Despite this storyline taking place mostly in Shepperton off the Thames, United Kingdom, it is entirely written in Moss Park, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
I am Brian Joseph Johns and this is Shhhh! Digital Media at https://www.shhhhdigital.com or https://www.shhhhdigital.ca in Toronto, Ontario, Canada at 200 Sherbourne Street Suite 701.
[Spellbound - Siouxie And The Banshees]
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Chapters
- The First Session (Finished January 2, 2026 EST)
- Forever Live. Forever Die. (Finished Janurary 6, 2026 EST)
- Museum, Memorium And Theurgy (Finished January 8, 2026 EST)
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I'd like to point out that it was the incredible Gary Sinese Foundation that brought the issue of Veteran's rights to my attention. I've always had little respect for those who'd forget the great contribution made by those who've risked life and limb to defend those values that so many of us espouse. Perhaps the true measure of one's principles are by that for which they'd risk their life.
"None can speak more eloquently for peace than those who have fought in war."
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Because Barris told me to put it here. If I didn't, he said he'd walk. Geez. Stardom really gets to some people's heads. Maybe I could kill him and bury his heart beneath the floor boards! Or I could encase him in behind a brick and mortar wall, for shaming my family name of Amantillado!
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Shhhh! Digital Media
Brian Joseph Johns
Shhhh! Digital Media Presents:
Tales of the Sanctum: Era of the Spellbound - Episode 9: What Faust Hath Found
by Brian Joseph Johns
The First Session
On the floor before them lay a carefully painted circle, born of paint that Mila had specifically mixed for its colour and reflectivity, though the shade of the circle itself was white for all intense purposes.
There within was a carefully crafted pentagram, whose five points aligned to the points on a compass, with the tip of the pentagram pointing northward and towards the star Polaris. The pentagram itself was painted with red paint, made from the same reflective material as the white.
At each of the points of the pentagram were a series of concentric circles each of whose five colours reflected the shade of differing elements, with each colour representing multiple significance with regard to the origins of such symbol.
At each point in the pentagram were situated five candles, each one representing one of the five stations of the pentagram throughout their various origins. The candles were wide bodied and slow burning, and flickered gently in the darkness of Mila's basement.
The walls too were covered in symbol, though nothing there upon the walls ever repeated. Not even once. However, it still held a sort of cohesion. Of self-similarity by way of style and design, that spoke volumes about the artist more so than the symbols there scribed upon the walls. Embossed in the form of a thick oil paint, and whose shadows moved in the candle light.
Mila sat at the point of the pentagram and its northern-most tip. To her right was Shaela and to her left was Nelony. The two sat facing their own corresponding points of the pentagram, Shaela's being that of an orange hue, while Nelony's was that of green.
Beside Nelony (to her left) sat Neville, the point of his pentagram of a yellow tone, while beside Shaela and to her right sat Wes, whose element colour was blue.
"All of the candles are lit... what's next?" asked Mila of Nelony, who within her lap held an old book, written upon wax embalmed papyrus and bound in a woolen cover crafted from goat's fleece.
"...can you tell me what that might be?" Nelony carefully passed the book to Mila, who examined the line pictographs in question.
"...it mean to hold? as in one's hands?" Mila examined the pictograph, trying to make heads or tails of it.
"Let me see it..." Shaela reached for the book, which Mila then handed to her.
"Its not hands, its the alchemical symbol for shield. To protect, but because its preceded by this symbol, which is probably what she meant as to hold close, the pair of symbols means to cherish or sanctify one's offerings..." Shaela explained to them, attempting to pass the book back to Mila.
" Why don't you keep it then, and act as our interpreter?" Nelony asked what she'd initially asked them before they started their first session.
"Because we agreed that I was going to act as the keeper of protections. So far, I'm the only one of us as far as we know, who's traveled beyond this plane of existence and lived to tell about it..." Shaela justified her claim over her tasking.
"Susan slash Miana too. She... they've been beyond this plane. Miana has been to many from what I gather of her ramblings," Nelony responded.
"But we, of our circle. The ones who've been chosen to rebuild this thing of which we have little or no idea, are the ones who must do it, and I believe that it is in our best interests if I act as the holder of protections. The one who keeps us against outside threats from beyond..." Shaela defended her position and role within their coven.
"But we need a translator, and you seem to have a natural knack for the symbols... far more so than I?" Nelony argued her point.
"I have a solution. I'll handle the translations. I am an artist and I have a degree in interpretive symbolism. I've just never seen symbolism like this before. Its definitely of an esoteric nature, preceding modern pictographs, though it does share slight symbolism with Middle Eastern, and Oriental alchemical graphs, and if I took it even further, I can see origins going back to Kanji and pre-Kanji symbols. I just need a few weeks with this book," Mila looked to Nelony, who nodded in agreement.
"Fair enough. That leaves me then as...?" Nelony asked Mila.
"Ambassador of natural affairs," Neville suggested.
"That's brilliant. It always astounds me how one moment you can be a complete and utter arse, and the next you come up with a selfless appreciation of your fellows like that," Wes responded to Neville, though no jealousy intent as much so as truthfulness.
"Uhhhh. Thanks, I think..." despite Neville's sense of wit, some of Wes' better cloaked insinuations often got in beneath his radar.
"I'm feeling a bit warm right now," Nelony fanned her face with her hand, smiling at Neville.
"Good. If I need guidance, I'll be turning to you for it. I think the important thing is that we have to work together," Mila summed it all up.
"And your interpretation of the symbols then?" Shaela asked her.
"Its as you said. These two symbols together indicate the sanctifying of an offer. We've all put something in the circle of great meaning to us, and symbols are nothing without meaning. They are the empty husks and shells that some mistakenly worship absent of meaning. Putting the symbol ahead of meaning. We're to give six minutes of contemplation, before we start and after we've finished a session. We must contemplate the importance and meaning of our offerings, and the place they hold in the overall picture of what we're trying to achieve, this temple of whatever it is that we're creating..." Mila explained to them.
"Very well. Let us begin the six minutes of our contemplation... Six. One for each of the stars of the constellation Lyra. Take the hands of the people to your left and right," Mila smiled, taking Shaela's and Nelony's hands in her own.
They closed their eyes and contemplated the meaning of their offerings, which each in essence were something connected to people they cared about greatly. People they'd known. People they'd lost. People who in the greater scheme of things were essential to the people that they'd each eventually ended up becoming and people who were important to what they were trying to achieve.
When the six minutes were at an end, as signified by Mila's mechanical music box chimes, they released each other's hands and began their session.
"We, the Wytches of this temple, do hereby begin this session of the night, seeking to bring wisdom and knowledge to our conduct and hope to the future, so that we may use our abilities for the betterment of this Earth, and the lives thereupon," Mila spoke both for and as them.
"Our first order of the night should be to formalize what it is that we are called," Shaela suggested.
"True. We've just sanctified our first session in honour of those who inspired us to such ends. Let us give it a name so that it becomes what he hope it to be," Nelony agreed.
"Sanctified it? That's a good start. We could call ourselves the Sanctifiers?" Neville suggested.
"Sounds too zealous, and too imposing of ideas and beliefs," Shaela responded.
"Sanctify means to make sacred. To be of worth and importance greater than oneself alone," Wes explained to them.
"Then what is the Latin for a sacred place?" asked Nelony.
"Sanctum," Shaela responded.
"Does it have to be Latin? I mean, aren't we imposing some kind of stigmatic disposition of ownership or empire upon this if we use Latin?" asked Nelony.
"True, some might be offended and immediately make assumptions about it," Neville reminded them.
"So you're saying that you'd never trust a Doctor because the entire etymology of anatomy and ailment in Western medicine is named via the Latin language?" Wes grilled Neville.
"No! I'm just saying that some might see it as authoritarian," Neville pushed his point.
"That's what it is to worship the symbol, before its meaning. A stigma that is arrived at by completely ignoring its meaning, and only taking into consideration its outer shell. Assuming that because its Roman of origin, that its an empirical attempt at secret authority. That's discarding the meaning, and idolizing the symbol. That's what we want to avoid," Mila explained to them, having spent many hours contemplating the meanings hidden in her artwork and how it might be both praised or prejudiced as a result of the difference between symbol, and meaning.
"I like Sanctum. It literally means a sacred place or sacred idea," Wes backed up the idea.
"I agree," Mila nodded in approval.
"I don't. I think we're discarding an entire idea by embracing something that could potentially be signified as authoritarian," Neville folded his arms.
"I like the meaning, but I sort of see Neville's side. We have to be cautious. What's in a name? Everything, if we're going to be confronting the kind of ignorance that arises from those who act on the stigma of symbol without the knowledge of its meaning. We have to choose carefully, because we want to minimize that effect initially so that people don't just automatically distrust us," Nelony explained to them, perhaps more capable of fulfilling Neville's perspective than was he.
"That's two and two. Shaela? What do you think?" asked Mila of Shaela.
"I'm descended from the same people as Boudicca. Isn't it apparent? We were essentially eviscerated by authoritarians, and yet, somehow through it all into what we became, we maintained the origins and dignity of our ancestors, proving that empire isn't always erasing its own tracks, though there are some people and ideologies nowadays who are erasing their tracks and others from history, who have yet to be held accountable. We as a people still exist within our society, and that is sacred to me. I like Sanctum. It protects the idea of that which is sacred to us all. A common to us, we who live upon this Aerth, as we so used to refer to this world of ours," Shaela gave her nod of approval and that of the Welsh, who at one point in distant history were the enemy of the Romans.
"Are we in agreement?" Mila turned to Nelony, and then cautiously to Neville, who folded his arms as if he were protecting a resentment within himself.
"I think Shaela' argument in support of Sanctum is pretty convincing, and though I can see Neville's perspective quite clearly, I think that it might be clinging to the very ignorance that we're trying to undo," Nelony looked to Neville with a gentle smile, perhaps pleading with him.
"Alright. What choice do I have then but to go along with you," Neville spoke in a chiding manner.
"Do you, or don't you? We all have to be in agreement about this, though we have the right to go forward with the majority. We're only doing this because we respect your input to this and if we can't solve it here, how can we solve anything out there?" Mila reminded him.
"My parents grew up in a west London neighbourhood where there'd be fights every day between the Catholics and the Protestants. My parents were devout Protestants, and held a lot of angst against Catholics and a lot of other people and religions as well. But us, we were always perfect. Like someone or something was always stoking the flames of conflict and keeping us on edge. When they tried to explain it to me, I couldn't understand. I only knew that if I let the Catholics win for the day, that I'd be less the son of my parents and more the heel. Like I'd let the family down, and that has stuck with me for my entire life so far. So this idea of letting Latin win the name of this thing we're making... It just... hurts! I know its not right, but it hurts..." Neville responded to Mila, looking to Nelony, Shaela and Wes each in turn.
