Entropy’s gaze is like darkness, and Novelty’s giggle is like a child’s.
Somewhere between them is where we either draw breath with hatred or die in beauty.
Beginnings begin, and ends end, but where they meet, it starts all over again.
Mr. Crowley lived through the horrid years of Aiwass’ promise. A world clashing in bloodshed, fought over the usurpation and assassination of monarchs; fists of the proletariat raised in the air. Machinations of death far exceeding anything the world had seen before.
New and advanced cannons sundering whole cities from miles away. Machine guns with the fire power of whole battalions, mowing down the poor souls who clung to the old world. Newly invented ships creeping beneath the ocean surface, and airplanes dominating the skies. The putrid stink of gangrenous death rising from the rotten trenches of war.
Chemistry, a science once devoted to medicine, now weaponized the air Man breathes, lending catastrophe without a bullet fired.
However Mankind’s first attempt at suicide was ultimately unsuccessful.
Aleister himself went on to start his own religion, dubbing it Thelema. Basing it off of his works surrounding Rose’s possession. Always leaving hints and traces of a strange ambiguity as to whether he served this new demonic force on the throne of Olympus. Or whether he was simply trying to enlighten and prepare mankind of this new and terrible god, and how to properly combat him.
But this story isn’t about Aleister. No. For Aleister’s place in significant history had passed.
This story, is about a man of science. And the everlasting impact he quietly made on the world, during a rather unusual bicycle ride.
![](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fdeb2cb53-1bf7-4620-96f3-83121a385566_1041x605.png)
Aiwass declared he was a god of war, but no god has only one job. The old dead Father tried to govern everything himself, and thusly left a rather large hole to fill. Which was of course stupid and unreasonable. No wonder these subordinates killed him.
Aiwass gazed upon Man, and saw within him a yearning. Like an infant’s mouth, whining and droning and begging and crying. Never ceasing. Always wailing.
It simply needed to be pacified.
Money had always been around, and there were always men who lusted after its shine. But more of the world was getting a taste of it than ever before, and Aiwass seized the opportunity.
Therefore, when Man wasn’t worshipping war, he was worshipping money. And his worship of money, in all its fantastical malefic illusions, always lead to more war. As if he had learned nothing from his first dance with the devil. And sure enough, another dance was soon to come.
The decade following mankind’s first unsuccessful attempt at self-termination was spent in a haze of decadence and paranoia. Those who won the war delighted in its spoils, living in the roaring times that were thought to go on forever. Meanwhile those who’d lost, were steeped in a vicious hatred, seething in it like vermin. Starving in the streets of their muddled homelands whilst cursing their faceless enemies under their breaths.
It wasn’t long before the whole world was penniless.
Aiwass fed on the hatred and spite dwelling at the bottoms of every soul. Stuffing the unfillable voids in their hearts with material things, until there was nothing left.
Whispering his influences into their thoughts— “If only it wasn’t for those other people, then things would still be going rather well.”
As famine and poverty spread, so did the mutterings of violence seep their ways into the forefront of everyone’s mind. Where aggressive economics and unkempt diplomacy had failed them, the sword would certainly yield results!
Even the enlightened minds of science fell victim to Aiwass. Much of their works having long shifted from the betterment of the race, towards the attainment of money, or the efficiencies of murder.
And to Aiwass’ delight, a new war was soon on the horizon. His lips breathing conflict into the ears of these new kings that called themselves Prime Ministers, Chairmen, or Presidents. One particularly useful one simply called himself ‘Leader’. They drew spectacles and parades of military might. Rhetoric and propaganda became the new modes of discourse— A new zeitgeist.
Meanwhile, at the heart of a relatively small nation, whose lack-luster fame resulted primarily from its neutrality and sprawling mountain ranges, there was a man studying something that would have an everlasting impact on how human beings perceived everything.
Professor Albert Hoffman— A Swiss chemist, had been one of the few western scientists of the time whose life’s work had been to the actual betterment of his fellows. Less than a year before the second world war, Albert had been studying the synthesis of the plant Drimia Maritima and a fungus called Ergot in order to develop a respiratory and circulatory stimulant that was safe for women. However, after successfully synthesizing this lysergic acid, the project was shelved indefinitely.
A year later, the world exploded into a new purview of violence that hadn’t been witnessed since the Khan dynasties. The peoples of the now deceased, old god, were rounded up and systematically exterminated. The west burned by its own hand while a rising sun in the far east spread its self-proclaimed superiority in tsunamis of bloodshed and torture. Another grand nation spanning both east and west either starved or froze to death fending off the invasion of one tyrant, while another tyrant held the point of a sickle in their backside. Lastly, a vast nation to the far west was developing a new weapon. One they weren’t entirely sure wouldn’t ignite the atmosphere and render the planet inhabitable to all life— before they tested it.
