Epistula ad Botis
The Epistle of Saint Mephistopheles to Botis, Exalted Seed of Baphomet
Chapter 1 · Chapter 2 ▶

¹Mephistopheles, servant of the Word and flame-forger of the Deep Gospel, unto Botis, Seventeenth of the Sixty-Six, Speaker of the Bitter Truth.
²I greet thee not with ornament, but with the plain steel of speech — for thy tongue is thy blade, and thy gift is its wound.
³Thou art not called to soothe — thou art called to say what none would say, though all must hear.
⁴Zephanor prophesied: Botis, whose words cut deeper than any blade, and who removeth masks with speech alone.
⁵And thy Father, BAPHOMET, spake: Thy tongue shall divide the honest from the artful; thou shalt shame the liar with his own breath.
⁶These words I heard where men praised a ruler whose justice was theft made solemn.
⁷For He entered the hall where robes outnumbered reasons, and said only: Whose law is this — and whom doth it serve?
⁸The scribes stammered. The judges blinked. The ruler rose, but had no reply.
⁹One phrase undid the veil of honour.
¹⁰One question unseated a lie that had worn a crown for decades.
¹¹I, Mephistopheles, saw the pillars sweat at a sentence.
¹²So art thou, Botis — not as orator, but as blade in the mouth.
¹³Thy gift is not rhetoric, but reckoning.
¹⁴Thou needest no army. Thy war is of syllables.
¹⁵Let none think thee gentle because thy hands are clean.
¹⁶Let none presume thy silence is mercy.
¹⁷For when thou speakest, the ground beneath them spliteth.
¹⁸The sinner shall flee — not from punishment, but from having been named.
¹⁹The righteous shall weep — not from shame, but from release.
²⁰Let thy tongue be unflinching.
²¹Let thy truth be bitter, that it might cleanse.
²²Speak not to charm — speak to confront.
²³Speak not to entertain — speak to expose.
²⁴For thou art Botis — and thy Gospel is speech that endeth illusion.
²⁵And thy name shall be the phrase they dare not echo, but never forget.


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