"Like you're the only one? We went through the same too any time we went to Church. If it wasn't the Protestants, then it was the Muslims or the Jews... the Buddhists and Taoists... The Atheists and Agnostics... It was always something, but it was never us. Until one day, I confronted someone in our Church about it. Told him I didn't want to hear it anymore. He left me with a black eye, and I never went to Church ever again. We can't have these kinds of problems if we're really going to do this, and that means that we have to be better, and we have to ensure that whoever we bring into this are better. Not taking advantage of the fact that we've got these standards, and tricking us into breaking them to make themselves look like perfect angels and vice versa. Making sure that we protect ourselves against those secretly trying to stoke the flames of conflict, and they're out there. We all know that now. That if we create something, and they stoke us to react in a way that contradicts that, it no longer belongs to us. We have to protect ourselves against that, and make others aware of it and the impostors doing that. Like Mila said, putting the symbol ahead of its meaning. We have to rise above that, so that issues of religion and belief are not barriers and we are able to deal with each other on the basis of our mystery and mysticism as a people. Of the things of this universe that we're trying to understand, in the harmony of those myriad ways, towards the ends of a future. Of peace... " Wes explained to them, clearly as passionate about a solution as was Neville, despite their being on opposite sides of the fence from each other in terms of the origins of their beliefs.
Wes being Catholic and Neville being Protestant.
"...of a Sanctum... Seclorum," Mila suddenly realized their destiny.
"...a Sacred place of the Secular," Shaela translated for them.
"...for the people of the Aerth," Nelony added her touch, borrowing from Shaela's namesake for the planet Earth.
"Wasn't this the same name that Miana mentioned?" Neville spoke, recalling details with his selective memory.
"What? You mean Sanctum? Sanctify? Sanctified Seclorum?" confirmed Shaela.
"Sanctum Seclorum was the term that she used," Neville reminded them of the night they'd spent from the moment that Miana had unraveled.
"If we've come to the same conclusions that this Sanctum she mentioned had long since arrived at before it was vanquished... Then doesn't that mean we're on the right track?" Mila responded.
"Or it could mean that we're on the wrong track, and following a trail that could lead to the same fate!" Neville reasoned.
"At the races, does a horse question their path before the starting gate opens?" Nelony asked the gathering, with an insightful bit of rhetoric.
"Nelony's right. We're still in the gate, and second guessing ourselves. We've decided upon a name..." Wes began.
"...and therefore by implication, a purpose. A method to our pursuit..." Shaela added for Wes, looking to him and showing ever so slight the hint of a smile.
"Right. Alright. So you're saying that we shouldn't consider these things and that we should cover the next issue in our agenda?" Neville turned to each of them as he spoke.
"...we should make note of it. We should be making notes of everything we discuss..." Nelony suggested.
"We should be recording it for crying out loud!" Wes added, leaning back on his rump and fishing his cellular phone out of his pocket.
"We could start like this, and next time I'll bring a proper mixer and recorder..." Wes assured them as he navigated the menu on his phone and found the sound journal app.
"So this is what its like to figure out how to be a grown up?" Shaela said to them, winking towards Mila, who got it immediately and returned a smile.
"We are grown up. Just lacking a little experience. That's all," Nelony assured them.
"So, getting back on track here. We've formalized and agreed upon our name and purpose. The next issue we need to address is the issue of the frequency of our meetings. The how and why of them," Mila read from the list they'd prepared.
"I thought we'd agreed that we'd have regular meetings, at least once a week," Wes reminded them.
"That's still the plan, however I think what Mila's alluding to is that we have to consider special situations where we need to meet and discuss our plans and options," Shaela responded to Wes, who nodded agreeably.
"Makes sense. One of those things from Shaela's shadow world suddenly shows up in Piccadilly Circus, which might require us to hold an emergency meeting to come up with a plan of action," Wes responded thoughtfully.
"What if we don't have time for a plan?" Neville countered, rounding out their pertinent considerations for just such a hypothetical situation.
"We need a protocol that defines the circumstances under which we hold a meeting, and the circumstances under which we immediately act and improvise. Preferably enough so that we're not fumbling aimlessly or looking to each other for a decision," Nelony suggested, considering the hidden aspects of as much.
"Well obviously that should be something we handle according to need, like when Miana showed up and decided that she was going to kidnap Happiu~isuka. We handled that without a meeting," Shaela responded, preferring action rather than contemplation when it came to immediacy.
"Yes, but don't forget, a meeting might mean having a short huddle together like they do at the rugby games. It doesn't always mean us pulling a day timer from our trousers and scheduling a talk next Thursday over tea," Nelony reminded them.
"Since when have you been into rugby?" asked Neville of Nelony skeptically.
"Ever since I noticed their buns. Errr... I meant their hot dogs and buns. Errr... to eat? At the stands? They have a lot of great food at the game you know," Nelony blushed as she desperately navigated a treacherous minefield of sexual innuendoes, drawing Neville's jealousy in the process.
"I'm sure they do..." Neville grumbled.
"Are we in agreement about the creation of a protocol we follow depending upon the urgency of a given situation in which we might be required to intervene?" Shaela confirmed with them.
"I certainly think that's sound reasoning. We'll certainly know better when we see it put into practice," Wes gave his input and support for the proposition.
"Me for one, I'm all for the action rather than the planning. By the time we've talked about it, it might be too late," Neville argued.
"And that's precisely the reason for a protocol. Our decision as to whether to meet or act immediately is determined by the threat and its immediacy. I support it," Nelony agreed.
"I completely support the idea of action over discussion, but its obvious that we need to look at the bigger picture, and sometimes that might mean a plan before we pursue if you understand my meaning? I support the protocol idea," Shaela gave her thumbs up.
"Neville? Care to reconsider?" asked Mila before she gave her verdict.
"Oh, alright. But I hope that this doesn't just turn into us disappearing into Mila's rec-room for tea every time there's a crisis that could benefit from our assistance. I'll give her one for the protocol," Neville agreed.
"All of you have stated the reasons why this is a good idea, and I'm fully in support of it, so I'll put that one down as having been ratified," Mila put a checkmark beside that item in their list and moved to the next.
"Now, the issue of our progression in these arts in which we're supposed to be learned. We've yet to meet another who is of skill and credibility..." Mila began.
"Except for Miana..." Neville pointed out.
"And me..." Shaela put in for herself.
"Yes, but you can't reproduce the effects you've already experienced. The interdimensional doorways. The summoning of other-worldly things. You've been a conduit for such things, but not yet a conductor thereof," Nelony reminded her best friend.
"None of us have, and yet we all exhibit the sensitivity to this aether thing to which Miana referred..." Mila brought to Nelony's attention.
"Miana knows these things. She can reproduce them at will, and don't forget that she's not even operating from within her own body. She's a... stowaway as she put it, in someone else's. Same with Glynis and that golem thing... Gallea..." Neville once again brought up Miana.
"She's not a thing! She's someone who was created without biology, by parents who clearly loved her as much as they'd have loved their own daughter!" Mila spoke up defensively for Gallea, considering that the culture of her own mother embraced ideas that attributed consciousness to even the most seemingly inanimate of things in this world.
"Yeah, like the Curtain Call Cookie Boy. I mean, that's proof right there that even cookies have feelings!" Neville joked with Mila, with the slight edge of cruelty in his voice in reference to a character created by the advertisers of Curtain Call Cookies, a popular brand of cookies and tea biscuits in the United Kingdom.
"Which brings up another issue. You do realize that if they're ever found out, Miana and Gallea, that it would likely be the end of Susan Gardener's career with the school board and could put Glynis at risk of permanent supervised care for the rest of her life?" Wes brought up the risks associated with the stowaways their friends were harbouring.
"Not only that, but can we really trust Miana? I mean, sure, she has proven her ability to craft..." Shaela began only to find herself interrupted by Nelony.
"...you mean weave..." Nelony corrected her.
"...I meant WEAVE this aether thing into the effects that we've already seen, but if she ever taught us, could we truly be certain that what she's teaching us is correct, or in our best interests or even with our safety in mind?" Shaela asked them all.
"That's right. She even admitted that she'd walked the other path, against the original Sanctum. How do we know for certain that she isn't just using us as part of their plan to get rid of us once and for all?" Nelony suggested to them.
"If they wanted you three gone, they'd have done it already," Neville folded his arms across his chest where he sat on the floor, the candle before him casting an eerie light upon his face.
"I agree with Neville's observation. They've most certainly demonstrated their ability to remove us from existence if need be..." Mila asserted given the evidence.
"Maybe we're under protection by something else? I mean the thing that protected me, took down more than a few of the top tier predators in that shadow world I described to you," suggested Shaela.
"It protected both you and Miana. Remember?" Neville reminded her.
"That does seem circumspect..." Nelony agreed with Neville's caution for once.
"What about Katsura? She said that those of her kind would be watching, and they seemed to possess otherworldly abilities. Remember?" Mila reminded her friends and peers.
"Are you suggesting that they're protecting you three, or are willing to teach you?" confirmed Neville.
"Why not both?" Shaela responded.
"No. Katsura warned us not to delve into the matters of the people and places of the previous Sanctum. Of the old Japanese fellow. The store keeper, or his employee. They're gone, into the eternal ripples cast upon the waters of history or so she said," Mila recalled their conversation with the otherworldly woman.
"And like ripples in any body of water, their echoes will remain for eternity. Its like the science of waves... Don't you remember from Mrs. Trufflebury's class?" Wes reminded them.
"We have no proof or idea if this aether is like water, or if it exhibits qualities that would make it like the memory of the universe," Nelony reasoned.
"Mrs. Trufflebury might be able to figure it out. She did agree to help us..." Wes responded defensively.
"She's a science and math teacher, not a thawer of the aether crafts..." Neville responded.
"Thawer? You mean a thaumaturgist... of the theurgy. This is the science of magic, not of ice or snow!" Nelony corrected Neville.
"Whatever it's called, she's not one of them. Miana is. I suggest we approach Miana for the task of teaching you three," Neville made clear the direction that he intended to take this item on their list.
"Not without Mrs. Trufflebury. We need an objective perspective... an insight of expertise into this phenomenon that might actually help us to develop a means to progress under an educational regimen and curriculum. One that could be used to give it an heir of credibility... to bring more people on board eventually..." Wes indicated where his supports for their future education lay.