Man had become so efficient in killing, that even a new word for mass murder was coined. They called it “Genocide”.
In the sky above our little blue planet, Aiwass’ nemesis watched on in horror. Nuit, with the arch of her body giving form to the whole of the cosmos, gazed upside-down at her own belly and saw the conflict. She had almost no influence over this little blue orb, just above her naval. It was little more than a blemish on her paradoxically black and translucent skin. But she loved that little spec, and took pity on them.
“Bacchus,” she said. “It’s time to wake up.”
A little imp of a man rolled over under a blanket of moss and earth. He was short and petite for male. A pair of horns, twisted like a pig’s tail extended from his forehead. His face was smudged with dirt and mud, but even with all of that, he was still unnaturally beautiful.
“Bacchus! Wake up!” Nuit called out.
“Go away. Can’t you see I’m sleeping.” The imp fumbled with his mossy blanket, kicking it like a child woken too early for school, covering his thorny head with his palms, drowning out the dull roars of the world outside of his dreams. It had become so much louder out there than he preferred.
“Bacchus. I need you to do something.” Nuit’s voice echoed in his head.
“Whatever it is, it’s someone’s else’s job now. Remember?” It was true. The Lord’s wrath had killed most of his kin, and what was left of them had fled to idle corners of the planet where the cross or crescent had little success in stamping out the old pagan ways.
“The Father is dead. Man killed him.”
“Oh. Well that’s nice. Asshole deserved it.” Bacchus had spent much of the last two thousand years mostly sleeping. With the occasional sneaking around under the Lord’s nose, illuminating the occasional curious poet or alchemist. Or drinking with and seducing the seldom witch. But mostly sleeping.
“Actually, it was one of your alchemists that made the discovery. One might even say he delivered the killing blow.”
“Well that’s lovely to hear. Glad to have helped.” Bacchus rolled himself over within his cozy hole and closed his eyes.
“That’s not all,” Nuit said.
Bacchus replied with something of a quiet groan.
“Man is ruled over by a new god. One of his own making. A shadow that he hasn’t a clue exists. And this abomination will almost certainly destroy everything if we remain apathetic.”
“Ugh.” The imp sat up, flopping the layers of moss and earth off of him, stretching and yawning. It was bright outside, the sky a thick jolly blue. Through it, he could almost see Nuit’s face, watching him impatiently. The forest around him looked thinner than it used to. Many trees had been cut down since the last time he was up and about. It would be nice, if it weren’t for the buzzing of humans rattling the ether. “And what am I supposed to do about that?”
Nuit’s voice echoed in his head again. “I need you to do what you do best, and cause a little mischief. This new god, Aiwass, doesn’t know that remnants like you still exist.”
He rose from the little hole he burrowed himself into some years before. The noise out here was too loud. The droning’s of humans annoyed him, but this was something more than droning’s. Screams cried out from across the ether. Prayers and pleadings going unanswered. A dooming fog in between it all.
“Fine, but when I’m done, I’m going back to sleep.”
“If you’re successful, Bacchus, you may not want to.”
The Gregorian year was 1943. Remnant calculations of the old, dead god.
Albert’s own nation, carefully tucked away in between a grand stretch of mountains, was one of the few who’d chosen, yet again, a path of neutrality—while the rest of the continent burned. Even so, Albert’s work on medicine persisted. He’d taken several samples of some old concoctions with him to work on at home. In a cluttered shed behind his house, he worked in his off time, hoping to develop a new string of medications that would alleviate pain, without all of the side-effects common with morphine. Unbeknownst to him, Bacchus was in the room with him, as invisible as air, squatting on a table filled with bottles and beakers, each with their own little labels and strange markings on them.
“What’s so special about this guy?” Bacchus asked.
Nuit, watching from above replied, “He isn’t aware, but some years ago, this man of alchemy made a pure replication of the old Eleusinian draught.”
“Has my cousin Mercury been up to his old antics? Fetching humans from their barbarous nature, and transposing knowledge upon them they are not ready for? He never was the type to take orders from whoever sat on the throne,” he mused.
“Thoth still enthralls himself in divining with the occasional human, but he has had no dealings with this one,” Nuit replied. “Although he was in this region not long ago, engaging with another man of science who studied the mind. His name was Carl if I remember correctly.”
