“So, let me get this straight. Since I last saw you, all four of you went to Lady Jess to teach you, because you decided you were ignorant peasants?”, Lady Hypatia smiled at the four newborn Gods.

“Well, we figured that staying ignorant would be a poor way to repay you for your kindness”, Albert smiled. “So, we looked around to see who would teach us how the world works. Jetsunma seemed to be the least busy, so we went to her”.

“And then all four of you became Gods, and then Jess chastised Lord Shiva for giving her the title ‘Teacher of Gods’?”, she sipped her coffee and snickered.

“I didn’t chastise Lord Shiva!”, Yeshe Tsogyal protested, taken aback by the very idea. “I just urged him very politely to reconsider, because my husband and wife were doing the same work as I, and it was a mere accident that I got such brilliant students, so if I am to be recognised for it, they should be as well”.

“And so all three of you got the title”, Hypatia smiled. “Quite deservingly, if I may say so, since you’ve been doing wonderful work there. Thanks to you, the level of understanding of the world among the post-Earth souls has risen dramatically”.

“And all four of you now have an official title in the lineage of Jetsunma Yeshe Tsogyal Rimpoche in the Nyingma tradition of Vajrayana Buddhism”, Kay nodded approvingly. “Which means you all now have long titles I will never manage to remember”, she pretended to nurse a headache.

“Let’s all pretend you didn’t just remember mine perfectly”, Jess tickled her in the ribs and laughed as the Mind of God tried to squirm away, giggling.

“So, what do you plan to do next?”, Lady Hypatia asked the four.

“If it is acceptable to you, we would like to join you in your work as the Judges”, Hilde looked at Hypatia. “We considered between that and joining Jetsunma in her teaching work, but we decided that, since we belong to you, we should take some of your workload away and thus make your life easier”, she smiled at her Goddess, who started to tear up and decided to hide her discomfort by embracing the girl.

“It is perfectly acceptable. All four of you are overqualified for the job, and we are honoured to have you”, nodded Lord Vishnu, who decided to save Lady Hypatia from the embarrassment of having to say something while trying not to cry.

…

“Wait, I just remembered that you referred to Lady Mandarava as your wife, and not sister-wife”, Kay scratched her jaw. “Does that mean…?”

“Yes, it’s a three-way relationship. I am her wife as much as I am his. If I didn’t love them equally, there would certainly be all kinds of jealousy or feelings of exclusion. Our minds are so intertwined, we don’t even think of ourselves as separate persons, more like one person with three bodies, all in service of each other”, Lady Jess nodded.

“That’s why you refused any recognition if the two of them don’t partake”, Goddess of Wisdom nodded. “You perceive yourselves as a single unit, that just happens to sit under three different apple trees at the same time”.

“I’m glad that you understand us. People get confused when they see us, because they always get hung up on sex and imagine two in intercourse with the odd person sticking out. That’s not at all how it is. We meditated together so much, that we would forget which body is where. Our consciousness was completely merged, and we automatically took care of each other’s needs, without even realising. Someone would be thirsty and someone would bring water. One of us would work late, and one of the others would wake up and bring more oil for the lamp and go back to sleep. I don’t even remember which one did what. So, even saying that it was a three-way marriage doesn’t do it justice. Mandarava is not so much my wife as she is a body part, figuratively speaking. You will rarely see us talking to each other, but you will see us finishing each other’s thoughts, or picking up each other’s role in a conversation. The fact that two out of three of my souls are female is merely a factoid”, she smiled.

“But what about sex? I mean, technically…?”, Kay blushed.

“Technically, sex consisted mostly of breathing each other’s energy, of surrender and worship”, Jess shrugged. “Of course we were incredibly intimate with each other, but if you visualise my husband in padmasana, and me in his lap, you’ll understand there’s not much penetration or action of any kind going on there”, she laughed as Kay was cherry red. “I would embrace him and we would breathe each other. Or I would embrace my wife and we would breathe each other. When you have three-way blending of minds and all are breathing vajra and visualising mandalas, the sex on Earth was pretty much the same as it is for you and your husband here; souls breathing each other in directly. The physical world was something that happened in the background”, she shrugged.

“I am starting to see why the three of you became Gods, and others doing apparently similar things in your tradition didn’t. You were the goal to each other, not means to an end”, Kay nodded.

“Exactly. We weren’t using each other to attain enlightenment; we used enlightenment to love and serve each other”, Jess smiled blissfully.

“I am honoured to be your friend; and by ‘you’ I mean all three of you, who are one”, Karuna bowed, and Jess Rimpoche just hugged her. “You’re not merely my friend, sweetheart. You’re my sister”.

…

“The religions and cultures seem to be amalgamating wonderfully”, Lady Shakti smiled at her husband. “A tantric Tibetan Goddess just brought four German Christians who worship a neoplatonist Greek Goddess to godhood. Also, the said Tibetan Goddess is sister-bonding with Karuna”.

“Sounds very much like heaven”, Shiva smiled. “The only kind of a religious war they could possibly have is over trying to give each other all the credit. But just imagine people on Earth seeing them. They would have an absolute fit”.

