to generation to beings of very remote generations, yet those mysteries in the contents of which the learned members of the club of the Adherents-of-Legominism then intentionally placed varied knowledge, calculating that it would reach beings of very remote generations, have during recent times almost totally ceased to exist.

“These mysteries there incorporated in the process of their ordinary existence centuries earlier already began gradually to disappear soon after the Babylonian period. At first their place was taken by what are called their ‘Kesbaadji,’ or, as they are now called there on the continent Europe, ‘puppet shows’ (Petrushka); but, afterwards they were finally ousted by their still existing ‘theatrical-shows’ or ‘spectacles’ which are there now one of the forms of that said contemporary art of theirs which acts particularly perniciously in the process of the progressive ‘shrinking’ of their psyche.

“These ‘theatrical spectacles’ replaced the mysteries after the beings at the beginning of the contemporary civilization—to whom only ‘a-fifth-to-a-tenth’ was passed down of the information about how and what these said Babylonian learned mysterists had done—began to think of imitating them in this also and set about doing, as it were, the same.

“From that time on, the other beings there called these imitators of the mysterists, ‘players,’ ‘comedians,’ ‘actors,’ and, at the present time, they already call them ‘artists,’ of whom I may say very many have sprung up during recent times.

“And these learned beings of that time belonging to the group of the mysterists indicated various useful information and the knowledge already attained by them, by means of what are called ‘currents-of-associative-movements’ of the participants in these mysteries.

“Although the three-brained beings of your planet, then already well knew about the laws of the ‘currents-of-associative-movements,’ yet absolutely no information whatsoever concerning these laws has passed to the contemporary three-brained beings.

“As this said ‘currents-of-associative-movements’ does not proceed in the presences of the three-brained beings who have taken your fancy, as it generally proceeds in the presences of other three-brained beings, and as there were quite special reasons there for this, proper to them alone, I must therefore first of all explain it to you in rather more detail.

“The process is the same as that which also proceeds in us, but it proceeds in us when we are intentionally resting to allow the whole functioning of our common presence freely to transform, without hindrance by our will, all the varieties of being-energy required for our all-round active existence, whereas in them these said various being-energies can now arise only during their total inactivity, that is during what they call their ‘sleep,’ and then of course only ‘after-a-fashion.’

“Owing to the fact that they, like every other three-brained being of the whole of our Great Universe, have three separate independent spiritualized parts, each of which has, as a central place for the concentration of all its functioning, a localization of its own which they themselves call a ‘brain,’ all the impressions in their common presences whether coming from without or arising from within are also perceived independently by each of these ‘brains’ of theirs, in accordance with the nature of these impressions; and afterwards, as it is also proper to proceed in the presences of every kind of being without distinction of brain-system, these impressions together with previous impressions compose the total and thanks to occasional shocks evoke in each of these separate ‘brains’ an independent association.

“So, my boy, from the time when these favorites of yours completely ceased consciously to actualize in their common presences the ‘being-Partkdolg-duty,’ thanks only to the results of which what is called sane ‘comparative mentation’ as well as the possibility of conscious active manifestation can arise in beings from various associations, and from the time when their separate ‘brains,’ associating now quite independently, begin engendering in one and the same common presence three differently sourced being-impulses, they then, thanks to this, gradually, as it were, acquire in themselves three personalities, having nothing in common with each other, in respect of needs and interests.

“Rather more than half of all the anomalies arising in the general psyche of your favorites, particularly those of recent times, are due in the first place to their having in their entire presence a process of three different kinds of independent associations evoking in them the being-impulses of three localizations of different kinds and of different properties; and secondly, because there is a connection between these three separate localizations in them as there is also in general in the presences of every kind of three-brained being predetermined by Great Nature for other what are called ‘common-presence-functionings’; and thirdly, because from everything perceived and sensed, that is from every kind of shock, associations of three different kinds of impressions proceed in the three said localizations in consequence of which three totally different kinds of being-impulses are evoked in one and the same whole presence; then, on account of all this, a number of experiencings are nearly always proceeding in them at one and the same time, and each of these experiencings by itself evokes in the whole of their being an inclination for a corresponding manifestation, and in accordance with the definite parts of their total presence a corresponding movement is thus actualized.

“Just these said differently sourced associative experiencings proceed in their common presences and ensue one from the other also in accordance with the same Law of Sevenfoldness.

“The learned members of the club of the Adherents-of-Legominism belonging to this group then in Babylon, indicated what they wished in the movements and in the actions of the participants in the mysteries in the following way:

“For instance, suppose that in order to fulfill his role in the given mystery, according to lawful associations, a participant evoked in one or another of his ‘brains’ some new impression or other, he was bound to react by some or other definite manifestation or movement; but he would intentionally produce this manifestation or movement not as he ought to have produced it, according to the Law of Sevenfoldness, but otherwise, and in these ‘otherwises’ they inserted in a certain way whatever they considered necessary for transmission to distant generations.

“In order, my boy, that you should have a concrete representation of these Saturday demonstrations, at which I was always glad to be present in order to rest from my intense activities at that time, I will give you an illustrative example of how these learned mysterists demonstrated before the other learned members of the club of the Adherents-of-Legominism various being-experiencings and manifestations according to the flow of associations, from among the number of which fragments for future mysteries were selected.

“For these demonstrations, they constructed in one of the large halls of the club a specially raised place which they then called the ‘reflector-of-reality,’ but beings of subsequent epochs to whom the information concerning these Babylonian learned mysterists chanced to be transmitted and who began imitating them and doing as it were the same, called and still call their constructions of a similar kind ‘stages.’

“Well, then, two of the participants would always come upon these ‘reflectors-of-reality’ or stages, first; and then usually one of them stood for a while and, as it were, listened to his own what is called ‘Darthelhlustnian’ state, or, as it is sometimes otherwise said, to the state of his own inner ‘associative-general-psychic-experiencings.’

“Listening in this way, he would make it clear to his Reason, for instance, that the sum total of his associating experiencings emerged in the form of an urgent inclination to hit another being in the face, the sight of whom had always served as the cause for the beginning of the association of those series of impressions present in him which had always evoked in his general psyche disagreeable experiencings offensive to his own self-consciousness.

“Let us suppose that these disagreeable experiencings always proceeded in him when he saw someone who was then called ‘Irodohahoon,’ which professional there contemporary beings now call a ‘policeman’!

“Having then made this Darthelhlustnian psychic state and inclination of his clear to his Reason, but at the same time being on the one hand well aware that in the existing conditions of external social existence it was impossible for him to gratify his inclination to the full, and, on the other hand, being already perfected by Reason and being well aware of his dependence on the automatic functioning of the other parts of his common presence, he clearly understands that on the gratification of this inclination of his depends the fulfillment of some imminent and important being-duty of his, of great importance to those around him; and having thought over everything in this way, he decides to gratify this urgent inclination of his as best he can by at least doing a ‘moral injury’ to that Irodohahoon by evoking in him associations that would lead to unpleasant experiencings.

“With this object in view, he turns to the other learned being who has come on to the stage with him, and treating him now as an Irodohahoon or policeman, he would say:

“‘Hi! you! Don’t-you-know-your-duty? Don’t-you-see-that-there …? pointing with his hand at that moment in the direction of another small room of the club where were the other participants of the demonstrations of that day, ‘Two-citizens-a-“soldier”-and-a-“cobbler”-are-fighting-in-the-street-and-disturbing-the-public-peace-and-here-you-are-leisurely-strolling-about-imagining-yourself-God-knows-who-and-leering-at-the-passing-wives-of-honest-and-respectable-citizens! Just-you-wait-you-scamp! Through-my-chief-the-city’s-chief-physician-I-shall-report-to-your-chief-your-negligence-and-breach-of-duty!’

“From that moment, the learned being who had spoken would become a physician, because he had chanced to call his chief the head physician of the city, while the second learned being whom the former had called a policeman would assume the role of a policeman. Two other participating learned beings were then immediately called from the other room by the one who assumed the role of policeman, and they assumed the roles of cobbler and soldier respectively.

“And these two latter learned beings assumed and had to manifest themselves in just those roles, namely, one in the role of a soldier and the other in the role of a cobbler, only because the first learned being who, having himself in accordance with his Darthelhlustnian state assumed the role of a physician, had called them soldier and cobbler respectively.

“Well then, these three learned beings who were thus cast impromptu by the fourth learned being for fulfilling every kind of perception and manifestation, which had to flow by law, of types foreign to them, or, as your favorites would say, of ‘strange roles,’ namely, of the roles of cobbler, soldier, and policeman, further produced their experiencings, and, from them, their reflex manifestations, thanks to the being property in them called ‘Ikriltazkakra’—a property also well known to the learned beings of the planet Earth of that period, who were already able to perfect their presences up to the ableness of actualizing this property.

“Three-centered beings can acquire this said being-property called Ikriltazkakra only if there is already personally acquired in their presences what is called ‘Essoaieritoorassnian-will,’ which in its turn can be obtained thanks to always the same being-Partkdolg-duty, that is, to conscious labors and intentional sufferings.

“So it was in this way that the learned members of the group of the mysterists then in Babylon became players of strange roles and demonstrated before the other learned members of the club the experiencings and the actions ensuing from them, which were produced in accordance with the directing of their well-informed Reason.

“And thereafter, as I have already said, they, together with the other learned members of the club of the Adherents-of-Legominism who were present, selected the corresponding for their aim from among the being-impulses demonstrated in such a way, which according to the law of the flowing of different-sourced associations, had to be experienced and manifested in the definite actions of the beings, and only then did they include those selected in the details of some mystery or other.

“Here it is very important to emphasize that then in Babylon the three-brained learned beings who belonged to the group of the mysterists did indeed reproduce in action amazingly well and accurately the subjective particularities of the perceptions and manifestations of various types foreign to them.

“They reproduced them well and accurately not only because as I have already explained they possessed the being-property Ikriltazkakra, but also because the learned beings of the planet Earth of that time were very well aware of what is called the ‘law-of-typicality,’ and that the three-brained beings of their planet are ultimately formed into twenty-seven different definite types, and also in which cases what had to be perceived and how it had to be perceived, and how they had to manifest themselves.

“Concerning the said being-property I have just called Ikriltazkakra, I must add further that just this property alone gives beings the possibility of restraining themselves within the limits of all these impulses and promptings which are evoked at any given moment in their common presences by the associations flowing in that brain in which they themselves have consciously given the start for the associations of one or another series of impressions already present in them; and it is only thanks to this property that beings have the possibility of perceiving every kind of detail of the psyche of the type they have already previously well studied and of manifesting themselves similarly to it and fully impersonating it.

“In my opinion, it is on account of the absence of just that property that the majority of all these anomalies have arisen which have resulted in the three-brained beings of the planet Earth, who have taken your fancy, becoming possessed of such a strange psyche.

“You must know that in the presences of the three-brained-beings of the present time, as well as in the presences of every kind of three-brained being in general, every new impression is accumulated in all their three separate ‘brains’ in the order of what is called ‘kindredness,’ and afterwards they take part with the impressions already previously registered in the associations evoked in all these three separate brains by every new perception in accordance with and in dependence upon what are called the ‘gravity-center-impulses,’ present at the given moment in their whole presence.

“So, my boy, in view of the fact that there continue to flow in the presences also of your contemporary favorites three kinds of independent associations which also continue to evoke different kinds of being-impulses, and at the same time that they have already entirely ceased the conscious actualization in their presences of all those cosmic results by means of which alone the mentioned being-property can be acquired in three-brained beings, then, in consequence, the common presence of each of your contemporary favorites during the process of his existence consists, as I have already told you, as it were, of three quite separate personalities—three personalities which have and can have nothing in common with each other, either in respect of the nature of their arising or in respect of their manifestations.

“Hence it is that there just proceeds in them that particularity of their common presence which is that with one part of their essence they always intend to wish one thing; at the same time with another part they definitely wish something else; and thanks to the third part, they already do something quite the contrary.

“In short, what happens in their psyche is just what our dear teacher Mullah Nassr Eddin defines by the word a ‘mix-up.’

“Concerning the demonstration of the Babylonian learned beings of that time belonging to the group of the mysterists, I must add that in the course of the action the number of the participants gradually increased by their other colleagues also dependently on various voluntary associative happenings.

“And besides all this, every participant thus engaged in the fulfillment of the perceptions and accurate automatic manifestations that happened to be connected with him and were proper to a personality of a type quite foreign to him had, at the same time that he was fulfilling that role, to give himself time, under some plausible pretext, to change into a corresponding costume.

“And they changed their costume in order to manifest themselves more clearly and more strikingly in the fulfillment of the roles they assumed, so that the other learned members present of the club of the Adherents-of-Legominism who checked and selected the fragments of the future mysteries could more easily and better follow them and make the best selection of everything they saw.

“On Sundays, namely, on the days consecrated to music and singing, the learned beings belonging to this group first produced on various sound-producing instruments, and also with their voices, every kind of what is called ‘melody’ and then explained to all the other learned beings how they indicated in these works of theirs whatever they wished.

“They also had it in view to implant these works of theirs in the customs of various peoples, calculating that these ‘melodies’ they created, passing from generation to generation, would reach men of remote generations who, having deciphered them, would discover the knowledge put into them and that had already been attained on the Earth, and would also use it for the benefit of their ordinary existence.

“For your understanding of how the learned beings there of that group made their indications in the ‘musical’ and ‘vocal’ productions of theirs, I must first explain to you about certain special particularities of the perceptive organ of hearing in the common presences of every kind of being.

“Among the number of these special particularities is the property called ‘Vibroechonitanko.’

“You must know that those parts of the brains of beings which objective science calls ‘Hlodistomaticules,’ and certain of which on your planet the terrestrial ‘learned physicians’ call ‘nerve-brain-ganglia,’ are formed of what are called ‘Nirioonossian-crystallized-vibrations,’ which in general arise in the completed formation of every being as a result of the process of all kinds of perceptions of their organ of hearing; and later on, these Hlodistomaticules, functioning from the reaction upon them of similar but not yet crystallized vibrations, evoke in the corresponding region which is subject to the given brain, the said Vibroechonitanko, or, as it is sometimes called ‘remorse.’

“In accordance with the foresight of Great Nature these said Hlodistomaticules serve in the presences of beings as real factors for assisting the arising of the processes of association at those moments, when either the promptings arisen within are absent or the shocks coming from without do not reach their brains.

“And the as yet noncrystallized ‘Nirioonossian-vibrations’ in general arise and later enter into the common presence of the beings, either by means of what are called the ‘vocal cords’ of every kind of being or by means of certain artificial ‘sound-producing-instruments’ which the beings have invented.

“When these vibrations, arisen from the said sources, enter the presences of the beings they touch the Hlodistomaticules of one or another brain, then, according to the general functioning of the whole being, they produce the said process of ‘Vibroechonitanko.’

“The second particularity of the functioning of the perceptive organ of hearing is that in general, by the action of vibrations obtained from the sequence of sounds of every kind of melody, the association is usually evoked in the presences of the beings in one or another of the three brains, just in that brain in which at the given moment what is called ‘the-momentum-of-what-was-experienced’ is increasing more intensively, and the sequence of the impulses evoked for experiencing usually proceeds in an automatic order.

“The learned musicians and singers then in the city of Babylon combined their melodies in such ways that the sequence of the vibrations of the sounds should evoke in the beings a sequence of associations, and therefore also impulses for experiencings, not in the usual automatic order, that is to say, so that the sequence of vibrations, on entering into the common presence of the beings, should evoke the Vibroechonitanko in the Hlodistomaticules, not of just one brain, as it usually proceeds according to which brain at the given moment the associations predominate, but should evoke it now in one brain, now in another, and now in the third; thus they also provided for the quality or, as they themselves would say, the numbers of the vibrations of the sounds which would affect one or another brain.

“This latter, namely, from which vibrations, in which brain of the beings, which data are formed and for which new perceptions these data might be what are called ‘determinants-of-new-resultants,’ they were also already quite familiar with.

“Owing to these sequences of sounds which they combined simultaneously in the presences of beings, different kinds of impulses arose, which evoked various quite opposite sensations, and these sensations in their turn produced unusual experiencings in them and reflex movements not proper to them.

“And truly, my boy, the sequence of sounds they combined did indeed affect all the beings into whose presence they entered, exceedingly strangely.

“Even in me, a being cast, as they would say, in another mold, various being-impulses were engendered and were alternated with an unusual sequence.

“It happened in this way because as the sounds of their melodies which they had combined in a definite sequence entered into my common presence, Djartklom proceeded in them, or as it is otherwise said, the sounds were ‘sorted out’ and acted equally upon all the three variously caused Hlodistomaticules, with the consequence that the associations proceeding in me in the three independent brains—though simultaneously and with an equal intensity of similar associations but differently natured series of impressions—engendered in my presence three quite different promptings.

“For instance, the localization of my consciousness, or as your favorites would say my ‘thinking-center,’ engendered in my common presence, let us suppose, the impulse of joy; the second localization in me, or my ‘feeling-center,’ engendered the impulse called ‘sorrow’; and the localization of the body itself, or as once again your favorites would call it, my ‘moving-center,’ engendered the impulse of ‘religiousness.’

“And it was just in these unusual impulses engendered in the beings by their musical and vocal melodies, that they indicated what they wished.

“And so, my boy, after all I have already related about this terrestrial contemporary famous art, I imagine you have enough to understand why and how, during the period of my fifth stay in person on your planet, I happened to be a witness of the events of the causes of its arising and in what connection and with what meaning it was pronounced for the first time just then at that period which your contemporary favorites call the ‘Babylonian civilization.’

“So I will now already speak about those facts there, after learning which, you will be able clearly to represent to yourself and approximately to understand how greatly the ‘logical mentation’ in all these three-brained beings who have taken your fancy must have deteriorated in so short a time that without any what is called ‘constancy-of-self-individuality’ they have submitted to be made ‘slaves’ of those few from among their midst who are called ‘wastrels,’ and who, in consequence of the total loss of the divine impulse ‘conscience’ could for their egoistic aims create from this ’empty word’ art which chanced to reach them, also such a ‘sure-fire-factor’ in all of them for the final atrophy of all the data that still survived in them for ‘conscious-Being.’

“When during the period of my sixth and last stay there in person, I heard everywhere about this contemporary art of theirs and came in contact with its results, and when I made clear to myself just what it was all about, then having recalled my Babylonian friends of that time and about their good intentions toward their remote descendants, I made clear to myself more in detail as opportunities occurred just which results were obtained from all that of which I happened then to be a witness, and about which I have just been telling you.

“Initiating you now into the impressions, hidden from strangers and which became fixed in my common presence, and which were the result of my conscious perceptions during my last stay there in person on the surface of your planet concerning this contemporary art of theirs, my ‘I’ with an arisen and profound being-impulse of regret must now emphatically state that of all the fragments of knowledge already attained by the beings of the Babylonian civilization—which fragments, it must be allowed, also contained a great deal—absolutely nothing has reached the beings of contemporary civilization for the benefit of their ordinary being-existence, apart from a few ’empty words’ without any inner content.

“Not only absolutely nothing whatever reached them of all the various fragments of general knowledge already then known on the Earth, which the learned beings the Adherents-of-Legominism indicated in lawful divergencies from the sacred law of Heptaparaparshinokh, or, as they called it the Law of Sevenfoldness, but in the interval of time between these two civilizations of theirs their being-rumination has so deteriorated that they now already do not know nor even suspect the existence of such an all-universal law on their planet.

“And as regards this word art itself, upon which, thanks to the strangeness of their Reason, there has been ‘piled up’ during this time, as they themselves would say, ‘devil-knows-what,’ I must tell you that my special investigations regarding this word made it clear to me that when this word among the other words and separate expressions used by the learned beings of that time also began automatically to pass from generation to generation and chanced to get into the vocabulary of certain three-brained beings there, in whose presences, owing to various surrounding circumstances, the crystallizations of the consequences of the properties of the organ Kundabuffer proceeded in that sequence and ‘reciprocal-action,’ as a result of which they predisposed the arising in their common presences of data for the Being of Hasnamuss-individuals; then this said word for some reason or other happening to please just this kind of three-brained being there, they began using it for their egoistic aims, and gradually made from it that very something which, although it continues to consist of, as it is said, ‘complete vacuity,’ yet has gradually collected about itself a fairylike exterior, which now ‘blinds’ every one of these favorites of yours who keeps his attention on it only a little longer than usual.

“Besides this word art, from among the number of other definite words used in their discussions by the learned beings there in Babylon who were members of the club of the Adherents-of-Legominism there also passed automatically from generation to generation quite a number of other words and even several what are called ‘foggy notions’ concerning certain definite understandings of that time.

“Among the latter, both in respect of name and caricature imitations, are their contemporary theaters now existing there.

“You remember, I have already told you that both the hall and the demonstrations themselves of the learned beings belonging to the group of mysterists then at Babylon were designated by the word ‘theater.’

“If I now explain to you a little more in detail concerning this contemporary theater of theirs, then perhaps you will have enough material for the elucidation, first of all, concerning what came of all the good intentions and efforts of the learned beings of the Babylonian period; and secondly, what had passed from all that had already been attained in respect of true knowledge, from the times of that ‘Babylonian culture’ to the beings of this contemporary ‘European culture,’ in which the said art has become mainly covered with the mentioned fairylike exterior; and thirdly, you will sense certain aspects of the maleficence of that contemporary famous art of theirs.

“A certain amount of information concerning the activity of the group of the mysterists, the learned members of the club of the Adherents-of-Legominism, also reached, as I have just told you, the beings of the contemporary epoch, who, wishing to imitate them also in this, began building for this purpose special halls which they also called ‘theaters.’

“The three-brained beings of the contemporary civilization quite frequently assemble in considerable numbers in these theaters of theirs in order to observe and presumably to study the various prepared manifestations of their ‘actors,’ as they have quite recently begun to call them, just as the other learned members of the club of the Adherents-of-Legominism studied then in Babylon the reproductions of the learned beings of the group of the mysterists.

“These theaters of theirs came to have a significance of the greatest importance in the ordinary process of existence of your favorites, and on account of this they built particularly large buildings for this purpose which rank in most of their contemporary cities as the most remarkable constructions.

“It will do no harm, I think, to comment here upon the misunderstanding connected with the word ‘artist.’

“I am bound to comment upon this, because this word was also transmitted to your contemporary favorites from the Babylonian epoch, but it was transmitted not like other words, that is, merely as empty words without sense, but just as one single particle of the consonance of a word then used.

“You must know that the learned beings then in Babylon, the members of the club of the Adherents-of-legominism, were called by the other learned beings of that time who were well disposed towards them, as they also called themselves, by the name which your contemporary favorites would write as ‘Orpheist.’

“This word is composed from two definite roots of words then in use, which in contemporary times would signify ‘right’ and ‘essence.’ If someone was called thus, it meant that he ‘rightly sensed the essence.’

“After the Babylonian period, this expression also automatically passed from generation to generation with almost the same meaning, but nearly two centuries ago, when the beings of that time began wiseacring with the mentioned data, particularly in connection with that ’empty’ word art, and when various what are called ‘schools-of-art’ arose and everybody considered himself a follower of one or another of those schools, well just then, never having understood its genuine sense and chiefly because among the number of the said schools of art there was also a school of a certain, as the contemporary beings already called him, ‘Orpheus,’ a figure invented by the ancient Greeks, they then decided to invent a new word defining their ‘vocation’ more exactly.

“So instead of the said expression Orpheist they just invented the word artist, which had to mean ‘he-who-is-occupied-with-art.’

“In order better to represent to yourself all the causes subsequently arising also from that misunderstanding there, you must first of all know that before the second terrestrial Transapalnian catastrophe, when these favorites of yours still arose and prepared themselves normally for responsible existence, they, by means of intentionally producing from themselves corresponding consonants for their what is called ‘speech,’ that is for mutual intercourse, had and could pronounce—also like all the three-brained beings of all the Great Universe—consonants up to three hundred and fifty-one definite what are called ‘letters.’

“But later on, when thanks as always to the same conditions of ordinary being-existence abnormally established by themselves, every kind of property proper to the presences of three-brained beings gradually deteriorated, this ‘being-ableness’ also deteriorated in them and at such a tempo that whereas the beings of the Babylonian period could use for conversation among themselves only seventy-seven definite consonants, the deterioration continued at such a tempo after the Babylonian period, that five centuries later, the beings there could use at most only thirty-six definite ‘letters,’ and the beings of certain communities could not reproduce even this number of separate articulate sounds.

“So, my boy, as the information concerning the Babylonian period passed from generation to generation to the succeeding generations not only by means of what is called ‘verbal transmission,’ but still also by means of marks on durable materials, that is, as it would be expressed there, by means of ‘inscriptions’ consisting of conventional signs which then stood for definite ‘being-articulate-sounds’ or letters—then, when at the beginning of the contemporary civilization certain beings there began to decipher them ‘from-a-bit-here-and-a-bit-there’ and realized that they could not sound or pronounce many of these definite letters, they then invented what is called a ‘written compromise.’

“This mentioned written compromise was that instead of the signs or letters which they could not pronounce, although they understood the sense of this pronunciation, they decided to employ a slightly similar letter of their alphabet at the time, and in order that everybody should understand that it was not that letter but quite another, they always wrote by its side a letter of the ancient Romans, now existing but already meaningless, called in English ‘h’ and among the contemporary French ‘ahsh.’

“From then on, all the other of your favorites began doing the same; they added to each of these suspicious letters this Roman ‘inheritance.’

“When this written compromise was invented, they had about twenty-five of these suspicious ‘letters,’ but in the course of time, as their ableness to pronounce deteriorated with the increase of their wiseacring, the number of the letters they specially invented for such a ‘being-ableness’ diminished, and by the time the word artist was invented they had already only eight of these letters; and in front of this notorious ‘h,’ they wrote letters, partly ancient Greek and partly ancient Latin, which they indicated in the following way: ‘th,’ ‘ph,’ ‘gh,’ ‘ch,’ ‘sch,’ ‘kh,’ ‘dh,’ and ‘oh.’

“The basis they had for the arising of such a misunderstanding there, was the compromising sign ‘ph.’

“And it was the basis because it appeared in the word by which the learned mysterists were designated and also in the word which stood for a personality invented by the ancient Greeks, with whose name, as I have already said, one of the schools-of-art then existing, had been connected; and the result of this was that the mentioned representatives of this terrestrial art of that time, with their already now quite bobtailed reason, thought that it was nothing more than the word indicating ‘the-followers-of-this-historical-personality Orpheus,’ and as many of them did not regard themselves as his followers, then instead of the mentioned word they just invented the word artist.

“As we have seen, not every inheritance of the ancient Romans turned out to be maleficent for the beings of subsequent generations, but in the given case this little letter ‘h’ of theirs has been even an inspiring factor for engendering that ‘being-ableness’ in the presences of such beings of subsequent generations to whom it became already definitely proper to have no initiative or ‘ableness’ of their own, and they wished and succeeded in substituting for the already long-existing definite expression ‘Orpheist’ the new word artist.

“Here it is important to inform you concerning a great strangeness there in respect of the mentioned gradual atrophy in the presences of the three-brained beings of this planet of such a ‘being-ableness’ as the capacity to reproduce the ‘consonants’ required for verbal intercourse.

“The point is that the tempo of the deterioration of this being-capacity does not proceed in the common presences of beings in the psychic and organic functioning of their planetary bodies in everyone in every generation uniformly; but it alternates, as it were, at different times and on different parts of the surface of this planet, affecting at one time more the psychic and at another time the organic part of the functioning of the planetary body.

“A very good elucidating example of what I have just said is afforded by the sensations of the taste and the capacity to pronounce those two definite consonants or those letters known there at the present time and used among almost all the contemporary beings who breed on all parts of the surface of your planet, and which passed to them through the ancient Greeks from times long past.

“The said two letters were called by the ancient Greeks ‘theta’ and ‘delta.’

“Here it is interesting to notice that your favorites of very ancient times specially used just these two letters for giving distinct names to two quite opposite meanings.

“Namely, they used the letter ‘theta’ in words which expressed ideas relating to the notion of ‘good’ and the second letter ‘delta’ they used in words relating to the notion of ‘evil’; as for example, ‘theos,’ that is ‘god,’ and ‘daimonion’ that is ‘demon.’

“The notion and ‘taste’ of the consonance of both these letters passed to all the beings of the contemporary civilization, but both these different letters, having entirely different essences, they for some reason or other indicated by means of one and the same sign, namely, the sign ‘th.’

“For instance, the beings of the contemporary community called Russia, however hard they try cannot pronounce these said two letters at all, yet, nevertheless, they very definitely sense their difference, and whenever they have to use these letters in words with definite notions, then although the letters they pronounce do not correspond at all, yet they correctly sense their difference and do not use one letter for the other.

“On the other hand, the beings of the contemporary community called England still pronounce each separate letter almost as the ancient Greeks pronounced it; but while doing so sense no different in them, and without the least embarrassment employ, for words of entirely opposite meanings, one and the same conventional sign in the form of their famous ‘th.’

“For instance, when beings of the contemporary England utter their favorite and frequently used expression ‘thank you,’ you can clearly hear the ancient letter ‘theta’; and when they pronounce the word they like no less, and also frequently use—the word ‘there’—you hear quite distinctly and definitely the ancient letter ‘delta’; but, all the same, for both these letters they use without any what is called remorse, the same ‘universally paradoxical’ ‘th.’

“However, I think I’ve talked enough about terrestrial philology.

“We had better continue to clear up first the causes why it has been customary among your contemporary favorites to have such theaters everywhere, and afterwards what their contemporary actors do in these theaters, and how they manifest themselves there.

“As regards the question why it became the custom among them to assemble, often in considerable groups, in these theaters of theirs, it was in my opinion because these contemporary theaters of theirs and all that goes on in them happen to correspond very well to the abnormally formed common presences of most of these contemporary three-brained beings, in whom there had been already finally lost the need, proper to three-brained beings, to actualize their own initiative in everything, and who exist only according to chance shocks from outside or to the promptings of the consequences crystallized in them of one or other of the properties of the organ Kundabuffer.

“From the very beginning of the arising of those theaters of theirs, they assembled and now assemble in them for the purpose of watching and studying the reproductions of their contemporary ‘actors’; no … they assemble only for the satisfaction of one of the consequences of the properties of the organ Kundabuffer, a consequence which had been readily crystallized in the common presences of the majority of them, and called ‘Oornel,’ which the contemporary beings now call ‘swaggering.’

“You must know that thanks to the mentioned consequences of the properties of the organ Kundabuffer most of the contemporary beings acquire in their presence a very strange need to evoke the expression in others of the being-impulse called ‘astonishment’ regarding themselves, or even simply to notice it on the faces of those around.

“The strangeness of this need of theirs is that they get satisfaction from the manifestation of astonishment on the part of others regarding their appearance, which exactly conforms with the demands of what are called ‘fashions,’ that is to say with just that maleficent custom of theirs, which began there since the Tikliamishian civilization and which has now become one of those being-factors which automatically gives them neither the time nor the possibility to see or sense reality.

“This maleficent custom for them is that they periodically change the external form of what is called ‘the-covering-of-their-nullity.’

“Here, by the way, it is interesting to note that it has gradually become the rule in the general process of the ordinary existence of these three-brained beings who have taken your fancy that the changes of the appearance of the mentioned covering are governed by such beings there of both sexes as have already ‘become worthy’ to become candidates for Hasnamuss-individuals.

“In this respect, the contemporary theaters turned out to be corresponding for your favorites, because it is very convenient and easy for them to show off, as they like to say, their ‘chic coiffures,’ or the ‘specially-tied-knot-of-their-cravat,’ or the daringly bared, what is called ‘Kupaitarian-part-of-their-body,’ and so on and so forth, while at the same time they can look at the new manifestations of the ‘fashions’ already actualized according to the up-to-date indications of those same candidates for ‘Hasnamuss-individuals.’

“To get a clear picture of what these contemporary ‘actors’ do during their ‘swaggerings’ in these theaters, you must first be told about yet another exceedingly strange ‘illness’ existing there under the name of ‘dramatizacring’; the predisposition to which illness arises in the presences of certain of them thanks only to the carelessness of what are called their ‘midwives.’

“This criminal carelessness on the part of their midwives is that in most instances, before doing her job, she calls on the way at the houses of her other clients and drinks there rather more than usual of the ‘wine’ offered her, so that while she is doing her job she unconsciously makes exclamations, fixed in the process of the ordinary existence of your favorites, like the ‘exorcism’ of what are called their ‘magicians,’ and at the moment of, as they say, ‘its-appearance-in-God’s-world,’ the new unfortunate being first imbibes the words of this maleficent exorcism:

“And this exorcism consists of the following words: ‘Eh, you, what a mess you’ve made!’

“Well, my boy, thanks to that criminal carelessness on the part of the midwife, the unfortunate newly appeared being acquires in his presence just that predisposition to the mentioned strange illness.

“If such a three-brained being there who has acquired at his first appearance the said predisposition to the illness of dramatizacring should by the time he reaches the age of a responsible being, know how to write and should wish to write something, then he suddenly gets this strange illness and begins wiseacring on paper, or, as it is said there, ‘composing’ various what are called ‘dramas.’

“The contents for these works of theirs are usually various events which are supposed to have occurred or which might occur in the future, or finally, events of their own contemporary ‘unreality.’

“In addition to this, among the symptoms of this peculiar illness there appear in the common presence of the sick being seven other very specific particularities.

“The first is that when this strange illness arises and is already functioning in the presence of a being, particular vibrations are spread around him which act on his environment—as they say—just like the ‘smell of an old goat.’

“The second is that from the change of the inner functioning in such a being, the exterior form of his planetary body undergoes the following changes: his nose is held aloft; his arms, as it is said, akimbo; his speech is punctuated by a special cough, and so on.

“The third, that such a being always becomes afraid of certain perfectly harmless, natural, or artificial formations, as for instance, what are called ‘mice,’ ‘hands-clenched-in-a-fist,’ ‘the-wife-of-the-chief-stage-manager-of-the-theater,’ ‘the-pimple-on-his-nose,’ ‘the-left-slipper-of-his-own-wife,’ and many other formations outside of himself.

“The fourth particularity makes him lose entirely all capacity for understanding the psyche of the surrounding beings similar to himself.

“The fifth, that inwardly and also in his manifestations he criticizes everybody and everything not connected with him himself.

“The sixth, that the data for the perception of anything objective are more atrophied in him than in all other terrestrial three-brained beings.

“And the seventh and last particularity is that there arise in him what are called ‘hemorrhoids,’ which, by the way, is the sole thing that he carries with modesty.

“It usually then further happens there that if the sick being has an uncle who is a member of one or other of their ‘parliaments,’ or if he himself gets acquainted with the widow of a ‘former-business-man,’ or if the period of his preparation for becoming a responsible being has for some reason or other been spent in such an environment or under such conditions that he has automatically acquired the property called ‘slipping-in-without-soap,’ then what is called the ‘producer,’ or, as he is also called, ‘the-owner-of-lambs,’ takes this work of his and orders the mentioned contemporary actors to ‘reproduce’ it exactly as it was wiseacred by this being who has fallen ill with this strange illness of dramatizacring.

“And these contemporary actors there first reproduce this work themselves alone, without strangers, and they reproduce it until it is exactly as the sick being himself has indicated and as the producer has ordered, and when finally their reproduction proceeds without the participation of their own consciousness and feelings and these contemporary actors themselves are completely transformed into what are called ‘living automatons,’ then and then only, with the help of those among them who have not yet become entirely living automatons—for which reason they later acquire the name of ‘stage managers’—they do the same thing under their direction, but already now in the presence of other ordinary beings assembled in these contemporary theaters.

“Thus you can now, from all I have just said, easily conclude that, besides many definitely maleficent consequences which I shall soon touch upon more in detail, these theaters cannot of course provide anything for that lofty aim which the Babylonian learned beings then had in view when they created for the first time such a form of conscious reproduction of perceptions and of the associative reactions to them of other beings similar to themselves.

“All the same, it must be admitted that from their theaters and from these contemporary actors of theirs they obtained, of course accidentally, for the processes of their ordinary being-existence one ‘not-bad-result.’

“To understand in what this ‘not-bad-result’ consists, I have first to explain another particularity which becomes proper to the common presence of beings who arise according to the principle Itoklanoz.

“In accordance with this principle, the forming in the presence of such beings of energy necessary for what is called their ‘waking state’ depends on the quality of the associations which proceed in their common presence during their ‘complete passivity’ or as those favorites of yours say, ‘during sleep’; and vice versa, that energy necessary for the ‘productiveness’ of this said ‘sleep,’ is formed in its turn also from the associative process proceeding in them during this waking state, which is dependent on the quality or intensity of their activity.

“And this began to apply also to these terrestrial three-brained beings from the time when, as I have already once told you, Great Nature was compelled to substitute for the ‘Fulasnitamnian’ principle until then proper to their presences, the principle Itoklanoz. Thereupon there was acquired and there is up till now in the process of their existence such a particularity, that if, as it is said among them, they ‘sleep well,’ then they will also be awake well and, vice versa, if they are awake badly then they will also sleep badly.

“So, my boy, as during recent times they have existed very abnormally, then in consequence that established automatic tempo has even become changed which had previously more or less helped the proper associations to proceed in them, and as a result they now sleep badly and when awake are even worse than before.

“And why these contemporary theaters of theirs with their contemporary actors have become useful for improving the quality of their sleep was due to the following circumstances.

“After the need to actualize being-Partkdolg-duty in themselves had entirely disappeared from the presences of most of them, and every kind of association of unavoidably perceived shocks began to proceed in the process of their waking state only from several already automatized what are called ‘series-of-former-imprints’ consisting of endlessly repeated what are called ‘impressions-experienced-long-ago,’ there then began to disappear in them and still continues to disappear even the instinctive need to perceive every kind of new shock vital for three-brained beings, and which issue either from their inner separate spiritualized being-parts or from corresponding perceptions coming from without for conscious associations, for just those being-associations upon which depends the intensity in the presences of beings of the transformation of every kind of ‘being-energy.’