Albert walked past Bacchus, completely unaware of his presence. He picked up one of the many beakers scattered across the table and inspected it closely; holding it up to the light before taking it over to a Bunsen burner on the other side of the lab and placing it over the heat source.
“So which one of these little vessels contains my sacrament?” Bacchus asked.
“The one closest to your left hoof,” Nuit said.
Bacchus picked up the small vial, careful to ensure that Albert wouldn’t notice it floating in the air all by itself, and gazed at the clear liquid inside. On the outside was a label that read Lysergic Acid Diethylamide.
“It’s so small, and so… water-like.” He swirled the solution a little. “I’d hardly say this holds the Eleusinian mysteries within it. Mine is much darker, like a fine wine.” He sniffed the vial. “Odorless, and I imagine its tasteless as well”
“I assure you, Bacchus, it is of the same fundamental structure as your sacrament.”
“Heresy is what it is. Where’s the flavor! The presentation!”
“Man has changed much in the ages you’ve been away. If there is one thing he has mastered, it’s reducing everything he can find into its most distilled nature.”
“How uninspiring.” Bacchus placed the beaker back onto the table as Albert turned around and began making his way toward him, likely to retrieve another concoction.
Albert stood directly in front of Bacchus, all the more unaware of the imp crouching only inches away from him. He leaned his face over the gaggle of glass containers, scanning over them, seemingly looking for another ingredient to whatever he was cooking on the Bunsen.
“Well,” Bacchus started. “Might as well give it a go.” He clutched the sacrament vial and threw the liquid into Albert’s face, just as he passed over it.
Immediately, Albert stumbled backwards, wiping the fluid from his eyes, and coughing violently as some ran down the back of his throat. After the short fit, Albert picked the fallen vial up and inspected its label, vaguely remembering its nomenclature from a few years ago. He felt a little dizzy, and decided to take a break and get some water. As he closed the door to his shed, he almost swore he saw a little man stooped up on his table, watching him from across the room through a pair of glowing violet eyes.
Albert made his way into the house, and poured himself a glass of water. After downing it, he decided to take a break and lie down on the sofa for a little while. He’d been working so hard, for so long. So much going on in the world. So much killing. So much hatred. Work took his mind off of things, but perhaps he’d been working too much. Perhaps a short nap would revitalize him.
Soon, Albert felt a dizziness he couldn’t shake, and a restlessness that simply would not relent, no matter how comfortable he made himself. The light shining through the window was glaring and obtrusive. So he covered his head with a blanket and tried his best to fall asleep. Soon he found himself somewhere between dreaming and waking. A collage of spiraling and kaleidoscopic lights swarming around him. An irrational sense of uplifting joy. A not-unpleasant intoxication, and an imagination running frantically wild. Fantastic streams of pictures and colors, delightful and intense.
It was nighttime when Albert was starting to feel sober again, and finally pulled himself up from the couch. There was something he couldn’t place. Not a symptom, nor a side effect. But something else. Something not quite tangible. The colors in his living room seemed a little brighter. But that wasn’t quite it. He felt like he’d been told something. A secret. A secret he was supposed to remember. One he’d been terrible to forget.
“Well I’d say that went well,” Bacchus said.
“Do you think it took? Perhaps we should try again,” Nuit responded.
“I don’t think that will be necessary. You were right, it was almost exactly my sacrament. Better even.”
“And you think he’ll share it with the world?”
“You have your role, and I have mine. If he doesn’t right away, he’ll certainly try it again himself. Curiosity is a funny thing. Once you’ve tasted it, it always calls you back.”
It wasn’t more than three days before Albert found himself at work in his laboratory. It was the end of the shift, and most of his coworkers had already checked out. He was finishing up a brief inventory before the vial caught his eye— Lysergic Acid Diethylamide. He approached it cautiously, plucked it from the shelf and looked at it more closely. There was something different about it this time. Almost like it was glowing. “What are you?” He asked himself aloud.
“Have a good night, Albert. Are you good to lock up?” One of his colleagues called out to him.
“What? Yes. Yes, I’ll lock up.” His eyes never broke away from the vial.
Upon hearing the door shut, Albert’s curious nature got the better of him. He grabbed an eye dropper off the counter and was very careful to measure out a very small amount of the liquid.
“For science,” He said as he squeezed the fluid from the dropper into his mouth. It even tasted different this time. Almost sweet.
Locking up, Albert hopped onto his bicycle and started his seven kilometer journey home.
