Chương 22: Chapter 20 ~ The Tradition

03/11/1111 EotTS 09: 73 Having left the cafeteria at about half-past the ninth hour, Gysel arrived at the thick, oaken doors of the lecture hall for Spiritual Magick five minutes earlier than its scheduled starting time, but the walk from the cafeteria to the lecture hall at the far south-east corner of the wing should not have taken as long as it did (likely only a fifteen-minute walk if one maintained the consistent and languid pace which tended to accompany the post-breakfast surfeit and drowsy pre-eleventh-hour-tea morning mood, making one match the slow, dragging crawl of the fog as it drifted over the Thoranyn streets): in this case, the walk took Gysel nearly thirty-four minutes, as the walls of the wing's primary hallway were covered in beautifully detailed, and rather abstract, pointillist landscape paintings that demanded both the attention and time of passersby, something which this passerby had been more than happy to give, so Gysel spent twenty minutes looking over and admiring the details of the small painted dots, and how they contributed to the piece as a whole: small dots of blues mixed in with the darker greens and yellows that made the shaded grass beneath the leafage of a lonely oak tree; small dots of black which ascended the canvas, change to greys, then to whites, giving the illusion of a distant tree line far beyond the fog; small dots of teal and green speckled about the white and red body of the tower of an old, gloam-shaded lighthouse which sat upon the edge of a high, crumbling cliff overlooking a vast, grey-green sea—each is a small painted world, welcoming, encouraging viewers to stumble and tumble into the canvas with tempting offers of solitude, silence, and a serene story told only in pigments and oil, a distraction from the suffering, only to trick, trap, and mire the admirer, never granting escape unless another were to drag the viewer out by the ankles—and the other students hurrying down the hall did just that by producing such a din as to make it impossible for one to be comfortable beneath the oak, enchanted by the forest's edge, or lulled by the waves beneath the lighthouse, and thus, with a sharp sniff, Gysel joined the students but kept a slower pace to still admire the works as she headed to class, and upon coming to the end of the hallway, she found herself before the oaken doors of the lecture hall.

The lecture hall was about half full, leaving twenty-five of its cushioned seats available; luckily, there was a row of four unbroken seats closer to the front, and Gysel started there. As she walked, she glanced toward the professor who was seated at his desk, smoking a pipe. There were no papers or books, no bags, and no wooden plaque with his name in bronze on the wooden top—just a black oak cane leaning on the side of the desk. The professor himself was a man in his late forties.

His suit had silver pinstriping, which matched the ring of his silver monocle. He did not look directly at Gysel, only giving her a quick glance from the corner of his eye. It would be a friendly gesture to wave to him, offer a good morning, but he seemed focused on his pipe, and uninterested in the class, thus, not likely to notice the wave, and even if he did, he seemed like the kind of man who would either not respond to the kind gesture, or return it with a glare.

Gysel took her seat, removed her notebook and pen, and watched as the other students filled in. Ardhy, Wyohla, and Lyvahn entered as the wall clock struck the tenth hour and took their places: Wyohla sat to the left of Gysel; Ardhy and Lyvahn sat to the right. After sitting, Wyohla gave the professor a wave, not a large welcoming wave accompanied by a 'good morning!' like someone else had intended, just a simple, quiet hand raise.

He responded to Wyohla with a soft smile that was so ephemeral, it could be passed off as a brief spasm of the lips by those not looking for it. After about five minutes, the full fifty-person class had arrived, filling each seat, but the professor stayed silent. Two minutes passed in complete silence before the professor removed the pipe from his mouth, and set it on the table.

"Most of you will be sorely disappointed by this class, and I will explain why," he said, not standing from his chair.

"What I will be teaching is commonly called Spiritual Magick, but I will be calling it Spiritual Alchemy, as it is just that: Spiritual Alchemy. This is not psychology, this is not therapy, and it is certainly not self-improvement. Nothing I will teach you will make you happier, more functional, well-adjusted, more appealing to the opposite sex, or more successful in any tangible worldly terms. If this is what you hope to gain, seek it through ordinary means."