“During the latter three centuries the process itself of their existence has become such that in the presences of most of them during their daily existence those ‘being-confrontative-associations’ almost no longer arise, which usually proceed in three-brained beings thanks to every kind of new perception, and from which alone can data be crystallized in the common presences of three-brained beings for their own individuality.

“Well then, when your favorites, existing in such a manner in their ‘daily life’ go to these contemporary theaters and follow the senseless manipulations of these contemporary actors, and receive ‘shocks’ one after the other from every kind of reminiscence, already previously perceived, of not less senseless and absurd notions, then during this waking state of theirs, they willy-nilly obtain more or less tolerable being-associations, so that when they go home and go to bed they sleep much better than usual.

“Although indeed these contemporary theaters with all that proceeds in them happen to be in this way—but of course only ‘for today’—an excellent means for the better sleep of your favorites, nevertheless the objectively evil consequences of these theaters for beings, and particularly for the rising generation, are incalculable.

“The chief harm for them from these theaters is that they are an additional factor for the complete destruction in them of all possibilities of ever possessing the need, proper to the three-brained beings, called the ‘need-for-real-perceptions.’

“They have become such a maleficent factor chiefly owing to the following:

“When they go to their theaters and, sitting quietly, look on at every kind of varied many-sided, even though senseless, ‘manipulations’ and manifestations of their contemporary actors, then although they are in their usual waking state, yet every kind of association, both ‘thinking’ and ‘feeling’ proceeds in them exactly as they proceed during their complete passivity or sleep.

“Namely, when they receive a large number of accidentally corresponding shocks for stimulating the shocks already fixed, and previously perceived and automatized in a series of impressions, and when they reflex these with the functioning of what are called ‘organs-of-digestion-and-sex,’ then, in consequence, obstacles arise in their presences for the proceeding even of those pitiable conscious being-associations which have already somehow become automatized to produce in them a more or less correct tempo for the transformation of the substances required for that passive existence of theirs, during which there must be transformed substances required for their active existence.

“In other words, when they happen to be in these theaters, they are not entirely in that passive state in which the proceeding of the transformation of substances required for their usual waking state has somehow become automatized in them also, with the result that these contemporary theaters of theirs have come to be for them only an additional maleficent factor for the destruction, as I said, of the ‘need-for-real-perceptions.’

“Among many other aspects of the maleficence of this contemporary art of theirs, one of the most obviously ignored, but for all the three-brained beings there one of the very harmful in respect of the possibility of the acquisition of conscious what is called ‘individual-being,’ is the radiations of the representatives of contemporary art themselves.

“Although these maleficent radiations gradually become there the lot or specific attribute of the representatives of all the branches of their art, yet my detailed ‘physio-chemical-investigation’ definitely showed me that they are always most maleficent in those mentioned contemporary artists or actors who mime in these contemporary theaters of theirs.

“The maleficence for all the other of your favorites of the totality of the radiations issuing from them has become distinctly noticeable, particularly in recent times of their present civilization.

“Although certain of the ordinary beings there long ago used to become such professionals, yet in former times, on the one hand, every kind of data for Hasnamussian properties did not become completely crystallized in the presences of all these professionals, and on the other hand, other of your favorites obviously instinctively felt the maleficent influence issuing from these professionals and hence were on their guard and behaved towards them in a corresponding manner and very carefully.

“Namely, in former centuries such artists or actors were everywhere relegated by other beings to the lowest caste and were regarded with contempt. And even at the present time there, in many communities, for instance on the continent Asia, it is not proper to shake hands with them, as one almost always does when meeting beings similar to oneself.

“Even up till now in these said communities, it is also considered defiling to sit with such actors at the same table and to eat together with them.

“But the contemporary beings of that continent, which at the present time is the chief place of what is called their ‘cultured existence,’ not only put these contemporary actors on a level with themselves in their inner relations, but even largely imitate their appearance, and at the present time do so pretty thoroughly.

“The custom of shaving the beard and mustache, now followed by all your favorites, is a very good example for confirming what I have just said.

“I must tell you that in past epochs these terrestrial professional actors had always to go with shaved mustaches and beards during the ordinary process of their existence.

“They had to shave these ‘expressers’ of masculinity and activity, first of all because, always playing the roles of other beings, they had often to change their appearance and for this they not only had to put on their face a corresponding what is called ‘paint’ but also to wear wigs and false mustaches and beards, which they could not possibly do if they had their own beards and mustaches; and secondly, because the ordinary beings of all former communities there, considering such actors dirty and a harmful influence and fearing to fail to recognize them if they chanced to meet them in ordinary conditions of existence and of somehow touching them, then promulgated everywhere a severe law, that the beings of the profession of artists or actors have always to shave their mustaches and beards in order to be unmistakable for other beings.

“While explaining just now to you the cause of the arising of the custom of shaving mustaches and beards among actors there, I recall a very sensible what is called ‘measure-of-justice’ of the three-brained beings of the epoch of the ‘Tikliamishian civilization’ connected also with the shaving of the hair, but in this case with the hair growing on the heads of the beings there.

“A law was then established and strictly enforced that those petty criminals among them who, after trial and sentence by seven elderly beings of the given district, had been assigned to one of the four already previously established categories of ‘immorality’ and ‘crime’—with which beings all of what are called their ‘prisons’ are now usually crowded—should for a definite term go about always and everywhere with one of the four corresponding sides of their heads shaved; and, furthermore, any such convicted being was obliged to uncover his head whenever he met or spoke with others.

“It is interesting to note that there then also existed a law of the same kind about shaving the head in regard to the immoral behavior of women.

“And namely, in regard to women, a sentence existed and was also very strictly enforced in this instance by seven elderly local women who had earned respect by their previous conduct.

“And the penal measures for women corresponded to the four manifestations which were then considered there, for women, as the greatest laxity and immorality.

“Namely, if all her neighbors noticed, and all the seven mentioned elderly women confirmed it, that the given woman had behaved without due regard to and negligently towards her family duties, then according to the law she had for a definite term to appear everywhere with painted lips.

“But if various women noticed that she had begun to manifest toward her children with a weakening of her maternal impulses, then under the same conditions those around her condemned her to go about everywhere, also for a definite term, with the left half of her face made up and painted white and red.

“And a woman who attempted to violate her chief what is called ‘wifely duty,’ that is who deceived or who only tried to deceive her legal husband or who attempted to destroy a new being conceived in her, was obliged by the same procedure to be always and everywhere, also for a definite term, made up and painted white and red, this time over the whole of her face.”

At this point of the tales, Beelzebub was interrupted by Ahoon with the following words:

“Your Right Reverence: all your explanations concerning terrestrial art and those three-brained beings there who now practice it and are so to say its representatives, and particularly your elucidations concerning the contemporary ‘comedians’ there or actors, have suggested to me to use all the impressions fixed in my common presence which I took in during my last stay on the surface of this planet Earth, which has taken our dear Hassein’s fancy, and to give him a good piece of very practical advice.”

Having said this, Ahoon intended to look expectantly at the face of Beelzebub with his usual glance, that is without blinking for a long time, but as soon as he had noticed his usual, though always sorrowful yet kind and indulgent smile, he, without waiting for the requested permission, and as if confused, at once turned this time to Hassein and spoke as follows:

“Who knows? Maybe, our dear Hassein, you will indeed have to be on that planet Earth and to exist among those peculiar three-brained beings who have taken your fancy.”

And this time, again keeping the style and intonations of Beelzebub himself, he continued:

“It is just for this reason, that I now wish to initiate you for any eventuality into the results of the various impressions which I involuntarily perceived concerning the resulting types as well as concerning the particularities of their manifestations of those said contemporary representatives of art there.

“You must know that those beings who are assumed to be the adepts of this contemporary art which is adorned with a false halo are not only put on their own level by the other three-brained beings there of the contemporary civilization, particularly during the several latter decades, and imitated by them in their exterior manifestations, but they are always and everywhere undeservingly encouraged and exalted by them; and in these contemporary representatives of art themselves, who really in point of their genuine essence are almost nonentities, there is formed of itself without any of their being-consciousness a false assurance that they are not like all the rest but, as they entitle themselves, of a ‘higher order,’ with the result that in the common presences of these types the crystallization of the consequences of the properties of the organ Kundabuffer proceeds more intensively than in the presences of all the other three-brained beings there.

“Just in regard to such unfortunate three-brained beings the surrounding abnormal conditions or ordinary being-existence are already so established that there are bound to be crystallized in their common presences and to become an inseparable part of their general psyche those of the consequence of the organ Kundabuffer which they now themselves call ‘swagger,’ ‘pride,’ ‘self-love,’ ‘vanity,’ ‘self-conceit,’ ‘self-enamoredness,’ ‘envy,’ ‘hate,’ ‘offensiveness,’ and so on and so forth.

“These enumerated consequences are particularly conspicuously and strongly crystallized in just those contemporary ‘representatives-of-art’ who are the ‘manipulators’ of the contemporary theaters there, and they are particularly strongly crystallized in them because, always performing the roles of beings similar to themselves, whose Being and significance in the process of their existence are ordinarily far superior to their own, and also, as I have already said, being themselves really almost nonentities, they with their already wholly automatized Reason, gradually acquire false notions about themselves.

“With such an already quite automatized ‘consciousness,’ and completely ‘nonsensical feelings,’ they feel themselves to be immeasurably superior to what they really are.

“I must confess, dear Hassein, that though during our earlier visits to the surface of that planet of yours and also at the beginning of this last sojourn there, I went about everywhere and had various relations with those three-brained beings who have taken your fancy, I scarcely ever felt in my common presence a genuine impulse of being-pity for the infinitely unhappy Fate of these favorites of yours due to circumstances hardly depending on themselves at all.

“But when, towards the end of that sixth sojourn there, certain of them were formed with the kind of inner presence which is now possessed by all the representatives of almost all the branches of that art of theirs, and when these newly arisen types taking part in the process of ordinary being-existence on the basis of equal rights with the other three-brained beings there happened to get into the field of the reception of my sight with their already exaggerated, inner, abnormal, what is called ‘being-self-appreciation,’ then they served as a shock for the beginning of the arising in me of the impulse of pity, not only for them themselves, but also for all these unfortunate favorites of yours in general.

“Try now to give your attention not to all the three-brained beings in general, nor to the other representatives of their contemporary art, but just to those who have become and have acquired the title of artists or actors.

“Every one of them really being in respect of genuine essence almost what is called a nonentity, that is, something utterly empty but enveloped in a certain visibility, they have gradually acquired such an opinion of themselves, by means of favorite exclamations always and everywhere repeated by them themselves like ‘genius,’ ‘talent,’ ‘gift,’ and still a number of other words empty also like themselves, that it is as if, among similar beings around them, only they have ‘divine origin,’ only they are almost ‘God.’

“Now listen and try to transubstantiate for use, at the proper time in the corresponding parts of your common presence, my really very practical advice.

“This practical advice of mine is that, if for some reason or other you should have to exist, particularly in the near future, among the three-brained beings of that planet Earth which has taken your fancy—I say in the near future, because the presences of these three-brained beings who have taken your fancy and all the already fixed exterior conditions of their ordinary being-existence frequently degenerate—and if you should have some work or other there, proper to every conscious three-brained being, which has as its basis the aim of attaining welfare for surrounding beings, and the fulfillment of which depends partly on them themselves, then in whatever community of the contemporary civilization this may proceed, if you should have to meet in the interests of your work these contemporary terrestrial types in what are called their ‘circles,’ you must never fail to be very, very careful and take every kind of requisite measures to keep on good terms with them.

“Why you must be so careful towards just them, and in order that you may in general better represent to yourself and understand from every aspect these terrestrial contemporarily arisen types, I must without fail mention two further facts which became quite clear there.

“The first is that, owing as always to the same conditions of ordinary being-existence abnormally established there, and also to the existing ‘illusorily inflated’ maleficent idea of their famous art, these representatives of art gradually become crowned, as I have already said, with an imaginary halo in the preconceived picturings and notions of other three-brained beings there, and thereby automatically acquire an undeserved authority, in consequence of which all the rest of your favorites always and in everything assume that any opinion they express is authoritative and beyond dispute.

“And the second fact is that these contemporary types who have recently arisen there, acquire, as they are formed, a corresponding inner presence that permits them to become, quite unconsciously on their part, just as easily somebody’s slave, as, thanks merely to chance exterior conditions, they can become his worst enemy.

“That is just why I advise you to be very, very careful not to make enemies among them, so as not to make a lot of trouble for yourself in the actualizing of your affairs.

“Well then, dear Hassein, the very ‘Tzimus’ of my advice to you is that if you should indeed have to exist among the beings of that planet Earth and have dealings with these representatives of contemporary art, then you must first of all know that you must never tell the truth to their face.

“Let Fate spare you this!

“Any kind of truth makes them extremely indignant, and their animosity towards others almost always begins from such indignation.

“To such terrestrial types you must always say to their face only such things as may ‘tickle’ those consequences of the properties of the organ Kundabuffer unfailingly crystallized in them and which I have already enumerated, namely, ‘envy,’ ‘pride,’ ‘self-love,’ ‘vanity,’ ‘lying,’ and so on.

“And the means of tickling which infallibly act on the psyche of these unfortunate favorites of yours are as I noticed during my stay there, the following:

“Suppose that the face of one of these representatives of art resembles the face of a crocodile, then be sure to tell him that he is the image of a bird of paradise.

“If one of them is as stupid as a cork, say that he has the mind of Pythagoras.

“If his conduct in some business is obviously ‘super-idiotic’ tell him that even the great cunning Lucifer could not have thought out anything better.

“Suppose that on his features you see signs that he has several terrestrial diseases from which he is progressively rotting day by day, then with an expression of astonishment on your face ask him:

“‘Do, please, tell me, what is your secret for always looking so fresh, like “peaches-and-cream,”‘ and so on. Only remember one thing … never tell the truth.

“Although you have to behave in this manner toward all the beings in general of that planet, it is particularly necessary to do so toward the representatives of all the branches of contemporary art.”

Having said this, Ahoon, with the affectation of a Moscow suburban matchmaker at the marriage of her clients, or of the proprietress of a Parisian fashion workroom in what is called a ‘high-life-cafe,’ began rearranging the folds of his tail.

And Hassein, looking at him with his usual sincerely grateful smile, said:

“Very many thanks to you, dear Ahoon, both for your advice and, in general, for your elucidation of certain details of the strangeness of the psyche of the three-brained beings of that in all respects ill-treated planet of our Great Universe.”

And then he turned to Beelzebub himself with the following words:

“Please tell me, kind Grandfather. Is it really possible that nothing has resulted from the intentions and efforts of those Babylonian learned beings and that indeed, nothing whatsoever has passed of those fragments of knowledge which were already then known on the Earth to the contemporary three-brained beings of that strange planet?”

At this question of his grandson, Beelzebub said as follows:

“To the great sorrow of everything existing in the Universe, scarcely anything has survived, my boy, from the results of their labors, and hence nothing has become the property of your contemporary favorites.

“The information they indicated in the said manner passed from generation to generation, only, in all, for a few of their succeeding centuries.

“Thanks to their chief particularity, namely, to the ‘periodic-process-of-reciprocal-destruction,’ there almost wholly disappeared from amongst the ordinary beings there, soon after the period of the ‘Babylonian-magnificence,’ not only the Legominism concerning the keys to the lawful inexactitudes in the Law of Sevenfoldness contained in each of the branches of the ‘being-Afalkalna’ and ‘Soldjinoha,’ but, as I have already told you, there gradually also disappeared even the very notion of the Universal Law of the holy Heptaparaparshinokh, which in Babylon they then called the Law of Sevenfoldness.

“Every kind of conscious production of the beings of the Babylonian period was gradually destroyed, partly owing to decay from time and partly owing to the process of ‘reciprocal destruction,’ that is to say, to that degree of that psychosis of theirs called the ‘destruction-of-everything-existing-within-the-sphere-of-the-perception-of-visibility.’

“Thanks chiefly to these two causes, almost all the consciously actualized results of the learned beings of the Babylonian epoch gradually disappeared from the surface of that ill-fated planet and at such a tempo that after three of their centuries scarcely any of them were left.

“It must also be noticed that, thanks to the second mentioned cause, there also gradually diminished and finally almost entirely ceased the employment of that new form—which had been established since Babylonian times—for the transmission of information and various fragments of knowledge to subsequent generations, through the beings they called ‘Initiates-of-Art.’

“About the disappearance there of just that practice of certain beings becoming Initiates-of-Art I know very well, because just before my departure forever from that planet I had to elucidate this very carefully for another aim of mine.

“And for the purpose of making this clear, I even specially prepared a very good ‘Tiklunia’ from among the beings there of the female sex and made these elucidations of mine through her.

“Tiklunias were formerly called there ‘pythonesses’ but contemporary ones are now called ‘mediums.’

“So then, I made it clear that there in most recent times only four of such beings, Initiates-of-Art, still remained by means of whose what is called ‘immediate-line-of-inheritance’ the keys to the understanding of the ancient art still continue to be transmitted, and this transmission by inheritance now proceeds there under very complex and arcane conditions.

“Of these four contemporary initiated beings, one comes from amongst those who are called ‘redskins’ who dwell on the continent America; another, from among the beings dwelling on what are called the Philippine Islands; the third, from the beings of the continent Asia, from the country called ‘The-Source-of-the-River-Pianje’; and the fourth and last, from amongst those who are called ‘Eskimos.’

“Now listen why I used the expression ‘almost,’ when I said that at the end of three of their centuries after the Babylonian period there ‘almost’ entirely ceased to exist every kind of conscious and automatic reproduction of the being-Afalkalna and Soldjinoha.

“The point is that two branches of the conscious hand-productions of the beings of the Babylonian period chanced upon favorable conditions and some of them passed from generation to generation partly consciously and partly automatically on the part of the transmitting beings.

“One of the said two branches recently ceased to exist; but the other has even reached certain beings of contemporary times almost unchanged.

“This branch which reached beings of contemporary times is called there ‘sacred dances.’

“And thanks to this branch alone, which survived from the period of the Babylonian learned beings, a very limited number of three-brained beings there now have the possibility, by means of certain conscious labors, to decipher and learn the information hidden in it and useful for their own Being.

“And the second mentioned branch which recently ceased to exist was that branch of the knowledge of the Babylonian learned beings which they called the ‘combination-of-different-tonalities-of-color’ and which the contemporary beings now call ‘painting.’

“The passing of this branch from generation to generation proceeded almost everywhere but, though gradually disappearing also everywhere with the flow of time, it yet proceeded in quite recent times at a still quite regular tempo both consciously and automatically only among the beings of the community called ‘Persia.’

“And it was only just before my last departure from that planet of yours, when the influence of beings of a similar profession from the contemporary ‘European culture’ began to become noticeable also there in Persia, and when the beings of that profession in the community Persia began to wiseacre, that such a transmission entirely ceased.

“It must also be noticed that in spite of all this, not a few of the still surviving productions of the Babylonian times reached the beings of the contemporary civilization, chiefly the beings breeding on the continent Europe. But these productions which reached the beings of this contemporary civilization—and not originals but only half-decayed copies made by their recent ancestors who had not become entirely what are called ‘plagiarists’—they simply, without suspecting the ‘well-of-wisdom’ concealed in them and without taking corresponding practicable measures, stuffed into what are called ‘museums’ where these old copies are gradually either totally destroyed or partially mutilated by frequent copyings from them, made by means of various eroding and oxidizing compositions as, for instance, ‘alabaster,’ ‘fish glue’ and so on, only so that the copyists might swagger before their friends or cheat their teachers, or achieve some other Hasnamussian aim.

“It must in fairness be remarked that now and again certain beings also of the contemporary civilization have suspected that something was concealed in the productions which chanced to reach them in the original, specially created then in Babylon by the members of the club of the Adherents-of-Legominism, or in those copies which were made during their transmission from generation to generation by various conscientious professionals, that is by such professionals to whom, as I have already said, it was still not quite proper to plagiarize, and who therefore did not resort to the detailed remaking of others’ productions in order to give them out as their own, and thereafter while searching very seriously for this something, certain of those inquiring beings of that European civilization even found in them a certain definite ‘something-or-other.’

“For instance, at the beginning of the contemporary European civilization one of these beings, a certain monk named Ignatius, who had formerly been an architect, attained even to the possibility of deciphering the hidden knowledge and useful information in the productions of almost all the branches of what was already called ‘ancient’ art, which had reached him from the Babylonian epoch.

“But when this monk Ignatius was about to share what is called this said ‘discovery’ of his with other beings there like himself, namely, with two of his what are called comrades, monks—together with whom he as a specialist had been sent by his Abbot for the purpose of directing the laying of what are called the ‘foundations’ of a temple, which later became famous—then, for some trifling reason ensuing from the consequences of one of the properties of the organ Kundabuffer crystallized in them called ‘envy,’ he was murdered while asleep and his planetary body was thrown into the water-space surrounding that small island on which it was proposed to erect the said temple.

“The said monk Ignatius arose and was formed for the Being of a responsible being, on the continent Europe; but when he reached the age of a responsible being, then with the aim of enriching himself with information concerning the profession which he had made the aim of his existence, namely, the profession there called ‘architecture,’ he left for the continent of Africa. And just he it was who entered as a monk into the ‘brotherhood’ which existed on that continent Africa, under the name of the ‘Truth Seekers’; and afterwards, when this brotherhood migrated to the continent Europe and increased, and when its brethren began to be called ‘Benedictines,’ he himself was already an ‘All-the-Rights-Possessing-Brother’ of this said brotherhood.

“The temple I referred to exists there even up till now and is called, it seems, ‘Mont-Saint-Michel.’

“In this Europe still several other inquiring beings noticed from time to time lawful inexactitudes in the works of various branches of art which had reached them from ancient times; but no sooner did they find the key to the understanding of these inexactitudes than their existence came to an end.

“Still one other, that is, another being from that continent Europe, also noticed them, and continuing to interest himself further and laboring perseveringly, he began fully to decipher the productions of almost all the branches of art.

“And this wise terrestrial three-brained being was named ‘Leonardo da Vinci.’

“At the conclusion of my present tale about the terrestrial contemporary art, I might as well, I think, remark about yet one other of the many specific particularities of just those beings of the contemporary civilization who are occupied with this famous art.

“This specific particularity of theirs is that whenever one or other of the mentioned beings, namely, of the beings who notice in various productions which have reached them from ancient times some very ‘lawful illogicality’ and begin to produce the given branch in quite a new manner, perhaps in order to make the said lawful illogicality practically clear to himself, then most of the beings around him belonging to the profession of the same branch at once become his followers and begin doing supposedly the same thing but of course without either aim or sense.

“And it is just because of this said ‘specific’ psyche of the beings there, representatives of contemporary art, that on the one hand what are called now ‘movements’ of art are always arising there among your favorites, and, on the other hand, that those which are somehow arranged rightly by the preceding generations even though only ‘after-a-fashion’ are constantly dwindling.

“Although this proceeds among the representatives of all the branches of contemporary art, yet for some reason or other it is the beings who are occupied in the branch they call ‘painting’ who are most susceptible to it.

“Hence it is that at the present time there exists among these contemporary professions a great many ‘new movements’ of painting which have arisen in this way and which have nothing in common among themselves. These new movements of painting are known there by the names of ‘cubism,’ ‘futurism,’ ‘synthesism,’ ‘imagism,’ ‘impressionism,’ ‘colorism,’ ‘formalism,’ ‘surrealism,’ and many other similar movements, whose names also end is ‘ism.'”

At this place in Beelzebub’s tale the hoofs of all the passengers of the transship Karnak suddenly, as it were, radiated from themselves “something phosphorescent.”

This meant that the ship Karnak was nearing the place of her destination, that is the planet Revozvradendr. Hence, a bustling movement began among the passengers preparing to descend from the ship.

Beelzebub, Hassein, and Ahoon ended their conversation and hurriedly began to prepare themselves also.

The phosphorescent gleaming of the hoofs was obtained because, concentrated in a particular proportion, there were directed from the engine room to that part of the ship the holy parts of the sacred Omnipresent Okidanokh.

WHEN after two “Ornakres” the cosmic intersystem ship Karnak had left the spheres of the atmosphere of the planet Revozvradendr and began to fall back in the direction of the solar system ‘Pandeznokh’ on to the planet Karatas, Hassein, having sat down in his usual place, addressed Beelzebub with the following words:

“My dear and beloved Grandfather … be kind as always and tell me something more about the three-centered beings breeding on that planet which is called Earth.”

In reply to this, Beelzebub related about his sixth and last visit on the planet Earth.

He began thus: “I was on that planet for the sixth time just before I received my full pardon and permission to leave that most remote solar system situated even almost beyond the reach of the immediate emanations of the Omni Most Holy Sun Absolute, that is, just before my return here to the center of the Universe to the place of my arising, to the immediate bosom of our common uni-being-endlessness.

“This time, circumstances unexpectedly so came about that I had to exist there among these peculiar beings a fairly long time, namely, a little less than a year of our time, or, by the time calculation there, more than three hundred years.

“As initial cause of this last visit of mine to the surface of that planet which has pleased you, the following circumstances served:

“You must know that after my fifth visit to the surface of that planet of yours, I continued likewise, as before, to observe from time to time the existence of those three-brained beings who please you.

“I observed them particularly attentively at those periods when there proceeded among them their chief particularity, namely, their processes of ‘reciprocal destruction.’

“And I observed so attentively at these periods because I wished to make unquestionably clear to myself the causes of the periodic manifestations of such an exceptionally terrible need of their strange psyche—strange to the point of the phenomenal.

“When I happened to be a little freer I would at times follow for almost a whole Martian day or night every kind of their manifestations during these processes.

“Well, thanks to these special observations of mine, both from the planet Mars and during my former personal sojourns there among them, I had a more or less definite understanding concerning all the ways and means used by them for a more effective destruction of each other’s existence.

“Well, my boy, once while watching as usual this process of theirs from the planet Mars through my big Teskooano I suddenly noticed that which served as the initial cause impelling me to undertake my sixth descent; namely, I saw this time that, without moving from their place, they did with a certain thing something which resulted in a tiny puff of smoke, whereupon a being from the opposite side immediately fell down either totally destroyed or with one or other part of his planetary body mutilated or destroyed forever.

“Such a means of reciprocal destruction I had never seen before; and there had not yet been crystallized in my presence any data for a confrontative logical explanation of the possibility on their part of using such a means for destroying the existence of other beings similar to themselves.

“Concerning each and every of their ways and means, the purpose of which was the destruction of each other’s existence, I had already had before this a definite logical confrontation which explained to me just what are the accidentally arisen surrounding factors that bring forth in them impulses and stimuli as the result of which their essence is gradually brought to such a phenomenal being-ableness to destroy, for no rhyme or reason, the existence of other beings similar to themselves.

“But for this new means, which I now saw for the first time, for destroying each other’s existence, my former logical and psychological explanations could not indeed in any way be applied.

“I had formerly explained to myself that such an exclusively abnormal inherency in their psyche is not self-acquired by the beings of the given epoch, but I understood that this terrifying periodic being-need was acquired and gradually assimilated by them during the course of very many of their centuries, also, of course, thanks to the abnormal conditions of existence established by the beings of past generations, and that this being-need had already become finally inherent in the contemporary three-brained beings, owing to external circumstances not depending upon them, and that it had become inevitably proper to them to occupy themselves with this.

“And indeed, my boy, during these processes, they usually instinctively at first refrain from such an unnatural manifestation, but later when every one of them already in the environment of the process itself willy-nilly sees and becomes convinced that the destruction of the existence of those similar to themselves proceeds so simply, and that the number of the destroyed always grows and grows—well then, each of them involuntarily begins instinctively to feel and automatically to value his own existence. And having become persuaded by his own eyes that the possibility of losing his own existence depends, at the given moment, absolutely only on the number of beings of the enemy side not destroyed, then in consequence of the strengthened functioning in his imagination of the presence of the impulse called ‘cowardice,’ and on account of the impossibility at each moment of reasonable deliberation by his being-mentation, weakened already without this, he begins from a natural feeling of self-preservation to strive with all his Being to destroy as many as possible of the existences of the beings of the enemy side in order to have the greater chance of saving his own existence. And gradually progressing in this feeling of self-preservation of theirs, they then reach the state, as they themselves say, of ‘bestiality.’

“But as regards that means of the destruction of the existence of other beings similar to themselves which I then saw, it was now impossible to apply to it this logical confrontation at which I had just arrived, simply because I then clearly saw that the enemy sides stood fairly far apart, that all warring beings were among their own, and that in these semifavorable conditions, they quietly and absolutely cold-bloodedly, out of boredom as it were, did something with the help of a ‘something’ and thereby destroyed the existence of other beings similar to themselves.

“Well, this same new means of theirs for the destruction of each other’s existence just strengthened in my essence the need to make indubitably clear and to understand all the genuine causes of this phenomenally strange psyche which had become proper to the presences exclusively of those peculiar three-brained beings.

“As I had nothing particular to do at this time on the planet Mars, I decided to wind up without delay my current affairs and personally to descend to your planet, and there, on the spot, at any cost, to elucidate this question which had always troubled me, in order that having solved it I might no longer think about these phenomena of our Great Universe.

“Several Martian days later I just flew there, as always on the same ship 'Occasion'.

“We decided to descend this time on to the continent Asia near the locality called ‘Afghanistan,’ since before we had flown off, we had made it clear through our Teskooano that the ‘turn-of-the-process-of-reciprocal-destruction’ was proceeding at that time in just the said country.

“Having descended on to the locality near this Afghanistan we decided to send our ship 'Occasion' for mooring somewhere further from those places where your favorites had recently been breeding.

“You must know that to find a suitable mooring place for our ship 'Occasion' on the surface of your planet has already in recent times become anything but easy, since your favorites have furnished themselves with very many kinds of contrivances for what is called ‘marine locomotion,’ which contrivances they also call ships, and these ships of theirs are constantly flitting about in all directions, mostly around the continents.

“We had, it is true, the possibility of making our ship 'Occasion' invisible to their organs of perception of visibility, but we could not annihilate its presence, and without this it could not remain stationary on the water from the constant danger that their ships might bump into it.

“Well, for this reason we this time decided to send our ship for mooring to what is called the ‘North Pole,’ where their ships have as yet no possibility of going.

“While we were descending on to the surface of this planet of yours, the process of reciprocal destruction which had been proceeding in Afghanistan finished; but all the same, I remained to exist near this Afghanistan, as it was just on that part of the continent Asia that at that period these processes of theirs most frequently proceeded.

“Since I had in view, on this last personal flight of mine on to the surface of your planet, to obtain without fail a ‘completed awareness’ of the causes of the questions which were constantly troubling my essence, namely, to make clear to myself the causes in all their aspects why the psyche of those three-brained beings who please you has become such an ‘anomaly’; I did not, as I have already told you, soon return home to the planet Mars, as I did on previous occasions, but I remained to exist among your favorites about three hundred of their years.

“As I now commence the narration of the information elucidating the state of the results already obtained from every cause in the common presences of the three-brained beings of the planet Earth, which pleases you, my essence prompts me and animates my ‘I’ and all the separately spiritualized parts of my common presence to emphasize, first of all, that during this last personal sojourn of mine on the surface of your planet I had to study very seriously and even to elucidate experimentally the details not only of the psyche of single individuals of your favorites taken separately, but likewise the perceptions and manifestations of the psyche of these single individuals taken in a general mass—dependently upon the combinations of surrounding conditions and the results brought forth by them and also upon their mutual reactions.

“For the purpose of these elucidating experiments of mine I was even obliged this time to have recourse to the help of those branches of general knowledge which we call ‘Samonoltooriko,’ ‘Gasometronoltooriko,’ and ‘Sakookinoltooriko,’ that is, to those branches the similarities to which are found among your favorites also, these specialties being named ‘medicine,’ ‘physiology,’ and ‘hypnotism.’

“Just at the beginning of this sixth personal sojourn of mine I soon categorically made clear, thanks to my experimental investigations, that most of the causes of the strangeness of their psyche are found not in that usual consciousness of theirs, in which alone they have already automatized themselves to exist in what is called their waking state, but in that consciousness of theirs which, thanks to their abnormal ordinary being-existence, was gradually driven within their common presence and which although it should have been their real consciousness, yet remains in them in its primitive state and is called their ‘subconsciousness.’

“This subconsciousness is, however, just that part of their general psyche about which … do you remember? I have told you already that it was first noticed by the Very Saintly Ashiata Shiemash who constated that in that part of their psyche there are not yet atrophied the data for the fourth sacred impulse which is named ‘Objective-Conscience.’

“When I had chosen as the place of my fundamental existence the locality in the center of the continent Asia called ‘Turkestan,’ I not only went from there to the places where the processes which interested me proceeded, but during the pauses or lulls in these processes I also traveled a great deal, visiting almost all the continents, and during these travels I encountered beings of most, as they say, ‘peoples.’

“During these travels of mine I remained nowhere for long excepting in certain independent countries on the continent Asia called ‘China,’ ‘India,’ ‘Tibet,’ and of course also that lately largest half-Asiatic half-European community called ‘Russia.’

“In the beginning I devoted all the time I had free from observations and investigations concerning the chief aim which I had set myself for this time, to the study of languages there, in order to have greater possibilities of better establishing everywhere corresponding relations with the beings of all ‘types,’ belonging to every kind of their ‘peoples’ there.

“Maybe, my boy, you do not yet know that it is also on this ill-fated planet only that there exists the excessive absurdity which consists in this: that there for mutual ‘spoken relations’ among themselves, again thanks to the abnormal external conditions of their ordinary existence, there are as many diverse languages or ‘dialects’ that have nothing in common with each other as there are separate independent groups into which they have gradually become split; whereas on all other planets of our Great Universe where three-brained beings breed, there is everywhere one common what is called ‘sound-manifesting-mutual intercourse.’

“Yes … and this ‘polyglotism’ is also one of the characteristics and exclusive particularities of these strange three-brained beings who please you.

“And there for every scrap of terra firma, or even for each insignificant independent group accidentally separated from each other upon such a scrap, there was formed by these strange beings, and there still continues to be formed, for ‘spoken relations’ a quite separate speech.

“Thanks to this, it now happens there on the planet Earth that if one of the inhabitants of any locality of this planet by chance finds himself in another place of the same planet, he has no possibility whatever of intercourse with the beings there similar to himself, unless he learns their language.

“Even I, who had then learned perfectly eighteen of their different languages, found myself during my travels under conditions at times where I had not even the possibility of getting fodder for my horse, in spite of the fact that my pockets were full of what is called there ‘money,’ for which in general they will give you with the greatest joy there anything you please.

“It may happen there that if one of these unfortunate beings existing in some town or other, knowing all the languages used in that town, finds it for some reason or other necessary on another occasion to be in some other place at a distance of fifty or so of what are called there ‘miles’—which distance corresponds approximately to one of our ‘Klintrana’—then this ill-fated three-brained being, happening to be even at this insignificant distance from the place of his somehow or other established existence—owing to the abnormality there, referred to, and also of course because in the common presences of these unfortunate beings the data in general for instinctive perception were long ago atrophied—becomes absolutely helpless and can neither ask for what he really needs, nor understand a word of what is said to him.

“These numerous languages of theirs not only have nothing in common with each other, but one of them will sometimes be so built up that it has absolutely no correspondence with the possibilities of those organs of the common presence of the being which are specially adapted by Nature for this purpose and which are called ‘vocal cords’; and even I, who have a much greater possibility in this respect, was entirely unable to utter certain words.

“The beings of the planet Earth themselves, however, realized this ‘absurdity’ of theirs, and recently while I was still there, a number of ‘representatives’ of their different ‘solid’ communities met somewhere together jointly to find a means for a way out of this difficulty.

“The fundamental purpose of these representatives of the contemporary ‘important’ communities who assembled together was to select one of the languages already existing there and to make it common for the whole planet.

“However, as usual, nothing resulted either from this really sensible intention of theirs, owing as ever, of course, to those same usual dissensions of theirs, thanks to which all their promising beginnings always fall through.

“In my opinion you will find it useful if I tell you a little more in detail why, in the given case, these said ‘dissensions’ of theirs occurred, as this will be a very characteristic example of all the ‘dissensions’ in general arising among them.

“At the outset, these said representatives of the contemporary solid communities, why I don’t know, fixed their choice of a common planetary language on one of the three following languages existing at present, called: ‘Ancient Greek,’ ‘Latin,’ and … the language newly composed by the contemporary beings, ‘Esperanto.’

“The first of the said three languages was the one which was worked up and which served for the ‘spoken relations’ of the beings of that ancient community there, which, as I have already told you, arose from a small group of Asiatic fishermen and which group later became a solid community, the beings of which were during a long period specialists there in the ‘invention of sciences.’

“From the beings of this community, that is from these said ancient Greeks, not only many different sciences but likewise their language reached contemporary beings.

“But the second language which they proposed to make a common planetary language, namely, ‘Latin,’ was the language spoken by the beings of that ancient solid community formed, as I have also told you, from a small group of Asiatic shepherds, whose descendants were later the cause of the fact that in the presences of all the beings there of subsequent generations there was gradually formed and ultimately in the contemporary beings became already definitely fixed and obligatorily inherent in them, that perverted function thanks to which all impulses arising in them, in the sense of striving for evolution, are already automatically paralyzed at their very roots, and which they themselves call ‘sexuality.’

“Well, when these representatives of various contemporary ‘powerful’ communities met in order collectively to choose one or another of the mentioned three languages, they could not settle upon any one of the three languages owing to the following considerations:

“Latin they found poor in the sense of the number of words.

“And indeed, my boy, the shepherds with their limited needs could not create a many-worded language; and although Latin became later on the language of a large community, yet beyond the special words required for orgies, they did not introduce into it anything that could suit the contemporary beings of your planet.

“And as regards the Greek language, then although by the wealth of its vocabulary it might indeed serve as a universal language for their whole planet, because these former fishermen, in ‘inventing’ every possible kind of fantastic ‘science,’ happened also to devise very many corresponding words which remained in that language, yet these representatives of the contemporary powerful communities could not fix their choice upon it owing to a peculiar particularity which also flows from this same strange psyche of theirs.

