Christ, it's easy to label people isn't it? Freak. Mirrorshade. Reality Deviant. Nephandus. People like to be able to categorize things. They like reality and all its messiness to be organized into one neat little system, lock some things away, open up others. Cut away the parts they don't like. make sure they know what to hate. Make sure they don't look too closely, think to hard. You program people enough and soon, they'll stop remembering the reasons for hating something and just hate it because its in a category to be hated.
The sad truth that they're all afraid to face is that there is no neat system. Reality, data, information, it's all constantly moving. You try to fit it into one box and before you know it, it'll grow too big to contain, and that's the thing the other greyfaces are afraid of. if the world grows too big to be categorized, how will it ever be controlled?
My friend, we're not about control. The Virtual Adepts can see that it's a futile struggle. We see the flow of the Digital Web, my friend, and we know that no force in the universe can contain the whole of human knowledge. People look at us, technophiliacs, slouched over our hot laptops, smoking in dark rooms, and they think we're all a modern craze, cyberpunks, anarchists drunk on the texts of the Nineties and too obsessed with bringing power to the people. They're wrong about us, man. Our Tradition stretches back to ancient times. Ever since man tried to uplift the common man, we were there. Whenever a story was passed along, a new idea, a new legend, we were there. We're the messengers of humanity, and we've never once shirked our purpose. For the longest time we were part of the Technocracy. When the Hermetics tried to lock themselves up, and lord over humanity with their spells and mystic arts, we stood side by side with our brethren to defy them. When the Technocracy tried to pull the same shit, we fought back. We're the real face of the revolution. The voice of the future, not trying to lord our power over others, but trying so very hard to uplift everyone. The future the Virtual Adepts want is one where people everywhere, no matter who they are or where they come from, will have the opportunity to better themselves.
We thought we found a kindred spirit in the Technocracy, but like our brothers, the Etherites, we quickly found how full of shit they were. Hermetics try to keep the world under their thumb by hoarding magic for themselves, and the Technocracy try to keep it under a biometric passcode. The thing that neither of them understand, is that no matter how tall you build it, or how secure your defense grid, someone is eventually gonna find a way to crack it, and you'll have trained your enemy to do it. This isn't a brag, man. It's not an exultation of us above everyone else. It's a simple understanding of one universal principle. Information wants to be free, and people want to learn. it's the basic thing that all humans know in their heart of hearts, and the basic thing that all our magic is built on. It's also why we always win.
And yeah, that's right, I said the 'M'-word. Big, scary Technocrats don't like to use it, because they like to strip the wonder away from everything. Everything needs to be 'applied para-science' or 'parapsionic activity.' Everything needs lots of syllables and a Times New Roman font, and to be underlined to make them all sound important. Dude, it's fucking magic. When a person connects to the Digital Web, when a guy can open up a webpage and share his thoughts with the entire world, and whoever wants to listen, it's fucking magic. You take the magic out of it, and you take the hope out of the human condition.You take away a person's ability to dream, and I promise, you'll never be able to build society into the techno-utopia you want, because sooner or later, you'll have neutered us all to the point we couldn't dream of it if we tried.
Other Traditions and other crafts like to dress it up, but when it comes down to it, magic is the process of sculpting the world to suit your dreams. Whether you do that with alchemical formulae, nature dancing, killing motherfuckers, or hell, even screwing each others brains out. It's all tapping into the source code of the universe, my brother, and before you start saying I'm delusional, it's more accurate than you think. Everything you see, touch, taste, hear and smell is just information being interpreted by your brain. It's all just code being entered into a computer.
What that means for you, my friend, is that computers can be programmed.
Figure out what you want from life, work out the formula, and apply it. If others try to lock it away from you, hack into their mainframes and take it anyway. No one's got the right to deny you your dreams, and don't ever let anyone tell you otherwise.
The revolution is coming my friend. Crack the code, build it into what you want, and turn it loose.
You'll see just what wonders the world can bring when you just let go, and go with the flow.
- Kephn
