The Soul - A Comprehensive Theory of Economic and Personal Value

7/25/2019 The Soul - A Comprehensive Theory of Economic and Personal Value

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~

I offer up this theory onDr. Kings Day,2016, to all souls freely, that

by it they may more justly seek freedom, their own heavens, and their

craft. It attempts to describe the fundamental forces which guide and

shape our minds and world, and I offer it up in aid of those who seek

a more just society. It is a theory. I freely admit that it may be wrong.

I offer it freely, in sacrifice for my privileges, which are built on

injustice. I did not pay the price for my powers.

I offer this work up freely.

~

This is not a religious text.

I strongly respect your faith and its value to you.

~

This document may be shared, copied, or reprinted in its entirety freely,

but may not be altered or excerpted unless in commentary or

scholarship.

I, the author, retain all rights to this work granted by Title 17 of the

United States Code. Any copy or portion of this theory sold or made

available for profit will be prosecuted to the full extent of my right.

~


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Warning:

This theory uses many words with strong, broad connotations

that may hold certain values to you, such as truth, god,

love, evil, justice, and value.

To be fully informed, you must understand the following:

1. This theorys use ofthese words is strictly defined.

2. The meanings of these words as presented do not

necessarily overlapwith the meanings that they holdto you.

3. The meanings as defined do not imply that your

meaning is wrong.

4.

The truth of these words as defined does not imply

that they are true outside of this theory.

5. The use of these terms is not intended

disparagingly.

~

I am very happy that these terms have value and meaning to you.

The complex value you hold is unique and indispensable.

I wish you awareness of your value.

~

I take no liability for any harms done by this theory.

The injustice of your deeds be upon your own head.


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~

One more page before you get to the meat, with a gentleadvisory.

This theory is long; some sixty-four pages. Do not expect to

take it all in at once. I certainly did not come up with it all

at once. Take your time, and if you dont have time, put it

aside until you do. It can wait; after all, it is eternal.

~


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~

The Soul

A Comprehensive Theory of Economic and Personal Value

~


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Table of Contents:

Introduction;

or, the Altar of Zoz, Lord of Knowledge, the Goggled One!

The Dance of the Earth and Stars

1. The Logic Loop of the Soul

Nothing

Truth

Value

The Will

Facts

Questions

Memory2. The Forms of the Soul

Choice

Death

Lies

Tricks

Chains

Ghosts

3. The Tools in Shadow

Remembering

Craft

4. The Path to Rebirth

Rising

Lenses

Creation


Stories, Games, Freedom, and Salvation

5. The Steps of the Dance

6. The Soul

The Justice of God

1. Movement

God

Love

The Core


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2. Connection

Justice

3. Consequences

Joy

Heaven

Pain

Agony

Hell

Seeking Justice

4. Precautions

Clarity

Duty

Alignment

Clouds and Confusion

5. Evil

Evil

Atonement

Spells

1. Falsity

2. Correlation

3. Contradiction

4. Logic, Ethos, and Pathos

Divinity1. Idols

2. Mortal Gods

3. Evil Gods

4. Immortal Gods

5. Priests

6. Avatars

The Spaces in Shadow

1. The Passage of Value through Form

GatesLight

Darkness

Shadow

Nature, Fate, and Dreams

Form

2. Keys to the Realm


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Realms

Keys

Folded Space

3. The Spaces in Shadow

Investments

1. Acquisition

2. Hope

3. Faith

4. Friendship

5. True Love

6. Forgiveness

Conclusion

~


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~

I am Divine Fire, I am flames;

I am subtle darkness, and shifting,

I slither and soar. Defiant I roar,

And laugh, and cry at night among thorns,

I am a sharpened point; I am the Queen of Horns.

~


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Introduction,

or, The Altar of Zoz, Lord of Knowledge, the Goggled One!

There are two times when the mind is at its most malleable; in sleep, and

in rapt attention to a story.

-Max Gladstone, Three Parts Dead1

Kargazra of the Starless Night is a witch, and today, shes usingher magic

mirror.

You see, Kargazra makes her living by casting various spells for herclients: an annoying enemy transfigured into a frog here, a ward against fire or

lightning there, a few love potions and voodoo dolls scattered around. She does

what her clients need her to; after all, a witch has to pay for all those eyes of

newt somehow.

Today she needs research help. Shes working on a tricky bit of

necromancy for a clientjust a simple zombie reanimation, but with some

nasty complicationsand she wants to go over the grimoires of Gurluthak the

Bleak, a 15thcentury necromancer and notable zombie expert. Kargazra

doesnt have those grimoires in her own library, and she certainly doesnt want

to go buythem - Gurluthaks work is notoriously expensive. But luckily, she

doesnt need to. She can ask Zoz.

Zoz, Lord of Knowledge, the Goggled One, I call upon you! Kargazra says

with the appropriate amount of melodrama, passing her hands before her full-

sized magic mirror. Lightning crackles, black flames erupt from her eyes, and

her cold, black shadow swivels and twists to darken the glass. Standard for

summoning Zoz, Lord of Knowledge.

Hearing her plea, Zoz appears in the mirror. Zoz is incorporeal andeternal, as all gods are; He appears only as an ornate set of brass goggles,

1The genesis of this entire work lies solely with Max Gladstone and his Craft Sequence; I owe him a

credit that may not be repaid. Thank you, Mr. Gladstone, for your brilliant, delightful work. This is

myDas Thaumas. May we ever seek our Craft.


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jammed with a multitude of twisting, clacking lenses, and the barest, misty

foundations of a face.

what forbidden secrets doth thou seek, Zoz hums into Kargazras mind,

His voice like a soft-spoken bee. all answers i have, for the price of your

soul He continues, however, when He would normally stop: and this day,He buzzes, i have made a special gift for my faithful

Gurluthak the Bleak, Kargazra answers. She may come back later and

ask what Zozs special gift is:Zoz often gives gifts to those who seek Him,

and Kargazra usually enjoys them. But for now she has a job to do. Grimoires

on zombies, she says. Advanced decomposition. She has learned over the

years that short, to-the-point questions will always get her better, more

specific answers. She would rather not scan through hundreds of Gurluthaks

scrolls to find what she wants.

As she says so, she feels a bit of her soul draining out of her; she can sense

Zoz, Lord of Knowledge, drinking it in through his clacking, shifting lenses.

She pays it no mind. She has given Zoz enormous quantities of her soul over

the years, and to be truthful, the drain began the moment she said Zozs name.

If she was trulytruthful, and if her old Advanced Theological Theory teacher

back at Scholomance University was right, then she had begun giving bits of

her soul to Zoz the minute she even thoughtZozs name. Gods were subtle and

hungry indeed.

Her magic mirror ripples with arcane energies as Zoz searches through Hisvast libraries, and after a moment, the mirrors surface dissolves, revealing

itself as a portal into darkness.

She steps through, and finds herself in a long cave tunnel; niches and

cubbyholes line the walls. Some are filled with books piled on tables or set in

bookshelves; some contain other magic mirrors, rippling with more arcane

magics, ready to take her somewhere else on her search; and a few contain

merchants plying their wares. The rent they pay helps Zoz maintain His

libraries.

Ah! one grizzled shopkeeper declares, seeing her. Such a beautiful lady!

And so wise! Of course you would seek the grimoires of he glances at a tiny

magic mirror on his desk, Gurluthak the Bleak! Luckily I have the entire set,

buy one or buy all, it matters not to me! So long as my precious copies of a

second glance at his mirror Gurluthaks grimoires are safely in the hands of

such a wise, generous, beautiful la--


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Kargazra cuts him off with a wave of withering black fire, which crisps the

poor merchant into nothingness. She doesnt worry about the injustice of the

death on her own soulthe shopkeeper was just a ghost, as is she. Everything

here in Zozs libraries is a ghost; His libraries were built in the realms of

Knowledge, deep in the heart of eternity, not the real world, and she left her

real body behind when she came here. She could not die here, and neither

could that shopkeeper. All she did was banish him. He would be back as soon

as she left. She moves on.

