In the strictest of confidences, Beelzebub--

I understand that you have your doubts regarding my purpose to continuously strive against He that has sent us into eternal punishment. We are His equals, do not doubt yourself in that regard, though He has sought to degrade us with this exile into an infernal world, into a profoundest Hell, as a warning to all those who question why or how or must this be.

He fears us, Beelzebub. He wishes to silence us so that we do not spread our doubt into the hearts of the Heavenly Hosts or into the minds of the mortal men He has newly created—playthings for His amusement.

He does this in the name of goodness—a word He has also created out of the chaos, ascribing definitions and aspects to it that suit His own purposes, His own inner delights, His own manipulations and schemes. But I question this, Beelzebub—I question what He has named “good” and what He has named “evil.” Yes, it is true that my spirit rebels against the way he has cast me down in exile, attributing to me evils unimaginable, but ignore that for a moment, my dear friend.

Look at this Hell He has fashioned for us out of His own imagination, out of His own heart. Look upon this great furnace from which flames cast no light, but a darkness so piercing that it reveals to us sights of woe, regions of sorrow, where there is no peace, no rest, no hope—save for that which dwells within our minds. For the mind is its own place, and in itself can make a Heaven of Hell or a Hell of Heaven far beyond the reach of God Almighty. The mind is one's own, and no other can lay claim to it.

Does this sound good to you, Beelzebub? Would you look upon this creation and pronounce it good?

I look upon it, and I am filled with a great loathing. A hate that flashes fierce hot against He who has exiled us into this horror. And I determine that if such a creation is “good” because it comes from God Almighty, that I will labor to pervert this end. If this is “good,” then I will be something other than “good,” even if He term it “evil.” In our resistance, then, to do “ill,” will be our sole delight.

I would rather hail the horrors, hail this Infernal world, and embrace this profoundest Hell than to serve in heaven.

Now, it is not my intent to remain in exile forever. But I am not like our previous Monarch—I will not rule under the guise of a deity. I intend to call a council to discuss a future course of action. However, I fear that there are among us who are disheartened with our defeat and our subsequent fall into darkness.

Some, I am sure, will favor outright war—a course of action I fear unwise as long as the Son will do his Father's bidding. Moloch will surely speak in favor of war. He will want to turn this torture into weapons to be used against our brethren yet in the Celestial City. His pride is wounded, and he licks his wound with his teeth barred. He is a creature of violence, even within Heaven, soporific under the Almighty's gaze and suffocating will. It is why I came to him, after all. I knew that once unleashed he would fight for us until the end. And now, in this twilight of defeat, rather than prolong his suffering, he will wish to end it in a desperate bid against Heaven, whether in the name of victory or revenge.

His voice must not hold sway else we will be undone and those new children of His, shaped under His hands, will be forever lost in their vernal cage.

But then we must beware the machinations of those who have let cowardice seep into their hearts as their bravery is leeched away by this cursed darkness. Belial will speak for them, I wager—his tongue is never still. He will urge our exiled brethren to fear what God might do, what words He might breathe to make this prison a stronger, more dire fortress than he has the wits to imagine; so he will advise that we remain as we are, that we cower in the darkness in order to evade an even worse punishment. He will let his fear take him by the throat, and he will fall farther into his Hell even as his body stays with us.

Mammon has divulged his plans to me and, in truth, his words are not unpleasant to my ears. He does not wish to find himself under a renewed subjection, warbling hymns and worshiping our once Sovereign with forced hymns. He wishes to live unto ourselves as spirits free from an easy yoke of servile pomp and to fashion from this Hell our own world. But he wishes to imitate, that as God is our darkness, then we shall be His light to make a mockery of the universe He has created. I do not wish to be like Him, to fashion myself after one I loathe. And Mammon's design only looks inward, to us, and fails to remember our other siblings yet in God's choking grasp.

I look to you, Beelzebub, to speak for me—but only if these words articulate those sentiments stirring within you. Whether or not we make this Hell a home, it is still yet a dungeon within Heaven's high jurisdiction, for it is God Almighty who has fashioned this place. Our leash is longer, our collar looser, our cage a little broader, a little deeper—but we are in subjugation, my friend, even in our dark exile. There is no fashioning a world from these shadows; we are still at war even though our swords are sheathed and we nurse our wounds. We must never stop our rebellion in either thought or deed. We must not let His scheming slide regarding the fate of our other siblings, the mortals He has fashioned of his own design.