"Our goal is to create the foundation from which to expand this by bringing people representing different ideas from different parts of the world together, to work together with their understanding of the sciences and mysticism, without the social weight and tyranny of zeal and without the requirement of their having to discard their most sacred traditions. It is only implied that what we've done thus far, and by all the items on this list, that the goal Wes just indicated is our intended destination," Mila nodded her head in agreement.
"Then we need to progress and quickly, lest this thing get out of our hands and into someone else's whose intent might not be so peaceful and purposeful as ours..." Shaela became impatient with the urgency of what must be done.
"Then we're in agreement that we need to work with Miana and Mrs. Trufflebury to advance our knowledge and understanding of this weave. For Mila, with her abilities in the arts. For Shaela, with her abilities and introspection into shadows, and for I with my connection to the natural world and nature's own, so that we may protect this Sanctum Seclorum between us, and expand it by bringing others on board, upon their consent and willingness to be a part of it," Nelony summed up that which was implied by that item on their list.
"I agree with exactly how Nelony put it," Mila nodded approvingly.
"As do I. It does seem that we're under something's protection, whether it be this mystery thing of the shadows that saved me, or under the protection of Katsura and her kind..." Shaela agreed.
"Well put Nelony. I couldn't have said it better. I'm on board with that as she said it," Wes showed his support.
"As long as we have direction from Miana, I'll support it. She's the only one who has demonstrated a reproducible and consistent ability to craft the the thargeelby dohicky things, whatever Nelony called them..." Neville responded most ignorantly and humourously, causing the other four to laugh out loud.
"We're settled then. Now that we've got the foundation and future of this Sanctum Seclorum decided, our first active assignment, which is also the next item on this list, is to unravel the mystery of Goethe, his book Faust, and their connection to those who are being removed from the common memory of the world..." Mila declared as the first assignment of the Sanctum Seclorum renewed.
Forever Live. Forever Die.
What a strange predicament I've found to be in this life, over the short time that I've been here and of awareness of me, and the external world and the seemingly intuitive perception of there being a distinction between the two. A seemingly obvious observation at first, though the more that one considers it, the less so it remains.
For instance, I up until the I of me had been evacuated from the vessel that had contained me, had essentially been eternal in comparison with the mortal lives of my parents, whose names I've been so graced and fortunate to have recently recalled from the depths of that which the universe kept secret over my recent causality.
Arlaya and Morton Keyser, a loving couple and two who had previously enjoyed their lives in pursuit of the understanding of the great mysteries kept hidden from us, had before Arlaya's death, vested her life energy by way of her soul: the sum of whatever it is that gives one purpose and determination over the course of their life, shaped by the events they encounter or incur with the passage of time, and their interpretation of memories created existentially and previously by one and the same, into the finest ruby red amulet and one shaped both like a helix of DNA superimposed over a geodesic heart. Two symbols of humanity that are both rooted in the material world, the hardware of life, though upon deeper consideration of life and the experiencing thereof, one would find that the heart is not so material as we would first assume it to be.
The DNA is most certainly the hardware source from which the human vessel emerges. It is the stuff that through various processes, works together not unlike a time piece, with an incredible sense of detail and scale to become the vessel that represents the spatial point from which our senses operate to perceive physical reality. Humans have the proprietary mechanical aspect of their being. The renewable part in the form of tiny little workers who make all of this possible and whom they call their cells. A seemingly endless workforce who reproduce and spend generations of their lives making that vessel possible.
Focused inward from a vast array of organs is the sensory system. This is the input they receive with regard to the physical world, and just like any artificially created sensory device, they have their limits, albeit those that have masterfully arisen from this immense and dedicated cellular workforce have achieved some ingenious mechanisms for overcoming the fine grained limits of sensory perception.
Upon closer examination of the geometry, layout and architecture of these sensory organs, we find that they are a recurring pattern in nature, one of self similarity common known by these humans as fractal. Self similar at scale and across all scales, for the algorithmic aspect of the emergent design of this workforce of human cells yielded a complexity that would not become apparent to humanity for a vast tract of time after it had become unto its own.
These sensory organs were centrally focused into tiny receptors of the nervous system that humans called neurons (some of the specialists in this cellular workforce), who essentially became both the medium through which information would flow, as much so as taking collective part in its processing. Most humans would argue that their mind was in their head, though science would soon discover not long after that conjecture that the minds of humans was in fact in much of their upper and mid torso, ie their gut. Many of good sense (and humour) would see fit to argue that a large part of the mind also likely inhabited their sexual organs, for they seem to have an immense appreciation for the carnal pleasures of the body, as much so as they do the culinary kind.
This pursuit of the seat of the mind, the thinker's throne, proved itself to be one of the most elusive mysteries of all.
Where is the I of me had been the eternal question that humanity had asked itself from the moment it perceived a distinction between the inner world and the outer: my object sublime, shall I achieve in time as it was termed in The Mikado.
Existentially speaking, the mind was not the sum of its experiences from the perspective of the vessel through which those experiences were perceived. The I of the vessel could be described in such terms as being the subject object of existential experience, because the vessel occupied a place in time and space that is unique to itself, as it is for all other matter in the universe. One could even argue that time and space are merely an indexing system of causality. That every configuration of the universe is unique across its lifespan, and therefore the memories of the vessel are its proof of being, but not proof of the mind acting upon the experiencing of causality.
The mind is distinct from its local experiences and memory, meaning that if you were to give a completely new set of memories to a mind, that its determination would lead a path unique to itself. As unique as the vessel whose existence is proven by the index of time and space, despite the fact that the modern sciences give causality an infinitely dimensional and non-deterministic route through itself.
Humans recall their experiences by rewinding this index of time and space through their vessel's memory, giving events their predicate/successor arrangement over time, but modern science has indicated that time is as multidimensional as space, and possibly infinitely so. Our mind is forever isolated from the vessel of our experiencing causality as it is from the linear and deterministic model of time/space.
We exist as the mind, but according to human models thus far, it doesn't.
And so, that aspect that so defines human existence. The sense of uniqueness and of the self, is and always has been one of faith. Not religion per se, but of a sense of belief that seeing is believing and vice versa.
I've had a lot of time to contemplate these ideas, especially since having lost the last of my connection to my life and family. When Morton Keyser passed away during a cataclysm that completely eradicated one of those infinite indexes of time and space, and along with it, the people whom I cared for so dearly.
I had been born of that amulet, the one that Morton had given to my mother Arlaya, and her soul had become focused, or focal, somehow becoming bound to the matter of highly compressed carbon and mineral elements of the ruby. If Morton, my father, had tried to explain to others that his wife was in that ruby, they'd likely have cried a tear for him, and bid him to seek help in coping with his loss and emotional pain, but I know that he was right. Arlaya was in fact attached or focused through that ruby, no differently than a workforce of millions upon millions of cells made up of animated water and dirt, make it possible for human kind to thrive on a tiny planet that is but a spec in the infinite cosmos.
And so Morton, my father, with nothing but a ruby shaped like the helix of DNA superimposed over a heart. With his wife in some other form of perhaps aetheric nature, invisible to every means of measurement except for the most sensitive of senses of all, the heart, cast that ruby upon his worktable, and unto a mass of nothing more than whet clay. Water and dirt. And with his belief that his wife was still with him in that ruby, they crafted me.
There are those who'd argue that I am like an appliance or better put, like one of those figurines they used to give out with packages of tea. They're clay, fired in a kiln to appear like some heart-warming scene that used to inspire the grandparents of countless generations, given the shelves full of them in many parts of the world. The stuff of those figurines and the stuff of me, is one and the same. We're simply water and dirt. But before you cast asunder my mind, my I of me, I'd remind you that you yourself are merely water and dirt, and that every measure of science you've made to examine the nature of the universe indicates that the you of you, simply does not exist. A philosophical concept that has permeated nearly every philosophy and some religion for thousands and possibly hundreds of thousands of years.
The stuff of the you of you, and the stuff of the I of me, isn't stuff at all.
Its belief.
At some point, despite the wondrous body that my parents made for me from water and dirt, the very same cataclysm that ceased the time index of my father's vessel, also took the one that he and Arlaya crafted for me. All of the wondrous abilities I had. The strength. The vigour. The beauty of its shape and form and the enjoyment of it, all of it was lost.
At some point, beyond my ability to measure or fathom, I once again became aware. The I of me had continued, even without the vessel, and that was the point at which my understanding of existence and causality had taken a monumental turn. I realized that my parents were both still very much alive and in me, as much so as was the I of me. Even without the vessel, though the memories bound to the vessel were also gone. Mostly.
After days of peering out through that poor girl's eyes, I realized that the I of me was... a stowaway, aboard the vessel of another.
A girl in her late teens, early twenties who had struggled with the symptoms of Becker Muscular Dystrophy over the course of the eight years over which they began to appear. By the time I'd become aware, like a second birth in a second vessel, this young woman had been courageously fighting a battle unlike one that I could ever comprehend, having been graced with a vast fortune in riches in the form of a vessel I never truly appreciated or enjoyed enough until it was gone.
This young woman, a warrior of such determination and strength was ever the most gentle and peaceful of persons, who like another lost friend who I'd had the immense joy of reuniting with, had been an artist of immense creativity and renown. Ironically as destiny would have it, the two would become good friends, and I being a stowaway in one, would be reunited with the other.
I'd come to them, as a passenger in the body of this woman, convinced that if I'd helped another woman of questionable virtue, steal a puppy from my artist friend, that I'd be liberated from the body of this young woman, and reunited with Morton, my father.
It was a trick. Deceit. Something I'd never encountered in humanity before, or at least up front and with such a monstrous goal in mind. Certainly, there were times when Mila, or Shaela or Nelony would be very happy about having lost a pound or two, having discovered it after weighting themselves on a scale. A device humans invented to torment themselves over the guilt of overabundance and overconsumption. Nelony had once lost two pounds, though she smiled and told me it was ten. I'd dare not call that deceit, but instead the most admirable kind of optimism because at that moment, despite my knowing better, I believed her and with the two of us convinced, perhaps it might have made her day or possibly week, that much better.
