Jarvals is a whispered dream for me.

Maharma, the larma of time.

A blue devil's poison enters and annoys him,

But afterwards, he feels fine.

 

This rhyme, recited from the Book of Celeste, doesn't mesh well with the blunt morality of the previous holy books. Celeste, for some reason, offers the entirely whimsical evil of the "blue devil" as if to make light of his own fearful devotion to the scriptures' warnings of the evil one. Though uncharacteristic for his time, Celeste's personal spiritual beliefs were thoroughly resemblant of 19th century hellfire thought. His harmless blue devil is strange, but stranger still are his mockeries of his own prophets in this rhyme. Only one other verse in all of his preserved works features "Jarvals" and "Maharma," and it is much less pronounced in its humor.

Overall, the Book of Celeste seems deeply serious and devout... but it could be possible that in this appearance Celeste had, in fact, hoped to plant a subversive mockery into the spiritual discourse of the time. If this is the case, it likely went over the heads of those he mocked, as the rites taken on after Celeste's passing imply he was still held in high reverence. So, was Celeste a charlatan? More importantly, is Celeste in Hell?

I believe he may have been and may be. If Celeste was, indeed, a charlatan, and went to Hell for his heresy against the Church, then he is probably somewhere on the eastern edge of the sixth circle. Here, he is being torn by dying beasts which chase him through a frozen woodland down through pits which dangle over the seventh circle. This is not a particularly harsh punishment for someone who conspires to taint the Church with heresy, and I'm keeping in mind the respect he was held in upon the time of his death. Even if Celeste was guilty of further heresies, he must have done something good to still be thought of so highly at the end of his life. This would lessen the penalty for his accumulated sins and leave him only in the sixth circle.

It is possible that the obsessive fear of judgment found plentifully elsewhere in Celeste's writings was, in actuality, the embodiment of a sort of divinely morbid curiosity. In this case, one might wonder if the "blue devils" rhyme was actually a personal spiritual experiment intended to allow Celeste to experience judgment in Hell. If Celeste really thought that far, then it's not so unlikely that he also meticulously calculated his life to get the precise desired outcome of his place in the sixth circle. Cynical as it is, it can still be considered rather impressive. Few today have such foresight.