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III.3 High Mysticism

III.3.1 The Ultimate Darkness

(1) After the rebellion of Zamorak, the Church of Zaros was thrown into disorder. After Zamorak's return and as the Godwars progressed, the mystical schools - including the newly founded Zamorakian School - became increasingly militarized, including ever more the arts of war in their curricula - magic for combat, for scouting and scrying, for portal construction, etc. Battlelines became entrenched, and communication among the schools dwindled. Much of the scholarship carried out by the partially isolated schools during the Godwars has been lost.

(2) Yet this was also the time of the mystical tradition's deepest developments. As human mystics watched whole cities, nations, and races destroyed by the Godwars, they became dissatisfied with the gods and the principle spirits guiding their actions. This did not mean that the mystics abandoned their participation in the principles of the gods, but they no longer thought that their knowledge of and relations with the native and principle spirits at work in the world was sufficient. Their knowledge could not keep them safe. Therefore, they searched ever more intently for new principles which might bring peace to the warring empires.

(3) In the previous ages, sorcerers and mystics had assumed that knowledge of the spirits would allow them to make sense of all that happened in the world and the multiverse, but during the Godwars they found this assumption disappointed. In the latter half of the 3rd age, Gielinor's mystics came to call this failure of magical knowledge 'the ultimate darkness.'

(4) This failure required explanation, for something prompted the mystics to desire and to look beyond what all the known principle spirits and native spirits of every world could offer. They called this too - whatever it was that lay beyond their spiritual sensitivities, whatever it was that promised them peace - the ultimate darkness. The development of this concept marks the beginning of High Mysticism - a time of somber demeanor among the schools and of a subdued thirst for knowledge.

(5) The concept of the ultimate darkness also profoundly affected the concept of anima. The range of things to which the soul was sensitive was again expanded. Anima responded to native spirits, principle spirits, and the ultimate darkness. Mystics described this last sensitivity as an inarticulate desire deep down, beneath all the spirits at work in the heart.

(6) The new concept of anima led mystics to reason as follows: just as the multiverse is inexhaustible by magical knowledge, so too is anima. Their own hearts became for them a mystery just as the multiverse had been rendered mysterious by the destruction of the Godwars. Therefore, the mystics reconceived mysticism as the study of known spirits - both native and principle, both in their hearts and in the world - for the sake of finding satisfaction of their deepest, inarticulate desire in the ultimate darkness.

(7) Not every mystic received this development well. Some mystics abandoned the causes of their gods. Many of these were executed as traitors. A few even attempted to withdraw from participation in any spirit at all. Others went mad. Still others found themselves devoured by demons, for by withdrawing themselves from participation in Gielinor's native spirits, they unwittingly slipped into the abyss. Before addressing further consequences of the concept of the ultimate darkness, it is worth pausing for a moment to consider this phenomenon.

III.3.2 Dimensional Barriers

(1) It was stated above that early mysticism had come to conceive of planes and pocket dimensions as nexuses of spirits - this does not constitute a complete description of what planes and pocket dimensions are, but it does allow us to address some interesting phenomena. To restate the insight of early mysticism, participation in a particular set of spirits locates one in a particular place. Therefore, to withdraw one's participation in the spirits of a place withdraws one likewise from the place itself.

(2) This aspect of planes led to the demise of a few unfortunate mystics. Its discovery also led to a new appreciation for the function of native spirits, and perhaps principle spirits in their local forms, as dimensional barriers . In order to enter a plane, one must bind oneself to certain native spirits. If one cannot or refuses to do so, one is excluded from the plane, or at least from its realm of light.

(3) Participation in some but not all of the necessary native spirits perhaps gives access to a plane's shadow realm. Sometimes we are faced with a choice to bind ourselves to some spirits or others. This is represented, for example, in the ZMI's abyssal pocket - some portals lead to the pockets of the runecrafting altars; one leads back to the plane of Gielinor.

(4) There is perhaps one way to enter a plane without participating in its native spirits. Jallek Lenkin - in his utterly confusing description of the void - claims that the spirit beast "is not so patient that it's trying to find an actual path to our world." We might interpret this to mean the spirit beast is seeking neither the principle or native spirits, participation in which would give it access to Gielinor. The spirit beast seeks instead another manner of entering the plane - we will address dimensional straddling below .

III.3.3 The Condemnation of Necromancy

(1) The new concept of anima proper to High Mysticism was accompanied by another important development, the effects of which continue to the present day. Once mystics held that anima could not be exhausted by their magical knowledge, they came overwhelmingly to reject the practice of necromancy. The reason why requires some explanation.

