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THE
VOICE OF THE DEVIL
All
Bibles or sacred codes, have been the causes of
the following Errors.
1.
That Man has two real existing principles Viz: a
Body & a Soul.
2. That Energy, call'd Evil, is alone from the
Body, & that Reason, call'd Good, is alone
from the Soul.
3. That God will torment Man in Eternity for
following his Energies.
But the following Contraries to these are True.
1. Man has no Body distinct from his Soul; for
that call'd Body is a portion of Soul discern'd by
the five Senses, the chief inlets of Soul in this
age.
2. Energy is the only life and is from the Body
and Reason is the bound or outward circumference
of Energy.
3. Energy is Eternal Delight.
Those
who restrain desire, do so because theirs is weak
enough to be restrained; and the restrainer of
reason usurps its place & governs the
unwilling.
And being restrain'd it by degrees becomes passive
till it is only the shadow of desire.
The history of this written in Paradise Lost,
& the Governor of Reason is call'd Messiah.
And the original Archangel or possessor of the
command of the heavenly host, is call'd the Devil
or Satan and his children are call'd Sin &
Death.
But in the Book of Job Miltons Messiah is call'd
Satan.
For this history has been adopted by both parties.
It indeed appear'd to Reason as if Desire was cast
out, but the Devils account is that the Messiah
fell, & formed a heaven of what he stole from
the Abyss.
This is shewn in the Gospel, where he prays to the
Father to send the comforter or Desire that Reason
may have Ideas to build on, the Jehovah of the
Bible being no other than he who dwells in flaming
fire.
Know that after Christs death, he became Jehovah.
But
in Milton' the Father is Destiny, the Son, a Raio
of the five senses, & the Holy-ghost, Vacuum!
Note. The reason Milton wrote in fetters when he
wrote of Angels & God, and at liberty when of
Devils & Hell, is because he was a true Poet
and of the Devils party without knowing it.
A
MEMORABLE FANCY
As
I was walking among the fires of hell, delighted
with the enjoyments of Genius; which to Angels
look like torment and insanity, I collected some
of their Proverbs; thinking that as the sayings
used in a nation, mark its character, so the
Proverbs of Hell, shew the nature in Infernal
wisdom better than any description of buildings or
garments,
When I came home: on the abyss of the five senses,
where a flat sided steep frowns over the present
world, I saw a mighty Devil folded in black
clouds, hovering on the sides of the rock, with
corroding fires he wrote the following sentence
now percieved by the minds of men, & read by
them on earth.
How
do you know but ev'ry Bird that cuts the airy way,
Is an immense world of delight, clos'd by your
senses five?
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PROVERBS OF HELL
In
seed time learn, in harvest teach, in winter
enjoy.
Drive your cart and your plow over the bones of
the dead.
The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.
Prudence is a rich ugly old maid courted by
Incapacity.
He who desires but acts not, breeds pestilence.
The cut worm forgives the plow.
Dip him in the river who loves water.
A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man
sees.
He whose face gives no light, shall never become a
star.
Eternity is in love with the productions of time.
The busy bee has no time for sorrow.
The hours of folly are measur'd by the clock, but
of wisdom: no clock can measure.
All wholsom food is caught without a net or a
trap.
Bring out number weight & measure in a year of
dearth.
No bird soars too high, if he soars with his own
wings.
A dead body, revenges not injuries.
The most sublime act is to set another before you.
If the fool would persist in his folly he would
become wise.
Folly is the cloke of knavery.
Shame is Prides cloke.
PROVERBS
OF HELL
Prisons
are built with stones of Law, Brothels with bricks
of Religion.
The pride of the peacock is the glory of God.
The lust of the goat is the bounty of God.
The wrath of the lion is the wisdom of God.
The nakedness of woman is the work of God.
Excess of sorrow laughs. Excess of joy weeps.
The roaring of lions, the howling of wolves, the
raging of the stormy sea, and the destructive
sword, are portions of eternity too great for the
eye of man.
The fox condemns the trap, not himself.
Joys impregnate. Sorrows bring forth.
Let man wear the fell of the lion, woman the
fleece of the sheep.
The bird a nest, the spider a web, man friendship.
The selfish smiling fool, & the sullen
frowning fool, shall be both thought wise, that
they may be a rod.
What is now proved was once, only imagin'd.
