The Order is not, and does not really care for the idea of the Endeavor at all, thinking it wrong-headed nearly from the start.

Unless I'm mistaken, the Endeavor is the method of achieving CHIM, correct? By successfully following the Endeavor, you manage to control the tower. But the Psijic Order rejects the idea of the Endeavor. So at the same time, they're rejecting the concept of CHIM. They understand what CHIM is, the meaning of it, and Lorkhan's role in it, they just reject it.

Why? According to TIL's page on them, they (may) not wish to become gods themselves but merely wish to bestow others with this gift. But they reject CHIM. What is it about CHIM that they don't like? CHIM is a path to Amaranth. Do they reject Amaranth as well, or just CHIM as a way of getting there?

Edit: At the same time they want to stop the Thalmor. Do they reject going back to a pre-Mundus state, too, or do they think the Thalmor are doing it wrong?

To combat spiritual degradation. That is, the ever-diminshing march of subcreation. That's a very different animal from returning to the first brush of Anu/Padomay and bending it to your will. No need to ask why they disagree with the Endeavor. They have their own shtick.

For me, I merely though of the Psijics being old cranky men, with CHIM being the hip new revolutionary thing. As far as their stance on Mundus and the Amaranth, I get the feeling they feel it to be an impossible task, something only the young and foolhardy attempt. But at the same time, don't see the point of removing Mundus. Maybe they think there's something else, other than Amaranth.

I dunno. There's too little to really know what their goals and plans are, if they even have any.

In the Teachings, Vehk casts doubt on the consistency of their beliefs and goals over time. They aren't just inconstant in religious and political terms; they are inconstantly in existence. So it's not surprising.

This makes sense. Thank you. At the same time, however, they revere the Sithis-concept yet reject Lorkhan and Daedra.


They revere the concept of change. Of course they won't remain consistent.

The beautiful, paradoxic miracle of Anu and Padomay, as I see it. That doesn't mean they are on board with Lorkhan's dubious Nirn project.

Edit: This is what I love about Aldmer. They can talk about the forces that created them and the world they live on like politicians quarreling over current legislation, not noticing or caring that it is really a fait accompli.

Well, I'll go with what you say, Sonic. Makes the most sense.

Which could be why the Order is against the Thalmor. They'd probably just [censored] things up for everyone by trying to destroy Mundus.

Well that's something I've always wondered about. Not knowing much about the Psjics, their worldview seems essentially Aldmeri despite some points of departure. And the Thalmor don't seem too different from normal Altmer (besides the ham-handed fascism references and stupid D&D elvish superiority memes). Rather, they take religious ideas about existence and try to act on them in ugle, ruthless ways. Every other religious Altmer doesn't seem to want the world to end, but then again we have only seen the ones who gravitate towards the other pole of civilization and assimilated into the empire.

Mixing in previous preconceptions with this sort of thing, I'm picking up a Daoist vibe: everything changes and flows, don't try to fight against it, or you'll only make things worse and speed up your own demise.

Just pitching that out there.

Well, you have to reconcile that with the Aldmeri worldview described by Vivec and others that 'everything is always getting worse all the time and we have to do something about it.'

i suspect they speak like that because it doesn't have to be permanent. With the right magic it could be changed or undone.

Agreed. Nirn is always a few rogue folk tales away from destruction.

The Monomyth was their gospel (the Dragon God and the Missing God).

The Order was founded and organized to divine Padomay's eternal and ever-changing mystery.

The mystery is Sithis. The divinity is Lorkhan. They've created a pantheist's http://www.imperial-library.info/content/spirit-nirn, out of the Missing God.


*Vivec isn't the only magic bastard. There's plenty other voices, from ideas of Tamriel, as strong or superior to his. We just haven't heard them all.*

I was thinking they view CHIM as being a path to transcendental selfishness and thus they reject becoming that selfish. But it might just as well be something entirely different.

What the Psijic Order considers important is how to understand and channel the mysteries of Padomay. Lorkhan and his project is a faclet of the mystery that they'd like to understand, so is CHIM, but whether they can channel this force into their good use is questionable. If they think CHIM will bring oegnithr, then they will not consider it in a positive view.
CHIM has its power in selfishness, to keep oneself's self-awareness and existence from the zero-sum of waking up from the dream. Normally a single self-awareness is nothing but a dust in the whirlpool of dream, but the CHIMed ones are so strong that they built up their own Towers in the power of which every Padomay is only a flick of their own mind-changing, so how could the Psijics channel all these changes into the way they want them to be?
If the Psijics cannot make every single mind of Mundus bent to their way of good in their view, they of course cannot channel every suborient world into their map of "change of excillence". The Psijics are users of Padomay, not creators. They respect the spirit world only because they believe the spirit world is the root of their Mundus that their understanding and channeling would bring them the good they like. So how can they embrace a concept that brings perhaps more unchannelable into their inconsistent views rooting in "channel and use"?
(Perhaps that is Why Vivec understood and CHIMed while Sotha Sil didn't

I'm sorry but, what the heck is this? Searches brought up absolutely nothing, so I assume you have horribly mangled some poor word here beyond all recognition!

that about sums it up. You know I always thought chim would be a good thing, but that line makes me question everything I used to feel about Chim. Thank you

Read The Old Way and you will find what it means, as I've already quoted above.

The Psijic Order wouldn't know about the Psijic Endeavour's final goal because to know the details of CHIM and to believe them would result in CHIM or zero-summing. Far as they know, it is merely a spiritual path to godhood. They could believe that man (and mer) was not meant to become a god, unknowing of the fact that they were meant to right from the beginning of creation.

What I see as the root of the psijic view is the unity of all things - the underpinning of the mysticism school. That's why they're concerned with change and "bad rulers" - what affects anyone affects everyone, so affects the psijics themselves. It also makes the Thalmor's supremacism and "removing man from the mythic" utterly nonsensical. I think a psijic's ambition would be to zero-sum - to rise in subgradient by surrendering identity. The endeavor seeks the godhead too, but also values the subgradients and identities in themselves, which is what the order would consider "wrongheaded from the start."

Maybe I shouldn't have said they understand it.

You can know about CHIM, the basic idea of it, and not obtain anything. Mankar talked about it, for example.

It's the realization that's the part where things get fun. To one thing to have knowledge about it, it's a whole other can of -i worms obtaining the realization.

Another thing: If CHIM is a reference to the Fourth Wall, and how a character becomes "free" from his writer (really, I don't like this), why would the Psijics be against it?

Those without CHIM aren't able to understand the nature of CHIM. Seriously, look at the sentence you just wrote. Is it even possible to say it without breaking the fourth wall?