Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson ====================================================================================================================================================================================
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Ten Books in Three Series
FIRST SERIES Three books under the title of Beelzebub's
Tales to His Grandson. An Objectively Impartial Criticism
of the Life of Man.
SECOND SERIES Two books under the common title of
Meetings with Remarkable Men.
THIRD SERIES Five books under the title of Life Is Real Only
Then, When "I Am. "
All written according to entirely new principles of logical
reasoning and directed toward the accomplishment of the
following three fundamental tasks:
FIRST SERIES To destroy, mercilessly and without any
compromise whatever, in the mentation and feelings of the
reader, the beliefs and views, by centuries rooted in him,
about everything existing in the world.
SECOND SERIES To acquaint the reader with the material
required for a new creation and to prove the soundness and
good quality of it.
THIRD SERIES To assist the arising, in the mentation and in
the feelings of the reader, of a veritable, nonfantastic
representation not of that illusory world which he now
perceives, but of the world existing in reality.
F R I E N D L Y A D V I C E
(Written impromptu by the author on delivering this
book, already prepared for publication, to the
printer)
According to the numerous deductions and conclusions resulting from my
research concerning the profit contemporary people can obtain from new
impressions coming from what they read or hear, and also according to the
thought of one of the sayings of popular wisdom I have just remembered,
handed down to our days from very ancient times,
"Any prayer may be heard and granted by the Higher Powers only if it is
uttered thrice:
First—for the welfare or the peace of the souls of one's parents,
Second—for the welfare of one's neighbor, And only third—for oneself
personally," I find it necessary on the first page of this book, now ready for
publication, to give the following advice "Read each of my written
expositions thrice First—at least as you have already become mechanized to
read all your contemporary books and newspapers,
Second—as if you were reading aloud to another person, And only third—try
to fathom the gist of my writings Only then will you be able to count upon
forming your own impartial judgment, proper to yourself alone, on my
writings And only then can my hope be actualized that according to your
understanding you will obtain the specific benefit for yourself which I
anticipate, and which I wish for you with all my being.
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The arousing of thought
AMONG ALL the convictions formed in my "common presence" during my
responsible, peculiarly composed life, there is one unshakable conviction that
people—whatever the degree of development of their understanding and
whatever the form taken by the factors present in their individuality for
engendering all kinds of ideals—always and everywhere on the Earth feel the
imperative need, on beginning anything new, to pronounce aloud, or if not
aloud at least mentally, that particular invocation understandable to even the
most ignorant person, which has been formulated in different ways in different
epochs, and in our day is expressed in the following words "In the name of the
Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost Amen."
That is why I now also, in setting forth on this venture quite new for me,
namely authorship, begin by pronouncing this invocation, and pronounce it
not only aloud but even very distinctly and, as the ancient Toulousites used to
say, with a "fully manifested intonation"—of course only to the extent
permitted by data already formed in my whole presence and thoroughly rooted
in it for such a manifestation, data, by the way, which are generally formed in
man's nature during his preparatory years, and which later, during his
responsible life, determine the character and vivifyingness of such an
intonation.
Having begun thus, I can now be quite at ease and should even, according
to contemporary notions of "religious morality," be completely assured that
from now on everything in this new venture of mine will proceed, as is said,
"like a pianola."
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In any case, this is the way I have begun, and how the rest will go I can
only say, as the blind man put it, "we shall see."
First and foremost, I shall place my hand, moreover the right one, which—
although at the moment it is slightly injured due to an accident that recently
befell me—is nevertheless really my own, and has never once failed me in all
my life, on my heart, of course also my own—but on the constancy or
inconstancy of this part of my whole I see no need to expatiate here—and
frankly confess that I myself have not the slightest wish to write, but am
constrained to do so by circumstances quite independent of me, though
whether these circumstances arose accidentally or were created intentionally
by extraneous forces I do not yet know I only know that these circumstances
bid me write not just some trifle for reading oneself to sleep, but thick and
weighty tomes.
However that may be, I begin . . .
But begin with what?
Oh, the devil! Will there indeed be repeated that strange and extremely
unpleasant sensation it befell me to experience about three weeks ago, while
I was composing in my thoughts the scheme and sequence of the ideas I
intended to publish and did not know then, either, how to begin?
This sensation I could only describe in these words "the fear of drowning
in the overflow of my own thoughts."
To stop this disagreeable sensation I might still have had recourse to that
maleficent property inherent in me, as in all contemporary people, which
enables us, without experiencing any remorse of conscience whatever, to put
off anything we wish to do "till tomorrow "
I could have done this very easily because before beginning the actual
writing there seemed to be plenty of time, but today this is no longer so and,
cost what it may, "even though I burst," I must begin.
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But begin with what?
Hurrah! . . . Eureka!
Almost all the books I have happened to read in my life have begun with a
preface. So I too must begin with something of the kind.
I say "of the kind." because in my entire life, from the moment I began to
distinguish a boy from a girl, I have always done everything, absolutely
everything, not as it is done by other, like myself, biped destroyers of
Nature's good. Therefore I ought now, and am perhaps even bound on
principle, to begin not as any other writer would.
In any case, instead of the conventional preface I shall begin quite simply
with a warning.
Beginning with a warning will be most judicious on my part, if only
because it will not contradict any of my principles, whether organic, psychic,
or even "willful" At the same time it will be quite honest—honest, of course,
in the objective sense, since I expect without the least doubt, as do all those
who know me well, that owing to my writings there will entirely disappear in
the majority of readers— immediately and not gradually, as sooner or later
must occur to everyone—all the "treasures" they have acquired, either by
inheritance or by their own labor, in the form of "quieting notions" that evoke
only romantic images of their present lives or naive dreams about the future
Professional writers usually begin such introductions with an address to
the reader full of all kinds of bombastic, magniloquent, and so to say
"honeyed" and inflated phrases.
