Technocratic influence may have destroyed the Brotherhood's material strength, but that was never its focus - the Brotherhood's true power came from the soul of humanity. Wanderin g priests here and there kept the Brotherhood's ideas alive while the teachings of the Tradition remained a part of many cultures and families. Still, as an organization devoted to the improvement of the individual, the Akashic Brotherhood survived. Hierarchical societies and caste systems, combined with a focus on material living, turned people against the Brotherhood's self-empowering ways. The Brotherhood's holdings were broken and its members scattered. Eventually, the Brotherhood found itself embroiled in wars as armies and governments sought to destroy its influence. This groundswell of common support became the Brotherhood's bane: organized nations, harsh rulers and secret societies resented the Brotherhood's liberating influence on the Masses. Many Common people adopted Brotherhood beliefs in everyday life. The Snaolin monasteries of China housed their members, as did the mountain -dwelling hermits of Japan, the cloistered priests of Tibet and the mysterious mystics of India. Neither Tradition (as a whole) jumps quickly into conflict.Īs the spiritual philosophies of Buddhism, Taoism, Shinto and similar religions spread across Asia, the Brotherhood followed. The war left both Traditions scarred, although neither has entirely forgiven the other for the centuries of bloodshed, they have learned from each other.
The Brotherhood did not approve of mages who took into their own hands the power over life and death, and the Brotherhood warred against the death mages - who would later become the Euthanatos - for 300 years. Later, Akashic conflicts expanded to include another group of Awakened humans, a band of mages who saw reincarnation as their duty. These warriors saw the Brotherhood's physical skills as an end, and brought disharmony to the group and its relations with others. Even within the Brotherhood, young tudents took up the study of Do but failed to understand the relationship between philosophy and physical prowess. Tools encouraged people to focus on only the things they could touch and forget that there was ever anything else material goods became a goal and replaced the natural fulfillment of personal accomplishment.
The earliest artificers brought the first vestiges of technology to humanity, thus turning people from their relationship with the immaterial world and strengthening the barrier between the physical and the spiritual realms. Martial arts and exercises perfected the body while rigorous disciplines, chants and prayers cleansed the mind.Īs the world fractured and people took up dissonant paths, conflict came in several forms to the Brotherhood. The balance between mind and body, motion and stillness, was disturbed, and the ones who would become Akashic Brothers retreated into mountains, caves and forests to continue their study of balance through Do. As the earth turned and more people came to live near the All, the All fractured and became dissonant. The first Akashics learned their skill in Do from Dragon and Phoenix, and they disciplined their bodies and their minds through the balance of movement and stillness. The philosophical and historic roots of the Akashic Brotherhood lie in the beginning times when all people lived in harmony.