The Exalting Emotions
The best thing we can do for others is to be happy ourselves. A smile as we hold the door for someone, a kindly “please” and a genuinely grateful “thank you” is the basis of the expectation for polite manners, though it seems we experience these in passing more rarely than we otherwise would like. We know laughter is contagious and that our own mood can improve when we meet others who are happy, yet all too often we allow the various discomforts and emergencies of our day to dictate our general attitude. Even worse are those times when, distracted and oppressed by circumstances we dislike, whether personal, social or global, we allow ourselves to act as though others sharing this life are not deserving of the kindness we ourselves crave. Worst of all are the times when we feign happiness either in the hopes to find it ourselves or at least prevent our actions from darkening another’s day. Feigned happiness inevitably will lead, given enough time, to loneliness and despair;, so to achieve a real sense of happiness is the starting point for a life well-lived.
What are the eight foundations? Not difficult: the four exalting emotions and the four foundational energies. What are the exalting emotions? Not hard; victory, glory, freedom, and familiarity. What are the foundational energies? Not hard: studium, chthonia, inspiration and vitality. These are said to be foundational because the exalting emotions are what we feel when we are thriving so are the basis of a life well-lived, and the four foundational energies are the motivational forces necessary for life … The heart is the soul’s throne and when the secret of its inner love is couched within its beating, it moves through the exalting emotions as the earth moves through the seasons. As the fili says: rún do chroí air do chuisle; the mystery of your heart upon your pulse.
— From Chapter I of the Liber de Fundamentis
Mapping the Emotional Landscape
Contrary to popular invention, the energies of our awareness align along specific axes that then define our character through our various reactions. When we thrive, we experience exaltation: an uplifting of the mind and awareness through four key emotions. Freedom is our sense of curiosity, energy and expectation. Victory is our sense of agency, accomplishment and celebration. Glory is our sense of beauty, appreciation and gratitude, and Familiarity is our sense of security, belonging, and mutual identification: we belong to the familiar and it belongs to us.
Challenges to our exaltation result in darker, less pleasant versions: Freedom turns to Fear, Victory to Anger or frustration, Glory to Sorrow and Grief, and Familiarity to Loneliness. If we experience such challenges for too long, we experience emotions that indicate to use that we are not thriving but actually wilting or suffering diminution of self: the debasing emotions. Fear gives way to an enervating Disdain, a sense that there is no point to exerting any kind of energy as it will make no difference. Anger turns to Opposition and Hatred for what challenges us. Grief turns to bitter Spite, seeking to assuage our pain with the suffering of others, and Loneliness turns to a self-destructive egotism, either in thinking too little or too much of ourselves.
How to Access All the Exalting Emotions
There are two places where you can go to find the whole story on these with strategies for cultivating exaltation in our modern world. You can download the whole book The Exalting Emotions: A Study in the Anatomy of Happiness here from the link below. Over the coming months, there will be much more concerning the Exalting Emotions accessible here, but if you commit to the Mantichorium Patreon page then for almost the same cost as the individual download you can gain access to everything that the Mantichorium produces.
Being a manual for emotional experience and the navigation out of misery into resilient joy.
“A Beginning is a Very Delicate Time …”
“Two paths diverged in a wood …” or maybe two gates open in an enchanted grove. Another way to look at it is that a forge and a cauldron are two pages on the same leaf: two approaches, one place.
First, let it be known that one is the all; two the modes; three the paths; four the phases; five the partitions; six the fruitful chords; seven the precepts; eight the foundations; and nine the disciplines.
– From Chapter 1 of the Liber De Fundamentis
This quote is from Book 1 of the Libri de Speculo Mirabile, the foundational Manticorian text that sits between the ninefold phasal boundary of the Counterverses. It would be disingenuous to say that this text will be explained or even presented in full over the coming months as the Speculum Mirabile is a work that defies more than just classification. After all, four of the seven principles of the Manticore are listed in the same chapter as:
veritas in occultis; (truth in the hidden)
unitas semper fallet ; (unity always deceives)
mendacium est simplicitas; (simplicity is a lie)
studium advenit eccentris (interest comes from beyond)
More intimidating than all these is the principle that lugubria doctricinaria est. Pasting this into Google Translate will return a translation that “mourning is doctrinal,” but this can hardly be accurate. Combining all the precepts together would suggest that something more is going on than simple definitions by precept, but what that might be … ?
Perhaps a clue, though, may be found in the Speculum’s explication of the “two modes.”
What are the two modes? Not hard: they are practica and theoretica. Practica are those things that are real and objective while theoretica are notional and ideal. The practica are hard and of the past while theoretica are immaterial and conducive to producing practica. For this reason we say that the theoretica are of the future since practica are the products of theoretica that once were.
You will find on this site two paths which you can follow. One is curated toward those interested in seanchas, the Gaelic word for traditional lore. This includes history, traditional poetics and tales, Classical Gaelic, and all those marvelous facets of our pre-modern world that have been forgotten in the mad rush into industrialization and oligarchic technocracy.
Craos Ceardaigheachta
The image for this path is the forge and foundry: the bellows to inspire, the fire for transformative energy, the hammer and anvil to shape and the quenching water to harden and cool. We collect our raw materials from the practica of the past and, in combination with the theoretica that comes with the studium advenit eccentris, we may forge the practica of the future.
Go here if you enjoy Highland Games and Celtic Festivals.
For those interested more in modern fantasy, gaming, speculative art and all their infinite possibilities, there is the path of the Tor Druidheachta — the Wizard’s Tower. From there you will find the workings of the forge and all that the adhbhair seachais have been crafted into.
Tor Druidheachta
We could also call this the Coire Aislingeach but that seems a little presumptuous.
Whatever we call it, here you will find matter of interest to popular culture, video games, sci-fi/fantasy etc. Go here if you’re into Renaissance Faires and Fan Conventions.