It could assuredly be said that even the best expert of modern Greek would understand simply nothing of what I should write in the native language I assimilated in childhood, because, my dear "compatriots", as they might be called, being also inflamed with the wish at all costs to be like the representatives of contemporary civilization also in their conversation, have during these thirty of forty years treated my dear native language just as the Armenians, anxious to become Russian intelligentsia, have treated theirs. 57 BTG I

I do not know how it is with you, who are already partly candidate for a buyer of my writings, but my peculiar nature cannot, even with a great mental desire, avoid being indignant at the fact manifested by people of contemporary civilization, that the very highest in man, particularly beloved by our COMMON FATHER CREATOR, can really be named, and indeed very often before even having made clear to oneself what it is, can be understood to be that which is the lowest and dirtiest in man. 102 BTG I

"Clearly to represent and to substantiate in yourself the understanding just why such a peculiar craze arose in the individuality of that Persian king and became proper only to him, you must know that at the period of the Tikliamish civilization, in the town called 'Chiklaral' a three-brained learned being by name Harnahoom — whose essence later became crystallized into what is called an 'Eternal-Hasnamussian-individual' — invented that any old metal you like, abundant on the surface of that planet, could easily be turned into the rare metal 'gold' and all it was necessary to know for this was just one very small 'secret'. 1945 BTG XXIV

"Although every time the place of the center of culture of your favorites, those strange three-brained beings, has been changed, and what is called a new 'civilization' has arisen, and each new civilization has brought for the beings of succeeding epochs something both new and maleficent, nevertheless, not one of these numerous civilizations has ever prepared so much evil for the beings of later epochs, including of course the contemporary epoch, as that famous 'Greco-Roman civilization'. 2444 BTG XXIX

"Without mentioning the large number of other minor psychic features, unbecoming to be possessed by three-brained beings and now existing in the presences of your favorites, that civilization is mainly to blame for the complete disappearance from the presences of the three-brained beings of succeeding generations, and especially of the contemporary beings, of the possibility for crystallizing the data for 'sane-logical-mentation' and for engendering the impulse of 'being-self-shame'. 2445 BTG XXIX

"In the early period of that Greco-Roman civilization, the said maleficent impulses, which have now become being-impulses, namely, the 'passion-for-inventing-fantastic-sciences' and the 'passion-for-depravity', were inherent in the Greek and Roman beings alone; and later, when, as I have already said, the beings of both these communities chanced to acquire the said strength and began coming into contact with and influencing the beings of other communities, the beings of many other communities of your unfortunate favorites gradually began to be infected by these peculiar and unnatural being-impulses. 2447 BTG XXIX

"And thus, little by little, these 'inventions' of those two ancient communities have brought it about that already, at the present time, the psyche of your favorites — shaky enough already before then — has now become so unhinged in all of them, without exception, that both their 'world outlook' and the whole ordering of their daily existence, rest and proceed exclusively on the basis of those two said inventions of the beings of that Greco-Roman civilization, namely, on the basis of fantasying, and of striving-for-sexual-gratification'. 2449 BTG XXIX

"The beings of that contemporary Germany can be boldly called the 'direct-heirs-of-the-ancient-Greek-civilization'; and they can be so called, because at the present time it is just they, who chiefly bring every kind of new science and invention into contemporary civilization. 2456 BTG XXIX

"At the present time almost all the beings who become genuine representatives of contemporary civilization very meticulously and with the greatest delight and tenderness introduce into themselves this 'blessing' of contemporary civilization, of course, always to the glory, as our dear Mullah Nassr Eddin says, of the 'cloven-hoofed'. 2480 BTG XXIX

"And that 'blessing' of contemporary civilization is used there chiefly by what are called 'confectioners' and other specialists who prepare for the other beings of that planet most 'tasty' articles for their first food. 2487 BTG XXIX

"The confectioners and other professionals there who prepare the said tasty articles for the first food of the rest of your favorites use this same German 'sure-fire' composition, alisarine, of course unconsciously, for that purpose which has there already finally become the ideal for the whole of the contemporary civilization, which purpose is expressed in the language of our honored Mullah Nassr Eddin in the following words: 'As-long-as-everything-looks-fine-and-dandy-to-me-what-does-it-matter-if-the-grass-doesn't-grow'. 2488 BTG XXIX