“The point is that all the beings assembled to select a common planetary language were representatives of communities which had become at the period of their contemporary civilization powerful, or, as they also say, ‘great.’

“But this ancient Greek language continues at the present time to be spoken by the beings of a contemporary small community called ‘Greece,’ who, though they are descendants of the former ‘great Greeks,’ have not now at their disposal as many of what are called ‘guns’ and ‘ships’ as those ‘important communities’ whose representatives were just then assembled in order unanimously to select one common language for the whole planet.

“Therefore, in all probability each of these representatives deliberated somewhat as follows:

“‘Heavens above! can anybody use a language which is spoken by the beings of such a trifling community? It hasn’t even guns to entitle its representatives to equal participation in our “international five-o’clocks.”‘

“And indeed such contemporary beings there, namely, such as become representatives of important communities, know nothing of course of the true reasons why, that is, on their planet, beings similar to them, dwelling on one or another part of the surface of their planet or who make up this or the other community, become at times temporarily ‘important’ or ‘great.’

“They do not even begin to suspect that this proceeds not because of any particular qualities in the beings themselves of the given communities, but depends exclusively only from what part of the surface of their planet, in correlation with the harmonious movement of the whole of their solar system, there is required at the given period for the purposes of the most great Omni-Universal-Trogoautoegocratic process more of those vibrations arising either from their radiations or from the process of the sacred Rascooarno proceeding with them.

“And in regard to the third language which these assembled representatives also proposed making the common planetary language, namely, that language which they call Esperanto—over it there did not indeed then arise among them even their usual squabbles which they characterize with the words ‘foaming-at-the-mouth’—they themselves, with all the bobtailedness of their reason, immediately reflected that this language could not now in any way be useful for their purpose.

“The inventors of this language must have imagined that a language is like one of their contemporary sciences which can be cooked up at home in one’s study; indeed, it never entered into their heads that every more or less ‘practical’ language can be formed only in the course of many centuries and even then only during the process of more or less normal being-existence.

“This new invention there, this language Esperanto, might however do for our highly esteemed Mullah Nassr Eddin for composing the amusing anecdotes he tell his hens. … !

“In short, this promising beginning of theirs, in this business of establishing one common planetary language, changed nothing there in their ‘height of absurdity’ and everything remained as before down till now, that is, this comparatively petty planet, with a petty ‘half-dead terra firma,’ continues to remain, as again our dear teacher Mullah Nassr Eddin says, ‘a thousand-tongued-hydra.’

“Well, my boy … when I commenced my investigations, in regard this time to the fundamental aim I had set myself, in order to become assuredly aware of all the causes which produced such a peculiar psyche in the presences of the three-brained beings of the planet pleasing to you, and when therefore it soon became necessary for me to make clear certain of what are called ‘hidden details’ in the common presence of this psyche of theirs, there unexpectedly arose for me just at the beginning of this last personal stay of mine among them a very serious difficulty consisting in this: that the bringing to light of these properties hidden within them, namely, the properties found in their subconsciousness, turned out to be possible exclusively only with the intentional help on the part of them themselves, that is, with the help of that consciousness of theirs, which with the flow of time had become proper to be possessed by them during their waking state. Furthermore, I made clear to myself that it was necessary that this said voluntary help should come from the three-brained beings there of all the types of which in general during recent times they had begun to be completely formed.

“But meanwhile, by this time, as it proved, there had already been almost atrophied in them every kind of data for the arising in their presences of the being-impulse called ‘sincerity.’ And it was atrophied to such a degree that they no longer had the possibility, even if they wished, to be sincere, and not only with other beings but even with their own selves, that is, they already could not with one of their spiritualized parts criticize and judge another part of themselves impartially.

“It must be said here that my subsequent special researches revealed to me that the causes of the atrophying of the data, which should be in them also, for the possibility of being sincere with themselves, had one basis; while the causes of the atrophying of the possibilities of being sincere with others, had another.

“The basis for the atrophying of the first of the mentioned data is derived from the fact of the disturbance of the co-ordination of their common psyche.

“The point is that, then, at the beginning of this sixth existence of mine among them, on the one hand, in their general presences data yet continued always to be crystallized for the arising in them, as in all the three-brained beings in general, of the being impulse called ‘self-remorse,’ and which they themselves call ‘Remorse of Conscience’; while on the other hand every kind of their inner and outer manifestations in the ordinary process of their being-existence began to become always less and less becoming to three-brained beings.

“Consequently, in their presences there arise more and more frequently the causes for the manifestation of the said being-impulse of Remorse of Conscience. And as the sensations thereby induced, which are similar to those which arise from ‘being-Partkdolg-duty,’ infallibly lead to the suppression and the enslaving of the ‘denying-principle’ inherent in the common presences of the three-brained beings, called ‘self-calming’; then in them, during every kind of inner and outer manifestation of their common presences, which flow from the natural stimuli of one or another separately independently spiritualized localizations proper to be present in the three-centered beings, each time with the arising of this sensation of self-remorse, disagreeable to them, at first intentionally on the part of their ruminating parts, and later, thanks already to the habit which they had created, there began to be stifled and gradually to cease, ‘self-criticism.’ And so, by reason of this ‘impotency’ arising and always increasing in their organization, which involved, by constant repetition, the whole disharmony of all the functioning of their psyche, there gradually almost disappeared from their common presences such data also infallibly inherent in every three-brained being of all our Great Universe for manifesting sincerity even towards themselves.

“As basis for the disappearance from their common presences of data for ‘ableness-to-be’ sincere with other beings similar to themselves, there served just that abnormal form of their mutual relationship long before established there, which, as I have already told you, was based on their mutual division into different what are called ‘castes’ or ‘classes.’

“When there began among them and soon became inevitable the habit of allocating one another to these various maleficent castes of theirs, then from that time, in the common presence of each one of them, there were gradually crystallized two particular quite opposite what are called ‘organic properties,’ the manifestation of which, little by little, even ceased to depend on either their ordinary consciousness or on their ‘subconsciousness.’

“These two properties consist in this, that they always behave towards each other either, so to say, ‘haughtily’ or ‘servilely.’

“During the manifestation of both these properties there are paralyzed in them all relations on what are called ‘equal terms’ with anybody whomsoever, thanks to which not only the inner sincere but also even the outer ordinary habitual relations have become established among them in such a way that already it has become quite usual, particularly in recent times, that if someone belongs to a caste considered higher than the caste of another, then in everything and always in relation to this other there arise in him impulses called there either ‘haughtiness’ or ‘contempt’ or ‘patronage’ or ‘condescension,’ and so on. And if somebody considers his own caste lower than that of another, then there will infallibly arise in him impulses which they call ‘self-abasement,’ ‘false humility,’ ‘sycophancy,’ ‘bootlicking,’ ‘cringing,’ and many other such specific impulses, the totality of which constantly corrodes in their presences what is called ‘awareness-of-one’s-own-individuality,’ which ought to be present in them also.

“The said property which already became inherent in their common presences gradually led to this, that they lost the habit and automatically ceased to be able to be sincere with other beings similar to themselves, even with those belonging to their own caste.

“It was for this reason, my boy, that I decided while existing among these favorites of yours this time, to choose, from among the professions existing there, that one which gives the possibility at times of automatically establishing among them those relations by which they can be sincere up to a certain degree, and this in order that the possibility might be open to me to make the investigations which were indispensable to me, and by this means to obtain materials for my elucidations.

“That is why I then became just such a professional there as is called at the present time a ‘physician.’

“This profession there corresponds somewhat to that profession which those whom we call our ‘Zirlikners’ have.

“Besides this said profession, there is, by the way, there yet another profession, with the representatives of which some of your favorites automatically become more sincere perhaps than with others, particularly concerning those, as they express themselves, ‘inner-experiencings’ of theirs which I needed most of all for my elucidation.

“However, although that profession might yield more material for my investigations, I did not wish to choose this profession for myself, to which what are called ‘confessors’ most often devote themselves, for the sole reason that this profession constantly constrains one to play outwardly a role and never allows one to consider one’s inner real impulses.

“Before telling you further, I must, I think, enlighten you a little also about what the contemporary physicians there represent in themselves, who ought to correspond to our ‘Zirlikners.’

“You probably already well know that Zirlikners among us on the planet Karatas, as also in general beings similar to them on other planets of our Great Universe upon which breed already-formed three-brained beings, and from the number of whom are several, who, called differently on different planets, take upon themselves essential obligations in relation to the environment of beings similar to themselves—well, these Zirlikners are those responsible individuals who voluntarily devote the whole of their existence to helping any being of that region to fulfill his being-obligations, if this being for some reason or other, or simply thanks to a temporary irregular functioning of his planetary body, ceases to be able to fulfill his inner or outer being-duty by himself.

“It must without fail be noticed that in former times also on your planet such professionals as are now called there physicians were almost the same and did almost the same as our Zirlikners among us; but gradually with the flow of time, the responsible beings there who devoted themselves to such a profession, namely, to the fulfillment of such a high voluntary being-duty taken upon themselves, degenerated like everything on that strange planet and became also absolutely peculiar.

“And at the present time there, when the functioning of his planetary body in one or other of your contemporary favorites becomes deranged in this or that respect, and when this being ceases to be able to fulfill his being-obligations, these contemporary physicians of theirs are also called in for help; and, no question about it, these physicians do also indeed come; but how they help and how they discharge by their inner essence the obligations taken upon themselves, it is precisely here, as our highly esteemed Mullah Nassr Eddin says, that ‘the dead camel of the merchant Vermassan-Zeroonan-Alaram is buried.’

“Know first of all that at the present time there those contemporary three-brained beings become those professionals who for the most part, during the period of their preparation to be responsible beings, succeed, as is said there, in ‘learning by rote’ much miscellaneous information concerning those means for getting rid of every possible kind of what are called their ‘illnesses,’ means which old women in their dotage, during all previous times on their planet, employed upon or advised for three-brained beings there to this end.

“Among the number of such means for getting rid of the said illnesses, there are chiefly various remedies existing under the name of ‘medicines.’

“Well, when one of the contemporary beings becomes a responsible professional, and when other beings needing his help apply to him for this help, he uses or prescribes just these mentioned remedies.

“Here it will be very useful for the development of your reason, if to your common presence is added a ‘logicnestarian-implantation’ from information concerning one particular very peculiar property which is acquired in the psyche of these contemporary professionals of the planet Earth.

“This peculiar psychic property is acquired by those terrestrial professionals as soon as they receive the title of ‘qualified physician,’ and it functions constantly in them during their wish to help other beings who need their aid.

“The point is that, in their common presences, both the intensity of the desire to help and the quality itself of the help given always depend exclusively on the smell there is in the house to which he is called.

“Namely, if the house to which such a contemporary professional is called for help smells of what are called ‘English pounds,’ then in it, thanks to this smell, not only does his inner ‘being-wish’ to help the suffering being increase to the point of what is called ‘ne plus ultra,’ but even in outer manifestations his planetary body at once assumes the form of a ‘Dzedzatzshoon,’ i.e., a ‘beaten dog.’

“In the case of most contemporary physicians there even appears on their faces from this smell what are called ‘bootlicking’ expressions, and their ‘bobtail’ becomes pressed tight, almost glued, ‘between their legs.’

“But if the house to which such a terrestrial ‘Zirlikner’ is called for help to a needy being smells of what are called ‘canceled-German-marks,’ then his inner being-wish to help the person in need also increases, but only in this respect, that he may write out as quickly as possible what is called a ‘prescription,’ invented by the Germans, and the more quickly leave the house.

“Here also, I must tell you that when in this second case the contemporary terrestrial beings who have the profession of physician leave the house of the person who needed their help and walk along the street, then all their exteriors, even the muscles of their faces, invariably express something as follows: ‘Eh, you curs, look out! otherwise I shall crush you like cockroaches; don’t you see that here comes not just anybody, but a genuine representative of science who has fully assimilated the knowledge given by the highest contemporary seat of learning!!’

“It will be most opportune now to tell you a little also concerning those ‘medicinal means’ I mentioned, which exist there in great numbers under every kind of name and which on the advice of these contemporary physicians are introduced into themselves by other ordinary beings, ostensibly as an aid in their various illnesses.

“And it is also infallibly necessary to tell you about it … for … who knows … you too may suddenly have to exist at some time or other on that peculiar planet among these queer folk, and you would not know how to deal with these numerous medicinal means and what significance to give them.

“First of all, know and remember this that the young three-brained beings there, particularly of the most recent times, who prepare themselves to take, when they arrive at the age of responsible existence, the profession of a physician only learn by rote as many names as possible from among the many thousands of these said medicinal means now known there.

“And later, when they have already become responsible beings having this profession and receive the official title of physician and when they are called upon to help the beings who need it, then their whole help consists in this that they make a being-effort of a certain intensity just to remember the names of several of these medical means and to write them later on a scrap of paper called by them ‘prescription,’ with the intention of prescribing that mixture which should be introduced into the planetary body of, as they say, the ‘invalid.’ The intensity, however, of their effort depends first of all on the ‘social status’ of the being needing their help, and secondly on the number of eyes fixed upon them by the beings surrounding the given sick being.

“Well, further, this said prescription thus written by them is taken by the near relatives of the person needing the help of the contemporary ‘Zirlikner’ there to one of their contemporary what are called ‘pharmacies,’ where their ‘pharmacists’ prepare the required ‘mixtures.’

“And how in general such mixtures are prepared in these pharmacies and of exactly what they are composed, well, just this you will well understand if I relate to you one only of the numerous informations I learned concerning it, and which I was told by one of the beings there having just this profession of a pharmacist.

“This, my present tale, refers to that period when I had already often begun to frequent that large community which was called Russia.

“Well, in one of the two chief places of existence of this said large community, namely, in the one which was called ‘Moscow,’ friendly relations happened to be established between myself and such a professional, that is, a pharmacist.

“According to the notions there, this pharmacist was already an old being and his character was very kind, and even, so to say, obliging.

“He belonged to what is called there the ‘Jewish faith.’

“It is necessary to tell you here, that there, on almost all the continents at the present time, these pharmacists are, why I don’t know, mostly beings belonging to the Jewish faith.

“And so … when I used to go to that second chief place of Russia, where that acquaintance of mine, the pharmacist, existed, I would always call on him and there in the back room of his pharmacy, which as a rule they call a ‘laboratory,’ I used to chat with him about every kind of ‘fiddle-faddle.’

“Once when I went as usual into this said laboratory of his, I saw that he was pounding something in a mortar, and, as is usually done there on these occasions, I inquired what he was doing.

“To this he replied to me thus:

‘I am pounding burnt sugar for this prescription,’ and here he handed me a scrap of paper on which the usual prescription was written of a widely spread medicinal means existing there under the name of ‘Dover’s powder.

“This powder is called there ‘Dover’s, because it was invented by a certain Englishman whose name was Dover, and it is used there chiefly for coughs.

“I read the prescription he gave me and I saw that sugar was no part of it, and much less burnt. … Whereupon I expressed to him my amazed perplexity.

“Whereat, with a good-natured smile, he answered me, ‘Of course sugar has no part in this prescription, but instead it does contain a certain percentage of “opium.”‘

“And he further explained as follows:

“‘This Dover’s powder is, I don’t know why, a very popular remedy among us in Russia, and it is used by almost all the peoples of our enormous empire.

“‘Many hundreds of thousands of packets of powder are used here daily all over the country and the opium this powder ought to contain is, as you know, no cheap thing and if real opium were put into this powder, the opium alone would cost us pharmacists six or eight kopecks a packet, and we have to sell this powder for three to five kopecks. Besides, even if all the opium from the whole of the globe were collected the position would be the same, there would not be enough for our Russia alone.

“‘So instead of the prescription of Doctor Dover we pharmacists have invented another prescription consisting of such substances as are easily obtainable and which are accessible and profitable for everybody.

“‘That is why we pharmacists make this powder of soda, burn sugar, and a small quantity of quinine; all of these substances are cheap … well, quinine is, it is true, a little expensive … but then, you see, not much of it is required. Of the total 100 per cent of the composition of these powders, there will only be about 2 per cent of quinine.’

“Here I could not help interrupting him: ‘You don’t mean it? … But it’s not possible! … Has no one ever discovered that instead of Dover’s powder you give them this particular mess?’

“‘Of course not,’ laughingly replied this good acquaintance of mine. ‘These things can be detected only by sight and taste; and this Dover’s powder which we make, however you turn it and under whatever microscope you examine it, is in color the same as it should be according to the genuine prescription of this Doctor Dover. And as to taste, it is absolutely impossible thanks chiefly to the proportion of quinine which we put into it, to distinguish it from the genuine powder made with the real opium.’

“‘But the analysis?’ I asked him.

“‘What’s analysis?’ he replied sarcastically, though also with a kind smile. ‘A thorough analysis of a single powder would cost so much that, with this money, you could buy not only half a hundredweight of this powder, but possibly even open a whole pharmacy with it; so it is understandable that, for three or five kopecks, nobody is likely to be such a fool.

“‘Strictly speaking, nowhere is the analysis about which you are thinking ever done.

“‘Each town, it goes without saying, has its “analytic-chemists,” and even every municipality has such “specialists” in its service.

“‘But what do they amount to and what do they know, these specialist “analytic-chemists?”

“‘Perhaps you do not know how these specialists who occupy such responsible posts study, and what they understand? … No? …

“‘Then I shall also tell you about this.

“‘For instance, some mama’s darling, a young man, inevitably with a pimpled face—and he is pimpled because his mama considered herself a high-brow and thought it was “indecent” to speak of and to point out certain things to her son, whereupon this son of hers, not yet having formed his own consciousness, did that which was “done” in him, and the results of these “doings” of his, as with all such young people, appeared on his face as pimples, which are very well known even to contemporary medicine …

“‘Well, my honorable doctor …’ it was thus that the pharmacist continued.

“ … Before, however, continuing, my boy, to tell you further what the kind pharmacist said, I must tell you that when I became a professional physician there, your favorites everywhere called me ‘doctor.’

“I will some time without fail explain to you about that title of theirs, because owing to that hateful word doctor, a very sad and tragic misunderstanding occurred there once to our dear Ahoon.

“And now listen to what that kind pharmacist there said to me further.

“He said, ‘This young man, this mama’s darling, with the pimpled face, studies at a certain university to become a specialist analytic-chemist, but there at the university he is bound to study those special books usually fabricated in Germany to “learned beings” there.’

“ … And really, my boy, among these contemporary Germans, especially during recent times, the invention of ‘scientific’ books in all branches has also increased.

“Since analysis is also a branch of their science, so in this branch also a great mass of books has already been accumulated among these German scientific beings, and almost all the peoples of Europe as well as other countries use these scientific books.

“Well, that kind pharmacist said further: ‘It is this young man who has finished his University course and consequently drawn his knowledge concerning what is called the “complex of substances” from the books fabricated by the German scientific beings, who must make the analysis of our Dover’s powder.

“‘In those German books from which he gathered his knowledge of the complex of substances it is of course also stated of which elements these and the other substances consist, and the formulas of these elements are also certain to be quoted.

“‘It is also explained in these books what appearance these substances have in which are present all the elements which should be in them, and how their external appearance changes if these elements are not in them. Several homemade means for recognizing the substances are also given in these German books, as for instance, by sight, by taste, by burning, and by certain means that ancient grandmothers of olden times had heard tell of, and so on and so forth.

“‘After finishing the course, this young man then receives the title of analytic-chemist. Sometimes it happens that before receiving a responsible post, the young man happens to get “practice” consisting usually in this, that he helps the local chemist, also a former mama’s darling, to ascertain with the aid of a microscope, in a certain way only known to themselves, whether the pork contains trichinae; and only later, when a place is vacant somewhere, is he appointed to the official post of analytic-chemist.

“‘Well, dear Doctor, such an official analytic-chemist receives our Dover’s powder for analysis. On receiving it he recognizes it as Dover’s powder either by looking at it or by tasting it as ordinary mortals do, or because the sender writes to him that it is precisely Dover’s powder.

“‘For this analysis he takes up from his table what they call his “pharmaceutical guide,” also composed by Germans, which every official analytic-chemist is bound to have; and there in that guide he hunts up the place where are written the formulas of powders of all kinds.

“‘As Dover’s powder is known everywhere, it is of course, also included in that book.

“‘Thereafter our highly respected analytic-chemist takes from his table a form on which official title is indicated and writes:

“‘“The powder sent to us for analysis proves to be, according to all the data, Dover’s powder. The analysis showed it to contain …” And he copies a formula from his German pharmaceutical guide, deliberately increasing or diminishing some of the figures, but increasing or diminishing them of course only very slightly so that they may not slap you in the eye.

“‘And he does this first of all so that everyone should know that he has written the results of his analysis not any old way but that he has really investigated the matter; and secondly, because, whatever you may say, he as a town pharmacist being also an official person will little wish, I think, to make enemies for himself in the town where he lives.

“‘The form thus written is dispatched to him who sent the Dover’s powder, and the famous analytic-chemist himself is quite at peace as no one knows that he has made no analysis at all, nor could anyone check him, first because he is the only official analytic-chemist in the town, and secondly, because even if one of these powders of ours should be taken to any other phenomenal chemist in another town, nothing alarming could happen … are there no other Dover’s powders in the world? The packet of powder he analyzed no longer exists, because naturally in making the analysis he had to destroy it.

“‘Besides, no one is to be found who, for the sake of three kopecks’ worth of Dover’s powder, would kick up such a fuss.

“‘At all events, venerated Doctor, for thirty years now I have been making these powders according to the prescription of “ours,” and I certainly sell them; and up to today I have never had any misunderstanding on account of these Dover’s powders of ours. And no misunderstanding can occur, because Dover’s powder is already generally known everywhere and everybody is convinced that it is excellent for a cough.

“‘And as regards how the remedy is made and what it contains, what does it matter?

“‘Personally, in my handling of these remedies for many years, a definite opinion has been formed in me that none of the remedies known to contemporary medicine can be of any use at all without faith in it.

“‘And faith in a person concerning any remedy arises only when the given remedy is known and when many people say that it is very good for a certain illness.

“‘It is just the same with this powder of ours; once it is called Dover’s powder, that is enough, because everybody already knows it and many people often say of it that it is excellent for coughs.

“‘And besides, speaking candidly, our new composition of Dover’s powder is much better than the real one made from the prescription of Dover himself, if only because it contains no substance injurious to the organism.

“‘For instance, according to the prescription of Doctor Dover himself opium must enter into the composition of his powder.

“‘And you know the properties of opium? If a man takes it often enough even in small doses, his organism soon gets so accustomed to it that later, if he ceases dosing himself, he suffers intensely.

“‘But from the powder made from our prescription this would never happen, since it contains none of that opium or any other substance harmful to the organism.

“‘In short, my esteemed Doctor, every one ought, when walking in the streets, to shout from the bottom of his heart: “Long live the new prescription for Dover’s powder!”‘

“He was going to say something more, but just then a boy brought him from the pharmacy itself a whole stock of various prescriptions, upon seeing which he rose and said to me:

“‘Excuse me, Doctor, I am compelled to stop our friendly chat and to get busy on the preparation of these innumerable orders.

“‘By bad luck both of my assistants are absent today, one of them because his esteemed other half must bring into “God’s world” today one more mouth to feed, and the other has to attend the courts because a chauffeur is being accused of kidnapping his daughter.’

“Well, enough of that. …

“If you should really have to exist among these favorites of yours, you will at least know from this last talk of mine that although the physicians there write a dozen wiseacring names in their prescriptions, yet in these official establishments of theirs which are called pharmacies their remedies are prepared almost always after the fashion of that Dover’s powder.

“It even happens there that occasionally these kind pharmacists prepare early in the morning a whole barrel of some liquid and a whole box of some powder, and during the entire day they satisfy everyone bringing prescriptions, either by pouring from that common barrel or by taking powder from that common box.

“In order that this mixture prepared betimes should not always have the same appearance, these kind professionals put in something for coloring with various colors and for changing the taste and smell.

“In spite of all that I have said, however, I advise you very strongly to be extremely careful with one kind of their remedies, because it does sometimes happen there that these kind pharmacists put into these mixtures something poisonous for the planetary body—of course, by mistake.

“Moreover, for the beings with normal reason the custom has been established there, of course accidentally, always to depict on the labels of mixtures of that kind what is called a ‘skull and crossbones,’ so that it may be possible always to distinguish that kind of poisonous remedy from the ordinary medicinal means.

“However, in any case, do remember that from among the number of many thousands of known ‘medical means’ applied by the contemporary physicians there only three, and even then only sometimes, produce some or other real results for the planetary bodies of your contemporary ordinary three-brained beings.

“One of these three medical means which does sometimes nevertheless produce a useful reaction is that substance, or, more strictly speaking, those active elements entering into it, which the beings of Maralpleicie learned how to obtain from the plant poppy and which they were the first to call opium.

“The second substance is that which is called there ‘castor oil’; this substance was already used long ago by the beings of Egypt for embalming their mummies, and it was they who also noticed that this substance has, among other things, that action for which it is now used.

“But the knowledge about this castor oil passed also to these beings of Egypt from the beings of the continent Atlantis, who belonged to the learned society of Akhaldan.

“And the third substance is that which has been obtained there by beings from the dawn of centuries from what is called the ‘Cinchona tree.’

“Now listen, my boy, to the information about the newly invented name of those terrestrial contemporary physicians articulated as ‘doctor.’

“It would seem that this invention is that also of the beings of the ‘important’ community of Germany there, and they invented this articulation for the purpose of defining some merit or other of some among them, but this same invention of theirs, which was widely spread on the whole of their planet, became, for some reason or other, the ordinary nominal name for all the contemporary physicians there.

“It must be even emphasized that, thanks to this invention of theirs, there was added there yet one more to the number of factors, the totality of which constantly leads them into error and by which their being-mentation, already weakened without this, becomes year by year more ‘makhokhitchne.’

“On account of this new word of theirs, even our Ahoon, in spite of his having an incomparably more normal presence, and being clothed with a being-reason of higher quality, had while we were there a very disagreeable, even an almost idiotic misunderstanding.

“As for the rest, it will in my opinion be much better if he tells you about it himself.”

Having said this, Beelzebub addressed himself to Ahoon in the following words:

“Tell us, old man, how this then happened and what made you for several days the whole time ‘Skoohiatchiny’ and ‘Tsirikooakhtz,’ or as the three-brained beings of the planet Earth would say, made you just ‘grumble’ and be ‘irritable’ like your friend there, Dame Bess.”

To this Ahoon, again imitating the style of Beelzebub and this time even his very intonation, began to relate as follows:

“This misunderstanding happened to me owing to the following cause:

“During this sixth visit of ours to the planet Earth, just towards the very end, we had to exist, by the way, for a little while also in the capital of those same German beings who, as His Reverence condescended to say, invented just this word, accursed for me, ‘doctor.’

“In the hotel where we had the place of our existence, next to my room, or as is said there in the ‘number’ next to mine, there existed a very sympathetic pair of beings who had only recently completed the sacrament of the Union of the Active with the Passive for the purpose of serving the Great All-Universal Trogoautoegocratic process for the prolongation of their generation, or, as they themselves would say, had ‘been married,’ and they were still considered ‘newlywed.’

“Well, with this young couple I accidentally became acquainted in the house of some friends of mine, after which this couple often began to invite me to their room for what is called there a ‘cup-of-tea’; at other times I even myself, without their invitation, used to drop in on them in order to shorten the wearisome ‘German’ evenings.

“She was, as is said there, ‘in an interesting condition’ and, according also to their expression, was expecting her first-born.

“They, as well as I, were in that capital for an indefinite period, and on the business for the profession of the Active half of this young couple, and they were therefore existing in that hotel in which we were just staying.

“There once resounded from them a very nervous rapping on the wall of my room.

“I instantly ran to them and it turned out there, that ‘himself’ was not at home, for on that very day he had had to go off somewhere; and during this time she had felt faint and, almost without consciousness, had instinctively rapped on my wall.

“When I entered she already felt somewhat better, but imploringly asked me to hurry for a ‘doctor.’

“I instantly of course rushed out into the street. But once there I thought: But where am I to go now?

“Suddenly I remembered that not far from our hotel a being lived whom everybody called ‘doctor’; it was even marked on a metal plate in front of his name on the door that he was a ‘doctor’; and it was to this ‘doctor’ that I ran.

“But it turned out that he was dining, and therefore his servant asked me to wait a little in the drawing-room, having explained to me that the ‘doctor’ would have finished dinner immediately with his guests and would soon be coming out.

“I, of course, sat down in the drawing room awaiting this ‘doctor,’ but it could scarcely be said that I sat very quietly.

“I was sitting there as if, as beings say there, ‘on live coals’ because I was most anxious about the condition of my neighbor.

“But the ‘honorable doctor,’ however, never came. Almost twenty minutes passed. I could not bear it any longer and rang the bell.

“When the servant entered I asked her to remind the ‘doctor’ about me and to say that I was in a very great hurry and could not wait any longer for him.

“She went away.

“Another five minutes passed.

“At last the ‘doctor’ himself appeared.

“Hurriedly, I shortly explained to him what I wanted from him; but to my astonishment he began to laugh irrepressibly at my request.

“I thought: Obviously during dinner with his friends this ‘doctor’ has drunk more than one glass too much of ‘German beer.’

“And only when he had calmed down a little from his hysterical laughter could he tell me that to his great regret he was not a ‘doctor of medicine’ but only a ‘doctor of philosophy.’

“At that moment I experienced such a state, as if, as it were, I were for the second time hearing our endlessness’s ‘sentence’ of exile passed upon His Reverence and those nearest him, and in consequence upon me.

“Well, our dear Hassein!

“I left the drawing room of that ‘doctor’ and was once more out in the street in the same position as before.

“Just then, a taxi happened to pass.

“I got into it and began to reflect: Where, now?

“I then remembered that in that cafe where I sometimes went, a being also almost always went whom everybody called ‘doctor.’

“I ordered the chauffeur to hurry to this cafe.

“There a waiter known to me told me that this same ‘doctor’ had indeed been there, but he had just left with some of his acquaintances; and that he, the waiter, had accidentally overheard from their conversation that they were going to such and such a restaurant, and gave me the name of this restaurant.

“Although this restaurant was some way away, yet nevertheless I ordered the chauffeur to go there, as I knew of no other ‘doctor.’

“At length, in half an hour, we came to this restaurant and there I very soon found this ‘doctor.’

“Once again, this time, he turned out not to be a ‘physician’ but … ‘a doctor of jurisprudence.’

“I was completely, as is said there, ‘in the soup.’

“At last it entered my head that I might address myself to the headwaiter of the restaurant and explain to him in detail what I required.

“This headwaiter turned out to be a very kind being. He not only explained to me what had to be done, but even went with me to a certain physician, this time called a ‘doctor-accoucheur.’

“We found him by chance at home and he was kind enough to agree to go with me at once. But while we were on the way, my poor neighbor had already brought forth a boy, her first-born, and having somehow swaddled the baby without anyone’s help, was already sound asleep after the terrible torments she had borne in solitude.

“And so, from that day I have with my whole being hated the sound of the word ‘doctor,’ and to each of the beings of the planet Earth I would advise him to use this word only when he is very angry.

“That you may the better understand the significance of the contemporary physicians on your planet, it is also necessary to tell you of the saying of our highly esteemed Mullah Nassr Eddin concerning these same contemporary physicians.

“He speaks of them thus: ‘For our sins, God has sent us two kinds of physicians, one kind to help us die, and the other to prevent us living.'”

AND so,” Beelzebub continued, “at this sixth sojourn of mine in person on the surface of that planet Earth of yours, I decided to settle there for a long stay and to become a professional physician there. I did indeed become one, only not such a physician as most of them are there, but I chose for myself the profession of what is called there ‘physician-hypnotist.’

“I became such a professional there firstly because during recent centuries only such physician-professionals there obtain an entree to all their ‘classes’ or ‘castes’ of which I spoke, and, since they enjoy great confidence and authority, ordinary beings are disposed to a sincerity towards them that permits them to penetrate, as is said there, their ‘inner world.’

“Secondly, I decided to become such a professional, in order, also parallel with the attainments of my personal aims, to have the possibility at the same time of giving genuine medical assistance to certain of those unfortunates.

“Indeed, my boy, on all the continents there and among all the beings, to whatever class they may belong, there has been during recent times and there still is a great need for just such physicians.

“I may say that I already had a very wide experience in this specialty, having during my previous elucidation of certain subtle points of the psyche of individual favorites of yours many times had recourse to methods used there by such a kind of physicians.

“I must tell you that formerly your favorites, like all the other three-brained beings of the whole Universe, were without that particular psychic property which permits them to be brought into what is called a ‘hypnotic state.’ To get into that state became proper to your favorites, thanks to a certain combination obtained in their psyche and derived from the disharmony of the functioning of their common presence.

“This strange psychic property had its rise soon after the destruction of Atlantis and began to become finally fixed in the presence of every one of them from the time when their ‘Zoostat,’ that is the functioning of their ‘being-consciousness,’ began to be divided in two and when two entirely different consciousnesses having nothing in common with each other were gradually formed in them, namely, those two different consciousnesses, the first of which was called by them simply ‘consciousness’ and the second—when they finally noticed it in themselves—was called and still continues to be called ‘subconsciousness.’

“If you try clearly to represent to yourself and to transubstantiate in the corresponding parts of your common presence all I am about to explain to you, you will perhaps then thoroughly understand nearly half of all the causes why the psyche of these three-brained beings who have taken your fancy and who breed on the planet Earth has finally become such a unique phenomenon.

“This psychic particularity, namely, of falling into a ‘hypnotic state,’ is, as I have already said, inherent to the three-brained beings only of this planet of yours, and one can therefore say that if they did not exist, then in all our Great Universe there would not exist in general even a being-notion of ‘hypnotism.’

“Before explaining to you further about all this, it is here appropriate to emphasize that although during the last twenty centuries almost the entire process of the ordinary waking existence of most of the three-brained beings who have taken your fancy, particularly of the beings of contemporary times, flows under the influence of this inherency of theirs, nevertheless they themselves give the name hypnotic state only to that state of theirs during which the processes of this particular property flow in them acceleratedly and the results of which are obtained concentratedly. And they fail to notice, or, as they would say, they are not struck by irregular results of this inherency which has recently become fixed in the ordinary process of their existences, because, on the one hand, in the absence in them in general of normal self-perfecting, they have not what is called a ‘wide horizon,’ and on the other hand, arising and existing according to the principle Itoklanoz, it has already become inherent in them ‘quickly-to-forget’ what they perceive. But when the said results of this inherency of theirs are obtained ‘acceleratedly-concentratedly,’ then every kind of irregular manifestation, their own and those of others, become real to such a degree that they become acutely obvious even to their bobtailed reason and therefore unavoidably perceptible.

“But even if certain of them should by chance notice something illogical in their manifestations or in the manifestations of others, then, thanks to the absence in them of the knowledge of the law of 'typicality,' they at best ascribe it to the particularities of the character of the given beings.

“This ‘abnormal’ particular property of their psyche was first constated by the learned beings of the city Gob of the country Maralpleicie; and even then they made it a serious and detailed branch of science which spread over the whole of the planet under the name of ‘non-responsible-manifestations-of-personality.’

“But later, when the turn of their ‘regular-process-of-reciprocal-destruction’ came round again, this detailed branch of their science, which was then still comparatively normal, began like all their good attainments to be gradually forgotten and finally also entirely disappeared.

“And only many centuries later did this branch of their science again show signs of reviving.

“But … thanks to the fact that at this period most of the learned beings there had already become learned beings of ‘new formation,’ they sat upon this new revival so firmly that before the poor thing had time to develop, it soon found its way into their common what is called ‘rubbish heap.’

“And this happened in the following way:

“A humble learned being there, unlike his contemporaries, Mesmer by name, and by birth from what is called ‘Austria-Hungary,’ once happened to notice clearly during certain of his experiments the real duality of consciousness in beings like himself.

“He was greatly impressed by this and devoted himself entirely to this question which interested him.

“Continuing to observe and to study, he almost succeeded in understanding the reason. But when later he began making practical experiments for the elucidation of certain details, well it was just then that there began to be manifested toward him that particularity proper to the learned beings of ‘new formation’ there.

“This particularity of the learned beings of the Earth of new formation is called ‘pecking to death.’

“As this honest Austro-Hungarian learned being then began making his elucidating experiments not as all the learned beings of the Earth of new formation had in general become mechanized to do, he was, according to the custom there, very meticulously ‘pecked to death.’

“And this process of the pecking to death of this poor Mesmer was then so effective that it has already passed by its own momentum to the learned beings of the Earth from generation to generation.

“For instance, all the books now existing there on the question of this hypnotism—and of such books there are thousands there—always begin by saying that this Mesmer was nothing more nor less than a rogue with an itching palm and a charlatan of the first water, but that our ‘honest’ and ‘great’ learned beings very soon saw through him and prevented his doing any kind of mischief.

“The more the learned beings of recent times of this peculiar planet are themselves personally, in the sense of ‘idiotism,’ ‘squared,’ the more they criticize Mesmer and say or write concerning him every possible kind of absurdity to bring him into contempt.

“And in doing this, they criticize exactly that humble and honest learned being of their planet, who, if he had not been pecked to death would have revived that science, which alone is absolutely necessary to them and by means of which alone, perhaps, they might be saved from the consequences of the properties of the organ Kundabuffer.

“There is no harm in remarking here that just when I was leaving that planet forever, precisely the same was being repeated there as had occurred to this Mesmer. Namely, on this occasion, an honest and humble learned being there from among the beings of the community France, after persistent and conscientious labors came across the possibility of curing that terrible disease, the spreading of which also had in recent times assumed a general planetary character.

“This terrible disease is called there ‘cancer.’

“As this Frenchman also made practical experiments, not in the usual fashion there, for the elucidation of the details of his discovery, other contemporary learned beings thereupon also manifested toward him that same particularity of theirs—‘to peck him to death.’

