Conversations with the Devil

ACCLAIMS FOR CONVERSATIONS WITH THE DEVIL

Every once in a long while, a book comes along that makes a dent in the universal conscience. Conversations with the devil, is one such book in a universe of its own. It blew my mind open.

Gerald Klopp, Book Focus

‘It’s in this world, but certainly not of this world.’ Reading Conversations with the Devil was like playing a record in reverse, yet I was able to hear the lyrics and dance to the music. Unprecedented, radical, controversial, yet ultimately inspirational and illuminating.

Sheila Atkinson - book review, Weekly Post

This book is guaranteed to pull the carpet from right under your feet; or send you free-wheeling on a magic carpet ride. An extraordinary and enchanting read that lingers on long after you close the last chapter. Unforgettable!

Caleb Patterson, Mercury Times

Alexander Twist shows a profound working knowledge of metaphysics and its fundamental and timeless principles of cause and effect. His ability to give the science a human face and make its principles applicable to every facet of everyday life is simply phenomenal. This book as I see it, is not just a sentimental defence of a maligned and misunderstood entity, but the sound and logical argument for science as a substantive religion.

Dr GW Goldenberg, Professor of Quantum Physics, NWUC Institute

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CONVERSATIONS WITH THE DEVIL

An Extraordinary Encounter

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

To borrow Einstein’s words: I am grateful to all those who said no to me. It is because of them that I did it myself. Many thanks to Prof for the cover illustration and inside graphic works. Credit and thanks to a gifted artist - Hans Meller, for the use of his illustration. And of course, I am eternally grateful to you my readers, you drive my passion - and my passion is to inspire you to be the best you can be. I believe in you.

HERE’S TO

The non-conformists, and all those who question every truth before they can accept it and adopt it. I salute your gallantry.

Table of Contents

Foreword

Prologue

The Voice: Xtian Sixsmith’s Apology

Chapter 1

The Fallout: Xtian Sixsmith

Chapter 2

Chosen: Like Attracts Like

Chapter 3

Inquisition: Devil is in the Detail

Chapter 4

Inception: The Immaculate Conception

Chapter 5

Executioner: Your Wish is my Command

Chapter 6

Identity Crisis: War of Words

Chapter 7

The Bible: The Worst Book Ever

Chapter 8

Hell: A Monstrous Myth

Chapter 9

The Devil’s Workshop: Enter the Cloud

Chapter 10

A Tale of Two Titans: Divine Antagonism

Chapter 11

The Green Eye: False Profits and False Prophets

Chapter 12

Religion: A Stumbling Block to Faith

Chapter 13

Poor God Rich God: A Little Matter of Money

To tell the truth in a time of universal deceit is a revolutionary act.

GEORGE ORWELL

FOREWORD

As a moral duty and courtesy to you my reader, I feel bound to inform you, or more appropriately, alert you to the fact that you are about to read an exceedingly odd, and perhaps disturbing book. I urge you to be calm, open minded and level headed, at least until you get to the end of the book.

You are about to have a conversation with the Devil itself. I am reliably informed that any written works about God need not be accompanied by any alert, apology, or disclaimer because it is given that God news is good news. Conversely, no word that comes from the Devil can be good. The very mention of the word Devil inspires fear and scepticism at the very least, and scathing criticism at the very worst. This book challenges that common perception. But I will leave you the reader to arrive at your own judgement at the end. You will be the judge and Jury to decide whether this humble book merits criticism and banishment or praise and recommendation. I should have liked to add a disclaimer right here; but the problem is I don’t disclaim anything in this book.

At least once in a life time, we all come into contact with certain characters in our lives, whether they come in the form of a book, a private thought, or indeed - a friend. Sometimes these characters come across as rather odd and eccentric. Their parallel views on issues we consider done and settled borders on the verge of heresy and abnormality. For that reason, we quickly dismiss such characters without listening to them because we do not wish them to disrupt our peace and quiet - because we know better.

For my part during my childhood, I had the disguised fortune of meeting such a character; call him Christian Sixsmith. Right here, I wish to apologize for spelling his first name correctly, I say apologize because he changed its spelling from Christian to Xtian, after his encounter with the Devil, this for reasons you will appreciate later on. The pronunciation still sounds the same, but he is very particular and uncompromising on the spelling to the point of madness; he considers the change in spelling to be a mark of his baptismal and turning point in life - a baptism of fire as he put it!