The rat, the mouse, the fox, the rabbit: watch the
roots; the lion, the tyger, the horse, the
elephant, watch the fruits.
The cistern contains; the fountain overflows.
One thought, fills immensity.
Always be ready to speak your mind, and a base man
will avoid you.
Every thing possible to be believ'd is an image of
truth.
The eagle never lost so much time, as when he
submitted to learn of the crow.
PROVERBS
OF HELL
The
fox provides for himself, but God provides for the
lion.
Think in the morning. Act in the noon. Eat in the
evening. Sleep in the night.
He who has suffer'd you to impose on him knows
you.
As the plow follows words, so God rewards prayers.
The tygers of wrath are wiser than the horses of
instruction.
Expect poison from the standing water.
You never know what is enough unless you know what
is more than enough.
Listen to the fools reproach! it is a kingly
title!
The eyes of fire, the nostrils of air, the mouth
of water, the beard of earth.
The weak in courage is strong in cunning.
The apple tree never asks the beech how he shall
grow, nor the lion, the horse, how he shall take
his prey.
The thankful reciever bears a plentiful harvest.
If others had not been foolish, we should be so.
The soul of sweet delight, can never be defil'd.
When thou seest an Eagle, thou seest a portion of
Genius, lift up thy head!
As the catterpiller chooses the fairest leaves to
lay her eggs on, so the priest lays his curse on
the fairest joys.
To create a little flower is the labour of ages.
Damn, braces: Bless relaxes.
The best wine is the oldest, the best water the
newest.
Prayers plow not! Praises reap not!
Joys laugh not! Sorrows weep not!
PROVERBS
OF HELL
The
head Sublime, the heart Pathos, the genitals
Beauty, the hands & feet Proportion.
As the air to a bird of the sea to a fish, so is
contempt to the contemptible.
The crow wish'd every thing was black, the owl,
that every thing was white.
Exuberance is Beauty.
If the lion was advised by the fox, he would be
cunning.
Improvement makes strait roads, but the crooked
roads without Improvement, are roads of Genius.
Sooner murder an infant in its cradle than nurse
unacted desires.
Where man is not nature is barren.
Truth can never be told so as to be understood,
and not be believ'd.
Enough!
or Too much!
The
ancient Poets animated all sensible objects with
Gods or Geniuses, calling them by the names and
adorning them with the properties of woods,
rivers, mountains, lakes, cities, nations, and
whatever their enlarged & numerous senses
could percieve.
And particularly they studied the genius of each
city & country, placing it under its mental
deity.
Till a system was formed, which some took
advantage of & enslav'd the vulgar by
attempting to realize or abstract the mental
deities from their objects; thus began Priesthood.
Choosing
forms of worship from poetic tales.
And a length they pronounc'd that the Gods had
order'd such things.
Thus men forgot that All deities reside in the
human breast.
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A
MEMORABLE FANCY
The
Prophets Isaiah and Ezekiel dined with me, and I
asked them how they dared so roundly to assert,
that God spoke to them; and whether they did not
think at the time, that they would be
misunderstood, & so be the cause of
imposition.
Isaiah answer'd, I saw no God, nor heard any, in a
finite organical perception; but my senses
discover'd the infinite in every thing, and as I
was then perswaded, & remain confirm'd; that
the voice of honest indignation is the voice of
God, I cared not for consequences but wrote.
Then I asked: does a firm perswasion that a thing
is so, make it so?
He replied, All poets that it does, & in ages
of imagination this firm perswasion removed
mountains; but many are not capable of a firm
perswasion of any thing.
Then Ezekiel said, The philosophy of the east
taught the first principles of human perception:
some nations held one principle for the origin
& some another; we of Israel taught that the
Poetic Genius (as you now call it) was the first
principle and all other others merely derivative,
which was the cause of our despising the priests
& Philosophers of other countries, and
prophecying that all Gods would at last be proved
to originate in ours & to be the tributaries
of the Poetic Genius; it was this that our great
poet King David desired so fervently & invokes
so patheticly, saying by this he conquers enemies
& governs kingdoms; and we so loved our God,
that we cursed in his name all deities of
surrounding nations, and asserted that they had
rebelled; from these opinions the vulgar came to
think that all nations would at last be subject to
the jews.
This said he, like all firm perswasions, is come
to pass, for all nations believe the jews code and
worship the jews god, and what greater subjection
can be?