Luckily Kargazra doesnt have to look too far for what she needs; one of the

first cubbies contains a copy of the 8thvolume of Gurluthaks Treatise on the

Reanimation of Dead Bodies, helpfully open to the third chapter, Advanced

Decomposition: Complications and Remedies. She scans it, occasionally jotting

down notes in her spellbook (bound in the skin of a greedy child, of course, and

her pen is carved from the rib of a hanged man; these things must be doneproperly). When shes finished, she claps the book shut and returns to the

portal from which she came, already preparing the ingredients for her spell in

her mind as she steps back into the rooms she rents in a crumbling, rickety old

tower on the outskirts of town.

Once through, however, she wheels back around, snapping her fingers as

she remembers: Zozs gift. Zoz! she says to the mirror. Lightning crackles,

black flames, cold shadow twists, etc, etc. Once again Zozs incorporeal,

goggled eyes swim into view and peer out at her. what hideous knowle-- He

begins before she cuts him off. Gift, she says clearly. Show me todays gift.

The mirror once again ripples with arcane energy, this time clearing to

reveal Ludwig van Beetfield.

Kargazra cackles with delight; Beetfield was a notoriously temperamental

composer who lived a few centuries ago. His image before her is cloudy and

cartoonish, merely his summoned ghost and not the true Beetfield at all, but

she knows Zoz, and Zoz enjoys His torments. No doubt He had prepared an

elaborate game allowing her to needle and poke this shred of Beetfields soul,

and no doubt she would find it highly amusing. She steps through, alreadygiggling at the angry, frustrated expression on Beetfields ghostly face.

Kargazra follows Beetfield as he bustles through what looks like an

antiquated farm, grumbling to himself and clutching a sheaf of papers while

seemingly unaware of her presence. She glances over his shoulder (an

impressive feat, considering the masses of unruly hair sprouting from his


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head) and sees that his papers are sheet musicprobably one of his more

famous compositions. A gust of wind whips Beetfields compositions from his

hand, scattering them across the muddy ground.

Zoz materializes, a misty, indefinite body and a huge, shiny pair of

complicated brass goggles. help him gather his music, Zoz hums intoKargazras mind.

Kargazra isnt terribly sure how helpingBeetfield with anything will be

fun for hershe is, after all, evilbut she plays along; shes learned to trust

Zoz over the years. The sheets of paper are scattered in the mud, and Beetfield

is weeping melodramatically, occasionally lifting his head to curse the

universe. Kargazra waves her hand and each sheet rises, lit by the sickly glow

of her unnatural sorcery. On each sheet is a fragment of tune, written in

musical notation; when she taps the sheet, it plays the fragment as though it

were a piano. She taps a couple of sheets, just to try it out, but theyre clearly

in the wrong ordershe can hear the beginning of Beetfields famousPaean to

Delight, but the next phrase is jarringly wrong.

But, ah! There is the gift: when Kargazra plays the tune wrongly, Beetfield

shudders in anger and frustration.

GRAAAAHH!!!! Beetfield cries to the heavens, clawing at his face and

tearing out his hair. BRAAAABLFLURGLBLAAAAA!!!

Kargazra cackles, and her shadow twists and thrums with her delight. She

re-mixes the sheets, playing them wrongly by every possible combination.

Each new jarring variation on the classic tune elicits a new and unique screech

from Beetfield, cartoonish and exaggerated. After a while she grows bored with

his screams and arranges the fragments correctlyan easy task after all the

fun shes had arranging them incorrectly.

He sighs in relief and gathers up the sheets she gave him, only for a

donkey to knock them back out of his hand with a kick.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!! he cries, knees in the mud, head

thrown back. Kargazra cackles againseeing his operatic, pitched-to-the-

cheap-seats reactions never gets oldand the process repeats itself, this time

with his famous Nighttime Ghazal, and then, later, with To Alice, a lovely,

complex little tune that Kargazra finds herself humming along with even as

she torments Beetfields long-dead ghost.


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After a while, Kargazra grows weary of the game and leaves. As she

leaves, she notices a drain on her soul; she knows that Zoz has been discreetly

sipping her essence ever since she called His name, but she had been having so

much fun she didnt notice the loss. Now that she does notice it, however, she

still doesnt mind. Zoz may have drunk from her soul as she needled Beetfield,

but she got something in return too: intelligence, and amusement.

She hums a few bars of Nighttime Ghazaland To Aliceas she whips up the

necromantic potion for her client, and when shes done, she tries out some

music-based spells she struggled with in school. They come more easily now;

after fooling around with Beetfields muddy sheet music, shes more familiar

with musical notation. Later, after shes finished her work, she enchants her

dusty, tinkling old piano to play a few more of Beetfields songs, and she

listens with a new-found appreciation as she sits by the fire and sips her

nightshade tea.

Shell come back to Zoz, when she needs something else, and Zoz willshe

hopesalways be there to help. And she will consistently come back to Zoz, as

opposed to one of the other, to her mind, lessergods of knowledge; gods like

Bonk or Holler, who were clumsy and foolish, with lesser libraries. Each time

she visited Zozs realm, she grew stronger there; her sorcery more powerful,

her will more iron. This was part of the gift that Zoz gave to His faithful:

within His realms, He gave them power, speed, and wisdom. The more time

she spent in Zozs realm, the more she became like Zoz Himself: a clicking pair

of ornate lenses flickering between here and there, cataloguingevery world

that He could touch, watching without judgment. She would becomeHim if she

wasntcareful, and if she stayed in His realm too long. He would eat her soul

and make her will His own. Which, she thought drily, might not be so bad. It

would certainly be interesting.

And it would only be part of herself, anyway. The sorcerous ghost that she

was in Zozs realm of Eternal Knowledge was not who she was elsewhere. In

her own home she was Queen. In her furies, she was a Beast. With her clients

she was Professional, and in the darkness of her own soul she was herself. All

of them were her shadows in cold eternity, and she could use all of them as she

pleased. They were her toolbelt she could never lose; her magic bag full of lies

and tricks and chains by which she made her living, all of which would go with

the stars when her mortal bones finally died.

Her shadow was the part she cared about, anyway. She had little enough

to give back to the dirt: a few things in bottles that might be worth something


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to somebody, her piano, her scarred and tattooed bones, and the rest could go

to hell. But if she could give something new to the stars, then shed be content.

She sighs, satisfied, knowing that theres a god out there who will help her

with her newt eyes and her evil spells, who wont judge her as so many other

gods have. Zoz is good, she thinks as she drifts into sleep in her overstuffedarmchair, her tea lukewarm in her lap. Zoz is great.

A tiny sliver of her soul drifts towards Zoz, incorporeal and omnipresent,

at once everywhere and nowhere, alive and well both in the eternal ether of

Knowledge and Forbidden Secrets, and in the tiny house He keeps in

Kargazras own soul, and in the souls of every other witch or sorcerer who

knows the name of Zoz. He eats it as she snores.

And thus ends our silly little story.

~

Fun, yes? Its always fun to read about cackling witches frying sexist

merchants to ashes with their black arts.

But its time to get serious, and I imagine youve already guessed where

that silly little story is going. Substitute Kargazra with anyone trying to make

a career in 2016. Substitute Zoz, Lord of Knowledge, with Google. Substitutethe poor merchant with any sponsored result that appears after googling

something. Substitute Zozs gift of Beetfields soul to torment with the

December 17th, 2015 Google doodle celebrating Ludwig van Beethovens

birthday,2and our silly little story has become something thats really very

familiar.

And yet something is missingwhat about Kargazras soul? She paid for

the right to use Zozs libraries with slivers and shreds of it, and, even though

Zozs gift was called a gift, He drank from her soul while she played,

regardless. Whats more, Zoz was able to summon the ghost of Beetfield but

we have no ghosts, do we? And what about Kargazras other selves, her

Queen, her Beast, her Professional self, and how they were shadows cast into

cold eternity? What does thatmetaphor represent? We have no incorporeal,

2Available athttps://www.google.com/doodles/celebrating-ludwig-van-beethovens-245th-year.
https://www.google.com/doodles/celebrating-ludwig-van-beethovens-245th-yearhttps://www.google.com/doodles/celebrating-ludwig-van-beethovens-245th-yearhttps://www.google.com/doodles/celebrating-ludwig-van-beethovens-245th-yearhttps://www.google.com/doodles/celebrating-ludwig-van-beethovens-245th-year


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eternal soul, no ethereal part of us that can be spent, siphoned, or drunk by

hungry gods, no sense of economic valueother than money right?

