Ecstasy and the hated Euthanatos -
**of Note**
not to mention the “infiltrating Technomancers” who call themselves the Virtual Adepts and the Sons of Ether. In contrast, Hindu followers of the Yogis, who reject the caste system and lead lives of great austerity, are among the Tradition’s most peaceful and open-minded members.
Most Hindus in the Chorus are deeply devoted to the study of the Sphere of Prime.
Jains: Practicing a peaceful and strictly ascetic life, the Jains follow the J inas, ancient spiritual teachers, the last of whom lived around the time of the Buddha.
Their chief allegiance is to the principle of Ahimsa, non-violence and reverence for all life. They go to great lengths to prevent themselves from harming other living beings, and they follow a strict diet of foods that can be gathered without killing (such as fruits, legumes, dairy products, etc.). Although they are still located predominately in India, many of their Awakened Svetambar (white-robed) monks and nuns, as well as many of their other followers, have made their way to the Western lands to try and persuade all Tradition members to pursue their way of non-violence. Devoted to the study and purification of the human soul, the Svetambar often have great insights into the Sphere of Mind.
Mithraites: Almost forgotten outside the Chorus, the Sons of Mithras continue to honor the ancient god Mithras, the bringer of light, as a primary embodiment of the One. While most Choristers have primarily known the Mithraites as warriors and scholars, many also serve as healers, heralds, diplomats and leaders.
They place great stress on honor and protecting the weak, and they are often consulted when dealing with the Nephandi. Some Mithraites are so proud that they claim that no Son or Daughter of Mithras has ever become barabbi, but the faith‘s elders offer no comment.
Imagining the One as primarily a bringer of light, safety and protection, the Sons of Mithras, as well as independent Mithraites, often study Forces.
Rastafarians: As the newest of the faith groups whose Awakened have found homes in the Chorus, the Rastafarians are often viewed with suspicion. Some of their early leaders advocated the superiority of the black race and advocated racial segregation at the same time that many progressive Choristers were beginning C W € R TWE? H@LY TASKS, SACRED PATM W to make headway in teaching racial equality and trying to end segregation. They believe that the One, whom they call ]ah, was most recently manifest in the late Ethiopian Emperor Halie Selise, although the emperor himself was a strict Christian. Many are also associated with Ethiopian and Coptic Orthodox Churches. Their deep and newfound connection to their history, as well as their ongoing hope for the future, have led some of them to explore the Sphere of Time.
Sikhs: Although they make up one of Northern India’s largest religious groups, Sikhs rarely become Choristers. Some of their religious leaders prohibit the working of miracles or the giving of blessings or curses.
Rumors persist, however, of Awakened Sikhs who with Chorus Chantries, although ongoing tensions with the Hindus have kept them from playing a serious role in Eastern Chorus politics. Most Sikh Singers focus on the Sphere of Prime.
Sufis: Although they were identified with the Ahli-Batin traditionally, more and more Awakened Sufis especially those who find themselves in Western or Westernized lands - have been joining Chorus Chantries of late. When they come, they exchange their ancient insights for shelter and information. Rumors persist that these Sufi Choristers are the guardians of secret intellectual and material Batini treasures and that the remaining Batini are using these Muslim Singers to communicate with (or manipulate) the other ount Qaf and their inthe Spheres of Matter and Life. Sorcerers who join this They include members of monotheistic tribal groups in sisterhood often show great affinity for the Paths of Africa, members of Afro-Caribbean faiths and followConjuration, Conveyance, Healing and Summoning, ers of ancient Celtic pagan-Christian synthesis beliefs.
Binding and Warding. Few psychics are known to Those who are looking more deeply into the ancient operate within this faction. Some Choristers think that faiths of Minos, Egypt and Persia are part of this group Bat Binah may have some relationship to an ancient, as well. Many of these mystics maintain close ties to hidden group called the Lions of Zion, but nobody members of the Dreamspeakers and the Verbena. Alwould know what to make of this if it were true. though most such Choristers study the Sphere of Prime, Song of the Ancients: Founded in the early 1980s a few mentors train their students to first study the to serve as a gathering place for Choristers who were Sphere of Life. A very few others begin with the study from or studying tribal and other ancient religious of Spirit. Sorcerers affiliated with the Song of the beliefs, the Song of the Ancients is a loosely organized Ancients often study the Paths of Healing and Sumnetwork of students and practitioners who are members moning, Binding and Warding. Psychics in this faction of the Chorus. They come together once a year or so to manifest a wide variety of phenomena, although most exchange stories, information, research and insights. eventually Astral Projection.
