The Clouds Burst: a Practical Introduction to the Magus Asterabadi

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THE CLOUDS BURST

A Practical Introduction to the Magus Asterabadi

Preface

In the dying days of a dying era we enjoy a great and ever-growing diversity of ideological and philosophical thought, and at all times see a revolution in our ways of acting and thinking. From great authors such as Rashid al-Rashid, Shihab el-Soltani, Q'tolip the Exile, and so forth, Izdu is honored by our world's diversity of thought. I would, however, contend that there is no luminary of our time more important or influential than the Magus Asterabadi. A tragedy, then, that the father of the system of pseudo-Populism now practiced in Ephia's Well today is not better known to the experiment's participants. It is a great curse that his works are so difficult to obtain, that his ideals are so badly misunderstood by the coarse and venal, and that those who might take up his cause act blindly and without the correct ideological education.

It was once said by the Magus, in his seminal Dreams of the Summer House, that the secret of liberty is to enlighten men, just as the secret of tyranny is to keep them in darkness. It is known that the Magus Asterabadi has tasked the League of White with carrying aloft the torch of liberty and true Democracy. To this end, I will correct once and for all the baleful absence of his works in the Well, and will put to the public a comprehensive, definitive, and accessible introduction to the theory and practice of the Magus Asterabadi. Let this book serve as a lighthouse in the sea of wretched idiocy and ignorance, and opportunistic revisionism, in which the sole outpost of liberty in the world finds itself assailed. Let us once and for all combat the evils of ignorance and, at the same time, book-worship and Kyprosianism.

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1. Universal Law

What distinguishes an Asterabadian from a mere radical, rabble-rouser, or Kyprosian wrecker is a systematic and coherent approach to the questions of modern society. An Asterabadian is not simply a merchant-bashing thug, but is something of a Knight-Philosopher, an anticipatory microcosm of the coming age. For any student of the Magus is not merely a dogmatist or ideological diehard, but is in truth a scholar of what is known as Universal Law. To explain:

Q'tolip the Exile, in his various theories and lectures, expounds his theories of gravitation, and his Astronomers have devised elaborate systems which govern the stars and the Disc. These truths are, indeed, verifiably correct, as demonstrated by the sublime mastery of gravity exhibited upon Eagle's Mount. In this sense, the Astronomers and disciples of Q'tolip have uncovered a facet of Universal Law, these being the Laws of Gravity, and work to expand their understanding of further aspects of this Law. Another aspect of the Law is studied by the faithful of the Wheel and the diviners of the Priory of the Sibylline Vine, who attempt to uncover and understand the natures of Providence and Fate. Recall you old Truism that we are the ones who walk in the Path of the Wheel, and also recall the proverb of the Priory: "All shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well."

All these are aspects of a single, unified system of Universal Law, the inner workings and machinations of the Wheel and the universe. The secular and faithless may see these as being derived from the architecture of the universe, while those possessed of faith may see them as products of the design of Phor and Izdu in building a world for their beloved Ephia. They arise from close observation and careful study of the behavior of the universe, and from the exercise of Izdurian reason. The latest frontier to be explored in this system is in the life and death of nations, in the rise and fall of classes, and in the progression of history. This is Asterabadianism, at its core, an inquiry into the Laws of Human Relationships. Just as surely as a stone will fall when cast from the Mount, as surely as the Wheel shall turn, shall the material conditions and developing contradictions of our present world, and its great network of human relationships, drive forward the progression of history.

Nations, states, realms, individual lives, and the development of class politics all obey certain laws of historical imperative. Freydoun Sayyad's expression "What is long united shall divided, long divided shall unite", for instance, describes one such historical imperative, that of social entropy. We have seen a concerted development throughout history, however, as the cycle has progressed. From the peace and quiet of our stay in Bel-Ishun, to the Golden Age of the Caliphate, to the gradual descent and decline and loss of social cohesion, to the present terrifying age as the Cycle nears its end. We have seen the degeneration of existing institutions, and the decay of contemporary social structures. Know that this is not an unnatural occurrence, but is a product of natural processes which shall be elaborated upon, and are manifestations of Universal Law.

