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So now let's finish filling the outline
Of this, the first of sources we combine
To make our case. Among other things we'll see:
How pure evil hitched a ride in modernity.
How values, in a vacuum, congeal and stick
Around habitual poses that may grow toxic;
And how mindlessly collective thought can be
Herded into vile absurdity.
Sandover was first three books, so published,
Obedient to the spirits' request.
The first one is called “The Book of Ephraim”:
With transcripts made when ouija seemed a game,
Dave and Jimmy (Merrill) contact the departed.
And gape as pearls of strangeness are imparted.
Their guide “Ephraim” claims a past life as
A flunky in the court of Tiberius.
In book two, Ephraim is pushed to the wings
In favor of bat-like, red-eyed SQUEAKING THINGS
With numbers for names, and their own agenda
They seemed to want from Jimmy: propaganda.
YOU MUST MAKE GOD OF SCIENCE; TELL OF POWER
Because their PARADISE is blocked by MAN'S FEAR.
In the third book, 'the bats', in turn, get the hook
For higher beings with an arch-angelic look.
That have their own classrooms, rhetoric and lessons
Homilies, hints and mythical confessions.
With them, Jimmy weaves a web of ritual
A fluffed poetic pageantry of symbol.
Throughout each book their 'friends' are there as well
Who, as we'll see, seem to be stuck in Hell.
They chat and banter and keep the feeling light
While adding commentary and insight.
'MM' is a Greek heiress friend who died;
Becomes a trusted voice on the other side.
'WHA' is the late poet Auden,
Who, passed, can't pass on the role he's cast in.
Sandover doesn't clearly state its aims
Its message must be glimpsed amid its games.
What's clear is that a plan is hatching forth
To usher, somehow, outsiders to earth.
What else is clear, is that the whole parade
Of bat-things, 'arch-angels' and forms of 'God'–
Are facets of a thing that is deeply evil
This, a wealth of hints makes hardly subtle.
Now modern thought will pointedly object
That 'evil' is a bias of the subject
And therefore isn't fit to form a frame
For commentary worthy of the name–
This attitude is what we always find
Where modern values vaguely get defined.
If 'value is subjective', then, we guess
Ideas of 'good and evil' are meaningless.
But in real life values tend to be
Held in common universally;
Though bursting in complexity of forms
The heart, through love, unites in basic norms.
Kindness, warmth, honesty and grace
Are valued in some part of every place;
Killing, raping, stealing and treachery
Are honored in no honest morality.
And thus, our subjectivity is not
As relevant to our values as we thought.
This doesn't mean that moral absolutes
Should cling to us like tightly fitting suits
But 'issues' in which morals loudly clash
Are fed by hatred, politics, or cash.
Or else reside on abstract heights where sense
Floats up out of the realm of relevance.
In any case the evil in this book
Is so clear that it needs no second look;
From even today's limited moral vistas
Sandover's spirits are simply vomitous.
The mass of people, IN AN ANIMAL STATE
For 'paradise', are left coldly to their fate.
We NEEDED, we learn, HITLERS and STALINS to rinse
This BUTTER WORLD of RANCID ELEMENTS.
Beyond the spirits' frank elitist fist,
The nails of even darker fingers twist.
Hint after hint suggests a hellish plane:
Their friends cringing, groveling, 'playing' at pain.
The poem's 'heaven' is hierarchical–
All souls are ranked, all bow to stronger will
They're punished harshly in some unknown way
If they say things they're not supposed to say,
Which makes their speeches feel as if compelled–
As if to invisible fires held.
(But every single hint their friends provide
That they're in Hell, Jim spins and smoothes aside.
He “swims to shallows”, affects naivete,
As if to wish the sinister winds away…)
Now evil can also be recognized
Through traditions of which culture is comprised
In this way, Ephraim is traditional–
Right away, he wants to buy a soul!
(And Jimmy and Dave gladly make the deal,
because, of course, soul-selling isn't real.
Successively, in stages they are led,
Symbolically surrendering to 'the dead'.)
And meanwhile, black dogs suddenly seem to thrust
Themselves on Jimmy and Dave– recalling Faust
In Goethe's version of which a stray black poodle
Follows Faust home, then turns into the Devil.
The first black dog could only have felt like fate:
Doorbell– who's there? this dog peeing on their gate!
The second black dog is equally unnerving
Chasing their car ends bad– too late swerving.
These omens come at the beginning and end
Of when, at first, intenser ouija happened.
The black-dog Devil omen is understood,
But Jimmy and 'friends' turn evil into good.
Through rationalizing heroics of first rank
The worst stink freshens in Jimmy's whitewash tank.