Song of Yaldabaoth

e Song of Yaldabaothf^[1]

 

I am the fetor of the flesh,

Though I am other things 

 

That violate

The lap of grace

Or curse a christening

 

I am the obscene worm within

That bores a pit in thee and vitiates

A place of light with darkest liberty �"

 

I am the spur of want and will;

I am the rolling wheel

 

That crushes every tender heart

And leaves the royal seal

 

I am a frightful ghoul of night

That wakes a sleeping child,

 

Or cuts him

Like a careless blade,

When love is first defiled

 

I am a virtue lost in years �"

I am the goodness gone

 

That flees into a starless night

In which there is no dawn

 

I am the sackcloth worn in shame,

The scrape of sand and stone

 

Upon the bloodied knees of prayer

That kneel in flesh and bone.

 

But peace! Oh, peace! I am but true!

I am both fiend and friend,

From whom men learn

Their lessons well

 About a sorry end

 

Oh, all have known since time began

Who doth hold earthly sway,

 

For all have seen the sins of Earth

Assemble as they pray

 

All wisemen know that this is so

And share the general fate of lesser men

Who seek a sty in which to fornicate!

 

I trust thee by thy oath and heart

And know thee by thy will:

I pour in thee a mystery

 

Until the blood doth spill.

 

-P-

 

                 Thoughts of Camille Du Monde: Entry Two

 

To me, these lines speak of a divinity that condemns men to suffer for the sake of suffering only. It paints our lives in black or maybe gray, and has no better palette from which to pick its paints. If such were true, what man would choose to live upon this landscape, given that he has no hope for happiness in this world or the next, no reason or higher purpose to contend with evil things? He would do better as a stone and not a mind that thinks. What man with open arms would embrace his absolute negation! Yet many men of substance do, even though they need not view themselves as equal to some grains of sand beneath their filthy feet.^[2]

More than Baptiste De Guerre, our Jean Ami is said to have been troubled by such thoughts and often sought to flee them in amusements that might distract him from deeper darkness. Though both he and the Blue Knight are said to have been faithful to their oaths in most ways, they are also said to have had some lesser friends who led them in the madness of their youth, and the extremes of debauchery, drunkenness, and violence were known to flourish and often in the company of common varlets.

 

-P-

 

Sheep of Certain Kinds

 

(The Folly of Innocence & the Folly of Experience)

 

Yet, such is the folly of inexperience, and I would not judge a man upon the sins and foolish activities of his youth. But I also would not judge him on the wicked thoughts he has in old age, as that would be to mock his life from beginning to end.[3] We may thank God that the generally better thoughts of youth and the necessarily improved activities of old age mitigate a man's baseness and save him from absolute condemnation![4]

 

 This is not to say that a man is doomed to be a feckless rogue when he is young and a cunning villain when he is old. But old age and youth are sheep of certain kinds and heed the staff of different shepherds. Their lives cannot easily be compared or judged by the other. Indeed, a single biography of a man cannot be written, as time makes each man many different people. Only his immortal soul is said to be constant.

---

[1] According to the New World Encyclopedia, the word demiurge means “artisan” or “producer,” not necessarily “creator.” It is probably accurate to think of the demiurge as the “pre-eminent force in the physical world,” but one that is inferior to the god of the spiritual realm. It is the "fashioner" of real and perceptible physical objects. The Gnostics considered this process to be deceitful and therefore evil. Paris’s concept of the demiurge sides with that belief, and for the purposes of his story, assigns malicious intelligence to it. To him, a religion that abhorred the physical universe to the extent that Catharism did was likely to have attributed an active, Satan-like intelligence to the demiurge.

 

 

[2] The last recorded public appearance of the American actor Marlon Brando on film was in a long biographical documentary called “Listen to Me.” At one point, Brando discusses his fondness for the islands of Tahiti, referring to himself as a meaningless “spec of sand” on one of its beaches. At no point during the film does he express a positive belief about his existence. He was a gifted, world-famous millionaire who seems to have left this world without love or respect for himself or anyone else. But who knows? Maybe it was just an image he wanted to convey.

 

 

[3] Paris did not think that aging has much to do with wisdom. Like many, he believed the passage of time provides practical experience, making it easier to recognize recurrent patterns. But it does not make anyone smarter about the things that matter, e.g., the purpose of it all. “Now that I am old,” he observed, “I would probably be able to avoid some of my past mistakes, but, if given the chance, I would likely fall into a multitude of new debacles.”

 

[4] An idle mind is not the devil’s only playground. A lonely mind is also a favored venue. An idle mind makes phone calls, looks for something to read, or watches TV all day; a lonely mind desperately seeks available company.