“You mean, they would try to burn them all at a stake for heresy?”, she giggled.

“Exactly”, he nodded.

“I don’t think we are even close to seeing the dumbest and craziest they have to offer”, Shakti sighed.

“Since your soul structure is essentially grafted upon a vajra carrier, your situation is different than what an angelic being would normally be facing. They attained purification of the lower four elements before crystallisation. You, however, need to consciously go though this now in order to integrate your consciousness with the carrier fully”, Goddess explained.

“Jetsunma, how do we do this?”, Albert frowned. “Are there specific ways we should approach grounding into the elements, or should we follow the classic procedure?”

“Classic procedure would probably work, but I have a specific meditation for you to go through, since your specific situation is also providing you with shortcuts that would not be available to a normal soul preparing for vajra initiation. The standard affirmation is ‘element Earth is perfect, and present in fullness in me’, and the same for each progressively higher element. In your case, the affirmation is ‘Lady Hypatia is the perfection and fullness of the element Earth, and I accept her perfection and fullness as myself’, as you meditate on her energy as you originally felt it. This is because you already have a template of perfection within your soul, that you merely need to integrate on a conscious level”.

“You spoke about treating impurities that arise in the process, and how they are to be consumed through remorse, suffering and Kundalini kriyas. Does any of this apply to us?”, Hilde wondered.

“No. Your structure is perfectly pure. The carrier your souls were grafted upon is of a perfect Divine origin, and your souls themselves were pure. They were, however, extremely undeveloped, which is why you now need to expand your consciousness by evolving structures that would normally be there in a being of your spiritual status; your problem isn’t lack of purity, but lack of complexity and substance”, Lady Yeshe Tsogyal explained.

“We understand, Jetsunma”, the young students bowed and retreated to meditate.

…

“Isalde, our children have greatly overtaken us in their spiritual progress”, Berfrid addressed his wife. “I’ve seen them with the Tibetan Goddess in the apple orchard again, and each time I see them, they look more mature and older, and I can understand less of what they are saying. We need to pick up the pace, or we’ll be left behind”.

“This is true and you are completely right”, she nodded. “Whilst I am happy that they are making such progress, we need to keep up. During our life on Earth, we were illiterate and ignorant, and now we are surrounded with such excellent opportunities for learning and growth. How are we to be worthy of our Lady’s gift if we stagnate?”

“We should seek out the Tibetan Goddess ourselves and ask that she teaches us alongside our children”, he nodded seriously.

“Shouldn’t we seek out our Lady Hypatia instead?”

“No, she is busy receiving the recently deceased from Earth, and when she isn’t, she is recovering from it with her husband in peace and quiet. It would be sinful to impose undue strain on her. Also, the Buddhist Gods have volunteered to teach ignorant souls that have been released into the astral Earth by the Judges, and this very much applies to us, because we are as ignorant as they get”, he grinned.

“Hopefully, not for too long, lest our children leave us in the dust”, Isalde smiled and embraced him.

…

“Jetsunma, we meditated as you recommended, and the results were quite spectacular”, Hilde bowed to the teacher Goddess. “As we went through each element, it is as if we opened our minds to a huge library of knowledge related to the respective element, and it poured itself into us, giving us perspective and understanding”

“This is exactly what happened”, Yeshe Tsogyal Rimpoche nodded. “The astral world is made in such a way that knowledge isn’t sequestered into some separate library, although a library does indeed exist here, for the souls that are accustomed to Earth; the books there merely connect to the knowledge that could be accessed from any place, and at any time, if you request it. The books are merely an interface”, she smiled.

“So, does this mean that by meditating upon the elements in their purity and fullness, we opened access to the all-present sources of knowledge that were poured into our minds the way water fills a vessel once the dam is removed?”, Albert smiled back.

“Yes. As I can see, you now have complex structures of knowledge and understanding related to the elements, but you need to practice more so that the process of sublimation of four elements into the fifth reproduces in your souls, thus replicating what Lady Hypatia herself attained, untold eons ago”, she confirmed.

“Yes, Jetsunma”, they bowed.

…

“I see that you have both attained the first enlightenment. I salute you”, the Goddess bowed to the stark blue, fully developed angelic beings before her. “You have now consciously attained spiritual status you had previously possessed due to your Lady’s grace, which is now fully your own, and you did her great honour”, she bowed again.

“It is all because of your priceless teaching, Jetsunma”, they bowed in unison.

“We do have a question regarding our further progress”, the girl squirmed uncomfortably. “We understand that in order to become a true God, one must have a relationship of mutual love and worship with their counterpart of the opposite sex”.

“We came to understand that we already have such a relationship with each other, but since we are brother and sister, we came to ask you about propriety”, man blushed to match his sister.

“You worry for no good reason”, the Goddess smiled at them. “On Earth, marriage between siblings is prohibited in order to prevent disorders that would arise from lack of genetic diversity. It is a purely physical precaution that has no bearing on the matters of soul. As you no longer have human bodies, none of this applies to you. So, if you feel comfortable exploring a romantic relationship, this is perfectly appropriate”.