“Possibly now, in your presence also there already begin to be crystallized the data for the engendering always in corresponding cases of the being-impulse of an ‘indubitable conviction’ concerning this fact that thanks only to the learned beings of new formation there, in whom there has already been implanted the mentioned particularity, namely, of not failing to peck to death every colleague of theirs who does not do the same as has already been fixed by the abnormally established conditions of ordinary being-existence established there, there will never proceed in the presences of the three-brained beings of this ill-fated planet Earth of yours what is called the sacred ‘Antkooano,’ upon which, among other things, the Very Saintly Ashiata Shiemash also counted.

“About this ‘Essence-loving-hope’ of his, I chanced to learn during my investigations concerning His Very Saintly Activities there.

“You, my boy, perhaps still do not know in what, namely, the cosmic process of the sacred Antkooano consists?

“The sacred Antkooano is the name of that process of perfecting the Objective-Reason in the three-centered beings, which process proceeds by itself simply from the ‘flow of time.’

“As a rule, everywhere on those planets of our Great Universe upon which three-brained beings breed, the perfecting of Objective-Reason can proceed in them only from personal conscious labors and intentional sufferings.

“This sacred Antkooano can proceed only in those planets upon which in general all cosmic truths have become known to all the beings.

“And all cosmic truths usually become known to all on these planets, thanks to the fact that the beings of the given planet who by their conscious labors learn some truth or other share it with other beings of their planet, and in this way all the cosmic truths gradually become known by all the beings of the given planet without any distinction.

“Thanks to this sacred process, intentionally actualized by our all-foreseeing common endless father, it is foreseen that in the three-brained beings of the given planet, during the process in their presences of the fundamental cosmic holy law of Triamazikamno, the superfluity of its third holy force thereby obtained, namely, the force of the ‘sacred reconciling,’ should by itself crystallize data in them for engendering that something which is what is called ‘being-Egoaitoorassian-will.’

“Well then … the mentioned particular property recently newly fixed in the common presences of your favorites is that the functioning of their mentioned Zoostat, or as they themselves would say, of their ‘spiritual part,’ passes into that functioning of their common whole which properly proceeds during their completely passive state, that is, during their ‘sleep,’ and during this sleep of theirs the entire functioning of their planetary body continues to remain such as it became proper to it to be during their waking state.

“In order that you should better represent to yourself and understand the results flowing from such an astonishing ‘psychic property,’ you must first of all know about two facts actualized in the common presences of these favorites of yours.

“One of these facts is produced in their common presence thanks to the existing cosmic law of ‘self-adaption-of-Nature’; and the other fact flows from the abnormal conditions of ordinary being-existence established by them themselves about which I have repeatedly spoken.

“The first fact is, that from the time when owing to their abnormal existence there began to be formed in them what is called the ‘two-system-Zoostat,’ that is, two independent consciousnesses, then Great Nature began gradually to adapt Herself and finally adapted Herself to this, that after they arrive at a certain age, there begin to proceed in them two ‘Inkliazanikshanas’ of different what are called ‘tempos,’ that is, as they themselves would say, two ‘blood circulations’ of different kind.

“From this certain age mentioned, each one of these ‘Inkliazanikshanas’ of different tempo, that is to say each ‘blood circulation,’ begins to evoke in them the functioning of one of their mentioned consciousnesses; and vice versa, the intensive functioning of either consciousness begins to evoke in them the kind of blood circulation corresponding to it.

“The difference between these two independent kinds of blood circulation in their common presences is actualized by means of what is called ‘tempo-Davlaksherian-circulation,’ or, according to the expression there of what is called contemporary medicine, the ‘difference-of-the-filling-of-the-blood-vessels’; that is to say, in the condition of the waking state, the ‘center-of-gravity-of-the-blood-pressure’ in their common presences obtains in one part of the general system of blood vessels, and in the condition of the passive state, in another part of the vessels.

“And the second fact—the fact ensuing from the abnormal conditions of the being-existence of your favorites—is that when, from the very beginning of the arising of their offspring, they intentionally try by every kind of means, for the purpose of making them respond to these abnormal conditions round them, to fix in their ‘logicnestarian-localizations’ as many impressions as possible obtained exclusively only from such artificial perceptions as are again due to the results of their abnormal existence—which maleficent action of theirs towards their offspring they call ‘education’—then the totality of all such artificial perceptions gradually segregates itself in their common presences and acquires its own independent functioning, connected only as much with the functioning of their planetary body as is necessary merely for its automatic manifestation, and the totality of these artificial perceptions is then perceived by them, owing to their naïvete, as their real ‘consciousness’ But as for the sacred data for genuine being-consciousness put into them by Great Nature—which consciousness ought to be possessed by them from the very beginning of their preparation for responsible existence together with the properties inherent in them which engender in them the genuine sacred being-impulses of ‘faith,’ ‘hope,’ ‘love,’ and ‘conscience’—these data, becoming gradually also isolated and being left to themselves, evolve independently of the intentions of the responsible beings, and of course also independently of the bearers of them themselves, and come to be regarded as what is called the ‘subconsciousness.’

“Thanks only to such a, in the objective sense, maleficence, but according to their naïve subjective understanding ‘benevolence’ towards their offspring, all the sacred data put in by Great Nature Herself for forming in them their real being-consciousness become isolated and remain during the entire period of their existence in their almost primitive state, and every kind of impression unavoidably perceived by means of the six ‘being-Skernalits-ionniks,’ or, in their terminology, ‘sense-organs,’ present in their presences for the specific perception of externals—by the way, they count them as five—come to be localized and, acquiring their isolated functioning, gradually become predominant for the whole of their common presence.

“Although such a ‘localization’ of accidentally perceived ‘impressions’ is found in them and although they are aware of its action, yet, in respect of any functioning inherent in their planetary body as well as in respect of the acquisition in their common presence of Objective-Reason, it plays no part.

“All these impressions, intentionally or accidentally perceived, from which the said localizations are formed ought to be in them only as material for confrontative logic for that real being-consciousness which they should have in themselves, and the accidental results of the perception of which, in their naïvete, they sometimes now confidently regard merely as reflexes of their, in their opinion, insignificant what is called ‘animal instinct.’

“Only thanks to the single fact that your favorites, especially the contemporary ones, do not know at all and even do not suspect the necessity of at least adapting their famous education to the said subconsciousness of their offspring, but that they always and in everything intentionally assist every one of the rising generation to perceive impressions only from the abnormally artificial, then thanks only to this, when every one of them reaches the age of a responsible being all his being-judgments and all his deductions from them are always purely peculiarly-subjective in him and have no connection not only with the genuine being-impulses arising also in him, but also neither with those general cosmic lawful phenomena, to sense which by Reason is proper to every three-brained being, and by means of which there is established that connection between all the three-brained beings of all our Great Universe for the collective fulfillment of the common universal functioning, for which purpose everything existing in the Universe just exist.

“For your wider understanding of this particular ‘psychic state’ it is necessary to tell you further that even up to now they arise with every kind of data for acquiring genuine being-Reason, and at their arising there are not yet in their presences any ‘logicnestarian-growths’ from which there is later localized and from which there is acquired the isolated functioning in them of the said ‘false consciousness.’ But only later, during their development and their preparation to become responsible beings, either by themselves or by the intentional directing of their as they call them ‘parents’ or ‘teachers’—that is to say, responsible beings who undertake the responsibility of the preparation of the given beings for responsible existence—they begin, as I said, to help intentionally in taking in and fixing only those impressions which later are data for the impulses corresponding to surrounding abnormally established conditions; and only then, being gradually formed, there just begins to be predominant in their common presence this said artificially formed ‘consciousness’ of theirs.

“And the totality of these localized data, existing in their presences and spiritualized in them for the genuine being-consciousness which they call subconsciousness, not having and not acquiring any ‘logicnestarian-growths’ for confrontation and criticism, but having from the very beginning only possibilities of engendering the sacred being-impulses called 'faith,' 'love,' 'hope,' and 'conscience,' always believes, always loves, and always hopes in everything newly perceived.

[Editorial Note: The following two paragraphs were identified as missing from the main text in the errata section at the end of the 1950 PDF edition. They have been inserted here to restore textual completeness. The first paragraph shows variation between sources: the version below is from the PDF errata documentation, while an alternative version was located on a Greek website edition. The second paragraph appears consistently across sources with only minor differences.]

[#1-PDF] “So, my boy, when the hypnotist, by modifying the tempo of their blood circulation, temporarily suspends the action of the localization of their false consciousness—now the ruling master of their common presence—the sacred data of their genuine consciousness can blend freely during their ‘waking’ state with the entire functioning of their planetary body; and if then he rightly assists the crystallization of data evoking in that localization an idea contrary to what has been fixed there, and directs the action of that idea upon the disharmonized part of the planetary body, an accelerated modification of the circulation of the blood in that part can be produced.

[#1-Greek] “And so, when thanks to a change of tempo of their blood circulation there is obtained a temporary suspension of the action of the localization of that false consciousness which has already become the ‘autocratic ruler’ of their common presences, thereby giving the sacred data of their genuine consciousness the possibility of unhindered blending with the total functioning of the planetary body during the period of their waking state, then indeed my boy, if the crystallization of data for engendering in that localization an idea of something opposite to that which has already arisen in them and somehow become fixed, is assisted in a corresponding manner, and if moreover the actions evoked by this idea are directed upon a disharmonized part of the planetary body, an accelerated change in it possible.

[#2-PDF] “During the period of the Tikliamishian civilization, when the learned beings from the country of Maralpleicie first discovered the possibility of such combinations in their common psyche and tried to put one another at will into that special state, they soon found out and understood how to obtain it with the help of what is called being-hanbledzoin, that cosmic substance whose essence the three-brained beings of contemporary civilization came close to understanding, and which they named animal magnetism.

[#2-Greek] “When, during the period of the Tikliamishian civilization, the learned beings of the locality Maralpleicie first constated in their common psyche the special possibility of such ‘combinations,’ and began to search for ways of intentionally bringing one another into this special state, they soon understood and found the possibility of actualizing this by means of what is called ‘being-Hanbledzoïn,’ namely, that cosmic substance, the essence of which the three-brained beings of the contemporary civilization came close to understanding, and which they called ‘animal magnetism.’

“Since for the explanation of the given case and also perhaps for my following explanations, you must know more in detail concerning being-Hanbledzoin, I find it necessary before speaking further to inform you just now about this cosmic substance.

“Hanbledzoin is nothing else than the ‘blood’ of the Kesdjan body of the being; just as the cosmic substances called in totality blood serve for nourishing and renewing the planetary body of the being, so also Hanbledzoin serves in the same way for nourishing and perfecting the body Kesdjan.

“It is necessary to tell you that in general the quality of the composition of the blood in the three-brained beings and also in the common presences of your favorites depends on the number of the being-bodies already ‘completely formed.’

“Blood in the presences of the three-brained beings may be composed of substances arising through the transformation of three separate independent what are called ‘general-cosmic-sources-of-actualizing.’

“The substances of that part of the being-blood which is designed by Nature for serving the planetary body of the being, arise by means of the transformation of substances of that planet on which the given beings are formed and exist.

“But the substances which are designed for serving the Kesdjan body of the being, and the totality of which is called Hanbledzoin, are obtained from the transformation of elements of other planets and of the sun itself of that system, where the given three-brained being has the place of his arising and existence.

“Finally, that part of the being-blood which almost everywhere is called the sacred being-Hanbledzoin, and only on certain planets is called the ‘sacred Aiëkhaldan,’ and which part serves the highest part of the being called the soul, is formed from the direct emanations of our Most Holy Sun Absolute.

“Substances required for the blood of the planetary body of the being enter into them through their ‘first-being-food,’ or, as your favorites say, ‘through food.’

“But the substances needed both for coating and for perfecting the higher-being-body-Kesdjan enter into their common presences through their, as they say, ‘breathing,’ and through certain what are called ‘pores’ of their skin.

“And the sacred cosmic substances required for the coating of the highest being-body, which sacred being-part of theirs, as I have already told you, they call soul, can be assimilated and correspondingly transformed and coated in them, just as in us, exclusively only from the process of what is called ‘Aiëirittoorassnian-contemplation’ actualized in the common presence by the cognized intention on the part of all their spiritualized independent parts.

“Although you will be able thoroughly to understand about all those cosmic substances with which the three independent being-bodies are coated and perfected in the common presences of your favorites only when, as I have already promised, I shall relate to you in general about the chief cosmic fundamental laws of World-creation and World-existence, nevertheless for a fuller elucidation of our present theme it is now necessary to explain a little about the changed form of the actualization in the common presences of your favorites of the ‘second-being-food’ automatically taken in by them.

“At the beginning, after the destruction of the organ Kundabuffer, when they, like all the other three-brained beings of our Great Universe also began to have a ‘Foolasnitamnian-existence,’ this second-being-food was normally transformed and all the fundamental elements proper to it, those which arise from the transformation of their own planet and those which flow into their atmosphere from the transformation in other concentrations of their solar system, were assimilated by their common presence according to the definite data already present in them, and the superfluity of certain of its component elements not used by individual beings automatically passed, as in us, into the possession of the surrounding meritorious beings similar to them.

“But later when, as I have already said, most of them began to exist in a way unbecoming to three-brained beings, Great Nature was constrained to change their Foolasnitamnian-existence into an existence according to the principle of Itoklanoz, and when gradually in the presences of most of them those definite crystallizations foreseen by Great Nature—which crystallizations are the most important part of the composition of the second-being-food, and which when assimilated by beings are transformed into substances for the coating and for the further perfecting of their higher-body-Kesdjan—ceased, owing to their abnormal being-existence, to be assimilated either consciously or automatically for the purpose indicated, then in consequence of this and also because the afflux of these substances, transformed in other concentrations and getting into the atmospheres of the planets, continued all the time to flow into the atmosphere of your planet, the result was that on this ill-fated planet, among your unfortunate favorites, there arose still another definite ‘disease’ which has already become quite definite in its harmful action upon them.

“The point is that not being used up for their predetermined purpose, the said definite cosmic crystallizations become, during certain displacements of their atmosphere, concentrated in certain of their atmospheric strata, and entering into them from time to time—dependently on various external surrounding conditions and also on the inner state of the common presences of your favorites, which by the way arises in them chiefly from the form of their mutual relationship—just into them as into apparatuses foreseen by Nature in general for the transformation of cosmic substances needed for serving the aims of the Most Great general-cosmic-Trogoautoegocrat, and not meeting there ‘substrata’ corresponding to the requirements of the lawful process of Djartklom, they, that is these cosmic crystallizations, during their subsequent free completed evolutions or involutions for passing into other crystallizations proper to this planet and before completing their transformations, produce upon planetary bodies, thanks already to other accidental factors, that action by which such a mentioned specific disease newly arisen there is characterized.

“Here it is opportune to notice that such a disease there having such a specific cause was named differently by your favorites at different times on different parts of the surface of their planet; and the contemporary beings likewise name it differently and also ‘wiseacre’ differently regarding the explanations of its cause.

“From among the great number of names of this disease of theirs the most widely spread there at the present time are ‘grippe,’ ‘influenza,’ ‘Spanish influenza,’ ‘dengue,’ and others.

“As regards the introduction into themselves of the second kind of being-food, which continues among beings even still up to now, then, since they lost the possibility of existing according to the Foolasnitamnian principle, certain of the ingredients of the substances of the second-being-food continue to serve only for assisting the transformation of the first-being-food and for removing from the planetary body certain elements already used by them.

“Now let us speak further about a particular psychic property of your favorites and about my activities at that time among them in the capacity of a ‘physician-specialist’ when I acted upon them by means of this particular psychic property of theirs.

“Though this ‘hypnotism,’ or as they prefer to say this branch of their ‘science,’ arose and became official only recently, yet it had already had time to become for them another of the very serious factors which brought about a still greater ‘confusion’ of their psyche, already muddled enough without this in the majority of them, and which still further deranged the functioning of their planetary body.

“After I had become a professional, namely, a ‘physician-hypnotist,’ I grew a little interested also in this official science of theirs, so that when I later made my usual researches concerning various serious questions, as for instance the investigations concerning the results of the activities of the Very Saintly Ashiata Shiemash, and chanced to come across something bearing upon questions of this branch of their science, I elucidated to my Reason also this ‘misunderstanding-question’ there.

“As the automatic impelling causes—which have become, there, usual for contemporary beings—for the revival also of such a branch of their contemporary science were exceedingly peculiar and even as they themselves would say ‘piquant facts,’ it will in my opinion be very interesting to tell you a little more in detail also about this said ‘revival.’

“Although contemporary learned beings there affirm that the beginning of this branch of their science was made by a certain English professor named Braid and that it was developed by the French professor Charcot, yet in reality, this was not so at all.

“From my detailed investigations of this said question, by the way, it became also clear that the former, Brade, had unmistakable signs of the properties of a Hasnamuss, and the latter, Charcot, had the typical properties of a mama’s darling.

“And terrestrial types of this kind, particularly the contemporary ones, can never discover anything quite new.

“And indeed, it appeared that this matter proceeded there in the following way:

“A certain Italian abbot, Pedrini by name, was in his town what is called a ‘confessor’ for a convent.

“To this abbot confessor there often came for confession a nun named Ephrosinia.

“From the stories told about her, it seems that she frequently fell into a certain particular state, and while in this state she displayed manifestations unusual for her environment.

“During confession she complained to the abbot Pedrini that at times she was unmistakably under the influence of ‘diabolical suggestions.’

“Everything she herself said and the stories circulated about her interested the abbot Pedrini and he became very desirous of convincing himself personally about them.

“Once during confession he tried by all possible means to evoke frankness in this nun, and he got to know among other things that this ‘nun-novice’ had had a ‘lover,’ who had once given her his portrait framed in a very beautiful frame, and that she permitted herself during periods of ‘resting’ from her prayers to admire this picture of her ‘sweetheart’ and that, as it seemed to her, the diabolical suggestion proceeded in her, just at these said periods of her ‘resting.’

“All this told frankly by the nun still further excited the interest of the abbot Pedrini and he decided at all costs to find out the cause of it, and with this aim in view he first of all asked the nun Ephrosinia to be sure to bring with her to the next confession the portrait of her sweetheart together with the frame.

“At the next confession the nun took with her this said portrait.

“There was nothing very special about it but the frame indeed was unusual, it being all encrusted with mother-of-pearl and various colored stones.

“While the abbot and the nun were together examining the portrait in the frame, the abbot suddenly noticed that something particular began to proceed with the nun.

“First she became pale and for a certain time she became, as it were, petrified, and then there began with her on the spot precisely in all details, the same manifestations which proceed there among the newly married at what is called the ‘first night.’

“After all this, the abbot Pedrini desired still more to make clear to himself all the causes of such an unusual manifestation.

“But as regards the nun, she recovered two hours after the beginning of this particular state of hers, and it was discovered that she knew and remembered nothing of what had happened to her.

“As the abbot Pedrini himself alone could not unravel this phenomenon, he turned for help to his acquaintance, a certain ‘Doctor Bambini.’

“Well, when the abbot Pedrini told everything in detail to the doctor Bambini, the latter also became very much interested, and from then on they both began to occupy themselves with the elucidation of it all.

“They first made various elucidating experiments upon the nun Ephrosinia herself, and after several what are there called ‘seances’ they noticed that this nun invariably fell into such a peculiar state of hers only when her gaze rested rather a long time on one of the brilliant colored stones, on what is called a ‘Persian turquoise,’ which was among the adornments of the frame of this portrait.

“But later when with this same Persian turquoise they continued to make their elucidating experiments upon others, they then soon became categorically convinced, firstly, that in almost any one of the three-brained beings without distinction of sex who gazes for a long time at shining and brilliant objects of a certain kind, there begins to proceed a state similar to the one which proceeded with the first subject of their experiments; and secondly, they noticed further that the form of manifestation of the subject during the state varies and is found to be dependent on the former being-experiences which chanced to be predominant and on the shining objects with which a connection was accidentally established during such experiences of theirs.

“Well, my boy …

“When the information concerning such observations, deductions and experiments of these two beings belonging to the community Italy were spread among the contemporary learned beings of ‘new formation’ and many of these latter also began wiseacring about it, and finally when by chance, as it usually happens among them, they learned that it is possible in beings similar to them when in this state, to change in an accelerated way the impressions formerly fixed in them to new ones, then certain of them began to use this particular psychic property, inherent in them for the purpose of curing.

“And from then on, such a means of curing was called by them ‘hypnotic cure,’ and those beings who were occupied with this means of curing, ‘physician-hypnotists.’

“The question as to what this state of theirs is and why it obtains in them, remains an open one for them even up till now and to reply to it they cannot.

“From that time on there began to appear and there exist till now hundreds of every possible kind of theory and thousands of thick books devoted to this question, thanks to which the minds of the ordinary three-brained beings of this ill-fated planet, already sufficiently muddled without this, become still more muddled.

“This branch of their science has perhaps come to be for them more maleficent that the fantastic inventions of the ancient Hellenic fishermen and of the contemporary beings of the community Germany.

“Thanks merely to this branch of their science, there was acquired in the psyche of the ordinary beings of this ill-fated planet several still new forms of what are called ‘being-Kalkali,’ that is ‘essential strivings’ which became cast into forms of definite ‘teachings’ existing there under the names of ‘Anoklinism,’ ‘Darwinism,’ ‘anthroposophism,’ ‘theosophism,’ and many others under the names also ending with ‘ism,’ thanks to which even those two data of their presences, which still helped them to be at least a little as it is becoming to three-centered beings to be, finally disappeared in them.

“And these essential data which have until recently been in them engendered in them the being-impulses they called ‘patriarchality’ and ‘religiousness.’

“This branch of their contemporary science was the cause not only of the acquiring by their common presences of several further new maleficent Kalkali, but it was also the cause of the derangement in many of them of the, without this, abnormal functioning of their psyche, which to their great misfortune was already long before this disharmonized up to the degree of what is called ‘Alnokhoorian cacophony.’

“You will understand this well, if I tell you that during that curing practice of mine there, when I later again became a physician-hypnotist there and existed mostly on the continent called Europe and on other countries situated near to it, almost half of my patients consisted of those who were ill only because of this said maleficent science of theirs which had become widely spread there.

“And this was obtained because when these ‘learned-beings-of-new-formation’ began writing various books about these questions, with every kind of fantastic theory, many ordinary beings there began to read them and became crazy with their fantasies and themselves began trying to evoke this hypnotic state in each other and as a result they brought themselves to the point of becoming my patients.

“Among such patients of mine were the wives of husbands who, having chanced to read these works, wished to suggest to their wives their egoistic wishes; for similar reasons children of unreasonable parents became my patients; various men who were found to be under the orders, or as it is said there, ‘under the thumb’ of their mistresses, and so on and so forth.

“And all this only thanks to the fact that these ‘sorry-learned-beings-of-new-formation’ cooked up their Hasnamussian theories concerning this distressing state of theirs.

“None of the theories now current among them concerning this question of hypnotism even approximate in the least to reality.

“Most recently, by the way, when I was on this ill-fated planet a new maleficent means began to flourish there for doing the same with the psyche of the beings there, as there did and still does this branch of their science hypnotism.

“And this new maleficent means they call ‘psychoanalysis.’

“You must without fail also know that when beings of the period of the Tikliamishian civilization constated for the first time about this particular psychic property of theirs, and soon made it clear that by its means they could destroy in each other certain properties particularly unbecoming to be in them, then the process itself of bringing someone into this state began to be regarded by them as a sacred process and was performed only in their temples before the congregation.

“But in the presences of your contemporary favorites not only does there absolutely not arise any being-impulse of ‘contrition’ about this essential property of theirs, and not only do they not consider its concentrated manifestation, intentionally yet unavoidably evoked by them, as ‘sacred’; but they have already adapted it, the process itself and the accidentally obtained results, for serving them as a means for ‘tickling’ certain consequences of the properties of the organ Kundabuffer firmly fixed in them.

“For instance, even when they meet together for one or another established ‘patriarchal ritual’ like a ‘wedding,’ ‘baptism,’ ‘saint’s day,’ and so one, one of the great diversions is trying to bring one another into the said state.

“It is lucky that they still do not know—and it must be hoped that they never will know—other methods besides the one first discovered by the beings of the community Italy, the abbot Pedrini and the doctor Bambini, namely, the gazing at a shining brilliant object, by means of which method, as I have already told you, certain of them can indeed be brought into such a mentioned ‘concentrated state.'”

ALL the further events, during this last sojourn of mine on the surface of the planet Earth, connected with the abnormal form of the usual being-existence of those three-brained beings who please you, and, at the same time, many trifling incidents of all kinds which elucidated the characteristic details of their peculiar psyche, began from the following:

“Once, walking one morning by the said Pyramids, a certain elderly being, a stranger, and in exterior appearance not a native, approached me, and greeting me in the manner customary there, addressed me with the following words:

“‘Doctor! You will perhaps do me the kindness to allow me to be your companion on your morning walks? I have noticed that you always walk in this neighborhood alone. I am also very fond of walking here of a morning and as I, too, am quite alone here in Egypt, I venture to propose to you that I should accompany you on these walks of yours.’

“Since the vibrations of his radiations in relation to mine appeared not acutely ‘Otkalooparnian,’ or, as your favorites in such a case would say, ‘since he appeared to be sympathetic,’ and furthermore because I myself had already thought of establishing here also corresponding mutual relations with someone, in order as a rest from active mentation to converse sometimes by following only the course of freely flowing associations, I at once agreed to his proposition and from that day forth began to spend the time of my morning strolls with him.

“During our further acquaintanceship, it transpired that this foreigner was a subject of that large community called ‘Russia,’ and that among his compatriots he was an important power-possessing being.

“During these walks of ours together it so happened that we began, why I don’t know, to talk chiefly about the weak will of the three-brained beings and about those weaknesses unworthy of them, which they themselves call ‘vices’ and to which they, particularly the contemporary beings, accustom themselves very quickly, and which finally become for them a basis, in the sense of the aim of their existence, as well as in the sense of the quality of their being-manifestations.

“Once during one of these conversations of ours he, addressing me suddenly, said:

“‘My dear Doctor! In my native land during recent times the passion for alcohol is strongly developed and widely spread among people of all classes, which passion as you know always, sooner or later, leads in general to those forms of mutual relationship which usually bring about the destruction of the century-old pillars and attainments of Society.

“‘This is just why several farsighted compatriots of mine, having at last understood all the seriousness of such a situation as had arisen in our country, collected together, in order perhaps to devise conjointly some means or other for the prevention of any catastrophic consequence. For the realization of this task of theirs, they there and then decided to found a society under the name of “The Trusteeship of People's Temperance,” and they chose me to be the head of this enterprise.

“‘At the present time, the activities of the “Trusteeship,” as regards the organization of measures for the struggle against the said state evil are in full swing.

“‘We have already done much and we have in view to do much more.’

“Having said this, he became a little thoughtful and continued thus:

“‘If now, my dear Doctor, you were to ask my personal opinion as to the results expected from this Trusteeship of ours, sincerely speaking, I should, although I am at the head of it, find it very difficult to say anything good about it.

“‘As regards the general position of affairs of this Trusteeship of ours, I meanwhile personally place my hope only in a “chance.”

“‘In my opinion, the whole evil consists in this, that this Trusteeship is under the protection of several groups, upon whom any realization of its task just depends, but as these groups each follow their own particular aims and wishes concerning each separate question, then, over the solution of each separate question concerning the basic aim of the Trusteeship, controversy always reigns. And thanks to this, day by day, instead of improving the conditions for a speedy possibility of a realization, indeed, of the aim which has been set as a basis of this very important actualization for my dear Fatherland, there only increases among the separate members of our Trusteeship all kinds of misunderstandings, personal considerations, gossip, intrigue, plots, and so on and so forth.

“‘As regards myself, personally, I have during recent times so much thought, re-thought, and consulted with various people who have more or less “life-experience,” in order to find some way or other out of the situation which has turned out so sorrowfully, that I reached such a state that I nearly fell ill and was compelled by the insistence of those near to me to undertake this journey here to Egypt with the sole object of resting. But alas! Now here in Egypt even I have met with no success, because always those same black thoughts of mine give me no peace.

“‘Now, my dear Doctor, that you already know approximately the gist of that affair, which was the cause for my present spiritual unbalance, I will frankly confess to you my inner thoughts and hopes which have arisen in connection with my acquaintanceship with you.

“‘The point is,’ he continued, ‘that during our frequent and lengthy talks on the subject of the evil vices of people and about the possible measures for getting rid of them, I reached a full conviction of your thorough competency in questions of the subtle understanding of people’s psyche, as well as in the creating of conditions for the struggle against their weaknesses. And that is why I regard you as the only man who might be the source of every kind of initiative for the organization, as well as for the carrying out in life of the activities of the Trusteeship founded there at home for the struggle against alcoholism.

“‘Yesterday morning an idea came into my head, over which I thought the whole day and evening, and it is about this that I finally decided to ask you.

“‘Would you consent to go to my country, to Russia, and, after you have seen everything on the spot that is going on there, help us to organize this Trusteeship of ours, in such a way that it may indeed become of that use to my country for which it was founded.’

“He further added: ‘Your just humaneness gives me courage to address this request to you, as well as the assurance that you will not, of course, refuse to take part in the work of saving perhaps millions of people.’

“When this sympathetic elderly Russian finished speaking, I, having thought a little, replied that I might very possibly consent to his proposal to go to Russia, since that country might perhaps be very suitable also for my chief aim.

“Further I said to him: ‘At the present time I have but one aim, namely, specifically to clear up for myself all the details of the manifestations of the human psyche of individuals existing separately as well as in groups. Well now, for the elucidation of the state and manifestations of the psyche of large groups, Russia would perhaps be very suitable for me, since as I have understood during our talks the disease of the “passion for alcohol” is spread there in your country among almost the entire population, thanks to which I shall the more often have the possibility of carrying out my experiments on various types, each separately as well as in a mass.’

“After this talk with the important Russian being, I soon got ready, and several days after left Egypt together with him. Two weeks later we were already in the chief place of existence of this large community, in the town at that time still called ‘Saint Petersburg.’

“After we arrived there, my new acquaintance immediately gave himself up to his own affairs which had very greatly accumulated during his long absence.

“By that time, among other things, there had already been finished there the construction of that large building which was destined by the Trusteeship to this aim of struggling against alcoholism, and my new acquaintance immediately began to apply himself to the organization and preparation of all that was necessary for what they call there the ‘inauguration’ of that building and the starting of the activities connected with it.

“I began, however, during that time, to go about everywhere as is usual for me, and to frequent the beings of this city, belonging to various what are called there ‘classes,’ in order to become acquainted with the characteristic particularities of their manners and customs.

“Well, it was then that I constated, among other things, that in the presences of the beings belonging to just this contemporary community, their, as it is called, ‘Ego-Individuality’ began during the recent centuries to form itself particularly sharply dual.

“After I had constated this and began specially to investigate this question there, I finally elucidated that this dual individuality obtained in their common presences, chiefly owing to a noncorrespondence between what is called the ‘tempo-of-the-place-of-their-arising-and-existence’ and the ‘form-of-their-being-mentation.’

“In my opinion, my boy, you will very well understand this particularly sharp ‘duality-of-the-beings’ of this large community, if I repeat to you word for word the opinion about them of our esteemed Mullah Nassr Eddin which he gave me personally.

“It is necessary for me to tell you that during the second half of this last sojourn of mine among your favorites, I happened more than once to meet that terrestrial uniquely wise Mullah Nassr Eddin and to have personal ‘exchange of opinion’ with him on various, as it is said there, ‘life questions.’

“This personal meeting of mine with him, in the course of which he, with a wise saying of his, defined the real essence of the beings of that large community there, took place on one of the parts of the surface of your planet called ‘Persia’ in a locality named ‘Ispahan,’ where I happened to be for my investigations concerning the Most Saintly Activities of Ashiata Shiemash, and also for clearing up on the spot that question I needed of just how there arose for the first time the form of their so-called ‘politeness,’ now everywhere existing there and also maleficent for them.

“Even before my arrival in Ispahan, I already knew that the esteemed Mullah Nassr Eddin had left for the town ‘Talaialtnikoom’ to stay with the stepson of the eldest daughter of his godfather.

“After I had arrived in this latter town, I immediately sought him out and the whole time I was there often visited him and, sitting on the roof, as was the custom in this country, we would chat together about every kind of what are called there ‘subtle-philosophic-questions.’

“Once, on the second or third day apparently, after my arrival there, on going to him in the morning, my eye was struck by an unusual movement in the streets: everywhere there were being cleaned, swept, and hung out what are called ‘carpets,’ ‘shawls,’ ‘flags,’ and so on.

“I thought: ‘Evidently one of the two celebrated annual festivals of the beings of this community is beginning.’

“On ascending to the roof, and having exchanged the usual greetings with our dear, most eminent and wise Mullah Nassr Eddin, I asked, pointing with my hand to what was happening in the street, what it was all about.

“Over his face spread his customary benevolent and as always enchanting grimace, which nevertheless had a slight shade of contempt, and he intended to say something, but at that moment there resounded in the street below the shouts of the ‘town criers’ and the clattering of many horses.

“Then our wise Mullah, without uttering a word, got up heavily and having taken me by the sleeve led me to the edge of the roof and then winking cunningly at me with his left eye, he turned my attention to a big ‘cavalcade’ which was rapidly galloping past and which consisted, as I later found out, chiefly of beings who are called ‘cossacks’ belonging to that same large community there, Russia.

“In the center of this large ‘cavalcade’ there rolled by what is called a ‘Russian phaeton,’ harnessed with four horses driven by an unusually fat and ‘imposing looking’ coachman. This imposing exterior, also quite Russian in manner, was due to the pads put in corresponding parts under his clothes. In this phaeton sat two beings, one of the type of that country Persia, and the other, a typical what is called ‘Russian general.’

“When the said cavalcade had moved off a long way, Mullah first of all uttering his favorite saying: ‘So-and-so-and-so-must-be; do-not-do-what-must-not-be,’ and having also uttered his favorite exclamation, somewhat resembling ‘Zrrt!!,’ he returned to his place and suggested to me that I should do the same, then, having arranged the still smoldering charcoal on his ‘Kalyan,’ he sighed deeply and pronounced the following tirade, which, as always, was not immediately understandable.

“‘Just now, in the company of a large number of “well-bred-turkeys,” a “crow” of this country passed by, who although one of the chiefs and of high rank, was yet nevertheless rumpled and badly molting.

“‘During recent times, I don’t know why, “high-rank-crows” of this country no longer in general take a single step without these “well-bred-turkeys”; they evidently do this in the hope that maybe, perhaps, the pitiable remains of the feathers would, owing to their being constantly within the powerful radiations of these turkeys, become a little stronger and cease to fall out.’

“Although I understood positively nothing about what he had just said, yet already well knowing his habit of expressing himself first of all allegorically, I was not at all surprised and did not question him, but patiently waited his further explanations.

“And indeed, when after he had pronounced the tirade and had thoroughly finished ‘hubble-bubbling,’ the water in his ‘Kalyan,’ he—while giving in his subsequent speech with the ‘subtle venom’ which is proper to him, a definition of the whole presence and general essence of the beings of the contemporary community ‘Persia’—explained to me that he compared the beings of this same community ‘Persia’ to the birds, crows, while the beings of the large community ‘Russia’ who formed just that cortege which had galloped along the street, he compared to the birds, turkeys.

“He developed this thought of his in a long dissertation thus: ‘If we analyze impartially and sum up statistically this understanding and picturing which obtain among people of the contemporary civilization concerning the races which populate Europe, in contradistinction to other continents, and make an analogy between these races and birds, then the people who represent the very “Tzimus” of contemporary European civilization, namely, those who arise and dwell on the continent Europe, must infallibly be called peacocks, that is, the birds who have the most beautiful and most gorgeous exterior, while the people who dwell on other continents must be called crows, that is, the most good-for-nothing and dirty of all birds.

“‘But for those contemporary people who obtain the basis and the required conditions for their arising on the continent of Europe and who are formed on it, but whose subsequent life, and consequently further “stuffing,” proceeds for some reason or other on other continents, and also for those contemporary people who, on the contrary, appear on “God’s Earth” on any continent and obtain their further “stuffing” under the conditions arising and reigning on the continent Europe, no better “comparison” can be found than the bird turkey.

“‘This latter bird, more than all other birds, expresses a something which is neither fish, flesh, fowl, nor good red herring, but which represents in itself, as is said, “a-half-with-a-quarter-plus-three-quarters.”

“‘The best representatives of these “turkeys” are the contemporary people of Russia and it was by these turkeys, namely, that one of the chief crows of this country was surrounded who not long ago rapidly passed by us.

“‘These Russians moreover correspond ideally to this peculiar bird turkey, as the following considerations of mine show:

“‘Arising and being formed on the continent Asia, but chiefly owing to a clean heredity, organic as well as psychic, forged in the course of many centuries in conditions of existence obtained on the said continent, they become, in all respects, the possessors of the nature of Asiatic people, and consequently they should also at the present time be crows. But in view of the fact that in recent times they have all been striving hard to become Europeans and have with intent been thoroughly stuffing themselves accordingly, they, thereby, little by little, are ceasing to be crows; and as, according to several undoubtedly lawful data, they cannot turn into real peacocks, they, leaving the “crows” behind and not yet reaching to the “peacocks,” are in themselves as I have said, ideally turkeys.

“‘Although the turkey is a very useful bird for the household, because its meat—if of course the turkey is killed in that special way which people of old nations have there learned thanks to long centuries of practice—is better and more tasty than that of all other birds, yet, in its living state, the turkey is a very strange bird and has a certain very special psyche, to understand which, even though only approximately, is, especially for our people with their half passive minds, quite impossible.

“‘One of the many specific features of the psyche of this strange bird is that the turkey, why I don’t know, considers it always necessary to swagger, and thus will often for no reason whatever puff himself out.

“‘Even when nobody is looking at him he swaggers and puffs himself out, though he does so in this case exclusively because of his own imagination and silly dreams.’

“Having said this, Mullah Nassr Eddin got up slowly and heavily, and again pronouncing his favorite saying: ‘So-and-so-this-must-be-it’ but this time with the ending ‘don’t-sit-long-where-you-shouldn’t-sit,’ took me by the arm and together we descended from the roof.

