Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson

CHAPTER 30
Art

Chapter.Page

30.449

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:

30.449

“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?

30.449

“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.

30.449

“Surely you must have been interested in one aspect or another of these queer ducks; well, tell us something just about that aspect.”

30.449

When Beelzebub had finished speaking, Ahoon, having thought a while, replied:

30.449

“After your subtly psychological tales about all these ‘unintelligibles,’ how can I intrude with my tales?”

30.449

And then, with an unusual seriousness and preserving the style and even entire expressions of Beelzebub himself, he continued:

30.449

“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.”

30.449

And then addressing Hassein, he said:

30.450

“All right, dear Hassein!

30.450

“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.’”

30.450

Thereupon, addressing Beelzebub himself, he, with a timid look and in a hesitant tone, continued to speak:

30.450

“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 reflections on data already perhaps worn too thin for mind-conclusions.

30.450

“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.

30.450

“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.’

30.450-1

“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.”

30.451

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.

30.451

With an affectionate glance, Beelzebub looked at him and said:

30.451

“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.

30.451

“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.

30.451

“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.”

30.451

Having said this, Beelzebub then turned to Hassein and spoke as follows:

30.451-2

“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.’

30.452

“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 onto the surface of that planet of yours.

30.452

“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.

30.452

“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.

30.452-3

“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.

30.453

“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.

30.453

“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.

30.453

“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.

30.453

“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.

30.453

“As regards the second fact, this proceeded from the following Babylonian events.

30.453-4

“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.

30.454

“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.’

30.454

“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.

30.454-5

“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 was 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 none of the said three sections.

30.455

“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.’

30.455

“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.

30.455

“As I later learned, this uniting of theirs had been brought about by two learned beings who were initiates of the first degree.

30.455

“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.

30.455-6

“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.

30.456

“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.

30.456

“And it was just for this purpose that they organized that said club and called it the ‘Club-of-Adherents-of-Legominism.’

30.456

“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.

30.456

“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.

30.456-7

“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 Legominisms might be transmitted to remote generations by some other means than only through initiates.

30.457

“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.

30.457

“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 one 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.

30.457

“This word was uttered in the following circumstances:

30.457

“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.

30.457-8

“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.

30.458

“He then said as follows:

30.458

“‘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.

30.458

“‘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.

30.458-9

“‘And in spite of the fact that in ordinary times they exist normally and in their relations with 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.

30.459

“‘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.”

30.459

“‘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.

30.459

“‘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.

30.459

“‘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.

30.459

“‘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.

30.459

“‘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.

30.460

“‘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.

30.460

“‘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.

30.460

“‘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.

30.460

“‘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?

30.461

“‘I personally suggest that this be done through the Universal Law called the “Law of Sevenfoldness.”

30.461

“‘The Law of Sevenfoldness exists on the Earth and will exist forever and in everything.

30.461

“‘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.

30.461

“‘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.

30.461

“‘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.

30.461

“‘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:

30.461-2

“‘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.

30.462

“‘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.

30.462

“‘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.

30.462

“‘And so, my highly accomplished and impartial colleagues….

30.462

“‘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.’

30.462

“With these words the great Aksharpanziar then concluded his report.

30.462-3

“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.

30.463

“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.

30.463

“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.

30.463

“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.

30.463

“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.

30.463

“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.

30.463-4

“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.

30.464

“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.

30.464

“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.

30.464

“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.

30.464

“Namely, Mondays they devoted to the first group, and this day was called the ‘day-of-religious-and-civil-ceremonies.’

30.464

“Tuesdays were given over to the second group and was called the ‘day-of-architecture.’

30.464

“Wednesday was called the ‘day-of-painting.’

30.464

“Thursday, the ‘day-of-religious-and-popular-dances.’

30.465

“Friday, the ‘day-of-sculpture.’

30.465

“Saturday, the ‘day-of-the-mysteries,’ or, as it was also called, the ‘day-of-the-theater.’

30.465

“Sunday, the ‘day-of-music-and-song.’

30.465

“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.

30.465

“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.

30.465

“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.

30.465

“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.

30.465

“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.

30.465

“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.

30.465-6

“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.

30.466

“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.

30.466

“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.

30.466-7

“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.

30.467

“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.

30.467

“Utilizing this law, they indicated their various ideas in the following way:

30.467

“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.

30.467

“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.

30.467

“And it was just in these deviations from the lawful sequence of sensations that they placed whatever they wished in a certain way.

30.467

“Wednesdays—the day-of-painting—were devoted to the combining of different colors.

30.467

“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.

30.467-8

“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.

30.468

“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.

30.468

“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.

30.468

“I am speaking about what is called the ‘common-integral vibration of all sources of actualizing,’ namely, about that which the learned being Aksharpanziar, 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.’

30.468-9

“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.

30.469

“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.

30.469

“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.