Later in my adolescent years, when our paths had separated and crossed once again, I engaged in many heated debates with Sixsmith on matters of higher thought, truth and morality, and almost always, I dismissed his arguments as baseless and unfounded, even when he proved to me many a time that my own arguments were even more baseless and unfounded. But I had formidable assets: in my arsenal, I had two big guns in my favour; I had the agreement of recorded history, and the agreement of the world’s most accepted and undisputed beliefs.

But Sixsmith had an infinitely more formidable asset in his favour as I know now with hindsight - he had the Devil on his side. Sixsmith argued that recorded history is by and large, a biased account in which the victors’ voice is heard, and the voice of the vanquished is silenced, obliterated or otherwise suppressed. Of my big guns he noted that they were more a liability than an asset, guns that were bound to backfire on me as they had backfired on him, only that he found out the hard way. He said history and populist opinion were not a weapon, but an alibi in the arsenal of lazy minds that refused to do their own painstaking investigation before accepting what he called ‘whore sale’ beliefs. As you can see, he was very blunt and often unkind in his choice or words when he was sure about his standpoint.

But I thought the whole world couldn’t be so wrong about such big issues; the world was too big to be wrong I told myself, but that was before I realized that it is very easy to get lost following the crowd: and the larger the crowd, the easier it is to lose yourself in it. Could the world be mislead I asked? Could it by some long shot have missed the truth, as Sixsmith asserted? But Sixsmith was only one man talking, though I sensed he was driven and inspired by some kind of evil genius within him. So who was I to listen to: one eccentric fellow touting weird beliefs on one hand, or the whole wide world with its established beliefs on the other hand? Tough choice it was. But as fate would have it, later events in my own life would lead me to believe Sixsmith had a point.

So long had I dismissed Sixsmith’s outlandish claims, and if he wasn’t a good childhood friend, I wouldn’t have tolerated him, I would have long walked away from what I considered then, to be a ‘bad influence’ on my pursuit for truth, faith and self realization, I felt he abused my friendship and company with his newfound wisdom, but oddly, it was our differences that bound us together.

From early days, our friendship had always thrived on rivalry, both inside and outside the classroom. It was a rivalry for top grades and top honours inside class, for who could run the fastest outside class, and for a girl’s affection and society’s recognition outside class - things we later both agreed had little to do with the business of winning.

Christian had always been a good boy from the time I knew him up until we separated after high school; and when I say good boy, I mean religious good. He was morally exceptional, an obedient child to the letter. He was the pride of his family and Christian community - the perfect son. On that account, he excelled all of us who threatened to despoil his spotless character, we who if not for the designs of nature, we could have lost our virginities at the age of seven. But it is funny how the wheel turns as we go.

I should state from the outset that Christian was one of the plainest fellows I knew, he was groomed to become a priest, or something to that effect as I remember, but as it turned out in time, that wasn’t his natural bent. He became quite the opposite!

He went to college. He went to read theology. When he came back, he was anything but religious! He went as a lamb and returned as a lion. He had little regard for the ideals he had grown up believing and observing. He thought religious morality was cheap and superficial! He had come back a self educated man.

Once again, he had excelled us in his blatant and open disregard for religion and morality. I thought he was going mad out of his mind with whatever books he had read. I tried to talk him down with it, but he wouldn’t stop, he was burning with conviction - he wouldn’t give it up. And when I was tired of waving him down, I gave him what he wanted, and that is a listening ear - undivided attention; the result of which is the book you are now reading - conversations with the Devil. And so I became the third accomplice.

Only then did I realize how so little we know about what we think we know. I also realized that it is a crime for anyone to shy away from controversy no matter how far out you think your views are... even when the odds against you are - the whole world to one.

PROLOGUE

the voice

Xtian Sixsmith’s Apology

Dear reader,

Here is the prequel to my story. From the age of 13, I started hearing a voice in my head that questioned, criticised and condemned almost all the institutions that surrounded me when I was growing up, chief among them - religion, education and politics. At the time, the voice had not yet introduced my developing mind to the other two most formidable forces in the world - capital and the media, but even at that age, I could sense the power and influence that capital wielded over my life. One day, I too, would have to work for it, just to survive.

The voice stayed in my head as I grew up, but I ignored it for the most part - like every other kid, I was too busy consuming tonnes of books that the school determined were good for me. But the voice found ingenious ways of getting to me through my dedication to books; though it introduced me to new voices - the voices of dead men talking.

I never shared what the voices told me, especially not on religion - the voices were unanimous in their opposition to religion, and I could not share in the slander of religion, not at the risk of dishonouring my faith, family and friends, and ending up before a priest for a demon exorcism session - arms and legs strapped to a chair.

