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A strange title,
perhaps you think, but everything has a meaning if one looks hard enough
- if one stares until the straight lines
bend and in the words you see the author's thought revealed. Of course,
she knows that to be a lie.
You wonder what I mean when I am not here and not here to be asked? - but
spare a thought.
To strike a crass blow with the strength of thunder and the delicacy of
a true love's touch (is that not power truly harnessed?)
No, it is not so shallow, thunder which is delicate or a caress which can
crush, true strength is to be found only when both are
as one, when assumptions are proved false and certainties revealed as lies.
That is power, to forge impossible links - to shame
the term "impossible."
And bright shadows, to illuminate that which is shrouded - to form illumination
from the shroud - to make plain what is hidden -
to see truth in what is blotted out - to adduce from what is absent, and,
and and - but if you do not understand she wastes her
explanation, for no one can learn what is not already half-known in the
heart, and no secret is ever made plain in a language
evolved to disguise, to rape, to murder the truth.
On - on - to the meat of the matter, or rather, to the maggots of the matter
- to the source of life shunned and derided as
unclean...
To harness the plow horse, to drive the mule, to slaughter the rude beasts
to feed our families - who dares complain? To carve
the marble block into our own likenesses, to plunge shafts into the hills,
to slice furrows through the fields that we might prosper and create -
who dares complain? But if we take communion with the iron powers, the
fiends, rather than our patronizing patriarch - who dares not complain?
Such hypocrisy, such mealy-mouthed absurdity. Our race is destined to tame
our world, to bind nature to our bidding. We can
and we must - for to shirk is to squander our potentials - though demons
roll and scream and heaven shakes.
Yet still we make distinctions and false comparisons, saying "Yes,
this part of nature you must tame, but this is holy and apart
and not for us to touch." Absurdity, hypocrisy, gullible slander!
It is not apart - look, see how my Art reaches out to it, makes
the transcendent the mundane - and Holy is just a sound in your mouth,
real only in your mind.
Unclean! Unclean! they cry. Blasphemy! Blasphemy!
Fie on you all! Your words are wind.
Smothered with our own prayer shawls, impaled on our own beds of nails,
we lie chained in manacles that we ourselves have
made - and the deluded multitude scream and wail if they are offered their
freedom. It is said that we are born free but place
ourselves in chains - but no! -we are born slaves to our priests and rulers,
and we guard our steel bonds like golden bands,
forging new sets for our Childer.
So what then, where then, how then might we fortify ourselves against these
divine dung beetles, how might we break our
bonds and bend them to our will? Oh, she smiles at the two-fold impudence,
for the righteous affrontery to overthrow masters
who are worthless, and for the naive query of the Diabolist's Art!
For to learn the knots and bindings that survive into the present day -
even these few paltry remnants - is a lifetime's work for
the greatest of mortals. Yet it is not unreasonable to seek a liberation
and to search out the power to avenge ourselves and
rectify this inverted state of supplication.
First - unlearn your language! Know that "sin" and "crime"
are merely words, just sounds forged into steel form to chain you!
Unlearn these empty syllables and free your mind - so reveling in all joyous
depravity and forbidden pleasure - holding bloody
hands aloft, shreiking like lions into the night, to know that in the butchered
forms before you you have found the Truth - and to
Hell with them!
Second - burn and topple, shatter and rend - for it is a lie that only
in creation is there worthy purpose. Understand the virtue in destruction
- realize the fulfillment of desolation.
Third - Know Thine Enemy! For it is not enough to merely know the enemy,
but one must know of the enemy, its weaknesses
and vulnerabilities.
Know that we are no less than what we were, and all we ever have been stays
with us - and so with these once-mortal
creatures. Know who they were - what, where, and when they were - what
then was used against them, who commanded and
controlled their destinies - and know above all other things how they were
called! And as they were then called, so were they,
and thus they are now. So calling upon that which they were, one reaches
out to touch what they are still - and a touch, as every torturer and lover
knows, has power. Use this power! It is a tragedy and wasteful crime (she
smiles, I think) to do otherwise.
She wonders at the swiftly woven knot, recalling that simple spell which
the low creatures have so oft been fooled with, and
wonders what reader will understand - and understand the understanding,
or rather, perceive the complexity of the
comprehension. For it is a lie that one is one, and adding one to one is
two - it is a lie that this is thus, that anything is itself or
otherwise - the kind of lie that they would bind us with - but we (or at
least, she and I) are not so foolish.
So reach out and gain a hold - a finger's brushing on a lonely cheek, the
crash of fist on tender flesh, the grip that brings men
low - and make all that you can of it. Proclaim your confidence of your
invulnerability, so that the wounded pride and battered
mind might heave and shudder - so that they will obey or flee from you,
fear you or refrain from striking back. Reach out when
weaving knots, when carving wards and cutting slaves, when confronted without
other means and - most importantly - for the
joy of the triumph.
But why should we think that a person only may be named by sounds or letters?
Astrologers insist that the stars beneath which
a mortal is born determine that person's future - for again, they name
him, or (and she knows that this is the same) they create
him. He is the stars, and they are him (but what a reach you would need...).
The two were and are simply one - and so when
the stars stand thus again the time makes that person once again, and once
mortals may be affected just as mortal folk.
Numerology, too indicates, accesses and creates a person - the place of
birth and the site of rebirth - recreation, "elevation" -
also stand as the person. And what then of forgotten, outgrown relics (teeth
knocked out in battle or dislodged in childhood,
blood or valued objects), for nothing is ever abandoned, nor even truly
discarded. And can we not then find a secret "name", a
shape, or sound or substance which can designate - can reach, can be that
creature.
