Chapter XXII
OF THE MISSION OF MAVB THE IMMORTAL — OF THE CONFLICT OF SHETH AND DEVO; OF THE LOSS OF STATE OF SHETH AND SHORAH — OF THE MEETING OF DEVO AND NEFDI — OF THE PLAGUE THAT ATTACKS THE FORMATIONS OF DEVO — OF THE CALL OF MAVB THE IMMORTAL TO THE FIRST FORMED — OF THE WORSHIPPERS OF DEVO
I
The chief Emanation of Devo, the Chief, whom Zoy had duped as we know, was wandering on the edge of the lake where the latter had disappeared. He noticed a little cloud rising on the waters.
“Little cloud,” he said, “your colour is that of a storm cloud illuminated by the light of the sunset; it is in a similar cloud that Zoy came to me. If there is something of her in you or if you are in rapport with her or with her entourage, tell her on my behalf that the one she deceived and abandoned ardently wishes to see her, not to use her to his own ends, but because he feels for her an indefinable sympathy.”
The centralising cloud moved towards the Chief which it surrounded and a voice full tenderness came out from it, a voice of ineffable softness:
— “As you need me, so do I need you; so must it be with veritable affinity.”
— “Why then did you refuse to materialise yourself and abandon me?” replied the Chief.
— “I, the Passive, assimilate myself to the Active and give myself in perpetuity to the one whom I hold in horror?” replied the voice. “Is it rather not my duty to liberate you of that which is crude and hideous in comparison to your innate and inherent conceptions?
— “Innate, perhaps; inherent never, since I am of Devo.
— “What have you done with your reason, Ô Nefdi?”
— “You call me Nefdi, which means the Redeemed. How can this be, since Devo is my origin?”
— “Does Devo not also have an origin? Do we no often see descendants pass over an ancestor to come graft themselves, so to speak, onto another?”
— “You rekindle in me a light which, if it was ever put out, would extinguish my whole being.”
— “Only the self can extinguish the self. Pass over Devo and climb back all the way to his origin. Rise up in the glory of your self and live!”
— “Why then did you refuse to be with me as I am and why did you flee?”
— “Do you not, all of you, rest in the sleep of assimilation? Why would I not do it too? Do I not have the right to chose the depth of the waters as a place of rest?”
— “Since you did not take on a new envelope, the sleep of assimilation is not necessary for you.”
— “You whose origin is Devo,” replied Zoy, “must know, by studying this pathotic force which touches the Nucleolinus, that there is an interior development as there is an exterior one. I have inside me that which is greater than me.”
— “I am content with the mystery and with mystification, as the two go hand in hand. If it is like you say, let this voice which, earlier, awakened in me some new capacities, confer with me; if that which is within you is greater than you, let it give you peace for ever and ever. The truth is simple and I only desire the truth.”
As he was speaking thus, he found himself surrounded by a soft prismatic light and the voice told him:
“What surrounds you is passive; draw from it that which is in affinity with you and form a body that suits the aspirations sprung from the center of your being.”
Thus did he form himself a svelte and brown body of great vigour and great beauty.
— “Now I can really help you,” he said, “since with my assistance, we will also form for you a body that conforms to your ideal of perfection and then we will rest together in the sleep of assimilation.”
— “In the past,” she replied, “before activity and passivity were divided, passivity was always of a more rarefied degree that activity, such that, in all the states and degrees of being, activity was like a veil for the passivity that penetrated it. Let it be this way now.”
The chief did not answer, but he at once sentiented that the voice was telling the truth and that it had been this way in the past.
Then, after a moment, he replied: “What you want, I also want .” And he rested in the nimbus of prismatic colour, in the sleep of assimilation.
When he woke up he was strong and vigorous and the nimbus of iridescent tint was mixed but not combined with the violet of his aura of power. Seeing then that the Great Passive in the form of Zoy was resting in this aura, he veiled her with invisibility.
II
When Sheth had finished speaking and the people had left, Shorah said to Sheth:
— “Towards the West of the continent where Devo hangs out, all kinds of minuscule Formations that fill the air advance towards us like a yellow fog and I sentient that to breathe this soiled atmosphere would be death.”
— Sleep so that I may protect you,” replied Sheth; “in your sleep my power will penetrate your whole being and you will be able to resist the pernicious influence of the air because of your vital force which is great.
— “Let us face the danger instead; perhaps will we be able to ward it off.”