Gysel looked over her notes so far: no wonder Father hates this; it was completely against what he believes.

"In order to understand Spiritual Alchemy, one must first understand what one is: One is comprised of two larger groups, the lower quaternary and the higher triad. The Lower Quaternary consists of the Physical Body, the Etheric Double, the Desire Body, and the Soul; the higher triad consists of the Higher Mind, the Numinous, and the Spirit. In the unworked human, all seven of these are out of order, and exist in chaos.

Because of this, one must seek to align all of these in a proper hierarchy within themselves through the Royal Arts." Someone ahead of Gysel raised a hand.

"Questions will not help you," he said sternly.

"One has a relationship with each deity through their own internalized reflection of the deity—this is most commonly found among the primordial deities as they have the strongest effect on a human and are each tied to an aspect of the Lower Quaternary and Higher Triad. Though, it is important to understand that your relationship with any deity is not one of worship—like man, all deities are selfish by nature—but one of recognition."

Gysel wrote this down, but included 'if one's relationship with a deity is based on recognition, does that mean that one can worship a deity by recognizing the element of oneself that they relate to?'

"Anyone can receive instructions if they are paying sufficient attention to the world, but initiation can only be received by those who are inherently capable of receiving it. This is determined by the proper placement of the numinous. This class is instructional; whether it becomes initiation, depends on you, not me." This was the same premise as the idea that if an experiment fails, it was always first the fault of the practitioner: it really was just Alchemy.

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"Dissolve and coagulate: the work of the first year will be to dissolve. Throughout this class, what you know about yourself will become unstable and dissolve over the coming maidens. You may or may not notice this happening; if you do, do not be alarmed, this is desired. If you are romanticizing this, dreaming of becoming more interesting when broken, lose the idea, for it will not survive the actual experience."

"I do not want you to discuss what I am teaching in this class with other students outside of this class. Everything I am going to teach and everything you are going to learn and read, must be internalized and figured out through yourself. Everyone will interpret words, texts, and symbols differently, and if discussed, the teachings will be reframed, and your original understanding will be lost or corrupted.

The things you will be learning and the things you will find within yourself, cannot survive translation into speech, so do not discuss any of it."

"As for your first exercise: I want you to read Vlishathelby by Bwoux twice by the next class." He picked his pipe up from the desk, packed it, and lit it, but he did not say a word more. After two minutes, a single person stood and left; the professor did nothing, and then slowly, more and more people left the class. Gysel left last with Wyohla, Ardhy, and Lyvahn, and quickly dismissed herself from the group, saying she would see them again after lunch, and headed back to her dorm.

03/11/1111 EotTS 15: 00 Following lunchtime, and another reading session in her dorm room with Kawvel, Gysel went to the library to find the others, but they were nowhere to be found amongst the full tables of the first floor, so she went up the stairs and headed up to the second floor. Peering through the gaps in the balusters as she ascended, Gysel found the others seated at a large table on the second floor nestled between some bookshelves.

They were laughing and talking, with both Visi and Lyvahn taking part in very animated gesticulations as they talked. Wyohla spotted Gysel and waved her over; everyone exchanged greetings, then continued with that which they were discussing as soon as Gysel sat down.

"You can sum up Spiritual Magick in two actions," Visi started. Wyohla groaned, and Visi's lips curled into a grin.

"Lie down on the floor; close your eyes." Lyvahn laughed and joined in.

"Guess what. The world is magick." He gestured to the table, then to the library around him.

"Look at all of this, look at all of this weird stuff. The world is magick." Visi swiped his arms before him, cutting through the air—cutting through the magick.

"Look at me, how, how, existence, why, how?" He ceased his slicing and ran his hands down his face, then slid his fingers into his hair and placed his head on the table, groaning. Judging by the reactions of the others: Wyohla looking away at first, then turning her whole body away; Lyma smirking slightly yet rolling her eyes; and Ardhy showing little reaction aside from a sigh.

This display was a regular occurrence and nothing to be alarmed at, but it also appeared to be an in-joke that Thyres and Gysel were not privy to. Facing the bookshelf, Wyohla buried her face in the black leather of her gloved hands.

