The Faust Rewrite Project

Chapter 8

2010-03-06T17:00:00.002+01:00

VIII
Concerning Doctor Faustus' Intended
Marriage

Thus Doktor Faustus lived the lazy, purposeless and slothful life of a pig and a sow and a hog, concerned only with satisfying his lowest desires, wallowing in his own filth and occasionally butting his head against a wall, obeying neither the laws of heaven nor earth, debauched, sensualized and raked, hedonized, epicured and voluptualized, until the day came that must come to all soul-sold, God-abandoned doom-bound men: Faustus arrived at the determination to enter into matrimony.

Upon revealing his plan to Mephostopholes, the famulus turned red and shook and exuded a horrid sulfurous perscipation, and pulled his hair and screamed, “Have you entirely forgot your promissio in which you vowed enmity to God and all His laws and Precepts? Do you not know that matrimony is a work of the Lord God and to enter into it now after making to the Devil all the promises you made is liked unto slapping him in the face with a herring? Oh my sweet Doktor, you do not want to slap the devil in the face with a herring. Not to mention: Why would you want to enter into a state that brings with it nothing but unquiet, antipathy, anger and strife?”

Doctor Faustus pondered over the various sides of the issue while his famulus ranted on and on and at last pronounced, “I will wed, come what may.”

In the moment he spoke those words, he ducked.

In that very instant a horrible storm wind did fall upon the house like the foot of an angered elephant and the walls shook and the doors leapt from their hooks and the books from their shelves and the china from their cupboards and Wagner fell off the couch and objects flew through the air, narrowly missing Faust’s skull, and the rooms were filled with blazing searing heat as if everything would shortly curl up into pure ashes.

Doktor Faustus propelled himself on all fours toward the door, but strong hands caught his feet and catapulted him back into the parlor with such force that he thought he must surely die. Everywhere, fires had sprung up, and if his living quarters were a pigsty before, surely it was the very picture of hell now, yet still Faust held fast and kept his mouth shut. Suddenly, a monster appeared that filled the fiery room. It was crimson red with a thousand horns and a thousand sharp teeth in a thousand snapping jaws, it could only be the Devil himself, and from its thousand jaws it screamed at Faust in a horrible voice that shook the house worse that the mightiest winds:

“Thou wouldst scoff at me, o Man?” thundered the horrible apparition, “Thou wouldst scoff at me?”

But still Doktor Faustus held fast and gave no answer, but only kept this eyes shut, until, after a while, Mephostophiles was spent, and the monster fled and the fires disappeared and all returned once more to as it had always been, for it was all but an illusion, and there sat Mephostophiles, his gray monk’s head between his clawed hands, and asked, “My sweet Faust, why in the name of all that is good about hell do you insist upon marrying?”

Thereupon Doktor Faust shrugged his shoulders and said, “What’s a man to do? Every man’s got to get a little…”, but the last word he mumbled.

“A little what?” asked Mephostophiles, puzzled.

“You know. A little… conjugativality.”

“A little what?”

“Some intercoursiousness.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“A shot of good old-fashioned nuptialality.”

“Nup-cha-what?”

“Some good clean wholesome fun.”

“Good clean…? What are you talking about?”

“You know – a little push and pull, the old shake and titter.”

“Shake and what?”

“I want to dip the donkey in the well, run the goat around the henhouse, drop the orphan into the pit, give the pig a good mud snuggle; I need a woman to swallow the monkey’s pudding, bite the elephant’s tail, dance the dance of the mini-may-pole.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I want to get my third leg in a titty race!”

“Are you talking about sex? Is that what you want?”

“Where I come from, we don’t use that exact expression, but…”

“My sweet Faust! Have you taken leave of your senses? You have made a pact with the devil! You don’t need to marry to get sex!”

“But surely… marriage is how all my friends… how else…”

“My dear Faust, if you expect to get even a fraction of the fun you can get out of this deal, you have to loosen up! Getting married just for sex? You have all kinds of inhibitions, don’t you? Someday, we will invent an entire profession just to deal with people like you. But look. Sex I can get you. Wait here.”

With those words and a voluminous cloud of sulpher, Mephostophiles.

Only a few minutes later there sounded a knock on Faust’s front door. There stood a beautiful woman in long, rustling skirts out to here and a bodice up to here and a powdered wig piled so high on her head another woman could have been hiding in there. She said, “Hello Doktor Faust, sweetheart, I believe you requested a third pig in a titty puddle?”

“The expression, I believe, is entering my third leg in a titty race.”

“That too,” giggled the refined lady, whose voluptuous body seemed to shake and shiver with every breath she took.

Doctor Faustus’ heart trembled and that night he experienced pleasures and joys of such a libidinousness and debaucherous nature that he indeed learned of a world he had never before dreamed could exist

And the next night also, another woman came to him, and he soon realized that there would be a never-ending stream of them from now on, until his pact with the devil ended in 24 years, and in the morning he told her, “Tonight, send a red-head.”

