Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson

22.252

As the route proposed this time was most uncommon for the terrestrial three-brained beings of those days and accordingly we could not count on the possibility of joining any ‘caravan’ of theirs, I had, then, to organize my own caravan, and I began the same day preparing and procuring everything necessary for this purpose.

22.252

“I then procured some score of the quadruped beings called ‘horses,’ ‘mules,’ ‘asses,’ and ‘Chami-anian’ goats and so on, and hired a number of your biped favorites to look after the said beings and to do the semiconscious work required on the way for this mode of travel.

22.252

“Having procured everything necessary, I set off, accompanied by Ahoon.

22.252

“This time we passed through places still more peculiar, and through still more uncommon parts of the general Nature of that ill-fated planet; and we also encountered this time, or there came within the sphere of our vision, a much greater number of those one-brained and two-brained beings, of various forms, which are called ‘wild,’ and which in those days came there from very remote parts of the continent Ashhark for the purpose, as it is said there, of ‘hunting.’

22.252-3

“The said ‘wild’ beings there, were at that period particularly ‘dangerous’ both for the three-brained beings there, and for those forms of quadruped beings which your favorites, with the ‘cunning’ proper to them, had already been able to make their slaves, compelling them to work exclusively for the satisfaction of their egoistic needs.

“And the said wild beings were then particularly dangerous because just at that period there was being crystallized in the presences of these wild beings that special function which arose in them, again, owing to the abnormally established conditions of the being-existence of the three-brained beings there; and about this special function I shall later explain to you in detail.

22.253

“The places through which our way went this time were then almost inaccessible to the three-brained beings of that period, chiefly on account of these wild beings.

“In those days it was possible for the three-brained beings to pass through these places only, as they say, ‘by day,’ that is to say, when in the atmosphere of their planet the process of Aieioiuoa’ proceeds in the Active Element Okidanokh.

22.253

“And they could pass by day because during this time of the Krentonalnian position of their planet in relation to the rays of their sun, almost all the wild terrestrial beings are in the being-state called ‘sleep,’ that is to say, in a state of automatic elaboration in their presences of that energy which is necessary for their ordinary existence, which elaboration of energy proceeds in them during just this time, whereas in the three-centered beings there, on the contrary, the same is elaborated only when the said sacred property is not proceeding in the atmosphere, that is, during the period of the diurnity which they call ‘night.’

22.253-4

“So, my boy, because of this it was possible for your favorites of those times to pass through these places only by day. At night, great vigilance and the use of various artificial shelters was required as a defense against these wild beings, both for themselves and for their ‘goods.’

“During the period of the aforesaid Krentonalnian position of the planet Earth, these wild beings there are wide awake and take their first being-food; and since, by that time, they had already become accustomed to use for this purpose almost exclusively the planetary bodies of weaker beings of other forms arising on their planet, they were always trying, during that period, to get hold of such a being in order to use his planetary body for the satisfaction of that need of theirs.

22.254

“These wild beings, particularly the smallest of them, were at that time already—also, of course, owing to the abnormally established conditions of the ordinary being-existence of the three-brained beings there—perfected as regards apprehendingness and cunning up to the ideal.

“In consequence of this, all along this second route of ours, we, and especially our workmen for the semiconscious work, had to be extremely watchful and alert at night in order to guard ourselves, our quadruped beings, and our supplies.

22.254

“A whole ‘gathering’ of these wild beings would form round our camp at night, having come there to provide themselves with something suitable for their first food, a meeting rather like an ‘assembly’ of your favorites during what is called the ‘quotation of stock prices’ or during their ‘election’ of representatives to some society or other, the nominal purpose of which is the joint pursuit of a means to the happy existence of all beings like themselves without distinction of their notorious castes.

22.254

“Although we kept logs burning brightly all night, to scare these wild beings, and although our biped workers, notwithstanding that they were forbidden, destroyed with the help of the, as they are called, poisoned arrows of ‘Elnapara’ those beings that came too near our camp, yet not a single night passed upon which what are there called ‘tigers,’ ‘lions,’ and ‘hyenas’ did not carry off one or more of our quadruped beings; the number of which in consequence diminished daily.

22.254-5

“Although, my boy, this way back to the Sea of Beneficence took us far longer than the way by which we had come here, all that we then saw and heard about the strangeness of the psyche of your favorites, during our passage through these places, fully justified the extra time spent.

