Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson

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Hamolinadir

 

24 Beelzebub’s Flight to the Planet Earth for the Fifth Time

24.332

“Among the number of the learned beings whom I met for my mentioned aim, was also one named Hamolinadir who had also been brought there by compulsion from Egypt.

24.332

“Well, during these meetings of ours, almost the same relations were established between this terrestrial three-brained being Hamolinadir and myself as in general are established everywhere between three-brained beings who frequently meet.

24.332

“This Hamolinadir was one of those learned there in the common presence of whom the factors for the impulses of a three-brained being which had passed to him by heredity were not quite atrophied, and moreover it turned out that during his preparatory age the responsible beings around him had prepared him to be also more or less normally responsible.

24.332

“Although this learned Hamolinadir had his arising and preparation for becoming a responsible being just there in the city of Babylon and descended from the race of beings there called ‘Assyrian,’ yet he became learned in Egypt where the highest school existing on Earth at that time was found, and which was called the ‘School of Materializing-Thought.’

24.332-3

“At the age he was when I first met him he already had his ‘I‘—in respect of rationally directing what is called the ‘automatic-psychic-functioning’ of his common presence—at the maximum stability for three-centered beings of the planet Earth at that time, in consequence of which during what is called his ‘waking-passive-state’ he had very definitely expressed being-manifestations, as, for instance, those called ‘self-consciousness,’ ‘impartiality,’ ‘sincerity,’ ‘sensibility of perception,’ ‘alertness,’ and so forth.

24.333

“Soon after our arrival in Babylon, I began going with this Hamolinadir to various what are called ‘meetings’ of the mentioned learned beings, and listened to every kind of what they called ‘reports’ upon the very question which was then ‘the-question-of-the-day,’ and which was the cause of the ‘agitation-of-the-minds-of-the-whole-of-Babylon.’

24.333

“This friend of mine, Hamolinadir, was also very much excited about the said ‘burning question.’

24.333

“He was agitated and perplexed by the fact that both the already existing and the many newly appearing theories upon this question were all, in spite of their entirely contradictory proofs, equally convincing and equally plausible.

24.333

“He said that those theories in which it was proved that we have a soul were very logically and convincingly expounded; and, likewise, those theories in which quite the contrary was proved were expounded no less logically and convincingly.

24.334

“Well, my boy, already seven of their months after our arrival in the city of Babylon I once went with this friend of mine there, Hamolinadir, to what is called a ‘general-learned-conference.’

24.334

“At this ‘general-learned-conference’ that day, the reporters spoke by lot.

24.335

“My friend, Hamolinadir, also had to report about some topic and therefore drew a lot; and it fell to him to speak fifth.

24.335

“The notice announced that the reporter had taken as the theme of his report the ‘Instability-of-Human-Reason.’

24.335

“He spoke calmly at first, but the longer he spoke, the more agitated he became, until his voice rose to a shout, and shouting he began to criticize the Reason in man.

24.335

“And at the same time, he mercilessly criticized his own Reason.

24.335

“Still continuing to shout, he very logically and convincingly demonstrated the instability and fickleness of man’s Reason, and showed, in detail, how easy it is to prove and convince this Reason of anything you like.

24.335

“Although in the midst of the shouting of this terrestrial friend of mine, Hamolinadir, his sobbing could be heard, nevertheless, even while sobbing, he continued to shout. Further he said:

24.337-8

“As I later learned, he left the city of Babylon the same day forever, and went to Nineveh and existed somewhere there to a ripe old age. I also ascertained that this Hamolinadir was never again occupied with ‘sciences’ and that he spent his existence only in planting ‘choongary’ which in contemporary language is called ‘maize.’

24.338

“Well, my boy, the speech of this Hamolinadir at first made such a deep impression upon the beings there that for almost a month they went about, as it is said there, ‘down-in-the-mouth.’

24.338

“And when they met each other, they could speak of nothing else but only of the various passages from this speech which they remembered and repeated.

24.338

“They repeated them so often that several of Hamolinadir’s phrases spread among the ordinary beings of Babylon and became sayings for ordinary daily existence.

24.338

“Some of his phrases reached even contemporary beings of the planet Earth, and among them there is also the phrase ‘The-Building-of-the-Tower-of-Babel.’