"You two mooncalves are going to be the death of me."

"Go into a dark room," Visi continued, not looking away from Wyohla as he spoke.

"and think about yourself and what you have done. And from this, you will be able to speak to animals with your mind."

"Is that true?" Gysel said excitedly; but it was doubtful there were any series of steps one could take that would eventually allow for direct communications with animals with only the mind; furthermore, this had never been read about in any sources, though it would not be surprising if some hermit in the Northern Forest had written about developing an ability to commune with frogs, but only after many decades of ascetic isolation.

"What part?" Visi asked, as he directed his attention away from Wyohla and to Gysel.

"Speaking to animals with your mind."

"Theoretically, yes, but there are a lot of steps."

"What are they?"

"It varies for each person, and it's not something you can just talk about."

"Why not? Does this have to do with what the professor was talking about?"

"Well, because you can't," Wyohla turned to Gysel.

"If everyone could truly understand themselves, everything would fall apart. Some are not meant to understand any more than labor and sex; this is why so much of Spiritual Magick is nested in images and stories of falling from the black dragon, through the white sky, into the red sea. The Art itself is learning enough about yourself to find how the ciphered descriptions of the Art apply to yourself. This is what he means by: do not discuss the teachings of the class.

My steps were different from what yours, or anyone else's, will be, some I cannot directly guide nor help you, and no one else can either. Just know: as above, so below."

"Oh..." Gysel muttered; then there was a lot of work to be done to even find the first steps of the unwritten guide of how to communicate with animals: this was disappointing; unlike people, animals did not ruminate on the past; to a bird each day was a new day, to a frog each pain a new pain; their struggles did not accumulate with each passing day, as they cannot reflect; most importantly unlike people, animals cannot lie, and if they hurt you, it will not be done for pleasure.

Visi let out a sigh, and his shoulders relaxed.

"I feel like that is more related to Fwyamaimæ," said Lyma, "but they won't be documented if they are." Gysel adjusted her glasses and looked at Lyma—Fwyamaimæ, now that is a word worth a silver piece.

"Fwyama?" Gysel asked, "like Ulykhaedænit, a mystery? Then how do you solve them?" Gysel asked.

"No, they are not mysteries in the same sense," said Visi.

"They are mysteries in the etymological sense: Fwyæn, meaning to close, and the modifier ama, referring to the self, and the final suffix of imæ, making the word refer to the divine. It is interesting because—""Yes, that's enough. I can explain the rest in a timely manner, thank you, though," Lyma said as she raised a hand to cover Visi's mouth.

"Fwyamaimæ, means 'the divine closing itself off,' is basically a divine mystery; it is set by deities, but they never reveal how to figure it out, and people have been trying to answer it for hundreds of years. For example, people think the way to answer the Fwyamaimæ of the Three Sisters' is related to the triple full moon, but that happens once every two hundred..." Lyma trailed off as Wyohla glared at her.

"You complain about Visi talking too much, then you do the same thing," said Wyohla.

"Is there a Fwyamaimæ where the reward is speaking to birds?" Gysel asked. Wyohla sighed.

"We don't know what the rewards for any of them are; people speculate, but we have no answers, or any idea where to start. And you cannot join a group of people trying to figure it out. Anyone who is part of one does not invite anyone into it. There are some cults in the north that have been trying to answer a single mystery since before written language, but anyone who announces their involvement in them dies within a week. So all talk about them is purely speculation."

"Oh."

"That's probably the best answer, if it interests you that much, I am sure you can find someone speculating on what reward will let you talk to birds," Wyohla paused.

"Actually, I would not be surprised if the reward for completing Luhnylla's Fwyamaimæ included the ability to communicate with Moon Ravens, they are one of her patron animals. Have you read 'The Tales of the Moons and Lunar Magick' yet?"

"No, I have not," answered Gysel—nice try, Wyohla, but the more you nag on the cracking of that spine, the less likely it is to be cracked, bribery with birds will not help, Mother and Father already learned that.

"You really should." Gysel only raised her eyebrows and nodded.