(2) Necromancy involves re-introducing dead organic matter to spirits, so that the spirits will render the body self-sustaining and receptive to further spirits once again. If the necromancer does not introduce a sufficient number of spirits or the right spirits to the dead body, then he will get a poor result, such as a mere walking skeleton or rotting zombie. The necromancer must continuously reintroduce such undead creatures to the right spirits in order to maintain their undead life.

(3) For the purposes of warfare, hordes of skeletons and zombies are often sufficient. But necromancers also sought to re-animate loved ones, or themselves as liches. This required intimate knowledge of oneself or of the one loved. But the later mystics held that anima included an element that escaped magical knowledge. And so no one could ever be resurrected fully.

(4) Some necromancers disagreed, claiming to have the capacity to restore completely the lives of the dead. In response the mystics took the following position. They argued that: first, it is possible to restore fully to life certain simple forms of anima; second, it may be possible to restore fully to life some humans, but if the human had found satisfaction in the ultimate darkness that satisfaction could never be restored by the art of necromancy; and third, the mystic, therefore, if he succeeds in finding satisfaction in the ultimate darkness forfeits his capacity for lichdom and mortal return. (**For an in-game use of 'mortal return,' speak to Irwin Feaselbaum.**)

(5) Therefore, lichdom and necromancy related to human souls were condemned by the vast majority of mystics. The Church of Zaros also received criticism. Despite the similarity the concepts of 'emptiness' and 'the ultimate darkness,' it was decided that the Zarosian teaching on self-control presupposed the exhaustibility of anima by magical knowledge, that this presumption supported the practice of necromancy, and that Zarosian doctrine therefore also deserved condemnation.

(6) Propagandists who had long sought to suppress the Church of Zaros counted the mystics as a late-coming ally and the mystics' conclusions as a final victory over Zarosianism. Although the Zamorakian School benefited from this rejection of the Church of Zaros, it did nothing to curb the use of necromancy within its own ranks. Similarly, the Ancient School of Muh accepted many of the mainstream positions of high mysticism but also made several exceptions with regard to necromantic practice in accord with the traditional rites of Menaphite religion.

(7) For the sake of completeness we should note that during this period the School of Lesarkus was suppressed by the Academic School after the departure of Armadyl and that the School of Strite had not yet emerged from its millennia of hiding in the forests east of Ice Mountain; thus there were four prominent schools: Menaphite, Fremennik, Academic, and Zamorakian. The Void Knights of the 3rd age might have been a splinter faction of the Fremennik, for these were the most likely to have retained stories of Guthix.

III.4 Late Mysticism

(1) The return of Guthix brought about the end of the Godwars. And for this reason Guthix was honored by many humans. Many mystics abandoned the militarized schools in favor of the new, pacifistic order of druids. The druids retained many aspects of mysticism, such as a keen awareness of spirits and the condemnation of necromancy; they gathered in communites around the stone circles erected throughout Gielinor at the time.

(2) Yet the new pacifistic order did not bring about an age of universal peace. The mortal races were divided into factions bitterly opposed to one another, inheriting cultures marked by centuries of hardship and uncertainty. Unlike the 1st age, Gielinor's humans no longer shared the world with only other peace-loving races, like elves and dwarves and skavids and gnomes. The Wars had left behind goblins and orks and ogres and vampyres and demons, hordes of undead, as well as the mysterious mahjarrat and dragonkin, among other terrors in the world.

(3) Human communities were once again fully responsible for their self-defense, and even the druids required some knowledge of the arts of war. The attempts of druids to discern and live in accord with the spirits at work in nature, as well as the new protection from any further foreign influences provided by the Edicts of Guthix, led to a renaissance of sorcery, a return to the ancient and eminently practical approach to magic. During this time, the human communities drew upon the magical knowledge of both local communities of druids and the remnants of the four surviving mystical schools. Although the druids could not bring about peace among every human faction, their world-wide presence did soften the tensions that lingered among the schools.

(5) The mystics of Strite, dressed in robes remeniscent of the Zarosian empire, emerged as symbols of power and unity for the human race. Though they came from a small village on the edge of the desolation of Forinthry, they became counselors to human communities throughout the world, ambassadors to the newly appearing elves, dwarves, and gnomes, as well as authorities in the practice of magic even for the druids and mystics of the other schools. The situation changed again following the destruction of the School of Strite by the dragon Garak. Once the authority embodied in this school disappeared, along with the carefully kept records and scholarship of millennia of mysticism, new magical innovations appeared, such as experiements in necromancy, despite opposition from the druids.

(6) Late mysticism began with the return of Guthix and saw the slow convergence of three traditions of human magic: the sorcery of the druids, the militarized mysticism of the four surviving schools, and the carefully preserved mysticism of the School of Strite. As the influence of Strite came to its end in the latter half of the 4th age, so too did the Age of Mysticism.

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- reserved for additions to III.3 and III.4 -

- reserved for additions to III.3 and III.4 -