“Here, my boy, while giving the subtlety of the psychological analysis of our most wise Mullah Nassr Eddin its due, justice demands that it should be said that if these Russians have become such exemplary turkeys, we have, in this case, to blame it only once more on to those beings of the community Germany.

“The beings of Germany were in this case guilty owing to the fact that when they invented their famous aniline dyes, they overlooked one of the specific peculiarities of these dyes.

“The point is that with the help of these dyes it is possible to dye all natural colors, except one only, namely, genuine natural black, any other color.

“And it is thanks to this lack of foresight in these German beings that the scandalous misfortune for the poor Russians came about—that is to say, it is owing to the fact that the feathers of the crows are dyed by nature, as it ‘unsuspectingly-and-unexpectedly’ turned out, just a genuine black, which, even with these aniline dyes invented by themselves, cannot possibly be dyed any other color owing to the said vile imperfection of these dyes—that these poor Russian ‘crows’ cannot therefore possibly become peacocks. And what is worst of all, having ceased to be crows and not yet having become peacocks, they willy-nilly turn into the bird turkey, which expresses ideally, as has been formulated by our dear teacher, ‘Half-with-a-quarter-plus-three-quarters.’

“Well, thanks to the wise definition of the esteemed Mullah Nassr Eddin which he told me himself, I clearly understood for the first time why all the beings of that large community there, when they reach responsible age become possessors of so sharply dual an individuality.

“But enough about this. Listen further now to the events in which I happened to take part after my arrival in the chief place of existence of the community Russia, then called Saint Petersburg.

“As I have already said, while my acquaintance, the said important Russian, settled up his affairs which had become disorganized during his absence, I began to go about everywhere and meet beings there, of different, as is said, ‘class’ and ‘position,’ in order to study the characteristic particularities of their manners and customs, and to make clear for myself the cause of their so-called ‘organic need’ for alcohol, and the manifest consequences also of the result of its effects on their common presences.

“It is interesting to remark that during these meetings of mine with the various three-brained beings belonging to various ‘castes’ and ‘positions,’ I had already by then constated several times, and it had, after more attentive observation, become quite evident to me, that the majority of them carried in themselves the germ of that ‘particular-functioning-of-their-common-presences’ which had already long before been habitually arising in your favorites owing to a certain combination of two independent causes coming from outside.

“The first of these causes is a common cosmic law which exists under the name of ‘Solioonensius,’ and the second is a sharp deterioration of the conditions of the usual being-existence of the beings on some part of the surface of this planet of yours.

“I speak about that germ of the ‘particular-functioning-of-their-common-presences,’ which after several of their years became molded in the presences of all beings of this community in such a usual form as had already during certain definite periods become in general inherent in them, and as had become what is called a ‘stimulating factor’ for their specific manifestations, which also became proper only to three-brained beings of the planet Earth; and the totality of these manifestations among the beings of the large community was this time called there ‘Bolshevism.’

“I will explain to you later about this same ‘particular-functioning-of-their-common-presences.’

“I touched upon this question in this place only to give you a presentation of the already particularly abnormal conditions of being-existence among which my activities among the beings of this large community flowed at this period during this sojourn of mine in their chief place of existence, St. Petersburg.

“Even before my arrival in this city, I had had in view to actualize one of my intentions, for the fulfillment of which everything that was necessary had been already prepared by me.

“The point is that already long before this I had intended to set up in one or other of their great inhabited spots a ‘something,’ of the kind of what they call there a ‘chemical laboratory,’ in which I intended, by means previously decided on beforehand to proceed with special experiments on several deeply concealed aspects of their ever the same strange psyche.

“And so, my boy, when I had stayed in this city and when I discovered that almost half my time there might be free, I decided to make use of the chance of being temporarily ‘half-occupied,’ and set about the actualization of this intention of mine.

“From the information I obtained, I learned that in order to set up such a laboratory there, it was obligatorily required first of all to have a permit from the local power-possessing beings, and that is why I quickly began to take steps to get this permit.

“The first steps I took showed me that on account of the laws which had been so long before fixed in the process of existence of this community, a permit to have the right to have one’s own chemical laboratory had to be issued there by a certain what is called ‘department’ of one of their what are called ‘ministries.’

“That is why I betook myself to that same department; but it turned out that although the staff of this department acknowledged that it was their obligation to issue that kind of permit, yet they themselves did not know how it had to be done.

“And they did not know this, as I later understood, simply because no one had ever applied to them for this permit, and on this account these unfortunate beings had not acquired the customary for them what is called ‘automatic habit’ for the manifestation of such a ‘being-duty’ as theirs of this kind.

“Here it must in general be noticed that there during the last centuries almost every ‘being-manifestation’ for the fulfillment of their being-duty in the presences of those beings who become power-possessing is already actualized, thanks exclusively only to the functioning of the data which are formed in them from manifold automatic repetitions of the same thing.

“As regards the power-possessing beings of this community, the crystallization of these peculiar automatic 'being-data' at this period of the flow of time, proceeded in them much more intensely than anywhere else, and was expressed so sharply that sometimes it even seemed as if there were completely absent in them in general all data whatsoever for the immediate bringing forth of being-impulses proper in general to beings.

“This crystallization proceeded in them, as I later elucidated, in consequence of the action of the cosmic law Solioonensius, which cosmic law I some time ago mentioned to you.

“But as to what I said, namely, that nobody applied for a permit to the staff of the mentioned department, this by no means happened because none of the inhabitants of this chief place of existence needed a chemical laboratory; no, on the contrary, never had there been in that town so many similar chemical laboratories as at this very period of the flow of time, and doubtless all the owners of the necessary permits had procured them from somewhere or other in some or other way.

“They could not help having them. It was just for this that there existed in this chief place of their existence, as in general there exists in all large and small communities in times of peace, a particular as they say ‘administrative body,’ which comprises the ‘basic-hope-of-a-complete-bliss-for-power-possessors,’ which they themselves call the ‘gendarmerie’ and ‘police,’ one of the chief obligations of the representatives of which is to see that everyone, for every kind of enterprise there, should have a corresponding permit, and indeed, it must not be supposed that the what are called 'lynx-eyed' beings, representatives of the said ‘basic-hope-of-a-complete-bliss-for-power-possessors,’ would ‘let anything slip by’ and allow anywhere any laboratory whatever without the corresponding permit from the power-possessors.

“A basic reason for this seeming contradiction was something quite different.

“It is necessary to tell you that there already in this community the attitude towards the laws and regulations fixed in the past by the beings for ‘normal’—according to their understanding—mutual relationship and in general for ordinary existence, began to become such that only those of the ordinary beings could obtain and profit by everything to which they had objective right who knew how to act to the contrary, i.e., against laws and regulations existing there.

“Of these private laboratories, such as I wished to set up, not one but thousands could there be had; it was merely necessary to know first of all what abnormal ‘goings’ and ‘comings’ were the practice for procuring the permits for these laboratories, and then to act in accordance with these abnormalities.

“I, however, on account of the short time I had stayed there, had not yet had time to make clear for myself all the subtleties of the ordinary being-existence which had begun in this community, as I said, to become particularly abnormal.

“That is why, when I set out to take steps to get the permit I required, there began for me those endless vexations, or, as they themselves say in such cases, the ‘idiotic dillydallyings’ which were also fixed not long before in the process of their being-existence, and in addition all this turned out in the end to be quite without result and unnecessary.

“It began with this: when I had reached the aforesaid department and addressed myself to the staff there, they all began to eye each other perplexedly and to whisper together, and several of them rummaged through fat tomes in the hope obviously of finding some written rule about the issuing of these permits. Finally the oldest of them came toward me and importantly required from me that I should first of all bring him from a certain other department certain information concerning my personal, as they express it, ‘loyalty.’

“It was from just this that my further endless perambulations began, from one department to another, from, as they say, one administration to another, from one official specialist to another … and so on without end.

“Thus the business continued until from the so-called ‘district-officer’ I had to go to the so-called ‘parish priest’ and so on, all but to the official city midwife.

“Besides this, one of these departments, why I don’t know, required that a certificate issued by another department should be stamped by a third.

“In one department I had to sign a certain paper; in another to answer questions having nothing to do with chemistry; while in a third it was explained to me and I was advised how I must manage with the equipment of the laboratory so as not to be poisoned, and so on and so forth.

“It turned out as I later elucidated, that I had been, without at all suspecting it at the time, with an official among whose obligations was that of dissuading from this ‘abominable’ intention those who wished to set up chemical laboratories.

“But the most amusing of all was that, for obtaining this permit it was necessary in turn to apply to those official servants who had not even the remotest notion of what in general a laboratory was.

“I do not know how all this would have finished, if, having wasted almost two months, I had not myself in the end thrown up all these foolish hustlings around.

“I threw them all up for a reason which was not without its humor.

“According to the rules of all these senseless dilly-dallyings, I had to get among others a ‘paper’ from a doctor, official also, certifying that no danger would menace my personal health from my occupation in this laboratory.

“I went to this official doctor; but when he first of all desired to sound me thoroughly and for this requested me to undress entirely so that he might tap me all over with his little hammer, I could not of course in any way consent. And I could not consent to this, because, if I had bared myself, I should inevitably have betrayed my tail which there on your planet I skillfully hid under the folds of my dress.

“And you of course well understand that if any one of them were to have seen it, then everyone would very soon have known that I was not a being of their planet, after which it would have become already entirely impossible to remain among them and to continue the experiments interesting to me for the elucidation of the strangeness of their psyche.

“That is why I went from this doctor without the ‘paper’ necessary for me, and from that time I threw up everything and no longer tried to obtain a permit to set up my own laboratory.

“In spite of the fact that I went about there everywhere pursuing my special aim, hustling at the same time for the said permit, I nevertheless often met that important Russian, my first acquaintance, who, although he was, as I said, very busy with his own affairs, nevertheless found time to visit me or to receive me at his house.

“At these meetings we almost always talked only about the alcoholism in his fatherland, and about the measures for struggling with this evil.

“From such an exchange of opinion, there each time accumulated in me more and more material, as my impartial observations and studies of all the aspects of the psyche of the local beings were crystallizing in me always newer and newer data concerning them.

“This important Russian laid very great weight on my considerations and remarks on what had already been done by the Trusteeship of People's Temperance and also concerning the projects of future undertakings, and was always sincerely delighted by the justice of my observations.

“And in the beginning, all my suggestions which he reported at the general meetings of the Trusteeship were always accepted for actualization.

“But when several participants of this Trusteeship accidentally learned that the initiative for many useful measures had issued from me—some foreign doctor or other, not even a European—then every kind of habitual, as it is called ‘intrigue’ and ‘protest’ arose against the proposals coming from me, and also against the head of the Trusteeship himself.

“Those guilty of all the misunderstandings which led up to this sorrowful end to such an important institution as the Trusteeship, created for the welfare of all the three-brained beings of this many-millioned community, were always and in everything the learned beings of ‘new format.’

“The point is that, owing to the insistence of certain hereditary power-possessing beings, there were among the number of the permanent chief participants of this new institution several what are called ‘learned physicians.’

“They happened to be among the leaders of this Trusteeship, in consequence of the fact that in the presences of the hereditary power-possessing beings of that period there had again already become finally fixed and had become the inviolable part of their essence always the same ‘inner overlord’ of theirs, maleficent for the terrestrial three-brained beings, named by them ‘self-calming,’ which by itself became for those unfortunates the sense and aim of their existence. And therefore in order not to make any being-effort at all, they insisted that these learned physicians should also unfailingly take part in this important institution of great social significance.

“In recent times there, why I don’t know, the beings there of this profession most often became learned beings of ‘new format.’

“It is further also necessary to tell you here that when from among these learned beings of ‘new format’ some become power-possessing and happen to take up important responsible posts in the process of ordinary existence, they then often serve much more as the sources of every kind of subsequent misunderstanding than the hereditary power-possessing beings.

“And they serve as these sources of misunderstandings obviously in consequence of this, that in the common presences of these beings there are acquired and in a particular way are interwoven the characteristic inherencies which had already become proper to your favorites of three quite different contemporary types, namely, power-possessing beings, learned beings of ‘new format,’ and the contemporary ‘professional physicians.’

“And so, my boy, on the initiative and insistence of several hereditary power-possessing beings of that community, especially on that of those who, although they outwardly still continue to be power-possessing yet in inner significance are only as they are called ’emptied sand boxes’ (deflated gasbags), there were called to power for the business of actualizing such a serious task as the ‘relative saving’ of many millions of beings similar to themselves, those genuine ‘stuffed turkeys,’ or, as they would be called there, ‘upstarts.’

“While at first these same upstarts who had by chance received power carried on among themselves alone every kind of petty ‘intrigue’ proper to them, it was still for the general undertaking there only ‘half-a-calamity,’ but when, thanks to every kind of what is called ‘subterfuge’ also proceeding from them, there also began these intrigues between all the participants of this Trusteeship, and they all split up into different notorious ‘parties,’ which pernicious custom there for a successful actualization of every promising beginning is very widely spread, then also such a good beginning as this Trusteeship for the general welfare of contemporary three-brained beings began, as they say, to ‘crack at the seams.’

“Those petty ‘intrigues’ of theirs proceeded in full between the separate parties as well as between the separate members of that absolutely indispensable state organization, just at the time I arrived with my first Russian acquaintance in the chief place of existence of the said community.

“When those ‘upstarts’ who had accidentally received power learned that many of the ‘counsels’ and ‘indications’ on the business of improving the organization proceeded from me, that is, just from a professional like themselves, but who was not included in their so-called corporation, well, just then, understanding well that none of their intrigues and subterfuges could have any significance at all for me, they directed them against the head of the Trusteeship chosen by themselves.

“It is, apropos, very interesting lightly to remark here that, although every kind of data for bringing forth various being-impulses which they should have are in general feebly crystallized in the presence of these contemporary professionals there, then the data which brings forth the impulse called ‘corporate feeling’ for some reason or other is crystallized and functions in them very strongly.

“And so, my boy, as long as I did not yet know that to be occupied with ‘intrigues’ and dodges, or, as sometimes they themselves still express it, ‘mutually-to-get-rid-of-each-other,’ is already unavoidably inherent in power-possessing beings of this community, I still hoped for and patiently awaited that time when eventually the corresponding conditions would give me the possibility of actualizing my fundamental aim, namely, the possibility of proceeding with the ‘elucidatory experiments’ on the psyche of the terrestrial beings en masse. But when it became definitely clear to me that here in this community under the existing conditions of reciprocal relationships it would be impossible for me to succeed in this, and I also became convinced that it was impossible to get one’s own chemical laboratory there honestly, i.e., strictly according to the laws fixed in this community, I decided to remain there no longer, but to depart, in order to seek suitable conditions for my said aim, to some other European community.

“When my first acquaintance, the important Russian, learned about this decision of mine, he was greatly grieved; greatly grieved also were yet several other Russian beings who indeed wished more or less good for their fatherland, and who, during this period, had had time to become clearly convinced that my knowledge and my experience might be very useful for their fundamental aim.

“On the day of my suggested departure, this Trusteeship was preparing to open the big building which, as I have already told you, was just designed for the aim of the struggle against alcoholism and which the beings there on the day of its opening called by the name of their czar, ‘The People’s Building of the Emperor Nicholas II.’

“On the eve of my departure my first acquaintance, the important Russian, came to me unexpectedly and having sincerely expressed his regret at my departure, begged me very earnestly to postpone it for several days so that after the consecration and opening of the said building he might travel with me and incidentally rest a little from the recent bustle, intrigues, and subterfuges.

“As I had no special reason to hurry, I agreed and postponed my departure for an indefinite time.

“Two days later the opening of this building took place and, having the previous evening received what is called ‘an official invitation,’ I betook myself to that ceremony.

“Well, at this general state solemnity of the contemporary many-millioned community, to which came even he himself, as they call him, ‘His Majesty the Emperor,’ there began there, in respect of my person, what is called ‘Ooretstaknilkaroolni,’ which generally speaking always flows from the totality of the surrounding abnormalities and being formed automatically in the psyche of every one of the three-brained beings of this ill-starred planet, holds them so to say in an ‘exitless magic circle.’

“And the further events proceeded in the following order:

“On the day of the said state solemnity while the ceremony was still proceeding, my first acquaintance the Russian suddenly ran towards me shoving his way through the beings who appeared there in all the blaze of various what are called ‘orders’ and ‘regimentals,’ and in a joyous voice told me that I was to have the ‘happiness’ of being presented to His Majesty the Czar; having said this and speaking rapidly, he hurried away.

“It turned out that at this solemnity there he had had some conversation with the Emperor about me, as a result of which it had been decided that I should be presented to him.

“Such a presentation to the Emperor, Czar, or King is considered there as a very very great piece of luck, and that is why my acquaintance having received such a permission rejoiced beyond words on my behalf.

“Evidently he wished by this presentation to give me great ‘pleasure’ and by this to calm his own conscience, as he considered himself to blame for my unsuccessful stay in this capital.

“After this event, two days passed.

“On the third morning, looking by chance out of the window of my lodging into the street I saw there quite an unusual commotion; everyone was cleaning, everywhere there was sweeping, many of what are called the ‘gendarmerie’ and ‘police’ were walking up and down.

“To my question as to what caused all this, our Ahoon explained to me that on that day, in our street, the arrival of a very important general of that community was expected.

“On this same day, in the afternoon, while I was sitting at home and talking with one of my new acquaintances, the concierge of the house came running in to me, agitated and bewildered, and stammering exclaimed: ‘Hi … s, his … Ex … Exce … ce … ce … lency!’ But he did not have time to finish before His Excellency himself entered. As soon as the unfortunate concierge saw him appear, he appeared as if struck dumb by lightning, and then, having pulled himself together, he hurriedly, as it is said there, ‘backed’ out of the room.

“But His Noble Excellency himself, with a very friendly smile, although with a shade of what is called ‘hauteur’ characteristic of all the power-possessing beings of that community at that time, came towards me, at the same time examining with great curiosity the ‘antiques’ which were in my room, and, shaking me in a special way by the wrist, sat down in my favorite armchair.

“Afterward, continuing to examine the antiques, he said:

“‘You will in a day or two be presented to our “Great Autocrat,” and since it is I who attend to these affairs I have come to you just to explain to you how and what you must do on such a great and important occasion of your life.’

“Having said this, he suddenly stood up and approaching what is called a china figure of old Chinese workmanship which stood in a corner of my room, he exclaimed with impulsive rapture which thrilled his whole presence: ‘How charming! … Where did you get this marvel of ancient wisdom …?’

“And not ceasing to look at the said figure and giving himself up to the feeling of his rapture, or, more strictly speaking, with all his feelings coursing together through him, he further continued:

“‘I myself am very much interested in all ancient art, but chiefly in Chinese, and that is why, of the five rooms given up to my collection, three are filled with productions of ancient Chinese work alone.’

“Continuing to speak in this strain about his adoration for the production of ancient Chinese masters, he without ceremony again sat down in my armchair and began to enlarge upon antiques in general, their value and where they are to be found.

“During this conversation he suddenly and hastily took his watch from his pocket, automatically looked at it, stood up quickly and, once on his feet, said:

“‘How vexing! I am obliged to interrupt our chat, interesting to the highest degree, as I must hurry home where doubtless the great friend of my youth and his charming wife are already waiting for me.

“‘He is here for a short while, passing through on his way abroad from the provinces, and I have not seen him since we served in the same regiment and received different appointments, I to the Court, and he to a civil post.’

“He afterward further added: ‘And as regards the instructions I am required to give you, about which I had come to you, I will send my adjutant this very day, and he will explain everything to you, and no worse than I perhaps would.’

“After this, with fussy self-importance, he left me.

“And indeed, on the evening of the very same day, as His Noble Excellency had promised me, one of his adjutants came to my house who was still, as is said there, a ‘young man,’ that is a being who had only quite recently attained to responsible age. This adjutant of his who came had the very marked specific type of a terrestrial three-brained being whom in recent times among your favorites one has often come across, and who is very well defined by the words mama’s and papa’s darling.

“This former mama’s darling, when he arrived and began to speak to me, manifested himself at first towards me quite automatically according to the data fixed in his common presence by the rules enforcedly inculcated into him of what are called bon ton; and when a little later it became clear to his being-rumination that I belonged neither to his own caste nor to a higher one, but appeared to be one of those beings who according to the abnormal understanding of the beings of that community are considered little higher than what are called ‘savages,’ he immediately changed his tone and again quite automatically began to manifest himself towards me according to the data for ‘commanding’ and ‘ordering about,’ data also already fixed in the common presences of the beings of that community of that period who belonged to that caste, and he began to point out how I must ‘enter,’ ‘leave,’ and ‘move,’ and when and what words must be spoken.

“Besides the fact that in the course of two hours he had shown me by his own example how, namely, one had to manifest, he declared to me that he would return on the morrow and he ordered me to practice, so that, as he expressed himself, no misunderstanding at all might arise which might lead to where even ‘Makar did not drive his goats.’

“When on the day of my, as they call it, ‘supreme presentation’ I arrived there where the chief of this large community had the place of his residence, I was met at the railway station itself by ‘His High Excellency’ in person, who had arrived there accompanied by five or six of his adjutants, and from that moment he himself began—of course quite without the participation of, as it is called, his ‘personal-subjective-initiative,’ but guided only by automatic habit acquired by him, thanks to the doing of always one and the same thing—to subjugate all my separate spiritualized parts and all the self-manifestations of my common presence, taking it as it were under the directive of his own ‘I.’

“From this moment, I had, in the sense of my ‘outer manifestations,’ as our esteemed Mullah Nassr Eddin would say, to ‘dance in everything to his tune.’

“As soon as we had left the station and were seated in the carriage, he immediately began to show me and to prompt me as to what and how I had to act and speak and what I had not to do or say.

“And when later, in that hall where the celebrated presentation took place, he further showed and directed my presence … about this we can neither speak now in the language of a Scheherazade, nor describe it with the pen of a Mr. Canineson.

“In the hall every movement, every step I made, even to the blinking of my eyelids, were seen in advance, and prompted to me by this important general.

“However, in spite of all the absurdity of this procedure, if one takes into account that the perfection of a being depends on the quality and quantity of his inner experiencings, then objective justice demands that due must be given for this to your favorites, that on that day they compelled me, of course, unconsciously, to undergo and to feel perhaps more than I had undergone and felt during all the centuries of my personal sojourn there among them.

“However that may be, I must yet say that having agreed to this ‘famous presentation’ for the purpose of observation and investigation of the peculiar and such a ‘contorted’ psyche of your favorites, and after all the great ‘agitation’ which I had lived through on that day, I finally breathed freely only in the carriage of the train after my tormentors, particularly that important general, had left me alone by myself.

“In the course of the whole of that day, I was so occupied with the fulfillment of all the innumerable foolish manipulations required from me and which fatigued me in view of my declining years, that I did not even notice what the unfortunate Emperor there looked like or how he manifested himself in this comedy.

“Now, my boy, if you will strive to assimilate well the information about the subsequent events which happened to me and which were the results of this famous presentation of mine to His Majesty the Emperor, then you will probably acquire the possibility of clearly picturing to yourself and well understand how, there among your favorites, particularly in this large community Russia at that period, their what is called ‘individual significance,’ particularly in recent centuries, began to be appraised and be built up for the majority of these unfortunates always exclusively on the basis of the outer ephemeral as they are called ‘Vietro-yretznel,’ as, in the given case, it similarly took place in relation to me.

“This gradual acquiring of the habit of judging the merits of beings according to the outer ephemeral appearance in all other beings, developed and continued to develop their imagination, which became strengthened about this, that just in this consists the acquisition of ‘being-individuality,’ and all began subjectively to strive only for this.

“That is why at the present time, all of them from the very beginning of their arising gradually lose from their common presences even the ‘taste’ and ‘desire’ for what is called ‘objective-being-Being.’

“The manifestation of the mentioned ‘Vietro-yretznel’ personally in relation to my person began to have their action already from the very morning of the following day, in this sense that every data for ‘being-notion’ about my personality which had been before this already soundly fixed in the presences of all the beings there who knew me, suddenly sharply changed, thanks only to this ‘objectively maleficent’ official presentation of me to their highest power-possessing beings.

“My personal significance and their notions about all my qualities and merits also changed for their individuality; I suddenly became for all ‘important’ and ‘wise,’ ‘extraordinary’ and ‘interesting,’ and so on and so forth; that is, the possessor of all kinds of abnormal being-qualities thought out by themselves.

“As a very characteristic example which will well make clear to you what I have just said, the following illustration may serve:

“The proprietor of that shop where, before going to my business, I bought the provisions for my kitchen, wished on the first morning after this, as is sometimes said there, ‘royal audience’ of mine, to bring, happen what may, my purchases home to me himself. All the police standing at the street corners in that district in which I temporarily dwelt, and who already knew me well as a newcomer physician, began at the sight of me, while still standing some way off, to salute just as they saluted that important general of theirs.

“The same evening the chief of that department to which I had first of all applied, himself personally brought me to my house that unfortunate permit, giving me the right to have my own laboratory, and to receive which I had languished for three months waiting on the doorsteps of every kind of ‘official’ and ‘unofficial’ establishment. And on the second day I received yet four other permits for this from various departments of other ministries into whose province it did not at all enter to issue such permits, but to whom on account of this same dilly-dallying of theirs I had had to apply during my senseless hustlings.

“The owners of the houses, shopkeepers, children, and in general all who dwelt in the same street as I did, became as amiable with me as if I intended to leave each of them a large ‘American legacy,’ and so on and so forth.

“After this ‘Emptykralnian’ happening to me, I, by the way, further learned that this unfortunate czar of theirs also always prepares himself for such official meetings with beings strange to him.

“Of these official meetings like this he has very many, almost every day and even several times a day: here, a parade of the troops; there, an ‘audience’ with the ambassador of some other emperor; in the morning, a ‘delegation’; at noon, a ‘presentation’ such as mine; later a ‘reception’ of different what are called ‘representatives-of-the-people’; and with each of these it is necessary for him to talk, or even to make them an entire speech.

“As each word of every such terrestrial ‘czar’ can have and often does have serious consequences not only for the beings of that community of whom he is czar, but also for the beings of other communities, therefore each word must be thought out from every side.

“Well, for this, around these emperors or czars who become such by hereditary rights or by election, there are many specialists from among the ordinary three-brained beings there, in order that they may prompt them as to what they must do and say in every circumstance; and these promptings and directions must be carried out in such a way that the strangers may not notice that their emperor or czar manifests not from his own but from others’ initiative.

“And in order to remember all this, these czars must of course also practice.

“And what it means to practice, you can probably already picture to yourself after what I have just told you. I understood this with all my Being, when I prepared myself for my illustrious presentation.

“During my existence on that planet, such a preparation by the way was necessary for me personally only once. Where such preparations necessary every day and for every separate occasion, then may one be spared from experiencing such a merciless fate.

“I personally at least would not under any conditions be in the skin of such a terrestrial emperor or czar, and would neither wish it for my very worst enemy nor for the enemy of my nearest.

“After this unforgettable ‘supreme presentation’ of mine, I very soon left St. Petersburg for other parts of the continent of Europe and began to have as the chief places of my existence various cities of the countries which were situated both on that same continent Europe as well as on other continents. I was again later, many times, but for other affairs, in the same community Russia, where during that period of the flow of time their great process there of reciprocal-destruction took place and the destruction of everything already attained by them, which this time, as I have already told you, was called by them ‘Bolshevism.’

“You remember I promised to relate to you about the fundamental real causes of this archphenomenal process.

“Well, it is necessary to tell you that this grievous phenomenon arises there thanks to two independent factors, the first of which is the cosmic law Solioonensius, and the second is always the same abnormal conditions of ordinary being-existence established by them themselves.

“In order that you should the better understand about both those factors, I will explain to you about each of them separately, and will begin by the cosmic law Solioonensius.

“First of all you must be told that all the three-brained beings, on whatever planet they may arise, and whatever exterior coating they may receive, always await the manifestations of the action of this law with impatience and with joy, somewhat how your favorites await what are called their feasts of ‘Easter,’ ‘Bairam,’ ‘Zadik,’ ‘Ramadan,’ ‘Kaialana,’ and so on.

“The only difference is in this, that your favorites await these feasts of theirs with impatience because on these ‘holydays’ it has become customary among them to allow themselves to be more ‘jolly’ and to ‘booze’ freely; while the beings of the other planets await the action of Solioonensius with impatience because, thanks to it, the need for evolving, in the sense of the acquiring of Objective-Reason by them, increases in them by itself.

“As regards the causes which bring forth this same action of this cosmic law, they are for each planet different and always flow from and depend upon what is called the ‘common cosmic Harmonious-Movement’; moreover, frequently for your planet Earth, what is called the ‘center-of-gravity-of-causes’ is the ‘periodic tension’ of the sun of its system, which tension proceeds in its turn thanks to the influence upon this sun of a neighboring solar system, which exists under the name of ‘Baleaooto.’

“In this latter system however, such a center-of-gravity-of-causes arises because among the number of its ‘concentrations’ there is a great comet Solni, which, according to certain known combinations of the common-cosmic Harmonious-Movement at times approaches on its falling very near to its sun Baleaooto, which is forced by this to make a ‘strong tension’ in order to maintain the path of its own falling. This tension provokes the tension of the suns of the neighboring systems, among the number of which is the system Ors; and when the sun Ors strains itself not to change its path of falling inherent to it, this sun Ors in its turn provokes the same tension in all the concentrations of its own system, among which is also the planet Earth.

“The tension in all the planets acts also on the common presences of all beings arising and breeding on them, always engendering in the beings, besides desires and intentions of which they are not aware, the feeling called ‘sacred Iabolioonosar,’ or as your favorites would say, the feeling of religiousness, namely, that ‘being-feeling’ which at times appears in the desire and striving for, as I have already said, speedier self-perfecting in the sense of Objective-Reason.

“It is interesting that when this sacred feeling, or another similar to it, which was also engendered by a certain common cosmic actualization, proceeds in the common presences of your favorites, then they accept it as a symptom of certain of their numerous diseases, and in the given case, for example, they call this feeling ‘nerves.’

“It is necessary to remark that such an impulse inherent in the presence of all three-brained beings of our Great Universe formerly arose and became actualized almost normally in the majority of terrestrial beings of that time, namely, from the time of the removal of the organ Kundabuffer from the common presences of the three-brained beings of the planet Earth right up to the second Transapalnian-perturbation.

“But later, among the number of chief evils which flow from the conditions of ordinary being-existence established by them themselves, especially when in the presences of every terrestrial three-brained being, there began to become predominant the ‘evil-inner-God’ of theirs I mentioned, named there self-calming, then it occurred that in them under the influence of the action of Solioonensius, instead of the desire and striving for a speedier self-perfection a something began to arise such as they themselves characterize by the words ‘need of freedom,’ which chiefly serves the cause of the arising there of these same grievous processes of theirs similar to this last ‘Bolshevism.’

“I will explain to you somewhat later how they represent to themselves this famous freedom of theirs, and now I will only tell you that that feeling which arises from the action of Solioonensius strengthens in them the need for some or other general change in the conditions of their ordinary external being-existence which until this was somehow in them.

“After the second Transapalnian perturbation to this ill-starred planet of yours, that is, ‘after-the-loss-of-Atlantis,’ the action of the cosmic law Solioonensius in the general presences of these favorites of yours was actualized at least forty times and almost from the very beginning, each time, thanks already to this strange ‘need of freedom’ which has since been fixed in the majority of them, almost the same proceeded as in recent years still proceeds on that part of the surface of your planet on which the totality of the existing groups is called ‘Russia.’

“Here it is extremely important also to notice that the existence itself of these terrifying processes could not in any way take place there among the three-brained beings of the planet Earth if those data which had remained intact in their subconsciousness for the engendering of the being-impulse conscience, to which data the Most Saintly Ashiata Shiemash was the first to turn his attention and upon which he relied for the fulfillment of his mission, had taken part in the functioning of that consciousness of theirs which has become habitual for them during their waking state.

“Only in consequence of the fact that the data for the sacred impulse of being-conscience do not take part in the function of this consciousness of theirs, the actions of the law Solioonensius, just as well as of other inevitable cosmic laws, are molded into such abnormal and for themselves pitiable forms.

“Although the whole totality of causes serves as the sources for the arising of the second factor, yet in my opinion the basic cause also in the given case is nevertheless this fact, that their famous ‘subdivision-into-castes’ becomes established among them regarding their mutual relationship among themselves, which subdivision has constantly existed there with the exception only of that period when there was definitely rooted among them the results of the Most Saintly Labors of Ashiata Shiemash.

“The difference is only in this, that in former centuries the division into different castes proceeded from the consciousness and intention of several separate individuals there, while now this proceeds quite automatically without the participation of anyone’s will or anyone’s consciousness

“Now, my boy, I find it opportune to explain to you a little about this, namely, in what way and in what gradations these favorites of yours became automatically sorted out from their different celebrated castes, and how they later already began to subdivide themselves into these castes.

“When, according to various chance circumstances, and wherever significant groups of them became concentrated and they exist together, then several of them—in whom firstly for some reason or other the consequences of the properties of the organ Kundabuffer had been previously well crystallized, the totality of which crystallizations in general gives to their common presences the impulses for what is called ‘cunning’ and secondly, in whose hands at the given time there appear for some reason or other many different, what are called ‘terrifying means,’ or what they themselves call ‘weapons’—quickly set themselves apart from other beings and putting themselves at their head, constitute the beginnings of what are called the ‘ruling class.’

“And further, since in all the three-brained beings of the planet Earth, and particularly of recent periods, the sacred being-impulse called conscience does not take part in the functioning of their general consciousness, in consequence of which in them there is absent even the very need for making any conscious being-effort at all—then they, that is, the beings who had set themselves apart and who had assigned themselves to the ruling class, profiting by the said terrifying means, compel other beings of the given groupings to produce for them even those efforts which every being should inevitably actualize in ordinary being-existence.

“And other beings of these groupings, also not wishing for the same reasons personally to produce these ‘being-efforts,’ no, not even for others, and at the same time being afraid of the mentioned terrifying means of the beings of the ruling class, begin to have recourse to all kinds of cunning in order that, as is said there, to ‘load-on-one-another’s-backs’ such being-efforts as are inevitably required for the beings of the ruling class.

“And as a result the beings of every such grouping usually sort themselves out gradually and fall into diverse categories according to the degree of skill of their artfulness. And so from the division of the beings into categories of this kind, there just begins in the following generations a subdivision and an assigning of each other into these famous castes of theirs.

“From this assigning of each other into castes of diverse kinds, there is already by itself infallibly crystallized in the common presence of each of them in relation to the beings who belong to all other castes that being-data which is called ‘hate,’ just that data which was never in any other beings in the whole of our Great Universe, and which in its turn continually engenders in the common presence of everyone, those impulses ‘shameful’ for the three-brained beings which they themselves call ‘envy,’ ‘jealousy,’ ‘adultery,’ and many other similar impulses.

“And so, my boy, these terrifying processes of reciprocal-destruction and of the destruction of everything already attained by them there, proceed partly from this, that in those periods when in their common presences the action of the cosmic law Solioonensius becomes evident, besides the already mentioned need for freedom, in them, on the one hand, the intensity of the action of the data for engendering constantly the impulse of ‘timidity’ before power-possessors automatically diminishes, which data has already become inherent in their common presences, and on the other hand the intensity of the action of that said strange being-data increases, which data provokes ‘hate’ in the given case in relation to the beings who belong to other castes.

“That is why I said that this subdivision of theirs into castes which bring about the totality of the results of these ‘unique-strange-being-data’ which always increase in their functionings and which flow, as you may have already, from all that I have told you, doubtless been convinced, also from the conditions of their abnormal ordinary being-existence, just serves chiefly as the second factor for the arising of these terrifying processes.

“These terrible processes usually arise and flow in the following sequence:

“It always begins with this, that several beings from one or another grouping, namely, those in whom for some reason or other there were previously crystallized data stronger than in other beings—which data engender the mentioned strange impulses in relation to the beings who belong to other castes, particularly to the beings who belong to the caste of the ‘ruling-class’—seeing and feeling reality more than others under the influence of the action of Solioonensius they begin as is said there to ‘clamor,’ and these ‘clamoring orators’ become in relation to those around them such as are at the present time there usually called ‘leaders.’

“And further, thanks on the one hand to this clamor and, on the other hand, thanks to the action of always the same cosmic law Solioonensius, which action is always combined abnormally in the presences of all of them, others also begin to clamor. When these ‘clamorers’ among the ordinary beings begin already, excessively cacophonically, to act upon what are called ‘the-effeminate-nerves-of-the-left-half’ of several of the power-possessing beings of the given community, and these latter order those whose job it is to grease with what is called ‘Scottish cream’ the navels of several particularly loud-voiced clamorers, then there begin these excesses of theirs which, progressively increasing, reach their zenith, yet to their misfortune ultimately always lead to nothing.

“These processes of theirs, if they had even but a little improved the existence of beings of subsequent generations, then perhaps, from the point of view of a strict impartial observer, they might even not have appeared to be so terrifying, yet to the misfortune of all three-brained beings of our Great Universe, the calamity is just in this that as soon as the ‘blissful action’ of this cosmic lawful manifestation ceases, and these terrifying processes come to an end, then there again begins the old story and their ordinary being-existence becomes ‘more bitter’ than before, and, parallel with this, there also deteriorates what is called their ‘sane-awareness-of-the-sense-and-aim-of-their-existence.’

“This latter deteriorates in my opinion chiefly because, after these processes, the leading beings of the former ruling class are usually replaced by beings who proceed from other different castes, and who before this last process did not have in the persons of their representatives, either of the present or past generations, anything in common either consciously or unconsciously with that being-manifestation in which is included the ability to lead the outer and now and then even the inner process of the being-existence of surrounding beings, who although ‘similar to them,’ yet in the sense of Reason had not yet attained to their degree.

“Justice demands it to be admitted that although in the common presences of the three-brained beings there of the old ruling class the data present in their subconsciousness for the engendering of real being-conscience also did not take part in the functioning of their what is called waking-consciousness, yet, at least, they usually have the habit of ruling, acquired by heredity and improving automatically from generation to generation.

