Untitled - The Secrets of the Mind & Body Shaping

The Founder
Criamon destroyed most of the
records that described his past, instructing
his followers to remember his words,
but not his life. Many seekers have tried
to discover Criamon’s birthplace or pre-
Hermetic lineage. Those ghosts who knew
Criamon say that these distractions are
precisely what the Founder intended to
remove. The Founder was not, however,
able to destroy records kept by House
Bonisagus. These primarily concern his life
in the brief period between his initial meeting
with Trianoma and the First Tribunal.
Trianoma describes Criamon as an
elderly man, little concerned with vanities.
He enjoyed intellectual humor, particularly
concerning the Greek philosophers.
His followers were pacifi sts, and had
retreated to a regio in the Alps to avoid
the chaos that stimulated the creation of
the Order. Criamon was a vegetarian. He
tattooed his apprentices to spare them
from the more painful investitures he had
suffered as a boy.
Criamon was the fi rst Founder to pass
from the world, a handful of years after
the First Tribunal. Many of his descendants
left the Cave of Twisting Shadows
to create study groups, called clutches, in
distant areas. Each returned to the Cave
to die or pass into Twilight. Many later
Criamon magi follow this pattern.
What the
House Believes
Criamon’s beliefs follow those of an
ancient Greek magus-philosopher called
Empedocles. Empedocles investigated natural
and mystical phenomena, and revealed
many insights that eventually contributed
to Hermetic magic. He was also a pioneer
in many mundane fi elds of study,
including ethics, medicine, and rhetoric.
Most Criamon magi live a version of
Empedocles’s lifestyle. Magi from outside
House Criamon, however, consider some
of Empedocles’s insights to be false.
Mystery Cults
Empedocles contributions greatly
assisted the study of magic in the ancient
world. He demonstrated that air was
not empty space. He established that
the generative juices of parents contain
tiny copies of their limbs. He explained
how the senses worked. In the process of
investigating the mechanics of sight, he
discovered that moonlight was refl ected
sunlight. He also found that light took
time to travel. Empedocles’s most signifi
cant discovery was that all material
objects are made of water, earth, air, and
fi re in differing proportions.
Empedocles believed it was vital that
magi live morally. The capacity to do
magic is not, for Criamon magi, a tool.
It is the inevitable result of knowing the
truth, and acting aptly. To pollute oneself
with sinful action is to damage the soul,
which is the part of the self that manipulates
mystic forces. Criamon magi do not
believe morality is fl exible, because they
can chart the degree to which spiritual
pollution impairs the Gift.
The need to live well forces magi to be
concerned for other humans. Galen named
Empedocles as the originator of medicine
in Italy. Aristotle claimed Empedocles
invented rhetoric. Empedocles, for part
of his life, wandered as a soothsayer, and
invented these fi elds of research to allow
him to cure plagues and oppose tyrants.
Criamon magi usually lack Empedocles’s
Gentle Gift, so they must be much more
subtle about their good works.
Most non-Criamon magi think
Empedocles was delusional. He played a
pivotal role in the development of at least
six of the Arts, but two of his other claims
are too fantastic to be true. These are that
time is circular, and that immortal spirits
descend into the material world at the
start of each cycle of time.
tHe circle of tiMe
Empedocles believed time continues
forever in cycles. He saw this as a
guarantee of immortality and ascent to
godhood. Criamon magi view circular
time as an unguarded prison, from which
they should mastermind a jailbreak. Each
view assumes that changes in the comparative
strength of two opposing forces
45
Famous Magi
Juliasta, as the successor of the
fi rst Founder to pass from offi ce, was
the fi rst Prima of any House. She evangelized
the House’s beliefs and rounded
out its knowledge of the Arts.
Vederis wrote The Travels of Fedoso,
a classic work of esoteric lore.
Abdkypris discovered the links
between his House’s beliefs and
Sufi sm.
drive the cycle of time. The forces are
harmony, which promotes cohesion, and
strife, which promotes separation. The
Art of Creo refl ects harmony. The Art of
Perdo refl ects strife. The Art of Vim, and
magic itself, refl ects the energy released
as harmony yields to strife. Most Criamon
magi expect harmony to continue to yield
to strife for at least the next few thousand
years, and possibly for far longer.
Time is a circle so it has no beginning,
but for the sake of explanation,
imagine that the universe begins as an
enormous sphere of undifferentiated matter.
This sphere is bound together by
the force of harmony. The House calls
this state of the universe the Spharios.
Time begins when strife, the force that
separates, comes to the Spharios, bringing
change. Strife, and change, intensifi es
over time. The Spharios divides into the
four elements. As strife increases, the four
elements take thousands of years to mix
into increasingly elaborate patterns, creating
everything. Simple life then appears
as roaming, independent organs. Over
time, these organs merge, creating complex
organisms. The elaboration of the
universe, and the life within it, continues
for innumerable thousands of years, until
the environment becomes too random
to support life, and life forms become
too incoherent to remain whole. Life is
extinguished. The universe descends into
a churning maelstrom of complete strife:
the whirl of chaos. Harmony then acts on
the whirl. It draws matter into differentiated
lumps. Things become increasingly
discrete, and life appears as environments
become able to support it. Over epochs,
each generation is fractionally more simple
and pure. Eventually, the environment