"As for that same contemporary community, whose beings have become the chief victims of that particularly maleficent invention of the beings of the said ancient civilization, they not only now use it in the process of their own existence but they try to infect strongly the beings of all the other communities with the same evil. Moreover, owing to that maleficent sport of theirs, these unfortunates not only still further diminish the duration of their own existence — already trifling without this — but thanks to that action of theirs, they will, in my opinion, eventually entail for their community what quite recently occurred to a large community there named 'Russia'. 2569 BTG XXIX

"These 'theatrical spectacles' replaced the mysteries after the beings at the beginning of the contemporary civilization — to whom only 'a-fifth-to-a-tenth' was passed down of the information about how and what these said Babylonian learned mysterists had done — began to think of imitating them in this also and set about doing, as it were, the same. 2728 BTG XXX

"Initiating you now into the impressions, hidden from strangers and which became fixed in my common presence, and which were the result of my conscious perceptions during my last stay there in person on the surface of your planet concerning this contemporary art of theirs, my 'I' with an arisen and profound being-impulse of regret must now emphatically state that of all the fragments of knowledge already attained by the beings of the Babylonian civilization - which fragments, it must be allowed, also contained a great deal - absolutely nothing has reached the beings of contemporary civilization for the benefit of their ordinary being-existence, apart from a few 'empty words' without any inner content. 2784 BTG XXX

"The three-brained beings of the contemporary civilization quite frequently assemble in considerable numbers in these theaters of theirs in order to observe and presumably to study the various prepared manifestations of their 'actors', as they have quite recently begun to call them, just as the other learned members of the club of the Adherents-of-Legominism studied then in Babylon the reproductions of the learIIed beings of the group of the mysterists. 2792 BTG XXX

"So, my boy, as the information concerning the Babylonian period passed from generation to generation to the succeeding generations not only by means of what is called 'verbal transmission', but still also by means of marks on durable materials, that is, as it would be expressed there by means of 'inscriptions' consisting of conventional signs which then stood for definite 'being-articulate-sounds' or letters — then, when at the beginning of the contemporary civilization certain beings there began to decipher them 'from-a-bit-here-and-a-bit-there' and realized that they could not sound or pronounce many of these definite letters, they then invented what is called a 'written compromise. 2802 BTG XXX

"The notion and 'taste' of the consonance of both these letters passed to all the beings of the contemporary civilization, but both these different letters, having entirely different essences, they for some reason or other indicated by means of one and the same sign, namely, the sign 'th'. 2814 BTG XXX

"The strangeness of this need of theirs is that they get satisfaction from the manifestation of astonishment on the part of others regarding their appearance, which exactly conforms with the demands of what are called 'fashions', that is to say with just that maleficent custom of theirs which began there since the Tikliamishian civilization and which has now become one of those being-factors which automatically gives them neither the time nor the possibility to see or sense reality. 2823 BTG XXX

"The maleficence for all the other of your favorites of the totality of the radiations issuing from them has become distinctly noticeable, particularly in recent times of their present civilization. 2859 BTG XXX

"You must know that those beings who are assumed to be the adepts of this contemporary art which is adorned with a false halo are not only put on their own level by the other three-brained beings there of the contemporary civilization, particularly during the several latter decades, and imitated by them in their exterior manifestations, but they are always and everywhere undeservingly encouraged and exalted by them; and in these contemporary representatives of art themselves, who really in point of their genuine essence are almost nonentities, there is formed of itself without any of their being-consciousness a false assurance that they are not like all the rest but, as they entitle themselves, of a 'higher order', with the result that in the common presences of these types the crystallization of the consequences of the properties of the organ Kundabuffer proceeds more intensively than in the presences of all the other three-brained beings there. 2878 BTG XXX

