“Love is the Only Law.”

The Path of the Exalted. My whole life I have struggled to understand this calling within me to seek it and I now know it is simply a calling that cannot be explained. Perhaps early in my life I was cursed with the desire to crusade, or perhaps I simply got the bug as a Freemason. Nonetheless, unity and the mysteries of Light, Life, and Eternity have always reached to my heart.

I want to take a moment to explain what the Path of the Exalted really means to me, and not in a scholarly way, but in a very spiritual way.

Everything we do in life is connected in some way to our understanding of existence. Light is Struggle. You cannot gain knowledge or strength without meeting resistance. The ancients had many symbols for resistance and struggle – to include the door, ♂, the blade, darkness, and the setting sun. These concepts remind us to persevere in the face of these challenges, and in the Regnum they teach us of the importance of Love, Unity, and Mindset through these struggles.

Life is Precious. Every moment you live you are giving to the universal soul a moment of reality through your lens. Imagine all the infinite possible lives we could live – well we are living them, and according to most traditions we do so purely for the purpose of experiencing an individual life of our own that our creator could not before our existence. Even scientifically, we are the finite expression of the cosmos boiled down into the physical and perceptual manifest of the universe. We can look back at the stars from whence we came and understand them.

Through these teachings we come to understand that Eternity is Ineffable. We are ineffable. Our conceptualization of reality is ineffable. We are Eternity all wrapped up in a nice little mortal package of Light and Life – of Struggle and Understanding.

“We are Stardust… in the Highest Exalted Way.” ~ Neil deGrasse Tyson

 When the Knights Regnum come together as an order, we do so with the intent to create Unity and through that Unity we seek to overcome a struggle. Usually a struggle within our own understanding of reality and our own understanding of Self. This understanding is always coupled with feeling, and in this always given to the highest order of examination: our Faith.

Digital Knighthood

Some would question the concept of a Knighthood warranted under the pretense of a digital initiation and a digital examination of self-actualization. The Veil of Role Play allows a participant to shed the layers of lies and social construction they have forced upon themselves. Personal fears, doubts, and failings all shed away when the hero archetype is donned in the digital role play environment. Because of this, the Knights Regnum is at a unique stance for bringing good souls to light.

We have a page dedicated to the Path of the Exalted, and understanding what it means. Here I am going to examine this in the scope of only that which is digital.

Initiation is a Lifelong Process

Those who join the Knights Regnum are usually just beginning the path of esotericism that is essentially necessary for full and functional initiation as a sentient mind. We are an order that brings to light all of the ancient teachings: 5 elements of creation, 7 heavenly spheres, 3 pillars, the One, The Nothing…

For the Role Player, this is often a struggle because it clashes with the in-game Lore that we play around. I want to take a moment to express how these concepts can still fit into your Role Play so as to help your heroic conscious grow and mature. I will specifically use the Warcraft universe for this purpose.

The Five Elements

These are used in almost every understanding of Shamanistic or Elemental experience for the Warcraft Universe. They add one more: Death/Decay. It should be understood that this is actually just the absence of life. A player needs not be a shaman or druid to understand these concepts – this is why we teach them to everyone upon joining. They are an essential part of the psychological development of a person and are symbolic in nature.

The Seven Heavens

For this, we simply declare this is an allegorical story of places that could possibly exist in the cosmos. In the introduction of the book World of Warcraft Chronicles: Volume I, we see an explanation that there are worlds upon worlds in the universe, and many different layers of existence. In the standard D&D tradition, the Seven Heavens of Celestia are an actual place. In the Greek and Roman mythos, they are the seven prominent gods; and in science they are the planets that circle the solar system.

The initiation of the allegorical seven heavens can sometimes be misunderstood as an alternate religion. It is Not. It is a symbolic representation and entirely allegorical.

Further Symbolism

The rest of the Regnum symbol system is universal in almost every aspect of the word. Even our Sacred History is an allegorical symbol to represent the three aspects of Mercy, Severity, and Wisdom. The symbol of the order traveling the planes to combat demonkind is an especially important symbol for the purpose of understanding our own psyche and developing a healthy relationship with the many levels of understanding of our personal demons.

If you played a Role Play Game, and you thought you were supposed to be simulating real life: you were doing it wrong. Role Play is best used when it can allow you to grow and develop outside the normal confines of your life. Do not simply live another life: live a heroic life.

In conclusion, I would like to welcome you to asking questions here or in our forums about these concepts. Do not try to examine the Knights Regnum or its membership per your own lens of creativity and declaration of lore or not lore. We do not play in the games to be only part of the lore. We play in the games in order to experience a heroic life and have an initiatory experience beyond that of playing a game.

By the way… death isn’t permanent.

…Not in the Real World.

Not in the Game World.

Get used to it.

†Ivstinus Wistun
Grand Master