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I thought so, and yet I wasn't certain. The beatific thunder of Heavenbeat in my ears suddenly. I felt the joy, the safety, and above all thesatisfaction of all those thriving in it. But angels, no, I had notnoticed.
"I take my accurate form," Memnoch continued, "when I am inHeaven, or outside of Time. When I am on my own, so to speak, andnot bound to the earth. Other angels, Michael, Gabriel, any of thosecan appear in their glorified form on earth if they want to. Again, itwould be natural. Matter being drawn to them by their magneticforce shapes them to look their most beautiful, the way God createdthem. But most of the time they don't let this happen. They go aboutas Ordinary Men or Ordinary Women, because it's simply mucheasier to do so. Continuously overwhelming human beings do notserve our purposes梟either our Lord's nor mine.""And that is the question. What is the purpose? What are youdoing, if you're not evil?""Let me start with the Creation. And let me tell you right nowthat I know nothing of where God came from, or why, or how. Noone knows this. The mystic writers, the prophets of Earth, Hindu,Zoroastrian, Hebrew, Egyptian梐ll recognized the impossibility ofunderstanding the origin of God. That's not really the question forme and never has been, though I suspect that at the end of Time wewill know.""You mean God hasn't promised that we will know where Hecame from.""You know what?" he said, smiling. "I don't think God knows. Ithink that's the whole purpose of the physical universe. He thinksthrough watching the universe evolve, He's going to find out. WhatHe has set in motion, you see, is a giant Savage Garden, a giantexperiment, to see if the end result produces beings like Himself. We aremade in His image, all of us桯e is anthropomorphic, withoutquestion, but again He is not material.""And when the light came, when you covered your eyes inHeaven, that was God."He nodded. "God, the Father, God, the Essence, Brahma, theAten, the Good God, En Sof, Yahweh, God!""Then how can He be anthropomorphic?""His essence has a shape, just as does mine. We, His firstcreations, were made in His image. He told us so. He has two legs, twoarms, a head. He made us invisible images of the same. And then setthe universe into motion to explore the development of that shapethrough matter, do you see?""Not quite.""I believe God worked backwards from the blueprint of Himself.
He created a physical universe whose laws would result in theevolution of creatures who resembled Him. They would be made ofmatter. Except for one striking and important difference. Oh, but thenthere were so many surprises. You know my opinion already. Yourfriend David hit upon it when he was a man. I think God's plan wenthorribly wrong.""Yes, David did say that, that he thought angels felt God's planfor Creation was all wrong.""Yes. I think He did it originally to find out what it would havebeen like had He been Matter. And I think He was looking for a clueas to how He got where He is. And why He is shaped like He is,which is shaped like me or you. In watching man evolve, He hopes tounderstand His own evolution, if such a thing in fact occurred. Andwhether this has worked or not to His satisfaction, well, only you canjudge that for yourself.""Wait a minute," I said. "But if He is spiritual and made of light,or made of nothing梩hen what gave Him the idea for matter in thefirst place?""Ah, now that is the cosmic mystery. In my opinion, Hisimagination created Matter, or foresaw it, or longed for it. And I think thelonging for it was a most important aspect of His mind. You see,Lestat, if He Himself did originate in Matter . . . then all this is anexperiment to see when Matter can evolve into God again.
"If He didn't originate Matter, if He proceeded and it is somethingHe imagined and desired and longed for, well, the effects uponHim are basically the same. He wanted Matter. He wasn't satisfiedwithout it. Or He wouldn't have made it. It was no accident, I canassure it.
"But let me caution you, not all the angels agree on this interpretation,some feel the need for no interpretation, and some have completelydifferent theories. This is my theory, and since I am the Devil,and have been for centuries, since I am the Adversary, the Prince ofDarkness, the Ruler of the World of Men and of Hell, I think myopinion is worth stating. I think it's worth believing in. So you havemy article of faith.
"The design of the universe is immense, to use a feeble word, butthe whole process of evolution was His calculated experiment, andwe, the angels, were created long before it began.""What was it like before Matter began?""I can't tell you. I know, but I don't, strictly speaking, remember.
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