I heard this with some wonder, & must confess
my own conviction. After dinner I ask'd Isaiah to
favour the world with his lost works, he said none
of equal value was lost. Ezekiel said the same of
his.
I also asked Isaiah what made him go naked and
barefoot three years? he answer'd, the same that
made our friend Diogenes the Grecian.
I then asked Ezekiel, why he eat dung, & lay
so long on his right & left side? he answer'd,
the desire of raising other men into a perception
of the infinite; this the North American tribes
practise, & is he honest who resists his
genius or conscience only for the sake of present
ease or gratification?
The
ancient tradition that the world will be consumed
in fire at the end of six thousand years is true,
as I have heard from Hell.
For the cherub with his flaming sword is hereby
commanded to leave his guard at tree of life, and
when he does, the whole creation will be consumed,
and appear infinite, and holy whereas it now
appears finite & corrupt.
This will come to pass by an improvement of
sensual enjoyment.
But first the notion that man has a body distinct
from his soul, is to be expunged: this I shall do,
by printing in the infernal method, by corrosives,
which in Hell are salutary and medicinal, melting
apparent surfaces away, and displaying the
infinite which was hid.
If the doors of perception were cleansed every
thing would appear to man as it is, infinite.
For man has closed himself up, till he sees all
things thro' narrow chinks of his cavern.
A
MEMORABLE FANCY
I
was in a Printing house in Hell & saw the
method in which knowledge is transmitted from
generation to generation.
In the first chamber was a Dragon-Man, clearing
away the rubbish from a caves moth; within, a
number of Dragons were hollowing the cave.
In the second chamber was a Viper folding round
the rock & the cave, and others adorning it
with gold, silver and precious stones.
In the third chamber was an Eagle with wings and
feathers of air; he caused the inside of the cave
to be infinite; around were numbers of Eagle like
men, who built palaces in the immense cliffs.
In the fourth chamber were Lions of flaming fire
raging around & melting the metals into living
fluids.
In the fifth chamber were Unnam'd forms, which
cast the metals into the expanse.
There they were reciev'd by Men who occupied the
sixth chamber, and took the forms of books &
were arranged in libraries.
The
Giants who formed this world into its sensual
existence and now seem to live in it in chains,
are in truth, the causes of its life & the
sources of all activity; but the chains are, the
cunning of weak and tame minds, which have power
to resist energy, according to the proverb, the
weak in courage is strong in cunning.
Thus one portion of being, is the Prolific, the
other, the Devouring: to the devourer it seems as
if the producer was in his chains, but it is not
so; he only takes portions of existence and
fancies that the whole.
But the Prolific would cease to be Prolific unless
the Devourer as a sea recieved the excess of his
delights.
Some will say, Is not God alone the Prolific? I
answer, God only Acts & Is, in existing beings
or Men.
These two classes of men are always upon earth,
& they should be enemies; whoever tries to
reconcile them seeks to destroy existence.
Religion is an endeavour to reconcile the two.
Note. Jesus Christ did not wish to unit but to
seperate them, as in the Parable of sheep and
goats! & he says I came not to send Peace but
a Sword.
Messiah or Satan or Tempter was formerly thought
to be one of the Antediluvians who are our
Energies.
A
MEMORABLE FANCY
An
Angel came to me and said O pitiable foolish young
man! O horrible! O dreadful state! consider the
hot burning dungeon thou art preparing for thyself
to all eternity, to which thou art going in such
career.
I said, perhaps you will be willing to shew me my
eternal lot & we will contemplate together
upon it and see whether your lot or mine is most
desirable.
So he took me thro' a stable & thro' a church
& down into the church vault at the end of
which was a mill: thro' the mill we went, and came
to a cave, down the winding cavern we groped our
tedious way till a void boundless as a nether sky
appear'd beneath us, & we held by the roots of
trees and hung over this immensity, but I said, if
you please we will commit ourselves to this void,
and see whether providence is here also, if you
will not, I will? but he answer'd, do not presume
O young-man but as we here remain behold thy lot
which will soon appear when the darkness passes
away.
So I remain'd with him sitting in the twisted root
of an oak; he was suspended in a fungus, which
hung with the head downward into the deep.