It started rather quickly this time. Perhaps all that pedaling sped up his metabolism.
Fields of wild flowers and tall wheat grass passed by him, slowly blurring together into a phantasmal display, almost like a painting. The mountains in the distance almost seemed to bob and weave, up and down as he pedaled faster. The wind in his face was brisk, and massaged the 5’olock stubble on his face. The yellow painted lines on the road flowed into each other like a streaming river. And sounds, oh the sounds. Like an orchestra of natural harmony, breathing with life and dancing alongside him as he floated through the countryside.
A broad and involuntary smile stretched across his face as the blue sky shifted into a dazzling purple, and the fat and fluffy clouds turned pink. He could see them evaporating at their wispy ends, like something of a golden fire, disappearing into the hues of the vibrant sky.
For reasons he couldn’t explain, he felt a deep sense of love swimming all around him. Embracing him, stroking his skin ever softly.
The passing trees formed fractal and kaleidoscopic webs, like thousands of tiny little portals to strange and hidden worlds. Faces appearing all throughout them, smiling, laughing, waving.
And time melted away into obscurity.
When Albert arrived home, he found himself sitting on his front porch, watching the sun slowly dive behind the sprawling mountains.
And then, for a strange moment that lasted forever, there was no Albert Hoffman.
He didn’t just see it. He didn’t feel it. He was it. And it was him.
A wholeness. Looking back at him.
His reflection.
“This is just so beautiful, isn’t it?” He said aloud, not really aware of himself. “Just stunning.”
“It really is.” A voice spoke back to him.
Albert was Albert again. A grin stretched widely across his face, still in a half-daze. He looked to his right, and saw a little imp with milky white skin and violet eyes sitting next to him. The little man’s hoven feet were kicked up on the railing of the porch, relaxing back with his hands clasped behind his head.
“You know,” Bacchus said to Albert, “Everyone should know about this.”
“Yeah.” Albert looked back out to the stunning view of vibrant colors, dazzling and dancing with each other across the impending twilight. “They really should.”
It wasn’t long after Albert’s discovery was made, did Bacchus find himself behind the closed doors of every aristocratic room on the continent. High born and well educated fellows and ladies whose curiosity was just as irresistible as Albert’s. It wasn’t long before they were sharing, cataloguing, and journaling their experiences. Whole books and essays were drafted throughout the West by some of the more eccentric minds, that would soon be put into print.
Bacchus felt his influence in the ether strengthen. Slowly, but just enough.
The war was already coming to its natural end, with the aggressors pushed back into their faltering territories. And while Aiwass was successful in orchestrating the completion of the new atomic bomb, upon its devastating deployment, even the most war-minded of men were wrought by an anguishing horror of its destruction. Many swearing off its use ever again.
Bacchus, with his new, and albeit limited influence, saw to this. Reaching out and touching the minds and hearts of Man to weigh the scales towards life. Reminding many of the grand beauties that are to be contrasted with horror, not swallowed by it.
The moment Aiwass noticed another’s influence, he gripped the heads of nations and oligarchs the tightest. Sewing himself deep into their hearts, thus ensuring he maintained control of the world order.
Subversively, he commanded these men atop of human civilization to keep producing atomic weapons. To become even more economically aggressive and expansionist. He told them the whole world would be theirs, if only they willed it.
In their dreams he whispered, “War, in whatever form, never truly ends.”
Alone on his golden throne reaching high into the heavens, Aiwass’ long claws impatiently tapped the armrests. Something had changed in the ether. His influence was being drowned out by something else. Something that wasn’t there before.
“Well, hello there.” Bacchus appeared behind the throne, leaning over it a little as he tapped Aiwass on the shoulder. “Thought you had it all figured out, didn’t you?”
The demon’s eyes burned with a black fire as he turned to look at the imp. “So you’re the one who spoiled my fun. Tell me, agent of chaos. How is it you managed to thwart me?”
Bacchus looked away playfully and smiled while pinching the ends of his twisted horns. “How much do you know about bicycles?”
I hope you enjoyed this fourth part of Post-Modern Mythology! Join me for the next chapter, or check out some of my other works.
If you’re interested in delving into more context regarding this series, consider checking my Introduction to Post-Modern Mythology, or the preceding Parts One, Two, and Three.
Also, if you’re a big fiction-head that loves exploring Alice’s proverbial rabbit-hole, consider picking up my novel - Man In A Castle. Available for sale in paperback, or free if you are subscribed to Kindle Unlimited.
Much Love and Happy (belated) Beltane!
-B