“Remember what you have just learned,
you who know that knowledge in its essence
is worth more than amber and coral,
and is dearer than pure gold.
You have long meditated and searched.
He who searches will find what he needs.
You saw only the signs of the phenomenon;
and now you have the meaning of the first secret
in the country of the dwarf-spirits who belong to Kaydara,
the distant, the nearby Kaydara.”
An immense light 123 shone and Hammadi said:
“And the second symbol of the land of the dwarf-spirits,
what is its meaning, eminent master?”
“Oh Hammadi! A mouse which flies on its feet
from behind, which has no teeth,
which gives suck to its young, which is blind
but moves about without hitting obstacles,
there, in a word, lies what makes up the allegory
of the bat, second secret
of the country of dwarf-spirits.
In the diurnal sense, what is thus formed,
making up the bat, is perceptiveness.
When all is drowned in the great darkness,
only the bat is able to see.
It reflects the unity of all beings
in doing away with limits.
Nocturnally, the bat figures as
the enemy of light, lacking initiative,
pushing away everything it does and sees
like a man hanging by the feet.
The beneficial sense of its large ears
is the gift of hearing everything,
capturing and using everything that is said.
Nocturnally, the large ears
mean a hideous excrescence.
The flying bat is, nocturnally,

Notes (Lilyan Kesteloot)
123. Symbol of ignorance shed away; following the explanation and invocation the initiate says, “I have found the master in darkness; then I could not speak to him.”
Among the Komo Bambara, one does not approach the house where there are ritual attributes of a god without lighting a great fire.