And lo, that night a red-head knocked at his door, and the next night, filled with lusts and his desires spiraling out of control, he said, “Tomorrow night, send a brunette and a blonde!”

And the next night two ladies, a brunette and blonde, did come, and the night thereafter Faust debauched four young ladies in a single night, and the night thereafter he ruined took the virginity of a fat black-haired wench while watching a bald woman debauch her hairy sister, and after that he requested a family of debased and perverted men and women with a trained dog, all of whom went at each other while he watched and played with three pairs of twins.

And when, during the day, he reported to Mephostophiles his misdeeds of the night before, the famulus made suggestions: “I know how to get a woman with three breasts,” he said. And when Faust tired of women with three breasts, his famulus generously brought him women with three breasts and two tongues, then women with an extra vagina on her leg where her armpit should have been, then a woman with two breasts in front and another two in back and three legs with two vaginas and an extra mouth on the back of her head.”

That was when Faust pondered his ways and asked Mephostophiles, “You know, anatomically speaking, that last woman, who was certainly very charming, was nothing less than a miracle.”

Thereupon his spirit gave no answer. That made Faust a little bit nervous.

“Tell me, O Spirit, where you do find such women?”

“Oh, here and there”, said the gray monk. “Any other requests? I should be going.”

“Wait. You say here and there. Where specifically?”

“You wouldn’t know the place, I’m sure”, said Mephostophiles. “Besides, even we demons have to have out little secrets.”

Faust thought about it for a while, then said, “Could you get me a woman with an elephant’s head and the udder of a cow?”

Mephostophiles said, “Now you’re using your imagination. I like that.”

In that moment, Faust understood all, and he could no longer hold in the voluminous lunch he had injested, but vomited it all out on the living room floor, while Wagner scrambled for higher ground. “It’s you!” roared Faust, “It was you all the time! Admit it, debased and perverted creature, treacherous spawn of hell!”

“That’s not what you said last night”, said the spirit. “Besides, I only wanted to give you want you wanted”, but Faust was no longer listening.

From then on, their relationship was different.

Chapter 7 continued

2008-07-13T10:44:00.002+01:00

THE HISTORIA OF FAUSTUS

VII. (continued)
Concerning Doctor Faustus' Inquiries into the Intentions of Hell

Thus while he lived day for day with no purpose and no meaning like an Epicure, who justifies his sinfulness with long sentences, or like a sow, that justifies nothing to no one and is therefore more admirable than a Philosopher guilty of both sin and wordiness, Doctor Faustus began to question whether this was what the Evil Spirits of Hell had planned for him, and he asked Mephostophiles, "When I sold my soul to Hell, I must say I expected to be used for more evil than mere slothfulness – is it so that Hell hath no imagination for Evil?"

And thus answered the spirit disguised as a gray friar: "It is not our duty to invent sin, only to lure human beings to commit it. In fact, we in Hell are so busy tempting mankind to sin that we don’t have time to invent new sins or to plot new forms of evil."

"But would it not be in your interests to plot evil?"

"Certainly," replied the Spirit, "And in fact we do have a division which we call the Evil-Magineers which is assigned only to plot evil and invent new sins, but it is not considered a very successful division for it is reft by politics and in-fighting with every devil in it competing for the ear of Satan, who is so inundated by the demands of temptation and soul-getting that he has little time for innovation and experiment. Why the very PlayStation which I brought to entertain your friend Wagner is a product of the Evil-Magineers, which, they say, is bound to eventually destroy the world by luring every man away from his fruitful work onto the couch to waste away his days and thus to destroy civilization by neglect, but immediately as this device was proposed a hundred other evil spirits arose to criticize it with such objections as, 'But in order to produce such a machine mankind must first be extremely innovative, hard-working and highly imaginative; if mankind were addicted to such a thing it would at least have to get off the couch enough to invent new games for the machine, which in turn would prerequire great amounts of learning, ability, imagination, investment, counseling, cooperation and a myriad of efficiently working industries, all of which would continually have to improve and progress, which would imply that in its drive to destroy itself, civilization would in fact be continually recreating itself; in other words, if we attempt to destroy civilization in this way, we must give civilization the means to progress well beyond what it is now, even to a point where we are no longer in a position to destroy it – better not to let civilization proceed so far than to risk that the lure of the PlayStation might not then be enough to destroy it completely.' So the introduction of the PlayStation into human life has been stopped."

"It would appear that you devils in Hell have a problem," said Doktor Faustus. "Without innovation, cooperation and a risk-taking mentality there can be no future for Hell."

"You don’t know the half of it," replied Mephostophiles.

