The Demi-Monde: Summer

by Rod Rees

  nonFemme: Covenite term for ‘man’.

  Normalism: The philosophy of nonViolence, Civil Disobedience and Passive Resistance developed by Norma Williams.

  nuJuism: The religion of the nuJu diaspora, this is an unrelentingly pessimistic religion that teaches that suffering and hardship are life-affirming, and are endured to prepare the followers for the coming of the Messiah who will lead them through Tribulation to the Promised Land.

  Ordo Templi Aryanis: The most zealous and uncompromising of all UnFunDa -Mentalist sects. Their belief is that the Anglo-Slavic people will not reclaim its oneness with the Spirits – lost after the Fall – until it is racially cleansed and all contaminating racial elements (the UnderMentionables) have been eradicated.

  pawnography: A term coined by HerEticals to disparage the erotic materials produced and distributed in the Quartier Chaud. HerEticals deemed all such material to be a violation of female rights as it degraded women and encouraged violence against them. The HerEtical term for Erotic Material is pawnography as it is said to lead to Women selling (or pawning) their bodies to Men’s crazed lusts. Such pawnography encourages a belief in male superiority as it celebrates the power of the penis. A corrupted remembrance of the Real World word pornography.

  Portals: Places where Daemons can move into and out of the DemiMonde.

  Preferred Male: A Coven term for the male a woman allows to accompany her and to provide her with physical services and comforts.

  Pre-Folk: The semi-mythical race of godlings who ruled over the DemiMonde before the Confinement and who were brought low by the sexual connivings of the Seidr-witch Lilith. The demise of the Pre-Folk is known in Demi-Mondian mythology as ‘the Fall’. UnFunDaMentalism teaches that the Pre-Folk were the purest expression of the Aryan race. Also known as the Vanir.

  preScience: A Venetian school of philosophy dedicated to the study of (and the making of) prophecies and 4Tellings, especially in the areas of economics and finance. The greatest of all preScientists are Professeur Michel de Nostredame and Docteur Nikolai Dmitriyevich Kondratieff of the Future History Institute, Venice. A corrupted remembrance of the Real World word prescience.

  Qi: The energy flow which surrounds and permeates all living things. It is the unseen and unseeable élan vital which gives life and breath to the inanimate, thus making it animate. It energises the soul which resides in all things constituted by the Living.

  RaTionalism: An avowedly and uncompromisingly atheistic creed developed by the renegade Rodina thinker and ardent royalist Karl Marx, which strives by a process of Dialectic ImMaterialism to secure logical explanations regarding the Three Great Dilemmas. RaTionalism rejects all supernatural interpretations with respect to the Three Great Dilemmas and does not acknowledge any input that cannot be verified by the five senses.

  reBop: The argot prevalent within NoirVille, most widely used by enthusiasts of jad music.

  Shades: The slang term for NoirVillians.

  SheTong, the: A Covenite secret society dedicated to keeping alive the Confusionist beliefs of the ancient Coven.

  Solidified Astral Ether: Also known by the acronym SAE. The substance which makes up the soft tissue of all Demi-Mondians.

  Solution: A cocktail of vodka and soda with one or more shots of blood. Usually available in 5 per cent, 10 per cent and 20 per cent strengths of blood.

  SS: Soldiers of Spiritualism, the military wing of the Ordo Templi Aryanis.

  steamers: Steam-powered vehicles popular in the Demi-Monde.

  Suffer-O-Gettism: A contraction of Make-Men-Suffer-O-Gettism. The militant/terrorist wing of the HerEticalism movement, Suffer-O-Gettism is dedicated to the use of violence and intimidation to achieve female supremacy, the subjugation of men and the ushering in of MostBien.

  Terror Incognita: The area extending in a radius of four miles around Mare Incognitum and bounded by the Wheel River. A totally unexplored region of the Demi-Monde. No explorer venturing into Terror Incognita has ever returned. A corrupted remembrance of the Real World term Terra Incognita.

  TooZianism: Too Zi is one of the two mythical protagonists in the BiAlects. Traditionally Too Zi is portrayed as follows:

  Aspect: Yang

  Gender: Male

  Symbol: The Drunken Man

  Colour of Robe: White

  Major Teachings:

  The Proposition of unBelievability – that the DemiMonde is a Virtual World and that our senses are about as much use as a chocolate fireguard when it comes to telling us what’s real and what ain’t.