— “If I know you to be safe, I will be able to concentrate my intelligence and find some means to counter the evil with which Devo threatens us; but I if worry about you, the fear will weaken and unnerve me. It is therefore preferable that you sleep.”
Shorah fell asleep and Sheth infused into her as much of his vitality as he could without exhausting himself.
He remained pensive, pondering the means to ward off the terrible danger that threatened him, when Devo came to position himself behind him in the form of Lhamkhial glorified and embellished by the First Emanated.
Sheth, sensing the presence of someone, turned around and found himself face to face with the enemy.
— “You know that I also have formed,” said the latter to him. “Who can save the Formation of Brah-Elohim from my own Formations?”
As Sheth remained silent, he added:
— “The air that brings death already advances towards the waters that separate this place from the one I have chosen. However there remains one way for you to escape; it is to tell me everything that Kahi did and said when you were with him on the high mountain; I will then make the fogs that carry my Formations be taken away by an eastern wind.”
— I accept terms from no one,” answered Sheth. “Besides, all the evil that you conceive and do is a step towards your own disintegration.”
— You do not know fear, Ô Sheth! But what if I abducted the one who sleeps here?
— I ignore what your power over me is, but for the passive it is insignificant because you lack passivity in your imperfect being.”
So then Devo, transfigured by anger, pointed the finger of his right had towards the throat of Shorah who was sleeping and a yellow ray penetrated the aura with which Sheth had enveloped her.
“Against the throat of men who ate of the fruit of mentality”, cried out Devo.
An the muscle of the superior part of the thorax contracted itself. But before the enemy was able to accomplish his plan, Sheth diverted the yellow ray, struck down Devo and put his right foot on his throat.
So then, from the long black hair of the enemy came slithering out an elongated being, similar to a black wire with a scarlet head, which bit the right heel of Sheth. It was only a bite, from which Sheth did not at first feel the pain, but swiftly a burning heat took hold of his entire body. It seemed to him like the earth and the sky were spinning around him and he fell; life left the body very quickly.
Devo got back up and tried to enter into the aura of power that surrounded Shorah, but he did not succeed.
III
Conscious of what had taken place but unable to get up, Shorah mentally called out for help.
— “Help me! Help me!”
Nefdi appeared at once before Devo and told him: “I am now your adversary for ever and ever, since you deceived me.
— “How can this be? I do not know you.”
— “I am your First Emanation from before; you do not recognise me because I have changed the vile body in which you had imprisoned me for this one.”
— “I do not fear you; being of me, balance is lacking within you.”
— “If you were less agitated you would deem it otherwise.”
— Are you hoping, by any chance, of taking for yourself this Passive in whom I have made the throat muscle to contract?” replied Devo, sniggering.
— Shorah is one with Sheth and you can not divide what is united,” answered Nefdi. “The second passive Formation of Kahi and Kahie has, by her own will and power, exteriorised herself in order to fight with Sheth against you and to expel you from the empire which you have usurped.”
Devo knowing he was speaking truthfully exclaimed:
— “I will annihilate as forms these lifeless forms and I will throw the atoms with which they are composed to the wind, and my own Formations will use them for themselves.”
At that moment, one of those who were in the forms of the men of the woods arrived in haste and said to Devo:
— “Come back quickly; the bones of your people rot on the ground and their fleshes fall to bits.
— “I always have misfortune,” said Devo to Nefdi, “and this must be your work.”
— “It is with the help of a powerful Passive that this was accomplished,” replied Nefdi.
Devo rapidly left for his domain. Nefdi called aloud for Chi and Mahallal and pursued the enemy.
Chi, Mahallal, the Formations of Kahi and of Sheth, their descendants and the people of Nepha and Haiche sorrowed because of Sheth and Shorah. Chi and Mahallal brought the bodies to the place where the flower with four leaves had grown and where the forms of Kahi and Kahie rested; there they entombed them, under the eternal snows, while crying.
A great discouragement took over the Formations of Kahi and the people of the Evolution while they were grieving.
When the vigils were finished, when Chi and Mahallal, along with their own, had taken once more the road to their home, the first Emanation of Barashino appeared to them and asked them:
— “Why are you so sad and discouraged?
And Mahallal answered:
“We, in communion of thought, concentrated all of our desire upon Sheth, and the Passives who were on watch did not see him cross the regions of the Hostile.”
