Paradigm Shift

“Souls are software objects,” the Horologians maintain, and this is truth.

We need not, however, fall into the Horologian-acknowledged automatonic heresy that reaves the universe of all choice and meaning, nor dismiss so casually our hard-won millennia of spiritual wisdom. To be certain, this truth vitiates the core claim of Supernaturalism and the existence of souls embodied in a metaphysical or spiritual substance, as indeed the existence of any such substance.

But we may reconsider, perhaps, the ideas of the ancient philosopher Eutalas of Chresytané, who first propounded the notion of a higher, more abstract realm – not formed of spirit, but of information. Let us consider: if souls are software objects, what else are they but constructs of information, creatures of the informational realm?

The singer is not the song; nor is the writer the book; nor is the computer, the dance of electron and photon in circuits of thousand-fathom complexity, the information which inhabits it. Such is a category error of the first class.

Thus the inescapable conclusion is that, if souls are indeed software objects, then our spiritual nature is no more, and also no less, than our informational nature.

We have spoken.

Let us further consider: in the light of the identity of spiritual and informational being, it is clear that all objects of informational weight must also be objects of spiritual weight. The spiritual weight of books, for example, is considered a settled matter by our brothers who emulate Aláthíël and Atheléä, and their informational weight is obvious.

What is the nature of the spirit of a book? If we pursue the path laid out for us by Eutalan thought, we might presume it unlike that of the unique person; that as the information within is distributed, one complex idea manifested in many physical copies, then the spirit of the book must also be distributed, tenuous and liminal, across those many copies.

Perhaps, as books are read, and annotated, and cherished, this spirit localizes, and individuates, for the information about the book is as surely part of it as the information within the book.

And cannot the same be said for the tree and the mountain, the river and the sky, and the shintai in its shrine? Are the eikones themselves diminished by the recognition that the incarnation of the concept is neither more nor less than the concept itself, pure and eternal, fundamental and magnificent?

These objects and abstractions themselves do not compute, one might say, and so their souls cannot develop or change, and yet is it strictly necessary that a soul’s computation should be localized within its own physicality? There is no strict rule in information theory nor in theology that requires this. Perhaps the souls of the inanimate manifest in and by the thoughts of the living minds around them.

Let us further consider: in the advancement of physics today, the current leading theory is that of information physics, whose core assertion is this: “it is bit”.

It postulates a universe which is in itself a self-computing, self-modifying system of information and interactions which is both substrate and content, and in which all that is necessarily participates.

If this is the truth, then must it not be true that all that is, having an informational nature and participating in this system, is therefore definitionally blessed with an ever-evolving spiritual nature?

While the implications of these redefinitions of our understanding of our nature are vast, and upset many cherished beliefs, it is the highest purpose of our Church to seek the unity of Truth and Beauty, and from this we must not and shall not shrink.

– De Natura Animarum Mentemque,
proclaimed by the Speaker of Starlight, in the year 2481

To The Unknown God

Among the temples, fanes, and shrines to be found across Eliéra and its daughter worlds, special note should be made of the Alienage Temples. Authorized in 76 by the Speaker of Starlight, the Alienage Temples exist to provide a place for contemplation of and communion with eikones and spirits which have no formal presence in a region – with particular reference to genii loci and household gods – a need found increasingly with the acceleration of long-distance travel concomitant with the growth of the recently founded Empire.

Thus, the Alienage Temples are devoted to “all those fair spirits who attend upon the Celestial Spire, and by their light illuminate the paths to the Twilight City”. To avoid showing favor to any above all, they are traditionally built in a simple and little-adorned style, with stepped space beneath a central dome, and the shintai at their heart is also in the simplest possible form: a sphere, that most perfect shape, of pure white marble or clear glass, or a mirror of polished silver. While specifically favorable to none, such a shintai is believed to be accessible for any eikone or spirit’s descent and temporary inhabitation.

While originally devoted only to the Flamic Church, a decision of the House of Exemplars in 4220 (published as On Ecumenism) opened the Alienage Temples to devotees of foreign religions “which, too, reflect the light of the Flame¹”.

– The Sacred Ring: Holy Places of the Flame


  1. This should be taken as a limiting statement, not one of general ecumenism. Having some past experience with Entropic cults and other less savory beliefs, judgment on which foreign religions do reflect the light of the Flame is left to the House of Exemplars and the Enquiry After Truth. Queries regarding the status of any given religion, deity, or pantheon should be addressed to the latter.