Cocheshian Mysticism

Colcheshian (c*ole-KESH-ian)* Mysticism (also known as the Colchesian Mysteries) is an overarching and inexact term referring to the beliefs of the people of the Colcheshian Plains, a vast steppe which covers much of the southern half of Vargelia. These peoples include both the semi-nomadic peoples of the steppes; such as the Chérkiss, Übykhe, Shapszuq, Köxhesh, Emreti, and Degë, and the settled agricultural tribes; such as the Khobasye, Tuturs, Khabars, Kartvelash, and Azerg. While the term can be used to describe any belief system present in the region, it is specifically used to describe those religious and philosophical systems which emerged from the native beliefs present before the arrival of Ninhavan missionaries. In contemporary scholarship these beliefs are grouped into separate divisions based on their theology, philosophy, ethics. There are three main schools of the Colchesian mysteries: Mazdaki, Arkbali, and Sagiri. Only Mazdaki and Arkbali are still practiced openly among the population; Sagiri having been banned by the Inquisitions during the *Conquest of the South*.

## Mazdaki

The earliest references to Mazdaki theology date back 3,400 years. The Mazdaki faith is henotheistic, with a Supreme Creator Mazdak, and various gods and goddesses who regulate the forces of nature and physics.

In the Creation of the World, Mazdak dreamed and as HE dreamed, the trickster Görundur (GAXH-rune-dor) watched. Using clay gathered from the void, Görundur formed a cast around the entirety of Mazdak's dream, which hardened into matter. As the clay hardened, within the cast Mazdak began shaping figures with his dream and by the power of his universally encompassing imagination, forced the universe to move. However, within HIS own dream, Mazdak lucidly perceived the constraints placed on the bounds of HIS imagining, and so channeled HIS mind into the forms of the gods, who would safeguard HIS sanity from nightmare and ensure that the clay shapes and beings were moved in ways which were pleasing to HIM.

The ideology of the Mazdaki makes special distinctions between energy, which is seen as manifestation of the Mutagbh (moo-TAGH-bh) or "Quickening Spirit" of Mazdak's dream, and matter; which is born of the void and within the purview of Görundur. Consciousness is energy channeled by the process of Mazdak's dream, a view which Mazdakis' claim has been proven by modern science. Death is merely the transfer of consciousness from one part of the God's dream to another. The ultimate goal of the Mazdaki is to eventually free oneself from the mechanization of Mutagbh by embracing it totally, arising to the level of a god; a being who orders the workings of Mazdak's dream and maintains order within this ephemeral universe. Some sects speak of a way of shuffling past Görundur's void-cast shell, emerging from the mud baked cocoon of the universe a being much like Görundur; with no identifiable mover other than his own whims.

These views were most commonly espoused by the settled Colcheshian people, and many great temples were once devoted to the worship of the innumerable gods and goddesses who controlled the flow of energy in the universe. Each city often had it's own pantheon, generally named after legendary heroes and kings. Since the *Conquest* these temples still stand, though many have been converted to the Ninhavism.

## Arkbali

Arkbali is said to have been formed as an offshoot from Mazdaki religious practices, with the arrival of the First Prophet Arkbal, in 100 C.E. A travelling preacher and miracle worker, Arkbal purported to have discovered the ability to completely control energy during his lifetime. Arkbal claimed that in a revelation from Mazdak HIMSELF, the Creator had told him of HIS love for those beings who HE moved within the dream, how HE despaired at HIS own awakening as it would mean the end of all the gods and men who had ever lived, and how HE would send down Arkbal a piece of HIMSELF from beyond the dream, a power known as Münah (mu-NAH) or the Divine Fire. And to HIS universe HE would deliver Twelve additional Prophets, like Arkbal, who would dispense Münah into the world, giving it a form and energy independent of its Creator. Individuals could, as Arkbal had shown, take this Divine Fire into themselves by commencing with a way of life which rejected the void-clay bonds of the world and embraced the makeup of the Creator's innate power. Though many teachers and instructors have since emerged within the Arkbali faith, there is significant disagreement over which of them can be considered Prophets, and how many Prophets are still to be ordained with the Divine Fire.