“In the presences of the beings who had newly attained to power not only is real being-conscience absent, as it was also absent in the beings of the former ruling class, but further, in them in addition, those ‘charms’ begin particularly stormily to manifest and give extraordinary and terrifying results, which ‘charms’ are crystallized in general in the presences of terrestrial three-brained beings especially of recent times in consequence of the properties of the organ Kundabuffer, such as ‘vanity,’ ‘pride,’ ‘self-conceit,’ ‘self-love,’ and others, which, as they had as yet hardly ever been satisfied to a sufficient degree, are in them in their functionings, particularly new.

“To these terrestrial beings who become impromptu power-possessing and who have not any hereditary data at all in themselves even for the automatic ability to rule, one of the sayings of our dear Teacher can well be applied, which he expresses in the following words:

“‘I never yet met that idiot who, accustomed to shuffle in a pair of old shoes, would feel comfortable in smart new ones.’

“And really, my boy, when, each time on the planet Earth, the action of Solioonensius ceases, and their ‘relatively normal’ existence, already somehow established, again begins among your favorites, then the ‘newly-baked-power-possessing’ beings usually cut those capers thanks to which the birth rate of what are called ‘slugs,’ ‘snails,’ ‘lice,’ ‘mole crickets,’ and many other similar parasites who destroy everything good, each time always increases more and more on that planet.

“As I have begun to speak about Bolshevism, then I will relate to you here on this subject, in order yet once again to give you an example of one peculiarity of the being-existence of your favorites which had already become fully proper to them, about one of their naïve arguments which is not without its humor.

“This naïvete of theirs which may arise through an already excessively wretched logical confrontative being-rumination consists in this, that although all events there without exception, in the sense of mutual relationships among themselves, proceeded during the last two centuries exclusively already by themselves without any participation of the consciousness or intention of whomever it may be of the contemporary beings, they nevertheless always ascribe with certainty and even with jealousy all the results, good as well as bad, flowing from these events to one or another among them similar to themselves.

“And such an abnormality which had become fixed in the totality of their spiritualized parts resulted from the following causes.

“First of all, from their common presences there gradually totally disappeared all those being-data, the totality of which in general is capable of engendering in the presences of beings a property called ‘presentiment of the future,’ in consequence of which they are entirely deprived of the possibility, in any degree whatever of foreseeing imminent events; secondly, having a narrow what is called ‘horizon’ and a ‘short memory,’ they not only know nothing about long-past events on their planet, but even do not remember about that which proceeded quite recently—almost even yesterday; and thirdly, these cosmic laws are unknown to them, thanks to which there chiefly arise those sorrowful events which proceed among them. Owing to all this, these same contemporary favorites of yours are sure in all their presences that this terrifying process, which they call Bolshevism, proceeded for the first time on their planet and that nothing like this already ‘darling’ civilization of theirs had ever existed previous to them; and they are even sure that this has happened thanks only to the evolution of the gradually progressing reason of the beings similar to themselves of their planet.

“Their confrontative argument on the subject of similar processes which had taken place many times in the past on their planet may serve as a very good example for the illustration and characterization of the phenomenal dullness and bluntness of that being-rumination which they have.

“According to the common-sense of every three-brained being, similar processes had to proceed, and since I became interested in the strange psyche of these favorites of yours and occupied myself with every aspect of the observation of them, I myself have been a witness as I have said, no less than forty times, of exactly similar processes which I would call the process of the ‘destruction-of-everything-within-sight.’

“It is interesting to notice that almost half of all these terrifying processes proceeded not very far from that place where their, as they themselves call it, ‘cultured existence’ is now concentrated; they proceeded on that part of the surface of their planet which they name Egypt.

“These terrifying processes proceeded on this same Egypt so often, in consequence of the fact that this part of the surface of your planet, during the course of long periods of time, found itself in relation to the common-cosmic Harmonious-Movement in the position of what is called the ‘center-of-gravity-radiations,’ and that is why the influence of the cosmic law Solioonensius often acted on the presence of the three-brained beings breeding there, and often brought forth in them such an abnormality.

“A parallel comparison of the real data concerning the events which took place on the same Egypt and those data about them which became fixed in the being-representation and understanding of almost every responsible being of famous contemporary ‘culture’ and which are known to them, as it were, thanks to their already ‘perfected reason’ might serve as an obvious illustrative example of from what general data their ‘logical mentation’ at the period of their responsible existence is built up and consists, and likewise gives me the possibility yet once again to notice and emphasize to you all the maleficence in an objective sense of their usage, which was finally fixed in the process of their ordinary existence, and which they themselves call by the high-sounding words, ‘education’ and ‘schooling’ of the growing generation.

“The point is that, among the number of all possible kinds of ephemeral fantastic informations from the totality of which, as a result, their strange Reason proper to them alone is formed there, there is likewise the history of this same Egypt.

“This fantastic history evidently thought out by some or other candidate for Hasnamuss individuals among them, was even made for them what is called an ‘obligatory subject’ in all educational establishments, in which this ‘history,’ among other similar ‘stupidities,’ is strongly ‘hammered’ into their separate concentrations for the functioning of spiritual perceptions and manifestations, that is into what they themselves would call the ‘brains’ of these unfortunate future responsible beings; and further, when they become such, these ‘fantastic-informations-learned-by-them-parrotlike’ by compulsion serve them as material for being-associations and for ‘logical-confrontative-mentation.’

“That is why, my boy, at the present time there on that ill-fated planet, every being who has already reached responsible age, instead of the real knowledge which every normal three-brained being should have concerning the events which took place on their planet in the past, knows about everything in the same way in which, as in the present case, he ruminates with his being-Reason and ‘unconsciously’ becomes aware with all his being about this same Egypt.

“There’s no gainsaying it, each one of the already, according to them, responsible three-brained beings of this strange planet, already knows thanks to their system of education and schooling, the history of the beings who existed in the past on this Egypt.

“Yet how, thanks to the said means of perception of informations which they themselves call ‘learning-parrot-like,’ he knows this, and what totality of the being-representation about this ‘results’ from all three of his spiritualized being-parts, you may picture to yourself with your own eyes, and clearly understand from the following illustration of mine.

“Almost every one of them ‘knows’ that among ancient Egyptians there were twenty-four dynasties. But if any one of them is asked, ‘Why are there so many dynasties among them?’ it would then appear that he had never even thought about it.

“Further if one continues to insist on an answer, then this same being who up to now knew and was sure with all his being that there were twenty-four dynasties among the ancient Egyptians, he at best—of course on the condition if one helps him to be able to be sincere and to express aloud associations flowing in his mentation—reveals his logical mentation in some such way:

“‘Among the Egyptians there were twenty-four dynasties. …

“‘Well …

“‘This proves that among the Egyptians there existed a monarchical state organization and that the position of the “king” passed by inheritance from father to son, and as it was customary that the kings of one generation should have the same family name, and that all the kings who had this name composed one dynasty, then therefore they had as many different dynasties of kings as there were family names’ … very ‘understandable,’ and as ‘clear’ as the ‘patch on the baggy trousers’ of the honorable Mullah Nassr Eddin.

“And if any of the beings of contemporary ‘culture’ infallibly desires and will continue to ‘pant’ in order to explain well to his Reason why among these ancient Egyptians the family name of their kings changed so often, then again, at very best, his being-mentation will associate approximately in the following sequence. He will say:

“‘Evidently in olden times in this Egypt it often happened that the kings, or as they are named there Pharaohs, grew tired of reigning and abdicated their power—and this abdication in all probability proceeded in the following way and approximately under the following circumstances.

“‘Let us suppose that some Pharaoh or other named “John Geoffrey” lived peacefully and with full satisfaction, and ruled over all the Egyptians.

“‘Well, once this same king or Pharaoh John Geoffrey felt a very great “weariness” from this reigning of his, and one sleepless night, having pondered over his “kingly position” first of all constated and realized with all his being that, wish it or not, one grows tired of reigning, and that this occupation, in general, is an extremely trying “job” and could not be said to be, for his personal felicity, either useful or safe.

“‘The Pharaoh John Geoffrey became impressed with this realization and, profiting by the experience of his existence in the past, decided to try and find out how to “prevail upon” somebody or other, so that this “other” might deliver him from the said, for him, undesirable weariness.

“‘To this end, he probably invited some or other still ordinary John Geoffrey to come to him, and in a very polite way spoke to him, roughly as follows:

“‘“My highly honorable and incomparably kind John Geoffrey, I frankly confess to you, as to my only friend and subject worthy of my trust, that this kingdom over which I rule has already grown too wearisome for me and this has happened perhaps because I am already extremely tired.

“‘“As regards my dear son and heir, to whom I might now hand over the kingdom, he, speaking between ourselves, is, in spite of his very strong and healthy appearance, in fact neither one nor the other.

“‘“You as a father known for his love for his posterity will surely understand if I tell you that I very much love my son and heir, and that I would not like him to reign and get tired as I have; wherefore, I have just decided to propose to you, as a faithful subject and personal friend, to deliver me and my son from reigning and to take this high obligation upon yourself.”

“‘And since evidently this still ordinary John Geoffrey was firstly, as is said there, a “good sport,” and secondly being a “rascal” who had much “vanity,” he with tears in his eyes shrugged his shoulders—“if I must be lost, then let me be lost”—consented, and from the very next day began to reign.

“‘As the family name of this second John Geoffrey was different, therefore on the very next day the number of Egyptian dynasties was increased by yet one more.

“‘And so, as many Pharaohs of this Egypt often grew tired and, loving their sons, did not desire the same for them, they renounced their kingdoms in this way to others, and hence so many dynasties “piled up” there.’

“In reality, however, the change of dynasty in this Egypt did not proceed so simply, and in the intervals between two dynasties there proceeded such perturbations in comparison with which this contemporary Bolshevism is ‘merely child’s play.’

“In the heat of this contemporary Bolshevism, I happened several times to be an eyewitness of the sincere indignation of several of those who, for some reasons, of course personally independent of them, did not happen to take part in this same process, and who could therefore half-consciously observe from the outside and with all their presences grow sincerely indignant at the actions of the individual beings similar to themselves who were active persons in this terrifying process, namely, at the action of those individuals similar to them, whom on this occasion they called, and still up to now call ‘Bolsheviks.’

“In my opinion, it will do no harm here, apropos, to tell you that that being-experiencing of theirs which is excellently characterized by the words, ‘vainly-to-grow-sincerely-indignant,’ also appears to be one of the unfortunate particularities of the psyche of these ill-fated three-brained beings who please you, especially of the contemporary ones.

“Thanks only to this psychic abnormality, there gradually become more deranged in their common presences many functionings, both of their planetary body, already deranged without this, and of their ‘body-Kesdjan’—if of course this second being-body is already coated in them and has attained to the required, what is called, ‘individuality.’

“And such an abnormality of their psyche, namely, ‘vainly-to-grow-indignant,’ or as they themselves say ‘vainly-to-grow-agitated,’ also flows from this, that from their common presences there has already long since disappeared the ‘being-horizon’ proper to be present in the three-brained beings, as well as the ‘instinctive-sensing-of-reality-in-its-real-light.’

“On account of the absence in their psyche of these two particularities, they could not even approximately suspect that individuals similar to themselves were in no way the cause of these terrifying processes there, and that these processes of their ill-fated planet proceed from two inevitable great causes. The first of these causes is just the cosmic law Solioonensius, entirely independent of them; and the second cause, partly dependent on them, consists in this that, thanks to the totality of all the results of the abnormal conditions of ordinary being-existence established by themselves, which still continue to be crystallized in their common presences, the data for bringing forth the sacred impulse ‘conscience’ do not in general take part in any of them in the functioning of their ordinary waking state, in consequence of which the action of the first cause takes just this terrible form.

“They, as I have already said, could not even approximately consider and understand that, during these common planetary terrifying processes, individual persons are in no way the cause, and only by chance happen to be in those posts, the occupation of which, on account of the conditions of mutual existence which had already been established, compels them to manifest themselves in one or other role, the results of which roles, according to law-conformity entirely independent of them themselves, are cast into these or other forms.

“In the heat of this last process of theirs, namely, during this Russian Bolshevism, the contemporary beings of other communities grew very sincerely agitated when the beings, who by chance had become as it were ‘active’ in this distressing process, gave orders to other ordinary beings, as it is said, to ‘shoot’ any Tom, Dick or Harry.

“For the clarity of my further explanation concerning these terrifying processes of your unfortunate favorites, you must further be told about this, that this last process proceeded and until today continues to proceed on a large area of the surface of this ill-fated planet, and that during recent times these favorites of yours have very greatly increased in quantity. If therefore we compare the quantity of the contemporary three-brained beings who have been destroyed during this last process, with those destroyed in the previous process, then this last process will indeed seem ‘child’s play.’

“In order that you may better understand this and compare those former processes with this contemporary Bolshevism, I will now give you a couple of little scenes from former history, from, let us say, the Egypt I have already mentioned.

“When, in one of the intervals between the dynasties of these Egyptian Pharaohs or kings, there proceeded in Egypt a process such as this contemporary Bolshevism, the chief committee of the ‘revolutionaries’ announced to all the population of that country among other things, that ‘elections’ would soon begin for the chiefs of the large and small points of theirs, or as they say ‘towns’ and ‘villages,’ and that these elections would proceed on the following principles:

“Those were to be elected as chiefs for the towns and villages who would put in their ‘sacred’ vessels more of what are called ‘kroahns’ than others; a kroahn was the name given then in Egypt to sacrificial offerings.

“The points is that, according to what is called the ‘religion’ of the beings of this country, it was the custom among others during ‘religious ceremonies’ which proceeded in special places to put before each ordinary being who went to these ceremonies special ‘clay vessels,’ so that each ordinary being there had to put into these sacred vessels each time after the utterances of certain prayers, vegetables or fruit specially designated for the given day.

“Well, these ‘worthy’ things for offering as sacrifices were then called kroahns. In all probability this ‘manipulation’ was devised by the ‘theocrats’ of that time as a profitable item for the welfare of their, as they are called, ‘sycophants.’

“In that decree about which I have just told you, it was stated that on that occasion kroahns had to consist of the eyes of ‘outcasts’ by which word the ordinary three-brained beings there called those beings behind their backs who belonged to the caste of the ruling class, by which name then all the beings of this caste ‘wholesale’ were called without excluding the beings of the ‘passive half,’ children or old folk.

“Further in this announcement it was stated that he who would have on the day of the elections the most kroahns in his sacred vessel would be appointed as chief of the whole of Egypt, and in the remaining towns and villages those would be appointed as chiefs who in their sacred vessels had the correspondingly greatest number of kroahns.

“You may picture to yourself, my boy, what on that day began to be accomplished everywhere on that Egypt, in order to have in their sacred vessels the greatest number of eyes of the beings who belonged in that period of the flow of time to the caste of the ruling class.

“On another occasion also there in Egypt, I became a witness of a not less terrifying scene.

“For a clear representation about this also terrifying scene, it is first of all necessary to tell you that there, that is on this Egypt, there was formerly in every one of their large points or ‘towns’ a large square on which proceeded all kinds of public, as they are called, ‘religious’ and ‘military’ ceremonies, where during these ceremonies were gathered masses of the beings from the whole of Egypt.

“These beings, and specially the masses of beings who belonged at the given moment to the weak castes, impeded the ceremonies, and therefore a certain Pharaoh ordered ropes to be stretched around these squares so that the beings who belonged to the ‘simple’ castes should not disturb the progress of the ceremony.

“But when the said ropes were stretched, it soon became evident that they would not withstand the pressure of the crowd and might often break. Then the Pharaoh ordered what are called ‘metal ropes’ to be made, whereupon those who are called ‘priests’ there, consecrated them and gave them the name of ‘sacred cables.’

“These sacred cables around the squares for the public ceremonies, particularly in the large towns of Egypt, had at that time a colossal length, sometimes reaching to one ‘centrotino,’ or, as the contemporary beings of your planet would say, ten miles long.

“Well, I was a witness of how a crowd of ordinary Egyptian beings began to string on to one of these sacred cables—just like an Asiatic shislik—the beings, without distinction of sex or age, who up till then had belonged to the ruling class.

“And the very same night, with the help of forty pairs of buffalo, this original ‘skewer’ was dragged and thrown into the river Nile.

“I saw such punishment meted out in this spirit, both during my stay personally on the surface of this planet of yours, as well as through the large Teskooano from the planet Mars.

“And these contemporary favorites of yours, naïve already to the nth degree, grew sincerely indignant that these contemporary ‘Bolsheviks’ of theirs shot a certain Tom Brown.

“If we compare the action of the former three-brained beings there, who were subject to this ‘psychic state,’ with the actions of these contemporary Bolsheviks, then they, i.e., the contemporary Bolsheviks ought even to be given praise and thanks, that in spite of the fact that the various consequences of the properties of the organ Kundabuffer are infallibly completely crystallized in their common presences—as in general in the presences of contemporary three-brained beings—they, in the very heat of that period when they were entirely ‘puppets’ under the influence of the inevitable cosmic law Solioonensius, manifested themselves with these consequences in such a way that the dead body of the person shot by them could at least be recognized as whose it was, namely, ‘Tom Brown’s and nobody else’s.'”

In this place of his tale, Beelzebub deeply sighed, and gazing at one spot, became concentratedly thoughtful.

Hassein and Ahoon, with a shade of surprise, but also with some sadness on their faces, began to stare expectantly at him with, as it were, a stark fixed gaze.

A little later Hassein, having first made quite an unintelligible grimace, and then with a voice expressing pained tenderness, turned to Beelzebub who was still continuing to think.

“Grandfather! Dear Grandfather! Manifest please aloud those informations which you have in your common presence particularly dear to me, and which you have learned during your long existence and which may serve me as material for the elucidation of that question which has just arisen in my essence, and even for the approximate representation of which I have as yet positively no data for a logical confrontation in any of the spiritualized parts of my common presence.

“This question arising in my essence, the answer to which has already become necessary to the whole of my presence, consists in this: To inquire about the reasons why, namely, if these unfortunate three-brained beings who breed on the planet Earth do not have the possibility, owing to reasons not depending on themselves, of acquiring and having in the period of their responsible existence Divine Objective Reason, why since they arose so long ago and their species have continued to exist such a long time, could not those customs have been gradually formed by now, only thanks to the flow of time, in the process of their ordinary existence even under those abnormal conditions, and those proper ‘instinctive-automatic-habits’ have been acquired in the presences of every being in general, thanks to which their ordinary existence, both ‘egoistically personal’ as well as ‘collectively general’ might flow more or less tolerably in the sense of objective reality?”

Having said this, our poor Hassein began questioningly to gaze at the Cause of the Cause of his arising.

At the question of his favorite grandson, Beelzebub began to relate the following:

“Why of course … my dear boy. In the course of long centuries of their existence, and among them as everywhere on planets where beings arise who spend likewise part of the time of their existence simply in the ordinary process, many customs and also what are called ‘moral habits,’ at times very good and useful for their ordinary existence, were also gradually formed, and even at the present time are sometimes formed among several of their groupings; but herein lies the evil, that such a being-welfare as becomes fixed in the process of ordinary existence from the flow of time alone, and which improves thanks to transmission from generation to generation, also soon either entirely disappears or is changed to such a direction that these happy achievements of theirs are transformed of their own accord into ‘unhappy’ ones and increase the number of those small factors maleficent for them, the totality of which year by year ‘dilutes,’ more and more, both their psyche as well as their very essence.

“If they were even to possess and were to use at least those ‘trifles’ worthy of the three-brained beings, then this would already be to the good for them, or as they themselves would say, ‘would-in-any-case-be-better-than-nothing.’

“Of course, if at least any of these good customs, fixed by them in the process of their existence, and already automatized ‘moral habits’ could have survived and been transformed by inheritance into the mode of existence of their subsequent generations, then thanks at least to this, their, in the objective sense, ‘desolate’ existence would have seemed to be, to an outside impartial observer, at least a little reconcilable.

“The causes of the complete destruction and change of even this being-welfare for their tolerable existence achieved by time, both of good customs as well as ‘moral usages,’ are of course also engendered by these abnormal conditions for the ordinary being-existence around them established by them themselves.

“As a concentrated result flowing from these abnormal conditions around them and which became the basic cause for this evil of theirs, there is a special property which arose not long ago in their psyche which they themselves call ‘suggestibility.’

“Thanks to this strange property which had only recently become fixed in their psyche, all the functionings in their common presences began gradually to change, and as a result, each of them, particularly the beings who arose and became responsible during the last centuries of theirs, already began to represent in themselves such a peculiar cosmic formation as has in itself the possibility of acting exclusively only if it were to find itself constantly under the influence of another formation similar to itself.

“And indeed, my boy, at the present time, these three-brained beings who please you, must already as separate persons as well as entire large and small groupings, infallibly ‘influence’ or find themselves under the ‘influence’ of others.

“For your better representation and all-round understanding in what way customs and automatic habits useful for their ordinary existence acquired by them during centuries also disappear without a trace, or change for the worst on account of the mentioned property of their strange psyche, we will take as an example just these same terrestrial three-brained beings with their customs whom all other beings of your planet call ‘Russians’ and who represent the majority of that community named Russia.

“In consequence of the fact that the existence of beings which had been put as a basis of the formation of this large contemporary community there and of their subsequent generations, proceeded in the course of many centuries in the neighborhood of beings who belonged to those Asiatic communities, who, thanks to various events, existed so relatively long a period in consequence of which in the process of their ordinary existence—as this in general happens from a long existence—very many good customs and ‘moral habits’ were gradually formed by themselves and became fixed in the process of their ordinary existence, then these Russians, after meeting with the beings of these, for terrestrial beings, ancient communities and even at times having friendly mutual relationships with them, gradually adopted and began to use in the process of their ordinary existence, many of the useful customs and ‘moral habits.’

“And so, my boy, thanks to the mentioned strange property of the three-brained beings of this planet of yours, which property, as I have already told you, arose and gradually became, soon after the Tikliamishian civilization, fixed in their general psyche—the intensity of the fixing proceeded chiefly in consequence of all the more deteriorating conditions around them of ordinary being-existence established by themselves—and which special psychic property already from the very beginning became obligatorily inherent in the common presences of beings composing this later largest community there, then on account of all this, they all in former centuries found themselves under the influence of beings of one or other of the Asiatic communities, and all the, as it is called, ‘external-mode’ and ‘psychic-associative-form’ of their ordinary existence proceeded also under their influence.

“And so, again in consequence of the fact that in the common presences of the three-brained beings of this planet Earth of yours who dwell on that part of the continent Asia which was called, and until now is called Russia, ‘being-Partkdolg-duty’ also finally ceased to be actualized, on account of which this, for them, most maleficent property of their psyche, namely, ‘suggestibility,’ began gradually to increase; and in consequence of the fact that they, thanks to changed circumstances which flowed from always the same terrifying process of periodic reciprocal destruction, existing only on that ill-starred planet, were deprived of the former influence and were compelled, not having the possibility of independent existence, to fall under new influences, they this time fell under the influence of beings of European communities chiefly of the community which exists there under the name ‘France.’

“Since the beings of this community France began automatically to influence the psyche of the beings of the community Russia, and these latter began even to strive to imitate the beings of this community France in everything, thus all the good customs among them which were already present in the process of their existence and those moral habits which had become inherent in them, either half-consciously or automatically taken by them from the beings of ancient Asiatic communities, were gradually forgotten, and new ones—French—acquired.

“Among the customs and automatic moral habits useful for the beings of the community Russia, transmitted to them from the beings of old Asiatic communities, there were thousands of indeed very good ones.

“From these thousands of good customs and useful habits, let us take for example at least two: the custom, after using the first being-food, of chewing what is called ‘keva’; and the usage of periodically washing oneself in what are called ‘hammams.’

“Keva is a certain mastic prepared from various roots which is chewed after eating and which however long it is chewed hardly ever decomposes, but on the contrary becomes still more elastic.

“This mastic was also invented by a certain being with good Reason who belonged to one of the old Asiatic communities.

“The use of chewing this keva consists in this, that by chewing it, much what is called there on Earth ‘saliva’ and also other substances are formed in beings, which are worked out by their planetary bodies so that their first being-food may be the better and more easily transformed in them, or as they themselves say, so that this food may be the better and more easily ‘digested and assimilated.’

“Thanks to this keva their teeth are also strengthened and the cavities in their mouths too are cleaned from the remains of the first food; the use of keva is very necessary for your favorites, particularly for this second purpose, as these remains, not decomposing owing to the chewing of keva, do not give off that disagreeable ‘odor’ from their mouths which has already become proper particularly to the contemporary three-brained beings there.

“And the second custom, namely, the washing at times in special rooms of theirs called the ‘hammam’ was also invented by a certain ancient Asiatic being.

“In order clearly to understand the necessity for this second custom in the process of the existence of terrestrial beings, the following must be first explained to you.

“The functioning of the planetary body of beings of all forms of external coatings is adapted by Nature in general in such a way that the process of their nourishment with the second being-food, which your favorites call ‘breathing of air,’ proceeds in them, and this nourishment is taken in not only through the organs of breathing, but also through what are called the ‘pores’ present in their skin.

“Through the ‘pores’ of the skin of the beings, not only the new second being-food enters, but also through several of these pores, after the transformation of this second being-food, those parts of this food are given off from the skin which are either no longer necessary for the planetary body of the beings or which are already the result of its transmutation.

“These unnecessary parts should be given off from the said ‘pores’ of the skin of beings by evaporating gradually by themselves, thanks to those factors which obtain from the process proceeding in that sphere itself where the given beings exist, as for instance, from the movement of the atmosphere, from accidental contacts and so on.

“Now, when your favorites invented the covering of themselves with what are called ‘clothes,’ then, since these clothes of theirs began to hinder the normal elimination or evaporation of those parts of the second being-food unnecessary for the planetary body, these unnecessary substances having no possibility of evaporating into space and at the same time always continuing to accumulate, they, condensing, begin to form in these various pores of their skin the accumulation of a certain ‘oily-something.’

“From that time on, among a number of other factors, this also began to aid in the formation on this ill-fated planet of innumerable and various illnesses which taken altogether are the chief cause of the gradual shortening of the length of the existence of these unfortunates.

“Well, my boy, when still in, as your contemporary favorites say, the ‘dim ancient past,’ a wise and learned being by name ‘Amambakhlootr,’ also from the continent Asia there, once clearly constated during his conscious observations of various facts proceeding around him, that this ‘oily-something’ which collects in the pores of the skin, has also a maleficent influence on the general functioning of the whole planetary body, he began to elucidate and seek means for wiping out at least this evil.

“As a result of the investigations and long deliberations of this Amambakhlootr, and of several other also learned beings who then became his followers and began to help him, they arrived at the conclusion and became convinced of the impossibility of obtaining that beings similar to themselves should not wear clothes, and that it was necessary to seek a method for artificially eliminating from the pores of the skin these remains of the ‘second-food’ by means of implanting in the psyche of the beings around them some or other being-usage, which in the course of time would become indispensably necessary to them and in this way enter into their habits and customs.

“And that these Asiatic learned beings with this great Amambakhlootr at their head then experimentally elucidated and actualized this in practice, well, this served as a beginning of those hammams which exist there in places even till now.

“At that time, they during the learned experiments elucidated among other things, that by ordinary washing, even with hot water, it was impossible to obtain the elimination of these deposits from the pores of the skin, as these excretions of the planetary body are found not on the surface of the skin but in the depths of the pores.

“Their further elucidatory experiments showed them that the cleansing of the ‘pores’ of the skin from these deposits was possible only by means of slow warming, thanks to which, this deposited ‘oily-something’ acquires the possibility of gradually dissolving and of being eliminated from the pores of the skins of beings.

“Well, for this same purpose, they then invented and actualized in practice special rooms which later came to be called hammams, the sense and significance of which they knew how to spread among the beings of the whole continent in such a way that in the psyche of all the Asiatic beings, the need was implanted in the process of their existence for the use of these rooms for the given procedure.

“Well, it is this need of going periodically to such hammams which had already become inherent in the beings of the continent Asia, and which later passed also to the beings of this community Russia.

“As regards this ‘oily-something’ which collects in certain pores of the skin of your favorites, it is necessary further to tell the following:

“As this substance, i.e., the ‘oily-something,’ like everything in general that exists in our Great Universe, cannot remain in one and the same state, therefore there inevitably proceed with these substances in these pores the processes of what are called evolution and involution required by Great Nature. And in consequence of the fact that during these processes, from all cosmic, what are called ‘temporary’ or ‘transitory’ arisings, there are given off what are called ‘secondary’ active elements, that is, those which are temporarily crystallized by the momentum of vibrations, and which, as is known to all, have the property, when adjacent to the organ of smell of beings, of being perceived very ‘cacophonically,’ therefore there on the planet Earth, there is always given off from your favorites who do not use the said hammams, a particular ‘Rastropoonilo’ or as they themselves say ‘odor,’ which even they consider ‘not altogether pleasant.’

“And indeed, my boy, there on certain continents, particularly on the continent Europe, where the custom of going to the hammam does not obtain, it was very difficult for me as a being with a very acute sense of smell to exist among those three-brained beings on account of this specific ‘Rastropoonilo’ or as they sometimes call it, ‘odor,’ which issues from them.

“This unpleasant odor which issues from those, the pores of whose skin are never specially cleaned, was so strong that I could without any difficulty detect to which community the given being belonged, and even by those odors I could distinguish one being from another.

“Now the variety of these specific odors depends upon how long the decomposition of these ‘oily-excretions’ found in the pores of the skin has proceeded.

“These unpleasant odors fortunately for them do not affect them so ‘tormentingly.’

“And they do not affect them because their sense of smell is very slightly developed and besides this, existing always among these odors, they gradually become accustomed to them.

“And so, my boy, just this custom, namely, of washing themselves periodically in special hammams, was taken by the Russians from the Asiatic beings; but when they fell under the influence of the European beings and for the most part, as I have already told you, of the beings of the community France, then in view of the fact that these French beings have not the custom of going to the hammam, they also gradually ceased to use hammams and thus this good custom established for centuries among them, began little by little to disappear.

“Formerly, almost every Russian family had its own hammam, but recently when I was in their chief place of existence, the former St. Petersburg, for the last time, and where at that time more than two millions of these Russian beings existed, there were only seven or eight of such hammams there—and even then, only those beings went to these hammams who were called there ‘house porters’ and ‘workmen,’ that is, beings who happened to come there to the capital from distant villages where the custom of going to the hammam or as they sometimes call it the ‘bath’ had not yet been quite wiped out.

“Now, as regards the main population of this capital who consisted chiefly of the beings of what are called the ruling class, they, these beings, in recent times did not go to the hammam at all, and if any ‘queer fellow’ were still sometimes from old habit to go, he would then try in every way that no one else in his caste should know about it.

“‘May crooked luck save him,’ otherwise such ‘gossip’ would fly around about this bold fellow as would inevitably ‘ruin’ the whole of his future career.

“To go to the hammam is now considered among beings belonging to the ruling class as very ‘indecent’ and ‘unintelligent.’ But indecent and unintelligent only because the contemporary ‘most intelligent’ beings of their planet, who according to their understanding are the French, do not go to the hammam.

“These unfortunates do not know of course that these same French, thanks always to the same reasons, namely, thanks to the abnormally established conditions of ordinary being-existence still but a few decades ago, not only did not go to the hammam, but these French, particularly, as they are called, the ‘intelligentsia,’ did not even wash themselves in the morning in order not to spoil their, at that time, fashionable artificial appearance which was difficult to rearrange.

“Now as regards the second of the good customs taken as an example by us, the fulfilling of which two centuries ago was still organically needed by every being of this community Russia, namely, the custom of chewing keva after the use of the first being-food, this custom already no longer exists there at all now among contemporary Russians.

“It must be remarked that at the present time the custom of chewing keva without meanwhile understanding its purport, began to implant itself while I was still there among the beings dwelling on the continent called ‘America,’ where the use of such keva, or as they have already called it, by another name, ‘chewing gum,’ is very widely spread and even takes on the dimensions of a great manufacturing branch of commerce there. Meanwhile it is interesting to notice that the fundamental part of this American chewing gum is exported just from Russia, namely, from the locality called ‘Caucasia.’ The beings dwelling in this locality do not even know why these ‘mad’ Americans import this unnecessary root good for nothing and for nobody.

“Of course to no one of them does the thought even enter his head that these Americans importing this ‘good-for-nothing’ root are indeed, though in a subjective sense, ‘mad,’ yet in an objective sense they are merely, as they themselves express it, ‘daylight robbers’ of the beings of this Russia.

“Well, my boy; in the same way a mass of other good customs as well as moral habits, adopted in the course of centuries by these Russian beings and already well fixed in the process of their ordinary existence during the last two centuries when these Russians became the object of influence of the European beings, began gradually to disappear, and instead of them new customs and new moral habits were formed among them, which they have at the present time, such as the usage of ‘kissing a lady’s hand,’ ‘being polite only with young ladies,’ ‘looking at a wife before her husband with the left eye,’ and so on and so forth.

“It is necessary to emphasize with an impulse of regret, that at the present time the same continues to proceed in the process of the ordinary existence of the beings of all communities there, on whatever continent it may be.

“I hope, my boy, that by now you may approximately picture to yourself and be satisfied about the question arising in your being, why, namely, in spite of the fact that there among those unfortunate favorites of yours, their species have risen and existed so long a time, could not those automatic being-usages and ‘instinctive habits’ have, by now, been formed, by which their existence although even with the absence of objective consciousness, might flow more or less tolerably.

“I repeat: thanks to the said property which only recently became fixed in their general psyche, it has already become natural at the present time, and as it were according to law, always either to influence another or to find oneself under the influence of others.

“In both cases the results of the action of this peculiar property are obtained without any consciousness on their part, and even without their desire.

“From all that I have told you about this, that these contemporary Russian always follow the example of someone and imitate somebody, it can be clearly understood how much of the functioning of the data for being-confrontative-logical-mentation is already deteriorated in the presences of terrestrial three-brained beings.

“In general, to follow the example of others or set an example to others is considered and cognized as fully reasonable and inevitably necessary everywhere in the Universe among all three-brained beings, and that the three-brained beings of this large community Russia follow the example of the beings of the community France, this on their part is even very sensible. Why not take example from what is good?

“But these unfortunates, on account of all the said particular property of their psyche, and of still several other specific features of their strange character which have finally become fixed in them, thanks to the total disappearance from their common presences of the usage of sometimes actualizing being-Partkdolg-duty became what is called ‘adopters-by-compulsion,’ and began to follow the example also of what is bad and even to reject their own good customs only because they do not exist elsewhere.

“They could not for instance consider even this, that conditions of ordinary existence among these French beings are perhaps being built up all the time abnormally and therefore they had not yet had time to become aware of the necessity of sometimes, as in the given case, washing themselves in hammams and chewing keva after using the first being-food.

“But to throw away good customs already acquired, for the sole reason that they do not exist among the beings of this France from whom they take example—this is already indeed genuine ‘turkeyness.’

“Although this strange peculiarity which I have just called ‘Turkeyness,’ has already become inherent in almost all the three-brained beings who breed on this planet of yours, yet the ‘manifestation’ and the results of it are noticed to a great extent among the three-brained beings who breed on the continent Europe.

“This I constated and understood later when I departed from St. Petersburg to travel in various countries of this continent Europe, on which this time I remained for a long while and not for a short time as had happened on my former travels, and I had therefore time for observation and investigation of the finer details of the psyche, not only of separate beings, but also of many together in all kinds of surrounding conditions.

“The form of external existence of all communities existing on this continent Europe is little distinguished from the external form of existence of the beings of that large community Russia.

“The form, however, of existence of the beings of the various groupings of this continent differs from among themselves only in so much as, thanks to the accidental longer or shorter continuity of the existence of the given community, there had been time for certain good customs and ‘instinctive habits’ to be automatically acquired and which became proper to the beings only of just this said community.

“Here, by the way, it is necessary to remark that the duration there of the existence of any community plays indeed a great role in the sense of the acquisition by beings of its good customs and instinctive habits.

“But unfortunately for all the three-brained beings of the whole Universe of every degree of Reason, the existence of every grouping of theirs, already more or less organized, is in general short-lived, thanks of course to that ever same chief particularity of theirs, namely, ‘periodic reciprocal destruction.’

“As soon as good being-usages for automatic existence begin to be established in the general process of any of their groupings, this terrifying process suddenly begins to proceed, and thus either these good customs and ‘automatic habits’ acquired during centuries are totally destroyed, or the beings of the given grouping, thanks already to the mentioned property, fall under the influence of beings of another grouping who have nothing in common with those under whose influence they were before this, and therefore very soon all these customs and moral habits acquired during centuries are replaced by other ‘new ones,’ which in most cases are premature and which in most cases are good for only, as is said, ‘a day.’

FURTHER, Beelzebub continued to speak thus:

“After Germany, I had for a short time the place of my existence again there on the continent Europe among the beings of the community called ‘Italy’; and after Italy, among the beings of that community, who became for the beings of the community Russia what are called the ‘sources’ for the satisfaction of that ‘vice’ which long before had become fixed in the abnormal process of the ordinary being-existence of terrestrial three-brained beings of recent centuries, and which is called ‘suggestibility’; that is, I settled among the beings of the community France.

“Now, my boy, I wish to inform you about the specific aspects of the psyche of those French three-brained beings in such a way that you may, at the same time, make clear to yourself how much in general among those three-brained beings of the planet Earth who please you, the normal possibility for the crystallization of all being-data, in the sense of the capacity to ruminate impartially and personally, has already deteriorated and how at the present time subjective essence-opinion about every reality is formed in them at times entirely opposite to that which should be obtained by the perception of that reality, directly received by them personally through impressions.

“In my opinion, it will be well if we take these same French beings as an example for making clear what I have just told you.

“The point is that at the present time among beings of all groupings breeding on that continent Europe on which, as they express it, their ‘cultured existence’ is now concentrated, as well as on all other continents, there became infallibly crystallized already from the very beginning of their formation into responsible beings, data for their representation about the individuality of these same French beings, which data brings forth in them such a definite understanding that these French, of all beings similar to them of their planet, are, as they express it, the most ‘depraved’ and ‘immodest.’

