3.  The Hasnamussian Sciences

& the ‘Intelligentsia’

When discussing the League of Nations, Beelzebub expressed his opinion that nothing will likely become of such a ‘common-planetary society’ mainly because “impartial Reason, proper to the presence of all three-brained beings who have already attained responsible age, is absent in them (its members)….” Beelzebub explains that their ‘maleficent’ education is particularly adapted to those young beings who will latter as a rule become ‘power-possessing.’  The capacities for ‘sincere thinking,’ the ‘sensing of reality’ and ‘logical reflection’ indeed “become a very rare luxury on this planet ….” Instead, their so-called ‘education’ mainly teaches them how best to “give oneself up to what is called ‘self-calming’ …” and encourages such ignoble traits as “’egoism,’ ‘partiality,’ ‘vanity,’ ‘self-love,’ and so on.”  (p. 1059)  

Beelzebub explains to Hassein that the inherency towards the processes of reciprocal destruction has now become “fixed in their psyche during hundreds of centuries” and that it “can never be decrystallized in the course of a few decades.”  He suggests that such ‘important’ beings as might sincerely aim to eliminate warfare would best direct their energies towards “the eradication of the conviction … of the virtue of two notions they have.”   The first of these concerns:

 “… the practice of exalting certain of the participants in these processes to what are called ‘heroes’ and rewarding them with honors and what are called ‘orders’….” (pp. 1071-2) 

 Beelzebub explains that such hero worship becomes an ‘automatic factor’ within the psyche of the next generation which makes them especially vulnerable to “fall into that state into which it has already become without fail habitual for them to fall during these processes .…”  Such misguided youths can be whipped into a frenzy or patriotic fervour most simply.

The second concrete step that might be taken towards the eradication of warfare would be:

 “… the abolition even of one of their illustrious ‘sciences’ from among their many Hasnamussian sciences,’ invented by certain pimpled beings among them, in which it is nonchalantly proved that the periodic reciprocal destruction on the Earth is very, very necessary, and that if it did not exist an intolerable overpopulation would result on the Earth, and such economic horrors would ensure that men-beings would begin to eat one another.  (p. 1072)  [1]

Of course, Beelzebub’s description of the Hasnamussian sciences seems most bizarre and ridiculous, and yet this is only a parody of what actually occurs within the life of humanity.  [1]

Beelzebub explains that the eradication of such a Malthusian Hasnamussian notion would be a major step towards the prevention of such processes of reciprocal destruction.  However, there would further need to be an eradication of other fanciful ideas:

 “… they would help towards this, that there might not reach to the beings of future times at least one of those idiotic ideas from the number of already without this sufficiently numerous similar ideas constantly arising there, which are transmitted from generation to generation as ‘something’ lawful and indubitable and which all together are partly the cause of the formation in their presences of those properties not one of which is becoming to three-centered beings of which there belongs also that property inherent in them alone which engenders in them even ‘doubt in the existence of Divinity’; and owing chiefly to this doubt there has almost entirely disappeared from their common presences the possibility of the precipitation of those data which should without fail be precipitated in the presences of all three-brained beings, the totality of which data engenders in them the impulse, called the ‘instinctive sensing,’ of those certain cosmic truths, which are always felt even by all one-centered and two-centered beings, wherever they might breed in the whole of the Universe.

 “But the misfortune for all the other ordinary favorites of yours is that these power-possessing and important beings assembled from the whole of the planet do not begin to occupy themselves with these questions, considering them to be beneath their dignity.

 “What next!  Such ‘important’ members of such ‘important’ societies suddenly occupying themselves with such trivial matters!  (pp. 1072-3)

 Of course, the important and power-possessing beings would not consider the life of the soul as something of interest or concern, as instead they promulgated those “idiotic ideas … constantly arising there,” which are passed from generation to generation as something ‘lawful’ and ‘indubitable.’ 