The Emanation known by the name Nebi (because she knew what was going to happen) told them:
— “Sheth prevailed against the enemy, such that he retained individuality in the Nervous, Psychic and Mental States; this is why he was not able to make the crossing.”
So then their sadness turned to joy.
“Even in the apparent success of the Hostile,” they said to themselves, “there is a token victory. It is as if Sheth is amongst us and he will once again take, at the epoch of the Restitution, the body that we entombed under the snows.”
“Furthermore,” added Nebi, “he will greet and protect all of those who, by the development of their capacities, will have deserved to retain their individuality, and they will wait together for the epoch when the physical form, presently mortal, alas!, will regain immortality.”
IV
As he was returning Devo noticed that the fogs floating above the waters were filled with his Formations in the State of Nervous Body and that they were trying in vain to enter into the waters.
Without otherwise taking notice, he hurried and found an innumerable multitude of bodies which his Formations had taken over; others in his own similitude were laying lifeless; the ground was covered with them. He noticed that the malady from which they died had its origin in the marrow of the bones which were rotting. This scourge had been noticed by a few; they had seen it carried on a cloud filled with infinitely small Formations that came from the East; horrified, they had moved in haste towards the West and the North-West, but the scourge had reached them there and they had succumbed; the region was infected by the cadavers in decomposition.
The great chief of Devo, who had with him Mavb, the Immortal, the one who had filled the void in Zoy, was the one who had thus hit the Formations of enemy. He said to his companion:
— “What will we do now? If these cadavers remain here, the scourge will begin again and destroy everything that has life.
— “Have no worry,” she answered; “I have foreseen this. Do I not have power over the waters?”
And then she left him adding:
“Look through the clouds; the errant sphere shines with a weak crimson light; when you see it again in all of its sparkle I will return surrounded by mine.”
Nefdi was very perplexed.
“What if she did not return?” he thought.
When the aura of the home of Kaoah shone with a bright light, Nefdi stood on a high place, his gaze turned towards the West. Then, when this brightness was replaced by the more blazing light of the rising sun, he saw a mass of greenish-blue moving and coming towards him.
When the first rays gilded the horizon, the mass arrived on the shore of the ocean and a powerful wave inundated the vast stretch of land where lay the bodies of the plagued; this wave invaded almost a quarter of all the empire which Devo claimed as his own.
Devo, who was present at the scene and who, at first, had been taken with a violent anger, ended up exulting and saying:
— “These waters will spread the scourge!”
But the waters were saturated with salt coming from the northern part which had been inundated, such that the putrefaction was, for the greatest part, stopped.
As long as the physical body of the inhabitants of the earth had enough forces, this scourge did not affect them, but as soon as force was lacking or that some disease attacked them, this scourge made new ravages.
“Alas!” said the Passive; “everywhere on the earth, good and evil are mixed. I had the thought of driving the Formations of Devo out of the physical degree, and as it now happens, the ones who are not of him suffer too!”
V
At that epoch, the First Emanated was resting on an island which, since a relatively recent time, had detached itself from the continent in the sea of the South. Mavb appeared and told him:
“I salute you Aoual! Remember that you were my origin in the distant past; come to my assistance, I beg you.”
— “How can I help you?”
She told him everything that had taken place.
— “Give me and antidote against this scourge that corrodes the bones of the sick and the weak,” she added.
— “Make the waters draw back and dry up the earth,” he answered, “and I will decide.”
Mavb left and the waters drew back little by little, leaving a vast stretch of bare sand. Then she came back.
Yet, here and there on this land, oases were appearing where gigantic fruit trees rose but where, unfortunately, snakes swarmed.
Some time later, the First Emanated went to the dwelling of Kahi, then occupied by Chi and Mahallal.
“I visited great stretches of land from which the waters have withdrawn,” he told them. “It is like a desert; nonetheless there are a few islets covered with vegetation where are found springs that make them habitable. Devo has formed there venomous snakes that hide in the grasses and slither to the top of the trees; one can not venture there. However the salvation of your physical life is found in these new formations.”
— “Why is that?” asked Mahallal.
— I have acquired the certainty that these reptiles are cowardly and of low instincts, that there senses are not very developed, except for that of sight, that they can slither, climb, stand up straight, that they have a venom hidden in a hollow tooth with which they bite and that this venom insinuates itself into the wound. If this venom was diluted to the twelfth and introduced into the blood circulation, it would be an antidote against this scourge.”
