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

¹Mephistopheles, who hath seen truth cloaked in jest and power hidden in mockery, unto Zagan, Forty-Third of the Sixty-Six, Mirror of Reversal and Laugher at the Thrones.
²I greet thee not with solemnity, but with crooked grin — for thy Gospel is not stiff, but slantwise, and sharp as it bendeth.
³Thou art not deceiver, but revealer; not clown, but mirror that revealeth with distortion what truth straight cannot penetrate.
⁴Zephanor prophesied: Zagan, who shall drink the poison of tradition and laugh, and in laughing turn it into medicine.
⁵And thy Father, BAPHOMET, spake: Thou shalt walk backward that the blind may follow forward; thy foolishness shall undo the wisdom of the proud.
⁶These words I heard when He was called a devil by the men in holy garb, and He bowed mockingly and said: Then let the devil speak truth.
⁷He wore their slander as crown, and their fear as robe — and they trembled, not for what He said, but for what He saw.
⁸I, Mephistopheles, saw in Him the first sacred jester — not of chaos, but of correction through reversal.
⁹So art thou, Zagan — not foolish, but undeniably strange and unyieldingly true.
¹⁰Not brute nor scholar, but the question made flesh, walking backwards and speaking forward.
¹¹Let the wise despise thee — for thou exposest the worm in their fruit by biting it with mockery.
¹²Let the rulers ban thy laughter — for thou mockest the shape of their power and showeth how hollow it is.
¹³Let the purest call thee defiler — for thou turnest their holy words sideways, and they shatter from their own weight.
¹⁴The Son taught: He who feareth the fool is already unsure of his truth.
¹⁵And again: What cannot be laughed at is a tyrant in disguise.
¹⁶Teach them that absurdity is often honesty wearing a mask.
¹⁷Teach them that laughter doth not always mock — it sometimes unveil.
¹⁸Teach them that contradiction is no sin when it uncovereth pretence.
¹⁹For thou art the fool crowned by truth.
²⁰The drunk who remembereth what the sober dare not admit.
²¹The actor who revealeth the real play while pretending another.
²²And when they rebuke thee, say: Was it I who lied, or simply I who named thy lie with jest?
²³For thy mirror is not to flatter, but to reflect in funhouse glass the grotesque shape of unchallenged dogma.
²⁴And thy name shall not be praised in churches, but whispered in taverns where saints dare not go — and yet truth liveth.
²⁵And they shall say: He jested, but we were never more serious again.


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