The young angels were hugely relieved. “Thank you, Jetsunma”, they bowed, and looked at each other. “If it is all right, we don’t want to merely explore a romantic relationship. We want to be properly married as husband and wife. Will you please marry us officially?”, the girl whispered.

“Do you both agree on this?” the Goddess spoke seriously.

“Yes”, they replied in unison.

“Then you are as of now husband and wife”, she bowed. “I give you my most heartfelt blessings”.

“Now, I will teach you how to perform karmamudra techniques adapted to direct soul-to-soul contact, so that you can merge your personal lovemaking and meditation on your yidam Goddess. This is how I, my husband and my sister-wife attained godhood while still on Earth. I most heartily recommend it”, she smiled, and the newlyweds just bowed in silent adoration.

…

“It’s strange, but I understand it”, Isalde shrugged. “They are close, they are already family, they learned form Jess Rimpoche together, and since there are no human limitations, there was no reason for them not to upgrade their brother-sister relationship to one of husband and wife, if it suited them better. Honestly, it’s the most reasonable and appropriate thing to do, once you think about it properly and get past the human ideas. After all, all Gods are brothers and sisters in a sense, and they are also all merely different faces and persons of the same God”.

“This is exactly as Jess Rimpoche explained it to me”, Berfrid confirmed. “And also, she noted that you, in fact, are their sister as much as their mother, since all three of you share the same Goddess-substance that gave you eternal life”.

“I did think about it”, Isalde nodded and smiled. “The thought of my children also being my siblings is as strange as it is endearing, as is the idea of being both mother and mother-in-law to both of them. But once I’m past the initial shock, I wholly approve of their relationship change. It would be extremely weird for them to break up with each other in order to try to find someone else to marry, when they have no such inclination and it would bring them nothing but suffering”.

“Come; it is time for our next lesson with Jetsunma”, he smiled and took his wife’s hand.

…

Albert and Hilde were intertwined like a double helix of black and white vajra, drinking the nectar of devotion to their Goddess, to their Teacher, and to each other, each devotion strengthening and empowering others, until the veil in their hearts was no more, and God claimed both of them as Self.

…

Berfrid and Isalde watched in a mixture of shock and bliss as their children formed a mandala by folding space and time as if a paper flower, with themselves embraced in its centre. They understood what was happening. They, too, were good students of Jess Rimpoche, and Isalde herself attained her first enlightenment, and was now an angelic being in her own right, and not merely by the grace of their Goddess. As they observed their children’s apotheosis, they looked each other in the eyes and decided it’s time.

Jetsunma taught them well; they combined their own love, worship of the Goddess, gratitude and worship of Jetsunma herself, and, now, admiration and worship of their divine children, who were the newest God-couple at the summit of Creation.

And so, the Gods were nineteen.

…

“Apostle, have you seen this?”, Augustine prodded Paul.

“I have indeed, Bishop. Our Lord was right. Seemingly, not only have the harlots and tax collectors overtaken us into the kingdom of God, but also the serfs”, Paul snickered. “We have been lazy and complacent, my dear Bishop. Instead of learning from our betters, we have been sitting on our imaginary laurels”.

“Maybe this is an extraordinary exception; they were saved by Lady Hypatia, who sacrificed a part of her own soul for them, blessed be her holy name forever”, Augustine nodded. “But maybe I am deceiving myself. They are obviously better than me, as I encountered the Lady myself on my arrival here, and I mostly wasted my time arguing with her about theology, while they worshipped the ground she walks on, as is right and proper, as she is a sister to our Lord”, he waved his head in self criticism.

“Let’s find Peter and tell him about this. Truly, we need to repent and cast aside our stubborn ways, lest God get weary of our nonsense and cast us aside”, Paul smiled bitterly.

“We had many new angels, some of extreme evolvement and sophistication, and yet no new Gods”, Zina noted, sipping coffee. “I wonder why that may be”.

“I think it’s because they all fit a certain profile. They are men, celibate, renunciates. They practice some sadhana that is highly effective, they learn how to enter a state of oneness with the Absolute, they learn how to control their energy system so that they stay there, but as for karmic evolution, the results are modest, because they simply don’t touch that part; they ‘transcend it’, as they themselves would say. Even those, who actually attain great results, don’t seem to impress God as much as they impress fellow humans. As a result, God doesn’t claim them”, Buddha shrugged.

“But what about bhakti and tantra? The bhaktas should, at least in theory, be doing the same thing we are. Tantra should, in theory, be allowing couples to evolve together”, his wife countered.

“In theory”, he conceded. “In practice, bhaktas tend to be more hysterical than transcendental. When they are successful, they tend to return to Gods as servants, rather than becoming their companion-Gods. Tantrikas for the most part devolved into practitioners of dark magic, and it’s not having good spiritual outcomes. Also, they are using women as a tool for sexual meditation, rather than using sex as means of mutual worship between a male and a female practitioner. That, too, isn’t having good spiritual outcomes. Some of it is outright terrible – orgies, debauchery, demon worship, dark magic, even ritual sacrifice. Not only is it not on the level of Padmasambhava and his holy wives; it’s on the level of some demonic cesspool”, he shivered from the recollection.