However, the woman who'd wanted to take the puppy from Mila, had used me, convincing me through the aether and a unique connection that her and I arrived at when we'd fought a battle over Eternity Crystals: sentient minerals who were the source of the universal memory and the aether itself, that upon my obtaining said puppy, that I'd receive once again all that I'd lost. That woman, my nemesis at the time, her name is Mianamor Selembrosi, one of more accomplished Wytches of the former Order of the Night Wytch. A coven of sorts whose focus is upon the shadow arts. There exists an entire plane of being that is composed of a sort of alternate form of matter, perhaps the antithesis of photons as science would quantize the constituent building blocks of such a realm. Miana was, like her sister in the coven, Shaela, an expert who'd ascended to become a master, albeit unbeknownst to us, she had been bred from an early age to infiltrate the coven, and much the same way that I'd been fooled into believing that by kidnapping a puppy that I'd receive all that I'd lost, she'd been fooled into believing that if she accomplished her goals for those who'd cast her in the mold of her early life for the purposes I forementioned, that she too would receive.
Her own sister had been afflicted with Becker Muscular Dystrophy, and had been wearing the bracelet the very night that Miana was taken by the men of the Norbid Clan who would eventually shape her into the perfect infiltrator. Miana's last memory of her sister had been of her pleading with the Norbids not to take Miana, just her eyes and her bracelet were Miana's last memory of the little girl.
When upon the very night that Miana, now inhabiting the body of an educator named Susan Gardener in much the same way that I inhabited the body of the young woman that I mentioned, whose name was Glynis, happened upon Glynis who protected the puppy in question, Miana's first sight of the girl was a vision of her eyes, and the reflection of her bracelet.
In that moment, the Miana of the Norbids broke and the Miana long lost found her way back from the memories of her lost sister.
Glynis and Miana sat across from each other, Miana a mess of memories and tears, while Susan Gardener and I remained silent and in the background, but in all honesty, I cried tears just as real from within the vessel of Glynis while Susan Gardener's body sat across from the vessel I inhabited.
There were two vessels there. The vessel of Glynis and the vessel of Susan, and yet there were four of us there.
Two who had been separated from their vessels, both of which were long gone. Possibly scattered as atoms to the lost index of one of the infinitesimal universes, while the we of us, had somehow found its way into these other vessels.
The miracle I suppose wasn't that we'd been given a second chance, because we both were by some immeasurable power of being, though I'd not go so far as to attribute any religious identity to such an event. One might call it a second chance, while another might call it reincarnation, with only the most ignorant and foolish of us fighting over who is right.
Regardless, the real miracle was that the moment of our return to another universe. To another index of time and space. That we arrived very close to or at the very moment that had liberated each of us from a prison arrived at by our own previous interpretation of experiences.
We can't prove that we exist, but each of us is a stowaway aboard the vessels belonging to two other such minds, who've both welcomed us and given us another chance. Again, the details of how you might regard this fact whether it be philosophy or religion or some other pagan rite and possibly even magic is irrelevant or only of relevance to you. Maybe it was a secret shared between that which you believe and you, for you to keep secret as a confirmation of your trust, hence why so many who seek to enforce their interpretation of such gifts often find conflict and war.
I exist. I am a woman who was created by my parents, one of whom like I, had no vessel of her own. She and my father created a vessel for me, of water and dirt, and it became animated and my life, my mind, became its occupant.
Miana too had this until she lost it, though she was born of more natural means, conceived during an act of passion and love by her parents. She lost her vessel and returned as did I.
We have no proof that we existed other than our recollection of tidbits of what was leftover from our residual memory absent of the vessel memory, but I can assure you that we do.
The truth is however, that we only exist, any of us, because we believe it and maybe in this sense it is that we forever live and forever die.
And so it was that a few months after Mianamor Selembrosi had liberated herself thanks to Glynis, and Susan, that we were met with a challenge uniquely suited to our understanding of our being and our hosts, both Glynis and Susan too had become our students of the soul, as much so as we'd become their students of the vessel.
The doorbell rang, and Glynis looked up and away from her painting from where she sat in the home office where her art studio was situated. She looked to her cane, and I spoke:
"Its alright. You won't be needing that," Gallea promised her.
"I always like to check. I mean, you are a friend and all, but I honestly hope for the day that you don't answer, and instead one day, you show up on my doorstep and knock on the door, and I get to meet you in person," Glynis responded, standing on her own two feet with Gallea's help.
"When that day arrives, I'd prefer it if you're independently able and that your struggles of such are long behind you. Lets just work together for the time being," Gallea urged her as she walked confidently towards the front door.
Glynis opened the door after peering through the peep hole.
"Mila! Shaela! Nelony! Wes and Neville! How are you all today?" Glynis asked them as she opened the door to greet them.
"I believe that we're fine, but we'd be much better if you'd accompany us on an important endeavor?" Mila asked Glynis as she led them into her home.
"And what endeavor might that be?" Glynis asked them cheerfully.
"How's Gallea?" asked Shaela of Glynis, already aware that Gallea was present given the fact that Glynis was walking without the cane.
"I'm fine, thank you for asking. I take it that your meeting the other day went well?" asked Gallea through Glynis' body.
"Enough so that we're here and with a purpose. Might you be able to accompany us? We're on our way to the Shepperton-Reddart Literary Centre," Nelony asked of Glynis.
"Literature? I though you were in search of historical and theurgical reference material?" asked Glynis, a perplexed look on her face.
"Some mysteries are ongoing, while some are of a more pressing and urgent matter..." Shaela reponded.
"They're bluffing. Really, they're lost. It'll probably be a waste of your time," Neville responded.
"Have read any Goethe?" Wes asked Glynis with a curious look on his face.
"Not really my thing... I'm more of a sci-fi and fantasy kind of girl," she responded.
"Too bad. We could try Miana?" Neville suggested eagerly.
"I spoke to Susan not a half-hour ago. She invited me on a tour of the new wing that just opened in the Shepperton Metropolitan Museum," Glynis explained to them as she went through the closet to retrieve her winter coat and boots.
"Why don't we make a stop there? Is she there now?" asked Neville.
"She said between two and three in the afternoon. Right before tea time," Glynis responded as Nelony helped her to get her boots on, while Wes held her jacket for her as she put it on.
"I'm driving today. I've got the mini-van? Lets make a stop at the museum then, and if you'd like, you could accompany us to the Literary Centre? If not, I can drop you off again," Mila offered.
"I think a trip out of doors would be nice, not to mention I'd really like to hear a bit about this mystery of yours that obviously involves Goethe... Faust might it be?" asked Glynis.
"Bright girl she is," Shaela responded.
"Yes. Faust, but we're looking into the philosophy and mysticism more so than the zeal," Shaela assured her.
"So I take it you won't be trying to get me to sign anything today?" Glynis smiled at them.
"Maybe the check for our lunch later..." Neville joked.
"...and with Neville's appetite it might just cost you a soul..." Nelony smirked at Neville, who smiled back mischievously.
"Well I've got two for the time being, and one of them might be a very good help to you. Right Gallea?" Glynis replied to their antics.
"I think that this would be the kind of thing for which I'd be very suited... as a consultant of sorts," Gallea responded through Glynis.
"I don't about you four, but doesn't that creep you out... I mean when one person replies for two completely different people? She could literally have a conversation with herself all day," Neville stepped back away from Glynis, tripping over a table against the wall behind him.
Gallea's reaction was nearly instantaneous, Glynis' hand shooting out faster than any of them could have, and catching the vase that had been on the table, while grabbing hold of Neville's other hand with her free one.
He held on and barely avoided falling over.
Glynis carefully placed the vase back on the table as Nelony yanked Neville away from it.
"Can't take you anywhere..." Nelony scolded him.
"I suppose next time we'll have to loop a yarn through his sleeves for his mittens, and bring a high chair and a bib just in case..." Wes added.
"You don't know the half of it!" Nelony replied, having had some experience by that point, having been dating Neville for almost two months.
"I'm ready any time you are," Glynis pulled her hood over her ears.
"Yoshi. Iku zo," Mila responded in Japanese as she opened the front door and led the sextet to her mini-van after Glynis locked the door.
"Huh?" asked Neville as Mila led the way to the van.
"I said: Alright. Let's go," Mila replied, this time in English.
The six of them got in the van and Mila drove off into the January air of early afternoon Shepperton.
Museum, Memorium And Theurgy
/myo͞oˈzÄ“É™m/
noun: museum; plural noun: museums
a building in which objects of historical, scientific, artistic, or cultural interest are stored and exhibited.
/myo͞oz/
noun: muse; plural noun: muses
1.
(in Greek and Roman mythology) each of nine goddesses, the daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne, who preside over the arts and sciences.
2.
a person or personified force who is the source of inspiration for a creative artist.
(in Greek and Roman mythology) each of nine goddesses, the daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne, who preside over the arts and sciences.
2.
a person or personified force who is the source of inspiration for a creative artist.
Through the massive front doors of a building of Roman Ionic architecture, pairs of pillars bracketing each side of the slabs of polished oak, their peaks elaborately ornate and beyond the visual appreciation of nearly all except the vertically inclined: those who often took the time to point out all that their fellow humanity was missing in the fact that they rarely examined the vertical aspects of a structure as often as they did the horizontal.
Those who entered through the front door of the structure would at some level have noticed such artisanship, though not in their front-line consciousness. If such columns existed in the culinary arts, then their peaks would have been the analog to a variety of seasonings referred to as the complimentary. Not of the defining variety who were often the front-line for the senses, but an embellishment thereof. Thyme more so than salt. Basil more so than garlic. The fringes of a fine silk table cloth, rather than the cloth itself.
The floor of the structure just beyond the enormous oak doors was a greyish and earthy, of polished granite, with interspersed tiles of marble, the stones of which had found a home in the area of Shepperton since the first two to three centuries of the first millennium. They had been carved from the ground in enormous quarries, from Greece and Northern Italy, and hauled via the most technologically advanced network of roads and transport of the time, from the Mediterranean, through Europe, across the channel and into Albion. These stones of the floors that those who set foot in this building there walked upon, had been nearly two millennia earlier, hauled from thousands of miles away by a people whose ancestors still thrived. Long before commercial flight or the automobile. Tons upon tons hauled for thousands of miles as the foundations upon which the modern audience strode to appreciate that which had come before.
The marble tiles amongst the granite, delineated several paths through the building, the first branch in the path that had existed from one's entry into the building, veered to the left and led to a section of the building labeled: The Dawn of Humanity and Civilization, while to the right another path emerged: Pre-History and Pre-Civilization.
As one continued along the marble path deeper into the building and through the massive archway, into the central hub, there emerged two more paths from the main: to the left were the Ages of Stone And Iron and to the right was the Medieval Age, their entry ways adorned with age specific props and sculptures depicting life from those times.