However, my friends were always awed and amazed by my arguments on the flaws of education, politics, capital and the media: they thought them profound! That is when I realized that I wasn’t by myself all along, but in as much as I tried to deny it; I knew there was some profound power behind my thought - the Devil. I had been sceptical of what the voice had been telling me, until friends and strangers endorsed my arguments, which were in truth the arguments of the voice speaking through me. I was only a vessel of expression, and that is what I still am - a willing vessel expressing thought.

You should know by now that I did not plan to have this conversation - it just happened to me, just like it is happening to you now. The only difference is but the medium of transmission - a book.

If it were up to me, I would have kept this conversation to myself (as some suggested I do), knowing full well that its exposure would ruffle a lot of feathers, bruise a lot of egos, and no doubt raise a lot of eye brows, not to mention the sure banishment I was bound to be slapped with from the congregation I belonged to. But I spared them the trouble by cutting myself loose.

In the sharing of this conversation with you; I was faced with a tough choice - to burn it and honour my religion and family, or to release it and honour truth and my conscience. I chose the latter.

I have since discovered that the inner self cannot be suppressed, it cannot be denied, not at the loss of peace and sleep. I had an extraordinary encounter with the Devil itself. It was extraordinary not because I talked with the Devil, everybody talks with the Devil, but it was extraordinary because I listened, only a few listen. - I chose to listen and write down what I heard. In the end, I discovered that the Devil is no more an enemy of humanity than the darkness is an enemy of light.

My only apology is that this book never came to you sooner, but I have learnt, as you will, that the teacher comes when the student is ready. Everything you seek comes to you when you align your whole being with it in thought, in deed, and in spirit.

Chapter 1

the fall out

Christian Sixsmith

CHRISTIAN SIXSMITH sat under an apple tree to take refuge from the sweltering heat of the sun, and also to think about his obviously insignificant life. The tree was about the only natural shelter in the acres of tobacco fields where he had gotten a job as a seasonal labourer. The farm was owned by a reverend that never paid his workers fair wages. He was also notoriously renowned for bribing labour officials and not paying his fair share of taxes to the authorities - he had them all in his pocket.

But the amiable relationship between clergymen and taxmen, and their attending institutions was nothing that surprised Christian Sixsmith. He had come to learn that that unholy union had a long and rich history. It was a relationship Christian found rather disturbing at the very least; and downright immoral and revolting at the very worst - but even that wasn’t the worst part, Christian thought.

The worst part was that he had been, and was still a victim of a great conspiracy... a conspiracy too great for words. He had been caught in an intricate web of lies, a web he had inadvertently helped spin by his own ignorance. But now the scales were beginning to fall away from his eyes.

How had his life all come down to this he wondered? He was labouring on a tobacco plantation in the middle of nowhere just to make ends meet when he was an educated man - a highly educated man with a recognized qualification in theology from a highly acclaimed University.

Many days and nights of pondering on the situation had yielded nothing. The only thing he could understand was the way he felt inside - it was an emptiness and a yearning for something more from life - and there was no running away from it. The pangs of anger, the hopelessness, the frustration and bewilderment; not to mention the indignity and humiliation of being compelled to become a farm labourer was too real to ignore.

He felt cheated - betrayed by life itself. He felt betrayed by the reverend who never gave him a platform to prove himself in the church. He felt betrayed by a government that promised but never provided him with a befitting job for a young man of his qualifications. He felt betrayed by the university that sold him an education he could not use. And most certainly, he felt cheated and betrayed by his girl friend who had since left him for a serious man who had something shiny to show for her beauty. But that was understandable, as were all the other cases. No man could blame a woman for wanting a nice life where he had failed to provide one. Besides, whenever one dealt with men... and women, there was always a chance of betrayal, and betrayal had its merits.

But what Christian could not understand was what he considered to be the ultimate betrayal of all. He had been betrayed by the one he had trusted and worshipped all his life - God. For the first time in his life, Christian did something unthinkable. He put God on the witness stand and measured him against all the promises tabulated in the holy book, and lo and behold, he had fallen short of almost all the promises. Christian had always felt that God was always so very far from him. It was as if he had been chasing God all his life. At long last, he felt lost and abandoned, he had never been surer of anything in his life than the thought that he had been abandoned and betrayed by God.