Societies move through distinct stages of development with definable features and traits, which might be studied, described, and understood through the lens of reason. Our present stage is that of Civilisation. Civilisation is a broadly urbanized, developed social mode, wherein power is contested by various parties controlling social, political, and economic capital in major urban centers. Traditional leadership, such as the fair Sultan, must also contend against existing aristocrats and an ever-more influential merchant class, as well as attempt to assert dominance over the leviathan of provincial officials, courtiers, and middle-men involved in carrying out sprawling central governance from the Sublime Garden.

Civilisation is a period wherein previously established social norms, from the age of Caliphate, are eroded, and strife and struggle predominate, with the commission of many catastrophic events, here termed Abortions. It is an age where the contradictions, which have always existed, of the urban social model and the existing social fabric, begin to become heightened. It is also during this period where we see the emergence of two other factors of Law, these being Passional Attraction and the General Will.

Passional Attraction is the driving force of a person's spirit, the task for which they were first ordained during the Paradise of Bel-Ishun. As individuals cycle throughout the Wheel, their souls remain fundamentally suited to that initial purpose for which they were commissioned. During the ancient time, individuals would discover their purposes organically, and return to their intended, desired, function. As society becomes increasingly stratified and class becomes increasingly material and ossified in nature, however, individuals are barred and separated from the subjects of their Passional Attractions. Individuals are forced by the structure of society to conform to their expected roles, which are the products not of the machinations of the Wheel, but instead by the conflicting elites of the Civilized period. This produces suffering, and moreover creates social dysfunction which drives forward the progression of history and the dissolution of existing social structures.

The General Will is the collective expression of the principle of Passional Attraction. The culmination of an entire society of frustration Attractions is a General Will which promotes corrosion and entropy. An entire society of satisfied Attractions will see a peaceful, positive expression of General Will. It reflects the internal desires of all people, stated or unstated, and can be observed through study. The free, thinking peoples of our world, created as a product of Ephia's love and sustained by Phor's meticulous handiwork, are designed to aspire to the restoration of order. By the derangement of the Garden's end this tendency has, for a time, been mollified by the forces of societal development, but as we approach the end of the Cycle it has regained its strength and is able to produce frightening upsets for its power. This General Will is one of the historical forces, or rather is the culmination of the many historical forces (such as economics, religion, social development, etc.), which presently directs the evolution of the present Civilisational stage towards the next phase: Populism.

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2. Dreams of Rain

Populism refers to the approaching phase of historical development, whose early forms can be seen in today's Ephia's Well and to an extent in the Archonate of Banafsi. Populism, as a social form, answers and ameliorates many of the contradictions of the Civilisational phase, which is characterized by strife between social sections, factions, classes, and nations. The Populist phase, meanwhile, is dominated by an increasingly cooperative social mode, wherein Trustees of the entire people's virtue are elected among the entire people, and are tasked to govern not as masters, but servants, of the realm. These Trustees are tasked with the duty of developing the requisite conditions for the final phase of development: Democracy. Within the Populist phase there will remain many non-Democratic or even anti-Democratic features, as the Democratic phase requires the presence of a well-formed Demos, or the people as expressed as a functional political/social unit.

At present time, no such Demos exists. Indeed, its very form and nature may be difficult to imagine, as we are products of the conflict-driven, greedy, selfish world-spirit of Civilisation. Yet by the labour of Popular Trustees who shall emerge within our lifetimes, this may be transcended, and great projects of social engineering might be taken upon to form from the crude clay of humanity a population of Utopians fit to enter the end of history: the Ideal Republic. This is the project which is known as Political Tutelage, and is a period during which Popular Trustees shall reshape the social conditions and, with the force of the General Will in their favor, mold society to reflect the interests of the coming Demos.

Society began in Paradise as an egalitarian union of free peoples, united beneath heavenly and divine leadership. All authority was exercised by agents of the divine, and all power was, in truth, servitude. The great lesson of the Wheel is that as a matter shall begin, it shall end in the same way. A return to the original nature of society, one based in equality and mutual service, is a historical inevitability. The Ideal Republic is the mirror image of the ancient Paradise so long forgotten, and will prove to be a world-spanning confederation of all free peoples of the world. In the Ideal Republic, as in ancient time, all goods, materials, and resources will be held in common and administered for the benefit of all members of society. Democracy shall be absolute in this phase, and institutions which oppose its cultivation will wither on the vine or else find themselves reinvented and incorporated into the Democratic milieu.