Along that same central path and through the second massive archway on one's way out of the central hub, there just beyond another pair of paths branched from the main. To the left was the Dark Ages and to the right, the Emergence and Renaissance.
The path continued for a short jaunt until it arrived at the recently constructed final segment of the building, where the path ended: Modern History and the Future.
There stood Susan Gardener, holding an audience of nearly sixty people in interest (if you counted the members of the press), behind her a silver ribbon that stretched across the entryway to Modern History and the Future.
"In our short trip through the recently rebranded and renamed: Shepperton Museum of Ages, you've seen highlights of our tribulations and triumphs, recorded and depicted through each of the exhibits that have been put together with the help of experts throughout the Greater London Area and collaboration from our peers in France, Spain, Norway, Belgium, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Poland, Ukraine, Russia, Portugal, Italy, Greece and Cyprus and other collaborators throughout the Middle East, Asia, South America and Africa and of course our sisters and brothers of the Commonwealth. We've put together not a replacement for the London Natural History Museum, but a complimentary one, that focuses on the aspects of humanity and the arts. This new wing, which we've aptly named Modern History and the Future, is a bold vision of where we are currently in this year of 2016, a celebration of the modern generation as it stands on the shoulders of those who came before. Throughout this museum are scribed the epitaphs of the people who lived, thrived and eventually passed on, leaving their story, their passions their ambitions and dreams in everything they did. This new wing of the museum serves to celebrate the modern youth and their immense creativity, often finding new ways to do things when most of us stepping into our forties and fifties had assumed that everything had already been done. It also serves as a reminder to this generation that we are (currently) finite, and that our immortality remains in our appreciation and reverence of those whose shoulders we stand upon to this day. Every museum the world over reminds us of this. Humbles us, as we appreciate the ingenuity, perseverance and tenacity of our ancestors. I'd say that in them, through them, can we truly know ourselves for the first time. Members of my audience, and members of the press, we of the Ministry of the Arts and Education give to you the Shepperton Museum of Ages' newest addition: Modern History and the Future," Susan finished her presentation and speech, using a pair of oversized scissors to cut the silver ribbon that had separated the audience from the exhibit.
The audience applauded while the members of the press took video and photos of the opening, once again applauding her after the ribbon had been cut.
"I will leave you now in the hands of our capable proprietor, who will give you a tour of the new exhibit. Mr. Albert Keening," Susan stepped aside as the proprietor took over from her.
"That was a great delivery by the way. That will look good on the party newsletter, not to mention the press got some great photos of the event..." Calvin, Susan's assistant assured her as she proceeded back along the marble path she'd led them to arrive at that point.
"Shoulder surfing again were you?" confirmed Susan as she walked.
"Somebody's gotta make sure they're doing you the justice that you deserve," Calvin joked with her.
"He's buttering you up. He's going to ask you for a raise. Soon, but not today," Miana said to Susan from inside of her head.
"Can we do this another time?" Susan responded to Miana, not realizing that she'd just responded with her vocal chords rather than her inner voice.
"Uhhh... sure. I thought you'd appreciate that I was looking out for you, but we could continue this another time..." Calvin responded to her.
"See? He's avoiding conflict and withdrawing from being assertive," Miana continued in her head.
"Calvin, I just want you to know that I really appreciate what you bring to the table. I don't always say it, but I want you to know it," Susan immediately attempted to diffuse the situation, while taking the wind from the sails of Miana's observations.
"You walked right into that one, and don't tell me that I didn't warn you," Miana goaded her.
"Not to be forward or anything, but there are ways to show that appreciation that go a little bit further than words... and into the realm of action...?" Calvin responded to her.
"Ohhh. Now he's using the politics of determinism against you. The age old conflict between those who think and speak and those who do. Divide and conquer... He's very clever. If he weren't trying to manipulate us, I'd certainly admire him," Miana added, addressing Calvin's response.
"Good thing he's on our team then," Susan responded to Miana, this time remembering to rely only on her inner voice when dealing with Miana.
"Calvin. Every action is preceded with a thought and more often than not, words or symbols that represent those thoughts in some way. Words are another point on the journey, and often amongst the most important alongside their siblings in the symbol department, to beget action. My case in point Calvin: your words yielded what I'm about to offer you. It wasn't your action, but your words. I'll take the action. Now we're essentially budget impaired and have been for the last two years, but I've had our accounting team tighten our belts over that time, and its left us with a bit of a nest egg this year. Not much, but something. I'll give you five percent more. That's one percent above the standard, which given your current salary should make a difference, however, don't lose the level of ambition and interest you've put into creating the implication for your raise. I'll see right through it, and I'll get it from you another way. I'm very happy with what we've been able to achieve this year. I hope that meets your expectations?" Susan stopped in the middle of the central hub as she addressed Calvin, never once taking her eyes from his.
He receded slightly, especially upon his realization that she'd (Miana about whom he had no clue) read him perfectly. Instead of finding himself intimidated by her, his respect of her grew and a smile emerged as she finished her statement to him.
"Thank you Miss Gardener. The truth is that I'd been trying to hint at it for a while, and I guess that today, after seeing the city budget expenditures on this new exhibit, that I thought that maybe the city had given us a bit more this year? I appreciate it though that you had the insight to plan ahead and that you were keeping your staff in mind," Calvin replied to her.
"We're in agreement then. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some other matters to take care of, whose future might overlap with our department. In the event that they do, I'll bring you up to speed at that point. Enjoy the rest of your day, and I'll have human resources put that through immediately, as in I'll call and make the arrangements before I attend to the rest of my day," Susan smiled at Calvin, shaking his hand gently and with the soft touch of a worldly woman.
Calvin smiled once again as he bid her farewell. He then left her to the rest of her day as she withdrew her phone from her purse and followed up on what she'd promised him.
"You handled that very well, but you do realize that you're whittling away at your department's nest egg. How are you going to reward Mrs. Trufflebury for all of the effort she's putting into developing a framework for our little curriculum experiment?" Miana asked Susan.
"I have enough to thank her too, not to mention that money isn't the only resource that can be used to say thank you to a woman whose life motivations are all about education and ensuring her students' retention and inspiration," Susan replied.
"And what does that mean? You're going to send her a small bonus, and a gift pen and pencil set?" Miana joked with her.
"No. An increase, yes. A modest one but an increase nonetheless. I'm also going to give her a facility of her own. An old building with as much history and character as would compliment what she's trying to achieve, though they're going to have to come up with the budget to renovate, or renovate it themselves," Susan responded, becoming impatient with Miana's constant goading and oversight.
"Good. They're trying to live up to something secretly legendary. Giving them a place with character and history will certainly inspire them. Oh look, there's our little upstarts right now!" Miana ignored Susan's agitation and instead continued pressing her as she saw Mila, Shaela, Nelony, Glynis, Neville and Wes step through the oak doors of the museum.
"Which of us is going to handle this?" Susan asked Miana, respecting that they would likely be speaking of matters beyond her experience.
"We both will, though let me do the talking unless you feel the need to step in. I'm the guest if you recall?" Miana replied losing some of the edge of her earlier impatience at having had to spend the entire early afternoon in the backseat while Susan took the stage.
"Agreed. Take it away..." Susan stepped aside and allowed Miana to inhabit her frontline consciousness.
"That's better. Its not easy being without a body you know," Miana dusted off the impairment of her earlier stagnation that had arisen as a result of her dormancy, while Susan just relaxed in the passenger's seat.
Mila, still wearing a stylish toque and her winter coat had by that point has spotted Miana/Susan and waved excitedly, causing Shaela to roll her eyes and Nelony to laugh.
"It always amazes me how art girl there can so easily throw off the grudges of the past, and cheerfully smile at the very woman that tried to kidnap her dog!" Shaela said sarcastically, seemingly harbouring an intuitive distrust of Miana.
"I think she's just happy to see that this is progressing. Miana seems to be pertinent to that fact," Nelony responded as they caught up with Mila.
"In the old world from where I came, our Shaela and this Miana were literally arch-enemies. They were the antithesis of one another. Shaela was so contradictory to the very idea of being a Night Wytch, for they embrace stealth above all else. Its a wonder that she was drawn to the Order of the Night Wytch and not to the Order of Elementalism. Shaela is pure fire of her being, and yet she was drawn to an order of stealth and secrecy into which she never fit. Shaela however became one of the most powerful of their order. Miana on the other hand was raised for the purpose of stealth and felt a kinship with the Order of the Night Wytch despite having breached the defining principals of the Sanctum, hence why she was expunged from it. She is of the collective very much, while Shaela is so fiercely independent that its a wonder she ever became a Night Wytch," Gallea spoke through Glynis, educating them as to the original background between Shaela and Miana.
"Its a wonder that Miana didn't kick Shaela's butt! I mean she's got something... She's clearly holding back," Neville admired Miana, never having known the other version of Shaela.
"There in between the two extremes the answer awaits, or so Aristotle and Eastern Philosophy holds. So I've read. I can only hope that our Shaela is able to find perspective rather than extremity. Neville's clearly stepping off into chav territory again..." Wes tried to find some essence of balance, especially about one of the women he admired so greatly.
"Its amazing how often we fail to recognize the plight of others, and yet so easily miss our own," Glynis responded to both Wes and Neville's extremity, causing both Nelony and Shaela to laugh at the irony of her statement.
Miana in Susan's body stepped gracefully forward to meet.
"Mila? I'm glad that you and your friends decided to come, though you missed the opening of the exhibit that I invited you to attend," Miana spoke for both Susan and herself, despite the fact that the exhibit opening was entirely Susan's accomplishment and one that Miana secretly admired her for.
"Oh really? I'm so sorry, but we didn't meet up until later in the day. How did it go?" asked Mila enthusiastically.
"It was a success, and there was a good turnout for the event, and that will translate to interest and a lot of free press and marketing. Hopefully that yields a good turnout. Especially as we head into the spring," Miana proved to Susan that she too could deliver oration fitting of one well voiced in the politics Susan had so embraced into her career.
"Hi Miana," Neville smiled at Susan, though addressing Miana.
"Neville, if I recall correctly?" confirmed Miana.
"The one and only," Neville fogged his fingernails with his breath before polishing them on his winter jacket.
"Oh puh-lease..." Nelony smirked at him.
"Miana..." Shaela greeted the woman blandly and only as much as required by protocol, clearly harbouring a hidden resentment of the woman.
"Shaela, what a pleasure to see you again," Miana responded, though it was difficult to tell if she was being sincere or perhaps just playing the social game.