  DisEquilibrianism (or the Big Bang Hypothesis): that the level of Qi is rising (in accordance with the 2nd and 3rd Laws of Qi) as the Demi-Monde absorbs Qi from the Spirit World. Qi will reach equilibrium at the start of the second millennium AC, thus ushering in the age of Ying.

  The Concept of Inherent Badness: that all DemiMondians are venal, evil bastards and that the Demi-Monde is Hel.

  The Philosophy of Get: that as there is no ABBA, there is no afterlife and hence there is no Purpose to Life. This being the case, there is absolutely no fucking point in trying to be good. So the whole point of life becomes to Get Laid, Get Drunk, Get High and Get Even.

  ABBArationalism: that the idea of there being an ABBA is just OmniBollocks and that no one with a fully functioning mind is going to believe in ABBA, a free lunch or a four-sided triangle. End of story.

  Troubles, the: The two-year-long civil war in Rodina and the Rookeries during which Reinhard Heydrich (aided and abetted by Lavrentii Beria) overthrew Henry Tudor and Ivan the Terrible. Heydrich subsequently merged the two Sectors as the ForthRight, uniting them under the single religion of UnFunDaMentalism.

  UnderMentionables: A catch-all term for all those considered by UnFunDaMentalism to be racially inferior and hence subhuman (including, inter alia, nuJus, Poles, Shades, HerEticals, Suffer-O-Gettes, HimPerialists, RaTionalists, those of a sexually deviant disposition, and those deemed to be genetically flawed). A corrupted remembrance of the Real World word Untermensch.

  UnFunDaMentalism: The official religion of the ForthRight, UnFunDaMentalism is a religion based on the philosophy of Living&More or life reform which espouses clean living, vegetarianism, and homeopathy and an abstention from alcohol, blood, tobacco and recreational sex. Heavily suffused with the occult and a belief in the existence of a Spirit World. Aleister Crowley is head of the Church of UnFunDaMentalism.

  UnFunnies: The slang name for UnFunDaMentalists.

  Valknut: The emblem of the ForthRight, comprising three inter-locking triangles.

  Visual Virgins: A Venetian order of Sisters established by Doge Oldoini as the Sacred and All-Seeing Convent of Visual Virgins. This Convent is dedicated to the selection and training of girls adept in Auralism (only virgin females have the power of Auralism) in order that they might be used to screen Men living in the Quartier Chaud and hence to identify Dark Charismatics masquerading as CitiZens. Visual Virgins practise fiduciary sex.

  WhoDoo: The cult religion of NoirVille, based on a distorted remembrance of Seidr.

  woeMen: The NoirVillian term for women.

  WunZianism: Wun Zi is one of the two mythical protagonists in the BiAlects. Traditionally Wun Zi is portrayed as follows:

  Aspect: Yin

  Gender: Female

  Symbol: The Woman at Prayer

  Colour of Robe: Black

  Major Teachings:

  Perceptionalism: that the Demi-Monde is as it is perceived by the five senses.

  Equilibrianism (or the Steady State Hypothesis): that the level of Qi within the Demi-Monde fluctuates around an unvarying norm, this fluctuation of Yin and Yang creating the Ages of HumanKind which oscillate in a two-thousand-year cycle. During this cycle the Yang Millennia coincide with the rising of Qi in the Demi-Monde and the Yin Millennia coincide with the falling of Qi in the Demi-Monde.

  The Concept of Inherent Goodness: that all DemiMondians are inherently good and that the Demi-Monde is the Gateway to Heaven.

 
The Search for ABBAsoluteness: that the aim of all HumanKind is to follow the Way which leads to the achieving of wu wei, the control of Qi, the understanding of Li, the purification of the Solidified Astral Ether, the perfect union with the Holy Ghost and, finally, to the Oneness with ABBA which is ABBAsoluteness.

  ABBA: that ABBA is the Lord and Creator of the Kosmos and that She is Omnipotent, Omniscient, Omnipresent and Omnibenevolent.

  wu wei: The effortless action of the enlightened soul and the power of the Nothingness, both of which can lead to success and victory without success or victory ever being sought. It is progress without ambition, endeavour without intended result. The Superior Soul possesses wu wei; the Inferior Soul does not. The Superior Soul cares about virtue; the Inferior Soul cares about material things. The Superior Soul makes love; the Inferior Soul fucks. The Superior Soul seeks discipline; the Inferior Soul seeks favours. The Superior Ruler leads; the Inferior Ruler drives. Only the Superior Soul might possess wu wei.

