part 3
The Cosmos:
humans are not the only ones with souls. nor are they the only ones with multiple souls. the yehidah, for example, is present in many places around the universe - planets, stars, and black holes being the important ones. along with the yehidah, all these stellar bodies have nefesh and ruach - basic desires, and a rudimentary ability to sense their surroundings, though it really only amounts to the ability to sense the presence of energy. the nefesh provides them with the motivation to gather energy and concentrate it within themselves. this is gravity. stars are simply the entities that began to gather energy and matter earliest. as they hoard more and more of it, they do grow stronger, though the basics of their intellects stay the same - they do not manifest anything resembling brains, and thus have no memories. as such, they strive unceasingly towards drawing more and more into themselves. some are more successful than others, due to the resources readily available to them. with enough such success, and the mass and concentration of energy causes a collapse, and all that the star has hoarded is condensed into a single point.
for the instant that this remains stable, the star achieves something like enlightenment - or at least as close to enlightenment as a thing without memory and with only a single goal in its existence can get, which is not a whole lot. then the infinitely massive point causes a tear in the plane. what is "beyond" the tear is essentially chance, but a number of things could happen. the tear could lead to another occupied plane. there are many such planes, and having an exit suddenly available to them causes an outflow back into our plane. this causes a nova. alternatively, the plane might be unoccupied, or only partially occupied, in which case the infinite concentration of energy & matter then shoots out of our plane into the other one. this is a black hole. the difference is, a nova will occur once, while a black hole may persist long after the tear has been made. this is because the star may actually persist on the next plane, able to keep hold of its stores of energy even after being violently pulled through. if it manages to do this, it will seek to keep the tear open, as matter and energy are continually drawn through it, towards the star at the other side of the tear. its drive remaining unchanged, the star will continue its efforts on two planes.
needless to say, this causes a bit of a problem for the other souls. such voids are deeply disturbing to the stars and planets that sense them, though without memory, no plans can be made to try and close the tears that do persist. it is here that some of the planets really differ from the stars - having much more matter in their stores, their churning conglomerations rarely, but occasionally do stumble upon a form that is capable of some memory. if a planet is lucky enough to start a "brain" in this way, it will slowly begin to take advantage of it, as well as attempting to form more such forms in them that are capable of memory. "earth" or whatever i end up deciding to call it, is one of the planets that has had a good deal of success in this endeavor - it is intelligent enough to create life on its surface, experimenting with souls that it comes into contact with through meteorite and comet collisions. this is earthly abiogenesis. humans are the first of the life forms that have yehidah. the earth's goal with life is to either enhance its own intelligence, or create another intelligence, such that the tears can be closed.
versus
the sun-worship religion is the only religion in the book that is large enough to mention, as other religions never achieved its level of supremacy, mostly because of the way that the prophet's teachings were connected with the church's teachings of the time. the religion started out as dualist, but became more nuanced with time.
in the beginning, there was light and darkness - the vast, empty, darkness of space versus the holy light of creation, which did not yet shine in the world. these 2 forces were personified in Yaltabaoth - the creator of the plane of the universe (but not the material in it), and the god of emptiness and darkness, and the aeon, the light, goodness, holiness, etc. the sun and all the other stars, known to the religion as the archons, were tasked with bringing enlightenment to the darkness of Yaltabaoth, so they were set into the universe and shone brightly into it.
over time, parts of the dark emptiness became entranced by the light, never having encountered it before. these elements "ascended" into material being - they achieved material existence. this "faction" of the emptiness that ceased to be empty was represented by the deity called Abraxas, the patron of matter. Abraxas is taken as evidence that even those in shadow, those without light or hope, can still achieve redemption, which lends to the church a Christian feel to many, that greatly helped it spread. This trinity of deities changed when the prophet came. the prophet taught that wisdom and cooperation would lift humanity up out of the dark ages (even though the advent of Talent caused a much longer and more destructive Great Dark Age).
to account for the prophet's message and for the obvious power that Talent represented, the deity Sophia was born. child of Abraxas and the Sol archon, the Sophia represents wisdom and the fusion of matter and "holiness." humans and the Sophia were said to be blessed by descent from the Sophia - after the prophet's death, he was called the first direct descendant of the Sophia, a claim which would often be used in the following centuries by warlords who had been taught to use Talent in order to create their legitimacy as rulers.
at the time of the story's setting, the age of warlords has passed, and an age of humanism has come into full swing. the schools are the heart of the world, and the revelation that all of humanity can learn talent has been taken to mean that all of humanity is now blessed. the power of Talent and the belief in humanism has caused more than a bit of hubris, however. many of the religious see Talent as a sign that humanity has the tools of Divinity, if they cannot be called Divine already. this has been used by the more humanistic as a justification for all sorts of projects aimed at the "common good," the largest scale of them being the project to gather the natural ley lines into a "fountain of energy" at the capital or some important city/tower.
the irony is that such self-centeredness will lead to the same sort of goals as those the stars would want, even though success in them would of course, lead to destruction.