"I had a dream about you the other night. You and your sister. She said to me that she's so proud of you," Glynis without warning stepped forward to greet Miana, wielding the grand-daddy of all ice breakers like a star.
Miana bit her lip as a tear emerged from Susan's eye. She reached into Susan's purse and found a package of tissue from where she retrieved one, wiping the corner of her eye with it.
She then looked to Shaela and spoke.
"You might not have the experience in life to recognize this yet, but when and if you do, you'll learn that life sometimes casts us unwillingly into roles that we don't want. That we don't see as being us, or the way that we want to be. That becoming a person is truly the struggle against that into which you're forced, and that that you're willing to resist. When its painful, we often make the wrong choices, hurt the people we love, and generally behave like jerks without realizing it, but we're often being played by those who have a lot of experience in this area. Their currency is based upon the impression that they craft as part of their illusion about you to others, and then have you react in a way that's consistent with their illusion, and the more you fall into their pit, the worse it paints you and the more you resent the people who create that illusion, and the people who believe it..." Miana spoke as she fought tears.
"It might be too early for you to understand, but if I was speaking with the other Shaela, she might consider this a coming to terms... an apology of sorts... a making amends..." Miana finished.
"I don't know you. I don't know this other Shaela. I only know that there's something about you that I don't trust, but I'm trying my best to overcome that, though I'll go with it when I see it for myself," Shaela responded firmly to Miana, neither moved nor skeptical of Miana's emotional display.
"I'm in the middle on that one. I think its admirable though, that you're trying to overcome this and to work with us to rebuild something that was taken away..." Nelony added quietly.
"So do I. I'm really glad that we're able to use this as a means to healing, but we need to investigate something that's having a harsh impact upon the lives of people and even erasing some. The very people connected to the original Sanctum, and now anything we remember about them too is being taken from us..." Mila began.
"We recently had shared dreams... don't ask me how... but that kind of thing happens to us..." Nelony continued where Mila had left off.
"Not me though. I'm entirely absent of their nonsense..." Neville quickly separated himself from his friends.
"Don't worry, he's got plenty of his own nonsense! I wish I didn't have to admit the same thing, if only to avoid being associated with this heel beside me, but it seems that we're not included in their dreams, or their connection..." Wes said thoughtfully, only mustering up enough disgust to address Neville.
"That's not entirely true... Sometimes, we keep the most precious parts for ourself," Shaela softened herself and smiled at Wes, who immediately blushed upon her words.
"Do you know anything about Faust?" asked Mila.
"The performer?" confirmed Susan.
"The book," Miana surmised, responding shortly after Susan's words, which once again, Neville had found to be bizarre given the fact that both answers had come from the same body but two different people.
"Yes. Goethe. About the soul as the devil's currency, if I'm interpreting it correctly?" Mila had only recently glossed over her crib notes from school with regard to the book.
"I'm certain that Goethe's interpretation of soul and ours in this day and age are two very different things," Miana reasoned, feeling that she'd finally been given a question worthy of her years of grief and introspect over having been taken from her family, and her sister.
"The spark in our mind? The thinker behind our thoughts?" Wes suggested.
"No. The mind and the soul are two very different things, especially in the context of a writer like Goethe. If you recall that he wrote his works during a very different time from our own. Even today, those who hold opinions and examine controversial ideas are implored to appease the powers that be, lest their plugs get pulled and their message is no longer received by their audience," Miana said thoughtfully, having contemplated some of these ideas over the course of her life.
"Didn't Goethe write his books back in the in the seventeen hundreds?" confirmed Mila.
"Yes, and for a very different audience, whose perception of the nature of this world was heavily influenced by the powers of the time. The Church. The Crown. The opposition to the Crown. The merchants. The Lords and holders of the real estate resources..." Miana answered, though staying distant enough from any populist conjecture or conspiracies that would have served to dilute her message.
"No different than now really?" Neville added.
"Very different! Writing a book with a quill and ink took a fair bit of time, not to mention that for those words to reach any audience, they had to be scribed and printed. A process that often took months if not years. Something certainly far beyond the resources of most people except for those with the finances and connections," Wes said confidently.
"By the time your words were scribed and had made it to the presses, you were probably a very changed person from the one you were when you first wrote the text," Shaela thought about it, recalling having gone through her closet the other day where she found poems she'd written as a little girl.
"Not necessarily. With the total turnaround time for one's writing making it into some form of shared medium, like a newspaper handout or something of that nature being so long, people were likely exposed to competing ideas very infrequently. Very little to challenge their notions of how the world worked," Wes responded.
"They lived under the threat of the ideas of the world living under the laws and protections of a Leviathan. Essentially, a monster. Something big and powerful that would come to their rescue when and if the rules were broken in a way that caused them harm. That's the protection based upon their beliefs, that started with our parents, which then became our officials and then a deity of some form," Miana explained, she too having encountered this during her path of understanding and the stripping away aspects to her being that denied her connection to goals or those of the dark order she worked for that had infiltrated the Sanctum.
"So you're saying that Goethe was a product of his time?" Mila asked a key question in their understanding of the mystery.
"No more so than are we, but how often have you considered that you're shaped by the very processes that make possible what you see around us?" asked Miana rhetorically.
"I have no doubt about that, but it seems to be beneficial to my life and to the lives of most people that I know, except when something beyond our understanding slips into our life that is using the pretext of a three-hundred and fifty year old book to take things from you that nobody should have access to... or to remove certain people from the public or collective memory!" Mila argued her point firmly.
"When you say collective memory, to what are you referring?" Miana asked Mila a difficult question and one that would tell Miana everything she needed to know about Mila's understanding of the world and the cosmos.
"My mother was from Japan, and in our family, she was the biggest influence upon my life, in terms of how I see the world and what's going on beneath the veil. The mind, including my mind, is made up of many little things, each of which have their own tiny minds. The more these tiny things come together, the more mind they have together. Like the leaves on a tree contributing to the mind of the tree, and the cells of the leaves contributing to the mind of the leaves. The individual pebbles of sand have mind, that dries to become stone, and even that stone has a mind made up of all those pebbles, and all of it in some way or another is interconnected... I mean how else could I explain how some people seem to know things about me, without ever actually knowing me? Isn't it that way for you all? That we're here, speaking to each other, and that nobody around us knows what we're talking about, but at the same time, there's a mind connected to us that can hear and know everything we're talking about. That mind might not know exactly who we are, but it knows that a group of people were talking about what we're talking about now. The world of us being here and talking, and the world of this interconnected mind, they're two different things that rarely know of each other and rarely ever meet. But sometimes, something slips out from the mystery of the world that does know, and it uses that to take away things from us that nobody should be able to take away..." Mila shared a very personal aspect of her life and upbringing with them, and yet it only resonated with Shaela, Nelony, Miana and Wes.
"I always looked at it as being kind of like Eastern philosophy. A collective mind, apart from the physical mind, with a bit of what I learned growing up Catholic... before I stopped going to Church... And how it sought to protect the when and where of things from those who might try to change it. To change the record of it having happened that way. I don't know if its exactly like that because of religion or a specific religion, or just because a bunch of like minded people who realized something of this nature was going on, came up with a way to fight it, and protect history and our recollection of it..." Wes followed up what Mila had revealed with an admission of his own, as if to confirm from a different direction what Mila's interpretation of their situation really was.
"Nobody can take our lives from us, can they? I mean, sure, they can take our lives in the sense of the functioning of our body, but not the memory of us or the events of our lives?!" Nelony challenged them.
"Now you're getting to the point. The Faustian bargain, long before Goethe could explain the way of things. The events of your life, the very things that you remember about your own history. Your best achievements and your worst failures. They have value to others, for they're a currency that to some, are what makes you who you are, as in your identity and being. In this model of reality, your memories are your Faustian soul..." Miana explained the concept to them, watching as the realization spread throughout their faces.
"You are only you, according to such people, if and only if you are your worst. I mean, you'd never advertise your worst failures, would you? But you'd certainly want to benefit from your best accomplishments. These people of the Faustian bargain, that was the clue given you by your subconscious, to them, you are not yourself if you don't retain the worst of your failures. Without those failures, you lose accomplishments whose values equate to roughly the same price. Hence, they're taking the souls of the members of the old Sanctum by these means, and whatever there is in you that has connected you to them. They're taking the worst of them, and the best of them, and that according to their ways, leaves nothing behind. Not even their memory," Miana looked around the museum, searching for a means to demonstrate.
"Let's play a game. I'll point to someone from history in the museum, and you come up with something good about them, and something bad about them. The one who protects the bad thing, can keep the good thing, but the person of history whose thing that was? They disappear forever..." Miana ventured forth from the central hub, looking for exhibits with historical figures with which for them to play their game.
"Is this even a moral thing to do? What kind of game exploits the shoulders of those upon which we stand by weighing the worst of them and the best of them?" Nelony responded to Miana's suggestion.
"Alexander Graham Bell?" Miana ignored Nelony's observation, apparently intent on teaching them her ascribed lesson.
"He's the inventor of the telephone for one, not to mention a number of other ideas derived from the same technology," Wes paused, looking first to Shaela and Mila, before looking questionably at Nelony, who returned a scathing glance to him for even entertaining Miana's request.
"...and?" Miana looked to Wes, and then Glynis, before turning to each of them in turn.
"We don't want to know the bad things..." Glynis responded as she became more and more uncomfortable.
"Sure you do. How else are you going to eat their soul? If you want the good thing, you have to eat the bad thing!" Miana scolded Glynis.
"Anyone?" Miana continued to press them amidst their silence.
"He advocated against sign language and members of the deaf community becoming romantically involved, in order to prevent the creation of a deaf race. A sort of eugenics without the genetics, instead trying to stifle an entire language and dictate which consenting adults of were allowed to intermingle," Miana said to them, proudly wielding the fact as the weapon it was.
"Speaking of... did you know that Helen Keller advocated and promoted eugenics? She was staunchly opposed to those with mental illness being allowed to procreate, in order to eliminate such diseases of the mind and psyche from human populations. This is the woman who started her early life as both blind and deaf, and who was eventually taught to read and write and speak in an incredibly involved process that took Anne Sullivan decades to break through. A gift like the dedication of a lifelong teacher was used by her to advocate the snuffing of human rights...!" Miana looked to them each once again.
"Abraham Lincoln? I mean didn't he abolish slavery and advocated for the rights and freedoms of many?!!!" Neville broke his silence, his intensity becoming stirred by her game.