"This practical advice of mine is that, if for some reason or other you should have to exist, particularly in the near future, among the three-brained beings of that planet Earth which has taken your fancy — I say in the near future, because the presences of these three-brained beings who have taken your fancy and all the already fixed exterior conditions of their ordinary being-existence frequently degenerate — and if you should have some work or other there, proper to every conscious three-brained being, which has as its basis the aim of attaining welfare for surrounding beings, and the fulfillment of which depends partly on them themselves, then in whatever community of the contemporary civilization this may proceed, if you should have to meet in the interests of your work these contemporary terrestrial types in what are called their 'circles', you must never fail to be very, very careful and take every kind of requisite measures to keep on good terms with them. "Why you must be so careful towards just them, and in order that you may in general better represent to yourself and understand from every aspect these terrestrial contemporarily arisen types, I must without fail mention two further facts which became quite clear there. 2887 BTG XXX

"It must also be noticed that in spite of all this, not a few of the still surviving productions of the Babylonian times reached the beings of the contemporary civilization, chiefly the beings breeding on the continent Europe. But these productions which reached the beings of this contemporary civilization — and not originals but only half-decayed copies made by their recent ancestors who had not become entirely what are called 'plagiarists' — they simply, without suspecting the 'well-of-wisdom' concealed in them and without taking corresponding practicable measures, stuffed into what are called 'museums' where these old copies are gradually either totally destroyed or partially mutilated by frequent copyings from them, made by means of various eroding and oxidizing compositions as, for instance, 'alabaster', 'fish glue' and so on, only so that the copyists might swagger before their friends or cheat their teachers, or achieve some other Hasnamussian aim. 2922 BTG XXX

"It must in fairness be remarked that now and again certain beings also of the contemporary civilization have suspected that something was concealed in the productions which chanced to reach them in the original, specially created then in Babylon by the members of the club of the Adherents-of-Legominism, or in those copies which were made during their transmission from generation to generation by various conscientious professionals, that is by such professionals to whom, as I have already said, it was still not quite proper to plagiarize, and who therefore did not resort to the detailed remaking of others' productions in order to give them out as their own, and thereafter while searching very seriously for this something, certain of those inquiring beings of that European civilization even found in them a certain definite 'something-or-other'. 2923 BTG XXX

"For instance, at the beginning of the contemporary European civilization one of these beings, a certain monk named Ignatius, who had formerly been an architect, attained even to the possibility of deciphering the hidden knowledge and useful information in the productions of almost all the branches of what was already called 'ancient' art, which had reached him from the Babylonian epoch. 2924 BTG XXX

"At the conclusion of my present tale about the terrestrial contemporary art, I might as well, I think, remark about yet one other of the many specific particularities of just those beings of the contemporary civilization who are occupied with this famous art. 2931 BTG XXX

"Well, when these representatives of various contemporary 'powerful' communities met in order collectively to choose one or another of the mentioned three languages, they could not settle upon any one of the three languages owing to the following considerations: "Latin they found poor in the sense of the number of words. "And indeed, my boy, the shepherds with their limited needs could not create a many-worded language; and although Latin became later on the language of a large community, yet beyond the special words required for orgies, they did not introduce into it anything that could suit the contemporary beings of your planet. "And as regards the Greek language, then although by the wealth of its vocabulary it might indeed serve as a universal language for their whole planet, because these former fishermen, in 'inventing' every possible kind of fantastic 'science', happened also to devise very many corresponding words which remained in that language, yet these representatives of the contemporary powerful communities could not fix their choice upon it owing to a peculiar particularity which also flows from this same strange psyche of theirs. "The point is that all the beings assembled to select a common planetary language were representatives of communities which had become at the period of their contemporary civilization powerful or, as they also say, 'great'. "But this ancient Greek language continues at the present time to be spoken by the beings of a contemporary small community called 'Greece', who, though they are descendants of the former 'great Greeks', have not now at their disposal as many of what are called 'guns' and 'ships' as those 'important communities' whose representatives were just then assembled in order unanimously to select one common language for the whole planet. "Therefore, in all probability each of these representatives deliberated somewhat as follows: "'Heavens above! can anybody use a language which is spoken by the beings of such a trifling community? It hasn't even guns to entitle its representatives to equal participation in our "international five-o'clocks".' 2994 BTG XXXI

