The Pillar of Truth

Chokmah is an interesting Archon, whose Principle is Submission and with the title ‘Lord of Prayers’. His influence is most often viewed through the impact it has on religion, or rather that it is through Chokmah that we discover religious beliefs. There is *a lot* to say on the interplay between Kether and Chokmah as to how Hierarchy relates to Submission, but for this article I will instead focus on what Submission means for the Pillar of Truth, its top blessed by Chokmah’s presence. The Principle speaks to the necessity of submission, to willingly and uncritically accept what you are told, and told to do. The Word comes from above, and so we as humans are meant to take the Word to heart. The impact this has on religion should be obvious. What the Gods have decreed must be so. Our bound minds and hearts know nothing but to accept authority’s word as Truth, whether it be a pharaoh, pope or adeptus major. Chokmah determines what is true in our minds.

But what value does Truth have to us? The answer to this lies in Chesed, with the Principle of Safety. To live uncritically and in submission to Truth eases the mind of much burden. Worry not. You have been told all that you must know, and with that you can rest peacefully. You are free of uncertainties. Chesed takes what we know as true and grows it into comforting traditions, comprehensive world views, and an assured place in society. Chesed provides a blissful ignorance to humanity. If you have been told it, it is true. If you do not know it, you can trust that someone else does, or there is nothing to know. He seeks to forge a comfortable prison for humanity, where the imagined insights peddled to us through Chokmah are all we need to concern ourselves with. With a smile we trudge along, never wondering what waits beyond the horizon line. All that we need is around us, and with that we find Safety.

We invest ourselves deeply into the understanding that what we know is right, and so Netzach lives in us to provide a response towards the wrong and the false. His Principle of Victory stands as a constant driving force for the Truth already held, that we may spread the good word and cut down the heathens who threaten our Safety and uncritical acceptance of life as we know it. While Chokmah operates on the willing or submissive and Chesed comforts and dims the soul, Netzach the Conqueror sets out to spread our beliefs to those who have never known it. Victory comes when we outlast the liars, when we sway the public opinion, when we crush the infidels under our feet and when democracy is restored. We yearn for a day when Safety can reign unquestioned over all humanity, but it is only Safety if it comes from our own sacred Truth.

The yearning is hopeless, though, for as we know Chesed is shattered and far beyond restoration due to Malkuth’s rebellion. We may cling to the vestigial remains of our old traditions or concoct new ones, Chokmah’s tendrils reaching out from his citadel draped in shadows to re-establish a sense of absoluteness to an increasingly chaotic and complicated world. As it stands, only Netzach remains as an Archon at full strength in the modern world, and it shows. He thrives on ideological Victory, but without Chokmah the ideology is flimsy and without Chesed it provides no security. War becomes complicated, serving ever more complex and ill understood goals for the benefit of the Archons rather than the imprisoned humanity. Unless thoroughly bound by Elysium, we find little catharsis in the proxy wars, assassinations and trade disputes riddling the world on a global scale. Netzach demands that we win and persist, but why?

The imbalance in the Pillar of Truth can be seen not only in warfare, but in all politics. In a world ruled by interests other than absolute wisdoms passed down to us through Chokmah, politicians frequently change their opinions and ideals. Goalposts shift, demands are rewritten again and again, and the most popular position to take is determined by electability rather than any sense of Truth. These people seek Victory not for their ideology or belief in what is right, but for themselves. Religious supremacy is certainly the domain of Netzach as well, but his power has reached past those archaic beliefs. The Pillar has been unstable and dysfunctional ever since the War of the Archons, and Chesed’s destruction is so complete that it may never return to form.

## Keystones

The AwokenThreadsElysiumThe PrinciplesOriginsMetropolisThe OthersRealmsInferno