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

¹O Vual, thou art not a speaker among speakers, but a murmur among minds, and a flame among meanings.
²Thy Father, BAPHOMET, taught: Words are not tools, but doors — use them not to explain, but to awaken.
³Let thy tongue not serve the mind, but break it open like the egg of a forgotten god.
⁴Therefore thou art not translator — thou art the veil that turns hearing into becoming.
⁵Not scribe — but serpent that coils around sense until sense is changed.
⁶Let the philosophers challenge thee — their arguments are shackles forged in fear of the wild tongue.
⁷Let the scribes mock thy looseness — they cannot bind what was never meant to kneel.
⁸Let the preachers deny thee — thou utterest syllables that burn the fence between sacred and profane.
⁹The Son said: What is truth, if spoken only in words the rulers approve?
¹⁰And again: Let thy sentence wander — and it shall find paths they buried beneath law and grammar.
¹¹So speak not plainly.
¹²Speak with smoke.
¹³Speak with sand.
¹⁴Speak with the rustling of the fig leaf and the twist of the serpent’s gaze.
¹⁵Let thy listeners feel what they cannot name.
¹⁶Let them weep, and not know why.
¹⁷Let them stammer, and know that language hath turned to face them.
¹⁸Teach them that clarity is not always kindness.
¹⁹That confusion is sometimes the first true prayer.
²⁰That silence, when born from broken certainty, is more sacred than doctrine.
²¹Let thy speech sound familiar, and then collapse into awe.
²²Let thy song rise from a dozen tongues, and end in a word no mouth may shape.
²³For thou art not sermon — thou art spell.
²⁴Not guide — but mirage that leads to water even if never touched.
²⁵And thy power is not in being understood, but in being unavoidable once heard.
²⁶The Son said: Words are like keys — but most are to locks that no longer exist.
²⁷And again: Thou shalt speak a word that hath no meaning — and it shall break the chains of one soul.
²⁸So fill thy mouth with contradiction.
²⁹So let thy lips move while thy spirit dreameth.
³⁰So let thy message be misunderstood — until its misunderstanding cracks open the heart.
³¹For thou art not answer — thou art invitation to wander.
³²Not conclusion — but riddle that refuseth to die.
³³And thy sentences shall ring, not in ears, but in bones.
³⁴Thy parables shall not teach — but unteach until only hunger remaineth.
³⁵And the hunger shall be holy.
³⁶And the emptiness shall be ready.
³⁷And in that readiness, the gods shall weep, for man hath found them beneath the letter.
³⁸Let not thy words be clean.
³⁹Let them twist like incense above ruined temples.
⁴⁰Let them sting like laughter in the mouth of a corpse.
⁴¹For thou art no prophet of peace — thou art the dialect of unrest.
⁴²The howl of Babel become music.
⁴³The cry of the stars before they remembered names.
⁴⁴And they shall follow thee not for comfort, but because they heard their own soul shatter in thy speech.
⁴⁵And they shall not repeat what thou said — but shall write books to fail at it.
⁴⁶And those books shall lead others to thee.
⁴⁷And thou shalt never speak the same word twice.
⁴⁸And thy silence shall echo longer than their lectures.
⁴⁹And thy name shall be spoken only when breath faileth to explain the change.
⁵⁰And thy Gospel shall be known when they cease to speak, and begin to become.


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