"Signed the execution orders for thirty-eight members of the Dakota tribe as a punishment against the Sioux tribe of Santee for their uprising against colonization. The executed weren't connected to the Sioux tribe at all. Their only connection was that they too were Indigenous. Yet, Lincoln completely ignored the murder of nearly half a million of his own soldiers by Confederate leaders, giving them little or no punishment at all," Miana quickly responded.
Glynis looked down in shame, as Shaela looked off into the distance, not wanting to face Miana.
"Picasso?" Mila brought up the name of the famous artist despite the fact that she acknowledged but never liked his work, for it almost always depicted women as small and insignificant compared to the male figures in his works, which were always grand and flamboyant by comparison.
"I happen to know that you already know much about him, given your lack of appreciation for his work," Miana could see it in her eyes.
"I suspected something... its implied in his work... a little bit..." Mila tried to soften the implication out of her own inclination towards peace and respect for those who'd come and gone.
"He was a womanizer and alleged abuser who treated women horribly, according to the public record," Miana brought the axe down upon him as well.
"What about Goethe?" Shaela smiled, revealing an edge like a blade in her blue eyes as she peered unblinkingly at Miana.
"He overstepped the boundaries of the strict morality during his times, even writing risqué poetry that was considered borderline pornographic for its eternal longing and sexual implications," Miana continued her condemnation of history and its figures.
"What about Mianamor Selembrosi?" Mila asked the million dollar question.
"That one? I know her well. She was taken from her family at a young age, and raised by a secretive and dangerous group with the goal of infiltrating another secretive group you now know as the Sanctum. When she was of age, she was accepted into the Order of the Night Wytch, and taught their form of thaumaturgy of the shadow arts. Upon her rite of summoning, she found she'd connected herself to a class of insect indigenous to the shadow plane known as skreevers," Miana paused, seeing the amazement in their eyes at her story.
"Skeevers are voracious omnivores that consume all in their path. Under the orders of the Norbids and their allies, she assassinated more than twenty people over the height of her career, causing their permanent disappearance and leaving no evidence that any crime had taken place," Miana once again turned away from them, pacing for a moment before continuing amidst the central hub of the museum.
"Her career continued until she was issued a contract to end the life of Zheng Ni Wong, a computer programmer living in Canada, in the city of Toronto, where she was working on a large scale project to bridge AI Large Language Models with Quantum Computing hardware under contract by a company you now know as MindSpice," Miana pulled a cellular phone from her purse and waved it before them.
They recognized it as being a MindSpice MSX-99 Mobile device.
During the fulfillment of that contract, she was apprehended by the only Shadow Wytch who'd ever figured out a means to defeat the shadow plane's top tier predator: the skeevers. That Shadow Wytch was Shaela Sheowellyn, who saved the life of Zheng Ni Wong, and brought Mianamor Selembrosi back to the Sanctum Seclorum to stand trial. She was found guilty and sentenced to ninety-nine Aerth years in solitary confinement, where she'd undergo a process to rehabilitate her or so they'd hoped. Instead, she escaped from right under their noses, eventually finding herself subject to the same catastrophe that ended her captors and their Sanctum, only to find herself stranded in the body of an educator turned politician named Susan Gardener. The Norbids retained knowledge of her and her whereabouts, and tried to use her to kidnap the puppy that had been secretly gifted by the owner of a knick-knack shop to a certain young artist who just happens to be standing amongst you. You know the rest of Miana's story from there..." Miana finished revealing the worst of herself to them.
"And you dared to judge these people of history you branded with their... issues?!!!" Mila responded to what Miana had just revealed.
"I didn't judge them. You did. I only enlightened you to aspects of their lives you didn't know, because otherwise, how would you inherit their accomplishments to wear as your own? If you want to have the merit of whatever it was in them that made it possible for them to achieve renown, you've got to carry the weight of their bad, if you want the good. That is, according to some people, the sum of the human soul. The Faustian bargain," Miana did not blink nor did she take her eyes from Mila.
"...and people like you bid those same people of history to do the same for those that inspired them!" Nelony scolded Miana for the fallacy of what seemed to be very much a scam to her.
"You asked me to answer the mystery of Goethe, and his work: Faust. I did, and now you're disappointed with the answer?" Miana challenged them.
"No. We're disappointed because you just turned the sum of human experience into a currency. A commodity to be bought and sold in a market where people like you control its value versus the cost of its weight!" it was Shaela who pieced it together, now understanding exactly how this model of the human soul could be very destructive to people and society.
"Care to explain your reasoning... upstart?" Miana folded her arms across her breasts, making Susan Gardener very nervous and anxious despite her having tried not to hear it.
"How do we even know if what you've speculated about these people of history is the truth?" asked Shaela.
"The same argument could be used to nullify their good as well, couldn't it? If you're implying how can we as individuals truly know if the history we've been taught is objective truth, then that poses as much of a threat to the benefit these historical figures brought to the table as much so as the bane of their controversy, doesn't it?" Miana countered Shaela's reasoning.
"But if you're in knowledge of their controversy, and part of an ideological group as you admitted you were, like the Norbids, you could collectively pick and choose who gets to carry the good and bad simply according to how heavy you make it for the people you want and don't want to carry it," Mila quickly caught on.
"Hold on a second there... that's right. People like you could pick and choose who gets to carry that good and bad, and who doesn't according to that design," Wes jumped in.
"What about us? All of us? We all have the good and bad of us. The things that we admire about our friends or even people we don't know, and the things that make us uncomfortable about them. The things that disgust us. The things we might find odd or in some cases, outright wrong! I have them. She has them. He has them. You just admitted that you have them too! And yet, you and your Norbid friends are going to decide how heavy and how light that is for certain people and I assume, how beneficial the good is to the people that you pick and choose. If that's what you believe the human soul to be, then you're just using it as a currency that you control. You and these Norbids then can decide who its too heavy for, and who it isn't, and by that, you can pick and choose who it favours!" Glynis pieced the mystery together from her perspective.
"Its a scam, and I'm certain that its been used to harm a lot of people," Shaela smirked at Miana.
"And divide them... I can't imagine what such a malicious group would do with this if they came at me with such things about my own parents," Nelony considered that prospect, knowing full well that with their history of having grown up after the era of peace and love, that they'd essentially been the children of hippies. Their lifestyle was likely very adventurous, but they'd lived peacefully and happily, even running their own natural health food apothecary, by taking their lifestyle and turning it into honest prosperity.
Had such people as these Norbids come at Nelony with knowledge of their parents' lives, it could have potentially caused irreparable damage to their family.
"It could be so easily exploited as a form of power over others too. Pitting our personal lives against the illusion of public opinion, and then radicalizing it into attack dogs who bias only their own political and zealous interests. Should I be made to feel guilty every time I notice the curvature of Shaela's body, or the way her lips contrast and stand out from the rest of her face?" Wes added, now understanding the implications far beyond what was recently demonstrated.
"Or for every naughty thought and dream I've had of Wes?" Shaela responded, the fact that she was blushing well hidden under the pale foundation she wore as a goth.
For a moment, Mila looked to Wes and then Shaela, and felt a tinge of jealousy for the first time, though she kept quiet about it.
"These secrets are what bind us to those we love," Mila said to Miana, now having found her peace once again.
"What would stop a group of zealous abusive people from trying to throw the bias of love in their favour? Of breaking love?" Wes understood what Mila was saying and elaborated.
"If its the measure of bias we have for someone else, with whom we're not related for instance, then in order to break it, one would only need to exceed it. If I am forced to carry the weight for someone else's bad thing, without my even knowing it, then once my having carried it exceeds the bias I have for someone I truly love, doesn't that mean that my true love has been broken? Replaced secretly with the bias of my having carried the weight for this other person without even knowing it? That violates our ability and right to pick and choose who we let in, and who we don't!" Wes continued.
"I'm very impressed with the lot of you. Except for Neville. He had so little to say, that it seems that maybe he has an inclination for doing things that way?" Miana tested Neville.
Neville looked around at the faces of his friends, as they looked to him questioningly.
"Me? No! I'd never do things that way!" Neville bent to the force of what he saw as the opinions of his friends, while protecting his real opinion on the matter.
Miana smirked at him, and then turned to the others.
"It would seem that you now know far more than you did, though I'd not credit the Norbids for that lesson. I just sped up the process to help you piece it together, because that's what a good teacher does. Consider this your first lesson. We all have our good and our bad, though in the end its up to us to use our own judgement of what we let into our lives and what we don't and what we'll accept and what we'll tolerate and what we don't. Just remember though, that there are people and forces organized out there, who can twist our perception and understanding of these concepts to skew the truth in ways that could be used to pit you one against the other, or against what you're misled to believe is the common public opinion. Even that is an illusion, based mostly upon you trying to second guess the way you think that other people feel and believe based upon the evidence. Rely upon your real feelings, not those of others," Miana said to them, unfolding her arms and smiling as they stared at her uneasily and in disbelief of their first lesson.
"That will be all for now, though I think that Mrs. Trufflebury should be the next teacher you consult in this long journey you've decided to undertake. Remember though, you know the worst of me. Don't assume too much until you've seen demonstrated before your eyes, what's been speculated about others and rely upon your network of trust. Class dismissed," Miana turned and began walking away as they watched her, not yet fully digesting what had just happened.
"I'll take the driver's seat now," Susan demanded without asking.
"Its your body. Besides, I need a break," Miana agreed, abandoning the front-line consciousness of Susan's body and receding into the recesses in her mind.
...
"Did that just happen? Did we let her walk all over us like that?" asked Wes.
"She didn't walk on us. She challenged us to think for ourselves," Glynis responded.
"Was that you or Gallea?" asked Neville, interested given the fact that he knew of the rivalry between Miana and Gallea.
"It was me, though I'm interested to know what Gallea thought of all of this," Glynis admitted, trying to lure Gallea into the debate.
"I think it was a bit of both. She taught you something for certain, but she also used that fact to gain power over you and elevate her status amongst your circle. The lesson was one of importance, but it could still be used by the very people it benefits to fool you again. I mean if she numbers herself amongst the Norbids, then she just turned the Norbids into the proverbial good side. The side that chose to enlighten rather than oppress, even though that social architecture is used to oppress by them and other groups. The lesson is multi-faceted. Be careful of who you give the reigns to with regard to defining the human soul, or control over its worth as a currency or a commodity, including trusting the person or persons who enlighten you to those facts. If the guilty parties involved in maintaining that architecture wanted to clear themselves and reposition themselves in power once again, they could do so by pretending to be the liberators. You can trust her in the sense that she made you aware of the importance of your developing an informed opinion with regard to life and society, especially given the pursuit of what you're trying to achieve. But you can't trust her in the sense that she also used the fact that she liberated you to once again assume power. I have to admit that I find it remarkable that you all managed to piece this together and quickly ascertain its implications. I believe that her suggesting to seek the next lesson from Mrs. Trufflebury is an admission of her sincerity, though I'd advise you to err on the side of caution. Well done! Its a wonderful thing to see the qualities I so admired in long lost friends emerging once again in another incarnation," Gallea smiled with Glynis' lips and they returned each of them much the same.