“What about yoga?”, she offered. “Let me guess – it’s contaminated by the impersonal concept of brahman, which tries to transcend or outright ignore karma rather than evolving it, and they use methods that work until a certain point, and then they fail to improvise and get stuck?”

“Yes. Also, when they come here, almost none of it works, or makes any sense whatsoever, because it’s all based around certain properties of the physical body. Asanas are pointless here, so are the pranayamas. Pratyahara and dharana are pointless, as the defaults of astral and vajra bodies do it all by default. Dhyana and samadhana are also pointless, as they don’t produce any advancement here, unlike in the physical body, where they train the brain to extend meditative states. Here, you are just stuck at square one. Raja yoga doesn’t do anything because the body does it by default, and so on. Essentially, the only things that actually work here are various forms of bhakti – worship, love, service, and so on. However, those who practice bhakti down there usually practice some form of emotional hysteria, while those who practice yoga rarely do it in order to enhance devotional practice. They usually over-specialise, and since simplistic theories seem to win there, they get more adherents, who don’t develop into well-rounded personalities. The end result, unfortunately, is less than we hoped for”, he shrugged.

“Also, we are getting disproportionally more male than female practitioners, which is concerning”, she noted. “Obviously, it’s because of the nature of most forms of practice, which completely sideline family life, and over-emphasise renunciation, which is practised mostly by men. So, even when those men attain some result, it’s usually partial crystallisation of the karmic body, but with seriously undeveloped parts that would have anything to do with women. Essentially, they function well in a cave or a forest, but if you put them near a woman, they wouldn’t know what to do with her. They would either rape her or treat her as if she were some sort of a cow”, she smirked. “And whatever you try to do to make them fix the issue, they just do more of the same, because they think it works, and repetition of the same will certainly bring them to enlightenment”.

“We got a large number of semi-crystallised dark mages and, I don’t even know what to call them. Some are actual nightmares, vile as serpents that live under a rock and hate everybody, thinking themselves superior because they are above the world. Some have inflated ego because they are worshipped by ‘common people’ and they learned all sorts of ways of ‘looking spiritual’ as to attract adulation. Some of it is outright fakery, some of it is abuse of genuine spirituality for manipulative purposes. They attain partial crystallisation, but the part of their soul that is not crystallised is usually in worse condition than with the average people. It presents us with complex problems, because such people think they know what God is, what spiritual practice is, what the result is, and when you try to explain, they nod as if they understand, and it’s clear that it goes right past them. Honestly, I don’t have a straightforward idea on how to solve those problems and turn them into souls that will continue to evolve, rather than being stuck in a stagnant state, where they will repeat the same mistakes and think they are doing sadhana, and are better than others since they are such hard working practitioners”, Buddha shrugged. “I was actually something similar in my earthly life. I did things that didn’t work, but which won me acclaim among the fellow practitioners. As I did it more, I actually harmed my health and would have died. When I gave it all up and started using common sense, I attained enlightenment very quickly, but the fellow practitioners thought I had apostatised from the true path because I ceased to starve myself to death and do pointless activities. False spiritual practice is in fact quite rewarding to the ego”.

“I think Satan is one of the reasons why some things stop working after the initial successes”, his wife considered. “He thinks of an antidote for success, and diverts practitioners into some dead-end that is instantly rewarding but ultimately pointless”.

“Be it as it may, people need very little incitement to do just that on their own, I’m afraid”, he shrugged.

“Also, other than the initial impulse of tantra, most practices target mostly men, creating extremely unbalanced populations of practitioners, as well as practitioners themselves that are extremely unbalanced within themselves. It is not surprising that they fail to attain true enlightenment, let alone apotheosis – metaphorically speaking, God abhors them. Also, metaphorically speaking, if you don’t develop such character that a God-person of the opposite sex will fall in love with you to the point of wanting to spend eternity together, you failed in your spirituality”, Zina nodded.

“You hit that nail right on the head”, Buddha smiled approvingly. “But it doesn’t need to be completely straightforward. I, for example, developed alone, but I was balanced, to the point where I needed just a small nudge from you to show me the next level of evolution, and I went for it. Some of those people invest huge asymmetrical efforts, as if exercising only the right side of their bodies, and end up looking like freaks, and the power of habit they developed is such that you can no longer teach them anything, because they think they know. We’ll have to ask Lord Shiva and his Lady about them, since their mastery in those matters is peerless, for I am at my wit’s end”, he shrugged.

“Honestly, some of those people don’t just look like freaks; they are freaks. Imagine, for instance, someone who spent decades sharpening his mind, controlling breath, developing clarity of consciousness, doing Kundalini kriyas, but seems to be utterly incapable of such a simple thing as loving a woman. A whole sewage dump seems to erupt at the very thought, as the idea of a woman is associated with worldly attachments, losing oneself in the world, lack of emotional control and complex mental faculties, and so on. To them, loving a woman brings associations similar to having intercourse with a goat that also leads you to spiritual ruin. And they don’t understand that this is all indoctrination with nonsense; they think it’s an absolute, unquestionable truth. And, of course, as such a civilisation marginalises and sidelines women, they indeed become the neglected and inferior gender, and the output of the function feeds back into the inputs, seemingly confirming it. I processed men from such cultures. First they thought I was a maid servant of some man who is doing the actual job and asked me to bring them to my master. Then they outright refused to believe that I can be competent, and eventually they were completely paralysed with shock. I wonder how they would have reacted to someone like Lady Shakti or Lady Kay”, she smiled.