30.469

“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.

30.469

“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.

30.469-70

“And only those three-brained beings who perfect their highest being-part to the state of what is called ‘Ischmetch’ 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.

30.470

“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.

30.470

“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.’

30.470-1

“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.

30.471

“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.

30.471

“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.

30.471-2

“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.

30.472

“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 ‘sevenfold-strata,’ that is up to only 343 different ‘tonalities-of-color.’

30.472

“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.

30.472

“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.’

30.472

“And they executed all their productions exclusively utilizing only the tonalities ensuing from black up to white.

30.472

“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.’

30.472-3

“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.

30.473

“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-of-warmth-at-decomposition.’

30.473

“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.

30.473

“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.

30.473-4

“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.

30.474

“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.’

30.474

“The last seven blendings of the ‘gravity-center-vibrations-of-the-white-ray,’ then in Babylon just as now among the contemporary beings there, had the following names:

(1) Red
(2) Orange
(3) Yellow
(4) Green
(5) Blue
(6) Indigo
(7) Violet

30.475

“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.

30.475

“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.

30.475

“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.

30.475

“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.

30.475-6

“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.’

30.476

“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.

30.476

“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.’

30.476

“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.

30.476

“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.

30.476

“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.’

30.477

“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.

30.477

“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.

30.477

“For a clear understanding of what I have just said, the face of any three-brained being can serve as a good example.

30.477

“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.

30.477-8

“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.

30.478

“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.’

30.478

“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 provoked 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.

30.478

“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 indicate 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.

30.478-9

“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.

30.479

“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.

30.479

“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.

30.479

“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.

30.479

“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.

30.479

“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.

30.480

“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.

30.480

“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.’

30.480

“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.

30.480-1

“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.

30.481

“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.

30.481-2

“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.

30.482

“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:

30.482

“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.

30.482

“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.

30.482

“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.’

30.483

“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.’

30.483

“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.

30.483

“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’!

30.483

“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.

30.483-4

“With this object in view, he turns to the other learned being who has come onto the stage with him, and treating him now as an Irodohahoon or policeman, he would say:

30.484

“‘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!’

30.484

“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.

30.484

“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, having himself in accordance with his Darthelhlustnian state assumed the role of a physician, had called them soldier and cobbler respectively.

30.484-5

“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 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.

30.485

“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.

30.485

“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.

30.485

“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.

30.485

“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.

30.485-6

“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.

30.486

“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.

30.486

“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.

30.486-7

“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.

30.487

“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.

30.487

“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.

30.487

“In short, what happens in their psyche is just what our dear teacher Mullah Nassr Eddin defines by the word a ‘mix-up.’

30.487

“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 participants was gradually increased by their other colleagues, as required by various voluntary associative happenings.

30.487-8

“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.

30.488

“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.

30.488

“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.

30.488

“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.

30.488

“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.

30.488

“Among the number of these special particularities is the property called ‘Vibroechonitanko.’

30.488-9

“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.’

30.489

“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.

30.489

“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.

30.489

“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.’

30.489-90

“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.

30.490

“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.

30.490

“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.

30.490

“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.

30.490

“And truly, my boy, the sequence of sounds they combined did indeed affect all the beings into whose presence they entered, exceedingly strangely.

30.490

“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.

30.491

“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.

30.491

“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.’

30.491

“And it was just in these unusual impulses engendered in the beings by their musical and vocal melodies, that they indicated what they wished.

30.491

“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.’

30.491-2

“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.’

30.492

“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.

30.492

“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.

30.492-3

“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 divergences 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.

30.493

“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.

30.493-4

“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.

30.494

“Among the latter, both in respect of its name and caricature-like imitations, are their contemporary theaters now existing there.

30.494

“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.’

30.494

“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.

30.494

“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.’

30.494-5

“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.

30.495

“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.

30.495

“It will do no harm, I think, to comment here upon the misunderstanding connected with the word ‘artist.’

30.495

“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.

30.495

“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.’

30.495

“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.’

30.495-6

“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.

30.496

“So instead of the said expression Orpheist they just invented the word artist, which had to mean ‘he-who-is-occupied-with-art.’

30.496

“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.’

30.496

“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.

30.496-7

“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.’

30.497

“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.’

30.497

“From then on, all the other of your favorites began doing the same; they added to each of these suspicious letters this Roman ‘inheritance.’

30.497

“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.’

30.498

“The basis they had for the arising of such a misunderstanding there was the compromising sign ‘ph.’

30.498

“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.

30.498

“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.

30.498

“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.

30.498-9

“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.

30.499

“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.

30.499

“The said two letters were called by the ancient Greeks ‘theta’ and ‘delta.’

30.499

“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.

30.499

“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.’

30.499

“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.’

30.499

“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.

30.499-500

“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 difference 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.’

30.500

“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.’

