Chapter 39 Part 4
"A spiritual fault line?"
"Yes, a spiritual fault line. There was a time period of extreme monism ushered in by Christianity--another religion that has long since disappeared. Christianity had the tendency to attempt to eradicate the notion that there were other entities than God. Why, there were councils designed to promote and demote certain angels for fear that the focus on them might become too great. Aries was an old God, but that is not to say that he was 'THE GOD.' However, he was a sufficient force for the people to worship him for quite some time, along with other gods.
"So why did Aries disappear?" inquired Uzine.
"It was not that Aries disappeared from the standpoint of the spiritual reality. He was always around. However, people stopped worshipping him as religions changed and polytheistic beliefs were eschewed in favor of monism. As people stopped worshipping him, they stopped directing their energy toward him deliberately. As a consequence, his grip on the physical plane began to slip. Separate entities, such as Aries, require regular attention in order to exert their influence. If people do not believe in them, that is not to say they do not exist, or that they are unable to influence matters in subtle ways. Aries is a spirit of war. Wherever there is war, he will revel in the occurrence, whether people believe in him or not.
"I guess that explains how I managed to summon him," said Sal.
"You tapped into the energy that was most readily accessible. You thought you were writing a simple deception, but the medium for the energy can be many different things. It doesn't matter whether it is code, a poem, or a movie. What matters is that it focuses your mind passionately on the energy contained. By focusing so intently and furiously on the deception--you were in effect deceived into thinking you were writing code as opposed to performing a kind of invocation."
Rei crossed her arms. "I am not saying I believe in any of this. However, you mentioned a spiritual fault line being different as a consequence of Aries being summoned. It seems to me that the fault line would mainly only exist where the physical plane was concerned."
"Very good, Rei!" began the Rogue. "That's exactly what would happen. It's hard to say what will happen now that Aries has been summoned in the Runic wars. It is certain though that his appearance will foster followers trying to harness his energy as Sal inadvertently did."
Let's go back to what you were talking about before with us having pieces to stop an age of darkness?" began Uzine.
"There are more gods than Aries--more forces that work at cross purposes. There are some of love, some of wisdom, some of wrath. More than a few wish to cause massive suffering. They desire these things because such moments cause people to doubt and to give their power away for what they perceive as safety. When the first instance of something awful happens, people are shocked. They are shocked because it is not their natural state to witness such things. When something awful becomes accepted as part of reality, people simply wish to avoid whatever the awful thing is, and on a mass level, they will begin to adjust their consciousness to "blend in" so as not to attract the wrath of such a system. A few hundred years later, people have forgotten all about how things were before. The new reality becomes darker and more cynical. Denser spiritual entities can take hold in such fertile soil. The individual can influence how things unfold by his attitude toward these events. If he allows dark happenings to crush him into conformity, he is perpetuating the problem just as everyone else is. On the other hand, he cannot control what the masses choose to believe, and so he is also at their mercy. The greatest danger is always masses of people believing in darkness. This is so because the masses of people believing in darkness will, out of fear, demand the punishment of those who hold the light. If there are masses of people holding the light, however, they do not demand the punishment of those who would hold the dark (indeed, the punishment is more automatic in such a case). For this reason, once the spiral of darkness starts, it is difficult to arrest."
"And we hold the keys to stop this process, eh?" Rei asked pointedly.
"Yes, you do. You should know that more than either Sal or Uzine. After all, Rei, you were the one most disillusioned by the claim that the Shapers were Gods. How were you able to determine such a thing if you did not understand something about the nature of humans and also something about the nature of Gods?"
Rei didn't answer the Rogue's question. Instead, she looked away.
Silence permeated the room. The Rogue looked at his watch. "Well, I think it is time for our little meeting to be up. Good luck to each of you on that whole saving the world thing. I think you guys have a least a twenty percent chance of pulling it off--maybe even thirty. I suggest you each prepare yourselves for slip-stream..." the Rogue didn't finish his sentence before the nausea of slipstream travel was upon all three of them.