Chapter 7

2008-07-13T10:39:00.004+01:00

THE HISTORIA OF FAUSTUS

VII.
How Doktor Faustus settled down With his Spirit Mephostophiles

Doctor Faustus having now, thanks to the servitude of his famulus, every power, every luxury, every possibility at his fingertips, instead of unleashing it upon the world and declaring himself universal king and forcing all citizens to bow to him and do his will; instead of demanding that his famulus make him fabulously wealthy, beautiful and socially desired and inhabiting a house on the sunny Riviera; instead of capturing all the beautiful virgins of the world and placing them in his harem to do his will, as any normal man would do, he instead immediately settled into a comfortable domestic routine that by any standards must be described as strictly unimaginative, even boring.

This was anything but surprising to his famulus, who knew from experience that most men, given the opportunity, would prefer to think small. Indeed, it is a rare man who thinks with a broad and bold vision, an even rarer man who has the courage and determination to pursue it, and a rarer man still who has the possibilities and talent to succeed. Unfortunately for devils such as the famulus, such rare men are usually too busy with their plans to take the time and make the effort of consulting the devil. Ironically, there was such a man living only a few blocks away from Doktor Faustus in Wittemberg, a certain Martin Luther, who at the time of Doktor Faustus' diabolical pact was wrestling with his conscious as a prelude to single-handedly destroying the Catholic church; such a man any devil would have loved to aid and abet, but Martin Luther was too busy torturing himself to hear the lure of devilish temptation. And so in terms of sheer potential, the famulus had to be satisfied with what he could get.

Doktor Faustus main sin was laziness and his greatest evil was theft. All day long he sat around the house in Wittemberg (which was bequeathed to him by a kinsman who had died) on the couch and read or just stare into space or take part in nonsensical, useless discussions with his sidekick, a lazy student named Christoph Wagner. Though officially Christoph Wagner was Doiktor Faustus' student and Faustus claimed he was trying to make a scholar out of him, the boy was so stupid, immobile, unimaginative and loutish that he would laugh and show astonishment at just about any accomplishment, and Doktor Faustus' highest ambition was to entertain Wagner with dumb jokes and cheap tricks.

Doctor Faustus' most spectacular tricks consisted of sending his spirit Mephostophiles out at night to steal food and bring it home. "What do you feel like eating tonight, Christoph?" Faustus would ask, and Christoph would invariably answer, "porridge", at which Faustus would send his spirit some poor farmer's house and steal two bowls of porridge right off the table and bring it back to Wittemberg, much to the delight of Christoph Wagner, but to the abject horror of Mephostophiles, who was bored out of his mind. One day Mephostophiles finally made a suggestion: "Why don't you let me go out and see if I can steal something a little more exciting?"

That night, Mephostophiles returned with a nine-course meal stolen from the table of the Duke of Saxony himself. [DESCRIBE MEAL?] On nights that followed, Mephostophiles similarly provided luxury meals for Faustus and Wagner, and after that, the devil began traveling to other countries and even to other times to bring back exotic foods, even to the distant future, where he found and introduced to Faustus Chop Suey, Pizza, Sushi, Spagetti and Meatballs, and Ice Cream. All the time, however, it was only Faustus who found enthusiasm for these culinary adventures: Christoph Wagner consistently complained that he didn’t like the food and was subsequently brought porridge.

Likewise, Mephostophiles, which was regularly summoned in Doktor Faustus' carefully protected and constantly locked study, provided Doktor Faustus with good wines from the best cellars, even that of his Lord Elector of Saxony as well as those of the Duke of Bavaria and the Bishop of Saltzburg, and clothed the doctor and the boy in sumptuous and mantels and shoes, all stolen at night from craftsmen to royalty in Nuremberg, Augsburg or Frankfurt, and also furnished Faustus' home in luxurious furniture stolen from potentates.

All of this Faustus reveled in and enjoyed greatly, but Christoph Wagner disdained, for he only wanted a comfortable couch to lay about on and was not picky about its upholstery, and was constantly criticizing Mephostophiles's pretentious tastes, so that finally Mephostophiles told Faustus, "There is only one time in the history of the world, past and future, which is in a position to cater properly to the tastes and desires of such a wastrel as Christoph Wagner, and with your permission I will visit it and return." Faustus gave permission, and that evening Mephostophiles introduced Wagner to take-out pizza, a miracle called "PlayStation" complete with a flatscreen TV, a generator and a vast library of ego-shooter games. Though Wagner had shown little dispensation in the past to learn new skills or to in any way accept things which were previously foreign to him, he surprisingly enough immediately took to the foreign custom of PlayStationmanship and attended to the device for most of each day until he fell into an exhausted sleep among the discarded pieces of pizza late at night.

