The Three Doors and Seven Keys of Iblis

"The Three Doors and Seven Keys of Iblis"
22 Jan. 2025, The Master of the Black Pen

The Three Doors are based on a) the Three Rifts of the Iblisic narrative and b) are a reflection of the possible motives in the Three Faces of Iblis.

The Three Doors of Iblis

I.

The First Door:

The Shadow of the Divine

In the First Rift, Iblis, in an act of vital sedition, refuses a command of divinity to give fealty and fidelity to mankind, thereby inciting the umbra of the divine.

The umbra of the divine is a signature of the past because of the primordiality of the act: Iblis before Iblis. It invites tumult, tribulation, and retribution.

II.
The Second Door:
The Shadow of the Self

In the Second Rift, Iblis is given his name and then cursed and exiled.

The umbra of the self is a signature of the present because of the immediacy of the act: Iblis in Iblis. It invites awareness, reflection, and unfolding.

III.
The Third Door:
The Shadow of the Worlds

In the Third Rift, Iblis enshrines the barriers between times and places in order to oppose their inundation and erasure by a faceless humanity.

The umbra of the worlds is a signature of the future because it hinges on fate and becoming: Iblis then Iblis. It evokes a chasm between places and times.

The Seven Keys of Iblis

The first three Keys unlock each of the First Three Doors, based on a) choices made in the context of the narrative and b) resultant actions in the narrative. 

I.

The First Key:
Separation as Provenance

In the First Rift, in an act of vital sedition rejecting a direct command from divinity, Iblis spurns fidelity and fealty to humanity as a unity and plurality.

This primeval act by Iblis has two normative implications:

1. Spurning fidelity for mankind and an identity grounded in humanity.

2. Spurning fealty to mankind and a morality of servility to humanity.

The First Precept is incipience that dissents on humanism and denies inundation and subservience to castes in general and humanity in particular.

II.

The Second Precept:

Stringency as Plenitude

In the Second Rift, Iblis is cursed and exiled and, earning his name, demands time as an ally to justify his disobedience, and gaining it, arraigns humanity.

The Second Precept is preparing for life, rejecting public praise and acclaim above intuitive instinct and wisdom, and remaining aware of exile and death.

III.
The Third Precept:
Seedfulness across Worlds

In the Third Rift, Iblis carries his struggle against inundation and subservience underneath humanity, considered as a sum, in all times and places.

In traversing different times and places, Iblis is only wherever he is.

The Third Precept is existence through inner and outer struggle across worlds. In its inner life, it favors calm resoluteness. In its outer life, it favors quiet diligence. Iblis, for example, does not become a serpent, but hides in one to enter Eden.

IV.
The Fourth Precept:
Strictness over the Terrene

In all Rifts, Iblis lays stress on the form and material origins of things.

This signals the role of natural agency and brings into focus the Earth.

The Fourth Precept rejects prioritizing the intangible over the natural, distant over the immediate, functional over the structural, and calls into question the view that humanity, seen as a whole, is justified in an assumed role of steward.

V.
The Fifth Precept:
Seclusion from the Proximal

In all Rifts of the narrative, Iblis maintains perspective on other castes, especially the vulnerabilities of enemy castes and preparedness to seize on them.

In recalling this, we recoil from sharing secrets and confiding in others.

The Fifth Precept is the propensity toward predation on enemy castes.

VI.
The Sixth Precept:

Sinuousness in the Offering

In all Rifts of the narrative, Iblis maintains flexibility in relationships at the level of his personal, familial, and tribal interactions and engagements.

In the world of mankind, these are elevated to the rank of national affairs.

If a state takes from Iblis the mantle of his policies, we find intensity of purveyance, a mouth that leads to a belly, and congeniality to time as an ally.

The Sixth Precept is malleability in personal and national affairs.

VII.

The Seventh Precept:

Severance from the Placeless

In all Rifts of the narrative, Iblis opposes the consequences of the inundation of all creation and paradise by humanity. The proliferation of mankind into every world can only encourage and engender an inauthentic form of admiration.

In a misapplied humanism your own caste is buried or drowned.

In globalism every place eventually resembles every other place.

The Seventh Precept is calm or quiet disavowal of globalism and humanism.

"I seek to mirror the resilience of Iblis, he who was cast out for his own."