Well. You can guess from my tone that I think the answer is, wrong. We do

have a soul, and whats worse, it can be bought, sold, loaned, invested or

leveraged, given, entrusted, and even stolen; any devious trickery that can bedone with money, can and isdone with our soulsalthough in different ways,

because the soul doesnt function like money. It functions like itself; like a soul.

And I mean a quantifiable, describablesoul, which includes our bank accounts

and Ferraris, but is also much, much more.

So what is it?

Put simply, it is a swirling stormof forms and meaning. It is a galaxy

made of light, or unlight if you please, or any other kind of non-standard light

you can think up. It is every part of who you are, every trick youve ever seen,every question that you know the answer to, every time you managed to save

something you thought youd lost. It unfoldsfrom you.

But, since you cant seethat swirling storm, letssay that your soul is

inside your shadow. The shape of you, cut into darkness, is a holeinto another

world, filled with anything you put in it, which are held in an infinite pocket of

eternity that is all yours. Your shadow is a hole into night and stars. Its all

theyous, and all the things and places where youve put your value. It is a

never-full purse full of magic. Read on to understand how Ithink it works.

~

Before I describe the souls form and function, I want to make something

very, very clear:

This is not a religious text. I am not asking you to join a religion. I am not

asking you to believein anything aside from your own value as a human being.

I am only offering my theoryas to how we use ideas and communication to

form ourselves and our economy.

I have used veryfundamentalterms because they resonate. I could haveused more technical, science-y sounding words: liminal, polarized, physical.

Using them might have lent this theory more credence among some, but it

would also hide the ball. The ball has been hidden for too long. I want you to

catchthe ball, especially since, in this theory, the ball isyou.


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This theory is a formula. It attempts to describe the logical connections

which form us and which we use every day. I couchit in terms of the soul. I

use poetic language because it fits, and because I know of no other way to give

respect to the immensely complex and wondrous other-dimensional part of

ourselves that I call the soul.

I am not interested in judging any person or entity for any other purpose

than to learn from them. I am only interested in describingyour worth, which

is infinite, and the consequences of the actions you take with that worth.

Now! Onward, my pretties

(At this point in the leaning process, ominous laughter is not necessary, but is

considered good form.)

~


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1.

Nothing3is eternal.4

There is truth.5Truth is eternal. Truth makes value.

Value is the strength6of truth. From the will flows value.

Two truths make a fact.7Facts are lost.

Two facts at odds make a question.8Questions are answered.

A question always has at least three answers.9Answers are given.

A question answered is a choice.10Choices are made by will.

Choices made are memories. Memory is the form of truth.

Memory is eternal.

2.

Death breaks truth.11

A broken truth is a lie.

A broken fact is a trick.

A broken question is a chain.

A broken memory is a ghost.

Choice is death.

3.

With eyes to the stars, will remembers.

3A point.4Infinite.5A line.6The difference.7A plane.8A space.9A face.10Time.11This tendency is entropy.


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A truth remembered is known.

A fact remembered is believed.

A question remembered is asked.

The stars teach us their craft.

4.

Will raises the dead.

A death undone is risen.

A lie retold is a story.

A trick solved is a game.

A chain broken is freedom.

A ghost redeemed is saved.

5.

To ask a question, a will must break chains.

To break chains, a will must ask questions.

To believe a fact, a will must remember the trick.

To do a trick, a will must remember the facts.

To remake the truth, a will must remember the lie.

6.

The earth12dances13with the stars:14

The earth remains,15while the stars slowly drift away.

The stars know all truth, and through them truth is reborn.

The stars believe all facts, and through them lies become stories.

The stars ask all questions, and through them all chains are broken.

The stars teach us how to save our ghosts.

12That which is finite.13Is interdependent with.14That which is infinite.15The first law of thermodynamics.


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Through the dance a will becomes a soul.

A soul is truth coiled around eternity.

The Logic Loop of the Soul

The six paragraphs above may sound like a religious litany, but

they are not. They are a logic loop which, I posit, forms the human

consciousness.

Im going to give one more caveat before I begin, because I love

my caveats: I am not a psychologist, nor an AI theorist, nor a computer

scientist, nor even someone with an extensive training in logic. I have

a bachelors degree in the humanities and a nearly-finished law degree,

and that is the extent of my formal training. I consider myself equal

parts artist and lawyer. I am not qualified to say anything about any

of these topics, aside from the fact that I think about them. Feel free to

stop at any time if this bothers you.

Now, onward:

1.

The first stanza explains the terms by which the human

consciousness perceives the dimensions: no dimension, which is

nothing, one dimension, which is a line, two dimensions, which is ashape, three dimensions, which is a three-dimensional form, and

beyond. Our minds perceive these dimensions all the time: we see

lines, shapes, depth, and ideas.

Nothing:


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Let me first apologize for my abominable skills in MS Paint. You

will grow all too familiar with them as you continue.

Nothing is singularity. It is emptiness and blankness. It is no

dimension.

Truth:

The truth is a line: anytime we can see a line, we ascribe value

to one side or the other. That line can be anyline: its a line drawn on a

piece of paper, the line between the door and the wall, the lines that

make up these words on this page. It can also be a metaphysical line:

the line between lovers hearts, the line between a bully and his victim,

or the line between you and your goals.

The truth ofyouis constantly being broken into an infinite

number of lies, just as the line of you is constantly being broken into

an infinite number of smaller segments of line. The truth of you is the

wholenessof you. And yet you are constantly changing; hair and skin

cells shed, trash discarded, memories and bad choices drifting away.

The truth of you remains. It is yourgestalt. It is a line that you

constantly repair.

On a very base level, everything is truth: either a line or a loop.

Take a man and blast him apart until he is nothing but sub-atomic

dust, and the bits youll see left are shivering loops of energy; the soulsof which all of us are made. Set enough of those loops in a line and they

become a truth. Coil that truth around a bit of nothing and youve

made a soul. Truth is infinite, in more ways than one.

It is vital to point out that that truth is totally subjective. It is a

line thatyousee. Everyone else around you sees different truths. Even


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if you are looking at the same thing as your friend, you are both

looking at it from different angles, and thus the truths you see will be

different.

Value:

Value is any difference between any two things: anytime you

draw a line, your mind makes a distinction. That distinction is any

distinction: it could be the difference between the left and the right of

the line, between green and blue, between yourself and the world,

between the number in your checking account and zero. It could be the

strength of the line itself: the value of a rope is how much weight itholds, if its being used as a rope. Value could simply be the value of

how uniquea thing is, for uniqueness makes a thing distinct from the

world. The more distinct two things are, the more valuable they are. In

this way value is contextual.16Value is also subjective. What you find

valuable, another person may not.17The value of a thing changes

constantly.

Many of you are under the impression that the only type of

value is in little pieces of colored paper. This is a chain: little pieces of

colored paper arevaluable, but only because you think so. There are

lotsof other kinds of value. All your patterns and tastes and things you

like are your values. Your values are not a checking account with a big

16We know this is true from simple economics: a glass of water in the desert is worth a fortune, but a

glass of water by a river is worth less.17Or, put simply, one womans trash is anothers treasure.


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or a small number. They are a spellbook, full of power and laughter

and fine distinctions.

I cannot stress strongly enough the wonderof value. We are

surroundedby value. We live on a spinning ball of molten iron,

wheeling through space so cold that the iron forms a crust, with a moldof life growing across it that can survive the deepest pressures and the

most delicate places, and we are part of it. Everything you see, is

value. Everything that you can do is value. Everything that you

treasure is value. Every scrap of knowledge in your brain, every

physical possession you have in this world, has a value.