  Yin/Yang: The binary opposites of the Kosmos, representing, inter alia, dark and light, cold and hot, female and male. But though Yin and Yang are opposites, they are complementary and mutually dependent: one cannot exist without the other and they strive unceasingly to create the balance that will bring harmony to the Kosmos and ABBAsoluteness to HumanKind. When this is accomplished, Yin will fuse with Yang to create Ying, the ultimate transcendental Peace. The achieving of Ying by the purification of the Astral Ether is the ultimate aim of all WunZian Confusionists.

  zadnik: Demi-Mondian slang for a male homosexual and, more generally, for a NoirVillian male. The word is derived from the Russian zad meaning arse.

  Glossary 2

  The Real World

  ABBA: ABBA (Archival, Behavioural, Biological Acquisition) is a Quanputer-based system developed and operated by ParaDigm CyberResearch Limited. By utilising an Invent-TenN® Gravitational Condenser incorporating an Etirovac Field Suppressor®, ABBA is the only computer to achieve a full SupaUnPositioned/DisEntangled CyberAmbiance. As a consequence, ABBA is capable of prodigiously rapid analysis (a fully tethered 30 yottaQuFlops) to give the bioNeural-kinetic engineers at ParaDigm access to almost unlimited processing power.

  BaQTraQ: Ever since its inception, ABBA has been a treasure trove for genealogists, containing, as it does, digitised records of all government, parish, court and tax information back to the year 1700. But since the introduction of the PollyScan in 2018, whereby documents can be scanned into ABBA simply by laying a Polly on top of a pile of documents, the ABBA-platformed BaQTraQ program has been gathering pace and has now reached a level where the role of the historian in our society is being reassessed. BaQTraQ encourages everybody in the country to scan everythinginto ABBA: holiday snaps and postcards; letters from husbands, wives, uncles and aunts; bills and invoices; old cine films; school-report cards . . . anything and everything.

  bioSignatures: The means by which a digital identity can be verified. BioSignatures include, inter alia: fingerprints, retinal scans, DNA and pheromonic analysis.

  biPsych: Those who have a simultaneous existence in both the Real World (as a NowLived) and in the Demi-Monde (as a Dupe).

  eyeMail: An ABBA-platformed means of transmitting person-to-person messages, the privacy and integrity of the message being assured by ParaDigm’s RetinQek Verification Program.

  eyeSpy: Hover-capable and independently programmable SurveillanceBot.

  eyeVid: An ABBA-platformed means of transmitting person-to-person digital moving-image messages.

  Flexi-Plexi: Digital wallpaper. When connected to a Polly a wall covered with Flexi-Plexi is able to display any digital image to a size and shape determined by the viewer.

  Fun/Funs: Street/marketing name for the Fun-Loving Funda -mentalists, the Christian youth movement established and headed by Norma Williams.

  Get-Me-Straighter Meter: Aka GMS Meter. A device used by Norma Williams to eradicate addictive behaviour.

  INDOCTRANS: Indoctrination and Training Command: the department of the US military responsible for the operation of the Demi-Monde.

  moteBots: Nano-sized, independently viable and dynamically flexible surveillance cameras. The use of moteBots was declared illegal by the League of Nations’ Universal Charter of Human Rights and Privacy of 2015.

  PINC: A Personal Implanted nanoComputer; developed by ParaDigm Technologies as a means of radically reducing training times and to find a more efficient method of inculcating students and trainees with specific knowledge sets. PINC is a nano-sized Memory Supplement which is biologically compatible with the human brain. Once in contact with the brain, PINC fuses with its organic tissue and is able to graft information – pain-lessly and seamlessly – into a person’s memory bank.

  PanOptika: The ABBA-platformed program which links all surveillance apparatus (whether private or state) and all databases (whether private or state) to develop a full 360-degree cyber-portrait of individual citizens.

  Polly: Street name for a polyFunctional Digital Device which encompasses, in one dockable device, an individual’s complete computational, communication, security, biomonitoring and entertainment requirements.

  PollyMorph: An ABBA-based program which enables digital modifications applied to one part of a moving-image digital stream to be automatically replicated through the digital stream. Analogous to PaintShop for videos.

  Shielders: Anti-SurveillanceBots.

