May 1, 2019
Pandemonium, Hell and Court of Seraphims, Heaven -- Hell [NYSE: SIN] and its legion of over 666 million demons and Heaven [NYSE: G-D] and its ranks untold of angels today announced a strategic merger of equals to create the universe’s first fully integrated metaphysical cosmology in an all-stock combination valued at 107 billion human souls.
To be named H2 with combined domains over all aspects and periods of human existence both perpetually and retroactively, this unique new enterprise will be the premier and exclusive metaphysical superstructure delivering humanity transcendental peak experiences, premium hedonistic pleasures, and genuine spiritual development in both the group and individualist context.
The merger will combine Heaven’s vast array of world-class mainstream religious iconography, spiritual texts, and unparalleled delivery systems for architecting groups that provide emotional and material support for members through proprietary ethical platforms alongside Hell’s exhaustive library of libidinal activities, bespoke spiritual practices, and state-of-the-art solutions for providing humans access to autonomy and self-determination.
By merging the universe’s leading vice and virtue organizations, H2 will be uniquely positioned to speed the development of universal consciousness and the personal growth of all humans. The new organization will provide an important new spiritual distribution platform for Heaven’s robust suite of transpersonal development solutions while driving subscriber growth through cross-marketing with Hell’s pre-eminent hedonistic pastimes.
Under the terms of a definitive merger agreement approved by unanimous votes at meetings of each organization’s board of directors, Heaven and Hell’s stock of souls will be transferred from their respective metaphysically bifurcated domains into a single, fully integrated sphere of divine immanence and eminence.
Lucifer J. Satan, Esq. will be migrating roles from Hell’s Executive Director, Board Chairman, Lord of Flies and Grand Poobah to Chief Legal Officer (CLO) of H2, Director of LGBTQQIA Outreach, and permanent Steering Committee member of H2’s feature film and hip-hop media ventures groups. Jesus Christ of Nazareth will be reconfiguring his duties as King of the Jews (INRI), King of Kings, Son of Man, Son of God, and The Last Adam and pivoting to a mix of nondenominational roles including embodying the archaic/mythic personages of Horus, Dionysis, Osirus, Quetzalcoatl, and Izanami.
When asked if He had mixed feelings about migrating roles after multiple millennia in the same position, Christ told James G. Frazer, H2’s Director of Integrated Mythology:
“It is with great pride that I look back at the work I’ve accomplished as a historical messiah for My loyal fans who’ve come to call themselves Christ-ians after me. Inevitably there will be some criticism from a few loyal supporters as I pivot away from My previous focus as a specifically Judeo-Christian socio-historical Christ. To them, I can only say: My fans are My life and you know I’d give everything for you (and I have). Also, I must add ‘scoreboard!’ Two thousand years of Christian Hegemony should be enough to satisfy My followers that their Messiah is significant both mythologically and historically. I hope that many of them follow My new projects as I dissolve My socio-religious personage and manifest as undifferentiated divine openness throughout history as a culturally contextual mortal God that dies and is sometimes resurrected to help humans dissolve the illusory boundary being humanity and divinity. I’ve also been getting back into carpentry and you can follow along with that on My Insta Stories.”
Satan was also reached for comment on the merger via phone and detailed to Frazer the following.
“Look, a long time ago, things were said. We all did things we aren’t entirely proud of. Not just me, I wanna specify. Add onto that a few thousand years of vilifying and persecuting me, women, queer folk, anyone with unconventional spiritual practices, and let’s keep it real -- just straight up rampant anti-semitism, and yeah, there are some hard feelings between us. But we wouldn’t be where we are today if certain divine beings didn’t make the choices they did, and where we are today is a hell’uv’a lot better than when I was first working for the big man in those pre-lapse days when He got off on daring humans not to emerge from the garden of undifferentiated pre-ego consciousness by dangling literal FRUIT OF KNOWLEDGE in their faces… sorry, I’m just going off here. The point is that right now, I am cautiously optimistic about this new direction for the universe and not to get too into the weeds but a big thing that gives me confidence that this may work out is there are considerable concessions being made in the highest spheres about the distribution of power and the divine accountability structure. G-D, to his credit, has brought in some consultants from Hell who’ve already done some great Mission-Vision-Values work and they’ve been setting up some cutting-edge distributive leadership policies that really curb the whole patriarchal, top-down authoritarian vibe of the universe which, despite what that brown-nosing shill Milton claimed about me, was my core issue with G-D from the beginning. And also the lack of universal healthcare for Angels.”
“An Unlikely Partnership”
Transitional teams from Heaven and Hell, led respectively by the Archangel Michael and Asmodeus (former King of Demons), will collaborate synergistically to eliminate redundancies in roles and identify personnel efficiencies for reducing overhead. “It turns out,” Asmodeus, the lead antagonist of the Book of Tobit, commented, “after talking to Mikey, we learned there were lots of folks in Heaven who were far more qualified rapists and torturers than the vast majority of us in Hell. This really opened up the reorg possibilities and wonderfully disrupted our recruitment methodologies, both in terms of souls to torment for eternity and draftees to pick up for the torture squad.”
Archangel Michael, a key stakeholder in Heaven since he and Lucifer negotiated the light bringers’ exit strategy during the Book of Revelation, also expressed enthusiasm about the merger.
“It’s been an open secret for a few millennia that the segmentation algorithms for soul distribution to Heaven and Hell was sub-optimized and there was a lot more art than science to it. There’s also been knock-on effects from our public relations strategies that we’ve been meaning to address, and a lot of good souls have been called a lot of bad names supposedly in support of Our Lord. Heaven would like to unequivocally apologize for these actions on behalf of our supporters, and we pledge to develop better messaging about our values and culture as we leverage the unparalleled opportunity for innovation that is H2.”
When asked for comment on how the messaging strategy for H2 would differ from either organization’s previous positioning, the incoming Director of Communication, William Blake, submitted the following official statement.
Without Contraries is no progression. Attraction and Repulsion,
Reason and Energy, Love and Hate are necessary to Human existence.
From these contraries spring what the religious call Good & Evil.
Good is the passive that obeys Reason. Evil is the active springing
from Energy. Good is Heaven. Evil is Hell.
Let it be recorded too, into the book of nature, that the initial public offer
Shall be set between $63 to $75 per share.
Adapted from the 2000 AOL/Time Warner merger announcement.
By Dæmôn J. Placebo.