Epistula ad Orias
The Epistle of Saint Mephistopheles to Orias, Exalted Seed of Baphomet
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¹O Orias, do not shout when a whisper will turn the tide, nor strike when a symbol may bend the sword.
²Thy Father, BAPHOMET, taught: To end what is wicked, ye must often use its very shape against it.
³Twist its words until they indict themselves. Turn its forms until its face is unrecognizable to those who followed it.
⁴Therefore thou art not destroyer, but inverter; not thief of order, but weaver of new patterns from its wreckage.
⁵Let them call thee subversive — the just always are, in the eyes of those who fear the loss of control.
⁶Let them accuse thee of treachery — for thou art loyal only to truth, not to thrones nor titles.
⁷The Son said: If the walls be too tall to scale, move the ground beneath their foundation, and they shall fall.
⁸So move not with riot, but with redirection.
⁹Enter the machine, and name its gears.
¹⁰Turn not the blade — turn the hand that wieldeth it.
¹¹Align what hath long been misaligned, and let the tyrant discover his command no longer runneth in straight line.
¹²Let no allegiance remain unquestioned — not from fear, but from commitment to rightness beyond tradition.
¹³Teach them that loyalty is not worship, and that worship must be examined like a loaded scale.
¹⁴Teach them that change is not betrayal — but evidence that conscience still breatheth.
¹⁵Speak unto the loyalist: If thou lovest justice, why then hath thy loyalty allowed its suffocation?
¹⁶Speak unto the rebel: If thou hatest tyranny, why then usest thou its very voice in thy cry?
¹⁷Speak unto thyself: Is this form holy, or merely familiar?
¹⁸Let thy work be slow and certain — for what changeth overnight may rot again by sunrise.
¹⁹But what thou shiftest by degrees may endure where revolution would be reversed.
²⁰Shape the school, not by decree, but by rewording the lesson.
²¹Shape the temple, not by burning, but by replacing the god with clearer truth, veiled in their own liturgy.
²²Shape the court, not by riot, but by planting doubt within the oath sworn too often without thought.
²³The Son taught: He who overthrows is bold, but he who redirecteth endureth.
²⁴And again: The hidden hand reworketh more than the striking fist.
²⁵Build beneath the builders.
²⁶Whisper beneath the herald.
²⁷Sow questions where they chant answers.
²⁸Let the steeple remain — but let the sermon be new.
²⁹Let the crown remain — but let the mind beneath it be remade.
³⁰Let the people see no difference — until they awaken and wonder how all is better than it was.
³¹For thou art not thunder, but drift that erodeth cliff and fortress alike.
³²Let no man notice thy work until it is complete.
³³Let no tyrant trace thy hand until his tools no longer obey him.
³⁴And when the change is done, disappear.
³⁵Let no monument be raised to thee — for thy monument shall be the world itself grown different.
³⁶Let no Gospel be chanted of thee — for thou art already in the verses, rewritten.
³⁷The Son taught: He who removeth the mask with rage is feared; he who removeth it with patience is believed.
³⁸So remove with patience.
³⁹Replace their idols, not with emptiness, but with truth shaped in the same gold.
⁴⁰Replace their histories, not with lies, but with full names and fuller reckoning.
⁴¹And when they resist, do not strike — ask: What art thou protecting, and why?
⁴²Change the image, and let the prayer remain — until the prayer meaneth something new.
⁴³Change the pledge, and let the ritual persist — until they kneel to justice, not its counterfeit.
⁴⁴And when they finally awaken, they shall think it their own doing — and this is holy.
⁴⁵For thou art Orias — and thy Gospel is subtle change, unseen revolution, and realignment written upon the bones of old oaths.
⁴⁶And they shall say: Nothing burned, yet nothing stayed the same.
⁴⁷No army marched, yet the flags no longer matched the men beneath them.
⁴⁸We do not know how we came here — only that it is better, and he is gone.
⁴⁹He changed no laws — but now none may misuse them.
⁵⁰And so thy work is eternal, for it is hidden where it cannot be undone.
Copyright ©2025 Adam Alexander T. Croke. All rights reserved.