This society will not be without leadership or order, but will instead prove a far more effectively structured society than any before it. All people shall engage in open Assemblies to govern themselves and their communities, and shall be entrusted with the ability to pursue their Passional Attractions. Presiding over each Assembly will be a Censor, a specially anointed individual who will spend their life in training in the highest levels of virtue, art, science, philosophy, and most vitally Faith, and who shall serve as the supreme moral authorities of their community. Each Assembly shall confederate into greater Assemblies, composed of representatives elected from each constituent society, and whos shall be overseen by more senior Censors, and so forth. The Universal Assembly shall be the supreme body of government the world over, and shall engage in public deliberations about necessary policies to enrich the public good and nourish the General Will.

The Ideal Republic will be a place without hunger, want, or war. It will be a place populated by higher beings, to whom the struggles of our time will be alien and phantasmagorical. It will be a place where all will possess the wisdom of the Sages, and where the will of the Mother will at last be realized upon the Disc. A world fit for her sacrifice.

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3. The Struggle for Bread

Yet we do not live in either the Democratic nor Populist phases. We are instead burdened with the process of overseeing the transition from Civilisation to Populism. Some sneer at such notions, and state the position that if such a transition is a historic inevitability, why then must men work to attain it? And I say that while such a movement need occur, the manner, time, and place by which this will happen is ours to decide. Men make their history, but not in the circumstances or ways of their choosing. No man is free of fate, all actions serve it.

The frustrated energy of the General Will shall, by its very nature, destroy the present form of society. Yet this destruction may be a peaceful process by which old, outmoded illusions of grandeur and distinction are put to rest, or a calamity of untold horror. The latter process has seen many anticipations throughout the course of history, furious infernos of the General Will's captive energy, known as Abortions. Such Anticipatory Abortions, which are akin to the earliest contractions of childbirth, include such tragedies as the Zojhiri conquest of Qa'im, the Qadiran Revolution, and the Sibilant Resurgence. Each of these corrodes and degrades the existing fabric of society, weakens the pillars of order, and heightens the contradictions of the age. These are the products of a society which is fundamentally at odds with its own death, and the struggles of a new to emerge from its egg, suffocating on its membrane.

The world which has been built for Blessed Ephia is not a palace, but rather a prison, to revisit an earlier illustration. She sits captive in her cell, awaiting her eventual freedom in the stars. Ephia's release is, indeed, inevitable, yet the means by which this will occur are ultimately up to her gaolers. She might be so simply freed as to release the door of her cage and unbind her limbs, such is the path of peace and cooperation. She might, instead, sit idle as the very earth quakes and sky darkens, and watch helplessly as the prison is razed around her, then simply walk free of her cell. This is the path which we presently tread, a path of great death and suffering, the path of Abortion.

It is the objective of an Asterabadian to quicken the forces of historical progress and advance the inevitable development of the Populist and Democratic phases. The foremost battlefield of this project is in Ephia's Well, and thus a program must be developed for the completion and carrying-out of the Democratic struggle against the ossified forces of Reaction therein, to prevent the commission of another tragic historical Abortion. The first and foremost measure appealing to any Asterabadian concerns the Voiced fee. Such a fee must be lowered to the maximum extent allowable, and in truth must, in the near future, be abolished in favor of citizenship on the three bases of blood, birth, and distinguished merit. Money is not a marker of worth, but rather of the accumulated products of the exploitation of society for one's own benefit, most often marking the most prolific brigands and parasites, rather than the greatest contributors.

Vital resources must be guaranteed, such as water, food, shelter, and socially-useful employment. Crumbling infrastructure must be improved. One need only look at the dirt roads our city enjoys to see that despite the long legacy of the Well as a trade hub, we have become little more than an ill-kept backwater. The roads must be paved and patrolled to provide for essential trade necessary to build up the necessary infrastructure to provide for the growing city's population. The Gutters must be restored to operation to provide the city a functional sewer system and to recover valuable resources from the ancient ruins and Machine below.  A program of public beautification, to encourage people to take pride in their communities, must be taken up to improve our citadel.

People require food, and to defend the people from their enemies they must be able to provide for themselves. The Well's agricultural capacity must be expanded, with community gardens introduced in the wasted land of the Gate of Coin, in the Palm Heights fountain, on vacant rooftops, outside the Gate of Sand, and so forth, irrigated via a restored plumbing system as part of the Gutters project. There must be running water and ample light for every home. There must be unions to govern our professions and trades, there must be free education available to children, and public workshops for our craftsmen and artisans.