In sum, Doctor Faustus' meat, clothing and furniture, his living in its entirety, was respectable but godless. Indeed Christ our Lord doth through John call the Devil a thief and a murderer, and that is what he is. And though he lived in his house in Wittemberg with two companions – the boy and the devil, who inhabited the house in the guise of a friar, he was in fact alone, for with such blood on his hands as can only taint the hands of the murderer of the spirit, it is so that God Himself and the whole Heavenly Host did turn away from him, and of all the houses in all the world, only Doktor Faustus' house in Wittemberg was devoid and empty of the loving attention of the heavenly hosts, and thus Doktor Faustus was alone.

Chapter 6

2008-01-02T12:13:00.000+01:00

Faust #6
The Historia of Faustus
VI.
Dr. Faust's Godless Contract with the Devil

I, Johann Faustus, Dr.,

Do openly declare with my own hand and of voluntary will, being of sound mind and body and in full command of my faculties, this covenant:

That I, having exhausted my own intellectual faculties in the exploration of the hidden meanings and senses of the world and of the universe, both the elements to be found in the light of day and those only found in books, still do not comprehend the lot of life and existence thrust unexplained upon mankind;

And that I have concluded that God, Nature or the Laws of the Cosmos have designed to keep such knowledge from me, with the full intention of holding all of mankind in ignorance of our Lot and Fate, as an animal might be held ignorant, for reasons which, like the knowledge itself, are also not imparted unto us;

And that I do herewith refuse to passively accept my own ignorance and so do design to rise above it and gain the Knowledge and Understanding privy only to God and to the Heavens, even though my rising to such Knowledge is not amicable unto God my Creator;

And that I do to this purpose herewith propose to probe the Elements to uncover their secrets, and because such things are taught neither by magisters, nor by books, nor by priests nor by observation of nature, I have therefore summoned the spirit called Mephostophiles, a servant of the Hellish Prince, and do herewith charge him with informing and instructing me in these matters, and never to keep any knowledge or information from me that I should desire, and during this time and to this purpose that he should agree to be subservient and obedient to me in all things;

And that I do promise him in return that, when I be fully sated of that which I desire of him within a time of twenty-four years from this moment, he may at such a time and in whatever manner or wise pleaseth him order, ordain, reign, rule and possess all that may be mine: body, property, flesh, blood, etc., which I herewith do surrender over to him in eternity and by covenant in my own hand by the authority and power of my own free mind, intent, blood and will;

And that I herewith necessarily and freely now defy all living beings, all the Heavenly Host and all mankind, yea, God himself, to this end, as this must be;
And that I, in confirmation and contract of this proposal, herewith do draw out my own blood for certification as a seal binding my soul to this contract.

Doctor Faustus, Adept

To be continued…

Chapter 5

2007-09-21T09:20:00.000+01:00

THE HISTORIA OF FAUSTUS

V.
Doktor Faust's Third Disputation and Pact made with the Spirit, Who was called Mephostophiles

As for the devilish pact, it came about in this way:

Doktor Faustus required the spirit to appear before him on the next morning, commanding him to come, whenever he was called, in the guise of a Franciscan Monk and always with a little bell so that by the sound of the bell it might be known when he was approaching. Then Faust asked the spirit his name, and the spirit answered:
"Mephostophiles."

In that hour, the godless man, seduced by pride, arrogance and transgression, cut himself off wholly from God and the Creator to become a liegeman of the abominable Devil.

Then, in order that these two wicked parties might contract one with another, Doktor Faust took a penknife, pricked open a vein in his left hand in order to make a contract with the evil spirit in his own blood. Even then in the last moments of hope for his Christian soul did God send him a warning, for there on the skin of his arm even as he pricked the vein did appear graven and bloody words, dancing there as if they were alive: o homo fuge--id est: o mortal fly from him and do what is right! But this warning, too, Faust ignored, and instead drained his blood into a crucible and set it on some hot coals. Then he sat at his desk and wrote on a piece of parchment with his own blood the words that here follow:

To be continued…

Chapter 4

2007-02-24T11:11:00.001+01:00

The Historia Of Faustus

IV.
Dr. Faustus' Second Disputation with the Spirit

It was Vespers on the very same day, when the day was just beginning to dim and the twilight would not be far, that Faust summoned once more the gray friar into his chamber and asked the spirit what he, Faust, must do in order to command over him.
Once more the spirit appeared to offer his obedience and subservience in all things and without any conditions or limits, but only if Faust would tender certain articles to him in return. For such is the rhetoric of a devil: To offer all at any time and under any circumstances, and to pretend as though the thing comes with no price and no sacrifice and no effort, and to create the illusion that the thing is a gift given for no reason at all, and to make the recipient think: But why have struggled all this time through my life thinking that everything has a price and that I must work hard and suffer to get what I want and even then in many cases I will not get it, when all this time I needed merely ask this devil for the thing and he would give it to me without any effort of my own? And so as soon as the mere mortal begins to believe that he can receive a thing without paying for it, the devil mentions as if he had forgotten it, or as if it is hardly worth the mention, that there is indeed a small price, and by that time the foolish mortal is so consumed with greed for the thing he believes he can get for free that he is willing to pay any price, even the very price of his immortal soul.