“The same”, her husband shrugged. “They are conditioned to assume that femininity means stupidity, and it’s a serious problem, as such lopsided cultures produce lopsided, dysfunctional people. Both men and women from such cultures tend to be spiritually messed up to the point where we can’t do anything with them other than send them back to Earth, since they are incapable of normal life here. Women who are raised to be hardly more than goats end up actually being hardly more than goats, and men tend to react to women in terribly disgusting ways; imagine such a specimen trying to rape a female angel or treat her as if she’s stupid. Here, they would be a virulent contamination. On Earth, I’m afraid they are normal”.

“Some actually tried to do something similar with me, thinking I was a pleasure toy given to them by their god as a reward for killing enough ‘infidels’. The women, on the other hand, expected me to show them the way to the kitchen. The worst were the semi-crystallised mages trained in some sort of an impersonalistic religious philosophy, such as vedanta or sufism. They try to make me disperse or change form, thinking I’m a construct of their minds, and they use extreme mental focus in an imperious manner. Thank God for the protective features of my job, that shield me from such violence, for some of them are truly powerful and their attacks would probably have harmed me otherwise”, she shivered.

“That world certainly lived up to the expectation of creating different and unusual types of souls. Unfortunately, this very rarely translates to ‘better’”, Buddha mused.

“Well, it produced you, and that alone made it worth all the failures”, she smiled and kissed him.

“Nothing built on the unstable foundations of that world lasts forever”, Lord Padmasambhava shrugged. “It had a good run; eight hundred years or so. Also, it was in decline for quite a while already. Now, the University of Nalanda has moved to the higher ground”, he grinned and showed hundreds of souls around him in the apple orchard.

“It’s a great loss for the Earth, though”, Kay nodded seriously and sipped her coffee.

“It’s a great loss for the Earth when a wise person dies. It is a great loss for the Earth when unique copies of valuable books are burned. It was a great loss when the library of Alexandria was burned. It was a great loss when Constantinople was sacked by the crusaders. It is also a great loss for the Earth when nothing improves for centuries, and nobody does anything with those books. It’s a place of loss, and nothing is ever safe there while Mara reigns. You know that better than I do”, he smiled at the Mind of God. “Everything we build there is temporary, and against forces that are certain to erase it eventually”.

“Still, please accept my sympathy for the pain of loss that you’re experiencing, Paddy”, she grinned. “You’re not fooling me with the impermanence talk”.

“There’s no fooling you, sweetheart”, he smiled bitterly. “But we all knew what was to happen when we saw the trajectory of Islam. We also see the trajectory of the Mongols. But the Europe is waking up from its long decline. The wars of conquest are shuffling the deck of cards, and who knows what results of it all will arrive here for us to witness. Even Mara himself, trying to do his worst, sometimes sets things in motion that bear good fruits”, he pointed to two young angels talking to one of his wives.

…

“Lady Jess, aren’t you Gods jealous when people worship other Gods more?”, the little girl asked. “I mean, in church they told us that God is a jealous God and he doesn’t like it when people worship anyone else”.

“You mean, will I be mad at you and your brother because you came to learn from me how to worship Lady Hypatia better?”, the Goddess smiled at the girl, who nodded shyly.

“Not even a little bit, Hilde. In fact, we are very happy to help you worship other members of our family. I think it is the same as how you would feel if someone wanted to do something nice for your parents or brother. How would you feel about that?”

“It would make me very happy and I would be glad to help them in any way I can”, the girl smiled.

“But why did the priest say the God is jealous, then?”, Albert asked.

“It is hard for me to know exactly what he meant, as I am not him. However, a God would feel bad if people worshipped things that are not manifestations of the Absolute – for instance, if they worshipped Satan, who is evil, or if they worshipped evil spirits, or gods that are made up and false, and would get their souls lost. But you worshipping my sister Hypatia makes me feel great – and even the priests would agree that it’s fine if you worshipped Jesus more than his Father, because they are the same God”.

“I hate Satan”, the boy frowned. “He made us freeze and starve in his world, and he then tried to buy our Father’s soul when he was desperate to save us. Satan is evil. Why don’t you Gods kill him, so that he can do no more evil?”

“He is indeed evil”, the Goddess nodded. “And we wouldn’t mind getting rid of him at all. But it’s a complicated thing. You see, before Satan created that evil world, there were only four Gods. Now, there are fifteen. Also, the angels now have useful things to do, and they are growing spiritually. You and your Mother wouldn’t have been born if not for that world. It’s the lesson Lady Kay taught us – she is very powerful, and she could go back in time and make it so that Satan never got the opportunity to make that world, and create all that suffering. But if she did that, most of her family would never have been born. Would you choose Satan never to have made Earth, if that meant you and your sister and your mother would stop existing?”, she smiled.

“No”, both children waved their heads. “That would be terrible”.