humans are not the only ones with souls. nor are they the only ones with multiple souls. the yehidah, for example, is present in many places around the universe - planets, stars, and black holes being the important ones. along with the yehidah, all these stellar bodies have nefesh and ruach - basic desires, and a rudimentary ability to sense their surroundings, though it really only amounts to the ability to sense the presence of energy. the nefesh provides them with the motivation to gather energy and concentrate it within themselves. this is gravity. stars are simply the entities that began to gather energy and matter earliest. as they hoard more and more of it, they do grow stronger, though the basics of their intellects stay the same - they do not manifest anything resembling brains, and thus have no memories. as such, they strive unceasingly towards drawing more and more into themselves. some are more successful than others, due to the resources readily available to them. with enough such success, and the mass and concentration of energy causes a collapse, and all that the star has hoarded is condensed into a single point.
for the instant that this remains stable, the star achieves something like enlightenment - or at least as close to enlightenment as a thing without memory and with only a single goal in its existence can get, which is not a whole lot. then the infinitely massive point causes a tear in the plane. what is "beyond" the tear is essentially chance, but a number of things could happen. the tear could lead to another occupied plane. there are many such planes, and having an exit suddenly available to them causes an outflow back into our plane. this causes a nova. alternatively, the plane might be unoccupied, or only partially occupied, in which case the infinite concentration of energy & matter then shoots out of our plane into the other one. this is a black hole. the difference is, a nova will occur once, while a black hole may persist long after the tear has been made. this is because the star may actually persist on the next plane, able to keep hold of its stores of energy even after being violently pulled through. if it manages to do this, it will seek to keep the tear open, as matter and energy are continually drawn through it, towards the star at the other side of the tear. its drive remaining unchanged, the star will continue its efforts on two planes.
needless to say, this causes a bit of a problem for the other souls. such voids are deeply disturbing to the stars and planets that sense them, though without memory, no plans can be made to try and close the tears that do persist. it is here that some of the planets really differ from the stars - having much more matter in their stores, their churning conglomerations rarely, but occasionally do stumble upon a form that is capable of some memory. if a planet is lucky enough to start a "brain" in this way, it will slowly begin to take advantage of it, as well as attempting to form more such forms in them that are capable of memory. "earth" or whatever i end up deciding to call it, is one of the planets that has had a good deal of success in this endeavor - it is intelligent enough to create life on its surface, experimenting with souls that it comes into contact with through meteorite and comet collisions. this is earthly abiogenesis. humans are the first of the life forms that have yehidah. the earth's goal with life is to either enhance its own intelligence, or create another intelligence, such that the tears can be closed.
versus
the sun-worship religion is the only religion in the book that is large enough to mention, as other religions never achieved its level of supremacy, mostly because of the way that the prophet's teachings were connected with the church's teachings of the time. the religion started out as dualist, but became more nuanced with time.
in the beginning, there was light and darkness - the vast, empty, darkness of space versus the holy light of creation, which did not yet shine in the world. these 2 forces were personified in Yaltabaoth - the creator of the plane of the universe (but not the material in it), and the god of emptiness and darkness, and the aeon, the light, goodness, holiness, etc. the sun and all the other stars, known to the religion as the archons, were tasked with bringing enlightenment to the darkness of Yaltabaoth, so they were set into the universe and shone brightly into it.
over time, parts of the dark emptiness became entranced by the light, never having encountered it before. these elements "ascended" into material being - they achieved material existence. this "faction" of the emptiness that ceased to be empty was represented by the deity called Abraxas, the patron of matter. Abraxas is taken as evidence that even those in shadow, those without light or hope, can still achieve redemption, which lends to the church a Christian feel to many, that greatly helped it spread. This trinity of deities changed when the prophet came. the prophet taught that wisdom and cooperation would lift humanity up out of the dark ages (even though the advent of Talent caused a much longer and more destructive Great Dark Age).
to account for the prophet's message and for the obvious power that Talent represented, the deity Sophia was born. child of Abraxas and the Sol archon, the Sophia represents wisdom and the fusion of matter and "holiness." humans and the Sophia were said to be blessed by descent from the Sophia - after the prophet's death, he was called the first direct descendant of the Sophia, a claim which would often be used in the following centuries by warlords who had been taught to use Talent in order to create their legitimacy as rulers.
at the time of the story's setting, the age of warlords has passed, and an age of humanism has come into full swing. the schools are the heart of the world, and the revelation that all of humanity can learn talent has been taken to mean that all of humanity is now blessed. the power of Talent and the belief in humanism has caused more than a bit of hubris, however. many of the religious see Talent as a sign that humanity has the tools of Divinity, if they cannot be called Divine already. this has been used by the more humanistic as a justification for all sorts of projects aimed at the "common good," the largest scale of them being the project to gather the natural ley lines into a "fountain of energy" at the capital or some important city/tower.
the irony is that such self-centeredness will lead to the same sort of goals as those the stars would want, even though success in them would of course, lead to destruction.