And each of us is free to join those who are working to mitigate that Law.
4.3. Shrastrs and Witzraors
I am about to describe worlds of special significance for humanity, its history, and for all of Shadanakar. These are the worlds designed by the demonic forces to be frontline weapons in the realization of Gagtungr's global plan. They are, properly speaking, two sets of worlds, two sakwalas of infraphysical planes closely linked to one another.
I have already mentioned that within every metaculture there is a sort of antipode to its zatomis, a sort of demonic stronghold where the holy cities of the Synclites are reflected upside-down, as it were, in black mirrors. I am referring to shrastrs, the abodes of antihumankind.
Shrastrs are separate regions of a single four-dimensional world, but each region possesses its own unique number of time streams. The ring of shrastrs is metageologically connected with the lower layers of the Earth's crust, with its countervailing prominences, and they are the dark twins/antipodes to Eanna, Olympus, Paradise, Monsalvat, Heavenly Russia, and the other zatomis. The peaks and ridges of the countervailing prominences, which offset mountain ranges on the Earth's surface, point to the center of the planet. In Enrof, those regions are devoid of life: there is basalt, lava, and nothing else. But that is not true of the four-dimensional world. Below them, toward the center, is empty space-a reddish and pale orange cavity that blazes with darting waves of light and heat. The resultant of two gravities operates on the Earth's inner surface: gravity toward the crust and toward the core. The inhabitants' conception of up and down differs from ours. Infrapurple and infrared, almost black, luminaries glow motionless in the subterranean orangereddish sky-this is how Gashsharva and the planes of torment of the Core appear to the eye from the shrastrs. By the rays of those moons, the populous societies and monstrous hierarchies that manifest themselves before our eyes in the form of great states, tyrannical regimes, and the faceless vampires of global history live and fortify their strongholds.
What is Nature like there? What is the predominant landscape on the underside of the world? There are no blues and greens; they would not be visible to the inhabitants. Instead, they have two colors not visible to our eyes. There is also something resembling vegetation, but it is fiery and dreadfuclass="underline" clumps of huge, dark crimson bushes and large, waving flowers of flame that stand alone in places. The land is very rugged. Lakes and seas of white and pink lava dot the crust's surface. On the whole, the landscape has a distinctive geologic-urban character: gigantic cities with populations in the millions. In infra-Russia, for example, the chief city encompasses almost the entire countervailing prominence of the anti-Urals, another corresponds to the Caucasus, and cities are now under construction on the prominences countervailing the mountains of Kazakhstan and the Tien Shan. There are also cities situated beneath our lowlands, but they are less common, as those areas are for the most part flooded by lava.
Antihumankind basically consists of two very different races or species. The principal race is composed of small but highly intelligent beings that proceed through a circle of reincarnations in the shrastrs, where they assume a four-dimensional form somewhat reminiscent of ours. That form, the equivalent of our physical body, is called karrokh. It is composed of the materiality of those planes, which was created by the great demonic hierarchies. The shrastr inhabitants have upper and lower pairs of limbs, though they have a different number of fingers and toes than we do. In addition, they are equipped with something like wing membranes. Their stalked red eyes, bulging cylindrical heads, mouse-gray skin, and puckered, tube-like mouth might evoke disgust in humans. But they are beings of keen intellect and the builders of a civilization that in certain respects is more advanced than ours. They are called igvas.
Igvas first appeared in the shrastr of the Babylonian-Assyrian metaculture. Another race, the ancestors of the contemporary raruggs, of whom I will speak a little later, inhabited the older shrastrs. But I do not have a very clear notion of the actual origin of the igvas: we are dealing here with concepts so strange that they lie beyond the grasp of our reason. Thus, although no human monads are demonic by nature, it sometimes happens- albeit very seldom-that a person will at some point in his or her journey voluntarily become an igva. To do so requires a strong desire, tremendous clarity of mind, and singular ability in specific areas. Such was the founder of antihumankind, an individual who lived in a very real sense in Erech and Babylon, where he was a priest of Nergal, and behind whom stretched a long chain of incarnations in more ancient cultures and in the Titan humankind.
The igvas originated from the union of that person with Lilith. She is sometimes capable-though very rarely and only at the bidding of Gagtungr-of assuming a female form in denser worlds. When she appeared in Babylon, for human eyes it was as if she had suddenly materialized out of nowhere. Three people saw her: the future father of the igvas, and two others, one of whom went insane, the other of whom was put to death. The one for whom she had assumed that ghost-like physical form joined his astral, and then ether, body with hers. She then descended, all wrapped in flame, to an empty infraphysical plane where she disgorged the first pair of igvas. The father of the race did not incarnate again in the shrastrs or Enrof. He is now in Digm, and his contribution to the design and realization of the demonic plan is great indeed.
The igvas have a unisyllabic oral language. The human language it most closely resembles phonetically is probably Chinese, but because of the tubelike shape of the igvas' mouths, vowel sounds like "o," "u," and «u» predominate.
The igvas sometimes wear clothes, but they more often go about naked. Their extreme intellectualism has completely sterilized their sex life. Their method of procreation resembles the human method, but it is more unsightly. They copulate almost on the run, without feeling any need for privacy, for they have no feeling of shame. Their feelings of love, affection, and pity have remained in the embryonic stage. Brief unions take the place of families, and children are raised in minutely equipped and scrupulously systematized educational institutions.
Theirs is a slave-based society. It is composed of two classes: the upper intelligentsia-which includes scientists, engineers, clergy, and, if such a word can be used, administrators-and the subservient majority, who act only on the directions of the leadership. Yet even the leadership is strictly subordinate to the will of the so-called grand igvas (a kind of succession of high priests/ emperors) and the monsters of the neighboring plane-the Witzraors.
The grand igvas are virtually the absolute rulers in every shrastr. A shrastr is neither a monarchy nor, of course, a theocracy; it is a satanocracy. The principle of dynastic succession is entirely alien to the igvas. Successors are systematically selected and prepared over the course of decades with astonishing forethought. The grand igvas' clarity of mind is immense, though they have an inverted-that is, demonic-conception of the world. They can see as far down as the anticosmos of the Universe. They are constantly being energized by Gagtungr himself. After their death, the grand igvas rise straight up to Digm.
It would be incorrect to say that the equivalent of our science and technology can be found in the shrastrs. Rather, it is our science and technology that are the equivalent of the igvas'. The different conditions and natural laws on that plane have dictated a scientific approach different from ours, but our scientific research methods and technological principles are very similar. Having far outstripped us in the field, they have knowledge of techniques and methods that smack of magic and that would seem like sorcery to many of us. But they also apply the principles of the screw, the wheel, and the rocket engine. They have vessels for traveling on the lakes of infralava. Ridiculous as it may seem, scheduled flights between shrastrs have long been in operation, and even hiking is popular-for exploration, not aesthetic, purposes, of course. Aviation is also advanced, though the igvas themselves can fly at great speeds, often hovering upside-down and clinging like flies to the ceilings and walls of buildings.