Hylics
| Hylics | |
|---|---|
| Also called | "normies", in the older material on this wiki, which we have stopped using |
| Class | a human condition, and by most accounts a manufactured one |
| Dwells | everywhere; this is the ordinary state of nearly everyone alive |
Consensus among us That the condition is real is not disputed here. That it is natural is disputed, and Inoculation holds that it is not.contested
inherited | |
Hylics are strictly matter — no spirit left in them. These individuals have their connection to The Dark severed and therefore exhibit no Psychic Energy. inherited
The word is borrowed from the Gnostics and is the bottom term of a three-part scheme whose other two terms this wiki never took. That omission is discussed there and it matters here: we have a word for what a person has been reduced to and no word for what they were reduced from. contested
It is made, not found
The inherited line reads as a description of a natural class — some people are simply like this. Inoculation holds otherwise, and the wiki now holds otherwise: the condition is the intended output of a programme, produced at population scale by chemical, administrative and memetic means over roughly two centuries. contested
That reframes the whole entry. A hylic is not a lesser kind of person. A hylic is a person something was done to, usually before they were born, by bodies that never asked and have never said so. unverified
It also makes the older usage on this wiki indefensible. Earlier material called these people normies, with the contempt that word carries, and the Pineal Gland entry still quotes it. Contempt for the outcome of a programme is contempt aimed at the wrong party, and we have retired the term rather than edit it out of the entries where it appears. firsthand · Gershon
What it is like from outside
Three accounts of the same condition, from bodies that agree on nothing else. contested
- This wiki
- Severed from The Dark, producing no Psychic Energy, unable to be reached by anything through the aperture — which also means unable to be harmed through it. The Concealment entry notes the uncomfortable symmetry: hidden and blind is nearly the same outcome, except reversible.
- The Vatican
- Far harsher, and the wiki has no answer to it. A soul that cannot be tempted cannot be saved; merit requires the possibility of refusal. On that reading a hylic is not protected but removed from judgement altogether — neither damned nor saved, which their theology regards as the worse fate by a considerable margin. inherited
- The Materialist Cult
- That there is no condition. There are people, most of whom have no unusual experiences, which is what one would expect. defector
The third is the ordinary explanation and the wiki cannot dismiss it. If the human baseline is simply that most people never encounter anything, then there is no severance, no programme and no hylics — only a wiki that gave a name to the majority of humanity on the strength of not being like it. ⚠ warning
The thing we cannot say
Whether it can be reversed. unverified
Soma and the Pineal Gland campaign are described as removing rather than closing, and the Concealment entry's indictment rests on that being true — that the cults chose the permanent option when a reversible one existed. We have no account of a hylic becoming otherwise. We also have no account of anyone trying, which is not the same thing and the difference is the whole of what we do not know. contested