22.255

“We traveled under these conditions more than a month of their time, and finally we came upon a small settlement of the three-brained beings who, as it appeared later, had only recently migrated there from Pearl-land.

“As we afterwards learned, this settlement was called ‘Sincratorza’; and when this region was subsequently populated and this same place became the principal center for all the beings of that region, the whole country also came to be called by the same name.

“The name of this place was afterwards changed several times and now it is called ‘Tibet.’

22.255

“As we chanced to meet the said beings just as night was coming on, we asked them for, as it is said, a ‘night’s lodging.’

“And when they gave us permission to pass the night under their shelter we were very glad at the prospect of a night’s rest, since, indeed, we were all so exhausted by the constant warfare with these wild beings that, both for ourselves and especially for our biped workers, it was now imperative to pass at least one night in peace.

22.255

“In the course of the evening talk, it transpired that all the beings of this settlement belonged to the sect then famous in Pearl-land under the name ‘The Self-tamers,’ which had been formed from among the followers of just that religion which, as I have already told you, purported to be based on the direct instructions of Saint Buddha.

22.255-6

“There is no harm in noticing in this connection that the beings of that planet had still another peculiarity which had long before become proper to them alone, and which consists in this, that no sooner does a new common Havatvernoni, or religion, arise among them than its followers immediately begin to split up into different parties each of which very soon creates its own, as it is called, ‘sect.’

“The particular strangeness of this peculiarity of theirs consists in this, that those who belong to any such sect never call themselves ‘sectarians,’ the name being considered offensive; they are named ‘sectarians’ only by those beings who do not belong to their sect.

“And the adherents of any sect are sectarian for other beings only as long as they have no ‘guns’ and ‘ships,’ but as soon as they get hold of a sufficient number of ‘guns’ and ‘ships,’ then what had been a peculiar sect at once becomes the dominant religion.

“The beings both of this settlement and of many other regions of Pearl-land became sectarians, having separated just from the religion the doctrine of which, as I have already told you, I studied there in detail and which later was called ‘Buddhism.’

“These sectarians who called themselves the Self-tamers arose owing to that distorted understanding of the Buddhist religion which, as I have already told you, they called ‘suffering-in-solitude.’

“And it was in order to produce upon themselves the said famous ‘suffering,’ without hindrance from other beings similar to themselves, that these beings with whom we passed the night had settled so far away from their own people.

22.256

“Now, my boy, because everything I learned that night and saw the next day of the followers of that sect then produced so painful an impression upon me that for very many of their centuries I could never recall it all without, as is said, ‘shuddering’—not that is until very much later, when I had made perfectly clear to myself all the causes of the strangeness of the psyche of those favorites of yours—I wish to tell you in greater detail about all I then saw and learned.

22.257

“As I then made clear to myself during the night’s conversation, before the migration of the followers of that sect to this isolated place they had already invented in Pearl-land a special form of ‘suffering,’ namely, they had decided to settle somewhere in some inaccessible place where other beings similar to themselves, not belonging to the sect and not initiated into its ‘arcana,’ should not prevent them from producing upon themselves this same ‘suffering’ of special form which they had invented.

22.257

“When after long searching they finally found this same place which we had happened to come upon—a place well suited for such a purpose as theirs—they, already solidly organized and materially secured, migrated together with their families, with great difficulties, there to that place almost inaccessible to their ordinary countrymen; and this place they then first called, as I have already told you, ‘Sincratorza.’

22.257

“At first, while they were settling down in this new place, they more or less agreed among themselves; but when they began carrying out in practice the special form of ‘suffering’ they had invented, their families and especially their wives, having learned what this special form of suffering consisted in, rebelled, and made a great outcry about it, with the result that a schism occurred.

22.257

“The said schism among them had occurred not long before our chance meeting with them, and at the time when we came upon that Sincratorza, they were already beginning little by little to migrate to other places which they had recently found and which were even more suitable for an isolated existence.

22.257-8

“For a clear understanding of what follows, you must know about the fundamental cause of the schism among these sectarians.

“It turned out that the leaders of that sect, while they were still in Pearl-land, had agreed among themselves to go quite away from beings like themselves, and to stop at nothing in order to attain their deliverance from the consequences of that organ of which the divine Teacher Saint Buddha had spoken.

“In their agreement it was included that they should exist in a certain way until their final planetary destruction or, as they say, until their death, in order by this special form of existence to purify their, as they said, ‘soul’ of all the alien growths due to that organ Kundabuffer which, as Saint Buddha told them, their ancestors had, and, being freed from these consequences, thereby acquire the possibility, as the Divine Teacher Saint Buddha had said, of reblending with the All-embracing Holy Prana.

