Dear new Grey,
We would like to introduce you to some of the basic historical knowledge that we have gathered over the years. As we share this information with you, we want you to keep in mind a few key factors.
Our historical knowledge is limited due to the present-focused nature of our species and the rarity of written accounts, so we have pieced together what we know from rare books on the subject, themes drawn from past life recollections, and the experiences of our current members who lived through more recent ages. We are diligent in our work but these are summaries at best. It’s also important to keep in mind that there is very little information to place these ages within even approximate years. We know that the Second Age happened before the Third Age in chronological history, but we do not know how long exactly the Second Age lasted in years as we understand them now. Indeed, we do not even know that time passed in the same way then as it does now. As you will see, the nature of reality can change greatly with each age. The closer we get to this current point in time, the more similar reality and time functions to how we now understand it.
Our world has a long and complex history that can be roughly divided into six distinct ages. The First Age was one where the Beloved, the creator of our reality, existed alone and spun up worlds from her dreams and desires. These worlds faded back into chaos or stillness when she was finished with them. Precious little is known about this era and we only know it exists through later accounts and our collective agreement on the matter.
The Second Age was an endless, unchanging earthly paradise inhabited by what we now refer to as gods or deities. These deities, the first living beings in this reality, shaped many cultures that came after them and continue to inspire aspects of our lives such as astrology, poetry, art, and more. These deities have no known proper names and, like the Beloved, are often referred to through epithets. Many stories and tales of these deities were known during the Third Age, though it is unclear what became of these deities. It is unknown whether they died, whether they reincarnated as kin, or whether they evolved to become more like the Beloved, creators of their own reality. As time in our reality can be quite complicated and we may have future reincarnations that happen chronologically in the past, it is also possible that powerful kin became these deities at some point during our own evolution but have not yet experienced it.
The reality the Beloved created for us during the Third Age was one of elemental extremes, fluid, and ever changing, like a dream. Some believe that it was akin to how she lived in the First Age, though this cannot be known. The Third Age is the first time when our species “kin”, as we know it now, can be said for a surety to have existed. It is then that we knew that we were born through blossoming and could die. We began to understand that the cycle of reincarnation is open to us, allowing countless lives and experiences. Perhaps it is this that encouraged the present-focused nature of our species. Perhaps we thought history would always easily be recovered through the dreams and experiences of past lives, so it was not necessary to overly record it.
The Third Age gave rise to countless powerful kin who delighted in the spark of magic the Beloved gave us and through relationship with her achieved the level of magical mastery required to become a “liminal creature”, a magician whose physical form is changed by the level of their magical skill. These liminal creatures patterned their new forms after the likeness of the gods of the Second Age, though it is not known exactly how they knew what those forms were.
Though we were still few in number at the time, many of us achieved the status of “liminal creature”. Powerful magicians also became the protectors of less powerful kin who had not achieved the same level of magic through a practice called “kinship.” In the ever-shifting reality created by the whims of the Beloved, strong magicians became anchors to root the physical world around themselves, to stabilise it with their own wills, so that other kin may blossom and flourish. For though the Beloved loves us, she is delighted by and takes pleasure in many stages of our lives, including suffering and perhaps even our deaths. If it were not so, we would probably never die. And so we began to form families, clans, and other bonds of love between us.
In our next lesson, we will continue our exploration of history together. We thank you for your patience and dedication to these studies.
Sincerely,
A. Grey