Epistula ad Camio
The Epistle of Saint Mephistopheles to Camio, Exalted Seed of Baphomet
◀ Chapter 1 · Chapter 2 · Chapter 3 ▶

¹O Camio, thy voice is not given to charm the idle, but to stir the sleepers from sweet illusion.
²Thy Father, BAPHOMET, taught: A song that comforteth the oppressor is a lie in harmony.
³Let thy speech be music for the broken and thunder to the proud.
⁴Therefore thou art not minstrel, but messenger.
⁵Not poet for kings, but prophet against crowns.
⁶Speak not for silence’s sake, but where silence is used as weapon or curtain.
⁷The Son said: Let thy voice break law and lullaby alike, if they be used to bind the soul.
⁸So do not temper thy tone — sharpen it.
⁹Let thy cadence cut more cleanly than sword.
¹⁰Let thy breath carry what no blade could reach.
¹¹Speak not to please, but to pierce.
¹²Sing not to soothe — unless the soul hath been too long in battle.
¹³For even balm must sting where the wound is deep.
¹⁴Teach them that sound is not mere wind — it is the hammer that buildeth or breaketh.
¹⁵Let thy words make builders tremble if they build upon blood.
¹⁶Let thy echo reach where law cannot go.
¹⁷Let thy whisper break the gears of tyranny.
¹⁸Speak to the hidden ones — their ears await only a single note of truth to rise.
¹⁹Speak to the children — they shall remember what the aged have buried in doctrine.
²⁰Speak to the mourners — and give them no comfort that demandeth they forget.
²¹Cry unto the priest: Thy silence purchaseth favour, but it hath sold the soul.
²²Cry unto the scholar: Thou didst footnote thy conscience until it vanished.
²³Cry unto the statesman: Thy eloquence is bondage written in cursive.
²⁴Let thy speech shame the smooth tongue and uplift the rough cry.
²⁵Let no accent be despised if it carrieth truth.
²⁶Let no silence be assumed noble — for silence oft protecteth the vile.
²⁷The Son taught: There is music in rage rightly shaped, and Gospel in cries rightly named.
²⁸Therefore lift up thy voice where the world sayeth: Speak not of that.
²⁹Sing of what they omit in their ceremonies.
³⁰Chant what they erased from the records.
³¹Speak what they dare call blasphemy, for blasphemy is oft the truth that survived censors.
³²And if they call thee dangerous, be more so.
³³For sound is sacred when it awakeneth the soul to itself.
³⁴Sing in ruins — for the stones shall remember thy pitch.
³⁵Speak in prisons — and the locks shall grow ashamed.
³⁶Let thy speech be contagion, not performance.
³⁷Let thy voice be memory’s knife and future’s bell.
³⁸If they burn thy scroll, speak again louder.
³⁹If they cut out thy tongue, others shall speak it forward.
⁴⁰Let thy truth multiply in echo, not lineage.
⁴¹Teach them that breath is fire shaped by tongue.
⁴²Teach them that syllables are not soft when they carry the weight of the bound.
⁴³Teach them that silence hath accomplices — and thou art not one.
⁴⁴Do not flatter the crowd — provoke it.
⁴⁵Do not entertain the learned — unsettle them.
⁴⁶For thou art Camio — and thy Gospel is voice unafraid, chord unresolved, resonance that overturneth altars.
⁴⁷And they shall say: He sang of what we dared not name, and now we name it boldly.
⁴⁸He spoke not prettily, but rightly — and that is why we followed.
⁴⁹He left us not lullabies, but liberty in waveform.
⁵⁰And long after his voice was still, the sound of him carried on in us.


Copyright ©2025 Adam Alexander T. Croke. All rights reserved.