On the Merits of Unnaturalness

 

T
ODAY
, my good People, I put to you the new Edict of our beloved Government. Today, the
WESTMINSTER ARCHON
has declared outright War upon our oppressed and wretched Population. The
NIGHT VIGILANCE DIVISION
, Bane of our beleaguered People, has now employed Officials with the
SPIRIT SIGHT
within the Network of the London Underground, previously one of the safer Means by which we could traverse this Citadel. These new Agents, known as
UNDERGUARDS
, will have the Power to carry out visual Checks on Individuals to deduce whether or not an
AURA
is present; to arrest and hold suspected Unnaturals without trial, and to use whatever physical or ethereal Clout they please to manhandle their Captives towards Inquisitorial Justice. It is one of the many new Fetters by which
GRAND INQUISITOR
Zettler
is removing our natural Rights as Denizens and Human Beings, forcing us to cower in our own Homes or risk Detection, Incarceration, and eventual Execution. It is not only our Right to travel that is under Threat, my Friends, but our very Right to exist.

Of course, this will not be News to you, dear Reader.
UNNATURALNESS
is the Anathema and the Scapegoat of our miserable Society. One hundred and two Years have passed since the great Tyrant,
FIRST INQUISITOR
James Ramsay MacDonald
, established this Citadel in 1929. Since then,
AMAUROSIS
, the Plague of Normality, has sterilised the Streets. Its Sufferers fear the Touch of Death, and the Power that we ‘Unnaturals' bear within us. They are right to fear. They are wise to oppress. For are we not vastly superior to them, we Unnaturals? For though we pick the Bones of Society, though we crawl in Gutters and beg for our Keep, we are living Conduits to the World Beyond. We are Proof of an auxiliary Existence. We channel the ultimate Energy, the eternal
ÆTHER
. We harness Death itself. We unhorse the Reaper. With its Blacklists and general Suppression of the Arts, Scion has robbed us of the Insight of our clairvoyant Ancestors. We have learned our ancestral Stories by Word of Mouth, but still, there is no single Document that claims to tell our Story. And so, my good People, I present to you a modern Story of Clairvoyance by means of the written Word. I, an Obscure Writer, who have clawed my way from Ignorance.

This Pamphlet is for the Eyes of all Clairvoyants. It is on this Paper that I present to you the Outcome of my Research, carried out over the last Decade with the utmost Diligence and Enthusiasm. My Aim has been to compile a proper Index of both known and supposed Forms of Clairvoyance, and to rank them in terms of their Utility and Purity.
1

1
I here acknowledge the Wisdom of the
Golden Baroness
, First
UNDERQUEEN
of the Scion Citadel of London, who noted in early 1980 that Clairvoyants with Auras of the same Colour tended to share Gifts with similar Qualities. A perceptive Lady indeed. It is a great Tragedy that she was murdered that same Year.

 

By
Purity
,
dear Reader, I refer to the Crux of my Theory: the hitherto unheard of Notion that some Types of Clairvoyance are
superior
to others because they achieve a more perfect form of Harmony with the Æther.
To make a Judgement upon each Gift and its respective Qualities, and consequently its Ranking within this unprecedented System, I have conducted Research in the six Cohorts of London and within the Pages of a number of forbidden Texts, gleaned from the Black Market of Covent Garden and the most prestigious Library of the
SPIRITUS CLUB
, wherein many such Documents have been stored.

Be aware, my good Reader, that this Pamphlet, no matter how controversial its Content, must never fall into enemy Hands. It details all known Types of Unnaturalness, divides them into seven Orders, and details the Merits of each. The Types are listed in such a way as to express their Rarity, with the first Order containing the most common Types of Clairvoyance. To my Knowledge, there has been no previous Attempt to categorise the Gift in this Manner, resulting in great Uncertainty about what each and every one of us can do, and how we should organise ourselves to achieve maximum Efficiency within our Syndicate.
2
I believe that many more Types are yet to be discovered, and will categorise them in a later Pamphlet should they reveal themselves.

2
Previously, as the Reader will no doubt be aware, we have attempted to organise ourselves by various clumsy and nonsensical Means, such as the Luminosity of our Auras (or, as suggested in 1986 by the Mollisher named the
Fool of Far
r
ingdon
, by the Sizes of our Shoes) but these forms of Categorisation lack Nuance and should, in this Writer's humble Opinion, be abandoned forthwith.