During the period of the Tikliamishian civilization, when the learned beings from the country of Maralpleicie first discovered the possibility of such combinations in their common psyche and tried to put one another at will into that special state, they soon found out and understood how to obtain it with the help of what is called being-hanbledzoin, that cosmic substance whose essence the three-brained beings of contemporary civilization came close to understanding, and which they named animal magnetism. 3202 BTG XXXII

"You must without fail also know that when beings of the period of the Tikliamishian civilization constated for the first time about this particular psychic property of theirs, and soon made it clear that by its means they could destroy in each other certain properties particularly unbecoming to be in them, then the process itself of bringing someone into this state began to be regarded by them as a sacred process and was performed only in their temples before the congregation. 3260 BTG XXXII

"This definite sacred something would have remained for untold centuries in its pristine state among these three-brained beings who have already long ago no reverence in their essence; but as in the presences of these contemporary, as it is possible to call them, 'unconscious sacrilegists', a criminal passion has arisen that evokes in them a need to despoil even the sanctuaries of beings of past generations, they dug down even into this chamber which ought to have been for them a profoundly revered sanctuary, and they committed that blasphemous deed whose result is now the cause of my becoming aware with all my being of my mistake — of just that mistake I made when I so confidently assured you that nothing whatever had reached the beings of the contemporary civilization from the beings of epochs long past; whereas this said contemporary Egyptian event is a consequence of one result which reached them of the attainments of these ancient ancestors of theirs who used to exist on the continent Atlantis. 3322 BTG XXXIII

"He developed this thought of his in a long dissertation thus: 'If we analyze impartially and sum up statistically this understanding and picturing which obtain among people of the contemporary civilization concerning the races which populate Europe, in contradistinction to other continents, and make an analogy between these races and birds, then the people who represent the very 'Tzimus" of contemporary European civilization, namely, those who arise and dwell on the continent Europe, must infallibly be called peacocks, that is, the birds who have the most beautiful and most gorgeous exterior, while the people who dwell on other continents must be called crows, that is, the most good-for-nothing and dirty of all birds. 3375 BTG XXXIV

"First of all, from their common presences there gradually totally disappeared all those being-data, the totality of which in general is capable of engendering in the presences of beings a property called 'presentiment of the future', in consequence of which they are entirely deprived of the possibility, in any degree whatever of foreseeing imminent events; secondly, having a narrow what is called 'horizon' and a 'short memory', they not only know nothing about long-past events on their planet, but even do not remember about that which proceeded quite recently — almost even yesterday; and thirdly, these cosmic laws are unknown to them, thanks to which there chiefly arise those sorrowful events which proceed among them. Owing to all this, these same contemporary favorites of yours are sure in all their presences that this terrifying process, which they call Bolshevism, proceeded for the first time on their planet and that nothing like this already 'darling' civilization of theirs had ever existed previous to them; and they are even sure that this has happened thanks only to the evolution of the gradually progressing reason of the beings similar to themselves of their planet. 3531 BTG XXXIV

"And so, my boy, thanks to the mentioned strange property of the three-brained beings of this planet of yours, which property, as I have already told you, arose and gradually became, soon after the Tikliamishian civilization, fixed in their general psyche — the intensity of the fixing proceeded chiefly in consequence of all the more deteriorating conditions around them of ordinary being-existence established by themselves — and which special psychic property already from the very beginning became obligatorily inherent in the common presences of beings composing this later largest community there, then on account of all this, they all in former centuries found themselves under the influence of beings of one or other of the Asiatic communities, and all the, as it is called, 'external-mode' and 'psychic-associative-form' of their ordinary existence proceeded also under their influence. 3597 BTG XXXIV

"'That is why there are always enough of my compatriots here, as is said, "to sink a ship" — this is the first reason. And the second reason is that, as our Americans have still another exaggerated weakness, namely, vanity, their imagination is flattered that people will say that they have learned the fox trot not in some Philadelphia or Boston, but in Paris itself, where fashionable novelties for all the Earth originate, and as the fox trot is a fashionable novelty, the "Paris fox trot" is then for them, so to say, the result of the last word in civilization. 3796 BTG XXXVII