In this alone I shall follow their example and also begin with an "address
to the reader," but I shall try not to make it as sugary as they usually do with
their evil wiseacring, by which they titillate the sensibilities of the more or
less normal reader.
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Thus . . .
My dear, highly honored, strong-willed, and of course very patient Sirs,
and my very dear, charming, and impartial Ladies—forgive me, I have
omitted the most important— my in no wise hysterical Ladies!
I have the honor to inform you that although, due to circumstances that
have arisen in one of the later stages of my life, I am now going to write
books, during my whole life I have never written a single book or "instructive
article," or even a letter in which it was necessary to observe what is called
"grammaticality," so that although I am about to become a "professional
writer" I have no practice at all in the established rules and procedures or in
what is called "bon ton literary language," and am therefore constrained to
write not as ordinary "patented" writers do, to whose form of writing you are
in all probability as much accustomed as to your own smell.
In my opinion, what will be troublesome for you in all this is chiefly that
in childhood there was implanted in you—and has now become perfectly
harmonized with your general psyche—an excellently working automatism
for perceiving all kinds of new impressions, thanks to which "blessing" you
have now, during your responsible life, no need to make any individual effort
whatsoever.
To speak frankly, I personally see the central point of my confession not in
my lack of experience in the rules and procedures of writers, but in my
ignorance of what I have called "bon ton literary language," required in
contemporary life not only of authors but even of all ordinary mortals.
As regards the former, that is to say, my lack of experience in the rules and
procedures of writers, I am not greatly disturbed. And I am not disturbed,
because in the life of contemporary people this lack of experience is in the
order of things.
This new "blessing" arose and is flourishing everywhere
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In self-justification, and also perhaps to lessen the disapproval in your
waking consciousness of my ignorance of this language indispensable for
contemporary life, I consider it necessary to say, with humble heart and
cheeks flushed with shame, that although I too was taught this language in my
childhood, and although some of my elders who prepared me for responsible
life constantly forced me, without sparing any means of intimidation, to learn
by rote the host of nuances that in their totality compose this contemporary
"delight," yet unfortunately, of course for you, of all that I learned by rote
nothing stuck, and nothing whatever has survived for my present activities as
a writer.
And if nothing stuck, it was not through any fault of mine or of my former
"respected" and "nonrespected" teachers This human labor was spent in vain
owing to an unexpected and quite exceptional event that occurred at the
moment of my appearance on God's Earth, at which moment—as a certain
well-known European occultist explained to me after
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However that may be, the fact remains, illuminated from every side like an
American advertisement—which fact cannot now be changed by any forces,
even with the know-how of the "experts in monkey business"—that I, who
have in recent years been considered by many people a rather good teacher of
temple dances, have today become a professional writer, and will of course
write a great deal—as it has been proper to me since childhood whenever I do
anything to do a great deal of it—nevertheless, not having, as you see, the
automatically acquired and automatically manifested practice needed for this,
I shall be obliged to write all I have thought out in the plain, simple everyday
language established by life, without any "literary manipulations" or
"grammatical wiseacrings."
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s "All they can do is wrangle with pigs about the
quality of oranges."
People of this kind, who, due to rotten heredity and nauseating upbringing,
on reaching a certain age have been turned into "voracious moths,"
destroying the good prepared and left for us by our ancestors and by time,
have not the slightest notion and have never even heard of the blatantly
obvious fact that during preparatory age there is acquired in the brain
functioning of every creature, and thus
of man also, a definite property whose automatic manifestations proceed
according to a certain law that the ancient Korkolans called the "law of
associations," and that the process of mentation of every creature, especially
man, flows exclusively in accordance with this law.
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And so, cheerful and swaggering candidate for a buyer of my "wiseacrings,"
having warned you that I am going to write not as professional writers usually
do but quite otherwise, I advise you to reflect seriously before you embark on
reading my further expositions, and only then to undertake it Otherwise, I am
afraid that your hearing and other perceptive as well as digestive organs may
be so thoroughly automatized to the "literary language of the intelligentsia"
prevailing at the present time on Earth that these writings of mine might affect
you very, very cacophonously, and thereby you might lose . . . do you know
what? . . . your
appetite for your favorite dish, and that special psychic feature of yours which
particularly "titillates your vitals" on catching sight of your neighbor, the
brunette.
That my language, or rather the form of my mentation, can produce such
an effect I am, thanks to repeated past experiences, as much convinced with
my whole being as a "thoroughbred donkey" is convinced of the rightness and
justice of his obstinacy.
Now that I have warned you of what is most important, I am tranquil about
all that will follow. For if any misunderstanding should arise on account of my
writings, you alone will be to blame, and my conscience will be as clear as for
instance . . . ex-Kaiser Wilhelm's.
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"life principles"
among beings arising and existing on all the other planets of our Great
Universe.
This all-universal principle of living is formulated in the following words:
"If you go on a spree, then go the whole hog, including the postage."
As this now-universal principle arose on the same planet as you and where,
moreover, you spend most of your time lolling about on a bed of roses and
frequently dance the fox trot, I consider that I have no right to withhold from
you the information I have that will help you understand certain details of the
origin of that universal principle.
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even a "complete victim" of contemporary education
would have to understand, not without a shudder—that Hell and Paradise do
indeed exist, only not "in another world" but here beside us on Earth.
After the publication of the first series, I intend, for the spreading of the
ideas contained in the second series, to organize in various large centers
simultaneous public readings accessible to all.
And as regards the real, indubitably comprehensible objective truths that
have been brought to light by me in the third series, I wish to make this series
accessible exclusively to those who, after listening to the second series of my
writings, will be selected by specially prepared people according to my
considered instructions.
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