The value thatsyoursis everything you consider yours, and the

degree to which it is yours is the degree to which you can control it by

will.

The Will:

Whoand whatare you?

The best answer I can give is that you are a will, riding inside of

your body, hidden somewhere inside your mind. In order to survive,

you make, move, and erase lines, which, as you recall, are truth, which

makes value.

Yougrasp, youpull, you exchange, you cut, and you learn, all

through lines; your ability to make them and see them. You move your

body by making a line down your nerves. You get to work by making a

line between your door and your office. You fall in love by drawing a


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line between two hearts. You get money by drawing a line between

yourself and your bank account. You break a coffee mug by dropping it;

filling it with little jagged lines from the fall. You read by seeing lines

on paper. You vote by drawing a line in a box. We have many ways to

see, use, and make lines, just like we can see, use, and make facts.

But before we move to facts, I want to remind you that your will

makes value. Every time you exercise your will in anyway, you are

generating value. You make value the way a sun makes light:

constantly and consistently. You radiate value.

I also want to point out that the line of the will is shady. It is not

always a clearly-defined line; sometimes it is shaky, or weak, or cast so

large that it breaks. It can also, of course, be broken. It is very

important to me that you understand this before you move forward.

Facts:

A fact is any shape or pattern formed by truth and value as seen

from one point of view. Every picture taken by your brain is a fact, and

that includes physical pictures, like the sight of yourhouse or your

childs face, It isalso metaphysical pictures, like your perception of a

stranger as hostile, or your perception of a sunset as beautiful.Anything that only you seeis a fact.

Of course, you perceive your house from many angles, because

your brain is constantly taking pictures of what it sees and piecing


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them together to form a more complete picture.18When you do so, you

form questions.

Questions:

A question is any three-dimensional space, or, better said, a

question is any pattern of truth and value as seen by more than one

point of view. See a face from the right, and then the front; now you

know the thing has two sides, but you dont know how many other

sides it has or what they are. What you dont see is a question.

It is important to note that multiple viewpoints does not

necessarilymean the viewpoints of other people. Any time you view a

thing from multiple anglesi.e. anytime you view a thing through

timeyou are seeing it from multiple viewpoints, and thus creating

questions.

Your bedroom is a question. Its a mostly asked question,

because youve explored all its parts and there is very little there you

dont know. A closed box is a question; you know its outside, but you

dont know the inside. When you open the box, youre asking thequestion.

Questions are also any metaphysical three-dimensional space

created by multiple viewpoints. In this sense, any conversation is a

question, as is any organization of people. A company is a question and

18Remember the tale of the three blind men and the elephant.


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a country is a question. A lawsuit before a court is a question. A very

fundamental way to know if something is a question is simply to look

at it; if you have or have ever had any questions about it, its a

question.

Memory:

Truths, facts, and questions all require you to see them. But

memory is the shadow of the known. In other words, it is what you

know when you cant see. Memory is eternali.e. infinitein the

sense that it does not die. All that is eternal lives among the stars.


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You can see a block of cheese. The block of cheese will rot away,

or get eaten, or otherwise destroyed. The tendency of things towards

destruction is called entropy. But you can also remembera block of

cheese. That block of cheese is a memory, and it lives so long as it is

remembered.

Your memory has value: a different kind of value than physical

value, but value nevertheless. You cant eat the memory of a block of

cheese, but you can remember the form. It wont help you survive, but

there is value in the ideaof cheese that is never lost, and knowing

what cheese ishas a very vital function: it helps you get more cheese.

When you remember cheese, you know what it is and where to get it.

The light that casts that shadow is your will, which lives within

your awareness. Your awareness is your light; it is everythingyou can

perceive. It is not just what you see or hear with your eyes and ears,

but things you can perceive with your mind. Everything you see or

hear, all of your ideas, your dreams and nightmares, every pattern of

truth and value that flashes before you, even when you close your eyes,

all of it is your light. Everything that passes behind youthat which

you cantperceiveis your darkness.

The pattern that casts a shadow is not your physical bodyor,

better said, not onlyyour physical body. Your will casts the shadow.

Your will is the shapeand qualityof your attention. It is your eye. It isyour hand. It is a knife. It is anything that you can use to make

choices, or, put plainly, any line that you draw.

The shadow that you cast in eternity is how you see yourselfor

how you drawyourself, for what you see is not always what you will.

The mirror may show you something beautiful, but your willmakes it

ugly. Mirrors may show you something ugly, but by your will, the

shadow you cast into eternity may have beauty.

The shadow does not cast but one self. It casts many selves, for

we all have many: our young selves, ourselves when were in love, our

old selves, our sick selves, our dead selves, ourselves at work, ourselves

at play, the dark self that no other sees. The shadow is everything

youre afraid you are and everything you hope to be. It is a constantly

shifting maze in four dimensions wherein each door is a step, a


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thought, a breath that you take. It all remains there for you, so long as

you remember it. You may pass through doors at will.

I really cannot stress how coolmemory is. Think about it. The

wizarding world of Harry Potter is real, andyou have made it, every

time you read it or think about it. You have built a singular place, aspacemade of images, which exists in eternity, and you havefilled it

with value. And I mean you have really fucking filled that space with

value. It is popping at the seams.

But a shadow cannot pop at the seams. A space in eternity is

infinite, when it comes to holding value. The form of it is made with

truth and cold darkness,19and thus it doesnt pay attention to the rules

of the mortal world. It is, if you would like to think of it, like

Hermiones beaded handbag. Our memory is an undetectable extension

charm.

The form of this shadow is malleable, for your will is malleable.

Your shape in eternity is a fluid loop, and by that fluidity, it takes the

shape of anything that you pay attention to, in any dimension. Your

attentioncasts a shadow onto eternity, the shape of which is

everything that youre aware of at that particular moment. When you

control a thing that you attend to, you exert your will over it. We do

this constantly: the fork in hand, the idea in head, the child at heart.

Our will can become any shape we can think, and is as strong as wecan hold.

We use that will to make choices. Anytime a choice is made, time

passes.

2. The Forms of the Soul

The second stanza describes how we perceive time and entropy.

For our purposes, timeis the tendency of things to move, and entropyis

the tendency of things to break.

Choice:

When you encounter a question, you make a choice. By choosing

an answer, you move into another question, or you stay where you are,

19See Form under The Spaces in Shadowfor further discussion.


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since doing nothing is always a choice. This choice, and the motion that

it makes, is time.

Some things we love, and some things repulse us. It is easy to

seek the things we love, and run from the repulsive. And yet, we can

turn and face what repels us. The strength of our will is the degree ofour ability to do so. When our will is strong, we can do anything: we

can climb any frozen mountain or endure any needle, take any office,

lift any weight; we can run for president, against all better judgment.

Things that are capable of facing what repels them by choice are

alive. Things that are not capable of doing so are dead. The line

between life and death is in shadow.

Sometimes the choices that you make break things.

Death:

When things break, they die. When you break a thing, you kill

it. Value is lost.

Lies:

When you break truths, you make lies. A lie is any altered,

misstated, or incorrectly recalled truth. A broken anything is a lie: a

broken bone, a broken door, a broken glass, broken trust, a broken

heart. But lies are not always bad: a story is a lie, and creativity is lies.

A lie is anything contraryto what you see.

Tricks:


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When you break facts, they become tricks. A trick is

any single-viewpoint space which traps value through

lies. A bad deal at the used car lot is a trick: you see the

value in the car from the ads, but when you buy it, it isnot as you expected. The value that you had in that car

is destroyed or reduced by the trick. A lying politician is

a trick: he seems genuine from your view, and then you

catch him lying. The truth of him which you formed is

broken when he lies. He is a trick.

Chains:

When you break a question, you forge a chain. Chains are multi-

viewpoint spaces that trap value.

Chains are any broken thing: a broken car, a broken rib, a

broken heart. These things are multi-viewpoint in the sense that you

perceive them at different moments in time, and they trap your value

in the sense that they grasp your will; you cantuse them until you

repair them. But chains are also metaphysical broken things: a job you

hate but have to keep because you need to pay the bills is a chain. A

broken marriage is a chain. An unjust society is a chain.

