Occultism

> The paranormal doesn't come into our reality easily. The world has a basic set of sanity that's hard to tamper with. That's why ghosts and paranormal manifestations are only found in specific places by very sensitive people. But, what if a group of people around the world started to conspire, generating panic and fear of the paranormal? Forging fake hauntings and creating absurd conspiracies, spreading ghost stories, making the fear of the supernatural more and more common?
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**Occultism** is the art of using the Other Side for one’s own ends. Using these powers, the Occultists - practitioners of the Occultism - use the paranormal to achieve their goals, from entertainment, sense of power, studies and even satiate the simple will to cause chaos.

## "Esoterrorism"

At the beginning of the series, Occultism was known by a different name: Esoterrorism. But there was a grand change, revealed in the Deconjuration and Enigma of Fear ARG, using a quote revealed in one of the puzzles:

> There is no more esoterrorists, because their methods are no longer esoteric.
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The quote refers to the drastic change of the methods used for veil weakening. While the old esoterrorists were more organized groups that used a more rational methodology in manipulating the paranormal, the current occultists use any method to achieve their will, no matter if it is the most grotesque and violent possible. Instead of small groups of esoterrorists, occultists have come together in cults, which can possess leaders and even idols that are venerated by their followers. Consequently, the Veil became much more fragile and unstable, making the creatures coming from the Other Side much stronger. This way, the Order agents had to adhere to the use of rituals and cursed items to possess power comparable to that of the occultists to be able to fight them, since, like the monsters, they became much more powerful.

## The Other Side

The **Other Side**, in Paranormal Order, is an alternate dimension inhabited by insane and mysterious entities, also known as "elements". Our reality is separated from the Other Side by a hypothetical barrier named **Veil**. The two dimensions connect naturally, with one making contact with the other and vice versa. However, macabre events capable of weakening the veil through people’s fear can cause bizarre creatures to invade our reality to generate chaos and destruction, increasing the influence of the paranormal and certain locations.

### The Other Side's influence on Reality

While efficient, the veil is not indestructible. When the population of a particular region or even a single person has their sanity shaken by fear, whether through a story, deaths, tragedies or mysterious symbols, the Veil is damaged in that place, facilitating the crossing of entities from the Other Side to our common Reality, where they manifest in the form of powerful and surreal creatures.

Fragile veil sites can affect and manipulate the local biosphere depending on the intensity of the paranormal’s influence on the site. One of the easiest evidences to notice in a place with a weak veil is the presence of an intense and atypical supernatural fog, as well as inconsistent temperatures. Temporal distortions may also occur in relation to the exterior and the modification of plants and animals, such as genetic mutations.

### The entities' physical manifestation inside Reality

The concepts of appearance of the entities of the Other Side in Reality are governed by some rules in the Paranormal Order universe. The basis for these creatures to become physical is people’s fear, which weakens and thins the Veil and enables the Entities to leak into the normal world. According to the master:

> By overcoming the Veil, entities still need to submit to the laws that define reality, being shaped to the concepts and ideas that weakened the Veil in the first place. This causes entities to take forms of creatures that did not exist before, described by urban legends or horror stories that caused much fear. A creature does not need to be very famous or known to be formed, it just needs to have been a source of a very powerful fear. For example, only a fearful person would be able to shake the Veil enough to generate a creature, but that fear needs to be exorbitant.
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In this context, entities appropriate the ideas that caused the fear generated by a person, and use this to manifest themselves in the physical world. Therefore, a person, being afraid of something that does not exist, ends up generating a personification of this fear. This personification is like an empty space, a concept of something not yet existing that can be filled by a paranormal entity by allowing it to pass through the Veil. In this way, Fear generates molds of unimaginable beings, and entities take advantage of them to become real.

## Knowledge about the Occultism so far

As far as known, the first manifestations of the Other Side in Reality were the Relics of Calamity, paranormal objects of immeasurable power that act as the primordial connection and bridge between each element and Reality. However, besides the relics, the Other Side could only manifest itself as paranormal creatures and sources of power based on fear, in a time rituals did not exist. Rituals just came into existence when Kian, 4000 years ago, became the first human to achieve 100% paranormal exposition and transcend, completely connecting with the Other Side and opening the door for other people to transcende and learn new rituals. Here are some basic infos about what is known about the occultism so far:

The more a person comes into contact with the Other Side, the more its "paranormal exposition" rises, indicating how much of a person’s being has already been exposed to the supernatural. The more experiences with the paranormal a person has, the more memories of the entities are built in its brain and the greater the bond created with the Other Side. Thus, the greater its exposition, the more of its mind is inhabited by impossible memories of the paranormal. For example, an agent with 40% exposition has already had almost half of its mind taken by the Other Side, while one with 99% is kept within Reality by only a fragment of its own being. A person with 100% exposition completely understands the Other Side, however, the consequences of this would be very serious, from being irreversibly insane to becoming a creature on the Other Side, as in the case of the Existeds, who upon discovering "the truth", have their mind taken by Knowledge, after all, knowing it all is losing it all. However, since Kian became the first human to fully connect with the Other Side, achieving 100% exposition "spontaneously" has become impossible. Just exposing yourself to the paranormal, the maximum you can achieve is 99%.

This bond caused by the paranormal exposition can be even more intense if the person answers the call of the Other Side through the "Transcend" ritual. The transcendence process consists in drawing the ritual symbol in the ground, position yourself on it, and focus. In doing so, the mind of the transcendent person does something similar to the reverse of what entities do when crossing the Veil, moving from Reality and creating a direct connection with the Other Side. This process takes unpredictable time and varies from situation to situation, and can take a few seconds or many hours. While transcending, the individual understands "the truth" and fully understands the Other Side, however, upon finishing the process, forgets everything again, keeping only a few loose memories in his brain, as in an attempt to prevent insanity from taking over his mind. These memories of the forbidden Knowledge of the Other Side devour part of the sanity of those who transcend, because they are memories of something that does not make sense. More than that, they are paranormal memories, small remnants of the entities that come to live within the mind of the person after transcendence. But just as entities distort the rules of Reality by crossing the Veil, these memories also transform themselves by consuming the sanity of the transcended individual, can be manifested paranormally in the form of rituals or supernatural powers that can be used by the individual who transcended.

Prior to Kian’s return in 2020 after the completion of the Deconjuration Order, it was necessary to transcend using a cursed object to learn a new ritual, at the risk of being rejected by the entities if it was not powerful enough to withstand the contained knowledge. However, after his return, the paranormal changed, no longer requiring the use of paranormal items to learn new rituals.

*For more specific infos, access the following pages:*
* Rituals
* Other Side Elements
* Occultist Symbols
* Classes
* Marks
* Relics of Calamity
* Bestiary

## Occultist Groups

### Nostradamus High School Occultists

A group of professors responsible by the Veil weakening in Nostradamus High School, with Álvaro Augusto acting as principal and leader. They were responsible for kidnapping some student girls, torturing them in a huge bunker under the school, having the main objective to create a "new creature", besides the mind transferring of Álvaro to Anthony Scelto's body at the behest of the Deconjuration Order. The bunker had the Blood symbol shape.

### The Five Guardians

A group of five scientists interested in occultism led by Eric Jour, a physicist of dimensions, and by Eva van Gloss, a geologist and archaeologist. In one of her expeditions, Eva found a great find, discovering the Spiral Symbol in Heilag Vagga's ruins, that had characteristics related to the Element of Death. After making a series of experiments, the group starts the "Project HC", that sought to use the effects of Spiral Hypnosis Distortion as a tool for the study of the spiral symbol itself and the Other Side itself. The group was also composed by Paula Verdante, Mick Vultz and Valter Luz.

### Escribes

A kind of Cult of Knowledge emerged thousands of years ago that idolized Kian, the first occultist in the history. According to Mr. Verity himself, he had finally defeated this group when Kian was "killed" in 2002, however, in 2020, they returned with all their strength, now led by Gal, the Realizer of Destiny, consisting of a faction of hooded people with their bodies covered by tattoos that tell horror stories and final words of famous people, all in different languages. Like Gal, who is blindfolded all the time, these occultists also seem to be blind, with whitish eyes, a clear sign of blindness. One of the bases where these occultists operate is the St. Menefreda Orphanage, where they took human shipments to perform rituals.

### New Dawn Building Occultists

Led by Sidney Souza, this occultist group operated in the New Dawn Building in Dona Floresta district, where they kidnapped homeless people and people who rented an apartment in the building. These occultists tortured their victims and chained them in the parking lot of the building, where they were suffering until they became Blood Zombies. Their leader, Syndic Sydney, had an occultism book where he made related rituals to the "Blood", allowing him to skin distant targets and torture their minds with countless cries of despair, as long as he self-mutilated and stained the page of the ritual with his blood.