The sum of such idiotic ideas engenders in those strange three-brained beings “even ‘doubt in the existence of Divinity.”  The consequence of such strange invented Hasnamussian philosophies and science is that such beings no longer attain to the “’instinctual sensing’ of those certain cosmic truths.”  [1]

 Beelzebub then launches into a long exposition about the varied ‘and the ‘crats’—many of whom are candidates for Hasnamusses.  Beelzebub explains to Hassein that the true meaning of the word ‘intelligentsia’ would imply “force-in-oneself” and the capacity for objective reason.  However, among your favorites, those called by this name are actually those beings “who are the exact opposite of what this word denotes,” Instead, they should be called the ‘unintelligent’ and the “mechanogentsia.”  Beelzebub explains that these mechanogentsia can “give absolutely no direction at all to their being-functions” and are animated only by “external shocks” acting upon corresponding automatic perceptions as imposed through their maleficent education.  Most importantly, Beelzebub explains the lack within the so-called intelligentsia:

 “But never do their outer manifestations in general nor those inner-being-impulses of theirs, which ought to be under the directive of their being-‘I,’ proceed according to their own wish resulting from the whole of their entire presence.  (p. 1082)

 However, these intelligentsia are especially those with that “’psycho-organic-need’ of theirs to ‘teach others sense’ and to put them on the right road,” and who “always have at least one ‘victim’ for their teachings.”  

 Beelzebub views the so-called ‘intelligentsia’ as particularly affected by their superficial education and socialization:

 “These freaks lose, so to say, that outer mask which thanks to the same maleficent means existing there, called ‘education,’ most of them little by little learned to wear from their childhood and thanks to which they can very well conceal their genuine inner and outer trifling significance from others, and in consequence they automatically become slaves of others to the degree of humiliation; or, as they themselves say there, they fall as regards all their inner experience, under somebody’s ‘thumb’; for instance, under the ‘thumb’ of ‘wife’ or ‘mistress,’ or of such another who by some means has ferreted out the inner insignificance of the given terrestrial being, and thus the latter ceases to have for them this artificial mask.  (pp. 1077-8)  

 Beelzebub explains that it is just such ‘freaks,’ under someone’s thumb, who write various ‘manuals’ for the guidance and education of others.  For example, a contemporary being “whose heart as they say always ‘sinks into his boots’ from fright when, for instance, a mouse runs past him,” writes a book on “what must not be done on meeting a tiger;” or another such a terrestrial being “under somebody’s thumb” writes a book on “what must be done for the good ‘government’ of others.”  (p. 1078)  Beelzebub portrays the intelligentsia as striving always to conceal from others their inner insignificance or ‘terrestrial nullity.’

 Another Hasnamussian invention is that of ‘policy.’  Beelzebub explains that such policies were created well before the contemporary era, back in the period of Gemchania, but continue today: 

 “… beings of one community begin to pipe with full blast against beings of another community that ‘Hasnamussian music’ they call ‘policy,’ that is, they begin to ‘criticize’ each other, to ‘lower each other’s standing,’ to ‘down each other,’ and so on, their aim being to create what is called ‘prestige’ among the local beings in relation to their own community. 

 “In the course of such a ‘policy’ one of the heads of a certain European community in some way or other learned the ‘secret’ how to influence the psyche of beings of other communities to acknowledge the authority of and give supremacy to the beings of his own community.

 “Afterwards when the beings who had learned this secret—the principle of the action of which was called ‘Ksvaznell’ or ‘inciting one against the other’—initiated the other heads of his community into it, and they all made it the basis of their ‘policy’; then, indeed the beings of this community began everywhere and in everything to gain predominance.

 “Although both the former heads of the beings of this community and also that being himself who had hit upon the secret Ksvaznell, already long ago perished, yet subsequent generations—continuing now of course automatically to employ this ‘secret’—gradually not only took into their own hands almost the whole of this Gemchania, but also subordinated to their influence the very essence of all the beings breeding on that part of the planet Earth. 

 “In spite of the fact that two centuries have passed, yet at that period to which my further tale refers … it all continued in the same way. 

 “Having become proud of their success, the recent heads of that mentioned European community who had the luck, thanks to this same secret Ksvaznell alone, gradually to subordinate all to their influence and to grasp everything into their hands, wished to lay their ‘paws’ even on that which had until then been considered unattainable.  (pp. 719-720) 

 The secret learnt within this community concerns how to ‘incite one against the other,’ so as to divide and conquer from within.  And so these Hasnamusses of European origin began to spread the propaganda and lies through the communities to instigate such effects, to subordinate to themselves the control of the beings breeding on that ill-fated planet Earth.  What a sad but ‘cunning’ Tale!