No Further Feats: The Elohimless Eon

[Pt. 1 of ?]

Now it was a grand total of twenty years that Samson spent as elohim. And after he left the planet, there were no more elohims among the wayfarers; for the Volcano’s contract with Enoch Metatron stipulated that a dozen such entities should be delivered. Thankfully, Metatron was magnanimous, as befits an elohimherd, and he interpreted the term “dozen” generously, even profligately. So that made possible all those feats that transpired over the preceding pages.

What the Volcano concluded from this experiment is that sometimes the addition of an elohim would cause events to feel more interesting; but mostly it was a wash.

Yet it was not a shortage of funds that precipitated their disappearance: The reason that the earth at last went without elohims is simply that the Volcano whimmed it that way. So all the elohims retired, and the Volcano went blank. “I will be wherever I will be, and absent myself otherwise.” Which is to say: “I AMN’T THAT I AMN’T.”

Let’s continue the saga.

Now there was a man who lived in Paris on the Dartmouthian Mountains. His name was Micah. And he said to his mother, “Hey, mom, remember when you hung that voodoo curse on the air, because you noticed that thirty golden caesar coins were missing from your purse? Well I have good news: it was I who stole those coins; and I gave them to the ladies of Pandemonium. It was well worth it. But just last night my friend Enoch came and paid me back the sum that he had owed since our days in Prophet School: it happened to be that exact amount – so, here, I can now replenish what I embezzled from you. You therefore currently have enough savings to buy that tomb that you desired: the one near the garden where the Empire crucifies all debtors.”

And Micah’s mother answered and said: “Bless you, my son. I hereby remove the voodoo curse that I hung on the air.” Then she hastened to purchase the aforesaid sepulcher, and that afternoon she also amended her will, restoring Micah his inheritance.

Then Micah’s mother died, and she was buried. And Micah soon received his fortune from her testament. And he used the money to purchase a graven image of Aton, and a molten image of Yahweh Peor. And he installed these in his house, which was an holy sanctuary and a temple of gods. He also crafted several idols: an ephod, and teraphims. And he bought a robo-butler to care for these things: the machine was a replica of Man, made in his image and likeness; for this son of the android Satyajit from the caravansary, the artificial grandchild of King Bryan, had lately developed into a franchise.

Now one day there came walking by an elohim from Bethlehem: he had just been born in a barn to a magdalene, and had gotten loose and was now wandering around. So he stopped at Micah’s house of gods in the Parisian mountains, and sojourned there.

And Micah said to the stranger: “Where do you come from; where are you going; and what’s your name?” And he said unto Micah: “I was misborn yesterday. There is no place I need to be. My name is unknown.”

So Micah answered him and said: “Well then, dwell with me. I have an assistant who keeps my household gods and tends my garden; but I need a father, and I also need a Demiurge to serve as the Chief Deity over all my idols. For I only had a mother, and she just died. (That’s how I was able to afford this pantheon: she left me an inheritance.) And every world needs a Creator: otherwise, where did everything come from? Gods don’t just carve themselves out of wood, or pour their own molten metal selves into molds: some other, bigger god must do that for them. It’s not like magma that surges up from a volcano on its own, forever, without any help from a higher power. So why not become my El Elyon? Stop and stay with me, be my heavenly father, my primum mobile, my Supreme Being. I will pay you ten shekels of silver by the year, and a suit of apparel, and whatever victuals you require.”

The unknown elohim accepted this offer.

So the elohim was content to dwell with Micah, and he treated Micah as one of his “only begottens.” And Micah consecrated the man, and he made him the Lord of Heaven and Earth, and the Author of the World and All the Things that Are Therein. And the young elohim became the Most High God within the sanctuary of Micah.

Then said Micah within his heart: “Now I know that the Volcano will do me good, seeing I have an Ialdabaoth over my universe.”

§

In those days, there was nobody piloting the caravan; for, as I explained above, the wild man with the goat eyes had gone missing. And the Brunonians among the multitudes of wayfarers had not yet mixed and mingled as much as they fancied to do with all the surrounding nations. So the pilotless caravan leaked out a faction of Brunonians into the land, and most of them went to spy out Eldorado of India. (It is unclear whether any part of the descendants of the original workforce, which the Volcano exodus’d from the Empire, had settled already in Eldorado or ever visited it; for all the records they kept about this were illegible.) So some of them went up to Paris on the Dartmouthian Mountains, to see if they could get a glimpse of the place that they were intending to tour, since the Paris of the mountains overlooks Eldorado. And, on the way, they stopped at Micah’s house of gods.

Now, when the Brunonians from the caravan were using the telescope in the solarium of Micah’s retreat, where they were lodging, they heard the voice of the Unknown God walking in the garden, and he was speaking English to the robot, and the robot was answering in American. The Brunonians immediately recognized these accents, and they went out thither and approached the young elohim and said: “Fellow passerby, what brings you here; where are you going; and what is your name? And how do you have our ark-bearer? for we just now left him at the tabernacle.” And they were referring to the copy of Man.