“Before this, namely, before my choice of the community France as the place of my permanent existence, data was formed in my common presence for just such a representation about them, because, going about everywhere and existing among the beings there of all kinds of groupings which exist at the present time on almost all terra firma parts of the surface of your planet, I frequently heard during all conversations such an opinion concerning the French beings.

“Although earlier, as I have already told you, I had sometimes been in just that community France, I had, nevertheless, on my preceding visits, paid no special attention to the particulars of the psyche of those beings and to that opinion which beings of nearly all the other communities there had about them.

“This time, however, when I settled in one of the provincial towns there, and my presence, of course, instinctively expected to perceive impressions from ‘immoral’ and ‘depraved’ manifestations of the local three-brained beings, I, to my great and ever-increasing surprise, ascertained first of all that I would not perceive anything of the kind.

“A little later, when I began to go about among them, and even to make friends with some of them and with their families, the data for this as it is called ‘automatic opinion’ about them not only began to become decrystallized in me, but there began to become crystallized in me the ‘required-being-data’ for finding out just what was the cause that data could become crystallized in the common presences of other communities for such an opinion about them which did not correspond to reality.

“All this interested me more and more each day, because, existing among them, it gradually became clear to me that the beings of that community were not only not the most depraved and immoral, but on the contrary they seemed to be the most ‘patriarchal’ and ‘modest’ beings of all the three-brained beings who were grouped on the continent Europe.

“So I then began specially to observe and to acquire corresponding information, in order to elucidate for myself just that contemporary terrestrial question.

“While I was there in that provincial town, I was unable to elucidate anything for myself, but later, when I happened to go to the capital of those French beings, then there, from the very first day, the basic causes of that misunderstanding also began to be gradually elucidated in my Reason.

“For the elucidation of these causes, the following facts then served there and also my impartial observations and considerations.

“When I went this time to that capital named ‘Paris’—which, by the way, had now in the logicnestarian-crystallization of the contemporary three-brained beings of your planet, breeding on all the continents, already completely become also such a center of their imagined culture as the cities Samlios, Koorkalai, Babylon and so on, were for the beings of former periods in their time—I went straight from the railway station to the hotel which had been recommended to me while still in the city of Berlin by an acquaintance of mine.

“The first thing that I happened to notice was that all the servants of that hotel then consisted of foreigners who mostly spoke the English language, whereas, not so long ago, as it seems, all the servants of this same hotel spoke only the Russian language.

“The day after my arrival in that contemporary Samlios, I inquired for a certain being belonging to a community called Persia to whom I had an introduction from one of my good friends existing in the capital of that community.

“This new acquaintance of mine, the Persian being, suggested in the evening of that day that I should go with him to what is called the ‘Boulevard des Capucines’ and sit for a while in the then famous ‘Grand Cafe.’

“When we arrived at this Grand Cafe we sat down at one of the many tables which took up, as is usual there in Paris, half the pavement.

“As I have already told you, a Cafe serves the same purpose for the beings on the continent Europe as their Tchai-kanas do for the beings dwelling on the continent Asia. The only difference is this: on the continent ‘Asia’ in a Tchai-kana they give you a certain reddish liquid to drink, squeezed from a certain well-known flower there, while here on the continent Europe, although in these establishments they also give a liquid to drink, yet that liquid is not only firstly completely black, but secondly, from what it is squeezed—no one knows except the proprietor of that establishment.

“We began to drink the black liquid served to us, called ‘coffee.’

“I noticed here also that all the staff of this Grand Cafe, or, as they say here, the ‘waiters,’ were beings from other groupings, mostly from the European community called ‘Italy.’

“You must know that in general in this part of the city Paris, or in this ‘foreign Paris,’ each business is a specialty of the beings of one or other of the contemporary communities of the continent Europe or other continents.

“And thus, having sat down at a table in that famous Grand Cafe or rather in the street in front of the Grand Cafe, we began to watch the passing people just strolling by, passing and strolling on the other half of the pavement of this Grand Cafe.

“Among the strolling crowd were beings of almost all the separate groupings both of this continent Europe as well as of the other continents, mostly of course from those communities whose turn it was at that period to be rich; there predominated, however, in that crowd, beings of the continent America.

“The beings of the continent America had already there in Paris finally taken the place in recent times of the beings of the great community Russia after the ‘death’ of this latter.

“There strolled by there, beings chiefly belonging to the caste of the ruling class, who often come there, as they say, to the ‘capital of the world’ to ‘have a good time.’

“There were many businessmen also among them, who had come there to Paris for what are called the ‘fashion-goods,’ chiefly for perfumery and women’s clothes.

“Among the varied crowd walking on the Boulevard des Capucines, many young people could also be noticed who had come there to learn how to dance ‘fashionable dances’ and make ‘fashionable hats.’

“As we, while talking, were examining that mixed crowd, whose faces expressed their satisfaction at the fulfillment of a long-awaited dream, my new acquaintance, the young Persian, suddenly turned to me in surprise and pointing with his finger at a passing couple, exclaimed:

“‘Look! Look! There go genuine French people!’

“I looked and saw that indeed this couple greatly resembled those beings whom I had seen in the provincial towns of that community France.

“After they had disappeared from sight in the crowd, we began to discuss in order to understand the reason why that genuine French couple came to be in this part of their ‘capital.’

“After various surmises, we unanimously agreed that that couple probably lived in some outlying part of genuine French Paris and had gone, for some family feast or other at their relatives, to another part of this French Paris which lay just on the opposite side.

“Evidently at that family feast they had drunk rather excessively and returning home after the feast, they did not want to make a detour, and decided to take the direct route. And this direct route evidently passed just by the Grand Cafe.

“Probably for this reason alone, did these genuine French people appear in this part of Paris.

“Talking, we continued to look at the strolling crowd decked out in the latest fashions.

“Although the majority of them were decked out in these latest fashions, yet from everything, it was obvious that these clothes of theirs had only just been bought—today or yesterday—and from close observation and comparison of their faces with their clothes, one could, without doubt, be convinced that in the ordinary process of their existence at home they rarely had the possibility of being so richly dressed and of feeling so free from care.

“When, among these ‘visiting foreign princes,’ as some of the ‘natives’ call them, all sorts of also foreign ‘professionals-of-both-sexes,’ already ‘well-acclimatized’ to that part of Paris, were walking ‘in mass,’ my new acquaintance, the young Persian, suggested to me that he should become my ‘Paris cicerone’ and that we should go to what are called the ‘disreputable places of Paris’ and look at French ‘depravity.’

“I agreed, and we went from that Grand Cafe, first of all to what is called a ‘brothel’ situated nearby.

“There, in the first place, I learned that the owner of this ‘noble establishment’ was a certain Spaniard.

“In the rooms of this house was a crowd of women: ‘Poles,’ ‘Viennese,’ and ‘Italians,’ and even two ‘Negresses’ were there.

“I had wanted to see how genuine Frenchwomen appeared in this setting, but from my inquiries it became clear that there was not even one Frenchwoman in this establishment.

“After this brothel we again went on to the Boulevards, and began to walk and observe the strolling, varied crowd.

“And there also everywhere we met large numbers of the beings of the feminine sex with the obvious signs on them of the aim of their ‘nocturnal quests’ on these Boulevards.

“All these women belonged to the already enumerated nationalities, as well as to others, namely, there were also ‘Swedes,’ ‘English,’ ‘Russian,’ ‘Spaniards,’ ‘Moldavians,’ and so on there, but scarcely one genuine Frenchwoman.

“Soon some dubious-looking beings of the male sex began to accost us and proposed to us that we do with them a certain ‘Grand Duke.’

“At first I did not understand what ‘Grand Duke’ meant, but on various inquiries it became clear that these strange words had acquired there a definite meaning quite recently, namely, from the time when the now dead ‘monarchic Russia’ flourished there.

“It turned out that the beings there of that time, belonging to the caste of the ruling class of that dead Russia were very fond of the ‘capital of the world’ and often went there; and almost every one of them, out of ‘swank,’ gave himself out as a titled individual, such as ‘Count,’ ‘Baron,’ or ‘Prince,’ but most frequently of all, as a ‘Grand Duke.’ And, since all of them obligatorily paid ‘visits’ to dubious places of ‘foreign Paris,’ the professional guides now call such a ‘tour’ the tournee du Grand Duc (which in English means ‘the Grand Duke’s Tour’).

“Having taken one of these guides, we also went to see the nocturnal ‘sights’ of that contemporary Koorkalai.

“We visited various of these ‘haunts’; we were in the cafe of the ‘homosexuals,’ and in the club of the ‘Lesbians,’ and in many of those ‘evil hearths’ where every ‘abnormality’ proceeds, which are repeated from time to time in all the chief ‘centers-of-culture’ of these unfortunates.

“Visiting these disreputable places, we eventually reached the streets of the famous, as it is called ‘Montmartre,’ not strictly on Montmartre itself, but on the lower slope of the district of that name, which abounds in every kind of nocturnal maleficent ‘disreputable establishment,’ destined however not for the beings of that community France, but exclusively for the beings only who come there from other separately independent groupings, or, as they themselves say, for ‘foreigners.’

“Besides many of these dubious establishments, there likewise exist there a great many night restaurants, for foreign visitors also, which are open the whole night long.

“All this district in general only becomes animated at night; by day it is almost, as they express it there’ ‘dead,’ and of foreign visitors not one ever goes there.

“In all these restaurants there are what are called ‘open stages’ on which they show various ‘amazing things,’ which proceed, as it were, among those beings similar to themselves who belong to other communities existing on other parts of the surface of their planet.

“They show that ‘stomach dance’ of the African beings, the Caucasians with their ‘dagger dances’ and the ‘mulattos’ with their snakes—in a word, whatever is considered at that season to be a ‘fashionable novelty’!

“But all that they show there in the ‘Montmartre theaters,’ as if it proceeded among the beings similar to them breeding on other continents of their planet, has in no case anything in common with what I, who had existed everywhere and who had been greatly interested to see and study all specific manifestations of the beings of each given locality, had in fact seen there on the spot.

“In recent times in this Montmartre, very many what are called ‘special Russian restaurants’ had been opened, and both in these special Russian restaurants, as well as other restaurants, the so-called ‘artists’ and ‘actors’ are beings of just the great community Russia, mostly from the beings of the former ruling class there.

“It will be as well to notice and to draw your attention to the fact that the fathers and grandfathers of these ‘artists’ or ‘actors’ of the contemporary ‘Montmartre theater restaurants’ still only quite recently in these various establishments there in Montmartre—thanks of course to what is called the ‘sweat of peasants’—laughed at and insulted the individual dignity of the beings of other communities, but now their children and grandchildren themselves are humbled and serve as objects of the satisfaction of the ‘Hasnamussian caprices’ of what are called the ‘much-monied beings’ of other communities.

“As regards such a condition of affairs, our wise Mullah Nassr Eddin has also a very wise saying; he, namely, says:

“‘If a father likes to ride though it be but a child's sled, his son must obligatorily be prepared to drag the great village sleigh up the mountainside.’

“While I sat in one of those restaurants with my said new friend, the Persian, he was called away by some other acquaintances, Persians, and I remained alone at the table with the champagne, the ordering of which in these restaurants at night in Montmartre is in general obligatory.”

At this point in his tale Beelzebub sighed deeply, and then continued thus:

“Just now, while telling you about that evening spent in the restaurant in Montmartre among the contemporary three-brained beings breeding on that planet Earth which pleases you, there involuntarily revived in me the ‘being-Sarpitimnian-experiencing,’ which I experienced at that time, and now at this moment the memory of all that I experienced so intensely and repeatedly associated in all the three spiritualized parts of my common presence, that I am compelled to digress from the theme begun, in order that I may share with you these sad and distressing reflections which were induced in me in those dreadful surroundings in Montmartre by my solitude after the said young Persian, who became my cicerone in Paris, had left me.

“Then, namely, for the second time in the whole of my existence, there proceeded in my Being the process of this same being-Sarpitimnian-experiencing, which had engendered in my common presence a revolt on account of various unforeseeingnesses on the part of our Most High, Most Saintly Cosmic Individuals, and of all the objective misfortunes flowing from them, which have already obtained and, maybe, will still continue to obtain on this planet Earth as well as in all our Great Universe.

“How was it possible not to foresee in their calculations of the harmonious movement of cosmic concentrations that the comet Kondoor would collide with this ill-fated planet Earth?

“If those who should have done so had foreseen this, then all subsequent unfortunate consequences issuing one from the other would not have happened and there would not have been the need to implant in the first three-brained beings of that ill-fated planet that, for them, maleficent organ Kundabuffer which was the cause of all subsequent distressing and terrifying results.

“It is true that later when it was no longer necessary and this for them maleficent organ was destroyed, they yet again did not foresee that by the destruction of the organ itself the possibility was not destroyed that in the future the given consequences of its properties would, owing to a certain manner of existence of the beings, become crystallized in the presences of their descendants.

“In other words, they did not foresee for the second time also that even if it were possible to destroy that organ, yet the fundamental Cosmic Law Heptaparaparshinokh with its ‘Mdnel-Ins’ nevertheless remains, in the sense of the evolutionary process for the three-brained beings of the planet Earth just as for everything existing in the whole Universe.

“It was thanks particularly to the second almost criminal ‘unforeseeingness’ that this situation, terrifying for the three-brained beings, obtains there, namely, that on the one hand there are in their common presences as in the presences of all the three-brained beings of our Great Universe, all the possibilities for coating the ‘higher-being-bodies’ and at the same time, thanks to the crystallization which has become inherent in them of the various consequences of the organ Kundabuffer, it is almost impossible for them to carry the higher sacred parts coated in them up to the required degree of perfecting. And since, according to the fundamental common cosmic laws, such a formation as their ‘higher-being-part,’ coated in the common presences of three-brained beings, is not subject to decomposition on planets, and since the planetary body of the beings cannot endlessly exist on planets and the process of the sacred Rascooarno must inevitably proceed with them at the proper time, therefore, their unfortunate higher bodies arising in the terrestrial three-brained beings must inevitably languish also forever in all kinds of exterior planetary forms.

“Sitting then in solitude in the restaurant in Montmartre and watching the contemporary favorites of yours gathered there, I continued to ponder:

“How many centuries have passed since that time when I began to observe the existence of the three-brained beings of this ill-fated planet!

“During these long centuries many sacred Individuals have been sent down to them here from Above with the special aim of helping them to deliver themselves from the consequences of the properties of the organ Kundabuffer, yet nevertheless nothing has changed here and the whole process of ordinary being-existence has remained as before.

“During this time, no difference whatsoever has arisen between those three-brained beings of this planet, who existed nearly a hundred of their centuries ago, and the contemporary ones.

“Are not the beings sitting here the same, and do they not behave as unbecomingly as the beings of the city Samlios on the continent Atlantis, which was considered by all the three-brained beings of that time as the ‘source-and-place-of-concentration-of-the-results-of-attainments-in-the-sense-of-the-perfecting-of-their-Reason’—or as the contemporary beings here would say, ‘the-chief-center-of-culture’—and where I also sat among the beings there in their, as they then called similar restaurants, ‘Sakroopiaks.’

“And after Atlantis had perished, and many, many centuries had passed, when I was on the continent Asia in the city of Koorkalai, their new center-of-culture of that ancient community there called Tikliamish, and sat at times among them in their Kaltaani which were similar also to contemporary restaurants, was I not witness of similar ‘scenes’?

“There in front of me, that stout contemporary gentleman with the enormous foreign growth on his neck is sitting with two young street girls … dress him in the costume of a ‘Kafirian,’ will he not be exactly like that very type I saw then sitting in a Kaltaan of the city Koorkalai?

“Or over there, on the left, at another table a contemporary young man is sitting, who in a squeaky voice convincingly holds forth to his bottle-companion about the causes of disorders which proceed in some community … dress his head in a ‘chambardakh’ and would he not be exactly like a real, as they were then called, ‘Klian-of-the-mountains’?

“And that tall man pretending to be an important gentleman, sitting alone in the corner, making eyes at a lady who sits with her husband among the neighboring company … is he not a real ‘Veroonk’?

“And these waiters, exactly like dogs with their tails between their legs, who serve the people sitting there … are they not ‘Asklay-slaves’?

“And in their majestic city Babylon, where I also happened to be, many of their centuries later … was it not the same there? Were not the three-brained beings of the city Babylon those same Asklays, Kafirians, Veroonks, Klians, and so on? …

“Only their dress and the names of their nationalities have changed.

“During Babylonian times they were called ‘Assyrians,’ ‘Persians,’ ‘Sikitians,’ ‘Arabians,’ and by other different names ending in ‘ian.’

“Yes … and now again, after so many centuries, I am again here, in their contemporary center-of-culture, the city Paris.

“And again it is the same … shoutings, uproar, laughter, scoldings … the same as in the city Babylon, as in the city Koorkalai, or even in Samlios, their first center-of-culture. …

“Do not these three-centered beings of today gather together to pass the time in a way unbecoming to three-centered beings, in as unbecoming a way as three-centered beings used to pass the time in all former periods of existence on that unfortunate planet?

“And during the time in which I have observed these unfortunates, not only whole peoples of many of their centers of culture have disappeared without trace, but also the terra firma on which they existed has either completely changed or disappeared from the face of that planet, as happened for instance to the continent Atlantis.

“After Samlios, their second center became the continent ‘Grabontzi.’ Have not the peoples inhabiting it also disappeared from the continent Africa in the same way? And if the continent itself has not disappeared, yet at least that place where its center lay is now so covered with sand that, besides what is called the ‘Sahara desert,’ nothing exists.

“Again many centuries passed; their center was formed in Tikliamish. What remains of it, but deserts now called ‘Red sand’?

“If some nation formerly famous has perhaps survived in its thousandth generation, then it is now vegetating in complete nothingness somewhere not far from that place where that nation dwelt.

“Then again many centuries passed.

“I saw their center Babylon; what has remained of this truly great Babylon? A few stones of the city itself and a few remnants of peoples formerly great, who, although they continue still to exist, are yet regarded by contemporary beings as quite insignificant.

“And what will become of this contemporary center-of-culture of theirs, of the city Paris, and of the peoples powerful today who surround it: French, Germans, English, Dutch, Italians, Americans, and so forth? … future centuries will show.

“But meanwhile, only one thing is certain: these unfortunate germs of ‘higher-being-bodies,’ which arose and still continue to arise in some of the three-brained beings here, are compelled, as I have already told you, to ‘languish’ in the presences of all kinds of abnormal forms, to actualize which, owing to the nonlawful consequences arising from the lack of foresight of some of our Most-High-Most-Most-Sacred-Common-Cosmic-Individuals, has become proper to this maleficent planet Earth.

“I was still absorbed in such thoughts, so sad personally for my essence, when my new friend, the young Persian, returned.

“Having sat a little longer in that restaurant where it had already become extremely noisy and stifling, we decided to go on to another restaurant which was also there in Montmartre.

“But when we got up and were about to leave, a company of beings who were sitting beside us at another table, having overheard our conversation about the new place to which we intended going, spoke to us and asked us to sit a little at their table, and then go on together to where we had proposed going. They asked us to wait until a friend of theirs would arrive.

“These new acquaintances of ours turned out to be beings from the continent America.

“Although it grew more and more unpleasant in that restaurant and the noise of the drunken voices increased, yet we at first agreed to wait for their friend; but when in a far corner of the room of that restaurant a row suddenly started, we left without waiting for those American beings.

“And the row in the far corner of the room started, as it transpired, because one being who was in the company of others struck one of them on the head with a champagne bottle, only because this latter would not agree to drink to the health of a certain prime minister of some government there, but wished to drink without fail to the health of the ‘Toogoortski-Sultan.’

“One of the Americans who did not want to wait any longer for his friend, went with us to the other restaurant.

“On closer acquaintance with this American three-brained being, he turned out to be merry, observant, and loquacious.

“All the way, and then there at the new place we went to, he talked all the time and made us laugh, chiefly because he very skillfully and aptly noticed the comic aspects of the people we met and of the people sitting in the new restaurant.

“Later, from inquiries, it became clear that this American was the owner of a big school of fashionable dancing there in Paris.

“From all he told us about his business, I understood that the pupils of his school consisted entirely of American beings who learned chiefly one favorite American dance, the ‘fox trot.’

“I also understood that this dance, the fox trot, was purely American in origin and that it is popular and danced in full swing chiefly there in America.

“And that was why, when we together had all chosen a new brand of champagne, and this merry American stopped his chatter a little, I asked him:

“‘Tell me, please, respected sir, if this is so, why do you not have your school over there at home in America instead of here, in the city Paris, so far from your own country and from the place of the “arising” of this “beneficent” fox trot?’

“‘What! What! …’ he exclaimed in a sincerely surprised tone. “But I have a large family!

“‘If I had my school in my native country, not only would my family die of hunger, but I should not even be able to rent a damp room in New York to shelter us during bad weather from the freezing North winds there.

“‘But here in the city Paris, thank the Lord, there are plenty who wish to learn that fox trot, and who will pay well for it.’

“‘I do not understand,’ I interrupted. ‘You tell me that your pupils are entirely of your countrymen who come here, and at the same time you say that nobody over there would attend your school. How am I to understand this?’

“‘That is just the point,’ answered the honorable American.

“‘The cause of this is a very little psychological kink from the number of those many other specific kinks which all together make up the stupidity of my compatriots.

“‘The point is that my school is in Paris, or, as “clever” men say at home in America, in the “contemporary Babylon.”

“‘And this contemporary Babylon is very popular among all our Americans, and all of them consider it an obligation to visit this world capital.

“‘Every one of our Americans who has saved up, if only a little, must without fail come here.

“‘And, by the way, you must know it is not so easy for us to save up in America. It is only here in Europe that they think that, in America, dollars almost roll about the streets. But in reality those American dollars, I repeat, are not at all easily acquired by those who live there. Every cent must be earned by one’s own physical labor.

“‘They do not at all pay at home in America as they do here in certain European countries for various ephemeral values, such as fame, renown, talent, and so forth.

“‘For example, here in Europe, if some, let us say, painter, happens to paint at some time or other a good picture, and he becomes famous, then ever afterwards, no matter what trash he may produce, the public will always pay a great deal of money for that trash, simply because it is said to be the work of that “famous” painter.

“‘At home in America, however, things are very different in this respect. Everything is done there for cash, and every work is judged by its measure and weight. Name, talent, genius, and that kind of merchandise, is cheap with us and therefore dollars are acquired in America with great difficulty.

“‘But fortunately for me, our Americans have many other weaknesses and among them is the passion “to see Europe.”

“‘Owing to that same passion, every American, even depriving himself at times of essential necessities, tries hard and with great difficulty to economize little by little the dollars he has earned, only to have the possibility of visiting Europe and of course the “capital of the world” … Paris.

“‘That is why there are always enough of my compatriots here, as is said, “to sink a ship”—this is the first reason. And the second reason is that, as our Americans have still another exaggerated weakness, namely, vanity, their imagination is flattered that people will say that they have learned the fox trot not in some Philadelphia or Boston, but in Paris itself, where fashionable novelties for all the Earth originate, and as the fox trot is a fashionable novelty, the “Paris fox trot” is then for them, so to say, the result of the last word in civilization.

“‘And so, thanks to these two ferments in our Americans, I, a poor dancing teacher, always have a sufficient number of Americans here who pay me well.

“‘It is true, they pay me in francs and not in dollars, but the money-changers must also earn something—they too have families.’

“After this explanation of his, I asked him further:

“‘Tell me also, please, my dear sir, is it possible that your compatriots come here to the city Paris and stay here so long only to study this fox trot of yours?’

“‘Why only the fox trot?’ he replied.

“‘During this time they also visit Paris itself and its outskirts, and sometimes they even travel quite far. In short, they also “study” Europe during this time.

“‘They “visit” and “study” Europe in order, as they say there at home, “to complete their education and schooling”; but between ourselves, it is only said as one of the parrotlike phrases of those among us who pretend to be real English, whereas in reality my compatriots see Paris as well as Europe, only to satisfy their weakness of vanity.

“‘They see it, not to be more learned or to become more informed, but only to be able to boast afterwards there at home in conversation with their acquaintances, that they have, so to say, been in Europe and seen there this, that, or the other.

“‘Here in Europe in every convenient place, there is even for this purpose a branch of an establishment under the name of “Book and Son” which suits this particular need very well, and of course there is also one of these branches here in Paris.

“‘Well, these dear compatriots of mine collect together like a flock of sheep, in groups of several scores, and that whole party of “tourists” sits in an enormous what is called “Book’s bus” and go where they are taken.

“‘On that Book’s bus, besides the “chauffeur” there is another person, called a “Book’s sleepy-type.”

“‘During the trip of that famous Book’s bus, this same “sleepy-type” in a weak voice calls out from time to time the names of the places and the various historical and nonhistorical “sights” of Paris and its environs, learned parrotlike according to the “itinerary” mapped out by Book himself. In a word, this is the way my dear compatriots “study” Europe.

“‘These “sleepy-types” have very weak voices and look half-consumptive because they are usually very tired and don’t get enough sleep; and this is probably explained by the fact that many of these types work hard somewhere at night, besides working for “Book and Son,” in order to get, together with the tiny earnings from “Book and Son,” enough for their families to live on, as it is no easy task to support a family, especially in Paris.

“‘And the fact that my dear compatriots hear little of what these “sleepy-types” with weak voices say has no great significance. Is it not the same to them what that sleepy-type mutters, or in what voice? For it is quite unnecessary for them to know any of the details of what they are seeing. Is it not all the same to them what they see and what it all means? All they need is but the “fact” that they were in that place itself and in a general way saw everything.

“‘They are fully satisfied with this, for afterwards in conversation they can freely say with a “clear conscience” that they were here, there, and everywhere, and all the other Americans will think that the speaker is not just the tail of a donkey, but that he also has been in Europe and has visited everything there and seen every “sight” that every contemporary “educated” person must see.

“‘Ekh! … my good Sir. Do you think that it is I alone who live by the “stupidities” of my compatriots?

“‘What am I? … I am a little man, only a dancing teacher.

“‘But did you notice that fat man sitting with me in the first restaurant? Well … that is a real “shark.” Many of them, incidentally, have “sprung up” at home in America, especially in recent times.

“‘That fat man, an Americanized English Jew, is the principal partner of a well-known, very solid American firm.

“‘This firm has its branches in many cities in America as well as in Europe, and the fat man who sat with me in the first restaurant is the one who fulfills the duties of director of the Paris branch of the firm.

“‘That firm not only fills its pockets through the stupidities of its compatriots, but into the bargain it unfortunately adds much of its own “meanness.”

“‘And they concoct this “melange” in the following way: the branch of the firm here, advertising itself well by American methods, is already widely known to my compatriots, and therefore, many of them, owing to always their same “vanity” and to other weaknesses, proper by the way to those beings of whom my compatriots mostly consist, always order their so-called fashionable dresses from this branch here, and the branch here sends to them “from the capital of the world” “real French models.”

“‘All this is done “quite honorably,” according to all contemporary commercial rules on the basis of “triple-entry bookkeeping” and “Shachermacher-accounting.”

“‘As regards, so to say, the “intimate side of the business” of this American “solid firm” of ours, founded by various American “sharks,” it is just here that these “sharks” skin everyone, and this only for the benefit of their own bottomless pockets.

“‘Well, when this Paris branch receives a mail order direct from its American clients, this same mail order is then sent d.i.r.e.c.t.l.y. to the German branch, and there, in Germany, where materials and labor are much cheaper than here in Paris, the branch there s.l.o.w.l.y. and l.e.i.s.u.r.e.l.y. carries out this American “mail order” according to all the codes of “Paris fashions,” whereupon it very calmly sticks on to its production a “Paris label” and, again, d.i.r.e.c.t.l.y … forwards it by steamer via Hamburg to its New York branch, from which the client receives her order, happy and proud that tomorrow she will wear “not just anything” but a real “Paris dress,” sewed in Paris itself, after the “latest Paris fashions.”

“‘What is most interesting of all is that nobody is offended at this “commission business” of this “solid firm,” but on the contrary it is “convenient” and “easy” and “profitable” for everyone. From this “commerce” of theirs, even the French, the hosts of the “capital of the world,” “gain,” but … it is true, they only grain in so far as they make profit out of the postage stamps which it is necessary to stick on the letters during correspondence between the customers and the Paris Branch.

“‘As you see, everyone is satisfied and everyone is pleased, and even benefited; and the chief thing is that the axiom of political economy, not accepted by everybody, is justified, namely, that without international exchange of goods, countries cannot possibly exist.

“‘But what am I? … I am only a poor dancing teacher! …’

“That jolly American was going to say something else, but at that moment a great hubbub arose in the next room of the restaurant and desperate voices of men and women who sat there were heard. We got up and only when we went out into the street did we find out that a being of the female sex from the community called ‘Spain’ had flung ‘vitriol’ into the face of another being, also of the female sex, from the community called ‘Belgium,’ because the latter had given a cigar case as a present, engraved with the inscription, ‘Always ready at your service’ to a being of the male sex from the community called ‘Georgia,’ whose Paris existence had been supported till this day by the first woman.

“When we got into the street it was very late; it was already dawn, and having parted from that amusing American, we went to our hotels.

“While pondering, on my way home from that famous Montmartre, over everything I had seen and heard, it was then that I well understood why and how such an opinion not corresponding to reality about the beings of that community France which they always have, had been formed in the beings belonging to other communities.

“Thanks to everything I had seen and heard in that part of the city Paris, it had become clear to me that those beings of other communities who come here to France, come first of all to this part of Paris and to other such places where everything without exception is organized and adapted especially for them by foreigners like themselves, but who had come there long before and consequently had learned to speak the local language much better than they.

“And in view of the fact that generally the capacity for being-rumination in contemporary beings becomes atrophied and what is called a ‘wide-being-horizon’ is absent, they take everything and regard everything as ‘French’ and afterwards, when they return to their community again, they always relate to other beings of their community about everything they have seen, heard, and experienced in that part of Paris as if it were entirely of French origin and that French beings did it all.

“In this way, such an opinion about the French is gradually formed in other beings, not at all corresponding to reality.

“Moreover, there is also another and deeper cause for this opinion which had been formed about the beings of the community France in the peculiar consciousnesses of the beings of other communities, and in the given case it is also based on one of the peculiarities of their general psyche. This peculiarity is acquired in them, once again thanks to that maleficent usage invented by themselves which they call ‘education.’

“The point is that there, in children, from the very first day, as they express it, of ‘their appearance on God’s earth,’ when Nature herself is still continuing to form the given prime conception of the future three-brained responsible being, they begin, by this same maleficent ‘education’ of theirs, to hinder Nature from herself producing the necessary formation.

“This is not all: Thanks to their maleficent usage ‘to-educate,’ they fill and drive into what are called the ‘Spetsitooalitivian-concentrations,’ or as they themselves would say, the ‘brains’ of these newly born beings, all kinds of their ephemerally fantastic ideas, which brains are localized in general in beings for the perception and accumulation of all kinds of impressions, as well as of the results of conscious being-awareness, and which among the newly born are still quite pure and of maximum perceptivity.

“The greatest misfortune for them is that this maleficent process continues to proceed for the majority of them almost up to the age when they should already be responsible beings.

“As a result of all this, that mentioned peculiarity of their general psyche just obtains which is derived from the following: firstly, the general functioning, present in their whole being, of the sum of almost all their functions for active being-manifestations, little by little adapts itself to respond only to the sum of these false and fantastic ideas; and, secondly, the whole presence of each one of them gradually accustoms itself to perceive all subsequent new external impressions without any participation at all of those being-factors which in general are put in the beings for new perceptions, that is to say, to perceive them also only according to these previously introduced false and fantastic ideas present in them.

“In their new perceptions, the contemporary three-brained beings there ultimately lose even the need itself for embracing as a whole everything newly seen or newly heard, and the newly seen and newly heard only serve them as shocks, so that in them associations proceed of the information previously installed in them and corresponding to this newly seen and newly heard.

“This is why, when these contemporary favorites of yours already become responsible beings, everything newly seen and newly heard is perceived by them of its own accord automatically without the participation of any effort whatsoever on the part of their essence-functions, and without at all evoking in them, as I have already said, the being-need itself of sensing and understanding everything proceeding within them as well as without.

“In a word, they are satisfied with that alone, which someone once consciously or unconsciously put into them.

“I hope, my dear boy, that after all I have now told you, it will by itself become clear to you, why, just among the three-brained beings of other groupings on your planet, data as regards the beings of the separate groupings which exists there under the name of France, has been crystallized for such an opinion not corresponding to reality.

“However this may be, yet for the ordinary beings of this France, it was a great misfortune that the contemporary three-brained beings there of other separate groupings selected, for their what are called ‘cultured manifestations,’ the capital of that community.

“At any rate, I personally pity with all my essence the ordinary beings of this community, that their capital, even though only one definite part of it, has begun to be considered the contemporary ‘center-of-culture’ for that whole planet.

“One must simply even be astonished, that the majority of beings of the community France could, although without the participation of their consciousness, nevertheless preserve in their presences those data for the two being-impulses on which objective being-morality is chiefly based, and which are called ‘patriarchality,’ that is, love of family, and ‘organic-shame,’ in spite of the fact that they exist in the sphere of conditions of ordinary being-existence there which have now become quite abnormal, thanks to the fact that their capital, as I have already told you, has, to their misfortune begun to be considered, and really is, the contemporary ‘chief-center-of-culture’ for the whole of that ill-fated planet.

“Owing to all this, in this contemporary center of the whole planet as it had for a long time been the practice those beings rush and flock from the whole planet, who have completely given themselves up to the ‘evil-God’ reigning there already without limit inside each of them, namely, to that ‘evil-God’ who became their Ideal, and the conception of whom is very well expressed in the words: ‘to-attain-to-a-complete-absence-of-the-need-for-being-effort-and-for-every-essence-anxiety-of-whatever-kind-it-may-be’; and coming here to France, they must of course have, consciously or unconsciously, a corresponding harmful influence of the beings on the whole community.

“How great a misfortune it is for the ordinary beings of that France that the contemporary ‘center-of-culture’ should lie within their community, you will well understand, my boy, if I tell you about one of the consequences of this. I learned about it thanks to that information which was communicated to me in one of the latest etherograms concerning the three-centered beings of that planet of yours.

“It is necessary to tell you that it had already become in general customary that when beings from the whole of the planet, who have already completely given themselves up to their, as I said, inner ‘evil-God,’ flock to this chief center of culture, then these beings, among other of their maleficent actions, further do this: they occupy themselves out of idleness, in order to satisfy their whims, with devising ‘new-forms-of-manifestations-of-their-Hasnamussianing,’ or as is said there, with ‘new fashions,’ and spread them from there over the whole of the planet.

“This Hasnamussian usage, that of devising ‘new fashions,’ existed in former civilizations also; during the Tikliamishian civilization it existed under the name of ‘Adiat,’ and at the time of Babylon, under the name of ‘Haidia.’

“‘Adiat,’ ‘Haidia,’ or ‘fashions,’ consist in this: the beings devise various new means of being-manifestation in ordinary existence, and means for changing and disguising the reality of one’s appearance.

“Adiat, Haidia, or fashions, are like our customs for daily being-existence which are established for the daily use of the three-brained beings for the alleviation of inevitable exterior conditions independent of beings, and which usually gradually enter everywhere into the daily use of beings as a necessary need, essential for them. These said contemporary customs or fashions of theirs are, firstly, only temporary and thus serve for the satisfaction only of the personal insignificant aims of these present and future Hasnamusses, which become phenomenally abnormal and trivially egoistic; and secondly, they are neither more nor less than the results of automatic Reason based on that relative understanding, which generally flows from the abnormally established conditions there of ordinary being-existence.

“Thus, in this same city Paris, about one and a half of their centuries ago, several of these Hasnamussian candidates ‘invented’ that the beings of the female sex there should go about with their hair cut, and this maleficent invention of theirs began to spread like wildfire by ways and means already established there.

“But as at that period, in the beings of the female sex of that same community France, the feelings of morality and patriarchality were still very strong, they did not adopt that maleficent invention; but the beings of the female sex of the communities called England and America did adopt it, and began to cut their hair.

“Moreover as the beings of the female sex of both these communities there began voluntarily to deprive themselves of that part of themselves which is adapted also by Great Nature for certain exchanges of cosmic substances, Nature did not fail to react and began to produce corresponding results, which will certainly take the forms, as had already occurred twice on this planet: the first time, in the country ‘Uneano,’ now ‘Kafirstan,’ where there appeared what are called ‘Amazons,’ and the second time in ancient Greece, where there was created the ‘religion of the poetess Sappho.’

“And while in these two contemporary communities, namely, in the community England and in the community America, the cutting of women’s hair has already produced, in the first case ‘suffragettes,’ and in the second what are called ‘Christian Scientists’ and ‘theosophists,’ and moreover when this Hasnamussian fashion of cutting the hair of beings of the female sex became universally spread, as you will learn from the continuation of my tale, a proportionate increase was everywhere noticed—as I was informed by the etherogram I received—in the number of the illnesses of these unfortunate beings of the female sex, which they call women’s diseases, namely, various sorts of venereal inflammations of the sexual organs, such as ‘vaginitis,’ ‘uteritis,’ ‘ovaritis,’ and what they call ‘cancer.’

“And so, my boy, although this same fashion, the cutting of the hair of the beings of the female sex, invented in this Paris itself by beings with Hasnamussian properties, was not then in the beginning implanted in this same community France, yet owing to their capital being the collecting place for the beings with Hasnamussian properties from other countries who continue to persist in this maleficent invention, these latter have ultimately succeeded in implanting it; and the beings of the female sex, there in France also, likewise have begun to cut their hair, and at the present time this cutting of their hair is in full swing for nearly all of them. At the hair-dressers even, chiefly of course here in their capital Paris, they have to take their turn as I was informed in this etherogram, exactly as people had to take their turn not long ago in the community Russia for receiving ‘American flour.’ And from this contagious rush of women to the hairdressers to get their hair cut, court proceedings are already arising between these hairdressers and the fathers, husbands, and brothers of these ‘shorn lambs,’ and many what are called ‘divorces’ are also obtained.