And so it went between the devil and Faust on that afternoon: The devil in the guise of the gray friar promised that his desires would know no want if only the following, hardly mentionable small articles were surrendered by him unto the spirit:

"Firstly," spoke the spirit, "that you, Faust, should name a certain number of years at the expiration of which our pact will be reversed, and I will no longer be thy servant, but thou, Faust, will be my servant; you must promise and swear now that at that time you will become mine own property.

"Secondly, that you will confirm our agreement upon a writ to this effect authenticated in your own blood.

"Thirdly, that you will renounce the Christian faith, renounce the Christian God in all ways and defy and revile all believers in Him.

"Should you observe all these points, I will fulfill every lust of your heart and shall immediately transfer to you all the powers and privileges that I own to do with as you will."

Doktor Faust considered this for a short time, but even as he thought it over, he knew that his own pride, greed and arrogance would never allow him to resist such an offer, and he knew that the spirit knew this as well. So reckless and proud had he become that he could no longer even properly concentrate and imagine the worth of his own soul, which he knew he must lose, but instead created excuses in his own mind and said to himself:

"How do I know what my soul is really worth? How do I know that there is even such a thing as heaven and hell, or even god? For God has never revealed himself until me, but this devil has, is it not a surer thing than any fantasy I may have about a God and heaven I cannot know truly exists? I do not see God or Heaven before me, nor do I see Hell before me, but before me I do see a spirit that is willing to give me a specific, clearly defined thing for a price that is clearly set out beforehand. God has never made such an offer to me. On the contrary, all offers that come from God are unclear and difficult to understand, just as His commandments are difficult to follow and his precept are difficult to understand. This offer, however, is not only clear to understand, it is clearly of a high value."

And so Faust came to terms with the evil spirit.

To be continued…

Chapter 3

2007-02-24T11:10:00.002+01:00

THE HISTORIA OF FAUSTUS

III.

How the Spirit Explained unto Faustus

The Hierarchy of the Empire of Hell

and Why No Mortal Can Command over its Emperor

Doctor Faustus returned to his living quarters pale as ash and shaking, and sat by the window while the other guests and servants slept and watched the run rise. But when his shaking had subsided and his hands were calm, he locked himself in his study and with chalk drew the circles of power on the floor and once more commanded the spirit to appear. And again the spirit did so, this time unaccompanied by fire and trumpeting, simply stepping into the air beside Faust's circle, dressed again as a gray friar, and softly asked, "What is it you desire of me?"

Of all the astonishing things that happened in the history of Doktor Faust, the most astonishing of all is the bare fact that the Lord God would withdraw his hand so that a demon can speak directly to man to deceive him and lead him down the path to hell, when the opposite is not true: The angels do not appear to us and speak to us directly to tempt us up to heaven. What glorious heavenly purpose is served by this, we mortals cannot know.

When the spirit of evil had appeared, Faust laid before him Three Laws of Demonics, which, said Faust, could never he transgressed for any reason. They were as follows:

First, that the demon will always serve and obey him in all that Faust might request, ask or even expect, at any time in his life and at any place and instantly without hesitation, up to the time of Faust's death.

Second, that the demon will keep back no information that Faustus might require, but that he might provide that information instantly and at the moment needed.

Third, that the demon will say nothing untruthful or lead Faust astray in any matter of truth in any of their dealings.

"You must be proud for yourself for devising such rules that you believe will protect you," said the gray friar. "But I must immediately reject them and refuse to accept any such laws in any form."

Faust was taken aback and asked for the reason, which the demon supplied: "I do not have the proper authority to make any such accommodation, but must instead obtain it from my Lord who rules over me. Sweet Faust," spoke the demon, "to fulfill this desire of yours is neither within my will nor within my authority, but can be fulfilled only by the Hellish God himself."

Faustus replied: "How am I to understand you? I summoned the devil – are you not he?"

The spirit answered: "No."

"Explain to me why this is not so."

"I will now reveal unto you a thing which few other mortal souls know, Sweet Faust," whispered the demon. "Among us hellish spawn there rules a strict government with laws and authorities and lawgivers. Our sovereign is Lucifer, who rules over a court of higher demons like unto your dukes and landgraves and abbots and bishops. And each of these have their own sinecures where they also give laws unto their vassals – Hellish knights and demonic barons – who in turn have vassals of their own – squires, monks and peasants – and of these, I am but one. But above all is our Hellish God who rules over us just as your kings and emperors on Earth and who must take advice from his subjects but whose voice is the final law at all times."

