The First Church (NWO)

by kinesis

Dear Elliot:

I thought I'd send a personal note and not the usual form letter that accompanies informational requests. I was delighted to hear from you and further delighted that you remembered me. Your father and I,were great friends ever since our days of rowing crew for harvard. Let me again express my condolences concerning his disastrous reassignment to Tokyo. He did ask me to look after you and your mother. I think I even felt a little fatherly pride when you followed in your father's footsteps and joined us. And now you are a Member of the Ivory Tower I hear.... I also hear that you scored in the top 4 percentile in both Refutation and Spurious philosophy.

I understand that you are trying to put together a decision for which study group to join, I further understand that because of the Academic infighting that finding out anything about the subject matter aside from the name of the study group is like pulling teeth. It wasn't allways this way. I have some rank however, and rank does have it's perks. So I'll skip the cloak and dagger routine,after all you are family. Keep it under your hat old sock.

Our study group is dedicated to the study of the usefulness and potential power of religion. As my good friend Clayton Eberhard stated so eloquently to the Ivory tower council so long ago "at present, we have no method to eradicate the tendency towards emotion,mysticism and religious seeking in mankind. What cannot be eradicated must be made to serve!"

You must understand that at the time of the industrial revolution when we were formed, the technocracy had taken a number of serious defeats at the hands of the Celestial chorus and the Dreamspeaker Luddites. Religion and a return to natural values were standing in the way. Rather than fight them directly and make martyrs of them we decided to Infiltrate and destroy them from within by destroying that which gave them power....Faith.

Make no mistake, Elliot, There is not one of us that believes in god, No matter what you have been told by other jealous study groups. Faith is a tool to manipulate the beliver and create cynicism in those who do not believe.

Emotion is not a tool of Cognition and is thus a tool of those who are Cognitive. C.G. Jung understood it best and even though he is out of fashion with other I.T. professors, his statement that "a man is controlled by his symbology, Control the symbols, and you control the man." has allways rung true.

God is what you make it. There is even Cosmological research provided by the void engineers to support this in a literal sense instead of a figurative sense.

There are a few basic tenets to our Group that are the practical basis of our "faith"

1. Suppress that which is natural: Naturalistic faiths eventually lead to greater numbers of dreamspeaker,ecstatics,Akashics and Verbena. Naturalistic faiths also point up the shortcomings of the societal mores and political movements that we create. The practical application is to teach abstinence, self denial and mortification, and emotional and spiritual repression. also the utter slander of other faiths is absolutely neccessary to our work.

2. We are the mind of God: A professor of the first church uses the bible the way the virtuals use a computer. to create reality. We are the decision makers for our flock,since there is no god. eventually sin and Crime will be one and the same. eventually we will be the sole creators of what is right in society. Emotion can be more important than logic in the minds of the flock. Emotion is much easier to manipulate than logic.

3. Faith is a Double edged Sword: Our mission is two-fold. To create an army of believers and to create an even bigger army of people who can't believe in anything. Our mission is to control faith until we find a means of making it obsolete. (Doesn't make for a lot of job security,but there you go...) The practical end of this is the fostering of militantcy and hypocrisy,and again, the slandering of other faiths, in recent years we have found that making ourselves look ludicrous to the outsiders has been very useful and it allways hurts the celestial chorus. Coincidentaly "finding" satanic lyrics in records and sometimes highly publicized scandals can work wonders. Oftentimes we have found that we can fool Cult of Ecstasy mages into creating a scandal involving one of our puppets. Even better is when the Celestial chorus finds themselves in the unenviable position of trying to stop the Cultists. Inter-necine warfare almost allways breaks out.

4. There is no Supernatural world: The supernatural world is inherently dangerous to our cause. There are no such things as Vampires,Werewolves,Ghosts,faeries, Demons,angels,or other beasties. Anyone who sees such is obviously delusional or a religious hysteric. the practice of Magick is expressly forbidden as this is more temptation to follow the "Devil" Those who expirience that which is outside our established norm are either delusional, being "tricked by satan" or in extreme circumstances they are "sinners". Be on the lookout for signs of actual faith in your parishoners. Spontaneous faith healing and Glossolalia. These people are individualist and egomaniacs and such tendencies must be crushed and crushed quickly.

5. God wants Order: as do we all. Individualism and non-conformity are a form of heresy, to not accept the word of "god" in all things is to blaspheme. Naturally,we have stolen a page from the celestial Chorus's book on this. or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that we have re-written it,or mistranslated it, or perhaps decided that it wasn't exactly Canon, if you take my meaning....

6. We are the First Church: There are no other churches before us. Just as the the Celestial Chorus decided that time before the birth of their nailed -up savior was unimportant and effectively backwards. We find that the faithfull will believe that all churches have sprubg from us.