“So, you agree that Satan did serve some good purpose, even if he is evil and he will do even more evil in the future?”

“Yes. Sure, he tried to trick Father out of his soul, but after he died he asked our Lady for help, and she cried and sent a part of her soul to us. He didn’t plan for this, but it still happened, because good people reacted in good ways to his evil”, Hilde nodded.

“And so in the future, many such things may yet happen, that we don’t know of at this time. We could kill Satan now, but then some God like Lady Hypatia or myself would not be born. Would you want that?”

“No”, Hilde replied. “You and our Lady are wonderful and kind, and even if Satan did terrible things, and many people suffered, you are worth it”, she nodded emphatically.

“Thank you, sweetheart”, the Goddess smiled at her. “So, you see now why we let it all happen?”

“Because being able to do something doesn’t mean it’s a good idea”, Albert nodded. “You could easily stop evil, but then you would also stop some great good things from taking place, and that would be terrible”.

“There’s one more thing I would like to know”, the girl asked. “There used to be an equal number of girl and boy Gods before, and now there is one girl more. Isn’t it now unbalanced? Does it mean the girls can make boys do something they otherwise wouldn’t, because there’s more of them?”

“It doesn’t matter. Even if the Gods were all girls and there was only one boy, we would never do anything he would disapprove of, because we all love each other. If one of us is unhappy with something, we would never do it. We would try to find out what would make him happy, and then we would do that. Intentionally making one of our family unhappy is unthinkable for any of us, and we all try to make each other feel happy and loved. You see Lady Kay talking to my husband over there?”, she pointed, and the children nodded. “She heard that terrible things happened on Earth in the place where Lord Paddy learned, lived and taught others. The Muslims came and burned everything down, and they killed many Buddhists. She thought he would be unhappy about this and so she brought him coffee and tries to console him”.

“Oh. So that’s like when my sister was hurt and she cried, and I held her to make her feel better?”, the boy nodded.

“Exactly. The idea that girl Gods would use their numbers to do something boy Gods would not like, that would never happen. It just means that more girl Gods will bring coffee and come to talk when a boy God is sad, the way Lady Karuna came to my husband”, she smiled. “Also, when Lady Hypatia was sad about your family, the boy Gods consoled her and Lord Shiva grew angry with Satan and swore vengeance, and he in fact took her tears and brought them down to Earth to you. When one of the girl Gods is distraught and doesn’t know what to do, all the boys get together to help”.

“This is awesome, and we want to be like that, too”, the children nodded.

“Well, that’s why we’re here”, the Goddess smiled.

“By definition, we will know only about his failures”, Azazel noted. “If he managed to acquire someone’s soul, that person will not arrive here to tell us about it”. The war council was more chaotic than usual this time, since the threat description was the most vague they ever faced. “This means we need to find out his success ratio, to begin with”.

“But what’s the actual point of this? Why does he need souls? Is he trying to absorb them into himself? Use their energy to fix some degenerative issue he is facing?”, Zina shrugged.

“I think I have a good enough idea of what he’s doing, although I’m not so certain about why”, Shakti took the word.

“Tell me, how do you catch a mouse?”, she smiled at Zina.

“Well, you make a trap, and then put a piece of something mice like to eat inside it, so that he would be attracted inside, and couldn’t come out later”, Zina smiled back.

“Exactly. But what happens when you leave the trap unattended for a while?”, Shakti proceeded with her argument.

“You will find a trap full of half-eaten mice and mouse skeletons inside, with maybe one live mouse, if you came soon enough, because as they won’t be able to come out, they will starve and resort to cannibalism”, Zina frowned.

“And let’s say the bait is of some kind that can’t be consumed, and remains attractive forever. Let’s say it’s a sound that attracts deer, of the kind hunters will use to lure them into the kill zone. And let’s say the sound keeps making itself, powered by wind or water, so that you don’t need a man there to make it. And let’s say a kill zone is something like a cliff masked by natural fog, where the deer will come and fall to their deaths”, Shakti nodded.

“You would have a perpetual, automatic killing machine”, Azazel commented. “So that’s what you meant by attractors. You think he’s using the powerful souls as an energy source that will serve as bait for some trap he will use in order to lure souls into something fatal”.

“But why? Isn’t his world itself enough of a fatal trap? Souls are already being caught in a reincarnation loop there, thinking they’ll do better the next time, correct their errors, pay for their sins, acquire something that they failed to acquire before and so on. If he wanted to cause harm and show that most souls are foolish and are in heaven merely by accident, because nothing really tested them before, then mission accomplished. Making it more lethal would contribute very little to what he already has, while exposing him to possible karmic repercussions if he goes too far”, Zina countered.

“That would certainly be the case for the world as he initially made it, the extremely spiritually deadly kind you were exposed to in your earthly life”, Lord Shiva joined the discussion. “However, we’ve been making moves of our own. We introduced transcendence and hope where there used to be nothing but darkness and despair. We introduced sources that were converted into actual knowledge down there. Lord Buddha started the process. It was developed upon by Lord Vishnu who sent Jesus down there, and introduced sources of eternal light. They have a Church that teaches things that are true enough to really lead to salvation. They have Hindu scriptures that actually tell true things about actual Gods. They have access to puja and bhakti, which are similar enough to what we practice ourselves. At this point, the world consists of his darkness, and genuine sources of light that lead to salvation”.