"This Hasnamussian usage, that of devising 'new fashions', existed in former civilizations also, during the Tikliamishian civilization it existed under the name of 'Adiat', and at the time of Babylon, under the name of 'Haidia'. 3845 BTG XXXVII

"In this connection I may say that the whole of what is called contemporary civilization there tends only to increase the speed of this machine invented by them and maleficent just for themselves. 3944 BTG XXXVIII

"And so, only in consequence of the fact that in the presences of your favorites of recent centuries the functioning of every kind of data for 'being-logical-reflection' crystallized in them began to proceed almost, as it is said there, 'topsy-turvy', and as both of these entirely differently sourced informations which reached them appeared to them, according to their 'bobtailed' logical mentation, equally plausible, then those beings of contemporary civilization who began in a new fashion to bake, like pancakes, all kinds of separate independent branches of their illustrious science, having fallen during several years into a state of what is called 'troubled perplexity', could not in any way whatsoever decide which of these two contradictory theories to prefer and which of them to accept and include in the number of branches of their 'official science'. 5081 BTG XL

"After a great deal of, as they still sometimes say, 'drying of saliva', they finally decided, in order that no one should be offended and at the same time in order to have also this branch in their science, to unite into one both of these theories which had reached them from ancient times and which had nothing in common with each other. And a little later when one of them, named Gaidoropoolo, thought out a very long 'mathematical' explanation of this misunderstanding, namely, why in one theory there is mentioned the division of the octave into seven 'whole sounds', while in the other, into only five 'whole sounds', and why and how such an important contradiction had occurred, then these mathematical explanations of his entirely pacified all the corresponding representatives of contemporary civilization so that now, with a quiet conscience, they produce all their wiseacring concerning vibrations on the basis of the 'mathematical explanations' of this obliging Gaidoropoolo. 5083 BTG XL

"I was yet the more astonished because concerning this I also already knew very well that at that period there, nowhere did there exist such apparatuses by means of which it is possible to count any vibrations whatever, and therefore I again wondered — from where could this venerable old man dwelling in these wild mountains so far from the beings composing contemporary civilization, have obtained such apparatuses? 5331 BTG XLI

Two "Dionosks" later, when the intersystem ship Karnak had resumed its falling, and the confirmed followers of our respected Mullah Nassr Eddin had again sat down in their usual seats, Hassein once more turned to Beelzebub with the following words: "My dear Grandfather! May I remind you, as you bade me, about . . . the three-brained beings . . . of the planet Earth . . . about those . . . how are they called? . . . about the beings who breed and exist just on the diametrically opposite side of the place where contemporary terrestrial civilization is flourishing . . . About those three-brained beings there, who, as you were saying, are very great devotees of the 'fox trot'". 5567 BTG XLII

"The point is, that from the very beginning of this latest contemporary civilization of theirs, it somehow so fell out among the beings of all the innumerable separate groups there, that, of the seven aspects of the fundamental commandment given to three-brained beings from Above namely, 'strive to acquire inner and outer purity', the single aspect they selected and in a distorted form have made their ideal, is that aspect which is conveyed in the following words: "'Help everything around you both the animate and the still inanimate to acquire a beautiful appearance'. 5780 BTG XLII

"If the said invention of the beings of the Tikliamishian civilization were compared with the invention of these contemporary Americans then, according to the expression they sometimes use for comparison, the latter may be called a 'child's toy'. 5815 BTG XLII

"The beings of the Tikliamishian civilization invented a certain kind of 'comfortable couch bed' which could be used for sleeping as well as for what is called 'lounging' so that while lying on this 'wonderful contrivance', and without manifesting the slightest being-effort whatsoever, they could perform this same inevitable being-need for which the contemporary beings of the continent America have invented their 'seats of ease'. 5816 BTG XLII

"In order that you may better evaluate the significance of this invention of those contemporary beings breeding on the continent America, and which is, as it were, the real outcome of contemporary civilization, I do not consider it superfluous to inform you also of the methods of preserving several other products for a long time, which methods are now in use among the beings of the continent Asia. 5857 BTG XLII

