Damned by Chuck Palahniuk Read Free Book Online Page A

Any adoption occurred within the media
cycle of my mom's film releases or my dad's IPOs, announced with a gale-force
flurry of press releases and photo ops. Following the media blitz, my new
adopted brother or sister would be warehoused in an appropriate boarding
school, no longer starving, now offered an education and a brighter future, but
never again present at our dinner table.
    Walking along, now backtracking across the Great Plains of Broken
Glass, Leonard explains how ancient Greeks conceived of the afterlife as Hades,
a place where both the corrupt and the innocent went to forget the sins and
egos left over from their lives on earth. Jews believed in Sheol, which translated
as "the place of waiting," again, where all souls collected,
regardless of their crimes and virtues, to rest and find peace through
discarding their past transgressions and attachments on earth. Kind of Hell as
going to detox or rehab instead of Hell as burning punishment. For most of
human history, Leonard says, people have perceived of Hell as a sort of
inpatient clinic where we go to kick our addiction to life.
    Without breaking stride, Leonard says, "John Scotus Eriugena wrote
during the ninth century that Hell is where your own desires take you, stealing
you away from God and the original plans God had for fulfilling your soul's
perfection."
    I say maybe we should swing by that swamp of terminated pregnancies.
There's a good possibility that I might run into a long-lost sibling or two.
    Yes, I may be flip and glib, but I know what constitutes a healthy
psychological defense mechanism.
    Droning on while we walk, Leonard lectures about the power structure of
Hades. He describes how midway through the fifteenth century, an Austrian Jew
named Alphonsus de Spina converted to Christianity, becoming a Franciscan monk,
then a bishop, and finally compiling a list of the demonic entities who
populate Hell. His numbers ran into the millions.
    "If you see anyone with a goat's horned head, a woman's breasts,
and the black wings of a huge raven," Leonard says, "that would be
the demon Baphomet." Counting in the air, waving an index finger in the
manner of a conductor cueing the sections of an orchestra, Leonard says,
"You have the Hebrew Shedim, the Greek demon kings Abaddon and Apollyon.
Abigor commands sixty legions of devils. Alocer commands thirty-six legions.
Furfur, a royal count of Hell, commands twenty-six legions...."
    Just as the earth is ruled by a hierarchy of leaders, Leonard says, so
too is Hell. Most theologians, including Alphonsus de Spina, describe Hell as
having ten orders of demons. Among those are 66 princes, each overseeing 6,666
legions, and each legion comprises 6,666 demons. Among them is Valafar, the
grand duke of Hell; Rimmon, the chief physician of Hell; Ukobach, the leading
engineer of Hell, and reputed to have invented fireworks and presented them as
a gift to mankind. Leonard rattles off the names: Zaebos, who boasts the head
of a crocodile on his shoulders... Kobal, the patron demon of human
comedians... Succorbenoth, the demon of hate....
    Leonard says, "It's like Dungeons and Dragons, only to the tenth
power." He says, "Seriously, the biggest brains of the Middle Ages
devoted their entire lives to this type of theological bean counting and number
crunching."
    Shaking my head, I say that I wish my parents had.
    Periodically along our journey, Leonard stops to point out a figure in
the distance. One, flying across the orange sky, flapping pale wings of melting
dripping wax, this is Troian, the night demon of Russian culture. Flying along
a different trajectory, peering down with the wide head and luminous eyes of an
owl, this is Tlacatecolototl, the Mexican god of evil. Wrapped in cyclone winds
of rain and dust, there are Japanese Oni demons, who traditionally live at the
center of hurricanes.
    What the Human Genome Project would represent for future researchers,
Leonard explains, this great inventory represented for previous