“And he wants to introduce sources of light of his own – not false light that could easily be dismissed, but true spiritual light; only leading onto perilous paths that cause ruin”, Azazel nodded.

“Exactly”, his father smiled. “As things stand now, any source of light you find will lead you to salvation. The mission is simple: find spiritual light, hold on to it, wait until you die and you are saved. What he seems to be up to is introducing alternatives, where the light is real, but if you follow it you are ruined”.

“And the result will be either much reduced effectiveness of everything we’ve done so far, or people will stop following spiritual light of any kind, because of the great probability that it is ruinous”, Shakti nodded at her husband.

“And he won’t have to lift a finger. He will just arm the trap and let the mice eat each other, each thinking that the prior victims were losers and he himself will do better, probably due to some intoxicating effect of the bait”, Zina joined in.

“Do we have anything specific? I mean, it’s good to understand the general idea, but I’d like to see what he actually did, so that we can develop countermeasures”, Azazel looked at his mother questioningly.

“It’s hard to figure it out from the outside, because we don’t actually have access to the things the Jewel is doing in there, so we are forced to draw conjecture based on whatever evidence manages to find its way out, which is doubly difficult because if his traps work, the victims don’t come out”, Shakti shrugged. “However, Lord Buddha has found a pattern in some of his recent ‘patients’, so I’ll let him explain”, she smiled to Shakyamuni.

“They call themselves ‘good men’ and ‘good women’, ‘the pure ones’, ‘the ones favoured by God’. The Christians call them the Cathari, which means ‘the pure ones’ in Greek. The origins of the philosophy seem to be Zoroastrian, like the Manicheans that were around during the late Roman period. They teach that there are two opposed Gods in action – one evil one that created the material world with all the evil and suffering, and the good one that created the spiritual world, with souls, angels and Jesus. They think the souls get trapped into a reincarnation cycle on Earth because they are attracted by the material world and what it has to offer, and the solution is to let go and purify oneself from all the material desires and inclinations”, Buddha raised his eyebrows significantly.

“This looks pretty much spot on”, Kay remarked. “It’s actually more accurate than what the Church teaches, and among the most technically accurate theologies I’ve ever seen developed down there”.

“It is, but it only goes to say that theological accuracy isn’t all that you would expect it to be. Because, you see, they have one major flaw”, he sighed. “Their moral teaching is incredibly bad. They essentially say that in order to get purified from the world, you need to accept a vow of extreme renunciation that is in essence suicide by starvation. But if you don’t aspire to perfection, it’s enough to not take things seriously. Know that the world is not important. It doesn’t matter what you do, because it’s just matter, an opposite to the spirit which is pure. There is no truth in the world, so it doesn’t matter if you say the truth or not. It doesn’t matter whether you steal, rape or murder, because it’s just matter, and if you kill people you free them from the physical so you’re actually helping them. If you steal their things, it’s fine because they were attached to things and shouldn’t be, and everybody should have access to them anyway, because all men are equal. Do you now see the problem?”, he asked nobody in particular.

“It’s all the exact opposite of what you need to do in order to be a good person and not destroy your soul with evil”, the Love of God nodded. “You don’t hold on to truth and do good because physical matter is important, but because speaking the truth and doing good is what makes your soul good and true. You need to act as if everything matters even if you’re under an illusion, because by doing so, you become the one who matters. If you act as if nothing matters, your soul will be lost”.

“Exactly”, her husband nodded in assent. “What I noticed in the memories of the victims of the Cathari, who ended up being my patients, is how the Cathari acted. They were like beasts that were let out of a cage, filled with self-righteousness of the ones who are on the right path and who know the true light. They looked as if under influence of some drug that caused arrogance and hubris; they thought they were fighting the evil oppressors and fighting for what is right, for equality and emancipation from the yoke of the Church and the feudal system and so on”.

“This sounds very familiar”, Azazel’s eyes were wide. “It’s as if I’m listening to Sanat Kumar again, in his deranged madness”.

“Thank you for that information, my friend, for it confirms my guesses. Sanat Kumar created some kind of a script, powered by genuine spiritual sources, that amplifies mental patterns that resemble his own, and in direct proportion to the similarity. I don’t think he created the Cathari to oppose the Church; that would be too simplistic, and also too specific. I think he’s trying to turn souls into copies of himself, as they aggregate around the attractors like moths around the flame”, Buddha finished.

“This is giving me flashes of memories, and not of the kind I would prefer to have”, Azazel nodded grimly. “It fits his pattern exactly – he speaks of emancipation of souls, but what he means is turning them into lesser copies of himself, over which he will reign supreme. He also couldn’t stop talking about conspiracies of the ruling elite, which in his case meant the Gods, to whom he attributed all sorts of invented nonsense, and different each day as he rambled on. I think he will empower this mentality in others, make them drunk with hubris, make them overthrow any system in power the way he wanted to overthrow the Gods and the system of dharma, and the Cathari are merely a specific case of this madness, and likely a lesser one, as his attractors grow in power. And I would also expect the souls that fall under the influence of the attractors to basically be destroyed after death and join the power of the attractor, because it was what they chose as their destiny”, he concluded.