 

I could write a short Essay on each of these Gifts, but for the Sake of Brevity, I have simply included an educational Outline. For the Merits of Unnaturalness are many, and ought to be known throughout our Underworld, from the Devil's Acre and the Chapel to the brave Stronghold of I Cohort. With the greatest Humility, I believe that this is a Piece of Literature of the utmost Importance, and I propose that it be read by all who possess a clairvoyant Gift. Every Mime-Lord, Mime-Queen and Mollisher, every Busker and Courtier, every Séance-Master and Nightwalker ought to read this Pamphlet. For we will not be bound together merely by mutual Suffering, but by mutual Knowledge of the many Variations of our Gift.

 

A FOREWORD ON

I
would first like to dedicate a small Section of this Pamphlet to describing what our beloved Government has deemed
UNNATURALNESS
, and what we have long since called
CLAIRVOYANCE
. The latter Word comes from the French,
clair
meaning ‘clear' and
voyance
, ‘Vision'. It is unclear as to how many Individuals possess the Gift. The Name alludes to the Ability of the Majority of us to see Spirits with our own Eyes. They appear to us in a Variety of different Guises. Some report Spirits appearing as Orbs, while others perceive luminous Streaks of Colour. Others still see some Type of Scotoma or visual Obstruction. These Impressions are always amorphous and bear no Resemblance to a living Person. The Accuracy of the Word
CLAIRVOYANCE
is the subject of a lively Debate, as not all of us possess this second Sight. It is said that only the Fullsighted, who are plagued by the Sight of Spirits at all Hours, or the Halfsighted, who may choose when to see them, should properly be called Clairvoyant.
3
Nonetheless, it is a Word so deeply entrenched in our Consciousness that it is unlikely to change in this Century. Consequently, even the Unsighted are colloquially described as Clairvoyant. What brings us together as a Minority is not our ‘clear Vision', but our Ability to control Spirits through the Phenomenon of Aura.

3
My Research has reliably informed me that the Fullsighted often have shorter Attention Spans than the Halfsighted and Unsighted as they must concentrate on both the Sights of this World and the
Æ
ther simultaneously. It would be interesting to discuss this in greater Detail, but it seems to me that the Subject of the Spirit Sight belongs in a Pamphlet of its own.

Any Person who possesses an Aura has the Right to be called Clairvoyant, even if they do not possess the Sight. Aura is our individual Link to the Æther, that most arcane World inhabited by Spirits. It is the Belief of Amaurotics that this World does not exist, or that, if it does, it should not be used or acknowledged by the Living. What they fail to understand is that there must always be a Channel for the most ancient Wisdom known to Mankind to flow into the World from the Darkness of the Æther. It is through Spirits that we have recorded vast swathes of History, some of which lay obscured for Centuries until a Clairvoyant appeared to enlighten the befuddled Scholars. Now that we are persecuted, it is through Spirits that we survive, selling their Knowledge and Skills on the Streets.
4
Aura attracts most Spirits, endearing them to us, and allows us to sense their Presence. It is a Reflection of the Colours and Shapes aggregated within the
DREAMSCAPE
, that is, the Scenery and Interior of an individual Mind. Some Clairvoyants are more attuned to the
Æther than others, a Gift which typically entails a brighter Aura.

4
A general Reminder to the uninitiated Reader that this is why our Leaders in the Syndicate are known by the name Mime-Lord or Mime-Queen. From
Thomas Ebon Merrit'
s original
Declaration to the Unnatural Assembly
(1964): ‘I have raised you to Roles of great Importance, so you shall be called the Lords and Queens of these wretched Folk; yet see that I have humbled you anew with a prefix,
MIME
. For though you are a Monarch, remember that you are only a Mimic. The Spirits of the Dead have granted us their Knowledge so that we may whore it on the Streets for Coin, sacrificing their Secrets for the sake of our continued Existence. You, the Unnatural, can only ever imitate their Greatness.' Much as I respect the memory of our first Underlord, I note that he was rather a Curmudgeon.

 

For the Sighted, Aura is perceived as a Spectrum. Though they possess Dreamscapes, Amaurotics do not have Aura, as their Dreamscapes are wholly colourless and give no friendly Signal to Spirits. Those Clairvoyants who feature at the start of this Pamphlet generally have Auras of Violet or Blue, moving into Green, Yellow, Orange, a reddish Orange or Coral, and finally Red. This secret Spectrum is invisible to Amaurotics. The Unsighted report that instead of perceiving Colour, they receive a unique sensory Indicator from each Aura, allowing them to make an Estimation of what Type of Clairvoyance is being displayed. Thus, without further Ado, let us learn and examine the seven Orders of Clairvoyance.