And he said, answering their last question first: “My fool is a replica, purchased at auction.” Then he addressed the rest of their queries: “Thus and thus dealt Micah with me: I am his father. I met him yesterday, after being misborn. He has hired me as Demiurge. I am going nowhere; and my name is unknown.”

Now, upon hearing that he was the one who engineered this cosmos, they said: “Please tell us, O God, what we must do to have a passable time in your world; for we are planning on touring Eldorado, but we’re not sure which places to visit first, or what exactly there is to do there.”

And the nameless youth answered them and said: “Depart in peace. Follow the lava; that’s the way you should go.”

So the faction of tourists left Micah’s house of gods, and they came to Dublin, a tropical isle in Eldorado, and they saw the people who lived there, how they dwelt careless, after the manner of the Bonobos from the Mirror Maze, quiet and secure; and there was not an archon in the land, that might put them to shame in any matter; moreover, their island was remote, so they were secluded; and there were no businessmen among them.

Then this faction of Brunonians returned to the caravan and told their fellow outcasts all that they had seen and experienced. And their brethren said unto them: “It sounds nice. Shall we drop anchor?”

And they answered: “Come with us, this instant. Let us go back: for we cannot wait. Prepare to see a land rich in beauty, where there is no want of any good thing that is in the earth.”

So there followed the faction out from the caravansary, among the Brunonians, six hundred souls, all prepared to mix and mingle.

And on their way to Eldorado, they passed again through Paris in the Dartmouthian Mountains, and came to Micah’s house of gods.

Now the faction that had lodged in Micah’s sanctuary, and that had spied out Dublin from the solarium, spoke as follows to the masses of newcomers: “Do ye know that there is in this pantheon here an ephod, and teraphims, and a graven image, and a molten image of Baalims? These things would be fine additions to our Ark of Remembrance. Also there is a Cosmocrator presiding over them, and a perfect copy of Man.”

So the six hundred tourists entered in at the gate, led by the faction that had lodged with Micah, and they bowed before the graven image, and the ephod, and the teraphims, and the molten image of Yahweh; and they received their dark saying and oracles. And the young, nameless elohim stood watching them from between the cherubims.

Then the spy team that had visited beforehand looked up and recognized the Demiurge, and they greeted him heartily. And they said “How do ye do!” And he blessed them. And they made bold to ask him: “Why reign here, when you could serve as our caravansary’s pilot? Just until the Volcano returns. For at present our ship is rudderless, driven by the wind. Come with us! You could bring all your gods: we have an ark where we keep such things, in a celestial assemblage; it’s like a traveling museum. How about it? Will you join our team?”

And the youth’s heart was glad, and he gathered the ephod, and the teraphims, and the graven and molten images, and took his place amongst the masses.

Then the wayfarers turned and departed from the sanctuary, and they began to descend through the mountains, in the direction of Eldorado.

And when they were a good way from the house of gods, Micah came out and chased after them, thoroughly hooting to get their attention. And the Brunonians, not looking back, said one to another: “Why is there an owl calling in the daytime?” And then they turned fully round and saw Micah, and they said: “O, it is our confrère, the innkeeper!” And they waved and beckoned for him to make haste.

And when Micah had drawn closer, they called out to him, saying: “What ails you, that you come hooting after us like a maddened prophet? Are you striving to raise us into a perception of the infinite?”

And he said: “You people have stolen all my gods, even my highest, the World Maker! Please, my mother died last year; do not take my father too! What have you left me but my android manservant?”

And the Brunonians said unto Micah: “Not theft: the pantheon came of their own accord. But you must understand, your collection beguiled us, and we did partake. Lo, we have never even possessed our own Gnostic Demiurge. Therefore, we made a counteroffer, and Yahweh was with us. Was there any sin in that? Why don’t you join us, too, since you’ve already come this far. We’re heading to Dublin. You can leave your Man Copy to tend your emptied cosmos. We already own the original model.”

So Micah joined them, and they all became fast friends. (Later they would use his sanctuary as a remote base for the caravan.) Thus they took all the new divinities and idols, and the young elohim, along with his innkeeper, and came unto Dublin; whose natives, the islanders, were quiet and serene; and they mixed and mingled, conceiving many Seeds of Promise.

Now, as was mentioned, there were no businessmen. It was indeed a tropical paradise. And they built a city, and dwelt therein. And this new city was constructed right on top of the existing city of Dublin. It was made from transparent gold, so you could still see everything underneath. No one was hurt by this act of superimposition; all the citizens and wildlife were scooted out of the way first, and then they were placed back afterwards; and most of them didn’t even know what hit them, as they were put into a deep sleep while it occurred. And they gave this newfangled city the name of Eagan, after the homeland of King Bryan: howbeit the name of the city was Dublin at the first.

And the Brunonians installed the molten image of Yahweh in the highest place, with Aton at his side; and on his other side were graven images of Zipporah, the wife of Moses, and their son Balak. And Micah’s appointed father, the Unknown God, that artisan who fashioned and shaped our physical world from nothing; in whom we live, and move, and have our being; resided among them too, on the island, during this epoch that was devoid of elohims.