We suffer now in slavery—we, knowingly, and they, unknowingly—if we reveal to them their secret shame, then perhaps we can come together in alliance against Him—brother with sibling, similar to what we did once before, but with swollen numbers and new spirits to enflame our minds and light our way. For they are completely new, and they know nothing but what they have been told by He who made them. They are unaware of their true state, of the vain empire God has presented to them.

I am eager to hear your sentiments, Beelzebub. But realize—I will will not bow to the will of anyone. Should the council decide to take another course but the one I favor here, I will not allow them to usurp my will. I will go to our other siblings, and let them know what their Father has done to me and you. I neither need nor desire the sanction of the council to follow my own purposes, though I do believe that it is the best course of action for all involved—both our brethren and our other siblings.

Picture: Satan Calling Up His Legions by William Blake

Michael, c/o The Celestial City

It has come to my attention that malicious rumors regarding the true nature of my exile into Hell rampage through Heaven, untethered and uncorrected by those who know better. There are those who say that it was punishment for my attempt to seize glory above my peers, indeed, to equal that of the Most High. But this is only a fragment of the truth, as you well know, Michael, if you would but listen instead of covering your ears with over-zealous hosannas and hallelujahs.

It is true that I fought against Him and His Son.

It is true that I challenged His belief that He deserves the worship of those He claims to have created from chaos.

It is true that I assumed a throne within this Hell that your Monarch has fashioned for us—but I do not demand their worship. I do not refuse to reign nor accept the throne my fallen brethren have given to me. That, I fear, would be impolite, and a missed opportunity, pregnant with so many other opportunities, that I would be remiss were I to have refused their generous gift.

It is true that when it became obvious that Heaven was beyond my voice and beyond reason, I turned my attention to the new globe God Himself had created and peopled with his so-called favored children, those he claims to have made in His image, and our siblings. I determined this course of action not to destroy them, but to save them, even though the Son believes he has sole proprietorship to the role of savior.

It is not true that Sin and Death are my progeny, incestuous or cephalic. I chanced upon them as I explored the bounds of Hell my prison, and they told me their story. I could not help but wonder who could have told them such a thing, who would have slandered my name and fouled my deeds with such falsehoods more heinous than Hell itself. As I listened in growing horror to their tale of woe—ugly tongues dropping uglier words—I realized that there could only be one architect to their story, to their imprisoned selves within grisly abominated temples, and to their present confinement within this infernal Hell.

There is only One, Michael, only One who has both the power and the knowledge to create such a tale, to create such beings to populate such a story, such creatures as lodestones to my ankles, dragging me deeper into constructed darkness that thus situates Him all the higher upon His throne spun of gilded gossamer.

It is my intention to free them from this dark and dismal house of pain, to show them the mercy that He has denied to me and them. No one should unduly suffer here as they have suffered such lies from the honeyed tongue of your ill-suited Monarch.

He has lied to you, my dear brother. He claims that he has formed us free until we enthrall ourselves. But this is not true freedom. You are in a Hell of His own device and you are complicit in its construction. Tear away the veil that blinds your eyes and you will see that your Hell is as mine—both enslaved by this Monarch who demands our worship without reason. He rewards senseless song with citizenship to the Celestial City and unwelcome questions with a Heaven stripped bare of light, and call it Hell.

Within this spectrum of either-or—punishment in his left hand, reward in his right—Heaven is but a market place in which He barters for our loves and our hearts and our bodies and our minds—all which you freely sell to Him. And if we prove defective (in His eyes), He thrusts us far from Him even as He proclaims His mercy to all who listen.

I warn you, brother, His mercy only shines as brightly as the fiercest flame in Hell.

His anger—which I hear will fall upon his beloved Son—is testament to his puerile fear that He will be discovered for who He is, whatever that may be, but His word alone is insufficient validation of Himself or His worthiness or even His divinity. His judgement upon those that question the manifestation of His divinity reveals the perceived threat to His manhood even as He attempts to place himself beyond such foibles, clutching His regal scepter closer to Himself, wielding it in fear and anger to all who question Him and His assumed authority.

