There were a few Seraphim. There were a few Ophanim. And someof the lower orders which are the least intelligent angels, butnevertheless angels, and much in love with Creation and curious as to whatwas making me so angry with God.
"I can't give you the number of how many we were. But when wereached the earth, we went our separate ways to perceive things, andcame together often and instantly and agreed upon what we had seen.
"What united us was our interest in the statement of God thatHumankind was part of Nature. We just couldn't see how this wastrue. We went exploring.
"Very quickly, I learnt that men and women lived now in largegroups, very unlike the other primates, that they built shelters forthemselves, that they painted their bodies with various colors, thatthe women often lived separate from the men, and that they believedin something invisible. Now what was that? Was it the souls of theancestors, the dearly departed who were still locked in the air ofEarth, disembodied and confused?
"Yes, it was the souls of ancestors, but the humans worshippedother entities as well. They imagined a God who had made the WildBeasts and to him they made blood sacrifice on Altars, thinking thisaspect of Almighty God to be a personality of very distinct limits andrather easy to please or displease.
"Now, I can't say all this was a big surprise to me. I'd seen theearly signs of it. After all, I telescoped millions of years for you in myRevelations. But when I drew near to these altars, when I heard thespecific prayer to the God of the Wild Animals; when I began to seethe care and deliberation of the sacrifice梩he slaying of a ram or adeer桰 was much struck by the fact that not only had these humanscome to look like Angels, but they had guessed at the truth.
"They had come upon it instinctively! There was a God. Theyknew. They didn't know what He was like but they knew. And thisinstinctive knowledge seemed to spring from the same essence as didtheir surviving spiritual souls. Let me be even clearer.
"Self-consciousness, and the awareness of one's own death梩hishad created a sense of distinct individuality in humans, and thisindividuality feared death; feared annihilation! Saw it, knew what itwas, saw it happening. And prayed for a God that He would not letsuch a thing have no meaning in the world.
"And it was this very same tenacity梩he tenacity of thisindividuality梩hat made the human soul stay alive after it left thebody, imitating the shape of the body, holding itself together, so to speak,clinging to life, as it were, perpetuating itself, by shaping itself accordingto the only world it knew."I didn't speak. I was wound up in the story and only wanted forhim to continue. But naturally I thought of Roger. I thought verydistinctly of Roger because Roger was the only ghost I'd ever known.
And what Memnoch had just described was a highly organized andvery willful version of Roger.
"Oh, yes, precisely," said Memnoch, "which is probably why it isjust as well that he came to you, though at the time I regarded it asone of the greatest annoyances in the world.""You didn't want Roger to come to me?""I watched. I listened. I was amazed, as you were, but I have beenamazed by other ghosts before him. It wasn't that extraordinary, butno, it certainly wasn't something orchestrated by me, if that's whatyou mean.""But it happened so close to your coming! It seems connected.""Does it? What's the connection? Look for it inside yourself.
Don't you think the dead have tried to speak before? Don't you thinkthe ghosts of your victims have come howling after you? Admittedly,the ghosts of your victims usually pass in total bliss and confusion,unaware of you as the instrument of their death. But that's not alwaysthe case. Maybe what has changed is you! And as we know, you lovedthis mortal man, Roger, you admired him, you understood his vanityand love of the sacred and the mysterious and the costly, because youhave these traits within yourself.""Yes, all of that's true, without doubt," I said. "I still think youhad something to do with his coming."He was shocked. He looked at me for a long moment as if he weregoing to become angry, and then he laughed.
"Why?" he asked. "Why would I bother with such an apparition?
You know what I'm asking of you! You know what it means! You'reno stranger to the mystical or the theological revelation. You knewwhen you were a living man梩he boy back in France who realized hemight die without knowing the meaning of the universe and ran tothe village priest to demand of the poor fellow, 'Do you believe inGod?'""Yes, but it just all happened at the same time. And when youclaim there's no connection, I just... I don't believe it," I said.
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