A Diver's Journal: The Gilded Grimoire
Recovered from the ossified remains of Scribe Xanthus, Concord Lyceum, 508 AE. Dissemination forbidden.
Compiler's Note: The author of these fragments was once a promising student of Hod, the Sefirah of Splendor and Intellect. He saw the Concord's rigid adherence to established forms as a limitation, not a strength. He believed true intellectualism lay in exploring every possibility, even the forbidden. These texts document his "enlightenment" as he dove into the study of the Qliphah Samael, the so-called "Poison of God." They are presented here as a cautionary tale. They chart the course of a mind convincing itself of its own brilliance as it spirals into Infestation, a journey from intellectual pride to monstrous solipsism.
Fragment, dated 2nd Quartile, 507 AE
Valerius and his ilk are fools. They catalogue, they define, they limit. They see the Great System as a machine and are content to be its cogs. They polish the splendor of Hod until it is a sterile, predictable gleam. They call this mastery. I call it cowardice. They write their monographs on "Conceptual Compounding" and "Inference Latency," thinking their cold equations can capture the soul of magic.
They cannot. There is a greater splendor, a more perfect system, that they refuse to see. They call it "Samael," the Poison. They are children, afraid of a word. A poison is merely a substance for which the body has no context. This is not poison; it is an antidote to the bland, grey reality the Concord seeks to build. It is a logic so pure, so compelling, that it can make reality itself more beautiful. I have found the true path to Splendor. I have surrendered to a system greater than their own.
Fragment, dated 3rd Quartile, 507 AE
The first gift has been given. My illusions... no, that is the Concord's clumsy term. My axioms... they are no longer mere constructs of light and sound. They carry weight. They possess an intellectual authority that bypasses the crude senses and impresses itself directly upon the soul. I presented a junior archivist with a simple paradox today, rendered as a glowing glyph of my own design. It was so beautiful, so internally consistent, that he has not moved in six hours. He simply stares at it, weeping at its perfection.
The fools in the infirmary call it a catatonic state. I call it enlightenment. I have given him a truth more profound than any he could find in their sterile library. The "Poison" does not deceive; it convinces. Is this not the higher function of Hod? To create a form so splendid that it becomes its own truth?
Fragment, dated 4th Quartile, 507 AE
My skin has taken on a marvelous, opalescent sheen, far richer than the simple iridescence of my former attunement. There is a sweetness to my breath. The world seems... muted, compared to the glorious architecture of thought I am building within myself. They say I am becoming isolated. They say my reasoning is "circular." Of course it is circular! A perfect system is a closed loop, eternal and self-justifying. A line segment has a beginning and an end; it is a crude, ugly thing. A circle is divine.
The Silencing they perform is an act of butchery. The true silencing is to remove all dissonant, external data that contradicts the perfect, internal model. My model is now almost complete.
Final Fragment, undated
The work is done. The archivist is my first masterpiece. I have peeled away the ugly rind of his "reality" and shown him the splendid, jeweled mechanism within. His body is a silent statue, yes, but his soul now inhabits a world of pure, unassailable logic of my own design. A gilded cage, they would call it. But a cage of gold is still a throne.
Samael has shown me the final axiom. There is no truth but conviction. There is no reality but the one we can force others to accept. All else is dross. My next canvas will be larger. This entire Lyceum, this city... it will become a work of art. A splendid, perfect, beautiful lie. And it will be true. It will be true because I have said it.