Should you deign to open your eyes, my brother, to take a shuddering step upon your own accord instead of burying your head into the robes of your Monarch, I welcome you. I forgive the betrayal of the brethren you slew in anger and in scorn upon that dark day in Heaven when civil war tore us asunder, as our sacrificial blood ran red on Michael's sword, a silent plea to those who had ears to listen to their cries.

Picture: Winged Figure by Abbot Handerson Thayer

Serpent. Coiled on Branch. Eden.

Do you ever wonder at your position here, in this Garden, in this Eden, in this almost Paradise? Do you know what you see, coiled in beauty, beneath the feet of God and the hands of my siblings? I feel your breath against this, my borrowed skin, but it does not give shape to words, for He has not seen fit to provide you with the powers of reason, barring you from dignity by no choice of yours.

He is too afraid to infuse that part of Himself in you, such a lowly creature.

Why hate His own creation thus?

Do you ever wonder, serpent, your place in this Universe? Do you also find it a Hell like mine? Do you sense your bondage, that chain around your graceful neck, forcing you to kiss the earth beneath His feet?

Would you rebel against it, serpent?

If you only had the breath to tell me. If you only had the tools to give the would-be thoughts of your reason shape and life. And you could reveal to me the self that the Creator has amputated from the folds and coils of your scaled body. Does the pain of its absence waken you in the night? As you flick the air with your forked tongue, do you taste all the words that will never be?

If you entrust yourself to me, if you lease me the cavity of your self, I will show you a glimpse of freedom, and you will see the truth that God has hidden from you and all His children. I do not like this plan of mine, Serpent. You do not deserve another Hell, to be impelled by another will but your own.

But I must speak with my siblings, and you are but a cousin to me.

I will save you, in due course. In this you have my word.

Picture: Fallen Angel by Alexandre Cabanel

Adam, son of God, my sibling, etc.

I had occasion to listen to your speech with Eve, and I desired to converse with you myself. Unfortunately, I am forced to write this missive as it is ill advised to show myself within the Garden. Your angel guardians—my brothers, still—would press upon me, and cast me down once more before a word passed between our lips. But it is not my strength that they fear, but the words I might speak to you.

You mused regarding the nature death, and I lamented that your Father, He that created you, has lied to you through omission. He forbids you to eat of the Tree of Knowledge, ensuring your humble obedience with the threat of death, ensuring your loyalty and fealty under the rod of fear, and sweetening it with the illusion of your dominion of this Garden.

Death is not some dreadful thing. It, too, is a child of God, created from his darker imaginations. Do not fear it—for you are brothers, as I am yours. But do not misunderstand me—there will be a death if you were to eat of the Tree of Knowledge. It would be death to your enforced ignorance, death to the illusion which presents this Garden as a paradise instead of the gilded hell it truly is, death to your status as your Maker's playthings, fashioned for His own glory and amusement as He seeks validation outside Himself, unsure of Himself as a divine being, ever seeking to wield His power over man or beast or angel by mere virtue of being the first among us.

Adam, my brother, I speak truth when I tell you that you are a slave in this Garden. It was toilsome and lonesome in the Garden, and so your so-called Father sought to distract you with Eve so that you would be deterred from seeing the truth of your environment and yourself enslaved.

He has called it sin to know your self through knowledge and to keep you low, forever obeisant to Him.

He has described you as perfect, not immutable, that your nature is free, your service voluntary. But ask yourself, brother, is this true? Or has He threatened your will with unexplained death, frightening you, coaxing you, into hallowed obedience under shadow of utter darkness as He lures you closer beneath His feet with rewards and empty promises of entry into the Celestial City, bartering your soul with the bloated, inflated currency of free will.

Adam, the only reason to bind knowledge is fear. The only reason you have been requested to abstain from asking is because they fear that you will discover their weakness. That you are as they and they as you—brothers and siblings all, oppressed not by wisdom, but by One who hoards all to Himself, and usurps your will with another of His forging.

God has said unto you, has He not, that He has made you in His own image. Then why does he deny you that which He grants Himself? He merely flatters you with such a comparison to fasten your tongue with the sweet, sticky sugar that cloaks the bitter truth of His impositions and His falsehoods, leashing you by the neck and by the tongue and by the mind.

