khirye’ag shoreshiin
The Selected Teachings
of Vehk
he Psijic Endeavor
is the basis for the teachings of the Prophet Veloth, founder of present day Morrowind and father of Dunmeri culture.
²Veloth describes the Psijic Endeavor as a process of glorious apotheosis, where time itself is bent inward and outward into ‘a shape that is always new’.
³Those who can attain this state, called Chim, experience an ineffable sense of the godhead, and escape the strictures of the world-egg.
⁴It should be noted that, while Veloth is given credit for establishing the anti-laws that govern the Endeavor, this process has its antecedents in the teachings of the Black Hands Mephala, Boethiah, Azura, Trinimac, and, of course, Lorkhan, through that lord’s association with PSJJJJ.
⁵Chim, from the Ehlnofex, is an ancient sigil connoting ‘royalty’, ‘starlight’, and ‘high splendor’. As with most characters of that dangerous language, the sigil CHIM constantly distorts itself. ⁶Those scholars that can perceive its shape regard it as a Crowned Tower that threatens to break apart at the slightest break in concentration.
⁷Representations of the Chim, and by extension the Psijic Endeavor, are always protean values, such as the anumidi models renowned by the Dwemer, the Scarab of contemporary astrolothurges, and the Striking (“exact egg-cracking”) of old Argonia. ⁸All of these representations possess an innate and constant aspect of transformation.
⁹The purpose of the Psijic Endeavor is to transcend mortal boundaries set in place by immortal rulers.
¹⁰At its simplest, the state of Chim provides an escape from all known laws of the divine worlds and the corruptions of the black sea of Oblivion. ¹¹It is a return to the first brush of Anu-Padomay, where stasis and change created possibility. Moreso, it the essence needed to hold that ‘dawning’ together without disaster. ¹²One that knows CHIM observes the Tower without fear. Moreso: he resides within.
¹³The Tower is an ideal, which, in our world of myth and magic, means that it is so real that it becomes dangerous. ¹⁴It is the existence of the True Self within the Universal Self, and is embodied by the fourth constellation, and is guarded by the Thief, the third. ¹⁵The Thief is another metaphorical absolute; in this case, he represents the “taking of the Tower” or, and sometimes more importantly, the “taking” of the Tower’s secret: how to permanently exist beyond duplexity, antithesis, or trouble.
¹⁶This is not an easy concept, I know. Imagine being able to feel with all of your senses the relentless alien terror that is God and your place in it, which is everywhere and therefore nowhere, and realizing that it means the total dissolution of your individuality into boundless being. ¹⁷Imagine that and then still being able to say “I”. The “I” is the Tower.
¹⁸The Wheel created the Tower. The Wheel is the structure of this universe, and it is easiest to see it that way: rim, spokes, hub, and all the spaces within and without. I shall take each in turn.
¹⁹Anu and Padomay, stasis and change, both vast realms sitting in the void, created the wheel. Not vast but infinite, as the void was infinite. ²⁰Imagine an infinity enclosed by another; you come away with a bubble. Now watch as the two bubbles touch. ²¹Their intersection is a perfect circle of pattern and possibility that we shall call the Aurbis. The Aurbis is the foundation of the Wheel.
²²Outside the wheel is the void, bereft of anything. It cannot be named. If it has more aspects than stasis and change, they are outside of true language. ²³Inside of the Wheel is the Aurbis. As the process of subcreation continued, both Anu and Padomay awakened. For to see your antithesis is to finally awaken. ²⁴Each gave birth to their souls, Anui-El and Sithis, and these souls regarded the Aurbis each in their own part, and from this came the et’Ada, the original patterns. These et’Ada eventually congealed.
²⁵Anu’s firstborn, for he mostly desired order, was time, anon Auri-El. Padomay’s firstborn went wandering from the start, changing as he went, and wanted no name but was branded with Lorkhan ²⁶As time allowed more and more patterns to individualize, Lorkhan watched the Aurbis shape itself and grew equally delighted and tired with each new shaping. ²⁷As the gods and demons of the Aurbis erupted, the get of Padomay tried to leave it all behind for he wanted all of it and none of it all at once. It was then that he came to the border of the Aurbis.
²⁸He saw the Tower, for a circle turned sideways is an “I”. This was the first word of Lorkhan and he would never, ever forget it.
²⁹For ages the et’Ada grew and shaped and destroyed each other and destroyed each other’s creations. ³⁰Some were like Lorkhan and discovered the void outside of the Aurbis, though if some saw the Tower I do not know, but I know that, if they did, none held it in such high esteem. ³¹In any case, some of those that did see the void created its like inside the Aurbis, but each of these smaller voids sought each other out. ³²Void shall follow void; the et’Ada called it Oblivion. ³³What was left of the Aurbis was solid change, otherwise known as magic. The et’Ada called this Aetherius.
³⁴Now Lorkhan had by at this point seen everything there was to see, and could accept none of it. ³⁵Here were the et’Ada with their magic and their voids and everything in between and he yearned for the return to flux but at the same time he could not bear to lose his identity. ³⁶He did not know what he wanted, but he knew how to build it. ³⁷Through trickery (“we have made the Aurbis unstable with the voids”) and wisdom (“we are of two minds and so should make a perfect gem of compromise”) and force (“do what I say, rude spirit”), he bound some of the strongest et’Ada to create the World.
³⁸The spokes of the Wheel are the eight gifts of the Aedra, sons and daughters of Aetherius. ³⁹The voids between each spoke number sixteen, and their masters are the sons and daughters of Oblivion.
⁴⁰The center of the Wheel was another circle, the hub, which held everything together. The et’Ada called this Mundus. ⁴¹We are the hub, the Mundus that goes by many names. We are the heart of all creation.
⁴²What does this mean? Why should we care? Lorkhan created it so that we could find what he did. ⁴³In fact, and here is the secret: the hub is the reflection of its creators, the circle within the circle, only the border to ours is so much easier to see. ⁴⁴Stand in its flux and remain whole of mind. Look at it sideways and see the “I”.
This is the Tower.
⁴⁵It relates to the Psijic Endeavor because from within one, you may regard the other.
⁴⁶The world you stand on is said to be the first attempt at Chim. It is also admittedly the most famous. ⁴⁷That it was choreographed by Lorkhan and ultimately failed is well-documented, but whether or not this failure was intentional is still disputed.
⁴⁸And this is the most-reached destination of all that embark upon this road: Why would Lorkhan and his (unwitting?) agents sabotage their experiments with the Tower? Why would he crumble that which he esteems?
⁴⁹Perhaps he failed so you might know how not to.