  Socialistic Surveillance: The belief that to be both successful and acceptable, surveillance must be indiscriminate and totally arbitrary, and that it is utterly fair and equal in its scope. It is the rather naïve understanding that ‘everyone is equal before a surveillance camera’.

  TIS: The Total Immersion Shroud used to encase the bodies of Real World visitors to the Demi-Monde in order to preserve muscular viability.

  Young Believers: The name of the Christian youth movement established and run by the American evangelists Jim and Marsha Kenton, and subsequently subsumed into the Fun/Funs.

  Appendix

  Daemons, Messiahs and Other ABBArational Beliefs by Xi Kang Published by Yang Imprints 986 AC

  I write this book in the anticipation that it will never be read, that the powers that be – or will be – will seek to suppress it. That being the case, you, my Dear Reader (if such a creature is ever permitted to exist), must forgive me if I am a little didactic, and I assume you are unfamiliar with the tenets of Confusionism. And considering the state of education in the Coven, to suppose ignorance in his or, possibly, her readership is, in this day and age, the most reliable attitude for a writer to adopt.

  So, to begin.

  Confusionism is the religio-philosophical system that has held sway in the Coven since the Confinement.

  For almost one thousand years Confusionism has informed all of Covenite life, thought and moral attitudes. Based on the teachings of the Master as recorded in his two MasterWorks – the iChing and the BiAlects – Confusionism differs from all other Demi-Mondian religions in that it refuses to provide a definitive guide to its followers as to what a Confusionist should believe and how he or she should act. The ‘Confusion’ inherent in Confusionism is a result of the Master’s teachings being represented by the opposite interpretations of the Purpose of Life evinced by two mythical philosophical opponents – the female Wun Zi and the male Too Zi – and their inability – nay, refusal – to fuse these conflicting views into a single coherent gospel.

  Perhaps the most intractable source of dissension between WunZian and TooZian Confusionists is with regard to the subject of ABBA. Whilst WunZians believe there most certainly is an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent Supreme Deity called ABBA, TooZians are generally pretty dismissive of the whole idea. The way we see it, the whole God thing is just a pile of poop.

  Unfortunately for TooZian philosophers (of which, for my sins, I am one), the fact remains that there are certain aspects of the Demi-Monde which point to the involvement of an external power in its construction and mana
gement. These include inter alia, the existence of the impenetrable Boundary Layer, the occasional manifestation of Daemons, and the construction of the Demi-Monde such that it is innately confrontational and seemingly designed to promote war. These make it difficult for even the most committed of TooZians to dismiss the concept of ABBA out of hand.

  Now whilst I would accept that this external force (and let’s, for the sake of convenience, call it ABBA) is extraordinarily powerful (after all, the Boundary Layer is a pretty neat trick), it does not give anyone the right (least of all those soppy WunZians) to believe it is a Divine power. My ABBA isn’t the ABBA of religious fame – all-smiting, blighting and downright fucking frightening – no, mine is pragmatic and hard-nosed and has built the Demi-Monde for a purpose that has thus far eluded all enquiry. HeShe moves in mysterious ways.

  This consideration caused me to develop the oft-dismissed and ridiculed concept of unBelievability. And here I must digress for a moment to iterate some of the fundamentals of this micro-philosophy.

  It is scientific orthodoxy throughout the Demi-Monde that we humans perceive our world through the offices of our five senses and that the information ‘inputted’ by these senses is interpreted by our mind to give a picture of the world about us. Religion – inevitably – cannot tolerate something so simple and obvious. All religions of the Demi-Monde contend (in one form or another) that the mind is itself merely a manifestation of the soul that inhabits our Solidified Astral Ether. According to these religious numbskulls, the soul is the means by which the body is connected to the mind and the mind connected to ABBA.

  Religious types, beset as they are with a compulsion to make folks’ lives as miserable as fucking possible, also propose that the purer the individual’s SAE, the more profound becomes the soul’s communion with ABBA. This is the basis for the embracing of the denial that underpins most religions and which I have named the Principle of Don’t: Don’t Do This, Don’t Do That, and, for fuck’s sake, Don’t Enjoy Yourself when You’re Not Doing It, especially if that enjoyment involves the use of a cucumber. Unfortunately, for a TooZian like me, in recent years this Principle of Don’t has been given some experimental credence as a consequence of the discoveries made regarding the infant ‘science’ of Auralism by the Sacred and All-Seeing Convent of Visual Virgins in Venice.