Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson

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Anoroparionikima

 

43 Beelzebub’s Survey of the Process of the Periodic Reciprocal Destruction of Men, or Beelzebub’s Opinion of War

43.1108

“The beings of the continent Atlantis even very wisely and expediently devised the fulfillment of these two being-duties—namely, the duty of the perfecting of their higher bodies and the duty of serving the Most Great cosmic-Trogoautoegocrat—by uniting them into one and performing them simultaneously.

43.1108

“And this union they organized in the following way:

43.1108

“In every populated locality, and even in separate districts of these localities, three very substantial indispensable special buildings were erected there.

43.1108

“And the third, for such beings as were then called the ‘middle sex’; this sacred building was called Anoroparionikima.’

43.1110

“And as regards the third kind of the buildings of the beings of that time, which were called Anoroparionikima, as I already told you, the beings then called the ‘third sex,’ for whom these buildings were erected, our Mullah Nassr Eddin would call ‘misconceptions,’ or beings who are ‘neither one thing nor another.’

43.1110

“Among these middle-sex beings were beings both of the male sex and the female sex.

43.1110

“These were beings who, for various reasons, already lacked the possibility either of perfecting themselves or serving Nature; they were, as is said in a saying of our same Mullah Nassr Eddin, ‘Neither a candle for the Angel, nor a poker for the devil.’

43.1110

“Those beings of the male sex were put into these houses for a certain time who, for some reason or other, were already entirely deprived of the possibility of ever consciously contemplating; and of the number of the beings of the female sex, those were placed in them who generally either did not ‘menstruate’ at all, or in whom ‘menstruation’ occurred abnormally; likewise those who in the sense of their sexual desires became transformed at certain periods into, as it was said there, ‘Knaneomeny,’ or, as our dear Mullah would say, ‘into veritable mares in the spring.’

43.1110

“Among the beings then on the continent Atlantis, conceptions of several definite, very peculiar symptoms were current, according to which the given beings were recognized and confined in the Anoroparionikima.

43.1110-1

“And these symptoms were as follows:

(1) If a being believed in any kind of ‘balderdash’
(2) If a being began to prove to others anything about which he himself knew nothing whatsoever, or was not sure of
(3) If a being failed to keep his word of honor, or took his oath in vain
(4) And finally, if there appeared in any being tendencies to ‘spy’ upon the others and to be occupied with ‘Took-soo-kef

43.1111

“But the most conclusive symptom of all was when that property appeared in somebody which was then called ‘Moyussool’ and which contemporary beings already consider an illness and call ‘hemorrhoids.’

43.1111

“In these Anoroparionikima, beings of this kind were obliged to remain without stirring from them during those periods indicated by the surrounding beings; but they were under no compulsion to do anything, but existed as they liked. In regard to them there was only one aim, that they neither met nor spoke with normal beings of the given locality.