The truth hit him in the face: the God he had been chasing must have been a phantom. Either that or he was dead. How else could one explain why he never fulfilled his promises to someone as humble and obedient as Sixsmith? Ironically, Godless people like the reverend had been blessed with wealth immensely, and the faithful like him languished at the whip of the wicked despite their earnest prayers. Something didn’t add up, God had lied.

But why would God lie? Christian asked himself. Why would he lie when he had explicitly stated in his book that he is not a man that he should lie?... unless someone else was lying and using him as cover. Something wasn’t adding up. But with the things of God, they never quite add up - even for someone like Sixsmith who had a PhD in theology. Christian had come to realize that his decision to serve God had made him a slave of other men. It had made everyone around him happy - except himself.

He thought it an irony that he had been given the name Christian at his baptismal; baptised and consecrated to God by his parents at birth without his consent. But then, God did a lot of things without consulting man - no man was ever consulted by God if he wanted to be born or not. Christian reckoned that if God had asked, very few would have been born, and looking at the state of his life, he would have refused to be born. The world would have been inhabited by Kings and Queens without servants - and who would want to be a King or Queen without a servant?

There was a queer similarity between Gods system of governance and the political system of governance - almost as if they were designed by the same hand. One thing was for sure, God was not a democrat; he ruled by decree in much the same way Kings and Queens ruled over the earth.

In theological school, Christian had learned that Heaven had an inviolable order and power structure - a divinely ordained hierarchy it was. There was God at the very top - the supreme architect and ruler of all that is. Below him came Jesus Christ, his one and only begotten Son; and below him came the angels. But even the angels had an inviolable hierarchy with the arch angels Gabriel and Michael at the top of its order - but that was before that rebel Lucifer was banished from heaven for attempting to violate the order by staging a coup d’état on God. After the angels came the saints and prophets of all ages. Below the saints came mankind - the most wretched and oppressed of species ranking at the very bottom of the order.

But even humans had a hierarchy; every man oppressed those under him - the women, the weak, the children and all the animals. It appeared heaven could be credited for passing on its oppressive tendencies to mankind.

The sad part was that Christian’s place and ranking in the earthly order was at the very bottom - a labourer in the tobacco fields, and he did not appreciate it even though they told him it was the will of God. In any case, he had already begun to rebel against God. He had observed that rebellious people counted for something on this earth. Those that kept moving got somewhere, those that sat around waiting for help from above languished and perished in the long run.

Christian reckoned he had to face the hard truth: God didn’t care about a simple farm labourer. He was always busy hanging out with royalty, statesmen, and all those who had done something noteworthy, or exceedingly scandalous in life. He loved the spotlight.

All these questions gutted Christians mind as he sat under the apple tree contemplating life. He could only wonder what good could come of him labouring on a tobacco plantation. All his life he had grown up in the church worshipping the one and only true God - the all merciful and all loving God: but what had God done for him and the millions who shared his predicament?

Here he was in the middle of a farm, indulging in the questionable business of the reverend whose fields were watered by the sweat of these poor labourers. The reverend reaped millions from the farming of tobacco - a crop clearly marked as harmful to human health. But what did the reverend care? In the new world, it seemed the kind of business one did to earn a living mattered less if it paid taxes into the national treasury, gave chunks to church and charity, and the paid whatever little was left to the workers.

During his undergraduate days in university, Christian often listened to debates by his business and law school contemporaries about the importance of incorporating ethics in business to give it what they referred to as a human face.

But seated under the apple tree, considering the arguments against the reality he observed, the folly of those debates was exposed. Here - in the real world - in the middle of the tobacco plantation; away from all those people stuffed with bookish knowledge - he could see things clearly. There was only one possible way of conducting business profitably: ethics had to be thrown out of the way, or at least corners had to be cut. Business ethics were a hindrance to the bottom line - profit.

The reality was that if people couldn’t afford health services, it was okay to send them back home to die. If people couldn’t afford legal services, it was okay to let them walk to jail and let them languish in there. The world had become an inhospitable environment to live in if you didn’t have money. Money it seemed had become more important than God, only a blind fool could deny it, and Christian had been that fool for a long time.

If you wanted to survive in it, you had to labour long and hard at whatever it dealt you - even a job picking tobacco leaves was better than nothing at all. Yes, it was all becoming clear to Christian as he sat under the apple tree... and his expensively acquired bookish knowledge about Christianity and God was no consolation. It would also share the same fate as business ethics - it had become irrelevant for the times; it was a millstone around his neck. Time, experience and observation had taught him a lot more than he had learnt in university... and that is when it happened!

‘Life is a university, and observation is the key to life,’ a voice said. He was startled with the suddenness