The Ultimate Conquest

W. Carl Ketcherside

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     Michael could see the geeardee, for though he was invisible to mortal eyes, the celestial beings are not limited by time or space. As the prince assigned to direct the affairs of HIS people during their earth span, Michael was interested in every move of the geeardee. He knew his diabolical cunning, intensified by a supernatural knowledge of those motivations which make intelligent beings act, whether in heaven or upon earth. And Michael knew, as the geeardee knew, that pride was the most universal of all the forces which drive those beings who can choose.

     The war was not over between Michael and the geeardee. It had only been transferred from one site to another. The feeling was unabated. The wrath was not assuaged. And it never would be until the gecardee was confined to his ultimate fate in the Lake. This was what the mortals called it because they had no real concept of it and thus no words to designate it or adequately describe it. There were a lot of things the mortals could not grasp. And not the least of these was the truth that they were the pawns, and therefore, the victims of the war which raged back and forth across Esoteros, that portion of the universe so well known to angels and demons, but hidden from the eyes of the dust-born.

     It is true that the mortals were not always the stake in the conflict. The war began before HE made the first image. The initial battle was fought in Ouranos and at that time it was the Right Hand which was the goal of conquest. The strife was not wholly unexpected. For a long time (to speak after the manner of mortals) a subtle transformation was observable in one of the seraphs. Others of the Messengers were visibly affected. Then the Challenge was issued. The Prince demanded the privilege of occupying the Right Hand. He was informed that it was reserved for Logos. The Prince was enraged and declared a state of war.

     With this pronouncement HE fixed his eyes upon him. In the full light of HIS eyes only Truth can prevail. All sham, all pretence, all unreality melts away because Truth is Reality--naked and open! Suddenly the Prince was seen to be what he had become--the geeardee--hideous and horrifying. Michael and his Messengers fought against the geeardee and his Messengers. All of the combatants fully understood that there could never be a truce. They knew, too, what the outcome must be. There was no Separation such as thanatos, which only the mortals can experience. The Separation for Messengers is banishment from Ouranos in full knowledge that this is irrevocable and aeonian. The geeardee and his Messengers were finally driven to the very edge of Celestia and with one final thrust were thrown over the Precipice.

     When the Pneuma brought order out of the Chaos, the geeardee resolved to capture this domain for himself. When HE made the first image, and then made a counterpart for him from part of his own person, the geeardee heard with interest that the image was given dominion over all the Order. He could gain control and

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wrest the power from HIM merely by seducing the two images. And he knew the proper appeal to achieve his end. Possessed of the power of morpheo, by which he could transform himself into any shape, he appeared upright, brilliant and scintillating, going first to the secondary image. The task was easier than he had anticipated. And the images were cast out of Paradisia as he had been thrown out of Celestia.

     Thereupon, the geeardee took possession of Atmos, the sphere surrounding the Earth. And he proclaimed his sovereignty as prince. From this region he proposed to govern the images and thus to defeat HIS purpose. But he reckoned without the principle of Agape, a force of which he knew nothing. When he became aware that HE was manifesting Agape toward the images, even in their degenerate condition, and that HE had promised them that it would culminate in Logos sharing their estate, to rescue them from the power of the geeardee, he set about immediately to thwart the coming of Logos.

     His chief weapon was thanatos. By this the pneuma (the conscious) could be separated from the soma (the substance) and the image be rendered incapable of performing any function, especially that which resulted in reproduction. To the delight of the geeardee HE narrowed the field by limiting the coming of Logos to one family strain. This meant that the geeardee could concentrate his efforts on disintegration of this one line while satisfied that the remainder of the images would be under his dominant control. He carried on the campaign to eliminate the succession smoothly and efficiently. Once by clever manipulation of thanatos he had reduced the possibility to one tiny infant, and another time to one man upon whom HE pronounced thanatos despite the fact there would be no descendants. But each time he was defeated by Agape. In the first case an aunt stole the infant away and he was preserved by some priests. In the second instance the subject humbled himself so abjectly that HE granted a fifteen year respite from thanatos. And during this period of reprieve a son was born.

     When Gabriel passed through his realm, disdainful of his authority, the geeardee knew that the battle to keep Logos from sharing with the images was a lost cause. He hated Gabriel because he had spurned him when he tried to enlist him in the Great Revolt. He hated him all the more for his deliberate invasion of the Order as though it still belonged to HIM and the Ouranian Messengers could come and go at will. Upon learning that Logos was to enter among the images as an infant, the geeardee moved one of his obedient subjects, a half-Idumean usurper, to decree thanatos for every infant in the region. All were Separated except the Right One.

