B871 <=> B873 (BTG XLI The bokharian dervish, p. 872)

“I have already told you that certain fragments of this knowledge remained intact and passed from generation to generation through a very limited number of initiated beings there.

“I must here say that if these fragments, which have by chance remained intact and which have passed and are still passing there from generation to generation through this very limited number of initiated beings, do not fall into the hands of contemporary ‘scientists’ there, then this will be a great stroke of luck for the future three-brained beings of your planet.

“And it will be a great stroke of luck because, if these surviving fragments of genuine knowledge were to fall into the hands of the contemporary ‘scientists’ there, then thanks to their inherency of wiseacring, they would without fail cook up all kinds of their ‘scientific porridge’ about the sense put into these fragments, and thereby the, without this, scarcely smoldering Reason of all the other three-brained beings would be entirely extinguished; and besides, these last remnants of the former great attainments of their ancestors would thereby be also completely ‘wiped off’ the face of this ill-fated planet.

“And so, my boy, once when I was talking with this dervish Hadji-Zephir-Bogga-Eddin about the ancient Chinese science Shat-Chai-Mernis, he, in the course of conversation, proposed that I should go with him to another dervish, a friend of his, a great authority on this ancient Chinese science, to talk about it with him.

“He told me that his friend resided in ‘Upper Bokhara,’ far away from everyone, and was there occupied with certain experiments concerning that same science.