VIGIL, They watched throughout that night and into the next day. Then they all took time to rest and prepare.
Sunday evening, they gathered again in Deb‘s study.
The were joined by two members of Deb’s cabal. They were a tall, thin blond man named Daniel Jennings (who was trained by the Sons of Mithras) and Samantha Prince (a smart-looking woman with cafe-au-lait skin and hair in dreadlocks). A man called Father Torres, a Templar, drove in from the small, rural Saint Anna Adytum to work with them as well.
Jeremiah watched as the others gathered in Deb’s living room. They brought the white sheet to represent the body of Nona, which was now buried in a pauper’s grave. Deb bent, dipping her hands in the water and blotting them on the sheet.
“This is how we love you, Nona,” she said. “For though your body is kept from us, still we wish to wash you, to enfold you and show you kindness, even though you cannot return it.” She dried her hands and stood.
Muriel moved to stand at one end of the cloth, she drew a short knife and held it before her over the cloth.
Father Torres did likewise. Dennis followed.
“This is how we love you, Nona,” said Muriel. “We have no body to guard, yet we long to stand around it and guard you as the angels want to defend your rest.”
In the smoke of the incense, Jeremiah thought he saw a face hover and flicker. A second later, it was gone.
Susannah sang a song in a language he did not know. It sounded like a lullaby. A hush fell when she was finished, then a murmur arose of voices praying in their own rites and own ways. Finally Deb spoke.
“We, Albertus, seek to bury our sister, but you keep her from us. If you keep our sister from us, we demand to know why. Show yourself and account!”
For a moment, nothing happened.
Then the lights flickered, and in the shadows, something grew darker and began to take shape.
Do you, Rebbe? Bless you, but I’ve seen your sisterhood, you know. You take more sisters than the One allots.
You never knew this one ’til she came under your care. I, on the other hand, have been watching this one for some time.
Drug user, whore, disowned, forgotten. Mene, Mene Tekel Parsin! She has been weighed in the balance. She has been found wanting. Her empire has been handed to the Medes and the Persians, and it will fall this night. Her being shall be consumed to return its tainted substance to those the One I finds stronger, more righteous, more deserving. woman was forming.
Opposite the shadow, the figure of a middle-aged C L CHCBRUS There is no one here to mourn her, no one to say the prayers for her.. . . Even she knows it. Is there anyone to mourn her passing? She’s a Jew is she not? But is there anyone to sit shiva for her? To say the prayers for the dead as her son or daughter would?
Father Torres spat, raising the knife in his hand.
The ghostly woman’s face sobbed in pain.
Strike me padre, strike the Mad Albertus who dares judge the bitch for what she is. But know this, my mark is on her spirit. She is bound to me, she has no one to care for her, to remember her. No one will claim a fucking whore.
“Sarah was sold by Abraham as a harem girl to the Pharaoh. Tamar and Rahab sold their bodies to survive.
Rachel and Leah were sold by their father to Jacob,” a quiet voice said from the back of the room. “Our mothers in faith were prostitutes and concubines and slaves, but they were chosen by the One and loved.”
Jeremiah realized that the speaker was Martha. ‘‘I am motherless. I am grandmotherless. I claim Nona as my mother.”
But you did not know her! Albertus laughed.
“I did not know my mother. I did not know all the spiritual mothers to whom I owe my faith. But in the One, they were my parents and my siblings.”
There was quiet and then Deb spoke. “My student wishes Nona bound to her, her soul to hers. Can anyone dispute her claim?”
