Tillinghast Field

An alarm warning of an imminent Tillinghast event.

## Overview

### Summary

A specialized form of high-energy resonance field, the phenomena known as a Tillinghast Field (abbreviated as T-Field) is the result of generations of study by the Tillinghast family, most notably by Dr. Jack Tillinghast in Poppy Valley, OR. When a field is active, it thins the barriers between the field's source and surrounding dimensions. However, the inherent risks and unpredictability of the field most often makes them an option of last resort.

### History

First developed in the early 1900s, the Tillinghast family sought to create a device that would allow them to perceive planes of existence outside of their current reality. Generations of Tillinghasts sought to perfect and expand upon their predecessor's research, eventually going so far as to manipulate the field into a form of interplanar travel. In the 1940s, Professor Robert C. Tillinghast succeeded in using the field to teleport the U.S.S. Eldridge from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to Norfolk, Virginia and back, although not without horrific consequences to the bodies and minds of the crewmen.[1] His son, Jack, would later create the most stable version of a field during the 1980s after experimenting with psychiatric patients, a cocktail of unknown reagents, and his perfected Tillinghast projector.

After Jack's disappearance, T-Field research came to a halt until Eleanor Black stumbled upon the Observatory Telescope at Valerian Preparatory Institute and furthered the research in an attempt to rescue students who had no-clipped into The Backrooms as a result of the thinning between worlds.

## Function

By stimulating a person's pineal gland with an incredible amount of highly-focused energy via a device known as a Tillinghast projector, the human body becomes a sort of epicenter for what is known as a Tillinghast event.[2] The event begins once the subject's brain reaches an equalized resonance frequency with ambient quantum strings, thereby "thinning" the separation between their current plane of existence enough to perceive other nearby planes. While a low-level field allows for only perception of these adjacent realities, a powerful enough T-Field all but removes any separation between the point of origin and the target reality, allowing for physical transference.

As of the 2023 Spring Semester, the primary shortcoming in the utilization of a T-Field is the difficulty involved in focusing it toward a specific dimension. During the Backrooms Rescue Operation, Morning Glory academy student Giana Graves and Valerian student Malcolm Locke were able to engineer a way to link Poppy Valley to the Backrooms by using a strange key which had appeared in Eleanor Black's pocket during a massive Tillinghast event she had accidentally triggered.[3][4][5] However, it is currently theorized that without a direct connection (through the form of a physical object or an equivalent location) to another plane, it would be impossible to direct a Tillinghast projector to generate a field to a specific dimension.

### Hazards

Tillinghast Fields are extremely dangerous and have been shown through decades of research to be fatal after repeated or prolonged exposure, which results in an aneurysm 100% of the time. After carrying the Key with her for several days and after repeated T-Field tests, the return jump from The Backrooms was enough to cause a sub-cranial hemorrhage in Eleanor Black, which very nearly killed her and left her comatose.[6]

Arguably the most dangerous risk of using a Tillinghast field is the fact that when a field is active, both parties on either side of one are able to perceive the other just as easily, thereby potentially making a malevolent entity aware of the one generating the field. In the case of The Backrooms, the repeated use of Tillinghast technology attracted the attention of a powerful Entity known as The Crooked Man, which turned its attention toward Poppy Valley when too many students found themselves no-clipping into its domain.[7]

## Trivia

* During preparations for the 2022 Valerian Masquerade Ball, Valerian student Derek Orbos utilized a form of Tillinghast technology in his attempts to locate the Black Tower, although the specifics of this system are a closely-guarded secret by the Orbos Better Living Foundation.[8]