By degrees we beheld the infinite Abyss, fiery as
the smoke of a burning city; beneath us at an
immense distance was the sun, black but shining;
round it were fiery tracks on which revolv'd vast
spiders, crawling after their prey; which flew or
rather swum in the infinite deep, in the most
terrific shapes of animals sprung from corruption,
& the air was full of them, & seem'd
composed of them; these are Devils, and arc called
Powers of the air. I now asked my companion which
was my eternal lot? he said, between the black
& white spiders.
But now, from between the black & white
spiders, a cloud and fire burst and rolled thro'
the deep, blackning all beneath, so that the
nether deep grew black as a sea & rolled with
a terrible noise; beneath us was nothing now to be
seen but a black tempest, till looking east
between the clouds & the waves, we saw a
cataract of blood mixed with fire, and not many
stones throw from us appear'd and sunk again the
scaly fold of a monstrous serpent; at last to the
east, distant about three degrees appear'd a fiery
crest above the waves; slowly it reared like a
ridge of golden rocks till we discover'd two
globes of crimson fire, from which the sea fled
away in clouds of smoke, and now we saw, it was
the head of Leviathan; his forehead was divided
into streaks of green & purple like those on a
tygers forehead: soon we saw his mouth & red
gills hang just above the raging foam tinging the
black deep with beams of blood, advancing toward
us with all the fury of a spiritual existence.
My friend the Angel climb'd up from his station
into the mill; I remain'd alone, & then this
appearance was no more, but I found myself sitting
on a pleasant bank beside a river by moonlight
hearing a harper who sung to the harp, & his
theme was, The man who never alters his opinion is
like standing water, & breeds reptiles of the
mind.
But I arose, and sought for the mill & there I
found my Angel, who surprised asked me how I
escaped?
I answer'd, All that we saw was owing to your
metaphysics; for when you ran away, I found myself
on a bank by moonlight hearing a harper. But now
we have seen my eternal lot, shall I shew you
yours? he laugh'd at my proposal; but I by force
suddenly caught him in my arms, & flew
westerly thro' the night, till we were elevated
above the earths shadow; then I flung myself with
him directly into the body of the sun; here I
clothed myself in white, & taking in my hand
Swedenborgs volumes, sunk from the glorious clime,
and passed all the planets till we came to saturn;
here I staid to rest, & then leap'd into the
void, between saturn & the fixed stars.
Here, said I! is your lot, in this space, if space
it may be call'd. Soon we saw the stable and the
church, & I took him to the altar and open'd
the Bible, and lo! it was a deep pit, into which I
descended driving the Angel before me; soon we saw
seven houses of brick; one we enter'd; in it were
a number of monkeys, baboons, & all of that
species, chain'd by the middle, grinning and
snatching at one another, but witheld by the
shortness of their chains; however I saw that they
sometimes grew numerous, and then the weak were
caught by the strong, and with a grinning aspect,
first coupled with & then devour'd, by
plucking off first one limb and then another till
the body was left a helpless trunk; this after
grinning & kissing it with seeming fondness
they devour'd too; and here & there I saw one
savourily picking the flesh off of his own tail;
as the stench terribly annoy'd us both we went
into the mill, & I in my hand brought the
skeleton of a body, which in the mill was
Aristotles Analytics.
So the Angel said: thy phantasy has imposed upon
me & thou oughtest to be ashamed.
I answer'd: we impose on one another, & it is
but lost time to converse with you whose works are
only Analytics.
Opposition
is true Friendship.
I
have always found that Angels have the vanity to
speak of themselves as the only wise; this they do
with a confident insolence sprouting from
systematic reasoning:
Thus Swedenborg boasts that what he writes is new;
tho' it is only the Contents or Index of already
publish'd books.
A man carried a monkey about for a shew, &
because he was a little wiser than the monkey,
grew vain, and conciev'd himself as much wiser
than seven men. It is so with Swedenborg; he shews
the folly of churches & exposes hypocrites,
till he imagines that all are religious, &
himself the single one on earth that ever broke a
net.
Now hear a plain fact: Swedenborg has not written
one new truth:
Now hear another: he has written all the old
falshoods.
And now hear the reason. He conversed with Angels
who are all religious, & conversed not with
Devils who all hate religion, for he was incapable
thro' his conceited notions.
Thus Swedenborgs writings are a recapitulation of
all superficial, opinions, and an analysis of the
more sublime, but no further.
Have now another plain fact: Any man of mechanical
talents may from the writings of Paracelsus or
Jacob Behmen, produce ten thousand volumes of
equal value with Swedenborgs, and from those of
Dante or Shakespear, an infinite number.