There was a sound of air sucking in, of a shadow beginning to shriek, then Muriel’s knife flashed. She spun and thrust it into the shadows, holding it there as if pinning something to an unseen wall. The others followed suit, and Jeremiah could swear he heard the spirit scream in agony, but the sound was less like a scream and more like a memory of some terrible nightmare, now almost forgotten. The deep place in the shadows did not move, but it began to fade.
“Albertus,” Deb spoke. “Little bastard, wherever the hell you are really hiding.. , Do not come here again.
Leave the prisoners alone. I am their chaplain, I care for them, I command it. Go.”
The dark space dissolved, but for a second Jeremiah thought he heard the sound of a man whimpering.
In the smoke of the incense, the face of the woman relaxed and began to fade. Deb touched Martha’s shoulder, and Martha reached to grab the two ends of the front of her shirt, and pulled, making a single, clean, complete rip. Then Deb led her in the prayers for the dead.
It was a long week, and the traditions of mourning dictated that Martha not leave the house. Each of the others in turn came to sit with her, but Jeremiah was with her the most. Deb told them everything she could about Nona. The others sat, paid their respects quietly or held her hand as she prayed the kaddish, the prayer of mourning. At the end of the week, they all brought her out of the house and took her on the symbolic walk that ended the time of mourning.
When they returned, the others left to run errands and Martha sat alone with Jeremiah in the kitchen. She held her hand out to him and he took it. They were quiet for a very long time.
“I don’t feel the same,” she said.
“How do you mean?”
“It’s like there’s something else bound to me. Some other history, some other person now living in there.’’ She pointed to her chest.
“There is, I guess. You can see it in your aura.
There’s something else there, weaving itself around you, like your own mother and grandmother are there.”
“I think I always thought it was just words before - adopting her, I mean.”
“I guess honest words can be very powerful.”
She simply nodded and, again, there was silence.
“DO you still think your mentor was wrong to send you here?” He finally asked. She shook her head. He stood to leave the room, she squeezed his hand and let it go.
“You’ve done something good, I think,” he said as he left. She smiled at him and turned her face away. He slipped upstairs.
“You’re a sharp man, Jeremiah, I knew it when I looked at you. So you’ve probably noticed that we talked about four different idols, but only three practices to counter them with. I want to tell you now about celebration.” Deb had taken the time to let Jeremiah go about his breakfast solemnly enough. Now, it seemed, it was time for one more lesson.
“The counter to the idol of Utility is celebration.
Utility puts a worth, an absolute and finite statement of value on everything. Time, people, places, objects, all are known by what they produce. We preserve trees not because they are old and alive and beautiful, but because they give us oxygen. The One says, rather, that all of Creation has intrinsic value. That everything is cherished and nothing is despised. In its essence, we believe, the universe is a dance. The One is the choreographer, the lead. The priests of Utility have a harsh and unforgiving magic. Celebration makes no sense, to Utility only the now and immediate matters. There’s little place for dancing, for songs, for stories in the world of Utility. Celebration, it says, is about the distant past and the far away future. We celebrate our cherished victories, and we celebrate those things that we know are promised. We know the stories only second-hand.
We do not know when the promises will be fulfilled.
Utility, therefore, cannot comprehend us, and thus, ultimately, we exist outside of it.
“Jeremiah, some say the ‘magic’ of our faith is dying, that we must forget the far-gone past and take our eyes off the promised horizons. I say that the very magic of celebration is what brings those stories and promises - THE mus~c GF THE SPHERES The Celestial Chorus’s magic is not a homogenized, lock-step understanding of the world. Rather, the Chorus embraces a wide varietv of visions, the54 C L CHCBRUS the long forgotten victories, the yet unseen deliverance into now. We celebrate them not as things far away because we aren’t slaves who are bound to clocks and calendars. We celebrate them as now, and those celebrations make them so, even if just for a little while.
“Now, kiddos, Jeremiah‘s got a long drive tomorrow. They need him back up North. No, you didn’t know it yet, son, but that’s why I’m tellin’ you now.
We’re all getting up to see him off. So sleep tight.” With that, she carried her plate into the kitchen and went upstairs to bed.
Clan is said to have asked the One’s angel what her cabal should do, only to have the angel respond