Bookshelves

I'm showing you these in case I don't have time to find, or forge, any more. I haven't finished writing the book yet, so forgive me if I misremember or omit any details of the story as I know it, I say, as I shuffle through my bedroom, picking up and moving around a variety of books I have scattered everywhere.
      You decided to enter, so while I had the chance I wanted to show at least someone my life's work. To have anyone to tolerate my fantasies is a luxury I didn't believe myself worthy to be afforded.
      I'm sorry if it's a little boring, or self indulgent, feel free to have a seat, I say, as you sit down on the mattress I have on the floor. No bedframe.
      Let's see, best if we start at the beginning, I say as I grab the first book from one of my shelves, a small and scruffy paperback that was prominently displayed. It's the start of everything really, The Canticle of Satan by Dr. Jonathan Hubbur. First published by Arkham House in 1959. I have no idea how he managed to convince them to carry it, but he must not have been very convincing as it was only ever released in a limited run of a couple hundred copies. It's a rather short work subdivided into nine sections, each one corresponding to one of the Dark Gods as he called them, clusters of powers and associations that he'd apparently see in his daily life while doing something as mundane as taking a walk through town. It mostly consists of poetry and short stories and lacks the theoretical rigour of his later work. I think the best way to describe it would be as the first attempt at a work of Satanic Qabbala, it's absolutely infested with an obsessive gematria right down to its very conception. An unforgiving way to describe it would be the Sefer Yetzirah for edgelords.
      On the other end of the spectrum you have a work from one of his old colleagues, I say, shuffling over to grab another slim volume, much more clinical and academic. Here we have The Apocryphon of Belial, a literary forgery from Dr. Nicholas Bodin. He made his reputation by compositing a variety of Sufi mystics into one purported author, Sayyid Tal al-Rasha, described as an incredibly heterodox Islamic mystic from Egypt who lived and wrote during the 9th century, and who died by being burned to death in the town square. The work itself is presented as a translation of his Apocalyptic poetry that he received from his dialogues with various demons, all from Talmudic demonology rather than any of Islamic or pre-Arabic origin. By the way, did you ever read my copy of Cyclonopedia? Nevermind. Dr. Bodin apparently went to very great lengths to ensure the material veracity of his forgeries, tracking down a variety of papyri and inks that would've fooled any radiocarbon dating. I'm sure his training as a philologist helped. It all ended the same, his career was ruined.
      To round out the triptych, we have another short work from a colleague of both Hubbur and Bodin, I continue, pulling out a small white book, as your ass starts to hurt a little. You shuffle your legs. Her name was Dr. Anastasia Roseberry and she wrote The Conventicles of the Nine Angels as an introduction to her own system of Christian mysticism. It appears to be an interesting blend of Merkavah and Hekhalot practices with the scrying and invocation techniques of John Dee, but unlike him she records her communication with angels in remarkably clear language. In the early 70's she could only get it published with a press known for New Age literature. Have you ever seen the anime Evangelion? Some of the angels she invoked ended up having their names used in it. A few of the writings in it are quite erotic and others depict the angels as bored and uncaring, almost monstrous.
      Returning back to Dr. Hubbur, we have what many consider to be his masterpiece, The Splendor of the Final Harvest in three volumes. It was the last thing he finished before a visit to China during the Cultural Revolution that had a dramatic influence on his political thinking, if one even existed yet. I haven't managed to finish reading it all since it's about 900 pages in total, but it's a far reaching extension of his earlier work but with both a systematic and apocalyptic ambition. In the preface he breaks with any attempt to categorize his own occult system as a variety of Satanism and establishes his intent to focus the first volume exclusively on the Dark Gods that he presented in his first book. But, while distancing his own polytheistic divinities from Satanism, he proceeds with another ambitious project. In the second volume, he sets out to create the heresy of all heresies, where he attempts to establish Satanism as not only a denomination of the Abrahamic religions, but their ultimate completion, with Judas as the final prophet. He reaches the eschatological conclusions of his theology in the third volume, and prophesizes that when Gaubni awakens and aligns the wills of the Nine Dark Gods with that of the Accursed Son, the Final Harvest will begin, collapsing Time and Imagination and bringing about the Aeon of All Aeons, I say as I stop for breath. I'll tell you more about it later.