7. Do Good, But do good Efficiently: We enjoin ethical and moral standards on our flocks,but these standards must be rigorous and efficient. it is wrong to give charity to the bum on the street, he will not make himself better, he will only use it to make himself worse. it is right to give to the Church because it funds our purchases of real estate,guns,missionary work in africa and the like.

8. Sometimes God demands Action: Whether its personal or politcal. A lynch mob can be directed against another church,pagans, and serial killers, not to mention drug addicts and sex fiends. we are against abortion and capital punishment. ( it hurts the euthanatos) we are against Unrestrained pleasure in all its forms( music,dancing,drugs,sex,games, and whatever else, these hurt the ecstasy cultist and the verbena) we are against religious unity on the grounds of compromising our doctrine ( a dig at the celestial chorus) we are against religious freedom that contravenes law ( we took peyote away from the native american church, and we have used prosecution in the past to bring the christian scientists and the orthodox jews to heel at the feet of our progenitor friends.) But yet we have also espoused the idea that the state is flawed and that at times it is necessary to break the law in the name of "god" . perhaps if the Church and state were no longer separated....

9. Individualism is a sin of the Highest order: Individuals are afflicted with the sin of pride and they do not and cannot create order,only chaos. Only groups, led by a few, can create a perfect society.

Methods of Operation

Often, the best way to operate is either in the shadows or out in plain sight. It used to be that we could operate from the utter safety of a Seminary. We could mold the minds of young theologians, form the basis of their belief, Be their mentor in all things and in that way gain a huge amount of indirect influence. Instead of one church we could have influence over dozens.

However, this method has weaknesses. because the control is indirect, it is unreliable and subject to subversion from Tradition Philosophers. We still have our seminaries and they still create the basis of the philosophical beliefs that many of the believers hold, but we have had to work on a more direct form of control.

Pursuit of academic work within the First Church now take a backseat to fieldwork. Anthropological fieldwork is similar, as is Missionary work. One must go among the savages...

Often, a Minister goes out and starts a church. Sometimes, especially in the case of a Tele-evangelical ministry a puppet figure head is used. sometimes this is the original proposition and sometimes the puppet's ministry is co-opted later. We target the rich and the upper middle class. they allways have the most power,access, and infuence. We recruit like minded individuals and use our informal contacts as an invisible intelligence network. We learned this from the best. the Celestial chorus has been doing it for centuries.

Also in the last couple of decades, we have found that we can create cults of varying strengths. This was started as an experiment in the 1960's due to a profound loss of belief among young people. It has long been known that groups can form around one magnetic individual. often these groups have no written text of belief(such as the bible) to draw on. Their only source of Dogma is the Guru in question. As you well know,this frees the Minister to create Dogma as he goes along. it is simple to use brainwashing techniques to convert even the casually interested into the most rabid of Believers. These cult seem to be our only inroads into religions overseas. eastern philosophy is utterly incomprehensible and often we have come up losers against it.

However, Sung myung Moon is one of us. and the Moonies are in the Airports for a reason.

Cults and suchlike are generally the province of those Ministers who are working in the midwest.

Generally, the aim of a church is to become influential in the molding of it's surrounding community. this can be done through extortion,bribery,psychological tactics and in some rare cases, armed conflict. once the surrounding community has been influenced then the community can be "immunized" against threats to the Paradigm.

Primary sphere: mind

Foci

Mind/entropy - Public speaking, Subliminal induction

Prime/Spirit - Sanctuary

Matter/Life/Forces(heavily frowned upon) - Holy symbol.

Correspondence/Time - Study,"feeling the spirit".

Rotes

Like seeks like: (mind 2 and/or entropy 2 and possibly time 2 as well.)

The Minister sets up a field of sympathetic vibration around himself or around his church. This field senses those people who are sympathetic to the aims of the church or individual in question. The field itself is the main effect. sometimes drawing in people that wouldn't ordinarily come into a church. When the field is in sympathy with an individual that individual will feel drawn in. sensing a "rightness" about the feeling. the field can also cause coincidental effects to draw people in such as a sudden downpour or a flat tire. the Time element of this rote is solely for the purpose of giving the minister the ability of making a flawless first impression. ( "well I happen to be through teaching these children, so I guess I've got some time to talk..."

And the spirit moved upon him: (Mind 2)

this simple rote greatly magnifies the natural Oratorical abilities of the speaker by giving him great presence. ( often accomplished through the use of Subliminal signals.) Each success on the magick roll decreases the difficulty for any persuasion or oratory based skill by one.

