;
It is possible to escape this burden, yet time and again, diabolists fall into the trap and fail to escape it.
It is human nature, to treat the world as a series of nails, when all one has is a hammer. Even when the use of the hammer comes with a grave price.
It is human nature to take the easy road. To resolve the dynamic, there are two simple options. Let me return to this in a moment.
In chapter one, I focused largely on myself. The individual. In this chapter, I look to people one step removed from me. Jeffrey and Lucrezia.
Let me ask a broader question, then. Is this a question we can solve? Is it one we want to solve?
Let us put aside the unrepentant, the ones who would never read this text, because it does not feed directly into their need for power. Let me ask, can we better the world? Do Good in some fashion? Can we remedy the cosmic Balance as a whole? Minimize the Wrongs?
I emphasize ‘we’. As I write this, my Balance is not so terrible. There are certainly non-diabolists who have worse. I believe I have done some Good, in the face of it all. Were a jury to be convened, there would be much argument over my overall contribution to humanity, and perhaps that would have to suffice. Being questionable in my standing Balance is better than being unquestionably Wrong.
My concern is not with the self, or with the individual, but diabolism as a whole. We are hated because we do Wrong. Not evil, but we do a disservice to reality as a whole.
Yet, at the same time, we serve a useful function. What better tool to use to bind the greater threats than one who is already doomed?
Many diabolists do this out of selfishness. The very good and very bad diabolists excepted, many stay alive long enough to bind a few minor entities and accrue a horrific Balance before reality asserts itself and they die a miserable death.
I might argue that the average diabolist betters the world, for having been in it. Not in the short term, but perhaps in the long.
If problems exist in our number, it is undeniably the short lived failures that bring about disaster with nothing to offer, and the long lived practitioners who leverage their knowledge to bring about the greatest Wrongs. The net gain for mankind is lowest.
To bind Others and leave them bound is the best thing we can do. Because of their nature, we inevitably do so at a cost to ourselves. For Diabolists, these others are devils, demons, imps, and they are ghosts, goblins, faerie and other beings so Wrong that practitioners who devote themselves to their study will often shy away. Were this our pattern of behavior, we might be acceptable in the eyes of others.
This is one answer, one solution, but it begs more questions. How might we bring this about? Could diabolists as a whole be convinced to take this path?
The answer is no.
My old master Jeffrey was targeted by local practitioners not long after Agares was returned to his realm, but he lives. His enemies saw fit to lock him in his body, mute, unable to practice. I visit the man from time to time, the both of us many years older. I have not forgiven him for what he did to his student, nor have I forgiven myself. When we meet, now, I drink tea while he drinks beer with the assistance of a nurse and a straw. We talk, about balance and the aftermath of demons, and I painstakingly transcribe what he struggles to express.
Jeffrey, in my eyes, is a manifestation of the problem that plagues us. Any attempt to restore diabolism in the eyes of others and to get their help would raise questions about Jeffrey’s like. He is not so insane to be dismissed entirely. A man who held a grudge and saw only one way to see that grudge done justice. Jeffrey is not a true Scotsman.
I confess, I write here in the hope of inspiring questions among a group that is prone to forging forward without accepting any answer but the one that serves them. I do not labor under the illusion that enough will read my work to have heated discussions over what the answers might be.
But I must ask. I hope to raise questions among the individual, and I dream of a circumstance where we might look deeper at ourselves as a group.
Earlier, I suggested there are two simple options. We’ve already discussed the obvious, that the archetypical diabolist must cease to be and become something more selfless. It isn’t possible, because the typical diabolist won’t break from the pattern of taking the easy road, even when it is demonstrably self-destructive.
If there is a solution, and this is purely food for thought, the easy road must become the road that serves us best.
In pursuit of answers, I lead you on to chapter three, where I talk about the sociology of Diabolists, and the negative patterns we perpetuate amongst ourselves, and how one might attempt to reframe society instead, in an attempt to provide an easier road.
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Chapter Five: Swords
The years after the loss of my family were something of a blur. Somewhere in the midst of it all, I began to take a harder look at what I was doing, at my Balance, and my repeated failures.
I was a wretch, I admit, and if ever I’ve come close to suicide or embracing Wrong, I came close then. I was in ill health, and I might joke I had more alcohol than blood in my veins, if I could write such statements without being forsworn.
My hair was shaggy, my facial hair growing in, my thoughts clouded by drink and depression, and I knew a great deal I shouldn’t. I knew rituals to summon things that would have made me stand tall, handsome, in good health, and above all else, happy. I knew many more rituals to call forth things to act against my enemies, and I was short enough on self respect that I didn’t care nearly enough about what might happen to me if my targets successfully fended them off.
Jeffrey and all the other individuals I sought to target in violence had been parts of a greater pattern. The forces of ‘Right’, if you can call them that, saw fit to apply pressure and purge society of diabolists. This was not a good thing, because it failed to stop the worst kinds, types I’ve touched on twice now. By seeking out the organized, largely quiet diabolists, this purging demanded retribution and self defense.
Remember, when all one has is a hammer…
Diabolists who might have gone out in unspectacular manners after successfully binding a handful of imps and maybe an intermediate being were now perpetrating Wrongs.
I, by virtue of itinerant means and a lack of any real connection, managed to slip away before the doors were kicked in and diabolists rounded up for execution. I sustained myself for years, simply selling my knowledge to individuals who desperately sought to patch the holes that had appeared in their libraries and in the collective knowledge of diabolists. I then drank much of those earnings away.
Many of those sitting at the middle section of the totem pole had been destroyed, and only those on the bottom, such as myself, and those on the top, individuals much like Jeffrey, remained in one piece.
I’ve brought up the individual consequences, karma, and the diabolist’s place in society. I’ve talked about the opposition the diabolist faces, and the tools the diabolist must employ versus the tools they don’t have to employ, but are liable to. Each of these observations are conducted through the lenses of what should be versus what actually is.
I’ve raised the topic of the individual, about those who are one step removed, about the groups, and society as an abstract. The scope ever widens.
The world.
Will Earth cease to be tomorrow, if the greatest demons were to be called forth? No. Not definitively. The Balance would be disturbed, and the universe would naturally exert an opposing pressure.