22.258

“But when, as I have already said, they, having settled down, set about carrying out in practice the special form of ‘suffering’ which they had invented, and their wives, having learned its true nature, rebelled, then many of them, having fallen under the influence of their wives, declined to carry out the obligations they had undertaken while still in Pearl-land—and as a result, they then divided into two independent parties.

22.258

“From this time on, these sectarians, formerly called the Self-tamers, now began to be called by various names; those of the Self-tamers who remained faithful to the obligations they had taken upon themselves were called ‘Orthodoxhydooraki,’ while the rest, who had renounced the several obligations they had undertaken in their native country, were called ‘Katoshkihydooraki.’

“It transpired that at the time of our arrival in Sincratorza those of the sectarians who were named Orthodoxhydooraki had their well-organized what is called ‘monastery’ not far from this original settling place of theirs, and there the said special form of suffering was already proceeding.

22.259

“On resuming our journey the next day after a restful night, we passed very near the monastery of these sectarians of the Buddhist religion of the Orthodoxhydooraki doctrine.

“At that time of the day we usually made a halt to feed our quadruped workers, and so we asked the monks to allow us to make our necessary halt in the shelter of their monastery.

22.259

“Strange and unusual as it may seem, the beings there bearing the name monks did not refuse our objectively just request, but at once, and without any of the ‘swaggering’ that had become proper there to monks of all centuries and of all doctrines, admitted us. And we thereupon entered the very center of the sphere of the arcana of this doctrine, the kind of sphere which, from the very beginning of their arising, the beings of the planet Earth came to be very skillful in concealing from the observation even of Individuals with pure Reason. In other words, they became skillful in wiseacring something or other and in making of it, as they say, a ‘mystery,’ and in so thoroughly concealing this mystery of theirs from others by all sorts of means that even beings with Pure Reason cannot penetrate them.

22.259-60

“The monastery of the Orthodoxhydooraki sect of the Buddhist religion occupied a large square with a strongly built wall around it, which protected everything within, both from beings similar to themselves and from wild beings.

“In the middle of this enormous walled enclosure stood a large structure, also strongly built, which constituted the main part of the monastery.

“In one half of this large structure their ordinary being-existence was carried on, and in the other they practiced those special manipulations of theirs which were just the particularity of the form of belief of the followers of their sect and which to others were arcana.

22.260

“Around the outside wall, on its inner side, stood a row of small, strongly built, closely adjoining compartments, like cells.

“It was just these same ‘cells’ that represented the difference between this monastery and other monasteries in general on the planet Earth.

22.260

“These sentry-box structures were entirely walled in on all sides, except that near the bottom they had a small aperture through which, with great difficulty, a hand could be thrust.

“These strong sentry-box structures were for the perpetual immurement of the already ‘deserving’ beings of that sect—and they were to occupy themselves with their famous manipulation of what they call their ‘emotions’ and ‘thoughts’—until the total destruction of their planetary existence.

“And so, it was when the wives of these ‘self-tamer-sectarians’ learned of just this that they made the said great outcry.

22.260

“In the fundamental religious teaching of this sect there was a full explanation of just what manipulations and for how long a time it is necessary to produce them upon oneself in order to merit being immured in one of the strongly built cells, there to receive every twenty-four hours a piece of bread and a small jug of water.

22.260-1

“At that time when we came within the walls of that terrible monastery, all these monstrous cells were already occupied; and the care of the immured, that is, giving them once in twenty-four hours, through the aforementioned tiny apertures, a piece of bread and a small jug of water, was carried out with great reverence by those sectarians who were candidates for that immurement, and who, while waiting their turn, existed in the said large building that stood in the monastery square.

22.261

“Your immured favorites did indeed exist in the said monastery sepulchres until their existence, so full of deprivations, half-starved and motionless, came quite to an end.

22.261

“When the companions of the immured learned of the cessation of the existence of any one of them, his planetary body was removed from the improvised sepulchre and immediately, in the place of the being thus self-destroyed, another similar unfortunate fanatic of that maleficent religious teaching of theirs was immured; and the ranks of these unfortunate ‘fanatic monks’ were being filled up by other members of that peculiar sect, constantly coming from Pearl-land.