30.500

“However, I think I’ve talked enough about terrestrial philology.

30.500

“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.

30.500

“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.

30.500-1

“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.’

30.501

“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.

30.501

“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.

30.501

“This maleficent custom for them is that they periodically change the external form of what is called ‘the-covering-of-their-nullity.’

30.501

“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.

30.501-2

“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.’

30.502

“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.’

30.502

“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:

30.502

“And this exorcism consists of the following words: ‘Eh, you, what a mess you’ve made!’

30.502

“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.

30.502-3

“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.’

30.503

“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.’

30.503

“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.

30.503

“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.’

30.503

“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.

30.503

“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.

30.503

“The fourth particularity makes him lose entirely all capacity for understanding the psyche of the surrounding beings similar to himself.

30.503

“The fifth, that inwardly and also in his manifestations he criticizes everybody and everything not connected with him himself.

30.503

“The sixth, that the data for the perception of anything objective are more atrophied in him than in all other terrestrial three-brained beings.

30.503-4

“And the seventh and last peculiarity is that there arise in him what are called ‘hemorrhoids,’ which, by the way, is the sole thing that he carries with modesty.

30.504

“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.

30.504

“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.

30.504-5

“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.

30.505

“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.’

30.505

“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.

30.505

“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.

30.505

“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.

30.505-6

“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.

30.506

“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.

30.506

“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.’

30.506

“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.

30.506-7

“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.

30.507

“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.

30.507

“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.’

30.507

“They have become such a maleficent factor chiefly owing to the following:

30.507

“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.

30.507-8

“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.

30.508

“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.’

30.508

“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.

30.508

“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.

30.508

“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.

30.508-9

“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.

30.509

“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.

30.509

“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.

30.509

“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.

30.509

“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.

30.509

“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.

30.509-10

“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.

30.510

“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.

30.510

“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.

30.510

“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.

30.510

“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.

30.510-1

“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.

30.511

“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.

30.511

“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.”

30.511

At this point of the tales, Beelzebub was interrupted by Ahoon with the following words:

30.511

“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.”

30.511

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:

30.511-2

“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.”

30.512

And this time, again keeping the style and intonations of Beelzebub himself, he continued:

30.512

“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.

30.512

“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.

30.512

“Just in regard to such unfortunate three-brained beings the surrounding abnormal conditions of 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 consequences 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.

30.513

“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.

30.513

“With such an already quite automatized ‘consciousness,’ and completely ‘nonsensical feelings,’ they feel themselves to be immeasurably superior to what they really are.

30.513

“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.

30.513

“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.

30.514

“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.

30.514

“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.’

30.514

“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.

30.514

“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.

30.514-5

“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.

30.515

“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.

30.515

“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.

30.515

“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.

30.515

“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.

30.515

“Let Fate spare you this!

30.515-6

“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.

30.516

“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:

30.516

“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.

30.516

“If one of them is as stupid as a cork, say that he has the mind of Pythagoras.

30.516

“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.

30.516

“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:

30.516

“‘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.

30.516

“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.”

30.516

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.

30.516

And Hassein, looking at him with his usual sincerely grateful smile, said:

30.516-7

“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.”

30.517

And then he turned to Beelzebub himself with the following words:

30.517

“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?”

30.517

At this question of his grandson, Beelzebub said as follows:

30.517

“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.

30.517

“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.

30.517-8

“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 processes 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.’

30.518

“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.

30.518

“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.’

30.518

“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.

30.518

“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.

30.518

Tiklunias were formerly called there ‘pythonesses’ but contemporary ones are now called ‘mediums.’

30.518

“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.

30.518-9

“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.’

30.519

“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.

30.519

“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.

30.519

“One of the said two branches recently ceased to exist; but the other has even reached certain beings of contemporary times almost unchanged.

30.519

“This branch which reached beings of contemporary times is called there ‘sacred dances.’

30.519

“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.

30.519

“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.’

30.519-20

“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.’

30.520

“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.

30.520

“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.

30.520-1

“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.’

30.521

“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.

30.521

“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.

30.521-2

“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.

30.522

“The temple I referred to exists there even up till now and is called, it seems, ‘Mont-Saint-Michel.’

30.522

“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.

30.522

“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.

30.522

“And this wise terrestrial three-brained being was named ‘Leonardo da Vinci.’

30.522

“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.

30.522

“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.

30.523

“And it is just because of this said ‘specific’ psyche of the beings there, representatives of contemporary art, that on the one hand new what are called ‘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.

30.523

“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.

30.523

“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 in ‘ism.’”

30.523

At this place in Beelzebub’s tale the hoofs of all the passengers of the transspace ship Karnak suddenly, as it were, radiated from themselves “something phosphorescent.”

30.523

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.

30.523

Beelzebub, Hassein, and Ahoon ended their conversation and hurriedly began to prepare themselves also.

30.523

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.