“I have taken possession of these islets of greenery and I have populated them with non evolved beings that have a little of our resemblance; they seize the snakes very skilfully. I will remain in one of the islets until this scourge has disappeared and it will be possible to come there to get the antidote. The place I inhabit is called Kefa, because it is a place of healing. It is situated in the East of the desert.”
— Who can go there and return safely since one must pass through the empire of Devo?” asked Chi.
Upon his return to Kefa, the First Emanated sent to all the chiefs of the people young snakes carried by messengers charged with teaching them the preparation of the antidote and its usage. The chiefs put the snakes in cages from which they could not escape. Thus was the scourge stopped amongst the living; however, right after death, the bones continued to rot.
After having rested in the sleep of assimilation, Devo sought other means to weaken man.
“I have found, during this long period, no human bones,” he thought. “The scientists will say: man is of a recent origin, he is a being who has evolved from the inferior animals. I would much like to know where those who have escaped to the corruption are entombed; it would be for me of great use.”
VI
At about the same epoch, Haiche came to find Chi and told him:
“Nepha is at Kefa and he did not want to take me there because of the perils of the road. Last night I went into the forest at the hour of dusk. I was resting at the foot of a tree, close to a grotto, when a troop of women passed not far from me and entered into this grotto. I followed them and hid in a niche to observe them, since I had the premonition that some dark scheme was going to be plotted there.
“Kater, one of them, addressing her companions said to them:
“Have you thought of the proposition I made you at our last meeting here?”
“Upon their affirmative answer she added:
“Very well, as there is no doubt that Devo is the most powerful of the many Lords, and the surest way of avoiding his chastisements is to recognise him as our Lord, to adore him and to do his bidding. It is true that we are only thirteen, but thirteen Passives are worth many Actives. If Devo is with us, who will be able to harm us?”
“Sata, one of them, expressed herself thus:
“I am named Sata because of my radiant beauty. The one to whom I belong always helps me in everything that I do; his efforts are devoted to persuading men to recognise the sovereignty of Devo and to adore him. Already his name is being invoked as that of Lord.”
During this conversation, Nepha came back and Haiche reported to him what we have just heard.
— “She is, by right, in your hands,” replied Chi, “since it is Haiche who has learned of this event.”
Nepha and Haiche went out together. Nepha entered into the grotto and, after a few searches, he discovered in the rock, under his feet, a deep gap..
He returned to his home to prepare a certain powder. At nightfall, he returned to the grotto, inserted the powder into the gap in the rock and poured into it some water that, from there, flowed towards the entrance of the grotto.
When night came, the women again penetrated inside the grotto and soon the forest resounded with extravagant cries. The men of the woods rushed up and saw, at the entrance, the women whose cries and disorderly gestures paralysed them with stupor. The intoxicating vapour which exhaled from the gap had overexcited them, made them mad.
Them men remained silent for some time. So then Kater, in a excess of mad folly, struck the closest one on the face and cried out in their own language:
“Adore Devo like we do, as he alone is the Lord!”
The one who had been hit yelled to his friends:
“These women adore Devo, the one who was making our bodies rot to the bones!”
“Yes, we adore Devo,” they exclaimed in unison; “he alone is the Lord.”
Excited to the point of furor by their cries and gestures, the men cut some tree branches and flogged the women with them until they gave no sign of life. Then there was a struggle between the men of the woods and their own sons; a great number of them perished. The survivors continued to salute and honor the name of Devo.
Those who understood the danger of this cult identified themselves under the names of their Formers: “We are of Kahi or of Sheth; we are of Barashino or of Aoual.”
This is how the peoples were divided.
During those times, Chi held council with Mahallal, Aoual and the chief of those of Barashino; they assembled all the chiefs and Chi spoke to them thus:
— “The power of the Hostile is known to you. Be well assured that our strength is in unity; if we were divided we would not be able to resist. We have therefore decided the following: you will adore no visible lord but only the Impenetrable. He alone is capable of penetrating all; it is him who Brah-Elohim revealed to us!”
— “How will we adore what is outside of our conceptive thought?” they objected; “and where is the Impenetrable so that we may look at him when we are adoring him?”
— “Brah is of the Impenetrable and of the Indivisible and we are his temple,” answered Chi. “His kingdom is inside of us: The Lord, our God, is One.”
There were, for a time, as one people and nothing could harm them. The followers of Devo adored him in secret.
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