The Creator's innate power is also termed *Adylij* (*Ad-ee-Lee)*, which is roughly translated as Love. In actuality, the term *Adylij* encompasses a way of life which is at odds with the ways of Mazdakis; rejecting sacrifice to gods and heroes and instead nurturing the beginnings of revelation which are said to exist in every man, woman, and creature within the universe. By embracing the spirit of *Adylij*, one does everything they can to further their own inner perfection as well as perfecting the soul and *Adylij* in others, absorbing Münah into oneself in the process. While this may seem another iteration of the Golden Rule the command of *Adylij* makes no reference to the Other as a person with separate feelings and motivations, only as an extension of the Self, a condition which Arkbal claimed was a "natural consequence of the stable states of energy within matter". One extends help to the Other because in doing so One brings the Realization of the Self and the Other into view, eventually annihilating the boundary altogether. After unifying the Self and the Other as One, a being is able to absorb enough Münah to rip free from the bounds of the void-wrought shell of Görundur.

These beliefs were once commonly held by both nomadic and settled Colcheshians, and were readily synchonized with the teachings of Northern missionaries and Inquisitors during the *Conquest*.

## Sagiri

The term Sagiri refers to the followers of Sagir Berezek (900-950 C.E), a chieftain of the Chérkiss. Unlike the shared theologies of the Mazdaki and Arkbal, Sagir recognized no gods or worldviews. He spat on and openly mocked Mazdakis and Arkbalis dwelling within his realm, and drew distinction between two kinds of people: Avarshag (av-AR-shaeck) (roughly translated as *men who worship life*) and Mortasheg (mor-TASH-shek) (roughly translated as *men who worship death*). Avarshag, said Sagir, were those who lived crippled in fear of death. They were the men who settled down, took possessions and homes, built walls to protect those dwellings, and created stories and ways of living which deluded themselves of their own mortality and waylaid fears of their own imminent demise. This preoccupation with escaping death prevented them from enjoying life, and locked them into cages which made Death's search for them all the easier. Mortasheg, said Sagir, were those men who disregarded this life and lusted for the coming of Death. These men, by loving death, lived not in fear of it and had no need for the lies and morality which the Avarshag devised for themselves. By loving fate and death, these men could sample the pleasures of life without judgment or restraint, freed from societal and relational taboos, returning to a state of instinctual animalistic awareness which conversely lifted them above the lot of the average man. These men and woman were termed "Adyghe" (Ah-dodge-eh) or "Children of God", who were free of all morality and constraints and would be able to change the world as they saw fit. These teachings, as outlined in the one holy book of the Sagiri; The *Sagarashad*, radically changed the society of the Chérkiss and eventually the rest of the nomadic tribes of Colchesia, leading to the formation of a unified empire which lasted for 150 years. This empire was destroyed in the *Conquest of the South*, by armies from the North, who placed the nomads into distinct territories and forbade the printing and distribution of the *Sagarashad,* a ban which was only rescinded in the 1954.

Since the ban was lifted, the *Sagarashad* has been translated into over 50 different languages. Within the Common language, W.P. Peterson's translation from the University of Drumlin Press has been considered the most concise, balancing the innate flow of Cherkissian trochee verse against a vast vocabulary of untranslatable idioms. This translation is available online here.

### Selected Excerpts from the *Sagarashad*

*"A man who lives in a saddle can choose to die in a saddle, but a man who dwells in a house has no choice. Death may take him in his sleep or he may take him as he does a man of the saddle. For alike to all is the War God, and he who kills is killed. The timid are slaughtered as the lamb alike to the bull, and the house which holds a family stands as a tomb in coming years. A man may make sacrifice to the War God but all his wealth is spent on Fate. For as knowing increases, never is the Mist of Unknowing fully removed. Men make moves to acquire all knowledge of a thing and in their artifices they calculate immeasurable odds. Yet even in the most precise of probability there dwells the heavy hand of Fate. Men pray to the god of harvest for a bounty and they stagger their crops and they till their land. But what good is done to pray to the god of harvest and not the god of evil; for all calamities can ultimately be assigned to the ill plans of the Outer Darkness. In the end, all men pray to Gods of Fate, and all Gods of Fate are ultimately Gods of Death."*
-Return 4:11-24.

## Notable Practitioners

Dave Masters - School unknown, strongly suspected to be Sagiri