[UA] Oh, Those Wacky Cliomancers

[Malagigi at aol.com]

In a message dated 11/30/00 4:06:52 PM Eastern Standard Time, 
mrteapot at disinfo.net writes:
>  That was what I was getting at before, basically.  Someone mentioned a 
while 
> ago the Disneyland counts for nothing historically (it hasn't changed the 
> course of nations, or affected political changes, or much at all except 
make 
> little kids happy) but is listed as a place clios could havrest.  And many 
of 
> their spells point to their actually being focused less on actual history 
> than general public knowledge (for example, it's how well known a place is, 
> not the importance of the events there, that make it significant).  If they 
> were focused on public perception rahter than actual historical events, 
then 
> the public perception of the place being Shakespeare's home would be what 
Mr. 
> Cobweb farmer needed, not the real place, so the previous fake places would 
> have yielded charges, not the real one (until the switch was revealed... )

Hi everyone, thought I'd butt in here.

I think the UA universe has pretty well established that
it's perception that grants power.  The Naked Goddess part
can be easily explained... even if the adept doesn't know
its a sacred part of the ritual, someone does and that
grants the power.  After all, the NG herself didn't ascend
because she knew what she was doing.

And cliomancers aren't historians.  At least mostly.  I
mean, this is UA.  We've got boozehounds and pornomancers,
risk junkies and pain junkies.  History's just too passive,
too intellectual, too abstract to grab the kind of passion
you need to perform magick.  Thus, cliomancers are purveyors
of kitsch, collectors of Star Maps, Graceland junkies,
owners of velvet Elvi, the freaks hanging around Roswell,
weepers at Diana's funeral, and wide-eyed believers in the
most outrageous urban legends.  They seek fame by proximity.
They are stalkers, groupies, paparazzi, and people who buy
celebrity memorabilia.  They feel right at home on the Jerry
Springer show.

They're not intellectuals, researchers, or analysts.  They're
sensationalists.  Sure, they might have an interest in
Shakespeare.  But they're going to question his sexual
orientation, debate who really wrote his plays, and other
pseudo-intellectual gibberish that infests what passes for
academia these days.  They've probably got strongholds in all
the politically correct fields, from women's and ethnic
studies, to psychologists who study repressed memories and
"scientists" who believe alien abductees.

And you know what? They've probably got a couple of close
cousins who draw power in a similar way.  Cliomancers are
tied to a site, a location.  They want to be near where
celebrities and fame was.  The walk of stars in hollywood is
probably a holy grail.  But there might also be mythomancers,
chasers of urban legends and stories that resonate across the
public consciousness like a guilty pleasure.  Who gain power
from the collective subversive beliefs and have power over
what people see.  And stalkers, who garner charges and power
from famous people, and lose it all when they become the focus
of attention themselves.

Now, I've only got core book.  I don't know how the mythology
has been developed beyond that.  But almost seems that the
mainstream just doesn't work as a source of power.  It's too
generic.  Nobody gets passionate about it.  You *have* to be
part of the fringe.  Either off on your own tangent, or buying
into a subculture of some sort.  The True Believer effect,
where you don't care so much what your cause is, but that you
have one and that it's *yours*, even if everyone around you
spouts the same garbage.

All IMHO, of course.  Obviously I'm not above trying to rewrite
the cosmology in my first post ;)


-Pat

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