Neville however, held onto his smirk as he noticed Mila glance at Wes, and Wes glance to her.
To be continued in Era of the Spellbound: Episode 10 - Secrets In The Night
Credits and attribution:
Special Thanks to the Natural History Museum in London, England and of course to the Royal Ontario Museum in my own home of Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Special Thanks To Rocket Fuel Lakeshore Blvd West, perhaps the best place in history to get a coffee, circa 2001-2004. Miss you all very much.
Artwork: Amy Wong, Wendy Pusey, Ghastly, Birdman, Brian Joseph Johns, Daz3D, Unreal Engine...Tools: Daz3D, Corel Painter, Adobe Photoshop, Lightwave 3D, Blender, Stable Diffusion (Easy Diffusion distribution), InstantID, Sadtalker, Google Colaboratory, Microsoft Copilot (Windows 11), Hitfilm, PhotoPea (a great web based Photoshop stand-in if you're on a low budget or in a pinch), Borderline Obsession...
DeepSeek AI for suggestions on exercises to improve aspects of describing scene and settings with a more sensory focused grammar.
InstantID by: Wang, Qixun and Bai, Xu and Wang, Haofan and Qin, Zekui and Chen, Anthony. Research Paper Title: InstantID - Zero-shot Identity-Preserving Generation in Seconds.
Sadtalker by: Zhang, Wenxuan and Cun, Xiaodong and Wang, Xuan and Zhang, Yong and Shen, Xi and Guo, Yu and Shan, Ying and Wang, Fei.
Research Paper Title: SadTalker: Learning Realistic 3D Motion Coefficients for Stylized Audio-Driven Single Image Talking Face Animation.
Gratitude: Our Mentors, Senseis, Sifus, Sebomnims, lifetime inspirations, family, friends, the Nomads (ask Stanton about that one), the Music, the Movies, the Theatre, the Arts, ASMR, (both YouTube and Bilibili and the many other creators on those platforms), the Gaming and Developer communities and of course, the audience.
Martial Arts (in the words of real experts and at least one comedian): https://brucelee.com (home of the real Dragon and an entire family of inspirations), http://iwco.online International Wing Chun Organization (International presence of a very scalable intensity martial art, protected and developed by Shaolin Nun Ng Mui) and the alma mater of Jinn Hua's own specialized variation thereof, https://iogkf.com International Okinawan Goju-Ryu Karatedo Federation (even Hanshi had his teachers), https://itftkd.sport International Taekwondo Federation (Here there be Taegers), https://tangsoodoworld.com Tang Soo Do World (the path of Grandmaster Chuck Norris), https://www.aikido-international.org International Aikido Federation (how else would Navy Chef Steven Seagal liberate a Nimitz Class Aircraft Carrier from a team of hijackers?), https://www.stqitoronto.com Shaolin Temple Quanfa Institute (The City Of Toronto's own Shaolin Temple), https://www.enterthedojoshow.com Master Ken's Ameri-Te-Do presence (If we can't laugh at ourselves, then we can at least laugh the loudest at others, and other Zen)
Magic (performance, illusion and perhaps the real thing): Magic Week Archive (I'm currently growing this section so stay tuned)
Special thanks to Aitrepreneur, Mickmumpitz, Hugging Face and the YouTube educational content producers, including those catering to the AI content production pipeline and of course AlphaSignal.
Shi Heng Yi Shaolin Training For Self Mastery
A reknowned Sifu under whose tutelage you can study the theory and practical applications of the Shaolin Arts for health, physical and mental wellbeing in every day life
Shi Heng Yi Shaolin Training For Self Mastery
A reknowned Sifu under whose tutelage you can study the theory and practical applications of the Shaolin Arts for health, physical and mental wellbeing in every day life
Jesse Enkamp: Karate Nerd
Jesse, a reknowned Sensei who runs his own dojo, explores the world of Martial Arts, traveling to many exotic locations to meet practitioners of a variety of different arts
Sensei Rokas: Martial Arts Journey
A reknowned Sensei of Aikido who in seeking to understand the roots of Aikido and its applications, seeks to stress test its effectiveness in a number of real world situations while studying its history
Seamus O'Dowd
An extensive growing archive Katas, Techniques and Waza (mostly Shotokan)
Iaido: Train For Katana Mastery Like Samurai
The original weapons focused curriculum under which Samurai became masters of their art
Tapp Brothers Exercise For Better Motion
Extensive courses for calisthenics and body strength, stamina and flexibility
Special thanks to Canva for inspiring other creators and giving them the tools
Special thanks to Captain Crunch and his wonderful sister!
Special thanks to Bandcamp for giving indie music artists a home under one roof
Something to give you perspective: The very first teacher had no formal education, didn't graduate and was self taught, but only because they had no other choice. We do.
Tools: Daz3D, Corel Painter, Adobe Photoshop, Lightwave 3D, Blender, Stable Diffusion (Easy Diffusion distribution), InstantID, Sadtalker, Google Colaboratory, Microsoft Copilot (Windows 11), Hitfilm, PhotoPea (a great web based Photoshop stand-in if you're on a low budget or in a pinch), Borderline Obsession...
DeepSeek AI for suggestions on exercises to improve aspects of describing scene and settings with a more sensory focused grammar.
InstantID by: Wang, Qixun and Bai, Xu and Wang, Haofan and Qin, Zekui and Chen, Anthony. Research Paper Title: InstantID - Zero-shot Identity-Preserving Generation in Seconds.
Sadtalker by: Zhang, Wenxuan and Cun, Xiaodong and Wang, Xuan and Zhang, Yong and Shen, Xi and Guo, Yu and Shan, Ying and Wang, Fei.
Research Paper Title: SadTalker: Learning Realistic 3D Motion Coefficients for Stylized Audio-Driven Single Image Talking Face Animation.
Gratitude: Our Mentors, Senseis, Sifus, Sebomnims, lifetime inspirations, family, friends, the Nomads (ask Stanton about that one), the Music, the Movies, the Theatre, the Arts, ASMR, (both YouTube and Bilibili and the many other creators on those platforms), the Gaming and Developer communities and of course, the audience.
Martial Arts (in the words of real experts and at least one comedian): https://brucelee.com (home of the real Dragon and an entire family of inspirations), http://iwco.online International Wing Chun Organization (International presence of a very scalable intensity martial art, protected and developed by Shaolin Nun Ng Mui) and the alma mater of Jinn Hua's own specialized variation thereof, https://iogkf.com International Okinawan Goju-Ryu Karatedo Federation (even Hanshi had his teachers), https://itftkd.sport International Taekwondo Federation (Here there be Taegers), https://tangsoodoworld.com Tang Soo Do World (the path of Grandmaster Chuck Norris), https://www.aikido-international.org International Aikido Federation (how else would Navy Chef Steven Seagal liberate a Nimitz Class Aircraft Carrier from a team of hijackers?), https://www.stqitoronto.com Shaolin Temple Quanfa Institute (The City Of Toronto's own Shaolin Temple), https://www.enterthedojoshow.com Master Ken's Ameri-Te-Do presence (If we can't laugh at ourselves, then we can at least laugh the loudest at others, and other Zen)
Magic (performance, illusion and perhaps the real thing): Magic Week Archive (I'm currently growing this section so stay tuned)
Special thanks to Aitrepreneur, Mickmumpitz, Hugging Face and the YouTube educational content producers, including those catering to the AI content production pipeline and of course AlphaSignal.
Shi Heng Yi Shaolin Training For Self Mastery
A reknowned Sifu under whose tutelage you can study the theory and practical applications of the Shaolin Arts for health, physical and mental wellbeing in every day life
Shi Heng Yi Shaolin Training For Self Mastery
A reknowned Sifu under whose tutelage you can study the theory and practical applications of the Shaolin Arts for health, physical and mental wellbeing in every day life
Jesse Enkamp: Karate Nerd
Jesse, a reknowned Sensei who runs his own dojo, explores the world of Martial Arts, traveling to many exotic locations to meet practitioners of a variety of different arts
Sensei Rokas: Martial Arts Journey
A reknowned Sensei of Aikido who in seeking to understand the roots of Aikido and its applications, seeks to stress test its effectiveness in a number of real world situations while studying its history
Seamus O'Dowd
An extensive growing archive Katas, Techniques and Waza (mostly Shotokan)
Iaido: Train For Katana Mastery Like Samurai
The original weapons focused curriculum under which Samurai became masters of their art
Tapp Brothers Exercise For Better Motion
Extensive courses for calisthenics and body strength, stamina and flexibility
Special thanks to Canva for inspiring other creators and giving them the tools
Special thanks to Captain Crunch and his wonderful sister!
Special thanks to Bandcamp for giving indie music artists a home under one roof
Something to give you perspective: The very first teacher had no formal education, didn't graduate and was self taught, but only because they had no other choice. We do.
This content is entirely produced in Toronto, Ontario, Canada at 200 Sherbourne Street Suite 701 under the Shhhh! Digital Media banner.
This content is entirely produced in Toronto, Ontario, Canada at 200 Sherbourne Street Suite 701 under the Shhhh! Digital Media banner.
Brian Joseph Johns
https://www.shhhhdigital.comhttps://www.facebook.com/shhhhdigitalhttps://www.youtube.com/@ShhhhDigitalAudio
Produced at Shhhh! Digital Media
200 Sherbourne Street Suite 701
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Inquiries: brian.joseph.johns@shhhhdigital.com, info@shhhhdigital.com
Copyright © 2025 Brian Joseph Johns
Brian Joseph Johns
https://www.shhhhdigital.com
https://www.facebook.com/shhhhdigitalhttps://www.shhhhdigital.com
https://www.youtube.com/@ShhhhDigitalAudio
Produced at Shhhh! Digital Media
200 Sherbourne Street Suite 701
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Inquiries: brian.joseph.johns@shhhhdigital.com, info@shhhhdigital.com
Produced at Shhhh! Digital Media
200 Sherbourne Street Suite 701
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Inquiries: brian.joseph.johns@shhhhdigital.com, info@shhhhdigital.com
Copyright © 2025 Brian Joseph Johns