22.261

“In Pearl-land itself all the adherents of that sect already knew of the existence of that special ‘convenient’ place for the actualization of the finale of their religious doctrine, purporting to have been based on the exact instructions of Saint Buddha; and in every big center they even had what are called agents who helped them to get there.

22.261

“Having rested and fed our biped and quadruped workers, we left that melancholy place of sacrifice to the same wretched organ which, in the ruminations of certain Most High Cosmic Individuals had had for some reason or other, without fail, to be implanted into the presences of the earliest three-brained beings of that ill-fated planet.

22.261

“Eh! Eh! Eh! my boy, we left there, as you can well believe, scarcely with agreeable sensations and happy reflections.

22.261-2

“Continuing our route in the direction of the Sea of Beneficence, we again passed through terra firmas of very many different forms, also with conglomerations of intraplanetary minerals, but which had oozed to the surface of the planet from still greater depths.

22.262

“Here I must say something about an exceedingly strange thing, which I constated, closely connected with just that part of the surface of your planet which is now called Tibet.

“At that period when I was passing through Tibet for the first time, its heights were indeed also unusually far above the surface of the Earth, but they did not differ particularly from similar elevations on other continents and on the same continent Ashhark or Asia, of which Tibet was a part.

“But when during my sixth and last personal stay on the planet Earth there, my way again took me through those, for me, extremely memorable places, I just then constated that in the interval of the few score of their centuries, the whole of that locality had projected so far from the planet that no heights on any of the other continents could even be compared with them.

22.262

“For instance, the chief range of that elevated region through which we had then passed, namely, the range of elevations which the beings there call a ‘mountain-range,’ had in the interval projected so far from the planet that some of its peaks are now the loftiest among all the abnormal projections of that vainly-long-suffering-planet. And if you climbed them, you could possibly with the aid of a Teskooano ‘see clearly’ the center of the opposite side of that peculiar planet.

22.262-3

“When I first constated that strange phenomenon occurring on that remarkably peculiar planet of yours, I at once thought that in all probability it contained the germ for the arising of some subsequent misfortune on a great common cosmic scale, and when I afterwards collected statistics concerning that abnormal phenomenon, this first apprehension of mine very soon more and more grew in me.

“And it grew chiefly because, in my statistics, one item concerning that phenomenon there showed an increase in every decade.

“The said item concerning those Tibetan elevations referred just to this: which of the terrestrial, as they are called ‘planetary tremors,’ or as this is expressed by your favorites, ‘earthquakes,’ occur to that planet due to these excessively lofty elevations.

22.263

“Although planetary tremors or earthquakes frequently occur to that planet of yours from other interplanetary disharmonies also that have arisen in consequence of the two already mentioned great Transapalnian perturbations, the causes of which I shall sometime explain to you, nevertheless most of the planetary tremors there, and especially during recent centuries, have occurred solely on account of those excessive elevations.

“And they occur because, in consequence of those excessive elevations, the atmosphere also of that planet has acquired and continues to acquire in its presence equally excessive elevations, that is to say, what is called the ‘Blastegoklornian-circumference’ of the atmosphere of the planet Earth has acquired in certain places and continues to acquire an excessively projecting materialized presence for what is called the ‘reciprocal-blending-of-the-results-of-all-the-planets-of-the-given-system’; with the result that during the motion of that planet, and in the presence of what is called ‘common-system-harmony,’ its atmosphere at certain times ‘hooks on,’ as it were, to the atmosphere of other planets or comets of the same system.

“And owing to these ‘hookings on’ there occur in the corresponding places of the common presence of that planet of yours just those said planetary tremors or quakes.

22.263-4

“I must also explain to you that the region of the common presence of the planet where such planetary tremors occur on this account, depends upon the position occupied by the planet itself in the process of the common-system-harmonious-movement, in relation to other concentrations belonging to the same system.

22.264

“Be that as it may, if this abnormal growth of the Tibetan mountains continues thus in the future, a great catastrophe on a general cosmic scale is sooner or later inevitable.

“However, when the menace I see becomes already evident, no doubt the Most High, Most Sacred Cosmic Individuals will at the proper time take the proper precautions.”

22.264

“If you please, if you please, your Right Reverence,” Ahoon interrupted Beelzebub, and rattled off the following:

“Allow me to report to you, your Right Reverence, some information which I happened to pick up concerning just that growth of those same Tibetan mountains about which you have deigned to speak.