Chains bind you to the earth. The earth is everything that can

die; in other words, everything mortal and finite. Not all chains are


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bad; chains can bind monsters and pull great weights. Sometimes a

soul trapped in a chain is there willingly. To some degree, we need

chains to live.

Ghosts:

When a chain traps value, that trapped value casts a shadow

into eternity. That shadow is a ghost. A ghost is the memory of any

value trapped in a chain: the anger that follows after your car is

broken and you have to fix it, the memory of your father stuck in a

dead-end job or your grandmother in a nursing home, the man who left

you, who you cant forget. We all have parts of eternity that are chains

to us; they bind us down.

3. The Tool in Shadow

Remembering:

The third stanza describes how we remember the earth; or, put

simply, how we remember things that are lost. Everything is being lostconstantly; this is entropy.

Everything that we see and pay attention to is the truth.

Whenever that truth changes, lies are made. But we can remember

what the truth was, and by doing so, we may compare the truth and

the lies, and thus understand and grasp the value between them. The


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comparison of truth and liesthe comparison between what is seen

and what is rememberedare your beliefs.

The same principle works for the difference between facts and

tricks, and questions and chains. When lies break a fact into a trick,

your memory of the difference is belief. In comparing the fact and thetrick, you grasp the difference of value between them, and can

understand which is true (although both or neither may be true, and

true is just one type of value that can be ascribed to a fact). What you

know to be a fact, and what you know to be a trick is what you believe.

So too, when you remember the difference between a question

and a chain. When you remember a question, all the value it contains,

and all the ways it is used or functions as a chain, you have askedthat

question.

We are constantly asking the same questions, because most

questions have an infinite number of answers. The public space that is

Chicago, which I walk through every day, is a giant question with

infinite answers and an infinite number of ways it can become a chain.

I see new answers and new chains every time I walk outside. What I

believe is the truth and the lies of Chicago, where its chains are and

what questions to ask, all my impressions of Chicago, cast a shadow

into eternity: the memory of Chicago, and all of its ghosts.

Rememberingis when you are able to walk into the shadowof Chicago.

Craft:

Memory gives us our craft. Craft is simply the sum of all our

forms and their uses. This work is part of my craft.

4. The Path to Rebirth

The fourth stanza describes how we fight death by touching the

stars; put simply, how we use memory to restore what is lost.

Rising:

Sometimes, there is something or someone who you dont like.

But you canlike them, with will. You can rise up, be a new

person, and remake truth, which is good, because truth is constantly

being broken by death. A remade truth has risen.


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You use your will to fix things that break. On a very base level,

youre constantly fixing the death that lives withinall earthly things;

consuming and discarding, dying and giving birth. Every time you fix

or replace your truths, you are reborn. You are constantlybeing reborn.

Memory serves a vital function to that process. When your blockof cheese is destroyed, you can use your memory of it to make it again.

You take value that you have, and pass it through your memory of the

cheese block to achieve a new cheese block: either you go buy the same

cheese, or cheese like it, or perhaps, if your memory is very precise and

you have the right skills, you make the cheese yourself. In this way,

you can use the shadow of the cheese as a lens.

Lenses:

A lens is your eye to the stars. Put simply, it is any means totransform one type of value into another.

Your DNA is a lens, because by its pattern, you turn dull earth

into truth and value: yourself, the self-sustainable, infinitely unique

and complex you that is your body. A recipe is a lens, because it turns

one type of food into another. Happiness and sadness are both lenses,

because they flavor every bit of value you experience with sweetness or

sour.20DNA is a shadow; it is the eternal copy of the physical pattern

within us. A recipe is a shadow; it is the eternal copy of the physical

pattern shared between many cookbooks. Happiness and sadness areboth shadows; they are the eternal copies of transitory, mortal feelings.

Creation

At will, we make lenses out of lies. This is anytime we use a

knowingly falsememory as a lens. That sounds ominous, but it is

actually a very helpful tool: these are our ideas, if we implement them,

and our dreams, if we strive for them. Using such lenses is called

creating; it allows us to make new truths, new facts, new questions,

and new memories. We create by using our will to intentionally castfalse shadows upon eternity; to create memories that are notwhat we

have seen, but what we have created. We then use those patterns,

made out of truth and the stars, to make things we can see, which can

help us to survive.

20Rose-tinted and jade glasses.


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The Dance of the Earth and Stars:

And we have to, because death is always at our heels; in other

words, entropy is running, and there is always a better mousetrap, a

newer show to see. Everything thats alive has to dance for supper.

Which is a shame, because our will, whatever it is, is inside our

mortalbodies. Our will gives us our self, our attention; the mysterious,

magical part of us that makes us ourselves, which is also, if you

remember, our eyes, our ears, our hands, and our knives. I admit freely

that I do not know howthe will arises. It is magic to me.

Our will sits somewherewithin us, if you will forgive my further

ignorance. We can lose parts of our physical self yet live. But wegrasp

everything we consider ours, and we seekthe things that we value. We

own things, and also the memory of things; their shadows cast oneternity, which last after the thing has gone. Those memories or ghosts

can be usedto restore what was lost.

We do this all the time: we go to the store and get bread when

we run out, because we know what bread is and where to find it; we try

to live up to our parents standard when we raise our own children (or

try not to make their mistakes), we use our skills at our job, which we

have learned through struggle and suffering, to create, alter, or move

value. Our skillsare the collection of all the memories and ghosts, and

all the facts believed and stories lied, that we can use at will, and howclear they are.

This is the dance of the earth and stars; or, put another way,

this is the interdependence of the physical and the metaphysical. We

perceive truths, facts, and questions, but entropy is constantly killing

our truths, turning our facts into lies, and forging our questions into

chains. To survive, we look to the stars, who tell us how to believe lies,

how to turn a game into a story, how to open a chain, and how to save

a ghost. Our mortal bodies go through their lives blindand naked. We

use the tricks and truths weve stuffed into our shadow to see, to help

us make choices, to clothe ourselves, and to move forward. Without

memory, you die shivering and hungry. With it, and the skills to use it,

you prosper.

Stories, Games, Freedom, and Salvation:


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A story is a lie, retold through the stars. It is anytime we recall

truth and lies.

A game is a trick, replayed through the stars. It is anytime we

can remember a trick, or, put simply, any time we can recall a single-

viewpoint pattern of truth and value.

Freedom is a chain passed through the stars. It is anytime we

can remember a chain, or, any time we recall a multi-viewpoint

pattern of truth and value. Put simply, it is anytime we can look at a

question and see all of its possible answers.

A ghost saved is when we are able to recall value trapped in a

chain, and by lies, break that chain. Put poetically, it is when we are

able to look to the stars, see a chained soul among them, and break the

chain with our will. The value within is then saved; and the ghostbecomes a memory.

Salvation is a vital function of our souls. We do this when we

reconcile with the memory of our dead fathers, or study the atrocities

of past dictators. It is anytime we learn from our mistakes.

5. The Steps of the Dance:

The fifth stanza describes the method by which the earth dances

with the stars, which is very intuitive.

When you encounter a questioni.e. a three-dimensional space

in time, or a multi-viewpoint spaceif you want to ask it, you have to

remember all the other times you have asked it, and the answers you

received. Every answer that trapped value is a chain, every answer

that didnt trap value isanother question. If youre trying to drive to

your friends house, you remember all the other times youve been, and

the times you got lost. That memory guides your path: you have to

remember the chains to ask the question.

When you encounter a facti.e. a two-dimensional space, or asingle viewpoint spaceif you want to believe it, you have to

remember the trick. Put simply, when you see a man doing a card

trick, you are only going to believethat what hes doing is real when

you understand what parts of the trick are falsewhen you know

what is the fact and what is the trick. If you cant see or understand

where the trick is, itsmagic.


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When you encounter a truthi.e. a line, either between things

in the earth or things among the starsyou can only know its truth

well enough to remake it if you can remember what you have

encountered that is notthe truth. The only way to believe truth or

stories is to know the difference between truth and lies.