What then, where then, how then - the third answered, and the first as
well (parasites, husks - need she be repeated again?) -
so now on again to delve into the maggot-flesh - to plunge in our hands
as Scanderis has done, to grasp a bloody truth.
Where, then, to strike, where to dig in and to defend, and where to build?
Though rare among our race, we who have the courage to name black as white
are not alone, nor without aid. For there are
those above even the harsh confines of Earth who recognize our virtue and
support our righteous cause (the knot, again, pulled
fast), and the creatures of the Spiral cannot be reconciled as grim foes.
And so we should make use of those allies that Fate has given use, knowing
that those who hate our enemies are most naturally our friends - or, rather,
that they might thus become our tools. For there is nothing more natural
for our race than to enslave, and nothing more laudable that to wield another's
power. (Pulled fast!)
So we might make a stand on ground held by those who hate our foes, and
so turn their power to our own defense. For can a
creature proud and "holy" bear the power of a place where Truth
burns fierce and cruel as molten stone? No more than bats
can brave the day, or crabs defeat the crashing surf!
So here, where bloody sacrifice and muttered curses glorify our spirit
(knot) - here where pitiful and pointless supplication is
replaced by bold embrace - here where brimstone smolders and weaker souls
are sped below, in all such places can we flex
our powers, and revel in our theft of another Natural force: for here the
controlling creatures cannot readily tread, and here their powers are peeled
and pried from out of their grips and sordid armors rent.
She looks upon her writing and considers who will draw the obvious conclusion?
That there is no place which always holds a
potency, nor anything which never fades away. So wise men and women can
take up a thing and carrying it with them alter
what is "here". So with a tool of mystical power a mystical place
may be made. So those Unnamed Ones who stand behind the
truth of all creation can ensure that now is what will be.
A Demon's heart - a perfect and portable shrine for those of us who see
that worship is for fools - but ask yourself - if this of
all a creature's form contains its Form - represents, contains and radiates
(consider that!) all that it is (which of those three is it
that the creature is?) - then where might we look for the embodiment of
undeserving, holy power?
Our unspeakable foes might have no souls, or hearts, or feelings - even
minds? - But where better than in their heart might the
heartless preserve their cowardice? For just as valor, hate and passion
dwell within a mortal's heart, so might the lack of valor,
absence of driving hatred or higher passions be contained within the absence
of a heart.
The dilemma is profound. How can one capture the absence of a thing - and,
moreover, to extract that absence from a thing
which is nothing but a phantasm? A question, perhaps, for the philosopher,
rather than the magician - but can any courageous
mortal truly be one and not the other?
So what has one gained, to have extracted this vacuous repository? Think
upon it; what does a rhetorician gain when learning
phrases from her tutor? how does the master sailor tack into the wind?
what does a blacksmith's iron hammer shape?
The simple-minded might sneer that to extract an absence from a non- existence
is a futile task - but these are the same fools
who bow and scrape in snivelling submission beneath that which it is their
Destiny and duty to o'er-rule. For all the wisdom and
the power contained within these empty vessels might provide a greater
mastery than any concrete thing - as fire fights fire - if
only an "upright" mortal could be unaffected by such base contact.
So also, as the sage would have it, we must be ready not only to examine
the blood, but to note its sticky presence between
our fingers. Always alert to the approach of the serpents, an ear to the
ground, listening for their slitherings.
More earthly, earth remedies must now suffice, since our great heritage
is lost (she curses Lomansies's name, and all who aided her). So here we
must resort to farmers', hunters' perhaps most aptly poachers' tricks,
observing Nature that through one part another is revealed.
As spiders run for shelter before a storm, as drones of flies will buzz
between the showers, so other beasts might run or cluster
as our puffed- up foes approach or flee.
They say that dogs, and sheep, cats and other common pets - as gutless,
mindless syncophants - follow these
conceited creatures. And as these beings are vain, so are their fawning
accomplices remarkable for their pristine or immaculate
appearnces.
Thus likewise creatures who demand or deserve respect refuse to lower themselves
to truck with these gross creatures. The
wily fox, the cunning wolf, the bat who sees all through blinded eyes,
the hyena who laughs last at all other creatures' final
defeats - all of these and others such will scatter as these beings approach.
Not merely observation of untamed Nature should suffice - for have you
still not learned that mastery makes mortals to fulfill
themselves, gives to them the power they are destined to possess? A creature
in a cage will serve, here, even ignorantly. The
resourceful rat - constrained but preserved in adequate health - might
furnish the wise with great insight, and other beasts (like
crows and beetles) the same.
With practice and with wisdom the philosopher-magician might divine from
the behaviors of such captive beasts whenever any
noxious foes approach, and with time the observer comes to tell what time
and for what purpose it approaches, what sort of
guise it wears and what rank of abomination it might be.
She hopes you might see clearly your own destiny - whoever you might be
- see how we might slam fast our father's doors
upon them and grasp our own potentials as we should. She expects that you
see how the common mortal flails in self-delusion - see how heavens' puppets
remain obedient.
It is our duty and fate to master and destroy these empty husks, as with
every form of nature - to make ourselves supreme
above all, supremely served by all - and to crush beneath us all that comes
before or falls below us, all who cannot see their
destiny, and all who hold us back from reaching ours.
May these words fuel the fires in your hearts, give form to your hate,
your loathing and your other higher emotions - so that
with us - with her, or me - you might stride onwards, crushing all beneath
your heel.
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