Chapitre 30 L’Art
Capítulo 30 Arte.
During their trip towards the planet Revozvradendr on board the ship Karnak, Beelzebub urges Ahoon to tell Hassein something about the strange three-brained beings on the planet Earth. So Ahoon addressing Hassein says that he will not, like Beelzebub, tell him in detail about any particular oddity of their psyche, he will only remind Beelzebub of a certain factor whose origin goes back to the time of their fifth stay on the surface of that planet, and which, when they returned there for the sixth and last time, had become the chief reason why their capacity for normal ‘being-mentation’ was distorted step by step. Beelzebub himself was present at the arising of that factor during their stay in Babylon – that factor which has since become definitely maleficent for the contemporary beings there and which they themselves call ‘art.’
In order to throw light on all aspects of the question of this famous contemporary terrestrial ‘art,’ and for his clear understanding of how it all came about, Beelzebub says that Hassein must first know about two facts relating to what occurred in the city of Babylon during their fifth visit in person to the surface of that planet. The first fact explains how and why Beelzebub came to be a witness of those events which served as the basis for the existence among contemporary three-brained beings of the planet Earth of that now definitely maleficent notion called ‘art.’ While being in the city of Babylon during his fifth sojourn on the planet Earth Beelzebub resolved to continue his observations among the beings of the powerful community called ‘Hellas.’ He therefore decided to learn their ‘language’ without delay, and from then on he began to visit those places in the city of Babylon frequented by those beings who would be most useful to him in this study. There he found a club for foreign learned beings that had just been opened, called the ‘Adherents of Legominism.’ After becoming a ‘full member’ of this club, he begun to go there regularly, chiefly to talk with those learned members who were familiar with the Hellenic language he needed to practice.
As regards the second fact he mentioned, this was due to the following events: When he began frequenting this club it became evident to him that these few terrestrial learned beings, who were sincerely striving to perfect their Reason, had from the beginning kept to themselves in the city of Babylon, and never mixed in any of the affairs in which the general mass of Babylonian scholars very soon became involved. These learned beings had united for the first time for the purpose of organizing the club of the ‘Adherents of Legominism.’ This union of theirs had been brought about by two learned beings who were ‘initiates of the first degree,’ the “Moor’ Kanil el-Norkel and the ‘Greek’ Pythagoras. These two sincere and honest terrestrial beings after deliberating for a long time decided to organize that club for the purpose of finding some means of averting at least the phenomenon of legominisms being destroyed owing to the process of reciprocal destruction when numbers of initiated beings of all degrees are invariably destroyed and, together with them, there are also forever destroyed many legominisms – the sole means by which information about former real events on Earth is transmitted and continues to be transmitted from generation to generation.
On the opening day of the club they had organized a ‘general meeting,’ for reports and discussions dealing exclusively with the two following questions: first, ‘What measures should be taken by the members of the club on their return home in order to collect all the legominisms existing in their native lands and to place them at the disposal of the learned beings of the club?’ and second, ‘What is to be done in order that the legominisms might be transmitted to remote generations by some other means than through initiates alone?’
It was on the third day after Beelzebub became a member of this club that there was uttered for the first time that word which has chanced to reach contemporary beings there and which has become one of the potent factors in the final atrophy of all the data still surviving in them for more or less normal logical being-mentation, namely, the word ‘art,’ which then had quite another meaning and referred to an entirely different idea. It was uttered for the first time by a very aged Chaldean sage, the great Aksharpantziar who was very well known in those times. He suggested that the transmission of true knowledge to distant generations be carried out through the human “afalkalnas,” that is, through various works of man’s hands, and also through the human “soldjinokhas,” that is, through various procedures and ceremonies, which have been established for centuries in the social and family life of people and which pass automatically from generation to generation; so he proposed that such a transmission be brought about through the various human “afalkalnas” and “soldjinokhas” and be done through the universal law called the “Law of Sevenfoldness.” He also suggested the mode of transmission by the application of this law.