“Just before our flight from the planet Karatas,” continued Ahoon, “I had the pleasure of meeting the Archangel Viloyer, the Governor of our solar system, and His Splendiferousness condescended to recognize me and to speak to me.

22.264

“Perhaps you remember, your Right Reverence, that while we were existing on the planet Zernakoor, His Splendiferousness Archangel Viloyer was still an ordinary angel, and used often to drop in to see us?

22.264-5

“So when His Splendiferousness, during our conversation, heard the name of that solar system where we were exiled, he told me that at the last most high and most sacred reception of finally returned cosmic results, a certain Individual, Saint Lama, had had the privilege of personally presenting at the feet of our ENDLESS UNI-BEING, in the presence of all the Most High Individuals, a certain petition regarding the abnormal growth of the elevations of some planet—it seems just of that solar system—and having received this request, our ALL-GRACIOUS-ENDLESSNESS immediately ordered Archangel Looisos to be dispatched to that solar system where, as one familiar with that system, he might there on the spot clarify the causes of the manifestation of the said projections and take appropriate measures.

“That is why His Conformity Archangel Looisos is at the present time hastily winding up his current affairs in order to set off there.”

22.265

“So, dear Ahoon,” commented Beelzebub, and he added, “Thank you for this information…. Glory be to our CREATOR… what you have just said will probably help to destroy in my presence the anxiety which arose in me when I first constated the abnormal growth of those said Tibetan mountains, namely, my anxiety for the complete disappearance from the Universe of the precious memory of our Endlessly Revered Wisest of the Wise, Mullah Nassr Eddin.”

22.265

Having said this, and giving his face its usual expression, Beelzebub continued thus:

22.265

“Through that region now called Tibet, we then continued our route, encountering hardships of every kind, and finally came to the source of the river called the Keria-chi and a few days later, sailing down to the Sea of Beneficence, we came to our ship Occasion.

22.265

“Although after this third descent of mine to your planet Earth, I did not go there in person for a considerable time, nevertheless, from time to time I attentively observed these favorites of yours, through my big Teskooano.

22.265-6

“And I had no reason for a long time to go there personally on account of the following:

“After returning to the planet Mars I soon became interested there in a work which the three-brained beings of the planet Mars were just then carrying out on the surface of their planet.

22.266

“Clearly to understand in what work it was there that I became interested, you must know, first of all, that the planet Mars is for the system Ors, to which it belongs, what is called a ‘Mdnel-outian’ link in the transformation of cosmic substances, in consequence of which it has what is called a ‘Keskestasantnian-firm-surface,’ that is to say, one half of its surface consists of land-presence and the other of ‘Saliakooriapnian’ masses; or, as your favorites would say, one half of it is land or one continuous continent, and the other half is covered with water.

22.266

“So, my boy, as the three-brained beings of the planet Mars use for their first being-food exclusively only ‘prosphora’—or as your favorites call it, ‘bread’—they, for the purpose of obtaining it, sow on the land of half of their planet what is called ‘wheat,’ and as this wheat derives the moisture it needs, for what is called evolving Djartklom, only from what is called ‘dew,’ the result is that a grain of wheat yields only a seventh part of the accomplished process of the sacred Heptaparaparshinokh, that is to say, what is called the ‘yield’ of the harvest is only a seventh.

22.266

“As this amount of wheat was insufficient for their needs, while to get more of it they would have to utilize the presence of the planetary Saliakooriap, the three-centered beings there from the very beginning of our arrival there were always talking of conducting that same Saliakooriap in the requisite quantity, from the opposite side of their planet to that side on which their being-existence proceeded.

22.266-7

“And when several of their years later they finally decided the question and began making every preparation, they began operations just before my return from the planet Earth, that is to say, they began digging special canals for conducting the Saliakooriap.

22.267

“So, my boy, this work being extremely complicated, the beings of the planet Mars had invented and continued to invent for the work every kind of machine and appliance.

“And as there were very many peculiar and interesting ones among these machines and appliances they invented, I, being always interested in every kind of new invention, was very much taken by the said work of the beings of the planet Mars.

22.267

“By the courtesy of the kind Martians I then spent nearly all my time at these works, and that is why during that period I very seldom descended to the other planets of that solar system.

22.267

“Only sometimes I flew to the planet Saturn to rest, to Gornahoor Harharkh, who, during this time, had already become my real essence-friend, and thanks to whom I had such a marvel as that big Teskooano of mine which, as I have already told you, brought remote visibilities 7,000,285 times nearer.”