"Tell me now, O Demon," said Faust, "Are our kingdoms on earth like unto yours in hell because we learned these ways from the likes of you?"

"But Sweet Faust, you underestimate the imagination and creativity of your own mortal kind. Indeed, you forget that your kind has been blessed with the divine spark and are surely in a position to create such a kingdom on your own. The truth is, Sweet Faust, that it was your kind that created this hierarchy; my Hellish God only saw that it was efficient and powerful, especially for doing evil, and therefore instituted exactly the same hierarchy in Hell."

"Then what must I do to command over your Hellish Lord, for it is he I wish to do my bidding," said Faust in all his horrifying arrogance.

"But Sweet Faust," said the demon, laughing softly, "No man with all his dark arts nor any amount of power, yea, not with a thousand times more power than you possess, can ever command the Highest Emperor of Hell. The most a mortal can do is ask that a spirit be sent, and if he who asks is pleasing to the barons, dukes, abbots and bishops of Hell and especially to our most High Lord, then a mere knight or monk or peasant among demons is sent, as I have been."

"Are you then authorized to reveal to me anything at all that I desire?"

"There are many things I can reveal unto you, and many more things that I cannot, but that should not worry you, O Man, for if you are anything like all your mortal brethren, you will not possess the imagination necessary to think up most of those questions that are forbidden. But let me tell you two things which are chief among these things that you will never know: The first being knowledge of the true fundament of our dwelling place; the second being what does truly occur after the death to the damned human being – to learn that, Sweet Faust, you must be damned and experience it for yourself."

Reminded of damnation and the terms of a pact with the devil, Doktor Faustus became alarmed once more and cursed the demon and swore he would have nothing more to do with the Kingdom of Hell, and said: "I will not be damned for thy sake, oh peasant among spirits."

The demon answered: "Wilt though not? But thou art surely damned already, Sweet Faust, for thine is an insolent heart, and no matter how long thou wouldst struggle with thyself, thou wilt surely call upon me again and willingly embrace thine own damnation."

Then Doctor Faustus cursed and said: "The devil take thee! Return to Hell, oh wicked Spirit, and never return to torment me again! Be gone!"

And so the gray friar now withdrew just as quietly and simply as had come, but even in that moment, Doktor Faustus knew he would conjure the spirit once more, that very night, at vespers.

To be continued…

Chapter 2

2007-02-24T11:10:00.001+01:00

THE HISTORIA OF FAUSTUS

II. How Doktor Faust Entered into the Realm of Sorcery

Thus was Doktor Faust even as a student of such a character that he loved what should not be loved and devoted his spirit day and night to the things to which no spirit should be dedicated. He strived with the arrogance of fallen angels to seek out the very foundations of heaven and earth that have been shrouded in mystery by God's grace from the very beginnings of time. For if we knew the secrets of creation we would equally know the secrets of God himself, and to seek to know the secrets of the Divine Father is to strive to set oneself on the same station as the divine God. Therefore beware, O Man, of him who speaks of the nobility of the search for knowledge, for in his heart he is driven by an intoxication brought on his soul by haughtiness, pride, hubris, insolence and folly. For it is folly not to know one's place in creation but instead to seek to elevate oneself even equal to the Divine. Such was the fire that fueled Faust's heart and so excited him that upon seeing that the mysteries of creation are closed to mortals he determined to overcome the barriers of the heavens by applying magical vocabula, figuræ, characteres and coniurationes in the hope of compelling the Devil himself to appear before him.

To this purpose Faust journeyed to the great, dense Spesser Forest near Wittemberg and at a crossroad in these woods in the first of evening he described in the dirt a complex of circles with his staff, one within the other and overlapping at certain points, so that two small circles stood apart from a larger circle but intersected it, and at the edges he inscribed certain symbols in Chaldean, Persian and Greek. When he was finished he stood inside the larger circle and waited in the gathering darkness until between nine and ten o'clock, when the darkness had settled firmly among the trees. That was the time he conjured the Devil.

But the Devil did not come. Instead, such an unexplainable and terrifying tumult arose in the forest that the very foundations of the world seemed to shake. The wind howled about the trees with such force that they were bent to the ground. It seemed as if the forest was filled with devils that flew through the shadows. In flashes of fire and shadow, Faust glimpsed flaming coaches hurtling through the trees. Lightning bolts burst in upon him from the four corners of the forest with loud explosions, and made Faust shiver with fright and foreboding. Just as suddenly as it had begun, it was finished and gone, and in the midst of the forest there arose a light as clear as the morning, and sweet instruments played and ethereal voices sang a song he did not know. It seemed as though the heavens had descended on the forest to drive away the demons of hell. Through the trees he saw a great heavenly festival, with the lovely figures of young girls dancing blithely in the air and strong knights atop their chargers clashing overhead in joust and turning on each other in a melee of swordplay and a great thrusting of spears in a divine spectacle. It occurred to Faust now that these appearances may have been sent by the Devil or they may have been sent by God and that as frightening as the Devil may be, to be punished by God would be even more terrible, and at last he considered fleeing his circle. But before he stepped out of it, he instead pulled his professor's robes tightly about himself and straightened his shoulders and lifted his chin in haughty defiance so that he might regain his reckless determination and persist in his intention, come whatever God or the Devil might send.