But when he has done this, let him not say that he
knows better than his master, for he only holds a
candle in sunshine.
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 A
MEMORABLE FANCY
Once
I saw a Devil in a flame of fire, who arose before
an Angel that sat on a cloud, and the Devil
utter'd these words.
The worship of God is, Honouring his gifts in
other men each according to his genius, and loving
the greatest men best; those who envy or
calumniate great men hate God, for there is no
other God.
The Angel hearing this became almost blue, but
mastering himself he grew yellow, & at last
white pink & smiling, and then replied,
Thou Idolater, is not God One? & is not he
visible in Jesus Christ? and has not Jesus Christ
given his sanction to the law often commandments,
and are not all other men fools, sinners, &
nothings?
The Devil answer'd: bray a fool in a morter with
wheat, yet shall not his folly be beaten out of
him; if Jesus Christ is the greatest man, you
ought to love him in the greatest degree; now hear
how he has given his sanction to the law of ten
commandments: did he not mock at the sabbath, and
so mock the sabbaths God? murder those who were
murder'd because of him? turn away the law from
the woman taken in adultery? steal the labor of
others to support him? bear false witness when he
omitted making a defence before Pilate? covet when
he pray'd for his disciples, and when he bid them
shake off the dust of their feet against such as
refused to lodge them? I tell you, no virtue can
exist without breaking these ten commandments;
Jesus was all virtue, and acted from impulse, not
from rules.
When he had so spoken: I beheld the Angel who
stretched out his arms embracing the flame of
fire, & he was consumed and arose as Elijah.
Note: This Angel, who is now
become a Devil, is my particular friend; we often
read the Bible together in its infernal or
diabolical sense which the world shall have if
they behave well.
I have also: The Bible of Hell: which the world
shall have whether they will or no.
One
Law for the Lion & Ox is Oppression.
A SONG OF LIBERTY
1.
The Eternal Female groan'd! it was heard over all
the Earth:
2. Albions coast is sick silent; the American
meadows faint!
3. Shadows of Prophecy shiver along by the lakes
and the rivers and mutter across the ocean. France
rend down thy dungeon;
4. Golden Spain burst the barriers of old Rome;
5. Cast thy keys O Rome into the deep down
falling, even to eternity down falling,
6. And weep.
7. In her trembling hands she took the new born
terror howling;
8. On those infinite mountains of light, now
barr'd out by the atlantic sea, the new born fire
stood before the starry king!
9. Flag'd with grey brow'd snows and thunderous
visages the jealous wings wav'd over the deep.
10. The speary hand burned aloft, unbuckled was
the shield, forth went the hand of jealousy among
the flaming hair, and hurl'd the new born wonder
thro' the starry night.
11. The fire, the fire, is falling!
12. Look up! look up! O citizen of London, enlarge
thy countenance; O Jew, leave counting gold!
return to thy oil and wine; O African! black
African! (go, winged thought, widen his forehead.)
13. The fiery limbs, the flaming hair, shot like
the sinking sun into the western sea.
14 Wak'd from his eternal sleep, the hoary element
roaring fled away;
I5. Down rush'd beating his wings in vain the
jealous king; his grey brow'd councellors,
thunderous warriors, curl'd veterans, among helms,
and shields, and chariots, horses, elephants:
banners, castles, slings, and rocks,
I6. Falling, rushing, ruining! buried in the
ruins, on Urthona's dens;
17. All night beneath the ruins, then their sullen
flames faded emerge round the gloomy King.
18. With thunder and fire: leading his starry
hosts thro' the waste wilderness, he promulgates
his ten commands, glancing: his beamy eyelids over
the deep in dark dismay,
19. Where the son of fire in his eastern cloud,
while the morning plumes her Golden breast,
20. Spurning the clouds written with curses,
stamps the stony law to dust, loosing: the eternal
horses from the dens of night, crying. Empire is
no more! and now the lion & wolf shall cease.
Chorus
Let
the Priests of the Raven of dawn, no longer in
deadly black, with hoarse note curse the sons of
joy. Nor his accepted brethren, whom tyrant, he
calls free: lay the bound or build the roof. Nor
pale religious letchery call that virginity, that
wishes but acts not! For every thing that lives is
Holy.
The
End
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THE
ARGUMENT