"'Now that we have touched upon this subject, allow me, respected Doctor, to digress, and tell you here the reflections, in my view very interesting and wise, of this same Mullah uncle of mine concerning the causes in general of the arising of this evil and scourge of contemporary civilization. 5947 BTG XLII

"'"And it is just precisely in the early years of the adult life of these contemporary unfortunate prospective women-mothers — thanks to the various ideas of the people of contemporary civilization concerning 'equal rights for women' existing there under the catchwords 'equal rights', 'equal opportunities', etc.... ideas which are now already widespread everywhere on the Earth, which are naive to the understanding of a man who has lived his life normally, and which are unconsciously accepted also by the majority of contemporary men — that these contemporary not yet completely formed prospective women-mothers, on the one hand, not having around them the law-conformable, requisite sources of the active principle, such as their parents, guardians and husbands, to whom the responsibility for them passes from the moment of marriage, and on the other hand thanks to the intensive process of imagination and enthusiasms which is proper to proceed in them and which is also in this transitional age foreordained by nature according to Law for the purpose of better actualizing the data for the development of their good sense, they, as it were, gradually absorb the said automatic laziness into their very nature, and this laziness remains in their nature, as a progressive and indispensable necessity. 5952 BTG XLII

"'But in reality, in order to get here, these birds of passage have had to intrigue for a whole year and cook up every kind of story to convince their legal halves of the necessity of their trip; and now here, in the company of deceivers and intriguers like themselves, in the name of and to the glory of the significance of the "epithalamium", aided by that fine art which this great contemporary civilization has attained, they decorate their stay-at-home "legal halves" with the largest possible "fine art horns". 5988 BTG XLII

"'And so, meeting with the women here and at first only talking with them — chiefly on the subject of contemporary civilization and of the backwardness as it were of our Persia in comparison — I then, of course under the influence of alcohol which I was then already consuming in rather large quantities, fell for the first time, that is to say, I, as a prospective father of a family, behaved vilely. 6008 BTG XLII

"'So, when I became interested in this question, I was able to become fully acquainted with all the knowledge that exists in contemporary civilization on the subject of venereal diseases. 6031 BTG XLII

"It must without fail be remarked here that one of the principal causes of this state of the beings of contemporary civilization is also that same onanism of theirs, a disease which in recent times has come to be almost epidemic there, and which is in its turn also a consequence again of their education of children, thanks to a certain maleficent idea established among its rulers and which is already, as it were, an inseparable part of the consciousness of everybody, namely, their maleficent idea that 'to speak to children about the sex question is absolutely improper'. 6240 BTG XLII

"Although this occurrence took place in the large community of Russia, yet nevertheless this 'story' which I shall now tell you is very characteristic and gives a very good picture in general of the education of the children of their contemporary civilization. 6245 BTG XLII

"I must tell you, my boy, that Sappho was the name of a certain Greek poetess who first discovered there on your planet the 'way to real happiness' for many women of the Greek-Roman as well as of the contemporary civilization. 6276 BTG XLII

"This notion of 'decency' came down to contemporary civilization by inheritance from the beings of the epoch called the 'Middle Ages'. 6280 BTG XLII

"At the present time the people of contemporary civilization talk to their children and teach them for their edification only what has been invented or is being invented in the manuals of various candidates for 'Hasnamuss individuals' under the aforesaid title of 'bon ton'. 6283 BTG XLII

"Soon after our beings departed from this planet, a certain Armanatoora who had belonged to the epoch of the blossoming of the Tikliamishian civilization, and who was by profession a priest — but from among those of this profession whom others regarded as 'learned priests' — was the first who built up a whole 'religious teaching' based on this maleficent idea. 6879 BTG XLIV

Even suppose that we provisionally accept this definition, the question inevitably arises — can a man who is a product of contemporary education and civilization do anything at all himself, consciously and by his own will? 7203 BTG XLVIII

The general life of mankind has been divided into two streams since the time of what is called the "Tikliamishian civilization", which directly preceded the Babylonian civilization. 7414 BTG XLVIII

Reference: Beelzebub's Tales to his Grandson