Casting bread upon the waters: (Prime 4 and sometimes Spirit 3)

While in the Sanctuary, a Minister may manipulate spirits and Prime freely. The proceedure entails the mage emptying his avatar of Quintessence and having it's power magnified and returned to him. for each point of Quitessence dumped in this manner the user may regain 3 from siphoning off the belief of his parishoners. Only Avatar Q can be used in this manner. Still, this can used as an efficient way to gather Tass. The spirit element of this rote should not be performed in plain sight as it entails apportioning tass to spirits in exchange for whatever information or services they can provide.

The seeker's path to truth: (entropy 5)

By simply speaking to someone the Minister may cause them to doubt everything they've ever been told. while this can eventually cause a coma (and in some rare cases elightenment) among sleepers, it is much more dangerous to mages as it can drive them into quiet or temporarily rob them of Arete. for each success on the magick roll subtract 1 from the target mages Arete. Powerful ministers can reduce other mages to sleepers, sometimes permanently, as the mages ability to believe in himself erodes.

Negative Vibrations: (mind 3)

Creates a field of psychic static with subliminal messages that predict failure. While this doesn't prevent magick,per se, It does make it nearly impossible to concentrate. For each success on the magick roll, a minister can add 1 to the difficulty of any task requiring concentration. this includes magick,hedge magick,thaumaturgy, and many other form of Magick use. Individuals with Concentration or Iron Will as merit can mitigate this somewhat.

Nothing new under the sun:(time 2 and entropy 2)

By pointing out a biblical or historical example, the Minister may Predict future events and in some ways manipulate them as well.

Will no one rid me... (mind 2 or 3)

Basically, this rotes enables a Minister to manipulate his parishoners into taking a desired course of action while publicly saying nothing of the sort. The minister must give a short sermon that might have something to do with the target. all the while planting subliminal subtext. Later, when people talk about it, they get the bright idea to trash the Verbena's forest all by themselves.

Ultimate Authority (mind 2)

Any person affected by this rote will find themselves seriously affected by symbols of Authority. A white collar,a police badge, even traffic signs will cause the target to obey unless they spend willpower,and make a willpower roll against an 8.

Put your trust in god ( mind 4)

Cause the target to be unable to consider things intellectually and thus will become extremely emotional. this can be modified with other effects but is the basis of most 1st church brainwashing.

Revealation (mind 4 time 2)

Often used to create a manchurian candidate or two, this rote causes the target to have a "vision" time is used to predict future events and then the Target is "edited" into the vision. People who have had these visions are unable to speak about them without a willpower check against a 9.

The rudiments of church magick

Emotional belief is a powerfull force not just in terms of how it affects one physiologically, but how it affects the brainwave patterns. Church magick taps into this power through the use of Logical dogma,extremely precise public speaking,Hypnosis,and subliminal broadcasting. over time as the community becomes aware of a minister, they become more and more acclimated to listening to him until he hardly has to use Technomagick at all.

Mind:Simply talking to people is how most Ministers get work done. Often technomagickal apparatus become superflous over time, but many young ministers are capable crowd controllers and hypnotists. Also there is a bewildering array of subliminal transmitting apparatus and implants available.

Entropy: This ties into the belief factor. Since the Minister is an authority figure all he really has to is predict the success or failure of an enterprise and sleeper belief will cause it to come to pass.

Correspondence: Most upper level correspondence effects elude our field of study. however we can generally plausibly use effects up to level 2 by observing,being well read, guessing right, and the occasional "vision".There have been instances when miraculous events were capable within the logical framework of our convention. there have of course been a few catholic saints who were able to be in two places at once.

Time: again many of the upper level effects elude us without borrowing further technological enhancement. however a combination of being percieved as wise,studying history,and again, belief in authority can enable a minster to scry through time without awkward questions from the faithfull.

Prime:Prime energy(percieved as spiritual enegry) can be quantified and manipulated in plain sight of the sleeper. This biochemical emotional response can be caught and distilled into pure tass. thanks to our friends in the progenitors.

Spirit: our ace in the hole. Spirits can be used to spy,to influence sleepers when they are not under our direct supervision and they can be usefull policemen and bodyguards in the Ascencion war. often these Biochemical Engrams can be captured and used or simply bargained with as a Minister desires.

Life: Faith Healing is definitely frowned upon by our study group. Wounds can "appear" to be worse than they are but this dodge cannot be pulled all the time. Often however a usefull pawn can be rehabilitated through a "combination of Sweat,Hard Work,Determination, Faith and Prayer." It is a little easier to laugh at the trials of an enemy who has constant problems with injuries and illness. ("maybe Somebody's trying to tell him something, brothers and sisters.")

Forces: Miracles involving forces are nearly impossible to deny. while usefull for personal defense against supernatural forces they are a threat to the paradigm and should only be used in extremis. When a Minister is reduced to using such "miracles" often he has to leave whatever post he has spent so much time preparing.

Matter: Again, as above.