“And the worst thing about it is, I have no idea how to counter it effectively, other than by dismantling the attractors themselves, breaking down their power source to the level of kalapas and spending it all”, Shiva shrugged grimly. “It’s an incredibly elegant design”.

“Is there evidence that the attractors absorb their victims and thus grow the size of the ‘bait’?”, Azazel asked.

“Let me run the equations”, the Mind of God nodded. “Yes. The souls choose that light source as their spiritual direction, and end up belonging to it. It thus grows bigger. However, since all the impurities and evils also join it, the source grows more corrupted and less pure as it grows in size. It eventually ends up looking like a terrible abomination, and, as such, loses attractiveness and becomes more easily discernible as evil by the souls that seek the way out”, she nodded.

“Is there a way we can oppose this?”, Lady Zina asked her husband.

“Not really”, he shrugged. “Any direct opposition would feed it, as it would be interpreted as darkness trying to extinguish their true light. It can’t be dismantled from the outside. We also can’t blame Sanat Kumar for any of it since he’s doing what he said he would initially – provide alternatives. He’s certainly doing that. He’s also not forcing anyone to choose”.

“Can we at least stop his soul-purchasing? He’s claiming to offer deals. Is there evidence that he’s holding up to his side of the bargain?”, Lord Jesus scratched his chin.

“It would be in his long-term interest to uphold his part, especially since it’s usually quite easy for him”, Lord Buddha answered. “If he’s cheating, it brings him minor benefits at the cost of the whole project failing. Thus, self interest will motivate him to be fair”.

“Yes, in a direct sense, where you will get what you agreed for in exchange for your soul. However, he’s likely to cause the problem he offers to solve, in the first place”, Azazel noted.

“How immediate is this problem?”, Zina looked at everybody.

“It’s a slow rolling avalanche. He will need centuries to build momentum, as he needs quite a bit of power to get anywhere close to the level of attractiveness of what we installed through our labours”, Lord Vishnu offered. “However, as I see it, he will approach equal attraction within a few centuries, with the curve starting to grow exponentially after that. At some point, he will completely overwhelm and dwarf our efforts”.

“You mean, he is going to win?”, Mary of Magdala voiced her incredulity.

“No”, he waved decisively. “All he’s doing is inherently self-defeating. He’s creating one hysterical mania after another – all kinds of revolutionary and ‘liberation’ movements one after another, that will throw men and women into a furnace, but all the ‘victories’ he can achieve will be illusory and eventually cautionary. He will demonstrate that all the paths alternative to the one we are showing end up in pools of blood and terrible misery. And, as he will exhaust his attempts, he will also run out of time”.

“But until he does, he will cause terrible harm. As he powers his conspiracy theories with those genuine spiritual sources, he will convince the souls of all kinds of terribly harmful ideas that will keep having consequences long after he is gone”, Azazel spoke out his despondency. “I’ve heard enough of his nonsense to know how insidious it is, how it affects your thinking patterns and how it turns you into a resentful, self-sabotaging mess”.

“We will keep losing souls at an increasing pace, and damage to the survivors will be such that we might have to quarantine them indefinitely, because they could otherwise harm others with their madness”, Buddha conceded. “So far, the damage we had to contend with was caused mostly by suffering and loss, and, rarely, by the willing acceptance of evil. With all those attractors he is about to install, he will cause true deviations from the spiritual path, of the kind where people genuinely believe them to be the actual path of emancipation and a greater truth. Satan resented souls that were greater than him. He might cause everybody to resent any form of greatness and power, interpreting it as injustice and abuse. He will encourage hubris, arrogance and defiance. He will portray love as weakness, service as humiliation, and satisfaction as a sign of inferiority. The level to which this can be destructive can’t even be predicted. Sure, I expect his first trial runs, such as the Cathari, to be wiped out. But eventually, something of that sort is going to actually take hold, and then hell is going to reign on Earth”.

“Hell reigns on Earth where Islam reigns, or where the Cathari currently reign, or where the Mongols pass. The only places where hell doesn’t reign are where our tears touched the Earth, or where our light has broken through, and he did everything he could to splatter mud all over those places, to keep them inconspicuous. While he is in power, hell reigns on Earth, period, and we are merely treating the casualties. But eventually, we’ll have to finish this in some way that will end this disaster, and hopefully in a good way, right?”, Lady Lakshmi asked.

“Yes”, Lord Shiva nodded decisively. “My wife and I will deal with this ourselves, as the end approaches. But until then, we must contend with limiting the damage on an individual basis. Inspire the good, help those who suffer, shine the light that will bring them home safely. And considering the amount of spiritual damage he is about to inflict, dealing with the aftermath is not going to be a picnic”, he smiled as if he ate a lemon.

“So, we’re about to have an age of enlightenment, with all the light he will be shining, generous and good soul that he is”, Kay grinned mischievously. “Oh joy, oh splendour”.