Once more he repeated his conjurings, and now the dancing girls and jousting knights disappeared and the light faded into an eerie twilight filtered through tree and leaf. He heard a mighty thrashing of leathery wings and there appeared above him a griffon and above that a dragon and further up in the air yet other wondrous and horrible beasts that he could not identify, and in the night sky unseen there were more, hovering and flattering above the circle. But Doktor Faust applied a spell he had learned in a book from Arabia and the beasts shrieked piteously and fled. When they had fled, a flaming star fell down from the heavens, a glowing ball of fire glowing and sputtering and falling right toward his head. This greatly alarmed Faust, but he knew now for certain that the Devil had taken notice of him, and that if he survived this night the Devil would surely become subservient to him. That gave him courage, and so he threw one, two, three spells at the falling star as it hurtled toward him, until it stopped and hovered in the air above his head so that its heat singed Faust's hair and eyebrows and made him fairly wilt with its power. As it quivered and jumped and rolled and exploded above him, it sent gushings of fire that jettisoned into the air in every direction and took on the forms of a man until they landed on the grass and dirt and vanished. After this had happened six times, a seventh column of flame shot out of the ball of flame and this too took on the form of a man, with calves like pillars and shoulders like flaming boulders and a burning black hole where his gaping mouth should be. This one did not disappear, but instead burned brightly as it walked up the path toward Faust and then walked around his circle, watching Faust with fiery eyes. But Faust held it's gaze and did not flinch not look away nor shy away from the heat, and when the fiery man stood directly across from Faust, he said unto the apparition: "It is twelve o'clock midnight, send me your master whom I have conjured, servant of hell!"

Suddenly the fiery man was gone, and with him the ball of flame, and the strange lights and everything else that had appeared that night, and the forest was calm and dark once more. Then Faust heard a faint noise, a mere shuffling on the path outside the circle, and he squinted into the darkness until there appeared, approaching him along the way, the figure of a wizened, stooped friar with a gray beard and a staff crowned by a crucifix. The figure stopped outside the circle and gazed Faust in the eyes, until finally he asked Faust, "What is your desire and intent?"

Only then did Faust see that the cross was affixed upside down to the staff. "I wish that you should appear at my lodging in the morning at nine o'clock by the ringing of the church bells to do my bidding."

"I do not do the bidding of fools and sinners; they do my bidding," spoke the gray friar.

"You cannot refuse," spoke Faust, "for I have power over you by the strength of my spells which are descended through time by compact with your very master, for you believe you stand above men but in truth you are doomed to forever stand below our feet and will never be our masters, but only our slaves, thus it is commanded and the will of God."

At this, the gray friar's eyes turned suddenly dark, as if he had none, but instead blank, black holes, and his lips curled in a hateful sneer, and he said, "I will appear, but be not too sure, O Man, that you will enjoy the fruits of your arrogance for long, for your understanding of this world will never be enough to save your soul from the likes of me."

Then the friar was gone, and the forest was quiet once more.

To be continued…

Chapter 1

2007-02-24T11:06:00.000+01:00

THE HISTORIA OF FAUSTUS

Being the tale of the infamous sorcerer, including the specific and detailed description of his whole life and death, and how he made a pact with the Devil, and all his sins, magics, sorceries, conjurings, blasphemies, seductions, orgies, rapes, robberies, murders and the very blackness of his soul, yea, and how he thereafter went to his terrible and much-deserved reward.

I.

Of the Satanist's Blameless Parents and Misspent Education

The ignoble and iniquitous Doktor Faustus was born, innocent and sinless, to righteous, goodly Christian parents in Roda near Weimar. They were peasants both, but had kin in Wittemberg, which would soon be blessed by God to become the place where the inspired monk Martin Luther, God's instrument, would nail to the door of the Castle Church 95 Theses against the apostate and decadent Catholic Church – a city whose name the Devil is only too eager to besmirch. One of these kin in this blessed city, an uncle, was a merchant of good standing, influence and wealth. Hoping to give their son opportunities they did not have, and hoping he would take to the world of commerce and influence, they gave their boy into the care and keeping of his uncle, who quickly came to love the child and rear him as his own, being himself without progeny. Grateful to the Lord for his adopted offspring and mindful of the parents' wishes that the boy should grow to please God, the uncle adopted this Faustus, made him his heir and sent him to university in Heidelberg to study theology. How could he ever have guessed how far Faustus would stray from this godly purpose?

