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