The Cishaurim are the notorious priest-sorcerers of the Fanim based in Shimeh.
According to the Fanim religious tradition, the Prophet Fane became the first of the Cishaurim after he went blind in the desert. Given Fane’s claim that the true power of the Solitary God cannot be exercised so long as one sees the profane world, Cishaurim initiates voluntarily blind themselves at a certain point in their study, enabling to dispense the “divine water” of the “Psûkhe,” as the Cishaurim refer to it. Little is known about the metaphysics of the Psûkhe beyond the fact that it cannot be perceived by the Few and that it is in many ways almost as formidable as the Anagogic practice of the Schools.
The Scarlet Spires categorize individual Cishaurim according to their power: Tertiaries, or those with only the most rudimentary strength; Secondaries, or those with strength comparable to sorcerous initiates; and Primaries, those with strength exceeding that of initiates (but still, according to the Scarlet Magi, short of the strength possessed by true Anagogic sorcerers of rank).[1]
As the Psûkhe is also known as the Water of Indara,[2] the Cishaurim are sometimes referred to as Indara-Kishauri: “Indara’s Water-bearers.”[3]
In an interview R. Scott Bakker explains "Everything comes down to meaning in Eärwa. Where sorcery is representational, utilizing either the logical form (as with the Gnosis) or the material content (as with the Anagogis) of meaning to leverage transformations of reality, the Psukhe utilizes the impetus. Practitioners of the Psukhe blind themselves to see through the what and grasp the how, the pure performative kernel of meaning–the music, the passion, or as the Cishaurim call it, the ‘Water.’ As a contemporary philosopher might say, the Psukhe is noncognitive, it has no truck with warring versions of reality, which is why it possesses no Mark and remains invisible to the Few."
Known Members[]
- Fane (founder)
- Fanfarokar
- Hab’hara
- Hahkti ab Sibban (Heresiarch)
- Hifanat ab Tunukri
- Inkorot
- Kisma
- Mallahet
- Meppa
- Sartmandri
- Seökti (Heresiarch)
- Tatokar I (Heresiarch)
Spells[]
- The Scourge
- The Lash