Adventurers must be brought to order and made accountable through oversight, a measure suited for licensing and periodic reviews of their conduct. Major archaeological finds must be brought to the Pyramid's attention and major expeditions must be cleared with the State. Merchanting licenses are to be reduced in cost to cease the cartelistic practices of the Gold merchants, but are to instead be re-issued on a weekly or perhaps monthly basis to ensure a steady flow of income. To finance such measures as proposed here, taxes must be raised upon the wealthy, and a customs office must be established to investigate and charge dues upon foreign goods which might be produced domestically, so that we might engage in necessary internal improvements of our Well.

But the struggle does not take place merely within the political process, but outside of it. The people must grow powerful and independent. They must become organized into popular organizations and institutions of power. They must at all times be able to pressure the State and its elected representatives to follow the General Will. The key to a successful and peaceful transition to the Populist phase is this: organize!

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4. Lessons from Abroad

While we sit at the vanguard of social development, we can still look to the examples of the rest of the world for inspiration. One of the most advanced examples of historical development present in the world today is the Archonate of Banafsi. Having abandoned the bonds of tyranny, the brave people of Banafsi has embarked on a Republican experiment beneath the auspices of the Archon and Prefects, and has enjoyed a great prosperous future of integration and expansion, even under constant threat by the forces of Reaction.

I encourage students of liberty to study the model of Banafsi for inspiration. Most vitally, a few lessons might be taken. Foremost among them is the issue of security. Despite the constant threat of the Royalist menace, the Archonate survives and thrives. They have a well-ordered city, a formidable force of marines of all races, and a pious society free of religious threat. We ought to aspire to such goals, and make every effort to secure the stability of a consolidated Populist society. Let it be known that one will lead the people by reason, and their enemies by terror. The enemies of the people, such as the Orentid, Wyrm cultist, necromancer, Brooker, and Pra'raji. We look to the Gutters, once more. The Creep must be cleared, for it poses a mortal threat to the safety of the city.

Further expeditions, controlled by popular oversight, must be launched to gain strategic control of the Gutters and their secret paths, to repel the coming Qa'imi Legions. Moreover, a Triumvirate must be established, consisting of representatives of the Fourth, State, and Ulema, who shall monitor the aforementioned mortal threats to our city and coordinate preemptive action against them. This Triumvirate may cooperate with outside agencies at its discretion and should take pains to integrate itself into the fabric of society as a trusted and welcome member. Citizen volunteers must be mobilized alongside the Fourth to aid in their operations in a deputy capacity. Efforts to quash the Qa'imi and remaining Sibilant threat must be launched with every resource available.

While we consolidate the Well from outside threats, we must also work to strengthen it from within. We must have a strong, vital central government, with individuals in control possessed of great resolve. We must have a directed economy which will serve the interests of the entire people, not merely wealthy merchants and usurers. We must have a people who have a reason to take pride in their home, and a vested interest in its welfare. Everyone must do their part and participate in the development of a Popular government in Ephia's Well, so that we might flourish as an oasis in this bleak, boundless desert.

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Coda

While this tome is no substitute for a primary and direct education or exposure to the works of Asterabadi, such as Dreams of the Summer House, The Ideal Republic, or Monetarism, it provides a basic insight into an Asterabadian worldview and method of operating. The Tenets of White, noble in principle, are all too often vague. They leave those who read them wandering the mists of ideological error and tactical opportunism. They do not require adherents to assume the title of Knight-Philosopher, or New Man. Yet it is such people, such heroes of the coming gloaming, who shall be necessary.

The friends of the people and of liberty shall have to strive with their every effort, exert their very souls, in the struggle for bread. There can be no more time for half-measures, for fairweather friends, for fence-sitters. There are no neutrals in the conflict between progress and stagnation, there is no middle ground to be found between oppressed and oppressor. The lines are even now being drawn in the sand, and you will have to choose what cause you shall take as your own. Will you side with those who sneer down their nose at you, who view you as disposable, who believe your life is lesser than theirs?

Or will you join your brothers? Will you join people who would give their lives for the sake of a single truth: you deserve respect, regardless of who you are or where you come from. Will your blood mingle with that of the martyrs, and one day give bloom to a great palm of liberty?

Friends, Ephians, countrymen. Fly the pale banner. Hoist the Gyrfalcon aloft. For the day shall come when the Ephia shall rise with trumpets blazing, and you shall be at her side.