     The geeardee bitterly resented the name Jesus as applied to Logos. He knew what it meant. And he fully understood its implications. It was this knowledge which finally drove him to risk the Confrontation. The circumstances were all favorable. Forty days of fasting had taken their toll of Jesus. The geeardee had whetted the keen dagger of temptation until it was well-nigh irresistible. The least penetration would enable its being thrust in to the hilt. He began with his potent "If"- half-statement, half-query, which cast doubt and called insistently for demonstration to prove or disprove. Three times he moved in for the kill and three times was driven back by the weapon drawn from the scabbard of Moses--that Moses whose body had occasioned such a violent dispute between Michael and himself. He had lost the argument with Michael. And he lost the present temptation. Moses had foiled him again.

     There was but one thing left to do. The ultimate weapon must be called into use. The mortals called thanatos the King of terrors. They were frightened by the Separation more than by anything else. The effectiveness of Jesus would be destroyed by the Destroyer. The plot was laid well. There must appear to be a national rejection for nothing would insult HIM more than to realize that centuries of

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preparation were a total loss and worthless. The religious leaders must be the ones to cry out against Jesus. One of his own circle would betray him. He would be subjected to insult, ignominy, and finally exhibited as a spectacle of shame in the most cruel form by which the Separation could be affected. He who had stretched out his bands to create trees would now have his hands stretched out on one.

     Everything proceeded according to the Plan. The sepulcher closed upon the soma. And then it happened! Two Messengers flashed through the realm of Atmos. The Order was in violent upheaval. The sepulcher was opened. Jesus emerged from the gloom. For the first time thanatos had met its master. The geeardee was deprived of his most fearsome weapon. Jesus returned to Ouranos and took the Right Hand, the coveted position which had caused the original overthrow of the geeardee. Logos had begun his reign of conquest.

     And the geeardee knew that he must work swiftly and furiously to salvage what he could and to satisfy the bitter hatred which gnawed at him continuously like a living flame. He had long been aware that HE had breathed HIS nature into the mortals who pledged their allegiance. He also knew that by HIS breath the first image made of dust became a living being. Taking a cue from this the geeardee resolved to breathe his own nature, the poison breath of acrimony, into Atmos. When absorbed by mortals this produced alienation and estrangement among those who should have been filled with fondness for each other. The brain became bewitched. The mental faculties were deranged. The sense of balance was lost. The mortals became convinced they were doing HIS will when in reality they were working against the Purpose and in behalf of their own selfish ends.

     Hidden from mortal eyes behind the Veil, the geeardee took advantage of every opportunity. By breathing first upon one, then upon another in the Ekklesia, he kindled and enflamed the spirit of Party. The disciples of Logos turned the keen sword, which had been provided for defence, against each other. The Ekklesia developed rents which continued to widen until they created Parties with aversion and antipathy toward each other. The language became confused. The mortals lost the true sense of words they employed--such words as fellowship, tolerance and brotherly love.

     In their bewilderment each Party came to believe that its adherents alone constituted the Chosen Ones and that the shibboleths and passwords which they employed were the keys to HIS favor. Some adopted titles drawn from the Oracles, thinking to sanctify the party by claiming exclusive right to interpretation. In the resultant confusion and strife the enmity was encouraged and the hostility heightened by partisan strictures and debates. It appeared that HIS purpose would be thwarted by those who claimed to love HIM most, but whose brains were addled by the noxious fumes of the breath of the geeardee.

     Then someone discovered that Agape was the effective antidote. Prejudice, partiality and pessimism could not withstand its purifying influence. It drove back the winds of bigotry. It cleared the air of suspicion and skepticism. Under its benign influence hearts yearned for one another. Broken ties were mended. With magnetic influence it drew mortals from selfish motivation to the person of Jesus. They ceased to regard the Party as the Ekklesia. Walls were broken down. Barriers were removed. Lives were filled with joy and with koinonia of the Pneuma. Happiness replaced discord and discontent.

     Against Agape the geeardee had no efficient counter-measure. He knew that every mortal who allowed this principle to reign in his heart was lost to him. But plotting and planning, while hidden in the Shadow, he resolved to pit his power and his Messengers against all who loved HIM until the lake opened to receive them. As Michael watched him he felt secure in the knowledge that ultimate victory--the triumph of Agape--would be final and complete.

     (AUTHOR'S NOTE: The discerning reader

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will have already determined that the geeardee is a designation we have coined from the initial letters of "the great red dragon"--Rev. 12:3).