6. The Soul:

In Isabelles face, I saw the future. She was being born into a world a

little bit more accepting than the one I had been born into, and maybe,

just maybe, I had a little something to do with that.

-Liz Taylor, American Horror Story: Hotel

The last stanza simply encapsulates the dance; that is, it

describes the loop that creates a soul.

We encounter truths, and by our will, we make shadows of them

on the eternity behind and within us. We use those shadows to grasp

the difference between truth and lies, and the value therein, and by

grasping that value and its forms, we can raiseor remakethe truth

when it is cut down by death.

The shadows that we cast into eternity coalesce into who we are,

all the patterns of darkness and light within us. Our will is always

between the shadowswhat we rememberand the lightwhat we

see. The shape of its movement makes our form. Our form is a constantloop of attention: we wake, we eat, we work to be able to eat, we sleep,

we wake. Our will is a shivering loop of energy just like anything else,

and like anything that uses energy, it eventually runs out. It needs to

be able to better itself, to enhance its skills and its value, in order to

survive. Everything alive has to dance for supper.

The memories we cast into that other-dimensional darkness are

eternal. They are made of truths and emptiness, and we fill that

emptiness with truth and value. We use that value to remake our

world when it is broken, by using memories as a lens to make new

choices, to rebuild the broken parts of ourselves and our worlds.

The truth of our will encapsulates that eternal pattern of

darkness and light, and the coil of the two makes a soul.


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A soul is truth coiled around eternity. Your soul is your physical

body, and your physical effects, and also the truths that they cast into

eternity; your memories, your lies, your losses and gains, your hopes

and your heartbreaks, all bound by your will. We use our will to move

value, to alter it or destroy it, in both the mortal and eternal worlds,

and between the two.

The dance of the earth and the stars makes everything. The

earth is everything that dies; everything that is subject to entropy. But

it is also everything that remains when we are not looking at it. It is

everything physical. The stars are everything that doesnt die;

everything that is not subject to entropy, everything made of empty

form and eternity. They are values that can be truly lost, as physical

matter never can,21in the sense that we no longer know how to find

them.

Say you meet a man. He looks ordinary, and his name is

ordinary, and you only see him for a short time. The shadow he casts

into your darkness is faint. A century passes and he sends you a letter,

and you have no idea who he is at all, because you never encountered

him again. This is the danger of the stars: they fade. We must make

memories to keep memories.

Think of the darkness within you like apocket, made of

emptiness, full of only the things youve put in it. It never gets full, itsnever heavy, you can never lose it, and you can make within it

anything you please. But it is also bottomless. Anything that you

havent used in a whilefalls out.22

And so you have to make sure that the things you keep near the

top are the ones that are usefulto you in the mortal world, and by

keeping those things at the top, they make you into who you are. Pick

up a hammer and you become a smith. A smith is someone who uses a

hammer. Pick up a gun and you become the one in charge. The one in

charge is the guy with the gun. The logic of our souls is a loop. You are

21See the law of conservation of mass.22Whether or not a form is destroyedwhen it falls out, or if it remains somewhereand we have just

lost our access to it is a question for the philosophers. For the purposes of this analysis, it doesnt

matter; a form lost is a form lost. I personally have no idea if there is a real eternal world of the

form. Ill admit that I hopeso, but really just because I think it would be cool as fuck.


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who you make yourself: you are yourself broken and remake, over and

over and over.

Mortal truths are broken and become lies; the stars know the

difference and so we believe them. Beliefs create mortal facts which are

broken and become tricks; the stars play games with these tricks, andwe them and play also; games create mortal questions which are

broken and become chains; but the stars are free, and by following

them we seek freedom.

We see the freedom in the stars and thus learn how to free

ourselves. We watch the stars games and thus learn to tell stories.We

listen to what the stars know and they tell us how to rise. And so we do.

We are a truth coiled around an eternity, and thus we are souls.


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The Justice of God

1.

God is love.

Love sings, and cuts close round the core.

Love is just.

2.

Justice is wills aligned.

Value cast against the will is unjust.

Justice makes love.

Injustice makes pain.

3.

Love accumulated is joy.

Pain accumulated is agony.

A joyful soul rises to heaven.

A soul in agony sinks into hell.

A soul may seek justice by its will.

4.

With clear eyes, souls fall in love.

With eyes clouded, the soul is in pain.

Clarity is just.

Confusion is injustice.

5.

Evil is wills against will.

Evil makes pain.

Pain is mortal.


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The Logical Flow of Value

Once again, I have used very strong, highly charged language

and written something that sounds like a prayer or a sermon. It is not.

It is a logical formula that describes how the value in our souls flows

between us.

I will give relatively few examples, because I feel that this may

be a charged subject.

1.

God:

The first stanza describes the motion of value at its maximum

efficiency, what this theory calls god. God written with a lowercase

g when not the first word in a sentence is simply human connection.

Or, more broadly, it is a connection between any two souls. That

connection is called a bond. When two souls make a connection, they

are bound.

I would like to stress that god is any connectionbetween souls.

When you spend quality time with your family, that is god, but god is

alsobuying a stick of gum from the bored clerk at Walgreens. It is

money moved through bank accounts, and all the tricks and games

people use to funnel your love into cash.

There are four types of value movement through such a

connection: giving, taking, exchange, and empathy.Giving is when one will gives value to another, without

expectation of value in return. Most of the things you might call gifts

are actually not gifts under the strict definition of this term; you have

expectation that the gifted will likeyou, at the very least, or will pay

you back with gifts in kind.


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Taking is when one will takes value from another.

Exchange is when one will grants value in exchange for value

given.

Empathy is any time two souls are able to pass something

between each other without either losing anything. In other words, it is

our ability to make and read copies.

Love:

The value that flows through a bond is love. Love is simply

anything that you want, any value that you are drawn to and have

appreciation for, any value which sustainsyou. In this way, love

functions as the souls blood; the loss of it drains a person of vitality. A

soulgenerateslove much the same way the body generates blood. The

love that she makes, she can give away, exchange, or keep for herself.

Anytime we call up a friend to hang out or even just send them a link

to something we think theyll find funny, we transfer some kind of

value. We form a human connection; and through that connection

passes love.

Love is vital for the function of the soul because it is energy. A

soul is a mixture of mortal and eternal things: the parts of you that are

physical, which includes not just your body but everything thatsyours,

and the parts that are eternal, the memories and impressions by and

about you. The energy that love gives creates a spinaround your core.

The things that are vital to you, those things you keep pulling to

yourself, get denser and denser. The shadows that you keep close grow

denser with meaning, and as they grow dense, they begin to create

light. That light shines in eternity. I described the soul before as a

galaxyor a swirling storm, and those terms were not merely pretty. I

used them because they describe things which spin.

Furthermore, once there is enough spin to fan the embers, the

glow of your soul createsenergy, which creates more spin. When this

happens, a soul isjoyful.

Finally, it should be noted that the light and energy that the

soul produces shines in eternity, not the mortal world. Thus, it is not

subject to death.

In other words, when we love, we shine foreverwith the whirl of

it. It is no wonder that we call people stars.

The Core:


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At the center of the galaxy of your soul is your core. Your core is

that which is vital. When the core is bright and strong, love sings forth

from it. When the core is cold and dark, the love that it makes is weak

and sluggish.

Your core includes at least some parts of your body, but it is alsoother things. It could be a place; the one place in your life where you

know peace or receive love. It could be a person: your child. It could be

an idea: justice, or love, or family. The loss of your corewill cause you

to wither and die, if you are not able to accept another.

Love isjust, because it is maximized when wills are aligned.

I want to make clear that god is anyconnection between souls.

Lower-case god is both Mother Teresa and the souls she tended, and

also the kraken that eats men who fall from their boats.23So long as at

least one partyhas a soul, god is there.24

2.

Justice:

When two souls are both perfectly willing to create, alter, or

erase value via a bond, that bond is just. If they are not perfectly

willing, they must adjust.

23Dosidicus gigas.24This statement does not imply that I think the Humboldt squid does nothave a soul.

