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02 II: The HIGH PRIESTESS
Madame Cora Colman Blackwood, a fortune-teller and esoteric founder of the Theosophical Society
It is said only those in need, or distress, predict the future. For those in bourgeois comfort, such pursuits can only ever be a passing curiosity.
The Theosophical Society is known for its syncretist beliefs, having sought to reconcile the various traditions and faiths brought by refugees and newly arrived immigrants from the colonies to the City. The Latitudinarianism or "Broad Church" of the Theosophists, who mostly renounce strict adherence to liturgical tradition, has seen them derided as charlatans, shamans and witch-doctors amongst the Oration, or the "High Church" of traditional belief, who strictly adhere to the old rites of the Consolamentum, The Obediences, and the Strictures of the Oath and Light. Recently, the Theosophical Society under the stage illusionist Thelemy Maskelyne has spurred a revival in the popularity of spiritualism, through the demonstration of various apparently miraculous acts of phantasmagorical spectacle and mesmerism, as recorded through chronophotography and techniques of optical theatre through the newly developed strobolume, and projected via lanterns or upon the rotating animated tick-tock clattering drums of zoetropes. The gutter press has condemned this craze amongst the young for #witch-tock
As you approach the East Wing, you hear the strident voice of an elderly lady, shouting
-No, no, no! Go away! There will be no seance today! No! I do not know what undergarments your Aunt was wearing when she died! No! I do not know how they smelled! The spirits of the afterlife will not be answering any questions relating to the smells of underwear for the deceased! Now go away!
After a few moments, you see a small crowd of very disappointed onlookers being hastily ushered away from the Library by the Institute wardens and attendants. The Library is now quite empty and untended, except for Madame Cora Colman Blackwood, and one other solitary gentleman, of a rather cold-eyed and severe appearance -
