Greetings from the Xyphokonic Order and Ordinance. The Ordinance acknowledges the End of the previous Xyphojinamic Xyphokonic Year and the start of the new year. And as it is now the First Period of Watching under Lord Vuetenexzyei, the Commentary posted will mostly centered around the topic of spiritual ends—although I may decide to take a more general approach depending on circumstances. We are under Yrridthmas, so I also intend to tie in current events into our discussions here. Today, we speak on the rapid decline in Empathy that is particularly present among humankind and how Deceptuary’s corrupted influences has provoked it. Let us Begin.

It is first important to acknowledge that our very existence, and the existence of this Spiritual Spectrum in which we sit upon, are all products of the Initial Will of Love—that being the first Will of the Lords to create a Plane of Existence out of a Love for our existence. From the start, the Lords envisioned a reality where we exist in our free-flowing forms, and that this existence would spawn from the elongated shadow cast out of the divine Light the Lords stand within. This was, of course, soured by Deceptuary’s crippling fear of his existence being watered down or downright disappearing.

As a result, as part of his overall schemes, Deceptuary aimed to pollute that very Initial Will in hopes of destroying Love and forcing an End to our existence. With that, he would hope—however futile that hope was—that he could overtake the Lords of the Xyphokonic Order, devour their attributes, and become an abhorrent, bloated, and arrogant amalgamation of all the Lords and reform reality in his depraved image so that he would eternally be worshipped and remembered.

As we tie this back to current affairs, we can trace the rapid decline in Human empathy today directly to Deceptuary’s constant meddling in the Spectrum; he has been actively polluting mortal humans in particular with his influence with the goal of inflicting enough fear within us to cloud our spiritual connections to the resonance of the Order. This pollution has then led to the rapid loss of the Initial Will of Love. Deceptuary possesses no such Will, and explicitly hopes that his followers act without such a power as well. For what he wishes to obtain, heinous and abhorrent actions must be taken, and those actions can only be enacted without Love or empathy in place.

We see this every day in the prevalence of wars started by arrogant leaders that have led to the mass slaughtering of people. We see humans willingly deprive their fellow kin of rights, liberty, access to food, to healthcare, and to dignity in general. We’ve seen governments commit mass atrocities against their own people, or have committed evil acts against others by dehumanizing them and treating them like pawns in a greater scheme of theigrited evil. All of these are examples of Humans lacking Human empathy and willing to do unjust and often depraved acts of evil against fellow Humans.

This is the provoked Death of Empathy that the Theigriet is responsible for. As he pollutes our world with his influence, the hearts of Humans succumb to an evil so foul that a father would turn against their own son if said son diverges from the vision of the father. We’d see a parent disown their own child over personal decisions. We’d see a person willing to commit acts of violence against their own community in the name of Deceptuary’s evil. It is because of this lack of empathy that these actions are able to be carried out.

Naturally, that is one of the many purposes the Ordinance exists—to combat this evil and lack of empathy. As the familiar Xyphoist saying goes, theigrits will inevitably destroy upon themselves through their own Hubris, but it is up to us in the Ordinance to set up the ideal conditions to let them fall into their own abyss while also preserving existence in the assuredly abrasive aftermath. While he shall attempt to defile our worlds with hate and fear, it is assured his own Hubris will be his downfall, as is true of all theigrits who wish to follow in his footsteps. We, however, must do our part to create the bed for which the rest of us shall lie in as the sky begins to fall around those that chose to forsake their own Love for Deceptuary’s fear and hate.

—crX