### Cult of Fear

The Cult of Fear is an occultist group having its ambitions still unknown, seeming to be connected to an entity known as **"The God of Fear"**. This cult is related to the disappearance of numerous Ordo Realitas agents, including Mr. Verity, in Enigma of Fear.

### Sect of the Masks

The Sect of the Masks is a very influential and well-known group in the "occultist underworld", supposedly having connections with important politicians, being led by The Magistrate, the Relic of Knowledge wielder. The "Masks", name given to the sect members, wear tunics concealing their bodies and masks or veils concealing their faces, as well as ropes with knots in their neck. A known member was Nathaniel, that after being captured by Joui Jouki in an unknown event and kept in custody at the Ordo Realitas Base, he ends up eventually rescued by his associateds. In the end of the 17th episode of Deconjuration, it is revealed that Joui Jouki made a pact with the Sect, becoming a member of them. They have as main objective to protect "the balance", claiming that Kian disturbed it, and he needed to be defeated.

### The Host's Production

The Host's Production is an occultist group mainly focused in the element of Energy. This group worships The Host, a mysterious entity with strong connections to Chaos and manifests through the Relic of Energy. Previously, the relic wielder was Arnaldo Fritz, that was in The Colosseum alongside The Devil, operating with the Amphitheatrum's Employees. The Production also operates in the Deep Web, performing kidnappings and keeping their victims in a kind of Reality Show. These Occultists were being investigated by two agents of Ordo Realitas: Rubens Naluti and Johnny Tabasco.

### Obscurité

Obscurité is an independent gang of occultists in France that follows a semi-anarchic structure. Marc Menet is seen by his companions as the leader of the group, and they live in the Catacombs of Paris with a noble objective: protect those who are unable to deal with the horrors of the paranormal. After Kian's returnal as a marked, Obscurité were called by Mr. Verity to help Ordo Realitas to prevent the Calamity.

### Sanguis Orchid

Sanguis Orchid, or Blood Orchid Cult, is an occultist organization created around the 7th century in a city known as Aurora, located in Europe. Initially the group valued the legend of the "Flower Saint", a tale about a young woman who, in making a certain agreement, was blessed by an angel called "Red Seraph", adopting its symbol, the Red Orchid symbol. Over time, this cult began to believe that the Saint was a manifestation of the Red Seraph, thus resulting in several attempts to invoke the same where, in a few months, converted several people for this purpose.

### Derangeds

The Derangeds are a kind of unorganized occultist group, formed specifically mostly by people who once made a pact with The Devil, and who, after having their desires fulfilled in an extremely distorted way, desperately seek this feeling again. Driven mad and disturbed by the Blood, they perform various perverse and grotesque actions to draw attention of the Entity once again.

### TV Varminho's Production

The TV Varminho's Production is a team that was originally responsible for producing front content for a TV station to conceal secret military operations, being managed by the project general director, Diego Granteros, seeking to make the first direct connection with something or someone more powerful. After an unknown event that resulted in the team and its members being infected by paranormal interference, the station was completely taken over by Aliens, and with new intentions and purposes, the members of the production use the disguises of the former operatives to maintain the conduct of facade activities, eliminating evidence of their outward appearances and seeking new people worthy of understanding the Signs and contributing to achieving the "Passage of Fear".

## References

1. ↑ The Paranormal Order - Episode 1 (*watch on YouTube* at 03m39s)
2. ↑ Dimensional distortion in the biosphere in The Secret in the Forest - Episode 14 (*watch on YouTube* at 35m44s)
3. ↑ Fog and anomalies on plants in The Secret in the Forest - Episode 8 (*watch on YouTube* at 3h59m32s)
4. ↑ Anomalies on animals in The Secret in the Forest - Episode 9 (*watch on YouTube* at 1h55m41s) and in The Secret in the Forest - Episode 9 (*watch on YouTube* at 15m11s)
5. ↑ Temporal distortion at different scales in The Secret in the Forest - Episode 13 (*watch on YouTube* at 3h26m41s) and in Deconjuration - Episode 12 (*watch on YouTube* at 1h55m08s)
6. ↑ Twitch. Stream "ansioso pra sábado - DIA DE PIRATARIA COM OS AMIGOS" of Cellbit in May 13, 2021 (watch on Twitch at 3601s)
7. ↑ Twitch. Stream "ansioso pra sábado - DIA DE PIRATARIA COM OS AMIGOS" of Cellbit in May 13, 2021 (watch on Twitch at 3693s)