This speech of his aroused considerable excitement, and a noisy discussion broke out among all the members of the club of the Adherents of Legominism, with the outcome that then and there they unanimously decided to do as the great Aksharpantziar had suggested. Shortly thereafter the members of the club divided themselves into a number of groups, and devoted each seventh part of the period of time they called a ‘week’ – or, as they say, each ‘day’ – to the presentation and explanation of their productions relating to one particular branch of knowledge. Thus, Monday was devoted to the first group, and this day was called the ‘day of religious and civil ceremonies’; Tuesday was allotted to the second group, and was called the ‘day of architecture’; Wednesday was called the ‘day of painting’ and it was devoted to the study of the combinations of different colors; Thursday, the ‘day of religious and popular dances’; Friday, the ‘day of sculpture’; Saturday, the ‘day of the mysteries’ or, as it was also called, the ‘day of the theater’ where by means of intentionally allowed deviations from the principles of the Law of Sevenfoldness in the being-experiencings and manifestations that they reproduced, they indicated what they wished to transmit, as well as indicating a variety of useful information and knowledge they had attained by means of what is called the ‘flow of associative movements’ of the participants in these mysteries; Sunday, the ‘day of music and song, where these learned musicians and singers combined their melodies in such a way that the sequence of vibrations of the sounds would evoke in beings a sequence of associations, and therefore impulses for inner experiencings, not in the usual automatic order.’
Continuing his recount Beelzebub says to Hassein that during the period of his sixth and last stay there in person he verified that of all the fragments of knowledge attained by the beings of the Babylonian civilization and which the learned beings of the club of the Adherents of Legominism had indicated in ‘lawful inexactitudes’ of the sacred law of Heptaparaparshinokh or, as they called it, the ‘Law of Sevenfoldness,’ absolutely nothing has reached the beings of contemporary civilization. Only certain words, such as, ‘art’ and ‘theater’ automatically passed from generation to generation and they happened to get into the vocabulary of certain three-brained beings, in whose presence the consequences of the properties of the organ kundabuffer favored the arising of data in them for the being of ‘hasnamuss individuals.’
Then Hassein asks if it is really possible that all the intentions and efforts of those Babylonian learned beings have come to nothing, and that of all those fragments of knowledge then known on the Earth, nothing whatever has reached the contemporary three-brained beings. Beelzebub tells him that the information they indicated passed from generation to generation for only a few of their centuries. Soon after the epoch of the ‘magnificence of Babylon,’ thanks again to their chief particularity, namely, the ‘periodic process of reciprocal destruction,’ not only did there almost entirely disappear the legominism containing the keys to the lawful inexactitudes in the Law of Sevenfoldness that were introduced into each of the branches of the ‘being-afalkalnas and soldjinokhas’ but there was also gradually lost even the very idea of this universal law of the Heptaparaparsinokh, known in Babylon as the ‘Law of Sevenfoldness.’ Every kind of conscious production of the beings of the Babylonian period was gradually destroyed, partly by decay in the course of time and partly during processes of reciprocal destruction, whenever this psychosis of theirs reached the stage called the ‘destruction of everything within the sphere of visual perception.’ These were the two chief reasons why almost all the consciously actualized results of the learned beings of the Babylonian epoch disappeared from the surface of that ill-fated planet, and at such a rate that after three of their centuries there was almost nothing left of them.
Two of the branches of knowledge connected with the conscious productions of the beings of the Babylonian period chanced upon favorable conditions and certain of their elements passed from generation to generation, partly consciously through the beings transmitting them, and partly automatically. One of these two branches recently ceased to exist, but the other has even reached certain beings of contemporary times almost unchanged; it is called ‘sacred dances.’ Thanks exclusively to the survival of these sacred dances from Babylonian times, a very limited number of three-brained beings now have the possibility, by means of certain conscious labors, to decipher them and learn the information hidden there which is useful for their own being.
And the other branch I mentioned, which recently ceased to exist, was the branch of knowledge of the Babylonian learned beings devoted to the ‘combination of different tonalities of color,’ which contemporary beings call ‘painting.’ The transmission of this branch of knowledge from generation to generation proceeded almost everywhere and it continued until quite recently at a regular tempo, both consciously and automatically, among the beings of a community called ‘Persia.’ And it was just before Beelzebub left the planet for the last time, when the influence of the so-called ‘painters’ of contemporary European culture began to make itself felt also in Persia and the Persian beings of the same profession begun to wiseacre, that the transmission of this branch of knowledge entirely ceased.
On this continent of Europe several inquiring beings happened to notice lawful inexactitudes in the works of various branches of art that had reached them from ancient times; but no sooner did they find the key to the understanding of these inexactitudes than their existence came to an end. Still another being from the continent of Europe noticed these inexactitudes, and becoming more and more interested and laboring perseveringly, he was able fully to decipher works of almost all the branches of art. This wise terrestrial three-brained being was named Leonardo da Vinci.
Beelzebub, Hassein, and Ahoon ended their conversation and also hurriedly began to get themselves ready as the ship Karnak was nearing the place of her destination, that is, the planet Revozvradendr.