There are those who would blame Faust's parents, but to do that is only to sin against one's fellow man. Neither his parents nor his patrons should be blamed for the later turn of Faust's life, for they were pious parents who desired only the best for him. It has become a most regretful fashion of the day to too quickly blame one's parents for one's own sins; this is a habit that reflects not on the father and mother, but on the sons and daughters, who seek to absolve themselves from responsibility for their own actions, but think, oh children, in the eyes of God you are adult as Adam and Eve were adults when cast out of the garden of Eden; the weary world into which you have been cast is a world of your own; the cursed ground on which you walk is cursed not only for the sake of your parents but also for your sake, and the thorns and thistles it brings forth are brought forth also for you; it is the devil, Lucifer himself, who desires for you to put blame on those who cannot walk that ground for you, so that you will walk it without recognizing your own sins nor gaining forgiveness for them, and thus shalt thine own soul be cast down into hell. Therefore blame not your parents for the wasteland in which you walk, but blame your sinful self and repent, and learn to walk it with the dignity and grace that God hath lent unto you and which the Devil wishes only to conceal from you, saying, O Man, you have no dignity nor anything Godly within you, yours is only to complain and wail and blame instead others for your fate, therefore do not look inside thyself for the spark of the divine as you make your way from the Garden of Eden through the wilderness and back to heaven, but go without God, that I my wait to receive you before you reach the gates of Heaven and bring you instead unto mine own kingdom of doom!

But I digress.

The young Faust was perceptive and smart and a lover of books, study and knowledge. Thus his days in Heidelberg passed quickly and soon the rectors examined him for his Magister Degree, at which time he proved himself so superior to his fellow students in knowledge, exposition and discourse that he was immediately confirmed not only Magister, but also Doctor Theologiæ. Yet the praise of his professors was mistaken, for they had seen only the signs of his learning and ignored the signs of the progress of his soul, for his superiority in things of learning matched a dark deficiency in the things of humanity, for he was a stubborn, unreasonable and vain person who had no love for his fellow students, nor for anyone but himself. Instead of looking up to his fellow students and striving to learn from them and showing gratitude for a situation which allowed him to be in their presense, he scorned them and berated them, with words such as:

"You disgust me, you who have come from good homes of wealth and education, who have grown up with books and learning and with polite ways and who have always communed with other of your ilk, for you have never had to fight to get what you want, you have never had to overcome yourself to prove who and what you are, you have never had to raise yourself above your origins, as i have, and that is the hardest achievement in life, and you will never know it, but will remain weak and content and stupid, thinking all the while you are better than others but not knowing that you are the sheer essense of banality; I do not weep that you reject me and my ambitious ways, for to belong to your kind would be for me the greatest failure of all. Is the majesty of a king flattered by the presense of a dog from the streets? Neither am I flattered to drink with you, converse with you or walk with you, for to me who have strived to become more than I was born to be, you are like dogs of the street, content to remain what you are. I can not but despise you!"

In return, his fellow students referred to him only as "four-eyes."

Thus, seeking companionship and finding it not among his fellow theologians, he fell into the meanest and most despicable of company, among whom it was fashionable to lay the Holy Word behind the door and under the bench, and not to revere it but to live shamelessly and godlessly in gluttony and lust, as we shall indeed soon see in colorful detail.

It was in the back rooms, stinking alleys and smoky taverns of Heidelberg where Doktor Faust found true companionship among those of his own kind: The twisted, sick fellows who believe they are studying the world but in fact are in the throes of the devil, those who seek and learn the secrets of the dark languages of ancient time, Chaldean, Persian, Arabian and Greek words, figuris, characteribus, coniurationibus, incantationibus, and other forms of writing that summon demons and disrupt nature; here he learned the arts of dacryomancy, necromancy, cheiromancy, astrology, aeromancy, pyromancy, hydromancy, and whatever you care to call such conjurings and sorcery. Doktor Faust was pleased to discover such hidden and forbidden arts, for they made him feel superior to those who walk the righteous path, and he entered into the study of them with all his waking spirit night and day. Soon he discarded the title of Theologus and took instead a worldly title, calling himself Doctor Medicinæ, and also Astrologus and Mathematicus and other such worldly titles that know nothing of God and therefore serve little purpose on this earth. At first, still listening perhaps to the quiet voice of reason and goodness still within him, he applied his doctor's arts to help people, using medicaments, herbs, roots, waters, lotions, elixirs and physics to succor their ailments. But that was not enough to satisfy the hunger inside him to place himself above his fellow doctors and fellow man, yea, even above God. To do this he would must throw all that his parents, his uncle, his professors and all others gave to him to the wind, even unto throwing away his very soul, for which there can be no pardon on earth or in heaven.

To be continued...