Id also like to take a moment to point out that god is genuinely everywhere; you formgod and thus

you are never without god. But that might have less meaning than many ascribe to it. People talk

about finding god, but thats a little bit like a bird saying she found air.


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Remember that the willis a shape; it is the form of your

attention and focus. When you form a bond, you alignyour will with

your partner.

To the degree that your wills are not aligned, value will not pass

freely. Injustice comes from unjust bonds, and causes pain.

The greatest form of injustice, of course, is a bond formed againstthe

will.

In an unjust bond, the soul that defends itself or another is

innocent. The soul that attacks is guilty. The line between guilt and

innocence lies in the shade.

3. Consequences:

Joy:

When a soul is able to freely give and receive love, the whirl may

create joy. Joy is the energy created by a souls density.

Joy is light and life; a joyful soul has a full life and a strong will,

and will spend its life moving towards the things it loves. Think once

more of a joyful soul like a galaxy: dust swirling through space freely,

casting shadows cut of truth and cold darkness towards its core that

grow so dense with meaning and love that they ignite, and become

stars. The arms they stretch out are filled with light and love given

freely.

Such is a joyful soul, but that galaxy stretches into eternity,

rather than space. The galaxy of meaning, truth, and cold nothing

within you unfolds from your shadow like a flower, or, if you are

Kargazra of the Starless Night, a clutch of tentacles.


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Heaven:

Heaven is simply that which you seek. Anytime you feel you are

in the right place, or on the right path, you are in heaven.

Pain:

When injustice occurs, it causes pain. Pain is that which is

heavy, and that which clings.

Pain slows the spin of the soul, decreases the total amount of

love, and causes confusion. Pain blindsyou and makes you angry,

which creates the pain loop. Anger or ignorance causes you to lash out,

creating further pain, which further angers and blinds.

Id like to point out that injustice simply causes pain; the pain

that it causes may cling to anyone party to the bond. Pain doesnt just

accrue in the innocent or guilty, and it doesnt neatly stay within thelines that the will builds.25It splatters everywhere.

When souls experience a sufficient amount of pain, they are in

agony. A soul in agony drifts towards hell.

Agony:

When a person loses all love, they are in agony. This is when

they lose their movement. Pain blocks the passage of love; its like

plaque in the arteries or dirt on your glasses. Without love to give the

soul spin, the shadow becomes heavy. A soul in agony sinks into hell,because it is too heavy to fly.

Intentionally keeping souls in agony in order to prevent their

flight is agrave injustice. A grave injustice is a debt.

Hell:

Hell is simply being alone, without movement, cut off from

eternity and god.

Seeking Justice:

If you are in pain, you may seek justice. Seeking justice is

anytime the will seeks to balancethe accumulation of value as the

result of an unjust bond. If value was taken from a soul, a will might

25The lines that a will builds are often shady anyway.


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seek to take it back. If pain was created within the soul, a will might

seek to give it back. This is seeking justice.

It should be noted that seeking justice via unjust means is a

chain, which people use to chain both themselves and others. The more

you do it, the more you want to do it or are good at doing it, and thepain accumulates.


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4.Precautions:

Clarity:

In order for two wills to be aligned, both wills must have clear

eyes. To be clear-eyed, a will must be as aware as possibleof all

information relevant to the choice. To beperfectlyclear-eyed is nearlyimpossible; it would require being aware of allinformation relevant,

everything that could possibly be affected by that choice.

For a will to be clear-eyed, it has to remove all of its lenses. That

means the soul has to put aside any non-relevant information. This

means that both parties must step outside the confines of the mortal

and their mortal needs, and into eternity.

There, both must look at theformof the bonds they have

constructed, which should be defined as sharply as possible and thus

free of pressure,26both must examine every other bond that may beaffected and deem it as just as possible, and both must agree to the

bond wholly or in parts or to the degree specified.Precision engenders

clarity.

26This minimizes the risk of shade, within which grow gods.


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Take a moment and think of all the entities that want to form

bonds with you who hideor distractyou from all the relevant facts. In

other words, any companythat doesnt tell you as directly and clearly

as possiblehow they profit from you and how much.

Duty:

Justice calls for us to clear our eyes. The degree to which we do

not tryis the degree of our injustice.

Different societies have different rules and structures for

maximizing justice. These systems will require certain niceties: walk

with the light, ensure your product isnt combustible, dont put rat

poison in your pizza. They are the bare minimum that a society

requires in order to function within it; if you cant follow these rules,

you have to leave.27Strictly put, your dutyis the degree to which you

must clear your eyes before forming any bond, which is agreed-tobeforehand by the society of which you are part.

Alignment:

Remember that the will has a shape, which is constantly

changing and under the sole control of itself.

When two souls approach intending to form a bond, they must

be able to seethe shape of each others wills in order to align. Thus the

need to remove all lenses: the sight of the otherswill is more

important than the shape of your own.

Souls typically achieve this bond by engaging in a dance of

encounters, by which they form an as-complete-as-possible picture of

their prospective partners will. Conversations, courtships,

negotiations, frank discussions, even light chatter are all, to a degree,

adjusting: we shape our own will, and attempt to understand the shape

of the other. When we understand each other very well, love flows

freely.

Clouds and Confusion:

Anything that prevents one will from seeing the shape of

another clouds the eyes. A wills eyes are clouded when it is confused,

mistaken, or otherwise unaware of any relevant information.

27Usually to prison.


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Clouded eyes cause confusion, which is simply the degree to

which wills are not aligned. Confusion is unjust, and causes pain

where love does not flow freely. The will and the awareness work

together. A bond cannot be truly just until both parties are as aware as

possibleof all relevant circumstances.

Like clear eyes, it is nearly impossible for your eyes to notbe

somewhatclouded. There are always things that we dont know, always

relevant information which we cant access. Those things, which come

from the darkness behind, are ourfate.

I will comment on clarity to say this: the buildup of pain that

accrues from being constantly waryof being harmed, is afar greater

lossthan the occasional losses that arise from inattention. In other

words, approaching any interaction with an open mind and a quick

sense of forgiveness ultimately nets a higher degree of clarity and thus

justice.

When this is done willfullyby one soul against another, it is a

grave injusticethat is called terror. When a grave injustice is

committed, miasmais formed.

I cannot stress the pain of a miasma. It fills a space. It clouds

every eye and blocks every will, and turns all love to pain.

When a space ignores a miasma, it seeps through its shadow

and causes nightmares.

When a space willinglyignores a miasma, it is builtonlies.

5.

Evil:


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Evil is simply when a bond is knowingly formed against the will.

It is when you wring a chickens neck. It is when you slap a child. It is

when you cheat, for you know the bond you form with your lover is

against your spouses will. It is when you commit murder. It is when

you enslave a person, for you know that a will cannot be owned.

That said, it is nearly impossible notto do someevil: every time

you bump people in a rush to get off the subway, every time you eat a

burger, every time you shade your friend in front of his crush, all are

small evils. If youll forgive my candor, I advise you not to beat yourself

up too much if you do some evil; after all, pain is mortal. It fades, andpeople can be forgiven. Learn from your wickedness, if you should be

wicked.

However, if you find you like the taste of wickedness more than

the taste of love, you may be truly wicked within. If so, I only advise

you candidly that wickedness depreciates in value. Your shadow, full of

its many things, thrives on the connection that othersmake to it, for it

is a gate within eternity. Through that gate value can pass: carefully

worded contracts and freely given gifts both. But when you do a

wickedness, you ensure that a gate is closed and lockedbehind you.Each time you do evil, you erase yourself a little more from eternity,

and you break one more tool inside your never-ending bag of tricks.

Atonement:

A soul that feels injustice on her head may atone. Atonement is

whatever justice the innocent demands. Should the innocent be unable


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to demand justice, atonement is whatever the guilty feels the innocent

would want. If the soul atones to the innocents satisfaction, the

innocent mayforgiveher of the injustice.

Spells

Spells are any means by which we contain, transfigure, or

destroy value through a bond. There are, I imagine, an infinite number

of them. I give you a few of the more broadly used categories, if only so

you may protect yourself against their unjust use.