“It is interesting that the judges there, as it was also communicated in that etherogram, in each case acquitted the hairdressers on the grounds that the beings of the female sex who went to them were already over sixteen years of age, and had therefore, owing to the laws there, reached their majority and were free to do as they pleased.

“But, of course, had these French judges, and in general the judges of the whole planet, known that there exists in the Universe a definite law concerning all the formations without exception, which serve the Great Trogoautoegocrat in the transformation of cosmic substances, then they would without any doubt completely change their opinion concerning that understanding which they express by the word ‘majority.’

“The point is that, according to that definite cosmic law, all those separate individuals, among whom are numbered also all Keshapmartnian beings of the female sex, are for the transformation of cosmic substances the sources of all those active elements which in further cosmic formations must serve in the process of the Great Holy Law Triamazikamno for fusion as its second holy force, that is, they always are, as is said, the ‘negative’ or ‘passive principle.’

“And so, owing to this definite cosmic law, which I have just mentioned, these sources which transform the active elements which serve as the passive principle, can never be free to have any independent manifestations. Only these sources can have this independence which transform the active elements which must serve for the Holy Triamazikamno as the ‘affirming’ or ‘active principle.’

“That is just why these sources which serve as the passive principle cannot be responsible for their manifestations, that is, they cannot be, as they say, ‘major.’

“While telling you about this separate grouping of the three-brained beings, that is about France, I must also tell you for the fullness of its characterization that in France there are also beings of the ruling class, who also invented very ‘good means’ for the calming of the minds of the ordinary beings of their community, just as the power-possessing beings of the big community Russia employ such a means for the encouragement of the use of the famous Russian vodka, and the power-possessing beings of the community England at the present time attain the same by their not less famous ‘sport.’

“However, it must be admitted that although the power-possessing beings of the community France also adopt these ‘good means’ and successfully attain their egoistic aims, yet these means, though, be it said, to no credit of the power-possessing beings of the communities of England and Russia, bring scarcely any harm to the planetary bodies themselves of the ordinary beings.

“This is not all: by these means they unconsciously brought and bring to the ordinary beings of their community a certain benefit, diverting them and giving them temporary relief from the ill effects of their fascination by ‘fashions,’ invented by present and future Hasnamusses gathered in this capital from various countries, and under the slavery of which fashions the ordinary beings of this same France have now fallen even more than all other beings of other communities.

“These ‘good means’ are called there ‘fairs,’ and at the present time such fairs are held in the principal squares of all their towns and villages in turn, and moreover, just in those squares in which, about two centuries ago, the three-brained beings there usually held discussions on what they call ‘religious-moral subjects.’

“In justice it must be said, my boy, that these French fairs are very very gay places.

“I confess that even I myself liked to visit them and pass there an hour or two, thinking about nothing.

“At these French fairs everything can be had ‘cheap’ and ‘fine.’

“For instance, every being there, for a trifling fifty centimes, can ‘whirl’ to complete ‘stupor’ on various what are called ‘pigs,’ ‘chameleons,’ ‘whales,’ and so forth, and on various American and non-American new inventions designed just to produce ‘stupor.’

“If a being recovers too quickly from all these ways of getting ‘stupefied,’ he can then have there, also for a few more centimes, something very tasty, most often prepared right on the spot.

“It is true that from these tasty things the beings, as far as their stomachs are concerned, often become … h’m … h’m … but what is this in comparison with the pleasure they have had in eating them.

“And in case any of the ordinary beings there wishes as they say to ‘try his luck’ again for a few centimes, he can satisfy this desire there also on the spot; he may try his luck in every way, for at those famous French fairs there is every means of gambling that exists there on the planet Earth, for speculation as well as for fun, and almost all their games of chance are seen there.

“In a word, all the games, beginning with the ‘roulette of Monte Carlo’ and ending with the game of ‘Snipsnapsnorum.'”

BEELZEBUB continued further:

“Now I shall explain to you also a little about that ‘obstruction’ which served as one of the chief causes for the gradual dilution of the psyche of these unfortunate favorites of yours, and, namely, concerning their peculiar ‘Havatvernoni’ which they always have, the totality of the functioning and the effect of which, in the common presences of the beings, they themselves call ‘religiousness.’

“Such an, in the objective sense, indeed, 'archmaleficent' factor for the gradual automatic ‘dwindling’ of their psyche arose there, on this ill-starred planet, also since various consequences of the properties of always the same for them accursed organ Kundabuffer began to be crystallized in them, and changing its outer form, began to be transmitted from generation to generation.

“And so, when, on the one hand, thanks to these crystallizations, there began to be acquired in the common presences of certain terrestrial three-brained beings, the first germs or what are called Hasnamussian properties, in consequence of which such beings began, as is proper to them for their egoistic aims, to invent for the ‘confusion’ of surrounding beings similar to themselves, various fictions, among which were also every kind of fantastic, what are called ‘religious teachings’; and when, on the other hand, other of your favorites began to have faith in these fantastic religious teachings, and gradually lost their ‘sane mentation’ thanks to these same crystallizations, then from that time on there began to arise in the process of the ordinary existence of these strange three-brained beings a large number of ‘Havatvernoni’ or ‘religions’ having nothing in common with each other.

“Although all these many, varied Havatvernoni or religions of theirs have decidedly nothing in common with each other, yet nevertheless all are built up on the religious teachings, which in their turn, are built up exclusively on that, in the objective sense, ‘maleficent idea,’ which they themselves called ‘Good and Evil,’ and which ‘idea,’ strictly speaking, was the chief factor for the gradual ‘dilution’ of their general psyche and which still quite recently served as the cause of great events among the ‘blissful’ ‘higher-being-bodies’ or, as they are called there, ‘souls’ who dwell on that holy planet in the direction of which we are at the present moment falling.

“The history of all that which recently happened on this holy planet Purgatory ought, in my opinion, to be told you without fail, first of all because these events have a common-cosmic character and are connected with the general individuality of every relatively separately formed responsible Individual, and secondly, because certain members of your ‘genealogical tree’ involuntarily served as the cause of the arising of these events.

“But I shall relate about it only at the end of my present tale, as I have a very worthy reason for this concerning the development of your ‘being-mentation.’ About this worthy reason and also about what considerations I have concerning such an intention of mine, I shall most likely also explain to you in its proper time.

“Meanwhile know that there, among these terrestrial three-brained beings who please you, there existed and exists a great quantity of all kinds of ‘religious doctrines,’ on which these numerous ‘religions’ of theirs are just built up, and that they usually arise in the following way:

“I already told you that when it became clear that thanks to the unforeseeingness of certain Most-High-Sacred-Cosmic-Individuals, the results of the consequences of the organ Kundabuffer, invented and later removed by these sacred Individuals, began to become crystallized in the common presences of these unfortunate three-brained beings, thanks to which it became almost impossible for them correctly to become perfected to the Being, which three-brained beings ought to have, then our abundantly loving common father condescended to actualize sometimes in the common presences of certain of them wherever they may arise the germ of a sacred Individual, so that these latter being completedly formed up to responsible age and acquiring Reason in the conditions which had already become fixed in the general process of the existence of the three-brained beings of this planet, should become aware of reality and indicate to the surrounding beings similar to themselves, how they ought, with the Reason present in them, to guide the process of the functioning of their separate spiritualized parts, in order in this way to decrystallize the already crystallized consequences of the properties of the organ Kundabuffer, and also to succeed in destroying in themselves the predisposition to new crystallizations.

“And so, my boy, after the sacred Rascooarno proceeds to these terrestrial three-brained beings—or, as they themselves express it, when they die—in the presences of whom are actualized the germs of Sacred Individuals, their contemporaries usually in order to remember and also in order to transmit to the beings of subsequent generations all that these Sacred Individuals had indicated and explained according to their attainments of responsible age, collect it all into one whole, and all this ‘collected-into-one-whole’ usually just serves as the beginning of all kinds of religious teachings there.

“The strangeness of the psyche of your favorites in respect of the religious teachings which arise in this way among them, manifests itself in this, that they already from the very beginning understand ‘literally’ all that has been said and explained by these genuine Sacred Individuals actualized from Above and they never take into account in which environment and for which case this or that was said and explained.

“And further, already during the transmission from generation to generation of these religious teachings, the sense of which had already from the very beginning been distorted, they begin to adopt in regard to them the following two factors, which had already become fixed in the general existence of these strange three-brained beings. The first of these consists in this, that those beings, who in the given period of the ‘flow-of-time’ belong to the caste called the ruling class, immediately hook on to these religious teachings just that, for them, most maleficent ‘question’ which exists on this ill-starred planet under the name of ‘Religion-for-the-State-or-the-State-for-Religion,’ and corresponding to this, they gradually begin with every kind of artfulness to juggle with the previously fixed facts for the justification of their own egoistic aims; and the second consists in this, that certain ordinary beings there, owing to the fault of their producers, acquired in their common presences, during their arising as well as during their formation into responsible beings, the inherency of what is called ‘psychopathy’ and ‘parasitism’—in consequence of which they do not have and cannot have in themselves any data at all for the manifestation of any being-duty whatever it might be—and become, as it were, authorities for all the trifling details of the new religious teachings which have already arisen in the mentioned way, and begin, as it is said, ‘to-peck-like-crows-at-a-jackal's-carcass,’ that totality, already ‘pecked’ from the very beginning without this, of what had been spoken and indicated by the genuine Sacred Individuals, intentionally actualized from Above.

“Speaking briefly, the result of the mentioned two factors among the three-brained beings of this strange planet, which had been fixed in the process of ordinary existence, and, namely, the inherency in the beings belonging to the caste of the ruling class, and the psychopathy of certain of their ordinary beings, is that they always get divided on questions of religion—soon after its foundation, on whatever religious doctrines these religions may have been built up—into their famous ‘sects,’ and these sects in their turn get divided into other sects, and thanks to this, just the same occurs there in all epochs on this comparatively not large planet in the sense of religions, as with the large number of the spoken languages there, referring to which our highly esteemed Mullah Nassr Eddin called it ‘a thousand-tongued hydra,’ and in the present case he would say ‘varied-titillating-titillations.’

“During my observations on the process of the existence of these peculiar three-brained beings, there had been many times actualized from Above, in the common presences of certain of them, the germs of these Sacred Individuals and almost on each occasion—with the exception only of the Most Most Sacred Ashiata Shiemash, and all connected with Him which flowed from His own Most Great Labors—after their completed formation and their fulfillment of the mission imposed on them from Above, when the process of the sacred Rascooarno was completed with them, such religious teachings always began in the mentioned way to arise among these peculiar beings there, i.e., they, at first, as I said, collecting into one whole all that was indicated and explained in detail by these Sacred Individuals intentionally actualized from Above, for the purpose of remembering it all themselves and also for the purpose of transmission to subsequent generations, yet, of course, into one whole which they collected from the very beginning, as it is said there, ‘from-bits-here-and-there,’ and later, as all of this which was collected together fell into the hands of just those two mentioned types there, well, just then they began, as I already expressed it, ‘to peck at’ all this, and further dividing themselves up into their famous what are called sects, already compose new fantastic religious teachings thought out by themselves,, as a result of which there always obtains on this planet of yours, firstly, a large number of religions as numerous as the colors in the ‘rainbow,’ and secondly, as it is said, ‘the-same-old-story.’

“During recent centuries your favorites had many hundreds of these peculiar independent religious teachings in the common-planetary-process of their being-existence, and the basis for all of them was the totality of the indications and explanations which had still survived and which had arisen in the mentioned way, given to them by the Sacred Individuals intentionally actualized among them from Above.

“On these survived totalities, by which, during recent times, they were in a strange manner inspired and from which with their bobtailed reason they borrowed ideas for the inventions of their still newer and newer religious teachings, there were based five religions which still exist today, namely, those religions called:

1. The Buddhistic
2. The Hebrew
3. The Christian
4. The Mohammedan
5. The Lamaist.

“Concerning the first of them, and, namely, the Buddhistic religion, I have already once told you.

“The second, namely, the Hebrew, is founded, as it were, precisely on the teaching of the Saint Moses, by which name one of the genuine Sacred Individuals was called, who in His turn was intentionally actualized from Above.

“The actualization of this Sacred Individual proceeded there in the planetary body of a boy, who arose in the country now called Egypt, a little after my fourth personal sojourn on the surface of this planet of yours.

“This Sacred Individual, whom your favorites at the present time call ‘Saint Moses,’ accomplished a great deal for them and left them many of those exact and corresponding indications for ordinary existence, so that if they would adopt and actualize them normally, then, indeed, all the consequences of the properties of the absolutely maleficent for them organ Kundabuffer might become gradually decrystallized, and even the predisposition for new crystallizations might be destroyed.

“But to the common misfortune of all beings, with just a little Reason, of all our Great Universe, they began gradually to mix into all the counsels and indications of this ‘normality-loving’ Saint Moses, as it was already proper to them to do, such a mass of what are called ‘spices,’ that the saintly author himself could not with all his wish recognize anything of his own in this, as it were, totality collected by them of all he had explained and indicated.

“Your favorites of already the first generation of the contemporaries of Saint Moses, evidently found it profitable for their special aims to insert in these religious teachings almost the entire fantastic teaching which I already told you when I related that among the ancient three-brained beings of the second grouping on the continent Ashhark or contemporary Asia, there was a king named Konuzion, a subsequent Saint, who, for the purpose of saving his subjects from the pernicious habit of chewing the seed of the poppy first invented his fantastic ‘religious doctrine.’

“After Saint Moses, that Sacred Individual was actualized there who laid the beginnings of that religion which your contemporary favorites call Christianity.

“This Sacred Individual, called by your favorites ‘Jesus Christ,’ was actualized in the planetary body of a boy of that race of terrestrial three-brained beings whom Saint Moses, on the command from Above, chose from among the beings of the country Egypt and led to what is called the ‘Land of Canaan.’

“After this Jesus, there were actualized, also on the continent Asia, two other Sacred Individuals, on whose teachings the beings there founded two of the enumerated religions existing there until today.

“And, namely, one of these two Sacred Individuals was Saint Mohammed, who appeared among the, as they are called, Arabs, and the other—Saint Lama—appeared among the beings dwelling in the country named Tibet.

“At the present time, the first of the five religious teachings I mentioned, and, namely, the Buddhistic, is spread chiefly among the beings dwelling in the country India, the former ‘Gemchania,’ and in the countries called China and Japan.

“The followers of the second religious teaching, and, namely, the Hebrew are now scattered over the whole planet.

“In this place of my tales it will do no harm also to remark the cause itself, owing to which the followers of the teaching of this Moses are scattered over the whole planet, as, from this explanation, you will well understand about one peculiar property of the organ Kundabuffer and, namely, about the property which evokes the feeling called ‘envy,’ and you will also understand in what way each property of this organ, however small it may be, may be the cause of very great consequences.

“The point is that the beings who chiefly professed the teaching of this Moses, then very well organized themselves in their community and therefore in the psyche of the beings of all other communities of that period, this same property called envy began to be crystallized in relation to the beings of this community.

“And so strongly was this property crystallized in them that even after the flow of many of their centuries when the Hebrew community already ceased to be organized and powerful, and this former powerful community came to an end—as occurs there according to law to all powerful communities—then not only was this relation towards the beings of the descendants of this community on the part of the beings of other communities not destroyed, but even in the majority of them, the feeling of envy towards them has already become organic.

“The third religion, founded on the teaching of Jesus Christ, very soon became in its primordial form so widely spread that almost one-third of all the three-centered beings of this planet were its followers.

“But thereafter they began gradually to ‘strip’ also this religious teaching based on ‘resplendent Love,’ and transformed it into something also ‘resplendent,’ but already, as our dear Mullah Nassr Eddin says, into a ‘resplendent-Terasakhaboora’ from the fairy tale ‘Kasoaadjy.’

“In the case of this great religious teaching, indeed, it also happened among them, that its followers divided themselves, on account of exterior details of small importance, into various sects, and came to be called not just ‘Christians’ as all the first followers of this teaching called themselves—but ‘Orthodox,’ ‘Sevrodox,’ ‘Ypsylodox,’ ‘Hamilodox,’ and various other cognomens also ending in ‘dox’.’

“And into this teaching of truth and verity, they began also to mix for various egoistic and political reasons, fragments taken from other religious teachings already existing there, but fragments such as had not only nothing in common with the teaching of Jesus, but which sometimes even flatly contradicted the truths this Divine Teacher taught.

“They mixed in it a great deal from the teaching of Saint Moses which by that time had already been thoroughly distorted: and much later, namely, during the period which contemporary beings there called the ‘Middle Ages,’ the so-called ‘elders of the church’ inserted into this Christian religion nearly the whole of that fantastic doctrine invented by those ‘learned’ beings in the city of Babylon, who belonged to the school of the dualists, about which I have already told you.

“The ‘elders of the church’ in the Middle Ages probably inserted this last doctrine for the convenience of their own ‘shops’ and for the ‘shops’ of their assistants, because of the famous ‘paradise’ and ‘hell’ contained in it.

“And therefore at the present time, in place of the teaching of the Divine Teacher Jesus Christ, in which among other things was revealed the power of the All-lovingness and All-forgivingness of our creator, suffering for beings—it is now already taught there that our creator mocks the souls of those who follow this teaching.”

“Dear and kind Grandfather mine, explain to me, please, what is meant by ‘elders of the church’?” asked Hassein.

“They call ‘elders of the church’ there, those beings who become professional dignitaries of the highest rank of any religious teaching.”

Having merely replied thus laconically, Beelzebub continued further:

“By the way, I may tell you here that among a rather small group of terrestrial beings the teaching of Jesus Christ was preserved unchanged, and, passing from generation to generation, has even reached the present time in its original form.

“This smallish group of terrestrial beings is designated ‘the Brotherhood of the Essenes.’ The beings of this brotherhood succeeded at first in introducing the teaching of this Divine Teacher into their own being-existence, and subsequently in transmitting it from generation to generation to later generations, as a very good means for freeing themselves from the consequences of the properties of the organ Kundabuffer.

“Now as regards the fourth great religion existing there now, which arose several centuries after the Christian religion, and was founded on the teaching of the full-of-hope Saint Mohammed, this religion at first spread there widely: and it might perhaps have become eventually a ‘hearth of hope and reconciliation’ for them all if these strange beings had not stirred this also into a hotchpotch.

“On the one hand its followers also mixed into it something from the fantastic theory of the Babylonian dualists, but, on the other hand, the ‘elders of the church’ of this religion, called in this case ‘Sheiks-Islamists,’ themselves invented and added to it many things about the blessings of the notorious ‘paradise,’ which as it were, existed ‘in the other world,’ such blessings as perhaps could never even have entered the head of the chief Governor of Purgatory, His All-Quarters-Maintainer the Archcherub Helkgematios, even if he were deliberately to try to imagine them.

“Although the followers of this religion also, from the very first, split into many different ‘groups’ and ‘subgroups’—which, by the way, continue there even up till now—nevertheless they all subscribe to one or another of its two independent, as they are called, ‘schools,’ which were formed at the very beginning of its arising.

“These two schools of the Mohammedan religion are called there the ‘Sunnite’ and the ‘Shiite.’

“It is very interesting to note that the psychic hatred of each other formed in the psyche of the beings who belong to these two independent schools of one and the same religion has, on account of their frequent clashes, now been transformed completely into an organic hate.

“Beings of certain European communities have during recent centuries greatly contributed by their incitement to the rise of this peculiar transformation of that strange being-function.

“And they have employed and continue to employ this incitement in order that the animosity between the beings who follow these two independent schools of one and the same religion, should increase and that they should never unite, since if this were to happen, there might soon be an end there for those European communities.

“The point is that nearly half of the ordinary three-brained beings there are followers of this Mohammedan teaching, and only as long as this mutual hatred exists among them will they mean nothing terrifying in the sense of ‘reciprocal destruction’ to European communities.

“And hence it is that accidentally arisen ‘newly baked’ communities always rub their hands and rejoice when sparks fly between these Sunnites and Shiites, because they then count on a long and secure existence for themselves.

“Now, as regards the fifth teaching, namely, the teaching of Saint Lama, also a genuine messenger from our endlessness, the teaching of this Sacred Individual was spread among those three-brained beings there, who, on account of the geographical conditions, scarcely ever happened to come into contact with other beings of this ill-starred planet, and in consequence have scarcely been affected by the abnormally established conditions of ordinary being-existence there.

“One part of this teaching also its followers also soon changed and destroyed, but its other part already more or less entered into the existence of this little group of beings, and began to produce the expected results, thanks to which the hope grew even among the highest Sacred Individuals that this teaching, created by the saintly labors of Saint Lama, might sometime actualize what had already become a necessity in the Megalocosmos for everything that exists.

“But your favorites did not allow even this to happen, but by their ‘military expedition’ or ‘Anglo-Tibetan’ war, without so much as a thought, knocked this possibility soundly on the head.

“About this ‘military expedition’ I will tell you a little later.

“And I shall tell you about it chiefly because I myself happened by chance to be an eyewitness of all those lamentable events there.

“I must first tell you how there on your planet, it is now desired—of course with the help of the ‘Swivel-eyed General’—finally to ‘dispatch’ even the remnants of those two named religions still existing there, which, although they are already changed even beyond recognition, yet nevertheless have during the last centuries made the ordinary existence of the three-brained beings there, though very remotely yet all the same a tiny bit, like the ordinary existence of the three-brained beings breeding on the other corresponding planets of our Great Universe, and for certain of them their phenomenally haphazard existence somewhat tolerable objectively.

“Namely, I shall here tell you how there is just now proceeding the process of the final ‘dispatch’ of two of the great religions of the five mentioned, now existing, which were founded, though ‘from-bits-here-and-there,’ nevertheless on the teachings of genuine messengers of our endlessness himself: one, on the teaching of Saint Jesus, and the other, on the teaching of Saint Mohammed.

“I repeat that both these great religions there were founded ‘from-bits-taken-here-and-there’ from the teachings of two genuine messengers of his endlessness, and though the three-brained beings there of former centuries ‘stripped’ both these teachings much as the Russian Sidor ‘stripped’ his goats, yet nevertheless some even down to the present time believed in something and hoped for something owing to those teachings, and thereby made their desolate existence a little more bearable.

“But these contemporary and now archstrange three-brained beings there have taken upon themselves to sweep this also entirely from off the face of their planet.

“Although the process of the strangeness of their peculiar psyche, namely, the process of the final destruction of these two great religions, began after my departure from their solar system, yet thanks to the contents of an etherogram about the beings of that strange planet which I received just before our flight from the planet Karatas I understand how things were, and can now already say with complete conviction that they will no longer stop at stripping them, but without further ado entirely destroy even their very traces.

“In the said etherogram, by the way, it was conveyed to me that there on your planet, first of all in the city of Jerusalem a University specially for Jewish youths was being opened, and secondly that in the community Turkey an order was promulgated closing all what are called ‘dervish monasteries’ and prohibiting men from wearing the ‘fez’ and women the ‘yashmak.’

“The first half of the message, namely, that a University for Jewish youths was opening in the city of Jerusalem made it clear to me that this Christian religion also had already come to an end.

“But to understand this, you must first know that not so long ago all the communities existing there on the continent Europe, the beings of which are for the most part followers of this religion, together produced, on account of this same city Jerusalem, their great wars against those beings, followers of other religions, and these great wars of theirs they called ‘Crusades.’

“They produced these ‘wars’ or ‘crusades’ only in order that this city of Jerusalem—in which this Divine Teacher Jesus Christ had existed, suffered, and died—should become exclusively Christian; and during these Crusades of theirs nearly half the beings of male sex of that continent were completely destroyed.

“And now in this same city of Jerusalem, they have opened their contemporary university for Jewish youths and almost certainly, too, with the common consent of all those same European Christian communities.

“Just that nationality is called ‘Jewish’ in which the Divine Jesus appeared and existed, and the beings of which tortured and crucified Him on a cross.

“Although the present generation of ‘Jews’ are not direct enemies of Jesus Christ, yet they each also now have the conviction that this Jesus who appeared among their ancestors and came to be regarded as a Sacred Personality by all the followers of the Christian religion, was, quite simply, a fervent and sick ‘visionary.’

“Among contemporary beings of the planet Earth a ‘university’ is just that ‘hearth’ on which everything acquired during decades and centuries by preceding beings is burned, and upon this ‘hearth’ one-and-a-half-day tasty lentil soup is quickly cooked to take the place of everything attained by the centuried conscious and unconscious efforts and labors of their unfortunate ancestors.

“This is quite enough to show me and to convince me with my whole Being what will eventually become of this Jerusalem, now that they have opened there their own famous university, and, moreover, for Jewish youths.

“I already see in my mind’s eye that before many of their years have passed, there will be on the spot where the planetary body of the Divine Jesus was buried, a place for parking contemporary cars, that is, a parking place for those machines which for contemporary beings were just the marvel needed to drive them crazy.

“Furthermore, not only have these sacrilegious beings gradually distorted for their egoistic and political aims the teachings of this Divine Teacher, but they have now begun to destroy even the memory of it.

“But there! That also has long been in the style of your favorites.

“In this connection I may say that the whole of what is called contemporary civilization there tends only to increase the speed of this machine invented by them and maleficent just for themselves.

“And indeed, in the last etherogram I received about the three-brained beings of that ill-fated planet, I was informed among other things that a ‘record’ speed of this machine had already been established there of 325 miles an hour.

“Of course, such a ‘record’ will only lead to this, that the already sufficiently trifling size of their ill-fated planet will become, even in their bobtailed being-picturings of reality, completely trifling.

“Well, the lord creator be with them, my boy!

“Whatever speed they may attain with this ‘machine’ of theirs all the same, if they remain as they are not only they themselves but even their thought will never go any further than their atmosphere.

“Now as regards the second great religion which was founded, as I have already told you, upon ‘bits-here-and-bits-there’ from the teaching of the full-of-hope Saint Mohammed, this religion from the very beginning of its arising began to be particularly applied and used for their egoistic and political aims by beings there with Hasnamussian properties, and hence it is the most ‘stripped’ of all.

“The power-possessing beings of certain communities there gradually mixed into this divine teaching, for their said Hasnamussian aims such ‘spices’ of their own invention, that a ‘Sherakhoorian-combination’ resulted, the secret of which would be the envy of all the contemporary famous European as they are called ‘pastry cooks’ and ‘chefs.’

“And so …

“Judging by the latter half of the contents of this etherogram, the process of the entire destruction of this second great religion is bound to proceed or had already proceeded there, on account of that order mentioned in the etherogram promulgated by the power-possessing beings of the community Turkey.

“The point is, that this same community of Turkey is one of the largest of all the communities there whose beings profess this religion.

“I must first tell you that from the beginning of the rise of this Mohammedan religion, certain beings of this same community took in the teaching of this religion in its primary form very well, and began gradually to incorporate it into their daily existence.

“And therefore, although the teaching of this religion was gradually changed under the influence of the power-possessing beings there, nevertheless, among these same certain beings there, this teaching of Mohammed passed from generation to generation in an unchanged form.

“Until now, therefore, there has at least been a faint hope that if sometime these strange beings should suddenly settle down, this teaching would infallibly regenerate and actualize those aims for which it was created by the full-of-hope Saint Mohammed.

“So, my boy! … These same certain beings there were called ‘dervishes’ and it was concerning the closing of just their monasteries that the order was indeed given in that contemporary community Turkey.

“Of course, by the destruction in Turkey of this ‘dervishism’ those last dying sparks will also be entirely extinguished there which, preserved as it were in the ashes, might sometime rekindle the hearth of those possibilities upon which Saint Mohammed counted and for which he had hoped.

“And as regards the other order communicated to me in that etherogram and promulgated in that same community Turkey, namely, the prohibition upon beings of the ‘male sex’ to wear the formerly famous fez and upon the beings of the ‘female sex,’ the yashmak, the consequences of these innovations are very clearly depicted in my being-picturings about the future.

“Thanks to these innovations, there is no doubt but that exactly the same will be repeated with the beings of this Turkey as occurred to the beings of the large community Russia after they had also begun to imitate everything European.

“It may be noted, for example, that, indeed, in all the beings of that large community Russia, only one or two centuries ago when, before they had yet begun to imitate everything European, these two being-functions still obtained which are called ‘Martaadamlik’ and ‘Nammuslik’ or—as these being-feelings are still called—the ‘feeling-of-religiousness’ and the ‘feeling-of-patriarchality.’

“And it was just those same being-feelings which a couple of centuries ago made the beings of that large community famous among other beings of the whole of this planet in respect of their morality and the patriarchality of their family foundations.

“But when afterwards they began imitating everything European, both these being-feelings still remaining in them began gradually to atrophy in them, and now at the present time almost all the beings of that community have become, in the sense of religiousness and patriarchality, such … the notion of which our wise teacher Mullah Nassr Eddin expresses by the mere exclamation:

“‘Eh! … get along with you …’

“In Russia, moreover, none of this began with the yashmak or the fez.

“No. These headdresses were not worn there.

“But it was begun there with the ‘beard’ of the beings of the male sex. For the three-brained beings of the male sex there, the ‘beard’ is the same as our tail is for us, which, as you already know, adds, to the beings of male sex among us, masculinity and activity.

“It is now the turn of these unfortunate Turks.

“Once they have proposed to change their fezzes for European ‘bowlers’ the rest will follow of itself.

“Of course, the psyche of these Turkish beings will also soon degenerate as it degenerated in the beings of the community of Russia.

“The difference between the Russian beings and the Turks is only in this, that for the Russians one being only, namely, their czar, was the cause for this transformation of their psyche, whereas for the beings of the community Turkey, several beings were its cause.

“And there were several, because these Turks recently changed their old many-centuried established state-organization for a new one, a certain special ‘republican’ form, and in place of one ruler as had obtained among them during their former state-organization there were several.

“If even this former state-organization of theirs was bad, yet to counterbalance this there was a single ruler who introduced innovations solely for his community, and, furthermore, all of them old patriarchal.

“And now in this community Turkey: of the chief leaders there are several, and each of them is a wiseacre who forces upon the unfortunate ordinary beings of the whole of this community his callowness not responding at all either to the already long ago crystallized needs of the psyche of the beings of this community, or to their established pillars of their being-morality.

“It is very interesting to notice further that just as formerly the Russian czar was supplied by his nearest old patriarchal functionaries with a great quantity of what is called ‘money,’ obtained by the sweat of the peasants, and was sent to the continent of Europe to study in the various communities there a great number of methods of government, in order that when he returned he might the better orientate himself in the ruling of his community; so likewise these present callow Turkish rulers were also provided by their own ‘patriarchal’ fathers with much ‘money,’ this time however obtained by the sweat of the ‘Khaivansanansaks,’ and also sent to the continent Europe to receive there what they call a ‘good education’ for the future welfare of their fatherland.

“And so, my boy, in both of these cases, because their future rulers of the two large many-millioned communities went to the continent of Europe quite young and had not yet at all become aware of their responsibility, but chiefly thanks to this that they were provided with money from the said source, the existence of the beings there on the continent of Europe was absorbed and permanently crystallized in them as so ‘splendiferous and beneficial’ that when afterwards, on account of the abnormally established conditions of existence in their country, they became leaders of these many-millioned communities, they, like the Russian Czar, could not help aiming to make the existence of their compatriots, to their bobtailed notions, happy as well.

“Much good, by the way, the present chief rulers of this community Turkey saw and absorbed in the community Germany to which they were sent for the purpose of studying what is called ‘militarism,’ that is, the special finesses for directing the processes of reciprocal destruction.

“That is why these present chief rulers of the community of Turkey existed a long time in that community Germany and were for a considerable time there what are called ‘Junkers.’

“Specially much good, indeed, they saw and absorbed in that Germany in its capital Berlin on the street called ‘Unter den Linden.’

“I do not yet know what future benefactions these new Turkish rulers will create for their compatriots, but meanwhile, they have already done their fatherland one very very good ‘patriotic’ deed.

“Thoroughly to understand the essence of this patriotic deed, you must first know that in the capital of this community Turkey, in the streets and alleys of those quarters called 'Galata' and 'Pera' all the female beings of a ‘special designation’ used to belong to foreign communities, though these same women earned and spent ‘genuine Turkish lire.’

“But thanks to the recent innovations, they have now come to the full and certain hope that very soon these genuine ‘patriotic Turkish lire’ of theirs will no longer be at the disposal or use of the female beings of any foreign community alien to them, but will be used by their own ‘dear she-compatriots.’

“It is not for nothing that our highly esteemed Hadji Nassr Eddin says: ‘What is most important is to have plenty of money, and then even our Nammus may creak.’

“Or sometimes, in such cases, he also says in Turkish itself: ‘Dooniyninishi pakmazli pishi, geyann purnundah pussar eshahi dishi’ (which saying in English means: ‘World deeds are like honey-cakes, from which the eater must grow an ass's tooth’).

“Now let us talk about what I promised to tell you a little more in detail, namely, about the teachings of the last Sacred Individual who appeared among the beings of Tibet, Saint Lama, and about the causes of the complete destruction of that teaching also.

“The teaching and preachings of this Saint were not so widely spread there, because of the geographical conditions of that locality where he appeared, and where he taught those unfortunate three-centered beings also what they must do to free themselves from the consequences of the properties of the organ Kundabuffer.

“On account of its geographical conditions, beings of this country were little in touch, as I have already told you, with the abnormal conditions of ordinary being-existence of the beings of other communities, and in consequence certain of them were more receptive of the teaching of this last Sacred Individual, and this teaching therefore just entered into their essence and began gradually to be actualized already in practice also.

“So, my boy, during many years there circumstances gradually so arranged themselves in that country called Tibet, that the local beings became grouped according to the degree of their inner transubstantiation of the teaching of this Saint Lama, and according to the degree of their need to work upon themselves; and having correspondingly organized their ordinary existence, they, thanks to their isolated environment due to this inaccessibility of their country for beings of other communities, had the possibility of working, without hindrance according to the instructions of Saint Lama, upon their liberation from the consequences of the properties of that organ which their first, earliest ancestors, to their common misfortune, were forced to have.

“Certain beings among their number had already attained such a deliverance, many others were already on the path of this attainment, while many of them were hopeful of one day also reaching the way of this achievement.

“But just when the conditions and environment for productive work in this direction had at least taken a definitive turn in the right direction, in this Tibet—well, it was just then that that happened thanks to which the possibility for the beings of this country also of one day freeing themselves from the misfortune oppressing them, had to perish completely, or, at any rate, be again delayed for many years.

“But before telling you about just what happened there, you must still know the following:

“Only a few centuries ago, the chief particularity of the three-brained beings who please you, namely, the process of their periodic reciprocal destruction, used to proceed there on your planet between beings of different communities of one and the same continent, namely, the continent on which they bred, and if occasionally by exception this process arose between beings of different continents, then it occurred only between beings dwelling on the neighboring borders of two adjacent continents. And this was because locomotion by water was still very difficult for terrestrial beings some centuries ago.

“But after a contemporary being there had by chance discovered the possibility of using the power of artificially rarefied water for such locomotion, or as they say, the ‘power of steam,’ and had devised suitable vessels for that purpose, these terrestrial beings thereafter just began going for such processes to other borderlands of the neighboring continents or even to other continents.

“During the last century one of these favorite places on another continent for the beings of this peculiar planet, was the country of ancient Gemchania or as contemporary beings say there ‘India.’

“Do you remember that I once told you that to that self-same Gemchania of the continent Ashhark, now Asia, beings of the continent Atlantis used to sail in the beginning for pearls, and how, later, that it was also they who first populated that country?

“So, my boy, this same unfortunate former Gemchania, now ‘India,’ has become during recent centuries the favorite place also of the contemporary beings of the continent Europe, but this time for their processes of reciprocal destruction.

“They began to sail there and there to produce their processes of reciprocal destruction both among themselves and with the beings breeding there; that is to say, either beings of one European community strove to destroy the existence of the beings belonging to another also European community, or similar processes proceeded between local beings with the European beings helping one side or the other side.

“The processes of reciprocal destruction of local character there in that unfortunate Gemchania were very frequent especially during the last eighteen or fifteen centuries.

“And this was so, firstly because, in consequence of a similar great process, the beings there, who had earlier belonged to only two different communities, split into a great number of independent small communities, and secondly because there also then occurred such a combination in the general psyche of beings of that locality, that the ‘fits’ of this property, and, namely, the striving for reciprocal destruction occurred in the beings of that part of the surface of the planet Earth everywhere not simultaneously, but at different times.

“And this further new combination of their general psyche occurred also thanks to a slight unforeseen misunderstanding connected with the common Harmonic-Movement of the whole of that solar system.

“I will some time explain to you also about the details of that misunderstanding.

“And meanwhile let us return to our tale we have begun. And thus …

“That part of the surface of the planet Earth occupied by India has remained, in respect of natural wealth, the same in recent centuries as formerly.

“And therefore, when in the peculiar psyche of the European beings who had gone to that country for the process of reciprocal destruction the need to carry on this terror had passed, those beings stayed on there, and either prepared themselves for subsequent similar processes, or, as they say, ‘earned’ enough to send the required goods for the ordinary existence of their families who had remained on the continent Europe.

“And all kinds of goods they ‘earned’ there by means of their trades consisting for the most part of manufacturing what are called ‘copper buttons,’ ‘hand mirrors,’ ‘beads,’ ‘earrings,’ ‘bracelets,’ and various other such gew-gaws for which it appeared the beings of that country also had a weakness.

“Quite from the beginning of this period, the beings of the continent Europe began in various ways to take from the local beings there in Gemchania their lands also, on which they began to exist, just as on the continent Europe, in separate groups according to the community from which they had emigrated.

“These beings from different communities of Europe continued also to manifest there toward each other the kind of strange being-relationships which beings of one European community manifested then and still continue to manifest towards beings belonging to other communities of the same continent; namely, thanks also to the consequences of the properties of the organ Kundabuffer, they cultivate feelings which had been crystallized in them, into the forms of particular functions existing there under the names of, ‘envy,’ ‘jealousy,’ ‘sandoor’ (i.e., wishing the death or weakness of others), and so on.