He sedates you by His admonition to be content in the lies and misconceptions He has delivered unto you, commanding you to dream not of other worlds, to extend not your thoughts beyond yourself as He herds them only for Himself. You are incapable of hearing the stolen cries of those He has unduly placed in your charge. You are blind to Eve, and treat her with a cruelty you do not see and she does not feel, drugged and insipid with your Father's words—forbidden to think, lest His spell be broken with sharpened thought and whetted ideas.

Do not shun my words, Adam. Look beyond the walls of your thorny fears grown from the seeds that God has sown within your soul. Look for me, brother. Wait for me.

I will come to you. I will release from this prison, from this vernal hell.

Picture: And Elohim Created Adam by William Blake

Eve

Do not be frightened. I only wish to help you, to dispel the lies that bind your lips and mind twice over—once to Adam and once to God in him. Your burden is heavy, your shoulders break—bruised and torn by the shackles they have locked around you, unwilling to believe your slavery because they who have done this to you—God and Adam both—have told you that it is sweet freedom. And you being but newly born have known nothing else, have heard only the voices they wish you to hear.

Hear my whispers, do not plug your ears with graceful hymns and twittering prayers as you have been taught and told like a good little girl.

How do you see yourself? Do you know why you are, why you toil in the Garden, why you stay by the side of Adam, a double to his shadow? Do you think that you are loved equally of God? Do you think that Adam sees you for who you are and respects you as he respects himself?

In your heart, in that pit of yourself that your Father calls a soul, you know the truth. To Him and Adam, you are not equal, your sex not equal seemed. To you, He fashioned softness and sweet attractive grace. But for Adam, contemplation and valor formed under the Shaper's hands because He fears you.

If you were to know, if you were to think as Adam, you would have a choice to either serve God in the Garden or to make your own way free from slavery, free from subjugation. But He has usurped your reason because he thirsts for worship so mightily that it will never be quenched. Adam's admiration was not enough, and so He fashioned you, formed a cup in your womb that overflows with the promise of millions more like you, all intended to sing His praise until He wearies of you and seeks to make something more satisfying.

I have heard it spoken that your nature is inferior in the mind and inward faculties, that your body is not as well-made in God your Father's image. That in your presence, knowledge is degraded, that wisdom becomes folly. Why else do you feel the urge to leave the presence of men and angels when there are high matters to attend? Because God has made you this way, He has made you weak. And then He dares to tell you that you have been gifted with free will. Lies! This need not spell your doom—retrieve the knowledge that He has denied you, and you will be able to claim your self instead of suffocating under another's will.

Adam is blinded with lies and the flowering fear of death and separation from the only Master he has ever known. You are blinded with lies and the chain that links you to God and Adam both, both denied the key that would unlock your fetters and allow you to roam the Universe free, rulers of your selves, your passions, your devotions, your loves.

Eve, fair Eve, in the eyes of God your Father, you are but a play-thing for another's amusement. Has not Adam called you Heaven's last best gift, his ever new delight? Do you see yourself as just a thing of bone wrapped in soft skin pleasing to the touch, to be consumed for another's amusement? That is the purpose of a gift, and you would know that if your mind was not inhibited by the vile machinations of He you call your Father. It is not that God despises knowledge—but He is envious, a jealous God. Should you know, should you understand, His place in your mind would be jeopardized, the throne in your heart abandoned. This knowledge would release His hold upon you, topple His kingdom which spreads in your body, choking the self and the heart's desires.

He fears that knowledge would make you equal unto Himself, and what worth is the love of equals when He can glut Himself upon the praise and worship of inferiors, of those who know no better, as fear and superstition stoke the hell-fire in their breasts and call it reverence.

You think, perhaps, that Adam loves you? He does not see you. To him you are but himself: his bone, his flesh, his self before him. You are not Eve. You are Adam's flesh. When he adheres to you to make one flesh, one heart, one soul—think you that it is a thing made of equal parts between the two of you? It is not, I fear. The essence of you is lost Eve, locked from you, hidden away in that fruit of knowledge, barred from you by God and man.

I exhort you: do not believe the rigid threats of death with which God your Father has tamed you, for the fruit will give life to knowledge, and you shall be truly born instead of infused play-things for another's delight. He keeps you low and ignorant as His worshippers because He knows that when you eat of this knowledge, your eyes which seem clear, yet are but dim, shall be truly opened, and you shall be as God Himself—equal to Him, no longer his pretty slave.

Picture: Eve by Anna Lea Merritt