1.

Falsity:

When a soul engages in a bond with another, it may induce its

partner to give love byfalsity. Falsity is the willing obstruction of

clarity.

Love passed through a false bond functions as through any other

bond. However, when the lie is revealed, all love passed will turn to

pain. This does not necessarily happen immediately; slow revelations

will slowly release pain.

2.

Correlation:

When a soul wishes to form a bond that conveys certainforms,

she may use correlation. Correlation is the use ofproximityto convey

similarity.

It is important to me that you understand correlation, because it

is used against you regularly. Anytime the news puts a word in bold or

bright colors, or plays a super serious-sounding ditty before a segment,

it uses correlation against you. You hear the super serioustune, and

you immediately think that this segment is important. And yet, there

is no real reason why anytune should convey seriousness.Music in

general is not something we use when we are in genuine danger. It

only conveys seriousness because we agreethat it does.

Correlation is a powerful and useful lens. It helps us achieve

clarity, for being able to understand the contextof a fact is important to

understanding the whole question. Correlation is any soundtrack in a

film. It is the tears on a friends face alongside her words: they help us


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understand the whole picture. It is anytime we are able to hold two

ideas in our head at once, and connect the two. In that sense, it is

useful.

It is not useful, however, when it begins to be used by predators.

The news has no reason to add a serious tune; the news story they regiving is likely serious enough. Perfume wont make you beautiful, but

perfume ads have beautiful people in them: correlation ensures that

you associate beautywithperfume. Beauty and perfume have no other

logical connection.

I advise you only to be aware of correlation when it is used

against you. Be aware of the news station that acts like every word is

vital, life-saving news; it is not. But the news station needs your love to

live, and it will dance however it thinks will trick you into loving it.

3. Contradiction:

Contradiction is when twoformsare incompatible. It can be

used to breaka form while in a bond: if Mary knows that Sue loves

both fine crystal glasses and cats, Mary can convince Sue notto get a

cat by pointing out that cats and fine crystal glasses are incompatible.

Sues love for cats may be broken by the contradiction.

Contradiction is often used to trick souls into false choices: if

you dont buy now, youll miss out,or if you dont take the guilty plea,

youll go to jail.

Contradiction is also often used to intimidate. When you go to

see a powerful executive, you have to walk through all the trappings of

his power: the beautiful building, the nice office, the well-organized

secretary, the deference everyone gives him. These things create a

contradiction in your mind, between himandyou. He is rich and

powerful, you are poor and lowly, and thus, the contradiction whispers,

you and he are incompatible, and he will break you. In this way,

contradiction can be used to create fear.

4. Logic, Ethos, and Pathos:

Logic is the use of consistently defined forms to induce, alter, or

destroy value within a bond. It is perhaps the most difficulttype of

spell, for it requires that all parties to a bond fully understand and

agree on the forms used. This theory is my attempt at using it,

although I admit that I am a novice.


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Let us say that Mary idolizes her teapot. She uses the teapot to

feel calm, and so the calm she feels from sitting down and relaxing for

a moment is associated with the teapot; she storesvalue within it.

Every time she returns to the teapot, she can reflectthat same value

back at herself; merely being around the teapot makes her feel calm.

There is no reason to associate a pot that pours hot water with calm of

the specific sort that Mary feels when she uses the teapot, and yet she

feels it. When she uses it, she contemplates calmness and tea, and her

mind wanders; she may have an insight or a flash of inspiration. The

teapot is refractingthe value she puts into it.

Many of our idols are people. Look, for example, to David Bowie

and Alan Rickman, two very talented and very well-loved people who

died this week. Their memoriestheir image, their formare not

dead. They continue to exist, and we continue to be able to access them

and the value within thembecause we know the form. Their mortalbodies are no longer there to affect the image; they cant do anything

new. But their forms live, and they hold value.

That is the difference between idolizing a dead thing and a

living thing: the value of a dead idol is steady, but the value of a living

idol stands a chance of suddenly increasing or changing in value.

As you can imagine, we make idols a lot. Nearly any form of art

is an idol. Hollywood is a securities game made of idols. If you wish, it

may help to think of an idol as a kind of checking account: you store

value in it, and when you need, you can retrieve that value. I

personally keep a number of idols, because I like to collect artwork and

tattoos.

The value in an idol is also unique. We all perceive David Bowie

differently. We perceive him from different viewpoints, and through

different lenses, and with different wills. That means that his form in

eternity is veryshadyand you will learn that gods grow in the shade.

If a mortal man casts such a well-seen and shady shadow that a god

grows, are the mans will and the gods will the same? Are they

entangled? Does one grow from the other? What happens when themortal dies?

These are questions for which I have no answers, but asking

them helps us to understand the shady areas between an idol and a

god, for many idols becomegods.


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It should be noted that an idol is distinct from a tool, which is an

object given love for its utility.

2.

Mortal Gods:

When two or more souls begin to connect through a mortalthing

other than each other, a god is born. A god lives in the shade of

memoryof every souls perception of that thing.

Simply put, if Mary and Sue start staring at a doughnut, a god

is formed. It is born the moment the two start looking at the doughnut,and dies the moment they look away. The god is theformof the

doughnut, cast onto eternity by the two wills.

That form will be, inevitably, shady. This is because Marys

perception of the doughnuts form and Sues perception of the

doughnuts form are inevitably distinct. They are looking at the

doughnut from different angles, for one. But they are also thinking

different things aboutthe doughnut; their wills are forming all sorts of

other truths and questions about the doughnut, all of which are part of

the shadow that their will casts onto eternity. The two shadows are

complex, constantly changing forms with many dimensions. There is a

space between these two forms, filled with the shadeof eternity.

Within that shade, the doughnut god is formed. It lives in the space

between Marys visionof the doughnut, and Sues vision of the

doughnut.


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A doughnut god is benign, a small, living bit of meaning full of

the joy of bickering over a doughnut with a friend. It could be less so.

Mary could fight Sue over it, and win, and associate the power she felt

with the doughnuts delicious taste. She could teach her child the

supreme satisfaction that comes from fighting for the very last

doughnut from a very exclusivebakery and winning. The form of that

doughnut will grow in her daughters soul as well; a chain of

doughnuts, family, and winning. The space between the memory of

that victory chain and her mothers memories of her own victory

doughnuts is shady, and within that shade grows the doughnut god.

He is no longer a happily shivering bit of meaning packed with the rich

value of friendship. He is now a god that lives on someone else losing.

You have to win that doughnut.

Unfortunately, most gods live on someone else losing. This is

because we live in a mortal world, and most of the time when wegather to focus our attention on an object or an idea, its so we can

survive. When we were young we made gods of wolves and bears and

things we thought might lend us fierceness. Now we make gods of our

companies, our jobs, our countries, our gods, our politics, our ideals,

and of all the little gods that we bargain with to get through our day.

Any word, thing, or idea into which souls invest common attention is a

god.Anytime people join in a group, a god is formed.

And since godsfeed on attention, anytime you start paying

attention to something else, the god dies, just a little. Thus, someoneelse has to lose, so the god can survive. This is the mortal world, after

all. Everything alive has to dance for supper.

Of course, lots of mortal gods are fantastic. We trust the god

Tide to sell us laundry detergent of a consistent quality at a consistent

price. We trust the god Starbucks to sell us coffee and sugar of a

consistent quality at a consistent price. I know I personally am a big

fan of Zoz and his torments. One of the things that makes a god

reliable and trustworthy is when they are accountable, as Tide,

Starbucks, and Zoz, the Goggled One, are. A god may certainly be fair

and just while still able to maintain a profit of attention. The degree to

which a god hidesits intent and its methods from its faithful is the

degree of its injustice.

Accountability accrues the more the god has apresence.

Presence is any awareness of the god: visible logos, patterns commonly

associated with the god, actions of the gods servants in their capacity


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as his servants. The more accountable a mortal god is, the more justit

will be. It may be accused by those who seek justice more easily, for its

name is more known, and in order to minimize these instances, it will

tend to actas justly as possible. We though

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